Found: A Matt Royal Mystery (15 page)

“What makes you think he was lying?” I asked.

“Cop’s intuition,” she said. “I got the same feeling I had when I first met with him, and he told me he didn’t know why Goodlow needed a lawyer. I can’t put my finger on it, but he was lying. He knows more about this than he’s letting on.”

My phone played the first bars of the old Styx rock classic, “Renegade,” the ringtone I’d assigned to my friend Sammy Lastinger, the bartender at Pattigeorge’s. “Hey, Bro. Where are you?”

“At my house. Come on over.”

“Nah. I’m at Tiny’s, surrounded by horny women.”

“It’s three in the afternoon,” I said. “There are no women at Tiny’s this time of day.”

“Well, Cracker’s here and we’re talking about horny women. The conversation conjures up visions of my misspent youth.”

“I thought you were in the middle of your misspent youth.”

“Maybe, but I feel like I’m misspending less and less of it every day.”

“It’ll get worse,” I said.

“So I’ve heard. Matt, I overheard a conversation at my bar last night that might mean something to J.D.”

“She and Jock are here with me. Let me put you on speaker.” I fiddled with the phone and then said, “Okay. Can you hear me?”

“Sure.”

“Tell us what you heard.”

“Do any of you know Porter King?” asked Sammy.

“I’ve met him,” said J.D.

“Well, he was at the bar with a man I’ve never seen before. I wasn’t paying any attention to their conversation, but I did hear King say something about getting rid of Jamison. At least, I think he said Jamison. I figured they had to fire somebody. Then the new guy said something about the heat being all over this one. I thought they were probably talking about basketball, but I don’t know any players named Jamison.”

“Basketball?” J.D. asked.

“The Miami Heat? You know. The NBA team in Miami.”

“Sammy,” I said, “there’s a large world out there that has nothing to do with sports.”

“I know, but it’s not real important.”

“Did you hear anything else?” J.D. asked.

“No, but I was just asking Cracker if he knew who the hell they might have been talking about. Some player I never heard of, maybe. Cracker said there’s an old guy in Cortez named Jamison and that J.D. might want to know about the conversation.”

“I do, Sammy,” said J.D. “Can you and Cracker keep this quiet? I don’t think it would be in your best interest to let it be known that you overheard that conversation.”

“This is serious, then,” Sammy said.

“Very serious, Sam,” said J.D. “I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up.

“Porter King is the guy who lives in the condo complex where Good-low was killed,” I said.

“And he was the one talking to the shooter just minutes before the murder,” said J.D.

“What do you know about him?” asked Jock.

“Not much,” said J.D. “We ran a background check on him, and he came up clean. Made a lot of money in the oil business. He was involved in exploration somehow. Never any trouble with the law. All his business dealings seemed legit, so I didn’t follow up. I will now.”

“Sounds as if Jamison might be in danger,” I said.

“Yeah. I’ll go talk to him. See if he’s got somewhere to go that’s safer than Cortez.”

“What about King?” I asked.

“I need to find out more about him. I’ll get somebody to run him through all the databases, see if anything pops up.”

“You didn’t find much before,” said Jock.

“No. Unless there’s a criminal history, we’re not going to get a lot more than we could find on Google. I better get over to Jamison’s.”

The temperature had dropped and light rain was drifting on the north wind when J.D. parked in front of the Jamison house. She noticed that the old car that, on her last visit, she had seen ensconced in the carport, was missing. She knocked on the door and got no response. She waited for a couple of minutes and knocked again. No answer.

J.D. pulled her light jacket a little closer and walked next door. A middle-aged woman answered her knock. J.D. flashed her badge and said, “I’m Detective J. D. Duncan from Longboat Key. I’m looking for Mr. Jamison. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

“I’m Cindy Ferda, Detective. Come on in out of that wind.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Ferda, but I’m in kind of a hurry. It’s important that I get in touch with Mr. Jamison.”

“I haven’t seen him today, and he doesn’t get out much anymore.” She peered around the corner of the door. “His car’s gone. He may have driven down to the Winn-Dixie at Seventy-Fifth Street. That’s where he always buys his groceries.”

“Any other place you can think of that I might find him?”

