That Way Lies Madness: A Florida Action Adventure Novel (Scott Jarvis Private Investigator Book 8)

by Scott Cook

  “This guy’s tryin’ to rob me,” My stalker gasped.

  “This asshole was scoping my family and me at George’s,” I explained to the men calmly. “I chased him down to find out why.”

  The men looked uncertain. The fisherman who’d spoken was a burly guy in his forties who looked from one of us to the other and then shrugged.

  “Cops is comin’ now anyways,” he said, pointing. “Let them figure it out.”

  Two Narragansett uniforms were fast walking down the alley. Wayne was right behind them, thankfully.

  “This guy’s tryin’ to rob me,” My quarry exclaimed as the cops stopped near us.

  “That right, mister?” The older of the two asked me.

  “Not even close,” I said and explained what had happened.

  “You fellas see anythin’?” The younger cop asked the fishermen.

  “Not really,” The lead man said. “I just seen the big guy grab the other guy. Didn’t look kosher but wasn’t sure what to do about it.”

  “Officers,” Wayne said, catching up. “I can vouch for my friend here. This guy was watching us for quite a while over at George’s. When Scott went down to talk to him, the guy bolted.”

  “And who are you?” The older cop asked.

  Wayne withdrew his wallet and showed them his gold badge, “Detective Wayne Jackson, Orlando PD.”

  That seemed to win them over. The younger cop looked at the man I’d collared, “you got any I.D.?”

  “No,” he said.

  “What’s your name,” The older cop asked.

  “Al Fraley,” he reluctantly admitted.

  “What’s your story, Al?” The cop asked.

  “Nothin’,” Fraley said. “This guy just came around the corner looking pissed and I ran. I wasn’t lookin’ for no trouble.”

  “He says I arrested him about twelve years ago,” I stated. “In Warwick on a drug charge. Did a dime in one of our fine state resorts.”

  “You on the job, too?” The younger officer asked.

  “Used to be,” I said. “Was with Warwick back then.”

  “You want to press charges?” The older cop asked me.

  I studied the rat faced man for several minutes, “That’s up to him. You want to tell me who put you up to spying on me and my family?”

  “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about.”

  I sighed, “Get him outta here. Fraley, if I see you again…”

  The man snorted derisively, “Fuck you, Jarvis.”

  After the hubbub, Wayne and I headed back down the street toward George’s.

  “Well, that licked ape,” I grumbled.

  “Too bad the cops showed up,” Wayne admitted. “You might’ve been able to get something out of the prick.”

  I sighed, “Yeah… but I can make an educated guess. In spite of what he said about being arrested by me… which is probably true… he’d have no idea where I was. Probably wouldn’t even recognize me after twelve years. No, I suspect somebody paid him to keep an eye on me and maybe even cause trouble. You get one guess as to who that might be.”

  “Worst part is we can’t be sure,” Wayne stated.

  I scoffed, “No, the worst part is that my damned chowder got cold.”

  “Nah, homey,” Wayne street thugged and patted me on the shoulder. “I scarfed that shit down soon as your back was turned.”

  “Have I ever told you that you’re a constant source of joy to me?”

  “No, never.”

  “Ever wonder why that is?”

  He paused for a second and said: “I figure its cuz’ you don’t like black folks.”

  “Not true… it’s just you I don’t like.”

  Wayne grinned, “Well… it’s good to be special.”

  I threw an arm across his shoulders, “Oh, you’re special, man… definitely special…”

  Chapter 21

  We finished our lunch and took a walk along the water. Wayne and I blew off the encounter with Fraley and the police as best we could. There was no reason to alarm anybody and it had really turned to nothing.

  We all got Del’s Frozen Lemonade, which Wayne immediately fell in love with. It’s hard to describe Del’s to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. You hear frozen lemonade and think that maybe you’ve had it and it’s just okay. However, this stuff uses a secret formula that’s been protected for the better part of a century. The thing is, unlike many frozen drinks, Del’s slushy lemonade tastes exactly like those freshly squeezed ones you get at the fair, only frozen. There are even tiny chunks of lemon rind in it.

