A Dark and Lonely Place (4 page)

Eagle worked alone, he said, no partners, no associates—just a staff of bright, young, good-looking female paralegals. “He liked women,” Lonstein said, his face serious. “Said they work harder.”

“I’m sure they do,” J. J. said.

“How’d you fit into the picture with all those females?” John asked.

“I have a partner.” Lonstein’s back straightened. “We’ve been together for eight years. He’s an architect. I was no threat to my boss when it came to women and he liked—he loved—my work. You see, I was born to organize, cut expenses, and run a tight ship. Eagle loved women, but he
trusted
me.” He smiled proudly. “Gave me my first pay raise after only two weeks on the job.”

“He ever mention a model by the name of Summer Smith?”

Lonstein shook his head and lifted his shoulders. “Don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean a thing. He knew lots of models.”

“How ’bout his will?” John asked. “Who profits? Who were his enemies? Any recent threats?”

Lonstein knew of no will, he said, on file anywhere.

“Man’s a lawyer, a topflight litigator,” John said impatiently. “Must have a will.”

“Not necessarily.” Lonstein cocked his head, his brown eyes earnest. “You know how the shoemaker’s kids go barefoot?”

“Gotcha,” J. J. said instantly. “My son-in-law’s a professional photographer, but the only baby pictures of his kids”—he jabbed his chest—“my grandbabies, are the ones I snapped with my digital.”

“Typical.” Lonstein nodded. “Human nature. People like Ron Jon, despite their risk taking, never expect sudden death.”

“We’re the only ones who do,” J. J. said. “We always expect it, especially on our days off. And sure enough, it never fails . . .”

John frowned. “What risk taking?” He hoped Lonstein’s list was short but knew in his heart that it wouldn’t be.

“Racing, flying, deepwater diving, high-speed cars, boats, and motorcycles, Jet Skis, jet planes, and choppers. Loved competition—in the air, the water, on the ground, and in the courtroom. Had to win, always. The risks he enjoyed most were with people. He loved to piss people off.”

John leaned back in his chair. “Who? What people?”

Lonstein sighed, threw one knee over the other, and began to enumerate them. He quickly ran out of fingers, and started over. “Legal adversaries, politicians, judges, gaming kingpins, scary mob types, union thugs, shady characters, regulatory groups, and cops, including you, Sergeant, if I remember correctly.” He smiled slyly at John. “I never forget a name.” He continued: “Big people, little people, his best friends, worst enemies, neighbors, and strangers. Even when it wasn’t important, he had to win.”

“Such as . . . ,” John prompted, ignoring J. J.’s muffled groan.

“Well”—Lonstein blinked, sucked his lower lip, then scratched his nose—“to start with, he sued every neighbor he ever had—and always won.”

“Sued ’em? Fah what?” J. J. demanded.

“Oh”—the wave of Lonstein’s hand indicated that the answers were infinite—“over property lines, trees that dropped fronds, fruit, flowers, branches, berries, pine needles, or leaves. Landscaping that grew too tall, too thick, too thin, or obstructed a view. To silence barking dogs, howling cats, potbellied pigs, parrots, parties, loud music, and burglar alarms. Had a thing about odors he found offensive. Sued neighbors who barbecued, left garbage cans out, grew smelly flowers, or used insecticide, fertilizer, compost, or mulch, especially red mulch.

“And”—Lonstein sighed soulfully—“he loved to seduce the wives of his friends, colleagues, and adversaries. Always had to make sure the husbands knew, of course. He’d throw a big dinner party, invite a dozen couples, then brag that he’d had every woman in the room.”

J. J.’s eyes narrowed into a murderous heavy-lidded expression, as the suspect pool grew more and more crowded.

“Recent threats?”

“None he took seriously.” Eagle was controversial, Lonstein said, criticized by judges, journalists, and the public. Threats, angry letters, and obscene phone calls came in regularly. Eagle laughed at them. His staff had a less cavalier attitude. They carefully filed the letters, voice tapes, and threats. Lonstein agreed to open the office so the detectives could sift through what Eagle had jokingly referred to as “the crank file.”

Lonstein seemed to bask in the detectives’ attention. They even took notes. Proud that he had guessed the truth before hearing the bad news, he bragged about how he always knew the climax before the first commercial of
Law & Order.