“He goes over to the Seafood Shack sometimes for a couple of beers. He usually waits for my husband, Joe, to come home and they go together.”

“What about friends in the neighborhood?” J.D. asked.

“There’re a few, but most of his buddies have died out. It’s a shame. He seems lonely.”

“You didn’t hear his car drive off?”

“No, but I had the television on, so I probably wouldn’t have heard it.”

“Have you seen anybody around his house today?”

“You’re starting to worry me, Detective. What’s going on?”

“Nothing, really. I was here earlier today and spoke with Mr. Jamison. I got the impression he wasn’t planning to go out in this weather.”

Mrs. Ferda laughed. “Bud’s his own man,” she said. “He’s lived alone for a long time. He tends to come and go when a mood strikes him. I think his biggest outing every week is the trip to the grocery store. But he’s always home at night. He’ll show up. Sometimes he stops for dinner somewhere, but he’s always home by eight o’clock or so.”

J.D. gave her a business card. “If you see him, will you tell him to call me immediately? It’s important.”

“Certainly, Detective.”

J.D. walked back to her car thinking that there really wasn’t any cause for alarm. Jamison had a life and there was no reason he wouldn’t have gone somewhere to while away a dreary afternoon. If it wasn’t for the threat Sammy had heard at the bar, she wouldn’t be worried. But there had been a threat. She was sure that King was talking about bringing some harm to this old man. But why?

She called the station and asked for the department’s geek. “Anything yet on King?” she asked when the phone was answered.

“There’s not a whole lot. He owned a company that worked with oil companies that were drilling in offshore waters. His outfit contracted with the oil companies to find the best places to lay underwater pipe that would run from the drilling platform to the shore and then they’d build the pipeline. King sold his company to one of his major competitors three years ago and made a lot of money.”

“Did you find any connection to Bud Jamison?”

“None. King bought his condo on Longboat a year ago and moved in. Before that he’d lived in New York City. They might have run into each other around here, but that’d be about it.”

“Is he married?”

“Divorced.”

“Any family?”

“None. At least not any close family.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

J.D. drove across Cortez Road and stopped in the parking lot of the Seafood Shack. It was getting late and she was worried about Jamison. She
went into the bar to talk to Nick, the bartender. “Do you know a man from Longboat named Porter King?”

Nick shook his head. “Can’t say that I do. Who is he?”

“He lives on Longboat Key. He may know Bud Jamison. King’s middle-aged, about your height, brown hair going to gray, in good shape.”

“If I’ve ever seen him, I don’t remember it. Bud usually comes in by himself or with his next door neighbor, Joe Ferda. All his other old drinking buddies are gone. Ken Goodlow was the last one.”

“Does Bud have a regular time for coming in?”

“No. He doesn’t come in with any regularity, but he’s usually here at least once a week or so. I think Joe Ferda kind of looks after him. They never have more than a couple of beers.”

“If you see Bud, tell him to call me. I need to talk to him as soon as possible.”

“I’ll do it, J.D. Come back and bring Matt. I miss you guys.”

J.D. drove back across the Cortez Bridge onto Anna Maria Island. A cold chill that had nothing to do with the weather was creeping up her spine. The old man didn’t have a cell phone, or at least if he did, J.D. didn’t have the number. She’d called him before on his landline. She’d try that number again later in the evening, and if she didn’t get an answer, she’d drive back to Cortez.

She called Matt. “I’m crossing the Cortez Bridge. You and Jock want to have a drink at the Bridgetender?”

The Bridgetender Inn takes up a corner at Bridge Street and Bay Drive in Bradenton Beach, the southernmost of the three small towns on Anna Maria Island. The building has been there in different incarnations since the early days of the twentieth century and had over the years metamorphosed into a fine restaurant and bar.

J.D. was seated in the wood-paneled dining room in the older part of the building. She sat next to a window overlooking Sarasota Bay, a glass of white wine in front of her. She was staring out the window, a small frown creasing her face. It was nearly dark outside and the streetlights had just come on, giving the scene a slightly sinister look. The warm room was welcome shelter from the night and the rain and the wind. She looked up and smiled as Jock and I joined her.

I kissed her on the cheek. “Why the long face?” I asked.

“It shows, huh? I’m worried about old Mr. Jamison.”

“What’s up?”

