T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril (20 page)

Leo’s head snapped around. “What?”

“John passed out on the sofa. You headed straight to the shower to get the blood off you. And none of us had even looked in the duffel bag yet. We didn’t know what we had. Anyway, I went to the pay phone across the street from our apartment and called the police station to tell them about the wreck. That’s all I said. I told them that we were driving home and passed an overturned car, but that we didn’t see any people.”

Leo’s face went red. “Why, for God’s sake?”

“I couldn’t go to sleep with the thought of two dead men sitting in that car all night long. What if some innocent kid riding his bicycle the next morning came across that awful scene? Would you have wanted your little brother to see that?”

Leo let loose with a string of cusswords, directing the last few vulgar sentences personally at Michael. No longer concerned about avoiding a feud, Michael met Leo’s furious look dead-on.

“Like Jonathan said earlier,
I’m
not the genius who took the duffel bag.”

The men sat rigid in the thick silence, nobody eating or drinking, for several long minutes. Eventually, Jonathan leaned forward and pressed a folded napkin below his nostrils. Drops of bright red dotted the white paper when he removed it.

Michael sighed. “That was uncalled for, and I’m sorry, Leo. We all
equally shared in the money that was in that duffel bag. What’s important here is not whose fault this is, but the fact that we’ve been best friends since college.” A partnership was like a marriage, Michael figured. You take the good and the bad and make it work. Well, maybe that’s not the best example, he realized. The group had seen their share of divorces. He thought of a different analogy. “When you are partners, you share in the good times and help each other through the bad ones. And at least now, thanks to you, Leo, we know the identity of this jerk.”

Jonathan sniffed several times to control the blood trickling from his nostrils. “You’re naive, the both of you.”

“And you’ve got to get yourself together, dammit.” Leo’s eyes narrowed. “You drink too much. You prescribe meds for yourself. And now you’re getting
nosebleeds?
Have you been snorting your troubles away?”

Jonathan held a fresh napkin beneath his nose before looking at it to see if the blood had stopped. “If you still want to place blame, Leo, fine. I’ll take the blame. Everything is my fault. It was
me
who caused this whole mess. If I hadn’t gotten so drunk at that frat party, I wouldn’t have been vomiting and I wouldn’t have lost my ID.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “If I’d ever been able to make
any
of my personal relationships work, I’d be happily married. I wouldn’t have pursued Rosemary. And if I hadn’t given her the drugs… if she hadn’t become addicted… if I hadn’t confided to her about this big pile of shit we stepped in, she’d still be alive today.” His head moved back and forth like a kid throwing a tantrum:
No, no, no!
“This isn’t going away. Rosemary is dead. And I don’t care if we do know his name. Blackmailers don’t ever stop once they’ve gotten their talons into you. Don’t you people watch TV?”

“Cop shows are fiction, John.” Leo popped the cap on a bottle of tea and drank. “And yeah, this whole thing with Castello probably is your fault. But it’s Michael’s fault and my fault, too. Hell, maybe
it’s nobody’s fault. Maybe it just is what it is. So we deal with it. We stick to the game plan. Are we all on the same page?”

Leo took the silence to mean agreement. He stood, checked his watch. “I’ve got a two o’clock consult and a three o’clock surgery, so I’m out of here. And John? Either you clean up your act or you’re out of here, too, permanently. We still have a practice to run.”

Jonathan nodded without bothering to look up. Leo stalked through the door. Michael gave John a squeeze on the shoulder and followed Leo out of the conference room.

After watching his partners head back to work, Jonathan cleaned up the mess from lunch. Paced the conference room. Sat down to stare through the windows at passing traffic. Tried to think. Asked God if there was a way to redeem himself. Got no answers, nodded off, and didn’t move until a vivid dream of Rosemary awakened him. She was beautiful, laughing, holding hands with Garland. It was a party. And when Jonathan greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, Rosemary imploded into nothingness, leaving behind a puff of sweetly scented powder.

The great thing
about working from home is that I can do so while wrapped in my lacy, silky jammies. They feel good against my skin. If more people slept nude and wore their pajamas around the house, the world might be a happier place.

