The 24th Letter

FORTY

O’Brien was leaving the federal building parking garage when his cell phone rang. It was Detective Dan Grant. “A state trooper says he pulled over a truck matching Lyle Johnson’s last night. Says Johnson ran a stop sign at the crossing of Highway 15 and 44. Trooper gave Johnson a warning, and he said Johnson seemed nervous, much more so than anxiety from getting a ticket.”

“Did you question Johnson’s wife again?”

“Sean, that lady’s a sad case.”

“How’s that?”

“Battered.”

“Domestic?”

“I’d say the guy who guards inmates beats his wife…and does or did it regularly.”

“What’d she say?”

“It’s more what she didn’t say. Her nails are chewed to the flesh. She was nervous. Said her husband last spoke to her around ten in the evening Friday. Told her he was meeting some guy, didn’t say who. He said a deal was dropped in his lap and had to come down that night. He told her if he wasn’t home by one in the morning to go on and take their kid to her mother’s house on Saturday and to leave early.”

“Did she have any idea where Johnson was going to meet this guy?”

“No.”

“If he’s smart, it would have been a bar. Someplace public.”

O’Brien looked at looked at his watch. He called information and asked to be connected to Oz.

“Club Oz,” said the sultry woman’s voice.

“Jonathan Russo.”

“Who’s calling?”

“Sergio Conti.”

“My pleasure. Hold, please.”

O’Brien drove another block toward the Denny’s Restaurant, listening to the on-hold music and promos coming though the phone, “Party at Oz this Friday with world-famous deejay Philippe Cayman.”

“Mr. Conti?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Russo has been out of town the last few days. He’s expected back tonight. May I give him a message?”

“No thanks, I’ll call him later.”

Detective Ron Hamilton was waiting for O’Brien at a table in the corner of Denny’s Restaurant. O’Brien approached the table with a Miami Herald newspaper in his hand. He was surprised to see his old partner had gained weight. He had a bulbous nose, dark eyes, bushy eyebrows and thinning hair. Hamilton, less than five-feet-eight, looked to be pushing two hundred pounds. He wore a brown sports coat in need of dry cleaning. His tie was down to the first button. He sipped black coffee.

“Thanks for meeting me, Ron.”

“No problem. Wish I could say retirement looks good on you. Have you slept?”

“Not much. I feel so damn responsible for what happened to Charlie Williams, and to people like Father Callahan who were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Sean, don’t beat yourself up. You don’t even have to be involved in this. But you chose to try to do something. That says a hellava a lot. And knowing how fast you can work, you might be the only guy who can find the evidence that will stop the ticking clock for Charlie Williams. How’d it go with the perpetually tanned DA, Rosen?”

“Not good. He seems more worried about public opinion than he does about saving a life.”

“That’s why he sits where he sits.”

“Rosen has a fair grasp of my black-eye history with the department-the IA investigations. Sort of tossed that in my face as one excuse for not reopening an investigation into Alexandria Cole’s murder.”

“The guy doesn’t forget much, especially celebrity cases. He’d like to have had O.J. slip up here in Miami like he did in Vegas. When I called Rosen, it took him about two seconds to remember you, Sean. He asked if you were the same O’Brien who…and I’m quoting here…‘had IA following him like a shadow.’ I told him you were the best detective I’d ever known.”

“Maybe your endorsement penetrated his preconceived opinion of me.”

“Don’t take it personally. Rosen is one of those prosecutors who only go to trial to win. For him, there’s no such thing as breaking even.”

“The only score that counts right now is keeping Charlie Williams alive. Did you bring a copy of the case file?”

“Yep. Right here…on top of the package you sent me.” Hamilton lifted the thick file off the chair next to him and placed it in front of O’Brien. “Don’t forget it. Took me a while to copy that.”

“Thanks, Ron. This is boiling down to a pool of hours for Charlie Williams.”

“You can’t get some court to grant a stay?”

“Governor’s out of the country. William’s attorney has had all of his petitions denied or ignored. I have nothing but gut speculation to file with any judge or court that might hear it. Since lethal injection isn’t considered by the high court to be cruel and unusual punishment, the executioner is lining them up.”

Hamilton sipped his coffee and said, “There are many on death row that deserve to be exactly where they are and meeting the fate they’re facing.”

“But Charlie Williams isn’t one of them. I just came from Lauren Miles’ office at the federal building. They’d worked a coke bust with DEA about the time of Charlie William’s trial. Feds had been investigating Alexandria Cole’s manager, Jonathan Russo, the same time I was questioning him in her death.” O’Brien looked at the case files on the table. He gestured to the file. “In there, I wrote that Russo was having dinner with a business associate, guy named Sergio Conti, the night Alexandria was killed. Now I know that his alibi was a lie. So where was he?”

“Russo’s no deacon in his local church. We know his club launders dirty money. But proving it is another thing.”

O’Brien looked out the restaurant window and watched the lights from the traffic on the Rickenbacker Causeway Bridge. “Ron, I’m going to have to play on the edge to get some answers from Russo. He’s a cruel and a narcissist, a guy who believes he’s impervious to real trouble. If I had more time, I’d investigate this differently, play it by the book and document every move. But I don’t, and I can’t. I’m starting from scratch here, and I have to take the fastest course to try and save Charlie’s life. I don’t like this kind of investigation or interrogation. So, if you can, cover me old friend, maybe between the two of us we can save Charlie. If you can’t cover me, I understand. ”

Ron stirred more sugar in his coffee. “I’ll do what I can. Miami’s become even meaner since you left. A guy like Russo takes no prisoners. If you blink, or make a mistake, Sean, we won’t ever find your body.”