Mortal Dilemma

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “I’ll have a team get over there and see what they can find. I’ve got a drinking buddy who’s a detective on the Key West force. I think I can get him involved and give you about two days before we have to start moving paperwork on the dead guys. Can I blame this on Jock?”

  “Jock?”

  “Yeah. If I put Jock in your place, nobody at Key West PD is going to do anything about it. Jock’s boss can make a phone call or two and that’ll be the end of it.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  “This all has to be worked out between the agency and the local law. Let’s have Dave Kendall call the sheriff and the Key West police chief and tell them that an unnamed agent killed them because they were terrorists who were here on a mission to blow something up. The agency was on to them but had not determined their target. What about the gun you used to shoot those guys?”

  “The gun belongs to Jock and it’s untraceable, but I wouldn’t want either of us to be picked up with that pistol in our possession.”

  “I understand. Ditch the pistol.”

  “I’m going to throw it off a bridge. I’ll have to find another weapon.”

  “I’ve got a couple of untraceable ones at the house,” Galis said. “You can take your pick. Are you going to do any more hunting on my island?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “I know the group’s leader, Youssef, is on the island. Or at least he was yesterday when Akeem threatened the taxi driver. And the one I just killed said Youssef was in Key West but didn’t know where. If I find him, I’ll take him out. Cut off the head of the snake.”

  Galis let out a sigh. “Shit. I wish you’d take your fight somewhere else. Let me know if I can help you get the bastard.”

  “Thanks, Paul. There is one thing. I’ve got the dead man’s cell phone. It’s probably a burner, but he told me he got his orders from Youssef by phone. It might be worth checking out the phone and the numbers that called him. Can your people handle that?”

  “Not a problem, but if they’re all using burners, it won’t give us much.”

  “Yeah. When the cops get to Stripling’s house, they might want to check the dead Arab for a phone. I didn’t think about that when I was leaving.”

  “I’ll call my buddy at Key West PD.”

  I drove to Duval Street and found a parking place near St. Paul’s Episcopal church. There was a poor box attached to a wall near the altar, with a sign that said something about helping those who had little. I deposited the ten bills I’d gotten from Stripling and stood quietly for a few minutes, mulling over the two deaths I’d been responsible for that morning. I’d killed men before, and in some manner I’d regretted each one. But I couldn’t find any contrition in my heart over the deaths of the two terrorists.

  I wondered how many innocents they’d killed, and I knew the world was better off with them out of it. Besides, they wanted to take away my most precious gift, J.D., to wipe her off the face of the earth. I could not imagine a world without her. I shrugged, and walked out into the sunlight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1

  THE SUN SLIPPED above the eastern horizon, bathing the beach in a soft light. The crime scene techs were on their knees scouring the sand, looking for any piece of evidence, no matter how small. One of the ME’s assistants knelt over Fortson’s body, closely examining it, looking for any anomaly other than the obviously slashed throat.

  J.D. stood nearby, watching the assistant work. After a couple of minutes he looked up at her and said, “We’ll know more when we get his clothes off, but I doubt we’ll find anything other than the gash in his throat.”

  “Okay. Bag him and let’s get him out of here before folks start looking out their windows. We don’t want a corpse to ruin their very expensive views.”

  J.D. pulled out her cell phone and called Tom Jones. “Did I wake you up?” she asked when he answered.

  “Not a chance, sweetheart. Neither of us has been able to sleep after seeing a dead man on the beach. Have you caught the killer yet?”

  “You’re my number one suspect.”

  “Ha. I don’t have it in me to hurt anybody. You might want to take a look at Linda, though.”

  J.D. laughed. “You’re a piece of work, T.J. Ratting out your own wife. I would like to talk to you guys. I gather no one took a formal statement from you last night.”

  “No. It was kind of confusing. Are you down on the beach?”

  “I am.”

  “I heard the chief was dragging you back from Key West. I bet Matt liked that.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “Come on up. I’ll put some coffee on.”

  “Would you and Linda mind coming down to the beach? I’d like to talk to you at the scene. Maybe you can point out something you might have noticed. Being there might jog your memory.”

  “We’ll see you in a few minutes. Want me to bring coffee?”

  “I’d kill for a cup. Black.”

  “On the way.”

  J.D. walked over to the chief. “Bill, Tom and Linda Jones are coming down to give a statement. You want to sit in?”

  “Might as well. Maybe they can put some context to this mess. Can you see any connection to Fortson’s murder and your case on his sister?”

  “Not yet, but if it’s there, we’ll find it.”

  “How’s Steve Carey working out?”

  “He’s a big help. He’s going to make a good investigator. He’s got the instincts.”

  “Let’s get him over to talk with the Joneses. Maybe the three of us can come up with some intelligent questions.”

  * * *

  Tom and Linda were showing J.D. about where they were standing when they noticed Fortson’s body on the sand. “We almost stumbled over him,” Linda said. “It was pitch dark out here. It’d been overcast late in the afternoon, so I suppose we still had cloud cover. No moon at all. And no stars.”

  “Was anybody with you?” Carey asked.

