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

by Wayne Stinnett

  Duke walked over to the bar, where Kenny was polishing a shot glass, and asked him where Harley was.

  “Left a coupla hours ago,” Kenny leaned over the bar and shouted. “Said he was goin’ to Marathon. He should be back any—” Kenny stopped and pointed with his chin toward the front door. “There he is now.”

  Duke looked toward the door and jerked a thumb to the back when Harley looked at him. His brother nodded, and Duke went back to the office and waited for Harley.

  “Did you find him?” Harley asked as he entered the office.

  “Yeah,” Duke replied, pulling the wad of bills from his pocket and placing them on the desk. “Easy as pie. But all he had was a thousand in cash.”

  Harley frowned. “You get some collateral?”

  “Dude didn’t have much,” Duke said. “Follow me.” He led his brother toward the back door, stopped, and opened the cooler, pointing inside. “Only thing he had worth a crap.”

  Harley looked inside, then looked back at Duke, confused. “You kidnapped his girl? Are you nuts?”

  “Everything the dude owns wouldn’t add up to enough to cover his debt, Harley. He said he’s coming into some big money on Monday and he’ll come and get her.”

  “On Monday?” Harley said, closing the cooler door. “And what the hell are we supposed to do with her until then? Monday’s more’n two days away. We gonna feed her till then?”

  Duke looked down at his shoes. “I guess I didn’t think of that.”

  Harley pushed the back door open and stepped outside, leaving the door ajar. Duke could tell his brother was mad, as he watched him pace back and forth, like he did when he was thinking.

  Harley stopped pacing and looked at Duke. “She don’t have any clothes on, man. Why don’t she have— Never mind, I don’t wanna know.” He paced a moment more and finally said, “It’s your thing, man. You take care of it. Take her to the warehouse and keep her there. Feed her, give her water, and let her use the bathroom. And, Duke?” He waited till the man-giant looked up at him. “Don’t kill her, okay?”

  Duke grinned. “She’ll be okay, Harley. I’ll take good care of her.”

  “All the circumstantial evidence we have,” Morgan said, “points directly at you, Mister Lovett. More than enough to get a conviction just twenty years ago.”

  “It’s the forensic evidence that’s cleared you,” Devon said. “A single strand of the killer’s hair rules you out, along with security video cameras all over Key West indicating you were there when the murders occurred.”

  Morgan leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “Someone’s trying to make it look like you did it. I want to know who that someone is.”

  Lawrence looked across Billy at Vince, who nodded. “If it’ll help you catch whoever killed Dwight’s boy, we’ll tell ya what we know.”

  “First,” Devon said, “let’s back up a little. There’s a loose end that needs to get nailed down. I can understand you not reporting the theft of the cash box. Things like that rarely get solved and your time would be better spent doing just about anything else. But the gun? Why wouldn’t you report it being stolen?”

  Lawrence hung his head for a moment. “Dat was a mistake,” he said. “I know who stole di box. And di gun? It was in di box when it got stole. Di girl is a homeless one, ’bout twenty-five or so. She was a dancer but got mixed up wit druggies. Di drugs done ruined her, so she begs and steals now. I been trying to help her find her way.”

  Devon was watching Vince and Lawrence closely as they talked, looking for some sign of a subterfuge. Not that she had to—even I could tell there was more that they weren’t saying. And it wasn’t because I already knew what it was.

  Devon knew it, too. “There’s something else you haven’t told us, isn’t there, Mister Lovett?” she said softly, luring it out with her tone.

  Over the next hour, Lawrence and Vince wove in greater detail the story that Vince had already told me. It dated back to 1963, during a short period when there was peace between the Italian and Irish mobs in New York and the surrounding areas. The story ended with the New Year’s 1966 heist of the plane, and its cargo of three-and-a-half million in cash.

  Lawrence knew one side of what had happened forty-two years ago, mostly to do with the location of the wrecked plane and events that happened afterward. The side of the story that Vince knew included the events that had led up to the theft and subsequent plane crash.

