The Black Palmetto (13 page)

Sam described the situation in Iguana Key. Simone had cautioned him about saying anything about the Palmetto, given its black ops classification. So he left that part out, but wouldn't have been surprised if Jack already knew about it.

“There's this psychiatrist who got blackballed by the AMA, and I wondered if you might know anybody who could help get his medical license reinstated.”

“He's important to your case?”

“Could be. Plus, I think he got a raw deal.”

“You have any ideas who this killer might be?” Jack asked.

“We have a couple of names, Marlon Knox and Leonard Ousley, and we have photos, but they're several years old. They might not look the same, now.”

“You got them from the psychiatrist?”

“He gave us the names. J.T. came up with the pics.”

“How's J.T. doing?”

Sam glanced at J.T. clicking keys on the computer. “Ah, you know.”

“I take it he's there now.”

“Sure thing.”

“If there's any money involved, don't tell him about it.”

Too late. Jack had never trusted the man, maybe for good reason.

“Gotcha.”

“What other information do you think this psychiatrist could give you?”

“I don't know. Maybe some current photos, and some personal information that'll help us track them.”

“These guys wouldn't have been associated with a black ops program in Homestead, would they?”

So, Jack did know about it. Sam supposed a successful confidence man had to have a good network.

“Could be.”

Ice cubes tinkled in a glass, Jack probably having a gin and tonic. He remained silent for a couple of moments then said, “Okay, give me his name and I'll make some calls.”

****

Sam and Simone got fresh drinks and carried them through French doors to the deck outside the living room.

“Pretty nice layout,” he said, leaning against the rail.

“Yeah, let's go down to the dock and check out the waterfront.”

They descended the deck steps and strolled in the soft shade of the palms, along a wooden walkway, the late-afternoon air now balmy. Beads of condensation glistened on the glass surfaces of their cold beers.

The walkway led onto the dock and Sam saw a boathouse that had been concealed from the cabin's view by surrounding mangroves.

“The water is beautiful here,” Simone said.

“Yes, it is.” It looked cool and clear, a blue green even brighter than that off the Miami coast. On the dock, they went into the boathouse and found a late model Boston Whaler in its single slip. A white runabout with a wide blue stripe on each side, it sported a 170 horsepower outboard motor.

Sam thought about the cruiser they had seen down the coast and felt a tingle at the nape of his neck.

The sensation must have been noticeable, because Simone said, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said, walking back out onto the dock with her following behind him. He scanned the water as far as he could see. “I just thought about that boat down at the marina.”

She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand and gazed across the Gulf.

“I don't see anything out here.”

“Yeah, me, either. I wonder if Ford left keys to the Whaler in the cabin. Maybe we could take a ride.”

They strode to the cabin and found boat keys hanging from a hook next to the door. Back in the boathouse they got into the Whaler. Sam checked the gas tank and found it almost full, so he started the motor, unwound the ties, and backed the craft out of the slip. About an hour of daylight remained. That would be plenty of time to go beyond the marina and return.

The Whaler rose easily to a plane on the smooth water, and they cruised along the coast about a hundred yards from shore. Boats dotted the neighboring docks, but none resembled the cruiser. About a mile past the abandoned marina, Sam thought he heard the ring tone of his phone. He took it out of his pocket, saw Lora's number on the display, and backed the throttle down to a quiet idle.

“Hey, it's Lora. You sitting down?”

“Why, what's happened?”

“When the police showed up at the sunken car site, Lonnie pulled me to the side and said they'd found prints on the knife from Ted Carter's storm cellar.”

“Did they get a match?”

“Yeah, and you're not going to believe this. They belong to Chief Boozler.”

Boozler? How could that be? Had they been wrong about the Black Palmetto? Had it sounded so good that they'd followed blindly down its path?

“Did they confront him about it?”

“Yes, and he said he had a break-in a few weeks ago, and that the burglar must have stolen the knife from his garage.”

“That sounds pretty flimsy.”

