The Black Palmetto

by Paul Carr

  Morton Bell thundered in through his door. “What's wrong with you, Rich? Your brain going soft like these other idiots around here?”

  A hammer pounded behind the chief's eyes.

  “What's the problem, Mort?”

  “Why'd you let that murderer go? Jake is stone-cold dead, and that killer is running free to do whatever he pleases. I want you to arrest him, right now!”

  “Sorry Mort, I can't do that. I don't think he killed your son.”

  “Well, nobody around here would've done it, and he spoke with Jake no more than an hour before…” His mouth twisted out of shape and tears ran down his cheeks. He mopped them with the backs of his hands.

  “I know you're upset, and you have a right to be. But the prosecutor decided we don't have enough evidence to convict. We'd be wasting our time, while the real killer is still out there.”

  “Okay, fine. If you won't lock him up for me, let's see if you’ll do it for the mayor.”

  The older man stormed out and down the hall. Boozler didn't like the sound of that. He got along just fine with the mayor, but he also knew the man was defenseless when it came to Morton Bell.

  Bell had spread enough money around Iguana Key to get the mayor elected, and he had become the best puppet imaginable. Though Bell didn't call on him often, when he did, he expected attention.

  Within ten minutes Morton came marching back past his door, a sneer on his face, and stomped out of the building. Then, just about the time Boozler expected the mayor, Charles Ford came in. He hadn't even heard the door open again. Ford entered the office without saying a word and sat down.

  “Well, if it isn't Mr. Personality,” the chief said. “What do you want?”

  Ford stared for several beats. “Has the mayor been in yet?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know precisely what I'm talking about. I just saw Morty leaving.”

  The chief thought about it before responding. “No, he hasn't. What does―”

  “Splendid, it will save you some measure of face to not have to reverse a moronic decision.”

  “You're representing Mackenzie?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am. So just turn Meyer down and be firm. It will be considerably less painful for you both in the long run.”

  “Why would I do that for you?”

  Ford leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. A couple of beats passed. The corners of his mouth seemed to turn up, as if in a smile, Boozler wasn’t sure.

  “Perhaps the voters would like to know how a public servant could afford a Range Rover.”

  The blood pulsed past Boozler's ears like noisy windshield wipers. His head felt as if it might pop. This creep had coerced him into releasing a suspect for the John Doe murder two months ago, and now he might get away with it again. Did he know where the money came from, or was he just bluffing?

  Boozler took a deep breath and sighed. “What about Morton?”

  “What about him? He can take a hike.”

  “You are a ruthless bloodsucker.”

  Ford nodded. “I'm glad we understand each other.”

  “What if Mackenzie is guilty? Wouldn't that make you feel bad?”

  The little man’s right eye twitched. “Nice try. I suspect any number of jealous husbands would like to have Jake's genitals bronzed and displayed on their mantels.”

  “That’s dangerous talk. If Morton heard you make a statement like that, there's no telling what he might do. And no jury around here would convict him, either.”

  Ford chuckled. “The day I'm afraid of a rich redneck like Morton Bell is the day I'll tear down my shingle. I'm leaving now, and I suggest you do the same.”

  Though Boozler made no comment as the lawyer left the room, he had to agree. It would be easiest if he couldn't be found. He stood and kicked the wall on his way out, bursting a hole in the thin wood panel.

  ****

  The little shack sat about fifty feet from the bend in the waterway. Harpo Crumm lay on the floor atop a blanket, inching his way back from death's door. He dreamed of people with flowing robes, and angels, everything bright and sunny, in living color.

  He found himself quoting Bible verses he’d never read, and witnessed strange visions. The woman who owned the shack said it was because of the fever and pain. But part of it was because of the voices in his head. Voices that told about things that happened somewhere around the beginning of time. But they also told the news and weather, advertised a new club on South Beach, and urged him to vote for some guy he'd never heard of running for Dade County Commission.