“Read all of Sherlock Holmes when I was twelve,” he said. “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle helped develop my powers of deduction. Always thought I’d be an excellent investigator. For the FBI, or in a job like yours.”

John nodded. “Maybe you can help us with one more thing.”

“Of course.” A smug smile played around Lonstein’s lips.

“Normally we ask a relative, but we haven’t found one. Since you worked for the man for years, you knew him well enough to positively identify him. It’s just a formality.”

“You mean, go to the morgue?” Lonstein’s eyes grew wider.

“If you don’t mind.”

“Glad to be of help,” he said, jaw clenched, shoulders square.

“Good.”

John took J. J. aside. “Where’s the witness?”

“In interview room one. She was ready to split. When I pull up, she’s doing a full-tilt boogie out Eagle’s front door with her little suitcase. Had a taxi waiting.”

“Who is she?”

“Skinny, smart-ass little bitch. The type that woulda pissed off Mother Teresa.”

“Can she wait till we make an ID?”

“No problem. She ain’t the talkative type anyway.”

“Sure you’re okay with this?” John asked at the morgue. “He’s pretty banged up.”

“No problem.” Lonstein said jauntily. “I’m fine.”

Only Eagle’s face and upper torso were exposed, enough to reveal his tattoo.

“Is this Ron Jon Eagle?” the morgue’s investigator asked, her pen poised.

Lonstein looked pale.

“Is he all right?” she asked the detectives.

“Sure he is,” J. J. said.

“I’m fine,” Lonstein said weakly. “That’s him, but . . . where’s his jaw? What happened to his eye?”

“You’re sure he’s okay?” she asked again.

“I’m fine,” he murmured.

“No, he isn’t.” John caught him just before he hit the floor.

“They always say they’re fine,” she complained, “just before they pass out. Why do they do that?”

Dr. Nelson, the chief medical examiner, met with the detectives while Lonstein waited in a chair outside, his head between his knees.

Framed photos of the doctor’s pretty wife and children stood on his desk, along with a number of suspicious specimens in labeled jars and plastic containers.

Eagle was dead prior to the crash, which explained the lack of bleeding, he said. He’d been in good health, until he was shot in the back of the head, apparently by a nine-millimeter weapon. Ballistics would be run on Monday. Toxicological results would be back in ten days.

“The victim in the Dumpster was female, early to mid twenties. Two bullet wounds, to the heart and brain.”

John swallowed. The radiant girl he let get away had been reduced to a paragraph on a sheet of paper.

“Dead before the fire?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Dr. Nelson said. “The soot in her airway showed she was still breathing. We’ll need dental records to make a positive ID.”

Still embarrassed by what happened in the morgue, Lonstein was red-faced as they left.

“It’s okay,” John told him, “happens to police rookies all the time.”

Lonstein looked relieved, as though he might land a career in law
enforcement after all. At Eagle’s office, photos of the lawyer with prominent politicians and millionaires, sports and entertainment celebrities, covered two walls, along with cheek to jowl awards and proclamations.

Lonstein rolled two legal-sized boxes full of files, letters, tapes, and transcripts into a glass-enclosed conference room. “Here’s the one,” he declared feeling better and back into amateur detective mode. “I’d say he’s your man, the person of interest, your prime suspect.” He presented a fat file folder marked Baker, Keith/Karen.

Most of the letters came from Keith Baker, although his sisters, in-laws, and a family lawyer wrote as well. Their polite letters asking straightforward questions evolved over months into passionate, unanswered pleas and eventually into furious diatribes.

Baker’s wife, Karen, the twenty-seven-year-old mother of their three small children, had visited a popular Indian gambling casino with her sisters, Celia, twenty-five, and Morgan, twenty-two, The young women played bingo and poker, ate dinner, and watched a nightclub show. The event was a threefold celebration: Celia’s birthday, Morgan’s graduation from the University of Florida, and, belatedly, the birth of Karen’s third child. At midnight she called Keith to say they’d be home soon. They left the casino with Karen, a nondrinking, nursing mother, at the wheel of her Toyota Camry.

They were never seen alive again.

