Found

by H. Terrell Griffin

  Why was Appleby watching my house in the middle of the night? Maybe it was time to pay him a visit. If J.D. was in danger, I needed to know about it. Should I tell her I was going to Tampa? Not a chance. She’d think I’d gone into protective mode and that would piss her off. She had told me often enough that she didn’t need my protection. I’d have to think on that some more.

  “You’re up early,” said J.D. as she came out of our bedroom. Her hair was tousled and the left side of her face was a bit wrinkled from where it had rested on the pillow. She was barefoot and wearing nothing but the old T-shirt she slept in. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “Not well.”

  “Want to go for a run?”

  “Already been.”

  “Wow, aren’t we industrious.”

  “Want some coffee?” I asked. “I just made it.”

  “That’ll help.” She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a mug bearing the logo of the Miami-Dade Police Department. “What’s on your agenda today?” she asked.

  “Not sure.” I hated lying to her, but I thought it’d be better than starting an argument. “What about you?”

  “I’ll see if I can get with that witness Porter King and then I think I’ll go have a conversation with Captain McAllister. See if there’s anything new on Katie.”

  “Are you going to tell him about the photo you got?”

  “No. At least not yet. I need to know more about what’s going on.”

  “I ran into one of your cops this morning, Joe Carson. He said he’d had to run off that P.I. from Tampa, Appleby, about two this morning.”

  “Where was he?”

  “Parked down the street.”

  “Doing what?”

  “According to Joe, he was just sitting there. Maybe watching the house. I don’t know.”

  “I don’t like that.”

  “I don’t either,” I said. “Maybe you ought to talk to him.”

  “Maybe, but I’m not sure I want him to know that I know he’s following me.”

  “What’s the downside?”

  She thought about that for a couple of beats. “I don’t know, come to think of it. Maybe I ought to let him know I’m on to him. That might scare him off. But I’m so jammed up with this murder and Katie, I just don’t have time to go see him.”

  “What if I set up a meeting with him? I could drive up to Tampa this morning.”

  She was quiet for a moment and then nodded. “I don’t see why not. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.” I smiled to myself. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

  “I’ll see if our dispatcher can run down a number for him.”

  I was at the apex of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, one hundred seventy-five feet above the ship channel that runs through Tampa Bay. I always get a bit nervous as I cross this beautiful span. It’s a long way down.

  I was on my way to a meeting with Ben Appleby. I and the Rohrbaugh R9’s 9mm pistol in the holster I carried stuffed into my pants at the small of my back. I wasn’t sure what I was going to run into and I thought the little six-shot weapon would provide me with a bit of confidence.

  I’d called Appleby an hour before and apparently awoken him from a deep sleep. “Mr. Appleby,” I said. “My name’s Matt Royal. Does that mean anything to you?” He might already have connected me to J.D., since he was parked outside my house. I’d decided it didn’t matter. Either he’d meet me or I’d go find him.

  “No. Should it?”

  “Probably not. I’m a lawyer and I need some investigative work done. You were recommended. Can I meet with you this morning?”

  “Recommended by whom?”

  “I don’t remember. Somebody I met at a bar luncheon recently.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Some surveillance on an errant husband.”

  He laughed. “Guy fucking around, huh?”

  “Something like that. I need some dirt as soon as possible.”

  “Okay. Meet me at eleven.”

  “Give me your office address.”

  “I’ll come to your office.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “That’s not possible. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  “Okay. I don’t actually have an office. I pretty much work out of my car. Can you meet me out by the Tampa airport?”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Okay. There’s a Denny’s on Highway 92 about three blocks north of its intersection with I-275. How will I know you?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find you,” I said. J.D. had given me a photo taken from Appleby’s Department of Motor Vehicles file, the one that shows up on his driver’s license. It was not what I expected.

  I had envisioned Appleby as a small, dark man, but he was actually blond, tall, and thin as a rail. He was sitting in a booth in the back of the restaurant, a cup of coffee in front of him. He looked tired. The midnight surveillance wasn’t working too well for him.

  “Mr. Appleby?” I asked. “I’m Matt Royal.”

  “Sit down. You want coffee?”

  I shook my head and took a seat across from him. “What I want is to know why you’re following Detective Duncan.”

  A look of puzzlement crossed his face. “What? I thought we were here to talk about a divorce case.”

  “Listen to me,” I said, my voice low and hard. “I want to know why you were following Detective Duncan yesterday and why you were parked in front of my house in the wee hours of this morning.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, moving to extricate himself from the booth.

  “Yes, you do, and if you get out of that seat, I’m going to follow you to the parking lot and beat the shit out of you.”

  He leered at me. “That might be harder to do than you think.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You’re not a cop.” A statement, not a question.

  “I’m not.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I told you. I’m a lawyer.”

  “I’m not impressed.”

