by Ron Base
“Tree, don’t make me ask you again.” Markfield’s voice had taken on raspy authority.
“He’s just out of the hospital, for heaven’s sake,” Freddie said. “He can hardly move.”
Tree put his hand on Freddie’s arm. Her body was tense. “It’s all right, Freddie. I’m sure my friend Detective Markfield just wants to wish me a speedy recovery.”
“I don’t think that’s what he wants to wish you,” Freddie said.
Tree opened the passenger door as Markfield came around the Mercedes. Straining to extricate himself from the car, it was all Tree could do not to cry out. Leaning hard on his cane he managed to straighten himself so that he was face to face with Markfield.
“You’re not armed, are you, Tree?”
“Not me, Detective Markfield.”
“Because if I thought you were armed, then I would have every right to shoot you, you being a possible fugitive with a history of gun violence.”
“It’s all right, Owen, I do not think we have to shoot my friend, Tree.”
The second man in the Buick had emerged from the car and now approached Tree and Markfield. Jorge Navidad no longer wore the red jump suit he had on when Tree met him at the Lee County jail—and he no longer wore the glasses with one lens blacked out. He appeared to have two good eyes, and he was clean-shaven now, his shoulder-length hair had been cut back considerably. He wore a blue blazer that complemented nicely-fitting jeans.
“What are you doing out of jail?” was all Tree could think of to say.
“I had to come and see you,” Jorge Navidad said with a gentle smile. “One innocent man to another.”
“Or maybe you were never really in jail.”
“Jorge is an inspector with the Policía Federal Ministerial,” Markfield said.
“You’re a Federale,” Tree said.
“Just a tired policeman anxious to return to his family in Mexico City,” Jorge said. “But I couldn’t leave without thanking you for your help.”
“For being stupid enough to allow myself to be set up?”
“You made the phone call I was hoping you would make,” Jorge said. “That made the difference.”
He held out his hand. Tree looked at it and said, “You used me.”
“I’m afraid we’ve all been used.” Jorge took his hand away. “But what can you do? That’s the way it usually works, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Tree said.
Jorge gave the knowing smile of a weary traveler through a duplicitous world. He turned to Markfield. “We had better get to the airport, Owen. I don’t want to miss my flight.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a moment, Jorge. I just want to have a final word with Tree.”
Jorge Navidad returned to the car. Markfield said to Tree, “I want you to know that whatever has happened or whatever you think has happened, it doesn’t change anything as far as I’m concerned.”
“But you obviously found some use for me,” Tree said.
“I think you’re a scumbag who’s killed a couple of people, so yeah, if I get a chance to throw you to the fishes, I’ll do it. You should be dead or in jail. The fact that you are not either of those things is highly disappointing.”
Tree worked up a smile and said, “It’s always good to see you, Detective Markfield. But I don’t think from here on in I’m going to be giving you much reason to put me in prison or shoot me.”
“We’ll see about that,” Markfield said. “We’ll just see about that, Callister. I’m still watching you.”
He turned and walked back to his car where Jorge Navidad waited.
Tree struggled in beside Freddie, breathing hard from the effort.
She started the car forward. “What was that all about?”
“More evidence to support my suspicion that it’s time to retire,” Tree said.
________
By the time they approached the burnt-out ruins of the Traven house, the fog had become so thick Freddie could barely see the road in front of her.
Tree asked her to pull over. She parked near the front gates and then helped him out. The gates were closed but not locked. Tree, leaning on his cane, pushed one of them open, and they went through to what was left of the stone façade, a ghost just visible through films of mist.
The roof was gone and the gleaming white porches had been burned away. The upper windows were black eyes staring out at nothing. Sheets of plywood covered the ground floor windows.
However, the stone Great Danes remained intact, flanking the top of the scorched staircase, impassive as always, impervious to the ways of a world far beneath their dignity. Tree, at the bottom of the steps, stared up at the dogs, remembering the times he had trooped past them, his heart in his mouth, wondering what duplicitous hell Elizabeth Traven was about to unleash.
Countless lies had been told inside that house, a few secrets revealed, bodies found. Ryder Bodie had thought he was going to change all that, wipe out the house’s dark past, imbue it with new life. But instead of erasing that past, he had only added another ugly chapter to it.
Perhaps the place was cursed, just like the dark Victorian piles that occupied the gothic novels of his youth. Last night, he dreamt he went, not to Manderley, but back to the Traven house that would haunt him always
“You never did answer my question.” Freddie, drawing him out of his reverie.
“The question,” Tree said.
“I asked you why you kept the money.”
Tree didn’t say anything for a time. The cool wind that produced the mist increased in intensity so that the façade appeared to shimmer amid swirling ashes.
“I’m not certain myself,” he said finally.
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“Maybe it had something to do with taking a souvenir—you know, like Comanche warriors used to take scalps to mark their conquests.”
“Stealing worthless Tajikistan currency is marking your conquest?”
“Or maybe it had something to do with temptation,” Tree continued. “Maybe it was my way of giving into temptation—without really giving into it.”
“But you still took the money, Tree. You told a lot of people you didn’t have something that in fact you had.”
“I know,” Tree said. “Part of why I’m changing things. I don’t like what the job is doing to me.”
