A FALSE DAWN Page 12

  “Better not be Greece!”

  “No, it wasn’t the ancient cradle of democracy. More like the dungeons.”

  “Yeah, where?”

  “Not far from here. Felt like I’d spent a year in a third-world country. And I was there for just two days.” I told Nick the story while he sipped his beer and looked at me, shaking his head occasionally in disbelief.

  “Where’s the girl’s shoe?”

  “I gave it to Kim and she hid it in the tiki bar. Jupiter’s not safe anymore.”

  “You gonna take the shoe to the police?”

  “I have to deliver it to the right police.”

  “Yeah, man. I haven’t seen onion head around.”

  “That’s because he’s too busy rubbing shoulders with his wealthy constituents.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s on the take. Thinks he’s one of them. They use him like toilet paper.”

  “That’s no good. What will happen if—”

  My phone rang, cutting Nick off. He looked at the phone with as much suspicion as I felt. Got to love caller ID. It was Leslie. “Hi there,” I said.

  “Where are you?”

  “On the boat.”

  “What happened in your investigation? Uncover anything?”

  “I need some time to explain things to you. I don’t want to do it over the phone. I have some evidence for you to run tests on, and the sooner, the better.”

  “Whatever you have, hide it.”

  “Why?”

  “Slater’s supposed to announce his bid for the sheriff’s job Wednesday. He’s looking for a splash. And you’re it. He’s on his way to find you. Slater has a search warrant. Sean, he’s coming to arrest you.”

  “What’s Slater’s e-mail address?”

  “Why?”

  “He’s got mail and he doesn’t know it’s coming from me.”

  I jotted his address down, said goodbye to Leslie, and turned to Nick. “I’m going to give you a quick lesson in editing video. We’ll go to Dave’s boat, to my laptop, I’ll give you both a lesson.”

  “Cool, man.” His thick mustache lifted with his wide grin.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  It took me less than an hour to teach Dave and Nick how to edit a short scene out of video, compress it and email the video. After the lesson, Dave stayed on Gibraltar , making sure the wireless signal remained intact, while Nick and I returned to Jupiter’s fly bridge to await Slater.

  From the bridge, I could see Slater before he saw me. He pulled into the parking lot in an unmarked Ford, followed by a county sheriff’s car. Slater and two deputies. The return of the posse, but this time he had my walking papers. Maybe I’d record his.

  Nick leaned closer to me from his chair, the afternoon light off the water dancing in his dark eyes. “You want me to stay?”

  “Yeah, just follow my lead. It may sound a little crazy but play along. Okay?”

  “No problem, man, but it’d by my pleasure to toss onion head in the ocean. Let the sharks eat him as a cop salad.” Nick laughed so hard I was sure Slater could hear it.

  Slater got about halfway down the dock before he spotted us. He stopped and talked with the deputies. All three looked our way.

  Watching them come closer, I was glad I hadn’t slept in the master bed. I’d left it exactly how Slater did, with one exception. I removed the long, dark hair that he’d so carefully placed near the pillow. And now, I would let him do this thing and capture whatever reaction he had through the camera I knew he would not find.

  At the stern, he issued orders to the deputies. “O’Brien,” Slater barked, like he was a drill sergeant and I was at his command.

  “Good afternoon, Detective Slater.”

  “Come down, O’Brien. I have a search warrant. Who’s with you?”

  “This is my neighbor, Nick Cronus.”

  “Tell him to vacant the premises.”

  “Why don’t you tell him? I haven’t had my quota of rude pills this morning to match you.” I climbed down to the cockpit with Nick right behind me.

  Slater pointed to Nick and said, “You need to go back wherever it is you come from. Mr. O’Brien, stand on the dock with Deputy Myers, please. Deputy Morgan and I are coming aboard to search your boat.” He handed me the search warrant.

  “Search it for what? What’s your probable cause? Maybe you don’t need one.”

  Slater crossed his arms, glanced at one deputy then looked at Nick and me. He said, “Get off the boat or my men will remove you.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Nick protested. “You think I look like a terrorist?”

