LeAnn backed down the driveway. The tailpipe was making horrible sounds that disrupted the quiet morning. She braked before reaching the street, and motioned to me. I hustled over to her open window.
“Would you like to know what I think?” she asked.
I said that I did.
“Detective Cheeks railroaded my husband, and now he’s railroading my son,” she said. “If you don’t believe me, ask the manager of the Smart Buy.”
“You mean Mr. Vorbe,” I said.
“Yes. He told me so this morning while delivering my groceries. Detective Cheeks came to his store, and tried to coerce him into saying untrue things about Jed. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”
Her car rattled and clanked as she drove away. The noise it was making was loud, but not nearly as loud as the alarm going off inside my head. Cheeks had destroyed evidence in one murder investigation, and now he was coercing witnesses in another.
I ran to my car.
The Smart Buy was open for business, and I went inside to the help desk. The young lady manning the desk was the same one who’d assisted me the other day. I asked for Jean-Baptiste Vorbe, and she made a call to his office.
“I think Mr. Vorbe is outside with the police,” she said.
I thanked her, and went outside the store. There weren’t any cops in the front of the building, and I walked around to the back. A police cruiser was parked by the Dumpsters, and I saw two cops standing on ladders, poking through the garbage with long sticks. Several torn bags lay on the ground. I looked for Vorbe, but didn’t see him.
“She isn’t here, and neither’s her kid,” one of the uniforms said.
“Keep looking,” the other said.
“We should have brought some fly spray.”
“Tell me about it.”
I climbed the stairs to the loading dock, and found Vorbe standing next to the building. He wore a white shirt and black tie, and was leaning on his cane. His brow glistened with sweat, and his graying hair looked electrified in the midday sun.
“Mr. Carpenter,” Vorbe said.
“I need to speak with you,” I said.
“Of course.”
“I hear Detective Cheeks came to see you yesterday.”
Vorbe looked at me in alarm. “Who told you this?”
“LeAnn Grimes. She said that Detective Cheeks tried to coerce you into saying untrue things about her son. Is that true?”
Vorbe glanced at the cops picking through the Dumpster, and lowered his voice. “Detective Cheeks was acting very ugly, very crude. He peppered me with questions about Jed Grimes-Did I remember how many times he’d visited my store? Had I ever seen him with a woman named Piper Stone? Did I know where he might have hidden his wife and son?-and then asked me if I’d testify against him at his trial. When I hesitated, Detective Cheeks yelled at me. I felt like…”
His voice trailed off and I pressed him. “Like what?”
“I do not feel comfortable saying this.”
“Say it anyway.”
“I felt he was trying to intimidate me.”
Vorbe lowered his eyes. My gut told me that he wasn’t telling me everything that had happened. I put my hand on his sleeve, and felt his body tense up.
“What else happened?” I asked.
“Else?” he said.
“The rest of it.”
Vorbe hesitated, then the words poured out. “Detective Cheeks said that I should not talk to any other police officers about the case. He was emphatic about this. He said that if I did, I would pay. Then he told me he would be back.”
“Was his tone threatening?”
“Very.”
Down below, the cops had finished their search and had climbed off their ladders. They retied the torn bags of garbage lying on the ground and hoisted them back into the Dumpster. Then they came over to the loading dock, and thanked Vorbe for his help. Their cruiser kicked up loose gravel as it drove away.
I faced Vorbe. He was still sweating, and his eyes were glassy. Cheeks had done a real number on him. The police were supposed to protect the weak and the innocent, and Cheeks was threatening them instead. I decided it was time to find out why.
“I’m sorry Cheeks put you through this,” I said.
“I don’t want any more trouble,” Vorbe said. “Especially from Detective Cheeks.”
“I’ll take care of Cheeks,” I said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
P lantation was in the northwest section of the county, and was still green. Horses galloped behind three- board wood fences, and red-roofed barns towered behind elegant ranch houses. Someday it would be paved over like the rest of south Florida, but for now it was still country.
Finding Cheeks’s place took awhile. I’d gone there once for a Super Bowl party, but I’d forgotten how similar the houses in his neighborhood looked. Luckily, his SUV was parked in his driveway, the same one we’d driven around in a few days ago.
I parked on the street and killed the engine. My daddy had been fond of saying that any argument between two men could end in death. I drew my Colt and checked the clip, then returned it to the holster in my pants pocket.
My heart was pounding as I walked up the front path. Putting my ear to the door, I heard loud music coming from the back of the house. I guessed Cheeks was on the lanai, recuperating from his fake heart attack. I decided to surprise him.
I walked around the side of the house to the backyard. The music was loud enough to cover my footsteps. Eric Clapton’s Miami album, 418 Ocean Boulevard. The cut was one of my favorites. “Motherless Children.”
The lanai was attached to the back of the house, and contained an eating area, a barbecue, and a swimming pool. I pressed my face to the screen. Cheeks sat with his back to me on a reclining beach chair. On his lap was a blond woman wearing a teardrop bikini. She had fake stripper tits and platinum stripper hair and was coming on to him the way only a stripper can. Seeing me playing peek-a-boo, she let out a shriek, and hopped off Cheeks’s lap.
“Ronnie, there’s someone here!”
Cheeks tried to jump out of the chair, only his erection wouldn’t let him. He was wearing a flimsy pair of shorts, and they were popping out in the wrong places. The stripper ran into the house, and slammed the slider behind her.
“Get out of here,” Cheeks growled.
I found the screen door in the lanai and went inside. Cheeks came forward with his fists cocked. He was big and hairy and looked like something that had washed up on the beach. I wasn’t going to beat him in a fight, only fighting wasn’t what I had in mind.
“You heard me,” Cheeks said. “Get off my property.”
“First you’re going to answer some questions.”
Cheeks started to circle me, and I pointed an accusing finger at him.
“Why did you destroy evidence that proved Abb Grimes was insane?” I asked.
