BOOKER Box Set #1 (Books 1-3: A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense)

by John W. Mefford

  She looked away, then brought both hands to the side of her head. “Wait. I recall something he said after his surgery. He was still out of it, not completely awake, his head still loopy. He said…let me see if can remember this. ‘My life would have been very different if Cuba had been free of Castro. I only regret not leaving a legacy.’”

  I paused, replaying her words, letting them seep into other pockets of my mind. “Isn’t that a typical opinion? Former Cubans wishing Castro had never come to power?”

  “True. It sounded so very personal for him, though. And now, seeing that he’s on some type of mission, I wonder if he believes a free Cuba would change anything.”

  Suddenly, a glass crashed behind the bar. “Shit!”

  “Everything okay, Justin?” Alisa got up and walked that way.

  “Oh, I was trying to break my world record for holding the most mugs in each hand. Can I get everyone another round of drinks while Alisa cleans up this mess?”

  He smiled, and Alisa picked up a towel and tossed it in his face.

  “No alcohol for us. Straight caffeine. We’re going to be up a while.” I stood, then paced a couple of times in front of the big screen.

  “Cuba libre.” I said the first phrase that came to mind, and Maggie’s face came to life.

  “The battle cry for Cuban liberation at the turn of the twentieth century,” she said, pushing herself out of the chair.

  Alisa moved in my direction, joining Maggie and me near the TV.

  “Alisa, grab your laptop. I need you to research everything you can find on Dominic Ferrigamo. Check that, and while you’re digging into the history of the Italian connection, include Carolos Marcello and Sciafini in your scope. Where they overlap. If there is any connection to Cuba or JFK.”

  “I’m on it.”

  17

  “Sorry, man, I can’t help it. A pipe burst in the kitchen, and we have no water pressure. But if you come back tomorrow night, I’ll give you fifty percent off all well drinks. Deal?”

  Justin’s negotiation with the guy at the front door—his sixth such turn-away in the last hour—was like asking him to chop off a finger. Money had just slipped through his fingers, even if he just had nine left.

  Scarfing three different types of appetizers, The Jewel’s leftovers from a busy Saturday night, Maggie and I both sat at the bar with plates, drinks, food trays surrounding two open laptops, and wads of paper with various theories and ideas on them. We’d been in brainstorming mode for a good couple of hours, but had not made significant progress. Up to now, Maggie and I had not figured out how to dance, at least not without a lot of crushed toes, so to speak.

  “Justin, can you holler up for Alisa?”

  My better half had taken the high road, literally, right up to our cramped office seventeen steps above us. She said she needed a quiet setting if she was going to produce quick results.

  Maggie, who’d begun to develop circles under her eyes, munched on a macho nacho, while sketching something on paper. I saw the outline of shoulders and the top of a back, maybe ocean waves in the background.

  “Is that your dad, Javier?”

  She nodded, turning her head slightly, her neck muscles suddenly less strained it appeared.

  “It’s my best memory, really my only good memory of me and my father when I was young. I was five years old, maybe six. It was a simple walk along the beach, and we were talking about fish and how groups of fish are called a school. I was rebelling against going to school.”

  “Sounds like all Caleros have a little bit of rebel in them. I mean that in a good way. Can’t say I don’t have a little of that myself.”

  She glanced up and popped an eyebrow, then brought her eyes back down to the sketch, her pencil creating seashells, a few crabs, but it was her father’s large physique that dominated the sketch, the sun peeking through clouds high above the ocean.

  “You’re quite good. Have you published any work or put it on display at an art gallery?”

  She chuckled just once. “Oh, no. I’d never feel comfortable letting anyone else see my scribbles. I do it when I need to relax. And think.”

  Looking into her eyes, I could see depth, and some pain. Shoes clapping on stairs turned my attention away from the sketches.

