A Dark and Lonely Place (46 page)

The lawyer was mugged by two of the gang members, who took the Rolex, his wallet, and the gun he kept in his Escalade. The bipolar senior panicked after his disabled daughter wandered away. He fired two shots into the air, hoping to attract police who would find her. Instead it attracted the tattooed young men from the Camaro. They took his gun, watch, and wallet. One had seen Robby pitch Miguel’s gun into the weeds. It took only a few moments to find. Now they had three new weapons.

They trotted across the westbound lanes of the Dolphin Expressway, which were now at a standstill, and used the guns to carjack an eastbound motorist who had slowed down to gape. Now one of the two Cuban brothers and two of his cousins were driving east toward Miami Beach in the victim’s new Lexus. The sweaty motorist, forced from his car at gunpoint, was spotted by police as he dodged cars in the eastbound lanes. They tased him, threw him to the ground, handcuffed him, read him his rights, and radioed that they had successfully apprehended a suspect in the shootings as he tried to escape on foot.

The other cousin from the Camaro had taken Robby’s motorcycle and headed south on NW Twelfth Avenue. When he stopped in Little Havana to examine his new bike, he found a bonus in the saddlebags—a loaded pistol, handcuffs, and a police badge.

The lone Cuban gang member who’d stayed with his Camaro, as any good citizen should, told police he didn’t know those other guys, the ones who’d mugged the lawyer and the senior citizen. Brow furrowed, eyes sincere, he swore he’d never seen them before, didn’t know where they came from or which way they went. Asked what they looked like, he paused, then gave precise, detailed descriptions of four hated rival gang members, down to their missing fingers, gold teeth, telling tattoos, and distinctive attire. Eager police recognized them at once and broadcast their names and descriptions on the air, with a warning to fellow officers that they were armed, dangerous, and linked to the Twelfth Avenue cop killing.

The Haitian family tried earnestly to tell the increasingly frustrated Spanish-speaking officer what he wanted to know, but they could not understand his heavily accented English and he failed to comprehend a word of their native patois.

A police K-9 dog led his handler to a DOT jumpsuit and vest discarded in a thorny tangle of bougainvillea planted along both sides of the expressway by jail prisoners during a state beautification project. The work boots and hard hat were already gone, now worn by a homeless man who had stumbled upon them.

Hundreds of people had seen the man who wore them first, the man who threw the spike strips, yet investigators could find no one who clearly remembered what he looked like. No one could say with certainty whether he was black or white. Witness estimates of his height ranged from five feet, three inches tall to six feet, four inches, his weight between 120 and 210 pounds. His hair was first described as silver, but others said he was dark, swarthy, and wore dreadlocks. Several insisted he was bald.

John and Laura spent little time driving into the sunset. She took the next exit, at Twenty-Seventh Avenue, and drove into a Days Inn parking lot. John had changed his clothes in the car, adding a baseball cap and big sunglasses Laura brought. They strolled around to the front of the building as a Yellow Cab pulled up. Leon’s friend Tyree, behind the wheel, scarcely looked at them as they got in.

He took them to I-95, then east across the bay.

Katie, waiting at the apartment, was jubilant.

“Where’s Robby?” John asked.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “He said he’d be here before you.” The TV blared. All local affiliates had interrupted regular programming for live reports from the scene of John Ashley’s daring and bloody escape.

Reporters barraged police with questions. What exactly happened here? They needed to know. Now. They were on deadline for their six o’clock news broadcasts. Police still had no clue about exactly what happened or who was involved. All they knew for sure was that a veteran cop had been shot dead, along with a still-unidentified man, and John Ashley was gone.

John stared at aerial shots of the exit ramp on TV and felt as though they were discussing someone else, a total stranger. “Look,” he said at one point, “that must be Frank Miguel in the passenger side of the van. Robby said he killed him.”

“Then who’s that out on the pavement under the sheet?” Katie said.

Laura gasped. “You don’t think . . .”

“The reporter said two men were killed.” Katie’s eyes filled with tears.

“No,” John said. “Robby’s too smart, too sharp to stumble. His cycle is gone. It’s not in any of those shots. That means he got away, took Twelfth Avenue.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” Katie said. “If Robby was all right, he’d call.”