  We took a walk on the beach and headed back to Warwick at about five. Once there, my folks said that we’d be grilling steaks, since that was my dad’s specialty. Wayne thought this was a grand idea.

  “How much time do we have?” I asked the folks.

  “We ate lunch kind of late,” My dad stated. “Figure we’ll start the grill around sunset.”

  “Okay…” I said and turned to Wayne, who was lounging on the sofa in the huge oak and cedar sunken living room. “You want to get a little work done?”

  “What’d you have in mind?” He asked.

  “Well, since you’re like an actual cop and stuff…”

  “You mean rather than a shifty private eye grifter such as yourself?”

  “This is all I’m sayin’… anyway, since you’re a real-life smarty pants cop… I thought you could go down city and talk to some folks at PPD,” I stated. “Maybe get some inside poop on some of the shit we know. After all, their investigation is directly tied to yours in O-town.”

  “I’ll give it a shot,” Wayne said. “What about you?”

  “I’ve… got a few things to check out,” I said cagily, casting a quick glance at Sam, who was sitting next to Lauren and flipping through the stations on the big TV.

  Wayne nodded imperceptibly, “The problem is… we’ve only got the one car.”

  “Nah,” Dad said, coming back into the living room with a trio of beers in his hands. “One of you can take my Jag.”

  Wayne grinned and sipped from his bottle, “That’ll work.”

  “Yeah…” I said. “For me. You don’t mind taking the Cruiser, right, buddy?”

  Wayne flipped me off, “you wouldn’t subject me to that diarrhea mobile, would ya’? I mean… I am a guest and all.”

  Lauren guffawed.

  “Fine…” I cranked. “I’ll take the poop wagon.”

  I drove my fabulous piece… and I do mean piece… of Detroit engineering north on Warwick Ave. and turned right at Post Road and into the Pawtuxet neighborhoods. The homes were old, as were most homes in New England. Some streets featured modest two story houses fit for small families and some were larger sprawling affairs that probably had four or five bedrooms and commanded elegant lawns and unobstructed views of the Bay.

  47 Honeysuckle Terrace was sort of in between. The Garelli home was a four bed, two bath affair that had the customary signs of New England living. The house was sided in medium gray with white trim around the windows and white shutters as well. The front porch was entirely white and featured several rocking chairs. A two car garage sat in the back corner of the lot, unattached as many were in the state.

  I always thought that was odd. In a state where it was cold more than not, and where snow could fall from November all the way into May… why wouldn’t you attach your garage to the house? Why would you want to slog through the weather every time you went out?

  I pulled into the drive and parked just in front of the garage. It wasn’t exactly hidden from the street, but a couple of live oaks along the side yard and the distance from the street helped to obscure my rental from a casual observer.

  I went up the back steps to the kitchen door and went to work. I happened to know that Bill and Sam didn’t have a security system, so once I picked the lock and went inside, I knew I probably wouldn’t be disturbed and arrested for B and E.

  I honestly didn’t know what I expected to find in the house.
I often never did, really. I had to try, though, and I’d rather not have Sam knowing I was pawing through their personal belongings. It smacked of distrust and worse… yet my gut told me I needed to be thorough. I hadn’t just come up here to eat clam cakes.

  The house was three floors, if you counted the partially finished cellar. I started on the second floor, where the four bedrooms and a full bath were located. Two of the rooms were empty, the third a guest room and one the master. I spent quite a while going through the master. Again, I felt like a creeper rifling through drawers and closets and other private things. To top it off, I found nothing that even might be a clue.

  The first floor consisted of the kitchen, dining room, living room and a den and another bathroom. Nothing to write home about here either. I was getting discouraged and yet also glad that I didn’t find anything.

