The Guardians(44)

Chapter 23



I put the photo back in the file and leave it on the table, never to see it again, I hope. I walk to the edge of the terrace and gaze at the ocean. There are too many wild thoughts spinning around to grab just one and analyze it. But fear dominates them all. Fear that drove Tyler out of the profession. Fear that keeps his secrets buried. Fear that weakens my knees some twenty years after his abduction.

I’m lost in my thoughts and do not hear him return to the terrace. He startles me with “What’s your main thought right now, Post?” He’s standing beside me with black coffee in a paper cup.

“Why didn’t they just kill you? No one would ever know.”

“The obvious question and one that I’ve had twenty years to think about. My best answer is that they needed me. They had their conviction. Quincy was headed to prison forever. They must have had some concern about his appeal, and since I was writing it they wanted me to back off. And I did. I raised all the obvious legal issues on appeal, but I really toned down the language. I took a knee, Post. I mailed it in. You’ve read it, right?”

“Sure, I’ve read everything. I thought your brief was sound.”

“Legally, yes, but I was going through the motions. Not that it would’ve mattered. The Florida Supreme Court was not going to reverse his conviction regardless of what I wrote. Quincy had no idea. He thought I was still raging against his injustice, but I backed off.”

“The Court affirmed unanimously.”

“No surprise there. I filed the usual perfunctory appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Denied as always. And I told Quincy it was over.”

“And that’s why you didn’t ask for post-conviction relief?”

“That, plus there was no new evidence at that time. I threw in the towel and walked away. Needless to say, I wasn’t getting paid at that point. Two years later, Quincy filed his own motions from prison, got one of the jailhouse lawyers to help him, but they went nowhere.”

He turns and walks back to the table and takes his seat. He places the file in an empty chair. I join him and we sit for a long, silent spell. Finally, he says, “Just think of the logistics, Post. They knew I was going fishing in Belize, knew where I would be staying, so they must have been listening to my phones. This was before the Internet, so no e-mails to hack. Think of the manpower it took to spike my drink, drag me away, load me up in a boat or plane and take me to their little camp where they made sport out of feeding their enemies to the crocodiles. The zip line was pretty elaborate, the crocs plentiful and hungry.”

“A well-organized gang.”

“Yes, one with plenty of money, resources, contacts with local police, maybe border agents, everything the best narco-traffickers need. They certainly made a believer out of me. I finished the appeal, but I was a wreck. I finally got some counseling, told my therapist I’d been threatened by people who could make good with their threats, and that I was cracking up over it. He got me through it and I eventually packed up and left town. You need any more proof that Quincy didn’t kill Russo?”

“No, and I really didn’t need this.”

“This is a secret that will never be told, Post. And this is the reason I’m not getting involved with anyone’s efforts to help Quincy.”

“So you know more than you’re telling?”

He considers this while he sips coffee. “Let’s just say that I know some things.”

“What can you tell me about Brad Pfitzner? I assume you knew him pretty well back then.”

“There were suspicions about Pfitzner back then, but they were always whispered. A few of the lawyers who worked the criminal beat, including me, heard more of the gossip than the others. There was a small port on the Gulf called Poley’s Inlet. It was in Ruiz County, thus under his control. The rumors were that he allowed the drugs to come in there and get warehoused in remote parts of the county before being distributed north toward Atlanta. Again, only rumors. Pfitzner was never caught, never charged. After I left, I watched from a distance and kept in touch with a couple of lawyer friends in Seabrook. The Feds never got their hands on Brad.”

“And Kenny Taft?”

“Taft was killed not long before I left town. There were rumors that the murder did not go down the way Pfitzner described. Again, like Russo, Pfitzner was in charge of the investigation and could write the story any way he wanted. He made a big production of losing one of his own men. Big funeral, procession, cops from all over lining the streets. A glorious send-off for a fallen soldier.”

“Is the Taft angle important?” I ask. He goes silent and studies the ocean. To me, the answer becomes obvious, but he says, “I don’t know. Might be something there.”

I’m not going to push him. I’ve already gotten far more than I expected, and we’ll talk again. I note his reluctance to discuss Kenny Taft and decide to move on.

“So why take out Keith Russo?” I ask.

He shrugs as if the answer should now be obvious. “He did something to upset the gang and they hit him. The quickest way to catch a bullet is to rat out. Maybe the DEA pressured him and flipped him. With Russo out of the way and Quincy taking the fall, it was soon business as usual. They wanted the conviction to stand, and I decided to go bonefishing.”

“Pfitzner retired to the Keys where he lives in a nice condo appraised by the county at one point six million,” I say. “Not bad for a sheriff who earned sixty thousand at his peak.”