Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [52]
Laurie Ravenal introduced herself and sat down stiffly.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
“Oh my, no.” Christine smiled. “I don’t get many visitors. Not many of the locals would be caught dead talking to me.”
“They don’t like interference, especially from Tallahassee,” Laurie said. “You shouldn’t take it personally. The Governor himself would get the cold shoulder down here.”
The special task force had been formed a year earlier in the Pavlovian politics that logically followed the embarrassing arrest of a number of Key West’s finest, who had been caught taking big bribes. The Governor declared that the new squad was going to root out the island’s most egregious scoundrels, but, in reality, most of its paltry budget had been squandered on publicity junkets before Christine Manning had even been handed her plane tickets.
Newly divorced, bored to numbness with sleepy Tallahassee, and admittedly hungry to make a crusading name for herself, Christine had accepted the Governor’s offer. The Key West locals had promptly given her the smallest office in the courthouse, a peeling desk that did not lock, and a telephone upon which half the civil servants in Monroe County could eavesdrop, if they wished.
For nearly eleven months, Christine had tried to make friends and cultivate dependable sources, quietly building up her files but accumulating almost nothing of prosecutorial value. In the meantime, she had watched enough sunsets at Mallory Square to last her a good long lifetime. She was ready to get off the Rock.
“Laurie, you’re obviously not here to give me the cold shoulder,” Christine said.
“No.”
“You want to talk about Breeze?”
“No!” Laurie blushed. That was the last thing she wanted to talk about. “It’s Drake Boone,” she added quickly. “What have you heard about Boone?”
“I suppose I’ve heard everything,” Christine said. “That he’s a bagman for a big smuggling operation, a fixer here at the courthouse, an errand boy for Chief Barnett. I’ve heard about his home on St. Thomas and his apartment in Manhattan. He’s a snake.”
“What about his personal life?” Laurie asked.
Christine shrugged. “He snorts coke, like everybody else in this town who can scrape up a dollar bill.” She decided not to mention how, after only one week in town and knowing full well who she was, Drake Boone had greeted her with a hug and a small amber vial of Peruvian flake. Terrific sense of humor.
Laurie fidgeted nervously. “There’s a young girl over at Duval Hospital that you ought to see. She can’t tell you why she’s there or what happened, but her mother might. What I heard was that it happened at a party at Drake Boone’s office.”
“What happened?”
“This kid ate about a dozen Quaaludes.”
“And she’s still alive?”
“That’s a matter of opinion. Go look for yourself. My boss heard about it from a friend who was a patient at the hospital. Says the girl’s a veggie. He says Boone fed her all those ‘ludes from a mason jar.” Laurie sighed and stood up. “I don’t know what else went on, but I think it’s just as well that the girl can’t talk about it.”
Christine asked, “How old is she?”
“Fifteen.”
“What’s her name?”
“Julie. Julie something. Bobby knows. My boss.”
Christine Manning began to write in a legal pad. “That would be Bobby Freed, the councilman.”
“Yes. He’s very upset.”
“Were there any other witnesses?”
“Probably,” Laurie said. “It’s awful. After I heard Bobby talking about it, I figured somebody ought to do something. Somebody ought to know, even though nothing will come of it.”
“You might be surprised,” Christine said.
“It’s awful,” Laurie said.
“It certainly is a nasty little yarn. I’ll pursue it, I promise,” Christine said. “While you’re here, tell me how Breeze is doing.”
Laurie smoothed the crease from the front of her jeans, picked her purse off the floor, and moved toward the door. “Oh, he’s fine,” she said earnestly. “He’s out on a fishing trip.” Then she