Found

by H. Terrell Griffin

“It’ll catch up to him someday,” said Jock. “He’s going to make a mistake, screw over somebody with the power to take him out.”

  “That may be his problem now. The press is going to be all over him on this one. The reporters have all heard the rumors about the tactics he’s used. He might be worried that the heat will get too high. This is one murder he’s got to solve and he’s going to have to do everything by the book.”

  Logan came through the door, strangely sober for so late on a Saturday evening. “Where’ve you been?” I asked.

  “I told you. Marie’s aunt is visiting from Jacksonville, and we went to dinner.”

  “You didn’t drink?” I asked

  “Marie said she’d kill me if I did. Her aunt thinks anybody who touches alcohol is going to hell.”

  “You’re probably going there anyway,” Jock said.

  “Yeah, but Marie’s aunt doesn’t know that.”

  Susie brought a tall glass of amber liquid to the table. “A triple, just like you ordered.”

  “You didn’t put too much water in that, did you?” asked Logan.

  “Just a splash.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Susie,” Logan said.

  “Be careful,” she said. “You’ve got to drive home.”

  “Aw,” said Logan, “the cops are okay. If the town commission hadn’t meant for people to drive drunk they wouldn’t have insisted on all those parking spaces for a bar.”

  “Go easy on that,” said Jock. “You and I are playing a practice round in the morning.”

  Logan smiled. “Okay. Guess you need the practice. Any luck finding old Mr. Jamison?”

  “No,” I said. “J.D. ran him through the system and turned up nothing, not even a traffic ticket. He’s lived in the village since World War II, in the same house he bought when he got married. Worked the fishing boats most of his life. He lives on Social Security and his savings and drives a twenty-year-old car that he bought used fifteen years ago.”

  “Somewhere along the line, he must have run afoul of somebody,” said Logan. “Why else would a punk like Caster be after him?”

  “I think the better question,” Jock said, “is why somebody like Porter King would be after him.”

  “Maybe if J.D. can find King, she’ll get some answers,” Logan said.

  “Small problem there,” I said. “King’s dead.”

  “Well, there goes that idea. How did he die?” Logan asked.

  “Somebody shot him earlier this evening at his girlfriend’s condo on the mainland,” I said. I told Logan how we came to find King and his girlfriend and the strange reactions we’d gotten from McAllister and our speculations about his demeanor.

  “You’re probably right about McAllister being spooked by the press on this one,” Logan said. “I wouldn’t read too much into his bullshit.”

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  “Does anyone have any thoughts about who might have killed King and his girlfriend?” asked Logan.

  “If McAllister does, he didn’t share it with us,” I said.

  “Could it have anything to do with J.D.’s visit to her this afternoon?” Logan asked.

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Who would know about it other than J.D. and Josie and, possibly, King?”

  “Based on what J.D. said about her interview with Josie,” said Jock, “I don’t think Josie would have mentioned it to King. She was too concerned that King would somehow find out that she’d told J.D. that King had lied about going to Naples the day after Goodlow was killed.”

  “Then,” said Logan, “maybe J.D. should concentrate on finding anybody Josie might have told about J.D. coming to see her.”

  “That’s a good point,” I said. “McAllister will probably get her telephone records. Hopefully, he’ll share that with J.D. At least it’ll be a start. If we find out who she told about J.D.’s visit, we might be able to track back to the killer.”

  The conversation turned to golf, which bored me and seemed to be beyond Logan’s understanding, and then morphed into tales of our fishing prowess. All lies. Locals came and went, the late night filled with staff from local restaurants and bars, finishing their day with a libation or two or three. A typical night at Tiny’s, old friends laughing and telling big stories, a few of them true. Logan finished his tall drink and left. Jock and I had another drink and called it a night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Sunday was one of those days that we islanders live for, temperature in the low seventies, very little humidity, a clear sky, and flat seas. Jock had finally talked Logan into a practice round, and they left early for the golf course. I was drinking coffee and reading the morning paper on my patio, thinking that the day was too beautiful to waste. I’d go for a run later, maybe call J.D. and see about taking the boat to Egmont Key for a picnic. There was a knock on the front door, and J.D. walked through the living room and out to the patio.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” I said.

  “Sunshine?” she asked. “That’s a new one.”

  “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone,” I sang.

  “Bill Withers didn’t do it better,” she said, laughing, and leaned down and planted a kiss on my forehead.

  “Miss me?” I asked.

  “Sort of. I want you to hear something. Where’s Jock?”

  “He and Logan just left for the golf course.”

  “I’m afraid they’re headed for disaster in the tournament.”

  “Probably. Want some coffee?”

  “I’ll get it.”

  She returned from the kitchen with her mugful of steaming coffee. “I didn’t think to check the voice mail on my cell phone until this morning. Listen to this.” She punched a few buttons on the phone and held it up so that I could hear the message.

  “Detective Duncan, this is Josie Tyler. I just got a disturbing call that I think you should know about. I think I may be in danger. Please call me as soon as you get this message.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “When did that come in?”

  “Five thirty-two yesterday afternoon. She probably called while I was in the shower.”

