Black Cat Weekly #73

Chapter 7-1

The Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

The Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

personally selected by one of the most acclaimed

personally selected by one of the most acclaimedshort stories authors and editors in the mystery

short stories authors and editors in the mysteryfield, Barb Goffman, for Black Cat Weekly.

field, Barb Goffman, for .

byFBI Special Agent Dawna Shepherd balanced the basketball on her left hip and swiped the back of her right hand across her forehead. A lone palm tree cast meager shade at her end of Pinecraft Park’s outdoor court. Heat radiated off the greenish concrete surface.

Dressed in only a sleeveless gray workout top, black Lycra shorts, and an Ace bandage, she was too hot. Two o’clock was the worst time of day in Gulf Coast Florida to be shooting threes under a blazing February sun. But when you’re the cheese in a trap set to catch a bail-jumping rat, you go for maximum visibility.

For three afternoons in a row, she’d performed in her cover role of benched professional ballplayer getting back in shape after surgery to repair a torn lateral meniscus cartilage in her left knee. Her audience had grown each day. This Wednesday, thirty bystanders crowded the patch of straggly brown grass separating the basketball court from the adjacent sandy area reserved for volleyball. The onlookers had turned their backs on the ferocious shuffleboard matches on the other side of the park. Instead, they watched Jacob Zook, a young roofer from Pennsylvania, do his best to stop Dawna from scoring. She cut him no slack, sinking every basket. Essential to attract a crook interested only in winners.

“Thanks for letting me try.” Jacob snagged his wide-brimmed straw hat from the grass, clamped it over brown hair as curly as the beard edging his jawline. “Always wanted to.”

“You’re a natural.” She grinned up at him from where she sat on the concrete, carefully removing her treasured Air Zooms. “Can’t believe you never played before.”

She stowed the basketball shoes in her sports bag and slipped on her sandals. As she got to her feet, she dusted sand off the seat of her shorts and slapped her palms together to brush away the last grains.

“Same time tomorrow?” she asked Jacob.

He nodded, and she tossed him a wave goodbye and headed for the private home she’d rented for her weeklong stay. She casually eyed the bystanders as she strolled from the park. Bearded men in denim overalls and stiff black hats rubbed shoulders with bare-cheeked boys in shorts and flip-flops. Pinafored women with neatly pressed pleats in their white bonnets brushed their long skirts against the bare legs of girls in tank tops and cut-off jeans. Most smelled of textiles washed in harsh soap and line-dried in fresh air, but she also picked up the odor of coconut-tinged suntan oil and a musky male Ralph Lauren scent.

Pinecraft, on the outskirts of Sarasota, had been a destination for Amish and Mennonite vacationers since 1925. During the winter lull in farm work and the building trades, five thousand members of the plain sects from all over the US and Canada arrived annually to enjoy the gentle climate and “the whitest beaches on earth.”

Some visitors chose to dress and behave differently than they did at home. Others stuck to traditional ways. The result was a large community of strangers who tolerated wide variation in behavior and didn’t probe into one another’s backgrounds.

Which made Pinecraft an ideal hideout for the indicted Ponzi-schemer Paul Winslow.

Again today, Dawna hadn’t drawn her target into the open. She’d attracted one man’s interest, but the guy trailing her for the past four blocks was too tall to be Winslow. Glancing into the variety-store window to study the reflected scene, she confirmed he was narrowing the gap between them. She squinted. Why did he seem familiar? To her surprise, his name came to her instantly. Tommy O’Brien.

She’d met him only once, years ago on a dark night in Texas. Then, he’d had an extension baton tucked in his belt and worn the fingerless leather gloves preferred by serious shooters. Never mind that today this bounty hunter was pretending to be a bus driver, dressed in heavy-duty gray-blue slacks and a matching short-sleeve shirt with a pocket logo.

Tommy O’Brien had to be in Pinecraft for the same reason she was. She couldn’t risk him blowing her cover. She lingered at the window, ready to spit out a terse get lost when he reached her. But he sauntered by, executing a smooth no-look feed as he slipped a stiff paper rectangle into the outside pocket of her bag.

get lostShe stepped into the air-conditioned chill of the old-fashioned five-and-dime and pretended to admire a display of cheap sunglasses while she studied what turned out to be a business card with the Florida Suncoast State University logo. The clear-eyed brunette pictured on it was another O’Brien—Ryane O’Brien—and her job title was assistant coach in the Women’s Basketball Program with an office on the second floor of Suncoast Arena in Sarasota. The name must have been included in Dawna’s case file, which accounted for her brain’s ready identification of Tommy O’Brien. Her subconscious had registered what she’d forgotten.

Ryane was the bounty hunter’s niece—the reason he’d gotten interested in women’s hoops. Watching Ryane play a pre-season game in New York City had prompted Tommy to travel to Dawna’s hometown of Amity, Texas, in search of a long-missing fugitive. That’s where they met. Clutching the card, she pushed back onto the sidewalk and wove between idling vacationers, eager to get onto the quieter side street leading toward home.

Of course, basketball was key once again to O’Brien’s successful tracking of a bail-jumper, just as Dawna’s playing experience was the reason she’d been recruited for this FBI operation. Ponzi-schemer Winslow had been an ardent financial supporter of Suncoast women’s basketball.

