Shake the Trees (10 page)

“No.  That’s not true.  I needed help.  For some reason the Judge decided to reach out to a smartass Cuban kid on junk.  He got me my first real job.  And I’m still there seven years later.  I owe him big time.”

“He got you a job at American Senior Security?”

“It wasn’t called that then.  But yeah.”

“Was Marc there then?”

“Naw.  I knew Marc was having some trouble on the employment front, so when an associate counsel position opened up I let the Judge know.  Marc interviewed and got the job.”

“You got Marc a job at American, and now he’s your boss?”

“It’s cool, Dawg.  Marc has done amazing things.  It’s a whole new company now.”

“Do you still keep in touch with the Judge?”

“Of course.  He’s the closest thing I have to family.  As a matter of fact, Bubba’s gonna drop me in Miami on the way home.  I’ll crash on the Judge’s couch, have breakfast with him and then catch the shuttle back to Tampa.  You hang loose in the a.m., and I’ll pick you up for lunch.  We’ll talk business tomorrow.  Now we need to focus on the menu.”

“I thought we were having the yellow-tail snapper?”

“Yeah.  But they serve it fifty-seven different ways.”

CHAPTER 12

The Cadillac slowly idled past the Mediterranean style two-story stucco home.  Judge James Mason was at the wheel and Dr. Bob was slumped down in the passenger seat with his face lit by the dim glow of a laptop.  James looked up at the two dormers that jutted out from the red tile roof.  That was where he was going.

The house was actually two and a half stories with a full attic.  He still technically owned the structure, but no longer lived there.  He’d also driven by the previous night, and the same lights were on.  The first week in November had always been Lorna’s spa week with her girlfriends, and she was proving true to form.  He was sure that Lorna would be surprised that he remembered.

James carefully turned onto the narrow concrete driveway designed for vehicles of an earlier era, and the vehicle slowly crept past the large house.  He came to stop in front of what Lorna called the garden shed.  James called it an old garage that was too small to accommodate his vehicle.  After sitting in the dark for several minutes to ensure that he had not attracted any unwanted attention, James set the interior light switch to the off position and stepped out of the big sedan. 

All was quiet except for the year around hum of South Florida insects and the clacking of Dr. Bob’s laptop.  The cloyingly sweet smell of night blooming jasmine hung in the moist air.  It was a familiar scent to a man that had lived in the same house for most of his adult life.  James gently pushed the car door shut and walked to the back door. 

As he peered through the gauzy curtains, James could clearly see the blinking light.  The alarm system had been activated.  He could only hope that Lorna hadn’t changed the code.  From years of practice the key easily found its mark and slid into the old deadbolt.  But it wouldn’t turn.

“Damn it,” James whispered under his breath as he realized that the locks had been changed.  He stepped back and looked at the door disapprovingly.  If she changed the locks, then she probably changed the alarm code as well.

As he contemplated the situation, James recalled that the dormer windows were unlocked.  The wood frame windows had swollen over the years and the clasps no longer aligned.  He hadn’t bothered having the locks repaired for the same reason that he hadn’t bothered wiring the attic windows into the security system.  Burglars didn’t bring ladders along when they robbed a house.

But there was an aluminum extension ladder in the unlocked garden shed.  James moved to the hedge that ran along the property line and studied the pitch of the roof.  He shook his head in silent and resigned acknowledgment of the inevitable limitations of age, and walked back to the car.  The attic was his destination, but he wasn’t going to get there crawling around on a barrel-tiled roof.

Dr. Bob walked over to the grey plastic box attached to the side of the house and popped the cover open.  He held a small penlight between his teeth.  Judge James Mason stood beside him and slowly swiveled his head as his eyes scanned the neighbor’s backyard and the deserted street.  Dr. Bob disconnected the telephone line in a matter of seconds.

“This is the number one mistake people make in securing their homes.  The line should be buried and enter the home from under the foundation.  And the telephone network interface box should be placed somewhere inside.  Telephone companies prefer this arrangement for the obvious reasons.  Ease of installation and ease of access.  Now where is that extension ladder?”

“The garden shed.  Are you sure you’re comfortable climbing around on the roof in the dark, Bobby?”

