Break and Enter (26 page)

“Set it up as quickly as you can, Captain,” Baldwin said.

“Arrangements are already underway,” I said.

I went back to the observation room and called Janet. When she answered, I said, “Parading the prisoner through the bank lobby in an orange jumpsuit isn’t a good idea. Check with the bank and see if they’ll send someone out to a cruiser to see his ID and get whatever signatures they need.”

“Been there, done that, boss. They jumped at the idea.”

“Good. Send someone downstairs to retrieve Mayhew’s driver’s license.”

“Ditto.”

“I knew there was a reason why we paid you the big bucks, Lieutenant. Good show.”

Mrs. Odum was giving me a “look” as I closed my phone. I raised an eyebrow at her in return. “Penny for your thoughts, Ma’am.”

“I was reflecting on some of the things Henry has told me about you over the years,” she said.

“Over the years?”

“He and I have known each other for a long time.”

“What things?”

“I guess I owe Henry an apology. I honestly didn’t believe some of the things he told me about how well you manage your subordinates and the kind of rapport you have with them.”

“If there’s any credit to be taken,” I said, “I owe it to the chief. I’ve worked for him for a long time and more or less modeled my management style after his.”

“Perhaps, but I think it’s more than that. In any case, I’m glad I finally got to see you in action, and you were right to insist that Mr. Baldwin be encouraged to be flexible.”

“Yeah, but if this really involves the Russian mafia, we’ll have to turn it over to the Feds.”

“Your buddy Nick Metaxas will do a good job, I’m sure…. Don’t look so surprised, Captain. As chief law enforcement officer for the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida, which includes Duval and two other counties, I make it my business to know what’s going on with law enforcement in my ‘domain’, if you will.”

The ringing of my cell phone prevented a response, and by the time I’d taken and completed the call, she had left the room, so I went back upstairs to my office and settled down to work. By the time I left for the evening, the thumb drive had been retrieved, documents printed out, and the translators were ready to start working on them.

In lieu of being left with the KidZone people Saturday morning, Mike and I let Robbie swim a lap with us and then play in one corner of the pool while we finished our laps. After breakfast we had to go and inspect one of our rental houses, the tenants having vacated the day before. As we walked up to the front door of the house, we scanned its exterior carefully, with an eye to any needed maintenance. Then we unlocked the front door and entered the living room.

Mike placed his hands over Robbie’s ears before saying, “Holy fucking shit.”

“Ditto,” I said.

The living room was a disaster. Holes had been punched in the walls, and there were splatters of odd colors on them. It got worse as we toured the rest of the rooms. “Robbie,” I said, “run out to the car and get the camera.”

“Dad,” he said, “the car is locked.”

I pushed a button on the clicker and said, “Not anymore.”

“Okay,” he said.

We always carried the digital camera with us when we made an inspection. “Document, document, document” being the watchword. This was our first instance of real damage inflicted by tenants, and it was a classic. Robbie handed me the camera, and I went to work. By the time I had carefully recorded every tiny bit of damage to the interior and exterior of the house, I had filled the camera’s memory card to 99 percent of capacity.

“What now?” Mike said.

“We go home and call the former tenants. Then we get several estimates from at least three handymen and/or contractors, then we call the insurance company, and then we call our lawyer. In that order.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

We managed to get several estimates by the end of the day, mostly because we had a list of handyman-type people upon whom we could call. The former tenants were nowhere to be found, so we resolved to turn matters over to our lawyer on Monday to file suit. Estimates in hand, we would also contact our insurance company, and that was where matters stood when we arrived at the Derby House on Sunday morning for breakfast. We had just been seated when Deborah entered the room. She spotted us, joined us, and fussed over Robbie for a couple of minutes before she turned her attention to us.

“What’s up, Deb?” I said. “You’re not in costume today—at least not so far as I can tell.”

“Lance is taking a break from theater at the moment, so I am too,” she said. “You guys don’t look particularly happy this morning. What’s the matter?”