The former Sarasota resident had owned Winslow European Holdings, promoting sham “high yield/prime bank note” programs. He promised to hold his investors’ principal untouched in a Danish escrow account while paying three hundred percent returns. Winslow’s too-good-to-be-true pitch netted him more than $45 million. He returned a fraction to investors to convince them they were profiting. The rest he spent lavishly on his own hobby and pleasures.

When the financial crisis hit in 2009, his suddenly broke clients wanted their original investments back. Winslow failed to repay, they blew the whistle, and he was indicted in US District Court for investment fraud. Winslow posted a million-dollars bail, laid a trail to Rio de Janeiro that proved false, and vanished with a large chunk of stolen money.

Half a dozen other financial criminals exposed at the same time also chose to flee. The FBI successfully located and arrested those mini-Madoffs when they attempted new fraudulent activities to fund high-roller lifestyles in locations from Sri Lanka to Monte Carlo.

Winslow, however, did not resume any of his old bad habits. He’d evaded bureau notice until the first week of the current year. His bad luck that Kevin Quincy, an FBI financial analyst in Tampa Division, had not only immersed himself in the Winslow case but also had a taste for shoofly pie. Trying to decide from which Pinecraft vendor to order the Pennsylvania Dutch specialty, Kevin had consulted an online blog by a local resident and recognized Winslow in a crowd shot of the local farmers’ market.

Instantly, Kevin realized Winslow was a whole lot smarter than most crooks. The man was hiding only a few miles from his former home—a move so unlikely, the bureau made only routine checks for him in the area.

Winslow knew the territory, and by growing a traditional Amish beard and donning a black felt hat, he’d become unrecognizable to any acquaintance who might wander into Pinecraft and cross his path. He probably couldn’t have pulled off the impersonation in a tight-knit religious community in Ohio, but rules were looser in the Amish Las Vegas. For sure, nobody would report Winslow to the FBI.

Which, of course, was what the man counted on.

It had been Winslow’s facial expression online that caught Kevin’s eye. Every month for the past four years he’d glared at the PR shots in Winslow’s outstanding case file. The man’s I’ve-got-it-made grin in the blog photo was a perfect match.

As Kevin told Dawna in her briefing, he was certain he’d found Winslow, though he’d turned up no leads when searching his databases for a Pinecraft resident or visitor using any variation of the man’s name or initials. Winslow appeared to have altered every identifier and behavior previously associated with him.

But had he killed his passion for women’s basketball?

Before his indictment, Winslow’s generous donations had enabled Suncoast to recruit a larger and more skillful coaching staff and talented players. With him as a major booster, the school moved from NCAA Division Two to One. This year, the Suncoast Stingrayettes had quickly clinched a conference slot and expected to make it to the Big Dance in New Orleans.

Suspecting that Winslow was in Pinecraft to enjoy his favorite team’s winning season, Kevin ordered FBI surveillance on Stingrayette home games and practices. He got no results. Apparently, Winslow didn’t venture out of Pinecraft.

Kevin’s last hope was that the man would be unable to resist getting close to a real player on his home court. Which was why Kevin had summoned Dawna to Florida.

A very long shot, she’d thought, and had suggested a few tweaks to Kevin’s plan that might improve her chances of attracting Winslow. But Kevin wasn’t interested in her ideas. His op, he said. He’d run it his way.

HishisShe shut up. His op, he’d take the blame for scoring zip. She convinced herself to enjoy her paid vacation in Florida and not give a damn about the results.

HisAlmost.

Now, she turned onto her street. The pavement between her and her rented bungalow was deserted. She lifted the business card to eye level and flipped it over. The male scrawl on the back read, “You need to talk to me today. Ryane’s office. 1700.”

She sniffed. As if a bounty hunter could teach her criminal apprehension.

herAn image of Tommy O’Brien formed in her brain. Taller than she was. His torso as solid as she remembered, no flesh bulging over the waistband of those bus-driver trousers. Muscular forearms, the rampant dark hairs a match for the thick thatch on his head. Nothing stupid about the man’s looks. He might have a good idea.

Maybe she should listen to him. She hated going scoreless regardless of who got blamed for the loss.

Glancing at her watch, she saw it was five minutes past three o’clock. Enough time to review the case file, map out the best route to drive her rental car to the university, and shower and change before meeting Tommy. She stepped up her pace, trying to remember which clothes she’d packed for this trip.

The university carillon was chiming for the fifth time when Dawna stepped into the spacious office Ryane O’Brien shared with two other female assistant coaches. A view of fronds topping the palm trees along the outfield fence of the baseball stadium filled the two windows in the far wall. Tommy lounged against a teak desk centered between them. Matching desks were pushed against each of the two sidewalls. The floral scents of the coaches’ colognes mingled with the basketball program’s standard odors of liniment, old sneakers, and girl sweat.

Tommy unfolded his arms and trained his deep-set Irish-blue eyes on her, apparently taking in her halter-top sundress, bare legs, and the platform heels on her best sandals. His mouth curved into an appreciative smile.