Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective

by Ron Base

  “I know you do, Tree. I know you do.”

  He noticed she didn’t say “I love you” back.

  ________

  Tree stopped at the Island Inn on his way to the office. He walked around to the cottage where Elizabeth had been staying. The place was locked. When he checked at reception, he found that she had left the evening before. When he tried her cell phone, the electronic voice reminded him that the number he was calling had been disconnected.

  The parking lot at the Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center was full when Tree got there. The tourist season was in full swing. He finally found a space at the rear and entered the building. Rex wasn’t in his office. One of the volunteers said he was downstairs in the main reception area talking to tourists—Rex’s favorite pastime. Probably regaling them with stories about being blown out of his boat, Tree thought.

  The reception area was jammed with tourists, talking to volunteers, poring over maps, lining up for the rest rooms that were the most popular stop when arriving on Sanibel Island. One of the volunteers finished providing directions to the Mucky Duck, the landmark bar and restaurant on Captiva Island. “Have you seen Rex?” Tree asked.

  The volunteer said, “He was here a couple of moments ago.”

  Then someone gasped.

  And someone else screamed.

  Tree turned to see a man lurch through the shifting, panicking crowd. He was unshaven, in a rumpled linen shirt and baggy gray pants. Tree pushed through the crowd and broke into an open space created by onlookers jerking reflexively away as the man collapsed to his knees, hands pressed against his stomach, the linen shirt turning red.

  The man fell face forward. Tree, dropping to his knees, managed to catch him before his head smashed into the floor.

  The man looked up at Tree, and Tree looked down into the pale, anguished face of Javor Zoran. His lips opened. He was trying to say something, but no words came out.

  Then the light went out of Javor Zoran’s eyes, and he died in Tree’s arms.

  27

  Javor Zoran had driven his 1983 Jaguar XJS as far as the parking lot at the Visitors Center before he stumbled out, leaving the motor running, and staggered inside where Tree had cradled him while he died from a gunshot wound to the stomach.

  Self-inflicted? It was hard to say, according to Detective Owen Markfield and his partner, Cee Jay Boone. No gun had been found in the car. It was also hard to say where Zoran had driven from. He may even have crossed the causeway in that condition. They would be checking the video cameras at the toll booths.

  Tree was not much help, but then he never was, Markfield observed caustically. Markfield’s dislike was plain as he consulted a thick notebook.

  “You have been busy since I last saw you, Callister, finding bodies all over the west coast. We’ve got a report from the Key West sheriff’s office. Another from the Lee County sheriff on Useppa Island. And now here we are today. The bodies keep piling up. You’re our local Dead Body Guy aren’t you?”

  If Tree had been a really good private detective, he would have cracked wise, as in the hard-boiled detective novels he read as a kid. But he couldn’t think of a line wise enough to crack. He never could at times like this. Some detective.

  Even Markfield appeared to expect Tree to say something and looked uncomfortable when he didn’t. He covered up with another glance at his notebook.

  Cee Jay chimed in: “You knew the victim?”

  “Yes, Zoran was a client.”

  “So he was coming to see you with a bullet in him.”

  “He could have been, I don’t know,” Tree said. “I happened to be in the reception area when he stumbled in. One of the volunteers or a tourist was just as likely to catch him as me.”

  “But if he didn’t want to see you, why would Zoran come here?” This from Cee Jay.

  “Maybe he wanted a map of the island, I don’t know.”

  Tree’s cell phone trembled in his pocket. He fished it out. He did not recognize the number on the digital readout. “Excuse me,” Tree said to the detectives. “I have to take this.”

  Elizabeth Traven said, “Are you alone?”

  “No.”

  “Police?”

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t told them about me, have you?”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Do you know Pete’s Time Out in Times Square over at Fort Myers Beach?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be waiting there in one hour.”

  Tree looked at Markfield and Cee Jay. “If there’s nothing else, I have an appointment with a client.”