“I'll say. Lonnie said the chief hadn't been too thrilled to go out to Carter’s place. Lonnie pushed the issue, so he relented, and he looked sick after they found the knife.”

“Did they arrest the chief?”

“No, Lonnie didn't know what to do, Boozler being the top-ranking police official, so he went to his desk to call the Monroe County Sheriff for direction. By the time he got off the phone, Boozler had slipped away without anyone noticing. They went to his home, and his wife said he had come home early, went up to the attic and got a bag she didn't recognize. He left again without saying where he was going. Lonnie said he wouldn't answer his phone, either.”

“Do they think he's the killer?”

“Lonnie wouldn't say any more. He was really upset, I could tell. I don't think he wants to believe the chief would do something like that, but it doesn't look good with him running away.”

“Don't they have GPS trackers on the police cars?”

“Yes, but the chief left the cruiser at his house and took his personal vehicle, a Range Rover.”

Range Rover? Pretty rich for a police chief in a place like Iguana Key. He probably didn't clear enough in a year or two to pay for one of those.

“Huh. Did you find out about the parolee?”

She paused then said, “No, I completely forgot, with all the talk about the fingerprints and the chief.”

“Try to find out. I think it might be important.”

Another pause. “Okay, but this has been a one-way conversation, so when I call back, I expect you to have something for me, and it better be good, or this source is going to dry up real quick.
Comprende
?”

“You got it. I'll tell you everything.”

They ended the call and he relayed to Simone what had happened.

Simone shook her head. “I had the feeling the guy was dirty when we saw his name on that arrest report.”

“Yeah, well, looks like you were right.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What was that about you telling her everything? You're not going to do that, are you?”

Sam chuckled. “Are you kidding? She's the last person I'd tell. I’ll give her just enough to keep her out of our hair.”

He cut the wheel, arcing the boat back toward Ford's dock, and opened the throttle.

Chapter Fifteen

The phone woke Sam the next morning around 8:00 a.m. Lora Diamond.

“I found out about the parolee. And by the way, his parole officer never made it to Iguana Key. Lonnie called his office and they said they haven't heard from him since he left there.”

“Yeah?” Sam rubbed sleep from his eyes.

“You sound like you just woke up.”

“Yeah, I did.”

He glanced at Simone. Still sleeping like a baby. They'd gone to bed about midnight, and she had cautioned him about staying on his side of the bed. That worked fine until an hour later when he awoke with her arm across his chest and her lips next to his cheek, her breath warm on his face. After that, he tried his best to blank out thoughts of this exquisite woman clad only in a t-shirt and snuggling to him. It didn't work, and the red display of the clock bore down on him like a tyrant, until sometime after 6:00 a.m. when he finally drifted off to sleep again.

“You have the parolee’s name?”

“I do, but it's put-up-or-shut-up time. You get my drift?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, tell me what you know, and I'll tell you his name.”

“Hold on a minute.”

He got out of bed, put on his pants, and padded down the hall to the kitchen. With the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder, he made coffee while he told her a story.

“We found a news item from about seven years ago where Richard Boozler arrested the blond-haired kid in the photo I sent you. It was a drug charge and they released him shortly thereafter. We think the kid killed somebody two years later, and Boozler got him another free pass. The parolee I asked you about might have taken the fall for the killing.”

A few moments of silence, then, “How do you know that? You don't even know the parolee's name yet.”

“Yeah, we're guessing about that part. But Boozler being in the wind fits pretty well with that scenario, don't you think?”

“Wait a minute. You asked me to get the parolee's name before you knew about the chief running off, so the only thing you told me is about the arrest seven years ago. I can check that out, but I want to know how you got the Knox kid's name in the first place.”

He could just say,
Sorry, that's classified,
but that would only make her dig deeper. A reporter loves a government conspiracy better than anything. She'd never leave them alone.

“He's a friend of the man we're trying to find. Sean Spanner.”

“Oh, yeah, who told you that?” Hostility in her voice.

The coffeemaker hissed and burbled, and he poured a cup and stirred in cream and sugar.