  “No,” Tom said. “We’d just come back from dinner with Tom and Nancy Stout and Sammy and Courtney.”

  “Ole Sammy,” Steve said. “Who’s Courtney? His girl du jour?”

  Linda laughed. “Hardly. She’s way too smart for that. She’s the bartender at the Lazy Lobster. She and Sammy are just buddies.”

  “Did you know Fortson?” J.D. asked.

  “Just to see him on the beach sometimes,” Linda said. “He always seemed pleasant. I heard stories about his sister being killed in his house a few years back.”

  “He invited me up on his porch once,” Tom said. “We put away a bottle of wine and enjoyed the sunset. He told me his home was in Orlando and that he made his living as an investor.”

  “Anything else?” Lester asked. “Had you ever met him in Orlando?”

  “No. We’d never met until we bought the place here. That afternoon we mostly just chatted about the island, gossiped a little. You know, drank wine and talked about nothing important.”

  J.D. asked, “Did either of you see anybody else on the beach just before or after you found the body?”

  Tom looked at Linda. “What about the guy from next door we saw going into the building?”

  “Yeah, but I think he was just one of our neighbors out for a walk. Like we were.”

  “Did you recognize him?” J.D. asked.

  “No,” Linda said. “It was real dark.”

  “What made you think he was your neighbor?”

  “Well,” Linda said, “I guess because he was going into the condo building next door to ours.”

  “Did you speak to him?” J.D. asked.

  “No,” Tom said. “He was already past us before we got close enough to say anything.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “No,” Tom said, “I didn’t get a good enough look.”

  “He was white,” Linda said, “and I think he had a white beard. He was wearing a ball cap.”

  �
�Anything else?” J.D. asked.

  “No. I just got a quick glimpse when he walked by the security light at the condo beach access. You know how they have to shield those things because of the turtle nestlings. They don’t give out much light, so it was real quick.”

  “You’re sure the beard was white?”

  “I can’t be sure. It looked white in the light, but it could have been gray. Or even red, for that matter.”

  “Did you actually see him go into the building, or just walk toward it?”

  Linda shook her head. “I just saw him walk into the garage that takes up the ground floor. I can’t say whether he got on the elevator.”

  J.D. looked at Tom. “Me neither,” he said.

  “Thanks,” J.D. said. “That at least gives us some information.”

  “You think he was the killer?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know,” J.D. said. “He might have been a resident or guest in one of the condos. Looks like there’re only about six units there. As soon as the people start waking up, we’ll talk to them and see if there’s anybody there with a beard. We should be able to figure that out pretty quickly. If nobody there has a beard, it might mean that the man you saw was the killer. On the other hand, it might just mean that he was trespassing on the property. Cutting through to the street. We’ll have to follow up on it, though.”

  * * *

  J.D., Steve Carey, and Kevin Combs, the crime scene technician, were standing in the late Peter Fortson’s living room, the vast expanse of the Gulf of Mexico visible through the large windows that took up the west wall of the house. The sun had crawled higher in the sky as midmorning approached, and the glare off the water was strong. “Are we looking for anything specific?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah,” J.D. said, and yawned. “I want you and the Manatee crime scene people to take this place apart. Treat it like you would a murder scene. But specifically, I’d like to see any financial records you can come up with, or any documents that might lead me to bank accounts. That sort of thing.”

  “I’ll get the people and get on it. Where are you going to be?”

  “I’m going to look around, see if anything pops up. Like maybe a computer. After that, I’ll be on my cell. If I find a computer, I’ll probably be at the office with the department’s geek.”

  “J.D.,” Carey said. “Are you thinking about a computer like that laptop sitting on the table in the dining room?”

  She laughed. “You’re going to make one darn fine detective, Officer Carey.”

  J.D. sat at the table and booted up the computer. It was password protected, but she tried several times using name combinations. Finally, she ran out of tries and the computer shut down. “Got to take this to the geek,” she said, and left the house.

  * * *

  People expected the department geek, who described himself as a “computer nerd,” to be a small man with rimless spectacles and longish hair wearing a t-shirt and jeans, maybe flip-flops. In reality the geek stood six feet three inches tall and had the build of a man who worked out regularly. He had grown up across the bay in Bradenton, earned a football scholarship to Florida State University, was red-shirted his freshman year and started at outside linebacker in every game for the next four years.

  At the end of his fifth year in college, he graduated with a master’s degree in computer science and was drafted in the first round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He signed a four-year contract worth about twenty million dollars, played out the contract, got tired of being beat up by big offensive linemen, retired, and moved to Longboat Key. He’d offered his services to Bill Lester for a nominal salary and came to work every day just like he needed the money. His name was Reuben Carlson.

  Twenty minutes after J.D. had turned the laptop over to him, Carlson called her on the office intercom and said, “I’m in. Are you looking for anything in particular?”

  “Financial records, Reuben. Anything you can find. I’m going home for a short nap. Steve rolled me out of bed at three this morning and I’m beat. I’ll call you when I wake up, probably around noon.”

