Chapter 19

Midafternoon: I looked down at the next address on Billy’s list and shook my head. I’d driven more than an hour south on the Florida Turnpike toward Homestead, and then another half hour southwest past Florida City, the last civilized place on the southern peninsula of the state before the long jaunt on the Overseas Highway to the Florida Keys.

I was now on Ingraham Highway—good luck with street signs. The eight-mile-long roadway is named after James Edmundson Ingraham, one of those “visionary” industrialists who was convinced in the late 1800s that the Florida Everglades could be drained and channeled and turned into a utopia of profitable farmland. Nature, of course, had her say, and now the road that bears Ingraham’s name runs from the entrance of Everglades National Park at its western terminus to the largest state prison in South Florida, the Dade County Correctional Institution, to the east. In a historical sense, both beginning and end seem apropos.

On either side of the two-lane road were open fields of farmland as flat as a pool table and lined with knee-high tomato plants. At variable intervals, the plots would inexplicably end and butt up next to forestlike acres of mature avocado trees, lush and green and generations old. The next carefully zoned field would be lined with rows and rows of towering royal palm trees, standing like soldiers before the march. This was a part of Florida you never see on postcards, more akin to Midwest plains than the subtropics. With few signs and no discernible addresses, I was left to slow down at each turnoff or gate entrance to search for a mailbox or mile marker or number or clue.

After a few aborted turns down tractor-rutted service roads and a stop at a corrugated steel warehouse shell, I finally came upon a walled and ornamented entryway that appeared residential—residential, considering its location, but palatial considering the six-foot-tall bronzed sculptures of rearing horses that flanked an iron gate. A family crest read ARENAS. Through the gate, I could see a long, palm-lined driveway and a terra-cotta-colored barrel-tiled roof in the distance.

I was in search of Manuel Arenas, age forty-one, convicted sixteen years ago in federal court for unlawful distribution, possession with intent to distribute, and importation of cocaine. Diane had prosecuted the case against Manuel and his older brother, Eduardo. The eldest brother was ruled not guilty for lack of direct evidence. When Manuel was convicted, Diane had asked for the maximum penalty, fifteen to life.

Billy had explained to me that the younger brother had refused to implicate his sibling and took the weight himself, testifying that he alone had used his family’s agricultural business in southern Dade County as a cloak for his own illegal activities. In court on the day his sentence was announced, Manuel Arenas, then twenty-three years old, had raised his hands with fingers pointed as if forming duel handguns, aimed at Diane’s face, and spit four times while jerking his wrist in mock-firing before bailiffs could wrestle him out of the room to his echoing cries of “You will die, bitch! You will die!”

Billy’s depiction of Diane’s own recollection of the moment, and the fact that it still resonated with her years later, included the look of total rage on the young man’s face and the complete conviction that a deep wrong was being done to him—and that she was responsible. The undisputed fact that Arenas had imported tons of cocaine into the United States using a variety of means and through his own family’s legitimate business ties and operations seemed to roll off his back.

In fact, he’d been recorded in phone taps bragging about how he used hollowed-out railroad ties into which he stuffed coke. He’d brought tons into the country as framing material for outside gardens. When the DEA got onto that scheme, he’d claimed that he himself had discovered how to blend the coke into a paste that could be molded into decorative flowerpots and imported into Florida, and then crushed and refiltered into high-grade cocaine. At trial, his only defense had been that it all was simply business.

Now, I stood at the electronically locked gate of the Arenas family­ compound, waiting to ask if he’d carried out his long-ago threat to a federal prosecutor. With no badge, no authority, and no expectations, I pushed the intercom button on the gate.

“May I help you?” a man’s voice asked.

“My name is Max Freeman. I’m here to speak to Manuel Arenas.”

“And what is your business with Mr. Arenas?”

“I’d like to ask him about Judge Diane Manchester.”

There was a pause, but not one that seemed inordinately long.

