Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective

by Ron Base

  Tree was interviewed by two detectives, Lieutenant Manny Valdez, who headed the department’s major crimes unit, and Detective Nicholas Conde.

  He gave the officers his narrow version of the truth: impressed with guide Hank Dearlove’s insights during his visit to the Hemingway house, he decided to award Mr. Dearlove a bonus for his efforts.

  When he arrived at the Hemingway house, he discovered Mr. Dearlove wasn’t working. He happened to spot Dearlove’s address on a clipboard, saw that it was nearby, and decided to go to his residence. When he arrived, the door was open and the bloody cat was wandering around. He went inside and found Dearlove’s body out by the pool.

  Simple, straightforward, and not too much of a lie. Neither Valdez nor Conde commented on his veracity, or his lack thereof. It was only when Conde asked him what he did for a living that the atmosphere changed.

  “You’re a private detective?” Lieutenant Valdez’s voice contained a sharper edge. He was fortyish, heavyset, with black hair brushed away from a high forehead. He wore a sports jacket and a tie in a southernmost world where no one wore a jacket let alone a tie.

  “That’s correct,” Tree said.

  “Not around here.”

  “On Sanibel Island.”

  Lieutenant Valdez paused before he said, “I wouldn’t have thought there is a lot of call for private detectives out there.”

  “There isn’t,” Tree said. “But once in a while, there is. That’s where I come in.”

  “Are you here on a case?” Conde inquired. He was older than Valdez, slim, with a hard face that looked as though it had been cut out of stone by a high wind. He wore a short-sleeved, open-collar shirt, less formal than his boss without detracting from the impression he was the soul of rugged, military-type discipline.

  “No,” Tree said, trying not to take his eyes away from the two officers or do anything that would indicate he was lying through his teeth.

  “You’re not here on a case.” Conde turned the question into a declarative sentence.

  “No.”

  Conde again: “Then why are you in Key West?”

  “A little sight-seeing overnight,” Tree said reasonably. “I’m a bit of a Hemingway buff, but I’d never seen where he lived in Key West.”

  Conde sat back in his chair and said, “Hemingway,” making it sound like a bad word. “I’ve never been able to get into Hemingway.”

  “No?” Tree tried to look interested.

  “Everywhere you go in the Old Town, there are photos of the guy standing beside the biggest damned fish you ever saw. The Old Man and the Sea? I took that in high school. Old guy after a fish. I dunno. What’s the big deal there?”

  “Do you have any idea who this guy is?” An exasperated-sounding Lieutenant Valdez.

  Tree said, “You mean Hemingway?”

  Valdez jerked his thumb in the direction of the corpse by the pool, now covered by a sheet. “No, the guy out by the pool. Henry Dearlove.”

  “I thought he was a guide at the Hemingway house.”

  “Name doesn’t ring a bell?”

  “It didn’t, no.”

  “You had no idea he was a former deputy director of the CIA.”

  “Is that what he is?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How would I know that?”

  Conde said, “Yeah, how would you?”

  Valdez said, “Obviously, this is more than just some guy who leads tourists around by the nose over at the Hemingway place. There’s going to be a lot of heat on me, on Nick here, on the whole department.”

  He leaned toward Tree, his face becoming tense. “That’s why when some private detective from Sanibel tells us he just happened to be in Key West playing tourist, and he stumbles across the dead body of a big cheese at the CIA, naturally, Nick and I get a little suspicious.”

  “It might even cross our minds that you’re not telling us the truth,” Conde added.

  “Why would I lie to you?”

  “I don’t know, Tree,” Valdez said. “Why would you?”

  “Listen, I had no idea who this guy was,” Tree protested. True enough. “Like I keep telling you, I thought he was a tour guide. Does he still work for the CIA?”

  “Apparently, he left five years ago,” Valdez said. “Something about waterboarding Iraqi prisoners. I don’t know why that would get you into trouble, but there you go.”

  The observation reduced the three of them to silence. Behind him, out by the pool, Tree could hear the murmur of voices: the crime scene investigative team at work.

  “How did he die?” Tree asked.

  “You’re a private eye and you don’t know how he died?” Conde sounded disgusted.

  Tree delivered a blank look.

  “Bang, bang,” Valdez said.

  “That means someone shot him,” Conde said.

  “I never get used to that police jargon,” Tree said.

  “Anything else you want to tell us?” Valdez asked.

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you should waterboard people,” Tree said.

  Valdez studied him closely. “Maybe that’s why you killed him. You don’t like waterboarding CIA agents.”

  “He also thought To Have and Have Not was Hemingway’s worst novel,” Tree said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I would have said Across the River and into the Trees.”

  ________

  Tree could not face the Key West Express back to Fort Myers. Instead, he took a cab to the airport where he caught a 5:50 P.M. Capeair flight to Fort Myers.

  During the flight, Tree tried to sleep but, in the cramped seat of the tiny Cessna, thoughts about why a former CIA deputy director who had been thrown out because he waterboarded people, was mixed up with Elizabeth Traven, not to mention Miram Shah and Javor Zoran, kept him awake. He refused to contemplate the consequences of withholding information about Dearlove’s murder from the police.