  “There’s plenty more,” Markfield snarled.

  “Then it will have to wait,” Tree said, standing.

  Markfield stood facing him. Cee Jay said in a warning voice, “Take it easy, Owen.”

  Markfield plastered on a tight smile. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Callister. But I’m going to find out, and if you’re lying to us, I’m gonna make sure you go to jail for a long, long time.”

  Tree swallowed and said, “Excuse me, Detective, but you’re blocking my way.”

  Markfield slowly moved aside to allow Tree out the door.

  ________

  Tree managed to get Edith Goldman on his cell phone as the Beetle crawled over the San Carlos Bridge, caught in vacation traffic choking the roadway onto Fort Myers Beach.

  “What kind of trouble are you in now?”

  “And good afternoon to you, too, Edith,” Tree said. “What makes you so certain I’m in trouble?”

  “What? You’re leaving your wife and phoning me for a date?”

  “If that ever happened, Edith, you would be first on my list.”

  “Now I know you’re in trouble. What’s up?”

  “For the time being, anyway, it’s not me, it’s my son, Chris. The police were at my house last night looking for him in connection with the murder of his wife.”

  Edith took this in for a moment before she said, “I thought that matter was resolved.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Have they arrested him?”

  “They’re looking for him. They say they only want to talk to him, but judging by the heavy artillery they brought around, I suspect they’re going to make an arrest.”

  “Where is Chris now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Or you don’t want to say?”

  “I don’t know where he is, Edith.”

  “You think he’s on the run?”

  “I hope not.”

  “All right,” Edith said. “As soon as he turns up, have him call me. I’ll take him over to police headquarters. But don’t let him go over there alone.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Edith.”

  “I keep hearing about you and dead bodies.”

  “The police call me the Dead Body Guy.”

  “Well, be careful,” Edith said. “We don’t need the father and the son in jail. It gets very expensive for Freddie.”

  Tree finally got across the bridge and found a space in a parking lot off Fifth Avenue. He walked over to Times Square where kids on spring break and middle-aged mid-westerners seeking relief from the cold, cold north jammed the pedestrian walk. Self-conscious fourteen-year-old girls wore patches of cloth they must have had to smuggle past their parents. The guys ambled along in basketball jerseys and flat-peaked caps, fake gangstas stalking budding supermodels.

  Melon, owner of Pete’s Time Out, held court at one of the tables outside his cottage-like restaurant. Melon originally was from Chicago and knew both Tree and Rex back there. Melon had a real name but no one could ever remember it. He was simply, Melon. His face under his ubiquitous baseball cap, framed by a neatly trimmed beard, lit up as he embraced Tree.

  “Good to see you, partner,” Melon said.

  “It’s been a while, Melon,” Tree said. “I’m meeting a friend.”

  “Sit down, man, make yourself at home. You still on that Diet Coke shit?”


  “You got it, Melon.”

  “You need a beer, man. You’re not Florida and sunshine unless you got a beer in your hand.”

  “Even with a beer, I’d doubt I’d be Florida and sunshine.”

  “I know, man. You’re Chicago, through and through. Can’t change that, no matter how long you bake under the sun.”

  Melon grinned and went off to find Tree his Diet Coke. Across the street, a trio of teenage girls tried on sunglasses. Next door at a jewelry stand, a couple of women inspected earrings. The women stopped looking at the earrings to gaze admiringly at Elizabeth Traven as she swept out of the crowd toward Tree.

  If she was hiding out, she was doing a lousy job of it. She moved with liquid grace in a pair of white shorts that, combined with the high-heeled Manolo Blahniks, reminded the passing parade that mature beauty always trumped youth.

  Elizabeth presented Tree with a distracted smile before plunking herself down next to him, pushing her sunglasses up into a soft nest of hair. Unblinking opaque eyes studied him.

  “How are you, Mr. Callister?”

  “Not particularly good,” Tree said. “Every time I turn around, I find another dead man associated with you.”

