Mortal Dilemma

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “Skeeter,” Glenn said, “I need to tell you something. Kind of in confidence, if you know what I mean.”

  Skeeter nodded, a bit tentatively, I thought.

  “You tried to take out a cop,” Howell said. “Now we just can’t let that sort of thing go. I mean, can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if dumbasses like you could just kill cops when they feel like it? Why, you and your buddies would make a regular thing of it and take your chances in the system. You know how we prevent that?”

  Skeeter shook his head.

  “We kill you. No trial, no investigation to amount to anything, no lawyers. We just take you out in a police boat to the middle of Lake Monroe, tie a couple of anchors around your neck and drop you overboard. You can see how that might work as a deterrent.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Skeeter said.

  J.D. leaned into the table, staring directly at Skeeter. “Man, you are dumber than a goldfish.”

  “I ain’t dumb,” he said. “A little slow, maybe.”

  “Then chew on this and see if it makes sense. You are not getting a lawyer. You’re going to Lake Monroe as soon as it gets dark and you won’t be coming back. The Seminole County sheriff will be out a couple of anchors and one very dumbass citizen. Do you get that?”

  “You’re going to kill me?”

  “That’s my preference,” J.D. said, “but you have one way out. You answer our questions truthfully, and you’ll be charged and go to prison, but you won’t die. At least not tonight.”

  Skeeter looked down at the table and said in a quiet, defeated voice, “What do you want to know?”

  “What else did the man who gave you the money for the car want you to do?” J.D. asked.

  “Kill you.”

  “How was that set up?”

  “He was going to send me an iPad that would track the car you were driving. I was supposed to go to Gainesville and be ready to pick up your trail when you got to the Interstate. Somebody would call me when you got within range of the iPad, and I would park in that rest stop just before you get to Paynes Prairie and wait for you to pass.”

  “How did you know I was going to be on the Interstate?”

  “The man on the phone said he was pretty sure you would be coming that way. I asked him what would happen if you went right down Highway 19. He said he had another team on that route to take you out.”

  “Did he say why he wanted me dead?”

  “No.”

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “Five grand.”

  “A few minutes ago you said he paid you one grand. Now it’s five grand.”

  “It was five,” Skeeter said.

  “Five grand? To kill a cop?”

  “Well, I had to give Xavier two thousand.”

  “Geez,” J.D. said, “I thought I’d be worth more than five grand.”

  “Three grand, actually,” Glenn said.

  “You hush.”

  “I’m just saying,” Glenn said. “Somebody once paid a guy ten grand to take me out.”

  “Did you catch him?’’

  “Sure did. Just some sleazeball I’d sent to prison ten years before.”

  “What happened to him?” J.D. asked.

  “He’s in Lake Monroe.”

  “Oh,” J.D. said.

  She turned back to Skeeter. “What were your instructions?”

  “The man told me to get the car and go to Gainesville Thursday morning. The messenger what brought the money also brought me the iPad and showed me how to use it. It didn’t have nothing on it but a map. The messenger told me that I would get a call from somebody on Thursday who would tell me when to turn the pad on. He said there’d be a little dot on it that would be a moving car. There was a picture of the detective in the envelope with the money. He said the detective would be driving that car and that I was supposed to pull up beside her on I-75 when we were going over Paynes Prairie and shoot her and bring the car back to the parking lot out by the airport.”

  “Who was the guy in the van following me?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know there was a guy in a van.”

  “Guy named Mabry Jackson.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “You didn’t have a backup out there?”

  “No.”

  “Somebody in a van tried to kill me after you sped on by. He wrecked and when I went to see about him, he shot at me. I had to kill him. You don’t know anything about that?”

  “No, ma’am. I’d surely tell you if I did.”

  “Does the name D. Wesley Gilbert mean anything to you?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “What phone did the man contact you on?”

  “My cell phone. It’s the only one I have.”

  Glenn held out his hand palm-up and wiggled his fingers in a gimme motion.

  “You want my phone?” Skeeter asked.