We explained the tenant problem.

“Wow,” she said, “that’s terrible. Do you check prospective tenants yourself?”

“For the properties in Asheville we use a rental agent, but for the ones here at home we do it ourselves.”

“Maybe you should rethink that. I can refer you to a Realtor friend who manages properties for a fee—she does background checks on all tenants.”

“We might take you up on that,” I said. “What’s her name?”

“I have her card in my purse.”

A young black couple, the guy’s pants precariously hanging well below his hips, walked by the table. The guy stared at Deb, and she stared back.

“Whose bitch are you?” she asked the starer.

“Say what, mama?”

“Your underwear is exposed, so I asked whose bitch you are,” she said. “Surely you know how that custom started.”

“Say what?”

“It’s not a fashion statement,” she said. “It started with young black guys in prison. It was a warning to other prisoners, one that meant, ‘I’m somebody’s bitch. Mess with me and you’ll answer to him.’ Do some research and you’ll find that I’m correct.”

He gave Deb a look of thinly veiled contempt and walked way.

“Deb,” I said, “did you make that up on the spot?”

“Not at all. A friend of mine researched the subject of exposed underwear and showed me her findings.”

“You said a bad word,” Robbie said, looking at Deb.

“Yes, I did,” she said, “but haven’t your daddies told you that it’s okay for grown-ups to do that once in a while?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Tell us about your Realtor friend,” Mike said, changing the subject.

“She’s been managing all sorts of rental properties for nearly ten years and has gotten very good at eliminating undesirable tenants before they move in.”

“And for this, she charges how much?”

“Five or six percent, something like that—I think the fee depends on how many units are involved.”

“That’s a lot,” Mike said. “I wonder if her track record justifies the fees?”

“You’d have to ask her that,” Deb said. “I would think that being saved the time and trouble of placing ads in the paper and checking credit, etcetera, would be worth something.”

“You just earned a free breakfast,” I said.

“Thanks.”

When I arrived at my desk Monday morning, I found a huge folder on top of my paperwork. It contained a full report, complete with translations of the various documents—the process had taken all day Saturday and part of Sunday—with a summary page in front. As soon as I had digested the summary, I called the chief to see if he was available. Finding that he was, I headed for the elevators.

“What’s up, George?” Chief Bridges said as I settled in one of his side chairs.

I explained the situation in some detail, told him what I proposed to do about it, and he said, “Handle it, George, handle it. Handle it.”

Back in my office, I called Mrs. Odum and told her what we had.

“That’s amazing,” she said. “What are you going to do about it?”

“This is way beyond the scope of our office,” I said, “so I’m going to give Nick Metaxas a call. In any case, I think our little burglar has earned his deal.”

“I agree,” she said, “and I’ll pass that along to Mr. Baldwin.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

When I met with my lieutenants that afternoon, they were eager to know what was happening with the burglary case.

“This case involves criminal activity in several states,” I said. “In point of fact, the documents seem to indicate that the local guy was merely a sort of mid-level coordinator of activity. The case has been turned over to the FBI—they have resources and manpower that we don’t have, not to mention the problems of jurisdiction.”

From the looks on their faces, especially Janet’s, they weren’t entirely happy with that announcement.

“Look at it this way,” I said. “We’ve uncovered a criminal enterprise, and the bad guys don’t know that we know about it. The two people who translated the documents have been sworn to secrecy, and the three of you should consider yourselves so sworn, and that applies to all of your subordinates as well. We don’t want word of what will be an ongoing federal investigation leaking out of this building. Everyone did a great job with this case, but it’s time to close the book on it and move on.”

Three days later I was summoned to a meeting in the sheriff’s office. When I arrived in his office, I found Mrs. Odum already there.

“Have a seat, George,” the sheriff said. “We’re waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Murchison.”

I looked a question at him.

“The lady wasn’t happy to learn that we’ve cut a deal with her brother’s killer.”

