Mercado never mentioned his client’s name. He was my sole contact. Frankly, I didn’t inquire since I figured it’s best to know as little as possible in a deal like that. If I had asked, I’m sure Mercado would have ducked the question.

  A friend of mine in Miami, a former trafficker, says Mercado is sort of a semi-legit operator who is often hired by traffickers to fix problems. I have met with him twice since the attack on Miller but both meetings were not productive. He asked if I thought it might be possible to get to Miller in the hospital. I went there and looked around but didn’t like what I saw. Mercado wants me to monitor Miller’s recovery and find a way to finish the job.

  Skip DiLuca

  * * *

  —

  WITH THE CONSPIRACY to kill Quincy still active, the FBI must make a decision. It prefers to watch Mercado and hope he leads to bigger fish, perhaps even using DiLuca as bait. However, as long as Mercado is on the loose and planning to finish off Quincy, the danger is real. The safest route is to arrest Mercado and apply pressure, though no one within the Bureau expects him to talk or cooperate.

  DiLuca is kept in jail, in solitary, under surveillance, and far from any form of communication. He’s still a career criminal who cannot be trusted. No one would be surprised if he contacted Mercado if given the chance. And he would certainly make sure Jon Drummik and Robert Earl Lane knew that Adam Stone is a rat.

  Agnes Nolton makes the decision to arrest Mercado, and to get Adam Stone away from Garvin. Plans are immediately made to move him and his family to another town, one near a federal prison where a better job is waiting. Plans are also in the works to send DiLuca to a camp where surgeons will alter his looks and give him a new name.

  * * *

  —

  ONCE AGAIN, PATIENCE pays dividends. Using a Honduran passport and the name “Alberto Gomez,” Mercado books a flight from Miami to San Juan, and from there he rides an Air Caribbean commuter to the island of Martinique, French West Indies. The locals scramble to pick up his trail in Fort-de-France, the capital, and he is watched as he takes a cab to the Oriole Bay Resort, a lush and secluded getaway on the side of a mountain. Two hours later, a government jet lands at the same airport and FBI agents hustle to waiting cars. The resort, though, is booked. It has only twenty-five quite expensive rooms and they’re all taken. The agents check in to the nearest hotel, three miles away.

  * * *

  —

  MERCADO MOVES SLOWLY around the resort. He has lunch alone by the pool and drinks in the corner of a tiki bar with a view of the foot traffic. The other guests are high-end Europeans with their mix of languages, and none raise suspicions. Late in the afternoon, he walks along a narrow path fifty yards up the mountain to a sprawling bungalow where a porter serves him a drink on the terrace. The sparkling blue Caribbean stretches for miles below him. He lights a Cuban cigar and enjoys the view.

  The man of the house is Ramon Vasquez and he eventually wanders onto the terrace. The woman of the house is Diana, his longtime mate, though Mercado has never met nor seen her. Diana waits and watches from a bedroom window.

  Ramon pulls up a chair. They do not shake hands. “What happened?”

  Mercado shrugs as if there are no problems. “Not sure. The job wasn’t finished on the inside.” They speak in soft, rapid Spanish.

  “Obviously. Is there a plan to complete the deal?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Very much so. Our boys are not happy at all and they want this problem to go away. They, we, thought you could be trusted for something this simple. You said it would be easy. You were wrong, and we want the deal closed.”

  “Okay. I’ll work on a plan, but it most certainly will not be easy. Not this time.”

  The porter brings Ramon a glass of ice water. He waves off a cigar. They chat for half an hour before Mercado is excused. He eases back to the resort, suns by the pool, entertains a young lady during the evening, and has dinner alone in the elegant dining room.

  The following day, Mercado uses a Bolivian passport and returns to San Juan.

  37

  There are only two incorporated municipalities in Ruiz County: Seabrook, population 11,000, and the much smaller village of Dillon, population 2,300. Dillon is to the north and farther inland, rather remote and seemingly forgotten by time. There are few decent jobs in Dillon and not much in the way of commerce. Most of the young people leave out of necessity and a desire to survive. Prospering is rarely thought of. Those left behind, young and old, muddle along, living off whatever meager wages they can find and checks from the government.

  While the county is 80 percent white, Dillon is half and half. Last year its small high school graduated sixty-one seniors, thirty of whom were black. Kenny Taft finished there, in 1981, as had his two older siblings. The family lived a few miles out from Dillon in an old farmhouse Kenny’s father bought at a foreclosure before he was born.

