Free Jack in the Green by Diane Capri

Vernon and coming up empty. Which Gaspar figured was a ruse of some sort. Surely she’d found a way to get a look at the shooter earlier today. If so, she’d have already made this connection. Not that she owed him anything, but what other information was she holding back?
    A waiter appeared at the table with menus and took drink orders. All three ordered coffee. Kimball and Otto ordered black. Gaspar requested café con leche , the rich, Cuban coffee heavily laced with heated milk.
    “What’s the best dinner on the menu?” Otto asked.
    “You can’t go wrong,” the waiter replied. “George’s Place has the best chefs in the city. The food here in the Sunset Bar is the same you’d get in the dining room.”
    Otto said, “What did you have for dinner?”
    He grinned. “My favorite is the Thomas Jefferson Roast Beef. Hands down.”
    “I’ll have that,” Otto said, handing the menu back.
    “I’d add the pear salad with gorgonzola,” he said.
    “Sold.”
    “Make it two,” Kimball said.
    “Three,” Gaspar said.
    “You got it,” the waiter replied, before collecting their menus. “Be right back with the coffee while you wait.”
    When they were alone again, Kimball said, “Like you, I’m handicapped a bit because I don’t know Tampa all that well. We can ask Judge Carson who those guys are. She might know, if they’re regulars. Or if she doesn’t, she can find out, since her husband owns the place.”
    Otto’s eyes popped open a little wider, but Kimball had been watching her quarry and didn’t notice.
    Gaspar played white knight for Otto and pupil for Kimball at the same time. “I didn’t know Carson’s husband owned this restaurant. His name must be George?”
    Kimball returned her gaze to Gaspar and Otto and her lips turned up in the most natural grin Gaspar had seen from her yet. She had a pretty face when she wasn’t scowling. Which had been rarely so far.
    “Let’s give the Cuban dude a cigar,” she said. “Speaking of which, Willa Carson smokes Cuban cigars. You probably didn’t know that, either, did you?”
    This time, Gaspar did laugh out loud. The flamboyant Judge Willa Carson was becoming more and more interesting. Too bad he wasn’t posted to the FBI’s Tampa field office. Sounded like a lot more fun than Miami.
    “I’ll be sure to ask her if she’d like an after-dinner smoke if we have the time.” Cuban cigars were illegal, but the tobacco was now being grown in places like the Dominican Republic. The best ones were hand-rolled, of course, and aged until just the right flavor was to be experienced. Gaspar hadn’t enjoyed a quality cigar since he left Miami and he missed them.
    He’d have asked more questions, but Otto interrupted the foolishness. “So those two guys and the shooter killed today must be locals. These two must also know Weston. Might have known the Weston family shooter, too, if they got permission to attend his execution.”
    Kimball said, “Makes sense to me.”
    “So whatever connection all five men have must relate back in time, at least, to the murder of Weston’s family,” Otto continued.
    If you didn’t know her, you’d think she was simply musing out loud. But she’d already reached conclusions and was just polishing them.
    Gaspar said nothing.
    “Makes sense,” Kimball replied. “I can’t confirm that, based on my investigation so far, but it’s a good working hypothesis and probably true. You’re FBI agents. You could ask them. It’s illegal to lie to a federal agent.”
    “You said Weston owed money to a gang that he didn’t pay,” Otto said. “You said that’s why his family was killed.”
    “Yes.”
    “What kind of gang? Drugs? Human trafficking?”
    Kimball shook her head. “The gang itself was probably involved in all of that. But Weston’s vice was gambling. Got in way over his head, as gamblers often do.”
    “Back then, when Weston’s family was murdered, gambling was mostly illegal here except for Greyhound