Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective

by Ron Base

  Trembath hung up his phone.

  10

  I met Hemingway once in Rome,” Rex Baxter was saying, leaning against the bar at the Lighthouse.

  As usual on a Fun Friday, Rex was surrounded by an array of tourist-acolytes who remembered him from his Chicago television days.

  “He came in to Harry’s Bar on the Via Veneto and then Sinatra came in and there we were standing around shooting the breeze. Frank was waiting for Ava but she never showed up that night.”

  Someone said in an awed voice, “You were drinking with Hemingway and Sinatra?”

  “Well, that was Rome in those days,” Rex said. “Everybody was there, and if you were there, you were at Harry’s. Anyway, Hemingway was Papa by then, the legend, the great white hunter with the beard and the safari jacket, the whole bit. We got to talking about movies, him and me and Sinatra. Hemingway hated Hollywood. Oh, he took their money all right, but he hated what they did to his books, and wouldn’t have anything to do with writing scripts. I admired him for that. Everyone else, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Raymond Chandler, they all sold out to Hollywood. Whatever you might think of Hemingway, he never sold out. He remained true to himself.”

  The rest of what Rex said was drowned out by the electronic piano player’s version of “Mandy.” Tree turned and leaned into Freddie’s ear and said, “Not that you’re keeping track but the count is up to three for the people looking for Elizabeth.”

  “Who’s trying to find her?”

  “There’s the Pakistani spy I told you about, Miram Shan.”

  “Okay. Who else?”

  “Javor Zoran. He’s a big Serb who wears flip-flops and doesn’t cut his toenails. He also tries to sound dangerous.”

  “Tries?”

  “You don’t take him too seriously until you find out that the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague was going to indict him, but then had second thoughts.”

  “About what?”

  “The number of people he murdered. Apparently, he didn’t kill enough people for it to qualify as a crime against humanity.”

  “You meet the nicest people, Tree.”

  “And let’s not forget Dr. Edgar Bunya, the latest addition to the growing list of Elizabeth’s admirers.”

  “Who is this guy?”

  “I’m not so sure about him. From what I can figure, he may be some sort of rebel from Sierra Leone. Dr. Bunya owns a machete.”

  “What’s he doing with a machete?”

  “Actually, the correct term, according to him, is cutlass. He says he’s going to use it to give me short sleeves unless I tell him where Elizabeth is.”

  “What’s this about short sleeves?”

  “That is Sierra Leone rebel speak for cutting off your hands.”

  “Good grief, Tree.”

  “That’s why I had better find Elizabeth.”

  “But you don’t know where she is.”

  “Zoran thinks she might be in Key West. I’m going to check it out tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think you should go to Key West.”

  “I know.”

  “‘I know,’ as in ‘You’re right, honey. I’m not going.’ Or ‘I know’ as in, ‘I’m going, anyway, and to heck with what you think?’”

  “I’m being driven by Miram Shah’s money, not to mention Javor Zoran’s. And I’ve got visions of Dr. Edgar Bunya’s cutlass, and what happens if I don’t find her.”

  “Do I have to tell you to be careful?”

  “Careful is my middle name.”

  “No, it isn’t, but you’re past the point where I can talk any sense into you.” He couldn’t tell whether she was angry, suspected she was. She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get out of here. I’m to meet my people in a few minutes.”

  “Your syndicate that’s going to buy Dayton’s,” Tree said.

  “Investors. They’ve flown in from Milwaukee and Chicago,” she said.

  “I didn’t even know you knew anyone in Milwaukee.”

  “I know someone in Tulsa too, but he couldn’t make it.”

  “So this looks like it’s going to happen.”

  “Nothing’s happening yet,” Freddie cautioned. “It’s just a get-acquainted meeting.”

  “I’m amazed it’s moved this quickly.”

  Freddie put her hand on his arm. “Are you all right with this?”

  “Of course,” Tree said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You have to admit this whole situation is a little weird.”

  “Listen,” Tree said, “life in general is weird these days. I’m encountering doctors armed with machetes. Buying supermarkets is nothing. If this is what you want, I’m all for it.”