  Vicki has put together a spotty history of the Tafts, and they have seen more than their share of suffering. From old obituaries, we know that Kenny’s father died at fifty-eight, cause unknown. Next in line was Kenny, who was murdered at the age of twenty-seven. A year later, his older brother was killed in an auto accident. Two years later, his older sister, Ramona, died at the age of thirty-six, cause unknown. Mrs. Vida Taft, having outlived her husband and all three children, was committed to a state mental hospital in 1996, but the court records are not clear about what happened after that. Commitment proceedings are confidential in Florida, as in most states. At some point she was released, because she died “peacefully at home,” according to the obit in the Seabrook weekly. No will has ever been probated for her or her husband so it’s safe to assume they never signed one. The old farmhouse and the five acres around it are now owned by a dozen grandchildren, most of whom have fled the area. Last year Ruiz County assessed the property at $33,000, and it’s not clear who paid the $290 in taxes to prevent a foreclosure.

  Frankie finds the house at the end of a gravel road. A dead end. It has obviously been abandoned for some time. Weeds are growing through the sagging planks of the front porch. Some shutters have fallen to the ground, others hang by rusty nails. A thick padlock secures the front door, the same around back. No windows have been broken. The tin roof looks sturdy.

  Frankie walks around it once and that’s enough. He carefully steps through the weeds and returns to his truck. He’s been sniffing around Dillon for two days and thinks he’s found a decent suspect.

  Riley Taft’s day job is chief custodian at the Dillon Middle School, but his real vocation is ministering to his congregation. He’s the pastor of the Red Banks Baptist Church a few miles farther out in the country. Most Tafts are buried there, some with simple headstones, some without. His flock numbers fewer than a hundred and cannot afford a full-time pastor. Thus, the custodial job. After some phone calls, he agrees to meet Frankie at the church late in the afternoon.

  Riley is young, late thirties, thickset and easygoing with a wide smile. He walks Frankie through the cemetery and shows him the Taft section. His father, the oldest child, is buried between Kenny and their mother. He narrates the family tragedies: his grandfather dead at fifty-eight from some mysterious poisoning; Kenny murdered; his father killed instantly on a highway; his aunt dead from leukemia at thirty-six. Vida Taft died twelve years ago at seventy-seven. “Poor woman went crazy,” Riley says with wet eyes. “Buried her three children and went off the deep end. Really off.”

  “Your grandmother?”

  “Yep. So why do you wanna know about the family?”

  Frankie has already gone through the song and dance about Guardian, our mission, our successes, and our representation of Quincy Miller. He says, “We think Kenny’s murder didn’t go down the way the sheriff said.”

  This gets no reaction. Riley nods to the back of the small church and says, “Let’s get something to drink.” They walk past the tombstones and markers of other Tafts and leave the cemetery. Through a rear door they step into the church’s narrow fellowship hall. Riley opens a fridge in a corner and pulls out two small plastic bottles of lemonade.

  “Thanks,” Frankie says, and they settle into folding chairs.

  “So what’s this new theory?” Riley asks.

  “You’ve never heard of one?”

  “No, never. When Kenny got killed it was the end of the world. I was about fifteen or sixteen, tenth grade I think, and Kenny was more of a big brother than an uncle. I worshipped him. He was the family’s pride. Real smart, going places, we thought. He was proud to be a cop but he wanted to move on up. God, how I loved Kenny. We all did. Everybody did. Had a pretty wife, Sybil, a sweet lady. And a baby. Everything going his way and then he’s murdered. When I heard the news I fell to the floor and bawled like a baby. I wanted to die too. Just put me in the grave with him. It was just awful.” His eyes water and he takes a long swallow. “But we always believed he stumbled across some drug dealers and got shot. Now, twenty-plus years later you’re here to tell me something different. Right?”

  “Yes. We believe Kenny was ambushed by men working for Sheriff Pfitzner, who was counting his money with the drug dealers. Kenny knew too much and Pfitzner got suspicious.”

  It takes a second or two for this to sink in, but Riley absorbs it well. It’s a shock, really, but he wants to hear more. “What’s this got to do with Quincy Miller?” he asks.

  “Pfitzner was behind the murder of Keith Russo, the lawyer. Russo made some money as a drug lawyer, got flipped by the DEA and became an informant. Pfitzner found out about it, arranged the murder, and did a near flawless job of pinning it on Quincy Miller. Kenny knew something about the murder, and it cost him his life.”

  Riley smiles and shakes his head and says, “This is pretty wild.”

  “You’ve never heard this gossip?”

  “Never. You gotta understand, Mr. Tatum, that Seabrook is only fifteen miles from here, but it might as well be a hundred. Dillon is its own world. A sad little place, really. Folk here just barely hang on, barely get by. We got our own challenges and we don’t have time to worry about what’s happening over in Seabrook, or anywhere else for that matter.”

  “I understand that,” Frankie says and takes a sip.

  “So, you did fourteen years for somebody else’s murder?” Riley asks in disbelief.