  “Booker, Maggie, I’ve done a lot of digging. Not sure what it all means, but you need to hear this,” Alisa said, rounding the corner of the bar to make her way inside the pit. She nearly ran into Justin, who tried to move out of her way. Every time she moved, he moved the same way. It was like watching two mimes at the park. Finally, she juked around him, but he grabbed his towel and snapped it off her ass.

  “If I wasn’t busy trying to keep another killing from happening I’d kick your ass all the way to Fort Worth.”

  Justin howled and winked my direction. “I’m just messing with you, Alisa. Can’t you take a joke?”

  Alisa plodded toward Maggie and me, a stoic look of indignation painting her face. She spoke under her breath. “He thinks he can just flip a switch and screw with me just for fun when he’s about to turn my life upside down. Screw him.”

  Looking over at Justin, who appeared to be busy at the other end of the bar unpacking a new shipment of liquor, I could sense he probably had heard her. But, she had a point.

  “What ya got?”

  “We’ve been living in Dallas our whole lives, and we had no idea what was going on around us. At least I didn’t,” she said, lifting her screen. “We have two branches of information, from best I can tell in my short time pouring through old stories and testimony at hearings.”

  “Testimony?” Maggie asked.

  Alisa held up a finger. “Let’s start with the owner of the restaurant Campisi’s. The original owner, Joseph Campisi, testified before the House Committee on Assassinations in 1978.”

  “I’d heard rumors, but I had no idea.” I took another drink of watered-down Sprite.

  “Allegedly, Campisi was the head of the Dallas mafia. You should read all of his answers in this testimony. He’s an expert dodger, that’s for certain.”

  “What did he say?” Maggie said, pushing her sketch to the side, leaning on her forearms.

  “Campisi admitted that he knew Jack Ruby, had known him for years. Ruby actually had dinner in Campisi’s the night before the Kennedy assassination. Get this, Campisi went to visit Ruby in jail after he killed Oswald.”

  Alisa paused, looked at each of us, then returned to the screen. “Awhile before that, Ruby and a guy named McWillie were in Cuba running a gambling business. This is where it gets convoluted, and it’s hard to determine a clear path and motivation.”

  “That’s fine; just give us the facts, as much as you know anyway.” I noticed Justin had stopped unpacking the liquor and, even from a distance, seemed riveted to Alisa’s every word.

  “It appeared the House Select Committee members were trying to get Campisi to admit knowledge of some type of conspiracy with Ruby, without using the term.”

  “Didn’t work?”

  “Campisi knew it. The transcript reads like he was answering the questions, but not really providing any detail. He never said why. He was good at sounding naive at the right time.”

  For obvious reasons, Sciafini came to mind. As gruff a person as I’d met, I could still imagine him attempting to charm and manipulate to evade the authorities. In fact, he’d done just that with the FBI a few years earlier.

  “More?” I asked.

  “McWillie and Ruby visited a guy named Santo Trafficante in Havana at the Trescornia detention camp, held there by Fidel Castro. See if you can follow two different paths back to someone we know.” Alisa glanced up, and I motioned for her to continue, my eyes dry from not blinking.

  “Trafficante controlled the Tampa mob and was partners with Johnny Rosselli, an underboss for Chicago mobster Sam Giancana. They ran a bunch of casinos in Havana during the heyday of the Batista regime, the one Castro overthrew. There’s one possible connection to Sciafini ri
ght there, the Chicago gang.”

  “True,” I said.

  “In another article I read, basically a hypothesis of what could have happened behind the mob scene, Rosselli, Giancana, and Trafficante all were alleged co-conspirators with Carlos Marcello. Campisi admitted knowing Marcello, the New Orleans crime boss.”

  “And Sciafini said he knew Marcello, said he owed him a favor, which is why he asked me to go to Campisi’s today to stop a murder,” I said.

  “That’s how you got there?” Maggie’s smooth complexion tried to crumple, but hardly a line was seen.

  “It’s a long story. But I’ve been pulled into dealing with Sciafini a couple of times. Every time we talk I want to puke, because even though he’s never been convicted of anything, I know he’s committed some brutal crimes. Not just his people, but he, himself—only to line his own pockets.”

