Ron Base - Sanibel Sunset Detective 01 - The Sanibel Sunset Detective (6 page)

“Are you Dara or not?”

“Brother, I asked what you might be doing looking for Dara.”

“I’d like to talk to her.”

“And supposing Dara doesn’t want to talk to you?”

“I’ve got information about a boy named Marcello,” Tree said.

“Who is this Marcello?”

“Maybe her son.”

“Her son?”

“That’s right.”

“You sure Dara has a son?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Who are you?” Tree said “Are you a friend of Dara’s?”

“I’m no friend, but I do know her,” the woman said, producing a badge. The badge said Sanibel-Captiva Police.

6

T
he police officer drew Tree into the gloom of the motor home. He half expected to see a dead body lying on the floor. But there was no body among the clothes strewn everywhere.

The police officer said her name was Cee Jay Boone. “It’s not the initials, though.”

She spelled it out for him. “C-e-e. J-a-y. Detective Cee Jay Boone.”

“I didn’t know Sanibel-Captiva had a detective.”

“In fact there’s two of us. So now you know who I am, and you know a little something about the workings of my department. So brother, remind me again of your name.”

“It’s Callister. Tree Callister.”

“That’s right, Tree. What are you doing here, Tree?”

“I’m a private detective.”

“Are you now? I didn’t know they had a private dick on Sanibel Island.”

“They’ve only got one as far as I know,” Tree said.

“And you’re it.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

“Well, you know, Tree, you could have worn a trench coat or something.”

“It’s too hot. When it’s cooler, I wear the trench coat.”

“Okay, Tree Callister, private detective. You’re looking for Dara because you think she has a son named Marcello.”

“That’s right.”

Tree told her about Marcello and how he had tracked Dara to this address. Cee Jay listened to him without comment and then asked, “This Marcello, what’s his last name?”

“I don’t know.”

“So then where does he live?”

“Maybe he lives here.”

“Here?” Cee Jay looked around at the mess of the place. Then her gaze returned to Tree. “I don’t get it. Who’s paying you to help this kid?”

“Marcello’s paying,” Tree said.

“A twelve-year-old boy hired you?”

“That’s correct,” Tree said.

“How much is he paying you?”

Tree paused before he said, “Seven dollars.”

She stared at him. “Seven dollars?”

“It’s a retainer,” Tree said.

“What are you?” she said. “Some kind of idiot?”

“Just a guy who works cheap.”

“Boy, you sure do,” Cee Jay said.

The door opened and a squat man stepped inside, mopping his perspiring forehead with a white handkerchief. His hair was cut close to his bullet head, making him look like a wrestler at a job interview. He wore a badly fitting blue sports jacket and a white golf shirt.

“Come on in, Mel,” Cee Jay said. “Join the party.”

“I checked around the park,” the man named Mel said. “Nobody’s seen her for at least a week.”

He looked Tree up and down.

“This is Tree Callister,” Cee Jay said. “Tree here is a detective. Tree, this is my partner, Detective Mel Scott.”

“A detective, huh?” Mel looked right through him. “What kind of detective?”

“The private kind,” said Cee Jay “You got six bucks? You can hire Tree. He works cheap.”

“Seven,” Tree corrected. “Seven dollars.”

“The cheap detective.” Mel issued a snort of laughter then turned to Cee Jay. “She’s taken a powder. So let’s get back to the office.”

“Why? What’s Dara done?” Tree asked.

“It’s not what Dara’s done,” Cee Jay said. “It’s her friend Reno O’Hara. That’s who we’re looking for. Can you help us out, Tree?”

In an attempt to redeem himself somewhat in Detective Boone’s eyes, Tree told her that he’d encountered Reno O’Hara that morning. Mel listened, cocking his head in Tree’s direction as though not sure he was hearing correctly. He kept his eyes on Cee Jay.

“Why would Reno O’Hara want to see you?” Mel asked.

“He said he was looking for someone. He thought I knew where this person was.”

“Did someone have a name?”

“No.”

Mel said, “So Reno thought you knew someone. Only you didn’t know anyone.”

“Could be he thought I know Dara Rait.”

“Except you don’t,” said Cee Jay Boone.

“No, I don’t.”

“But Tree, here you are, looking for Dara Rait.”

“I’m looking for a boy’s mother.”

“Oh, yeah,” Cee Jay said. “The kid who paid you seven dollars.”

“Here’s the thing,” Mel Scott said. “Doesn’t make any difference who you know or don’t know. You got Reno O’Hara on your tail, you are one sorry dude.”

Cee Jay nodded agreement. “If you’re on Reno’s radar screen, brother, you better hope we find him sooner than later.”

“What’s he done?” Tree asked.

Cee Jay and Mel traded glances. Cee Jay said, “That’s police business. It’s not private detective business.”

7

Y
ou haven’t seen my glasses have you?” “Why don’t you put them in the same place every time and then you won’t lose them.” Freddie brushed pesto on fresh grouper.

“I do put them in the same place, except I forget where that place is.”

“The last time I saw them, they were on the kitchen counter.”

“I would not have left them on the counter, I can tell you that much.”

Tree disappeared into the house. She put the filets on the barbecue, and then stepped back into the house. She encountered Tree wearing his glasses.

“Where were they?”

“On the kitchen counter.”

Tree watched the fish on the barbecue while Freddie fixed a salad with baby arugula and small tomatoes.