I’d spread out my notes on the kitchen table and pored over the few facts I had, to see if any of the pieces would slide magically into place, like one of those giant magnetized picture puzzles for kids. When none of my index cards moved together on their own accord, I took a break from thinking and called Ox. His voice—both the deep tone and the unique Lumbee dialect he’d retained despite all the military moves—comforted and energized me. Lindsey was in heaven, he said, and convinced now more than ever that she wanted to work as a television sports personality. I already knew that the teen was dancing on top of the clouds. I wanted to know about Ox.

“So how are you?” I asked.

“Busy. Having a ball spending time with my daughter. Missing you.”

He asked about the Block and the employees and Spud and Fran, and then I filled him in on the small favor for the judge that had taken on a life of its own. He listened without interrupting.

“Any thoughts on what might be going on?” I said.

“Other than the obvious conclusions, no.”

“What about your guiding spirits? Do they have any input for me?” Ever since I’d first met him in high school, Ox has had a knack for sensing things that other people miss. I don’t understand it, but I fully believe in the gift his Lumbee heritage has given him. I’ve also witnessed the man experience tokens—or, as his people call them, toat’ns—which are signs that a spirit is present.

He chuckled. “Let me check and get back to you.”

“I miss them. Your helpful spirits. And you. I miss you.” There was a lot more to talk about, but not now and not over the phone. We said good-bye.

The bad thing about working from home is that Spud has a habit of turning to me for his fill of daily entertainment when there’s nothing more interesting going on.

“Hey, kid,” he said, coming into the kitchen. “Frannie and I have decided to help you out on this thing you’re working on, since Ox ain’t here.”

“Yeah, sweetie,” Fran said. “We know you really miss him.”

Of course she knew I missed the man. Obviously, she’d been eavesdropping. “Thanks for the offer, but there’s not really much you can do.”

“Well, what are you doing today?” my father asked. Standing at his feet, Cracker cocked his head as though he wanted to know, too.

Good question. “I’m not getting anywhere sitting around staring at my notes. Maybe I’ll hit the gym before I take a shower
Check on things downstairs.” I studied my nails. The chipped polish had not miraculously repaired itself since the last time I’d noticed it. “And I really need a manicure.” Jersey Barnes, supersleuth in action.

“Why don’t we go to that fancy eatin’ house and have dinner?” Spud suggested.

“That’s a great idea!” Fran cooed. “Maybe we’ll pick up clues.” Jersey Barnes
and crew,
supersleuths in action.

I needed to hit Argo’s anyway, to determine if the dining room had been bugged. It was the only theory that made sense, if it was true that Morgan had simply heard the Divine Image Group doctors talking. I phoned to make a reservation and left a message requesting the GT The answering service assured me that someone would return my call by two o’clock.

I did my own nails—a quick fix by removing the polish and filing them short—before tackling the gym. Afterward, I let Cracker take me for a walk. Spud and Fran tooled off on her scooter to hear a lecture at the Cameron Art Museum on South 17th Street. We planned to meet back at the Block at five-thirty

Our
reservation was confirmed for seven-thirty. It was a perfect evening to be on the water, so we piled into the corpse caddy and drove to the Cape Fear Marina, where I keep
Incognito
docked. My one extravagance, she’s a forty-eight-foot oceangoing sportfishing yacht. She was a gift from an appreciative past client, and I didn’t think it would be affable to tell him that I don’t fish. Although her outriggers have never been used, she does make a perfect party boat and is excellent for long weekend trips.

Thanks to a dockhand who works cheap,
Incognito
was clean and ready to go, cabin air-conditioning on, toilet paper in the head, and refrigerator stocked with water and beer. We left in plenty of time to
make our reservation and cruised south on the Cape Fear River, used Snow’s Cut to reach the waterway, and backtracked north to intersect with Bradley Creek. It took much longer than if we’d driven, but being on the water was rejuvenating. I hadn’t run my boat in a while. It felt good.

Spud and Fran, after making a big production of climbing the ladder, joined me on the covered fly bridge. Like me, Fran seemed to relish the fresh air and passing sights. In contrast, my father wouldn’t stop grumbling. Wearing one of his newly purchased outfits—the clothes for his upcoming cruise with the NAB—he fidgeted with the buttons of a lime green polka-dot shirt. The dots were the size of drink coasters. And pink. Lime green and pink top, navy-and-white-striped slacks, all accented by a yellow-enameled walking cane.

