Octopus Alibi

by Tom Corcoran

  “Let Rutledge up before I make you use the gun,” said Sam. “You pop a hole in me, the paperwork and hearings will last you more than four fucking months.”

  “You tried to escape, Mr. Wheeler.”

  “Like I’m some shitbird running from a road gang? Give the civilian world a little credit for smarts, Mr. Whatever.”

  “My name is Simmons, sir.” Red shook his head, let things settle, then gave a silent command.

  “You want him sitting, or a pile of skin?” Marv yanked my belt, jerked me to the empty chair, then moved back against the door frame. He checked his view of the hallway. You can’t be too secure. He probably wore his weapon in the bathroom. Spent his nights watching Bruce Willis flicks.

  Red placed his gun in a drawer, plopped his butt on the corner of his desk. “We got us an issue with an assistant state attorney, Mr. Wheeler. His happy ass has been on the line for our investigation. He okayed the funding, fronted us to judges for search warrants. We were going to pull our sting next Monday, bust the scam open, headlines and all. Mind you, this is an ASA with political aspirations. He wanted headlines more than we did. Your meddling squashed it all.”

  “I went looking for my sister,” said Sam. “No more than that. I got told not to look by a Broward detective, which is a red flag. I broke no laws until I got mugged by a bad deputy, so I’m not your problem. What happened was you didn’t fail-safe your sting. It got blown by innocent victims.”

  Red’s eyes went to slits, focused on nothing. “What did Marlow want from you, Wheeler? How much did he ask for?”

  “The whole ball of wax. Anything with my sister’s name on it, old photos, old phone numbers, canceled checks, financial records, club memberships.”

  “Would I be correct to assume that you gave him none of that?”

  “One old phone number,” said Sam.

  “And he asked you not to butt into his investigation?”

  Sam nodded yes.

  “Let me guess. You saw him following you.”

  Another nod.

  “You doubled back, followed him to Marcantonio’s mobile home, but he knew you were there. He turned around on your ass. You tried to evade him and got blue-lighted.”

  Sam’s teeth clenched. “You’re not guessing. You knew.”

  “Ever heard of LoJack?” said Red. “We’ve got our own version.”

  “On my rental car?” said Sam.

  “On every car we’ve mentioned.”

  A female voice said, “Including mine.”

  Goodnight Irene Jones stood next to Marv. She looked like a cabdriver, but a leather badge wallet was clipped to her belt.

  Sam said, “So you shits used me to bait your trap? You dangled my ass out there to make your work easier?”

  No one spoke.

  Sam thought a moment. “You hung Marcantonio’s ass out to burn like mine, didn’t you?”

  Red stared ahead. “He was one of us. He was found alongside I-595, bleeding from face and arm wounds. He was incoherent. We think he was blue-lighted, beaten up, and his car was stolen.”

  “You’ve got a good tally going here, Simmons. You sanctioned a muscle job on Rutledge here on your carpet. You talk hot-shit satellite tracking units, but they didn’t keep me or Marcantonio out of jams. You probably know that my sister’s dead, too. Let’s call that assistant state attorney right now.”

  Red, to his credit, held back his repartee. “I assure you, Mr. Wheeler, the department is sympathetic to—”

  “Odin Marlow wanted me to hire a private eye. He offered to recommend one. Was he running a scam to pad the pockets of a scumbag gumshoe?”

  Red shook his head. “No, that wasn’t it.”

  Red’s intercom made a crackling noise. A voice said, “We’re into mop-up, Major. We popped the doc and a uniformed deputy. The other bird ditched his car at a Roadhouse Grill by Federal and Hillsboro.”

  “I want evidence techs on that vehicle before it gets towed.”

  “I’ll make it happen.” The intercom went silent.

  “Was the doc inside the morgue?” said Sam.

  Irene Jones looked him in the eye. “Yep, but never again.”

  Sam turned to Red. “What the hell were they doing?”

  “Selling new identities. You wouldn’t believe what foreign nationals will pay to stay in this country. They come over here, they see the good life, they put their green card expiration in the same category as early death.”