  Something wasn’t sitting right in my mind. There were some weird inconsistencies that were nagging at me. For one, Samantha’s attitude seemed a little odd. At that point, I couldn’t have pinpointed exactly what was bugging me about it… yet there was something that seemed off. At the time, I didn’t put that much stock in it. Partly because people grieved in different ways and also I felt that with all that was going on, my suspicions were simply cranked all the way up to eleven. Sam was dealing with a lot and a lot of mixed feelings, so why wouldn’t it seem odd?

  The other thing that was bothering me was Darren West’s journal or notebook or whatever. He was an informant for Providence vice. He’d helped them make quite a few busts, for which he was paid extremely well. I knew for a fact what the going rate was for a stoolie’s tip, and it wasn’t a tenth of some of the fees that West got.

  What that told me was that there was a skim going on for a while. He was getting extra pay to keep him on the dole and keep the tips coming. It’s hard to be truly broken up over that. After all, they were stopping major drug shipments into the city, which could only be a good thing.

  On the other hand… that money was dirty. Somehow, somewhere, it had been used in the production, transfer and sale of narcotics. I’ve never been a hard line moralist. My general thinking is that if you’re an adult, then you’re responsible for your own actions. Not everything that’s illegal is immoral or even unethical. You want to smoke a little weed, so be it. You want to stuff powder up your nose at a corporate party, that’s your business.

  However, the problem with hardcore drugs is that they inevitably end up in the hands of the innocent, and that I cannot abide. If a forty year old man wants to sniff a little dust, well… I may not like it but it’s none of my business. Yet when a junior high kid starts pushing smack it’s a problem and one that cannot be allowed to continue.

  What was bothering me about West’s journal was the first entry. It was dated almost exactly three years ago. West had given his contact, who he called McGarrett, a tip on an incoming shipment from down south. It turned out to be about ten kilos of cocaine. That was also right around the time that I’d been shot while raiding a chop shop in Orlando. I’d come up to Rhode Island to spend a little time with the family and do some thinking about my future.

  The very first night I arrived, Bill had come over to my folks place for dinner. We were chit chatting and watching the Sox play when Bill mentioned that he’d busted Paul Ravetti, who’d just arrived in Newport on the Ravetti family yacht, Ms. Gina. Bill said the drug dog had gone crazy and they’d found over ten kilograms of coke in Paul’s glove box and trunk.

  Where I come from… which wasn’t very far at all from where I was busy snooping… two plus two still equaled four. It was possible that this was a coincidence, but I found that hard to swallow, seeing as how I don’t believe in them when it comes to a case.

  West had tipped the cops off on a ten ki shipment… Paul had brought a ten ki shipment from the Keys… and Bill Garelli had been one of the arresting detectives. That meant that either Bill was McGarrett, or he was working with McGarrett. Either way, I didn’t like where this was going.

  Then there was Lissard aka Soares. A guy who worked for the Rhode Island Department of Corrections and who’d been fired about the same time as Bill had. Both suspected of being involved in illegal drug activity in some way or other. Soares shows up in Orlando at about the same time that Shade does. West just so happens to live there, too… probably just moved down himself.

  And now Bill was dead. Somehow Bill was connected to Shade. Maybe Shade had found out about Bill and didn’t like what he thought was going on. Maybe, like Bryce and Trent and Pickett… Shade wanted Bill to pay for his misdeeds. Being from Rhode Island himself, Shade probably knew more about this than I did. Maybe he was even a former cop himself.

  I ended up in the cellar. Part of the unfinished section contained a workbench and the washer and dryer. The finished portion was a large TV room. Comfortable furniture, surround sound and a huge seventy-inch plasma dominated the paneled space. As I poked around, I noticed a separate section of DVD’s in a small box labeled home movies.

  Just for fun, I looked through the titles and found one that I remembered. It was from four or five years back. I slid it into the player and turned on the system. I wanted to bask in nostalgia for just a few minutes. Maybe as a way to say good-bye to Bill… maybe as a way to try and hold on to the memory of the good man I knew and loved for twenty years. To try and push back the sour sense that he might not be as good as I believed.

