Ron Base - Sanibel Sunset Detective 01 - The Sanibel Sunset Detective (13 page)

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“What’s she doing?“

“Right now? Sitting in an apartment on Tenth Street.”

“You should have phoned, Tree. I’m sitting here waiting for you.”

“I’m sorry. In all the excitement, I forgot.”

“There’s excitement in sitting outside someone’s apartment?”

“So far, no.”

“Do you have any idea what time you’ll be home?”

“I’m not sure about that, either.”

“Well, don’t expect me to be here when you get back.”

“What?”

She chuckled. “That’s the line in the movies, isn’t it? You know, when the wife or girlfriend doesn’t want the hero doing whatever it is he’s got to do, isn’t that the line she always uses?”

“Something like that,” Tree allowed.

“I thought I’d try it out since lately you seem to be running your life more and more like a movie.”

“I prefer to think of my life as a cheap detective novel.”

“Whatever it is, be careful.”

Up on the walkway, the yellow light flared again. “Someone’s coming. I’ll call you later.”

“Tree, I mean it. Be careful.”

“I will. Don’t worry.”

He closed his cell phone. Mickey Crowley in a strapless silver mini-dress descended the stairs, the cute waitress transformed into nighttime Florida hottie.

She carried a beaded purse and leaned against a tall man in a creamy suit. It took Tree a moment to realize the tall man was Reno O’Hara.

They reached the sidewalk arm-in-arm, laughing together, and then disappeared around the corner. Tree waited a few moments before following them onto Sixth Avenue. Tree squeezed through the crowds on Tamiami Trail, keeping Mickey and Reno in sight as they passed the boutiques and sidewalk cafes, afraid Reno might glance around and spot him. But Reno was oblivious to anything but Mickey.

They arrived at an Italian place. Reno shook hands with the maître d’ who seated them at an outside table where they could observe the passing crowd. Menus the size of the tablets from the Mount of Olives were presented.

Tree crossed to the other side of the street for a better view. A waiter delivered drinks—beer for Reno, something tall and colorful with a straw for Mickey. They lifted their glasses in a toast. A third guest arrived. Reno smiled broadly and rose to shake the man’s hand.

Jorge, major domo to Elizabeth and Brand Traven, sparkled elegantly in the light from the streaming traffic.

____

Tree watched for a while and then walked back to the apartment complex. He stood at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor. He could see a light behind the partially-drawn drapes in the apartment Mickey and Reno had vacated.

He climbed to the top of the stairs and started along the walkway. Someone stepped from the shadows, making him jump. A thug-like character in a T-shirt barely containing rippling muscles focused a dead man’s stare.

“Good evening.” The bright voice of a harmless retiree headed back to his apartment.

The muscle guy didn’t say anything. Tree eased past him, certain this was Dwayne Crowley, Mickey’s beloved husband, the sensitive Coleman inmate who would love to share a laugh.

He did not strike Tree as someone interested in sharing laughs.

Tree rounded a corner to a second set of stairs and took them back down to the ground floor. He found himself at the rear of the complex. A pool area glowed under amber lights. A patch of grass ended at a roadway running past Naples Bay.

He followed the road around to where he had parked the Beetle. Mickey Crowley leaned against it, her silver dress shimmering under a street light. She held an unlit cigarette in one hand, the beaded purse in the other. He could see the rose tattoo Elizabeth Traven mentioned, a crimson dab on her bare shoulder. She was humming something he didn’t recognize.

“You heard Rihanna’s new album?”

“No,” Tree said

“I am so into that girl. What she’s been through? Her father a crack addict, all that. I didn’t even want the download, right? Like I went out and bought the CD.”

Tree looked around. No sign, so far, of either Reno or Dwayne. Just Mickey, tattooed and sexy in the night.

She held up the cigarette. “I don’t suppose you got a light?”

“Sorry.”

“Didn’t think you would. You don’t look like a smoking kind of guy. I can tell about these things. No smoking. No Rihanna.”

“What kind of a guy do I look like, Mickey?”

“Like I told you earlier, a flirt.” She smiled. “So I guess you got it, huh? That taste. Stronger than coffee, right? Makes you do crazy things, walking around on three legs, thinking, maybe I can get close, get that taste.”

He stared at her, not sure what she was getting at.

“On the one hand, I’m flattered, man. Not pissed off or anything, just flattered that you want to be trailing me around. Thing is, you got the wrong number here. I mean, really. I am no one to mess with.”

“No?”

“Here, let me show you something.” She opened her purse and pulled out a gun. Its steel surface gleamed under the street light.

“The Beretta Tomcat. I love it. Lightweight. Easily concealed, carries seven rounds in the magazine, and yet it has great stopping power. Never mind the diamonds, man. This is a girl’s best friend.”

She held the gun casually, as though she had held a lot guns.

“So you see, my flirty friend, although I’m sure you don’t mean any harm, all you want to do is get into my pants, but you are definitely sniffing around a girl with a gun, and that’s not healthy. Get my drift?”

“I think so,” Tree said.

“Tell you what. Why don’t you get in your little car, and drive back to Sanibel or wherever you came from? Next time you come into Jerry’s, I’ll bring you that smoked salmon omelet, the one that got you started on the wild side, and pour you some coffee, and we’ll act like none of this happened.”

Tree felt hugely embarrassed. She obviously thought he was some sort of stalker. He had an irrational urge to tell her he was really a detective following her for a client. But that was dumb. This way he could get out of there before Reno or Dwayne showed up to make things really complicated.

“Sorry about this,” he said.

“Don’t be sorry, man. Just be going.”

