Collateral Damage (24 page)

“Did you get on the boat?”

“No.”

“Why not? Couldn't you have bumped into her there?”

“I saw the boyfriend buying a ticket.”

“Doug?”

“Yeah, whatever his name is.”

“What did you do?”

“I went to the bar in the restaurant. I figured I'd wait for the boat to get back and talk to her then.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“When the boat docked, I saw the boyfriend. He was one of the first to get off and he went directly to the parking lot and got in his car and left. I waited for Kat, but she never showed up.”

“Did you stay around?”

“For a while. There was a coast guard boat docked right behind the dinner boat. I heard the dispatcher say over its radio that they'd found a couple of bodies and that one of them was Katherine. I was devastated.”

“I bet you were,” said Jock, his voice dripping sarcasm.

“Don't make light of my grief.”

“Why did you leave?” I asked.

“I figured her boyfriend did her because she was going to leave him for me. I didn't want him to find me anywhere near Kat.”

“Where did you go?”

“I stopped by my uncle's house and got my stuff and drove back to Charlotte.”

“How did you know we were following you?” I asked.

“I've got some problems. I have to be careful.”

“What kind of problems.”

“The mob kind.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know. The mob. They're after me.”

“Look, dipshit,” said Jock, “you can pull that mob stuff on waitresses, but I'm not buying it.”

“It's real. Honest.”

“Tell us about it,” I said.

“The mob's out to get me.”

“Why?”

“I used to live in New Jersey.”

“And?”

“Well, they didn't like the fact that I moved to Charlotte.”

“Were you involved with the mob in any way?”

“No.”

“Then why would they care if you moved to Charlotte?” I asked.

“You'd have to ask them.”

I looked at Jock, who rolled his eyes. I thought I'd try one more time. “Why did you use your uncle's name in Charlotte at the Hooters?”

“The mob's not after him.”

“Then why did you use your own name in Orlando?”

“There's no mob in Orlando.”

I gave up. I looked at my watch. A little after nine. I held up my cell phone and used the camera application to take a picture of him. I stepped out of the car and called J.D. “I'm sending you a picture. Can you go through the pictures Dora took on
Dulcimer
and see if this guy is there?”

“The pictures are still on your computer.”

“This is important, J.D. My house isn't locked. Let yourself in and check it out for me.”

“Is this the guy named Chick?”

“Yes. He says he wasn't aboard, and I tend to believe him. He's a real loon, but I don't think he killed anybody. I just want to make sure he's not in any of those pictures.”

“He could have been on the boat and not in the pictures,” J.D. said.

“I know, and the fact that he's not in the pictures won't prove anything. But if he is there, it'll prove he's lying.”

“When do you need this?”

“Jock and I are holding him in Orlando. I don't want to take too long because he is one pain in the ass.”

“Okay. I'll get back to you.”

I clicked a button on the phone and sent the picture of Chick Mantella to her.

We drove aimlessly for an hour, chewing up time, awaiting J.D.'s call. We didn't want to let Chick go if we thought he was involved in the murders. If he wasn't in any of the photos taken by Dora, we'd take the chance that he was telling the truth. I didn't think the
Dulcimer
killings could have been handled by one person. There had to be at least one other man to take out the captain. Nothing fit. Chick was a loner, paranoid and delusional. I could see no plausible scenario whereby he could have killed three people on a boat that he said he was not on.

The car had been quiet for most of the drive. Chick muttered something every once in a while, but Jock would tell him to shut up or he'd shoot him. The message finally got through, and Chick sat sullenly in the back. After most of an hour had passed, I said, “Chick, I've got somebody looking through a lot of pictures that were taken on the boat the night Kat was killed. If we find out you've been lying to us, if a photo shows that you were on that boat that night, we're just going to pull off into some woods and shoot you.”

“You won't find a picture of me on the boat.” He sounded adamant, and I thought he was pretty well convinced that we might just shoot him for the hell of it.