“He wasn’t home when I got to his house. Maybe he just went to the grocery store, but I’ll feel a lot better when I know he’s safe.”

“Have you tried calling him?”

“Yes, just now. No answer at his house. I don’t have a cell number for him.”

“We can run by there before we go home,” I said. “Maybe he’ll be back.”

J.D. shrugged. “I called the sheriff’s office, and they put me in touch with the deputy that patrols the Cortez area. He’ll ride by Jamison’s house as often as he can and call me if the car’s there. He’ll also keep a lookout for it in the area, maybe parked at one of the restaurants or bars.”

“He’ll turn up,” I said, but worry was creeping across my brain. Jamison
would be an easy target for someone bent on killing him. And I was pretty sure that’s what Porter King had been talking about at Pattigeorge’s the night before.

“Did you find out anything else about King?” asked Jock.

“Not much. He had a business that mapped out routes for underwater pipelines running from oil drilling platforms in the oceans to shore installations and then installed the pipe. He sold out a few years ago for a lot of money and moved to Longboat about a year ago. Nothing on him that rang any alarms.”

“Are you going to talk to him about the threat to Jamison?” Jock asked.

“I’m not sure yet that it was a threat. Maybe Sammy got it wrong. He’s not right in the head, you know.”

I laughed. “Sammy’s fine,” I said. “He talks a lot about his women and his sports teams, but a lot of that is just Sammy bluster. He’s really a smart guy.”

“I know,” she said, grinning, “and you know I love him, but still, he’s a real piece of work.”

“That he is. And he’s a damned astute observer of people. If he said he heard something, I’d take it to the bank.”

“I know. That’s the reason I’m so worried about Mr. Jamison.”

“Did you get a look inside Jamison’s house?” Jock asked.

“You mean when I went there this afternoon?”

Jock nodded.

“No,” she said. “There was no answer at the door, and I didn’t think I ought to just break in.”

“Was the front door locked?” asked Jock.

“I didn’t even check. I should have.”

“Why don’t Matt and I stop by his house and check the inside?”

“You mean break and enter?” asked J.D.

“I guess I do. We’d at least make sure that he’s not inside hurt or worse. You don’t need to be involved in it. I don’t think there’d be reason enough legally for a cop to enter the house.”

J.D. sat quietly for a few moments chewing on the possibilities. “Okay,” she said. “If I don’t hear from the deputy by the time we finish
our drinks, I’ll call Jamison again. If he doesn’t answer, I’ll go on home and you guys do what you need to do.”

The house was dark and the carport empty. A streetlight partially lit the front yard, its feeble attempts at illumination mostly swallowed by the darkness. We parked a couple of houses down from Jamison’s and waited for the sheriff’s patrol car to come by. We didn’t want to be arrested inside the house. Twenty minutes later the deputy drove slowly down the street and turned the corner, headed back to Cortez Road.

The front door was unlocked. I had a flashlight and used it to find a light switch. The lights came on and revealed a small, neat living room. Nothing out of place. No dead bodies or signs of struggle. We moved down a short hall and checked out the two bedrooms. The larger of the two was apparently where the old man slept. It had a lived-in look that was absent from the other bedroom. A pair of pajamas was hanging on a hook on the back of the door to the hall, bedroom slippers at the edge of the bed, a hardcover John D. MacDonald novel on a bedside table.

Two eight-by-ten photographs encased in identical silver picture frames sat on top of a bureau. One was black-and-white and obviously taken in a portrait studio. It showed a young woman dressed in the fashion of the late 1940s. She was pretty in an understated way, her smile showing even teeth, her hair cut short and framing a slightly round face. The other photograph was in color, a snapshot taken on a beach somewhere. It showed a young woman so thin she seemed emaciated. She had a big smile on her face and was holding an infant in her arms, the baby turned so that its face was visible in the picture. Everything seemed in order. The kitchen and bathroom were as clean as the rest of the house. We turned out the lights and left the way we’d come in.

A man with the pistol stepped out of the shadows. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked.

“We’re friends of Mr. Jamison,” I said. “Who’re you?”

A flashlight beam suddenly broke the darkness, aimed right at my face. I raised my hand to shield my eyes. “You’re Royal,” said the man with the gun. “I’ve seen you around.”