  I watched for about fifteen minutes and couldn’t help but smile and even laugh. The movie had been taken at a big cookout the Garellis had hosted at this very house five years back. I was there, as were my parents and my sister. Some other friends and relations were around too. Somebody had set up the camera near the backdoor of the house with a wide angle to catch a lot of the action. There was a dining tent set up, a grill and music playing. Folks milled about, lounged in lawn chairs or played bocce ball, badminton and horseshoes in the spacious lawn.

  It felt good to watch this. A tranquil scene of domestic bliss. Friends and family laughing, joking and chatting amiably. A typical summer scene in New England. Then I remembered what was about to happen and smiled.

  At one point, Sam went inside to get something or other and Bill, being a bit of a practical joker, went and hid behind one of the square four-foot high hedges that bordered either side of the back steps. I could actually hear him giggling just outside of the camera’s view. I started to laugh, knowing what was coming.

  Sam’s head appeared as she stepped out of the house and started down the steps with a large punch bowl in both of her hands. As she got off the last step, Bill jumped out and yelled, meaning to startle his wife.

  Well he did and then some. Sam screamed, turned… and dumped the entire bowl of spiked punch all over her husband. Everybody lost it. People roared with laughter, many of them actually falling to the ground in uncontrollable mirth… one of whom was myself.

  “Bill, you asshole!” Sam shouted, but even she was starting to laugh. “Look what you did… oh my God! What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  Bill was rolling in the grass, wheezing with laughter. Sam stood over him, hands on hips and tried to glare, but you could see in the angle that she was smiling.

  “A whole bowl of punch wasted,” Sam chided him. “Like half a bottle of vodka, ya’ douche.”

  “As I planned it, my dear!” Bill rolled onto an elbow and narrowed his eyes and laughed wickedly.

  And I swear my blood turned to ice. For a long moment, I simply stared at the video as it played, not hearing, not really seeing. I felt like I was frozen, locked up tight in a moment of time and I couldn’t move.

  “No…” I breathed, my voice sounding ghostly in my own ears.

  After a few seconds, I lifted the remote and scanned backward and replayed the scene. There was Sam… then came Bill… there went the punch all over him… and there was his pretend evil laugh.

  “Oh… my… God…” I muttered to no one. “No fuckin’ way…”

  With
a hand that shook slightly, I withdrew my phone and scrolled through my contacts. I’d recently put one in there that I wasn’t sure I’d ever really use. However, I thought that this just might be the time.

  “I was wondering when you’d call,” Colonel Warner Grayson stated without any preamble.

  “Wasn’t sure I was ever going to, Colonel,” I said flatly.

  “I understand. What can I do for you, Scott?”

  I took a deep breath, “I’ve… made a discovery and might need a little help on it. I have in my possession some evidence, and one thing in particular that I can’t quite figure out but might be important. I thought with your resources that you could take it to the next level.”

  “I don’t mind doing favors, Scott… but I do collect on them.”

  I grimaced at that. Something told me that once I began to get in any way involved with Grayson and whatever it was he did, that I’d be pulled in permanently. Sort of like joining a street gang, ironically.

  When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way…

  “My assistant, Lisa, has some stuff she can give you,” I said after taking a deep breath. “Are you still in Florida?”

  “I am,” Grayson replied gravely. “I assume this has to do with our friend, Shade.”

  “Yeah…” I said, trying to keep my gorge from rising. “There’s a thirteen digit number that I’m puzzled about. I think it may be an account number for a foreign bank. Figured that was something you could find out.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have her call you,” I said. “Then—“

  “I already have her number. Where are you?”

  “Rhode Island,” I said. “Be here a couple of days. I came up because a friend of mine… a former Providence detective… was killed.”

  A long pause, “All right. Let me talk to her and I’ll get back to you.”

  I sent Lisa a quick text and then stared for a long moment at the video I’d paused. A frozen moment in time when the world hadn’t seemed upside down and inside out. A particular set of circumstances that would never come again.

  After a long span of time, although I’m still not quite sure how long, I turned everything off and headed out. I sent Wayne a quick text that said that we needed to talk.