Fatal Decree (12 page)

I shrugged. “I kind of figured those were one and the same. The caller trying to make good on his threat.”

“And of course, there was the call I got last night.”

I sat up straighter. “You got another threat?”

“Yeah, about midnight.”

“Same voice as at Moore’s?”

“I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”

“What did he say?”

“I hope you enjoyed today’s sunset, bitch. It could be your last.”

“What?” I said, my voice rising. “You went to that crime scene in spite of that threat? Are you crazy?” I didn’t like her being a target and I didn’t think she was taking the threats seriously enough.

“Calm down, Matt,” J.D. said. “I wouldn’t have gone if I’d thought somebody would try to shoot me. Last time he waited a couple of days to come after me.”

“For some reason,” said Jock, “whoever is murdering these women has you in his sights, too. I know our working hypothesis is that the guy running the show is probably someone you put away. But we might be sniffing the wrong trail. If so, when we figure out the reason for wanting you dead, we might be able to find the bastard.”

“None of this makes any sense to me,” J.D. said. “I was a rookie detective when the killings happened in Miami. I was just a small part of a larger task force, and we never found the killer. But if it’s not tied to those murders—and the murder weapon says it is—why is the guy after me?”

“You’re pretty sure it’s not somebody you arrested later?” Jock asked.

“So far, I can’t find anybody who would have been involved in any way with the Miami murders and who had some contact with me.”

“What about the other detectives on the task force?” I asked. “Have any of them had any death threats over the years?”

“No. I checked. The chief of detectives talked to everybody on that task force and none of them have been approached. Two of the detectives are dead, but both of them died of natural causes several years ago. My old partner couldn’t come up with anyone who we thought could be involved.”

“Do you think the guy committing the murders here is just using the dead women as bait to get to you?” I asked.

“That doesn’t make any sense. He could get me with a lot less trouble,” she said. “I’d be pretty easy pickings on the key most any time.”

“Then why the dead ladies on our island?” I asked

“I think they’re connected,” she said, “but I can’t figure out why.”

“Maybe,” said Jock, “the guy is just as twisted as the one in Miami. Or maybe our murderer is the one from Miami who’s just been asleep for twelve years. For whatever reason.”

“Two problems with that theory,” said J.D. “One, serial killers don’t just stop. They get too much of a rush out of the murders. Particularly the ritualistic ones like we have. Secondly, even if the guy was in prison or for some reason just decided to take a twelve-year sabbatical, why would he be after me? I can’t see where I fit into this.”

“There’s a connection there somewhere,” I said. “We just don’t see it yet.”

“Do you want to stay involved in this, Jock?” asked J.D. “I’m pretty sure Nell Alexander was just a random victim. No connection to your agency.”

“Intended or not, the bastard took out one of ours. I’m in until we get him. The director said to stay as long as I need to. He’s ready to give you whatever help he can from Washington.”

J.D. nodded. “I’ll keep you in the loop. Tell your director we appreciate his offer.”

We pulled into the parking lot at Leffis Key. The crime-scene truck and two Bradenton Beach police cruisers were still there, parked amid several civilian cars. Perhaps twenty people dressed in shorts and casual shirts milled about on the sand parking area. Yellow crime-scene tape was strung across the entrance to the preserve, and a uniformed cop stood behind it, keeping out the curious who gather at every tragedy.

J.D. got out as I pulled to a stop. She stood at the open door and said, “I’m going to the station. I want to get an update on what’s going on. Do you guys want to meet for lunch and let me fill you in?”

I looked at my watch. It wasn’t quite ten, early for a day that was already long. “Dry Dock?” I asked.

“Sure. Grab a table outside. See you at noon.”

The sun was high and bright, but the lack of humidity and the breeze off the bay made for a pleasant day. Jock and I were led to a table under the roof that had recently been added to the Dry Dock’s bayside dining area. The space was open on three sides, giving us a panoramic view of Sarasota Bay and the city beyond. The green water shimmered, the occasional ripple as bright as an emerald. The tables were mostly taken, some locals, a few snowbirds and tourists, all enjoying a peaceful day in the sun. Servers hustled about their business, filling glasses, bringing food, clearing plates.

