Maximum Bob (9 page)

•          •          •

N
ot two minutes, from when Ms. Touchy had left, Elvin was in Dale’s pickup heading out, the pizza box on the seat next to him. He took 95 up to West Palm and turned left on Southern Boulevard, following Dr. Tommy’s directions. He’d said it would take about a half hour. Elvin said, “If you’re a pokey driver it might.” He knew this road, repaved since he used to travel it, lined with reflectors that popped in his headlights. Keep going, it took you out to the Stockade and the Loxahatchee Road Prison for dinks, drunks and short-timers. Either place you could walk out the front gate. Beyond there you were heading for the Glades. This trip he was going only as far as the first stoplight past the Florida Turnpike.

It turned red as Elvin approached and he had to pull up behind cars in the inside lane. The directions said you turned left here, followed the road to a dead end, turned left and then left again on a dirt road that went along a canal before it veered through woods and took you up to the house. One-story red brick, sitting by itself. Fine. He’d drive up fairly close and make his delivery.

The light turned green. Elvin got ready.

He watched the first car in the lane ease out and then wait for a car to pass from the other direction. The next two cars in front of him continued straight ahead. Elvin didn’t move, still watching the first car as it made its turn. A light-colored Volkswagen. He said, “Jesus Christ,” out loud. If that car wasn’t Ms. Touchy’s it was one just like it.

13

B
ob Gibbs was outside waiting for her, standing in the beam of a spotlight mounted on the house. He motioned her to nose in toward the open garage and stop right there in the drive, behind the blue Ford pickup that had a cap with windows mounted on the bed.

“You have any trouble finding the place?”

“Not a bit,” Kathy said. She almost told Gibbs, helping her out of the car, to take his hands off her. A reflex, or not seeing that much difference between this judge and a criminal offender.

He brought her into the kitchen through the garage, told her to make herself at home while he fixed her a Jim Beam and water, not asking if she wanted one, and freshened his own. Both of their glasses were enclosed in orangey red holders—to keep the drinks cold or your hand dry—the word
Gators
printed on them. “In honor of the University of Florida football team,” Gibbs said, “not that visitation the other night.” He took Kathy out to the porch to show where the alligator had entered, the screen back in place but torn and sprung, held down with a length of two-by-four. “Smashed the glass door; I had it replaced, but I’m still waiting on the screen man. Look in there at the sofa how it’s all chewed up.”

“Your wife saw the alligator?”

“She pretty near stepped on it.”

“No wonder it scared her. She went up to Orlando, uh?”

“For a while. Come on outside.” He picked up a flashlight from the metal table.

They went out to a yard full of dark shapes, the judge stopping to sniff the air. “You smell it? Night-blooming jasmine.” Kathy sniffed, looking at Australian pines, a scraggly mahogany tree against the sky.

“You like tropical plants and flowers?”

“When I can see them.”

“Look it here.” The judge flashed his light over foliage, vines, identifying bird’s-nest fern, staghorn, Vanda orchids. “See the bloom spikes?” Here, a white Cattleya with a yellow throat. The lavender orchid was Dendrobium. He had orchids climbing trees and hanging from moss pots. “I deal with ugliness all day long and come home to beauty.”

Why was he telling her this? Or why had Elvin told her about killing a man? The judge and the ex-convict both trying to impress her. The judge showing what a sensitive guy he really was.

“Your wife work in the garden?”

“She plays with rocks.”

“She does? What kind of rocks?”

“Quartz crystals. She buries them in the dirt to clean them, restore their—whatever magic they’re suppose to have. This is called African Shield. My wife thinks those two petticoat palms were once women who were turned into trees. See what I mean? Look up there. Bougainvillea growing out of that cabbage palm.”

“Where do you think it came from? The alligator.”

“Canal over there, the other side of the house. Here, take this in your hand, crush it up good and smell it. Wild bayleaf.”

“What if someone brought the alligator?”

“As a joke? That’s a lot of trouble to go to.”

“I was thinking,” Kathy said, “more as a threat to your life.”

Bob Gibbs said, “Why?” and sounded surprised. “Because I hand out tough sentences? I never exceed the guidelines, I can’t. My rulings are fair, my convictions are appealed and sometimes reversed, but not too often. Look it up.”

