6 Martini Regrets (6 page)

CHAPTER 13

One Friday morning I was in the bar getting ready for the lunch crowd. Ella crooned in the background while overhead the giant fan turned slowly. It and the mahogany bar came from a private men’s club back in the thirties. Black-and-white pictures of the early days in Florida cover the walls, and giant palms in clay tubs provide privacy for black leather club chairs and small silver tables. The bar of the Sunset is probably my favorite place in the world.

Tully strolled in and perched on a stool in front of me. His handsome rawhide face broke out in a big smile as he shoved his battered cowboy hat to the back of his head and said, “Good to see you, little girl.”

My thirtieth birthday had come and gone more than a year before, but I couldn’t stop my old man from thinking of me as a little girl. For a long time it had made me angry, like he was putting me down, but now it just made me laugh. I pulled him a beer and said, “What’s happening, Tully?”

“Not much. Just thought I’d better come and tell you that Bernice is moving to California. Wanted to tell you before Ziggy gets his tail in a twist and rushes in here to worry you.”

My hand stopped pulling the pint and I swung to face Tully.

He pointed at the half-full glass. “Jesus, girl, don’t ruin my drink.”

I looked back to the brown liquid and said, “So, how and when did this all come about?” Bernice was my ex-mother-in-law, a woman I hated but someone Tully seemed to care for. She and Tully had taken up with each other the summer before, and I’d practiced biting my tongue until the blood flowed. “You guys seemed pretty solid.”

“We were . . . we are, but Bernice wants to be closer to Amy now that a grandchild is coming.” There was the smallest hint of an accusation in his voice. He never got tired of telling me to hurry up and have a kid before he got too old to enjoy it, and I never gave up telling him to mind his own business.

I set the beer on a paper coaster in front of him. “I can understand that.”

He reached out and pulled the stein towards him, his lips already pursing to welcome in the liquid.

“Did she ask you to move to California with her?”

He wiped his lips with back of his hand and said, “Yup.”

“Why aren’t you going?”

“Take me out of Florida, I’d likely die.” He sipped his beer again. “’Sides, she wants to be with her daughter just like I want to be with mine.”

I let out the breath I been holding waiting for his answer. “Ah, Tully, are you saying you’re giving up Bernice for me?”

“Not exactly.”

“Good. I’m glad you didn’t try ’cause now I don’t have to tell you how full of shit you are. My guess is, you got tired of Bernice and you’re happy to see her go.”

“Whatever you say, baby girl.” He pointed the glass at me. “But I’m sticking with you.”

I grinned at him and then I said, “Tully, I’ve got something to tell you.” I told him about the night in the swamp. And then I told him about the other deaths, something I hadn’t told Clay.

Tully listened without saying a word and then he said, “You think it’s over?”

I turned away and reached for a bar cloth, saying, “Sure.”

He knew I was lying, but he just nodded and picked up his beer.

Not long after my talk with Tully, there was a knock on my office door. I didn’t lift my eyes from the timesheets I was filling out on the computer. I just hollered, “What?” and went on typing in numbers.

The door opened quietly. I heard it close but no one spoke.

I looked up.

Detective Styles stood just inside the door, leaning back on it with his hands folded behind him.

“Oh,” was all that I could manage. I sat back in the chair, my hands settling out of sight in my lap as I waited.

Detective Styles was the cop in charge when my husband, Jimmy Travis, was murdered two years ago. Always holding himself in check and hiding any emotion, Styles was a man I’d thought of as gray and uninteresting—until recently. Then he’d become far too interesting.

Over the last couple of years our connection had changed, and we’d started dancing across dangerous ground, the advance and retreat of “Shall we wreck our lives by giving into a passing physical desire, or shall we pretend we’re adults?” And then one night shortly before I ran to Miami, I saw another side of him, the face of raw and naked passion. It was a crazy experience we both were eager to forget.

We stared at each other, searching for danger—or maybe that thrilling excitement that had sent me into panic mode.