She stepped away from the car. He went around unlocked the door and got inside. He glanced back at Mickey, silvery in the night, the Beretta Tomcat luminous in her hand.

He had waited a lifetime to have that particular image seared on his brain.

18

F
reddie reheated the chicken she had prepared earlier and then sat with him in the kitchen while he ate. Women in short dresses pointing guns made him hungry.

“Manolo Blahnik first thing in the morning, that’s impressive.”

“They were sandals.”

“Nevertheless, four-inch heels when you’re just wandering around the house and not even expecting company. There’s a woman dedicated to heels.”

“She was expecting company.”

“You?”

“Well, I phoned before I went over there.”

“Aren’t rich women supposed to seduce private detectives?”

“It’s a state law. You hire a private detective you have to sleep with him.”

“Make sure she takes off the Manolo Blahniks first.”

“I’ll try to keep it in mind.”

She watched him eat the chicken for a time. “So, did she?”

“Did she what?”

“Try to seduce you?”

“Freddie, I’m sixty years old.”

“That doesn’t stop anything.”

She watched him eat more chicken. “This is very good,” he said between mouthfuls.

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Are you kidding? I’m the help.”

“So was Lady Chatterley’s lover.”

He told her most of what had happened that evening, deciding not to say anything about the possible appearance of Dwight Crowley or about Mickey in a silver mini-dress brandishing a gun. No use worrying her unnecessarily. He told her instead about Mickey and Reno O’Hara meeting up with Jorge, the Brands’ houseman.

“So what happened after Jorge arrived?”

“Not much,” Tree said. “They had dinner. Reno talked a lot. Jorge listened and nodded. Then Jorge talked a little bit. Reno listened and nodded.”

“And Mickey?”

“She laughed a lot and put her hand on Jorge’s knee.”

“How did Jorge react to that?”

“He seemed to like it.”

“Then what happened?”

“I decided to get out of there.”

“That’s it?”

“What else would there be?”

“Me, I would have gone back while they were eating, taken another look at that apartment.”

Tree swallowed before he said, “I didn’t do that.”

“You came home.”

“To your loving arms.”

Freddie rolled her eyes. “Maybe not so loving, my friend. Not when you’re visiting seductive women in expensive sandals and then don’t call and the chicken gets cold.”

“That’s the thing about being a detective,” he said. “It’s beautiful women in expensive shoes, late nights, cold chicken and grumpy wives.”

“I’m not grumpy. Just continuing to wonder what you’re doing.”

Tree got up and took his plate to the sink and rinsed it under the tap. “I’m not certain what I’m seeing—or whether I’m seeing anything. And what does it mean if, in fact, I am seeing something?”

Freddie sipped the last of her wine. “Let’s think about this a moment. You’ve got a boy who wants you to find his mother. Right?”

“Right.”

“And you’ve got a woman, Elizabeth Traven, with a husband in prison worried about another woman named Michelle Crowley whom she has befriended but is now suspicious of.”

“A woman dining with a bad guy named Reno O’Hara.”

“The two of them meeting up with a fellow who supposedly works for Elizabeth Traven.”

“Jorge. The loyal manservant. Maybe not so loyal.”

“Throw in the headless body of an unidentified woman.”

“Who I find when I’m looking for Mickey.”

“So,” Freddie went on, “You’ve got two separate cases and all of a sudden the inhabitants of one case are crossing over into the other, linked by a murder.”

“What does it all mean?”

Freddie said, “You’re the detective. You figure it out.”

“Thanks a lot.”

They went out of the kitchen into the bedroom where one thing led to another and they made love, unusual for a weeknight but entirely welcome. Once again he marveled at this incredible woman, reminded himself as he reminded himself each day, how fortunate he was to have her in his life, and how exceedingly happy she made him. He hung suspended in the dark, holding his wife, loving his wife. He drifted off.

Then he was awake again. What was that?

He sat up in bed. A sliver of light from the hall was the only illumination. Freddie stirred beside him. He fumbled on the side table for his reading glasses. Couldn’t find them in the darkness. Shit.

“What is it?” she said.

He put his hand out to silence her. She sat up on an elbow, head cocked. Listening. “Tree, you do this all the time. It’s nothing.”

He pushed back the covers and rose out of bed. He paused and listened again. The electronic rush of the air conditioning came back to him.

He stepped into the hall, standing naked, manufactured air raising goose bumps on his skin.

Or was it the air?

Something moved in the other room. No doubt this time. Tree stiffened. A man wearing a balaclava stepped into the light. He stopped when he saw Tree.

“What the hell,” he said.

Tree dived back into the bedroom, yelling at Freddie to call 911. He caught a glimpse of her coming off the bed as he closed the door, fumbling with the lock. He shouted again as someone hurled against the door. He tried to turn the lock, but the force from the other side knocked him back.

The door blew open. Freddie called out something he couldn’t understand. Dark forms descended, outlined against the uncertain light, shrouded in balaclavas. Strong hands roughly pulled him down, pushing his face into the carpet.

“Where’s the kid?” A voice in his ear, low and insistent, cutting through his objecting cries.

When he did not immediately answer, someone smashed his head against the floor. Withering pain seared his brain. Stars exploded through the interior blackness.

“The kid,” the voice repeated. “Where is he?”

He was lifted off the floor, wrenched around so that he faced Freddie.

A balaclava-covered form held a knife against her throat. The voice said, “See that? Do you see that, asshole? See what’s gonna happen to your wife? Now tell me. Where is the kid?”

“He ran away from us, escaped out a window. Haven’t seen him since.”