Chapter FORTY-ONE
Logan was waiting for me when I pulled in front of his condo complex. At six, the morning was still dark. We drove to St. Armands Circle and grabbed some Starbucks coffee to fuel us for the trip. We drove south on I-75, crossed the wide Caloosahatchee River and took the off ramp to Highway 80. The weather had cleared and warmed. We drove east into the rising sun, the highway coursing through small river towns until we reached LaBelle. We found the jail and parked in front.
I showed my ID and told the deputy manning the booth in the reception area that Chief Lester had made arrangements for me to see Bubba Junior Groover. It turned out that he was the ringleader and neither the DEA nor Bill Lester thought the others would be of any use to us.
Logan had laughed when I told him the name of our interviewee. “There’re generations of ignorant rednecks in that name. They can be some dangerous dudes.”
We were asked to wait for a few minutes and were then shown to an interview room where we found Mr. Groover shackled to a chair that was bolted to the floor. He was a small man with unkempt hair hanging over his ears. He had a scar that ran diagonally from the edge of his mouth to the tip of his chin and what I guessed was a permanent scowl. His skin wore the reddish complexion that field hands in this part of the world develop before they reach their teens. It’s what sailors call a blue-water tan, a mild sunburn superimposed on years’ worth of deep tan. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and cotton slippers, the kind you have to slide along the floor to keep them from falling off your feet.
“Mr. Groover,” I said, as Logan and I took seats in the other two chairs in the room, “my name’s Matt Royal. I’m here on behalf of the Drug Enforcement Administration.” I was stretching that a bit, but I figured this was not a man who would ask a lot of questions. “Do you know that agency?”
“Yep.”
“And you know that it was the DEA that arrested you.”
“Yep.”
“I know you’ve talked to some of the agents already. Do you understand that your cooperation will be taken into account at any sentencing?”
“Yep.”
“Do you know Pete Qualman?”
“Yep.”
“Where do you know him from?”
“We did time together.”
I was relieved that his vocabulary extended beyond yep. “Where?”
“Glades.”
“How long?”
“Couple of years.”
“What were you in for?”
“Drugs.”
“Using or selling?”
“Running.”
“You working out of the same airfield where you were busted?”
“Yep.”
“That wasn’t real smart, was it?” I asked.
“Didn’t turn out to be.”
“How long have you been out?”
“’Bout two years.”
“How’d you hook back up with Qualman?”
“Pete came here the day he got out. Needed work.”
“What kind of work?”
“He knowed about my crew and thought I might have a place for him.”
“Did you?”
“Yep.”
“Doing what?”
“Mule, mostly. He’d take the stuff from the planes down to Miami to our distributor.”
“How often would he make that run?”
“Two, three times a week.”
“When did he leave your employ?”
“He quit ‘bout two weeks ago.”
“Did he say why?”
“Yep.”
“What’d he say?”
“Had to go up to Sarasota. One of his buds from Glades was going to pay him a bunch of money for a job.”
“Did he have a car?”
“Nope.”
“How did he deliver the drugs to Miami?”
“Used mine.”
“How did he get to Sarasota?”
“He said somebody was going to pick him up.”
“What kind of job in Sarasota?”
“Don’t know.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“Wasn’t none of my business.”
“Where do your drugs come from?” I was jumping around with my questions, trying to surprise him, catch him off guard. It was an old trial lawyers’ trick. Sometimes it worked, but with a guy this dumb, I didn’t think it would.
“Mexico, I think.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m just the guy what gets the stuff moving.”
“Who do you work for?”
“Can’t help you there.”
“You do know that this is the kind of information that’d do you a lot of good with a judge.”
“Yep. And I’d tell you if I knowed.”
“How do you get paid?”
“Money gets wired into my bank account.”
I was surprised. Maybe this one wasn’t as dumb as he pretended. “You have a bank account?”
“Yep. Don’t everybody?”
“I guess. You don’t know where the money’s wired from?”
“Nope. I think those other guys from DEA was going to talk to my bank. Maybe they know.”
“Qualman’s dead, you know.”
A momentary cloud passed across his face, perhaps a frown. “Nope. Didn’t know that. How’d it happen?”
“He was shot by a government agent. Qualman was trying to kill a cop.”
“Boy, that don’t sound like ole Qualman,” said Groover. “Must’ve been a lot of money involved.”
“You don’t think he’d shoot a cop?”
“He would if there was enough money involved. I just can’t believe anybody in their right mind would give him that much money for doing anything. He wasn’t the brightest-eyed beast in the gator hole.”
I almost choked on that metaphor, but I soldiered on. “Where did he live when he was working for you?”
“In our bunkhouse.”
“He make any friends other than your crew?”
“His girlfriend.”
Ah, finally. A nugget of information. “What’s her name?”
“Jenny Talbot.”
“Where does she live?”
“Over near Clewiston.”
“Address?”
“Don’t know it. She’s out in the cane fields.”
“Can you give me directions?”
“Yep.” He gave me a detailed route to Jenny’s house.
“When did you last see Qualman?”
“’Bout a week ago, I think.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Last Sunday. He stayed with Jenny Saturday night, and I saw him just before he left. Sunday, right after lunch.”
“Did somebody bring him?”
“Nope. He was driving a BMW. Sweet ride.”
I turned to Logan. “You got anything else?”
“No, Counselor. I think you just about covered it.”