Styles’s green eyes gave nothing away. The man I always called Mr. Bland, the man who always dressed in a plain beige suit, today had gone wild and put on a pink shirt with a navy and pink tie. He said, “Hi.” And then he added, “I’m here on official business.”

Well, that answered one question.

He walked slowly towards me, almost as if he was reluctant to get too close in case of . . . what? He stopped three feet away from my desk. “I had a call from Dade County police force. They found a young man murdered, executed by a shot in the head.” He folded his hand into a gun and touched his temple with a forefinger. “He had your business card in his pocket.”

If other things weren’t distracting Styles, he would have caught the little start I gave, the sucking in of air. This was the moment I had dreaded. My guts were doing a rumba, but I managed to keep my mouth shut.

He pulled a photo out of his jacket and, leaning forward, laid it on the desk, pushing it towards me with the tips of his fingers.

I reached out a finger and slid it the rest of the way to me across the desk. Tito stared up at me. I pushed back in my chair, clutching my hands together in my lap to hide their trembling, and waited.

“Why?” Styles said.

“Why what?”

“Why did he have your card?”

It was because the ashtray in the truck was full of them. I lifted my shoulders and let them drop. “Someone must have given it to him.”

“Why?”

“You’re the detective. Maybe he was moving to this coast and was going to hit me up for a job—busboy, waiter . . .” I shrugged again, dismissing any knowledge of Tito. “Can’t tell you.”

He nodded in understanding but added just the same, “So you don’t know him?”

“Don’t think so.”

“You didn’t even ask what his name is.”

“Okay, what’s his name?”

“Tito Martinez.”

I pretended to search my memory bank. “Still don’t know him.”

“Can’t tell me anything about him?”

“Nope.”

“He had eight thousand dollars in cash in his pocket.”

“Then I sure as hell don’t know him.”

We both smiled.

“He’d just paid two thousand dollars for a used car. So how does a guy probably living on less than minimum come up with ten thousand cash?”

“If I knew a guy with ten thousand cash . . .” I stopped right there. It was a bad joke, and one I couldn’t make. “Still don’t know him.”

“So I guess that’s it.”

“Looks like it.” He leaned over and picked up the picture. He stepped back. Relief showed on his face. “Fine,” he said.

What was fine?

His mouth lifted at the corners in a slight smile. “Just needed to ask.”

“Anything else you want to know?”

It took him a minute. “Naw. I’m glad . . .” He didn’t finish.

Was he glad I didn’t know a murder victim or glad he could get the hell away from me?

“It’s done then,” he said.

I nodded. But it wasn’t done. There was a whole lot more between us than an inquiry from Dade County. There was a cobweb of emotions, with a dangerous something squirming in the center that neither of us was going anywhere near.

“I’ll tell Dade you don’t know anything about this guy.”

“Good,” I said, looking back to the computer screen.

He started for the door and then turned back. “We have to talk,” he said. “We can’t just go on avoiding each other.”

“Is that what we’re doing?”

“It was only a kiss.”

“Seen by Marley.”

“It only happened because we’d been drinking.”

“Yeah, lately too many things have been happening because I was drinking.” I smiled at him. “I’ve drunk my last martini.”

His forehead wrinkled. “Why . . .” Before he could finish, there was a brief rap on the door and Gwen came in.

Styles said, “Bye” and bolted out behind Gwen.

I was folding laundry on the kitchen table when I told Clay about Styles’s visit and Tito’s death. “Why did Tito have my card?” I asked. My hands smoothed a stack of towels, but my eyes searched Clay’s face for reassurance.

“Didn’t he say he was going to return the pickup?” Clay crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. “Maybe he took the card because he felt bad and wanted to call and tell you where you could find your truck.”

I pulled a pillowcase out of the pile. “Yeah, he said he was going to return it.” This simple explanation was reassuring.

“Why didn’t you tell Styles that you knew him?”

“But I don’t know him.” The cotton snapped as I shook it. “Except his name is Tito and he worked for the dead man, Ben Bricklin. The cops already know that.” I smoothed the material, folding it in on itself. “There’s nothing extra I can tell them about Tito.” I picked up the stack of clean laundry. “I don’t want to get any deeper into it. I don’t want the guys that killed Tito coming after me.”

