Chapter FIFTY-NINE
We were back at my dining room table. Steve Carey was there with his laptop, his arm still in a sling. He could use both hands on the computer, but the small grimace of pain told me it cost him.
J.D. had brought sandwiches and the remains littered the table. She looked pointedly at me. “If you’d get the trash off the table we could get to work.”
“Isn’t that woman’s work?” I asked.
She reached for her gun. “What did you say?” She was smiling. I think.
“I said I’d get right on it.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said.
“Matt’s got some kind of a death wish,” Steve said.
“Nah,” said Jock. “He’s just not very bright.”
I gathered up the lunch detritus and took it to the trash can in the kitchen.
Steve was talking when I came back. “Flagler, or actually, Worthington, may be the linchpin. He and Qualman shared a cell for a time and just before he was released in June, his cellmate was Barry Steiffel, the guy whose fingerprints were found on the boat used in the Leffis Key shooting.”
“But,” said J.D., “Worthington was in prison at the time of the Miami whale tail murders. He couldn’t have been involved in those, and both Qualman and Steiffel were too young to have been a part of it. Plus, there’s no evidence that any of them were ever in Miami.”
“Look at this,” Steve said, putting a page full of diagrams on the table. “We have three known participants in the attempts on J.D. Qualman from the parking lot at Lazy Lobster, Steiffel from the boat at Leffis Key, and Bagby who tried to stab her. We don’t know exactly what Worthington’s connection to the murders is, but he is connected to all three of the others through his time at Glades and his so-called representation of Bagby.”
“But none of them could possibly have been involved in the original whale tail murders,” said J.D. “And none of them would have any reason to come after me.”
Steve grinned. “Look here,” he said, pointing to a box in the middle of the arrangement of boxes on the paper.
J.D. frowned. “Caleb Picket?”
“Think about it,” said Steve. “You arrested him, humiliated him in front of all his friends, the people he was fleecing, and ruined his life. Or at least he might see it that way.”
“Okay,” said J.D., “but he wasn’t involved in the whale—” She stopped mid-sentence, her face going blank. I could see the idea starting to percolate in her brain. It was coming together for her, the pieces of the puzzle starting to fall into place. Except for one.
“But he’s dead,” she said. “Even if he was the whale tail killer and wanted his revenge on me, he’s dead.”
“Maybe he’s reaching out from the grave,” I said.
“Don’t be silly,” J.D. said.
“Figuratively speaking,” I said. “Maybe revenge is his legacy. He could have arranged for these guys to take care of you after he died.”
“And what’s in it for them?” J.D. asked. I could tell her skepticism was wavering a bit. She was trying to get her head around it.
“Picket stole a lot of money from his friends,” I said, “and none of it was ever recovered. Maybe he’s paying these ex-cons somehow.”
“There’s more,” Steve said. “Our boy Worthington shared a cell with Picket for the last few years that Worthington was at Glades. Qualman and the others spent a great deal of time with Picket in the exercise yard as well. Maybe Picket was the high priest and the others were the acolytes.”
Jock had been sitting quietly, listening. “Steve,” he said, “any idea on how the Guatemalans fit into this?”
“That’s the wild card,” Steve said. “They don’t make sense.”
“What about Gene Alexander?” Jock asked.
“He doesn’t fit either,” said Steve. “Maybe the two things aren’t connected.”
“Then why were the gangbangers after J.D.? Or me?” I asked.
“Good question,” said Jock. “Maybe my people will have some answers later today.”
Just then, Jock’s laptop pinged, and pages started dropping from the attached printer.