John’s cell phone rang. “What did I tell you?” he said, relieved. “Robby?”

“No,” Leon said, “it’s me.”

“Leon,” John said. “We’re good, but Robby isn’t here yet.”

“Johnny,” he said, gravely, “he’s not coming. He didn’t make it.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

K
atie rushed to be with her parents.

John called ahead to prepare them.

They already knew.

“Robby’s wife called,” his mother gasped between sobs. “She screamed so much I couldn’t understand a word she said. A man finally took the phone from her, said he was a homicide detective, taking her to identify Robby—at the morgue. Said my son, my baby is dead.” Her voice shattered. “Shot down in the street. Oh, Johnny,” she said, “what on earth happened?”

“He did it to rescue me, Mama. They planned to kill me in custody before I ever saw a courtroom. It’s my fault, but I swear, Mama, I didn’t know he was gonna do it until he opened the back door of that van with a gun in his hand.”

Laura stood behind him, arms around his waist, her cheek pressed against his back as though she’d never let go.

“The kids are all here now,” his mother said, “except you, Katie—and Robby.” She choked back a sob. “Does your sister know, son?”

“She’s on the way to you. Left a few minutes ago. We want to be there too. But we can’t.”

“I understand. Your dad and I love you, son. We all do. Please be careful. Don’t let ’em hurt you too.”

“I nearly forgot.” Laura handed John a locked leather briefcase. “Robby brought it this morning. Said to keep it in a safe place and give it to you or your lawyer if things went bad. Here’s the key. He said it has to go to the right person, somebody at the FBI or Justice Department.”

Did Robby, always so savvy and confident, feel a sense of foreboding?
John wondered. Did some dark premonition trigger his need to put things in order?

Inside were the photos John shot at the motel after Politano was killed, a fully charged police radio with an earpiece, and a loaded gun.

The neatly organized papers included Robby’s copy of Eagle’s documents, labeled and filed, along with bullet points for John’s defense attorney. Robby had included his own taut, typed narrative that included the abuse by Officer Frank Miguel and his history of brutality complaints. The last items in the file cited the time-of-death pool at Miami police headquarters and medical examiners’ reports on half a dozen suspicious deaths in Miami police custody over the past two years. He had also put together intelligence and background on half a dozen high-ranking members of the Miami Police Department and a number of the Miami-Dade County police personnel with whom they associated, along with allegations of wrongdoing against them.

“He put so much work into this, did a thorough and complete job,” John said. “We can’t let it be in vain.”

“You’re right,” Laura said. “We have to get through this, not only for us but for Robby and your folks.”

Katie called from her car minutes later.

“Mom knows you’re on the way,” John said.

“I couldn’t go in, John. I was there!” she cried. “The house is surrounded by police cars, flashing lights, and paddy wagons. Before I could jump outta the car to see what happened, a neighbor ran up and said I shouldn’t or I’d be arrested too. So I drove on by.”

“Arrested?”

“Yes,” she said emotionally. “They arrested everybody, paraded Mama and Daddy, our brothers and sisters, their husbands and wives, out in handcuffs in front of the whole neighborhood. And they snatched the kids. They’re sending ’em to Child Protective Services. Eddie Woodruff, across the street, heard the mothers’ screaming. He went over to tell the police he and his wife would take the kids till relatives pick ’em up. The cops said no, and when Eddie saw how the officers, in SWAT gear, flak jackets, and ski masks, were tearing up the house and carrying things out, he objected. So they arrested him too.”

“What things are they taking?”

“Daddy’s guns, cell phones, computers, tax files, insurance policies, bills, family pictures. Every piece of paper in the house. What can we do, John? Our whole family is going to jail and not a one deserves it. Not one of us has ever been arrested before! The kids must be so scared. If I’d showed up a few minutes sooner, I’d be in handcuffs with ’em.”

“Where are the kids now?” John asked bitterly.

“Crying and screaming in the back of three or four police cars. They put Daddy and all the men in one paddy wagon and Mama and the girls in the other.”

“On what charges?”

“The neighbors say they heard it was harboring a fugitive, aiding and abetting, I don’t know.”