  From the look of surprise in both Billy’s and Lawrence’s faces, I could tell that Vince had never told the old Androsian that it had been Bill Rafferty who had stolen the plane. Morgan and Devon exchanged glances, both seeming to pick up on it.

  “How is it that you know so much detail?” Devon asked.

  “Bill Rafferty was my brother-in-law,” Vince said. “Married to my sister who died giving birth to their second boy.”

  “And your dive site is close to where the plane went down?” I asked Lawrence.

  “I was fishin’ di back country at night,” Lawrence began. “Up near Snipe Key. It was low tide, early on di first day of di year. I was fishin’ near a sandbar dat’s usually under di water. A plane try to land on dat sandbar three times. He fly over it slow, like di pilot was measurin’ it up. On di third fly over, it look like he was gonna try to put it down on dat sand. He made a mistake or change his mind, I don’t know. Di plane almost touch di sand, den take off out over Snipe Key. I hear di engine sputter and quit. Den I hear a big splash.”

  “Did you go out to the crash site?” Morgan asked.

  “No,” Lawrence replied, looking at the detective with sad eyes. “Dis was in di sixties, mon. Drug planes everywhere you look. I went out past di island and didn’t see di plane. So, I went home. I never told anyone about it, until Vince mention a plane crash on New Years.”

  “Where’s Bill Rafferty now?” Deuce asked.

  Vince just shrugged. “Disappeared or died about ten years ago.”

  “He’s still alive,” Rusty said. He’d been working behind the bar, polishing glasses that didn’t need to be polished.

  All eyes turned to Rusty as he came out from behind the bar and walked toward our table. “Bill Rafferty’s in a shitty convalescent home up on the mainland. Has been since ninety-nine. Don’t even know his own name anymore, is what I hear. But he’s still alive.”

  “So, he survived the crash? There’s a Rafferty’s Pub on Stock Island,” Morgan said. “Biker bar and strip club. Key West cops used to be out there at least once a week to break up a fight, a stabbing, or a shooting. Any connection?”

  “Wild Bill owned it,” Rusty said. “It was just a juke joint back in the day, but with a reputation for a tough crowd.”

  “Who owns it now?” Devon asked.

  Rusty shrugged. “No idea. It was turned into a nudie-bar a good fifteen years back, I think.”

  “No trouble with the law there in the last year?” I offered.

  Morgan and Devon both looked at me. “Now that you mention it, no,” Morgan said. “A double shooting about a year ago is the last I’ve heard of any trouble there.”

  “Sorta like someone put a heavy lid on things,” Chyrel’s voice came over the laptop’s speakers.

  “What’d you find, Chyrel?” Deuce asked, turning the screen so everyone could see.

  “Key West is a small town,” Chyrel went on. “Only took a second to access the bank that Rafferty’s Pub uses. Like you always say, Deuce: Follow the money.”

  “Wait a minute,” Devon said. “You can’t access bank records without a warrant.”

  “No,” Deuce replied, smiling. “You can’t. Nor can you use anything she finds in court, until you get a warrant and find it yourself, based on an anonymous tip.”

  I realized why Chyrel wasn’t actually here for this meeting, and Morgan smiled as the realization hit him, too. “Okay,” he said. “We can’t use anything you find. But can you find anything worth using?”

  Tony grinned, his big white teeth accentuating his ebo
ny complexion. “She already has, Lieutenant. Chyrel never dangles a carrot that she doesn’t have tied to a stick.”

  “Thanks, Tony,” Chyrel said. “Nightly deposits into Rafferty’s Pub’s business account, going back four years, had always totaled up to around thirty-thousand per month, rarely more than a couple thousand dollars above or below that. That steady streak ended thirteen months ago. Since September of oh-seven, monthly card receipts have continued to remain about the same, but cash deposits have gone way up.”

  “Way up?” Morgan asked. “By how much?”

  “From an average of thirty a month, a year ago,” Chyrel replied, with a grin, “nightly deposits started creeping up. Last month was more than a hundred thousand. This past week, the first week in October, it’s gone up even more. Last night’s deposit alone was a cool fifteen thousand dollars in cash for just one day.”