  After rolling out the door of the exploding hearse, Harpo had floated to the bank of the Sound with his arms wrapped tightly around a piece of a dead tree. The little boy had found him, and he and his mother had pulled Harpo out of the water and dragged him into the shack. He didn't know why he remained with the living, instead of shoveling coal down below, but here he was, and he thought it might be a sign.

  Salt water had washed away most of the blood, but he had an ugly gash on his chest where the bullet had ricocheted off the little radio in his shirt pocket. He also had an inflamed knot on one side of his forehead with a piece of metal sticking out of it. The woman said it looked a lot like the tip of the antenna on the portable radio she had in her kitchen, only smaller. She wanted to take him to a hospital to get it out. Alas, she didn’t have transportation or a phone.

  Few people knew Harpo Crumm had been a hospital corpsman with the military in an earlier life. He had almost forgotten it himself. But he remembered just long enough to tell the woman he needed antibiotics if she could find some. She left on foot and came back several hours later carrying a pint jar full of capsules the size of jumbo jellybeans. The label prescribed the medicine for someone named Heifer. The pills weren't a flavor of antibiotic Harpo recognized, but they would have to do. He took double the prescribed dose, and for the next twenty-four hours his head simmered and buzzed, while the tunes and visions just kept on playing.

  Chapter Ten

  Boozler drove around for a few minutes, thinking about Morton Bell. The old guy would get what he wanted, one way or another, but he wouldn't get it tonight. They had always been adversaries, primarily because of their first meeting. As a teen, Rich had come down from Miami to a June bash held at the Bell estate. Mitzi, Morton's only daughter, had invited him. Though he'd seen her at the beach a few times, they'd never actually been on a date. With hair the color of honey, blue eyes that would cause a compass to go haywire, and a body that drew ogles from every boy on the beach, he assumed she was out of his league.

  About an hour into the party, Mitzi pulled him aside and asked if he wanted to walk on the beach. He’d said yes, of course. They each left the crowd, going in different directions, and he met in her backyard. After stepping into the sand, away from the lights and noise inside, she took him by surprise with a kiss. The kiss, and what followed, led him to believe she had more experience than he had thought. Certainly more than he had.

  Five minutes later, they lay half clothed in the sand. Then old Morty stepped through the dunes with a flashlight and started yelling. He grabbed Boozler by the ankle and dragged him through the sand and shells for what seemed like a hundred yards, cursing the entire time. For days after that, Boozler suffered from scratches and scrapes on various parts of his body.

  Mitzi went off to boarding school the following week, and the next time Boozler saw her was at Christmas, when she came home for the holidays. He had thought of little else for those months, and the minute he heard she was home, he drove down the Overseas Highway and rode by her house. It appeared her parents were away, and he wanted to surprise her. But when she opened the door, he was the one who got the surprise. She seemed different, not as pretty as he'd remembered, and she frowned when she saw him. The reason became clear when a grown man peeked around the corner.

  “What is it, Mits?” the guy asked.

  “Oh, just some kid.”

 
Rich was crushed. He thought he might never get over it, but like other things, that feeling soon passed.

  In the years since, he and Morton had spoken few words to each other.

  Boozler checked his watch. 7:00 p.m., just enough time. He turned down a county road lined with scrub and live oaks and came to a frame house on a shaded lot. Ellen, a striking woman of forty, met him at the door. She had been seeing him for a year or so, and since she had already been married and divorced a couple of times, she didn't want to try again. That suited him just fine, since he already had a wife.

  “Get in here, you big lug. I've been wondering when you’d be back. It's been a week now.”

  Twenty minutes later, Boozler lay back and rested his head on the soft pillow, listening to his own pulse in his ears, savoring the sweet exhaustion. His eyelids felt as if connected to lead weights, and his consciousness slipped away.

  “Did you get it done or not?” the man asked.

  They had just sat down at the private table in the corner of the restaurant and ordered drinks. Boozler didn't like the man's tone, but being a rookie cop, he knew he had to watch what he said.

  “Yeah, I did it.”