  “Thank you, my love.” She leaned forward and gently kissed him. Then she looked at her watch again and said, “Are you going to stay?”

  “For a few minutes. Chris said he might show up. I’ll meet you back at the house.”

  “If I’m going to be late, I’ll call you.” She gave him another peck on the mouth before making her exit.

  The music stopped. Rex was saying, “Hollywood always messed Hemingway up, maybe that’s why he hated the town. I mean look at what Darryl Zanuck did to the 20th Century Fox version of The Sun Also Rises.

  “The novel is about a lost generation of young people in Paris in the 1920s. So who does Zanuck get for the movie? Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn, who were both in their forties. Even Ava Gardner was too old for Lady Brett Ashley. What was Zanuck thinking? But that was the town in the 1950s. They always cast everything too old because there were all these ancient stars hanging around. So young actresses like Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn played against guys old enough to be their fathers.

  “I mean, when Grace married Gary Cooper in High Noon, he looked like her grandfather. But Coop was good in For Whom The Bell Tolls, although I don’t think Hemingway liked that, either. He liked Coop, though. He and Coop were pals. The Killers with Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner was the best of Hemingway’s stuff on the screen. Hemingway even had a copy of it, which he liked to watch when he was at his place in Cuba.”

  Tree enjoyed listening to Rex. He’d been hearing the stories for a lifetime. Neither Rex nor his stories had changed much; they had just found a more receptive home on Sanibel. In Chicago, Rex had been a failed actor and minor local TV personality. Here on Sanibel Island he was royalty, coddled and courted, surrounded by adoring tourists who loved his memories of another time and all the famous people who inhabited that time. If the two of them were to end their days here, then Rex would end them happily. Tree was not so certain about himself.

  “Dad?”

  Tree turned to find Chris standing there, the light from the bar glinting off his glasses. He had a big, happy smile on his face and his arm around a young woman.

  “Dad,” he said, “I’d like you to meet my friend, Susan.”

  Tree looked into the fiercely blue eyes of Cailie Fisk.

  11

  Susan?” Tree had trouble getting the word out of his mouth.

  She smiled and said, “Susan Troy,” holding out a slim hand to him. He took it, feeling the electric warmth of her touch. The blue eyes revealed nothing.

  “We thought we’d drop around and say hello,” he heard Chris say. “We’re just on our way to dinner.”

  Tree stared at the two of them. Chris said, “Where’s Freddie?”

  Tree rallied and said, “She had a meeting. You just missed her.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Susan said. “Chris has been raving about her.”

  Chris said, “Would you like something to drink, Susan?”

  “A kir royale,” she said.

  Chris grinned. “Kir royale? Wasn’t that your drink of choice in Paris in the old days, Dad?”

  “Cassis with champagne.” Susan’s eyes were on Tree. “I learned to drink it in Paris, too.”

  Chris turned to Matt the bartender and asked if he could make a kir royale. He nodded. “One part cassis to five parts champagne. I pour the cass
is into a flute and then add the champagne.”

  “Make one for me, please,” Susan said.

  Matt said, “Coming up.” He soon returned with a champagne glass filled with pale red liquid. Tree presented it to Susan. “There you go,” he said.

  “It always makes me think of Paris,” Susan said, aiming an appreciative smile at Tree. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Does it make you think of Paris, Mr. Callister?”

  “Please, call me Tree.”

  “It was named after a guy who was the mayor of Lyon in the 1940s,” Rex said, wandering over. Chris introduced Susan. “Rex is the president of the Chamber of Commerce here on Sanibel,” Chris explained. “He and Dad have been friends forever.”

  “Only since dinosaurs ruled the earth,” Rex said. “I found Tree in the forest and raised him as my own.”

  “Rex used to be an actor in Hollywood,” Chris said.

  “Hollywood.” Susan sounded impressed. “Were you in anything I might have seen?”

  “I was Jack Palance’s young pal in I Died A Thousand Times,” Rex said.

