The Dollar-a-Year Detective Page 6

  “A possibility. The FDIC doesn’t reimburse a bank for theft, so we’re out of it,” Sarah says. “The murder investigation is all yours, Jack. Good luck with that.”

  On my boat, I change into my workout clothes and do a long run on the beach. I do my best thinking while running. One thing I immediately decide is that I will never let myself look like the porcine old guy I pass who is wearing little black bikini swim trunks, a style adopted mainly by European tourists. Guy like that should wear a muumuu.

  My next decision, after admiring a number of young ladies strolling the beach who look much better in their bikinis, is to see if I can somehow determine if Larry Henderson actually had discovered Livingstone’s embezzlement. If he did, maybe he told Robert Kerr and Henry Allen, the two Manatee National Bank senior VPs. It would be interesting to see how they held up under my enhanced interrogation technique, which would consist of me eating doughnuts in front of them and not offering them any.

  13.

  Citizens for a Sane Environment

  Before my morning run, I need to catch up on my editing of Stoney’s Dilemma. I am interested in how the other Jack is handling the Lonnie Williams interview. In order to keep up with other fictional crime solvers such as John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee, John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport, James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux, Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, and Chris Knopf’s Sam Acquillo, Bill had to make Jack Stoney better than me. Poetic license is what they call it. I don’t mind. Who would want to have all of his weaknesses and mistakes revealed to millions of readers? Not this particular cowboy. So, Stoney, let’s see you in action.

  Stoney wrote out his promise of a deal with Lonnie Williams, the scumbag who’d kidnapped, raped, and murdered young Christine Petrocelli, on the yellow legal pad. He invented meaningless legalese, with a lot of “whereases,” “party of the first part and party of the second part,” a “let it be known by this presence,” and references to nonexistent case law. He signed the gobbledygook, slid the notepad across the table to Williams, and said, “Can you read this, Lonnie, or do I need to read it to you?”

  Williams studied the document carefully, moving his lips as he read, or pretended to read, then said, “Looks okay.”

  Stoney slid the pen to Williams.

  “Your turn. Write down exactly what you did to Christine Petrocelli.”

  It took Williams twenty minutes and three pages to document his crime, in part because he was printing. He must have missed the class when they taught cursive in school, Stoney reflected. At least he didn’t dot his i’s with smiley faces.

  When Williams finished, Stoney said, “Now put your John Hancock at the bottom.”

  Williams furrowed his brow. “John who?”

  So he’d missed history along with cursive writing, Stoney thought. “Never mind. Sign your name. Use an X if you can’t spell it.”

  Williams printed his name. Stoney took the pad and scanned what Williams had written. Then he pushed back his chair, stood up, and told Lonnie Williams that he was being arrested for kidnapping, rape, and murder.

  “Hey, what about my fuckin’ deal?” Williams asked.

  “Long story short,” Stoney said. “You’re fucked.”

  He took the paper he’d written the deal on, ripped it into small pieces, and let them fall onto the tabletop like confetti.

  I had no edits on that part. It was just the way I’d dealt with a perp named Paulie Gianello. Normally I am not that loose with a suspect’s constitutional rights. But you harm a child and all bets are off.

  I just finished my morning run and am walking down the dock toward my houseboat when I notice Cubby Cullen’s Explorer pulling into the Salty Sam’s parking lot. Cubby gets out and walks toward me. I would go to meet him halfway, but I did an extra two miles and have just enough energy left to make it to the Phoenix. Aging takes a toll.

  “Something’s happened, Jack,” he says as we walk toward my houseboat. “A man was found dead in his fishing boat off Sanibel early this morning. Shot in the head.”

  “Who was he?”

  “A guy named Russell Tolliver. Owns four car dealerships in Lee County and serves as a state legislator representing this district.”

  “Anything about the bullet yet?”

  “Not till the autopsy. I saw the body. A .22 hollow-point fragments upon impact, making it hard to match. No shell casing, no fingerprints, just like with the Hendersons.”

