Family Ties Mystery Series Box Set

by James Kipling

  “Yes, if you would please answer the question.” Orlando did his best to sound polite in his response. “If you need to check any files, I can come back later, if that would take time.”

  Sullivan blinked again. The chubby jowls shook. “It won’t take any time. Allan was a friend of mine, and you don’t forget such tragedies.”

  Orlando didn’t want to argue, but he thought the deaths of Mayor Richardson and Allan Bayridge were not a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy. What happened twenty-five years ago was cold-blooded murder.

  “Allan had a pre-nup with his wife. A pre-nup that I wrote. Allan outlined it for me, and wanted it to be generous; which it was. But it was written assuming that one day Allan and Sylvi might separate. No one expected Allan to be murdered. He had no children, so as the sole heir, his wife received most of his holdings. Allan had drawn up a will, but was very casual, because he planned to update it at a later date. He gave money to a few friends, and a few institutions, but never designated who would get the bulk of his estate. So when he died, his wife had a legitimate claim to the inheritance.”

  “How much exactly was the inheritance?”

  “It’s difficult to say. Some of Alan’s holdings were in real estate. Estimated value of land can fluctuate. If I had to estimate, I would guess the monetary value of his estate were between four and seven million dollars, and I would lean on the high side.”

  “As his friend, do you know if there was any trouble in the marriage twenty-five years ago?”

  The soft flesh in Sullivan’s face stiffened. “What are you suggesting, Mr. Orlando?”

  “I’m suggesting an alternate view of the crime. But it is only a suggestion. I’m not making any accusations. It’s an alternate view that would be very difficult to prove after a quarter of a century. As you pointed out, there is no DNA evidence. The case might be circumstantial at best.” He paused for moment. “For both professional and personal reasons, I want to see justice done in this case, and the reasons go far beyond money, Mr. Sullivan.”

  The next words came very slowly from the lawyer.

  “Any you think…that…”

  “I’m open to all options. I’ve found when I have a puzzle or problem, it helps to look at it in an entirely different way. Out of the box, so to speak. And I don’t have my mind made up. I will go where the evidence takes me. I thank you for your time.”

  Sullivan nodded.

  “Oh, by the way, are you Sylvi’s attorney?”

  “No, after Allan’s death she found another attorney.”

  Orlando rose from his chair. ‘Again, I thank you for your time.”

  As Orlando walked toward the door, Sullivan’s voice stopped him. He turned around.

  “Mr. Orlando, this means nothing, and it certainly isn’t proof of anything. But…in the months prior to his murder, Alan did reveal to me there was trouble and friction in the marriage. I will tell you this next item, because Allan was speaking to me as a friend, not officially as his attorney. During that time, Allan asked questions about the pre-nup, and how easy it would be, legally, to…well, end the marriage if he and his wife went their separate ways.”

  “I appreciate your honesty.”

  “I think I misjudged you, Mr. Orlando. I wish you well in your task.”

  ###

  When he returned to his motel room, Orlando kicked off his shoes and eased down on the small sofa in the room. He thought he had time to hit the gym again before dinner. He heard once, that if you exercised properly, you should ache the next day. If you exercise every other day, that means you were aching basically every day, because his muscles ached for a while the day of the exercise, too. But he needed to get back into a routine.

  He reached for his phone and called Emily. In a few seconds, her perky voice answered.

  “Hello, Boss, what’s up?”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Ah, that’s sweet.”

  “And ask how you are doing?”

  “Very well. All is going smoothly. There have been no disasters or trips to the ER, so it’s a good day.”

  “That’s good to hear. I also wanted to check on Sasha. Have you talked to her?”

  “Yes. We had a glass of wine today, and discussed life, divorce, men, finances, God, and whether the lack of dark matter in the galaxy would lead to the destruction of all life on Earth.”

  “Oh…that was something of a wide-ranging discussion.”

  She laughed. “The upshot is, Sasha is doing well. She had some emotional and physical hits, but she is recovering. She’s a strong lady. She is talking with a therapist, but she looks good. I think the therapist is really helping. Also, I think she was cheered by the news about you pounding Martin. But she is smiling and laughing, David. And there’s…a vibrancy around her again.”

  “Good. That’s so good to hear.”

  “So, how is the case going.”

  “Better than I had a right to expect. I’ve made some progress. Now I’m in for, what will probably be, days of computer work and legwork. I hope I can track down some people, although I don’t even know their names yet.”

  “So, how are you going to track them down if you don’t know their names?”

  “That’s the tricky part,” he said. “That’s where my brilliance as a detective has to come shining through, and I hope it doesn’t take too long.”

  “I have confidence in you, David. I know you will find them, whoever they are, and wherever they may be,” she said. “But I’m guessing you don’t know when you’ll be back.”

  “No. I’m planning, right now, for only the immediately future; such as tomorrow, or tonight. I may hit the gym, and then have dinner here at the motel. I’m going for the pancakes again. They were very good.”

  She laughed again. “Keep me informed.”

