I seriously doubt that they will snoop around Savannah and watch our movements. That would only bore them and yield no useful information. However, we agree that we must become more vigilant and vary our routines. They could have easily followed me to Nassau and tracked me as I met with Tyler Townsend. Same for Sun Valley and Bruce Gilmer. But those trips were before we filed our petition and before our names were officially entered.

  Of Nash Cooley, we have learned more. We have public data regarding his autos, real estate, and both divorces. Suffice to say he makes a lot of money and likes to spend it. His home in Coral Gables is assessed at $2.2 million. He has at least three cars titled in his name, all German imports. His firm operates out of a sparkling new high-rise in downtown Miami, with branches on Grand Cayman and in Mexico City. According to a friend of Susan Ashley’s, some drug lawyers in south Florida are known to take fees offshore. They are rarely caught, but occasionally the Feds will bust one for tax evasion. This source says that Varick & Valencia has been in the dirty business for a long time and is quite adept at advising its clients on the more sanitary ways of laundering money. Two of the firm’s senior partners are veteran courtroom brawlers with many victories to their credit. In 1994, they defended Mickey Mercado on a murder charge and hung the jury.

  I cannot understand the logic of Nash Cooley making the six-hour drive to watch our post-conviction hearing. If he wanted a good look at me, he could have gone to our website, simple as it is. Same for Susan Ashley. All of the petitions, motions, briefs, and rulings are public record, easily findable online. And why would he run the risk of being spotted? Granted, the risk was quite low in that backward part of the state, but nonetheless he got himself identified by us. I can assume only that Cooley was there because a client ordered him there.

  Mickey Mercado is a career thug who has probably worked for a cartel his entire adult life. Which cartel, we are not certain. He and two others were charged with murdering another drug trafficker in a deal gone bad, but the Feds couldn’t make it stick.

  Now he’s trailing me?

  I make the point to the ladies that looking over our shoulders will not help Quincy Miller. Our job is to prove him innocent, and not necessarily to identify the guy who pulled the trigger.

  I have not told the ladies everything. I seldom do. The story of Tyler and the crocodiles is one I’ll keep to myself. That image never goes away.

  Our discussion about Tyler goes on throughout most of the day as we go back and forth with ideas and arguments. On the one hand I feel compelled to reach out again and at least warn him that our efforts are now being monitored. On the other hand, though, the mere act of contacting him could potentially place him in danger. The same goes for Gilmer, but he does not know as much as Tyler.

  At the end of the day we decide it’s an important risk to take. I go online and return to From Under Patty’s Porch where I pay twenty bucks for another month and send a message that will erase itself in five minutes:

  Nassau again—important.

  Five minutes pass with no response. I send the same message four times over the next three hours and hear nothing.

  After dark, I leave the office and walk a few blocks in sweltering heat. The days are long and humid, and the town is crowded with tourists. As usual, Luther Hodges is waiting on his porch, eager to get out of the house.

  “Hello Padre,” I call out.

  “Hello, my son.” We embrace on the sidewalk, exchange lighthearted insults about gray hair and waistlines, and start walking. After a few minutes I realize something is bothering him.

  “Texas will kill another one tomorrow,” he explains.

  “Sorry to hear.”

  Luther is a tireless abolitionist whose simple message has always been: Since we can all agree that it’s wrong to kill, why do we allow the State to kill? When an execution appears on the horizon, he and his fellow abolitionists write the usual letters, make calls, post comments online, and occasionally go to the prison to protest. He spends hours in prayer and grieves for murderers he’s never met.

  We’re not in the mood for a fancy meal so we duck into a sandwich shop. He pays for mine, as always, and as soon as we are seated he grins and says, “Now, tell me the latest on Quincy’s case.”

  * * *

  —

  SINCE GUARDIAN BEGAN its work, we have opened eighteen cases, eight of which resulted in exonerations. One client was executed. Six are current. Three we closed when we became convinced our clients were indeed guilty. When we make a mistake we cut our losses and move on.