“But maybe Tito told someone about you.”

A pile of towels tumbled from my hands.

CHAPTER 14

The Sunset was packed with tourists hiding from the eighty-five-degree sun, but there were two extra servers on, so I wasn’t totally on the run when the tall broad-shouldered man walked up to the bar and smiled at me. He was wearing a black tie with an orchid, hand-painted in white and mauve, on the silk. The outrageous necktie seemed at odds with the rest of him. In his early sixties, he was still fit and held himself with a confidence that said he was on top of life. Deeply tanned, like a man who’d spent his life on a golf course chasing pars, he had sharp blue eyes and stiff, wiry black hair that looked like it had an attitude to equal the guy himself. Even his eyebrows were thick and aggressive, but when he smiled I found myself smiling back at him.

A bartender quickly learns how to size people up, and I knew a few things right off. This man was different from the normal drinker who wanders in at lunchtime. This guy wasn’t in the Sunset because he was thirsty for a beer; he was there to talk. I could tell because he stood right in front of the beer taps. If you want to talk to the tender, position yourself where they can’t ignore you: at one of the work stations. I raised a finger and said, “I’ll be right with you,” then went to deliver the beer.

Coming back and watching him assess the room, taking it all in, I made another assumption. This was a man who was accustomed to being in charge—one who brooked no obstacle to his wishes.

My mind quickly processed the possibilities that brought him to the Sunset. It was one of those rare times in my life when I wasn’t noticeably behind in my payments, so he wasn’t there to break my legs or repossess something. And as far as I knew, he couldn’t have been sent to find me by a rich uncle with money to give away.

Wait and see, I told myself as I came up to him. “What can I bring you?” I said, giving him my best customer-relations smile.

He pointed to a purple orchid sitting by the cash register. “A fellow orchid lover, I see.”

My eyes followed his pointing finger before I replied. “Home Depot, the grocery store . . . I can never resist them.” I set a paper coaster on the bar in front of him.

“It’s a
Dendrobium
.”

I tried out the name. “I’ll have to take your word for it. I haven’t got a clue about them.”

His broad finger twirled the coaster. “It’s the most common orchid in the retail market. There are millions of them grown every year in Florida. A billion-dollar business.”

“No kidding.” Already I knew where this was going, but I’m awfully good at playing dumb. Well, let’s face it: it isn’t much of a stretch.

He smiled, a self-deprecating and strangely boyish smile. “I go on a bit, don’t I? Can’t help myself.”

“Do you grow orchids?”

“Nope, but my brother did.”

That’s when I knew for certain. I smiled and asked again, “What can I bring you?”

I drew the light beer while he spread hands the size of dinner plates on the bar and settled himself on a stool, still surveying his surroundings, taking in everything and judging. When I set the beer in front of him he drew it forward with a hand that knew how to work. Maybe I had him wrong, maybe he wasn’t a rich golf lizard, but he wasn’t in a hurry to set me straight. I filled a dozen orders while he drank half his beer. I’d go broke if everyone took as long to finish a beer as he did. He ordered a sandwich and didn’t finish half of that either. An hour later he was still there.

He lifted his nearly empty glass.

I drew his second beer slowly, watching him as I asked, “What brings you to Jacaranda?”

“You.”

I stared at him, hoping my face gave nothing away, and then, when the silence was becoming uncomfortable, I set the fresh drink in front of him. “That’s a line I’ve heard before,” I said, but I knew this wasn’t a casual attempt at a pickup. This man had an agenda. I tried to grin, carrying on with the joke, but I didn’t like where this conversation was heading. “I can quote you all the variations on that theme.” I dumped the dregs of his first beer and upended the dirty glass in the rack. My night of horror wasn’t over. I stood facing him, both hands on the bar, and waited.

“My name is Ethan Bricklin. My brother was Ben Bricklin.”

So that was why of all the beach bars in Florida he’d walked into this particular one.

