“There were people looking for Drunk?” asked Al, astonished.
“Big guys?” I asked.
She nodded. “One white man with a cowboy hat an’ boots, an’ the other was a black man with an eye patch.”
“Have you seen them around here before?”
She shook her head. “First time I’ve ever seen them. Friends of yours?”
“Not quite, but I did see them breaking into my room earlier.”
Her green eyes bulged. “Breaking into your room? You’ve got to be kidding. Did ya report it to resort security?”
“You mean to Ozzy?” I wanted to laugh. How anyone could call Ozzy Messina resort security, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think the guy could keep a bird out of a cat’s mouth, let alone keep an entire resort safe. “Yeah, we told Ozzy.”
“What did he say?”
I waved a hand. I didn’t want to talk about Ozzy. “Listen, what did these guys say to you?”
The bottom lip came back out again, and I realized that was the look Trinity gave when she was trying to think. “Not too much. They said they were looking for a man by the name of Officer Daniel Drunk from the US.”
“Did they have a picture or describe what I looked like?”
“If they had a picture, they didn’t say. All they seemed to have was a name.”
“They say anything else? Like how to contact them if you did see me?”
She shook her head.
“So there’s nothing else you remember about the men that might help me to find them?”
“Not really,” she said. Then she held out a finger. “They did have an accent. I’d guess Australian, but I don’t know how that would really help ya to find them.”
I smiled at her. “Lot of Australians on the island, are there?”
She grinned back. “That’s true. I guess that could help.”
My phone rang in my pocket then. I glanced up at Al. “I’ll be right back.”
He gave me a knowing nod and stayed at the counter with Trinity while I stepped away to take the call. It was Mikey calling back.
“Hey, buddy, you find out about the woman in 23B?”
“Yeah man. Her name is Nicolette Dominion. She’s a US citizen and has a Maryland address. I’m texting you a snapshot of her passport photo right now.”
“Maryland? The chick is from Maryland?” I don’t know what I’d been expecting. Maybe someone from a rougher state, like New Jersey or something. But Maryland?
“Yeah, but, T, listen to this. She’s former CIA. She worked in cyber security in D.C. before moving to Maryland for a private job.”
“Former CIA, huh? Well, I guess that explains the bitchy attitude and the throat punch.” I winced, rubbing my throat.
“Yeah. Listen, you’re going to want to approach this chick with extreme caution. This isn’t like a playdate with a girl from church, okay? This chick is the real deal.”
I lowered my head. Lifting my hat with my free hand, I scratched my forehead with the back of my wrist. “Yeah, okay, Mikey. I appreciate the update.”
“Everything okay? You don’t sound too good.”
I looked back at Trinity. Mikey didn’t need to know that two Australian meatheads with guns were now asking around about me. “Nah, everything’s fine. I got this under control. Don’t worry about me. Thanks for the help.”
“Yeah, call me if you need anything else.”
I hung up and scrolled to my text messages. I had a message from Mikey already waiting for me. It was a photograph of the airplane psycho’s passport. In the short two days since I’d laid eyes on her, I’d known her as Megan Fox, Natasha Prince, and now Nicolette Dominion. I wondered if Nicolette was even her real name or if this was some kind of forged passport. Shaking my head, I returned to Al at the snack bar.
“Who was that?”
“My pal Mikey. He got a name and a passport on that woman who was on our flight.” Now I just needed to find out where she was. As long as those items that had been in my suitcase were still with me, I had a sneaking suspicion that she was still on the island. A thought occurred to me. Natasha or Nicolette, whatever her name was, had been down at the bar picking me up the day before. I wondered if maybe Trinity or her friend hadn’t seen her.
She was across the snack bar, pouring a bag of frozen fries into a deep fryer basket. I cleared my throat. “Trinity, do you have a second to take a look at this picture?”
She nodded. “I’ll be there in just a minute.”
I showed Al the picture. “Her name isn’t Natasha Prince. It’s Nicolette Dominion. Mikey said she’s former CIA cyber security.”