  “Okay,” said Sam. “You asked if I had given them details on my sister’s finances and so on…”

  “You were their worst nightmare, because you were wise enough not to fall for it. Most of the other victims gave them truckloads. They wanted to do everything possible to find their loved ones.”

  “How did they pick me?”

  “Unfortunately, you were next in line,” said Red Simmons. “This started eleven months ago. A woman was found dead in a stolen car. She had no ID, no fingerprints on file, no labels in her clothing. Marlow found her. We can’t prove it, but we think he stole her IDs before he called in the coroner’s investigators.”

  “She remained a Jane Doe to her grave,” said Irene Jones.

  “Seventy days later,” continued Simmons, “another woman’s body was found on the beach right at the end of Sunrise. Marlow contacted the first woman’s family. Those people came down here from Atlanta and looked at the corpse. It wasn’t their daughter. Marlow feigned compassion and stonewalled. We know that an illegal immigrant from Poland is now using the first dead woman’s identity, but she’ll be in Gdansk by the first of June. Anyway, that started a cycle of four deaths and failed ID sessions. We now think that the conspirators got impatient with their process, tired of waiting for more bodies to be found.”

  Sam said, “Sounds like a lot of trouble…”

  “Someone paid forty thousand for the Polish woman’s package,” said Red, “and that was a low-end price. So, do the math, figure these IDs go to the highest bidder, you get an idea. Their little industry had the potential to pull down millions. Again, we can’t prove this, or we would have made arrests by now. Hence, the sting. We think they murdered your sister.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Four months ago, sir. Please accept our condolences.”

  Sam ignored the sympathy shot and jerked his thumb in my direction. “You beat on him, push us around like cops out of control. Bottom line, your top secret operation had a hole in it. I walked through, then Rutledge did, and now your bad guy did, too, going the other direction. You need to drop the drama and go to work. It’s time for us to go home.”

  “Believe me, Mr. Wheeler, our job description is not drama.”

  “Bullshit. You ask questions, you already know the answers. You select your beefs and edit fuckups. Now you’re desperate to find a fugitive, but it sounds like he read your mail and blew town.”

  “Mr. Wheeler, you may be right. Being right’s real important to you, isn’t it? Say we botched a sting. Our fuckup will be noted in Tallahassee and it’ll boomerang back to this desk. If I don’t charge you both with obstruction, my career gets it in the ass.” He peered at Irene Jones. “Pardon the metaphor, Detective Sergeant.”

  Goodnight Irene said, “What’s wrong? You want to say your career gets porked in the rectum? Either way, you lose your retirement health benefits.”

  “Thank you, Irene,” said Red.

  Sam sat back in his chair, crossed his ankles. “You’re a powerful man. That’s what’s important to you, isn’t it? Power?”

  “Glad you recognize that, sir.”

  “So let me explain another source of energy. The woman who shares my house is a Key West Citizen reporter. She knows a hot story when she sees one, and she’s placed her stories all over Florida and the Southeast states. She knows I’ve been here three days. She’ll compare that to your task force and methods and the four months you’ve pissed away. I’m a victim of con men and you’re treating me like I’ve acted in bad faith. I s
wiped a deputy’s motorcycle to save my life, to escape from a scam and a sting that danced each other out of control. She’ll tell how long your operation’s been sucking on the state’s tit, and how many women died while you jacked around. How long have you known that my sister was dead?”

  Red put a less wise-ass expression on his face and looked Sam in the eye. “We didn’t know who she was until you arrived at the Broward ME’s office.”

  “Your trail is getting cold. You’ve got grunt work to do, and I have two sisters who need to know about the death of Lorie Wheeler.”

  The intercom again. “Red, an attorney named Minnette on the horn. A lady lawyer.”

  “Get a number.”

  “It’s about those two…”

  “Get a number.”

  I said, “Right now, where’s Marlow’s Cadillac Eldorado?”

  Sam looked right at me. His eyes perked.

  Red looked at Irene and Marv. Both shrugged their shoulders.

  Sam said, “Where did Odin Marlow keep his boat?”

  More looks, more shrugs.