  Morgan whistled softly. “Nobody does that much cash business this time of year. They’re laundering money.”

  “There are legitimate ways a place could grow more business,” Devon said.

  “Yeah,” Rusty chimed in. “I more than doubled last year’s receipts already. And all legit. But a fifteen-fold increase? I don’t think so.”

  “Remodeling, rebranding their image, new staff, or manager,” I said. “Or like Rusty’s doing, a new idea that hasn’t been tried before.”

  Rusty grinned. “Things like that’ll get ya small gains, bro. Nothing like what Chyrel just described.”

  Deuce looked around the table, stopping on me. “I just noticed you shaved. Too bad.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Chyrel could have wired you up, and we could have put you on a Harley, and sent you in there.”

  “Again,” Devon said, “inadmissible in court without a warrant. Is this how you guys worked with the government?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “But the people we usually went after weren’t destined for prison anyway, so we did whatever it took to lock their asses up in Gitmo until the sun stops shining.”

  “All of you look too much like citizens to get in a place like that,” Morgan said, taking his phone from his pocket. “Excuse me just a second.”

  Morgan walked over to the opposite corner, where Finn was lying, as he talked on the phone.

  Billy looked at me and started to say something. I raised one finger from where my hands rested on the table and he nodded in return.

  Ben came back to the table, putting his phone in his jacket pocket. “That was Jefferson,” he said to Devon. “I remembered reading something in the ME’s report on the third victim, Janet Sawyer. Jefferson didn’t even have to look it up. The friend that first reported the girl missing, and later identified the body, reported that Sawyer had gone to Rafferty’s Pub to perform a one-night gig. Jefferson and Clark were on their way there to interview anyone who remembered her. I pulled them off. Clark’s going to follow up with some more questions with Sawyer’s friend, and Jefferson’s on his way to see Judge Hargrove for an undercover surveillance warrant.”

  “Isn’t the equipment with—”

  “Yeah,” Morgan interrupted. “It’ll be tied up until Monday.”

  Chyrel’s voice came from the laptop. “What kind of equipment?”

  “Micro-cameras and transmitters,” Morgan said.

  “We might be able to help you out,” Deuce said. “But I don’t think they’d fall for you as a biker, either.”

  “I’m not going undercover as a biker,” Morgan said. “Evans is going as a stripper.”

  “Like hell!” Devon said.

  “Has to be,” Morgan said. “A regular patron wouldn’t get past the bar, but a woman going for a job interview as an exotic dancer would probably meet the boss. And we need to know who’s pulling the strings.”

  “Yeah? Well, what happens if the boss wants to see the goods?” Devon asked. “A stripper interviewing for a stripper job would probably have to strip. Wouldn’t you think?”

  “I have an idea,” Chyrel said, grinning from ear to ear.

  Harley paced the floor in his office. There wasn’t a lot of room for it, but he always paced when he was thinking. Sometimes, he did his thinking in the back room, where there were certainly a lot of paces to be taken.

  The VIP room was fifty feet by twenty, with a heavily padded extra-deep bench that ran the length of two walls. In front of the bench were three tables with chairs around them and a small private stage in the opposite corner. This stage had two poles, and guests were often invited to join the dancers onstage.

  Admittance to the VIP room was a hundred bucks per person, per hour. The client paid for both himself and the dancer, or dancers, of his choice. But there was absolutely no privacy, unless you just happened to be the only one in the room. The girls were free to take anyone they chose to the VIP room and gave the client’s admission to Kenny, stuffing the rest into their G-string. If someone was already in the VIP lounge, others were permitted to join in, but only by bringing in their own personal dancers. On Friday nights, the back room was in near constant use and sometimes held more people than in the bar.

  The guy’s like a two-year-old, Harley thought of his brother, as he paced the small office. This was one of those times. Instead of taking a bunch of Waldo’s stuff, he’d looked for just one thing to use for collateral. And the best idea he’d been able to come up with was to take the guy’s girl?

  To make it worse, Harley thought, he brought the bitch here.

