Longboat Blues

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “It is truly a small world, sometimes,” said Anne.

  “Not really,” said J.J. “The first wave of Cubans who came after Castro make up a relatively small community here, and the Brigade survivors are a very small group. Anyone related to either group usually makes his way into this restaurant. Even though Maria was cut off from her family, she is still part of a small group of Cubans.”

  “What do you know about his business?” I asked.

  “Nothing really. Only what I heard. He works for this guy Rundel, who is on the fringe of Republican politics down here. Nobody likes him much, but he seems to have a lot of money, and that buys him entree to most of the events,” J.J. said. “I think he’s also using Maria to help him get close to the Cuban community. There’re a lot of Republicans there, and they always vote.”

  “Why would that be important to an Anglo like Rundel?” Anne asked

  “We have the Presidential primaries coming up in March of next year,” J.J. said. “The Cuban vote can swing a close race, and Florida is one of the most important primary states.”

  “Does Rundel have a candidate?” I asked.

  “I haven’t heard anything about that,” J.J. said. “But he’s kind of a sleaze ball, and I can’t imagine any serious candidate getting to close to him.”

  “Can you think of any way to set us up with Cox that wouldn’t seem suspicious?” I asked.

  “He and Maria are regulars on Wednesday night for our seafood special. If they hold true to form, I expect they’ll here tomorrow evening. They always make a reservation. I could let you know when it is and seat you and Anne at a table next to them. That would give me a good excuse to introduce you. You would have to take it from there.”

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had so far. Why don’t we try it,” I said.

  We talked a little bit about old times and old faces and friends, and then J.J. had to get back to work. I gave him my cell phone number and told him to leave a voice mail if he couldn’t get an answer.

  We had a delicious chicken dish whose name I could not pronounce, and would not have known what it was except for the English translation on the menu. The waiter refused us a check, declaring that Senor Jiminez had insisted that we were his guests, and that it had been his honor to serve any friend of a hero such as Senor Jiminez, and that he would not even consider accepting a tip. J.J. was a hero, but he was also one hell of a nice guy.

  “We got lucky,” said Anne as we drove back to Mandy’s apartment.

  “Yeah,” I said, “and I think we’re going to have to have a lot more luck to pull this off. I’d like to find out more about Rundel, and I’d sure like to know why Cox was looking for Logan on Longboat Key.”

  We stopped at a Publix supermarket on the way to Mandy’s and bought coffee and pastries for breakfast. The apartment was in one of those upscale garden complexes that had a large pool next to a room that was used for meetings and parties. Most of the tenants were young couples who drove BMW’s and went to the currently in South Beach clubs for their entertainment. They spent the weekends around the pool, soaking up the sun and ensuring that their skin would be as dry and wrinkled as an alligator by the time they were forty. An unlucky few of them would develop melanoma and not live to see their fortieth birthdays. But what the hell, they were in Florida and living for the moment. Every Northerner knows that a deep tan is the trademark of those of them who escaped the frigid winters of their birthplaces. They need to show them off when they go home for Christmas. The natives knew that summer in Florida was no time to be spending their days off in the sun.

  Mandy was single and lived in the complex when she was in Miami. She apparently was an heiress of some sort and was not required to hold a regular job. Consequently, she traveled a great deal. The apartment was just a place to stay when she was in Miami. It was a sterile sort of place, devoid of personality. There were no pictures of loved ones, no books or even magazines; none of the things you normally find in someone’s home. This was not a home. It was a place for a transient to occasionally park herself.

  There were two bedrooms, one with a bath. Anne had put her things in this one when we had stopped by earlier that day. I took the smaller bedroom, with a bath in the hall next to it. There was a kitchen stocked with utensils, but no food.

  “I’m really tired, Matt. Would you think me terribly rude if I went on to bed?” Anne asked, as we entered the apartment.

  “Not at all,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind a little time to read.” I was reading Randy Wayne White’s latest novel and wishing I were more like Doc Ford.