  We reach the Phoenix, step aboard, and go into the galley. I flip on the coffee machine. Marisa has an expensive Nespresso model that makes perfect whatchamacallit drinks, but the controls on fancy machines like that are far too complicated for me. I might as well try to fly a 747.

  “Two execution-style murder incidents in boats in the same area within a short time of one another,” I say as the coffee begins to brew. “I’d say they’re related.”

  “That’s why I’m asking you to take on the Tolliver murder too,” Cubby tells me.

  “In for a penny, in for a pound, Cubby.”

  “I appreciate it, Jack. I gotta get to the station. I’ll let you know when I get the autopsy report, and we’ll run background on Tolliver. We figure out the connection between him and the Hendersons, and we’re halfway there.”

  Cubby departs. I pour a cup of coffee, thinking: halfway there, by maybe identifying the killer. The other half is catching him and getting proof he’s the one. That half is always the hardest.

  After I teamed up for a day with the CSIs at the Tolliver crime scene while it was still fresh, I planned to spend the rest of the week interviewing a list of Lawrence and Marion Henderson’s friends and relatives, and a few more bank employees. I’d go back to the Tolliver murder after that.

  I find out that everyone liked and admired the Hendersons and had no idea about who would have wanted them dead.

  Marion Henderson’s friends said her main extracurricular activity was serving as president of a group called Citizens For a Sane Environment. Apparently sanity means working against the forces of evil who would irreparably damage Florida’s environment if left unchecked, Marion’s sister, Lucy, told me. According to the group’s website, one of its main initiatives is opposing a bill currently before the state legislature that would allow oil and natural gas drilling just fifty miles off the Florida Gulf Coast, superseding a current law prohibiting the drilling no closer than one hundred twenty-five miles, and in some areas, two hundred thirty-five miles.

  Lucy, who is also a member of the group, told me that Democratic Representative Russell Tolliver was leading the opposition to the drilling bill in the legislature.

  By the end of the week, I had the autopsy report on Russell Tolliver. Sure enough, he’d been shot in the head by a .22-caliber pistol, just like the Hendersons.

  Interesting. Marion Henderson and Russell Tolliver both were opposing the drilling bill, and both, along with Marion’s husband, who maybe was collateral damage, appear to have been murdered by the same person.

  14.

  Big Oil

  I have an appointment with Lance Porter, the late Russell Tolliver’s executive assistant. I wonder what Mr. and Mrs. Porter were thinking when they named their baby boy Lance. Maybe that the taunting of other children on the playground would toughen him up. I want to ask him details about Representative Tolliver’s oil-and natural-gas-drilling bill opposition and about the bill’s sponsors and other supporters.

  Porter lives in Tallahassee, the state capital, but he’s in Fort Myers to help his boss’s family deal with their unexpected loss. The Tollivers have a house on McGregor Boulevard, near the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, where visitors can see the winter homes of Thomas Alva Edison and his pal, Henry Ford, and tour Edison’s workshop, along with a museum and botanical garden.

  Two days after Tolliver’s murder, I drive to his house, where Porter said I should meet him. The funeral is the following day. He told me he had some time in the morning to speak with me. He said that his boss often fished the Pin
e Island Sound waters, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends.

  I pull into the driveway of a brick Tudor on a large lot containing palm and oak trees and surrounded by a redbrick wall with a black iron gate that is open. I park, go onto the front porch, and ring the doorbell. After a moment, the door is opened by a man who says, “Detective Starkey? I’m Ross Tolliver, Russell’s son.”

  Ross Tolliver is in his late twenties, I’d guess, of medium height, slim, with jet-black hair over his ears, green eyes, perfect white teeth, and a straight nose, giving him the look of a male model. He is wearing a white V-neck tennis sweater, its sleeves pushed up on his forearms, white flannel slacks, and tan suede loafers, no socks. He looks to have a fifty-dollar haircut. I pay twelve-fifty for mine at Buddy’s, one of those old-fashioned barber shops with Sports Illustrated and fishing and hunting magazines in the rack, many of them several years old.

