Fatal Decree (29 page)

Jock laughed. “Well, you pulled mine out of the fire this time for sure. The gesture is appreciated.”

“Let’s get an ambulance out here for this little shit,” I said. “Can’t leave him here to die.”

Jock moved a few feet away, made a call on his cell, talked quietly for a minute, hung up, dialed again. Two short conversations. He rejoined us and said, “Let’s load him into the SUV. We’ll get him to Manatee Memorial and our own doc will meet us there. I don’t want the law involved in this.”

“How’re you going to do that?” I asked. “The hospital is going to call the cops as soon as a gunshot wound shows up.”

“David Sims will meet us in the emergency room,” said Jock. “He’ll take care of that.”

“What about the stiff?” asked Jim.

“Cleanup crew’s on the way from Tampa.”

Jim nodded. “I’ll get in touch, give them the exact location of the body. This is shaping up to be a long night.”

The rookie backed the SUV down a row between the trees, and we loaded the one I’d shot into the back. He was screaming and moaning as we moved him. Cantreras sat quietly in his seat, one cuff on his right wrist and the other locked around a large U-bolt in the floorboard. Jock and I took seats next to him. He didn’t even turn to look at us or react to the wounded man’s screams. He was already dead, I thought, his mind closing down, oblivious to everything around him. He’d gone deep into his brain, shutting out the world, not unlike the gazelle caught in the big cat’s jaws.

Jock and I were on our way to Longboat Key. It was nearing midnight. The streets were quiet and almost deserted. Bradenton isn’t known for its vibrant nightlife. Jim Austin’s rookie had driven us to the airport where Jock had rented another car, using yet another alias. Jim had stayed at the hospital to take care of the man I’d shot. A doctor who was somehow on the payroll of the agency would take control, patch up the knee, and order the man to be transported by his friends to Tampa General Hospital for extensive knee surgery.

“How did you pull that off at the hospital?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Jim took care of that end of things.”

“What are they going to do with the gangbanger I shot?”

“Probably the same thing they’ll do with Cantreras. I told Jim to make sure they asked him about the Guatemalans’ beef with you.”

“Is he really going to the hospital?”

“Probably. They’ll fix him up and keep him in isolation until he’s ready to be released.”

“Why only probably?”

“Somebody might want to use his bad knee in the interrogation. I don’t ask a lot of questions about those things.”

“Probably a good idea. What’re you going to do about the rental out in that grove?”

“I’ll call the rental company and tell them where to pick it up.”

I laughed. “Just like that? No explanation?”

“I’ll tell them it broke down.”

“I take it you rented that car under a name that doesn’t exist.”

“Right.”

“So they’ll eat the damage.”

“No. I bought the insurance.”

“I didn’t think anybody ever bought that expensive crap.”

“I always do. I lose more cars than I get to turn in. Fair’s fair.”

“What about the lowrider the gangbangers brought to the fight?”

“Our cleanup crew will load it on a flatbed, and nobody will ever see it again.”

“What now?” I asked.

“I’ll hear from somebody in the agency tomorrow. They’ll have sucked Cantreras dry by then, and be all over that bar and lockbox in New Orleans.”

“It’s a start.”

“Finally.”

When we turned into my street, I saw J.D.’s Camry parked in front of my house. That couldn’t be good news. We pulled in behind her car and stopped. The neighborhood was quiet, no lights in any of the houses but mine. I opened the front door and found J.D. asleep on my sofa. I turned and signaled Jock to be quiet. He nodded and tiptoed into his bedroom.

I sat in the chair across from the sofa and stared at J.D. She was beautiful. It occurred to me that I’d never seen her asleep before. All that animation that made her so alive was missing. For a moment I could visualize what she must have looked like as a little girl curled up in her pajamas on her parents’ sofa. Sweet and innocent and unsullied by the world of the adult.

I was staring like some dumbstruck kid when she opened her eyes. She didn’t move, just looked at me for a moment. “I’m glad you’re safe, Matt,” she said in a quiet voice. “I was worried about you.”

I didn’t move. We were joined in some kind of magnetic field that kept us rooted in place, our eyes locked. “I’m glad that you worry about me,” I said.