“I’m sorry,” I said, faking confusion. “Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

“Ben was an orchid grower over east, near Homestead.”

“That doesn’t help.” I turned away and got a bag of lemons out of the bar fridge. “I still don’t know him.” I started slicing lemons.

“No, but you know the man who may have killed him.”

The knife slipped and sliced my finger. “Damn.” I wrapped a bar towel around my hand and pressed down hard, buying time. “You really know how to get a girl’s attention.”

“Sorry,” he said.

When I had myself and the bleeding under control, I said, “Maybe you should start at the beginning and tell me everything.”

“My brother, Ben, died in a fire, a fire that was deliberately set. A young man who worked for him, Tito Martinez, was suspected of the crime. The police think Tito killed Ben.”

It wasn’t hard to show shock. I’d only thought of Tito as a victim. Why hadn’t I considered that Tito might have killed Ben? I concentrated hard on remembering what Tito had said. Hadn’t he seen Ben Bricklin killed? Wasn’t that why he was running away? And surely Tito had been with me when the fire was set, which made me his alibi for that crime.

I realized Ethan Bricklin had gone silent, waiting for me to respond. I looked at him with genuine confusion and said, “I’m sorry about your brother. Have the police arrested . . . Tito, was that his name?”

He nodded. “Tito. No, he hasn’t been arrested.” Bricklin was considering me like an eagle watching a mouse in the grass. “Because Martinez has been murdered.”

“Murdered?”

He nodded. “When the police found him he had your name and address in his wallet.”

“And you know this because . . . ?”

“Because the police told me. Your name was the only unusual thing on him.”

That and eight thousand dollars, I thought, but I kept that observation to myself. “Okay.” I nodded in agreement. “Now I know what you’re talking about. The police came and asked me about someone who died with my business card in his pocket.” I rubbed my forehead, searching for words. “I have no idea why he had my name, unless he was going to come here looking for work. I get a lot of people like that; a friend gives them my name.” I turned away, unwrapping the towel and throwing it in the sink. I turned on the tap and let cold water splash over my finger and the towel below it. When the pink water draining away ran clear, I said, “We hire a lot of seasonal help. Someone who worked here last winter maybe told him it was a good place to work. Beyond that . . .” I shrugged any involvement on my part away and said, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

“So am I. Real sorry.” He tried a smile. “Regrets . . .” He looked away from me, his eyes searching the room as if he’d forgotten why he was in the Sunset. “You can’t get back time. So sometimes all we are left with are regrets. Take my advice: don’t leave things too long.”

I nodded. “It’s exactly what I’ve been telling myself lately.” I dug a bandage out of the drawer and pointed down the bar to three newcomers who were pulling out stools. “I have to serve those guys.”

“Sure.” With one word, he made it clear he was in no hurry, had no plan to go anywhere and wasn’t done with me yet. This man wanted answers he thought I might have.

When I came back down the bar again he leaned forward and said, “So it was just a freak thing he had your name?”

“That’s the only way I can explain it.”

He watched me with eyes the coldest shade of gray-blue I’d ever seen. This man really wanted to know what had happened to his brother, might even be looking for revenge. I was even more determined to stay silent and keep out of it.

“I can see why he had your card.” His head was nodding, but his eyes, locked on mine, were searching for the lie. “I can see how it would work; he was looking for a job.” He worried the inside of his cheek before he added, “But this Tito never came to talk to you, right?”

“Nope. As far as I know, he was never in Jacaranda.” I couldn’t help asking one question. “Why do you think your brother was killed?”

“Robbery—money for drugs probably.”

I nodded. “It seems that most of the crime in Florida has something to do with drugs.” I grabbed paper napkins and a bowl of nuts and went off to check on people at the bar whose glasses were still full.

Lunchtime was over and the customers had thinned out to a few diehards and latecomers, but Ethan Bricklin stayed on. Just seeing him, I would have bet he wasn’t the kind of guy who would waste an afternoon hanging out in a bar, but there he was, chatting with Mathew Fine, a local lawyer who’d come in for a late lunch after a meeting in Sarasota.