  With eighteen cases we have learned that, sooner or later, we’ll get a lucky break. His name is Len Duckworth and he lives at Sea Island, about an hour south of Savannah. He drove up, walked into our headquarters, saw no one at the reception desk, stuck his head into Vicki’s room, and said hello. Vicki was polite, as always, but very busy. Within minutes, though, she was calling for me. “This could be important,” she says. We eventually settle in the conference room upstairs with a fresh pot of coffee. Vicki and Mazy take notes and I just listen.

  Duckworth is about seventy, tanned and trim, the epitome of a comfortable retiree with plenty of time for golf and tennis. He and his wife moved to Sea Island a few years back and are trying to stay busy. He’s from Ohio, she’s from Chicago, both prefer warm weather. He was an FBI agent in 1973 when Congress created the Drug Enforcement Agency, which sounded more exciting than his desk job. He switched agencies and spent his career with the DEA, including twelve years in charge of north Florida.

  For months now we’ve been trying with no success to obtain DEA records from the 1980s. But, like the FBI and ATF, the DEA is tenacious about protecting its archives. One of Vicki’s FOIA requests came back with a letter in which every word was redacted except for the “a’s” and “the’s.”

  This is indeed a lucky day. Duckworth says, “I know a lot about the drug business back then. Some things I can talk about, some I cannot.”

  I say, “I’m curious about why you came here. We’ve been trying to get DEA files and notes for the past seven months, with no luck.”

  “You won’t get much because DEA always hides behind the excuse that its investigations are active and ongoing. It doesn’t matter how old or inactive a case might be, the DEA’s procedure is to give you nothing. And they’ll go to court to protect their information. That’s the way we operated.”

  “How much can you tell us?” I ask.

  “Well, I can talk about the murder of Keith Russo because that case was closed over twenty years ago and because it wasn’t a DEA matter. I knew Keith, knew him well because we flipped him. He was one of our informants and that’s what got him killed.”

  Vicki, Mazy, and I look at each other as this settles in. The only person on the planet who can confirm that Keith Russo was an informant is sitting in one of our old mismatched chairs and calmly sipping coffee.

  “Who killed him?” I ask tentatively.

  “Don’t know, but it wasn’t Quincy Miller. It was a hit from the cartel.”

  “Which cartel?”

  He pauses and takes a sip of coffee. “You ask me why I came here. I heard about your efforts to exonerate Miller and I applaud what you’re doing. They got the wrong guy because they wanted the wrong guy. I have a lot of background I can share without divulging confidential stuff. Primarily, though, I just wanted to get out of the house. My wife is shopping today around the corner and we’ll meet for a nice lunch later.”

  I say, “We’re all ears and we have all day.”

  “Okay, first a bit of history. By the mid 1970s, when the DEA was created, cocaine was raging across the country and coming in by the ton in ships, planes, trucks, you name it. The demand was insatiable, profits were enormous, and the growers and traffickers could barely keep up. They built huge organizations throughout Central and South America and stashed their money in Caribbean banks. Florida, with eight hundred miles of beaches and dozens of ports, became the preferred point of entry. Miami became the playground for the traffickers. South Florida was controlled by a Colombian cartel, one that is still in business. I was not involved down there. My section was from Orlando north, and by 1980 the Saltillo Cartel out of Mexico ran most of the cocaine. Saltillo is still around but it got merged with a bigger outfit. Most of its leaders got butchered in a drug war. These gangs are always up and down and the casualties are breathtaking. The savagery is unbelievable. I won’t bore you.”

  “Please don’t,” Vicki says.

  I have another quick visual of Tyler and the crocodile feast, and say, “We have a fair amount of background on Sheriff Pfitzner and what went on in Ruiz County.”

  He smiles and shakes his head, as if reminded of an old friend. “And we never caught that guy. He was the only sheriff that we knew of in north Florida who was in bed with the cartel. We had him in our sights when Russo got hit. Things changed after that. Some of our crucial informants got lockjaw.”

  “How’d you flip Russo?” I ask.