  I said, “You didn’t know about his twenty-three-foot Fountain Sportfish CC?”

  Simmons flashed a grim glare at his people.

  “Runs a 225-horse Yamaha,” said Sam. “That boat’s a major investment. People get attached to their boats.”

  Irene Jones said, “That Roadhouse Grill is right next to a marina. They share the same parking entrance.”

  “Bingo,” said Sam. “It’s my ass to your lunch money that Marlow’s in Nassau right now, slugging down Chivas, tipping blackjack dealers with fifties.”

  I looked at Marv. Hatred and shame in his eyes. I shifted over to Irene. She was staring at Sam with a touch of admiration in hers.

  Red Simmons focused on nothing as he formed his response. “Bahamas Immigration has been asked to bust on sight.”

  “Then we got him,” said Marv, but he knew he’d messed up.

  I thought about the penciled circle around the Borroto Brinas mention in Marlow’s Herald. “That boat could make Key West in time for supper,” I said. “Liska told me that Marlow used to be a cop down there, but he got fired. He said he was a born crook who should have gone to Raiford.”

  Sam grinned. “Won’t Liska be glad to hear that Odin’s on his way back?”

  “We can tell him when we drop off his car,” I said.

  Simmons moved his jaw as if he was cleaning sirloin scraps out of his teeth. His eyes went to Marv and Irene. “Mr. Wheeler has reminded us that there is grunt work to do. He and his friend have given me more sleuthing sense in a half hour than you two in the past ten days.” He turned to Sam. “You know the waters down there, right?”

  “And boats. I can tell from a mile who’s robbing traps, who’s a tourist from upstate, who should be there, and who shouldn’t be.”

  “You’re going back to work when you get back there?”

  “I’ve got some catching up to do out on the water,” said Sam.

  “If you find Marlow, what will you do first?” said Simmons.

  “I could give your chopper a GPS location.”

  Red asked Irene Jones if Sam’s belongings were in the building.

  “In the trunk of the car, sir.”

  Red turned to me. “When my men requested that you accompany them, over on Griffin Road, was there any force involved?”

  I said, “None that I recall.”

  “Are we going to have problems down the road?”

  I wanted them to pay for my trousers. I wanted out. “No problems.”

  Sam said, “You never answered my question, Simmons.”

  Shut up, I thought. The door’s open. Don’t make it slam shut.

  “Which of your questions was that?”

  “Do you dangle innocent people to make your job easier?”

  Simmons’s eyes contracted. He gazed at the wall, then moved his eyes back to Sam. “Yes, Mr. Wheeler. Not all the time, but when I must. It’s a cold approach, yet one fact comforts me. When I catch criminals and they are punished, my sins are absolved.”

  Sam’s face showed no reaction. “God bless you, sir. Where’s my fucking rental car?”

  “We turned it in.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  28

  SAM ASKED TO DRIVE down the Keys. His mind was a war zone of revenge and memories. He needed escape. My head still was full of questions, anyway. I didn’t trust myself with the Lexus. The FDLE had hung out Sam to bait their trap. In a sense, Chicken Neck Liska had joined their club. He must have known when he handed me his keys that I wouldn’t go straight home with Sam still in limbo. He had opened the gates for me to be grabbed, pounded, threatened with jail, and lucky there wasn’t more. I wasn’t in the mood to guard for gravel dings.

  We traveled in silence until Sam stopped for gas at the Snapper Creek Turnpike Plaza. We stood on the fuel island, watched the pump do its thing. After the Ops Box, anything was entertainment.

  “We’re twenty miles down the road,” I said. “You got a perspective on Red Simmons and his Bully Pranksters?”

  Sam looked across the parking area. “The world of assholes is divided into two groups,” he said. “Half will buy you a beer, then punch you in the nose. The other half, the Simmons type, will punch you first, then buy you a beer. Do we make calls now or wait?”

  “You want to tell Marnie you’re alive?”

  “Ten bucks says Liska already told her. Let me think for a minute or two. You feel like buying us two clean shirts?”

