Mortal Dilemma (6 page)

I finished in the kitchen, chewing on what Dave had told me. I couldn't come up with any reason for Jock to go to Miami. I was concerned that he'd used that as a transit point. He would have complete identification documents, including a passport, in a name nobody
knew about. He could have used those to go anywhere in the world. For the first time that I could remember, I had no way to contact Jock, and no idea where he was.

I spent an hour sitting on my patio overlooking the bay, trying to puzzle out where Jock might have gone. Something on his last mission had affected him more than anything else he had experienced in a twenty-year career. If it was bad enough that he wouldn't even tell me, then it was really terrible. Jock had always teetered on the edge of a crisis of conscience. He was called on to do things that disturbed values that were important to him, but they were things that had to be done to protect the nation he loved. It was these things that built up to the cleansing times that came every couple of years. But this was worse than anything that had come before. This one might be the one to take him out. I couldn't let that happen. But I had no idea what to do.

My phone rang, snapping me out of my reverie. The caller ID was blocked. Probably Dave. I answered.

“Is this Mr. Matt Royal?” A female voice.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Royal, my name is Tina Rudek. I'm a social worker at the Lower Keys Medical Center in Key West. Do you know a man named Mark Bailey?”

“Afraid not. What's this about?”

“Mr. Bailey is in our emergency room. He's unconscious and he has a card in his wallet that says that we are to call you in case of an emergency.”

That struck me as odd. Jock wouldn't be carrying around a card that told anybody who came across it to call me. That was the quickest way to lead right back to Jock and his real identity. On the other hand, if he wasn't going to be anyplace where he was in danger, he might have carried such a card in case he decided to kill himself. He'd want me to know. “Can you describe Mr. Bailey?”

“He's about six feet tall, probably one hundred seventy pounds, male pattern baldness, dark hair, early to mid-forties.”

It was Jock. What the hell was he doing in a hospital in Key West? “I know him. Why is he in the ER?”

“Sorry. I can't go into all that, but I can tell you that his condition is not life threatening.”

“Is he drunk?”

She was quiet for a moment and then, almost in a whisper, said, “Very.”

“Is he hurt?”

“Not bad.”

“An assault?”

“Probably.”

There was almost nobody in the world who could take Jock in a fight, even if Jock was as drunk as a gutter alcoholic. It'd be very hard to even shoot him, but that could be done in an ambush. “Gunshot?” I asked.

“Not bad.”

“Where?”

“Left shoulder.”

“From the back?”

“Yes.”

“Have you called the police?”

“We're required to do that under the circumstances.”

“I understand. Which agency?”

“Key West PD.”

“Are they there yet?”

“On the way. They should be here in a few minutes.”

“Okay. You'll be hearing from a Monroe County sheriff's detective named Paul Galis in a few minutes. Would you ask the Key West officers to check with the detective before they do anything? I think it'd
be prudent to put a guard on your patient so that nobody slips in and kills him.”

“My goodness. Are you serious?”

“Ms. Rudek, this is a national security matter. I'm as serious as I can be. I'll be on my way to Key West as soon as possible.”

“I'll need some insurance information on Mr. Bailey.”

“Don't worry about it. I'll clear it up when I get there.”

“But the hospital needs—”

“Thank you, Ms. Rudek. I'll see you soon and clear all this up.” I cut the connection, found a number in my phone's directory, and dialed it.

“Detective Paul Galis.” The voice still had the traces of a West Virginia twang.

“Paul, Matt Royal. I need your help.”

“Name it.”

“Jock Algren is in the Lower Keys Medical Center under the name Mark Bailey. Somebody shot him. I think he's in pretty good condition, but he's dead drunk and he needs a guard on him. Key West PD has been notified and officers are on their way to the hospital. Can you get over there and take charge? I'm on my way down.”

“I'll be there in five minutes. You bringing J.D.?”

“Yes.”

“Good. See you when you get here.”

“Paul, don't blow his cover. I don't know what's going on.”