Before I could reply to that, the sheriff’s secretary ushered the Murchisons into his office.

The meeting went badly almost from the beginning. The minute the sheriff introduced Mrs. Odum to the Murchisons, Mrs. Murchison did her usual thing—and began to rant. She didn’t understand why her brother’s murderer had been offered a deal, and didn’t want to hear any explanations.

Finally, Mrs. Odum stood up and prepared to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Murchison asked. “I haven’t finished.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you have,” Mrs. Odum said. “I came to this meeting as a courtesy to the sheriff, but I’ve had quite enough. He may choose to put up with this nonsense, but I don’t. Good day! Mr. Murchison, if she’s always like this, you have my sympathy.”

She left the room, and Mrs. Murchison, who had been rendered momentarily speechless, started to say something, but I cut her off.

“Mrs. Murchison,” I said, just sharply enough to get her attention, “there are one or two things about this situation that you may not have considered.”

“I can’t imagine what,” she said, somewhat nastily.

“The killer has pled guilty,” I said, “so there won’t be a trial. Think about all of those young men your brother took home with him at one time or another. The defense attorney would surely have placed every one of them on the witness stand, and all the sordid details of your brother’s life would have become a matter of public record. Surely you wouldn’t want that to happen.”

“Oh,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of it quite that way.”

“Perhaps you should, my dear,” the sheriff said. “Captain Martin is absolutely correct. Had there been a trial, all of your brother’s dirty linen would be flapping in the public breeze, and the press would have had a field day.”

She calmed down, and the sheriff’s secretary eventually escorted them from his office. He and I looked at each other, smiled, and rolled our eyes. He thanked me for defusing the “dragon lady,” and I went back to my desk.

We spent the Friday and Saturday of Labor Day weekend in Atlanta with the Barnett family. Robbie had a one-hour session with Lydia Saturday afternoon, and after he went up to the playroom, we had a long conference with her.

“He seems to be doing quite well,” Lydia said.

“Yes, he is, thanks to you,” I said.

“I can’t take all the credit, George. The environment you and Mike provide has as much to do with his progress as anything.”

“We only have one real concern,” Mike said.

“What’s that?” she said.

“He is so quiet so much of the time. Not withdrawn—just quiet. He never causes any problems, and I don’t think we’ve had one instance ever of him misbehaving.”

“That’s true,” I said.

“Children who have been through the kind of trauma Robbie experienced frequently react with extremes of behavior,” Lydia said. “They regularly begin to act up and become problem children. Less often they become little model citizens, so to speak. This is usually true when they find themselves in a loving environment and are made to feel truly secure.”

At the dinner table that evening, I mentioned Robbie’s budding musical ability and how it was discovered when we were at the home of Tom Foster.

“Tom Foster,” Charles said. “Why is that name familiar?”

“Well, besides being a teacher at the University of North Florida, director of the Jacksonville Symphony Chorus, and Organist and Choirmaster at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Dr. Foster is also something of a concert artist,” I said. “I think he performed at St. Philip’s Cathedral last year or perhaps the year before.”

“I remember that concert,” Philip said. “It was an extraordinary occasion. I fact, I purchased several of his CDs. I sent one of them to some friends in Boston.”

“Really?” I said. “He performed in Boston recently. Give me a minute and I’ll think of the name of the church.”

“It was the Church of the Advent on Beacon Hill,” Mike said. “Tom and Noah stayed with a couple of guys who live across the street. They are cousins and lawyers or something like that.”

“That would, no doubt, be our friends William and Henry Lane,” Philip said.

We drove home on Sunday in order to miss the Labor Day traffic, and we took Robbie to the beach Monday. Mike and I set our folding chairs on the beach and sat for a long time, watching Robbie happily playing in the surf.

“Does it get any better than this?” he said.

“Better than what?”

“The two of us, sitting on the beach, watching our son play in the surf.”

“Babe,” I said, “you just said a mouthful.”

The Adventures of George and Mike, Book One