  Cailie shifted her attention back to Tree. “Chris says you’re a detective.”

  “Only detective on Sanibel,” Rex said. “He’s a tourist attraction.”

  “Dangerous work?”

  “Not really,” Tree said.

  “Don’t let my father fool you,” Chris said. “He’s had his share of trouble.”

  “You look like a man who could get himself into trouble, all right,” she said.

  “Where are you from Susan?” Tree asked.

  She put her glass on the bar and turned to Chris. “We’ll be late for dinner.”

  Chris finished his wine and said, “Okay, let’s get going.”

  Cailie blessed Tree with yet another direct blue-eyed gaze. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Callister.”

  “Tree.”

  “Tree.”

  You never answered my question.”

  “What was that, Tree?”

  “Where you are from.”

  “Just outside St. Louis.” She took Chris’s arm. “All set?”

  “See you later,” Chris said, and off they went.

  Rex looked Tree up and down. “What was that all about?”

  “What was what all about?”

  “You and that woman. She looked at you like she knew you.”

  “You’re imagining things.”

  “Hey, you’re talking to me, kemo sabe.”

  Tree shrugged. “Chris mentioned the other day he’d met someone. Maybe I’m a little concerned that this may not be the right time to be chasing blondes around Sanibel Island, that’s all.”

  “Because the cops still have their eye on him for the Kendra Callister murder.”

  Now it was Tree’s turn to stare at Rex. “What have you heard?”

  “Just that. The view is that maybe Ray Dayton killed Kendra, but maybe he didn’t. Sure they found Ray’s sperm in her. But they also found Chris’s.”

  Tree put what was left of his water on the bar. “I’m going to get out of here,” he said.

  “Sorry if I upset you,” Rex said.

  “No, it’s all right. Nothing to do with you, Rex. Fun Friday isn’t much fun tonight, that’s all.”

  ________

  Freddie still wasn’t home when he got back to Andy Rosse Lane. That gave him time to consider his shock at finding Chris with Cailie Fisk or Susan Troy or whatever her name was. He reminded himself again that nothing had happened between them. There was no scandal here. Okay, but then why hadn’t he told Freddie that? Perhaps because something had happened. No matter how much he tried to rationalize it, he had ended up in a young woman’s hotel room late at night in Paris. He could claim innocence all he wanted, but it didn’t appear innocent. Even if Freddie said she believed him, there would still be a shadow lingering over their marriage that had never been there before.

  Someone was ringing the front door bell. Who would be calling at this time of night? He went to the door and opened it to find Vera Dayton swaying on the doorstep.

  “Vera,” he said.

  “Freddie,” Vera said. “I want to talk to Freddie.”

  “She’s not here right now,” Tree said.

  Vera barged past him. He caught the whiff of scotch and realized she was drunk. In the living room, Vera flopped on a sofa, a small, stout woman, the remnants of blond youth still visible in the round smoothness of her face. Tonight, however, her eyes were cloudy and unfocused and her lip kept curling in a way that lent her unintended meanness—or maybe not so unintended.

  “I’ve come to tell Freddie I’m not going to let her do it,” she said in a slurred voice. “It’s not gonna happen.”

  “Did you drive over here, Vera?” Tree kept his voice steady, trying to avoid doing anything that would spark a confrontation with Ray Dayton’s inebriated widow.

  “I didn’t want Ray to hire her, you know,” Vera went on. “I told him not to do it. She wasn’t needed. Wasn’t wanted. But as usual, he didn’t listen to me, and now he’s dead, and the last thing I want is her taking over.”

  “Now is probably not the time to be talking about this, Vera.”

  Her head shot up, momentarily lifting the clouds from her eyes. “He loved her, you know.” Vera making a formal accusation. “He was crazy about Freddie.”

  “I know all about it,” Tree said.

  She issued a drunken smirk. “You think you know, Mr. Tree Callister. But you don’t know it all. You don’t know everything.”

  “What don’t I know, Vera?”

  “You don’t have a cigarette, do you?”

  “Sorry, Vera,” Tree said, wondering how the devil he was going to get her out of here.

