The Case of the Miami Philanthropist: The Fairlington Lavender Detective Series
184
The Case of the Miami Philanthropist: The Fairlington Lavender Detective Series
184eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781449094782 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 03/08/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 184 |
| File size: | 286 KB |
Read an Excerpt
The Case of the Miami Philanthropist
The Fairlington Lavender Detective SeriesBy S.N. Bronstein
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 S.N. BronsteinAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-9477-5
Chapter One
When I saw Alfonso "Al" Keterson he was being booked into the Miami-Dade County, Florida main jail. He apparently had a loaded gun in his car that he kept under the seat when he traveled into any one of the numerous lousy neighborhoods that surround the few upscale or halfway decent areas left in the greater Miami area.Al had the distinct misfortune to have an expired tag on his 2007 silver Honda Accord and be stopped by a Metro cop who had the misfortune to have a bad marriage, a bad attitude toward life, and probably indigestion from the crappy fast food he had for lunch. Al had a personality trait quite prevalent in Miami, resentment toward anyone perceived as being a pain in their ass in any possible way. One word led to another in a downward spiral until the cop mouthed that infamous "step out of the car sir" phrase which, for a level headed person, would result in severe gastric disturbances. But not Al. He stepped out, and when the cop's backup arrived, he let them know about the gun in an "I really don't care if you know or not" way and was promptly arrested.
Al was fifty years old, born in Cuba, and sent over during the days of the "Pedro Pan" exodus from the island. He was born Alfonso Miguel Salinas. At age twenty two he changed his name, and being fair skinned and light haired, passed for a WASP ever since.
When he arrived in the United States Al lived with an aunt and uncle in Hialeah, and went to elementary, junior, and senior high school in that city. He attended community college, transferred to a state university, and got a teaching degree and certificate from Florida. He started teaching in 1984 and now had about eleven years left until he retired with his full thirty five years.
From the corner of my left eye I watched the intake officer doing her thing in the booking area inside the jail. The booking area was just past the "sally port" where the police cars from the county and numerous municipalities dumped their constant stream of whores; female shoplifters; gangsta' looking young Black men; short, fat Hispanic males; older Black men charged with non violent things like theft; skinny Hispanic kids; drunk or high White guys; and the mentally ill homeless who looked and smelled like they were selectively picked out of dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant. Now and then a White, middle class guy was brought in for DUI, a white collar crime, or an argument with their wife that ended up with a little more than words and then a domestic violence charge. They, unlike the others, looked like they were about to take the biggest crap of their lives, and they were.
When Al was called out of the tank he was not high, drunk, mentally ill, homeless, or so they thought, scared. He was pissed off and ready to argue with everybody, which is not the best comportment to adopt in this particular setting. After the photo op and digital fingerprinting came the strip search in a section not visible to me or to the general population, but I heard every word of the exchange. The conversation in the cubicle between Al and the correctional officer made me laugh. I guess that was because I wasn't the one being booked into jail that day.
"Oh this is great officer," Al said in a sincere voice. "I just had a physical and the doctor told me when he examined that particular location that my prostate was fine. But I was seeking a second opinion anyway."
Officer Mass failed to see the humor and let him know he could save his comedy for when he got into a cell and he had a third opinion from one of the six foot three hoodlums in there with him. Al went his way after the booking process, and I'm sure he called a bondsman who got him out minus the treat of having to go upstairs for an extended accommodation of room and board.
I continued my task which was to arrange bail and then deliver an inmate to a client's home. This prisoner was not as lucky as Al when he was booked. He won the jackpot with an attendant ride up the elevator for guest quarters with some of the most degenerate, loud, dirty, and violent people that the cops were able to sweep up off the streets of the county for everything from disorderly conduct to murder. The fine citizen I was being paid to deal with was Dean Powell. Powell was charged with DUI, Possession of Methamphetamine, Possession of Cocaine, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, and Possession of Marijuana. He was stopped by the police for driving erratically and they found the drugs after a search of his car. He languished from February 6th until April 7th, almost nine weeks in this Bastille, until a judge reduced his bond to $50,000 at a hearing for a Motion to Reduce Bail. As a licensed private investigator in both Florida and Virginia, I was contacted to accomplish this simple task. Whoever wanted it done paid me well for my two hour visit to this museum. Powell arrived downstairs assisted ably by Officer Johnson, a tall, heavyset, Black female.
"You Fairlawn?" Powell called out to me.
"He ain't Santa Claus," Johnson said.
