Found

by H. Terrell Griffin

  J.D. wrote the number in her notebook. “Can you think of any more friends of Mr. Goodlow who might be able to shed some light on his murder?”

  “I’m sure he has a lot of friends in Cortez, but Bud Jamison will be able to tell you a lot more than I could.”

  “Did anyone know Mr. Goodlow was coming to visit you today?”

  “I doubt it. He called a few minutes before he stopped by. Said he was in the neighborhood and had some old pictures he wanted to show me.”

  “Anything else you can think of that might help us?”

  “No, but I’ll call you if anything comes to mind.”

  J.D. thanked her and left. The medical examiner’s van that had been in the parking lot when she arrived was gone. The crime-scene people were packing up, getting ready to leave. She walked over to one of them. “Hey, Loren,” she said. “Find anything?”

  “Hey, J.D. Just a casing from a nine millimeter. Probably from the slug that killed the old guy.”

  “Not much to go on.”

  “There’s a security camera up there.” He pointed to the corner of the building. “The manager gave us a disc with the footage from all day. We’ll go through it. Never know what might turn up.”

  “I’ll want to look at that as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll make a duplicate and drop it by the station this afternoon.”

  “Did you find any photographs? Old ones?”

  “Yeah. There was an envelope in the car that had some pictures in it. We left it there. The people back at the lab will have them.”

  “I’d like copies of those as soon as you can get them.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll get some copies made and bring them with the surveillance CD.”

  “Thanks, Loren. See you later.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I declined another beer. I had missed my morning run, so I needed to get home, change, and jog my daily four miles on the beach. “You want to go run with me?” I asked Logan.

  He looked at me as if I’d slipped a gear. Logan had recently retired from the financial services company he’d worked for since he graduated from college. He had made a lot of money, and, as he said, he’d never wasted it on a wife or kids. He was young for retirement, but so was I, and maybe that’s what made us such good friends. Logan stood about five feet ten and had lost most of his hair. What was left had turned white, so he looked older than he was. He had gained some weight since he gave up working for a living and, if he wasn’t careful, he would become one of those retirees who did nothing but drink and watch television. I was worried that he was drinking too much, but he seemed to have a large capacity for alcohol and he was never a sloppy drunk.

  “You go ahead,” he said with a grin. “I’ll catch up.”

  “Right.”

  The door to the parking lot opened, letting in light and a little fresh air and Cracker Dix. He greeted us in his English accent, took a stool, and ordered a glass of white wine. “Matt,” he said, “you’re here a bit early. What’s up? J.D. dump you?”

  “Not yet, Cracker. I just stopped in to rescue Logan.”

  “It’ll happen,” Logan said.

  “What’ll happen?” asked Cracker.

  “J.D. will dump Matt’s sorry ass. Soon, probably.”

  “Ah,” said Cracker, “a match made in paradise. Can’t go wrong.”

  “You hear about the mess on the bridge?” Susie asked.

  “Yes,” said Cracker. “I also heard that the asshole who went off the bridge killed old Ken Goodlow.” News travels fast on our small island.

  “Did you know Goodlow?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I met him when I first came to the island. Used to drink with him over in Cortez. He got me a job on one of the boats that used to work out of the fish houses over there.”

  “I didn’t know you worked the boats,” I said.

  “Sure did. Lasted one whole day. Wouldn’t have been that long if the captain hadn’t refused to bring me in early.”

  Cracker Dix was an expatriate Englishman who had lived on Longboat Key for thirty years without losing his English accent. He was in his late fifties, bald as a cue ball, and dressed, as usual, in a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a single-strand gold necklace. He had a gold stud in his right earlobe and an IQ that rested somewhere in the stratosphere.

  “Any idea who’d want to kill him?” I asked.

  “None. Everybody liked the old codger.”

  “Did he have a family?”

  “No. His wife died some years ago and they never had kids. The closest thing he had to family was Bud Jamison. Those guys were tighter than a virgin’s—”

  “Don’t say it,” interrupted Susie.

  Cracker grinned. “Well, you get my meaning.”

  “We all got it,” said Susie.

  “Anyway,” said Cracker, “they’ve been buds since World War II.”

  “Is Jamison married?” I asked.

  “No. I think he was once, years ago, but his wife died before I met him.”

  “I’ll pass this on to J.D.,” I said. “She’ll probably want to interview him.”

  “She probably already knows,” said Cracker. “Everybody in Cortez knew those guys were close. But, there was something that happened two or three years back.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Then what makes you think something happened?”

  “Back then, there were still several of the old guys left, and they had coffee every morning at the Cortez Café. I was seeing a woman who lived nearby and when I’d spend the night with her, when her husband was traveling, I’d join the old guys for coffee.”

  “Cracker,” Logan said, “did you ever have a woman who wasn’t married?”

  Cracker was quiet for a moment, thinking. “A couple,” he said finally. “But you know, they get all clingy, want to spend all their time with you. It’s smothering. Married women are more appreciative and are not unhappy to see me leave in the morning.”