I was giving them lots of space, but Ethan raised a hand, motioning me back, and then he pushed his half-finished beer towards me and ordered a coffee.

“Obsessions are dangerous things,” he was telling Mathew when I brought him the extra cream he asked for. “They take us beyond reason, decency and even the law.” He looked up at me and said, “Thanks, Sherri. I was just telling Mathew about the people who make orchids their lives.”

Mathew grinned at me. “In here we’re mostly passionate about booze, right, Sherri?” His words cut too close to the bone for both of us.

“And thank god for that, or I’d have to find myself a new occupation.” I cleared away Mathew’s empty plate.

Mathew smiled and turned back to Ethan to ask, “So what made you get into orchids?”

“It wasn’t just me.” Ethan stirred his coffee. “My brother and I were both fixated on orchids, collecting them and breeding them. We came by it honestly. Our mother shared our enthusiasm and taught us well. She had a large assortment of native orchids she collected in the wild, from the swamps around where we grew up.” He frowned. “She gave her plants to Ben before she died . . . every one of them. I felt . . . well, she could have shared them between us, but it was always Ben.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding in understanding. “The ‘Mom always liked you best’ sort of thing?”

His grin was sheepish. “Silly.”

“Still hurts?”

He ducked his head and then looked up at me and smiled, the kind of roguish beam that brought out the sun.

I returned his smile and turned away, still listening to the conversation as I stacked fresh wine glasses on a glass shelf.

“To compensate for Mom liking Ben best, I drive the only Cadillac my father ever bought. I’ve owned lots of Caddies since, but it’s the only one I ever kept.”

Mathew said, “So did getting rich balance out not getting the orchids?”

“Who says I’m rich?”

“The Cadillacs that came after your father’s . . . ?”

Ethan gave a soft humph of a laugh and said, “No flies on you.” He tilted his head to the side, considering the question. “Ben built his first orchid business from my mother’s stock. It was a pretty extensive collection and it gave him a strong start, so he was first out of the gate in business. He began when he was just out of agricultural college.”

Mathew caught my eye and pointed at his empty cup as Ethan said, “He was the largest exporter of orchids in Florida, with thirty acres of shade houses for bromeliads and orchids, but Hurricane Andrew wiped him out in 1992. He was massively in debt and had no hurricane insurance. He started over, but then he was taken out a second time by DuPont’s Benlate, a fungicide that destroyed the last of his stock in the nineties.”

“Jesus,” Mathew said. “The poor guy.”

“Ben had one piece of good fortune. His wife’s grandparents left them a little bit of land over along the east side of Alligator Alley. Osceola Nursery was his last attempt to stay alive.” Ethan’s hands were clenched in fists on the bar, but his voice showed no emotion—
just the facts, ma’am
. Pity the guy who’d killed his brother when Ethan got his hands on him, and I was betting that he intended to find Ben’s killer.

I poured Mathew more coffee, asking, “Were her grandparents Seminole?” I held out the coffee carafe to Ethan.

Ethan put a hand over his cup. “How did you know?”

“Not magic. Osceola is the most common Seminole surname in Florida, like Smith or Jones for us, and very confusing if you’re trying to sort out the lineage of a Seminole. Do you know the Seminoles never signed a peace treaty with the United States government?” I set the coffeepot back on the element. “An old friend of my dad’s told me that.” Just thinking about Sammy, a wild man who survived out in the Fakahatchee swamp by hunting and guiding, had me smiling. “Sammy claims the
Seminoles are still at war with the United States Army.”

Mathew said, “Them and everyone else these days if you listen to the news.”

Ethan pushed his coffee cup away from him. “Susan’s mother was a Seminole, but her father was white. A real bastard.”

“Well, none of us has a lock on those.” I picked up the cup. “There’ve been a few bastards in my own family.”

“Not like him. He beat Susan’s mother something awful. She died in her fifties, and I always figured the old man was to blame for that too. It was supposed to be an accident.”