Murder Key (24 page)

Murder Key

THIRTY-SEVEN

             
Large clouds painted in shades of gunmetal gray hung low on the horizon, their faces lightly daubed with the burnt orange glow of the setting sun. Lightning flashed at their edges, signaling the coming of the small storm that would sweep in from the Gulf during the night. An eddy of cool air teased my face, reminding me that it would rain soon. The sand beneath my bare feet was still warm, holding the last vestige of heat from the daytime sun.

             
I missed Anne. This was our time of day, walking the beach, holding hands, sipping from flutes of white wine. She would giggle at the antics of the sandpipers running from the small surf that passed for waves on our shores and rail at the raucous gulls, scavengers who chased the smaller birds and stole their food.

             
I hadn’t heard from her since that day at the Sports Page. I hadn’t called her, either. It’s a fine idea for lovers to remain friends after the fires of passion have died, or been transferred to someone else, but the reality is altogether different. For me, there was pain, and regret, and pride, and loneliness, all wrapped together to create a bundle of irresolution. I was in that state where I didn’t want to think about her, but couldn’t get her out of my mind. Every mundane little thing reminded me of her.

             
I’d walk into a restaurant, or a bar, and remember the times we’d been there together. A song, or a scent, or the sight of a long-legged brunette would send daggers to skewer my heart.

             
Waning love is like a balloon that deflates over time, growing ever less robust, until finally it’
s only a wrinkled mess; a mess
that was once a beautiful emotion floating above an uncertain world. And when the air goes out of only one of the lovers, the other is left with jealously, a monster with a voracious appetite that sucks the logic from an otherwise engaged brain, leaving only memories that were once lovely, but at the end are bitter sha
dows that haunt the daylight.

             
So I walked the beach in the late afternoon, two days before Thanksgiving, feeling sorry for myself. People were trying to kill me for reasons I didn’t unde
r
stand, and my love had dumped me like so much outdated food.

             
I knew the senator was the bad guy, but I couldn’t figure out a way to prove it. If the whole weight of the local, state and federal governments couldn’t get him, I didn’t think I would.

             
If we could get a line on Byron Hewett or the blonde woman who drove the van, we
might be able to get somewhere.
The crew of the
Princess Sarah
had been no help. They just knew that they delivered their cargo to the go-fast boats, and they were paid when they returned to Veracruz.

             
The go-fast boaters were low-level people who were paid in cash by their leader, who in turn was paid by the blonde woman at the house on Longboat Key when he delivered the drugs and immigrants. They seemed to be otherwise uni
n
volved.

             
Yet, someone in a go-fast was stalking me, and somebody else was asking my friends about my routines. They had to be the senator’s men.

             
I’d asked Rufus Harris about Merc Maitland and Jeep in Orlando and was told that they had been left in place in hopes that when the drug connection came back up, Merc and Jeep would be part of it.

             
Interestingly, there was no t
hought among the various govern
ment agencies that they had stopped, or even hindered, the flow of drugs. When they rolled up one group, another took its place within a matter of days. Rufus said it was like King Canute trying to roll back the ocean waves.

             
I’d cut a man’s throat, and the fact that he deserved it didn’t make me feel any better. This wasn’t the first time I’d killed somebody, and it wasn’t even the first time I’d cut a throat. I remembered them all. I had committed that most intimate act, homicide, and I didn’t even know the names of the men I’d killed. They’d died knowing I was their executioner, and they had no idea who I was. M
ost of them had been soldiers, good men probably,
who were just doing their duty. And I knew for a certainty that they would have killed me had I given them the chance. Still... .

             
Recently, I’d killed two bad guys on Egmont Key and felt no remorse. Yet, now, knowing that the man I’d killed in that shed at the labor camp was looking forward to throwing me out of a helicopter, I was feeling - what? Regret? I didn’t think so, but I’d have to chew on it a little; maybe talk to Jock who had more experience with this sort of thing.

             
Perhaps we hadn’t solved anything. The drugs were still coming in, and the government seemed incapable of even slowing the tidal wave of illegals slipping across the border. We were no closer to finding out who killed the Mexicans or Dwight Conley. Pepe Zaragoza was in jail, charged with the murders of the migrants I’d found on the beach, and I thought he was innocent.

             
At least Buddy Gilchrist and the Mexican Consulate in Orlando had gotten Pepe a good lawyer. Richard Wright was as good as they came in a courtroom, but the clerk’s computer had randomly assigned Pepe’s case to Judge P. R. Linder. I’d heard
that he and Wright
were old friends, and that might help. Linder was known in the circuit for his conservatism and was widely thought of as a hanging judge.

             
I briefly considered offering my legal service to the defense team, but then came back to reality. I was retired from the practice of law. Wright was one of the new generation of trial lawyers, feisty, brilliant and tenacious. But then, so was Judge Linder. Pepe was in good hands under the circumstances.