  “Keith was an interesting guy. Very ambitious. Tired of the small town. Wanted to make a lot of money. Damned good lawyer. He had some drug clients in the Tampa–St. Pete area and sort of made a name for himself. An informant told us that he was taking big fees in cash, reporting some or none, even moving money offshore. We watched his tax returns for a couple of years and it was obvious he was spending a lot more than he was making on Main Street in Seabrook. So we met with him and threatened him with an indictment for evasion. He knew he was guilty and didn’t want to lose everything. He was also guilty of laundering money for some of his clients, primarily the Saltillo boys. He did this by using offshore shell companies to buy Florida real estate and doing all the paperwork. Not terribly complicated stuff, but he knew what he was doing.”

  “Did his wife know he was an informant?”

  Another smile, another sip. Duckworth could tell war stories for hours. “This is where it gets really fun. Keith liked the ladies. He was careful not to chase ’em in Seabrook, but Tampa was another story. He and Diana kept an apartment there, ostensibly for reasons related to their work, but Keith used it for other reasons. Before we flipped him, we got warrants and had bugs in the apartment, office, even at home. We were listening to everything, including Keith’s calls to his girls. Then, we got a real shock. Seems as though Diana decided to play the same game. Her dude was one of her drug clients, a pretty boy who worked in Miami for the Saltillo Cartel. Ramon Vasquez was his name. There were a couple of times when Keith was in Tampa hard at work and Ramon sneaked into Seabrook to visit Diana. Anyway, you can imagine what kind of shape the marriage was in. So, to answer your question, we were never sure if Keith told his wife about being an informant. We warned him not to, of course.”

  “What happened to Diana?” Vicki asks.

  “Somehow the cartel found out about Keith working for us. I strongly suspect that another informant, a double agent, one of our guys, sold the information. It’s a dirty business with loyalties that can change daily. Hard cash and the fear of being burned alive can flip a lot of people. They took out Keith, and Diana eventually left town.”

  “And Ramon?” asks Mazy.

  “He and Diana hooked up in Tampa for a while, then kept moving south. We didn’t know for sure back then but we suspected he sort of semiretired from his trafficking career and stayed out of trouble. Last I heard, they were still together somewhere in the Caribbean.”

  “With plenty of money,” I say.

  “Yes, with plenty of money.”

  “Was she involved with the murder?” Mazy asks.

  “That has never been proven. You know about the life insurance and the joint bank accounts, but that’s not too unusual.”

  I ask, “Why didn’t you bust Pfitzner and the cartel?”

  “Well, after the murder, the case evaporated. We were within a month or two of a huge bust that would have produced a lot of indictments, including some charges against Pfitzner. We had been patient, too patient, really, but we were fighting with the U.S. Attorney’s office down there. They were overworked and so on. We couldn’t get the lawyers fired up. You know how they are. After the murder, our informants vanished and the case fell apart. The cartel got spooked and pulled back for a while. Pfitzner eventually retired. I was moved to Mobile where I finished my career.”

  “Who would the cartel use to do the killing?” Mazy asks.

  “Oh, they have plenty of gun thugs, and these guys are not always sophisticated assassins. They’re brutes who’d rather cut off a man’s head with an axe than put a bullet in it. A couple of shotgun blasts to the face is tame for these boys. Their murders are messy because they want them to be. If they leave behind clues, they don’t care. You’re never going to find them because they’re back in Mexico, or Panama. Somewhere in the jungle.”

  Mazy says, “But the Russo crime scene was clean, right? No clues left behind.”

  “Yes, but Pfitzner was in charge of the investigation.”

  I say, “I’m not sure I understand why you couldn’t nail Pfitzner. You say you knew he was guarding the port, storing the coke, protecting the dealers, and you had informants, including Keith. Why couldn’t you bust him?”

