Ron Base - Tree Callister 04 - The Two Sanibel Sunset Detectives

by Ron Base

  What kind of federal investigation would that be? He wondered as he turned into the parking lot at the Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center. He considered calling Cee Jay back, then decided against it, at least for the time being.

  He got out of the car and went around to the rear of the building. As he came toward the porch, a tall string bean of a guy rose from the bench he had been sitting on. “How are you doing, Mr. Callister?” The guy offered Tree his hand. He wore an Armani sports jacket over a crisp white collarless shirt.

  It took Tree a moment to realize this was Tommy Dobbs. The last time Tree saw Tommy, he was a reporter for The Island Reporter with a pale complexion, pimples, and a lousy wardrobe. This new version of Tommy Dobbs came with a healthy complexion, no pimples, and an impressive wardrobe.

  “Tommy,” Tree said. “What happened?”

  Tommy smiled and showed off a straight line of gleaming white teeth. “Let’s just say I learned to separate my whites from my darks—among other things.”

  One of Tree’s complaints about Tommy when he worked for The Island Reporter was that, like most young single men, he tended to throw all his laundry into a wash, leaving him with gray, colorless clothes.

  “Thought I’d drop around and say hello.”

  “That’s great,” Tree said. “It’s good to see you. The last time I saw you, you’d just been downsized, and you were on your way to live with your parents.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t a very good time, that’s for sure,” Tommy said. “But things have turned around since then.”

  “So it seems. I hardly recognized you. What are you doing now?”

  “Well, sir, as it happens, I’m working for The Chicago Sun-Times.”

  Tree looked at him in amazement. “You’re kidding. That’s my old newspaper.”

  “Yes, I know,” Tommy said. “The fact you used to work for the Sun-Times inspired me to go to Chicago and try my luck there. It turned out pretty well.”

  “You got a job at the Sun-Times?”

  “I’ve been working for them about a year now.”

  “That’s terrific, Tommy. Working at the Sun-Times. Well, what do you know about that? Did you use my name to get an interview?”

  “No, as it turned out. They liked some of the stuff I wrote from here.”

  “So what are you doing back on the island? Are you on vacation?”

  “No, I’m not on vacation.”

  “You’re here for a story?”

  “That’s right,” Tommy said.

  “Great,” Tree said. “A travel piece on Sanibel Island. I’ve thought about doing that for the Sun-Times myself. After all, this is a fascinating place and you certainly know it well, having worked around here.”

  “I’m not doing a travel piece,” Tommy said.

  “Oh. Okay.” Tree looked confused. “What are you working on?”

  “I’m doing a story about you, Mr. C.”

  _________

  “Actually, I thought a lot about you,” Tommy explained, after he and Tree had settled in his office. “When I was downsized, I went up to Tampa to stay with my parents. I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said, you know, about me being a good reporter and everything, and I decided that I’d better help myself because no one else was going to.

  “Again, I was thinking of you, remembering that you had worked for The Chicago Sun-Times. I got in touch with one of the editors there and started doing some freelance pieces for them. Then the editor told me they were looking for something really unusual.”

  “What’s that, Tommy?” Tree said.

  “A good reporter. I told them I was their guy. Then I drove up there overnight and went into the office, not thinking I had any chance at all. Well, it turned out they really liked my freelance stuff.” Tommy smiled at Tree. “I owe it all to you, Mr. C.”

  “If you owe it all to me, don’t do this story.”

  “It’s one heck of a story, Mr. Callister.”

  “No it isn’t, Tommy. There is no story.”

  “The government of Tajikistan believes a private detective on Sanibel Island has nine million it says was stolen from the people of their country. I think that’s a story.”

  “I don’t have nine million dollars,” Tree said. “There is no nine million dollars.”

  “The government is lying?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Tajikistan government maintains that a former CIA director concocted a scheme to defraud their president of millions. The former CIA director ended up dead, as did his associates in the conspiracy. But the money never has been recovered.”