“No doubt about it,” Freddie said. “I prefer the former Sun-Times reporter, the guy I met at that Gold Coast dinner party, the delightful character I fell in love with despite myself. I’ve never been so sure about the Sanibel Sunset Detective.”
“I know that,” Tree said. “The Sun-Times reporter is gone, and he’s not coming back, as much as I’d like him to. And now I’m getting rid of the Sanibel Sunset Detective, too.”
“So who does that leave?” Freddie asked.
Tree thought about it a moment before he said, “Maybe the aging, crippled, shot-up old fool who loves you more than anything else in the world.”
Freddie reached out and took his hand. “Then that’s more than enough.”
When they reached the gate, Tree looked back at the house, and he couldn’t see it anymore. They got in the Mercedes. Freddie started up the engine. Elvis was on the radio.
Acknowledgments
Shortly after he began touring again in 1970, Elvis Presley came to Detroit’s Olympia Stadium. That’s where I first saw him in person—September 11, 1970, to be exact.
That concert was a surreal experience. Elvis even then was a mythic figure, a mystery unavailable to the public for thirteen years except on the screen in a series of mostly awful movies. Now here he was in person, glowing in white on stage, delivering an electric performance for forty-five minutes. Elvis lived—right there in front of us.
I saw him twice more after that, in 1972, again in Detroit, and then years later in June 1976 in Buffalo. Since his death in August 1977, there has been lots of talk about how the level of his performance deteriorated, but none of that deteriorat
ion was evident in the concerts I attended. He was Elvis, the King, and, on the occasions I saw him, he did nothing but please his ecstatic audience.
Passing time has only reinforced the Elvis mythology to the point where it once again is hard to imagine he really existed, except as part of our pop cultural dreams—dreams shared by Baby Boomers who still flock to Graceland, Elvis’s home in Memphis, now a tourist attraction; listen to the all-Elvis station on satellite radio; and keep hundreds of Elvis impersonators gainfully employed.
Whether a younger generation shares the same fascination with him as their aging elders, is debatable. The Beatles transcend time, their bright pop tunes forming the basis for much of today’s music. But Elvis, his roots deep in the South of rockabilly and rhythm and blues, tends to get lost in our collective past. The white jump suits probably don’t help.
Still, for those of us of a certain age, Elvis remains a magical, haunting presence. I thought a lot about him as I wrote The Two Sanibel Sunset Detectives. There is something so powerful about American icons like Elvis and, in previous novels, Hemingway and John Wayne, that I can’t resist coming back to them, luxuriating in the mystery of their hold on us so long after their deaths.
I had a great deal of help straightening out my thoughts about Elvis and fitting him into the context of a fourth Tree Callister adventure. I cannot say enough about my wife, Kathy, who acts as First Reader and unswerving supporter. Twenty years my darling, and I love you more than ever.
A team of editors tortures me with the kind of logic and insight that lays bare my many shortcomings and forces me to rewrite a better novel than I ever imagined. Thanks as always to three very tough guys: David Kendall, Ray Bennett, and Bob Burt.
More thanks to my brother Ric Base, the real-life president of the Sanibel-Captiva Chamber of Commerce, a combination publisher, partner, book designer, distributor, confidant, and great pal. Also thanks to my sister-in-law, Alicia, who in addition to patiently putting up with me when I’m in Florida, this time pitched in to read the galleys and also provided background on the Sanibel School. I should hasten to add that any mistakes are those of her brother-in-law. My other sister-in-law, Alexandra Lenhoff, also swung into action, and helped with the galleys, spotting errors the rest of us missed.
My niece, Lindsay Base, provided not only the basis for the book’s Nurse Lindsay, but also helped with details about life at Lee Memorial Hospital. My daughter Erin and son Joel daily inspire me with their ongoing enthusiasm for the books.
Brian Frommer previously dazzled with his poster designs for the Sanibel Sunset Detective novels. This time he kindly agreed to interrupt a busy schedule that includes teaching theater, directing, and designing to put his considerable talents to creating the cover. He has come up with a slightly different look for the book and done a superb job.
Finally, thanks once again to my close friend and neighbor, Kim Hunter, who, understanding my status as an internationally renowned author, gets me to Florida each year in his pickup truck. Elvis is usually on the radio.
Don’t Miss Previous Tree Callister Novels
The Sanibel Sunset Detective
Everyone on Sanibel Island, Florida thinks former newspaperman Tree Callister is crazy to become a private detective. The only client he can attract is a twelve-year-old boy who has seven dollars with which to hire Tree to find his mother.
The Sanibel Sunset Detective Returns
The beautiful wife of a disgraced media mogul is certain her husband is having an affair. She hires Tree Callister to get the evidence. Then the mogul turns up dead on Sanibel Island, and not only is Tree’s client arrested, but he finds himself accused of being an accessory to murder.
Another Sanibel Sunset Detective
Private Detective Tree Callister’s marriage is in jeopardy, his son is in trouble, a guy with a machete threatens to cut off his hands, and a mysterious woman can’t decide whether she wants to kill him—or seduce him.
Coming Soon
The Hound of the Sanibel Sunset Detective
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