“This shirt has a flaw in it,” he said.

“If the flaw is
in
it, then take it off,” I told him. “Problem solved.”

“What?”

“Never mind, it was a joke.” I decided against trying to explain my attempt at humor. “What’s the problem with your new shirt? Besides the fact that people need sunglasses to look at you.”

He said something about it buttoning in the wrong direction.

“Oh, my.” Squinting, Fran studied the shirt. “I think you bought a woman’s shirt.”

“The saleslady told me anybody could wear this. It’s a uniplex shirt.”

“Uni
sex
,” Fran corrected.

“What’s sex got to do with anything, for crying out loud?” The breeze had flattened out his mustache, but it still twitched from side to side, as though annoyed. “I can’t go around in a girly shirt, especially not to Argo’s.”

“I like your shirt,” Fran said, and fluffed her hair. “It’s perfect for our cruise.”

I think my eyebrows went up. “You’re going on the NAB cruise with Spud?”

“Of course I am, sweetie. All those man-hunting women need to know that your daddy is already taken.”

Spud grinned like a cocky teenager. “I still can’t go around in no girly shirt tonight.”

There were men’s shirts hanging in the master stateroom closet, I told him. Last time Soup and his friends had taken a trip on
Incognito,
somebody had left clothes behind. Making a symphony of old-age noises, Spud and Fran maneuvered down from the fly bridge and disappeared into the cabin. Ten minutes later, Spud emerged and shouted up to me, “What do you think about this?”

He wore a black Led Zeppelin T-shirt. And the same navy-striped slacks.

“Oh, that’s much better,” I answered.

“You think so?”

“Absolutely. I especially like the lyrics on the back. Not everyone knows all the words for ‘Stairway to Heaven.’”

Fran and Spud enjoyed the remainder of the trip from the open cockpit below, Spud stretched out like a retired rocker on the fighting chair—which on my boat had never been used to reel in a fish—and Fran fussing over him like a groupie. I had to slow down for no-wake zones in the waterway, but our cruise proved enjoyable as we studied the backyards of expansive waterway homes and fantasized about what it would be like to live with the rich set. I found Bradley Creek without having to consult my navigation system and backed into a vacant public slip without hitting anything. So far, so good.

When we’d tied off and were walking up to Argo’s, I noticed the restaurant’s large windows, artistically placed up-lighting, and mature shrubbery. I could actually see the Green Table and its occupants. Theoretically, somebody in one of the nearby houses or boats
could use a laser microphone and audio-enhancing equipment to eavesdrop. Since Morgan was an accountant by trade, my bet remained on a much simpler, interior setup.

The hostess didn’t flinch at my father’s odd attire, but several other customers stared openly. Good thing Argo’s didn’t have a dress code.

“Is Morgan here tonight?” I asked.

“He was earlier,” she told me. “But I believe he’s gone for the evening.”

I’m trained to notice details, and without having to go back outside to double-check, I knew that Morgan’s sedan was in the parking lot. On the other hand, maybe the hostess told everybody that the boss was not available.

I inquired again about the Green Table, and as she seated us, the hostess discreetly mentioned that it was occupied by some top dogs from the set of
One Tree Hill.
I don’t watch much television at all—especially not teen drama series—but I pretended to be suitably impressed. The popular show is produced at EUE/Screen Gems Studios, a full-service motion picture facility in Wilmington. The three of us settled into a booth, and I found myself wishing that Ox were around to make it a foursome. We ordered drinks and a braised rib appetizer and three of the chef’s fish specials.

“Okay,” Fran whispered. “What do we do now? Should we go question people?” She whipped out a small digital camera. “Or take pictures?”

“You can’t go pokin’ around and taking pictures while people are trying to eat, Frannie,” my father reasoned.

“Good point, Spud,” I agreed. “I’m going to do a quick walk-around to see if I find any bugs.”

Fran stopped playing with Spud’s knee. “They’ve got
bugs
here?”

“She’s not talking about crawly bugs, Frannie. Listening bugs, for crying out loud. You know, like tiny microphones.”