  Inside, I ruled out Coke, Fritos, and PayDay. I found a T-shirt for Sam that read, DO NOT TALK UNLESS YOU CAN IMPROVE THE SILENCE. I almost bought myself a beauty with a pastel grouper, but chose instead a patriotic statement. Above an American flag were the words MÁS UNIDOS QUE NUNCA. I grabbed soft drinks, a bag of chips, and four Hershey bars, got in line to pay, and stared out a window.

  Something in the parking area for northbound vehicles caught my eye. Sam stood behind a freight truck, then went under the trailer. I looked away so no one around me would notice my stare. When I came back out, Sam was shirtless, leaning against the Lexus. Two welts stood out on his chest.

  I said, “Am I allowed to ask…”

  He shrugged. “One dumb cop. The price of an education.”

  “Not the welts,” I said. “The semi across the way.”

  “Those super cops were too proud of their satellite tracking devices. They couldn’t let us go scot-free.”

  He had found a transmitter on the Lexus, and sent it in a different direction.

  “Where will they be looking for us?”

  “The license tag was Virginia.” He pointed at the candy. “Why did you buy all that shit?”

  “Self-esteem,” I said. “The joy of making my own decisions.”

  Sam pulled on his new shirt, then went in to phone Marnie. A rented Mustang convertible pulled up next to the Lexus. Two couples, sunburned, partying their way to Margaritaville. They did a piss-poor job of hiding their open beers. I waved a five and offered to relieve them of two unopened.

  Sam opened his the instant he got back in the car. “Wonderful,” he said. “The sheriff’s own ride, we can go to the edge. Follow our FDLE session with an open container charge. I quiver in fear.” He chugged it.

  We started down the Eighteen-Mile Stretch. Sam spun me what Marnie had told him. “Whit Randolph’s attorney is no slouch. This is the guy who got famous by a television news exposé of the Travelers, the scam artists who work out of the Carolinas. He’s their attorney du jour, always rushing to small towns where they’ve been snagged in fraud. He chartered a jet out of New Orleans and got to the Monroe County jail before the deputies finished the booking process. He brought along a goofball lawyer from Whitehead Street and a bail bondsman. When he got Randolph set to hit the street, he called a news conference. Our naive local stringers took the bait.”

  “Did he offer any legal brilliance?”

  “He claimed that he can prove that his
client had not committed a single crime. He also said that, within forty-eight hours, he and his client would deliver the mayor’s murderer to justice. His real words were something like, ‘My client will let these rube cops know who really did it.’”

  “The scam bust was a delay tactic so the police could build up murder evidence. Why would the lawyer want to go there?”

  “Fire with fire?” said Sam. “Maybe to let the fuzz know that he was wise to their tactic?”

  “Make you glad you’re a fisherman?”

  “I’ve never doubted my choice. But everybody wants to be like me. This guy is busted, then bonded out in five hours. The cops have their own catch-and-release policy.”

  “We should hope they left the hook in his mouth.”

  Our timing down U.S. 1 was perfect. The sun dropped below the horizon as we rounded the bend into Key Largo. I said, “Two hours earlier, we’d have had it in our eyes for a hundred miles.”

  “Still a bunch of shit,” said Sam. “Friday night, the Upper Keys, you get drunken pull-outs from bar lots. Those end-of-the-week brews make people forget to turn on their headlights.”

  “You think Marlow’s down here?”

  “If it were me, I’d have gone thirty or forty miles north and put into a marina where no one knew me. Marlow’s smart enough not to go to Bimini. He knows the easiest place to hide. He’s got an ‘FL’ hull registration number, so his boat will blend in anywhere in the state. His first goal is to hit money machines close to home, because he knows they’ll track him. After that, if he’s got a cash stash, he can take his time, go anywhere.”

  I said, “He was in the fake-identity business.”

  “Bingo,” said Sam. “He can be anybody and go anywhere. For that matter, his boat could be registered to a fake identity, which makes him a free man indefinitely. What the hell. He could have a car, a home, and a new job, but I doubt it. Marlow was a cocky bastard. He wouldn’t have looked ahead to possible failure.”

  “Can you think back twenty-five years?” I said.

  “No.”