The 24th Letter

SIXTY-ONE

The female police dispatcher sat in front of a darkened console at police headquarters, looked at the LED grid map of Miami Beach and keyed her radio microphone, “Airborne, unit three.”

“Unit three.”

“Need the bird for an aerial recon in the vicinity of Flamingo Park and Collins.”

“Ten-four.”

“Subject vehicle is a green Jeep. Two ground units are in the area. Subject is considered armed and dangerous. ID, Sean O’Brien, forty-three year old W.M. Knows the area well. Formerly with Miami-Dade homicide.”

“Be airborne in three minutes.”

As the two helicopter pilots suited up and left the building, one said to the other, “Let’s go round up Dirty Harry.”

O’Brien looked in his rearview mirror, driving east on 11th street. He assumed that Rosen had made a call to MPD. O’Brien cut off of 11th onto a side street and drove slowly down the street until he saw a house with a for sale sign in the front yard. The grass was in need of mowing and the curtains were gone from the windows. O’Brien pulled in the driveway, shut off the motor, and sat. He lowered the windows and listened. He heard the ticking of the cooling engine, the chant of a mockingbird in the tree, a tennis racquet serving a ball, and the howl of sirens. O’Brien lowered the window a little more. The unmistakable sound of a helicopter was coming his way. He started the Jeep and pulled farther up the driveway, under the cover of a massive banyan tree.

A minute later the helicopter flew directly over him, the prop wash causing a few leaves to spiral down off the tree and land on the Jeep’s hood and windshield.

He opened his laptop, found a signal and keyed in a name: Tucker Houston, defense attorney, Miami, Florida. He scanned a biography. Houston retired nine years ago. Lived in Coconut Grove. O’Brien set the GPS for the address, backed the Jeep out of the driveway, and headed in the opposite direction from where the posse was going.

In less than five minutes, O’Brien was approaching MacArthur Causeway. A traffic accident blocked an intersection causing O’Brien’s Jeep to become part of a parade going nowhere. He couldn’t back up, go right or left. Stuck.

They were just pulling the sheet over the biker’s face as O’Brien was coming into the intersection. He purposely avoided looking directly at the officer who was waving cars around the scene. As O’Brien passed, he glanced up in his rearview mirror. The officer had stopped the cars behind him and turned to look at O’Brien’s Jeep. He tilted his head toward his left shoulder, keyed the mic, and began speaking.

“All units, the subject’s Jeep just drove around a ten-sixteen at Euclid and Eighth. Looks like he’s heading for the Mac Causeway.”

O’Brien knew he’d been made. He pulled off Euclid, cutting through a Seven-Eleven lot and onto Poinciana Boulevard heading north. He pushed the Jeep to ninety as he weaved through traffic. He heard sirens. Dozens of cars. He knew the taser and sniper squad would be among them.

O’Brien slammed on his brakes and cut down a street lined with banyan trees. He drove north on Collins, cutting through the parking lot of the Haulover Golf Course. He pulled into a strip mall parking lot. A grocery stock boy was ending his shift. The teenager walked through the lot and opened the door to his green Jeep, turned on the air conditioning, and called his girlfriend on his cell as he waited for the Jeep to cool.

O’Brien drove on through the lot, the sound of sirens in the distance. He whipped into a Mobile gas station and headed behind the building to a covered automatic carwash. O’Brien shoved eight quarters in the slots and drove his Jeep inside the carwash, stopping when a red light flashed. In seconds, the wash began. Even with the sound of water all around him, O’Brien could hear the MPD helicopter circling nearby.

The SWAT team surrounded the green Jeep in the parking lot. The teenager sat in his Jeep, rocking to his loud music, and talking to his girlfriend on the phone.

“Put your hands in the wheel! Do it now!” shouted the police command over the bullhorn.

The teenager swallowed nervously and said to his girlfriend, “Shit! I’m surrounded by cops! They’re pointing guns at me! Call my mom!”

O’Brien left the car wash and tore out of the lot toward Collins Avenue. His cell rang. It was Detective Ron Hamilton. “Sean, I’ve heard the noise on the radio. You have to turn yourself in! It can all be explained.”

“You know as well as I do that it can’t be explained quickly. I’d be held, then go for a bond hearing. In the meantime, a good chunk of time that Charlie Williams has left on the planet is gone. For his sake, I can’t afford to come in.”

“You can’t afford not to!”

“Volusia SO found a body, the prison guard. Name’s Lyle Johnson. He was assigned to watch Sam Spelling. Whoever killed Spelling and Callahan, killed Johnson.”

“You think it’s Russo?”

“I think it’s one of his hired guns.”

“We found that girl you were with at Club Oz.”

“Is she okay?” O’Brien almost knew what Dave was about to tell him.

“One of our detectives went over to Barbie Beckman’s house. First time, she wouldn’t come to the door. Second time, we entered with a warrant. Found her on the bathroom floor.”

“Is she alive?”

“Barely. She’s at Jackson Memorial. And she’s in bad shape.”