Lacy asked, “What about his phones, laptop, files, records?”
“There’s some stuff on the boat, still being watched by her. Frankly, I don’t know what’s there. He doesn’t know the identity of the mole. He and I talked either face-to-face or on disposable phones, careful not to leave a trail. But he’s a lawyer, right? So there’s the chance that he’s got notes and records. For now, Carlita’s staying put and waiting. Waiting for him to return, waiting for me to tell her what to do. I can’t run the risk of going there.”
“Could they identify you?” Lacy asked.
“Wanna take a crack at who they might be? No, I don’t think I could be recognized in person, but who knows? I can’t go get her.”
“And she can’t move the boat?” Gunther asked.
“No way. She can’t even start the engines and put it in reverse. And where would she go?”
Lacy noticed a bench and said, “I’d like to sit down.” She and Gunther took a seat—he held her hand—as Cooley lit another cigarette and watched the traffic. No other pedestrians were close.
Lacy said, “Greg’s story was that he’d been living on the run for several years, that he’d made a lot of enemies when he got in trouble. Could that part of his past have caught up with him?”
Cooley blew a cloud of smoke. “I doubt it. We met in prison. I was once a lawyer too until they asked me to leave the profession. So we were just a couple disbarred boys doing time in a federal joint in Texas. From another con I’d heard the story of Vonn Dubose and the Indian casino, so when I got out I came back to Florida and started sniffing around. It’s a long story, but I knew the mole and got that ball rolling. Now it looks pretty foolish. You’ve been hurt. Your buddy is dead. Myers is probably drifting with the currents, a hundred feet down with a brick around his neck.”
“You think it’s Dubose?” Gunther asked.
“He gets my vote. Sure Greg had enemies, but that story goes back a long way. And I know some of the people he squealed on. They were not organized crooks. Sure they screwed up, but they’re not the type of people who’d spend years looking for Greg so they could put a bullet in his head and further complicate their lives. Kubiak, the ringleader, is still serving time. Now Greg signs his name on the complaint and threatens the Dubose clan, and, lo and behold, within a matter of days he’s vanished. A procedural question?”
Lacy shrugged. Whatever.
“Can the formal complaint Myers filed against Judge McDover go forward if the complaining party disappears?”
Lacy thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure. To my knowledge, it’s never happened before.”
“Are you sure you want it to go forward?” Gunther asked.
Neither Cooley nor Lacy responded. Cooley slowly finished his cigarette and casually flipped the butt onto the sidewalk, a thoughtless act of littering that she might have said something about. Now, though, it was unimportant.
“What’s our priority?” she asked.
Cooley said, “Carlita can’t stay on the boat much longer. She’s low on food and water and the harbormaster is pestering her for docking fees. I’d like to rescue her some way and secure his stuff—phones, files, anything that needs protecting. But, again, it’s just too risky. There’s a good chance someone is watching and waiting.”
“I can do it,” Gunther said.
“No way,” Lacy said, surprised. “You’re not getting near this.”
“Listen, I have a small plane at the airport. I can be in Key Largo in two hours. They, if they are really there, have no idea who I am. Carlita will know I’m coming so she’ll be ready. She’ll tell us exactly where the boat is located. I’ll be in and out before anybody knows what’s happening. If they wake up and somehow manage to follow us to the airport, there’s no way they can scramble a plane fast enough to chase us. I’ll drop her off somewhere along the way and she can catch a bus to wherever she wants to go.”
“What if someone tries to confront you?” Cooley asked.
“You heard my sister, sir. I like guns and I’ll have one in my pocket. I don’t frighten too easily anyway.”
“I don’t know, Gunther,” Lacy said. Cooley was quickly warming up to the idea. Lacy was not.
“We’re going to do it, okay, Sis? It’s low risk, high reward. I’m doing it to help the team and to protect you.”
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