The Black Palmetto (30 page)

“Hey! You’re a dead man if you try that again.” He backed up farther and glanced at the driveway again. A police cruiser rolled into view through the trees.

Just great
, Sam thought. His options were disappearing by the second.

The cruiser eased to a stop about a hundred feet away. Lieutenant Cates and a uniformed officer got out.

Cates’s called out, “Mr. Edison, what’s going on?”

The DA eyed the bag of cash and then glanced at Sam, a grimace on his face. He seemed to be agonizing over a decision. Seconds passed. Sam wondered if his brain might be fuzzy from the cocaine.

“I’m arresting this guy,” Edison said. “He’s the murderer.”

“What? No, you’ve got it all wrong. Dudley Crew is the murderer. A detective on the Miami PD called me. He was at the hospital when Charles Ford woke up, and Ford fingered Crew as the guy who stabbed him. I spoke to Ford myself. We have an APB out all over the state, so we’ll get him. Now, put the gun down.”

Edison turned his eyes to the money again. “No, I think I’ll keep the gun. You two get over here with them.”

Silence. Cate’s stared at him, seemingly in shock.

“I’m warning you,” Cates said, his voice rising, his tone sharp, “drop that weapon on the ground.”

“Better do what I say, Lieutenant.”

The uniformed officer jerked out his handgun and pointed it at Edison. “No, you do what the lieutenant said. Drop that gun or I’m going to shoot.”

Cates held up his hands. “Hold on, everybody. We don’t want to—”

Edison fired, hitting the gun-wielding officer in the shoulder, but the policeman returned fire, two shots. Both rounds slammed the DA in the chest, dead center. He stumbled back a couple of feet and fell to the ground. His eyes gazed skyward, unmoving and unseeing.

Cates ran over to him and kicked the gun out of his hand.

“He’s dead,” Sam said.

The lieutenant stared for a moment, worry gripping the features of his face, then went back to the officer, who had his hand pressed against his shoulder wound. Cates examined it. “The bullet just grazed you. You’ll live.” He got the radio from the cruiser and called for EMTs. When he finished, he stepped back over to Sam, who had cinched the moneybag and tossed it and the overnighter back in the car, covering up the cap.

“Okay, now, what was he really doing out here?” the lieutenant asked, his eyes narrowed. “I don’t buy that business about him thinking you were the killer, and he wouldn’t have come looking for you carrying a gun without a good reason.”

“Did you notice his nostrils?” Sam asked. “He’s full of cocaine. That might have something to do with it.”

Cates stepped over to the body and squatted down. “Yes, I can see it, but he didn’t seem impaired.” He stood again and shook his head. “His death is going to be hard to explain. There’s something else you’re not telling me.” He stared at Sam.

“Well…”

J.T. spoke up. “He came here to kill us.”

“Why would he do that?”

Yeah, buddy, why would he do that?

“We knew his secret, one that would take him down. When we thought he might be the killer, we dug into his background. He worked for the DEA in Miami several years ago and got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. They fired him when a load of cocaine went missing from a major bust. You’ll probably find what’s left of it at his place.”

Cates raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound right. The city would’ve checked out his background before appointing him as the prosecutor.”

“Yeah,” J.T. said, “they probably did. He somehow got his DEA records sealed. I’m sure you can get them, though, with a formal request to the DEA.”

“Huh. Then how do you know about all this?”

“We found somebody at the agency who remembered him.”

****

When the EMTs arrived a few minutes later, they dressed the officer’s wound and hauled the dead body away.

“Ford told me you might be out here,” Cates said. “He asked me let you know about Dudley. I tried calling, but you didn’t answer.”

“I must’ve left my phone in the car while we packed to leave. I appreciate you coming out, though.” Cates would never have any idea how much Sam appreciated it.

“I’m just hoping Lora is okay when we find Crew. The detective didn’t seem to know anything about her abduction.”

Sam could see real concern in his eyes, and maybe something a little stronger, too. “Yes, I hope she’s okay, too.”

When he had gone, Sam asked J.T. about the DEA information. “Was all that true?”

