“Okay, hold on a minute. Am I having an out-of-body experience? As there is no way in hell both of you would be here at the same time.”
Donnie was the first to push through to the front. He was holding a wicker basket full of some goodies from his café. Muffins, a variety pack of his coffee, some granola bars and some of his special brew that according to him was excellent at healing the body.
“I showed up first. Then she arrived. I didn’t want to be rude and leave.”
“Actually I think I was here first,” Barb said. “Just like my business was here first. But oh you love to push in, don’t you?”
“Guys. Do you mind?” Ben reprimanded them. Barb approached the bed with a bag in one hand and a beautiful bouquet of flowers in the other. She set them down and made a comment about making sure to water them and then she went through some of the items she had in her bag. “Coffee because the stuff they sell in this hospital and elsewhere,” she said eyeing Donnie, “is terrible.”
“Thanks, Barb, I appreciate it. Really, you guys didn’t need to come. I doubt I will be in here long.”
“Pish posh,” Barb said. “You lay back while I take good care of you. I’ll go put some coffee on, I’m sure you’re dying for a good brew.”
“Ah don’t bother, I actually brought some with me,” Donnie said ducking back outside the door, whistling to someone and then returning with a large hot cup.
“How did you get that in here?” Barb asked in an accusing manner.
“I have my connections,” he said.
“But we’re in Apalachicola?”
Donnie looked all pleased with himself as he took a seat on the other side of the bed. “Oh, didn’t you know? I started my own delivery business a week ago.”
“Delivery? But…”
“Yeah, it’s all the rage now. People place an order on their cell phone, we make it and deliver.”
“But you must be taking a loss on that. It would cost you more than a cup of coffee is worth.”
“Actually we don’t make the money on the coffee. It’s all tip based, and folks who can’t be bothered to drive to a café, or enjoy getting coffee throughout the day, are more than willing to tip well. Most of the clients we deliver to right now are businesses. So our delivery guy usually takes around five or ten or even twenty coffees with him as well as baked goods. It’s been very profitable actually.”
Barb stood there with a scowl on her face as if she couldn’t believe the nerve of the man. Of course Skylar knew that within a week she’d have her own delivery service up and running as there was no way on earth she would let Donnie outperform her. Skylar chuckled as she took a sip of the coffee and felt it bring her senses to life. “Oh that is good,” Skylar said.
Bar narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “Well, speaking of business, I was wondering if Skylar or Ben, would like to sign the petition?”
Donnie Wu frowned. “Petition? For what?”
“To get you closed down,” Barb replied.
“Excuse me?” Donnie said rising to his feet.
Skylar rolled her eyes, she could see where this was heading. Having both of them in the same room at the same time was not a good idea.
“Barb. Donnie. You want to take this outside?” Ben said. “Or set a date for a wrestling match.”
Donnie stabbed the air with his finger, scowling at Barb. “You know there is more than enough room for both of us in this town. It’s not like everyone likes your coffee, anyway.”
“Take that back!” Barb said.
“I will not. It’s true. Ask Skylar.”
Barb glared at her.
Skylar put a hand up. “Oh don’t bring me into this.”
“Well you are drinking his coffee. So the question is, are you going to sign the petition or not?”
She sighed. “I’m not getting involved in this small-town drama,” Skylar said.
“Small-town drama? Well, if that’s what you think it is, I will take my flowers and goods back.” And just like that Barb scooped up the flowers and bag and marched out the door like she was on a death march. The door released a gust of wind as she closed it leaving the rest of them sitting there in a state of shock and bewilderment.
“I told you that woman is loco!” Donnie said.
It took Harvey less than two hours to reach Tallahassee as he broke the speed limit most of the way. He was there to meet with Lieutenant Feldman from Tallahassee’s investigations division. One of their sources on the street had given them a tip as to where the Latinos were. Apparently they were connected to a number of nightclubs in the city, one of which was called El Patron. He arrived at a pre-arranged spot just off the corner of Virginia Street and Monroe Street. It was a busy intersection that had an art gallery just across the street from the nightclub. He veered into the lot and spotted the large armored vehicle with the words Police Tallahassee Rescue in a light brown down the side. Harvey parked and hurried over giving a knock on the black steel. The rear doors opened and he entered a small command center. There were laptops running, several cops chatting and a large African American in SWAT gear. “Detective Baker.”
“Lieutenant Feldman. Thank you for waiting.”
“How was the traffic?”
“Hellish but I made it.”
“Awful long way to come. We could have handled it.”
“No doubt you could,” he said looking at the other SWAT team faces. “It’s personal.”
“I understand. We’ve lost a number of good guys to the syndicate. We take down one of them and another pops up. It’s getting harder to nail them. The Latino community isn’t very trusting of the cops and our sources are already putting themselves at risk.”
“So what can you tell me about them?” Harvey asked.
Feldman reached back and pulled a folder out and retrieved a mug shot of one of the men.
“Santiago Hernandez. Guy has a long rap sheet, and ties to several gangs in the Miami region. He’s already done time inside for drug running. Then we have his right-hand man, Diego Martinez. He has just as colorful a criminal record, and several outstanding warrants. If we can nail these guys today, we’d be doing a whole lot of people a favor getting them off the streets.”