  “You can get off the boat or I call INS,” Slater said.

  “And you can kiss my IN AS—”

  “That’s ludicrous, Detective,” I said, jumping in before Nick lost his temper enough to get him arrested. “You talk about immigration and yet you party with people who exploit people because INS doesn’t interfere.”

  “You made quite an impression the other night, O’Brien. Pissed off a lot of people. The wrong people. Mr. Brennen didn’t find any humor in your wrecking his party and breaking one of his employee’s wrists. This, by the way, is one reason I’m here. Roger Burns has filed assault and battery charges against you. Deputy Morgan will be taking you in and booking you on that one. Before we all go down to the sheriff’s office, we’d like to see what’s on your boat.”

  “By all means, Detective. Nick and I’ll just step aside and let the long arm of the law reach wherever it pleases.” We got off Jupiter as Slater and his deputy boarded.

  The deputy on the dock stood with his feet spread, arms folded across his chest.

  Nick lowered his voice. “Sean, that dude definitely got a boner on to screw you, man. What the hell did you do to piss off the onion?”

  “I found a body, a body somehow connected to his wealthy friends, or at least their farming operation. His millionaire pals are no doubt funding his bid to become sheriff. If he gets it, I’ll probably be in jail on some violation of the Patriot Act. Max will be tossed in the dog pound.”

  “Man, that’s where they kill dogs.”

  I lowered my voice. “Dave ought to be watching the show live about now. After they take me, go to Dave’s boat and play back the recorded images on the hard drive. When you edit the video, show a few seconds of the master cabin right before Slater enters, keep the video going as he searches, and then cut it right after he leaves.”

  “No problem.”

  “Here’s the e-mail address.”

  “When you want me to send it?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks, Nick.”

  “You be careful, man. That dick is crazy, and he’s wearing a badge.”

  My cell rang. “Sean,” Dave said. “You got him! He went ballistic searching your cabin. Caught on video! Body language really tells the story.”

  I watched Salter exit Jupiter and I said to Dave, “Work with Nick on the editing.”

  “Will do. Talk about reality television.”

  I closed the cell as Slater approached, the sunlight reflecting off his head, sweat dripping from his face. “Pretty clean boat you keep. O’Brien. Guess you vacuum and scrub it down, that sort of thing, a lot.”

  “I like a clean boat.”

  “Then you won’t like our county jail. Nasty place. Not nearly as clean as your boat.” He turned to the deputy. “Book him. Bring Mr. O’Brien in for assault charges.”

  The deputy pulled the handcuffs off his belt and walked my way. “Hands behind your back,” he said. Then he read my rights to me.

  “Nick, don’t forget to lock Jupiter.”

  The large deputy reached for my upper arm to lead me down the dock.

  Slater and the second deputy followed. With my hands cuffed behind my back, I was marched by my marina neighbors. People paused from polishing or washing boats, turning my way to see the parade.

  We had to walk right by the tiki bar leading t
o the parking lot. A dozen locals stopped talking, put their beers down, and watched. One man, Big John, who lived on a twenty-year-old trawler called Heaven’s Gate, held up his beer in a toast. He yelled, “Sean, you’d better be out before St. Pattie’s day! Ya hear me?”

  Kim looked at me in disbelief, her mouth forming an O, and her right hand touching a spot beneath her throat. As I was led to the patrol car, I heard a blackbird’s cackling mixed with drunks laughing and Buffett on a CD singing, Changes in Latitudes.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I was booked and fingerprinted. They took my wallet, watch, clothes, and dignity. I was given an orange jailhouse jumpsuit that was three inches too short. Bond was set at two-thousand. The flip-flops were worn down to cracker-thin soles. I had three minutes to make a call. I had two to make. The first was to an attorney friend in Miami, Carl Hoffman. He started the procedure to post bond. My second call was to Nick. “I have less than a minute. Tell me exactly what Slater did.”

