The Black Palmetto

by Paul Carr

“Did you find Lora?” he asked, letting go of her neck and dropping his hand to his side.

  “Yeah, she’s okay. She was in a room in the back of the place. I left her waiting outside the building.”

  A muted whump whump of helicopter blades sounded off from the west. Sam stepped around the cabin to the stern and spotted the craft in the distance over Biscayne Bay.

  “We’d better get going. I think those guys are coming here.”

  Simone joined him. “What about the body?”

  “They’ll take care of it. Let’s go.”

  When they came back, J.T. said, “I got his wallet and phone. Might tell us something. He also had some keys.”

  “What about prints?” Simone asked.

  Sam tried to remember what he had touched. The guys in the chopper would probably get rid of Knox’s body and clean up the blood, but Sam didn’t want to get hauled in on a boat theft charge because of his prints. He hurried into the wheelhouse and wiped down the helm with his shirttail. Back outside, he didn’t see Harpo and asked about him.

  “I don’t know,” Simone said. “I guess he ran off.”

  J.T. stepped toward the door. “I’m going back inside for a look around the boat.”

  The helicopter noise had gotten louder. “We don’t have time for that,” Sam said. He gazed skyward. “Those guys in the chopper will be landing in a couple of minutes. Anyway, Knox wouldn’t have left that much money unguarded on the boat, and he didn’t have time to hide it just now with Harpo on his tail.”

  J.T. stopped and shook his head. “Yeah, guess so. We were so close.”

  When they got back to the building, Sam didn’t see Lora. “You think she went back inside?”

  Simone frowned. “No, there was a car out here. She must’ve driven away.”

  While wondering if he should check for her in the building, a thought hit him. “Did you ask her about the other guy that was here?”

  “Lockman? Yeah, I did, and she said he must have slipped out when Knox did.”

  “I didn’t see anybody else,” J.T. said.

  Sam could feel his heart pounding in his chest. The sense of dread had remained with him from the moment J.T. mentioned the new assassin on the scene. Now, it was worse than ever, and he thought he knew why.

  “Lora is Lockman.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Though Harpo hadn’t killed the man, he thought he had helped with the job. Now he needed to get out of there as fast as he could. If the police came, he would be the first one they would blame. Running through the woods, he came to a dirt driveway. As he stepped into it, a green car came roaring toward him, its tires throwing sand and gravel. He jumped back and fell to the ground as it passed. The driver glanced his way, but kept going. She looked like the woman from the newspaper office.

  He got up and dusted debris from his face and hair. The vehicle disappeared around a corner and he followed, hoping for a path away from the death. As he passed an area that seemed familiar, he remembered the encounter with the gun-toting man. Wondering if the guy might have died, he cut into the woods, but didn’t find him.

  Angling back toward the drive, he spotted a car snuggled into the undergrowth and stepped over to it. The driver’s door stood open, and the man he had cut with the machete sat slumped against the steering wheel. Touching his fingers against the man’s neck, he felt a pulse.

  What could he do? This went way beyond his medical training. There wouldn’t be any help from Dr. Worth, either. The signal had died when the bad guy slugged him on the boat. After a moment of deliberation, he went to the other side, opened the door, and dragged the wounded man over the console to the passenger seat. The guy landed upside down, his face jammed against the floor mat. Breathing hard from the effort, Harpo decided that was the best he could manage. He went back to the driver’s side, got in, and started the car.

  Though he had no idea as to his location, he thought he would try to find a hospital for the man. He backed out, drove about a hundred yards to the street, and took a left. A couple of minutes later he reached a highway and headed across a big bridge. The skyscrapers on the other side told him it had to be Miami.

  The traffic going across moved swiftly, but when he hit the top of the off-ramp, everything ground to a halt. He could see several vehicles with flashing lights a quarter-mile ahead. Three police cars, a fire truck, and two ambulances.