He turned and asked one of his guys to pass over a ballistic vest. Harvey slipped into it and prepared to roll out.
“How’s your partner?” Feldman asked.
“She’s okay.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be glad when this is over.”
“Well let’s get moving.”
“I’ll follow your lead.”
Harvey was always amazed by how stoic and self-assured SWAT guys were. They had done so many raids over the course of their career that this was just another walk in the park. Feldman banged on the side of the truck and it took off out of the parking lot, cutting across the intersection and mounting the curb. Their van was one of two that were filled with SWAT. The rear doors burst open and they streamed out moving in unison like ants heading in for a confrontation. Everything happened so quickly. One guy opened the door while the rest moved in yelling for patrons to get on the ground. Inside the dimly lit bar, there were several red booths around the outside, a large dance floor with strobe lights and pole dancing girls performing for guys who were tucking wads of green into their skimpy bikinis. SWAT operated with precision, fanning out and covering each other’s backs and for several seconds Harvey thought the raid was going off without a hitch, until bullets starting zipping over his head.
The shots were fired from the far side of the building, higher up.
Harvey took cover and allowed SWAT to do their job.
He’d been in tough situations before but these kinds of conditions were foreign to him. Carrabelle was a sleepy town where resistance amounted to a drunken brawl, or a shotgun raised, but these Latinos were unleashing automatic weapons. Bullets peppered the walls, tearing up the place. Drywall powder filled the air creating a cloud of dust.
Harv
ey engaged, firing several rounds, but it was done more as backup and cover than anything else. The screams of dancers filled the air, and one of them was shot and fell on him. She landed breasts first on his face. He swore if Hanson and Reznik were there he would have never heard the end of that. Harvey rolled the girl off and checked her pulse. She was dead, her back riddled with bullets.
Within minutes it was over. Silence permeated.
Harvey rose to his feet, coughing from all the dust. Blood was covering his shirt and the sound of EMS sirens wailed as he stepped out into the bright day and took a second to catch his breath. Lieutenant Feldman came out five minutes later with Gabriel Barber in hand.
He’d soon learn that Diego Martinez had been killed, and Santiago Hernandez had escaped.
Chapter 14
By the following evening, Skylar had been released from the hospital. She had no vehicle to drive home, so Harvey was waiting outside to give her a lift. She breathed in the thick and humid air as she hobbled out, her one ankle still aching. Harvey was leaning against his black truck on the phone. He saw her coming and hung up.
“Thanks, I’ll get back to you,” he said.
He hurried over to give her a hand.
She waved him off. “It’s okay, I can do it myself, I’m not a cripple.”
“Suit yourself,” he said walking over to the passenger side and opening the door for her. Once she was inside, he went around and hopped into the driver’s side. He turned up the air conditioning and fired up the engine.
“How did you get on yesterday?” she asked as he pulled away.
“Good. I mean, sort of. We got a lead and managed to ID the two Latinos who rammed you off the road, and we got Gabriel back alive and unharmed. Diego Martinez is dead. His partner Santiago Hernandez got away but we have an APB on him. Oh and we managed to obtain a phone from Diego. Axl is getting into it and seeing what he can find.”
Axl was the county’s computer whiz kid. A black guy in his mid-twenties with dreadlocks, and an “I can do that” attitude to boot. He ran his own computer support and services business in Carrabelle. The department didn’t have the budget or demand to hire someone full-time with his level of expertise so they just hired him to come in and take on tasks as and when needed. It was an unusual arrangement but it worked.
“I actually thought of you while bullets were flying over my head yesterday.”
“Bullets?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I headed up to Tallahassee as the witness had called about the Honda being torched. That’s how we got the lead.”
“You traveled two hours?” Skylar asked.
“It had to be done,” he replied.
“But it was out of our jurisdiction.”
“Would that have prevented you?” Harvey asked.
She smiled. He was starting to become more like her by the day. Perhaps she was beginning to rub off on him. “So what state was Gabriel in?”
“Mentally or physically?”
“Both?”
“Physically he had a few cuts and bruises that appear to be from the truck, but besides that fine. Mentally, that’s another thing entirely.”
“So what did he have to say?”
Harvey replied, “He didn’t say anything.”
“Nothing?”
“Traumatized would best describe his demeanor. He laid it on real thick. Sobbing, and saying how they were threatening his life and he thought he was going to die. I wanted to get him in an interview room and grill him but the captain wouldn’t let me. He was released to his parents last night,” Harvey said.
“Oh so I bet daddy wasn’t pleased about the substances found on his boat.”
Harvey’s brow pinched. “Well that’s the thing. The boat doesn’t belong to him.”
“What? Gabriel said it belonged to him.”
“Doesn’t seem so. Maybe he got it mixed up or you misheard him. He said it belongs to Tom Bowman.”
She frowned. “Iris’s father?”
Harvey nodded. “Yeah from the little I was able to get out of Gabriel before his parents dragged him away, it seems he lets the fraternity use it every spring break. And get this, that beach house they rented. All paid for by Tom Bowman.”