I took mental note of this. Johnson, who looked to be in her forties, had to have at least ten years on the job and probably booked, transported, and supervised thousands of inmates over the years. This was her best material? I thought, but did not say, great delivery, keep em' laughing and I can probably get you a stand up shot on Leno. I said nothing except to tell Powell my first name was Fairlington not Fairlawn, and I was there to drive him to my client's home once bail was arranged.
Comedian Johnson let me know that "Joey", a local bondsman well known to her, had already faxed the bail papers over and the surety was in force so I could take him with me when I was ready to leave. Powell and I left, by now it was 6:30 and getting dark. All I wanted to do was get out of there and get this piece of work to where he was going. We exited the rear of the jail and walked down the ramp, turned around and went up another outside ramp to the property window to get his personal belongings. The line was long and the clientele there was also most appealing. We waited almost forty minutes until Powell's name was called. He signed whatever he signed, and a manila envelope was handed to him.
We had to walk at least a quarter of a mile to get to my car and Powell said nothing along the way. He was about thirty five, and not too tall. He had a muscular build but not in a body builder's kind of way. He had a receding hairline and looked more like a guy who installed water heaters and dishwashers than a recently released county jail inmate.
During the walk to the car I had the urge to ask the stupid questions that most people feel they have to ask someone who just got out of the crap house; So, how was it up there? How did they treat you? How was the food?
Why not just get to the point? What they really want to know is the degree of degradation that the guy had to suffer at the hands of the other inmates. After twenty five years as a cop and almost ten as a private investigator, I had no need for such interrogations. It's always bad in jail, especially in that jail. If those things happened, and they did all the time, the poor bastard did not need to relive it. We basically drove on without any conversation.
Kendall Somers lived on Old Cutler Road. This is a big money part of town. The houses in this part of the south end of Miami, even in a depressed economy, are a couple million plus. I'm not so sure this low ball estimate is fair to the lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and other money mover types who paid the blood money for these palaces to please their second wife, or bought it and later had to hand it over to their first. We headed that way from the jail. The trip took about twenty five minutes; my odometer indicated the distance was about twelve miles. We left the jail using 12th Avenue, took the Dolphin Expressway, got on to I-95, and then took Le Jeune Road to Old Cutler. Our destination that was on the east side of Old Cutler Road was a McMansion. The ride up the driveway almost emptied the tank on my economy rental car. There were tennis courts, a pool the size of the house next door, housekeeper's quarters to the right of the residence, and all the rest of the opulence that goes with such conspicuous consumption. What the hell do I have to do to get this? I pondered, and then cleared my mind of the thought by thinking about just paying the power bill each month.
I was surprised that Somers answered the door himself. I expected an eighty year old English butler with a tux and an Oxford accent to answer and look me over before slamming the door and calling the cops. Somers was in his sixties, tall, white haired, not too thin, not too heavy, he had facial skin like a dermatologist, a manicure about three hours old, and he was wearing a robe over a collared shirt, sport jacket, and slacks. I felt like Humphrey Bogart going to see a guy and three goons were about to beat the life out of him five minutes after some scripted cute conversation. But Somers was very cordial.
He invited me in, said nothing to Powell, and when we both walked into the foyer he stated very politely, "Mr. Lavender, you have done well."
Powell looked at me and said, "Lavender, Fairlawn Lavender, what the hell are you a faggot interior decorator?"
Again, I took the time to tell him it was Fairlington not Fairlawn. I was about to tell him my sexual proclivities tended toward the female gender and that I was as far from an interior decorator as he was from being intelligent, but I decided against the effort.
Somers sent Powell to another room and when he was gone, handed me a check for $2,000.00, the amount agreed upon to fetch this oddball from the jail to this house. I could not help but wonder when I first got his call on my cell phone as well as at that moment why the hell he didn't just get him bonded out and send for him in a cab. Then I wondered why he would get him out in the first place. I had to ask myself what the relationship was between these two. I took my check and left. When I get a call offering me two grand for a twelve mile drive with one passenger, why ask or argue? I'm not starving, but I'm not stupid either.
School systems don't let things slide like in the old days. The county school system requires that when an employee gets busted, they have to report it to their supervisor. Al Keterson dutifully reported his arrest to his Principal the next day. The Principal dutifully reported it to the District office. District administrators then dutifully removed him from his job to an area level office to sit and stare at the walls until the case was resolved. Keterson was never in any type of trouble with the school before and when they sent him out to pasture he went with the same obstinate attitude as he had at the jail. He later told me it was a sweetheart deal. He didn't have to work; he sat and played on his laptop all day in a room with nine other employees who had charges pending or investigations facing them, and got paid his full salary. This is a deal I could live with, but the whole investigative process had to be unnerving for a school teacher
Keterson did not have to suffer this comfortable indignity for too long. Shortly after his arrest and release from jail, at a preliminary hearing, a "side bar" discussion was held between his attorney, the Assistant State Attorney, and the judge. Following this brief conversation in which Al's lawyer explained the circumstances surrounding Al's possession of the firearm, the State Attorney dropped all charges. Al was free to go and he was reassigned to his school.
