The murder scene was etched in my brain making it hard to think about anything else until I remembered the snapper in the cooler. Becky had distracted me and I had forgotten that it was still aboard. In typical park service fashion, the cooler was an older Igloo. Actually, until the start of the Yeti craze, the Styrofoam encased plastic had been the standard for years—the only issue was that they weren’t very effective, especially in the South Florida heat and humidity.
Not wanting to waste my catch, I pulled across to the pier at Bayfront Park and tied off, then walked over to the bait and tackle store to buy some ice. Several minutes later I was back aboard. After draining the now bloody water I had added earlier I dumped half a bucket of fresh seawater in the cooler, opened the two ten-pound bags and poured their contents over the water and fish. The iced seawater would make a slurry, partially freezing the fish.
As I lifted the last fish and placed it in the brine a gaggle of brightly-colored kayaks slid past and I heard a voice that chilled me more than the ice.
“Fishing on duty again, Agent Hunter?”
I looked over and saw the stone-faced Susan McLeash. They hadn’t taken away her special-agent uniform, which was still too tight in the wrong places, but at least some of it was covered by a bulky PFD. Underneath a wide-brimmed hat, she smiled at me, and before I could react, reached into a watertight hatch, removed her phone, and took a picture. They would surely be on Martinez’s desktop before I docked and walked upstairs.
Cursing my luck, I slid the fish below the ice, closed the lid and threw off the lines. The park’s dock was just around a bend in the mangroves and a minute later, I was tied off in my slip. Grabbing my phone, I checked the screen and saw a message from Justine. After pecking out a quick update, I headed toward the entrance.
Mariposa was both friend and ally. From the reception desk, she called over and greeted me. It’d been a few weeks since I had finally succumbed to her dinner invitation and she was after me for another date. It had been fun, until Justine and I were called away by none other than Susan. I still had the taste of her husband’s Appleton 21, the rum only allowed for guests. I knew he would be eager for another dinner, if for no other reason than he could drink it.
“I’ll check with Justine when I see her later,” I answered before she could ask.
“Better go see the boss. He’s been asking for you.”
I thought of Susan and the fish. “There’re some snapper in the fish box of the boat. Why don’t you take them. The ice’ll hold them till five, but I’m not thinking I can get back out to the island until much later. She thanked me and I headed upstairs.
I would have preferred a full-frontal assault, but per usual, he kept me waiting while he was on some kind of urgent phone call. While I stood there, I noticed a shiny new trophy on his shelf. I privately theorized that both the calls and trophies were props. Otherwise, this was not business as usual. After waving me to a chair, which was in itself unusual as he typically left me standing, he sighed and looked me in the eye.
“This is complicated,” he said.
His world was black and white or he made it appear that way. Things either were, or weren’t in his budget or on his spreadsheets. I had a feeling I knew where he was going with this, and let him continue.
“Stiltsville has been a thorn in my side since the last hurricane.” He placed his hands together on the desk and sighed again. “Depends which way the wind is blowing as to whether it’s going to stay or go, but either way, it’s on our turf and our responsibility. Damned bastards in that trust think we should be the ones maintaining and renovating the structures. I’d be happy if they were gone for good.”
I listened to his rant and, on this rare occasion, agreed with him. Especially after what I had found this morning, it would be better if the old houses turned into reefs.
“I’m guessing it was a pretty bad scene,” he said.
Martinez was in a benevolent mood. It took all of ten seconds to figure out why after I noticed he was dressed in his podium uniform. I guessed the news about the murder had been released and he’d made the morning news. I took the opportunity to ask for a replacement for Becky’s phone and was surprised when he didn’t turn me down cold. Ray cost him a lot of money, but the guy was irreplaceable, and if he wanted him to live out on the island, he knew he had better keep his wife happy.
Whatever his goal, it was working in my favor. I pulled out my phone, opened the pictures app, and handed it to him. I watched as he scrolled through the dozen or so pictures I had taken.
“Well done, Hunter.”
The pictures, now in the Cloud with everything else on my phone, would of course be leaked anonymously to the news. There was going to be a press conference in time for the six o’clock news and the crime scene would provide another reason to eliminate the water-bound neighborhood. “I was going to head up to Miami to check the forensics.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, turning to his twin monitors and dismissing me.
I walked into the hall thinking something was missing. He hadn’t mentioned the fish or Susan. Even though he was happy now, he would never have given me a pass. That meant that Susan hadn’t told him—yet.
As I drove north I thought about what I had seen last night. With just a few days to go until the signing deadline, there had been enough testosterone running around Pier 4 to fuel a moon shot. I thought about Allie, who was just a few years younger than the players, and couldn’t help but think about how far off the rails we had gone raising our kids. Living in California had given me a front-row seat to the damage helicopter parents and an entitlement society could do to them. I pulled into the marina and parked. Walking across the parking lot, I tried to breathe deeply and calm myself, but every third or fourth breath, I felt a tightness in my chest that told me I was still feeling the adrenaline from the crime scene and not in control of my emotions.