Skylar scoffed. “They must pay the chief executive officer of Pi Kappa well. Maybe I should get a job there,” Skylar said glancing out the window as they made their way across the John Gorrie Memorial Bridge that stretched between Eastpoint and Apalachicola. The water looked fairly calm that evening and a crescent moon reflected off the surface. Her mind was a flurry of thoughts as she considered all they knew about the case so far. It was a mishmash of information but some cases were like that. They had to wade through it and hope they got lucky.
“Anyway, regarding the substance, I had the lab run a test on it. Seems it’s a newer version of a drug that gained traction back in the ’60s called Flakka.”
“Flakka?”
“It exploded on the scene back in 2014 and ended up getting banned in 2015. I would have thought you had run into this in New York? It was nuts down here in Florida. For instance there was that one time when a guy stripped naked, climbed up on top of his apartment with a handgun and started threatening people and said he was going to shoot himself, or a few weeks later the guy who was found having sex with a tree.”
“Sounds like a hoot,” she said shifting her body around in the seat because she was uncomfortable.
Harvey continued. “Basically it’s a synthetic stimulant made from a kind of PVP or methylenedioxypyrovalerone.” He laughed. “Say that name with a mouthful of food. Basically it’s a mixture of chemicals and gives you the effects that you might get from crack cocaine or meth. Similar to bath salts. Flakka has been banned since 2015 but that hasn’t stopped certain groups from coming up with their own version of it. Matt used that as the baseline and then added a few more synthetic chemicals to essentially create his own. The result is something far superior. It gives you the same effects but without causing a person to freak out. And unless you know what you’re testing for, chances are you are going to rule it as being all legal substances.”
“Except it’s not,” Skylar added.
“Exactly but if you market it that way, people will buy it and most of our drug testing kits won’t give us reason to bust someone if they’re caught with it on them.”
“Which made it perfect for the Latin Syndicate.”
“Bingo!” Harvey said as the truck zipped by pines and cypress trees.
Skylar sat there chewing it all over. “So the Latin Syndicate gets wind of what Matt made, they approach him and demand he either give them the ingredients or make it for them, and he refuses. They pick him up, take him to the Point and shoot him.” She shook her head. “While it seems logical, something about it doesn’t ring true.”
“Unless he was providing them with the ingredients. Think about it. The university would be a great cover for purchasing ingredients and a place to make it. The substances are all aboveboard so no one is going to question the university when they purchase in bulk as they would for any other chemicals they buy.”
“Right but he’s still got to make it. The university isn’t going to give him access and free rein to make whatever he likes in their labs.”
“Unless he has permission from someone higher up,” Harvey said.
“Like Tom Bowman?” Skylar said.
Harvey nodded. She sighed. “And if you’re on spring break, where would you make it?”
She looked at him and it was like they were both thinking the same thing. “The boat and the beach house.”
“Which means we need to get a warrant.”
“Already done it,” Harvey said.
“What?”
“Reid, I had to cover your ass for that stunt you pulled accessing the boat and taking that baggie. You could have got in a lot of crap over that.”
“I had good reason to board the boat. I believed they were the ones involved in the break-in of Vaga
bond.”
“Which no one is going to admit to, as the very thing which could prove it was taken.”
“Right, but perhaps that is now on the boat along with evidence of them making this drug.”
“Or at the beach house,” he said. “Anyway, based on the events that transpired yesterday and Gabriel admitting that the substance was being sold, I was able to obtain a search warrant for the boat and house.”
Skylar nodded. “So you showed the judge the baggie?”
“No. That will be bagged as evidence today. Hence the reason for the warrant.”
She rocked her head back. “Ah. Right. I gotcha. Well the house is back that way,” she said turning around and pointing across the water.
“But I’m getting you home first then doing the search.”
“Alone?”
“Now with the help of Hanson and Reznik. You still need to rest.”
“Ah to heck with resting. I’ll rest when I’m dead.”
“That’s what I told the captain you would say, and that’s why the order for you to take time off comes from him not me.”
She looked stunned. “You have got to be kidding? I’m perfectly fine. My ankle is a little busted up and I have a few cuts and bruises but nothing that prevents me from doing my job.”
“Sorry. Davenport’s orders. However, that’s not to say if you decide to ignore his orders I’m going to say anything,” Harvey said shooting her a sideways glance and winking.
“Harvey, you old dog. You know that’s breaking the rules.”
“And?”
“You’re not a rule breaker,” she said without any hesitation.
“Reid, I would have you know back in my day…”
And off he went retelling stories of his hilarious acts of defiance which amounted to filing reports a day late, or kicking the vending machine to get an extra packet of chips. Yep, that about summed up the extent of Harvey’s defiance.
As they pulled into the parking lot down at the Moorings of Carrabelle, the lights along the dock lit up the way, and a golden sun was beginning to wane on the horizon. Donnie was in the middle of closing up for the day. He was bringing in the colorful A-frame sign out front as they rolled in. He looked over and waved then disappeared inside. Harvey killed the engine and they sat there for a minute or two discussing the case.
Death Blow Page 11
