“Tell me about them.”
“Rumors of cash being skimmed and taken out the back door. According to estimates, Treasure Key is now a half-billion-dollar casino, and 90 percent of the gross is in cash. Our source tells us there is a gang of organized criminals in bed with the Indian leaders and they’re skimming like crazy. You’ve never heard this?”
“I may have heard that rumor but that doesn’t mean I know anything.”
“Then who does? Who can we talk to?” Lacy asked.
“You must have a good source or you wouldn’t be here. Go back to your source.”
Lacy and Hugo glanced at each other, both with the same image of Greg Myers puttering around the Bahamas on his boat, cold beer in hand, Jimmy Buffett on the stereo. “Maybe later,” Hugo said. “But for now, we need someone on the ground, someone who knows the casino.”
Mace was shaking his head. “Wilton is my only source and he doesn’t say much. I’m not sure how much he knows, but very little of it trickles all the way down here to Starke.”
Lacy asked, “Would you call Wilton and say it’s okay to talk to us?”
“And what do I gain from that? I don’t know you. I don’t know if you can be trusted. I’m sure your intentions are good, but you might be walking into a situation where things could get out of control. I don’t know. I need to think about it.”
“Where does Wilton live?” Hugo asked.
“On the reservation, not far from the casino. He tried to get a job there but they turned him down. No one in my family works at the casino. They won’t hire them. It’s very political.”
“So there’s resentment?”
“Oh yes. Lots of it. Those who fought the casino are basically blacklisted and can’t work there. They still get their checks, but they don’t get the jobs.”
“And how do they feel about you?” Lacy asked.
“As I said, most of them believe I killed Son, their leader, so there’s not much sympathy. Those who supported the casino hated me from the beginning. Needless to say, I don’t have a lot of fans among my people. And my family pays the price.”
Hugo asked, “If Judge McDover is exposed and the corruption is proven, is there a chance it could help your case?”
Mace stood slowly and stretched as if in pain, then took a few steps to the door, then back to the table. He stretched some more, cracked his knuckles, sat down, and picked up the phone. “I don’t see it. My trial was over a long time ago. All of her rulings have been picked apart on appeal, and by some very good lawyers. We think she was wrong on several of them. We think a new trial should have been granted a decade ago, and so on, but the appellate courts have all agreed with her. Not unanimously; indeed, all of the decisions in my case have been split, with very strong dissents in my favor. But the majority rules and here I am. The two jailhouse snitches who effectively nailed my conviction and sent me away disappeared years ago. Did you know that?”
Lacy said, “I saw it in a memo.”
“Both vanished at about the same time.”
“Any ideas?”
“Two theories. One, and the best, is that both were rubbed out not long after my conviction was affirmed. Both were career criminals, real lizards who cleaned up nicely at trial and convinced the jury that I had bragged about the killings in jail. Well, the problem with snitches is that they often recant, so the first theory is that the real killers took out the snitches before they had the chance to change their stories. This I believe.”
“And the second theory?” Hugo asked.
“That they were taken out by my people in revenge. I doubt this, but it’s not completely far-fetched. Emotions were high and I guess anything was possible. Regardless, the two snitches vanished and have not been seen in years. I hope they’re dead. They put me here.”
Lacy said, “We’re not supposed to be talking about your case.”
“It’s all I have to talk about, and who really cares? This is all a matter of public record now.”
“So that’s at least four dead bodies,” Hugo said.
“At least.”
“Are there more?” Lacy asked.
He was nodding steadily, but they couldn’t tell if it was just a nervous tic or an answer in the affirmative. Finally, he said, “Depends on how hard you dig.”
6
The first courthouse built by the taxpayers of Brunswick County burned to the ground. The second one was blown away. After the hurricane in 1970, the county leaders approved a design that included a lot of brick, concrete, and steel. The result was a hideous, Soviet-style hangar with three levels, few windows, and sweeping metal roofs that leaked from day one. At the time, the county, halfway between Pensacola and Tallahassee, was sparsely populated, its beaches free of sprawl and clutter. According to the 1970 census, there were 8,100 whites, 1,570 blacks, and 411 Native Americans. A few years after the “new courthouse,” as it was known, opened for business, the coast along the Florida Panhandle sprang to life as developers rushed to build condos and hotels. With miles of wide and untouched beaches, the “Emerald Coast” became an even more popular destination. The population increased, and in 1984 Brunswick County was forced to expand its courthouse. Holding true to the postmodern motif, it built a perplexing phallic-shaped annex that reminded many of a cancerous growth. Indeed, the locals referred to it as the Tumor, as opposed to its official designation of the Annex. Twelve years later, as the population continued to grow, the county added a matching tumor at the opposite end of the “new courthouse” and declared itself ready for any and all business.
The county seat was the town of Sterling. Brunswick and two adjoining counties comprised Florida’s Twenty-Fourth Judicial District. Of the two circuit court judges, Claudia McDover was the only one headquartered in Sterling; thus, she pretty much ruled the courthouse. She had seniority and clout and all county employees walked softly around her. Her spacious office was on the third floor, where she enjoyed a pleasant view and some sunlight from one of the few windows. She despised the building and often dreamed of ways to acquire enough power to tear it down and start over. But that was just a dream.
After a quiet day at her desk, she informed her secretary that she would be leaving at four, an early exit for her. Her timid and well-trained secretary absorbed this information but asked no questions. No one asked Claudia McDover why she did anything.
She left Sterling in her late-model Lexus and took a county road south. Twenty minutes later she turned in to the grand entryway of Treasure Key, a place she privately considered “her casino.” She was convinced that it would not exist but for her efforts. She had the power to shut it down tomorrow if she wanted. That, though, would not be happening.
She took the periphery road along the edge of the property and smiled, as always, at the crowded parking lots, the busy shuttles running gamblers to and from their hotels, the gaudy neon billboards advertising shows by washed-up country crooners and cheap circus acts. All of it made her smile because it meant the Indians were prospering. People had jobs. People were having fun. Families were on vacation. Treasure Key was a wonderful place, and the fact that she was siphoning only a small piece of the action bothered her not in the least.
Nothing bothered Claudia McDover these days. After seventeen years on the bench her reputation was sound, her job secure, her ratings high. After eleven years of “sharing” in the casino’s profits, she was an incredibly rich woman, with assets hidden around the world and more piling up by the month. And though she was in business with people she didn’t like, their swindling conspiracy was impervious to the outside world. There was no trail, no evidence. It had, after all, clicked right along for eleven years, since the day the casino opened.
She passed through a gate and entered the swanky golf course and residential development of Rabbit Run. She owned four condos there, or at least she owned the offshore companies that owned them. One she kept for herself. The other three she leased through her attorney. Her unit on the fourth fairway was a two-story fortress with reinforced doors and windows. “Hurricane protection” had been her reasoning years earlier when she beefed up the place. Inside a small bedroom she had built a ten-by-ten vault with concrete walls and security against fire and theft. Inside the vault she kept some portable assets-cash, gold, jewelry. There were also a few items that didn’t move so easily-two Picasso lithographs, an Egyptian urn that was four thousand years old, a porcelain tea set from another dynasty, and a collection of rare first-edition novels from the nineteenth century. The bedroom door was hidden behind a swinging bookcase so that a person walking through the condo would not know the room, and the vault, existed. But no one walked through the condo. An occasional guest might be invited to sit on the patio for a drink, but the condo was not about drinking, or visiting, or living.