  Glenn nodded.

  “If I don’t give it to you are you going to spray that shit in my face again?”

  “Probably,” Glenn said.

  Skeeter pulled out his cell phone and set it on the table.

  “Let’s take a break,” Glenn said. “Sit tight, Skeeter. We’ll be back.”

  As the detectives left the room, Skeeter leaned his head back and placed the washcloth over his eyes.

  * * *

  Glenn, J.D., and I were standing in the anteroom. “I’ve got a buddy at the phone company,” Glenn said. “I’ll get our geek to get all the numbers that came into Skeeter’s phone on Wednesday morning and we can get the names of who those numbers are assigned to.”

  “I’m willing to bet one of those numbers will be D. Wesley Gilbert,” I said.

  “I can probably get the names on those phone numbers in about an hour,” Howell said. “You guys want to hang around?”

  “What do you think?” I asked J.D. “We could spend the night and if one of those numbers belongs to D. Wesley, we could have breakfast at the Citrus Club in the morning. Might happen to see Wes.”

  “Don’t you have to be a member to get in there?”

  “We’ll be Paul Linder’s guest.”

  “I don’t even have a toothbrush with me, much less a change of clothes” J.D. said.

  “We can go shopping, get some dinner, find a hotel. What do you say?”

  “Okay. Glenn, can you get me the information on those phone numbers tonight?”

  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem at all. I’ll text it to you as soon as my guy at the phone company comes through.”

  “We might need to talk to Skeeter and Xavier again,” J.D. said.

  “They’re not going anywhere. Let me know.”

  “Will you join us for dinner?” I asked.

  “Sorry, Matt. I’d love to, but I’ve got a lot of paperwork to do on this mess. I’d best get to it.”

  “Don’t forget to take care of those videos in the interview room,” J.D. said. “I don’t think they’d look too good on YouTube.”

  “Those?” Glenn said. “Damn cameras. They’ve been on the fritz all day.”

  * * *

  We checked into the Bohemian Hotel across the street from the office building that housed the Citrus Club in downtown Orlando. We’d had dinner in Sanford and then drove to the Altamonte Mall to do some shopping for J.D. I decided that my trousers would be good for another day, but I did buy a new polo shirt, underwear, and toiletries. We were set. I’d called Paul Linder, and he agreed to meet us for breakfast at eight the next morning. Hopefully, D. Wesley Gilbert would be enjoying the member’s free breakfast at the club.

  Glenn Howell texted J.D. the results of the phone search. There was only one call into Skeeter’s phone on Wednesday morning. It came from a burner, one of those ubiquitous phones purchased at a Walmart that the buyer could use and throw away. No way to trace the number.

  We dropped our packages in our assigned room and took the elevator back down to the ground floor lounge. We took a table in the corner and ordered
our drinks. “Busy day,” she said.

  “Productive day,” I said.

  “Very much so. You want to talk about it?”

  “You know, I think I’d like to just sit on it overnight. Hopefully, we’ll get a shot at Gilbert in the morning and can head right back to Longboat. I’d like a fresh set of eyes on this. I want to lay out all the facts we know and see if somebody else puts it all together a different way.”

  She laughed. “Logan Hamilton.”

  “Yep. Logan’s got one of the most insightful minds I’ve ever seen.”

  “I agree. Sounds like a plan.”

  We talked for another half-hour, finished our drinks, and called it a day.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4

  D. WESLEY GILBERT was a tall man with gray hair and the look of a patrician about him. I knew him to be in his late sixties, but he looked a few years older. He had the face of a man who drank too much, the little thread veins around his nose were very red and looked as if they were ready to burst. He was sitting at a table by a window overlooking downtown. Paul Linder sat across the table from him. When we approached, Paul stood and introduced us to each other. If Gilbert was surprised by the presence of a woman he’d tried to kill, he didn’t show it. His face remained impassive.

  “I don’t think we ever met, Matt, but I’ve certainly heard your name,” Gilbert said. “You were a big-time trial guy, and I heard you’d retired and moved to the Keys.”