  “You wear gloves?” Concern pinched at the corners of the man's eyes.

  “Of course. I know what I'm doing.”

  The man took a deep breath and let it out, now relaxed. “Yes, I suppose you do.”

  Drinks arrived, and Boozler took a long pull from the glass in front of him. “Now, let's talk about what you're going to do for me,” Boozler said.

  The man's eyes changed as he peered at something over Boozler's shoulder. When he turned in his seat, another face glared down at him. A young man, no more than twenty-years-old, but his eyes seemed much older.

  “Here's what we're going to do for you,” the new person said. Then he pulled a gun from his pocket and rammed it into Boozler's ear.

  Boozler sprang upright in Ellen's bed, his face dripping with sweat.

  “What's wrong Rich?” Sleep slurred her speech. “You have a bad dream?”

  Boozler stared at her for several beats, then jumped off the bed and put on his clothes.

  “Rich?”

  “I've got to go,” he said, maybe more to himself than to Ellen.

  “But what's wrong?”

  He ran out of the house without speaking again, started the car, and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The tires screeched as the cruiser left the driveway and entered the blacktop.

  ****

  After searching the roads of Iguana Key for more than an hour, searching for Sean Spanner's car, Sam and Simone had given up and driven to a seafood grill on the beach of Sugarloaf Key. She ordered a shrimp salad with mineral water, and he chose a grilled snapper sandwich and a beer. They both had coffee after the meal. As the waiter brought the check, the phone chirped in Sam's pocket. He took it out and looked at the display. J.T.

  “The Black Palmetto stuff I mentioned earlier might have something to do with your guy after all,” J.T. said.

  “What did you find?”

  “Spanner's a fake. The information on his job application at the research center belongs to a real person in Scranton, P.A. who went missing about the time your guy came on the scene.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I called all the Spanner numbers in Scranton until I found a brother. He said Sean hasn't been seen since leaving his job a few months ago. The police haven't been able to find a trail.”

  “You think our Spanner killed him?”

  “Yeah, maybe. It's the kind of thing an assassin might do if he needed a solid identity.”

  “Which means he got himself hired at the research facility so he could steal something. Anything else?”

  “Not much. I did get in touch with a dude who knew one of the operatives back when the Palmetto was piling up the kills. He said the operation fell apart when two of the operatives went nuts and killed everybody in charge. It was at a place somewhere close to Homestead.”

  Huh. Maybe the same place as the research facility. Simone hadn't mentioned that.

  “My source also said somebody in Congress had a hand in organizing the group, but he didn't know who.”

  “That might be important. See if you can find out who it is.”

  “Yeah, I planned to do that.” J.T. paused for a moment. “Sounds like you could use me down there. I can research this stuff from anywhere, and leaving here might get me off the Fed’s scope for a few days. You know how it is.”

  Sam had mentioned the money Spanner had taken, and J.T. probably thought it would be up for grabs. The money wouldn't matter one way or another if they didn't find it, and they hadn't made much headway. Zeroing in on the cash might lead them to Spanner. Maybe they needed some greed stirred into the pot. If it turned out that the Palmetto group had something to do with this, he might need some extra firepower, and J.T. could handle a gun as well as anyone he knew. Simone wouldn't like it, though. He glanced at her and she shook her head. Could she hear J.T.’s voice from across the table?

  She reached and tapped him on the wrist. “Don't do it.”

  Guess she could, or could read his mind.

  Averting his eyes, Sam said, “Yeah, come on down.” He told J.T. where they were staying, closed the phone, and relayed the conversation.

  Simone listened, her arms crossed, eyes narrowed. When he finished, she said, “I warned you about him. If this blows up in our face, you're going to be sorry.”

  Maybe she was angry, or maybe she just didn't want to talk about the Black Palmetto.

  “This Palmetto business keeps coming up. Why didn't you tell me about their site being in Homestead?”

  Shrugging, she said, “What does that have to do with what's going on here?”

