over each day for a few hours of hallway monitoring, and Orlando police officers enjoy stopping by to flirt with the nurses.
Quincy’s condition improves each day and we slowly begin to believe that he will not die. I’m on a first-name basis with his doctors and staff by now and everybody is pulling for my client. He is as secure as possible, so I decide to hit the road. The place is driving me crazy. Who doesn’t hate sitting around a hospital? Savannah is five hours away and I’ve never been so homesick.
Somewhere around St. Augustine, Susan Ashley calls with the news that old Judge Jerry Plank has entered an order denying our petition for post-conviction relief. His decision is expected; the surprise is that he woke up long enough to do something. We were anticipating a wait of at least a year, but he disposed of it in two months. This is actually good news because it speeds along our appeal to the state supreme court. I don’t want to pull over and read his opinion, Susan Ashley says it’s very brief. A two-page order in which Plank says we provided no new evidence, in spite of the recantations from Zeke Huffey and Carrie Holland. Whatever. We were expecting to lose at the circuit court level. I cuss for a few minutes in traffic then settle down. There are times, many times, when I despise judges, especially blind ones and old ones and white ones, almost all of whom cut their teeth in prosecutors’ offices and have no sympathy for anyone accused of a crime. To them, everybody who is charged is guilty and needs time in jail. The system works beautifully and justice always prevails.
When my rant is over, I call Mazy as she’s reading the order. We discuss the appeal and she will drop everything and get it ready. When I arrive at the office late in the afternoon, she has a first draft prepared. We discuss it over coffee with Vicki and I tell stories about the events in Orlando.
* * *
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ADAM STONE MADE a clean swap with Jon Drummik’s phone. He took the old one as he ransacked the cell, and the following day handed a new one to Drummik. The FBI is scrambling to track old calls and listening to the new ones. They are confident that their targets will walk into the trap. They have no information on Mayhall, or at least none they can share with me, but they plan to watch him closely the next time he meets with Adam.
For three straight days before the attack on Quincy, Drummik called a cell phone in Delray Beach, north of Boca Raton. The day after the attack, he made only one call, to the same number. However, the trail ended when the number fizzled. It was a burner, a disposable phone with a thirty-day plan that was paid for by cash at a Best Buy store. Its owner is being very careful.
Adam does not have Mayhall’s phone number; has never had it. There is nothing to track until Mayhall calls, and he finally does. The FBI grabs the incoming number from Adam’s phone and follows it to another cell phone, also in Delray Beach. The puzzle is coming together. Monitoring the phone signal, the FBI picks up Mayhall’s scent as he buzzes along Interstate 95 headed north. The car he’s driving is registered to one Skip DiLuca of Delray Beach. White male, age fifty-one, four-time felon with manslaughter his worst sin, paroled three years earlier from a Florida prison, currently managing a shop selling used motorcycles.
DiLuca, aka Mayhall, arranges to meet Adam after work at a bar in Orange City, forty-five minutes from the prison. Adam says they always meet at the same place and have a quick beer as they talk shop. To avoid suspicion, Adam changes into street clothes. His handlers tape a small wire to his chest. He arrives first, selects a table, does a mike check, all bugs are working. An FBI crew is listening in the back of a van parked in the street behind the bar.
After a few curt pleasantries, the real conversation begins:
DILUCA: They didn’t kill Miller. What happened?
ADAM: Well, several things went wrong. First, Miller knows how to fight and went crazy. Robert Earl Lane has a busted nose. Took a few minutes to subdue him, too much time. Once they had him down they couldn’t finish him off before another guard