Actually, Dr. Bob wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea.  Three hours earlier he had been drinking at the Blue Veranda, and despite a large dinner he wasn’t convinced the affects of the alcohol had completely worn off.  But the Judge had insisted on picking him up at the airport and had driven straight to his old house.  Dr. Bob had visited the home before the Judge and his wife had separated, but had never felt comfortable there.  At least not when Mrs. Mason was around.  And he knew he wasn’t gong to be any more comfortable on top of the house than he’d been inside it.   

“Piece of cake, Judge.”

Dr. Bob returned from the garden shed with the aluminum extension ladder and placed it against the porch roof.  From the porch roof he would pull himself onto the second story roof, and then climb on all fours up to the dormers.  The high top sneakers he wore were perfect for the task. As he stepped onto the first rung of the ladder, he turned to Judge Mason to explain his plan.

“After I enter the attic I will disconnect the audible siren.  Are you sure it’s mounted in the attic?”

“Right next to the dormer windows.”

“Good.  That’s actually a pretty smart location.  I mean it would have been if the attic windows had been wired.  Now remember, after I open the attic door and enter the second story the alarm system will technically be activated.  But it’s sort of like a tree falling in a forest when no one is there to hear it.  Does it really make a noise?”

“Bobby.”

“Yeah, Judge?”

“We’re sort of exposed here.  Let’s hurry this thing up.”

“Oh yeah, right.  I’ll meet you at the back door.”

James Mason watched Dr. Bob climb up the ladder and scurry across the roof to the dormer windows.  After he had pulled himself through one of the small windows, James retracted the aluminum ladder and carried it back to the garden shed.  Then he walked to his car and retrieved a leather trial bag, which looked like a small fat suitcase and was designed for carrying case files.  Dr. Bob was waiting for him as he approached the back door.

“Like I said, Judge, piece of cake.”

“That’s great, Bobby.  Let’s get inside.”

After they stepped inside the back door, Dr. Bob continued with an explanation of his plan. 

“I’ve already killed the power to the alarm system.  When you’re done, I’ll reconnect the phone line and the siren and restore power.  The system will return to its default settings, and the access code will be 0000.  We’ll leave it that way because we have no way of knowing what code your wife selected.  When she returns home and enters her code, the alarm will activate and the security company will contact her and have her disarm with the default code.  They’ll attribute the malfunction to a power surge and have her reprogram her personal access code.  Like I said.  Piece of cake.”

“What about the dead bolt?  I don’t have the key.  Remember?”

“I’ve already thought about that.  After I lock the door from the inside, I should be able to arm the system and get into the attic within the ten seconds before it goes active.  I’ll need you to hold the ladder.  Going down sucks.  Going up never bothers me, but going down sucks.”

“Don’t worry about it Bobby.  We’ll leave through the front door.  She never uses the front door.  It could be weeks before she even realizes that the deadbolt isn’t locked.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.  Lorna may be greedy and conniving, but she’s not very bright.”

”Cool.  I’ll wait in the car.  I noticed when we got here that I had a good signal off your neighbor’s wireless modem.  I think I’ll take a peak at their hard drive.”

“The Hodges?  Very respectable people.  I doubt you’ll find anything interesting there.”

“You never know, Judge.  Sometimes the most respectable people have the biggest secrets.”

“Touché, Bobby.  Touché.”

The familiar smells of the old house assaulted James’ emotions as he made his way through the dark.  He thought back on the early years as he wound around the antique furniture by memory and made his way to the staircase.  He usually arrived home well after dark in those days, and always enjoyed a few stolen moments watching the children unseen from the darkened front porch.  And he’d enjoyed the riotous greeting he soon received even more.  Lorna seemed to resent those beautiful moments and was annoyed by the disruption of the nightly routine.  Eventually she made certain that the children were in their rooms doing homework when he came home.  She had always found a way to destroy everything that was precious to him. 

James climbed the stairs in the dark.  On past the second story where the children’s bedrooms had been and up to the attic level.  He opened the short five-foot tall door and crouched to enter the large open room.  The accumulated heat of the day almost stopped him in his tracks despite the single dormer window that had been left open.  The dim rays that filtered in from the street light allowed James to negotiate his way around things accumulated over a lifetime.  Things that were too good or too important to throw out, but not good enough or important enough to actually use.  Soon enough he found the huge old trunk shoved into a darkened corner under the eaves.