  “Not exactly. I live on Longboat Key off the coast of Sarasota. We’re one of the West Coast keys.”

  “Of course I know Longboat Key. I’ve played golf there at the Longboat Key Club numerous times. Do you play?”

  “No. I fish some.”

  “And you, Ms. Duncan?” he asked. “What do you do on Longboat Key?”

  “I’m a police detective.”

  “Oh my,” he said. “I wouldn’t think there’s a lot of need for your services on such a quiet island.”

  “More than you’d think. We just had a murder there. A man named Peter Fortson. Maybe you heard about it.”

  There was a slight tightening in the flesh around his eyes. A tiny, almost imperceptible indication that J.D. had hit a nerve. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I would have missed it. “No, I don’t think so. When did it happen?”

  “Early Saturday morning. Mr. Fortson lived here. In Windermere.”

  “No. I’m afraid I didn’t know the gentleman.” He took a stab at changing the subject. “What brings you two to Orlando?”

  “I’m investigating Fortson’s murder,” J.D. said, staying on subject. “I think it’s tied to an attempt on my life that took place last week.”

  “Somebody tried to kill you?”

  “Yes. Up near Gainesville. I think we found the man who took the shot at me. A local fuzzball named Skeeter Evans. You ever hear of him?”

  “No, afraid not.” It was there again. That little tic around the eyes. He was lying. “Longboat Key is starting to sound like a much more dangerous place than I would have imagined.”

  “Sometimes, it is.”

  “Well, I must be off,” Gilbert said, standing. “I’m handling the negotiations on a major corporate merger, and we’ve got meetings all day today. Nice to have met you.”

  When he’d gone, Paul said, “See what I mean? Nobody in his right mind would hire that wingnut to handle a merger. He is as full of crap as a constipated elephant. Did you learn anything?”

  “He knows both Fortson and Skeeter Evans,” I said.

  “I thought he said he didn’t know either one of them,” Linder said.

  “Yeah, but he’s lying. He has a tell, a small reaction to a lie that gives him away, sort of a tic up around the eyes.”

  “Can you prove he knows them?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Guys like Gilbert leave a paper trail. We’re looking into that.”

  We finished our breakfast, thanked Paul for his hospitality, and started the two-hour drive back to Longboat Key.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4

  J.D., LOGAN HAMILTON, and I were sitting on J.D.’s glassed-in sun-porch, the remains of a take-out lunch from Harry’s Deli on the table in front of us. We’d brought Logan up-to-date on our day in the Orlando area and all that we’d found out.

  “Let’s look at D. Wesley Gilbert,” J.D. said.

  “Okay,” Logan said. “What are the facts that we know?”

  “Not a lot,” J.D. said. “He corresponded with Peter Fortson and seemed to threaten him with somebody named Wally. We think that’s probably Wally Delmer, the private investigator in Tallahassee, whose one-room office is also the headquarters of Wayfarer, Inc. We know that Fortson sent a number of big checks to Wayfarer and also to a charity, which may not really be a charity, called Ishmael’s Children, which is probably on the CIA’s watch list for organizations that help fund jihadists. Fortson tried to amend the trust documents, so that the money in his trust would go to Ishmael’s Children when he died.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “We think he was under some kind of pressure from the terrorists. Your money or your life. Something like that.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “Gilbert was emailing Fortson about a charity that doesn’t exist named Abe’s Kids. Keep in mind that Ishmael was the son of Abraham, and supposedly the father of the Arabs, so it’s not too big a stretch to think that Abe’s Kids could be a code word for Ishmael’s Children. On top of that, Ken Brown says Fortson was sending some very big money to a bunch of bad guys.”

  “Gilbert is your hinge,” Logan said. “Everything revolves around him. I think he put the hit out on J.D. and he’s also somehow involved with the jihadists who’re after you both.”

