Fatal Decree (30 page)

I called J.D. and explained what happened. “Can you get a warrant to search his place? I’m sure there are fingerprints. That’ll tell us who he really is.”

“No judge in her right mind is going to issue a warrant on the basis of your intuition.”

“It’s more than intuition. This guy isn’t a lawyer. How did he get into the jail, get his name on the Bar’s list of lawyers? Did his notice of appearance in Bagby’s case have a Bar identification number on it?”

“Yeah. He looks legit.”

“Call the Bar office in Tallahassee,” I said. “Tell them you want to see the paperwork he used to qualify for the Bar exam and to get sworn in. They might give it to a cop.”

“I’ll see what I can turn up.”

“Can you run the license plate of a Mercedes parked in front of this guy’s condo?” I gave her the tag number.

“Okay. What are you going to do?”

“I’ll call Jock. Maybe he can get some of his people to do a forensics sweep of Flagler’s apartment.”

“You know whatever you find won’t be admissible evidence. Not without a warrant.”

“I know. But if we can figure out who this idiot is, we may be able to move up the food chain and get whoever is responsible for the murders.”

“Be careful, Matt.” She hung up.

I called Jock, and he said he’d get a forensics guy out of Tampa and meet me at Flagler’s apartment. “It should take about an hour,” he said.

“You’ve just got forensic teams standing by all over the world?” I asked.

“No, but we have agents who’re trained in some of the forensic sciences. They aren’t able to do a full work-up, but they can lift fingerprints. Do the basic stuff.”

I sat in my car, listening to the radio. The news was mostly bad, troubles in the Middle East, tribal conflicts in Africa, a factory worker who killed six of his coworkers at a plant in North Carolina, a commercial for a diet supplement to help those with erectile dysfunction. The world seemed to be cracking up. I sometimes felt like the human race was circling the drain, about to consign itself to oblivion.

J.D. called back. “The car belongs to one of those fleet leasing outfits. Want to guess who this particular Mercedes was leased to?”

“A lawyer named Ben Flagler?”

“You got it.”

“How did he make the payments?”

“Cash up front. He leased it for six months and paid the entire lease payment when he signed the contract.”

“Didn’t the leasing guys find that a bit strange?”

“They said it happens more than you’d think.”

“What happens if the guy doesn’t bring the car back at the end of the lease?”

“They’ve got insurance to cover that. They don’t worry about it.”

“Can you get a warrant to search the car?”

“Nope. Same problem as the condo.”

“Crap.”

“Hey, you’re the lawyer.”

“Right. I’ll talk to you later.”

Jock rolled up in his new rental and joined me in the Explorer. Ten minutes later a black SUV with two men in the front seats drove into the lot. Jock got out and waved them over, talked with the men for a few moments, and then led them around to the rear of the building. He came back and sat in the Explorer.

“The forensics team?” I asked.

“Well, they’re what passes for one on short notice. They’ll take the place apart and dust for fingerprints.”

“We need to have them go over the Mercedes, too.”

“You sure it belongs to Flagler?”

“Yeah. J.D. ran the tag.”

“I’ll get a wrecker out here and we’ll haul it to Tampa,” Jock said. “We’ll get some of our real forensic people to go over it.” He pulled out his phone and made a call, arranging for Flagler’s car to be picked up.

“How did you get into the apartment?”

“Broke a window on the back door.”

We sat for a while, listening to the radio. A Sarasota Police Department patrol car turned into the lot and drove slowly toward us. “I think we might have been busted,” Jock said. “Wait here.”

He got out of the Explorer as the cruiser came to a stop behind us, blocking my exit. Jock walked over to the police car holding an ID case in his raised hand. The cop on the passenger side motioned him over. Jock handed him the case and they talked for a minute. The cop used his cell phone to make a call, hung up, and gave the ID case back to Jock. The officers drove back out to Fruitville Road and disappeared.

Jock climbed back into the Explorer. “One of the neighbors called in what she thought was a burglary. They came to check it out. I told them we were on a national security detail and that we’re the ones who broke into the place.”

“Are there going to be any repercussions on this?” I asked.

“No. They accepted my credentials and called their supervisor. They’re in the clear and so are we.”

