Fallen Hero: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 10)

by Wayne Stinnett

  Not that it mattered. I knew he hadn’t killed anyone—at least nobody that didn’t deserve it. He was a friend, and I was determined to find out who the killer was.

  I’d thought about Deuce’s plan after going to bed. Him opening a private security company was bound to be a success. Having Tony and Chyrel onboard was a good start. But none of us were investigators. And it sounded like we were about to start a private investigation. I doubted if Deuce even had a license yet, but, he still carried the badge, and under Stockwell the Caribbean Counter-terrorism Command had been transformed into more of a police agency.

  “You awake?” I heard Deuce call from outside.

  I opened the hatch to the cockpit and he came aboard, Finn right behind him. “Waiting for the coffee,” I said and went back to the galley.

  Deuce sat down on the sofa, with his own coffee mug. “I can come back later. When you’re alive.”

  “He still grumpy before the first cup?” Billy asked stepping up into the salon.

  Before the machine finished, I poured a cup and took the first sip. Rusty gets this really good coffee that’s grown in the mountains of Costa Rica, and he shares some of it with me. The Hacienda la Minita Tarrazu is my favorite. I took another sip and set the mug down on the countertop.

  “You talk to Travis?” I asked Deuce, as Billy poured himself a cup.

  “Yeah, he already knows my plan to start a security agency, and he’s not only good with it, but he said he discussed it with the Secretary and there may be an occasional job coming from the government, a security detail for VIPs visiting Miami, things like that. I won’t be holding my breath, but he said he’d call the sheriff this morning.”

  “What’s he gonna tell him?” I asked. “That the Feds are taking over his murder case?”

  “I might have mentioned that the murders most likely took place in waters that fall under federal jurisdiction.”

  “Now, that’d be a reach,” I said. “Sure, maybe the FBI would get involved. But Homeland Security?”

  “The sheriff kinda likes us,” Deuce replied. “Remember, we brought down a fugitive killer on the streets of Key West not long ago.”

  “Fugitive killer, he says,” I said to Billy. “A hired assassin that was after me and him, is more like it.”

  Just then, Deuce’s phone chirped and he pulled it out of his pocket. He answered and listened for a moment. Then he said, “Thank you, Sheriff. We definitely won’t get in the way of the investigation and I promise that anything we uncover; we’ll report right away.”

  He listened for a moment more, then said goodbye and ended the call. “The director called the sheriff. We have a meeting with the local medical examiner in an hour. Both bodies are at the morgue, here in Marathon.”

  “Doc Fredric? You’ll like him.”

  “You know the ME?” Deuce asked. “Why does this not surprise me? How far is it?”

  “Just over on Grassy Key,” I replied. “About ten minutes.”

  “Mind if I tag along?” Billy asked.

  Billy and Deuce had gotten to know each other last night and, just as I figured, they’d become friends. “Sure,” Deuce replied.

  “We have a little time,” I said. “Let’s go up to the bar and get some breakfast.”

  Less than an hour later, bellies full of shrimp omelets and grits, we started out to the parking lot. I told Finn to go back to the boat and stay there. He dutifully complied, but the look on his face wasn’t happy.

  “We can take Julie’s car,” Deuce said, then stopped in his tracks and looked at me. “I mean, if you’re okay with it.”

  “It’s just a car, Deuce,” I replied.

  But it was anything but that. I opened the passenger door of the bright yellow Jeep Cherokee and got in. I hadn’t been in Alex’s car in three years. My mind flashed back to the first time I’d sat in this seat. My truck had broken down on the side of the road in a pouring rain. Alex stopped and offered a ride. I remember that I’d hardly recognized her that day. I’d seen her around quite a few times, and she’d always been dressed as a fishing guide, with her hair hanging out of a fishing hat in a ponytail. On the day we actually met, I was up to my elbows in dirt and grease, and totally drenched from the rain She’d been wearing a floral print dress and had styled her hair a little.