  A few minutes passed before anything moved. Then he saw the newspaper woman’s green car cut out of the line about twenty cars ahead and roll down the shoulder around the emergency vehicles. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of that himself, and did the same thing.

  He idled by a five-car pile-up. Steam rose from broken hoods, fluids covered the pavement, groups of people stood talking. EMTs carried an injured man on a stretcher. Another EMT stepped out of an ambulance carrying a bag. Harpo jammed the brakes and jumped out of the car. “Hey, Doc, hold up.”

  The man turned around. “What is it?”

  Harpo ran around to the passenger side, swung the door open. “This guy is in bad shape. I think he’s dying.”

  The man frowned. “Was he in the accident?”

  “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  Glancing back toward the wreckage, the EMT sighed and stepped over for a closer examination. He opened his bag and pulled out a stethoscope. “How did he get turned upside down?”

  Harpo didn’t answer, because he was already hurrying down the ramp on foot.

  ****

  “Isn’t that Harpo up ahead?” Simone asked.

  Sam took a quick look, the traffic now moving at a stop-and-go pace. “I think so.”

  “Maybe he can tell us what happened to Benetti.”

  As they drew even with the homeless man, Sam lowered the window. “Hey, Harpo, get in the car.”

  The homeless man turned, gave them a frown. “No, thank you.” He kept walking.

  Sam drove alongside. “Come on. You’re a long way from home.”

  He seemed to consider that for a moment then hurried over.

  When they got underway again, J.T. said, “I can’t find the woman on the monitor. Knox must’ve removed her transmitter before he left for the boat.”

  Sam sighed. “He probably knew exactly where to cut.”

  “Yeah,” J.T. said, “thanks to your sharpshooting.”

  Sam tuned out the sarcasm. He’d felt bad about losing that connection to Knox, but he felt even worse about Lora Diamond. She had played him, zeroed in on him that first night, and he’d never had a clue. Too busy trying to play her. Though she hadn’t done anything harmful to him, that he knew of, she had probably fed Knox information about what they were doing and maybe caused them to take some wrong turns. Thinking back, though, he didn’t think he’d given her much, primarily so it wouldn’t hit the news. He couldn’t help but remember the morning on his boat when he had almost kissed her. How good she looked. The attraction.

  “Hey, wake up,” Simone said, “the cars are moving again.”

  Horns honked behind him. He pressed the accelerator and closed the distance to the next bumper.

  It had been a surprise when Knox said he didn’t have the money with him. They thought he was making his getaway. If he knew they were following, maybe he wanted to lead them away from the money, and double back later when the coast cleared.

  Simone turned in her seat and said to Harpo, “Did you see another man back there, before you got on the boat?”

  Harpo told her what had happened with the machete. “He was unconscious in his car when I came through there again, and I took him to one of the ambulances back there.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb in the direction of the wreckage behind them.

  She said to Sam, “We can probably find him in one of the hospitals.”

  J.T. spoke up from the back seat. “There’s a note in Knox’s wallet with two sets of numbers on it. One looks like a combination to a safe. The other might be a security system code. If only we knew w
here to go.”

  Same sarcastic tone. Sam had had about enough of the attitude. He turned and glanced at J.T. in the back seat. One more remark and he would be on the street. Sam’s frown must have said it all. J.T.’s eyes got large for a split second then he averted his gaze to the computer and started clicking keys.

  When they reached the I-95 interchange, Sam took the on-ramp leading to South Dixie Highway.

  “Where are you headed?” Simone asked.

  “Iguana Key. We can drop Harpo off and get the cars, but I also have an idea about where Knox might have stashed the money.”

  “What about Benetti?”

  “He’ll be there when we get back. ER always takes a while, and they might admit him if he’s lost a lot of blood.”

  ****

  Two hours later they rolled onto Big Pine Key and headed toward the house owned by Knox’s mother, Eva Crowne, the movie star. It had appeared vacant at the time, and Sam hoped Eva would still be away, maybe sunning herself in the south of France.

