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“Lieutenant Malone,” Foster said. “I’ll say it again. You must see why I can’t allow Coleen to learn any of this.”
Part of me was disgusted even talking to this man. He was a willing party in a conspiracy to commit murder. Add to that the victim had been a leader, a hero, an icon. Even worse, he seemed to only care what Coleen would think. Which was not in doubt. But I needed this man to keep talking. So I played along.
“I get it, loud and clear. But, Reverend, this toothpaste is out of the tube. It’s going to be hard to keep this a secret anymore.”
He shook his head. “Coleen doesn’t know any of this. Just you, me, Lael, Oliver, and Jansen. Valdez suspects, considering I had the coin, but he doesn’t know for sure. We can keep this secret. Just give them the files.”
Most of the dots had connected.
One remained.
“On the recording you asked for a million dollars. Yet they gave you a 1933 Double Eagle. How did that happen?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
We sat in the truck, with the windows down, beneath the shade of a stately oak. The June day was warm with little breeze. The bustling metropolis that was Micanopy, population 450 according to the welcome sign out on the highway, churned along at a quiet pace.
I watched as Foster struggled with his thoughts.
“You have to understand,” he said. “I was only twenty-three. Barely out of divinity school. Martin recruited me before I was ever assigned a church. I was young, brash, and, in some ways, terribly arrogant. We all were some combination of that back then. It seemed necessary in order to endure what we had to endure. Four years I traveled across the country with him. So many protests. So many marches. Poverty was everywhere. It seemed the Negro’s fate to always be poor. Most had little to no chance of doing anything meaningful with their lives. A few managed success, but the vast majority were beat down and held in their place by a system that refused to yield. I wasn’t one of those who thought we should burn the country down in a violent revolution to change things.”
“You just wanted to be rich.” I mocked him with words from the tape.
He nodded. “I was foolish with money. I loved to bet on horses, dogs, sports, you name it. And I wasn’t good at it. But it was an outlet. I liked nice clothes, fancy cars, good beer. In short, I liked to spend money. But what twentysomething-year-old doesn’t?”
“What did you think would happen once King was dead?”
“I didn’t care. None of that mattered to me. I only wanted my million dollars.”
“But you got a coin.”
He nodded. “A final insult from the white establishment.”
“What is this?” Foster said, examining the gold coin Jansen had laid on the table.
“A 1933 Double Eagle. It’s worth millions of dollars.”
“How many millions?”
“Four or five at least. It’s actually the last one known to exist.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
Jansen shrugged. “Sell it. Some buyer somewhere will pay you for it. Just be careful and don’t get caught. It’s actually illegal to own that coin.”
“I don’t want it. We agreed on a million dollars. Cash.”
“And I just paid you more with the coin.”
“That was not our deal.”
“Look, Foster. There’s no way we can give you a million dollars in cash. The moment you go to put that in a bank, red flags would rise everywhere.”
“I have no intention of putting that money in a bank.”
Jansen waved off the observation. “We can’t risk anything being traced back to us. This has to be a clean break. You did your part. We did ours. We had this coin, which no one knows about. There’s no trail back to us, besides your word. But you would have to implicate yourself in a conspiracy to commit murder in order to involve us. Besides, no one would believe you anyway. Trust me, preacher, we have erased all connections to you. There’s not a piece of paper that even hints you ever existed. It’s all gone. So take the damn coin. Sell it. And be grateful.”
“You’re a lying bastard.”
“And you’re the guy who sold out Martin Luther King Jr. for money. Which one of us is worse? You’re lucky we even gave you the coin.”
Foster picked up the gold piece. “Millions, you say?”
“Yep. I’m told it’s the most valuable coin in the world.”
“After he gave me the coin,” Foster said, “I never saw or spoke to Jansen again, until yesterday.”
“If not for Valdez and his pictures from Jansen’s file, it would be all gone. Too bad for them it’s not.”
And I brought out the two thick manila envelopes again.
“They want those and the coin,” Foster said, “in return for Coleen and Nate. They told me that if we can’t make a trade, Nate and Coleen will go back to Cuba with Valdez and I’ll never see either of them again. Do you still have the coin?”
I patted my jean pocket. “Safe and sound.”
And I also still had Cie’s rifle, whatever good that would do me.
“We have to give them what they want,” Foster said. “Oliver said he’d give me the original of the recording you have here.”
“Is that why you sold me out in Port Mayaca?”
“We were brought to Oliver’s house for appearances. Once you and he talked and everything was secure, we would have all been released and I would have the original recording. Everything over. It seemed like a smart move.”
“Except that Valdez had other ideas.”
“That caught Jansen and Oliver off guard. So they’ve sent me to try one more time. They want this to go away as much as I do.”
But I didn’t.
I was now privy to a conspiracy that would shock the world.
“J. Edgar Hoover sanctioned the death of Martin Luther King Jr. Surely you can see that I can’t let that go.”
“What good comes from exposing it now?”
“Jansen and Oliver will go to prison.”
“As will I, and I’ll lose a daughter in the process.”
“That inevitability was set in motion a long time ago, when you made the deal with them.”
“I never sold the coin.”
“Why not?”
“Never could find a buyer.”
I smiled. “I thought you were broke. In debt. I thought you wanted to be rich. Tell me the truth. Why didn’t you sell it?”
“The last year of Martin’s life was truly difficult for him. He lost the president’s ear when he came out against the war. He’d already lost the ear of many young blacks, who no longer believed nonviolence was the way for change. His marriage was in trouble. The SCLC swirled in civil war. He stayed depressed, tired, and despondent. Even his health was failing. He was overweight, smoked terribly, and drank too much. Doctors had told him he had the beginnings of serious heart disease.
“Black people were tired of being beat up by racists and thrown in jail, offering no resistance. They’d had enough of symbols. Even worse, many whites soured on Martin because of his shift on the Vietnam War. They accepted him as a spokesperson for civil rights, but not as an antiwar advocate. By April 1968 Martin was not the same man who’d stood at the Lincoln Memorial five years earlier and proclaimed I have a dream.”
I could hear the torment and regret in his voice.
“After his death, though, everything changed. It was amazing. The world began to listen again. It was as if he were still alive, at the height of his influence, his message loud and clear. He became relevant again. Hoover never discredited him. How could he? The man had been shot down in his prime. His image remained inviolate. He became a martyr. Only years later, when historians started culling through declassified FBI records, were Martin’s personal weaknesses finally exposed. But by then none of it mattered. He wasn’t a martyr anymore. He’d become a saint. A savior. How could I cash in on that?”
Maybe because you helped kill him? But I kept my thoughts to myself. Foster
was right about one thing, though. Coleen and Nate were the priority.
“Where did you drive to Gainesville from?” I asked.