  His defense would be that he really knew nothing and therefore it was better not to say anything—not too far from the truth.

  By the time he took a cab from the airport to the Key West Express, got the Beetle out of the parking lot, and drove to the island, it was after eight o’clock and nearly dark. As he came toward the house, the front door opened and Freddie stepped into view. She wore shorts and a T-shirt and looked wonderful. Tree was never so glad to see her. Then he saw the frown.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I got involved in something in Key West,” Tree said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Some former CIA director or something. You found the body.”

  “How did you know?”

  “The way I shouldn’t know. I heard it on the news.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me when I called?”

  “I had just found the body. It didn’t seem like the time, somehow. Let’s go inside, and we can talk about it.”

  “There’s something else.”

  “What is it?”

  She held up a single sheet of paper. “This came today at work. It’s from someone named Cailie Fisk.”

  His heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.

  19

  Dear Fredericka,

  We have never met, but I feel I must write and tell you what has happened between Tree and me. While in Paris we ran into each other at La Closerie des Lilas. Tree and I ate dinner together that night, and, I am ashamed to say, we ended up back in my hotel room where he insisted on making love to me. I suppose it was mutual, I’m not sure.

  Something powerful occurred that night. I’m not certain what—a combination of lust and guilt I suppose—but it was enough to draw me to Sanibel and back to your husband’s side. He suggested we spend time together in Key West. He was going there on a case, anyway, and we would be alone and could get a better understanding of what was happening between us.

  Again, I am not proud of this, but I accompanied him to Key West where we spent another night toge
ther. I’m not sure what I was thinking then, and I’m not sure what I’m thinking now. But you should be aware of what’s going on.

  I have urged him to think twice before giving up on a marriage and a life here on Sanibel. Maybe this letter will help clarify matters for all of us. But at this point, I must say, I find it hard to imagine a life without Tree.

  Sincerely,

  Cailie Fisk

  Tree looked up from the letter, removing his reading glasses. “She finds it hard to imagine a life without me?”

  “Apparently,” Freddie said.

  “She’s crazy,” Tree said.

  “Maybe you had better tell me who she is, Tree.” Freddie sat with her legs crossed in a deck chair further away from him than he would have liked. She tried to look relaxed but only succeeded in looking tenser.

  “I wish I knew,” Tree said. “She tells me her name is Cailie Fisk. She told Chris that her name is Susan Troy.”

  “Chris? What’s he got to do with this?”

  “I think that’s how she tracked me to Paris. She met Chris about three months ago and got involved with him.”

  “Good grief.” Freddie groaned.

  “I did not sleep with her,” Tree said. “Whatever her name is, I didn’t sleep with her.”

  “Then why does she say you did?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t figure any of it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me what happened in Paris?”

  “Because nothing happened in Paris.”

  “You didn’t go back to this woman’s hotel room?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  She looked at him and he decided he had better tell her everything. “She did come on to me, tried to kiss me. But I stopped her and got out of there.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because I should not have been in her room in the first place. I shouldn’t have put myself in a spot where whatever I said about it, it would sound suspicious. So I decided the best thing to do was to keep quiet.”

  “Except here she is on Sanibel and here you are returning from Key West with her.”

  “I didn’t go to Key West with her—or come back with her.”

  “But you spent the night with her.”

  He paused too long before he said, “Yes.”

  He saw the muscles in her throat tighten. “Did you sleep with her?”

  “Did I have sex with her?” he said. “No. Nothing like that. But I had nowhere else to go.”

  Tree related how he found Hank Dearlove at the Hemingway home, his confrontation with him, his abduction later that night by Edgar Bunya and his thugs, Cailie’s unexpected appearance, and how, fearing Bunya would be looking for him, he decided to stay with Cailie.

  He then told her about going to Dearlove’s house that morning and finding him dead from a gunshot wound. It was only then that he discovered Dearlove was a former CIA deputy director. A photo in the study showed Dearlove with Miram Shah and Javor Zoran, the two men who had hired him to find Elizabeth Traven. He now suspected the men were looking for Elizabeth because she had ten million dollars that belonged to them.

  “Miram Shah held a high position in Pakistani intelligence,” Tree said. “Javor Zoran ran security for Slobodan Milošević, and Dearlove was with the CIA. They all worked together. Then for various reasons, they found themselves out of a job, and somehow got together.”

  “To do what?” Freddie said.

  “Whatever it is, it involves ten million dollars and Dr. Edgar Bunya and his cutlass.”

  “And now murder,” Freddie said.

  “Yes.”

  “Not to mention Elizabeth Traven.”

  “Who may be hiding out because she has ten million dollars that doesn’t belong to her.”

  Freddie uncoiled her legs and leaned forward, those lovely green eyes unblinking, hard on Tree.

  “You know what?” she said. “I don’t believe you had sex with this woman. I really don’t. There’s too much between us for that; you’re entirely too loyal. I may be crazy to believe, but I do. I believe it because I believe in you—in us.”