“Yep, all true. My contact called while I was packing my bag. That’s why I was late coming out of the house. I’m sure Edison knew about the missing cash and knew Boozler had it. He had to be pretty patient to wait a year for it to come into play.”

“And he saw this as his last chance to get his hands on it,” Simone said.

Before they left, Sam called Jackson Memorial, the same place Charles Ford had been admitted, and found that the injured people from the Rickenbacker Causeway accident had been treated there. They caravanned back up the Overseas Highway. When they reached the hospital, Sam got out and Simone took the wheel. She said she would circle while he went into the ER.

Sick people and family packed the waiting room. He went to the information desk and asked for Spanner, assuming he probably still used an ID with that name on it. The receptionist studied the computer monitor in front of her and pressed some keys.

“We released him just a few minutes ago.”

Sam hurried outside and scanned along the curb. He spotted him standing on the corner, probably waiting for a taxi, and called Simone.

“Yeah, I see him,” she said. “I’m headed that way.”

The former assassin turned and started to run, but Sam grabbed him and twisted his good arm up behind him. Simone pulled to the curb and Sam opened the back door with his free hand. Benetti screamed out, maybe in pain, maybe just to get attention. Sam shoved him into the back seat and went in behind him, pushing him over. He pulled his gun and pointed it at Benetti. The injured man gave him a hurt look.

Simone pressed the accelerator and the car sped away.

“Don’t turn me in,” Benetti said. “They’ll kill me.”

Sam tuned him out, but Simone peered at him in the rear view and said, “Who do you think will kill you?” She turned onto the highway and into traffic.

“The Palmetto bunch. I been doing some thinking, and I believe Mackenzie here had it right. He said organizations like that never go away. They just put on a different mask. Those guys say they’re doing psychological research, but I’ve seen the people they’re studying. They look spaced out, just like we did. I know a killer when I see one.”

“You’re wasting your breath,” Sam said.

“You two probably won’t make it out of there either,” Benetti continued. “You know too much about that tracking system.”

Simone glanced at Sam in the mirror, her face a question mark. “Maybe he has a point.”

Her remark seemed to embolden the man’s plea. “Why do you think they sent a couple of lightweights like you two after me?” He turned to Sam. “No disrespect, man, but they have people to do this kind of thing.”

Sam stared for a moment. It was something he had pondered. What if Blaine really hadn’t closed shop, and had just lain low until he could reestablish the group?

“Yeah, I think we’ve met a couple of them, already.” To Simone, Sam said, “We need to have some kind of resolution to this. If we just avoid them, we’ll spend all our time from now on looking for laser dots.”

****

About two hours later, Sam and Simone entered a coffee shop in Coconut Grove. They got cappuccinos at the counter and took a table next to the far wall. A few minutes later, two men stepped inside the place and spotted them. The appeared to be in their thirties. Both wore loose shirts with the tails out, probably to cover handguns holstered at their backs. One carried a portable computer bag.

Sam took a sip of the coffee—too hot—and set it down. “You recognize either of them?”

“No. The assignment was all handled by phone, and they sent Benetti’s photo in an e-mail. They look like contractors, though.”

The men stepped over to the table and took a seat. One smiled at Simone. The other laid the bag on the table, took out a laptop and turned it on. He kept his eyes on Sam, a serious expression on his face.

“So, you have the thing?” Smiley asked.

Simone laid an envelope on the table in front of him. He slid it over to Serious, who removed the flash card and plugged it into the laptop.

“I don’t think it’s any good,” Sam said.

Serious glanced up from the computer. “What do you mean?”

“We plugged it into a computer, but couldn’t get it to do anything.”

He went to work on the keyboard. A few moments later, he stopped keying, watched the screen, and then turned to Smiley, who nodded. They obviously knew the nature of the system and had the decryption key. Blaine had probably gotten the information from Whitehall and given it to them. So the people in Homestead were still working for the senator, along with the guys who had twice tried to waylay them. If they were willing to kill them then, they probably would now, too, if they got the chance. That settled Sam’s mind about what they planned to do.

“Okay,” Smiley said to Simone, “what about Spanner? On the phone you mentioned a problem.”

She sipped her coffee. “We tracked him to a motel in Iguana Key, but he got away.”