Al lifted his puffy brows. “You don’t say?” He looked at the picture and let out a whistle. “My goodness, Drunk, that’s one good-looking woman.” He laughed then. “And you thought she was coming on to you?”
I lowered my brows and sent Al a seething look.
He held up two hands and chuckled. “Okay, okay.”
“Do you remember seeing her on the plane? She was wearing a black leather jacket.”
He shook his head. “Evie and I barely made the flight, and once we were on board I fell asleep. I don’t remember seeing anyone.”
After dropping the basket into the deep fryer, Trinity walked over to our side of the counter. “What’s up, Drunk?”
With two fingers, I enlarged the photo of Nicolette so all that was visible of her passport was her photograph and turned the phone around. “Have you seen this woman at all?”
Trinity took the phone and held it closer. “Hmm,” she said, swishing her lips to the side. “I actually think I have. She was standing right over there.” She pointed to a shaded spot beneath a tree maybe twenty yards away at the foot of the stairs to the clubhouse. “It was right around the time those Australian men were looking for you.”
I gaped. “Today? You saw her today?”
Trinity nodded. “Yes. I’m sure it was her. She stood out because she wasn’t wearing a bathing suit like everyone else. She was in a tank top, shorts, and hiking boots. No one comes down here in hiking boots.” She laughed.
“No, I wouldn’t think so,” I agreed. “Did you speak to her?”
Trinity shook her head. “No. She didn’t come up to the snack bar. She just stayed back. In fact, it kind of seemed like she was checking out those men.”
“Did you see where she went?” asked Al.
“The men went that way,” she said, pointing towards the long flight of stairs to the motel. “I’m pretty positive she followed them.”
I rubbed the full growth on my chin. “Interesting. Very interesting.”
32
Al and I finished our lunch and then headed back to the clubhouse to see what Big Eddie and the guys had figured out, if anything.
“You know what I’m thinking now?” I said to Al as we breezed through the front doors of the clubhouse. I gave a little two-fingered salute to Gladys Rosenbaum and Ginger Schmidt, the two old ladies I’d sat between on the shuttle ride to the resort. Enjoying their lunch a few tables away, they giggled like schoolgirls while fluttering their fingers back at me.
“Drunk, I couldn’t begin to guess what goes on in that head of yours.”
“I think the only way I’m going to be able to clear my name and prove to Sergeant Gibson that I had nothing to do with Jimmie’s death is to either find Cami Vergado or find this woman.” I held up her picture on my phone. “Nicolette Dominion is ex-CIA. She knows exactly what’s going on, and I’d place money on the fact that she knows who killed Jimmie. If I can find her, maybe I can coax her into filling Sergeant Gibson in on what she knows and clearing my name.”
“Well, that sounds good and all, but how exactly do you propose we find her?”
“If she’s following those two Aussies, then we find them and we find her.”
Al nodded. “Logical, but how are we supposed to find them?”
“I have an idea. It’s kind of a long shot, and it’ll require asking Big Eddie for a s
econd favor.”
“Ooh, in that case, I think we’d have better luck knocking on every door on the island to find those fellas than asking for more help from Big Eddie.”
I patted Al on the shoulder. “That’s what I was afraid of, but that’s where you come in. I’m hoping your charm skills are on point today.”
Al stopped walking and looked up at me. “My charm skills are always on point.”
“Then what are you standing around for?”
Al laughed and led me to the computer room in the back of the clubhouse. It was a dark paneled room with only one window. There were only a handful of computers spread out around the room. All the guys had sat down at their own computer. Gary, Ralph, and Elton each played solitaire while Bob checked his email. Big Eddie was navigating through the computer’s file explorer program with Tony sidled up next to him.
“Find out anything?” asked Al.
“Nothing yet. This computer doesn’t have the necessary software to open the file that’s on this USB. I’m going to need to find it and then download and install it. It’ll take a while.”
“No problem,” I said. “In the meantime, we could use your help with one more thing.”