Assuming it was the same person that killed both the girl and the club manager, it was their connection that would solve the case. Any of those recruits I had seen on the deck of the Temptress last night had the means and opportunity to rape and murder the girl. They all had the strength, had been out at the house, and had access to the Turnover Chain.
Three hours after I had left Stiltsville, I walked toward the locked gate and found the dock deserted except for a man dressed in khakis and a work shirt hosing down the deck of one of the boats.
With no one in sight, I walked over to the dockmaster’s office. The man cleaning the boat had given me an idea and I wanted some more information on the day-to-day workings of the marina. The high school boy must have still been in class and an attractive twenty-something came to the counter when I walked in. She wasn’t blinged out like the boy had been, but her jewelry told me she was making more than the IRS knew about.
“Hey, Kurt Hunter from the National Park Service,” I said, holding out a card. I purposefully omitted the Special Agent title.
“Dawn,” she said, taking the card and thumbing it with her finger. “What can I do for you?”
She was clearly impatient, and I guessed that uniforms were not good for tips. I glanced around the room and found what I was looking for. “You have surveillance video from Tuesday night?”
“We respect our yacht owner’s privacy here. You’ll need a warrant.”
I had no doubt they tipped well for such protection. “No worries. Quite the party last night,” I said.
“Wasn’t here,” she said, probably upset that she was off and had missed out on the tip money. “Is there anything else?”
“Any idea where Alex and the recruits are?” I asked, figuring I might as well take a shot as long as I was here.
“A bus pulled up an hour or so ago and they all loaded up.”
“Know where they were headed?”
“Not a clue.”
“Thanks for your help,” I said, walking toward the door.
“Hey,” she called out. “Did one of them kill that girl?”
>
I wondered how she knew and then heard the static and someone call for the Miami Beach Marina on the VHF radio. I’m sure there had been some radio traffic after I called the murder in. I turned back to the counter.
“I can’t comment. You know, ongoing investigation and all,” I paused, “unless you have some information.”
“Alex and Donna are alright, but some of those boys are trouble.”
I already knew that, but she was talking so I indulged her.
“I guess some of them have been groomed for this. They’re not really grounded in reality.”
I had a festering feeling that the killer, though probably not a sociopath, had an altered version of how life worked. He had probably never had a girl say no to him.
“My high school boyfriend was one of those idiots. Tore his knee up in the State Championship and that ended everything—including us.”
She looked like the ex-cheerleader type. “Yeah, I guess this signing day is pretty important to them.” I leaned on the counter. We were buddies now.
“It’s all they have.” She shrugged.
This was getting too sentimental. “Any chance I can get out on the dock and have a look around?” I asked, changing the subject. I could tell she was about to say no. “The other dockmaster let me out there.”
“He probably shouldn’t have. Getting my kid brother a job has turned out to be more trouble than it’s worth.”
The difference was clear in how they handled themselves. Dawn made her tips from being discreet and helping the yacht owners maintain their privacy. She was also more careful of how she displayed the gains from her efforts. Her brother was the opposite. He would have sold out any one of them to the highest bidder. I thanked her and walked back to Pier 4.
17
Making sense out of what was going on in my head was going to require some thinking time. There was no running off to fish today, so I went with my next best choice and called Justine.
I got the okay to come on by with the caveat that she was pretty busy. A jolt of guilt shot through me when I realized that I had my own work to do and needed her resources. Pulling out of the marina, I hoped that she was working on the forensics for the dead girl. Justine had cut her own deal and worked with a degree of anonymity that the day crew didn’t have. They were more of a team, working together in the newly renovated upstairs lab. Justine had been a holdout, liking the night shift and preferring to work alone. She had held onto her own office and smaller lab downstairs. It was an arrangement she liked, but it was coming to an end.
The pre-rush hour traffic was mind numbing. Crawling along the 836 at fifteen miles per hour, I put my right foot on auto-pilot and tried to prioritize what my next move should be. I was still going under the assumption that the same person committed both murders. It was a likely scenario at this point, but until the actual Turnover Chain was found, whatever similarities I had demonstrated with the souvenir store replica were purely theoretical.
Alex would have been a convenient fit and he had been my first suspect, but the evidence was steering itself away from him. He had no reason to kill either the club manager or the girl. His success depended on recruiting players. Both were needed for his business plan. Ditto for Donna. I didn’t like either of them, but as they say: “the facts are the facts”.
These were crimes of passion, and both looked more like someone unable to handle their emotions than a premeditated murder. That in itself pointed to a younger person. This moved the compass to the players who would do whatever it took to get the scholarship as a stepping-stone to the NFL.
The dockmaster, Kyler, was also interesting. I had seen his immaturity on display last night and he too was fighting for his education, except he would be earning his way. Losing the lucrative tips at the docks would likely put an end to that dream.