“Got it.”

I called my friend Russ Coit. “Jock's in the hospital in Key West. Can Coit Airways fly J.D. and me down there?”

“We've got a plane leaving at your convenience.”

“Are you on the island?”

“No. I'm at Misty Creek. Twelfth hole.”

“Sorry to interrupt you, but I've got to go immediately.”

“Not a problem. Is Jock okay?”

“I think so.”

“The plane will be ready when you get to the airport.”

Russ was a retired Delta Airlines pilot and owned a six-seat single engine plane that he referred to as Coit Airways. The eight-hour drive to Key West would be reduced to a one-hour flight. I called J.D.

F
RIDAY
, O
CTOBER
31

“I
THOUGHT THE
report on the financial part of this case was very thorough,” Steve Carey said, “but I would've thought we needed to backtrack and check all that out again.”

He and J.D. were sitting in J.D.'s office twenty minutes after leaving the Fortson home. She smiled. “I plan to do exactly that.”

“He'll probably find out that you're replowing that ground. You're going to need subpoenas and that means that whatever financial institution is involved will let Fortson know you're looking at him.”

“Exactly. I want him to be a little nervous. If he thinks he's under suspicion, he'll get nervous. If he's nervous, he might make a mistake.”

“But you just as much as told him that he's not under suspicion.”

“Right. And when he finds out that he is, and that I lied to him, he'll get even more nervous. If he's guilty, his mistakes might open a door wide enough for us to walk through and arrest him.”

“Isn't it difficult to get subpoenas in Orlando for a murder on Longboat?”

“It is for a local cop. But it'll be a snap for the feds. They like investigating financial institutions.”

“You're going to get the feds involved? How?”

“I'm not sure, yet. I'll think of something.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “Fortson had plenty of money to hire a hit man,
so that gives him the means. His sister was here on the key alone, so that gave him, or his hit man, the opportunity. But I don't see any motive. He had plenty of money, so why would he need the five mil from Rachel's life insurance policy?”

“That's what we need to find out. Maybe he wasn't as rich as we think and he needed the money. Maybe his sister knew some bad stuff on him, maybe they hated each other—lots of possibilities. Money, revenge, and jealousy are the most common reasons for murder. I'm betting the money had something to do with this one. Let's start with the financials.”

“Okay, boss. What now?”

“You might as well hit the street. Surely somebody out there is speeding.”

Steve laughed. “Yeah. I need to get back to the mean streets and do some real police work.”

“I didn't know we had mean streets.”

“Think about Gulf of Mexico Drive at the height of season.”

“I see your point,” J.D. said. “Steve?”

“Yes.”

“I'm glad you're helping out on this one. You've got a good head for this stuff. I'll keep you in the loop.”

“Thanks, J.D. See you later.”

J.D. sat in the silence, thinking about Fortson and the man who tried to kill her not twenty-four hours ago. Was the attempt on her life connected to Rachel Fortson's murder? Had she disturbed a hornet's nest when she was in Franklin County? She picked up the phone and called the Alachua County sheriff. She got right through.

“How're you doing, Detective?”

“I'm fine,” J.D. said. “Deskbound for a few days until you get finished with your investigation into the shooting.”

“We're moving this as quickly as we can. There's no question that
it was a good shoot. Self-defense. We've just got to check all the bureaucratic boxes.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. I appreciate your jumping on it. What can you tell me about the shooter?”

“His name was Mabry Jackson. He served twenty years on a second-degree murder charge up in Georgia. Got out about two weeks ago. He had a cell phone in his pocket, but it was a burner bought last week at a Walmart in Sanford, just north of Orlando. The only calls were to a pay phone in a rooming house about two blocks from the Walmart.”

“I didn't know they still had those.”

“Rooming houses?”

“Pay phones.”

“I think there're a few left. I asked the Seminole sheriff's office to check the place out. A detective named Glenn Howell called me back. It seems that the late Mr. Mabry rented a room there. Howell tossed it and found a bank deposit slip. It showed that Mabry had deposited five grand when he opened the account on Monday. The bank officer who opened the account remembered that the initial deposit was cash. Fifty one-hundred-dollar bills. No way to trace it.”

