Chapter FIFTY-EIGHT
I called J.D. and explained what happened. “Can you get a warrant to search his place? I’m sure there are fingerprints. That’ll tell us who he really is.”
“No judge in her right mind is going to issue a warrant on the basis of your intuition.”
“It’s more than intuition. This guy isn’t a lawyer. How did he get into the jail, get his name on the Bar’s list of lawyers? Did his notice of appearance in Bagby’s case have a Bar identification number on it?”
“Yeah. He looks legit.”
“Call the Bar office in Tallahassee,” I said. “Tell them you want to see the paperwork he used to qualify for the Bar exam and to get sworn in. They might give it to a cop.”
“I’ll see what I can turn up.”
“Can you run the license plate of a Mercedes parked in front of this guy’s condo?” I gave her the tag number.
“Okay. What are you going to do?”
“I’ll call Jock. Maybe he can get some of his people to do a forensics sweep of Flagler’s apartment.”
“You know whatever you find won’t be admissible evidence. Not without a warrant.”
“I know. But if we can figure out who this idiot is, we may be able to move up the food chain and get whoever is responsible for the murders.”
“Be careful, Matt.” She hung up.
I called Jock, and he said he’d get a forensics guy out of Tampa and meet me at Flagler’s apartment. “It should take about an hour,” he said.
“You’ve just got forensic teams standing by all over the world?” I asked.
“No, but we have agents who’re trained in some of the forensic sciences. They aren’t able to do a full work-up, but they can lift fingerprints. Do the basic stuff.”
I sat in my car, listening to the radio. The news was mostly bad, troubles in the Middle East, tribal conflicts in Africa, a factory worker who killed six of his coworkers at a plant in North Carolina, a commercial for a diet supplement to help those with erectile dysfunction. The world seemed to be cracking up. I sometimes felt like the human race was circling the drain, about to consign itself to oblivion.
J.D. called back. “The car belongs to one of those fleet leasing outfits. Want to guess who this particular Mercedes was leased to?”
“A lawyer named Ben Flagler?”
“You got it.”
“How did he make the payments?”
“Cash up front. He leased it for six months and paid the entire lease payment when he signed the contract.”
“Didn’t the leasing guys find that a bit strange?”
“They said it happens more than you’d think.”
“What happens if the guy doesn’t bring the car back at the end of the lease?”
“They’ve got insurance to cover that. They don’t worry about it.”
“Can you get a warrant to search the car?”
“Nope. Same problem as the condo.”
“Crap.”
“Hey, you’re the lawyer.”
“Right. I’ll talk to you later.”
Jock rolled up in his new rental and joined me in the Explorer. Ten minutes later a black SUV with two men in the front seats drove into the lot. Jock got out and waved them over, talked with the men for a few moments, and then led them around to the rear of the building. He came back and sat in the Explorer.
“The forensics team?” I asked.
“Well, they’re what passes for one on short notice. They’ll take the place apart and dust for fingerprints.”
“We need to have them go over the Mercedes, too.”
“You sure it belongs to Flagler?”
“Yeah. J.D. ran the tag.”
“I’ll get a wrecker out here and we’ll haul it to Tampa,” Jock said. “We’ll get some of our real forensic people to go over it.” He pulled out his phone and made a call, arranging for Flagler’s car to be picked up.
“How did you get into the apartment?”
“Broke a window on the back door.”
We sat for a while, listening to the radio. A Sarasota Police Department patrol car turned into the lot and drove slowly toward us. “I think we might have been busted,” Jock said. “Wait here.”
He got out of the Explorer as the cruiser came to a stop behind us, blocking my exit. Jock walked over to the police car holding an ID case in his raised hand. The cop on the passenger side motioned him over. Jock handed him the case and they talked for a minute. The cop used his cell phone to make a call, hung up, and gave the ID case back to Jock. The officers drove back out to Fruitville Road and disappeared.
Jock climbed back into the Explorer. “One of the neighbors called in what she thought was a burglary. They came to check it out. I told them we were on a national security detail and that we’re the ones who broke into the place.”
“Are there going to be any repercussions on this?” I asked.
“No. They accepted my credentials and called their supervisor. They’re in the clear and so are we.”
We sat for another thirty minutes, my stomach sending out signals that it was being starved. The two men who’d gone into the apartment came around the building. Jock got out and went to talk to them. The conversation was short, and the men got into the black SUV and left.
“They found a cell phone,” said Jock, grinning.
“Flagler’s?”
“Probably. One of the guys found it right next to where some ruts in the grass indicated the motorcycle was parked. It probably fell out of Flagler’s pocket when he was hurrying to get away from you.”
“That could be a real break,” I said.
“Our techs will pull every bit of information in the phone. We’ll see where that leads. But, I’ve got something even better.”
I stared at him, waiting. He grinned. “What?” I asked.
“They found a twenty-two-caliber pistol. They’ll run the ballistics in Tampa, but I’m betting it’s the one used in the whale tail murders.”
“J.D. isn’t going to like you ruining her evidence. We don’t have a warrant. The pistol can’t be used.”
“It won’t matter. If this is the guy, he’ll never go to trial.”
I shrugged. I knew he was right. “Any prints?”
“A lot. They ran the best ones through the system on their portable scanner. They belong to a man named Jeff Worthington. Guess where he spent the last fifteen years?”
“Glades Correctional,” I said. “He’s the one J.D. came up with.”
“Bingo. He got out five months ago.”
“Then how did he become a lawyer named Flagler?”
“The University of North Dakota is sending me a photo of Flagler from his student ID card. Glades is sending a mug shot of Worthington. We should have them in a few minutes.”
Jock’s phone dinged. He opened it and fiddled with the keypad. He handed it to me. There was a picture of a handsome young man on the screen. “Is that Flagler?” Jock asked.
“Not even close.”
“That’s Ben Flagler, late of the University of North Dakota Law School.”
The phone dinged again and Jock held up another picture, a mug shot of a man who was definitely the one who’d just ridden off on a motorcycle.
“That’s the man who said he was Flagler,” I said.
“Worthington took Flagler’s place somehow. But why?”
“Good question. And where is the real Ben Flagler?”
Jock shook his head. “He’s probably dead.”
“What about his family?” I asked.
“Don’t know. The agency is checking on that. A lot of manpower is coming to bear on this one.”
“Have you heard anything out of New Orleans?”
“Not yet, but I’ll be updated as soon as they have anything.”
I called J.D. “Flagler’s in the wind, but Jock’s people got an ID. It’s the same guy you locked onto at Glades. Jeff Worthington.”
“Damn,” she said. “That’s got to be our guy. How the heck did he get to be a lawyer?”
“It looks like he killed a young man who’d just graduated from law school and stole his identity.”
“I’ll be damned. You hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Why don’t we meet at your house? I’ll bring Steve and his paperwork and stop for sandwiches. We can eat and talk.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”