  “The money was recovered.”

  “Well, yes, they found five hundred thousand dollars. But Tajikistan says there is a lot more that’s missing.”

  “Well, like I say, I don’t have it.”

  “Owen Markfield of the Sanibel-Captiva Police Department thinks you do.”

  “No matter what he thinks, I don’t have it,” Tree said. “There’s no story.”

  “I happen to think there is.”

  “So you think I’m sitting on nine million dollars?”

  “There are a lot of unanswered questions around this thing,” Tommy said. “If you are innocent, Mr. Callister, you should tell me your side of the story. That would go a long way to reassuring everyone that you don’t have the money.”

  Good grief, Tree thought, how many times during his years as a reporter had he used a similar argument to get people talking? The story’s going to be done, anyway, so it’s better if you talk to me, that way you can get your side out.

  Aloud, he said, “All it’s going to do is fuel more speculation.”

  Tommy got to his feet. “It’s really good to see you again, Mr. C.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means just what I said. It’s good to see you. As I explained earlier, I owe you a lot—I owe you everything in fact.”

  “But you’re still going to do this story.”

  “What would you do if you were in my shoes? That’s what I always ask myself when I’m on a story. What would Tree Callister do in a situation like this?”

  That left Tree speechless. He knew damned well what he would have done.

  “I’m around Sanibel for the next week or so, Mr. C. If you decide you’d like to talk, here’s my cellphone number.”

  He put a card on the desk that said what Tree’s card used to say, that here was a reporter from The Chicago Sun-Times. Here was a guy who earned a living reporting the news. Here was a young man who had amounted to something.

  Tree Callister used to be that same young man. He used to have the power that came from knowing you could decide what was said in print to a large audience about another human being. But not any longer. Now he was one of the powerless, the target of an investigative piece that, depending on how much Tommy was able to uncover, could send him to prison.

  There was irony in there somewhere.

  “Listen, Tommy—” Tree started to say.

  “That’s the other thing, Mr. C.”

  “What’s that, Tommy?”

  “I’d prefer that you didn’t call me Tommy.”

  “What do you want to be called?”

  “I’m Thomas now,” he said. “Thomas Dobbs.”

  Tree bit his tongue.

  11

  As if he didn’t have enough trouble, Tree reflected, swinging the Beetle into the Sanibel School, now he had to deal with his doppelganger, his like self, albeit a sleeker version: Tree wasn’t nearly so cleaned up when he was Tommy’s age. Or should he now say Thomas?

  The circular drive in front of the school was crowded with four buses and the vehicles driven by parents in line to pick up their children—Parent Pickup, as it was called, PPU. Ahead of him a mother loaded two children into the back of her Dodge SUV, and pulled away. Tree moved up just as Marcello came ambling out, accompanied by three boys, trailed by a couple of girls, everyone listening inte
ntly as Marcello chattered away. Marcello, the man, Tree thought. He couldn’t help but smile. The kid knew how to handle himself, that was for sure. A lot better than Tree Callister did when he was that age. Tree was a skinny, unpopular nerd. Girls would not have gone near him, let alone trail him around.

  As soon as he saw Tree, Marcello left his friends and came to the Beetle. “I thought we’d get your bike and then I’d give you a ride home,” Tree said.

  “Sure,” Marcello said. “What’s up?”

  “What do you have to do, tell your bus driver?”

  “Yeah, give me a minute.” Tree watched Marcello stroll over to the yellow school bus parked at the end of the drive. He returned a moment later, unslinging his backpack before getting into the passenger seat.

  “Make sure you do up your seatbelt,” Tree said.

  Marcello grappled with the seatbelt, cocking his head toward the radio as Elvis sang “Love Me Tender.” “They must have given you the radio that only plays that Elvis crap.”

  “See?” Tree said. “You’re getting to know who he is.”

  “You’re corrupting my hearing, man,” Marcello said. “What’s more, you’re not telling me the truth about why you picked me up.”