“I always do,” she said, and sat up, the spell broken. She rubbed her eyes and stood. “I need to brush my teeth,” she said, and walked toward the guest room.

“That’s better,” she said when she returned. “Did you find your guy?” “We did.” I told her about the evening, leaving out the part where Jock roughed up Cantreras.

“Will the agency share information with you?”

“They will with Jock.”

“When?”

“We should know something tomorrow.”

“What then?”

“I’m not sure. A lot depends on whether the agency can connect Cantreras’s employer to the deaths of the agents. If not, we’ll probably be on our own.”

“And if they tie it in, they’ll take the case away from us.”

“Probably,” I said. “But if they can prove to their satisfaction that Cantreras was working for someone involved in the hits on the agents, I don’t think there’ll be a case. Cantreras and his boss will just disappear.”

“I don’t like that.”

“You’re a cop. You’re not supposed to like stuff like that. But it takes some of the bad guys off the street, and you can concentrate on the whale tails.”

She sighed, sat quietly for a few beats. “The hit man was on retainer to the Guatemalan gangbangers, so it follows that the attempts on your life are tied to the hit man.”

“We’re not sure that the attempt at the police station downtown was aimed at me. It could have been you they were after.”

“That’s not very comforting,” she said.

“I know, but that probably makes more sense than me being their target.”

“What about the guys in the lowrider this morning?”

“Maybe they were just trying to scare me out of the babysitting business.”

She made a face. “Don’t be difficult, Matt.”

“Sorry. I don’t know what they were up to. The guy I shot was the driver this morning. Maybe Jock’s people will be able to find out something.”

“I’ve got to get to bed,” she said. “Call me when you hear something tomorrow.”

“Are you still working on Picket?”

“Yes. Steve Carey is supposed to have me something in the morning.”

“You’re welcome to stay here,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said, getting off the sofa, “but I need my own bed. See you tomorrow.”

I was up early on Tuesday and ran my four miles on the beach, Jock beside me. We both carried sidearms holstered at our waists beneath our T-shirts. If anybody decided that the beach was a good place to take us out, we were prepared. As it turned out, the run was uneventful except for the chaffing of the holster on my bare skin. A small price to pay for the confidence the gun gave me.

J.D. called at midmorning. “I called Ben Flagler, the lawyer for that idiot who stabbed me. He said he couldn’t talk to me because of the attorney-client privilege. Legal ethics and all. Like that really exists. Do you think you might have better luck? Lawyer-to-lawyer sort of thing?”

“I’ll give it a try. The privilege died with his client. He should know that. Anything new on Picket?”

“Steve promised me something by noon.”

“Good. I think I’ll go see the lawyer this morning.”

“His office address is a residential condo in Sarasota.”

“That’s odd,” I said. “He must not have much of a practice.”

“He’s brand-new. I looked him up on the Florida Bar website. He was just admitted to the bar last week. Graduated in June from the University of North Dakota Law School.”

“He shouldn’t have been representing anybody on a charge as serious as the one on Bagby.”

“That’s what I thought,” said J.D. “I checked the court file, and he was the only one who filed a notice of appearance. Maybe he was appointed.”

“No judge would appoint somebody with no experience to a case like this. Maybe a misdemeanor, but not a major felony. I’ll go see Mr. Flagler.”

• • •

The condo complex where Flagler lived was on Fruitville Road, out near the interstate. It was a sprawling place that had seen better days. Paint was peeling from the sides of many of the buildings, and potholes had long since turned the interior streets into an obstacle course. A large sign near the entrance announced that anyone interested in renting should stop in at the office.

It was one of those complexes that dot the state of Florida, places that had once been homes for empty nesters downsizing now that their children were grown, and second homes for snowbirds seeking the winter sun. When the economy took a tumble, as it always seems to do in cycles that no one can predict or fully understand, the dream faded and a lot of the units never sold. The developer filed for bankruptcy and a company that buys distressed properties and rents them out acquired the complex for a lot less than it was worth. Most of the amenities promised the original buyers, such as exercise rooms, tennis courts, pools, never materialized. The few original buyers stayed on for a while, moved out, and tried to recoup their losses by renting the units or letting them go back to the lender.