  “Well, goodnight then,” she said, and disappeared into her room. Moments later I heard the shower running, and wished briefly that I was in it with her. I told myself that she was my partner in a gamey enterprise, and that I really did not want to gum up the works by getting involved with her. Yeah, right.

  I read for an hour and drifted off to sleep. I had a disturbing dream, but could not remember it the next morning. I woke up vaguely troubled, but could not bring the dream out of the murky depths of my mind.

  Chapter 21

  WEDNESDAY

  Thirty minutes later, I was showered and shaved and followed the smell of coffee into the kitchen. Anne was sitting at the table, reading the morning paper and having a breakfast of pastries. “Good morning, sleeping beauty,” she said with a smile. “I’ve already run three miles and picked up the paper.”

  “Well, I’m older,” I said. “Anything new in the paper today?”

  “Same old stuff,” she said. “The police busted a ring of prostitutes who were slipping mickeys to their johns and stealing their gold Rolex watches. They would only go to their pads with guys wearing Rolexes. The cops got them before they could hock the watches. They had ten, but eight were fakes, worth about ten bucks a piece.”

  “See, crime doesn’t pay.”

  “Yeah, and a girl’s got to be real careful who she goes out with. Fake watches. What’s next?”

  My cell phone rang. It was J.J.

  “Hey Matt,” he said. “I got a call last night from Sam Cox, making a reservation for 7:00 this evening. I’ve arranged for you to sit next to him and Maria.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this, J.J. I’m afraid if you introduce us, he may make the connection between me and Longboat or between Anne and her brother. Have you got a digital camera?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why don’t you take a picture of Anne and me at the table, but angle the camera so that you get both Sam and Maria in the picture.”

  “No sweat, Matt. See you at seven.”

  I hung up and related the conversation to Anne. “I’d like to take a picture of Sam back to Longboat and see if anybody recognizes him.”

  “Do you think he’s the killer?” she asked.

  “Not if he was the one with Logan at the time Connie was killed. But he would sure as hell be part of it.”

  “I can’t see any connection to Connie in any of this. It was obviously not just a random murder.”

  “You’re right, but there must be some connection we’re not seeing. I don’t think Logan was the target, or they’d have just killed him. Logan was purposefully set up, but I suspect it was because he was available. Serendipity. But someone had watched Connie long enough to know that she and Logan were tight. But, why?”

  “The answer to that will tell us who the murderer is,” she said.

  Anne headed for the bedroom and a shower just as my cell phone rang again.

  “Mr. Royal, this is Will Ledbetter, the probation officer in Chicago.”

  “Yes, Mr. Ledbetter. How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks. I figured I owed you a favor, so I thought I’d pass along some information I just got.”

  “I appreciate that, but I can’t imagine what sort of favor I did for you.”

  “Since you were in the office that day, Carol has been a vision of cooperation. I sort of forgot to tell her you weren’t a real senator.”

&nbs
p; “Ah, yes,” I laughed. “I’m glad that did you some good. What’s your news?”

  “I found out what happened to that pimp, Golden Joe, and thought you’d like to know. He was found dead back in April down in Miami. Nobody got real excited about finding out who he was, but they did take fingerprints. The system finally worked the information through to this office. The body was one Joseph Dean Johnson, aka Golden Joe.”

  “Thanks Will. I appreciate the call. I’ll see what I can find out in Miami.”

  Anne came out of the bedroom wearing peach colored capri pants, a sleeveless blouse and matching sandals. My professional detachment was taking a beating. I related my conversation with Will. “Do you know anybody on the Miami Police force that might be able to help us get some information real quick? I hate to call in another favor from the Longboat chief.”

  “Carl Merritt is a detective for Miami-Dade. I dated him some in high school. He’d probably help us if he thought it might be connected to my brother’s death.”

  The Miami-Dade police department is located in a new headquarters building several blocks west of Miami International Airport. Carl had agreed to meet us and bring the file with him. He was also going to see if he could find the detective who worked the case, and bring him along.

