Miami Blues (24 page)

Hoke shook his head. "I didn't see him come out of any coin exchange. I was tailing him, hoping to get some probable cause to shake him down. As an ex-felon, if he had a pistol on him, I was going to pick him up. I lost him, and then picked him up again on the corner of Flagler and Miami Avenue."

"Listen carefully, Hoke." Bill took a chair from the table and sat in front of Hoke, looking directly into his eyes. "You're in some jurisdictional trouble if you don't get your story straight. And here's the way you tell it, and this is the way we'll write it up. You were tailing him, yes, and you lost him for a while, right? Then you saw him coming out of Wulgemuth's store and putting a gun into his pocket as he came out. Suspecting him of a robbery, you called Sanchez for backup from Broward County, and then drove here to his house after losing him downtown when he ran away. Isn't that what happened?"

"Something like that."

"No, exactly like that."

"All right. Exactly like that."

"After you called Sanchez and she got a hold of me, we found out about the killing of the two men. Sanchez called her cousin, and he came here in his own car. We knew you were in danger, so we didn't have time to contact the Broward County sheriff's office, you see. You knew he had a gun because you saw it when he came out of the store. As an off-duty police officer, you went after him and contacted higher authority, through Sanchez."

"I also suspected him of a California assault, and I had reasonable cause to pick him up on that."

"Okay. That's your story. Don't change it. I'll call Captain Brownley and Doc Evans. Brownley'll call the Broward sheriff, and I imagine Doc Evans will contact the Broward County ME. The report's going to be a jurisdictional mess."

"What about the girl?" Sanchez said, joining them at the table. "What's her name?"

"Susan Waggoner," Henderson said. "We'll put out an APB on her. In this rain, she can't get too far away. I'll get out the all-points as soon as I call Brownley."

"D'you want me to call?" Sanchez said.

"No, I'll call. Why don't you make some coffee? This is going to be a helluva long evening."

"I'll make the coffee," Hoke said, getting up.

Sanchez went to the sink, and turned on the tap. "Find the pot," she said. "We'll make it together."

Captain Brownley and the Broward County sheriff both made some compromises, and so did the Broward County medical examiner. It was more important to clear up the murders of the coin exchange proprietor and his bodyguard than it was to hold hearings in Broward County. A young lieutenant from the Dania Police Departthent, who was temporarily in charge while the Dania chief of police was hunting wolves in Canada, was awed by all of the brass from Dade and Broward counties and was willing to do almost anything to get Freddy's body out of town as quickly as possible. In a small town like Dania, shootings of any kind were bad for business.

Susan Waggoner was picked up by a Florida state trooper in Belle Glade. Her TransAm was impounded there, and she was brought to the Miami police station by the trooper. The trooper who picked her up also gave her a ticket for having tinted windows in the TransAm that were twice as dark as the law allowed.

Hoke, Henderson, and Sanchez were still working on their joint report when Susan was brought in. They took her down to an interrogation room, and Henderson read her her rights.

"D'you understand," Hoke said, "that you can have a lawyer present? You don't have to tell us anything if you don't want to, but we need to clear up a few things."

"I don't know what this is all about," Susan said. "When we had the windows tinted on the car, the man said it was legal. You see a lot of people driving around Miami with tinted windows, and a lot of them are darker than mine."

"Never mind the tinted windows," Hoke said. "I followed you in my car from Dania to downtown Miami, and I was across the street when you parked in the yellow loading zone on Miami Avenue. I saw your boyfriend get out of the car--"

"Junior?"

"Junior. And then you took off almost immediately. Did you know he was going to rob the coin store?"

"No. Why would he rob the store? He had some silver dollars to sell. That's what he told me, and he wanted me to go with him. I didn't want to go because of the rain, and when I said I'd stay in the car and wait for him he got mad at me. That's when he told me that he was the one who broke my brother's finger out at the airport. Remember that?"

"He told you that?"