  The others got in and Deuce started the Jeep, snapping me out of it.

  It’s just a car, I told myself.

  When we arrived at the medical examiner’s office, Doc Fredric met us at the reception desk. I introduced everyone, and Doc had us sign in, then escorted us back to the morgue.

  “Billy Rainwater?” Doc said, as he punched a keypad beside a large metal door. “Are you related to Leaping Panther Rainwater?”

  “He’s my father,” Billy replied. “Did you know him?”

  “Not exactly,” Doc said, as the door made a whooshing sound and opened slightly. He pushed it open and entered, waving us inside. “You favor him quite a bit. No, I met Leaping Panther a few times professionally.”

  “Professionally?”

  Doc chuckled. “His profession, not mine. Your father was the best Everglades tracker and guide there was. I was saddened to hear about the accident and his condition afterwards. I guess you’re the leader of the Calusa people now?”

  “Yes,” Billy replied, humbly. There weren’t many people left with any Calusa blood, but being three quarters and the son of the chieftain automatically made Billy the leader.

  Doc led us to what looked like several large stainless steel refrigerators joined together. “The sheriff called me this morning, Agent Livingston. He asked that I bring you up to speed on the investigation from my end and his detectives would meet with you later today to tell you what they’ve uncovered. I’m just at a loss as to what Homeland Security’s interest is in this case.”

  “Just the over-reaching hand of the government,” Deuce replied, with a grin, clearly liking the old man immediately. “Actually, it’s more personal, Doc. A friend of Agent McDermitt’s is currently a suspect in these murders.”

  “Agent McDermitt?” Doc said, looking over at me. “Somehow, I always thought that to be the case.”

  Doc opened one of the doors and pulled a long tray out. On it was a body, covered with a sheet. He pulled back the sheet to the man’s chest. “Victim one is a young man from Ramrod Key, positively identified as James Isaksson. He was shot once in the forehead at close range.”

  “He’s a salvage operator,” I said. “Lawrence approached me over a month ago to go treasure hunting. I declined, and then I heard that he’d hired James.”

  “Did you know him?” Doc asked.

  “Only by reputation and to say hi,” I replied. “He and his dad are—or were—good and decent people.”

  Doc opened another door and pulled the tray out. A woman’s body was outlined under the sheet. “This might be difficult for you,” he said, and pulled the sheet down to just below the woman’s shoulders. “Victim two is a waitress and bartender down in Key West. She’s been identified as Jennifer Marshall, originally from Galveston, Texas. She’s lived in Key West for just under two years.”

  The woman’s face was battered severely on one side. So much so that her left eye and a lot of skin and tissue was missing. The right side of her face was fairly undamaged. She’d obviously been a very beautiful young woman.

  “Miss Marshall’s official cause of death is drowning. But she would likely not have survived the trauma inflicted.”

  “Any evidence recovered with either body?” Deuce asked.

  “Yes,” Doc replied. “Not so much with Mister Isaksson. The bullet I removed from his cranium has striations consistent with a Colt .38 caliber Cobra.”

  Nodding toward the woman’s body, Doc said, “I found quite a bit more evidence with Miss Marshall. She was forcibly drowned. There were traces of sea water and microscopic plant life found in her lungs. I’ve been able to determine that the killer is a large man and quite strong. He grabbed Miss
Marshall from behind while she was scuba diving. He ripped the second stage of her regulator from her mouth, loosening a number of teeth and dislodging one. While holding her tightly in a bear hug, he fractured her right humerus.”

  “Takes a lot of strength to do that,” I said.

  “Quite,” Doc replied. “She put up a good fight, though. I recovered blood and hair samples from under the fingernails of her left hand. We haven’t yet received the DNA results on those. There was biological material in the form of semen recovered from a vaginal swab and more biological material—microscopic plant life—in her mouth, throat, and lungs.”

  “She was raped and drowned?” Billy said.

  “I’m afraid not,” Doc replied and pulled the cover back up over her face. “Miss Marshall was drowned and then her body was violated.”