  “Lay it out for us, Logan. I’ve been thinking the same thing and so has J.D., but we’re both so involved in this mess that we may be seeing ghosts, finding connections where there aren’t any.”

  “Let’s do a timeline,” Logan said. “Rachel Fortson is murdered three years ago in her brother’s beach house on Longboat. The case goes cold, but suddenly there’s a break. For some reason the young man who had been hired to kill Rachel is himself murdered and makes a deathbed confession. J.D. goes to North Florida, spends three days up there and then heads home. Right so far, J.D.?”

  “On the money.”

  “On Wednesday of last week, Skeeter Evans gets a call from an anonymous person who hires him to kill J.D. Skeeter then hires Xavier to steal a car and drive him to Gainesville. Skeeter has an iPad loaded with what sounds like a GPS receiver. The transmitter was attached to J.D.’s car.

  “On the same day,” Logan continued, “Charlie Bates sets sail from Carrabelle heading to Longboat Key. He’s underway all day Wednesday and through the night. He docks at the Seafood Shack and spends the day hanging around the marina.”

  “We don’t think he’s involved in the attempt on J.D.’s life,” I said, “but I suppose he could be the anonymous caller who hired Skeeter.”

  “But that seems a little far-fetched,” J.D. said. “I don’t see how Bates could have set up the money hand-off. Unless he’d known that Skeeter would take the job, how could he have had five thousand dollars waiting to be delivered?”

  “Good points, all,” Logan said. “But do you see the gap in our storyline?”

  J.D. was silent for a moment. Then, “The locator device. Who put it on my car?”

  “Precisely,” Logan said. “Let’s put that in the unanswered column for now. We’ll get back to it.”

  “The man whose thumbprint was on the locator device was due back from his fishing trip yesterday,” J.D. said. “The Franklin County sheriff was going to confront him and get back to me. I haven’t heard from him. I’ll follow up on that as soon as we break here.”

  “Okay,” Logan said. “Let’s look at Thursday. Somebody takes a shot at J.D. on I-75. Skeeter set up the shooting, but he professes to know nothing about the
man in the van, Mabry Jackson. Since Jackson was dead, and Skeeter had already confessed to trying to kill J.D., he had nothing to gain by not acknowledging Jackson. And Skeeter’s story is the same as Duhns’.”

  “The van driver had an iPad that was set to track the locator on my car,” J.D. said.

  “So both Skeeter and Jackson must have been working for the same person,” Logan said.

  “It sounds as if Jackson knew about Skeeter,” I said, “but Skeeter didn’t know about Jackson.”

  “I think Jackson was plan B,” J.D. said. “If Skeeter didn’t get me, Jackson would.”

  “Okay. So we have the hit on J.D. set up and in operation. What we’re missing now is the answer to who hired Skeeter and who hired Jackson. I think it’s probably the same person, but what was the motive?”

  “The only thing I can think of,” J.D. said, “is that somebody thought I was getting too close to solving Rachel’s murder and decided to take me out.”

  “You didn’t know much more after you went to Franklin County than you did before, did you?” Logan asked.

  “No. But whoever put out the hit might not have known that.”

  “Do you think Peter Fortson was killed because they didn’t get you and were afraid you were closing in on Peter and that he’d talk?”

  “That’s a reasonable hypothesis, I guess,” J.D. said. “So far I haven’t been able to come up with anything better.”

  “So we move on to Friday,” Logan said. “You and young Carey talk to Peter Fortson. He doesn’t tell you anything, but the bad guys couldn’t have known that. Then that afternoon, J.D., on the spur of the moment, you and Matt go to Key West. You’re out of town, and possibly out of reach of whoever’s trying to kill you. That night, somebody cuts Peter’s throat.”

  “That’s about it,” J.D. said.

  “And the next day somebody tries to break into your condo while you’re taking a nap.”

  “Right. A couple of my neighbors saw the man we think was trying to break in, and he matches the description Linda Jones gave of a man she saw leaving the beach shortly after Peter Fortson was killed. Both descriptions fit Charlie Bates.”