  “So,” I said, “you were having coffee with the old gentlemen.”

  “Yeah, and they loved to talk about the old days, back when fishing was a real industry. They were a pretty tight-knit group. One day I stopped by and they weren’t there. I didn’t think much of it until a few days later when I went in again. Their table was empty. I asked the waitress about them, and she said they’d just stopped coming in. She didn’t know why.”

  “Did you ever find out why they stopped? Did they start going somewhere else?”

  “Never did find out, but there’s no place else nearby for them to have coffee. I think they just gave up their morning ritual.”

  “Did you ever see any of the guys again?” I asked.

  “Sure. I’d have a drink occasionally with Ken and sometimes Bud would be with him. I asked about the coffee klatches, and they just gave me some vague answer.”

  “Did you ever see any of the other men?”

  “No. They started dying off. Both of them and they died within a year.”

  “Natural causes?”

  “I think so, but actually I never heard. Maybe I just assumed they were natural deaths.”

  “Do you remember the names of the other two?”

  “Not offhand, but I probably wrote them down in my journal.”

  I was surprised. “You keep a journal?” I asked.

  “Sporadically.”

  “I’m not sure I get the significance of keeping a journal sporadically. Isn’t a journal like a diary?”

  “Exactly like a diary.”

  “Then wouldn’t you want to keep it up on a daily basis?”

  “I do that during the times that I keep it.”

  “I’m not following you, Cracker.”

  “It’s my love journal.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Logan asked. He’d been listening intently.

  “It’s like this. When I’m wooing a new woman, I like to keep a record of the rela
tionship. I can go back years later and read about it and enjoy the affair all over again.”

  “Got any pictures?” asked Logan.

  “You’re a pervert,” said Cracker.

  “I’m not the one keeping a record of my conquests,” said Logan.

  “If you did, you could have written the whole thing on a napkin,” said Cracker.

  “Sadly,” said Logan, “there’s truth in that statement.”

  The conversation moved on to island gossip, and I gave in and ordered another beer. There’d be no run on the beach that afternoon. A couple more of the locals came in, ordered drinks, and joined the group. The afternoon wore on, friends enjoying a lazy day of drinking and talking. About the time I finished my third beer, J.D. called.

  “Are you at home?” she asked.

  “No. I’m at Tiny’s. Are you finished for the day?”

  “No. I’ve got to stop by the station and then I’m going over to Cortez to interview one of the victim’s friends.”

  “Bud Jamison?”

  “Geez,” she said. “Tiny’s telegraph.”

  It was an old joke. Tiny’s was the gossip center for the north end of the key. Somebody had once described the place as the north-end clubhouse, and I guess it was. Secrets are hard to keep on a small island, and gossip was the lifeblood of our little community of year-rounders, those of us who did not flee north with the coming of summer’s humidity.

  “Yeah,” I said, “Cracker was filling me in a little. He knew the victim.”

  “If you’re going to be there for a while, I’ll stop by when I finish up in Cortez.”

  “No. I’ve had three beers. Time for me to go. Come on by the house.”

  “See you then,” she said.

  I paid my tab, said my good-byes, and walked out into the late afternoon. There was a slight chill in the air, a precursor of the cold that would envelope the island during the night. It would be a good evening for a fire in the fireplace, and a bottle of wine with my sweetie. My phone rang. Bill Lester calling to tell me the bridge had been cleared and I could come get my Explorer. I turned around and retraced my steps to the end of the island.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  By the time J.D. drove north to Anna Maria Island, the bridge had been cleared and Matt’s Explorer was gone. She turned east onto Cortez Road and crossed the Cortez Bridge. The village of Cortez perches at the eastern end of the bridge, abutting Sarasota Bay. It boasts a Coast Guard station, a couple of working fish houses where the boats sell their catch, and two boatyards that can repair everything from expensive yachts to ancient diesels that power some of the older fishing boats. The narrow streets are paved with crumbling asphalt and bordered by small houses, most of which were built before World War II. The people who live here work hard, take care of their families, and mostly ignore the wealthy people who populate the islands at the other end of the bridge.

  J.D. turned off Cortez Road onto 123rd Street, following the directions Bud Jamison had given her on the phone. She found his small house nestled under a stand of trees next to one of the boatyards. A twenty-year-old Chevrolet sedan, with a current sticker attached to the license plate, was parked in a carport abutting the house.

  An elderly man met her at the door. He was tall and lean and stood erect. He had a head full of iron-gray hair, clear blue eyes, and a small scar high on his left cheek. His face had the weathered look of a man who had spent years at sea.

  “Detective Duncan, I presume. I’m Bud Jamison. Please come in.”

  J.D. followed the old man into a living room. He had a noticeable limp, perhaps an injury of some sort to his right leg. He motioned her to a seat on an old leather sofa. He took a chair across from her. “What brings you to this little village?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid I’ve brought some bad news. Ken Goodlow was killed today. I’m sorry.”

  A look of pain crossed the man’s face. He put his hand to his forehead and sighed, pushing the pain away, J.D. thought. She watched him as he composed himself, mentally shaking off the bad news.