We sat for another thirty minutes, my stomach sending out signals that it was being starved. The two men who’d gone into the apartment came around the building. Jock got out and went to talk to them. The conversation was short, and the men got into the black SUV and left.

“They found a cell phone,” said Jock, grinning.

“Flagler’s?”

“Probably. One of the guys found it right next to where some ruts in the grass indicated the motorcycle was parked. It probably fell out of Flagler’s pocket when he was hurrying to get away from you.”

“That could be a real break,” I said.

“Our techs will pull every bit of information in the phone. We’ll see where that leads. But, I’ve got something even better.”

I stared at him, waiting. He grinned. “What?” I asked.

“They found a twenty-two-caliber pistol. They’ll run the ballistics in Tampa, but I’m betting it’s the one used in the whale tail murders.”

“J.D. isn’t going to like you ruining her evidence. We don’t have a warrant. The pistol can’t be used.”

“It won’t matter. If this is the guy, he’ll never go to trial.”

I shrugged. I knew he was right. “Any prints?”

“A lot. They ran the best ones through the system on their portable scanner. They belong to a man named Jeff Worthington. Guess where he spent the last fifteen years?”

“Glades Correctional,” I said. “He’s the one J.D. came up with.”

“Bingo. He got out five months ago.”

“Then how did he become a lawyer named Flagler?”

“The University of North Dakota is sending me a photo of Flagler from his student ID card. Glades is sending a mug shot of Worthington. We should have them in a few minutes.”

Jock’s phone dinged. He opened it and fiddled with the keypad. He handed it to me. There was a picture of a handsome young man on the screen. “Is that Flagler?” Jock asked.

“Not even close.”

“That’s Ben Flagler, late of the University of North Dakota Law School.”

The phone dinged again and Jock held up another picture, a mug shot of a man who was definitely the one who’d just ridden off on a motorcycle.

“That’s the man who said he was Flagler,” I said.

“Worthington took Flagler’s place somehow. But why?”

“Good question. And where is the real Ben Flagler?”

Jock shook his head. “He’s probably dead.”

“What about his family?” I asked.

“Don’t know. The agency is checking on that. A lot of manpower is coming to bear on this one.”

“Have you heard anything out of New Orleans?”

“Not yet, but I’ll be updated as soon as they have anything.”

I called J.D. “Flagler’s in the wind, but Jock’s people got an ID. It’s the same guy you locked onto at Glades. Jeff Worthington.”

“Damn,” she said. “That’s got to be our guy. How the heck did he get to be a lawyer?”

“It looks like he killed a young man who’d just graduated from law school and stole his identity.”

“I’ll be damned. You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Why don’t we meet at your house? I’ll bring Steve and his paperwork and stop for sandwiches. We can eat and talk.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

We were back at my dining room table. Steve Carey was there with his laptop, his arm still in a sling. He could use both hands on the computer, but the small grimace of pain told me it cost him.

J.D. had brought sandwiches and the remains littered the table. She looked pointedly at me. “If you’d get the trash off the table we could get to work.”

“Isn’t that woman’s work?” I asked.

She reached for her gun. “What did you say?” She was smiling. I think.

“I said I’d get right on it.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said.

“Matt’s got some kind of a death wish,” Steve said.

“Nah,” said Jock. “He’s just not very bright.”

I gathered up the lunch detritus and took it to the trash can in the kitchen.

Steve was talking when I came back. “Flagler, or actually, Worthington, may be the linchpin. He and Qualman shared a cell for a time and just before he was released in June, his cellmate was Barry Steiffel, the guy whose fingerprints were found on the boat used in the Leffis Key shooting.”

“But,” said J.D., “Worthington was in prison at the time of the Miami whale tail murders. He couldn’t have been involved in those, and both Qualman and Steiffel were too young to have been a part of it. Plus, there’s no evidence that any of them were ever in Miami.”

“Look at this,” Steve said, putting a page full of diagrams on the table. “We have three known participants in the attempts on J.D. Qualman from
the parking lot at Lazy Lobster, Steiffel from the boat at Leffis Key, and Bagby who tried to stab her. We don’t know exactly what Worthington’s connection to the murders is, but he is connected to all three of the others through his time at Glades and his so-called representation of Bagby.”