Years ago I worked the General Investigative Unit with the county cops. My supervisor was a female nine years younger than me who worked her way up the ranks from street patrol, to road sergeant, to detective, to lieutenant. It probably didn't hurt that she was female back in those days of affirmative action, but she was good at what she did and a great person to work for. She knew the deal and supported her squad. I liked her and we got along. Her husband Al was a teacher, my wife Dusty was a teacher, and we socialized. As time passed Al and Sherry got divorced and Dusty and I got divorced. Al and Dusty are still teachers, Sherry is a big deal in the cops, and I retired in 1999 with twenty five years on the job. I took a comfortable pension and became a private investigator in Miami.
My cases were the usual PI stuff; follow someone's husband, skip trace cases designed to locate people who ran up bills and took off, recovery of stolen property with no questions asked, etc., and I never got beat up, threatened, smoked cigarettes, or was very successful with young, beautiful clients. I guess Bogart would say I was a disgrace to the tradition of the 1940's PI formula, but I never liked drama anyway. I did ok for a long time with a small office on Miami Beach across from the Forge Restaurant where I drank each afternoon when I was not working, and often when I was. I liked the climate, I had my favorite watering spots and restaurants in the area, and I loved my condo in the north end of Sunny Isles with its ocean view. I grew up in this part of Miami, became a county cop, and retired to do the PI thing for about eight years. Then, a few years ago, I left to work for a friend in Northern Virginia who had a huge private investigations practice. Tim Lagone had been an FBI agent in Washington and when he retired about the time I did, he used his connections to get a lot of work. He paid me well, the cases were government related background investigations and oversight complaints, and they were interesting and not dangerous. I rented a small condo in Fairfax County, not too far from our D.C. office. I kept my Miami Beach Condo, my Miami cell phone number, and traveled back and forth as jobs came in from South Florida. Tim was good about this and I appreciated it.
I was in Miami in April to see my ex and check out what was up in town when I got the call from Somers, went to the jail, and that's when I once again ran into my old friend Al. Two days after I delivered my package to Somers, I looked up Al.
Al was living in Miami Springs in a small house he rented not far from Miami International Airport. No detective work was needed to find him. His number was given to me by directory assistance. I called him and we met over on Miami Beach at the Forge for drinks at about 6:00 PM. He was pretty shocked to hear from me after a lot of years. It was back in the 90's when we started to hang out, and after both couples divorced and moved on, we lost touch with each other. It had to be at least ten years since I last saw Al. He held up pretty well and still had the acerbic personality that made him so much fun to be around. My ex never really liked him that much, but then she never really liked anyone that much, probably me included. He was a bit of a clown and had an eye for the girls, and Dusty could pick that trait up like a magnet, probably from being married to me for ten years.
At the bar I told Al I was at the jail when he was putting on his show. He laughed and asked if I enjoyed the act. I told him I did but I could tell he was a reluctant actor. The arrest bothered him, but he told me he was not all that worried about doing jail time. I knew that in Miami this would never happen anyway for a first infraction of this kind, especially for a White, middle class teacher with a clean record. I let him know that in my experience a dollar collar like this would go nowhere, and the school system would probably not act against him given that the circumstances were that he was off campus and on his own time when the arrest took place. He didn't seem convinced and I was uneasy for some reason. We spent some time talking over the old days, and I left Al about 7:30 and went back to my condo feeling like I had just missed something that I should have picked up on. It's a cop's instinct. Something else was wrong. Something else was going on in Al's life. Needing to find out what that was, I phoned Tim and let him know I was going to hang out in Miami for a week or so. He was fine with that.
Caridad "Carrie" Alfonso was a seventeen year old girl going on twenty five. She was a senior in high school who looked and transported her body and persona like the fictional girl from Ipanima. Unlike the Ipanima girl, she was of medium height, light skinned, had long, shiny, silky black hair, and green eyes complimented by an architectural structure that was like nothing I experienced in three years of high school back in the late 60's. Carrie was an ideal student. She always did what was expected in class, completed assignments on time, was part of a few school service groups, had a lot of friends who were not emos, drug zombies, wanna'be gangsters, or pain in the ass, angst driven kids. She was an ok kid with only one real problem; she was in love with a fifty year old teacher.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Case of the Miami Philanthropist by S.N. Bronstein Copyright © 2010 by S.N. Bronstein. Excerpted by permission.
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