Open Doors (Suncoast Society #27)(38)

Twenty minutes later, a calm and dispassionate deputy was writing trespass tickets against an even more enraged goofball. Derrick stood in the shade of a nearby tree, arms crossed over his chest and struggling not to laugh as the deputy pretty much ignored every last one of the guy’s rants.

Until, finally, he got a little too close to the deputy’s face.

The deputy straightened and one hand came to rest on the Taser holstered at his waist. “Sir, I’m going to ask you one last time to step back and calm down, or I will arrest you. If you have a problem with this business, then take it up with the county zoning board or the tax collector’s office.”

“The tax collector?”

The deputy ripped off the ticket and handed it to the man. “They issue business licenses in this county. This is unincorporated Sarasota County. Now, if you don’t immediately vacate these premises, I will be forced to arrest you for trespassing.”

“But what about our right to free speech?” he spluttered.

The deputy turned and pointed at the sidewalk running along the road. “That ends over there, on county right-of-way, which is public land. You can protest all you want on that sidewalk, but you set foot on this private property again? The owner is within his rights to have all of you arrested. I suggest you don’t provoke him. He seems to be a man of his word.”

“I am,” Kel said. He’d leaned against the patrol car and watched the entire display, answering questions asked by the deputy.

The other seven protestors seemed confused by this and looked to their apparent thrift-store leader.

The older man straightened. “I know my rights as a sovereign citizen of the United States of America! I do not have to tolerate this! I am allowed to peaceably assemble and protest.”

The deputy looked like he’d rather be raiding a meth lab than dealing with these people. “Are you refusing an order by a law enforcement officer?”

“Yes. If you want us to leave, you’ll have to arrest all of us—”

In a movement Derrick could barely follow, the deputy grabbed the man, spun him around, and bent him over the hood of the cruiser as he snapped handcuffs on him.

I bet he’d be fun to watch doing takedown play on a subbie.

Kel just stood there, slowly shaking his head as the guy ranted and rambled while the deputy Mirandized him and searched him.

To the other protestors, Kel said, “You really should opt to leave, now.”

“Don’t you dare!” the man screamed. “This is righteous work we’re doing!”

Kel asked the deputy, “Is he even a local?”

“Arcadia address.”

Kel snorted. “Figures he’s an imported crazy, not a domestic one.”

“That’s usually the way,” the deputy said.

Within twenty minutes, four more deputies had responded to the officer’s call for backup, and all the protestors were being loaded into the backs of patrol cars.

“I want their vehicles towed, too,” Kel said. “They can pay an impound yard to get them back. They aren’t coming back on my property. Period.”

That enraged the older man even more. He started ranting from where he was sitting handcuffed in the back of the first deputy’s car, until the deputy closed the door on the man’s protests.

“You realize they’re probably going to be released on ROR and come back, right?” the deputy asked.

“Well, if they can afford it.” He smiled. “Depends on what judge they get. And they’ll have to pay to get their cars out.”

An hour later, it was done. Wreckers had come hauled the cars off, and the deputies hauled the protestors away.

By this time, Marcia had come over to join Derrick and Kel and watch the festivities. One of the other tenants had walked over to talk to Kel when they noticed the commotion.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s okay,” Kel said. “I handled it.”

“Are they protesting the club?”

“What do you know about the club?” Kel warily asked.

The man smiled. “If it wasn’t for my wife’s work schedule, we’d already be members. I looked it up a few months ago when I was here one Saturday night and saw all the cars outside.”

Derrick laughed and extended his hand. “Derrick. Owner and manager of Venture. Nice to meet you.”





It turned out Judge Connelly wouldn’t be handling the protestors’ case, because he was family law, not criminal.

Ed relayed that info. But apparently he’d called Pat anyway to give him a heads-up. And Ed cleared his schedule and attended the arraignment that afternoon, where he asked the judge to issue restraining orders against the protestors. An unusual request under the circumstances, but one the judge granted.

The protestors seemed shocked to find out that if they committed contempt and violated the restraining order, they could end up in jail without bond until trial.

Ed reported back to Derrick, Marcia, and Kel, while sitting in the office at the club that evening, that once it seemed to start settling into the other protestors’ brains that their leader was not only in the wrong, but costing them a ton of money and black marks against their personal records in terms of now giving them criminal rap sheets, they seemed to band together against the man.