  I wonder how Ross knew I was a detective rather than the pool man or a Jehovah’s Witness canvassing the neighborhood. I suppose that no one but me was expected at ten A.M. I recall a joke I heard one night at the Baby Doll bar: Two Jehovah’s Witnesses are canvassing a neighborhood. They walk onto a porch of one of the houses and one rings a doorbell. A man answers, invites the two in, seats them on the sofa in the living room, takes a chair, and says, “What it is you fellows have in mind?” One of the men thinks for a moment, looks at his partner, then says, “I really don’t know, sir. We’ve never gotten this far before.”

  I introduce myself, and Ross holds the door open for me to enter. “Thank you for trying to find my father’s murderer,” he says. “My mother thanks you too. She’s upstairs sleeping. She’s taking a medication her doctor prescribed. Are you making any progress with your investigation?”

  Law enforcement officials always tell the news media that they are not able to discuss the details of an “active investigation.” Which often means they haven’t a clue. But families deserve to know more than that.

  “It’s still early,” I answer, “but I do have some promising leads. Please tell your mother that I will do all that I can to find the person responsible for your father’s death.”

  He asks no more about that and says, “Lance is out back, by the pool. I’ll show you the way.”

  I think about telling him that any detective worth his weight in Pop-Tarts could find the pool on his own, it was likely to be somewhere in the vicinity of the backyard, but that would be rude, so I follow him through the house and out a back door to the rear patio.

  Lance Porter is seated at a round wrought-iron table under a large green-and-white striped canvas umbrella, near a large swimming pool. He’s talking on a cell phone. Ross goes back into the house. Porter looks at me and holds up his index finger in a just-a-moment gesture. He ends the call, stands, offers his hand, and says, “Detective Starkey, I’m Lance Porter. Have a seat. Do you want coffee?” He has a large ceramic mug in front of him.

  Porter has the muscular build of a man who might have been an athlete in his school days, and who has kept in shape. Or maybe a military man who did more than push papers during his tour of duty. His firm handshake adds to this impression.

  “Thanks, but I’m all coffee-ed out,” I say. Without doughnuts, what’s the point? Fries without ketchup. Penn without Teller. A state fair without … all the stuff they have at state fairs.

  When we’re seated, he reaches for a leather briefcase on one of the other chairs, opens it from the top, pulls out a manila folder, and puts it in front of me.

  “This is a copy of the oil and gas drilling bill you asked about,” he explains. “House Resolution 0022. So you think that Russell’s opposition to this bill might have had something to do with his murder?”

  “It’s a possibility,” I answer. “Just one of several I’m looking at. Tell me about the sponsors and main supporters of the bill.”

  Of course I’m not looking at any other possibilities, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  “A Republican by the name of Arthur Wainwright, who represents a Palm Beach County district, is the primary sponsor of the House bill. As you might imagine, the oil and gas industry, via its lobbyists, vigorously supports the measure.”

  “In addition to Russell Toliver, were there any other vocal opponents of the bill?”

  “Every Democrat in the House and Senate is automatically opposed to all Republican legislation. And vice versa. That’s why nothing ever gets done in government, except for the occasional bipartisan bill for something like funding the state mosquito control program.”

  Just then a mosquito lands on his neck. He swats it, leaving a tiny blood smear. Maybe it’s time to increase the mosquito program’s funding.

  “Did Russell know Lawrence or Marion Henderson?” I ask him.

  “That was such a tragedy. Russell knew them both very well. I met them just once at a fund-raiser. They were generous contributors to Russell’s campaigns, even though they were Republicans, and Marion’s organization, Citizens for a Sane Environment, also strongly opposed the drilling bill. In fact, it was Marion who enlisted Russell’s support for defeating the bill.”