  “That’s a special kind of fucking sick,” Billy mumbled.

  “I see you inherited your father’s propensity for subtlety,” Doc said, with a wry grin.

  “What about the skin and hair?” I asked. “You don’t have any DNA report yet, but can you tell anything else from those?”

  “Yes, quite a bit,” Doc replied. “The blood type is O-positive. Miss Marshall was A-negative. Basically, there are only three types of human head hair: European, African, and Asian. The hair samples under Miss Marshall’s fingernails came from a person of European descent, with curly black hair, a powerful physique, and type O-positive blood.”

  “Did you say European? Not African?”

  “Definitely European,” Doc replied. “But that’s the majority of the people in this country.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “But it totally rules out Lawrence.”

  “Who is Lawrence?”

  “He’s a black taxi driver in Key West,” I said. “A friend of mine. The detectives down there are holding him as a suspect.”

  “Oh, my,” Doc said. “I don’t think I’d examined the hair sample when I gave Lieutenant Morgan the autopsy findings. Only that it was black and curly. Are you on your way down there now?”

  “We are,” Deuce replied. “Can you relay that finding to the detective in charge of the investigation?”

  “I certainly will,” Doc said.

  We left the morgue and decided to go straight to Key West. Though it was normally only a forty or fifty-minute drive, we were hit with a blinding squall halfway across the Seven Mile Bridge, and again on Summerland Key. Both of them had traffic slowed to a crawl, so it was noon when we finally crossed the bridge onto Stock Island. I directed Deuce to the sheriff’s main office, and we parked and got out.

  “The ME said the lead detective is a guy named Ben Morgan,” Deuce said. “Why is that name familiar?”

  “You probably read it in a report,” I replied, as we walked along the sidewalk. “He was the cop that investigated the shooting at Key West Bight. The one that me, Travis, Scott, and Germ were involved in.” Scott Grayson and Jeremiah “Germ” Simpson were also members of Deuce’s team. Both were Marine Combat Divers, and were planning to return to their units.

  “You’ve been busy, Kemosabe,” Billy said with a grin. “Done gone off the reservation.”

  We both laughed at our inside boyhood joke. Whenever one of us had gotten mad about something, that was what we’d called it: Going off the reservation.

  Once we were inside the building, Deuce flashed his badge at the desk sergeant and asked to speak with Lieutenant Ben Morgan. “He should be expecting us.”

  “He and his partner just returned from executing a search warrant and are in interrogation. You’ll have to wait.”

  “Does the suspect have an attorney present?” Billy asked.

  “I never said he was a suspect.”

  “But you did say he was in an interrogation room,” Deuce said, picking up on Billy’s hint. “Not being interviewed.”

  The desk sergeant dismissed it, waving his hand like he was after a fly. “He hasn’t asked for one.” He pointed to a long bench seat against the wall. “You can wait over there, or come back later. The lieutenant doesn’t like being interrupted.”

  “Interrupt him,” Billy said. “Tell him that his suspect’s counsel is here.”

  “You’re a lawyer?” the sergeant asked.

  “Yes,” Billy replied. “My client may not be aware of his rights. Please inform the lieutenant that he needs to stop questioning him unless I am present.”

  The desk sergeant stood up and walked across the office to another desk, where he spoke to a uniformed deputy.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Deuce whispered urgently. “Pretending to be an officer of the court can get us back there all right, but not in a good way.”

  “I am a lawyer,” Billy replied. “Being the leader of a nearly extinct Native American tribe has certain advantages. I was fast-tracked through law school in a year, and passed the bar a month ago.” Billy turned to me and shrugged. “Probably coulda passed it without the school, just from all the courtroom drama shows we used to watch.”

  “And you never thought to bring this up?” I asked.

  Billy just shrugged again. “I would have, if Deuce hadn’t said I could come along.” He grinned broadly. “I was thinking of going to med school next.”