  Harley had heard through the grapevine about how the two divers had been killed. Little happened in Key West that didn’t become public knowledge, even if the cops didn’t want it to. The report of the disappearance of the girl with the French name troubled Harley. He felt certain that his brother had left just before he’d gone to the dressing room to offer her a permanent job.

  The only trouble with any scenario involving Duke hooking up with that chick was that she was miles out of Duke’s league. Harley had done a little research after seeing the thing about her on the news. Jenae Saequa wasn’t just a hottie on vacation, nor was she a local dancer moonlighting from one of the bigger clubs. She wasn’t even a dancer, though as a dancer she’d been excellent. She was signed with one of the biggest porn movie makers in the world and had made over twenty feature films.

  Harley peered through a one-way mirror at eye level in the wall. On the other side, it was at ankle level under his elevated private table. Harley saw the red-headed Anastasia on stage. Looking around, he noticed that it was a bit busier than usual. The door to the VIP room opened, and Brandy come out. She strutted up the steps to join Anastasia onstage, amid a chorus of cheers, whistles, and cat-calls.

  Brandy was quickly followed by the new girl, Marsha, who came out of the back room with three smiling shrimpers in tow, all hoisting their drinks and high-fiving one another. Finally, Jasmine came out of the VIP room. Harley opened the door of his office and motioned her inside.

  “Busy night,” Jasmine said, from the open door. “Wassup?”

  “Close the door,” Harley said. “We have a problem.”

  She came into the office and sat on the edge of one of the chairs, slowly crossing one long, red-stockinged leg over the other. “What kinda problem?”

  “How’s the new girl?” Harley asked, skirting the subject.

  “She’ll do,” Jasmine replied, her hands fidgeting at the edges of her sheer lace camisole. “The guys liked her, she’s fresh and energetic. But, you really need half a dozen more, at least.”

  “Not a chance,” Harley said. “You girls are expensive as shit.”

  “Yeah, but what you’re depositing every night is way more than five dancers can bring in, Harley. That shit looks suspicious without a stable of at least a dozen hot girls.”

  Harley looked at her, surprised. Slowly, she turned in her chair, crossing those long legs over one armrest and letting her hair cascade to the floor over the other.

  “And just how do you know what I deposit?” Harley aske
d, stealing his eyes away from her body. Not an easy task, Jasmine wore only red high-heels, stockings, and a matching black lace garter belt and see-through camisole that tied at the neck.

  “I watch things,” Jasmine purred, arching her back like a disjointed cat. “I really like to watch things. How ’bout a little toot?”

  Harley rose; not taking his eyes off Jasmine, he went to the door and locked it. “You watch things, huh?” he asked as he stepped up behind her and began to massage her shoulders and long, elegant neck. “What sort of things do you like to watch?”

  Jasmine giggled. “I’m not just a body, Harley. I have a brain,”

  “Oh, I know,” he replied, his hands circling around her throat, to the little string holding the sheer black fabric in place.

  Half an hour later, Harley left his office. He leaned over the bar and, shouting to be heard over the thumping techno music, told Kenny he’d be back before closing. As he made his way to the back, he passed Brandy and gave her a sharp smack on the ass, marveling at its firmness.

  Brandy jumped a little and squealed, then smiled at the boss.

  “Keep it up,” he told her. “Hell, keep ’em all up! And if you know anyone looking for work, send ’em around. I need to have more of you hard-bodied beach babes around here.”

  Brandy gave him an odd smile and said okay, and Harley headed to the back of the building. Outside, he got in his car and started the engine. He gripped the steering wheel tightly as he stared at the back door.

  A few problems had come up in the year since he’d taken over running the place, but so far they’d been easily dealt with and things were still going smoothly. He only needed to hold it together for another three weeks, a month at the outside. By then all the blow would be out and the front money would be back. Who knows, maybe they’d find the missing mob cash, too.

  Jasmine had been right about one thing. He had to at least make it look like the money he was depositing came from the club. He probably should sit on the cash, when it started rolling in heavy. Hire more girls and slowly ramp up the deposits again.