  “How did he die?”

  “Murdered,” said J.D. “Shot at close range by a man driving a Jaguar.”

  Jamison sat quietly for a few moments, as if trying to digest the fact that his friend had been murdered. Finally, he shook his head. “Do you know who the man was?”

  “Not yet, but he drove his car off the Longboat Pass Bridge. He’s dead and, as soon as the techies get finished with the car, we’ll get some fingerprints and figure out who he is.”

  The old man sighed. “I’ve lived too long, Detective. I’m the last one.”

  “Last one of what, Mr. Jamison?” J.D. asked kindly.

  “The last of the young men who came back from the war and went to work on the boats. We fished for our living, a hard life, but a good one. The work was honest and it paid the bills. Men could take care of their families, raise their children, love their women. It was a good life.”

  “Were you in the war, Mr. Jamison?”

  “No. I was Four-F, medically disabled. I’d injured my leg in a motorcycle accident before the war, and the military wouldn’t take me. I came here in 1942 and found a job with old Captain Dan Longstreet. He’s been dead for years now. There weren’t many young men around to do the jobs then. They were all off fighting or training and getting ready to fight.”

  “Where did you come here from?”

  “Washington, D.C.”

  “Why here?”

  “No particular reason. My parents had died and the military wouldn’t take me, so I came to Florida. I was the only child and I had sold their house, so I had a little cash. I thought I’d travel a bit and then try college or find a job. I was in Tampa and running low on funds, and somebody told me that there were jobs available in Cortez. I got a job and stayed.”

  “How did you come to know Mr. Goodlow?”

  “He came back from the war and went to work on Captain Long-street’s boat. We became good friends and that friendship lasted until today. Almost a lifetime. An entire lifetime for him, I guess.”

  “Do you know anyone who would want to hurt him?”

  “No.” But he said it too quickly or too emphatically or too something. J.D. caught it, even if she didn’t know quite what it was. Something just didn’t ring true. The old man was lying, but she’d let it go for now. Try to figure it out later.

  “Does Mr. Goodlow have any family here?”

  “No. His wife died some years ago and they never had any children. He had a brother, but he was lost at sea not too long after the war. He had a couple of cousins, but they died years back.”

  “What do you know about his work with the historical society?”

  “Wasn’t much to it. We both volunteered at the museum, recorded oral histories of some of the older folks around here. Ken and I recorded our own histories.”

  “Do you know anything about some photographs he was taking to show Ann Kuehnel?”

  “I suppose you’re talking about the old pictures he found in a trunk in his attic. Taken in the late forties. Those the ones?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Kuehnel told me that Mr. Goodlow had stopped by her condo to show them to her.”

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure those are the same ones he showed me yesterday. He was real excited about the find. They were black-and-white and taken with an old Brownie box camera that somebody had. I remember the day they were taken.”

  “Was there any significance to the photos?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Anything that would make somebody want to kill Mr. Goodlow?”

  “I can’t imagine that to be the case. They were just pictures of a bunch of us at a fish fry here in the village. I think it was a Fourth of July celebration, probably 1948. We were all young, late twenties and early thirties. Just folks having a good time and not even thinking that someday life would end. Now they’re all gone. Except me.”

  “When’s the last time you saw Mr. Goodlow?”

  “Thi
s morning. We had coffee over at the café.”

  “Did he say anything about going to Longboat?”

  “Yes. He had some business over there and if he had time he was planning to stop by and show Ann the pictures. He wanted them to go to the museum, and Ann was putting together an exhibit of pictures taken here over the years. He thought she could use some of them in the display.”

  “What kind of business did he have on Longboat?”

  “He was going to try to see a lawyer. A man named Royal.”

  “Matt Royal?” J.D. registered surprise.

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “I do. Do you know what that was all about?”

  “No. Ken didn’t say.” There it was again. Some shadow passing over the old man’s face or maybe a slight change in his eyes. J.D. couldn’t place it, but she knew she’d just been lied to again.

  “Did Mr. Goodlow know Matt Royal?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. Royal was recommended to him by the bartender over at the Seafood Shack. Nick Field.”

  “Did Mr. Goodlow have an appointment with Royal?”

  “I don’t think so. Ken said he couldn’t talk about anything on the phone, and Nick told him how to get to Royal’s house. I think he was just going to stop in and try to see him.”

  “Did he mention to you that he was having trouble with anybody?”

  “No. Ken got along with everybody.”

  “Would you mind if I asked you a couple of personal questions?”

  The old man smiled. “Don’t mind at all. I might not answer them, but you can ask away.”

  “Is Bud your real name?”

  “No, but I’ve been called that most of my life. My real name is John, no middle name.”

  “Have you ever been married?”

  “Yes. Once. My wife died many years ago.”

  “Any children?”

  “A daughter, but she died, too.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  J.D. stood. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Jamison. I’m sorry I had to bring you such bad news.” She handed him a business card. “Would you call me if you think of anything that might help me solve Mr. Goodlow’s murder?”