“Please come in, Mr. Freeman,” the voice said. The gate, triggered from within, began to open.

The entry drive was grand: sixty-foot palms, multicolored bougainvillea adorning either side, a covered porte-cochère under which I pulled the Fury. When I parked and stepped out onto the shaded tile drive, a man was already standing next to a set of double oak doors. They were massive and appeared to have been hand-carved.

“Mr. Freeman,” the man said with a tick of Spanish accent as I approached. He extended his hand and I took it.

“Eduardo Arenas,” he said in introduction, and waved his hand into the entryway of his home. “Please, sir.”

I nodded and stepped through the doorway into the coolness of air-conditioning turned a bit too cold and the fragrance of fresh-cut flowers a bit too cloying. The interior was as grand as the outside: polished marble, glittering chandeliers, pale leather seating, a variety of artwork on textured walls, all awash with sunlight pouring through two-story glass windows that formed the back wall of an expansive great room. As I stepped down from the foyer into the room, a woman dressed in a maid’s uniform approached with a tray.

“Coffee, Mr. Freeman?” Eduardo Arenas said. “Or something else?”

“Uh, no. No, thank you,” I managed. I admit I was slightly put off by the welcoming tone and deference considering I had shown up unannounced. But I was not here to be clever or unassuming.

“I would like to speak to your brother, Mr. Arenas,” I said. “Is he available?”

Eduardo was a man small in stature, maybe five-eight and 140 pounds. He had dark, perfectly coifed hair, black eyes, and some age lines in his face, but fewer than one would expect for a man nearing sixty. He was dressed in dark linen slacks and an intricately patterned white guayabera shirt.

“I have sent for Manuel, Mr. Freeman. He is out working in the groves,” Eduardo Arenas said, motioning me to sit as the maid placed the coffee service on a glass-topped table before leaving. “May I ask what your visit is in reference to?” The man’s English was perfect.

“I assume you recognize the name of Judge Manchester,” I said. “Are you aware of the recent news of the judge?” Arenas sat and poured us both a small china cup of dark coffee.

“Her maiden name is McIntyre. She was the prosecutor in my brother’s federal trial,” Arenas said matter-of-factly. “Many years ago … and yes, I keep up with the news, Mr. Freeman. The kidnapping of a judge in the United States is very big news.”

Arenas sipped his coffee and sat silent, waiting for another question.

“I work for Mr. Billy Manchester, the judge’s husband. And as you might guess, we are looking at all possibilities involving her disappearance. Mr. Manchester said that his wife was very afraid of your brother, Mr. Arenas,” I said, matching the man’s direct tone. “Even after many years.”

Arenas put down his cup, looked down between his knees, folded his hands in front of him, and sighed.

“Manuel was very young then, Mr. Freeman,” he said, still looking down. “He was young and foolish and caught up with himself and the times.”

I said nothing. I’d heard too many stories begin the same way. I knew Arenas would go on and I let him.

“Manny made his mistakes, no doubt. He was a young man too proud, too boisterous, and perhaps through the fault of his own family, too arrogant about the things he had and the things he thought he deserved.”

Arenas finally looked up, his forehead and the corners of his dark eyes now holding the age lines that seemed absent only minutes before. His expression didn’t hold sadness as much as a look of a recognized guilt.

“I was the older one, supposedly the more mature. I was the one who should have looked out for him, taught him lessons. I did not then, Mr. Freeman. I want to believe we have both learned a great deal over the years.”

I held my silence.

“During my brother’s incarceration, our family continued to build,” he said, raising his palms to indicate the opulence surrounding him. “We now have contracts with the state and supply most of the decorative palm trees for nearly every roadside off-ramp and rest area and government facility in South Florida. We are a serious and legitimate business, Mr. Freeman. We hold no grudges, nor do we harbor ill feelings for the dues we had to pay for past transgressions.

“On our mother’s grave, my brother had nothing to do with whatever has befallen Judge Manchester.”