  “I’m also Detective Duncan’s, how shall we say, boyfriend.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes. Now why don’t you simply tell me why you’re following her and sitting outside my house in the middle of the night?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  I leaned back in the booth, sighed, and smiled. “I want you to try and follow this logic, Mr. Appleby. If I actually didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked the question. How difficult can that be?”

  “Look, Royal, the people I work for are not the kind of people you want to fuck with.”

  “They’re fucking with me.”

  “I doubt they know you exist.”

  “When they fuck with my woman, they fuck with me.”

  He laughed. “That’s brilliant.”

  I had to laugh. “That did sound a bit stuffy,” I said, “but in stuffiness there is sometimes truth.”

  “And you’re a philosopher as well as a tough guy.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You’re not as dumb as you act, and I’m not really a tough guy. Philosopher either, for that matter. All I’m trying to do is find out who’s interested in my girlfriend and why.”

  “And I can’t tell you that.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m not telling you jackshit.”

  “Can you deliver a message for me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Tell your employers I want to talk to them.” I gave him my cell number.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Maybe not, but will you do it?”

  Appleby sighed. “I’ll do it, but I don’t think you’ll like the reaction you get.”

  “And you stay away from Detective Duncan.”

  “Or what?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Are you playing tough guy again?”

  I grinned. “No. But the Longboat law will fin
d some reason to arrest you if you show back up on the island. I can promise that, and by the time all the paperwork finds its way up the proper channels, you will have spent a week or two in the Manatee County stockade.”

  “That sounds a little extralegal.”

  “Yeah, but you know how it is. The cops always take care of their own.”

  “My people will just send somebody else.”

  “Then tell your people to send someone who won’t mind spending a couple of weeks in jail.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Porter King was sitting in the waiting room of the Longboat Key Police Station. It was not quite ten in the morning and he had been there less than five minutes when J.D. came through the door that led to the bowels of the building. “Good morning, Mr. King. I’m Detective J. D. Duncan.”

  King rose. He stood a little under six feet tall with a compact body that didn’t seem to hold any fat. His face had that creased look that gives middle-aged men a rugged appearance. His brown hair was sprinkled with gray. His clothes were casual and expensive, his voice inflected with the cadence of his native New York City. “Nice to meet you, Detective. I’m sorry I was so hard to get hold of.”

  “Well, you’re here now and I appreciate it. Come on back. Can I get you a cup of coffee or something else to drink?”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  J.D. led him to a small room that had four chairs placed around an oval table that held a laptop computer. “Have a seat, Mr. King,” said J.D. “I want to show you a surveillance tape from your condo complex and ask you some questions.”

  “This must be about the man who was killed in the parking lot on Tuesday.”

  “It is. Let me show you the tape and then we’ll talk.” She put the CD in its slot and called up the video that showed King walking out of the building and stopping to talk to the man in the Jaguar. It only took a minute or so for the scene to run its course. “Do you know this man?” J.D. asked.

  “No. I’d never seen him before. Was he involved somehow?”

  J.D. ran the tape forward as they watched Ken Goodlow come out of the building, stop at his truck, and walk back to the Jaguar. King flinched as the man shot Goodlow.

  “That’s the killer?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s the guy who went off the bridge?”

  “Yes. Can you tell me about your conversation with him?”

  “It wasn’t much. I saw him sitting in the car when I walked out, and I stopped to ask if I could help him in any way.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “He told me that he was a real estate agent and was waiting to meet a client interested in one of the units. I told him I didn’t know one was for sale, and he said that the owner wanted everything to remain confidential. I didn’t push it. Just wished him a good day and got in my car and left.”

  “Tell me about his voice. Any accent, speech impediment, that sort of thing?”

  “Not so I noticed. He may have had a slight regional accent, like from Maine or somewhere in New England, but it wasn’t foreign. He sounded very American. Why? Do you think he came from somewhere else?”

  “We don’t know who he is, Mr. King. That’s what we’re following up on. Did you notice a gun in the Jaguar?”

  “No. He was just sitting there, minding his own business.”

  “Do you mind if I ask where you’ve been for the past couple of days?”

  “Not at all. I spent Tuesday night in Sarasota with my girlfriend and we drove down to Naples yesterday morning. We spent the day and drove back last night. I dropped her off and came back to my place late last night.”

  “Would you mind giving me your girlfriend’s name?”

  “Be glad to.”

  J.D. wrote it down along with an address and phone number. She’d follow up, but she was pretty sure that was a dead end. King assured her that he’d be around for the next couple of weeks at least and if he wasn’t at home, she could reach him on his cell phone.

  “I tried that for the past couple of days,” she said.

  He gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry about that. I ran off and left the damn thing on my dresser. By the time I realized I didn’t have it, we were halfway to Naples.”