  “Onion head lost his cookies once he started searching your bed. At first he looked like a man who’d lost his key. Lookin’ under the pillow. Feelin’ the mattress, getting’ down and lookin’ across the mattress, and the pillow. He was cussin’ your name the whole time. He said, ‘Bastard’s found it.’ He started ripping the bed apart.”

  “Have you edited the video, the way you just described?”

  “Dave and me. Finished!”

  “Send it to the e-mail I gave you. Include ‘warmest regards,’ and my name.”

  “Three clicks, and it’s gone. Boom, boom, and boom. Gone!”

  “Nick, I’ll need you to come down here and make bail for me.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “From my laptop, send the Slater video to Dave’s e-mail for backup. If something happens to me in this jail, if I’m beaten up or killed, you and Dave e-mail the video to the media, include CNN.”

  A deputy, with a shaved head and a body built by a neighborhood gym and chemicals, escorted me to the holding cell. The only time he made eye contact with me was when the cell door was slammed shut and locked. He simply nodded and walked away, his boots hollow, and then faint, marching down the corridor.

  There is no sound on earth that rocks the cradle of your spirit quite like the finality of a cell door closing and locking in your freedom. Your mind paces the eight-by-six-foot cage like a wild animal searching for an exit that isn’t there. You urinate through a hole in plain sight. You are stripped bare of the most precious of human rights—sovereignty. You are under the absolute authority of people who don’t care what you did or didn’t do, who you are, who you think you were, or what you want.

  I stood in the center of the cell and listened to the sounds of despair. The sounds of madmen, the yelling, swearing, the never-ending noises coming from inmates who grunted, protested, and roared like zoo animals at feeding time.

  There was graffiti scraped into the wall. The deadening effect of prison brought out jailhouse art and poets that bordered somewhere on the fringe of genius and insanity.

  I could smell the stench of urine and chemical bleach. I sat on the hard bed. I’d been standing so long that my legs felt rubbery, muscles tight. I thought about how far I’d come in a half circle. I’d been responsible for putting hundreds of misfits in jails like this. Now I sat among them. Their catcalls, threats and screams reverberated around my rectangle cage like heat lighting bouncing off steel. I felt like I did in the motel room, a smothering sense, as if the air was poison. In the motel room, though, I could walk out in the chill of the rain to escape. In the cell, I had no where to hide from the torrent of misery that flowed down the long corridors searching for company.

  #

  I HEARD HIM BEFORE I saw him. The fast clip of the wingtips against the concrete, the strut, the sense of command and authority in his pace. Slater rounded the corner and stood in front of my cell. He stared, his eyes burning into me.

  “Who the hell do you think you are? Your little e-mail trick is horseshit. It shows nothing. Nothing! You hear me? Just a thorough search!”

  “Go on and scream Detective. Nobody will notice.” I stood up from the cot and stepped to the bars. “But they will notice your reaction to not finding the hair you planted. I shot video when I found it. The date and time are displayed in the frame. I got a close-up where you’d left the victim’s hair. That was exactly where you looked today trying to find something you’d left. Planting false evidence. Hope you have a hell of a good reason. Because right now it looks like you’re the killer. The killer you’re telling everyone you’re looking for. You know, body language speaks volumes, Slater. We have your on-camera commentary. Let me see if I can quote you from memory: ‘Bastard’s found it.’ You went berserk when you couldn’t find the hair to frame me. Combine that with your editorial, and the fact that evidence acquired on your watch has come up missing. I smell an indictment.”

  “You’re fuckin’ nuts, you washed-up prick. I didn’t murder anyone!”

  “Then who did?”

  “You’re crazy, O’Brien.”

  “Maybe -- but then jail does have a way to work on the psyche. You’ll discover that when you spend the next twenty years in a place worse than this.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You to come clean. Tell me what you know about the murder or murders. Tell me why you’re so protective of the Brennens. Maybe Richard Brennen or his old man is a killer. They’ve got plenty of easy prey all around their ranch. You want to take the fall for a psychopath? Even you must have learned something in law enforcement before you got greedy. You know this guy won’t stop. He’s addicted to the kill. You want the blood of these girls on what’s left of your conscious?”

