Death Among the Mangroves (27 page)

“But,” Lawton said, “given that they destroyed, or sold off at a song, somewhere close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in car and boat, it seems stupid to hang onto something worth less than two percent of that.”

“One might think,” Troy said. “But the car and boat obviously had to go, they had blood in them and the good judge would know how hard it was to make that go away. I guess it never occurred to Mark or the judge that we'd find the body and the bullet. They weren't far wrong; without that chart plotter trace there is almost zero chance that anyone would ever have found the body. Meat doesn't last long out there and the bones left over would just fall down among the mangrove roots and vanish.”

“That's for sure,” Groud said. “I spend most of my time out there in those mangroves. I could hide a dead elephant. So what do we do now?”

“I'll get an arrest warrant for Mark Stider, no problem,” Troy said. “But I'm going to ask for one for the father too. For conspiracy to conceal the crime.”

Lawton sat up. “Wait a minute. You're talking about arresting a sitting circuit court judge, and for a major felony.”

“Yes. I am. Why I asked you and the mayor to stop by. Frank, you and Lester don't issue the warrants but you and Lester will catch any flak that comes our way in the form of lawsuits. And the good judge knows people, as we have already seen.”

“Jesus,” Frank Lawton said. “The judge issuing the arrest warrant will be sitting in an office down the hall from Judge Stider. Half the employees in the county courthouse will know about it in ten minutes. Half of
them
will call the newspapers and television stations. It's not going to happen quietly.”

“What's it going to cost us?” Groud said.

“Aye, there's the rub,” Troy said, nodding.

“What do you mean?” Lawton asked Groud.

“I mean, if the judge sues the town, or Troy,” Groud said. “Or me and the councilmen, or whatever.”

“Oh. That,” Lawton said. “No way to tell. The town has insurance for that, of course. No problem.”

“No problem now,” Groud said. “But when we renew the insurance and can't find any company to pick it up, or find the premiums have doubled, then we have a problem.” He looked at Troy. “Isn't that so?”

Troy nodded. “That is…possible.”

“Winning the criminal case against the judge would torpedo any civil case,” Lawton mused. He looked up at Troy. “Can you guarantee a conviction?”

Troy shook his head. “On the kid, probably. Nothing's guaranteed in a criminal trial. You know that. On the judge, best I can do with what I have now is to give Rita Shaner and the Naples state attorney's office a running start.”

“Ah. I see the problem,” Lawton said. “So what is it you want from us now?”

“Vote of confidence, I suppose. I'm the chief law enforcement officer here so I get two votes. You each get one vote. Do I proceed with the request for two arrest warrants? Or do I drop the judge and just go for the kid?”

Groud stared at Troy then looked at Lawton. Lawton looked at his shoes. After a moment Troy said, “Well, gentlemen?”

“I think the son of a bitch should be arrested,” Groud said. “We're dithering here about insurance costs. How about the cost to our business community and even to our souls when a visiting tourist gets murdered by one of us and we let it slide? Sending
pere et fils
to prison would be better publicity than what we're getting now.”

“
Pere et fils
?” Troy said. “Lester, you sure you're a fish-guts-covered redneck guide?

“I once had sex with a French girl.”

Troy nodded. “Haven't we all. What about you, Frank?”

“Well, there
was
this girl from Quebec…”

“No, Frank. Not that. How do you vote?”

“I say go for it. Even if we can't convict
pere
Stider on criminal charges, even if he sues us—maybe
especially
if he sues us—he will never survive the publicity. It's an elected job and he's finished as a judge. Getting Stider the Slider off the bench would be a good day's work.”

“Four ayes, zero nays,” Troy said. “The ayes have it. I'll get busy.” He leaned across his desk and shook hands with Groud and Lawton. “Remember,” he said, “we must all hang together or we shall surely hang separately.”

“Ben Franklin,” Lawton said.

“None other.”