  “Give me the directions back to your place,” Tree said.

  “Man, it’s been so long since you had anything to do with me, you can’t even remember where I live,” Marcello said.

  “I just want to make sure we don’t get lost,” Tree said.

  “It’s on Sea Oats Drive,” Marcello said. “You turn right off San-Cap onto Rabbit Road.”

  “So we drive past Madison and Joshua’s place.”

  “You got that right,” Marcello said.

  They drove to Andy Rosse Lane and retrieved Marcello’s bike from the garage—Tree having a time jamming it into the back seat.

  They started off again, caught in the late afternoon traffic along San-Cap Road. Eventually, Tree was able to turn off onto Rabbit Road and the roadway leading to number five fifty-five. He drove the car up to the house and parked. Marcello looked at him. “What are we doing here?” he demanded.

  “I thought we might take a look around.”

  “Don’t know that there’s anything to see.”

  “That’s okay,” Tree said. “I’m supposed to keep an eye on the place, remember?”

  “For a minute there, I forgot they bought you, man.”

  Outside the car, Tree stretched his sciatic leg. A late afternoon breeze rustled at the nearby palm trees. The house loomed silently above them. Tree stared up at it. Now that he knew it was occupied by an individual who was the subject as Cee Jay would say, of a federal investigation, it was perhaps time to look at the house from a different perspective.

  “So what are you looking for?” Marcello, impatient with the dog work of private detection.

  Tree took his eyes off the house and focused on Marcello. “You never told me how you met Madison and Joshua.”

  Marcello shrugged and said, “The ad.”

  “What ad?”

  “The ad I put up on Facebook saying that the Sanibel Sunset Detective Agency was looking for clients. Reasonable rates, I said.”

  “You advertised on Facebook?”

  “What? You don’t have a Facebook page?”

  Tree rolled his eyes. “And that’s when Joshua and Madison got in touch with you?”

  “Among the others, yeah,” Marcello said.

  Tree looked at him in surprise. “There were others?”

  “All sorts of kids are after my services.”

  “You’re kidding. Why would kids your age need a private detective?”

  “Same kind of stuff adults need detectives for. A lot of parents, they’re watching their kids, right? You know, video surveillance, Internet monitoring, parental controls on TV and computers. It’s endless. But what do kids know about their parents? They don’t know jack when it comes down to it. So a lot of kids want to know more.”

  “But how are you planning to get around town so you can investigate parents?” Tree said.

  “That’s where you come in,” Marcello said.

  “Marcello, I don’t come into this at all.”

  “The partnership I’ve been telling you about.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you? There is no partnership,” Tree said.

  “Then how come you picked me up at school? What are we doing here?”

  “Just because I picked you up at school, doesn’t mean we’re partners.”

  “It means you need me, man. Means you need a partner.”

  “So here’s what we’re going to do,” Tree said. “We’re going to look through their garbage.”

  “What?” Marcello sounded appalled.

  “Their garbage—partner.”

  “Why we doing that?”

  “That’s what detectives are supposed to do,” Tree said.

  “Detectives don’t do that,” Marcello said disdainfully.

  “They do if they’re looking for clues.”

  Marcello groaned loudly but then dutifully trailed Tree behind the house where they found a garbage bin. No one had bothered to lock down the plastic lids. Tree lifted one of the lids to reveal two garbage cans stuffed with green plastic trash bags. Tree yanked one of the bags out and placed it on the ground beside the bin. A twist tie held the top of the bag closed. Tree undid it and opened the bag. From the look of the potpourri of waste inside, Ryde Bodie didn’t believe in recycling. Marcello peered in the bag and made a face, “What a mess,” he said.

  “Welcome to the exciting world of private investigation,” Tree said.

  “I’m not going through that,” Marcello said, backing away.

  “You’re the one who wanted to be a detective, remember? Open one of the other bags, and poke through it, see what you can find.”