  “That’s right. Tree Callister doesn’t smoke. He doesn’t drink. He’s a good boy, that Tree Callister.” She issued a snort of laughter. “But we know, Tree. We know. Don’t we?”

  Tree just stared at her, certain that anything he said would only further antagonize her.

  She gave another snort of laughter. “There are things I could tell you, Mr. Sunset Detective. You think you’re smart, but you’re not smart at all.”

  She put her head back against the sofa, and the next thing Tree knew she was snoring gently.

  That’s how Freddie found her when she came in a few minutes later. “When did she get here?”

  “Not long ago,” Tree said. “She says she doesn’t want you taking over her business.”

  “That’s what she said?”

  “A number of times. But she’s pretty loaded.”

  “Well, we can’t let her drive home.”

  Freddie gently shook her. Vera smacked her lips loudly and sat up. When she saw Freddie she put on a bleary smile. “I’m drunk, Freddie. Sorry.”

  “We’re going to drive you home,” Freddie said.

  “No, I can drive all right,” Vera said.

  Freddie helped her to her feet. “It’s no problem. Tree and I have to go out, anyway. We’ll just drop you off. It’s better that way.”

  “You’re not a bad person, Freddie. You’re really not.”

  “Let’s go out to the car, Vera.”

  “This is kind of you,” Vera said. “But I can drive. Really, I can.” Vera collapsed against Freddie who caught her and made sure she didn’t fall to the floor.

  With Tree’s help, they got her outside. Vera’s Jaguar was on the lawn. She had left the driver’s side door open. Tree closed it and then helped Freddie put Vera into the back seat of the Mercedes.

  Freddie got behind the wheel and then Tree went to the Jag and climbed in. The key was still in the ignition. He started the motor, and the Jag rumbled contentedly as he backed it onto the roadway.

  Tree followed Freddie’s tail lights to Vera and Ray’s rambling one-story house at the Sanctuary, the island’s only gated community. Tree parked the Jag in the drive and watched as Freddie escorted a woozy-but-conscious Vera inside the ho
use. Ten minutes later she was back.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Freddie said.

  “I don’t think she’s ever gotten over the fact her husband was in love with you,” Tree said.

  “Ray wasn’t in love with me,” Freddie said.

  “That’s what Vera thinks.”

  “Whatever it was, it wasn’t love.”

  ________

  Later, when they were in bed, Tree, unable to sleep, twisted around, trying to block out the lion’s roar.

  The lion’s roar?

  He sat up on the camp cot, hearing it again. He got up and pushed back the canvas tent flap and stepped into a clearing lit by the glow of a camp fire. He was surprised to see Freddie seated by the fire close to a muscular, black-haired fellow with the rather cruelly-handsome face of a young Sean Connery. The two of them glanced up quickly as he approached—rather guiltily, Tree thought.

  “Did you hear the sound of that lion?” Tree said.

  “Let’s not talk about the lion,” Freddie said.

  “Why not?” said Tree. “Why can’t we talk about the lion?”

  “It’s a damn fine lion,” said the Sean Connery guy. “What’ll it be, Macomber? Shall I have the mess boy make you a gimlet?”

  “Macomber?” said Tree. “You mean Francis Macomber?”

  “You’re a coward,” Freddie said, poking at the fire with a stick, making quick, angry thrusts. “That’s why I slept with him.”

  “Who? Who did you sleep with?” Tree demanded.

  “Wilson here. The white hunter. After you ran from the lion. After you showed yourself to be a coward, I thought it was time I was with a real man.”

  “You’re not supposed to say that,” Tree protested. “I’m supposed to read it between the lines. The way Hemingway would have had it.”

  “It’s a damn fine lion,” Wilson said.

  “To hell with between the lines,” Freddie said. “I slept with him. You might as well know it. You’ve always been a coward. You’ve always tried to conceal it, first in the newspaper business and then by becoming a detective. You did everything you could to hide your fear. But now you’ve confronted the lion and run away, and everyone knows the truth about you.”