  He leaned forward on his big wingtips and made a slight snorting sound from the back of his throat. His eyes were slightly dilated, a nerve twitching under is right eye, his breath smelling of Maalox. A tiny speck of antacid tablet dangled from the corner of his mouth. “Screw you, O’Brien. You don’t know a damn thing.” He turned and left.

  #

  AFTER MIDNIGHT, there was no sign of Nick. I was worried but didn’t have any options. Now it would be too late to make bond. I stretched out on the hard cot and felt my heart beat in my temples. I could smell the stink of sweat on the thin mattress.

  I closed my eyes, the fatigue and exhaustion flooding my mind. Somewhere in the twilight of subconscious the dream weaver entered my cell. I stood with my uncle on the wooden deck of my childhood home. He pointed to a pair of eagles starting their nest in the bald cypress tree near the end of our property.

  I turned to open the sliding glass doors, but I couldn’t push the latch free. Struggling with the lock, I saw the silhouetted reflection of the eagles on the doors. I cupped my hands to the sides of my face and leaned into the glass to see if my father was in the kitchen. Alll I saw was darkness.

  THIRTY-SIX

  I awoke with a pounding headache, stiff back, and a morning wake up from an inmate two cells down screaming that his ex-wife should have the lips on her vagina sewed together. He blamed his state of life on his wife’s anatomy and his apparent inability to steer clear of her sexual pull. He yelled at the top of his lungs, “Bitch took my son, and she’s fuckin’ her probation officer. Ya’ll hear me! That’s against the damn law!”

  Good morning America from the county jail.

  #

  TWO HOURS LATER I bonded out on my own recognizance. Although I told the presiding judge that I’d acted in self-defense, his Honor reminded me that I was formerly an officer of the law and should regulate my personal life accordingly. I paid two hundred dollars in court costs and promised to appear if the plaintiff pursued the assault charges.

  As I was walking down the courthouse steps and wondering what had happened to Nick and how I was getting home, a black Ford pulled up to the curb. Detective Leslie Moore lowered the driver’s window. “Looks like you could use a lift.”

  “I could use a drink. Bloody Mary, cold, very s
picy, a scallion and celery.”

  “Get in,” she said, with a smile that reminded me why I could never adjust to gender segregation in a cell.

  I got in the unmarked police cruiser and could smell a trace of her perfume. Light and feminine. Her hair was pulled back, accentuating her striking profile. She looked at me, eyes falling somewhere on my face, before she adjusted the rearview mirror and merged in with the flow of traffic. She drove silently for a few seconds, giving me time to explain what happened. “Although I’m glad to see you, I’m concerned that Nick isn’t here.”

  “Who?”

  I told her who Nick was and what had happened.

  She said, “Maybe he had a good reason. I read the arrest reports and decided to come here, but didn’t want Slater to see me.”

  “He wasn’t around.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “Not really,” I said. “After our heart-to-heart chat last night, he’s on the defensive at the moment.”

  “I know he’s suspicious of me. He’s popped some questions out of the blue.”

  “Such as?”

  “He wanted to know if I’d questioned you at your home. Asked me things like whether I was withholding any evidence I might have on you. He actually said there was no place in his shop for cops, as he called them, who held press conferences. Now, this is coming from a man who just held a news conference announcing his bid for sheriff.”

  “Let’s get that coffee. I have a lot to tell you and something to give you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Drive to the marina and I’ll show you.”

  #

  A HALF HOUR LATER we were pulling into the parking lot at the marina, oyster shells popping beneath the tires, the smell of fish in the air. It was Monday morning, and there were only a few cars in the lot. Nick’s motorcycle was gone. He usually parked near the wall between the tiki hut and the marina office.

  I knelt down at the spot where I’d last seen the BMW motorcycle. Two imprints in the grass. Wide tires. A small shine on the grass between the tire marks. I touched the oil, rubbed the residue between my fingers, felt the gumminess, and sniffed the burnt deposit. Nick hadn’t been gone too long.