  Carl met us in the lobby and passed us through security. We took the elevator to the homicide division. Carl was a large man who had been a pretty good linebacker in high school, but not quite good enough for college. He had earned a degree in criminal justice from Florida International University and settled into a career with the county police department. He had risen to homicide detective in a relatively short period of time. He was glad to see Anne, but she had mentioned that they had maintained their friendship over the years, and she saw him and his wife every month or so.

  Carl introduced us to Ryan Mallard, the detective who had worked the homicide. I told them both about my involvement in the case and the connection to Anne’s brother’s death. Mallard was a little embarrassed that his investigation was so skimpy, but he told us that the body had been found in a drainage ditch on the edge of the Everglades, with one of its legs missing. There were no personal effects or identification on the body. The victim had been shot in the back of the head, execution style. Mallard had run the fingerprints and found that the victim had been released from an Illinois prison a couple of weeks before his death.

  The trail, and the investigation, ended there. There was no evidence to pursue. Golden Joe had been dead only a day or so, but a heavy south Florida thunderstorm had passed over the area during the evening hours, and any tire tracks or other evidence on the ground had been washed away. Mallard sent his paperwork through channels, trusting that the proper people in Illinois would be notified in due time. He put the file in open cases, and moved on to other investigations.

  “Did you do any ballistic testing on the bullet that killed him?” I asked.

  “Sure. If we ever find the gun, we could match it up,” Mallard said, “but that’s like finding a needle in a haystack. And this county is a mighty big haystack.”

  “Do you know what kind of gun was used?”

  “Nine millimeter is about all I can tell you.”

  “Any idea how Joe got from Illinois to Miami?” I asked.

  “No. I did check the airlines, but there was no record of him flying in. But he could have come by bus or train, or hitchhiked and we’d never know. The airlines are the only ones that require some ID to board.”

  “And you haven’t heard anything from any snitches?”

  “No. My guess is that he was killed as soon as he arrived in Miami. Lots of people float through here like ghosts, leaving no trail at all,” Mallard said. “We figured he probably had run afoul of somebody in prison, and it was payback time.”

  “But, then, why not kill him in Illinois? Why follow him all the way to Florida? I wonder if someone might have lured him here somehow just so they could kill him.”

  “Could be. We’ll never know unless we get lucky on another bust somewhere, and somebody has some information about this one. We end up with lots of unsolved murders of transients in this county.”

  “Wouldn’t it have made sense to drop the body somewhere in the ‘glades where it likely wouldn’t be found?” I asked.

  “We think that was the plan. That ditch usually has a lot of gators in it, but for some reason, they didn’t take the whole body. My guess is that a gator chewed off his leg, and left him on the bank for a snack later, but a fisherman came by and saw the body and called us.”

  We thanked the detectives for their courtesy and took our leave.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Anne said as we drove out of the police parking lot. “What connection is there among the three murders?”

  I had thought about this same thing since hearing about Joe’s murder in Miami. If Rundel and Cox were involved in Bud’s and Connie’s murders, that might be the only connection. Connie and Bud had not known each other as far as either Anne or I knew, and neither Logan nor Connie would have had any reason to do business with Rundel. They might have met during Rundel’s stay on Longboat, but I could come up with no reason for Rundel to murder Connie.

  On the other hand, Connie/Vivian was connected to Golden Joe. Maybe these two murders were connected, and Bud’s death was either an accident, as the sheriff thought, or he was murdered just to keep him quiet about Rundel’s shady business dealings. The questions then were, who would want Connie and Joe dead, and why. They had not seen each other in years, and while Joe might have reason to kill Connie/Vivian out of revenge, who would kill him, and why. And why in Miami. Any why would Rundel and Cox be interested in Connie and Joe. It was all circular, and I was getting nowhere.

