The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller)) (14 page)

“Maybe I can speak with the guy I just met, Chambers.”

Lauren shook her head as she punched the speakerphone.  She said, “Mike’s in one of his ‘General Mike,’ military moods, I call them.  You don’t really speak as much as listen.”

“Ok, I’d like to listen after I ask him a question.”

A voice came through the phone speaker.  “Manerou.”

“Christian, an old friend of mine from Miami PD is in my office.  He’s investigating a case that you and Mike had a circuitous path to us as well.  Maybe you can help.  Got a minute?  Thanks.”  She hung up and turned to O’Brien. “Christian has an excellent memory.  Very detail oriented.” 

O’Brien stood when Christian Manerou approached.  He was in good shape for a man in his mid fifties.  Dark complexion and eyes.  Smooth skin.  Full head of salt and pepper colored hair.  His sleeves turned up on the inside of his shirt.  Lauren made the introductions.  O’Brien said, “I appreciate your time.”

“No problem.  Lauren said you’re from Miami-Dade.  What division?”

“Used to be homicide.  Now I’m on my own.”

“Private?”

“By default.  A friend of mind was just murdered.  I believe it’s tied to a homicide investigation I conducted a little more then ten years ago.  At that time, I was looking into the death of Alexandria Cole.  She was a supermodel found stabbed to death.”

“I remember the case,” said Manerou.         

Lauren said, “I was telling Sean that we were working with DEA, per Todd Jefferies request, at the same time the victim was killed.  And we happened to be investigating Jonathan Russo, Alexandria Cole’s manager.”

Manerou nodded.  “Absolutely, he’s the kind of person you don’t easily forget.  Russo’s day job might have been working as a manager for supermodels, but he made his real money from distribution of cocaine, racketeering, money laundering.  We sent in a mule wearing a wire when we nailed Russo.  But he didn’t admit enough for us to bury him.  He lawyered up with the defense attorneys who fly their own Lear Jets.  By the time it came to trial, they’d cut a deal.  Russo did seventeen months.”

“Where’s he now?” O’Brien asked.

“Back here in Miami.  South Beach.  Managed to keep the club.  He reopened it under a new name and a million dollars worth of rehab and high-tech gear.  We figured he’d stashed enough drug profits in offshore depositories.  I’d bet the club is still nothing but a front for money laundering, probably dealing to high rollers, too.  I heard he was managing a few local rock bands.”

O’Brien said, “The man arrested and charged with Cole’s murder didn’t do it.”

“What do you mean?” Manerou asked.

“All the forensics pointed to Alexandria’s former boyfriend—a farm kid from North Carolina.  And now on the eve of his execution, an inmate who saw the murder or at least saw the killer dump the weapon, confessed to a priest.”  O’Brien explained the events and said, “The priest, a close friend of mine, was murdered shortly thereafter.  He got a written confession from the inmate.  But we can’t find it.”

“What do you think happened to it?” Lauren asked.

“I believe the perp stole it from the priest, or a D.O.C guard did—who may also be dead.  He’s reported missing.”  O’Brien held up the file folder.  “The sheet of paper under the second page is here.  Sam Spelling bore down fairly hard when he wrote the confession on the top sheet.  I’m hoping your lab can read whatever might be on here.  It could reveal the killer’s name.”  O’Brien handed the folder to Lauren.

“How much time do you have?” Manerou asked.

“Before the execution?”

“Yes.”

O’Brien looked at his watch.  “A little less than fifty-nine hours.”

THIRTY-NINE

Lauren folded her arms across her breasts.  She looked at a calendar hanging above her computer.  She said, “It happens Tuesday.”    

“What can we do to help?”  Manerou asked.

“Can you remember anything about Russo, anything at all, that might provide a lead?  Something that might indicate he was involved in her death?”

“Except the fact that he was rich, arrogant, narcissistic…all personality traits.  I wish I could add something he might have said.”  Manerou paused and lowered his voice.  “There may be something…we’d tapped his phones.  He’d left a message with a guy...believe his name was like Conti—”

“Sergio Conti?” asked O’Brien.

“That’s the name.  And Russo’s alibi was so rehearsed I remember a little of it.”

The bureau chief, Mike Chambers walked by and Manerou waved him over.  He said, “Mike, remember the time we co-opted with Todd Jefferies at DEA on the Jonathan Russo case, the South Beach club owner busted for trafficking coke?”