  ###

  Three days later Orlando sat at one of the outside tables of the motel restaurant. A tall glass of ice tea was set before him. He also had a notebook and a pen on the table. He wore a Florida beach shirt, red with green palm trees on it, as he glanced toward the ocean. The waves caressed the shore today, playfully slapping the sand. White crests dissipated as they ran over the wet sand, then withdraw to the ocean. A tall, muscular man walked onto the balcony.

  “Mr. Orlando?” he asked.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  The man stuck out a tan hand.

  “I’m Robert Clement.”

  The two shook hands. Orlando pointed to a chair.

  “Thank you for agreeing to talk to me, Mr. Clement, and thank you for coming out to the hotel. I feel like I’ve walked twenty miles in the last couple of days. My legs are weary and my back isn’t feeling very well either.”

  “I was planning to come over to the beach section today on some business, so I figured I could drop by the motel,” Clement said. “But I’m puzzled about why you wanted to talk to me.”

  Orlando sipped his tea. “The answer to that question goes back twenty-five years. Correct me if I’m wrong, but at that time, you were working for a man named Manatee Sutton, correct?”

  “Yes. I worked for Manatee for about five years, then I changed jobs and worked for another company. About fifteen years ago, I started my own business.”

  “I hope you’ve done well.”

  Clement smiled. “Yes. Being in construction in Florida is a pretty good business. We’ve had some occasional lean times, but not many, and when we had one, it didn’t last long. Plus, we’ve had some hurricanes recently. I hate to admit it, because the storms cause so many people so much misery, but they are good for business. People have to rebuild.”

  Orlando flipped open his notebook. Several names had been written on the first page. He traced the names with his pen.

  “I’ve been talking to people and checking records for the past three days. Am I correct, that there was a man named Qui
nton Summers who worked with you and Mr. Sutton?”

  Clement nodded. “Yes. Manatee later expanded his business, but at that time, it was a smaller company. That was a long time ago. I almost forgot about Quint. He and I were Manatee’s two best men, and two most dependable men. At that time, I guess we had both worked a couple of years for him. Quint and Manatee became friends off the job, too. They just seemed to click.” He laughed. “I remember now. They had spent some time in Chicago. Now that I think about it, one was born near Chicago. I can’t remember which one it was, but they were Cubs fans, and they rooted for the Cubs passionately. I thought of them a few years ago, when the Cubs finally won a World Series, after a century.”

  A waiter walked out to the table.

  “May I get you something, Mr. Clement?”

  “That ice tea looks good.”

  “Okay. Would you like to order lunch? It’s on me.”

  “No, thanks. Just the tea will be fine.”

  A strong breeze blew in from the Atlantic. Flecks of sea spray hit both men, spotting their shirts.

  “You can get on with the questioning, Mr. Orlando. I’m getting curious about where this is going.”

  Orlando reached into his pocket and brought out a photo. “This is a long shot, but did you ever happen to see this woman with Mr. Sutton?”

  Clement took the photo, glanced at it, and whistled. “A good looking blond. Why are you interested in the twenty-five year-old social habits of Mr. Sutton?”

  “I wonder if I might postpone the answer until later. I will tell you, but I’d like to get all of the questions out of the way first.”

  Clement shrugged. “That was a long time ago. Way, way in the past.”

  “Well, as Faulkner once said, ‘The past is not dead. It’s not even past.’ At times, the past has a way of intruding in the present.”

  Clement tossed the photo back on the table. “If I recall, Manatee was seeing a woman. But I don’t know if that photo is of the lady he was seeing. I don’t remember her looks. I only saw her once or twice, and then, only briefly. It was whispered, on the job, that he was having a fling with a married woman, a real looker. Quint said Manatee told him once that the husband didn’t care. The couple had an open marriage. And if it was open, Manatee walked through the door. That was back then I was still young enough to be shocked. I guess that’s why I remember it. But I never knew the woman’s name, and couldn’t recognize her if I saw her.”

  “One more question, Mr. Clement. During the last three days, while I walked the street getting my shirt wet with sweat, I did uncover a significant piece of information. Is it true that Quint, for whatever reason, left the business and did not come back?”

  Clement slowly nodded. “Yes. One day, Quint didn’t show up for work. I figured he was sick or something, and didn’t ask about it. But he didn’t show up the next day, either, or the third day. I wondered if his sickness was something serious. I asked Manatee, and he said Quint had taken off. He had left him a message saying he wanted to see California and the West, and decided not to waste anymore time. I think he left the day after a payday. We never saw him again.”

  “I know you would not remember the day that happened, Mr. Clement, but I wonder if you could recall if Quint disappeared around the time that Mayor Richardson and another man were killed in a hit-and-run accident. It received considerable publicity at the time.”

  Clement sipped his ice tea and thought for a minute. His hand rose and scratched the space between his eye brows. “Yes, now that you mention it. The papers were full of stories about the hit-and-run killing the mayor. Newspapers carried stories about the murder for several days on the front page, for a week, maybe.” He nodded. “It was after that, soon after, I think, that Quint took off. We never saw him again.”

  “By the way, what was the name of Sutton’s company?”

  “A simple one, Manatee Construction.”

  “I know the company had an office. Did the company have a large building?”

  Clement nodded. “Sure. We had a lot of equipment. And the company had two trucks. There was a good-sized building behind our office. We stored the trucks there, and all the other equipment.”