Once the fish was done, she added oil and vinegar to the salad and they sat on the terrace watching the sun set while Freddie recounted the events of her day: the continuing attempts to update the computer system, a general manager who said he could deliver but didn’t, her efforts to persuade Ray to adapt a realistic planning strategy for the coming year. Sometimes, she said, she felt as though she was speaking to him in a foreign language. Then it was Tree’s turn. He told Freddie about Reno O’Hara, Marcello on the beach, the bike shop, and the boy’s subsequent disappearance. He told her about the Bon Air Motor Park and the police. He did not say the police thought Reno O’Hara highly dangerous and capable of killing Tree. That was not a conversation over chardonnay and sunsets on the terrace.

Even so, by the time Tree finished, Freddie was sitting up, calm as always, but more intense than usual. She put her plate to one side without finishing the grouper.

“Not to sound like the concerned wife or anything.”

“Of course not.”

“But are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

“I don’t have a clue. A guy named Reno O’Hara shows up at the office looking for a woman. I have no idea who she is. But he doesn’t believe me.”

“Okay, I’m following you so far,” Freddie said.

“Then I end up at a trailer park looking for a woman named Dara Rait. That’s when the police showed up.”

“What were the police doing there?”

“Looking for Reno O’Hara.”

“Why?”

“They won’t say. But they do say that Dara Rait is mixed up with him.”

“So you’re thinking Dara is the woman Reno came to your office looking for.”

“He must have followed Marcello.”

“Who is looking for his mother. Dara?”

“I don’t know. The police don’t seem to think Dara has a son. Marcello disappeared before I had a chance to ask him.”

“What did they think of you showing up in the midst of all this?”

“The two detectives gave me the distinct impression they think I’m an idiot.”

“Not an idiot,” Freddie said. “Maybe just a nice guy in over his head.”

____

Tree was back in a newspaper city room, desperate to finish a story. What story? He couldn’t remember. The big wall clock ticked loudly. Smoke curled in the air. White men in white shirts jabbed at typewriter keys so fast their fingers blurred. The sound was deafening. He couldn’t find a place to work, and he still could not remember what story he was supposed to write. If he did not produce a story he would lose his job. He couldn’t lose it. The job was all he had. It defined who he was. Without it, he wasn’t anything.

Tree jerked awake in the dark. It took a few moments to realize he was no longer at the newspaper; there was no need to worry about stories or deadlines. He looked over to where Freddie slept, her back to him, a reassuring presence in the darkness.

He sat on the edge of the bed taking deep breaths. He heard a noise from the other room. Visions of Reno O’Hara breaking into the house assailed him.

Get a grip, he told himself. Newspaper deadlines did not loom. Bad guys were not invading. They were safe.

He knew this time of night; the hours of nightmares and demons and endless uncertainty. Gloom floated, death was close.

Had he heard something?

He rose from the bed and slipped across to the bedroom door. He peered out through the shadows occupying the house at this hour. Nothing moved. All was quiet.

“My love,” Freddie called. “Come back to bed. It’s all right.”

And maybe it was.

8

H
appy tourists filled the visitors center the next morning. There was no sign of threatening evil in the person of Reno O’Hara—good news for Sanibel tourism, better news for Tree. Feeling more relaxed, he got himself a cup of coffee and then leaned against the counter trading pleasantries with the trio of volunteers on duty.

Rex Baxter came down from his office, brightening as soon as he saw the reception area full of visitors. “Anyone here from Chicago?”

One of the tourists recognized him from his weatherman days. Pleased, Rex soon was holding court. “I’m not from Chicago originally,” he said. “I was born on the Oklahoma panhandle. The panhandle’s so flat you can watch your dog run away for two days.”

The group exploded in laughter.

“People always ask me why I left Chicago,” Rex continued. “I always tell ’em it’s because the weather is so easy to forecast down here. You just paste a smile on your face and say, ‘Sunny.’”

Someone asked if he knew Barack Obama in Chicago. Rex got that question all the time, and he didn’t like it. He had left town by the time the future president came along. “I knew Mayor Daley, though. Mayor Daley said I was his favorite weatherman.”

“That’s the last mayor?” the visitor from Chicago said.

“No, no, his old man,” Rex said.

The Chicago visitor looked blank-faced.

“What you want to do,” Rex went on, relieved to change the subject, “you want to get over to the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. That’s where we got the replica of the biggest darn gun you ever laid eyes on.”

“What are you doing with a gun over there?” someone wanted to know.

“Ding Darling was a world famous cartoonist, a household word. I grew up reading his stuff at a time when editorial cartoonists still had real influence, him more than most. He was also a pioneering conservationist who did more than just about anyone to get the wetlands around here protected.”

“Ding owned a gun?” One of the visitors sounded nonplused.

“No, no. It wasn’t Ding’s gun, but he had it hanging on the wall in his office. Blunderbuss of a thing, used by Maryland poachers in the 1930s. The poachers filled the rifle full of buckshot, aimed it at a flock of ducks and pulled the trigger.
Blam! Blam!
Killed dozens of birds with a single shot, an environmental travesty, of course, the sort of thing Ding Darling fought against his whole life.”

Scattered applause warmed Rex to his subject.

“What me and a couple of buddies have done, we’ve built a replica of the gun, trigger mechanism, the whole thing.”

“You can shoot this mother?” The question came from a tourist displaying a large belly beneath a red golf shirt.

“You bet,” said Rex. “We got her loaded up with buckshot. You folks are around Saturday, come on over to Ding Darling’s. We’ll be giving demonstrations, aiming it at targets we got set up. It’s something to see, I promise you.”

An excited murmur was followed by assurances from his eager audience that they would be there. Rex pumped hands and slapped backs before making his way over to where Tree was finishing his coffee.

“You should go over and have a look at that gun, Tree.”