  “It’s all circumstantial,” Devon said, while watching Lawrence Lovett on the closed-circuit TV. A person’s body language and reaction to questions always told her a lot more than the words they spoke. Everything about this man told her he had nothing to do with the murders, other than having hired the victims.

  “We have another hour,” Ben said. “Then we have to release him, charge him, or present enough evidence to a judge to get an extension.”

  “You know as well as I do, Lieutenant, it’s not enough and DNA results only come back in a day on TV.”

  “Then we go in hard,” Ben said. “Get a confession out of him.”

  “The trouble with that is, neither of us thinks he did it.”

  Ben stood up and began pacing. “Doesn’t matter what we think. We follow the evidence. Mister Lovett, the nice old man that he is, wouldn’t be the first to have a hidden life. He’s connected to the victims, he’s the right size to be able to do what he did to the girl, he’s got curly black hair, and the bullet from the guy’s noggin came from the same kinda gun we just learned he owns. There’s only a little more than a dozen of those registered in Monroe County.”

  Devon looked up at Ben from the TV monitor, arching an eyebrow.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, “there’s probably three or four times that many in the county that aren’t registered. Still, all of that together means you and I might be wrong about Lovett.” Ben pointed to the screen for emphasis. “That guy might be some kind of sicko killer that likes to screw dead girls.”

  “So we go in hard,” Devon said. “Ignore our own instincts, and try to force a confession?”

  “If we’re wrong, and we don’t do everything in our power to keep him off the streets, he could disappear. He could kill again. We’ll have the DNA evidence in just a few days.”

  “Then let’s do it,” Devon said, walking to the door.

  Ben picked up a file folder from the desk. Inside were just three sheets of paper. This time, they were directly related to this particular case. He followed the younger detective down the hall to the next door and entered.

  The two detectives sat down at the table across from Lawrence, and Ben opened the folder. He took the first page out, turned it around and pushed it in front of Lawrence. “This is the report from the medical examiner on James Isaksson’s autopsy.” Ben stabbed a finger at a spot on the page. “Cause of death: single gunshot wound to the forehead.”

  He removed the second page and spun it around, pushing it to a spot next to the first page.

  “Ballistics report on the bullet taken out of James Isaksson’s head. The striations imparted on the bullet by the rifling grooves in the barrel match only one kind of firearm: a Colt .38 caliber Cobra.”

  Lawrence�
��s face fell as Ben took the last sheet out and put it next to the others.

  “This is a copy of a gun registration for a Colt .38 caliber Cobra. Is that your signature at the bottom?”

  “Yes, suh,” Lawrence muttered, without even looking at the document. “It was in di box dat was stolen.”

  “The same theft you didn’t report?” Devon asked, thinking that this was too easy. “The same box that was found on the boat where the murder took place?”

  “Why did you kill them?” Ben roared, slamming an open palm on the folder.

  “I did not do dese things,” Lawrence cried out, looking up at Ben, tears welling in his eyes. With a deep sob, his head fell to his chest and he quietly repeated, “I did not do dese things.”

  Just then, the door buzzer interrupted. “What the—” Ben muttered, standing up quickly. Crossing the room in two strides, he yanked open the door to find a uniformed deputy on the other side. “This better be good!”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant,” the deputy said, as Ben stepped out of the room and closed the door. “Your suspect’s lawyer is here, along with two federal agents. The lawyer’s demanding to see his client.”

  “Frigging perfect timing,” Ben muttered, reaching for the door knob. “He was about to confess.” He opened the door. “Evans, grab the reports and follow me.”

  After a few minutes, the uniformed clerk returned. I recognized Lieutenant Morgan with him, and a woman detective following. Both Morgan and the woman detective had removed their jackets; their shields and empty holsters were clearly visible.

  Lieutenant Morgan and the woman stepped through the door and faced us. “Which one of you is the lawyer?” Morgan asked.

  “I am,” Billy replied, digging his wallet out of his jeans. He produced a laminated ID card and handed it to Morgan.