The Guardians(40)

I send a copy of our petition and brief to Tyler Townsend and hope for a response.

Over in Alabama, Chad Falwright makes good on his promise to seek justice for me and not the real killer. He files an ethics complaint with the Alabama bar, of which I am not a member, and one in Georgia, where my license is registered. Chad wants me disbarred for tampering with the evidence. For borrowing a pubic hair.

I’ve been through this before. It’s a hassle and can be intimidating, but I can’t slow down. Duke Russell is still serving time for Mark Carter, and this keeps me awake at night. I call a lawyer friend in Birmingham and he’s itching for a fight. Mazy will take care of the complaint in Georgia.

I’m in the conference room upstairs working through a pile of desperate letters from prison when Mazy yells. I bound down the stairs and step into her office where she and Vicki are staring at her desktop screen. The message is in a bold, silly font that’s almost difficult to read, but the message is clear.

your filing in Poinsett County makes for interesting reading but

it never mentions Kenny Taft. maybe he wasn’t shot by drug dealers;

maybe he knew too much. (this message will evaporate five minutes

after being opened. it cannot be traced. don’t bother).

We gawk at it until it slowly fades away and the page goes blank. Vicki and I back into chairs and stare at the walls. Mazy is pecking away and finally says, “It’s a site called From Under Patty’s Porch. For twenty dollars a month, with a credit card, you get thirty days’ access to a private chat room where messages are confidential, temporary, and cannot be traced.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about. She pecks some more, says, “Looks legitimate and probably harmless. A lot of these servers are in Eastern Europe where the privacy rules are stricter.”

“Can we reply?” Vicki asks.

“Do we want to?” I ask.

Mazy says, “Yes, we can reply, for twenty dollars.”

“It’s not in the budget,” Vicki says.

“This person is using the address of cassius.clay.444. We could pay up and send him a note.”

“Not now,” I say. “He doesn’t want to talk and he’s not going to say anything. Let’s think about this.”

Anonymous tips are part of the game and they provide an excellent way to waste a lot of time.

Kenny Taft was twenty-seven years old when he was killed in a remote part of Ruiz County in 1990. He was the only black deputy on Pfitzner’s force and had worked there for three years. He and his partner, Gilmer, were dispatched by Pfitzner to a site believed to be used as a staging point by cocaine smugglers, none of whom were supposed to be in the area. Taft and Gilmer were not expecting trouble. Their mission was a scouting trip supposedly requested by the DEA office in Tampa. There was only a slight possibility that the site was in fact being used, and their job was to take a look and file a report.

According to Gilmer, who survived with minor injuries, they were ambushed as they drove slowly along a gravel road at 3:00 a.m. The woods were thick and they saw no one. The first shots hit the side of the unmarked car Gilmer was driving, then the rear windows were blown out. He stopped the car and lunged out and scrambled into a ditch. On the other side, Kenny Taft also bailed out but was immediately hit in the head and died at the scene. He did not have time to pull his service revolver. When the bullets stopped, Gilmer crawled to his car and called for help.

The gunmen vanished without a trace. DEA officials believed it was the work of traffickers. Months later, an informant allegedly said the killers did not realize they were dealing with cops. There was a lot of cocaine hidden at the site, just down the road, and they were forced to protect their inventory.

The informant allegedly said they were somewhere in South America. Good luck with the search.





Chapter 22



I get an angry phone call from Otis Walker. Seems his wife, June, is upset because her second husband, James Rhoad, said something bad about her in court. I patiently explain that we have not been to court yet, but we did file an affidavit signed by Rhoad in which he claims that June laughed about lying in court to nail Quincy.

“He called her a liar?” Otis asks, as if surprised. “In front of a jury?”

“No, no, Mr. Walker, not in a courtroom, just in some papers.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“Because we asked him to. We’re trying to get Quincy out of prison because he didn’t kill that lawyer.”

“So, you’re saying my wife June is a liar, right?”

“We’re saying she lied in court way back then.”

“Same difference. Don’t know how y’all can drag up all this old shit after twenty years.”

“Yes sir. It’s been a long time. Just ask Quincy.”

“I think I should talk to a lawyer.”

“You do that. Give him my phone number and I’ll be happy to have a chat. But you’re wasting your money.”



From Under Patty’s Porch, Mazy gets the message:

the salty pelican is an old bar on the nassau waterfront,

bahamas; be there next Tuesday at noon; it is important;

(this message will burn itself five minutes after being opened;

don’t even think about trying to track it).