James Grippando - Hear No Evil

“When he heard Brian’s door close, he came out of the closet and ran out of the house. But then, this is where he finally got clever. He waited a minute or two, then walked back in the house and went straight to Brian’s room. He was acting all excited, told Brian that I had called him and asked him to come over, that something had happened to Oscar. Poor Brian, he just freaked. He didn’t know what to do. He got all flustered and figured that I had shot Oscar. He knew how much Oscar and I had been fighting; he knew how abusive Oscar was. He knew if I’d done it, that Oscar had deserved it.”

“So Brian told Johnson-”

“Right,” said Lindsey. “Brian said he had done it. I guess he figured a ten-year-old boy wouldn’t go to jail. But his mommy would. He thought he was protecting me.” She was leaning against the wall, as if exhausted, her eyes cast downward. “That’s the truth, Jack. That’s the way it really happened. Damont and I weren’t sure which one of us might eventually get charged. But we agreed up front, if either of us was, we wouldn’t point the finger at the other. If push came to shove…”

“You’d blame it on Brian.”

She folded her arms tightly, withdrawing a bit, as if Jack had hit below the belt by saying it aloud.

Jack said, “That was all just a dance that you and Johnson did in the courtroom. His accusing Brian, your breaking down and saying it was all a lie. Nice touch, Lindsey. All the more believable if the mother stands up and defends her son.”

“I’m not proud of that,” she said.

Jack looked off to the middle distance. He could have gone through the entire alphabet, A to Z, listing the things she shouldn’t have been proud of. But he wasn’t here to lecture. He was here to keep her off death row. “What brought it all to a head, anyway?” said Jack. “How did Johnson finally decide that it was time for Oscar to go?”

She seemed relieved to have another question, anything to release her from the painful silence of self-reflection. She forced a little smile and said, “Ah, now that’s where the story gets very Miami.”

Jack went straight from the prison to Theo’s apartment. His friend was just about ready to head down to Sparky’s Tavern to set up for the lunch crowd when Jack caught up with him. Theo sat on a bar stool at the kitchen counter and listened for almost ten minutes without interruption-a record for him-as Jack recounted his entire conversation with Lindsey. Since Theo was his investigator, Jack didn’t have to worry about breaching any privileges. More important, he was able to give his friend complete vindication on his theory about who torched Jack’s Mustang.

“Johnson was definitely in with druggies,” said Jack.

“I knew it!” said Theo as he slapped the countertop.

“He was feeding information about Coast Guard routes to Oscar, who then passed it along to his old man.”

“Don’t tell me Alejandro Pintado is a trafficker.”

“No, no way. Two totally distinct things were going on here. Pintado used Johnson’s information strictly to avoid border patrol and help Cuban rafters get to shore. But it was Johnson who realized that the drug trade would pay handsomely for the same information. So he started selling it to them.”

Theo nodded, seeing where this was headed. “And Oscar found out about it.”

“Yup.”

“And then Oscar had to go.”

“You got it,” said Jack. “To think I nearly played the drug card at trial. I probably would have, had I thought the jury wouldn’t lynch me for calling the Pintados a bunch of cocaine traffickers. Turns out Oscar got himself killed doing the honorable thing, saying no to drugs. Go figure.”

“Hindsight, Jacko. It all works out in the end.” Theo popped another mini-doughnut into his mouth, his tenth since Jack had started talking. Powdered sugar was everywhere. All this talk of drugs, the countertop was beginning to look like a snort fest in a South Beach nightclub.

“Still not sure ’bout sumptin’,” said Theo, his mouth still full. “Why’d the drug folks torch your car?”

“Well, we knew from the start that whoever it was didn’t want to see Lindsey acquitted.”

“Why would the druggies care?”

“All I can figure is that they were happier to see Lindsey go down for murder than Lieutenant Johnson. Keeping Johnson out of jail was the only way to make sure he kept feeding them the information they needed.”

“Interesting,” said Theo, mulling it all over. “So bottom line is, Oscar might still be alive if he didn’t go snooping around and find out what else his friend Damont was doing with the Coast Guard secrets.”

“That’s about the size of it. Tough break for Captain Pintado.”

“You kidding me?” said Theo. “He’s the lucky one.”

“How do you mean?”

“That article in today’s newspaper-don’t you remember? It said Lieutenant Johnson is talking to the U.S. attorney, looking to tell all. What do you think these drug folks are gonna do when they read that? Sit around and wait to see if dumbass Damont names some names or not?”

Jack almost smiled. He hadn’t thought of that, but it was the kind of thing Theo was usually right about. “Guess I wouldn’t want to be Lieutenant Damont Johnson right now.”

“Shee-it,” said Theo. “You don’t want to know Lieutenant Damont Johnson right now.”

One gentle wave after another broke about twenty yards offshore. Thin sheets of emerald green water rolled up like a tarp onto Hallandale Beach, churned into white foam where the wet sand gave way to powder, and then retreated into the Atlantic. It was six A.M., and Marvin Schwartz was up with the sun, dressed in his usual Sunday morning uniform: rubber-soled sandals, white cotton chinos rolled up to the knee, long-sleeved gossamer shirt, broad-rimmed straw hat. Early Sunday morning was usually his best hunting time; Saturday night revelers had been known to leave behind everything from pocket change to Rolex watches. Actually, it wasn’t a real Rolex, but the boys back at the Golden Beach condo didn’t know a good knockoff from the real McCoy anyway.

The chirping of seagulls gave way to the beep of his metal detector. He marked the spot mentally, then knelt down and dug away the sand with a serving spoon he’d borrowed from the cole slaw bin at Pumpernickel’s Deli in 1986.

The disappointment was etched all over his sun-weathered face. A bottle cap. The ninth one this morning. Not a good day so far.

“Mah-vin. You find my diamond earrings yet?” It was his wife shouting from her chaise lounge at the cabana. She looked like a big beach ball from this distance, five feet wide and five feet tall.

“No, dear,” he mumbled, making no effort to speak in a voice loud enough to be heard.

“Ten years you been lookin’. Still no diamond earrings?”

“No, dear.”

Diamond earrings, he thought, scoffing. She wants diamond earrings, she should have listened to her mother and married Dr. Moneybags.

He was climbing over a big clump of seaweed when the metal detector suddenly went berserk, chirping and beeping wildly. He moved the wand to the left, and the chirping stopped. He moved it back to the right, and it was sounding off like a carnival again. He smiled, his heart racing with excitement. He poked through the strands of seaweed. Barnacles and other shellfish were all over the place. A piece of driftwood was all he could find, but there had to be something metal in there somewhere. He pushed away more seaweed, then stopped. The morning sun caught the gold, and the utter beauty of that reflection sent chills down his spine.

A ring!

He knelt down for a closer look. It looked like a Super Bowl ring at first, so big and ostentatious. As he reached to pick it up, he noticed the engraving on the side, and the prominent “ U.S. ” insignia told him that it was from one of the academies.