             
My thoughts circled back to my predicament. I could only guess at who was after me. I could prove nothing. I hoped that my conversation with the senator that morning had backed him off.

             
Marie Phillips was another matter. I’d been surprised to see her in the senator’s office, and I was unsure of what her place was in the scheme of things. The coincidence of the blonde Marie Phillips in the senator’s office and the blonde van driver was too exquisite to dismiss.

             
On leaving the building, I
had
stopped to speak to the security guard in the lobby. They usually knew everything going on in their bailiwick. I asked if he knew Marie.

             
The man grinned lasciviously and winked at me. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “she’s Senator Foster’s administrative assi
s
tant.” He winked again as I thanked him.

             
What about the deputy we’d seen her with at the Bridge Tender Inn? Was he the source of the leaks? Was she using the poor guy, or was he part of the drug ring?

             
I’d called bill Lester as soon as I’d left the building, and he was looking into both Marie and the deputy.

             
Every time I thought I knew what was going on, something cropped up to change my outlook. I did know that I was dog-tired of people trying to kill me. I wanted my old life back, the one where my biggest worry was what kind bait to use for the fish.

             
It was nearing five o’clock; time to give up on the self-pity and head for Tiny’s. A beer and conversation with friends never failed to cheer me up. I’d call Logan and meet him there. He’d recovered from his ordeal at the labor camp, and was talking about renewing his helicopter license.

* * * * *

             
I left the beach and crossed Gulf of Mexico Drive, walking at a fast clip. I didn’t want to become road kill for some snowbird on his way to the Publix. The island was filling up with our winter visitors. They always brought an energy with them that was lacking during the summer, and I l
ooked forward to their return.
I also watched the traffic a little more closely.

             
I crossed the parking lot of my complex and took the elevator to the second floor. As I entered my condo, I noticed that the drapes covering the sliding glass doors out to my balcony had been drawn, casting gloom into an area usually awash with sunlight and a view of the bay. I assumed the maids had been in and for some reason decided to darken the place.

             
I was walking toward the drapes when I became aware of another presence in the room. My eyes had adjusted, and I could see a man sitting on my sofa.

             
“Good afternoon, Mr. Royal.” It was the
c
racker accent of Byron Hewett.

             
He reached up and turned on the lamp that sat on the table at the end of the sofa. He had a twenty-two-caliber pistol in his right hand, a long silencer affixed to the barrel. It was pointing right at me.

             
“If you’d have let me know you were coming, Byron, I’d have put some coffee on.”

             
He laughed. “I won’t be here long enough to drink it,” he said.

             
“What do you want, Byron?”

             
“Ah, Mr. Royal, I brought you a message. ‘Some bugs aren’t so hard to squash after all.’” He laughed again, a low rumbling from deep in his throat, ending in a snort. He stood up and took a step toward me, raising the pistol.

             
I’d moved a step or two closer to Byron while he sat on the couch. “So, you work for the senator,” I said. “If that’s all you wanted to say, you can leave now.”

             
“Can’t do that, Mr. Royal. Me and this little old twenty-two are about to squash you, just like the man said.”

             
I was only an arm’s length from him now. His eyes
tigh
t
ene
d, his mouth twisting into a rictus of malevolence. “You pretty much ruined a good deal for a lot of people,” he said.

             
“It wasn’t much of a deal for the Mexicans, or the kids you infected with your damn drugs.”

             
“Screw ‘em, is what I say. Who gives a shit about a bunch of Mexicans? And those kids are gonna get their drugs som
e
where.”

             
“But not from you. And not from the senator. At least not for a while.”

             
“You sure got a way about you, Mr. Royal. You just flat-out piss me off.”

             
He raised the pistol higher, pointing at my face. I had to take the chance. I’d probably be dead before I touched him, but I wasn’t just going to stand there and take a bul
let.

             
In the split second that I was willing my arm to move toward the pistol, I heard a key slide into the lock of my front door. It turned loudly, back and forth. Out of habit, I had engaged the dead bolt when I came in. A key wouldn’t open the door from the outside.

             
It was probably Larry, the condo maintenance supervisor, trying to get in for some reason, not realizing that I was home.

             
No more than a second had elapsed, though it seemed longer. My arm was coming up, when the noise from the lock distracted Byron. His eyes went to the door in a reflexive movement, and I grabbed his wrist with my left hand, twisting it up as I brought it over my head. I clasped the fist holding the gun with my right hand and twisted it down behind his back. That action put me behind him. I still gripped his wrist, and I brought it up forcefully behind
his back, pushing
toward his shoulder blades.

             
The pistol fired as I brought the arm around.
Pfft
. Almost no sound. The bullet hit the ceiling, and plaster fell around us. Byron screamed in agony as the head of his humerus was jerked out of the shoulder socket. The gun dropped on the carpet.

             
We went to the floor, my knee in his back. I was still exerting upward pressure on his wrist, twisting his arm up toward his shoulder.

             
Larry yelled through the door. “Matt, are you in there?”