by Glenn Trust
Yes, the Nicks worked some girls, but they treated them well and provided for them. The Nicks were part of the Meacham family too, like Beery, and they kept things quiet and confined to their cove. The customers they brought in from surrounding areas were a boon to the dwindling local economy. In short, Jake Beery was the sheriff of Meacham County because the Georgia constitution required there to be a sheriff in every county. He wasn’t really expected to do much in the way of law enforcement. Beyond that, it was a good place to retire. It was home.
Kneeling by what would have been the Nicks’ front door, Beery took out his pocket knife and scraped up some cinders and ash. He lifted the blade to his nose, sniffing gently, not wanting to inhale any of the charred dust. Scraping the blade clean on the side of his boot, he rose and walked to the old Ford Explorer that he had bought with his small share of the county budget.
The hydraulic struts hissed as he lifted the back door. He rummaged around, moving things, some personal and some official until he found the black leather case, like a salesman’s sample case. It was the county evidence kit. He put it together after attending the required academy to be certified by the Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council. Jake Beery had been the oldest person in the class, and the only one elected to be a sheriff. Having acquired POST certification, Beery was still in the process of going through law enforcement investigations and management seminars. He actually enjoyed the training and interaction with the young officers. Their excitement for the job was contagious. It made him feel young again.
Placing the case on the sandy ground, he pulled out some small plastic evidence bags that looked like sandwich bags with adhesive flaps to seal them. Stretching a pair of latex gloves over his hands, he walked back to the house. Kneeling again, he scooped up ash and cinders from various locations around the house with his knife, shaking them into the evidence bags, sealing them and noting their position at the crime scene, putting the time and his initials on each.
With a small digital camera taken from the evidence kit, he took photos from every possible angle. He spent some time taking as many shots as possible of the Nicks’ bodies from the edge of what had been the outside wall. Not wanting to disturb the crime scene, and not wanting to get particularly close to the bodies, he was content not to enter the charred house.
Sheriff or not, Jake Beery was a rookie in every sense of the term. But rookie or not he could recognize the odor of gasoline in the cinders and ash he scraped up and placed in the bags. This was no accidental fire from faulty wiring or a pan left on the stove. The Nicks had been murdered.
Walking past the girls who had stood somberly watching his activities, he opened the door of the Explorer and lifted the radio mike. Meacham County maintained an agreement with Tifton’s Central Dispatch to provide radio dispatch and communications. Otherwise, Sheriff Beery would be totally isolated in the midst of the cypress and pine forests of black water swamp country.
“Tifton dispatch, this is Meacham County.”
“Go ahead, Meacham.”
Fumbling for the official Ten Code list in his shirt pocket, Beery read off a couple of numbers. “Uh, 10-43, 10-70, and uh…” he scanned the card for a second. “10-79.”
There was a momentary silence, followed by the dispatcher’s slightly amused voice. “Meacham County, 10-9.” She paused and added, “Repeat your traffic.” Just in case Beery hadn’t understood. The dispatcher was fairly certain that he had no idea what he had called in.
“Dispatch,” he said throwing the card on the seat of the Explorer, “I am at the scene of an arson murder. I need you to notify the GBI for me and get me an ETA for some help out here.”
The dispatcher’s voice was all business now. “10-4, Meacham County. Your location?”
“Nicks Cove.”
“Meacham County can you provide a better location?”
“Uh yeah, right.” Beery spent a minute describing how to get to the remote location on the backcountry roads.
Having finished with the radio, he began stringing yellow crime scene tape around the house. He looked over his shoulders at the girls still standing in the small clearing.
“Probably be a couple hours before a GBI unit gets here from Albany. You girls go back to the Cove and wait. When they pull in, lead them around to here.”
They nodded and turned away.
“And no one leaves. You understand? I want every one of you there when the GBI gets here. They’re gonna have questions, and you’re gonna answer them.” The girls paused and then continued walking, never looking back at Beery and clearly not happy about being told they were going to be asked questions by the GBI.
Jacob Beery finished securing the crime scene, which consisted of putting yellow tape around the area and leaning against the Ford to take out a cigarette in his shaky fingers.
So much for a peaceful retirement.
18. Brotherly Love
Standing barefoot on the apartment’s green shag carpet that dated back to the seventies, Darren Tuxton yawned, stretched and said the first thing that came to mind.
“What the fuck?” Eyes roaming from face to face, they came to rest on the only female in the room. Returning her wide-eyed stare, he reached a hand under a beer stained tee shirt scratched his belly energetically and then moved the hand down the front of his boxer shorts scratching with even more enthusiasm. He amplified his previous question with a follow up. “Who the fuck is that?”
Dale Tuxton, skill position player, the criminal mastermind and Darren’s brother answered.
“We, uh, got her…” He stopped not knowing exactly how to finish the sentence without having his big brother beat his ass.
“You got her?” Darren’s eyes moved to the others in the room. Stevie and Sam were seated close together on the small sofa, their huge bulk making the sofa seem even smaller. As he came more fully awake, Darren’s eyes narrowed and returned to his brother. “How’d you get her and what the fuck are these two doing here?”
