Mortal Dilemma Page 16

  “He probably would have known Fortson,” J.D. said.

  “Probably. Fortson was old-line Orlando, so more than likely they knew each other.”

  “You didn’t know anything about Peter Fortson?”

  “I’d never heard of him. Some of Orlando’s richest people, especially those who didn’t earn their money, keep a low profile, spend a lot of time in other parts of the world traveling and living in third, or fourth or fifth homes. It’s a tough life.”

  “Enough of that,” she said. “You told me you’d had a bad day. Want to talk about it?”

  I told her about my day, the killings, the information I’d gleaned from the people I’d talked to, Jock’s condition, and the beginning of the confrontation in Tiny’s. When I finished, she put her arm around me and pulled my head down to her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Matt.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “I know. I’m just sorry you had to go through all that. How do you feel about killing those three?”

  “It’s funny, J.D. I had to do it. I didn’t have a choice. If I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed me. But I’ve been in that situation before, and it always bothered me that I killed somebody. Not this time. I think the fact that all three of the men today were cold-blooded killers who would think nothing of taking out a nursery full of small children if it somehow fit into their worldview had a lot to do with my lack of remorse. Innocents will live because they died. Maybe it’s more complicated than that. Maybe I should feel guilt or regret or something. But I don’t. How about you and the guy you killed up in Gainesville? How did you square that?”

  She sighed and leaned back on the sofa. “I don’t know. I’ve mostly felt guilt at not feeling remorse, if that makes any sense. I think I should feel bad about killing that guy, even though he was trying to kill me, but I don’t. And that makes me feel guilty. Not for the killing, but for the lack of emotion.”

  I shifted on the sofa and drew her close, wrapping my arms around her. She laid her head on my shoulder and said, “Are we losing our humanity, Matt? Are we becoming one of those people who can kill with impunity? If so, we’re no better than the bad guys.”

  “That’s not us. Don’t even think like that. In our own way, each of us, Jock, you, and me, are part of the thin line that separates us from barbarity, from those who would take us back to the dark ages of Europe. We’re in a war for our very survival, and people die in battle. They’re fanatics, and we’d probably have to kill every last one of them to win this one. Maybe we’ll have to do that in the end. Or maybe this war will never see an end. It’s a sobering thought.”

  She sat up and looked at me. “Boy, you’re a real cynic. Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about Jock.”

  “That’s a puzzle. You know how he was last night, sort of resigned to his fate, not willing to do anything to protect himself, weird. He wasn’t much different this morning when he got up, but when I brought him lunch, it was like he was a different person, detached from the world. It was like he’d gone deeper into a hole since I’d left him a few hours before. But when I brought Tariq, or Shaheed, out to Paul’s place, I saw sparks of the old Jock. Then he just sort of collapsed and went in to take a nap.”

  “Did you tell him about killing those men?”

  “Yes and no. I didn’t get a chance. At lunch, I asked if he wanted to hear about my morning and he put me off. Went right back to the silent TV. This afternoon, I told him about killing the sniper, and he seemed to be most interested in whether I’d killed the guy in cold blood. He said that would eat my soul. His words. ‘Eat my soul.’”

  “Did you talk to Jock’s boss about an in-house shrink at the agency?”

  “I did. He said he’d send one down, but I suggested he wait until we get this mess taken care of and get Jock back to Longboat.”

  “Do you really think he’s safer down there with Paul Galis?”

  “Nobody has any reason to suspect he’d be at Paul’s place. I don’t think Jock’s in any danger, but he would be if he were staying here with me. He’s such an easy mark for the terrorists. He won’t defend himself or even try to avoid his assassins. I think he’d welcome death at their hands. In his mind, it would put the universe back in balance, establish a karmic equilibrium, or something like that.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  I looked at her for a long moment, holding her eyes. “You know I’m going to have to kill Youssef. His buddies, too. In cold blood, if necessary.”

  She looked down, held it for a beat, and said, “I know.” Her voice was infinitely sad.

  “Are you okay with that?” I asked.

  “No, but I understand why you have to do it. You and Jock are caught in a mortal dilemma. You leave them alone and eventually they’ll kill you and a lot of other innocents in the future. You have to kill the terrorists in order to save yourself and their potential victims. It’s really a Hobson’s choice. You actually only have one option. You have to kill them.

  “I’ve about come to the conclusion,” she continued, “that killing those people would be the moral equivalent of stomping on a couple of roaches. But I’m worried more about how it will affect you. Will it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I worry about the same thing. We won’t know until it’s done. How will my killing those roaches affect you?”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think so.”

  “What about us?”

  “Nothing you do will change how much I love you, Matt.”

  “That works for the Matt Royal you know now, but if I have to execute these bastards, I’ll be a different person. I’ve watched Jock over the years and I know the killing is corrosive. You can’t do that and walk away. The killings are like acid. They eat away at you until there’s nothing left. I think that’s where Jock is right now.”

  “That hasn’t changed your feelings for Jock,” she said. “Why do you think it might change my feelings about you?”

  “Because, if it did, I wouldn’t want to live.”