  As if objecting to talk of dead men, she shifted her face away and lifted it to the sun. “You keep saying that. I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “This morning, Javor Zoran came into the Chamber of Commerce with a bullet in his stomach. He died in my arms.”

  Melon returned with Tree’s Diet Coke, eyes riveted to Elizabeth. Tree introduced them. Elizabeth ordered a gin and tonic.

  Melon asked, “You folks want to see menus?”

  Elizabeth shook her head distractedly.

  “Just the drinks for now, Melon,” Tree said.

  Melon went away. Elizabeth focused on Tree. “Before he died, did he say anything?”

  “What if he did?”

  “I would like to know.”

  “He didn’t mention his great, lost love Elizabeth Traven, if that’s what you mean—or ten million dollars for that matter.”

  She made a face. “You’re being nasty.”

  Melon was back with her gin and tonic and a couple of menus, “just in case you folks get hungry.”

  He cast a final appreciative glance at Elizabeth before making his departure.

  She looked at the gin and tonic in its frosted, perspiring glass. Tree said, “You don’t seem too upset that he’s dead.”

  “Maybe I’m very good at hiding my emotions.”

  “I’m thinking whoever killed Zoran, also killed Hank Dearlove and Miram Shah.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Looking for that missing ten million dollars.”

  She lifted up the gin and tonic. “How many times do I have to tell you? There is no ten million dollars.”

  “Then Dearlove, Shah, and now Javor Zoran, died for considerably less. But nonetheless, they are all dead, and maybe you’re running scared, thinking you could be next, and that’s why you called me.”

  “No offence Mr. Callister, but if I was looking for protection you would not be the first person I would call.”

  “Except maybe you’re running out of people. Everyone you know seems to be dead.”

  “I’m telling you, that’s not why I called.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “We had an agreement, remember?”

  “You were going to tell me about Cailie Fisk.”

  “In return for not saying anything about me to the police.”

  “What is it you know, Mrs. Traven?”

  “What about the police?”

  “Your name hasn’t come up.”

  She took a strengthening sip of her drink before she said, “Cailie is Kendra Dean’s sister.”

  Tree looked at her in astonishment. “She’s the sister of my son’s murdered wife?”

  “Cailie Dean is her real name. She is a detective with the St. Louis Police Department, although she’s taken a leave of absence.”

  Tree’s throat felt constricted. He could barely bring himself to spit out the words that formed his next question: “How do you know this?”

  “Some time back, Cailie came to see me.”

  “How long ago?”

  “About three months.”

  The same time Cailie became involved with Chris, Tree thought. Before he and Freddie left for Paris.

  “She had questions about the affair Ray Dayton had with Kendra,” Elizabeth continued. “The affair that led to her sister’s murder. She wanted to know about Ray’s suicide. She found it too convenient that the police had hung her sister’s murder on a dead man. She had questions about Chris. She demanded to know what I knew about all this, about Ray, and about Kendra and Chris.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “I said I found it hard to believe Chris would kill his wife. He had already made his deal with the devil as far as Kendra was concerned. I’m not even certain how much he knew about Kendra and Ray.”

  “Obviously, she didn’t believe you.”

  “Obviously not.”

  “Did she know Freddie and I were going to Paris?”

  Elizabeth thought about this before she said, “She may have. She gave me the impression she’d done a fair amount of poking around—that she knew a lot more than she was letting on.”

  “Did she say anything about what she planned to do?”

  “No, but she made it clear that if I said anything to you, she would come after me, and that would be, to quote her, ‘a world of trouble you don’t want right now.’”

  “So why are you telling me, Mrs. Traven?”

  As I told you, we had an agreement. That agreement has now been fulfilled, don’t you agree?”

  “Which means?”

  “You don’t have to follow me around.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go. Can you afford to buy me a drink?”

  Elizabeth didn’t wait for his answer as she stood. Tree said, “What about you? What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  “Will you?”

