O’Brien walked to the farthest right-hand corner. “I don’t see any surveillance cameras in this vicinity.”
“Most are in the high traffic areas. We checked the hard-drives to see what came and went an hour before and a half hour after-on either side of the time Spelling was hit. Everything checked clean except the second vehicle to leave. Two minutes after the shooting. A blue van. Tag stolen.”
“Who was it registered to?”
“Guy’s name is Vincent Hall. Says it was stolen off his Mercedes.”
“Where was his Mercedes parked?”
“Third floor.”
“Where on the third floor?”
“Over there,” Dan pointed to a far corner.
“I bet the blue van was right beside the Mercedes. Perp may have arrived early-first thing-got here early to find the best spot. Check that on the tapes. He laid low here. Waited for Spelling to be paraded up the courthouse steps, and fired one shot. Guy’s damn good, an expert.”
O’Brien walked to the corner. A red Cadillac was in the spot closest to the corner and the large concrete pillars. He stared out the open breezeway across to the courthouse steps. He looked through the binoculars.
O’Brien surveyed the area. He found a crumpled cigarette pack. No sign anyone had been smoking. There was an empty five-gallon bucket of roofing tar. It sat adjacent to an opening between one of the concrete pillars and the steel girder. O’Brien squatted down behind the bucket. “Let me see the glasses from here.” Dan handed him the binoculars. “I believe the shooter used this bucket to steady the rifle. The bucket’s been left behind from some construction work. Have your department set up a laser right here. It should match the trajectory to the hole in the door.”
O’Brien looked down at a gutter with half-inch grates spaced to allow the water in but to keep most of the leaves and debris out. The gutter ran the entire length of the floor. He looked in one of the slots and said, “Too dark to see anything.”
“I’d doubt if you’d find a casing in there. Perp probably picked it up. Bouncing in one of these holes would be like hitting one of the ring tosses at the county fair.”
O’Brien heard a car door close. He looked over in the garage and saw a woman locking her door. “Dan, give me your badge for a second.”
“Sean, it’s one thing to be out here with me impersonating a cop. But if you take my ID, you’re busted. In case you haven’t looked…our skin color is a little different.”
O’Brien grinned. “They always look at the shiny badge first.”
Dan sighed, handing O’Brien his detective’s shield.
“Ma’am!” shouted O’Brien.
The woman, dressed in a business suit, turned to look. O’Brien approached her with the ID and said, “Police ma’am. We’re investigating a shooting. And we’ve run into a little challenge. Maybe you can help.”
“I’m late for court. I don’t-”
“May I borrow the mirrored makeup compact in your purse?”
“How’d you know I carry one?”
“Lucky guess.” O’Brien smiled,
“Okay, I suppose.”
She opened her purse. “Just take it.”
“Thank you. If you can afford to wait thirty seconds, I’ll hand it right back.”
O’Brien took the compact, opened it, and angled the mirror so the sun would reflect through the slots in the gutter near the bucket. He dropped to his knees, trying to peer through the grates. He moved the mirror slowly, like a small searchlight in the dark. He saw loose nails, a dime, leaves, and something the color of polished brass near a leaf. “Dan, would you get a coat hanger out of the back of the Jeep?”
The woman watched as Dan got the coat hanger out and handed it to O’Brien. He untwisted the hanger, fashioned a small hook, stuck it into the grate, and carefully lifted the shell casing up from the dark. O’Brien stood, the casing winking like gold in the sunlight. “Hand me an evidence bag,” he said. As he dropped the casing into the bag he said, “. 303, British Springfield. Sometimes you get lucky at ring toss.”
EIGHTY-FIVE
After O’Brien dropped Dan Grant off at the sheriff’s office, he placed a call to Florida State Prison at Starke. He was transferred three times and finally got the deputy assistant warden on the phone.
“Mr. O’Brien, I understand you’re on the approved call list. But each call has to be accepted by Charlie Williams. It’s not up to us…who he talks to.”
“I understand that. Can you get him to a phone?”
“Not a question of getting him to a phone, it’s getting a phone to Williams.”
“What do you mean?”
“Governor’s signed William’s death warrant. He’s moved from his cell on death row to a deathwatch status. Which means he’s down to extremely limited phone calls.”
“He still can speak with his attorney, right?”
“Are you his legal counsel?”
“I’m on his legal team.”
Here was an audible sigh. The assistant deputy warden said, “Guess we’re gonna have to install a phone in Williams’ cell. Media types are callin.’ CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, you name it.”
“I understand your frustrations. Part of the state system in Florida is due process up until an inmate is in fact executed. No one wants an innocent man to go to his grave.”
“Gimme your number. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
O’Brien drove east on I-4 and took it to Highway 46 toward U.S. 1 and Ponce Inlet. His cell rang. It was Detective Ron Hamilton.
“Tucker Houston’s the right guy for Charlie Williams,” said Hamilton.
“For Williams’ sake, I hope so. His other attorney sort of resigned after having all his petitions for a new trial denied.”
“Sean, it might not be anything, but since you mentioned somebody was popping Alexandria full of heroin…something came up in a conversation I had with Joe Torres. Joe’s working drugs and gangs in the area now. Torres was talking with Todd Jefferies, DEA. Jefferies was the lead investigator in the coke bust that sent Russo away. Jefferies worked with the FBI on that, and the one agent who’s chief of the Miami office.”
“Who’s that?”
“Mike Chambers. I’ve met him. He’s fairly aloof. Typical bureau. Other special agent was Christian Manerou, seems to be a stand-up kinda of guy. Anyway, although Todd Jefferies and the rest of the feds popped Russo on the coke charges, they’d found two kilos of pure uncut heroin in the pallet disguised as swimming pool chemicals. Jefferies told Torres that it was suspected to be the icing on a cake for a deal done between some Miami crime families with the New York mob. The heroin was found hidden at the bottom of the coke pile, all disguised as powdered chlorine. Russo, in a plea bargain, said he suspected the uncut stuff was “hidden” there by an unknown courier as a partial payoff for a mob hit. The trigger man was a lowlife called The Coyote, AKA, Carlos Salazar.”
“What happened to the heroin?”
“Jefferies says it came up missing.”
“Missing?”
“Somewhere between photographing the stuff, weighing, tagging and bagging…and being tucked away in evidence storage, it was lost, probably stolen. This meant the heroin charges against Russo were dropped.”
“I don’t see how the DEA can lose evidence, or was it the FBI?”
“Don’t know that we can blame the feds for this. The heroin was being stored in Dade County SO, locked away in their secure evidence vaults near an area where they keep the confiscated drug planes, cigarette boats and whatnot. Jefferies says he suspects one of the Miami mob families associated with Russo had somebody inside, offered a hundred grand to drop the stuff in a canal out back. Let the gators have a heroin fix. Anyway, don’t know if it can ever be traced to Alexandria Cole, especially now, but I thought I’d mention it.”
O’Brien was silent.
“You still there?” asked Hamilton
“Yeah, I’m still here. Just thinking. Did Jefferies say which FBI agent, Mike Chambers or Christian Manerou, played the bigger role in the investigation?”