Lawton left. Groud started to leave but turned at the door to Troy's office and looked back. “You didn't make Lawton pay the swear-word fines.”

“I'll cover for him.”

“Generous. I'm just curious. What would you have done had Lawton and I voted no?”

“Well, Les, that would be a tie. I would have given myself a tie-breaking vote.”

Groud nodded. “I suspected all that politically savvy cooperation from you was too good to be true.”

“I needed to know that you had my back, Les. Now go catch a fish someplace. I have important police chief things to do.”

Chapter 45

Thursday, January 9

Rita Shaner, the assistant state attorney in Naples, got creative and submitted the arrest warrant requests to a midnight magistrate rather than a daytime judge. Troy got a phone call from her lowest-level clerk at three a.m. to say they were ready and would be emailed to his office.

He went in at six a.m. and printed out the warrants. At seven that morning Troy and three officers, the one going off-shift and the two coming on, arrested both Mark Stider and Judge Hans Stider.

Mark, of course, put up a fight. Dominique Reiss and Jeremiah Brown ganged him and took him down and Troy bent over the three of them and snapped on the cuffs.

“I'll kill you, you bastard,” Mark shouted at Troy as he was hoisted to his feet. Even with his hands cuffed behind his back he tried to kick Troy. Troy kicked Mark's legs out from under him and Jeremiah reached down and picked Mark up with one huge hand.

“Behave yourself,” Jeremiah said. He was holding Mark Stider up off the ground with one hand. He held Mark a moment until Mark seemed less combative. For all the effort that entailed, Jeremiah could have been holding up a pillow.

“This is unlawful,” Judge Stider bellowed as Troy handcuffed him. “This is retaliation. I'm going to own this town when I'm done suing all of you.”

“You're going to be an absentee landlord then,” Troy said. “You're going to be up in north Florida, in a prison cell.”

“What sort of evidence do you claim to have, you idiot?”

Troy ignored that. “Jeremiah, read them their rights.” Jeremiah rattled off the Miranda warnings to each and Troy's officers took the Stiders out to the police trucks.

After supervising as the Stiders were put into separate cells, Troy sat at his desk and started making phone calls. He told Cilla Dowling at the
Bayou Breeze
about the arrests. Rita Shaner had called from the state attorneys' office to tell him that she had talked to the chief judge for the Twentieth Circuit and it looked as if Judge Stider would be suspended with pay for the time being.

Troy called Shaner back. “Wanted to thank you for the creative work,” he said.

“Yeah. I always wanted to go into private practice anyway,” Shaner said. “The salary here sucks.”

“Proud of you.”

“Be proud of me when I, or somebody around here, gets convictions. Which may not be so easy with whifty evidence.”

“What do you mean?”

“That cute trick with the private investigator. The defense will try to get that gun tossed out. When the gun goes, so goes the bullet match too.”

“But he was hired by the victim's father. He was working privately, not for me. And P.I.s do have wide latitude to investigate,” Troy said.

“Not that wide. Unlocked storage unit, my ass. I'll do what I can. At least we have the blood and other evidence. But right now I feel like I just stuck my arm into a hornet's nest. You better come through for me on this.”

“I will. I would think your boss would be handling a case like this, not leaving it to some assistant state attorney.”

“You mean leaving it to someone who actually knows how to try cases? No, Jack DeGrasse will hand this one to me or one of my cohorts. If we win he gets the news conference. If we lose we get fired and he gets the news conference.”

“Sounds fair.”

“It's as fair as it gets around here. Could be even worse, though.”

“How?”

“I could be a public defender.”

Chapter 46

Friday, January 10

Troy was an hour into his paperwork the next morning when Rita Shaner called. “Hold onto your chair,” she told him, “The Stiders were ROR'd this morning.”

“Released on their own recognizance? No bail even? You're kidding me.”