  “Let’s face it. Just about everyone who might have wanted to harm me is dead.”

  “Edgar Bunya isn’t. In fact, just the other day I think he fired a grenade at me.”

  “But he missed.”

  “Barely.”

  “Stay away from me, Mr. Callister. It will make life much easier for both of us.”

  She gave him a vague smile and walked away. Tree watched her retreat until the gleam of those long legs was lost in the crowd.

  “Now that’s a woman.”

  Tree turned to find Melon with a silly grin on his face. He might have argued the point, but what was the use? That perception had served Elizabeth well all her life and perhaps even allowed her to get away with murder.

  28

  Edith Goldman got hold of Tree a couple of minutes after he crossed the bridge onto San Carlos Boulevard.

  “The police have arrested Chris,” she said.

  “Where did they find him?”

  “Apparently he was coming to work at the Holiday Inn. I happened to phone Cee Jay Boone to check out the lay of the land. They were just bringing him in. Cee Jay says they’ve got new evidence supplied by a St. Louis police detective.”

  “That’s Chris’s sister-in-law—Kendra’s sister,” Tree said.

  “You’re kidding,” Edith said. “How long have you known this?”

  “I just found out myself. Where are you now?”

  “I’m over here at police headquarters.”

  “Have they charged him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m just coming out of Fort Myers Beach on San Carlos Boulevard. Depending on the traffic, I should be there in twenty minutes.”

  It took him over half an hour with the traffic coming onto Sanibel and then more traffic backed up along Periwinkle. He finally got off onto Dunlop Road and into the city ha
ll complex that housed police headquarters. Edith Goldman waited in the main reception area. In the sort of dark business suit seldom seen on the island, gripping a Blackberry as though it were a life raft, Edith looked sleek and professional, the sort of person you want at the jail when they are holding your son. “I was just about to call you,” she said.

  “What’s happening?” Tree demanded.

  “They’ve just charged Chris with the first degree murder of his wife.”

  “Oh, God,” Tree said.

  Edith said, “It’s all right. We’re going to take care of this.”

  Cee Jay Boone, looking rumpled and tired, chose that moment to appear, a tote bag slung over her shoulder, car keys in hand. Tree intercepted her. “I want to see my son,” he said.

  Cee Jay gave him a dead-eyed look. “I can’t let you do that, Tree.”

  “Yes, you can,” Tree said. He saw Edith out of the corner of his eye. She did not look happy. “You can do this for me, Cee Jay.”

  “I don’t have to do anything for you,” she said.

  “Do this,” he said. “Please.”

  She looked at him angrily. “Careful, Tree. There are a lot of people here who would love to see you in a cell right next to Chris.”

  He met her gaze. The anger did not go out of her face. “Five minutes,” she said. “That’s it.”

  Without another word Cee Jay led him down a short hallway and opened a door into the same interrogation room Tree previously had occupied—the father and son suite at police headquarters. Chris, haggard and hollow-eyed, sat with his hands handcuffed together, head lowered, as if in prayer. His son in handcuffs, Tree thought. The end game for the number of ways he had screwed up with him over the years.

  When Chris raised his head, Tree saw the tears in his son’s eyes. “They’re saying I murdered Kendra, Dad. They’re saying I killed her.”

  “I know,” Tree said. “I got here as soon as I could.”

  “I didn’t kill her. Tell them that. Tell them I didn’t kill her.”

  “We’re going to get you out of this, Chris. I promise you. Whatever it takes, we’ll do it. We’ll get you out of this.”

  “You know I didn’t do it, don’t you, Dad? You know I couldn’t hurt her, no matter what happened. You know that.”

  Momentarily, Tree wondered if Chris wasn’t melodramatically playing to the video camera that almost certainly was recording the scene. He dismissed the thought and said, “Yes.” But did he? Of course he did. His son was innocent. Concentrate on that. His son was innocent.