Baker tried to call his wife, and then her sisters, at 1:30 a.m. None answered. His in-laws were asleep and had heard nothing. He checked police and emergency rooms. Nothing. At 3:30 a.m., he called police to report them missing. The officer said the girls were probably still partying or had stopped for breakfast. They were adults, he said, so no missing persons report could be filed for forty-eight hours. When Baker protested, he was told to call again if he had no word from them by 9 a.m.

He called at nine, and insisted on filing a report. Family members searched, prayed, and printed posters. Twenty-seven hours later, his telephone rang. The caller, a clerk from the county medical examiner’s office, asked him which mortuary he wanted to have pick up the bodies of his wife and her sisters.

Minutes after they’d left the casino, a Dodge truck traveling east at a high rate of speed in the westbound lane of a dark and lonely road had
slammed head-on into their Camry. In the Dodge were several Indian men from the local tribe. Treated for minor injuries, they were released that night. All three women in the Camry were killed.

Tribal police were at the scene first and waved off Florida Highway Patrol officers as they arrived. The crash occurred in their jurisdiction, they said, and they’d handle it.

The accident had actually taken place on a state road.

Even after the missing persons report was filed, the tribal police never notified next of kin. Motorists who’d stopped at the crash scene later told reporters that whiskey bottles were scattered in and around the Dodge, the smell of alcohol was strong, the men were clearly drunk, and that only they were receiving first aid.

The medical examiner’s report stated that prompt medical attention might have saved two of the women and that Karen Baker had neither drugs nor alcohol in her system.

The victims’ family and state and county police had been denied all access to information about the crash, even the identities of the Dodge’s driver, passengers, or registered owner. The family turned to the media for help, but the accident report, crash photos, witness statements, and follow-ups, if any, were also withheld from the press.

“How did they get away with that?” J. J. demanded. “It’s all public record.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t.” Lonstein shook his head and wagged his finger. “The tribe is a sovereign nation, which gives them the right to withhold documents, photos, and information.”

“He’s right.” John nodded.

“It’s the law,” Lonstein added righteously. “And R. J. Eagle, may he rest in peace, would defend tribal law to the death.”

“Maybe he just did,” J. J. said.

The Indian system, based in part on tradition and ancient customs, was closed to outsiders. The judge ruled that the women were responsible for the crash. No explanation was given and no one else was charged.

Tribal judges need not be lawyers, there are usually no prosecutors, the accused can elect to have the entire proceeding conducted in his native tongue, and the tribe will pay for the defense. Indians found guilty of alcohol-or drug-related offenses are not jailed. They attend rehab instead, on the reservation.

“I’ve met people who had legal cases,” John said, “but the tribe simply ignores personal injury suits filed by people hurt at their casinos.”

“How can they?” J. J. said.

“The tribes never signed treaties with the US government after the Indian wars,” John said. “They declared themselves sovereign nations and made their own laws. I never sat in court myself to see how they handle cases like this.”

“And you never will, Sarge. That’s the point,” Lonstein said passionately, “the beauty of
tribal
law.

“Now listen.” He played for them a call received two weeks earlier from a man who identified himself as Keith Baker. When a receptionist told him that Eagle was still too busy to speak to him, Baker responded, in a ragged voice. “Tell that sorry son of a bitch you work for to stop ignoring my letters and dodging my phone calls. If I have to come down to his office, I will. And Mr. Eagle will live to regret it.”

“There’s your man, detectives,” Lonstein announced. “Hear the anger in his voice? How it quivers? Here, I’ll play it again.” He nodded in cadence with the words as he listened smugly, eyes half-closed.

“Did you, or the receptionist, tell Baker that he was being recorded?” John asked.

“No.”

“Then it’s inadmissible in court. That’s
Florida
law.”

“But we’ve identified your suspect.” Lonstein’s eyes glittered, his voice dropped to a whisper. “He probably doesn’t know it’s inadmissible. If that’s the case, you can confront him, make him confess. You have your ways, your own techniques, of making that happen.”

“Yeah, we could waterboard ’im,” J. J. said. “Or attach electrical wires to his—”

“Let’s go,” John said abruptly. “Wouldn’t it be nice if it was all that simple,” J. J. said, as they hit the street.

“Let’s go see Lonstein’s ‘prime suspect,’ “John said.

“Think anybody still lives here?” J. J. asked. He squinted at the modest home. “The lawn’s a mess. It looks like mine.”

Weeds, vines, and parched dry patches had taken over.