“What about him?”

“Remember how well he’d rehearsed that alibi, the one I heard on the phone tap?”

“Wasn’t it something about stone crabs?”

“That’s the one.  Russo had coached his pal to say they’d eaten a few pounds of stone crabs because they were in season.  Ate them from his penthouse balcony and

tossed the shells down to the beach below them.  Called it ‘raining crabs.’  It was so bizarre that when I see stone crabs on a restaurant menu today, I remember it.”

O’Brien said, “That would have been very helpful, had we known about it.”

“DEA knew,” Chambers said, folding his arms.  “What’s the issue?”

“An innocent man is on the verge of getting a lethal injection at Starke for allegedly killing his girlfriend, Alexandria Cole, eleven years ago.   And that now I’m finding out that your agency was running a cocaine investigation on Jonathan Russo, Alexandria’s manager at the time.”

Lauren started to say something when Chambers said, “What are you suggesting, Mr. O’Brien?”

“Why weren’t we informed the feds were in the same ball field?”

Chambers said, “Maybe your department was, but it didn’t trickle down to you.”

O’Brien said nothing, his eyes locked on Chambers.

Manerou shrugged.  “Unfortunately when two agencies, or three including the DEA, are investigating the same suspect for two separate things, and neither is aware of the other’s investigation, sometimes a few items can fall between the cracks.  We’d assumed Russo was referring to the off-loading of about ten tons of cocaine we were tracking as a container ship was bringing the drugs into the Port of Miami.  As we were about to drop the hammer on a big bust, it looks in retrospect, like his alibi may have been a fabrication, so he could have killed the girl the same night.”

Chambers said, “I’d say it puts him deep in your suspect pool.”

O’Brien said, “Right now he’s the only one swimming in that pool.”

Chambers almost smiled, his jaw bone rigid.  He tilted forward on his dark wingtip shoes .   “Sometimes the best of communications doesn’t work.  Sorry we couldn’t have added something about Russo in the original investigation.  Good meeting you, O’Brien.  I have an online video-conference with the director.  Excuse me.”  He turned and left. 

“Looks like General Mike’s in a rather reflective mood,” Lauren said.

“He has good recall,” Manerou said, before turning to O’Brien and asking.  “How’d you know Conti’s name?”

“That was the name—the alibi—Russo had given us.”

“Did you question Conti?”

“I did, and he corroborated Russo’s story.”

“Too bad we didn’t know the wire tap information was related to an alibi for murder.  Between the DEA, FBI, FDLE and Miami-Dade PD, I guess we were like silent ships running and passing each other in the dark.  It’s very unfortunate.”

“Do you have a tape of that wiretap somewhere?” O’Brien asked.

“Not after the sentencing.  We had hours on analog tape.  Between this case and hundreds more, it was taking up a lot of space.  Now everything is stored digitally.”

“What’s the name of Russo’s South Beach club?”

“It’s called Oz, why?”

“Because, based on what you and Mike just told me, now it’s time I followed the road to the Land of Oz.  Let’s see what’s behind the curtain.”

FORTY

O’Brien was leaving the federal building parking garage when his cell phone rang.  It was Detective Dan Grant.  “A state trooper says he pulled over a truck matching Lyle Johnson’s last night.  Says Johnson ran a stop sign at the crossing of Highway 15 and 44.  Trooper gave Johnson a warning, and he said Johnson seemed nervous, much more so than anxiety from getting a ticket.”

“Did you question Johnson’s wife again?”

“Sean, that lady’s a sad case.”

“How’s that?”

“Battered.”

“Domestic?”

“I’d say the guy who guards inmates beats his wife…and does or did it regularly.”

“What’d she say?”

“It’s more what she didn’t say.  Her nails are chewed to the flesh.  She was nervous.  Said her husband last spoke to her around ten in the evening Friday.  Told her he was meeting some guy, didn’t say who.  He said a deal was dropped in his lap and had to come down that night.  He told her if he wasn’t home by one in the morning to go on and take their kid to her mother’s house on Saturday and to leave early.”

“Did she have any idea where Johnson was going to meet this guy?”

“No.”

“If he’s smart, it would have been a bar.  Someplace public.”

#

O’BRIEN LOOKED AT looked at his watch.  He called information and asked to be connected to Oz.

“Club Oz,” said the sultry woman’s voice.