Eddie’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “Oh no. This is all I’m willing to do.”
“Oh, come on, Eddie. Give the kid a break,” said Al. “He’s had a rough go of it lately.”
Eddie leaned back in his seat and crossed his thin arms over his chest. “I’m not getting killed over this stuff. I’ll help you figure out what’s on the flash drive, and then you’re taking it all back!”
Tony’s arms flew out dramatically. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Eddie. You’re not going to get killed over this stuff! You need to simmer down!”
Al pulled up the chair next to Eddie and sat down. “Hey, Eddie. You do this for Drunk and me, and I’ll see if I can’t get Evie to set you up with one of her girlfriends.”
Eddie’s chin lowered slightly and his shoulders slumped just enough to tell me that he was relaxing. Al had piqued his interest.
“Eddie! You’re on the prowl?” I said with a toothy smile. “I know a couple of ladies who are ripe for the picking.”
Eddie and Al both looked up at me. “You do?” they said in unison.
I nodded. “Are you kidding me? Absolutely, and there are two of them. You’d get to take your pick.”
He swallowed hard. “Two of them?”
Holding up two fingers, I nodded with a big smile.
Eddie adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “What would I have to do?”
“I’ve got a phone number for a cell phone that I believe to be somewhere on this island. I need to find out the exact GPS location of where the phone is right now.”
Eddie visibly relaxed. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Oh, well, that’s easy.” He leaned forward in his seat. “There are all kinds of programs for doing that.” He clicked around on his computer.
“See? I knew I had the right guy for the job.”
“I’ll just need the person who has the phone to install an app on their end, and then we’re good to go.”
I winced. “Eddie, I think you’re missing the point here. I think I have Jimmie’s phone number.”
Al looked at me like I was crazy. “You have the dead guy’s phone number? How in the world did you get your hands on that?”
“Well, I told you I’d given Jimmie my business card on the plane. Earlier, when I went back to my cottage, I checked my missed calls, and I realized that the only number I didn’t recognize at all called me while I was at the bar with you the night Jimmie was killed. It makes sense that it might have been Jimmie trying to meet up.”
Al shrugged, as if having Jimmie’s number was no big deal. “So what’s that going to get us? Jimmie’s dead. I hate to break it to you, Drunk, but the guy’s not taking any more phone calls where he’s at.”
“Yeah, well, you’re right. It’s possible it won’t lead to anything. Because either the cops have Jimmie’s phone or those two Aussies have Jimmie’s phone. But if Jimmie was calling me to retrieve whatever he put in my bag right before he was killed, I’m going to guess those two jugheads weren’t far away. I’d venture a guess that they took his phone before the cops could.”
Eddie furrowed his brow. “I don’t care who has the phone. In order for us to track it using GPS, we need an app installed on the phone.”
Tony let out a belly laugh. “Eddie, you don’t get it. Let me break it down for you. Drunk and Al need to track the phone without the bad guys knowing.”
Eddie gave Tony, Al, and me one of those looks that said, “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.” “Yeah, well, without their consent, we can’t just hack their location.”
“You can’t or you won’t?” asked Tony.
Eddie shrugged. “Both, I guess. I mean, without consent, I’d have to figure out how to bypass the security function. Even if I could, that’s illegal, and I mean, two women are nice and all, but I’m not willing to go to jail just for a date.”
I rolled my head back on my shoulders and groaned. “Oh, come on, Eddie. We’d be putting away a couple of criminals with your help! How could that possibly be wrong?”
“You tell me if it’s wrong. You’re the cop,” said Eddie with one raised eyebrow.
“Fine,” I said through clenched teeth.
We all sat around thinking about other ways to figure out the GPS location of the phone. Finally an idea hit me. “Hey, Eddie. Let me see if I understand this correctly. Whoever has Jimmie’s phone just has to install something in order for us to track it?”
“Exactly,” said Eddie, punctuating it with a bob of his head.
“How do you do that? Like, send them a link or something?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I mean, yeah, you could send them a link, or they could go to the app store and download it to their smartphone that way. That’s how most people would do it.”
