“Valid passport. If they ever nail him, they’ll find half a dozen fake ones.”
In 1936, the Bureau of Indian Affairs granted a charter to the Tappacola Nation, a small tribe of about four hundred scattered along the Panhandle, with most living in small homes in the swampy outback of Brunswick County. The tribe maintained a headquarters of sorts there, on a three-hundred-acre reservation ceded by the federal government eighty years earlier. By 1990, the mighty Seminole Nation of south Florida was discovering the bright lights of the casino trade, as were tribes across the country. Coincidentally, Vonn and his gang began buying cheap land adjacent to the Tappacola reservation. At some point in the early 1990s-no one would ever know for sure because the conversations had long since been buried-Dubose approached the Tappacola with a deal too good to be true.
“Treasure Key,” Hugo mumbled.
“You got it. The only casino in north Florida, conveniently located just ten miles south of Interstate 10 and ten miles north of the beaches. Full-service casino, open twenty-four/seven, Disney-style amusement fun for the entire family, largest water park in the state, condos for sale, lease, or time-share, take your pick. A veritable mecca for those who want to gamble and those who want to play in the sun, and it’s perfectly situated within two hundred miles of five million people. Don’t know the numbers, because the Indians who run the casinos report to no one, but it’s believed Treasure Key is easily in the half-billion-dollar-a-year range.”
“We were there last summer,” Hugo admitted, as if he’d done something wrong. “One of those last-minute weekend junkets for a buck-fifty. It wasn’t bad.”
“Bad? It’s fabulous. That’s why the place is packed and the Tappacola are printing money.”
“And sharing it with Vonn and his boys?” Hugo asked.
“Among others, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Lacy said, “That’s in Brunswick County, which is in the Twenty-Fourth Judicial District. There are two circuit judges in the Twenty-Fourth, one male, one female. Am I getting warm?”
Myers smiled and tapped a closed file in the center of the table. “This is the complaint. I’ll give it to you later. The judge is the Honorable Claudia McDover, on the bench now for seventeen years. We’ll talk about her later. For now, please allow me to give you the backstory. It’s crucial.”
Back to the Tappacola. The tribe was violently split over the issue of casino gambling. The opponents were led by an agitator named Son Razko, who was a Christian and opposed gambling on moral grounds. He organized his followers and they seemed to be in the majority. The proponents of the casino promised riches for all-new homes, lifetime pensions, better schools, free college tuition, health care, the list went on and on. Vonn Dubose was secretly funding the drive to approve the casino, but, as usual, his fingerprints could never be found. In 1993, the issue was put to a vote. Excluding those under eighteen, there were about three hundred eligible voters. All but fourteen made it to the polls, which were being watched by federal marshals, just in case things turned violent. Son Razko and his traditionalists won with 54 percent of the vote. A nasty lawsuit alleged voter fraud and intimidation, but the circuit court judge threw it out. The casino was dead.
Soon thereafter, so was Son.
They found his body in another man’s bedroom, along with the other man’s wife, both shot twice in the head. They were naked and appeared to have been caught in the act. Her husband, a man named Junior Mace, was arrested and charged with both murders. He had been a close ally of Razko’s during the gambling debate. Mace steadfastly maintained his innocence, but nonetheless found himself staring at the death penalty. Because of the notoriety, the newly elected Claudia McDover moved the trial to another county but insisted on maintaining jurisdiction. She presided over the trial and favored the prosecution at every turn.
The casino faced two significant obstacles. One was Son Razko. The second obstacle was its location. Much of the Tappacola land was low-lying swamps and bayous and almost uninhabitable, but there was enough high ground to build a large casino with the necessary acreage around it. Getting there was the problem. The road into the reservation was old, was badly maintained, and would never handle the traffic. With the prospect of tax revenue, good-paying jobs, and bright lights, the leaders of Brunswick County agreed to build a new four-lane road from State Route 288 to the reservation’s border, which was a stone’s throw from the spot where the casino was to be built. But building the road would require the taking of private land by eminent domain, or condemnation, and the majority of the landowners of the proposed right-of-way were opposed to the casino.
The county filed eleven lawsuits at the same time, all seeking condemnation of eleven parcels of land along the proposed route. Judge McDover took charge of the litigation, ran roughshod over the lawyers, placed the cases on what amounted to her “rocket docket,” and within months had the first one teed up for a trial. By then there was little doubt, at least among the lawyers, that she was squarely in the county’s corner and wanted the road built as soon as possible. As the first trial approached, she organized a settlement meeting in her courtroom and required all lawyers to attend. In a marathon session, she hammered out an agreement in which the county would pay each landowner twice the appraised value of his property. Under Florida law, there was little doubt the county could take the land. The issue was compensation. And time. By ramrodding the litigation, Judge McDover saved the casino years of delays.
While the eminent domain cases were proceeding as planned, and with Son Razko out of the way, the gambling proponents petitioned for another referendum. They won the second time by thirty votes. Another lawsuit was filed claiming fraud, and Judge McDover dismissed it. The path was now clear to begin construction of Treasure Key, which opened in 2000.
Junior Mace’s appeals crawled through the system, and though several reviewers were critical of the trial judge and her rulings, no one found serious errors. The conviction survived as the years passed.
“We studied that case in law school,” Hugo said.
“The murder was sixteen years ago, so you were what, twenty years old?” Myers asked.
“Something like that. I don’t remember the murder, nor the trial, but it was mentioned in law school. Criminal procedure, I think. Something about the use of jailhouse snitches in capital murder trials.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it?” Myers asked Lacy, who replied, “No. I didn’t grow up in Florida.”
Myers said, “I have a thick file on the murder case, complete with the habeas filings. I’ve kept up with it over the years and know as much as anyone, just in case you need a resource.”
“So did Mace catch his wife in bed with Son and take offense?” Lacy asked.
“I doubt it. He claims he was somewhere else but his alibi witness was shaky. His court-appointed lawyer was a rookie with little experience and no match for the prosecutor, who was a real slick operator. Judge McDover allowed him to call two jailhouse snitches who said Mace bragged about the killings in jail.”
“Should we talk to Mace?” Hugo asked.
“That’s where I’d start.”
“But why?” Lacy asked.
“Because Junior Mace may know something and there’s a chance he’ll talk to you. The Tappacola are a tight, closemouthed bunch, very suspicious of outsiders, especially those with authority or wearing uniforms. Plus, they are terrified of Dubose and his gang. They have been easily intimidated. And why not keep quiet? They’re reaping a windfall. They have homes and cars, schools and health care, money for college. Why rock the boat? If the casino is doing a little dirty business with some gangsters, who cares? Speaking up might get you shot.”
“Can we talk about the judge?” Lacy asked.