“It w-was a robbery. We were…” Dale stammered knowing that the next words he spoke would determine whether his big brother gave him that ass whupping or not. He was too slow.
Darren took three steps across the room. His muscular arm shot out with surprising speed, jerking his brother to his feet. He looked around at the two seated on the sofa a warning in his eyes not to interfere. The warning was not necessary. Sam and Stevie had no intention of getting between the two brothers and were wishing they were downstairs in the old furniture van. It seemed like a perfectly good vehicle right about now.
“Robbery! What the fuck you know about robbery, you dumbass?” Holding his brother by the shirt, he pulled him close, his beer soaked breath leaving speckles of spit on the younger man’s face. “Who you rob, Dale? Who!”
Unable to recover his voice in the face of his brother’s anger, Dale only nodded at the girl.
“Her? You robbed her?” Releasing Dale’s collar he gave him a slight push backwards. “Then what the fuck she doin’ here you stupid shit. You fucking crazy, boy. You ain’t robbed nobody. You kidnapped a girl. That’s whole different shit.” He paused to let that sink in. “Big shit, Dale, very fucking big shit.”
The two stood looking at each other, one glaring and angry, the other with fear and realization building in his eyes. The look of fear didn’t last long though. Darren’s arm moved in an arc, striking Dale in the side of the head and knocking him to the floor.
“What you gonna do about it, boy?” Darren stood looking down at his brother who seemed even younger and smaller sitting cross-legged on the floor like he was in grade school.
“We thought you could help us?”
“Help! You are fucking crazy. Help you do what?” His eyes moved to the girl. She sat on the floor by a chair, duct tape around her mouth and head and around her wrists. Her brown eyes wide and staring, moving from one face to the other. He turned back to his brother. “And you brought her here! What you thinking boy?” He gave a s
lap to the side of Dale’s head. “You ain’t thinkin’, that’s what. You just one dumbass piece of shit.”
“I know you know how. Heard you talkin’, Darren.” Dale looked up, prepared for whatever his brother would dish out. “About sellin’ them.”
Darren’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned down close to his brother. “You talk to these two fat ass white boys about that?” His head turned towards the sofa. Sam and Stevie were immobile, eyes frozen on the floor. They could have been unhearing statues. But they weren’t. They heard everything and Darren knew it. “What you tell them, Dale. You say it now.”
“Told them how you take a girl and then these country boys come pick ‘em up and pay you.” He shrugged. “Didn’t know what else to do with the girl.”
“Leave her! That’s what you do, if you got a brain. You got any brains?”
“Couldn’t leave her.” Dale took a deep breath waiting for and expecting the worst of his brother’s next outburst. “Her boyfriend’s dead, got in the way. He got shot, and we couldn’t just leave her to tell about it.”
There was no outburst. Darren stepped back and slumped into the threadbare recliner chair across from the sofa. The girl was on the floor beside him.
“It don’t work like that, man. It don’t.” He closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side several times as if trying to clear away what was in front of him. When he opened them, everything was still the same. The two fat asses on the sofa staring at the floor, Dale on the floor cross-legged like some kid and the girl beside him on the floor, mouth and hands taped. Shit!
“It don’t work like that,” Darren repeated with a soft sigh and then explaining as if teaching a class in the abduction and trafficking of human beings he continued, “It’s like this. Go to a bar, a nice bar. Dress up nice too, you know, out to have a good time. Find the girl, that takes practice, but you learn. Slip her some liquid E, you know, Ecstasy. Get her out to my car then I meet these redneck boys from down in south Georgia. They pay. Next day the girl’s in the back of some truck headed south. No dead bodies for the cops to follow up on and she don’t remember shit. Not me, not the car, fuck not even the bar.” He looked at Dale, shaking his head again. “This is different, man.”
“You got to help us Darren. Please.”
Looking his brother in the eyes, he said, “Best thing would be to take her out in some woods somewhere and cap her. End it. No witnesses. She ain’t sayin’ nothin’ ‘bout her dead boyfriend.”
The girl on the floor whimpered through the duct tape. Darren looked down at her as if he had forgotten she was in the room. “Don’t worry. I ain’t no killer. Neither is he,” he said nodding at his brother. “And them two sure ain’t no killers,” he said looking at the oversized brothers on the sofa.
A minute went by in silence while Darren thought. No one interrupted. No one dared. Finally, he spoke. “Alright, we’ll do it. Don’t know why, except you’re my brother, ‘cause them redneck boys from down south liable to kill us just for bringing them this trouble.”
“Why they got to know? We just drug her like you do and leave her off with them. Right?”
“Right, except she gonna wake up some time and remember what happened to her boyfriend and talk. She ain’t been picked up in some bar. Too much has happened. She gonna remember and they just as likely to come lookin’ for us and put a bullet in our dumbasses.”
“So how we gonna do it?”
Darren leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. “Let me think. I’ll figure it out and take care of things.”
“How?”
“How the fuck do I know? Shut up and let me think.” He closed his eyes briefly and then opened them, staring at Sam and Stevie. “No one goes anywhere. Got that? We do the deal tonight and ‘til then everyone stays right here.”