  “If I find them, I’ll print them out for you. Anything else?”

  “Go through it with a fine-tooth comb. You know the drill. I want his Internet history, his emails for the last couple of months, the names of everybody he’s corresponded with by email for as far back as you can go, anything that looks the least bit interesting.”

  “I’m on it, J.D.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1

  J.D. STRIPPED AND stepped into her shower. She let the hot water run over her body, rejuvenating her a bit. She’d had little sleep, a long helicopter flight, and hours of standing around on the beach. She was gritty with sand and exhausted by the stress that a murder investigation always brought. She soaped herself, rinsed, and turned off the water. She dried herself with the large beach towel, hung it on the hook on the back of the door and fell into bed. She was asleep almost instantly.

  She awoke when she heard a noise from the front door of her condo. A key in the lock. Her bedside clock told her she’d slept for almost two hours.

  She got out of bed, realized she was naked, and grabbed another beach towel from a nearby chair. She wrapped the towel around her and pulled the service pistol from its holster laying atop the pile of dirty clothes she’d discarded as she’d headed for the shower.

  She was sure she’d engaged the dead bolt when she came into her condo. She ran it through her mind and couldn’t specifically remember doing it. It was force of habit, though, and she thought she could rely on the routine. The dead bolt was a security measure ensuring that no key could unlock the door from the outside. She heard the key in the lock turn again, then again, and then a hard bang, as if someone was hitting the door in frustration. Then, silence.

  J.D. walked to the door, listened carefully, and heard nothing. She turned the dead bolt and pulled the door open, her gun in her hand and pointed outward. Sunlight flooded into her condo, a cool breeze ruffling the palms that grew from the ground past her second floor and on up to the building’s third story. An open walkway ran the length of the building, with the individual doors to each of the units opening onto it. “Who’s there?”

  Nothing. Then she heard a moan. It came from her left, from the area of the alcove that held the elevator landing. She walked outside, pistol ready, holding her towel tightly around her. She saw a man sitting on the walkway and leaning against the railing. He was holding his head, shaking it a little as if trying to clear his mind. She recognized him. The condo’s maintenance manager. She rushed to him, knelt beside him. “Larry, what happened?”

  He looked at her. “Hi, J.D. I don’t know. Somebody came out of the elevator and knocked me in the back of the head.”

  “Did you get a look at him?”

  “No. I was unlocking the door to the storage room and had my back to him.”

  “Did he get your keys?”

  Larry looked down at his waist where he kept his keys attached to his belt. He felt around to his back, shook his head. “Looks like he did.”

  “You’ve got a master key that lets you into any unit here, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s gone, too.”

  “Will that key open a door if the dead bolt is engaged?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t that a bit unusual?”

  “Yeah, but when the developer built this building, he was planning for it to be mostly rentals. He installed locks that work like the ones they put in hotels. As long as you’ve got the dead bolt engaged, nobody can get in.”

  “Okay. Stay right here, Larry. I’m going to get my phone and call for the paramedics. I’ll be back in two seconds.”

  “Thanks, J.D. I’m feeling a little nauseous.”

  When J.D. returned, she was on the phone to the fire department and paramedics were being dispatched. She relayed that information to Larry, and then called the police dispatcher. “Iva, this is J.D. Somebody attacked the ma
intenance man at my condo and stole his keys. Whoever it was tried to get into my place with the master key, but I had the door dead-bolted. I’m okay and the paramedics are on the way to check Larry out. I need the crime scene people to come over and see if they can find anything that would tell us who was after me.”

  “Martin Sharkey’s parked around the corner from you at Cannons talking to David Miller. He’ll be there in two minutes.”

  “Thanks, Iva.”

  A minute after J.D. hung up, an unmarked police car rushed into the parking lot and stopped. Deputy Chief of Police Martin Sharkey jumped out and in another minute was leaving the elevator. J.D. was still kneeling beside Larry. The ambulance siren was getting louder. The paramedics would arrive shortly.

  “You all right, J.D.?” Sharkey asked.

  “I’m fine, Martin.” She told him what had happened.

  “That towel looks good on you, but I think you’d better go put on some clothes. I’ll stay with Larry.”

  J.D. had forgotten about her state of dishabille. She went to her condo, dressed quickly in shorts, a pullover top, and flip-flops. When she got back to Larry, the paramedics were arriving in the elevator. She explained what had happened to Larry while they examined him. They decided they needed to have him checked over by a doctor at Blake Hospital. Larry didn’t resist. He climbed onto a stretcher, and the little group headed for the ambulance in the parking lot.

  “Matt’s going to be really pissed,” Sharkey said.

  “About what?” J.D. asked.

  “We were supposed to keep an eye on you.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Us. The department. Cops.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Matt called the chief early this morning just after you left Key West. He told Bill you might be in danger and he was worried. Matt asked him to make sure you were protected.”

  “Crap. I hate that. I know he’s just looking out for me, but I can’t stand to be babied.”

  “He told Bill about Jock’s thoughts that some very bad people want to kill you.”

  “That may be so, but I can take care of myself.”