Kathy said, “Yeah, but if some guy doesn’t see it as fair… There’re some crazy people in the world.” Thinking of Elvin again. “Or sociopaths, with no respect for human life…”

“You’re not kidding, honey, and there’s plenty of them. This is the vanilla orchid, the only one I know of with food value.”

•          •          •

E
lvin came out of the dark with his pizza box into the spotlight shine looking at the Volkswagen parked there by the open garage. She was here, no doubt about it, and that was too bad. Ms. Touchy, she was a salty little thing for being as cute as she was. Spoke right up to you. He reached the front door thinking if she was in the toilet or someplace away from the judge he could do the job and she might never see him. Man, but it would have to be her birthday to get that lucky. He rang the doorbell. If she saw him he wouldn’t have any choice in the matter. He rang it again. Get right down to it, there was no way he could take a chance on her not seeing him, even if he didn’t see her when he shot the judge. No, he’d have to find her. Tell her, well, it’s too bad, but you shouldn’t have been here. He pressed the doorbell again, held it and could hear it buzzing inside the house. He let go and tried the door. It was locked. He walked along the house looking in windows at dark bedrooms till he came to the attached garage, saw a door in there, stepped in and tried it. The door opened in his hand. Now he had to quick put the pizza box under his arm and pull the Speed-Six revolver from his belt, underneath his shirt hanging out, before stepping inside.

The ceiling light was on in the kitchen. Elvin stood listening for sounds, voices, till he noticed the bottle of Jim Beam there by the sink. He stepped over to it, laid the pizza box on the counter and had himself a taste of the bourbon. Mmmmm, for pleasure only, not the least nervous. Okay, they weren’t in the bedrooms he’d looked in the windows at. They weren’t in the dining area, dark in there. A lamp was on in the living room, but it was about all Elvin could see from the kitchen. He held the Speed-Six in front of him moving from bright light to dark to soft light in the living room, nobody here either. But, hey, the glass door to the porch was slid open and a lamp was on out there. He saw a round metal table, some chairs. He saw where the screen was ripped and pushed in and felt himself jump as a beam of light came on outside and flashed around in the trees. That’s where they were, out in the yard. He saw the light beam move and touch the little girl, saw her face white in the dark… He’d been looking to have some fun with her, but that was not going to work out. The judge had the flashlight. The hell was he showing her? Elvin watched for a minute. It made sense to wait for them to come inside, be able to see them good. He might even have time, sure, for another taste of that Jim Beam.

•          •          •

T
he judge showed her a plant called monstera deliciosa saying, “It looks like a big green weenie, huh? It turns ripe you can eat it.” This guy was too much. She was pretty sure he winked at her in the dark.

They walked back toward the house, the judge holding on to her arm now above the elbow, fingering her bare skin, telling how he liked to go down around Immokalee in the Everglades every once in a while, wade in the swamp with an onion sack and a hunting knife looking for wild orchids. Plenty of them down there. He asked if she liked to camp out, but didn’t wait for an answer. He said she ought to go with him sometime, it was an experience. You could not get closer to nature than in the Everglades.

Kathy said she didn’t care too much for snakes.

Or alligators. She wanted to get back to the alligator on the porch, ask if it might have been meant for his wife. Find out if she was coming back or not.

They were near the house, walking past the kitchen toward the screened porch. The judge said he had two prize orchids in there he wanted to show her. He’d freshen their drinks and they’d sit down, get comfortable… the judge speaking when the pane of glass in the kitchen window shattered with the hard sound of a gunshot. Kathy turned toward the window, saw the light on inside, white cupboards, saw… something else as the second pane shattered and again heard that hard crack of sound out in the dark she knew was rifle fire. She dropped to the ground dragging the judge with her as another pane shattered and another and heard a final gunshot without glass breaking, the report echoing, coming from somewhere in the back part of the yard.

Neither of them moved lying face-to-face in coarse grass, one of his legs over hers, Kathy listening. There were no sounds now, not even insects. She tried to concentrate and picture exactly what she saw in the window as the second pane of glass exploded: a glimpse of movement that could have been a man, there for part of a moment and gone.

She heard the judge say, “Jesus Christ,” in a whisper and saw the stunned expression in his eyes. “Somebody’s trying to kill me.”