  “It might have a lot to do with it. If that facility had records lying around that named names in an illegal assassination activity, maybe Spanner took them and tried to use them to blackmail somebody in Iguana Key.”

  Shaking her head, Simone said, “There weren't any records lying around. I told you, we got rid of everything.”

  “Maybe you missed something.”

  “No, we got everything. Computers, servers, books, papers. We torched them inside a government van, then crushed it and dropped the burned metal block in a hole where no one will ever discover it.”

  Sam stared for a moment. “Is the research facility where the Black Palmetto was?”

  She sighed. “It's in the same building.”

  The Palmetto angle sounded more and more plausible.

  “What if somebody had another set of books locked away off site, for protection in case something like this happened?”

  At first she smirked, but then seemed to remember something. Sam could see the gears turning in her head.

  “You know, we grilled the people who worked there and turned up a few things they’d taken home, but there was this one guy who had left a month or so earlier. A psychiatrist. We never talked to him. But if he did have something, I don’t know how it could have gotten back into the research facility for Spanner to steal.”

  ****

  Sam felt sure he had locked the motel door when they'd left, but it now hung ajar. He put his finger to his lips and then pointed at it. With their guns at the ready, he reached inside, flipped the light switch, and kicked the door open. A body lay on the floor next to the far wall. Stepping inside, he scanned the rest of the room, and then eased past the body to the bathroom. His pulse pounded in his ears as he leaned around the corner of the jamb. Nobody there.

  “It's clear,” he said, returning to the bedroom where Simone knelt over the body.

  “You have some gloves?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll get them.”

  Stepping outside, he scanned the parking lot for any signs of life. A calico cat lay in a clump of palmetto, chewing on a dead chipmunk. The cat stopped, peered up at him and bared its teeth, as if to say, This is mine, man. You get your own.

&
nbsp; He got the gloves and stretched on two of them. Back inside, he closed the door and handed a pair to Simone.

  It appeared that the man had died quickly. All the blood seemed to be contained on the front of his shirt. A shotgun lay close to his fingers, and a designer ball cap sat askew atop his head. Sam picked up the gun and smelled the end of the barrel. It hadn’t been fired recently.

  “His name is Morton Bell,” Simone said, examining the dead man’s driver’s license. “Maybe he's Jake Bell's father. He smells like booze. Probably got drunk and came here to kill you.”

  “Yeah. Somebody else must’ve had the same idea and was waiting here. He opened the door, came into the dark room, and the killer mistook him for me.”

  Standing up, Simone said, “You're a popular guy.”

  “Yeah, right. I wonder how they got in.”

  “Somebody could have called that clown at the desk and offered him some money to leave it open. He would have done it.”

  “We can't call the cops,” Sam said.

  Simone’s eyes widened. “No, they’d haul you off, for sure.”

  She made two drinks from what remained of the gin and tonic and handed him one.

  Sam took a swallow and set the glass down. “I'll check outside for his vehicle. Any keys in his pocket?”

  “Maybe. Hold on.” She pulled a set of keys from his right-hand pocket. One had a Mercedes emblem on it.

  After scanning over the few vehicles in the lot, Sam spotted the car on the street. Seeing no security cameras in the area, he stepped over to the Mercedes, got inside, and drove it to their motel room door. A large plastic drop cloth lay on the other bucket seat. More evidence that Bell had come there to kill him.

  He tore open the drop cloth package, spread the plastic over the passenger seat, and popped the right-side door. Back inside, he took the cap off Bell's head and put it on his own.

  “You like the dead man’s cap?” Simone asked.

  “Somebody might see me driving his car, and maybe they'll think it's him.”

  Glancing at the plump body, Simone said, “Fat chance of that.”

  They carried Bell's body out to the car, wrapped the plastic around him, and positioned him so he would ride low in the passenger seat. Sam buckled him in. The trunk would have been a better place for transport, but it would complicate Sam’s plans for later. Simone brought out the shotgun, and he propped it against the center console, its barrel tip on the floor at Bell's feet.