Eighteen

Terry Hadley had heard about the crime from Ted Van Deventer, who called him at home on Christmas morning.  Van Deventer stayed on the line while Hadley scanned the article in the Sentinel Star.

 “Would you come out and talk to Tommy?”  Van Deventer said.  “The word is out that he’s the prime suspect.”

Hadley lived north of Orlando.  His route to Orange Memorial took him past the furniture store, where the sheriff’s vehicles out front gave some hint of the tragedy that had played out there the evening before.

Earlier that year, Hadley had become well acquainted with Zeigler.  Hadley was defending a fifty-four-year-old black man named Andrew James against charges of selling marijuana to an undercover agent of the state Beverage Department.  James was a friend of Zeigler’s.  He was also the only black man in West Orange to hold a full liquor license.  Since the incident was alleged to have taken place at his bar in Winter Garden, James was in jeopardy of losing his license and a very profitable business.

He originally retained Ted Van Deventer, and pled guilty to the charge.  But James apparently had misgivings.  Zeigler referred James to Hadley, and Hadley withdrew the plea.

Zeigler remained actively involved with the case as Hadley prepared for trial.  He told Hadley that James was getting a raw deal.  Florida’s liquor licenses were allotted on a strict quota system and usually were available only by private sale.  Very rarely, though, the state Beverage Department resold licenses that it had revoked.  Zeigler told Hadley that James had been set up for forfeiture because he had refused to sell his license to certain powerful white interests in West Orange.

According to Zeigler, that group included a local businessman whom Zeigler believed to be the operator of a large loan-sharking organization in West Orange’s black communities and labor camps.  Zeigler said that some elements of the local police in West Orange were connected with the operation, working as collectors and enforcers; he claimed that he had seen policemen assault debtors for having failed to make their payments.

Zeigler also said that the loan sharks were aware of his own interest in their operation.  He said that a certain Winter Garden patrolman had threatened his life during a routine traffic stop.

Hadley found none of this difficult to believe.  He knew West Orange, and he had heard of the loan sharks.