•          •          •

W
hat Elvin did was lose his concentration for a minute sipping the Jim Beam, comparing it to what he used to drink at Starke, the shine they called “buck” and wasn’t any stronger than wine, about fourteen percent, tasted awful but did the job. That recalled the smells and noise living in a cellblock, the same dirty walls in your face all the time, and he stepped to the kitchen window not thinking till he saw them outside, right there, through his own reflection and the glass broke,
Jesus
, as he looked at it, woke up and ducked aside as the glass kept breaking, glass flying,
Jesus, somebody shooting at him
!

Elvin left the way he had come, ran down the gravel drive crunching under his boots to Dale’s pickup and drove out of there, none of it making sense till he was back on familiar ground, on Southern Boulevard heading east and had time to think.

To realize, no, it couldn’t have been the judge shooting, it was somebody else back in the yard shooting at the
judge
, not him. And thought of what he’d said to Dr. Tommy about having to get in line. Like a Canal Point turkey shoot, load up and wait your turn.

And if all the shots did was hit the window, then the judge was still game. That was a relief.

Coming to Military Trail, Elvin saw the lights of the Polo Lounge off to the left. Last time he was in there it was called Flounders. He bet though they’d still pour you a Jim Beam if you asked.

14

A
ll Kathy had to tell the 911 operator, it was Judge Gibbs’s house and the first green-and-white arrived within five minutes. After that they kept coming, more green-and-whites at first and a road patrol sergeant who spoke to Kathy and told her to stick around. The judge wasn’t saying much at this point, still dazed, having another drink. Pretty soon unmarked cars began arriving, the recognizable ones from the Detective Division and Technical Services, then different makes and models, people from TAC, some Sheriff’s Office brass and the sheriff himself, Gene B. Givens, a man about fifty with a slight build. He wore a straw cattleman’s hat and seemed quiet, nodding as detectives told him what had happened. By now every light in the house was on, the backyard was bright with squad-car headlights and spots and farther out flashlights were moving around in the dark. In the kitchen evidence techs were looking for the bullets. Kathy noticed the pizza carton and thought it strange they’d bring food with them.

She settled into a lawn chair on the porch, she thought out of the way. But now the judge came out with his drink, Sheriff Gene Givens, who looked like a sheriff, and a heavyset middle-aged guy wearing glasses they called Bill or Colonel McKenna. The judge had phoned him directly. They were followed by four detectives, one of them Gary Hammond in his navy-blue suit and tie but still no haircut. Kathy waited for him to notice her. He smiled, turning it on and off, standing with the others as Gibbs, McKenna, and Sheriff Gene Givens sat down at the round metal table. She saw Lou Falco now. With him was another guy from TAC she had met at the Polo Lounge. Falco looked over and nodded. He said something to the guy with him and he glanced over as they went outside.

Get a look at the girl who was with the judge. They’d all been doing that. Another point of interest, the hole the alligator had made.

A deputy came in with the glasses they’d dropped in the yard, holding them upside down, his fingers inside. Gibbs said, “All you’ll get off of them are my prints. And hers, Ms. Baker’s.” Acknowledging Kathy for the first time.

McKenna said, “You were outside?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you, the guy was shooting at the house, not at me.”

Changing his tune. Lying flat on the ground he believed someone was trying to kill him. But since then he’d had a few more drinks.

Sheriff Gene Givens said, “Bob might have a point.”

“Some nut trying to scare me,” Gibbs said. “Ms. Baker and I were talking about people like that earlier. She came out to discuss a probation violator she’s been having trouble with. Boy I sentenced the other day to five years. Dale Crowe, that name familiar?”

Gary Hammond said, “Judge, he threatened you, didn’t he, in court?”

That got everyone’s attention. McKenna asked what exactly Dale Crowe had said. Kathy watched Gary Hammond stare at the wall to get the words right in his mind. He looked over at her and she stared back at him. He gave it a try then. “I think Dale said, ‘I’m gonna see about this deal.’ And, ‘You’re not through with me yet.’ Something like that.”

“He said, ‘If you think you’re through with me,’’’ Kathy said, and they were all looking at her again, “‘you’re full of shit.’”

