The Guardians: The explosive new thriller from international bestseller John Grisham - John Grisham Page 0,73

marriage was in. So, to answer your question, we were never sure if Keith told his wife about being an informant. We warned him not to, of course.”

“What happened to Diana?” Vicki asks.

“Somehow the cartel found out about Keith working for us. I strongly suspect that another informant, a double agent, one of our guys, sold the information. It’s a dirty business with loyalties that can change daily. Hard cash and the fear of being burned alive can flip a lot of people. They took out Keith, and Diana eventually left town.”

“And Ramon?” asks Mazy.

“He and Diana hooked up in Tampa for a while, then kept moving south. We didn’t know for sure back then but we suspected he sort of semiretired from his trafficking career and stayed out of trouble. Last I heard, they were still together somewhere in the Caribbean.”

“With plenty of money,” I say.

“Yes, with plenty of money.”

“Was she involved with the murder?” Mazy asks.

“That has never been proven. You know about the life insurance and the joint bank accounts, but that’s not too unusual.”

I ask, “Why didn’t you bust Pfitzner and the cartel?”

“Well, after the murder, the case evaporated. We were within a month or two of a huge bust that would have produced a lot of indictments, including some charges against Pfitzner. We had been patient, too patient, really, but we were fighting with the U.S. Attorney’s office down there. They were overworked and so on. We couldn’t get the lawyers fired up. You know how they are. After the murder, our informants vanished and the case fell apart. The cartel got spooked and pulled back for a while. Pfitzner eventually retired. I was moved to Mobile where I finished my career.”

“Who would the cartel use to do the killing?” Mazy asks.

“Oh, they have plenty of gun thugs, and these guys are not always sophisticated assassins. They’re brutes who’d rather cut off a man’s head with an axe than put a bullet in it. A couple of shotgun blasts to the face is tame for these boys. Their murders are messy because they want them to be. If they leave behind clues, they don’t care. You’re never going to find them because they’re back in Mexico, or Panama. Somewhere in the jungle.”

Mazy says, “But the Russo crime scene was clean, right? No clues left behind.”

“Yes, but Pfitzner was in charge of the investigation.”

I say, “I’m not sure I understand why you couldn’t nail Pfitzner. You say you knew he was guarding the port, storing the coke, protecting the dealers, and you had informants, including Keith. Why couldn’t you bust him?”

Duckworth takes a deep breath and locks his hands behind his head. He stares at the ceiling, keeps a smile on his face, replies, “That is probably the biggest disappointment of my career. We really wanted that guy. One of us, a law enforcement man, on the take and in bed with the nastiest people you could ever meet. Pumping cocaine into Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville, all over the Southeast. And we could’ve done it. We had infiltrated. We had built the case. We had the evidence. It was the U.S. Attorney in Jacksonville. We just could not get him to move fast enough and take it to the grand jury. He insisted on running the show and didn’t know what he was doing. Then Russo got hit. I still think about that guy, the U.S. Attorney. He later ran for Congress and I couldn’t wait to vote against him. Last I heard, he was chasing ambulances with his smarmy face on billboards.”

Mazy asks, “And you say this cartel is still around?”

“Most of it is, or at least it was when I retired. I’ve been out of the loop for the past five years.”

Mazy says, “Okay, let’s talk about the people who ordered the hit on Russo. Where are they now?”

“Don’t know. I’m sure some are dead, some are in prison, some have retired to their mansions around the world. And some are still trafficking.”

“Are they watching us?” Vicki asks.

Duckworth leans forward and takes a sip. He thinks about this for a long moment because he appreciates our concern. Finally, he says, “I can only speculate, obviously. But, yes, they are watching at some level. They do not want Quincy Miller exonerated, to say the least. I have a question for you,” he says, looking at me. “If your client walks, will the murder case be reopened?”

“Probably not. In about half of our cases we manage