Smiley raised an eyebrow. “Then how did you locate the computer card?”

“He left it with somebody who didn’t know what it was, and we found it.”

All true.

“What about the money he stole. Did you find that, too?”

Simone shook her head. “No. He must have escaped with that. We could spend another couple of weeks searching for him, but we don’t have any leads at this point.”

Serious, spoke up. “That’s okay.” He studied the screen for a moment. “We can take it from here. We’ll send your fee to your bank account.” He closed the computer and they stood to leave.

“That’s fine,” Simone said. “Something we should tell you, though. The FBI is after Spanner, too. We met an agent in Iguana Key who told us Spanner sent them a copy of a computer system, and the names of people involved with it. We assumed it was what’s on that memory card. He wouldn’t tell us any more about it, though.”

All lies.

The smile leaked away from Smiley’s face. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not.” She took a drink from her cup. “You know, this is pretty good stuff. You should get one on the way out.”

Smiley stared for a moment then turned to Sam, as if trying to divine the truth from their faces. He turned to his partner and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Sam and Simone followed them to the door and watched them glance up and down the street before hurrying to a familiar black SUV parked on the street. The men got into the back seats, Serious on the curb side and Smiley on the street side. Before Smiley closed his door, Sam got a glimpse of the driver. Larson. They all worked for Blaine.

“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about them,” Sam said.

Simone smiled. “No, we gave them something much bigger to worry about.”

****

“You send the e-mail to Agent Crease?” Sam asked J.T.

They had met up in the parking lot at Carling Research, a company that produced study aids from human cadavers for colleges and medical schools. The place supplemented its income by serving as an underground Emergency Room for the Miami crime industry. Sam and Carling, the pretty blonde owner, had dated off and on. At the present, they were off, but still friendly.

“Yep. I told them everything we know about the Black Palmetto. They’ll be swarming the place in Homestead by nightfall.”

Sam felt an impulse to ask if they would be able to trace the e-mail, but knew that would offend J.T.

Within a few minutes, Benetti exited the door of the facility and headed for J.T.’s car. He grinned and held up the tiny transmitter that Carling’s people had removed.

Sam and Simone followed J.T. to a car rental agency where they dropped Benetti. Sam handed him a stack of the cash through the open window.

“Is that it? Come on, you can do better than that.”

“Don’t press your luck,” Sam said.

Benetti grinned, then pointed his index finger at Sam, his thumb up like the hammer of a gun. He blew Simone a kiss and headed inside to get a car.

****

On the way back to Sam’s marina, his phone chirped. He took it out and glanced at the display. Though he didn’t recognize the number, he had a bad feeling about it.

“Hello.”

“You won’t get away with this, Mackenzie. That little trick with the FBI might shut down my operation, but they won’t touch me, and I’ll get you for killing my son. You’ll die a slow death.”

****

The next day, all the major networks carried news stories about the FBI arresting a dozen or more members of a murder-for-hire operation. They mentioned nothing about the government or Senator Blaine being involved. Sam wondered if Agent Crease had some tricks up his sleeve, or if Blaine had gotten to him. It wasn’t the outcome he had hoped for, but it would keep Blaine busy for a few weeks. That might be the best he could expect. If Blaine or his hired help came for him, he would be ready.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Richard Boozler and a pretty brunette sat in chairs beneath an umbrella, sipping tall drinks, their bare feet in the cool beach sand. They seemed happy, chatting and laughing, but J.T. couldn’t hear their words through the window from inside their villa. It had taken him a week to track down the former police chief to the Chilean coastal community. Boozler had left no trail, but his girlfriend had been careless. She purchased airline tickets on a credit card. Few people left Iguana Key that week for another country, so J.T. played the hunch.

A note with the account number and PIN had been taped to the underside of the bottom drawer of the dresser. A rookie hiding place. Boozler probably didn’t have much experience with that sort of thing. J.T. thought of his actions as teaching him a valuable lesson, among other things.

With one last glimpse through the window at the happy couple, J.T. silently wished them enjoyment for this moment, because when he finished, they would have only enough money for a few meals and a ticket home. Alas, such could be the life of a criminal on the run. With a smile, he went out the door of the villa and headed for his rented car.