They kept looking at her till McKenna said to Gibbs, “He’s out? You didn’t cite him for contempt?”

“I didn’t hear it as a threat.”

Or maybe, Kathy was thinking, he didn’t hear it at all.

“What else is it,” McKenna said, “‘I’m not through with you,’ but a threat? And you let him off on a bond?”

“I gave him seven days to settle his affairs.”

“I think you’re one of ‘em he plans to settle,” McKenna said. “This guy’s a Crowe? Lives out in Belle Glade?”

Kathy listened to them putting two and two together, seeing a nexus in shots fired at the house and the alligator brought here the other night, by people who would know how to do it. No question about it now, the gator was brought here, a live ten-footer, and when it didn’t do the job then Dale or one of the other Crowes came with a gun. Not to scare you, Judge, to kill you. This would go down as an attempted homicide. The first thing they had to do was locate Dale Crowe Junior. They all looked over at Kathy again as McKenna asked when she had last seen him.

“Two nights ago.”

“I recall,” Gibbs said, “he was suppose to report to you every day.”

“He didn’t,” Kathy said, “and I don’t know where he is.” Sounding dumb, but what else could she say.

“You checked his house?”

Kathy nodded. “And I’ve been looking for him.”

“So you came out here,” McKenna said, “to get a warrant signed? That’s all you can do, have him picked up.”

Kathy watched McKenna turn to his detectives now, finished with her. He told one of them to call Belle Glade, have Dale picked up, his dad and any other Crowes that might be around. He said to the table, “I think we have a chance to close this one before it’s barely open. Save us going to the computer for suspects.”

Gary Hammond said, “Colonel?” and Kathy thought he was going to mention papering the walls with names. He didn’t, he said, “Dale Crowe lives in Delray Beach with his uncle, Elvin Crowe. Ms. Baker was going over there this evening, I believe.” Looking at her again.

“Elvin was there,” Kathy said. “I asked him where Dale was, he said he was around someplace.”

“Elvin Crowe,” Sheriff Gene Givens said. “I haven’t heard that name in a while. If I was making up a list I’d put Elvin Crowe right at the top.”

“Well, let’s get started,” McKenna said. “Crimes Persons has the investigation. We’ll have TAC surveil the suspect’s house, starting with Dale Junior. And, Big,” McKenna said, turning to Gibbs, “you’re gonna be in TAC’s care till we close this one.”

Sheriff Gene Givens said, “You’ll have to change your routine, Judge.”

“You won’t be going to the Helen Wilkes after work every day,” McKenna said. “It’s gonna play hell with your social life, Big, but you’ll just have to put up with it, a while anyway.”

Kathy watched Gibbs. He didn’t seem too happy. Sends his wife away, he’s free to fool around all he wants, and now he’ll have TAC living with him, driving him to the courthouse. She began thinking, What if he planned to send her away?…

McKenna was saying this would go in the log and become public knowledge. “In other words the newspaper and TV people are gonna come after you. You’ll be glad to have TAC around to keep them off your back.”

Sheriff Gene Givens said, “The trouble with this kind of case, once it’s known, it can bring out the copycats. Give people ideas. That’s why we want to close it fast.”

“Before the lunatics get into it and somebody sends you a letter bomb,” McKenna said. “We’d keep it under our hat, but you can’t hide dignitary protection, the news people will find out. The advantage, it’ll be talked about and maybe one of our informants will hear something.”

“I’m not opening any mail,” Bob Gibbs said.

Looking to get a laugh, maybe beginning to like the attention. Kathy wasn’t sure. Or he was feeling no pain, all he had to drink.

“We’ll check your mail,” McKenna said, “and most likely put a wire on your phone, here and at court.”

An evidence tech came out from the living room holding up a glass that rattled as he shook it. He said, “Sheriff, four .22 longs,” placing the glass on the table. “They went through two of the cupboard doors and were in the wall, inside.”

McKenna said to Gibbs, “Is that how many you heard, four shots?”

“I believe so.”

Gibbs looked over and Kathy hesitated. She said, “There were five, but only four hit the window.”

That got them looking at her again, McKenna saying, “You sure?”

“I heard five.”

“From how far away, would you guess?”

“Somewhere in the back part of the yard.”

“Were the shots hurried or evenly spaced?”