  Sam turned into the driveway of the house with the For Sale sign in the yard, where they had parked before. J.T. got latex gloves from Sam’s bag and they put them on. Leaving Harpo in the car, they got out, hurried past shrubs to the back yard, and crossed the next property to Eva’s place.

  When they reached the rear door, J.T. took out Knox’s keys. There were four of them, and two fit the deadbolt and the knob.

  J.T. turned to Sam. “Good guess, buddy. This is the place.” His eyes took on a glow that Sam had seen before.

  They pushed through to a small utility room and closed the door behind them. An alarm system hung from the wall. The digital display flashed the words “Enter Security Code.”

  “I’ll try the code on the note,” J.T. whispered. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and began punching numbers on the keypad. When he finished, the display stopped flashing and changed to “System Armed.”

  They split up. J.T. thought a safe might be in the den and headed toward the rear of the house. Simone said she’d check the bedrooms, and Sam took the living room.

  Paintings hung from the walls. They looked like originals, primarily Gaugins and Van Goghs, but other classics, as well. Sam thought he would check behind the paintings for the safe, but he noticed an entryway to a library off the east side of the room. He decided to check in there first and eased over to the door, but heard a noise before entering and stopped. It sounded like rats scratching through newspaper, but he didn’t think it was rats at all. In the back of his mind he knew what might be there.

  Sam turned into the room, leading with his 9mm. The woman he knew as Lora Diamond crouched on one knee in front of a safe. She grabbed a handgun and jerked it around toward him. Dark circles framed her eyes, but she still looked beautiful. A large attaché case lay open next to her knee.

  Something gnawed inside Sam’s chest. “You planning to shoot me?” Sam asked.

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t shoot you.” Her eyes widened.

  Sure she wouldn’t. “Then, drop the gun.”

  She hesitated for a moment. “Sorry, I can’t do that. I worked on this job for months. I can’t just walk away from the money.”

  “Hard to picture you as an assassin with the Black Palmetto.” He didn’t know why he had said that. She had a gun pointed at him, and she probably knew how to use it.

  “I wasn’t. They recruited me because I killed a man. But I had a good reason, and I got out of the program as soon as I could. Check the records. Knox found me and asked me to help set up a con. I didn’t know he was going on a killing spree. I had nothing to do with that. You have to believe me.”

  “What about Jake Bell? You had dinner with him right before he died.”

  “Knox gave Jake a hard time a few weeks ago when he got in a scrape over a girl. Then, the night before you arrived, he saw Knox beating up Benetti in Chopin’s parking lot. When you showed up, he told me he was going to do something to get Knox in trouble. He didn’t realize Knox saw him that night, too, and was following him. I didn’t know he was going to kill him.”

  Sam wanted to believe her, but in the back of his mind he knew he couldn’t. She had helped Knox and probably needed to die, too.

  Something in his eyes must have told her what he was thinking.

  “I tried to protect you,” she blurted. “I made sure Ford kept you out of jail. Knox would’ve killed you in there.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Look, I only have half the money here. Let me leave and you take the rest.”

  “How much is there?”

  She turned her case so he could see inside. “I counted five-hundred-and-ten thousand as I took it out. There’s at least that much left in the safe.”

  The volume of the stacks in both places did appear to be about the same. “That would be only a million. It should be two.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Knox thought. Boozler must have spent the rest.”

  “Knox give you the combination?”

  A hint of a smile leaked into her eyes. “No. I got it from his wallet while he slept. He’d planned to give me a cut, but I saw what happened to him on the boat and figured I’d better get down here.”

  She closed the case, snapped the locks, and stood. “Maybe we can talk about this sometime, but right now I’m leaving, and I hope you won’t try to stop me.” Still pointing her handgun at Sam, she backed toward a door at the other end of the room.

  Sam’s heart raced as his finger tightened on the trigger. He said, “You’re not going anywhere.”