He pulled the trunk into an uncluttered area that received more than its share of the light from the dormer windows.  After retrieving an old skeleton key from deep in his pocket, James knelt on his knees and undid the old-style clasp lock.  As he pushed on the creaking barrel-style lid, the musty smell of a bygone era drifted up to meet him.  A carefully folded and yellowed robe and hood lay on top of everything else.  A robe and hood proudly worn by his grandfather during the 1920s.  A time when the Ku Klux Klan was at the peak of its power and had several million members. 

The robe covered two sashes - one with the insignia of the Grand Titan of Miami, and the other with the insignia of the Grand Dragon of Florida.  James knew that in the rigid military structure of the Klan, a Grand Dragon reported only to the Imperial Wizard himself.  Incorporated into the design of each insignia was a bright red drop of blood, signifying that the bearer would shed his last drop of blood in defense of the white race.  The sashes were wrapped around a beautiful and intricately engraved pearl-handled Smith & Wesson Model 1917 .45 caliber revolver - his grandfather’s most prized possession.

James laid the Klan memorabilia aside.  It wasn’t what he’d come for; even though it was an important part of the reason he was there.  An important part of his family history.  The contacts his grandfather made in the Klan allowed an empire to be built, albeit an empire that collapsed into dust during the Great Depression.  Part of that empire was The Rebel Life Assurance Company. 

James flicked on the flashlight he’d brought with him, and pointed its beam deep into the trunk.  Soon he found what he was looking for - documents of incorporation and shareholder certificates featuring a rippling confederate flag.  Next to these lay all of the paperwork concerning the Cayman holding company his grandfather had formed to take ownership of the venture.  While the federal income tax was a relatively new and insignificant tax the 1920s, his grandfather had foreseen the future.  Not only did the intricate nature of his ownership of The Rebel Life Assurance Company keep the taxman at bay, it also saved the company from the clutches of his creditors during the dark days of the 1930s.

The Cayman holding company eventually became sole owner of Rebel Life, as his grandfather called it.  And his grandfather had signed over the holding company to James prior to his death, bypassing his own son.  Not that it mattered.  Rebel Life had never paid much of a dividend, and really had never made - or lost - any significant amount of money.  The company had only two chief executives during the last half of the twentieth century, and both sought to avoid change at all costs.  The Cayman holding company was represented by local Cayman attorneys acting under absolute power of attorney provided by James, and had been a rubber stamp for Rebel Life management. 

James’ neglect of his ownership interest in Rebel Life had originally been a result of the single-mindedness with which he pursued a federal judgeship.  And then things became more complicated.  He had chosen to omit his interest in the holding company from the financial disclosure forms all federal judges and magistrates were required to complete and sign under penalty of perjury.  Although he had rationalized that his ownership interest had no value, he had technically committed a felony.  On the other hand, he couldn’t exactly admit that he was a participant in a long-term scheme to defraud the federal government of tax revenue.  And this analysis didn’t even consider the political fallout from the ownership of a company like Rebel Life.  A continued pattern of benign neglect had seemed the wisest course.  Until now.

As he stuffed the documents and revolver into his trial bag, James considered what a disaster it might have been if Lorna had discovered the contents of the trunk.  Her lawyers would have had a field day.  No one knew about his ownership of Rebel Life, except for Bobby.  Not Elizabeth.  Not even Marc.  Especially not Marc and Elizabeth.  Just Bobby.

“Are we set?”  James asked Dr. Bob as he slid into the passenger seat of the Cadillac.

“The telephone line has been reconnected, the audible siren has been reconnected, the dormer window has been closed, the back door deadbolt has been locked, and the alarm system has been reactivated.  Did you put the extension ladder in its proper place, Judge?”

James smiled.  “Yes, sir.”

“Well then, if you have what you came for, I guess we’re set.”

“Bobby, I have one more item of a business nature to discuss, and then I promise that the rest of your too short visit to Miami will be purely social in nature.”  James handed Dr. Bob an unsealed envelope.