“Well, obviously that second option isn’t happening. But these are a couple of meatheads. They’re not going to know what’s going on. What if we sent them a tempting message with the link embedded in it somehow?”
“I don’t know how that would be any different. They’d still have to click the link in the message.”
“Does it download automatically, or do they have to read a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo and then give permission?”
Eddie made a face. “I think I could find the right software that would mean all they have to do is click the link and the software will run on its own. Clicking the link in essence would be the permission needed to install. You know how you get those suspicious emails, and everyone says not to click on any of the links? The reason is because clicking the link allows those dangerous files to download to your phone or computer. Essentially this would be the same thing.”
“Nice. So if I sent these two fellas a link to the hottest girls on the island and they click on the link, you could remotely install the app on Jimmie’s phone without them knowing?”
Al smiled and nodded. He could finally see where I was going with my line of questioning. “See, now you’re thinking like a detective! I knew you had it in you!”
I was getting excited too.
“Yeah, I could set it up like that. All I need is the phone number. And I’ll send the link from an anonymous number so they can’t trace it back to the resort or you or me.”
I wanted to kiss Eddie’s wrinkly old face. “Eddie, you’re the man. You get me that GPS location, and you just got yourself a date with two of the hottest women on the island.”
33
“Ginger, Gladys, how was lunch?” I found the girls beachside several hours later. They were sipping colorful cocktails garnished with cherries and pineapple wedges and fanning themselves beneath a red umbrella stuck in the sand.
“Drunk, good to see you,” said Gladys with a big smile. “You get to go do any snorkeling on the is
land yet?”
I hung my head. I wish. “No, darn it. It’s been a long couple of days, to be honest. I haven’t had time to do much of anything.”
“Aww, poor Drunk,” sighed Ginger. She adjusted her glasses so she could get a better look at my abs.
“You girls look awful lonesome sitting way over here just the two of you,” I said. “Have you met anyone on the island yet?”
“Well, we met the bartender, Manny. He’s such a nice man.”
“Very nice,” echoed Gladys.
“You know, I’ve met a couple of fellas myself since I’ve been on the island. A couple of single gentlemen, in fact. They said they’d been looking for a couple of dames to take out to dinner and asked me if I knew anyone. I said I happen to know a couple of cuties from the shuttle ride that might be interested in having dinner.”
Ginger shook her head, her puffy white curls shaking with her, “Oh no, we already have dinner plans. Reservations for two at that little Japanese restaurant in the lobby.”
“Not a problem. Lunch tomorrow, then?”
Gladys sucked in her breath and pretended to be offended. “Drunk, you’re not trying to set us up on dates, now are you?”
“As a matter of fact I am, Gladys. I think it’s just what the two of you need. A little romance for your island vacation. You’ll be telling stories about this trip for years! What do you say?”
“Well,” breathed Ginger. “I don’t know. Gladys and I watch Dateline. Have you heard all the horror stories of people being conned while on vacation…?”
“Or worse. Murdered!” Gladys nodded, her green eyes wide.
“Conned! Murdered! What kind of friends do you think I keep? No, no, no,” I said, waving a hand and sitting down on the side of Gladys’s beach chair. “These are a couple of the best gentlemen you will ever find. One of them, his name is Eddie—well, they call him Big Eddie”—I elbowed Gladys—“and it’s not because of his height, lemme tell you, eh, eh?” I grinned.
Gladys couldn’t restrain her giggle.
“He used to work for Dell. And then we’ve got Gary. He used to be a security guard at the Mall of America.” I was throwing Gary in as a bonus to sweeten the pot. Eddie didn’t think he could handle two women, and Gary was the only other one who was interested in dating. Bob, Elton, and Ralph had wives, and Tony said he wanted to lose a few pounds before picking up chicks. I promised to work out with him in the gym once or twice before heading back to the States. “See? So how can you go wrong with a security guard and a guy who worked for Dell?”
Drunk on a Plane Page 15
