Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries) (32 page)

“I’ll give her a call in a little while,” I said. “She gets right testy when I wake her up too early. She’s kind of scary first thing in the morning.”

My cell phone rang. Professor Archibald Newman. I answered.

“Mr. Royal, I got the copy of the original 1832 treaty from the National Archives. It looks as if it was written by the same person who wrote the protocol. Also, the signatures are of the same people. I’m no handwriting expert, but the signatures on the protocol appear to be genuine.”

“Did the archives send a copy of the protocol?”

“No. Which means that the original isn’t there.”

“Anything else, Professor?”

“Yes. I thought this interesting. The protocol has one other name on it that isn’t on the original treaty. Abraham Osceola.”

“That’s interesting. That’s probably my friend’s great grandfather several generations removed. Why would his signature be on the protocol?”

“Maybe he was signing it on behalf of the Black Seminoles.”

“Would that add any validity to the document?”

“That would raise an interesting legal question. If the blacks were part of the Seminole tribe, then it wouldn’t be necessary for Abraham to sign. If they weren’t part of the tribe, and Abraham was signing on behalf of the blacks, then the protocol probably wouldn’t be valid because the original treaty applied only to the tribe.”

“That’s true,” I said, “but if the blacks were part of the tribe, then
Abraham’s signature could be construed as what we lawyers call surplusage. In other words, it’s there, but it has no meaning. It doesn’t change the original intent of the agreement.”

“The government never recognized the blacks as Seminoles. Remember, back then anybody with even a drop of African blood was considered black. That’s the position the government took in dealing with slavery issues.”

“I wonder why the protocol wasn’t attached to the treaty in the archives.”

“Good question. Do you have any idea where your friend got the one I have?”

“No. Is it possible to date that paper? Make sure it is original?”

“Yes. But that takes a lot of time. I got the impression you were in a hurry to figure this all out.”

“I am, Professor. Thanks for looking into this. I’ll stop by later today and pick up the protocol.”

“What if I asked the chemistry department to take a look at the ink? If we can get a chemical analysis of it, we may be able to figure out the time frame of the document.”

“Can you do that without destroying it?”

“I think so. They should be able to just use one letter, like the “t” in the word “the.” Even if that letter was destroyed, there’d be no question what the word was. The context of the sentence would tell us that.”

“Go ahead. Let me know what you find out.”

Sun streamed through the windows of the old man’s room, the bay outside flat and smooth and inviting. Far out on the water a small fishing boat moved south, the sound of its outboard floating through the open window. A curtain fluttered briefly in an errant puff of breeze that blew from the east and a gull screamed its displeasure at another trying to steal its breakfast. The sounds died and the room was quiet, still, devoid of life.

Donna knocked softly and entered, carrying a breakfast tray. She was surprised to see the old man still in bed. He was usually up, sitting in his chair, enjoying the play of the rising sun on the waters of the bay.

She set the tray on the table beside his recliner and went to wake him. He was on his back, his mouth open and toothless, his dentures resting on the bedside table. He had lost more color and his chest under the sheet was still. Death had come furtively in the night and taken the old man to wherever his destiny lay. Donna had been expecting it and was not surprised that his life had ended. Still, it was a shock, seeing him there, lifeless, deflated, so much less than he’d been the night before.

She sat in the recliner, crying softly, her mind floating into the past, to the day her grandfather had died. She’d been in her late twenties and her grandfather was the only family she’d ever known. Her mother had died in childbirth and her father had abandoned her. Her affliction, as she always thought of her albinism, had been the defining force in her life. She’d been seen as a curiosity by the children at school and as they grew into high school age, as a target of derision. Donna became hardened to the world, her white skin an impermeable layer protecting her heart from the cruelties suffered by those who are different. She had finally despaired of finding any semblance of a normal life in the small beach town where she
grew up, and retreated into the rambling house on the banks of the Halifax River, taking care of her grandfather and reading voraciously.