“But none of them could possibly have been involved in the original whale tail murders,” said J.D. “And none of them would have any reason to come after me.”

Steve grinned. “Look here,” he said, pointing to a box in the middle of the arrangement of boxes on the paper.

J.D. frowned. “Caleb Picket?”

“Think about it,” said Steve. “You arrested him, humiliated him in front of all his friends, the people he was fleecing, and ruined his life. Or at least he might see it that way.”

“Okay,” said J.D., “but he wasn’t involved in the whale—” She stopped mid-sentence, her face going blank. I could see the idea starting to percolate in her brain. It was coming together for her, the pieces of the puzzle starting to fall into place. Except for one.

“But he’s dead,” she said. “Even if he was the whale tail killer and wanted his revenge on me, he’s dead.”

“Maybe he’s reaching out from the grave,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” J.D. said.

“Figuratively speaking,” I said. “Maybe revenge is his legacy. He could have arranged for these guys to take care of you after he died.”

“And what’s in it for them?” J.D. asked. I could tell her skepticism was wavering a bit. She was trying to get her head around it.

“Picket stole a lot of money from his friends,” I said, “and none of it was ever recovered. Maybe he’s paying these ex-cons somehow.”

“There’s more,” Steve said. “Our boy Worthington shared a cell with Picket for the last few years that Worthington was at Glades. Qualman and the others spent a great deal of time with Picket in the exercise yard as well. Maybe Picket was the high priest and the others were the acolytes.”

Jock had been sitting quietly, listening. “Steve,” he said, “any idea on how the Guatemalans fit into this?”

“That’s the wild card,” Steve said. “They don’t make sense.”

“What about Gene Alexander?” Jock asked.

“He doesn’t fit either,” said Steve. “Maybe the two things aren’t connected.”

“Then why were the gangbangers after J.D.? Or me?” I asked.

“Good question,” said Jock. “Maybe my people will have some answers later today.”

Just then, Jock’s laptop pinged, and pages started dropping from the attached printer.

Jeff Worthington was in big trouble. He’d panicked when Royal showed up at his door, and he’d run. The controller would see this as a failure, and Jeff didn’t want to think about what the consequences of that would be.

He’d stashed the bike behind his condo in case he ever needed to make a quick escape. Maybe he shouldn’t have spooked so easily when Royal knocked on his door. The only concern he’d had about playing lawyer was that someday a real attorney would question him on some point of law. He hadn’t really expected that to happen and certainly not this soon.

Damn Royal. If he’d only come into the apartment, he would have died there on the floor. Jeff would have used his knife and carved him up right there in the living room. No noise, no nosey neighbors wondering about a gunshot. But Royal had balked. How had he given Royal any reason not to trust him? Well, it couldn’t be undone. He needed to call the controller, get out in front of the storm that he knew was coming. Maybe he could convince the controller that it wasn’t his fault.

Worthington reached in his pocket for his cell phone. It was gone. He checked the other pocket, his mind sending signals of panic to his adrenal glands, flooding his system with hormones triggering his flight instincts. If he’d lost the phone, he was dead. He didn’t know how to contact the controller. The number was in his phone, and he’d never bothered to memorize it.

Oh, shit
, he thought. The phone. If the cops found it, they’d be able to track his calls, maybe even find the controller. God, he was a dead man.

Worthington had left the condo and run east on Fruitville Road. He
had followed it blindly for twenty miles. He seemed to have ridden right out of civilization, the road running straight through flat open space. He’d pulled to the side of the road to think, to figure out what he could do to salvage his situation.

Worthington knew he was a resourceful guy, but there were limits on what he could do. He only had the money that the controller deposited in his bank account when he needed it. He couldn’t even get to that account without alerting the controller and, probably now, the cops. He checked his wallet. He had a couple of hundred dollars in cash and three credit cards, two in the name of Ben Flagler and another that he’d set up right after he’d gotten out of prison. It was in the name of an inmate he’d befriended at Glades named James Barber. He’d used the card on a regular basis, paid the bills on time and developed a credit line of five thousand dollars. He could survive for a couple of months if he was careful, but after that he’d be broke.