John Grisham - The Whistler

The Board was comprised of five political appointees, usually retired judges and lawyers who found favor with the Governor. They met six times a year to review complaints, conduct hearings that resembled trials, and get updates from Geismar and his staff. He needed more staff but there was no money. His six investigators-four in Tallahassee and two in Fort Lauderdale-were working an average of fifty hours a week, and almost all were secretly looking for other jobs.

From Geismar’s corner office, he had the view, if he chose to take it, which he rarely did, of another bunker-type edifice even taller than his, and beyond that a hodgepodge of government office buildings. His office was large because he’d knocked out walls and added a long table, the only one in the maze of cubbyholes and cubicles BJC called home. When the Board met for official business, it borrowed a conference room in the Florida Supreme Court building.

Today, four people gathered around the table: Geismar, Lacy, Hugo, and BJC’s secret weapon, an ancient paralegal named Sadelle, who, even pushing the age of seventy, was still able not only to research vast amounts of material but to remember it all as well. Thirty years earlier, Sadelle had finished law school but failed the bar exam, on three occasions, and was thus relegated to the role of permanent paralegal. Once a heavy smoker-a good portion of the smoke-stained windows and ceilings could be blamed on her-she had been battling lung cancer for the past three years but had yet to miss a full week of work.

The table was covered with paperwork, with many of the sheets unstapled and highlighted in yellow or edited in red. Hugo was saying, “The guy checks out. We’ve talked to contacts in Pensacola, people who knew him when he was a lawyer. Nice reputation and all, at least until he got indicted. He is who he says he is, albeit with a new name.”

Lacy added, “His prison record is spotless. Served sixteen months and four days in a federal prison in Texas and for most of that time he ran the prison law library. Quite the jailhouse lawyer, he helped several of his buddies with their appeals, even sprang two on early release because their lawyers had screwed up the sentencing.”

“And his conviction?” Geismar asked.

Hugo replied, “I dug deep enough to verify what Myers said. The Feds were after a real estate swinger named Kubiak, a transplant from California who spent twenty years spreading sprawl around Destin and Panama City. They got him. He’s serving thirty years for a long list of crimes, mainly bank fraud, tax fraud, and money laundering. As he flamed out, he hurt a lot of folks, including one Ramsey Mix, who was quick to roll over and cut a deal. He squealed on everybody else in the indictment, especially Kubiak, and did some major damage. Probably a good thing that he’s hiding on the high seas with a different name. He got only sixteen months. Everybody else got at least five years, with Kubiak taking the grand prize.”

“Personal?” Geismar asked.

Lacy replied, “Two divorces, single now. Wife number two left him when he went to prison. One son from the first marriage, guy lives in California and owns a restaurant. When Myers pled guilty he paid a fine of a hundred thousand. At his sentencing, he testified that his legal fees were about the same. That plus the fine wiped him out. He filed for bankruptcy the week before he went to prison.”

Hugo tossed around some enlarged photos and said, “Which makes this somewhat intriguing. I snapped a picture of his boat when we met him. It’s a fifty-two-foot Sea Breeze powerboat, a very nice little rig, range of two hundred miles and sleeps four comfortably. It’s registered to a Bahamian shell company so I couldn’t get its number, but a good guess on the value is at least half a mil. He was released from prison six years ago, and, according to the Florida Bar, his license was reinstated three months ago. He doesn’t have an office and says he lives on his boat, which I guess he could be renting. Regardless, it appears to be an expensive lifestyle. So the obvious question is, how does he afford it?”

Lacy took the handoff. “There’s a good chance he buried some of the loot offshore when the FBI came in. It was a big RICO case with a lot of casualties. I chatted with a source, a former prosecutor, and he says that there were always suspicions that Mix-now-Myers hid some money. He says a lot of the defendants were trying to hide cash. But, we’ll probably never know. If the FBI couldn’t find it seven years ago, it’s safe to assume we won’t find it now.”

Geismar mumbled, “As if we have the time to look.”

“Exactly.”

“So this guy’s a crook?” Geismar asked.

Hugo said, “He’s certainly a convicted felon, but he’s served his time, paid his dues, and is now an upstanding member of our bar, same as the three of us.” He glanced at Sadelle and offered a quick smile, one that was not returned.

Geismar said, “Maybe saying he’s a crook is a bit too strong, so let’s just say he’s shady. I’m not sure I buy the theory of hidden money. If he stashed it offshore and lied to a bankruptcy judge, then he’s still on the hook for fraud. Would the guy run that risk?”

Hugo replied, “I don’t know. He seems pretty careful. And, keep in mind, he’s been out of prison for six years. You gotta wait five years in Florida before you can reapply for admission to the bar. While he was waiting, perhaps he was making a buck here and there. He seems pretty resourceful.”

Lacy asked, “Why does it really matter? Are we investigating him or a corrupt judge?”

“Good point,” Geismar said. “And he implied the judge is a woman?”

“Sort of,” Lacy replied. “He wasn’t real clear.”

Geismar looked at Sadelle and said, “And I’m assuming we have our politically correct number of female judges in Florida.”

She inhaled with effort and spoke with the usual raspy voice, one ravaged by nicotine. “Depends. There are dozens of girls handling traffic court and such, but this sounds like a bad actor at the circuit court level. There, out of six hundred judges, about a third are female. With nine casinos scattered over the state, it’s a waste of time to start guessing.”

“And this so-called mafia?”

She sucked in as much as her lungs could hold and said, “Who knows? There was once a Dixie Mafia, a Redneck Mafia, a Texas Mafia, all similar gangs of thugs. It looks like most of them were long on legend and short on criminal efficiency. Just a bunch of Bubbas who liked to sell whiskey and break legs. Not one word anywhere of a so-called Catfish Mafia, or a Coast Mafia. Not to say it doesn’t exist, but I found nothing.” Her voice collapsed as she gasped for breath.

“Not so fast,” Lacy said. “I ran across an article in the Little Rock newspaper from almost forty years ago. It tells the rather colorful story of a man named Larry Wayne Farrell who owned several catfish restaurants in the Arkansas delta. Seems he sold catfish out the front and bootleg liquor out the back. At some point, he and his cousins got ambitious and expanded into gambling, prostitution, and stolen cars. Just like Myers said, they moved through the Deep South, always looking for a sheriff to bribe so they could reorganize. They eventually settled around Biloxi. It’s a long article and not worth the details, but these guys left behind an astonishing number of dead bodies.”

Sadelle announced, “Well, I stand corrected. Thanks for the enlightenment.”

“No problem.”

Hugo asked, “May I ask the obvious question? If he files the complaint, and we serve it on the judge, and we begin our investigation, and things do indeed become dangerous, why can’t we simply go to the FBI? Myers can’t stop us at that point, right?”