  “One more thing I read.” Alisa rested both hands flat on the bar. “According to an anonymous source quoted in this article investigating JFK conspiracy theories, if the rumor was true about someone from the mob being involved in Kennedy’s assassination, it was Dominic Ferrigamo, who had ‘a great eye and an itchy trigger finger.’”

  Alisa closed the lid of her laptop, then anchored her arms on the bar, her lips pressed together. Chewing the inside of my cheek, I could sense her anxiety. It felt like we’d been pulled back in time fifty years or more, the ruthless old guard using every means to protect itself against the contemporary idealists elected to office by a younger, progressive generation.

  “I just want to find my father. Uggh!” Maggie said, clasping her hands and lifting them to her face. Her body seemed much more anxious than when she was creating her sketch.

  Maggie turned and pushed up from the swivel chair, pacing away from the bar, a hand pressing her temple.

  “Booker, do you think you guys should call it a night, get some sleep, and come back tomorrow rested with a clear mind?” Justin had a concerned look on his face as he stacked dishes onto a tray.

  Checking the time on my phone, I blew out a breath. It was almost ten p.m. “We can’t stop until we find Javier or figure out his motive, his plan, and try to get that next person before he does.”

  Suddenly, I just realized we had taken a position without much thought or discussion.

  “We’re making the assumption that Javier is still in town and off somewhere plotting his next move,” I said.

  “Well, he didn’t kill Ferrigamo. Maybe he’ll go after him again.” Alisa shrugged her shoulders as Maggie paced behind me.

  “Maggie, what does your gut tell you?”

  She stopped in her tracks and turned to us. “Why would Javier, my father, try to kill someone connected to the Kennedy assassination, a murder that is covered in conspiracy theory and rumor? I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

  I nodded, sensing her frustration building again, wondering how long she’d be able to keep it together.

  “Maggie, I think we need to share something with you, another case we’ve been pulled into.” I stood and looked over at Alisa. “There was a murder two nights ago at a library just a few miles north of Dallas. A librarian was killed by strangulation, apparently through the use of some type of metal wire.”

  Maggie closed her eyes for a moment and rested a hand on a nearby chair.

  “Earlier, I said the phrase ‘Cuba libre’ and your face lit up.”

  “It just reminded me of stories I’d heard from the older generation, my grandfather, grandmother. It can actually mean many things these days. There is even a drink called the Cuba Libre.”

  I looked back at Justin, who pulled a pen from behind his ear and grabbed a pad. “Sounds very Caribbean. I’m game.”

  “I’ll tell you later, Justin.” Maggie cracked a smile, but it was gone in an instant.

  I continued. “Standing upright near the body of the librarian was a book by Elmore Leonard called Cuba Libre. We’re unsure why the killer left it there, if it was symbolic in any way. Hell, it could have been an accident, although it seems less likely. I realize it seems farfetched to connect a single statement your father said while under heavy sedation following surgery to this phrase or this book title, but the pieces of data can’t be discounted.”

  Gripping the chair, she nodded, then wiped a hand across her face. I could see each piece of evidence, every theory or speculation tearing into Maggie’s heart, and it pained me to have to continue to chip away at her core. But I had no other option at this point.

  “Booker, we can’t forget that under Nancy’s body they also found another novel, Burn by James Patterson. Does that title or the book itself mean anything to you, Maggie?” Alisa’s tone was gentle.

  “Only that James Patterson is one rich son of a bitch.” She let out a tired chuckle, and we reciprocated.

  “The thing is, Nancy, the librarian…well, her father was Hank Fitzwater. The top aide to LBJ when he became president. We can’t get a feel for whether her father and his position had any connection to why she was murdered.”

  “No sign of rape?” Maggie asked.

  We shook our heads.

  “Nothing stolen?”

  “From the story we read, nothing stolen,” Alisa said.

  I turned to Alisa. “No word back from the folks at Underground.com on the possible video footage at the library?”