  I explained my thinking to Anne. She said, “Forget the part about Bud’s death being an accident. He knew too much about living in isolated places to not check on his propane tank regularly. Plus, he had an alarm that would have sounded at the first sign of a propane leak. Rundel killed him, or had it done.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m just thinking out loud. Do you remember J.J. saying that he heard that Cox was hired out as muscle? Maybe he’s graduated to contract killings. Maybe Rundel set things up and uses Cox to do the dirty work.”

  “Yes, but Cox didn’t kill Connie if he was with Logan at the time of her death.”

  “True, but he was involved. Maybe Cox is the set up man, and he has someone else actually do the killing.”

  “But why would he be interested in killing Connie and Joe?” she asked.

  “The answer to that question might get Logan acquitted.”

  We arrived at the restaurant right on time, and after a hug from Carmen, we were escorted to our table. There was an older man and a young Cuban woman at the next table; the Coxes, I presumed. We were situated so that I was sitting back to back with the woman, with the man sitting across from the woman and Anne sitting across from me. A waiter stopped by to get our drink orders, and in a few minutes J.J. came to our table.

  “Matt,” he said. “Good to see you. I meant to ask you last night if you remembered John Allred up in Orlando.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. What do you hear from him?”

  “He’s doing well. I talked to him today and told him I had seen you. He asked that I send him a picture of you the next time you came in. Do you mind?” He brandished a small digital camera.

  “Go ahead,” I said, laughing. “God knows why John wants a picture of me.”

  J.J. put the camera to his eye, said, “smile,” and snapped off two quick shots. My guess was that he had gotten a pretty good shot over my shoulder of Sam Cox. And of course, John Allred had never asked for my picture.

  We enjoyed our meal, and left before the Coxes had finished their after dinner drinks. We had already cleaned up at Mandy’s and had our gear in the Explorer, so we headed for I-95 and Ft. Lauderdale. There was nothing else to be accomplished in South Florida, and I
had a trial looming in Bradenton. We had decided over dinner that I would let Anne know if I came up with anything in Longboat, but otherwise, I would be getting ready for trial.

  I dropped Anne at her place and checked into a hotel near the airport. I wanted to get an early start on the three hour drive to Longboat. I left a wake up call for five a.m., and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 22

  THURSDAY

  I was on the road, the Explorer pointed due west on Alligator Alley, as the dawn seeped into the black world of the nighttime Everglades. Within minutes, the sun rose over my shoulder, bathing the River of Grass in gold and burnt orange. Off to my right, four vultures rode the air currents, circling low, no doubt eyeing the remains of some animal who had met its demise during the night. The early sunlight danced on the water, glittering like so many small diamonds among the sawgrass blades.

  I had not heard from Logan in several days. I was hoping he would keep his promise, and turn himself in to the Manatee Sheriff on Sunday. If he didn’t, I would look a little foolish; but worse, the State Attorney would look foolish too. And he was a politician, and politicians do not like to look foolish. He would chase Logan with the resolve of a wounded elephant charging its tormentor, and he would stay on him until, finally, some day, Logan would be brought down. There would be no mercy, in either the hunt or the aftermath. And Logan would not have me as his lawyer, because I would not be suckered twice.

  Near Naples, I-75 turns north, to run parallel to the Gulf coast and the old federal highway known as the Tamiami Trail. Traffic was light, and by eight o’clock I was crossing the wide Caloosahatchee River just east of Ft. Myers. By nine, I was taking the off ramp at Fruitville Road, driving west into Sarasota. As I neared downtown, I opened my sunroof and put the windows down in the Explorer. The morning air was spiced with the scent of the Gulf. I crossed the Ringling Causeway and bridge to St. Armands Circle, glancing briefly at the shops, not yet open. I headed north across the New Pass Bridge and onto Longboat Key. I stopped at Publix for a bag of donuts and headed on up the island to my condo. I brewed a pot of coffee and sat on my balcony munching donuts and sipping coffee. A nutritious breakfast it was not.