  J.D. ushered him out of the station, shook his hand, and watched him walk to his SUV. She went back to her office and called Captain Doug McAllister. “Good morning, Doug. This is J. D. Duncan.”

  “J.D. A pleasant surprise. How have you been?”

  “I’m well, thank you. I wonder if you’d have time to sit down with me today to talk some more about Katie Fredrickson.”

  “I’m pretty well backed up around here. Have you got any news? Has anybody heard from her?”

  “Her parents tell me they haven’t. I’ve got a little time on my hands and I thought I might go back over the file and see if I can come up with anything. That is, if you don’t mind.”

  “J.D., I’m always glad to have the help. I’m not one of those guys who guards his turf like a mama bear.”

  “I know, Doug, and I appreciate that.”

  “Look, I had a luncheon conference with the chief set for today, but he had to meet with the mayor or somebody. Have you got time for lunch? I’ll bring the file.”

  “I can certainly do that.”

  “How about Marina Jack at noon?” he asked.

  “Great. Thanks, Doug. I’ll see you then.”

  J.D. sat at her desk for a few minutes thinking about Katie’s case. She’d been through the Sarasota P.D.’s file a couple of times and had talked with Doug McAllister on many occasions. He’d always been cooperative. J.D. knew he was a good cop and thought he was a pretty good guy to boot. However, there was something nagging at the back of her mind about the property Jim Fredrickson had inherited over near Avon Park. She’d never heard of that before Matt told her about it. It probably wasn’t important, but it was a loose end that McAllister should have rolled up, and she’d seen nothing in the file to suggest he had.

  She picked up her phone and called the Basses’ house. George answered. “George, it’s J.D.”

  “Hi, sweetheart. Great to hear from you. I met your boyfriend yesterday.”

  “He told you he was my boyfriend?”

  “Well, he said you were more than friends.”

  J.D. laughed. “I guess we are. I’m practically living with him.”

  “He seems like a nice guy. I knew him by reputation when he practiced law in Orlando. It was all good.”

  “Glad to hear it,” J.D. said. “I’d hate to think he could fool a real live police detective.”

  George chuckled. “You’ll have to bring him over sometime. We miss seeing you.”

  “Thanks, George. I’ll do that. I was calling about something else though. Matt said you had looked for the name of the caretaker of the grove that Jim owned in Avon Park. Did you find it?”

  “No, but I didn’t look any further. Matt didn’t seem to think it was that important.”

  “It’s probably not, but I’d like to talk to him.”

  “I’ll look some more and see what I can find.”

  “And, George, I know this is going to sound funny, but if you talk to Doug McAllister, I’d prefer that you not mention this or that Matt came to see you.”

  “What’s up, J.D.?”

  “Probably nothing, but I’d like a little time to check some things out for myself.”

  “Do you think there’s any chance Katie’s alive?”

  “I don’t think that’s likely, George, but I want to make sure that somebody has covered all the bases. I want to find the killer. I don’t think we’ll find Katie.”

  After she hung up, she felt like a little girl who’d just lied to her father. She wanted to tell the Basses about the texted picture, but she didn’t want to give them any false hope. They’d been through that special hell reserved for parents who outlive their children, and she didn’t want to send them back into it. She knew she was right, but sometimes
being right doesn’t make it easier.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Captain Doug McAllister was in his mid-forties and had been a Sarasota cop for more than twenty years. He was well known and respected in the law the enforcement communities that dotted the Suncoast. He stood a little over six feet tall and had the body of an aging linebacker, with muscles in the process of turning to fat. His face was wrinkle free, but wide and flat with dark eyes set a bit too far apart, heavy eyebrows, and a cleft chin. His head was covered with hair that was too gray for his age. He was walking across the restaurant toward J.D., a grin breaking out as he spotted her. He had a large file folder in his hand.

  “Good to see you, J.D.,” he said as he pulled a chair up to her table. “Have you ordered yet?”

  “No. I got here two minutes ago. It’s good to see you, too.”

  McAllister put the file folder on the table. “I’ve made a complete copy for you. I’d like it back when you finish with it.”

  “Not a problem. I appreciate your going to all this trouble.”

  “Glad to do it. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes will pick up something I’ve missed.”

  “Are you still actively looking into the case?” J.D. asked.

  “Not really. I pull the file out occasionally just to refresh my memory, but there hasn’t been anything new since we finished the initial investigation.”

  “Do you have any theories about what happened to Katie’s body?”

  “Speculation is all we have.”

  “It’s strange that the killer would have taken her body and left Jim’s at the scene.”

  “We think maybe he was afraid he’d left some evidence, like DNA, on or in Katie’s body,” said McAllister. “Maybe she was still alive when he pulled her out of that house. Maybe he wanted to make sure she didn’t live to identify him. We never have come up with a good answer to that, J.D. You know she was raped, right?”

  “I know the medical examiner said that might fit the evidence, but he couldn’t be more definitive.”