  Marcello seemed to steel himself before lifting out another garbage bag. Tree turned his attention to the bag before him, gingerly moving aside a filter soaked with coffee grinds. Aha! He thought. Ryde Bodie drinks coffee. Probably in the morning. He also blows his nose with good quality tissues—or his kids do. What else? Old newspapers and copies of Time magazine. A Target bag full of shredded paper. Ryde took the time to destroy documents he did not want people poking through his garbage to see. Three other Target bags were full of similarly shredded paper.

  Tree looked over at Marcello. He stood poised over his open garbage bag, peering down into it, unmoving.

  “How are you doing?” Tree called.

  “I don’t like this,” Marcello said.

  Tree went back to his bag, clawing through old newspapers—the Island Sun, The New York Times, The Fort Myers News Press, and, this was interesting, a Spanish language newspaper, El Universal. What was Ryde Bodie doing reading Mexican newspapers? From the sticker attached to the paper’s front page, Ryde had the paper sent to him. Not to the Rabbit Road address, however. The paper was addressed to him at WGE International LLC, care of the Santini Marina Plaza, Unit #5, Fort Myers Beach, Fl.

  WGE—could that stand for Wayne Granger Enterprises?

  Tree tore off the corner of the newspaper containing the address just as a car wheeled into view. Marcello’s head jerked up from the garbage bag he had been staring at. The car came to a stop and a heavyset man struggled out from behind the wheel. He saw Tree and his face twisted into anger.

  “Son of a bitch!” he yelled, starting toward Tree.

  The man waved the single black flower he was holding as he came to a halt inches from where Tree more or less stood his ground. He thrust his flat Midwestern face at Tree demanding, “Where’s Granger?”

  Tree said, “I have no idea.”

  The man held up the flower. “I got this delivered this morning. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I have no idea,” Tree said.

  The heavyset man looked exasperated. “It’s an iris,” the man said. “I had to look it up. A black iris. Who sends me a black iris? No not
e, no nothing. Is this Granger’s doing?”

  Tree said, “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not associated with Granger.”

  The angry man was not deterred. “You’re standing in his yard, you’re putting out his garbage, and you claim you don’t know him? Don’t give me that crap!”

  “I’m a private detective,” Tree said. “I’m looking into the man you call Granger.”

  The man squinted at him. “You’re a private dick?”

  “Here, I can show you,” Tree said, pulling out his wallet. He opened it and withdrew the license issued to him by the State of Florida. Tree noticed Marcello staring up at him, eyes wide and unblinking. The heavyset man took the license from Tree and peered at it. He looked at Marcello. “You take a kid along with you when you’re working?”

  “I’m his partner,” Marcello announced.

  “What the hell’s going on?” the man said. The blustery air appeared to seep out of him. “I need my money. My wife’s very sick. Very, very sick. We’re in a tough spot, I can tell you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tree said. “What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t say, but it’s Waterhouse. Jim Waterhouse. I tell you, I don’t like this black iris crap. It’s creepy. The bastard promised me twenty per cent return on my investment, and instead I get a flower? Something is wrong that’s for sure.”

  “What investment? What are you talking about?”

  “Come on, if you’re a detective investigating him, you must know what I’m talking about.”

  “Remind me.”

  “These high-interest motor vehicle retail installment contracts,” Waterhouse said. “Twenty per cent return, Granger promised. Guaranteed, he said. Only I haven’t seen a cent, and now I can’t get hold of Granger. You say you’re a private dick? You got any idea where he is?”

  Tree shook his head, “Sorry. As I explained to you, I’m trying to find out more about him myself. How did you know Granger lived here?”

  Waterhouse’s face darkened again. “To hell with this,” he announced. “To hell with it all. I’ll take care of this my own way.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” Tree said.

  “The rain’s gonna come down on Granger if he doesn’t handle this and handle it soon. You tell him that, understand what I’m saying?”