  “That tells us that she was killed between the time she made the call and when we got to the condo. What? About an hour?”

  “I checked my phone. I made the 911 call at 6:23, so it was a little less than an hour. We probably just missed the killer.

  “We need to know who called her,” J.D. said.

  “Can you get the phone records?”

  “I can try, but I’m going to need a warrant, and I don’t know that I have enough to justify that to a judge.”

  “McAllister should be able to get them,” I said. “Can’t you get them from him?”

  “I guess, but I’d sure like to see them fresh from the phone company.”

  “Do I detect a little suspicion of McAllister?”

  “Not really. I think he was just stressed out last night. He’s a good cop, but you never know.”

  “Are you going to tell him about the call from Josie?”

  “I want to see the phone records first. We know she got a call from somebody who spooked her. And we know about what time the call came in. I’d like to see if it shows up on the records.”

  “Your number is going to show up there, you know. From when she called you.”

  She chewed on it for a moment. “You’re right. I’d better come clean up front on that.”

  “I agree. You don’t want McAllister thinking you’re holding back on him. Not if you expect cooperation from him.”

  “I’d sure like to see those phone records before I talk to Doug.”

  “Jock can help. He’s got resources that neither you nor McAllister have.”

  “I don’t know, Matt. I don’t want to put Jock in a tough position.”

  “It won’t hurt to ask. Let me give him a call.”

  She nodded. I dialed Jock’s cell phone.

  “Jock,” I said, “J.D. needs the phone records on Josie Tyler today. She doesn’t wan
t to put you out, but I don’t mind. Can you get those for us?”

  “It’ll be easier if I had her numbers,” he said.

  I asked J.D. and she rattled off both Josie’s cell phone and home numbers. I gave them to Jock.

  “How much time do you want me to cover?” he asked.

  I asked J.D. “Just for Saturday afternoon,” she said.

  I relayed that to Jock. “How’re you hitting them?” I asked.

  “I’m doing fine. My partner stays in the rough and cusses a lot.”

  “I’m not surprised. Call me when you get something.”

  “I’ll have the records e-mailed to you. Probably take an hour or so.” He hung up.

  “Can he just do that?” asked J.D. “He doesn’t need a reason?”

  “No. Jock’s been around a long time, knows a lot of people. They never question him when he wants something.”

  “I’m not sure I like this, Matt. I’m going behind the back of a good cop.”

  “But you’re having some doubts about McAllister.”

  She was quiet for a couple of beats. “Yes. He was way out of line last night. Maybe it was the stress, but he’s been in stressful situations before.”

  “Harry Robson didn’t seem too surprised that McAllister was being an asshole.”

  She smiled. “No. I guess most cops can be that way on occasion, but there was something more to his tirade last night. Like it was personal and aimed directly at me.”

  “Can you think of anything that might have set him off?”

  “No. When I saw him in the afternoon, he was his normal cordial self.”

  “Let’s see what the phone records show. If McAllister will give you his copy tomorrow, we can compare them and see if he’s left anything out.”

  “What if he refuses to let me see them? I don’t really have any right to be involved in his investigation.”

  “Either way, we’ll know he’s not playing it straight with you.”

  “I’d better call him,” J.D. said. “Let him know about the voice mail message from Josie.”

  A half hour later, my computer dinged, letting me know I had an e-mail coming in. It was from a sender I’d never heard of, but it was a printout of Josie Tyler’s phone records. Her home phone had not been used for either incoming or outgoing calls during Saturday afternoon. The cell phone record showed an incoming call at 5:29 in the afternoon. It lasted for one minute. Three minutes later, Josie called J.D.’s cell phone.

  A typed note attached to the printout identified the second call as going to J.D. and the first call originating from a prepaid cell phone that had been bought at a Wal-Mart in Sarasota. It had been a cash transaction and it would be impossible to determine the name of the buyer.

  “It looks like the call from the prepaid is what spooked Josie,” said J.D. “She called me as soon as she hung up.”

  “She said she thought she might be in danger. Like she wasn’t sure. Maybe the call came from somebody she knew.”

  “That’s a reasonable hypothesis.”

  “Is a hypothesis like a hunch?”

  “Pretty much,” she said. “If the call came from somebody she knew, she might have let that person into the apartment.”

  “I wonder when King showed up.”

  “We’ll never know for sure, but my guess is that she wouldn’t have called me if he was there.”

  “You’re probably right. He must have come in after she made the call.”

  “Think about this scenario,” she said. “Josie gets a call from somebody she knows and has some reason to fear. He says he’s coming over and she panics, calls me. King arrives and she tells him that the caller is on his way, so they leave the door unlocked. King is in the bathroom when the caller walks in, shoots Josie, and goes to the bathroom. King is coming out of the bathroom and the killer shoots him, drops his weapon, and leaves by the stairwell.”

  “That would work,” I said, “but there’s a missing piece. I think Josie would’ve told you about somebody that she was that afraid of when you met with her. Either she didn’t know she had to be scared of him when she talked to you, or he said something to her that caused her to panic.”