  “I was also told that, while the company mainly did construction, that it was also involved in demolition.”

  “Yes, at times,” Clement said. “We took a few buildings down.”

  “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you talking to me.”

  “Now, can you tell me what this is all about?”

  Orlando gave him a brief description of the case.

  “And you suspect….”

  “I’m still working on finding facts and evidence. I’m not ready to draw any conclusions yet.”

  “If someone ever kills me, I hope you will be on the case.”

  Orlando smiled. “I hope you live a long life, Mr. Clement.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Detective Deke Randall, retired, but formerly of the Cottonwood Sheriff’s Department, was at first sceptical of Orlando’s investigation. He listened to the private detective’s story with a hard stare and a stony frown. As Orlando continued, the hardness softened a bit. Clad in a yellow T-shirt and brown shorts, he picked up a pen and clasped it in his fingers as Orlando kept talking. Randall somehow twirled the pen in between his fingers, like a card dealer slipping a card through his fingers. Orlando didn’t quite know how Randall could do that with a pen, but he took it as a sign that the detective was interested in his story. When he finished, Randall tossed the pen on his desk.

  “You seem to have done a remarkable amount of sleuthing. I compliment you,” Randall said.

  “Thank you. I admit I got into the case, almost to the point that I feel I have a personal interest in it.”

  “It has confounded more than one investigator, from the local departments to the state. We had two investigators from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement come down about fifteen years ago. They were going to take a look at it. They did but went back to their regional office in Daytona Beach with nothing.”

  “So, you can understand why I’m wondering if the local and state agencies ever thought Allan Bayridge might have been the designated target, and not Mayor Richardson,” Orlando said.

  Randall shook his head. “Not really. I see your point, and now I see we may have been mistaken. With one exception, we focused entirely on Mayor Richardson. Everyone in town knew about the fights and battles in city hall, and there had been anonymous death threats on both sides. The mayor had received any number of threats on his life. We knew the situation in the city was a powder keg. When the mayor was killed, we were certain he was the target. Bayridge was an afterthought. We did check out one rumor that a business partner thought he had been cheated by Bayridge, and had sworn revenge. I forgot the man’s name. That was a long time ago. But we talked with him, and I remember he had an alibi. He was in another county when the car hit the mayor. He admitted he hated Bayridge and, if I recall, gave us some details of the raw deal he got. But he told us it wasn’t worth killing for, and it certainly wasn’t worth killing two men for. It sounded bad, but of course, we never had a chance to hear Bayridge’s side. I talked with the guy, when I was with another sheriff’s detective, Jasper Throne. He moved on to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department about two years after the mayor was killed. But he was a fine detective. Both of us felt the business partner wasn’t a good candidate for murder. Besides, he had an alibi. After that, we never thought Bayridge was the victim. We focused entirely on Richardson.” He leaned back in his chair. “It’s a pity we didn’t have you on the force, Mr. Orlando.”

  ###

  The Sunshine Hospice was a brick and stone building that, Orlando thought, reflected a basic dignity. The atmosphere was not funeral home solemn. The attendants smiled, and occasional laughter rang in the halls and the rooms. Weakened by sickness, the inhabitants may have had to go gentl
e into that good night, but they went laughing. As he walked down a corridor, a number of patients waved to him and seemed to be having a good day. Orlando hoped he could be as brave facing death as these patients were.

  Manatee Sutton was in his bed, watching a baseball game. The Chicago Cubs were continuing their long-time rivalry with the St. Louis Cardinals. Sutton was a tall, tanned man, with wisps of white hair on his head. He had dark eyes, with an aquiline nose and mouth. Orlando thought that at one time he had been handsome, and the dark eyes still, at times, sparkled with vitality. But he moved slowly. The cancer had made walking difficult.

  “Mr. Sutton. My name is David Orlando.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  The voice remained strong, wavering only a little.

  “No, you don’t, but I’m investigating two murders in a twenty-five year-old cold case.”

  “Two murders?” Sutton said. Orlando thought he spied a flicker of recognition in the dark eyes.

  “Yes, Mayor Lyndon Richardson and Allan Bayridge. A hit-and-run driver ran them down. But you are familiar with the case, aren’t you Mr. Sutton?”

  Sutton shifted his gaze from Orlando to the baseball game.

  “I recall the case,” he said.

  “You should. You married Bayridge’s wife after he was killed. The grieving widow became a very rich woman, and her husband was killed.”

  Sutton gave a medical sigh. When you hear one, you know the man or woman doesn’t have long to live.

  “I don’t have much time left. I don’t want to spend it talking about the old times. I’d rather just watch the Cubs win.”

  Orlando had been standing at the edge of the bed. He walked closer to Sutton.

  “Okay. You don’t have much time, so I won’t waste any. You were behind the wheel of that speeding car twenty-five years ago. You ran down two men, and it wasn’t an accident. You planned the crime with Sylvi Bayridge. Why don’t you come clean and confess before you die? Get it off your chest. It might make death easier. And it would give the Richardson family some closure. They’ve had questions for twenty-five years. It’s time they had answers.”