“But, we…” Stevie’s mouth shut abruptly as Darren jumped from his chair and grabbed the boy by the collar.
“But nothing. You move or try to leave, and I will kill your fucking ass.”
“B-but you said you wasn’t no killer.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I don’t go around killin’ girls and shit. But you give me no choice, you make it so I might end up goin’ to Jackson to death row for your dumb fat ass and I will kill you dead as a motherfucker.” He put his face an inch from Stevie’s. “You believe that, boy?”
Stevie and Sam both nodded. They definitely believed it. Darren returned to the tattered recliner. He had to do some thinking.
19. Patient Men
The sixteen-mile ride from Piarco Airport into Port of Spain, Trinidad, was slow and steamy. The taxicab driver had the windows lowered slightly allowing a breeze to pass through the cab, even though it was supposedly air-conditioned. At ten degrees above the equator, about six hundred miles, Trinidad was more than tropical. The heat and humidity could be oppressive away from the beaches and sea breezes. Tampa was about three times further from the equator and Ramon Guzman could feel the difference. Removing the light suit jacket he had worn when boarding his flight in Tampa, he stared out the window patiently as the driver made his way through traffic.
Arriving at the Hyatt Regency on the waterfront, Guzman quickly checked in and went to his room, turning the air conditioner on full blast. He must be getting old. Heat never bothered him before. The Dominican Republic, at twenty-three degrees above the equator, was also tropically hot and steamy. The North Americans thought of Florida as too warm to visit in the summer. They had no idea what warm was.
He showered quickly and changed into light linen slacks and a thin cotton shirt, letting the air conditioner dry the mist of perspiration that coated his skin. The phone rang as he slipped on his loafers.
“A drink?” There were no introductions. The men knew each other well.
“Of course. Meet you in the Lobby Lounge.”
Walking through the lobby a few minutes later, Guzman took in the luxuriant surroundings and noted the contrast to the touristy mid-rate hotel the big, gringo redneck had booked for them in Clearwater Beach. But then, he had to admit, it had been a good place to conduct their business, out of the way, and the tourists too busy slathering on suntan lotion and ordering weak American beer or fruity cocktails to pay attention to their conversation.
Guzman approached the man seated in a settee in the lounge, extending his hand for a short, formal single-pump handshake, and took a seat across from him. The two sat separated by a small table and faced the magnificent view of the Gulf. A server approached in a crisp uniform and took their drink orders. The men watched her hips sway with appreciation as she walked to the bar.
“Espero que su viaje fue buena.” English being the official language of Trinidad, along with a mix of patois and dialects, the men spoke in Spanish, not as common on Trinidad as on many other Caribbean islands. It was not likely that anyone would have overheard them, or that overhearing would have cared or understood the nature of their conversation, but they were careful men. Their business and their enemies made them careful.
“Yes, yes. My trip was very good. And you? You arrived today?”
“This morning. I have been enjoying the local sights.” He smiled and nodded at a dark skinned young woman who seated herself at a table near the bar with a pale young man, a European. Smoothing her tight dress over her hips as she sat, she showed the kind of curves that made men dream of what lay under the silky cloth. No doubt, many men had attempted to discover the mysteries hidden there. Possibly, the pale young European would have a chance if he provided the proper motivation to the woman.
Guzman’s eyes followed and smiled in return. Waiting for their drinks, the conversation focused on women and the weather, but mostly on women. The server approached with a tray and two icy glasses dripping condensation. When she left with a smile, they got down to business.
“Do you trust the North American?” Eduardo Rivera was a Cuban national with an innate distrust of anything, or anyone, North American, meaning from the United States. Unlike his bus
iness partner from the Dominican Republic, he travelled to the States rarely and always under an assumed identity.
“I trust his greed,” Guzman replied. “He wants to grow richer. Doing business with us will make him richer.” Sipping his gin and tonic, he added. “It will make us richer, my friend.”
Rivera smiled. “Yes, it will. The next question is, does he trust us?”
Guzman thought for a moment. He knew America and Americans, had lived among them, ate with them, drank with them, slept with them. But this was a delicate matter. Much was at stake and the business they were in had its risks, some more deadly than others.
“I think…he desires to trust us.” He thought about that and then confirmed the thought, “Yes, he desires very much to trust us and to profit from our relationship.”
“Will his trust blind him to our plans?”
That was the question. If their plans were successful, Budroe would go away…permanently. It was critical that he did not suspect their intentions. Redneck that he was, Guzman knew well that Roy Budroe had the resources to become a very dangerous enemy. When they moved, it would be like lightning. Striking suddenly and without warning, their attack would eliminate Budroe like a bolt from the sky blowing the mast off one of the sailing ships on the horizon. They would then control the ship and its profits. Guzman smiled at the seagoing metaphor that had come to him, carrying it into his response to Rivera.
“He wants our market, our contacts. I believe that he will be blind to our other activities, like a ship sailing into rocky waters, tossed by a storm. He will not know the danger until we strike, and his ship is lost.”
“You seem very confident, Ramon.”