  “Yes, fourteen years, three months, eleven days. And Reverend Post came to the rescue. It’s brutal, Riley, locked up and forgotten when you know you’re innocent. That’s why we’re working so hard for Quincy and our other clients. As you know, brother, lots of our people are locked up for stuff they didn’t do.”

  “You got that right.” They drink in solidarity.

  Frankie presses on. “There might be a chance, probably a slight one, that Kenny had possession of some evidence that was stored behind Pfitzner’s office in Seabrook. His former partner told us this recently. Kenny got wind of a plan to burn the building and destroy the evidence, and he removed some stuff before the fire. If Pfitzner indeed ambushed Kenny, then why did he want him dead? It was because Kenny knew something. Kenny had the evidence. There was no other reason, or at least none that we’ve come across, that explains Pfitzner’s motive.”

  Riley is enjoying the story. He says, “So the big question is—what did Kenny do with the evidence? That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “You got it. It’s doubtful Kenny would take it home, because that could have endangered his family. Plus he was living in a rental house.”

  “And his wife wasn’t too happy there. It was out on Secretary Road, east of Seabrook. Sybil wanted to move to some other place.”

  “By the way, we found Sybil in Ocala and she will not talk to us. Not a word.”

  “A nice lady, always had a smile for me, anyway. I haven’t seen Sybil in years, don’t suppose I ever will. So, Mr. Tatum—”

  “Please, Frankie.”

  “So, Frankie, you’re thinking Kenny might have brought the stuff back to the home place, just down the road, and hid it there, right?”

  “The list of possible hiding places is short, Riley. If Kenny had something to hide, something valuable, he would have wanted to keep it somewhere safe and accessible. Makes sense, right? Does the old house have an attic or a basement?”

  Riley shakes his head. “There’s no basement. I’m not sure but I think there’s an attic. Never seen it, never been up there.” He takes a sip and says, “This seems like a real goose chase to me, Frankie.”

  Frankie laughs and says, “Oh, we specialize in goose chases. We waste tons of time digging through haystacks. But, occasionally, we find something.”

  Riley finishes his lemonade, slowly gets to his feet, and begins pacing around the room as if suddenly burdened. He stops and looks down at Frankie and says, “You can’t go into that house. It’s too dangerous.”

  “It’s been abandoned for years.”

  “By real people, but there are plenty of folk moving around. Spirits, ghosts, the place is haunted, Frankie. I’ve seen it for myself. I’m a poor man with a few bucks in the bank, but I wouldn’t walk into that house at high noon with a gun in my hand for a thousand dollars cash. Nobody in our family will either.”

  Riley’s eyes are wide with fear and his finger shakes as he points it at Frankie, who is momentarily dumbstruck. Riley walks to the fridge, pulls out two more bottles, hands one to Frankie and sits down. He breathes deeply as he closes his eyes, as if gathering strength for a long-winded tale. Finally, he begins, “Vida, my grandmother, was raised by her grandmother in a Negro settlement ten miles from here. It’s gone now. Vida was born in 1925. Her grandmother was born back in the 1870s when a lot of folk still had kin who were born in slavery. Her grandmother practiced witchcraft and African voodoo, which was common back then. Her religion was a mix of Christian gospel and old-world spiritualism. She was a midwife and the local nurse who could whip up salves and ointments and herbal teas to cure just about anything. Vida was profoundly influenced by this woman and throughout her life she, too, considered herself to be a spiritual master, though she knew better than to use the word ‘witch.’ Are you with me, Frankie?”

  He was, but they were wasting time now. Frankie nodded earnestly and said, “Sure. Fascinating.”

  “I’m giving you the quick version, but there’s a big thick book about Vida. She was a frightening woman. She loved her kids and grandkids and ruled the family, but she had a dark, mysterious side too. I’ll give you one story. Her daughter, Ramona, my aunt, died at thirty-six, you saw her tombstone. When Ramona was young, about fourteen or so, she was raped by a boy from Dillon, a bad kid. Everybody knew him. The family was upset as you might guess, but didn’t want to go to the sheriff. Vida didn’t trust the white man’s justice. She said she would handle things herself. Kenny found her one night, at midnight under a full moon, in the backyard going through some voodoo ritual. She was tapping a small drum, with gourds around her neck and snakeskins around her bare feet, and chanting in an unknown tongue. Later, she told Kenny that she put a hex on the boy who raped Ramona. Word got out and everybody, well at least all the black folk, in Dillon knew the boy was cursed. A few months later he got burned alive in a car wreck, and from then on people ran from Vida. She was much feared.”

  Frankie absorbs this without a word.

  “Over the years she got crazier, and we finally had no choice. We hired a lawyer in Seabrook to get her committed. She was furious with the family and threatened us. Threatened the lawyer and the judge. We were terrified. They couldn’t do anything with her at the asylum and she talked her way out. She told us to stay away from her and the house, and we did.”