By the time I arrived at the crime lab, I was as confused as when I had left the marina. Hoping Justine could pull me out of my funk, I entered the building and headed downstairs to her lab.
As always, I couldn’t help but watch her from the hallway through the glass window. Her back was to me. The lab coat swayed gently, brushing against her hips as she moved to the beat of the music in her headphones. She liked it loud and I entered the room, hoping to sneak up on her.
“Hey!”
I had no idea how she knew I was standing there. “Hey!” I tentatively moved close to her, hoping for a kiss. She leaned over and pecked me on the cheek and I almost melted when her eyes locked onto mine and she smiled. Mariposa was right on with her after-action analysis of our dinner—the girl had my number.
“What are you working on?”
“Some gang thing from Liberty City. I think the brass is onto us.” She smiled. “It was a good run.”
I had suspected this might happen. More often than not, we had ended up working together and several of those cases had placed Justine in a compromising position. Some of this might be payback for the rumored fraternization, but we had discussed this at length. I worked for the feds and she for the locals. That was a pretty far cry from interdepartmental relations. Even so, I knew of several detectives, Grace’s partner included, who would have liked to see the end of our relationship.
“Too bad.”
“Well, the good news is that it’s not pressing. I can be out of here in an hour or so.”
I hoped that was an invitation. “I can stay busy,” I said, sitting behind one of a pair of computer stations on a high desk by the wall. “Can you log me in?”
“Sure thing, lover boy,” she said.
As she reached past me, I could feel the curves and heat of her body. She lingered a few seconds longer than it took to enter her password. Maybe her boss taking her off the case would have a positive impact on our relationship. Glancing back at her as she walked to her station, I watched as she put on her headphones and started moving to the barely audible reggae beat. I turned away before she caught me looking.
With my attention focused back on the monitor, I entered the 247 website for the high school recruiting rankings. I had a dozen names from my research last night and now it was time for some old-fashioned police work. One at a time, I dove into their bios. I was a long-time football fan and had always respected the better coaches, knowing that preparation was the missing link in many programs. It was interesting looking at the players from a coach’s perspective. I was fascinated by the success of Bill Walsh’s 49ers, Belichick’s Patriots, Saban’s Crimson Tide, and Urban Meyer, wherever he ended up. I dared not say the last name out loud after he was labeled a traitor for leaving Florida.
These programs focused on the system and found players through the draft, free agency, or recruitment. They often passed on talent, as star players often came with baggage and issues. The Heisman locker room was littered with past winners who had failed, not because of talent, but because of what was in their heads. Unfortunately, The U, fit into the latter category.
I tried to look at each player through the coaches’ eyes. If I were in charge of handing out scholarships, half would be instantly eliminated. It was these castoffs that I focused my attention on. Dequan Johnson, Billie Smith-Jensen, and Reggie Willis were the standouts from this group. Each were five-star, first-team all-American players, but train wrecks off the field. I focused on their antics.
With the help of Justine’s password, I was able to go where many coaches could not and I entered each player’s name in the database that the police used to track minors’ arrests. Adult arrest records were in the public domain. Minors’ were protected and their records were often expunged when they turned eighteen. On my phone, I pulled up a picture of each person from the party last night as I looked at their records. Between these and the headshots in the recruiting page, I hoped to get an idea of what made them tick.
After reading the juvenile arrest records of Billie and Dequan, I cut Reggie from the lineup. What I found was a phenomenon that I had observed in other cases. I had learned to look to the edges o
f the sample you were studying. The middle would be average. Even for top-level athletes, average meant they probably stayed within the lines and played by the rules. Successful programs were built around the average player, complementing them with elite athletes only when they fit the mold.
Dequan was the cream of the class; one of the top five recruits in the country. Billie was in the bottom ten percent of the top hundred. No small accomplishment there, but still not average. It was these two who had the most to lose or gain on signing day. Now, I needed to figure out if either was desperate enough to commit murder. I left the juvenile records database and did a search for University of Miami football recruiting.
I found what I was looking for on Facebook. On a booster-sponsored page, the activities for the athletes were listed. There were several events where the booster with the right “level” of contributions met the players. Tomorrow morning was such an opportunity. A meet and greet was scheduled after a combine-type practice where the assistant coaches would evaluate the players in speed, strength, and agility. I wasn’t a booster, but I’d be there as well.
“Done,” Justine said, startling me.
“Sorry, I was a little wrapped up.”
“Getting anywhere?”
“Just wondering how far I should go in trusting my instincts.”
She reached over for me. “I think they’re pretty good.”
When she kissed me, she must have seen the face on the screen of my phone. Dequan Johnson stared back at her. “That one of those recruits? He looks like the U-type.”
I let the comment go, but couldn’t help but think that she had confirmed my intuition. “It’s pretty early for us. Want to grab a bite to eat?”
“Sure. Whatcha got in mind?” She took off her lab coat and hung it on a hook next to the door.
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