Written by student Michelle Silver, this mystery will be posted in three parts over the next week.
A Detective’s Tale: Part 3
I ran into Dottie few days later as she was leaving a salon. She had drastically changed her hair color and style. This intrigued me. Something told me she was up to something. When I said hi she acted as if she had never seen me before in her life. I decided to follow her as I was off for a few days and had nothing better to do. Instead of going home, she went to a restaurant on South Beach. It was sort of run down and not the type of place she would normally frequent. She sat at an outside table and ordered a frozen daiquiri as if waiting for someone. She kept looking around every way except toward the beach that everyone else was looking at. The clouds over the water were the prettiest shade of pink and purple, as it was nearing sunset and it made me wonder why she hadn’t noticed.
I didn’t have to wait long for my answer. All of a sudden, who shows up with a new haircut and clean shaven, but Mr. Undercover? Now they really had my attention. How did they know each other? Had they met during the murder investigation? I doubted that - after all that would have jeopardized his operation. I tried to move close enough to hear their conversation. What I heard would totally turn this whole story around. I approached the detectives working the case and they were interested enough to arrange to watch and record both Dottie and Mr. Undercover. After all, no one likes a dirty cop. They hoped I was wrong, but I wasn’t.
It seems that Dottie had met Mr. Undercover during a domestic dispute before her divorce. They had been attracted to each other from the start. After her divorce they started dating. When Jake had gotten into financial trouble, knowing he liked to gamble they plotted to set him up. Mr. Undercover met him at Jai Lai, and told him about a bookie he knew that understood about gambling addiction. Introductions were made and Jake fell into the dangerous world of bookies and loan sharks. When he had gotten in deep enough, Mr. Undercover told Mike about Jake’s ex-wife wearing some very expensive jewels at some fundraisers he had seen in the paper. Arrangements were made for Jake to steal the necklace and bring it to Mike. Unbeknownst to Jake and Mike, another plot was also in the making. Mr. Undercover would find out where and when Jake was supposed to turn over the necklace and would beat Mike’s man there. Unfortunately, Jake had changed his mind. So, Mr. Undercover went to Jake’s house in the middle of the night, and tortured him until he turned over the key to a locker where the necklace was. Knowing Mike was sending someone to Jake’s house in the morning, he couldn’t leave Jake alive. So he killed him and got to Mike’s house at his normal time. In the morning he acted surprised to find out Mike had been crossed. He volunteered to help Mike find out who had gotten to Jake first. In the meantime he turned over all his information on racketeering to the RICO squad and Mike was busted.
Mr. Undercover took a few weeks off and during this time he and Dottie applied for passports. Supposedly to go to the Bahamas on a much needed vacation. I was lucky enough to be there when they were surrounded at the marina as they were about to set sail. They even had the necklace on them. It seems they had contacted the original owners and had negotiated a very profitable deal for its return. After all, the insurance company had paid her over $75,000.00 twenty years ago. The daughter wanted her necklace back but didn’t want to reimburse the insurance company. So it was worth it to her to pay these people $100,000.00 to give her the necklace and move to some island far away and start life over. I just wonder if both of them would have made it to the Bahamas. After all, the brutality I saw in the way Jake died made me wonder if Dottie would have become shark bait. One can live a lot better on $100,000.00 than two.
I returned home after stopping at police headquarters where I had to make a statement. No charges would be filed against the daughter from Star Island, but the insurance company was notified that the necklace had been recovered. They took possession and she could have it back if she repaid the insurance company. At this time the insurance company is loaning the necklace and its story to one of the museums here in Florida. I wouldn’t be surprised if they make a TV movie about this one day - after all it has theft, deceit, and dirty cops - what more could you ask for? As for me, I think it’s time to find a small town, maybe in Georgia, to move to, as I have had enough of this big city life!!!
