know some things.”
“What can you tell me about Brad Pfitzner? I assume you knew him pretty well back then.”
“There were suspicions about Pfitzner back then, but they were always whispered. A few of the lawyers who worked the criminal beat, including me, heard more of the gossip than the others. There was a small port on the Gulf called Poley’s Inlet. It was in Ruiz County, thus under his control. The rumors were that he allowed the drugs to come in there and get warehoused in remote parts of the county before being distributed north toward Atlanta. Again, only rumors. Pfitzner was never caught, never charged. After I left, I watched from a distance and kept in touch with a couple of lawyer friends in Seabrook. The Feds never got their hands on Brad.”
“And Kenny Taft?”
“Taft was killed not long before I left town. There were rumors that the murder did not go down the way Pfitzner described. Again, like Russo, Pfitzner was in charge of the investigation and could write the story any way he wanted. He made a big production of losing one of his own men. Big funeral, procession, cops from all over lining the streets. A glorious send-off for a fallen soldier.”
“Is the Taft angle important?” I ask. He goes silent and studies the ocean. To me, the answer becomes obvious, but he says, “I don’t know. Might be something there.”
I’m not going to push him. I’ve already gotten far more than I expected, and we’ll talk again. I note his reluctance to discuss Kenny Taft and decide to move on.
“So why take out Keith Russo?” I ask.
He shrugs as if the answer should now be obvious. “He did something to upset the gang and they hit him. The quickest way to catch a bullet is to rat out. Maybe the DEA pressured him and flipped him. With Russo out of the way and Quincy taking the fall, it was soon business as usual. They wanted the conviction to stand, and I decided to go bonefishing.”
“Pfitzner retired to the Keys where he lives in a nice condo appraised by the county at one point six million,” I say. “Not bad for a sheriff who earned sixty thousand at his peak.”
“And didn’t finish high school so probably not too savvy of an investor. I’ll bet most of his loot is buried offshore. Be careful where you dig, Post. You might find things you wish you’d left alone.”
“Digging is part of my job.”
“But not mine. This is all history for me. I have a good life, with a beautiful wife and three teenagers. I’m not getting involved after today. Good luck and all that, but I don’t want to see you again.”
“Understood. Thanks for the meeting.”
“This suite is yours if you want. If you stay, you can take a cab back to the airport in the morning.”
“Thanks, but I’ll leave with you.”
24
According to Section 13A-10-129 of the Alabama Code of Criminal Conduct, a person who “removes or alters physical evidence” from an official proceeding is guilty of tampering. And, though it is only a Class A misdemeanor, it can be punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of $5,000. Normally, in a misdemeanor case, the complaining party, in this case the DA Chad Falwright, would simply file an affidavit accusing me of the crime and ask the sheriff to issue a warrant for my arrest.
But Chad is frightened these days because the greatest achievement of his lackluster career is about to become his biggest screwup. He is up for reelection next year, not that anybody really wants his job, and if it becomes known that he prosecuted and almost executed Duke Russell for someone else’s murder, then he might lose some votes. So Chad is fighting back, and hard. Instead of pursuing the lofty goal of finding the truth and unraveling an injustice, he attacks me because I’m trying to prove him wrong and exonerate an innocent man.
To prove his toughness, he convenes a grand jury in Verona and gets an indictment charging me with tampering. He calls Jim Bizko with The Birmingham News and squawks about this major accomplishment. But Bizko despises Chad and asks why he refuses to submit all seven pubic hairs for DNA testing. Bizko does not report the indictment.
My pal in Alabama is Steve Rosenberg, a radical lawyer from New York who moved south and remains noticeably unassimilated in his strange surroundings. He runs a nonprofit in