"That's right. And I'll sign a statement to that, too. We'd had some arguments before, and he even hit me once, but I stayed with him because of his other good qualities. But when I found out that he was the one responsible for Martin's death, I got scared. I realized that I was in danger from him, and I got scared. Once he told me that, you see, he'd always know that I had something on him, and he could kill me, too. So I just took off, came home to Dania, got my money, and left. I was on my way back to Okeechobee when the state trooper pulled me over in Belle Glade."

"What were Junior's good qualities?" Sanchez asked.

Susan frowned. She poked out her lips. "Well, he was a good provider, and he liked everything I cooked for him. There were lots of good things about Junior I liked. But I'm not going to live with him anymore."

"Junior's dead, Susan," Henderson said. "Didn't you know he had a gun?"

"Yes, but I didn't know he was going to rob anybody. He carried a gun for protection. He almost got killed a few weeks ago by a gunman in a Seven-Eleven store. So he needed the gun for protection, he told me. Junior's dead?"

"That's right," Henderson said. "He was killed."

"I guess his gun didn't do him much good, then, did it? I'm sorry to hear that. I never wished him any harm. I wasn't going to tell on him, either, about Martin, I mean, but I don't want to get in no trouble on account of Junior. I didn't do anything. I just want to go back to Okeechobee. All I've had is trouble of some kind or other ever since I came down here for my abortion. What I'd say, if you asked me about Miami, I'd say it's not a good place for a single girl to be."

"Jesus Christ," Hoke said, "let's get out of here a minute, Bill."

Hoke and Henderson went out into the hallway.

"I'm afraid, Bill," Hoke said, "that I'd have to confirm her story. She did drop him off, and then leave immediately, and I followed her until she got on the ramp to I-Ninety-five. You can't charge her for dropping her common-law husband off downtown. If she claims she didn't know he was going to rob the store, we can't hold her as an accessory."

"Is she really that dumb, or is it an act of some kind?"

"It's consistent, whatever it is. Why don't we just take her statement and put her on a bus for Belle Glade so she can get her damned car."

"You mean just let her go?"

"I don't see what else we can do. Her statement will clear up the death of Martin Waggoner, and we can always find her if we need her later. Okeechobee's a small town. We'll tell her not to leave Okeechobee or come back to Miami again, and that's it."

"That's just hearsay. We still can't prove that Junior killed Martin, or broke his finger."

"We'll send his picture up to those two Georgia boys. Maybe they can identify him from the picture. At any rate, I'll call the assistant state attorney, and tell her about Susan's statement. She can decide whether to close the case or not. It's not up to us, anyway."

Henderson and Sanchez stayed in the interrogation room to obtain a statement from Susan Waggoner, and Hoke went back to his office. He found Violet Nygren's phone number, and called the office.

"Thank you," a female voice answered, and then, for five minutes, Hoke listened to Muzak as he held the phone to his ear.

"Thank you for waiting," a man's voice said. "How may I help you?"

"Is this the state attorney's office?"

"Yes, it is. How may I help you?"

"This is Sergeant Moseley, Homicide. I want to talk to Miss Violet Nygren, one of your assistant state attorneys. This is the number she gave me."

"I don't think we've got anybody here by that name."

"Yes, you have. She was assigned to that case at the airport. A guy got his finger broke and died from shock. Martin Waggoner."

"I don't know her. What's her name again?"

"Nygren. N-Y-G-R-E-N. She was young and had just joined the office. A UM Law School graduate."

"Okay. Let me take a look at the roster. Can you hold the line a minute?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry," the man said, when he came back on the line, "but we don't have any Nygrens on the roster. If you want me to, I'll check with a few people here and then call you back. I don't know half the people here myself. We've got one hundred and seventy-one assistant state attorneys, you know."

"That many? I thought you only had about a hundred."

"We got some more money last year. But they come and go, you know. Want me to check and call you back?"

"No. I'll hold the line while you check. I like listening to the Muzak."

"That's on the other line. I can't get you any Muzak on this phone."

"Never mind. Just find out what happened to Violet Nygren."

Hoke lit a cigarette. He raised his shoulder to hold the phone against his head and examined his hands. They were shaking slightly, as the reaction finally settled in, but as long as he kept busy he wouldn't have to think about it. As he butted the cigarette in the desk ashtray, a woman's voice came on the line.