A few more miles went by and my phone rang. J.D.

“No sign of him in Dora's pictures. Can I go to bed now?”

“Thanks, J.D. Jock and I'll be home late. I'll fill you in tomorrow.”

We took Chick back to Hooters, cut the flex cuffs, and left him standing next to his black Mercedes.

“So, we've ruled out the stalker,” J.D. said.

“Guy's a nut job,” said Jock.

We were having lunch at Rotten Ralph's on the Bradenton Beach Pier. A few tourists were seated at the outside tables, but we were cheerfully ensconced in the air-conditioned area. The sun was high and brutal, the heat index worse than usual. The humidity had followed the storms of the day before and descended on us like a layer of sweat.

We'd driven back to Longboat Key after leaving Chick in the parking lot. I'd typed up my notes that morning and mailed them to J.D. For now, I was keeping them from Chaz Desmond. If he was involved in this thing in some way, I couldn't figure it out. And until I did, I wanted to keep him out of the information loop.

“Jock,” J.D. said, “did your people come through with any information on the bank in Vietnam?”

Jock looked pained. “No. I got a call from the director this morning. He was very apologetic, but whatever is going on up there is real big and he just can't spare the manpower to handle our problem. He said he'd get to it as soon as he could, but he couldn't tell me when that'd be.”

“Is Clyde Bates still in the county lockup?” I asked J.D.

“Yeah. He's being held on two attempted murder charges. The bail is a lot more than he can make. Why?”

“I'm curious,” I said. “Why would John Nguyen hire that numbnut to hit somebody? For that matter, why did he even go to O'Reilly's in the first place? That isn't exactly the kind of place I'd go looking for a hitman.”

“I've been thinking about that myself,” said J.D. “Maybe there's more to O'Reilly's than we know.”

“I bet David Sims would know,” said Jock.

Sims was a Manatee County detective who had helped us in the past. He was a former Secret Service agent who had been on the county force for almost thirty years. He knew just about everything that went on in Manatee County.

“J.D.,” I said, “do you want to call him?”

“Why don't the three of us go see him,” she said.

“It's Saturday. He's probably off fishing somewhere.”

“Try him,” said Jock. “You've got his cell number.”

I called Sims and caught him as he was putting his boat in the water at the ramp next to Annie's. I told him that Jock was in town and we needed to see him.

“If you can meet me at Annie's in the next thirty minutes,” he said. “After that I'm going to be sitting on my boat out next to those grass flats on the east side of the Sister Keys.”

Thirty minutes later, we were at Annie's, a small wooden structure built on pilings over the bay at the mainland foot of the Cortez Bridge. It housed a combination bait shop, bar, restaurant, and fishing supply store. It had a fuel dock and some of the best hamburgers on the west coast.

We sat at a small table on the deck overlooking two long piers, one of which held the fuel pumps and the other various commercial boats, a Jet Ski rental concession, and a parasail boat that pulled tourists on a parachute attached to a long line.

“This can't be good,” Sims said, shaking his head. “Every time you guys show up, something is about to go off the rails.”

“We're just looking for a little information,” I said. I pointed to J.D. “You can see we're on the law's side here.”

He laughed. “Either that or Detective Duncan has gone over to the dark side. What can I help you with?”

“Are you familiar with O'Reilly's bar in Palmetto?” I asked.

“Yeah. Big Tony DeMarco owns the place.”

“Any crime going on there that you know about?” J.D. asked.

“There's always some penny-ante stuff happening, but nothing serious.”

“Like what?” asked J.D.

“Card games, betting. Big Tony fronts for a bookie, but it's all smalltime stuff.”

“You've never busted him?” I asked.

“No. We keep an eye on the place and if anything got serious we'd move in. But Big Tony knows that and stays mostly clean.”

“What about running a clearinghouse for hitmen?” I asked.

Sims laughed. “You're kidding.”