  Duckworth takes a deep breath and locks his hands behind his head. He stares at the ceiling, keeps a smile on his face, replies, “That is probably the biggest disappointment of my career. We really wanted that guy. One of us, a law enforcement man, on the take and in bed with the nastiest people you could ever meet. Pumping cocaine into Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville, all over the Southeast. And we could’ve done it. We had infiltrated. We had built the case. We had the evidence. It was the U.S. Attorney in Jacksonville. We just could not get him to move fast enough and take it to the grand jury. He insisted on running the show and didn’t know what he was doing. Then Russo got hit. I still think about that guy, the U.S. Attorney. He later ran for Congress and I couldn’t wait to vote against him. Last I heard, he was chasing ambulances with his smarmy face on billboards.”

  Mazy asks, “And you say this cartel is still around?”

  “Most of it is, or at least it was when I retired. I’ve been out of the loop for the past five years.”

  Mazy says, “Okay, let’s talk about the people who ordered the hit on Russo. Where are they now?”

  “Don’t know. I’m sure some are dead, some are in prison, some have retired to their mansions around the world. And some are still trafficking.”

  “Are they watching us?” Vicki asks.

  Duckworth leans forward and takes a sip. He thinks about this for a long moment because he appreciates our concern. Finally, he says, “I can only speculate, obviously. But, yes, they are watching at some level. They do not want Quincy Miller exonerated, to say the least. I have a question for you,” he says, looking at me. “If your client walks, will the murder case be reopened?”

  “Probably not. In about half of our cases we manage to identify the real perpetrator, the other half we do not. Here, it looks highly unlikely. The case is old. The evidence is gone. The real killer is, as you say, living well somewhere far away.”

  “Or he’s dead,” Duckworth says. “Gun thugs don’t last long in the cartels.”

  “So why are they watching us?” Vicki asks.

  “Why not? You’re easy to watch. The court filings are public. Why not keep up with things?”

  I ask, “Ever hear of a Miami drug lawyer named Nash Cooley?”

  “I don’t think so. Is he with a firm?”

  “Varick and Valencia.”

  “Oh sure. They’ve been around for years. Well known in the trade. Why do you ask?”

  “Nash Cooley was in the courtroom last week when we argued our motion.”

  “So you know him?”

  “No, but we identified him. He was with a guy named Mickey Mercado, one of his clients.”

  Being a good cop, he wants to ask how we identified the two, but he lets it go. He smiles and says, “Yes, I’d be careful if I were you. It’s safe to assume they’re watching.”

  29

  According to Steve Rosenberg, Judge Marlowe has more clout than we gave her credit for. He suspects she lobbied the Alabama Court of Appeals to move at what could be a record pace. Barely two months after the hearing in Verona, the court unanimously affirms Judge Marlowe’s command to DNA test the seven pubic hairs. And they order the testing to be paid for by the office of the Honorable Chad Falwright. Two detectives from the state police drive the evidence to the same lab in Durham that we used to test the saliva of Mark Carter. I stare at my phone for three days until it buzzes with a call from Her Honor herself.

  With perfect unaccented diction and in the most beautiful female voice I’ve ever heard, she says, “Well, Mr. Post, it appears as though you are correct. Your client has been excluded by DNA testing. All seven pubic hairs once belonged to Mr. Carter.”

  I’m in Vicki’s office and my face says it all. I close my eyes for a moment as Vicki quietly hugs Mazy.

  Her Honor continues, “Today is Tuesday. Can you be here for a hearing on Thursday?”

  “Of course. And thank you, Judge Marlowe.”

  “Don’t thank me, Mr. Post. Our judicial system owes an enormous debt of gratitude to you.”

  These are the moments we live for. Alabama came within two hours of killing an innocent man. Duke Russell would be cold in his grave if not for us and our work and our commitment to undoing wrongful convictions.

  But we’ll celebrate later. I leave immediately and head west toward Alabama, phoning nonstop. Chad doesn’t want to talk and of course he’s far too busy at the moment. Since he’ll try to screw things up again, and since he’s incompetent to begin with, we’re worried about the apprehension of Mark Carter. To our knowledge Carter knows nothing about the DNA testing. Steve Rosenberg convinces the Attorney General to call Chad and get him in line. The AG also agrees to notify the state police and ask them to keep an eye on Carter.