“What about the minivan he was driving when he tried to kill me?”

“Stolen from a hotel in Ocala about three hours before the shooting.”

“And the Camaro?”

“Nothing. They got clean away.”

J.D. was quiet for a moment. “Sheriff, I was coming from Apalachicola on Highways 98 and 27. I got onto I-75 just north of Gainesville. How would anybody have known that?”

“I hate to tell you this, but you were definitely the target. We found a GPS tracker device attached to your car. Whoever was after you
must have put it there. We found a thumbprint on it that belongs to a civilian employee of the Franklin County sheriff's office. He works in the equipment room, so we're thinking he probably handled it.”

“He could have handled it when he was putting it on my car.”

“I thought of that. I've got the sheriff up there looking into it. He's a career lawman and a buddy of mine. He's pretty pissed that one of his people might be involved in the attempt on a cop's life.”

“What does the civilian employee have to say about any of this?”

“Don't know. He's out of pocket. Apparently he's on a fishing trip. Left yesterday and is due back on Monday. The sheriff will be on him as soon as he gets back.”

“I keep wondering about something. If they knew where I was, I would think a secondary highway like 98 or 27 would have been a better place for an ambush.”

“Maybe they thought the Interstate would make for a cleaner getaway.”

“Probably. At least now I know it wasn't mistaken identity.”

“Are you working on anything that could get you killed?” the sheriff asked.

“Maybe. I've got a three-year-old murder case that's heating up. That's what I was doing in Franklin County. Maybe I got too close to somebody.”

“Have you got protection?”

“Yeah. A nine-millimeter semiautomatic.”

“I don't want to suggest that you can't take care of yourself, but if you were one of my deputies, male or female, I'd have a full-time guard on you.”

“Yeah. My boss is going to want the same thing as soon as he hears about the GPS tracker.”

“Take care. I'll try to push this report through by the end of the day tomorrow. Get you out of police purgatory.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. I'll be talking to you.”

J.D. hung up and Googled the Seminole County sheriff's office's phone number. She called, identified herself, and asked to speak to Detective Howell. She was placed on hold for only a few seconds.

“This is Detective Howell.”

“Good afternoon, Detective. This is Detective J. D. Duncan in Longboat Key, Florida.”

“How's Matt?”

That took her by surprise. “What did you say?”

“I asked about Matt Royal.”

“I'm sorry. Do I know you?”

The voice on the phone was polite, a bit playful. “No, but we have a mutual friend. Manatee County Detective David Sims. He and I were fraternity brothers in college.”

“Oh?”

“When the Alachua County sheriff's detective asked me to look into the late Mr. Mabry, I was told it had to do with the attempted murder of a Longboat Key police detective. He gave me your name. I called David to see if he could tell me anything about you. I got an earful.” Howell laughed. “All good. He did say that you and your boyfriend Matt Royal and some kind of shady government figure named Jock had dragged him into some interesting situations.”

J.D. had to laugh. “It's a small world sometimes.”

“It is. Needless to say, if there is anything I can do on this end, all you have to do is ask.”

“I appreciate that, Detective. May I call you Glenn?”

“Please do. Any friend of Sims', etcetera.”

“Were you asked to follow up on Mabry?”

“Nothing more than what I've done. I guess the Alachua sheriff filled you in on that. The bank account and all.”

“He did. I think the attempt on my life might be tied to a
three-year-old murder case here on Longboat Key. A woman named Rachel Fortson was shot to death in her brother's house on the beach. The crime scene was absolutely clean and we had no leads. The case has just taken up space in a filing cabinet until last weekend when a man up in Franklin County gave a deathbed confession to a sheriff's deputy that he was the killer and had been paid five thousand dollars to do the deed. I spent three days up there talking to people and was on my way home when the bad guys tried to kill me.”