  “And if you, or we, don’t take them out, they’ll get us.”

  “And what about the justice system? Do we ignore the law and just kill these guys?”

  “Matt, I’m coming to the very reluctant conclusion that maybe our legal system isn’t geared to take on terrorism.”

  “You might be right. That’s where Jock and people like him come in.”

  “I worry that we as a society may be sinking into the muck, and that we might never get out.”

  That cold reflection from my girl, the cop whose life was wrapped up in the law and the system, who believed deeply that justice worked only when left to the judicial system, made me sad. She was beginning to make exceptions to her understanding of the rule of law. It was a bit like watching a beautiful butterfly regress into an ugly caterpillar.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on with the Fortson investigation.”

  J.D. told me about her day, the frustrations, the dead ends in the investigation, her concern about the man who tried to break into her condo. “I wonder if the man at Tiny’s might be the same guy that Sue and Marylou saw running from the property.”

  “I think I’d treat that as a distinct possibility. Can you connect him to the Fortson murder? Could he be the one that Tom and Linda saw leaving the beach this morning?”

  “Maybe. But it doesn’t make sense that he’d stick around the scene for that long after the murder. If he did the killing.”

  “Maybe he came back and was surprised by the Joneses.”

  “But why would he have come back to a murder scene?” she asked.

  “Could he have lost something? Maybe something that would tie him to the murder.”

  “That’s a possibility, I guess. We sure didn’t find anything at the scene.”

  “What about the shoe print you found in the hedge at the edge of your property?”

 
She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s going anywhere. The forensics people called this afternoon. They looked into that, and it turns out that the shoe is a Nike, but they’ve sold millions of them.”

  “And you didn’t find any similar shoe prints on the beach?”

  She was silent for a moment, thinking. “Maybe. Manatee County made molds of some of the prints, but those never stand up very well when they’re left in the soft beach sand. The Manatee techs probably don’t know anything about the prints in our shrubbery. Our department handled that.”

  “Even if they match,” I said, “the only thing it would prove was that the same man who wore the shoes was at both scenes. We can’t tie it to the guy in Tiny’s.”

  “Check,” she said. “But I’d like to know if it was the same person. I’ll call the Manatee lab first thing in the morning.”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday, you know.”

  “Yeah. I’ll have to muck up somebody’s day off.”

  “What about David Parrish? Anything from him yet?”

  “He called this afternoon. Said that he’s got the subpoena ready and will serve it on the bank first thing Monday morning. I’m not sure how much good that’ll do now that Fortson’s dead.”

  “You may be able to track the money back to whoever put the hit on you.”

  “Yeah. I’ll follow up on it. We’ll see. Reuben found a lot of financial stuff on Fortson’s computer. I’ll get it to a forensic accountant on Monday. See what the data tell us.”

  “I’ve got a buddy that can do that for you and have you some answers by tomorrow. Will the department pay him?”

  “Sure. Who’ve you got in mind?”

  “Ken Brown. He’s a CPA who practices in Orlando. He testified as an expert in several cases I tried over the years. He’ll do a good job and get it done quickly.”

  “Set it up,” she said. “I’ll have Reuben email him the documents we found on Fortson’s computer.”

  I called Ken and he agreed to look over the documents and be ready to give us some conclusions by Monday.

  J.D. called Reuben Carlson and got the documents moving toward Ken Brown. She came back to the sofa and settled in. “You hungry?” I asked.

  “As a bear.”

  “We could go to Moore’s. The stone crabs are in.”

  “Yummy. Let me take a shower first.”

  “Want some company?” I asked.

  “What about the crabs?”

  “You’ve got crabs?”

  She laughed. One of those big ones that always sets me back on my heels. “Stone crabs,” she said. “Just stone crabs, silly boy.”

  * * *

  We sat at the bar at Moore’s and ate stone crab claws as we chatted with the bartenders, Tina and Rebecca. The crabs were pulled from the bay on a daily basis and served fresh. The crabbers detached one claw from each mature crab caught in their traps, and threw the crab back into the sea. It would grow a new and larger claw soon enough.

  The bar was crowded with newly arrived snowbirds, and we welcomed a couple of friends, who spent many of their winter evenings in Tiny’s, back to the key. It was this time of the year, at the beginning of the season, when the year-rounders, those of us who live on the islands full time, begin to hunker down in our homes, hesitant to venture out lest we become overwhelmed by the traffic on the roads and the waiting lines at the restaurants.

  Each year, we’d notice that some of the regulars from the north didn’t show up. Soon the island gossip would let us know that one of the couple had died or was too ill to travel. We knew they’d never see the island again, and that always brought us a fleeting sense of loss and a renewed appreciation of the fragility of life, the inevitability of frailty and, eventually, the certainty of death.

  Our island demographic is mostly old people. I think the average age is seventy-one, so death is a constant. Logan once said that the loss of friends is part of the tax we pay for enjoying life in our little slice of paradise. As was often the case, I thought he was exactly right.