The speech came off as heartfelt. Yet I’d heard such orations before, from political speeches to confessional soliloquies to parole board pleadings. I was about to ask a question when noise from an adjoining hall drew both our attentions. Manuel Arenas entered the room pulling a broad-brimmed hat from his head and held it in his hands as his brother stood.

“Manuel, this is Mr. Freeman. Mr. Freeman, this is my brother, Manuel, the foreman of our family’s work crews, planters, and harvesters. He has been in the fields since five a.m., as he always is.”

The younger Arenas was wider at the shoulders, thicker in the forearms, and grayer at the temples than his older brother. He was dressed in dusty jeans, workman’s boots, and a denim shirt sweat-soaked at the neck and under the arms. He wiped a strand of hair from his forehead with a sleeve and wiped his hand on his pants before taking my hand. I could feel the hardened calluses on his palms and fingers.

He looked me in the eye when he said “Sir,” and then turned his gaze back to his brother.

“Mr. Freeman is a friend of Mr. Billy Manchester, the husband of Diane McIntyre.”

No recognition came to Manuel Arenas’s eyes. In fact, he looked quizzically at his brother, awaiting further information.

“Ms. McIntyre was the prosecutor at your court trial and is now a federal judge,” Eduardo said.

“OK,” the younger brother nodded but continued to look down.

“The judge has gone missing, and Mr. Freeman is here to ask if you might know anything that might help them find her.”

Again, Manuel looked perplexed by the explanation, looking first at his brother and then at me.

“How?” he said in incomprehension.

“How was she kidnapped?” I asked, a little too loud and in a tone that might be taken as questioning his statement or actions.

“How may I help, sir?” he asked. “I don’t know this person. I only work in the fields. I work with my men and with the other foremen of other crews and the truck drivers making deliveries. Eduardo deals with all the business people, the lawyers and such.”

“You don’t have any contact with the old drug runners?” I said as plainly and upfront as I could. Again, Manuel looked to his brother.

“Do you know a Colombian named Escalante?” I said with a sharpness in my voice that I was hoping might jar him. But he did not lose his composure.

“Those times are gone, Mr. Freeman—and so are those people,” he said quietly, looking me straight in the eye without a hint of brashness or anger or contempt. “That was another life for me.”

He shifted his weight from boot to boot, trying to find something to do with his hands.

“Eduardo,” he said to his brother. “May I get back to work, please? We’ve got that shipment to make to the farm in Ocala. It’s going to take until after dark to load.”

The older brother looked to me, the question on his face.

“Anything else, Mr. Freeman?”

I shook my head. If these guys were bullshitting me, they were better actors than they’d been drug runners.

Manuel bowed his head. “I wish I could be more helpful,” he said, and left the room. His brother waited until his sibling was gone before stepping toward the front door.

“Manny works very hard, Mr. Freeman. His family takes care of him. He sacrificed a lot and we owe him that.”

“You mean sacrificed a lot by taking the punishment alone?” I said. “Is that some kind of confession, Mr. Arenas?”

The man looked directly into my face, unblinking.

“My confessions are only to my God, Mr. Freeman. Is there anything else, sir?”

“The authorities may be right behind me, Mr. Arenas,” I said, accepting my dismissal.

“They will have my complete cooperation. If they want my phone records, my business contracts, access to my properties, they are theirs to have.

“I repeat my brother’s words; I don’t really know Mrs. Manchester. I wish we could be more helpful. I hope the best for her.”

Forty-five minutes later, I was northbound on the Florida Turnpike. All I’d done was run down false leads, no better than the guys working the reward tips. I was fuming in my own brand of anger when the chirp of a phone snapped me out of my funk. I had three phones and pulled out the one that connected me to CQ the basketball star.

“Got something,” was all the young man on the other end said.

“Face-to-face?” I said.

“Only way.”

“I’ll be there in ninety minutes.”