The local police sent it up to Miami, where the forensic laboratory established that it had come from Barney Klinger’s Navajo Chief, and that the scorch marks bore traces not of gasoline but of plastic explosive. It became a Homicide investigation.
The first thing Homicide did was check on the business affairs of Mr. Klinger. What they discovered caused them to think the case was a dead end. They had, after all, no mandate on the British territory of Sunshine, and little confidence that the local force would get to the bottom of what had to be a professional hit.
On Tuesday morning Sam McCready eased himself onto his poolside lounger at the Sonesta Beach Hotel on Key Biscayne, settled his second after-breakfast coffee on the table by his side, and opened the Miami Herald.
Without any particular interest, he scanned the paper for international news—there was precious little—and settled for local affairs. The second lead concerned fresh revelations in the disappearance of a light airplane over the sea southeast of Key West the previous Friday morning.
The news sleuths of the Herald had discovered not only that the plane might well have been destroyed by a bomb inside it, but that Mr. Barney Klinger was known as the uncrowned king of the illicit trade, theft, and laundering of spare aviation parts in South Florida.
After narcotics, this abstruse area of illegal behavior is probably the most lucrative. Florida bristles with airplanes—airliners, cargo freighters, and private aircraft. It also contains some of the world’s major legitimate companies in the provision of constantly needed new or reconditioned spare parts. AVIOL and the Instrument Locator Service supply replacement parts on a worldwide scale.
The illegitimate industry, on the other hand, specializes either in commissioning the theft of such parts for no-questions-asked sales to other (usually Third World) operators, or in the even more dangerous purveying of parts whose operational life is almost expended, selling them as reconditioned parts with most of their operational life still left. For the latter scam, the paperwork is forged. Since some of these parts sell for a quarter of a million dollars each, the profits for a ruthless operator can be huge.
Speculation was running high that someone had wanted to remove Mr. Klinger from the scene.
“In the midst of life,” murmured McCready, and turned to the weather forecast. It was sunny.
Lieutenant Broderick summoned Eddie Favaro on that same Tuesday morning. He was even more grave than he had been the day before.
“Eddie, before we proceed with the memorial service with full honors for Julio, we have to consider a troubling new factor. What the hell was Julio doing sharing a plane with a sleazeball like Klinger?”
“He was trying to get back home,” said Favaro.
“Was he? What was he doing down there?”
“Fishing.”
“Was he? How come he was sharing the same week on Sunshine with Klinger? Did they have business to discuss?”
“Clay, listen to me. No way—no way in this world—was Julio Gomez corrupt. I won’t believe it. He was trying to get home. He saw a plane, he asked for a ride, is all.”
“I hope you’re right,” Broderick said soberly. “Why was he trying to get home two days ahead of schedule?
“That’s what puzzles me,” admitted Favaro. “He loved his fishing, looked forward to it all year. He would never have cut short two days of fishing without a reason. I want to go over there and find out why.”
“You have three reasons for not going,” said the lieutenant. “This department is overworked, you are needed here, and any bomb—if bomb there was—was certainly aimed at Klinger. The girl and Julio were accidents. Sorry, Internal Affairs will have to check out Julio’s financial situation. It can’t be avoided. If he never met Klinger before Friday, it was just a tragic accident.”
“I’ve got some leave time due me,” said Favaro. “I want it, Clay. I want it now.”
“Yes, you’ve got some leave time. And I can’t deny it to you. But you go there and you’re on your own, Eddie. That’s British territory—we have no authority there. And I want your gun.”
Favaro handed over his police automatic, left, and headed for the bank. At three that afternoon, he landed on Sunshine’s airstrip, paid off his chartered four-seater, and watched it leave for Miami. Then he hitched a lift with one of the airstrip staff into Port Plaisance. Not knowing where else to go, he checked into the Quarter Deck.
Sir Marston Moberley sat in a comfortable chair in his walled garden and sipped a whiskey and soda. It was his favorite ritual of the day. The garden behind Government House was not large, but it was very private. A well-tended lawn covered most of the space, and bougainvillaea and jacaranda festooned the walls with their brilliant colors. The walls, which surrounded the garden on three sides—the fourth side was the house itself—were eight feet high and topped with shards of glass. In one wall was an old steel door, seven feet tall, but it was long out of use. Beyond it was a small lane that led into the heart of Port Plaisance. The steel door had been sealed years before, and on its outer side two semicircular steel hasps were secured by a padlock the size of a small dinner plate. All were long fused by rust.
Sir Marston enjoyed the cool of the evening. His adjutant was somewhere inside his own quarters at the other end of the house; his wife was out on an errand visiting the local hospital; Jefferson, his chef/steward/butler, would be preparing dinner in the kitchen. Sir Marston sipped his whiskey with appreciation, then almost choked when his ears were assailed by the scream of rending steel. He turned. He had time to say, “I say, what on earth—Now look here—”
The roar of the first bullet shocked and stunned him. The slug went through a fold of loose fabric in the sleeve of his cotton shirt. It hammered into the coral-block wall of the house behind him and fell back onto the path, misshapen and twisted. The second hit him full in the heart.
Chapter 2
Despite the twin booms of the handgun from the garden, there was no immediate reaction from inside the house. Only two people were there at that hour.
Jefferson was belowstairs preparing a fruit punch for the evening meal—Lady Moberley was a teetotaler. He would say later that when the blender was switched on the noise filled the kitchen, and it must have been on when the shooting took place.
The Governor’s adjutant was Lieutenant Jeremy Haverstock, a downy-cheeked young subaltern seconded from the Queen’s Dragoon Guards. He was in his room at the far end of Government House with the window closed and the air conditioning at full blast. He was also, so he would say, playing his radio and listening to music from Radio Nassau. He, too, heard nothing.
By the time Jefferson came out into the garden to consult Sir Marston over some point concerning the preparation of the lamb cutlets, the assassin had clearly withdrawn through the steel gate and had gone. Jefferson arrived at the top of the steps leading down to the garden and saw his employer lying flat on his back, arms wide, as the second shot had thrown him, a dark blotch still spreading across the front of his dark-blue-cotton shirt.
At first, Jefferson thought his master had fainted, and he ran down to help him up. When he saw the hole in the chest more clearly, he stood back, disbelieving for a moment, then ran panic-stricken to fetch Lieutenant Haverstock. The young army officer arrived seconds later, still in his boxer shorts.