It was an old story in the Sunshine State. We tend to draw dreamers, men and women seeking their fortunes, following the stories of those who had come before them and made a lot of money. They don’t understand that for every person who finds the gold, fifty or a hundred find nothing but ruin. They slink back to where they came from, leaving their own broken dreams strewn among those of the people they took advantage of. Those lost dreams manifested themselves in abandoned projects and condo complexes going to the dogs. Such was the home of the young lawyer named Ben Flagler.

The parking lot was mostly empty and the few cars remaining were older and in need of repair, their bodies rusted or crumpled by some long-ago fender bender. An old dog rested under a gumbo-limbo tree that had resisted the onslaught of decay that had turned the complex into a slum festering in the autumn sun.

I parked in front of the ground-floor unit that bore the address of the lawyer I’d come to see. A new Mercedes sedan, as out of place as the town drunk at a Sunday school picnic, sat next to the spot I’d pulled into.

I stepped over a crumbling curb, walked to the door of the unit, and knocked. In a few moments the door swung open. A small man who reminded me of a ferret said, “Yes?”

“Good morning, sir,” I said. “I’m looking for Mr. Flagler, the attorney.”

“I’m Flagler.”

He was older than I’d thought he would be, at least in his late thirties. Maybe he’d gone to law school later in life. A lot of people did that. I stuck out my hand and said, “I’m Matt Royal. I’m a lawyer on Longboat Key.”

He shook my hand, and I saw a flicker of what might have been recognition move across his face, gone in an instant. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“I’d like to talk to you about your late client, Fred Bagby.”

“What’s your interest in Bagby?”

“May I come in?” I asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m working with the police,” I said. “I’d like you to tell me what you know about why Bagby tried to kill a Longboat Key detective.”

“You know I can’t discuss my client. Attorney-client privilege.”

“That privilege died with your client.”

Flagler looked confused. “I don’t think so.”

“You haven’t been a lawyer very long, Mr. Flagler, so I suppose there are things you don’t know yet. But you can look it up under the ethics code. It’s online. At the Florida Bar website.”

“I don’t need you to teach me ethics,” he said in a voice that was close to a snarl.

There was something off about this guy. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but he was home at eleven thirty on a Tuesday morning, wearing cutoffs, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. He didn’t seem too sure about the ethical ramifications of his situation and he was rude. That pissed me off more than his ignorance. “I’m quite sure you’ve read chapter forty of Florida Statutes as it relates to the privilege,” I said.

“You can put that in the bank.”

Chapter forty actually dealt with juries and the ethics code was the
Florida Bar Rules of Professional Conduct. They were not part of the Florida Statutes. Anybody who had recently passed the bar exam should have known that. I was beginning to suspect that Flagler was a fraud.

“Mr. Flagler,” I said. “I can assure you that you can and will talk about Bagby. He tried to kill a cop, and you’ve got no privilege. I can have the police out here in five minutes and drag your ass downtown. You’ll be fingerprinted, your mug shot taken, and then you’ll answer every question I put to you, or the judge will hold you in criminal contempt and you can sit your ass in jail until you decide to answer my questions.” A lawyer would know I couldn’t do any such thing, but I was pretty sure the man standing in front of me wasn’t a lawyer.

“Come in, Mr. Royal,” he said, and stood back to give me room to enter.

I had a sudden premonition that if I went inside I might never leave. I don’t know if it was some insight or just that I’m basically a chicken. Whatever, the interior of the apartment was not exactly inviting. “No, thank you,” I said. “We can talk here or down at the police station. Your choice.”

He was silent for a moment. “Okay. Let me change clothes, and we’ll go to the police station.” He shut the door, and I heard the dead bolt snap into place.

I had not expected that. I thought the last place he’d want to be was the police station. Maybe he was who he said he was. I was thinking that we’d find out pretty soon when I heard a motorcycle engine roar to life. In a couple of seconds the bike came from behind the apartment, jumped the curb and, dodging potholes, ran toward Fruitville Road. The little man who looked like a ferret was in the saddle. He turned right on Fruitville Road before I could get to my car. He was gone, and I wasn’t going to catch him in my Explorer. Crap. I hadn’t seen that one coming.