  She took a deep breath. “What I don’t understand is why you wouldn’t say anything, why you kept quiet about Paris. I know what you’re saying, I hear the excuse, but it goes back to my continuing complaint about what you’re doing. You’re lying to me, withholding things, and I hate that more than anything.”

  “I know you do,” Tree said.

  “And yet you keep doing it.”

  Tree was silent.

  Freddie rose to her feet. He got up, too, taking her in his arms, feeling her body stiffen against him. “You’re still mad at me.”

  “I guess I’m not certain what I am. Disappointed is probably a better word.”

  And that cut him deeper than anything. He did not ever want to disappoint Freddie Stayner.

  Yet that’s exactly what he kept doing, he thought as he undressed. He looked over at the bed. Freddie was already asleep. He stood there listening to her soft breathing sounds before picking up his slacks off the floor. As he did this, something fell out of the back pocket. He stooped to pick it up.

  It was the brochure from the Island Inn he had found at Hank Dearlove’s place.

  20

  The next morning, Tree pulled up to the gates at Elizabeth Traven’s home on Captiva Drive. If Freddie had spotted her, maybe she was back in residence.

  But the house remained as silent and apparently deserted as ever behind its locked gates. This time when Tree called her cell phone number, an electronic voice told him the number had been disconnected.

  As soon as Tree got into his office, he called Joseph Trembath. “Have you got news for me, Mr. Callister?”

  “What do you know about a man named Hank Dearlove?” Tree said.

  That prompted one of Trembath’s silences.

  “Mr. Trembath, are you still there?”

  “Yes, yes of course I am. I’m just trying to understand what someone named Dearlove has to do with finding Elizabeth Traven.”

  “It may have something to do with the fact that I found Dearlove dead in his Key West home yesterday morning.”

  Instead of expressing surprise or shock, Trembath said, “Do you know where Mrs. Traven is now?”

  “Are you listening to me? A man is dead. A man who appears to have been associated with Elizabeth Traven.”

  “I quite understand that,” Trembath said in a neutral voice apparently unmoved by the news of murder—or by the fact that Elizabeth might be connected to it. “But that really doesn’t change anything, other than to make it more imperative than ever that you find Mrs. Traven so that further complications can be avoided.”

  “What further complications are you talking about?”

  Once again, Trembath chose to dodge the question. “Mr. Shah wants Elizabeth Traven found. That reality has not changed.”

  “Mr. Shah is a former director of the Pakistani Security Service is he not?”

  Trembath said, “What has that got to do with anything?”

  “Mr. Trembath, I know Hank Dearlove was with the CIA. I’ve seen a photo of him with Miram Shah and Javor Zoran. They are both looking for Elizabeth. The question is why?”

  This time Trembath didn’t even hesitate before he ignored the question. “Just find Mrs. Traven.”

  “You want me to find Elizabeth or do you want me to find the ten million dollars you think she stole?”

  Yet again, Trembath betrayed no surprise when he said, “I’ll call you at the end of the week. Do try to have some results. Time is growing short.”

  Trembath hung up. Tree replaced the receiver and sat back in his chair. He fished the Island Inn brochure out of his back pocket and laid it on the desk in front of him just as the office door burst open, and Chris Callister exploded in, flushed and out of breath.

  “You bastard,” he said, slamming the door.

  He charged forward and for an instant Tree thought his son was going to punch him ou
t. But Chris stopped just short of the desk, chest heaving, his pale face twisted into an expression of anguish.

  “How could you?” he demanded. “How could you do it?”

  “Do what?” Tree said, genuinely alarmed. “What did I do?”

  “You slept with her, you slept with Susan.”

  “That’s not true, Chris.”

  “I was with her last night. She was crying in my arms. Devastated by what you did in Key West.”

  “Nothing happened in Key West. No matter what she told you. Her name isn’t Susan, incidentally. It’s probably Cailie Fisk, although there is no guarantee that’s true, either. Nothing about her is true. I don’t know why she’s saying the things she’s saying, but I never touched her.”

  “You never spent the night in her room in Key West?”

  “There’s an explanation for that, if you sit down and listen to it.”

  “I don’t want any more of your crap. That’s all I’ve ever gotten from you. Either nothing—which is all mom ever got—or a lot of crap that turned out not to be true.”

  “Chris, think about this. Think about what you’re saying. You know how much I love Freddie. You know I would never do anything to hurt her. You know that.”

  Chris stood there, his body trembling, Tree still uncertain if his son would hit him. Instead, he shook a finger at this father. “This is it with you. It’s finished, I don’t want to have anything more to do with you and your lies. Understand me? Nothing.”

  Chris retreated to the door. Tree jumped to his feet to block his exit. “Get out of my way,” Chris said, curling a fist.

  “Did you tell Cailie or Susan where we were staying in Paris?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Did you?”

  Chris lowered his head, nodding. “We may have discussed it, I suppose.”

  “What about the kir royale and La Closerie des Lilas, did you talk about all that?”

  “She wanted to know about you and Freddie.”

  “Look, there’s something going on here. I’m not sure what it is, but this woman is not who she says she is, and for some reason she seems determined to destroy me, my relationship with you, and my marriage to Freddie.”