She knew who her father was, read about him occasionally in the papers, usually the financial pages. He sent a generous check every month, but had no other contact with her. He was a distant presence in her life, like the city of San Francisco, a place she’d dreamed of visiting, but had never seen. Yet, she had always felt a magnetic pull toward this ghostly personage, a feeling that she chalked up to some genetic convergence beyond her understanding. She often wondered if her father felt the same way.

On the day after her grandfather’s death, a stranger knocked on her door. He was in his fifties, dressed casually, a man of robust good health and a gentle smile. He told her he was her father and he’d come to take her with him, if she’d go.

She went, and they never spoke of his absence from her life for so many years. He’d once told her that he’d loved her mother so much that he’d never married because no other woman had ever evoked the overpowering emotions he’d felt in the presence of the woman who had given his daughter life. There was never an apology or an explanation. She was content with that.

Over the years, she’d traveled with him, always as his companion, never his daughter. He’d told her he could not let his enemies know that he had family, because that would put her at risk of kidnapping or worse. She’d accepted that explanation, and happily served for thirty years as his nurse and helper. She was content to be in his life even if it meant standing in the shadows. She loved him and she thought that, in his way, he loved her.

Donna went to the old man, kissed him on the forehead, and pulled the sheet over his face. She called his doctor and the funeral home where they’d made arrangements. The doctor would be along shortly to take care of the formalities.

The old man had left everything to his only child. His empire was run by managers and would continue that way. Donna would never have to make an appearance. She’d issue any orders required of the sole stockholder of such a large enterprise by phone. Nobody need ever know that the housekeeper was now in charge.

There were things that had to be accomplished over the next few
days. Until then, there could be no announcement of the old man’s death. It was important that he appear to be in charge of the operations he’d set in motion. There was a lot to do to preserve the empire before announcing his death.

A phone rang, the prepaid that was to be used that day. She answered to hear the tight voice of the Hacker.

“Let me speak to the old man,” he said.

“He’s not available.”

“Don’t give me that crap again, woman. Get him on the phone.”

“One moment.”

Donna held the phone at her side for a minute, then spoke into it again. “He said for you to tell me whatever you want. He can’t talk to you now.”

“I’m not going to deal with some go-between. Put his ass on the phone. Now.”

“He said to tell you that you’ll have to talk to me from now on. If you don’t agree to that, your contract is finished.”

There was a moment of quiet, only the sound of heavy breathing coming over the phone. Then, “Okay, goddamnit, but I don’t like it. I want to know what’s going on up in Hillsborough County.”

“What do you mean?” asked Donna.

“At the Snake Dance Inn. Baggett’s been taken.”

“I don’t know what or who you’re talking about.”

“Baggett’s my man, my subcontractor on the job for the old man.”

“We don’t know anything about that. Who you use to do your job is your business. We only want results.”

“Well, there ain’t going to be no fucking results with Baggett gone.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. My employer will be, too. We’ll have to get somebody else to complete the contract.” She closed the phone, a smile on her face.

She knew exactly who Baggett was, but she hadn’t known anything about his disappearance. She’d have to look into that. The phone rang again. The caller ID told her it was the same number that the Hacker had just called from. She ignored it.

When the cell stopped ringing, she opened it and dialed Morton.

In the end, the whole thing fell apart, collapsed in on itself like an imploded building. It was one of those small errors that we all make on a daily basis, the ones that come about because we’re in a hurry or maybe didn’t stop to think before we took some small action, an action that normally would have no consequence. In this case, it was the use of a cell phone.

I was sitting on the sofa, sipping from a cup of coffee, reading another newspaper. Logan was in the shower. Jock was deep in conversation on his phone, standing alone on the balcony, chuckling occasionally, then listening some more. He finally closed the phone and came back into the living room. The sliding glass doors were open, giving us a whiff of the salt air blowing lightly off the bay. A gull cackled in the distance, its cry taken up by others, a rising din of birdcalls floating on the breeze.