The great white egret that lived on the property ambled along the sea wall, seemingly oblivious to the funny-looking humans who sat in the shade. I saw J.D. making her way to our table. She was wearing her usual cop attire, dark slacks, white polo shirt, and sensible pumps. She’d left her equipment belt in the car, but I knew she would have her .38 police special in an ankle holster, hidden by the slacks. Her hair hung loosely to her shoulders, and a smile of recognition lit up her elegant face. “She’s a beauty,” I said under my breath to Jock.

“She’s also armed and dangerous,” he said, smiling. “Be careful, podna.”

I watched her walk toward us, her gait relaxed, the smile radiating good cheer. My heart did that thing it always does when I see her, a little jig of joy at the prospect of spending time with her.

I had been in love only once in my life and I had managed to screw that up. While I was working so hard at being a lawyer, I forgot that a marriage takes a little work, too. My wife Laura gave it her all, but it wasn’t enough. Not when she had to deal with a husband who was so intent on climbing the success ladder that he didn’t realize that without Laura, nothing else would matter.

She finally gave up, divorced me and left with nothing but her car. She’d found happiness with a widowed doctor in Atlanta and was raising his two daughters as her own when she died. I had never filled the hole left in my life when she moved out, and her death taught me that some things cannot be remedied; that sometimes a hole just gets bigger and bigger until it consumes you.

J.D. had slipped up on me. We had become friends, and one day I realized that the hole in my life was being filled ever so slowly by this lovely cop. I was falling in love, but so far our relationship had remained platonic. I was afraid to push it, as I’d had almost no indication that she had feelings for me that were more than casual. There had been one or two moments when I thought something might break, that we might take that next step and become more than friends. But those moments always slipped away, and our connection had remained that of friends, nothing more.

She reached our table, took a seat, and ordered an iced tea from the server. “We found the boat,” she said. “They beached it behind a condo at mid-key. The crime scene techs are working on it now, but it looks clean. No prints at all, nothing.”

“Anything on the shooters?” asked Jock.

“A condo owner saw a man beach the boat and walk away. Like he was just strolling the beach. A couple of hours later the boat was still there and was getting some pretty rough treatment. The wind had swung the stern around and the outboards’ lower units were banging on the beach. She called us.”

“Just one man?” I asked.

“Yes. He might have dropped his partner off someplace else. We’ve got our guys and some Bradenton Beach cops canvassing all the condos along our beach.”

“That’ll take forever,” said Jock.

“Not many of the snowbirds are here yet,” said J.D. “A lot of condos are empty. We’re talking to the managers of each complex and asking them to contact the owners who are in residence. That saves a lot of time.”

“Was the boat stolen?” I asked.

“The registration numbers said it belonged to some people who live
on the bay over in Cortez. Nobody’s home, but the boat lift in back of the house was down in the water. A neighbor said the owners are visiting family in Chicago, but he noticed that the boat had been on the lift last night when he took his dog for a walk.”

“And,” she continued, “there was a car in the lot across the street from The Seafood Shack that was stolen in Tampa yesterday. The techs are going over it now.”

“Did we get an ID on the victim?” Jock asked.

“She was a forty-five-year-old drug addict named Audrey McLain who worked as a prostitute to feed her habit. Bradenton P.D. knew her well. She worked the same few blocks for years. She was a confidential informant for one of the detectives, and as long as she provided them with good information on the drug dealers, they left her alone.”

“Another random victim,” I said.

“Probably,” said J.D.

“Did the crime scene folks find anything at Leffis Key?” I asked.

“A lot of shells from an Uzi, some shoe prints, but nothing that’ll help us nail the bastards.”

“Is there anything about the murdered women that stands out? Similarities?” Jock asked.