I told him about Bates and John Nguyen and how Big Tony arranged for them to get together.

Sims laughed some more. “Clyde Bates? Cleans boats over at the marina? That's precious.”

“He came after Jock and me,” I said.

“That shows you how stupid he really is,” said Sims. “Coming after you two.”

“What do you know about Bates?” J.D. asked.

“He's kind of a joke around Palmetto. He works at the marina on the north side of the river. Been there for a couple of years. He's a local boy. Dropped out of high school and worked at the marina ever since. He lives on an old houseboat that the marina owner keeps back in the work area on chocks. Boat hasn't been in the water in years.”

“So, you're telling me he's not really a hitman,” said J.D.

“Not even close. I heard he goes down to O'Reilly's most nights. Gets a little buzz on and tells the bikers he's a tough guy who kills people for a living. Nobody believes him, of course, but he's harmless so they put up with him. Treat him sort of like a mascot.”

“Doesn't sound like anybody with good sense would hire him to kill somebody,” said J.D.

“Maybe,” said Sims, “this Nguyen guy was just trying to send a message.”

“How would that work?”

“Hire the unlikeliest hitman in the area. Nguyen would know Bates couldn't pull it off, but it might just be enough to scare you off, Matt. He apparently doesn't know Jock is in the picture, so he points Bates at you, and Bates screws it up, and you've gotten the word that you should back
off of whatever you're doing or a real hitman might just be coming your way.”

“That has a certain logic to it,” said Jock.

“Yeah,” I said, “but the guy with the knife made a real effort. He wasn't fooling around.”

“Are there any Asian gangs operating in this area?” Jock asked.

“No,” said Sims. “We've got Mexican gangs, Russian gangs, a number of others, but no Asian gangs that I know of.”

“Then,” I said, “who the hell are these people?”

“Let me know if you find out,” said Sims.

We were crossing the Cortez Bridge when Jock's cell phone beeped. He pulled it out of his pocket, opened it, and said, “Text from the director. The information on Desmond was just e-mailed to my computer.”

The documents were spread over my kitchen table. They held rows of figures and names, indicating checks written from the account and to whom they were written. The names of the recipients were written in the Vietnamese writing system known as
quoc-ngu
. The English equivalent of each name was typed in an adjacent column. One U.S. dollar was equal to ten thousand Vietnamese dong, which made the amounts in dong dispersed from the account seem huge. Fortunately, the U.S. equivalent was also typed in an adjacent column. I assumed the translations were part of the computer program the agency used when deciphering foreign documents.

Each year, in April, two hundred thousand dollars was deposited in the account, except for this year. There was no deposit in April, but a three hundred thousand dollar one was made in July. The deposits came from the Evermore Foundation and were the only deposits ever made to the account.

“I wonder what these checks were for,” said J.D. “There seem to be a lot of smaller checks to different people, a lot of them companies. The same people and companies appear over and over.”

I looked at the list of payees. “Most of the ones to individuals are for the same amount and are paid each month.”

Jock riffled through a stack of documents. “We have copies of the checks, but they don't say what they were written in payment of.”

“Wouldn't our Internal Revenue Service want to make sure that the money going out of Evermore was for a charitable purpose?” I asked. “Wouldn't Evermore have to provide proof to the government that it wasn't just laundering money somehow?”

“I'd think so,” said J.D.

“They seem pretty lax about charitable organizations,” said Jock. “I can probably get the IRS records, but it'll be the first of the week. Not much is going to get done by our agency geeks on the weekend unless it's an emergency. Even when we get the records, there probably won't be much in them.”

“Maybe the best thing to do,” I said, “is to talk face-to-face with Chaz Desmond.”

“You going to Atlanta?” asked J.D.

“No. I'd like to have him come here. I'd also like to have our old first sergeant Jimbo Merryman with me. He's a good judge of men and maybe if it's just three old soldiers talking, Chaz will come clean.”