“Wish I was. With what you gave me they should have been remanded to the county jail. They're loose and probably rampaging around your jurisdiction. I hear that Judge Stider, in particular, was rampageous.”

“Rampageous? Are you sure that's a word?” Troy said.

“I'm a lawyer. I only know meaningless Latin words,” Shaner said. “But if it's not a word, it needs to be.”

“How did you let this happen? You're the assistant state's attorney for as far as the eye can see.”

“Apparently, your eye can't see up to Fort Myers. Jack DeGrasse sent word down. Influence is like piss, it runs downhill. And I caught it. There was simply no way a circuit court judge was going to sit in jail awaiting trial.”

“Couldn't you even get a bail set?”

“Nope. Not even on the kid, who is not a circuit court judge. The judge handling arraignments this morning wet his pants and almost apologized to them. What's the diff? They would have made any bail the court set.”

“One difference is that they might be easier to track. Did the judge even order surrender of passports?”

“Nope. Nor did he tell them to stay in the jurisdiction.”

“He may as well have set a time bomb to go off in this town.”

“Oh come on, Troy. Judge Stider might sue you, but that's all.”

“It's not him. It's the kid. Mark Stider. When he gets angry he is unencumbered by the thought process.”

“Oh. Well. My advice? Watch your back.”

“Always do. Thanks for the call. And for trying.”

Chapter 47

Friday, January 10

Randy “Panda” Groves brought out two ice teas for himself and for Troy. He sat across from Troy at the big cast-iron table on his deck overlooking the Collier River where that met the Gulf of Mexico.

“Don't know if I ever told you,” Troy said, “but this is the best view I've seen in Mangrove Bayou. And to think it's on Snake Key too.”

Groves almost never smiled, but this time he did manage a thin grin. “Thinking outside the box. Moved to town and saw that all the middle-class people lived on Barron Key, the wealthy on Airport Key and the original poor inhabitants here on Snake Key.”

“You could afford Airfield Key, if there were a place available. Not so many lots there.”

Groves shook his head. “Cheaper to buy four lots on this corner, with the great view, than one lot there. Had some single-wides hauled off for scrap and built a nice house.”

“With a great view and an outdoor office,” Troy said. Unless it was raining too much, they always met out on this deck, elevated like the rest of the house a dozen feet off the ground, and with a blue Sunbrella sunshade overhead. “But what happens when our next influx of yuppies buys up all the lots on Snake Key and jacks up the real estate prices? Where do the old-Florida ‘Snakers' go then?”

“You skipped last Friday,” Panda said, ignoring the question as he opened his laptop. Troy usually had an appointment with the psychologist for every Friday afternoon.

“Town meeting,” Troy said. “Last Friday of each month.”

“Town meeting is at seven p.m. Your usual time here is five.”

“I had some paperwork to finish up. For the town meeting.”

Groves stared at Troy. He had the most deadpan stare Troy could recall seeing. “Sure,” Groves said. “We could schedule you for another day.”

“No. This is good. I just need to plan for it a little better. Get my work done early.”

Groves nodded. “You work from seven to seven. And most weekends you are in the office part time too?”

“I like my job.”

Groves stared at Troy.

“And,” Troy said, “we're always a little short-handed. Especially if there's anyone in the cells. Got to keep a person in the station when that happens.”

“Who made that rule?”

“I did.”

Groves stared at Troy some more.

“I know. I created my own problem,” Troy said.

“Why did your dreams switch?” Groves said.

“I told you why.”

“Tell me why again.”

“I used to dream about the man who was about to decapitate his wife. I shot him before he could. I was reprimanded but not fired. The other officers present didn't exactly come to my defense.”

“And so you dreamed, often, that the man had, in fact, surrendered and you had shot him anyway,” Groves said. “What did you come to think about all that?”

“At first I came to think I had killed a man for no good reason,” Troy said. “Then, later, I came to suspect, at least, that I was bending the dream to suit the report from the Internal Affairs investigation.”