  “Was the bill going to pass?”

  “Do you know much about state politics?”

  “I’m from Illinois, where four of the last seven governors went to prison and two of them are currently incarcerated.”

  He laughs.

  “It’s not quite that bad in Florida. But here, like everywhere else, money rules. Individual donors to political campaigns want favors, and get them, and lobbyists actually write some of the bills.”

  “So some lobbyist wrote the drilling bill?”

  “Yes. It was drafted by a group called The American Energy Independence Coalition, headquartered in Washington. Aka Big Oil. They’ve got a megabuck war chest funded by the oil and gas companies.”

  “Megabuck” gets my detective’s juices flowing. Love and money: the two leading causes of murder. Now there is money to follow.

  “So to answer your question,” Porter says, “it looked like the drilling bill was a slam dunk until Marion Henderson’s group started to organize opposition to it, and enlisted Russell’s support. The head count of votes still favors passage by a good margin, but I’m sure the sponsors didn’t like Marion and Russell stirring things up by highlighting possible environmental problems from the drilling.”

  “Did Russell ever receive a death threat?”

  “Yes, more than once. Comes with the job. I always turned them over to the Capitol Police. None were ever credible. Just cranks.”

  “It’s rare that a killer makes a threat first,” I tell him. “But it does happen, so it’s good to run them all down.”

  I thank Porter for his help, consider offering my condolences for his name as well as for the death of his boss, think better of it, and show myself out, having learned the route on the way in without having to leave a trail of bread crumbs.

  During my drive back to Fort Myers Beach, I call the Florida Capitol Police headquarters in Tallahassee, tell the woman who answers who I am and what I need, and am transferred to Sgt. Jim Mikanopy (I had the woman spell his last name) in the Protective Operation Section.

  The name is familiar. Sam Long Tree gave me a book about the history of the Seminole Nation. During the 1800s, there was a famous chief with that name. When the sergeant comes on the line, I ask him if he knows Sam.

  “I do,” Mikanopy says. “He’s the vice chairman of the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Council. I’m the chairman.”

  “Sam and I work together.”

  “Thanks to our casinos, Sam doesn’t have to work, and neither do I,” the sergeant says. “But it gets boring sitting around cashing checks. Now how can I help you, Detective?”

  “You know about the murder of Rep. Russell Tolliver, I assume.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m leading that investigation, along with the possibly related murders of the Hendersons of Fort Myers.”

  “A
tragedy,” Mikanopy says. “Who does something like that?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Lance Porter told me you’ve investigated a number of death threats to Russell Tolliver. He said none were credible.”

  “That’s right. We’ve developed a profile as a way of assessing whether the person making the threat meets certain criteria to be taken seriously. No system’s perfect, but ours has worked so far.”

  “Was there a recent threat that mentioned Tolliver’s opposition to the bill relating to oil and gas drilling in the gulf?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  I thank him for his time.

  I decide that I need to find out more about Rep. Arthur Wainwright and his pals at the American Energy Independence Coalition. Maybe if I show up in their offices and flash my badge, they’ll confess, if not to the three murders, then to whatever else it is they’re doing wrong at the moment. There’s always something.

  But they probably will not confess, so some good old-fashioned detective work is called for, and I am nothing if not old-fashioned.

  15.

  Deepwater Horizon

  Marisa cooks one of her wonderful Cuban feasts for us at her house. As always, she wraps up some leftovers for Joe. Tonight he gets sea bass without the yellow rice and plantains, which she knows he doesn’t like.

  I usually don’t remember my dreams, but the next morning I do: it involved the catastrophic explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform in 2010, which caused eleven deaths and a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. No surprise, I’d just seen the movie.

  In my dream, I was on the rig as the character played by Mark Wahlberg when the explosion happened. Obviously that’s the kind of natural disaster Marion Henderson’s group, Citizens For a Sane Environment, is seeking to at least minimize by preventing the drilling boundary from moving in to fifty miles.