“Jonathan Russo.”

“Who’s calling?”

“Sergio Conti.”

“My pleasure.  Hold, please.”

O’Brien drove another block toward the Denny’s Restaurant, listening to the on-hold music and promos coming though the phone, “Party at Oz this Friday with world-famous deejay Philippe Cayman.”

“Mr. Conti?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Russo has been out of town the last few days.  He’s expected back tonight.  May I give him a message?”

“No thanks, I’ll call him later.”

#

DETECTIVE RON HAMILTON was waiting for O’Brien at a table in the corner of Denny’s Restaurant.  O’Brien approached the table with a Miami Herald newspaper in his hand.  He was surprised to see his old partner had gained weight.  He had a bulbous nose, dark eyes, bushy eyebrows and thinning hair.  Hamilton, less than five-feet-eight,

looked to be pushing two hundred pounds.  He wore a brown sports coat in need of dry cleaning.  His tie was down to the first button.  He sipped black coffee.

“Thanks for meeting me, Ron.”

“No problem.  Wish I could say retirement looks good on you.  Have you slept?”   

“Not much.  I feel so damn responsible for what happened to Charlie Williams, and to people like Father Callahan who were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Sean, don’t beat yourself up.  You don’t even have to be involved in this.  But you chose to try to do something.  That says a hellava a lot.  And knowing how fast you can work, you might be the only guy who can find the evidence that will stop the ticking clock for Charlie Williams.  How’d it go with the perpetually tanned DA, Rosen?”

“Not good.  He seems more worried about public opinion than he does about saving a life.”

“That’s why he sits where he sits.”

“Rosen has a fair grasp of my black-eye history with the department—the IA investigations.  Sort of tossed that in my face as one excuse for not reopening an investigation into Alexandria Cole’s murder.”

“The guy doesn’t forget much, especially celebrity cases.  He’d like to have had O.J. slip up here in Miami like he did in Vegas.  When I called Rosen, it took him about two seconds to remember you, Sean.  He asked if you were the same O’Brien who…and I’m quoting here…‘had IA following him like a shadow.’  I told him you were the best detective I’d ever known.”

“Maybe your endorsement penetrated his preconceived opinion of me.”    

“Don’t take it personally.  Rosen is one of those prosecutors who only go to trial to win.  For him, there’s no such thing as breaking even.”

“The only score that counts right now is keeping Charlie Williams alive.  Did you bring a copy of the case file?”

“Yep.  Right here…on top of the package you sent me.”  Hamilton lifted the thick file off the chair next to him and placed it in front of O’Brien.  “Don’t forget it.  Took me a while to copy that.” 

“Thanks, Ron.  This is boiling down to a pool of hours for Charlie Williams.”

“You can’t get some court to grant a stay?”

“Governor’s out of the country.  William’s attorney has had all of his petitions denied or ignored.  I have nothing but gut speculation to file with any judge or court that might hear it.  Since lethal injection isn’t considered by the high court to be cruel and unusual punishment, the executioner is lining them up.”

Hamilton sipped his coffee and said, “There are many on death row that deserve to be exactly where they are and meeting the fate they’re facing.”

“But Charlie Williams isn’t one of them.  I just came from Lauren Miles’ office at the federal building.  They’d worked a coke bust with DEA about the time of Charlie William’s trial.  Feds had been investigating Alexandria Cole’s manager, Jonathan Russo, the same time I was questioning him in her death.”  O’Brien looked at the case files on the table.  He gestured to the file.  “In there, I wrote that Russo was having dinner with a business associate, guy named Sergio Conti, the night Alexandria was killed.  Now I know that his alibi was a lie.  So where was he?”

“Russo’s no deacon in his local church.  We know his club launders dirty money.  But proving it is another thing.”

 O’Brien looked out the restaurant window and watched the lights from the traffic on the Rickenbacker Causeway Bridge.  “Ron, I’m going to have to play on the edge to get some answers from Russo.  He’s a cruel and a narcissist, a guy who believes he’s impervious to real trouble.  If I had more time, I’d investigate this differently, play it by the book and document every move.  But I don’t, and I can’t.  I’m starting from scratch here, and I have to take the fastest course to try and save Charlie’s life.  I don’t like this kind of investigation or interrogation.  So, if you can, cover me old friend, maybe between the two of us we can save Charlie.  If you can’t cover me, I understand. ”