  “Maybe King was the target and Josie was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Or, maybe the other way around. What if Josie told someone about your visit to her? Could that have attracted the interest of the killer? Was he afraid of what Josie may have told you or would tell you?”

  “But, she didn’t make any calls after I left her.”

  “Unless she had a cell phone we don’t know about. Or maybe she had a visitor, somebody she trusted enough to tell about your conversation.”

  “If she had a prepaid cell phone,” J.D. said, “we’ll never find it without a number. But, I don’t think that’s the case. The only reason somebody with a cell phone would buy a prepaid would be to hide the calls she made. But at this point, I can’t see any reason she’d have to do that.”

  “I don’t guess you’ve heard anything more from Katie,” I said, changing the subject.

  “No, but I’ve been thinking about that. I may have a way to narrow down the area where the building with the graffiti is located. There was a number on the rear quarter panel of that Tampa squad car. I’m pretty sure that’s the number assigned to that particular vehicle. If we can figure out the patrol area that car operates in and the cop who usually drives the car, we might be able to get a location on the building. Maybe Katie lives near the building and the picture of the car and the building was a clue she was sending.”

  “It’s worth looking into. Can you touch base with Tampa P.D.?”

  “I’ll do that first thing in the morning.”

  “Would Katie have any way of knowing that you’ve gotten involved in the investigation of her disappearance?”

  “I doubt it, but she probably knows I would. Especially once I moved here.”

  “How would she even know you’re here?”

  “My name pops up in the newspapers now and then. She could have seen one of those articles. Or she might have tried to call me in Miami and was told I’d moved over here.”

  “I’ve been wondering why she would text you the first two pictures and then go to the trouble to e-mail you the picture of the car. Why not just text that one, too?”

  “Maybe she was trying to get my attention with the texted pictures. The chances of anybody seeing those pictures other than me were miniscule, unless I showed them to somebody. Plus, they were pretty esoteric. If they’d somehow gone to the wrong phone, nobody else would have been able to figure them out. If it hadn’t been for the word ‘Jed’ in the first picture, I might not have recognized her. The e-mail, on the other hand, had a much better chance of being seen by any number of people. She wouldn’t have my personal e-mail, so she sent it to the office. That e-mail address is posted on the town website. Without the texted pictures, the e-mail wouldn’t have made much sense to anybody but me.”

  “I wish we could figure out what she’s trying to tell us,” I said.

  “I don’t get the impression she’s in any immediate danger, but maybe somebody’s looking for her.”

  “I wonder why she doesn’t just contact me directly,” said J.D. “If she’s trying to tell me where she is, it’d be a heck of a lot easier to just call me and tell me to come get her.”

  “Maybe she’s afraid somebody has hacked into your cell phone and would intercept any calls she made to you.”

  “It’d take somebody powerful to do that, wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll have to ask Jock.”

  “If my phone is bugged, somebody would also intercept the text, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yes, but you said the picture didn’t look much like Katie and the message surely wouldn’t have set off any alarm bells. It’s more like a gag photo.”

  “What about the second picture she texted? The one with ‘U166’ written on her hand?”

  “Maybe
that didn’t mean anything,” I said. “Or maybe she thought it would mean something to you, but not to anybody else.”

  “I’m at a complete loss on it.”

  “I wonder what the hell ‘U166’ means. She went to some trouble to send us that.”

  “I Googled it,” said J.D. “The only references I could find were to a German submarine that was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico during World War II. Katie’s certainly not connected to that.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” I said. “You up for a boat ride?”

  “What’ve you got in mind?”

  “We could run up the Manatee River to the Twin Dolphin Marina. Pig out on crab cakes at Pier 22.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” she said.

  And that’s what we did.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The ride back from Pier 22 was pleasant. Tampa Bay was quiet, the water flat, and the sun warm, but the wind kicked up by our passage was cool enough to make us glad we were wearing sweatshirts and jeans. We decided to exit the bay through Passage Key Inlet and run south in the Gulf. I took Recess out about a mile offshore, set the autopilot for the sea buoy at Longboat Pass, put my feet on the dash and cruised toward home. J.D. and I sat quietly, enjoying each other’s company without any conversation.

  As we cruised south along the length of Anna Maria Island, dark clouds were building to the southeast over the mainland, piling atop each other like so many blocks of spun granite, dark and foreboding. A bolt of lightning flashed in the distance. I pointed toward the storm. “We’ll have some rain. Maybe before we make it home.”

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it? Even bad weather has a certain beauty when you live in paradise.”

  “Yes, it does, but if that storm hits us before we get home, you won’t think it’s so beautiful. There’s lightning in those clouds.”

  “It’s pretty far off,” she said.

  “It’s moving fast, coming toward us.” It was one of those rapidly moving thunder cells that we see so often in the summer. They’re rare in the winter, but they do pop up on occasion, and this one looked dangerous.

  I disengaged the autopilot and pushed the throttles forward. I angled in closer to the beach and made for the rock jetty that juts off the southernmost tip of Anna Maria Island, defining the northern edge of Longboat Pass. There was a swash channel at the end of the jetty that was deep enough for Recess. I would save a lot of time by not having to go all the way to the sea buoy and then back through the marked channel to the bridge.