Jock was grinning. “I think they screwed up good,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The DEA techies found a lot of numbers on Baggett’s cell phone, both incoming and outgoing. Most of them were to or from his known associates, other bikers. Some of the numbers were assigned to throwaway phones and thus untraceable.

“We hit pay dirt with one incoming call,” said Jock. “The number is assigned to a Gus Hawthorne.”

“Do we know who he is?”

“A captain on the Hillsborough sheriffs.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. The call was made last night, probably about the time that the 911 operator was getting the call about the fracas at the Snake Dance.”

“Do you think Hawthorne knew what was going down?”

“He was the commander of the sector that covers Gibsonton. He would have been at the scene.”

“What do you make of that?”

“The feds are going through ol’ Gus’s entire life. They’ll strip him clean. If there’s any funny money or holdings or anything that doesn’t fit with his salary, they’ll find it. For now they’re letting him sleep. He’s at home in Valrico.”

“Have they asked Baggett about Hawthorne?”

“Yeah. Showed him a picture. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, identify him.”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I think he couldn’t. I can’t believe a sheriff’s captain would let a guy like Baggett know who he is. He’d probably wear some sort of disguise when they met. There’s a sketch artist with Baggett now, trying to change Hawthorne’s appearance to match the man Baggett knew as Morton.”

“Why would a cop use his personal cell phone to call a known bad guy?”

Jock shrugged. “My guess is that he panicked when he heard about the gunfire at the Snake Dance and used his own phone instead of a throwaway to call Baggett.”

“Could it have been a wrong number? Just a stupid coincidence?”

“Maybe, but then he wouldn’t have called the number three times in about ten minutes.”

“Where do we go from here?” I asked.

“There’s some more information on that SIM card. There were a series of calls from different numbers that we can’t trace. More throwaways. The DEA people cross-checked the numbers with the cell carrier’s records and found that some of them originated from the east side of Sarasota County. They chased down most of the throwaway numbers and found that several calls were made from them to other throwaways on the south end of Longboat or just over the bay in Sarasota. There’s one cell tower on the mainland that picks up that entire area.”

I was quiet for a beat. “You think someone locally is connected to Hawthorne and then to Baggett?”

“It seems that way. The techies are checking now to see how many
throwaway numbers were used in that particular tower’s range. So far, they’ve come up with several numbers, but each was used on a different day. Sometimes more than one call to or from the throwaway, but the number was only in use for one day.”

“We’re narrowing it down.”

“Here’s the kicker,” Jock said. “The number that used the local tower on Wednesday is the same number that our buddy Turk called to get permission to kill you.”

I sat up. “I’ll be damned.”

“Yeah, but that tower covers a lot of territory. We may not be able to take it any further.”

I said, “Walter Driggers, the man who owns ConFla, lives on the south end of the key.”

Logan rejoined us and poured Jock and me more coffee. He sat in a chair across from me with a glass of tomato juice in his hand. Jock related his conversation with the DEA and sat back.

Logan looked at me. “What do you think all this means?”

I thought for a moment. “Let’s see. We’ve got a number somewhere near the south end of Longboat Key that was called from a throwaway phone out in East County. The same number in East County had been called by Baggett. Then, Turk called the number here, on the same day, to get permission to kill me.”

“And,” said Jock, “we know that Baggett is one of the bad guys and he’s connected to the phone out in East County and that phone is connected to a phone in this area. We know that Turk is a bad guy and he’s connected to the same phone that bounces off the local tower. Thus, there has to be a connection to the throwaway in this area to all the bad guys.”

“That ain’t exactly Sherlock Holmes kind of stuff,” said Logan. “Any fool could figure that out.”

“Right,” I said. “But we also know that Turk worked for ConFla and that the owner of ConFla lives on the south end of Longboat. A man named Driggers.”