“Come back here,” John said. “Stay calm, be careful, and don’t let anyone follow you. I’ll call Hirschhorn. We’ve got to get the kids back, can’t let ’em go to foster care.”

He asked Laura to tip off Jeff Burnside, while he called the lawyer.

“Do you know?” Jeff asked when he heard Laura’s voice.

“Yes,” she said. “Now something else terrible has happened.”

Burnside, already covering the manhunt for John, went to Morningside, found a video a neighbor had shot of three generations of the Ashley family in handcuffs. He interviewed witnesses, shot footage of the hysterical children pounding on the police car windows, and spoke briefly to family members locked in the vans until police stopped him. He had enough for the 11 o’clock news.

“What?” Hirschhorn said. “They can’t do that! But that’s what they do, John. Damn! Your family will beat the rap but not the ride. I’m sorry. Where are they now?”

“Still outside the house in paddy wagons, the kids in the back seats of police cars, while cops trash my parents’ home and carry out personal property.”

“The good news is we have a helluva civil rights case against them.” Hirschhorn sighed. “I hoped you’d call me, John. You can’t keep running; this only gets worse.”

“It has. The second dead man out there today, the one whose name hasn’t been released? He’s my kid brother, Robby.”

“No! The one who works for the county, right? Testified in a couple of my clients’ cases. Smart as a whip. The one who punched out the eight-hundred-pound gorilla.”

“That’s the one,” John said.

“That makes tonight even more of a nightmare for your family. The charges against them are bondable, but given the hour . . .” He sighed. “By the time they’re transported, processed, and jerked around, they’ll still be in holding cells well after midnight. A bondsman can have them out first thing in the morning. Did they take the entire family?”

“Everybody. Except me and my sister, Katie. She’s a registered nurse.”

“Perfect! She’s responsible, with good family ties, she’s a nurse, their aunt. I’ll get someone who can file a petition for the children’s release to Katie at an emergency hearing in Family Court. She’s perfect.”

“She is,” John said solemnly. “I’m lucky she’s my sister.”

“The charges against your family seem highly suspect. The state attorney’s intake office reviews arrests made without warrants. The woman who reviews them is smart, a seasoned prosecutor. She’ll decide whether they should be dropped.”

TV reported that the manhunt for accused cop killer John Ashley was the biggest and most intense in modern Miami. Every police department in the county canceled vacation time and days off until Ashley was killed or captured.

“We can’t stay here,” he whispered to Laura, as they sought solace in each other’s arms. “We need to leave town for a while. They won’t stop till they find us, and if we stay, they will. What they did to my family was designed to increase the pressure. Sooner or later, somebody who knows that Katie is house-sitting will tell them about this place. They may know already.”

When Laura told him about the prowler at the door shortly before Lonstein was killed and the cigarette butts in the hall, John became even more convinced they had to leave. “The sooner the better,” he said. “There’s nothing to keep us here. I can’t even go to my brother’s funeral.”

“The car Robby left us is still in the parking garage,” she said urgently. “Let’s take it and go now.”

He paced, fighting mixed emotions. “It’s not right to ask you to run with me. When they find us, they’ll try to do what they did to Lonstein. I don’t want you there when that happens.”

“Then we’ll have to make sure it doesn’t,” she said sensibly, “because I
will
be with you.”

“It’ll be tough to get out of town,” he warned. “We can’t show our faces anywhere.”

They dressed in jeans and dark shirts, packed up a few things, some clothes, supplies from the pantry.

“I know the perfect place,” he said. “My family’s used an old fishing camp out in the Everglades for generations. A relative built it way back. Did a pretty good job. It’s primitive. But nobody will find us there.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about an FBI agent I used to know. We were good friends. He got promoted, transferred four, five years ago. Haven’t heard from him for a while. Don’t know if he’s still based in Washington. If I can find him, he’d listen.”

Laura made three trips to the car with Robby’s briefcase, some clothes and other things, while John wiped down every surface, eliminating any trace that they’d been there.

On the last trip, she returned quietly. She found him removing the hard drive from the computer. She stood in the doorway of the little office. “John,” she said softly. “They’re here.”