  We finished our crabs, had one more drink, and walked home, holding hands and enjoying the cool evening. Our day had started when J.D.’s phone rang at three o’clock that morning in Lower Sugarloaf Key. It had been very eventful for each of us, and a good night’s sleep beckoned.

  J.D. was staying over. The house was quiet, and although I hadn’t expected anything out of the ordinary, I was relieved not to have to confront any more situations that day. We got ready for bed, turned out the lights and I went to sleep thinking how nice it was to be snug in my own bed, safe and sound.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2

  “HIS NAME IS Charlie Bates,” J.D. said, as she walked in the front door of my cottage. She’d gotten up early and met Kevin Combs, the Longboat Key police department’s forensics investigator, at the station. He’d run the prints left on the remains of the beer bottle that Bates had used the night before in his attempt to brain me. “Got a heck of a rap sheet.”

  I looked up from my newspaper. “Bad guy?”

  “Bad enough. Most of the stuff is fairly minor, assault, battery, breaking up a bar. But he was charged with murder twice, the last time about four years ago, but neither one of them stuck. Strangely enough, in both cases the witnesses all changed their stories and a couple of them disappeared. Guess where he’s from?”

  I shrugged.

  “Franklin County.”

  “That’s where you were last week.”

  “Exactly. I called the sheriff up there. He’s well aware of Mr. Bates. Says he’s like a walking bomb with a defective fuse. Anything can set him off. He lives on a sailboat he keeps in a marina in Carrabelle, and has no visible means of support. Law enforcement thinks he’s engaged in illegal activity, but they can’t catch him at anything. There’ve been rumors that he’s not above killing for hire.”

  “Any ideas about what he’s doing here?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but you’re not going to like it.”

  “Try me.”

  “The sheriff said Bates fits the description of the man who paid that kid up there to kill Rachel Fortson.”

  I put the paper down. “You think he killed Peter Fortson?”

  “Probably.”

  “Do you know where he’s staying here?”

  “I’m guessing he’s on his boat. The sheriff checked with the marina where Bates keeps it. It’s not there, so I’m assuming he sailed it down here. I’ve got a description of the boat, and Steve Carey is calling around to see if he can find it.”

  “You don’t have enough evidence of Bates’ involvement to get a search warrant.”

  “I know. If we could have found any bit of evidence at the scene of Peter’s death, it might be enough, but there’s nothing. Kevin got the shoe prints the county guys took on the beach, and they seem to match the ones found in the hedge at my condo.”

  “So, Peter’s murderer is the same guy who came to your condo yesterday.”

  “I think so, but the prints aren’t of good enough quality to be sure.”

  “But good enough for you.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think it was the same guy. And I think I might be on his list.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t think he was making a social call yesterday.”

  I grinned. “Maybe not. By why would he want to kill you?”

  “If he killed Peter, he might just be cleaning up loose ends on Rachel’s murder. This might be connected to the shooting up in Gainesville. Maybe whoever is behind all this thinks I know more than I do about Rachel’s murder and that makes me a loose end. If Peter was involved, he was probably the weak link and needed to be taken out. Ergo, Bates was sent here to kill both Peter and me.”

  “I’m not law enforcement,” I said. “If you find his boat, I can go in, warrants be damned.”

  “Right. And then when the defense lawyer finds out about your involvement with the search, he’ll use the fact that you’re my squeez
e of the moment, and whatever evidence you find will be thrown out, along with anything we glean from that evidence. Fruit of the poisonous tree.”

  “Squeeze of the moment? The moment? What the hell are you talking about?”

  She laughed. “It means you better stay off Bates’ boat.”

  “What boat?”

  “There,” she said. “I like it when you’re docile.”

  “Do you have a description of Bates’ boat?”

  “Yes. It’s an older Hunter thirty-three footer with a green hull, named Wayfarer. Why?”

  “We could take Recess out today, cruise through the marinas, go up to Tide Tables for lunch. I don’t think either Bates or Youssef will get to us out on the water.”

  “Sounds like a plan, but I need to call Ken Brown. See if he’s made any progress.”

  “He just got all that stuff late last night,” I said. I looked at my watch. “It’s not even eleven, yet.”

  “I need to see anything he’s got, even if it’s not much. I want him to concentrate on any links between Fortson and Bates. I can’t believe there’s not something there. If it doesn’t involve Bates directly, then somebody Bates reports to or deals with in the panhandle.”

  “Okay. I need to check on Jock.” She left for the bedroom to make her call.

  I called Paul Galis. “How’s your houseguest doing?” I asked when he picked up.

  “He seems okay, but I don’t think he’s tracking too well.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s back in front of the TV with the sound off. I don’t think he’s really paying much attention to the programming, but he seems glued to the screen.”

  “Is he drinking?”

  “No. I got all the booze out of the house, and he hasn’t asked about a drink.”

  “How’s his arm?”

  “No problems. I had a paramedic who lives down the street take a look at it yesterday after you left, and he said it’s healing nicely. No restrictions in his movements.”

  “Is Jock talking at all?”

  “Not much, but when he does talk, he sounds lucid.”

  “Paul, I’m sorry to have dropped this on you.”