Presumed Justice Sample

A story about justice: who administers it, who it is administered to; and who escapes its long arm.

PRESUMED JUSTICE

James Sheehan

CHAPTER ONE

Miami Beach, Florida

September, 2015

The ring sounded distant at first, piercing his idyllic world of make believe where he was the happy warrior, always safe, always winning. Slowly the ring came into focus, forcing him to recognize that it was the damn telephone.

“McKiernan.” He picked up the phone on the end table by his bed as he checked the clock. It was four-thirty in the morning.

He could no longer remember a thing about the dream although he had been in it just seconds before. He hated that. It was a good one. Made him feel special. His imaginary world always made him feel special. It was the real world that sucked.

“We got another dead one.” The voice on the other end of the line said. The voice belonged to his partner, Tony Severino. He didn’t like that phrase “another dead one” but he never said anything to Tony. The guy was entitled to his own terminology.

“The Fiesta Hotel, Room 1220.” Tony continued.

“I’m on my way.”

The Fiesta Hotel was a luxury resort hotel on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. Christopher McKiernan, Mac to his friends and co-workers, was a detective in the Violent Crimes Section of the Miami Beach Police Department.

There were three or four patrol officers on the scene when Mac walked into the hotel room along with the Crime Scene Unit and Tony, his partner. The coroner had not yet arrived.

“What do we know?” Mac asked Tony as he looked at the body lying on the floor. Blood was everywhere. Mac made sure he didn’t get too close. The Crime Scene Unit and the coroner could do the up front and personal stuff.

“White male, mid-forties. Hands are rough and calloused so he’s probably a laborer of some kind. Ten bullet wounds to the chest, stomach, head and face.”

“Ten shots? Somebody must have been really pissed off.” Mac said.

“Yeah. The question is why.” Tony replied.

“And who?” Mac added. The questions were never difficult.

The answers were the hard part.

Mac checked with the Crime Scene Unit just to see if they had discovered anything like a bloody shoeprint or, hope against hope, the murder weapon. Nothing.

Next, he and Tony waited for the assistant coroner to arrive before leaving just to get an estimate of the time of death. It took Sally Kendall, the assistant coroner, all of fifteen minutes to give them the assessment that the murder probably happened within the last eight hours. Of course, the information came with the usual qualification.

“I’ll know more once we get the autopsy done.” She told him.

No shit. Sally was good at her job and didn’t mind giving a general assessment but she always qualified it with the same inane comment: “I’ll know more when we get the autopsy done.”

Mac was ready to get to the office and start the other aspects of the investigation like identifying the victim and next of kin, but Tony had other plans.

“This place has a great restaurant on the ground floor with an awesome view of the water. We can get the best seat in the house and watch the sunrise.” Tony was selling the view to Mac but Mac knew it was all about the food to Tony. A man may

have been brutally murdered, but none of that affected Tony’s appetite.

“I can’t afford this place.” He had protested but Tony was not to be denied.

“Don’t worry. I’ll buy.” He said and that was it. They got the best seat in the house maybe ten yards from the water. It was six-thirty in the morning.

Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, they were eating their bacon and eggs (Tony also had a side of pancakes), and drinking coffee when she jogged by. He would never forget that first sight of her in a bathing suit running along the beach–long legs stretching forward and back, arms rising and falling in rhythm, shoulder-length black hair tied in a ponytail. She was a vision floating along the horizon, the sun rising in the background.

“You know who that is?” Tony asked, following his partner’s eyes to the woman running on the beach.

“No idea.” Mac answered. “But man I would love to find out.”

“Her name is Robyn Clarke. She’s a prosecutor in the Miami Dade State Attorney’s office. I’ve had several cases with her over the years. Great litigator.”

“That’s ten yards away. How can you be so sure it’s her?”

“Eagle eyes, Mackie boy.” Tony said while shoving a fork full of pancakes into his mouth. “I never forget a face.”

Mac just looked at his partner.

“What?” Tony asked.

“You think I was born yesterday? You knew that woman was going to be running by, didn’t you?”

Tony smiled. “I didn’t know for sure, but I heard she runs the beach in the mornings.”

“We didn’t stop here for that reason, did we?”

‘Hell no.” Tony said. “We stopped for the food and the sunrise.”

Watching Tony shove another fork full of pancakes in his mouth, Mac almost believed his partner.

From that day forward, Mac could not get the image of Robyn Clarke running on the beach out of his mind. Would a woman who looked like that even notice me? He asked himself as he looked

at his body in the full-length mirror in his bedroom, the one that he barely knew existed in the two years that he had lived there.

Mac had once been a good athlete. At six foot two, he had been a high school quarterback and a forward on the basketball team.

That was many moons ago and at the ripe old age of forty-five, Mac was out of shape, no longer engaging in the type of activities that had once made him a fine physical specimen. He could take down the occasional perp who gave him trouble, but that was it.

His last marriage had ended badly and he had lost interest in looking and feeling great. Maybe it’s time for a change in attitude.

The image of Robyn Clarke became the impetus for Mac to change his diet, start exercising in the gym, and begin jogging.

After two months, he’d dropped fifteen pounds and was up to three miles at a decent pace. He was looking and feeling pretty good about himself. He was back on track towards health and maybe, someday, even happiness.

Meanwhile the investigation into the hotel murder was moving along very, very slowly. The dead man had been identified as Benjamin Long, a professional fisherman from Islamorada.

“What’s a fisherman from Islamorada doing in a plush hotel in Miami Beach?” Mac asked Tony when they were sitting at their desks in the squad room after they had identified

Benjamin Long as the victim. It was Tony’s last week of work before retiring after thirty years on the force. He couldn’t have cared less about the investigation.

Beats me.” Tony replied. These days, those were two of Tony’s favorite words. Right after, “Let’s eat” and “Time to go home.”

“And who would want to kill this guy?”

“Beats me.” Tony replied.

Then Tony was out the door and Mac was on his own.

Even though Tony had put in for retirement the year before, the Department had not yet put the wheels in motion to replace him.

After ten weeks, Mac didn’t have much to go on.

Benjamin Long was married but the wife had no idea what her husband was doing in a hotel room in Miami. According to her, the marriage was good. His wallet had the usual credit cards but no money. And there were no charges on the credit cards that were suspicious. The only lead he had was Long’s telephone. There were some text messages referencing a meeting in Miami although the messages were from a disposable phone that could not be traced to any individual.

Mac figured drugs had been involved. Long was a fisherman and fishermen in South Florida had a history of being involved in drug trafficking. Add that to the fact that he turned up brutally murdered and it was a logical conclusion. Of course, he had no evidence to support his theory and the trail was getting colder as the days passed.

Then one day, he answered a call in the squad room.

“McKiernan.”

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