“Our client.”

Silence.

“So you've had this Knox kid's name for several days, and you didn't tell me?”

“No, we just got it last night, right before I talked to you.”

“You talked to your client last night?”

“Yes.”

That seemed to take the wind out of her sails just a little. “Huh. I don't know if I believe you or not.”

After a few moments of silence, Sam said, “Well, that's what I've got. You going to give me the name?”

She sighed. “I guess so. I just hope you're not leading me on.”

Her tone had a slightly romantic quality that made him wish he hadn't had to lie. But then, that's probably how she got most of her information. He took a sip of the coffee and remained silent.

Sighing again at his reticence, she said, “His name is Fletcher Spikes. Lonnie pulled his case and found that he was sentenced to life for killing a drug distributor in Miami, but was released recently because of a DNA mismatch.”

Sam found a pen and wrote down the name. “By the way, did you recognize either of the photos I sent?”

“No. The younger guy seemed vaguely familiar, but not enough for me to put a name on him. I’ll show them around and see if I get a hit.”

****

Sam took his coffee cup into the living room and sat on the sofa, mulling over the phone call and the revelation from the night before about Richard Boozler's prints on the bloody knife. Could he be the killer? The ex-con that the parole officer had lost probably was the man killed a couple of months before. If Richard Boozler had done the deed, that meant he accidentally left the knife in the storm cellar when he stole the bombs. Fletcher Spikes probably came to see him, right out of prison and told him he knew the score. But why tell him? Maybe the chief had something the man had wanted, like a pile of cash from a drug deal gone south. The same thing Marlon Knox came back to Iguana Key to collect. If Boozler got Knox off on a murder charge, he probably set Spikes up for it. Then, to keep his mouth shut, the policeman had killed him.

The parole officer had inquired about Fletcher's body, and the dominoes began to fall. First the explosion on the bridge, then the funeral home employees who might have recognized the chief's voice. In the meantime, Jake Bell must have seen something, and got killed for it. Then Jake's father, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So Boozler could be the killer. Nothing in their assumptions so far would preclude that. Although, if the bloody knife hadn't been found, they would never have thought about him, and it actually could have been stolen as the chief had said. That had been the only incriminating evidence against him, and it could have been planted. Or the killer just got sloppy and left it by accident. The last part didn’t seem likely.

J.T. came into the room and mumbled something unintelligible, then went into the kitchen and came back with a cup of coffee. Sam told him about Lora's call. His eyes widened, and he sat down and got busy on the computer, searching for information on Fletcher Spikes' arrest.

“By the way,” J.T. said, “I got into the DMV’s system last night after you went to bed and found Boozler’s Range Rover. It was pretty easy after that to trace it back to the dealer and then to the GPS tracking system.”

“Why didn't you wake me?”

J.T. grinned. “Didn't want to disturb you and Simone.”

Sam let the comment drop. “So where did the Rover go?”

“He drove it to a place a mile or two down the coast.” J.T. brought up a computer screen and studied it for a moment. “It's still there now.”

“On Iguana Key?”

“Yeah, see for yourself.”

J.T. turned the computer to the side and Sam got up and stepped over to it. A close-up of a map displayed on the screen, and J.T. pointed at a flashing spot. After orienting himself on the scale of the map, Sam estimated the location of the vehicle to be somewhere around the abandoned marina where he and Simone had seen the old cruiser.

“Maybe the cruiser belongs to him,” Sam said, “and he went down there to board it and left the Rover at the marina. He knows the police would catch him if he goes up US-1, because there's only one road to the mainland, but if he had a boat, he could go anywhere.”

“You said it's about a forty-footer? Probably wouldn't be very fast.”

“No, but if he left before dark yesterday, he could be well on his way to the Caribbean by now.”

J.T. cocked his head to one side. “Yeah, you're right.”

“I'm going down to see if I can find the vehicle.”

Back in the bedroom, he heard the water running in the shower. He put on his shirt and shoes and went outside to the car.