"Hello? Are you there?"

"I'm here," Hoke said. "Who are you?"

"Tim asked me to tell you about Violet. You are Sergeant Moseley, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, Violet Nygren resigned a few weeks back. She got married, but I don't know her married name. But I know she married a chiropractor out in Kendall, and I can get her married name for you tomorrow, if you like. I didn't know Violet very well, but I know she wasn't happy here as a state attorney. I don't think she'd've been with us much longer even if she hadn't got married and quit--if you know what I mean."

"I think I do. But it's not important. Somebody must've taken over her caseload, so I'll just send a memo over to your office, and you people can take it from there."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful."

"You've helped a lot. Thanks."

When Henderson and Sanchez went into Captain Brownley's office to go over the written report, Hoke was excluded from the meeting and told that his turn would be next.

Hoke could see the three of them through the smudged glass walls of Brownley's office, and he felt a little apprehension at being left out. Brownley was a good reader, and if he spotted any discrepancies, Hoke knew that he could be in some deep trouble. Hoke went into the men's room to take a leak and two younger Homicide detectives congratulated him warmly, so warmly that he decided not to go down to the cafeteria for coffee and a sweet roll. As far as his fellow police officers were concerned, the department had won one for a change. The robbery-murder on Flagler and the killing of the suspect would only rate a three- or four-inch story in the local sections of the Miami newspapers, but it was big news within the department.

Hoke returned to his little office and waited, trying to sort out his feelings, and came to the conclusion that Freddy Frenger, Jr., AKA Ramon Mendez, had played out the game to the end and didn't really mind losing his life in a last-ditch attempt to win. Junior would have been good at checkers or chess, thought Hoke, where sometimes a poor player can beat a much better one if he is aggressive and stays boldly on the attack. That was Junior, all right, and if you turned your head away from the board for an instant, to light a cigarette or to take a sip of coffee, he would steal one of your pieces. Junior didn't have to play by the rules, but Hoke did. Nevertheless, Hoke decided to keep this checkers analogy to himself. No matter how he rationalized his actions, Hoke suspected that the real reason he had killed Freddy Frenger was that the man had invaded his room at the Eldorado Hotel and beat the shit out of him. And if he could do it once, he could do it a second time. On the other hand, to think that way was just another oversimplification. After all, Frenger had tried to pull his gun, so Hoke had shot in selfdefense: the extra round he had put into the back of the man's head was merely insurance. But any way Hoke looked at it, the quality of life in Miami would be improved immeasurably now that Freddy Frenger was no longer out on the streets .

Henderson opened the door. Ellita Sanchez, smiling, was with him.

"Your turn, Hoke," Henderson said.

"We'll wait for you down in the cafeteria," Sanchez said.

Hoke shook his head. "Not in the cafeteria. I don't want a bunch of people coming around." Hoke looked at his wristwatch. "Christ, it's after four A.M. Why don't you guys go home? You don't have to wait for me."

"We'll wait for you in the parking lot," Henderson said. "Then we'll go get a beer."

Henderson and Sanchez left before Hoke could say anything else.

Captain Brownley was on the phone. As Hoke hesitated outside the office, Brownley held up his left hand, signaling Hoke to wait. Hoke lit a cigarette, and tried not to look through the glass door at Brownley. At last, Brownley hung up the phone, stood, and beckoned for Hoke to come in.

"Sit down, Hoke. I see you started smoking again." Brownley sat down, and put his elbows on the desk. Hoke pulled the ashtray toward him as he sat down, and stubbed out his cigarette.

"I never really quit, captain. I just abstained for a while, that's all."

"How d'you feel?"

"Still a little shaky, but I'll be all right."

"I know you will. But for an experienced police officer, that was just about the dumbest trick you ever pulled. Not only should you have waited for backup, but going after a man like Frenger called for a SWAT team."

"I was afraid he was going to get away--"

"That's no excuse. You knew he was armed, even if you didn't know he'd killed Wulgemuth and his bodyguard."

"Maybe I should've waited a little longer, but--"