“One of our deputies found Lyle Johnson’s body. Pretty nasty, Sean. It’s the best intent to make it look like a suicide that I’ve ever seen. There is GSR on Johnson’s hand. The perp nailed Johnson in the right temple. Probably reloaded with a round after he’d killed Johnson. I’m betting he held Johnson’s hand to the pistol grip as he fired a shot into the sky. If it weren’t for the circumstances, Johnson’s connection to Spelling, this would be written off as a suicide, considering Johnson’s martial strife and debt load. How are we going to catch somebody this good in the time Charlie William’s has left?”
“Begin by seeing who Lyle Johnson spoke with before he was killed. See if he placed a call to Jonathan Russo.”
SIXTY
District attorney Stanley Rosen finished a tenth lap in his backyard pool. He climbed out, toweled off, and stood by his terracotta tile wet bar to mix a vodka and tonic. As he squeezed a fresh lime in the drink, he saw something move to his far left.
“Hello, counselor,” O’Brien said, opening the screened pool door and stepping onto the Mexican-tiled patio.
“What are you doing here, O’Brien?” Rosen sipped his drink.
“I have an audio tape of Jonathan Russo admitting to stabbing Alexandria Cole eleven years ago.”
“Did you have to assault Russo to get it?”
“Those media reports aren’t accurate.”
O’Brien pressed the play button on the small tape recorder. His voice came through the speaker: “ I won’t cheat the state out of its right to lock you away, Russo, so I’ll dial 911, but before I do…tell me, did you kill Alexandria Cole? The truth!”
“All right!” screamed Russo. “All right! I killed the bitch! That what you wanted to hear?”
Rosen said, “What did you mean, ‘right to lock you away?’”
“I wanted Russo to admit his guilt in the Alexandria Cole killing.”
Rosen sipped the drink. “First we have to indict Russo. If he’s found guilty-”
“You can use his admission to request a stay. Buy me some time, Rosen.”
“Why? Doesn’t mean I’d get one. Besides, like I told you in my office, a place where we ought to be having this discussion, I’m not going in front of a jury to reopen the Cole case unless I have solid proof-real evidence-that I feel will result in a conviction. This screaming match between you and Russo won’t stand up.”
“Maybe not, but a stay will give me time to find what you need.”
“Find what?”
“The murder weapon for starters. FBI’s running tests on a piece of paper that was directly beneath the page that Sam Spelling used to write the confession. We couldn’t find Spelling’s letter on Father Callahan’s body, but we believe we can find the knife in a matter of days.”
“Even if you find it, O’Brien, you don’t know if there’s anything on it. Could have been wiped clean.”
“Maybe, but we don’t know until we run tests.”
“You won’t know that until you find it. Until then, I’d appreciate it if you leave my property. And the next time, make an appointment.” Rosen turned and walked over to a chaise lounge and sat down.
O’Brien said, “Alexandria Cole was murdered. In the last two days, three people who knew the ID of the killer are dead. The last one was a prison guard who overheard Spelling’s confession to Father Callahan. They just found his body. Shot in the head. Close range. I think Russo’s hired a pro. And now Charlie Williams has thirty-five hours to live. They’ll remove him from his cell and take him to a death watch cage less
than fifty feet from the death chamber. You have a chance to postpone it for a few days. If I can’t find evidence, at least you tried to save an innocent man’s life.”
“Twelve people agreed Williams killed his girlfriend in a fit of jealous rage. You helped convict him, remember? And nothing you’ve said to me or have shown me changes that. If you aren’t gone in ten seconds, I’ll have you locked up.”
“I can admit my mistake. You won’t even consider the fact you’re making one. But consider this, counselor, you’ll be just as guilty as Russo if Williams dies. If I find the proof after Williams is dead, you can tell the media why you did nothing to stop it.”
O’Brien walked to his car parked on the side of the palm-tree-lined street.
Rosen knocked back the rest of his vodka, picked up the cell phone by his chair, dialed a number, and said, “This is district attorney Stan Rosen, I understand there’s an APB out for Sean O’Brien.” He paused. “O’Brien just left my house, on Monroe Terrace. Looks like he’s in a green Jeep and heading south toward Collins.”
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.