  “Hell no. I’ve sent three emails and nothing.”

  “Send another and try to come up with some new angle that would make them want to contact us.”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  I looked over at Maggie, and now both arms rested on the side of the chair; it seemed she was pressing her head forward in between her arms.

  “Are you getting sick?”

  “What? No,” she said, her head still down. “It’s a form of stress relief, stretching key muscles and ligaments in my body. My shoulders and back carry most of my stress, so this is the best way I can alleviate the tension.”

  Her shoulders had appeared double-jointed.

  “Good for you,” Alisa said, rubbing the back of her neck. “I wish I knew of a way to relieve my tension.”

  Justin popped his towel against her backside again.

  Her eyes shifted right without turning her body. “I knew your dirty mind would go there. In your dreams, One Nut.”

  “Are you guys ever going to share this secret behind Justin’s nickname? Or am I not officially part of the club yet?” Maggie raised her arms straight up, then bent at the waist, stretching her torso.

  “Later, when we have time,” Justin said, backing up a few steps.

  “What he really means is he doesn’t want another woman thinking he can’t—”

  “Okay, I think we get the picture. Let’s focus please,” I said, a tad annoyed.

  Justin went back to his routine of unpacking the liquor, while Alisa had already opened the lid to her laptop and started tap dancing with her fingers on the keyboard.

  Maggie approached me, touching my arm. “Sorry, the stretching eased my tension, but the little bit of comic relief with Justin and Alisa reminded me life can’t be taken so seriously every minute of every day.”

  She paused, then licked her lips, a natural red. “For most of my life, I thought I only had one parent who cared for me, loved me. I found every excuse to not love my father, and for good reason. But in the last few months, I realized I’d missed so much. I love my father, Booker. And I just want what every other girl wants…a little time with her papa before he’s gone. Which is why I want us to find him before the authorities do, and before he hurts anyone else, or himself. I don’t know what’s impacting his decisions…whether he has some kind of warped bucket list he’s finishing or maybe he’s lost his mind from the surgery and the tumor. I just pray we can find him before it’s too late.”

  I gripped her shoulder. “I’ll do everything I can, Maggie.”

  With a tear in her eye, she took half a step in my direction and then hugged me. Her grip a
round my chest nearly caused me to gasp, but after a brief second I realized I needed to hug her back, for her and maybe a bit for me.

  Bottles clinked behind us, and we both let go of each other. Maggie took a step back, once again circling her eyes with her finger to ensure mascara didn’t smear.

  “This really isn’t like me. I’m usually the one with the stone personality, not letting anything get to me.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. You’re surrounded by friends. And friends know when to say…”

  “When!” Justin yelled out as I held up my hand.

  “We didn’t rehearse this.”

  Maggie let out another giggle, as my mind refocused on the evidence we knew about, the evidence we wanted to know more about, and the evidence we’d made assumptions about.

  Turning to Alisa, I put a hand behind Maggie’s back and set the course for our next steps.

  “Alisa, call Granville at the Sixth Floor Museum. Need to meet with him as soon as possible. Tonight, early tomorrow morning. He’s the expert on everything related to the JFK assassination, and I’m certain he’ll be able to provide us limitless feedback on conspiracy theories.”

  “He might ask you about the investigation into his stolen artifacts.”

  “Good point. Didn’t you reach out to some computer hacker who was going to help you search the Dark Side?”

  “Dark Web. Josh is the guy’s name. It took a little prodding from his probation officer, but Josh is meeting me here at The Jewel bright and early tomorrow morning.” Alisa yawned so wide I thought she might pop her jaw out of socket. I’d once seen a dog get his jaw stuck in that position. I almost chuckled, drawing the comparison, but Alisa was no canine.

  “Okay, so I can give Granville some good news about on his case. At least we’ll have the capability of making progress. Just need this Josh fella to come through for us. Is he charging us?”

  “The detective said his services to us are pro bono, and we shouldn’t be charmed or manipulated into thinking we owe him something.”