“They’re all a type,” she said. “White, middle aged, blonde, but those were the only similarities. They came from different backgrounds, had different jobs. We couldn’t find anything that would have connected the women in Miami to each other. We’re following up on that with Nell and Audrey. I doubt we’ll find a connection, but we have to cover the bases.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

J.D. nodded, her face tightening. “Audrey was killed with the same .22 pistol that killed Nell Alexander and those women in Miami.”

The controller was pissed. His angry voice penetrated Jeff Worthington’s eardrum, accompanied by a low, regularly spaced tone from the cell phone he held. His battery was low. He hoped it wouldn’t expire before the controller finished his rant. He could be executed for such a breach of protocol.

“What the fuck do you mean, you went on the mission? You dumb ass. Your job is to coordinate the idiots I’m saddled with, not get involved with them. What if you’d gotten caught? I set you up to be our goddamned lawyer, the man who can get into the jails and take care of any of these idiots dumb enough to get arrested. You can’t do that if you’re in jail yourself.”

“I thought it’d be better for me to oversee the operation from close-up. You know, after the first fuckup.”

“Qualman did okay,” said the controller. “He almost had the bitch detective, but he couldn’t have anticipated that a man with a gun would be in the parking lot. Did you ever find out who he was?”

“The local newspaper said two men were involved. One of them is a lawyer on Longboat Key named Matt Royal. The other man was unidentified. That was it.”

“I’ll see what I can find out about him. In the meantime, if you so much as think about going on another operation, your life will be over. Do you understand that?”

“I thought—”

“Your answer is ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir,’ nothing else,” the controller shouted. “You don’t take initiative, you don’t make plans. You do exactly as you’re told. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll be in touch.” The phone went dead.

Worthington thought it was a good thing that the controller didn’t find out that he’d gone with Qualman, too. He, not Qualman, was the one who took the woman from the house on Longboat Key, killed her, and tied her body to the tree on Sister Key. How was he to know that old rope wouldn’t hold her when the tide started moving.

Qualman had set up the meeting, but it was Jeff Worthington who was in charge. The controller had told him where to leave the bodies, but he couldn’t have known that he, Worthington, had to do the killing. It was not something he would delegate. His involvement had always been part of the plan. The plan drawn by the master himself.

The only reason he’d told the controller about his involvement in the most recent fiasco was that he was sure the controller would read about the operation in the papers. He’d want to know who the second man was, and Worthington thought it prudent to get ahead of the bad news. It hadn’t gone as badly as it could have. The controller would get over being pissed, but Worthington had no intention of bowing out of the operations.

He needed to make the kills. It gave him a godlike power, knowing that the person he killed had no inkling of what was happening. One second they were alive, and the next second they were dead. No warning. No time to get ready. Just life one moment and death the next. And he needed the excitement that came with the kills. He’d first tasted that rush when he killed the bouncer so many years ago at the club called The Place, and he’d dreamed about that moment during the fifteen years he’d spent as a guest of the Florida Department of Corrections. Once, when he was pretty sure he could get away with it, he’d killed a young druggie during his first few days in the system.

Now he was building memories. Later, after the kills, while the bodies were cooling in some medical examiner’s morgue, he would stare at the photographs and remember each detail of the kill and feel the power it brought him. A power that most mortals never tasted or even understood. It was as simple as that. He needed to make the kills. But he was good for now. He could wait a few more days before it was time to start hunting. He breathed a sigh of relief and plugged his phone into its charger.

We finished lunch, and J.D. headed to Bradenton to the sheriff’s forensics lab. She was hoping to get some information on the stolen car found parked across the street from the Seafood Shack. It was so close to where the boat had been stolen, that it seemed reasonable to assume that whoever had taken the boat had also stolen the car.

Jock and I went home and took
Recess
out on a completely unproductive fishing trip to a man-made reef near the north end of Anna Maria Island. The sea was flat, the sun warm, and the beer cold. Even without fish, it was a fine way to spend a November afternoon.

J.D. called to report that the car had been wiped clean. No fingerprints or anything else that would be of any use to law enforcement. She declined my dinner invitation, saying she was tired and wanted to go home, fix something simple for dinner, sip a glass of wine, and get back into the David Hagberg novel she was reading.