Kathy paused. She could hear the rifle shots and saw the window again, a glass pane shattering and a glimpse of someone or something in that part of a moment. Thinking she should tell them. But what did she see? She was certain of the five shots, evenly spaced. Tell them that. But now Gibbs was talking.

“Ms. Baker was pretty scared, as you can imagine. I believe I threw her down and might’ve been a little rough.” Looking right at her as he said it with a grin, her hero. Listen to him. He said, “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

There was nothing she could say to him,
nothing
, in front of these people. He was finished with her anyway, looking at McKenna now.

“You want to put TAC on me, huh?”

“I’m gonna insist on it, Big.”

“I guess if you have to.”

Lou Falco came in saying, “Five .22 casings, out by the pump house. The guy fired from less than fifty meters and broke a window, if that tells you anything. You can check the casings for latents, but I doubt you’ll get any prints. They were in the mud where it’s damp there. The guy walked all over them.”

“We have a place to start,” McKenna said, getting up as the sheriff rose from the table. “How do you want to handle security here?”

“Four outside and two in the house,” Falco said.

“That’s what I need,” Gibbs said, “some boarders. Lou, how much can I charge you?”

Every one of them, Kathy noticed, smiled or laughed out loud in deference to this asshole who happened to be a judge. Even Gary, though he didn’t give it much. She saw the detective who had gone to call the Belle Glade station coming out on the porch.

He said, “Sheriff, Dale Crowe Senior’s in the hospital. He was at a dance in Clewiston the other night, got in a fight and some guy broke his jaw.” The detective telling it with a grin. “No one’s seen Dale Junior yet.”

Sheriff Gene Givens started to walk away. He stopped and said, “I seem to recall old Dale has an artificial leg.”

“Got bit by a gator,” McKenna said. “Gangrene set in and they had to take it off at the knee.”

Sheriff Gene Givens said, “I guess my question is, how’s a one-legged man do the Texas Two-Step?” He seemed about to leave again.

Kathy watched him as the boys on the porch all had another good laugh. Gene Givens turned and looked back at the hole in the screen, stared at it for several moments before telling everyone present, “The connection with the alligator is what’s gonna solve this case.”

It made an impression on Kathy, the man not saying much, but then making that point. She believed it herself, a feeling she had.

They were all leaving the porch now, going outside or into the house, all except Gary Hammond. As soon as he was standing by himself he came over to her.

“Something I was wondering about. What were you doing outside?”

“Looking at flowers.”

“In the dark?”

“You think it was my idea?”

He said, “Well, it must’ve been pretty frightening, getting shot at.”

Kathy nodded, looking up at him from the lawn chair. “It was, but I don’t think he was shooting at us.”

“That’s what the judge said. Why didn’t you back him up?”

“No one asked me.”

“You were in front of the window, the light was on…”

“No, we weren’t even that close to it. How could he see us? He’s way back in the trees.”

“Why shoot at the house?”

“Why put an alligator in the yard? You heard Givens, he thinks there’s a connection. I’ll tell you one thing, no, two,” Kathy said. “Gibbs didn’t throw me down, he froze. And I didn’t come to see him about Dale. He called, said he wanted to talk about his wife. She’s supposed to be in Orlando, but I don’t believe it.”

“Why would he want to talk to you about his wife?”

“He uses it as a way… What he wants is to go to bed with me. It’s the only reason.”

Gary said, “Oh,” giving that one some thought. “You mean he says things like his wife doesn’t understand him? They don’t get along?”

“Yeah, only there’s more to it. She thinks she’s a little black girl who died a long time ago.” Gary was giving her a funny look. “Or the little girl speaks through Leanne and it drives the judge crazy.”

“I heard her,” Gary said, “the little girl. I heard her voice. We were standing in the yard…”

“Come on, you did? What’d she say?”

Gary hesitated but kept looking at her. “We could have a lot to talk about.”

Kathy said, “I think so,” with the feeling, now this one was using the judge’s wife as an excuse. She hoped so.

He said, “You want to have a drink somewhere?”

She said, “You mind if I ask, are you married?”

He looked surprised. “No, I’m not.”

“You have kids?”

“I’ve never been married.”

She thought of asking why not, but said, “Okay, where?”