  She just dropped the gun to her side, gave him a beautiful smile, and sidestepped through the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  J.T. peered inside the safe, turned to Sam, and frowned. “You let her go?”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, I wasn’t going to shoot her for the money.”

  Simone didn’t say anything. She just stared at him, a wan smile on her face.

  “She helped Knox, though,” J.T. said, “and maybe killed some of those people.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Shaking his head, J.T. said, “She gave you a sob story, and you believed it. Man, you’ll never learn.”

  The house phone rang. Sam stepped over to it and saw the name of a security company on the display. The security system had sent an alarm when Lora went out.

  “We need to deactivate the security system.” He turned to Simone. “Answer the phone and tell them you forgot about the system when you stepped outside. Say you’re entering the code now.”

  J.T. thrust his hand in his pocket and pulled out the note with the code.

  “She went out this way,” Sam said, heading toward the door. It led to a small hallway that exited to a garden on the side. The alarm box hung next to the door.

  J.T. punched in the code as he had done before.

  Back in the library, Simone hung up the phone. “They might’ve believed me, but I bet they’ll come by here anyway. We have to get going.”

  “Get a bag,” J.T. said as he turned to the safe.

  Sam got two plastic trash bags from the kitchen and lined one with the other. When he returned, J.T. had put the cash on the floor in a neat pile and closed the safe.

  “There’s almost six-hundred thousand.”

  They stuffed the money into the bag and headed for the back door.

  Outside, Sam peeked around the corner of the house to the street. A security car slowed and turned into the driveway. A lone officer got out, pulled a key from his pocket, and headed toward the front door. When he got past their view, the three ran across to the next yard and retraced their steps from before.

  Back in the car, they didn’t see Harpo. J.T. opened the back door and the homeless man awoke and sat up.

  Sam started the engine and backed out. As they rode away, Sam glanced at his rear view mirror and saw the security man getting back in his vehicle. He might have been surprised that the woman who answered the phone had already left, but he wouldn’t hav
e found anything out of order inside.

  About thirty minutes later, Sam turned onto Iguana Key and headed toward the place Harpo had left the hearse. He had been quiet since they’d questioned him about Benetti, but when they pulled in beside the maroon behemoth, he said, “Guess I’ll have to turn the hearse in, now. Mr. Tim wouldn’t want me to keep it, if he was alive. Have to respect the dead.”

  Before he got out, Simone said, “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to get another job. There’s a woman I want to go back to when I get some money to pay my way. She saved my life.”

  She gave Sam a pained expression, then reached over the seat into the bag next to J.T. and pulled out two stacks of the cash. “Here you go. This should last you for a while.”

  Harpo’s eyes lit up even brighter than the night before when he’d retrieved the gallon of homemade wine from the cabin. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice breaking. “Is that real money?”

  “Yes, it’s real. Take it.”

  He hesitated, glanced down at his clothes. “I’ll need to go to the funeral home and clean up, maybe borrow a burial suit from Mr. Tim’s stock. If I try to spend hundred dollar bills looking like this, they’ll haul me off for sure.”

  Harpo took the cash and thanked her profusely. He got out and hurried to the hearse, a skip in his step.

  Sam drove on to Ford’s cabin. When he finished loading the car and was about to get into the driver’s seat, a man stepped out of the woods. He pointed a handgun at Sam’s head. Simone stood on the passenger side. J.T. had just come out of the house with his bags, lagging behind. Everyone froze.

  “Going somewhere?” the man asked.

  He seemed familiar in his suit and tie. Then it came to Sam: the guy with the pet iguana. Edison.

  J.T. started moving to the side, and the man in the suit turned the gun on him.

  “Stop where you are. I won’t hesitate to shoot.”

  J.T. stopped and dropped his bags on the ground. Sam’s gun was stowed under the driver’s seat. He wondered if J.T. had his with him. Simone usually had hers in a holster at the small of her back, but since they thought everything was smooth sailing, they had all relaxed.