Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective

by Ron Base

  “I appreciate that,” Tree said, grinning.

  “We get too serious and we might be overtaken by real life, and we wouldn’t want that.”

  “No way,” Tree said.

  “That real life is a killer,” Rex said.

  Vera Dayton appeared in the doorway. Hiding his surprise as best he could, Tree said, “Vera.”

  “Hey, there, Vera,” Rex said.

  “I was just passing by,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you got a moment?”

  Rex disappeared. Tree rose awkwardly. “Come in and sit down.”

  She was done in island chic this morning: white slacks with matching white jacket over a scoop-necked blouse in silky blue; no sign of the drunk from their previous encounter in the well-to-do woman who gazed uncertainly at Tree as she seated herself.

  “I heard about Chris—his arrest.”

  Tree felt his stomach drop. “Yes,” he repeated.

  “I thought you should know, I’ve just come from the police. I told them I don’t think your son killed his wife. I believe, as I have always believed, that it was Ray.”

  “What did the police say?”

  Her eyes darted around the office, as if the answer might be somewhere in the picture of the marlin on the wall. Finally deciding it wasn’t, she said, “They asked if there was anything I wanted to add to what I had already told them. I said, no. But I asked them to keep in mind that Ray committed suicide, that if he had not murdered Kendra, there was no reason for him to take his own life.”

  “Look, I appreciate this, Vera,” Tree said. “I know it’s very awkward for you to talk about this.”

  “I don’t know why they had to reopen it,” Vera said, sounding abruptly agitated. “It had been settled. We’re all trying to get on with our lives. Now the nightmare starts up again.”

  “I’m afraid it does,” Tree said.

  “Do you have any idea what evidence they have?”

  “Not really,” he said, not wanting to tell Vera any more than he had to. Not that he knew much, anyway.

  The telephone rang. Tree looked at it.

  Vera got to her feet. “I should be going.”

  “No, it’s all right, Vera. They’ll leave a message.”

  It rang again.

  “There’s something else I wanted you to know.”

  Tree looked at her. Again, her eyes nervously swept the room. Tree said, “What is it, Vera?”

  “I’m not going to sell my stores to Freddie and her group.”

  “You know I’m not involved in this,” Tree said.

  The telephone kept ringing. Vera’s voice rose over the sound. “Of course I know you’re not involved. How could you be? What would you know about it? What does anyone know about it?” She sounded angry. “I’ve thought about it long and hard. I’m not selling. I’m not going to do it.”

  “Please,” Tree said, “You should talk to Freddie. She’s on her way to New York, but you should talk to her.”

  Vera said, “I shouldn’t be here. I’ve got to go.”

  And she left the office.

  The phone rang again. Tree grabbed the receiver.

  “Hey, man, it’s Melon.”

  Tree silently groaned. Melon was the last person he wanted to talk to today. No, he was the second last. Vera was the last, but it was too late for her.

  “Melon.”

  “Wow, I just heard about your son on the car radio. That’s pretty heavy, man. I just wanted to call to say how sorry I am.”

  “Thanks, Melon, I appreciate that.”

  “If there’s anything I can do, you let me know, okay?”

  “Right now, there’s not much. We’re just hoping we can get him bail next week.”

  “I was talking to Liz about you last night,” Melon said. “She was saying how much your son means, and that you’d been through a lot together.”

  Tree gripped the receiver tighter. “Liz?”

  “Sure, man. Liz”

  “You mean Elizabeth Traven?”

  “Yeah, Liz. She dropped in for a drink.”

  “I’m trying to get a line on where she’s staying.”

  “I think Captain Rick has a bit of a crush on her.”

  “Captain Rick?”

  “He owns half the properties around Times Square. He let Liz use the apartment. Gave her a terrific deal on the place.”

  _________

  The apartment was located above a T-shirt shop fronting Times Square, the entrance reached via a flight of stairs at the rear of the building. Tree stood on the beach facing a sand-colored façade edged in turquoise. A big towel adorned with skull and crossbones hung from a balcony railing. Blinds covered the second floor windows, so it was hard to tell if anyone was home.

  Elizabeth Traven didn’t want him following her. The agreement between them had been fulfilled, she said. What was that supposed to mean? Any time Elizabeth declared herself in that way, Tree could be sure there was something behind it. Was the ten million dollars inside that apartment? Is that why she didn’t want him hanging around? Tree resisted the urge to go up there and find out. Instead, he occupied one of the picnic tables at a nearby beachside café. He ordered a Diet Coke from the waiter, keeping an eye on the apartment.

  The Spring Break crowd streamed between the beach and Times Square as the afternoon wore on, and the sun gradually lost its battle with gathering clouds. The wind grew in intensity causing the multi-colored flags dotting the sand to flap violently. Attendants began taking down blue beach umbrellas. The rising wind drove all but the most dedicated bathers off the beach so that as dusk fell, the wide stretch of sand running past the pier was deserted.

  Tree was standing, trying to get the kinks out of his tired body, when the door at the top of the stairs opened, and Elizabeth Traven stepped onto the balcony. For one stomach-dropping moment, Tree was certain she had spotted him. But then he saw that she was on a cell phone, looking into the distance.

  Presently, a blue Mazda came into view and parked on a strip of roadway adjacent to the beach. A woman got out of the car and waved up to Elizabeth who immediately put her cell phone away and waved back.

  Tree watched as Cailie Dean started up the stairs.

  32

  As soon as Cailie reached the landing, Elizabeth turned inside. Cailie followed her.

  Ten minutes later the door opened, and Cailie re-emerged lugging a green L.L. Bean duffle bag. Elizabeth was right behind her, carrying a similar bag. Elizabeth paused to lock the door while Cailie continued down to the car.

  Tree watched as Cailie opened the trunk of the Mazda and threw the duffle bag inside. A moment later, Elizabeth added the second bag and Cailie closed the trunk.

  Cailie squeezed behind the wheel while Elizabeth joined her in the passenger seat. The engine started up and the Mazda drove off. Tree hurried around to where the Beetle was parked, hoping the women were headed across the San Carlos Bridge and he could pick them up there. Sure enough, as he swung onto Fifth Avenue, he spotted the Mazda on the bridge.

  Tree topped the bridge as the Mazda turned into the marina just beyond Doc Ford’s Restaurant. What were they doing there? Tree wondered. But then what were they doing together in the first place? He couldn’t begin to imagine.

  By the time he turned into the marina, the Mazda was already parked. In the gathering gloom and the rising wind, he watched Elizabeth and Cailie lug their duffle bags along the dock to a cabin cruiser. They stowed their gear below decks before returning to the car and driving away.

  Tree waited until the car reached San Carlos Boulevard and disappeared before going along the dock to the cruiser. The boat was a thirty-eight-foot Sea Ray Sundancer. Tree climbed onto the rear deck, and went through the cockpit and stepped down into the cabin area, luxuriously appointed in ivory and brown with a stateroom off the main salon. The identical green L.L. Bean duffle bags lay on one of the leather sofas. He wondered if they contained ten million dollars.

  Th
e twin bed in the forward stateroom was occupied by a long white vinyl bag, containing what? A sleeping beauty? Not quite. When Tree undid the side zipper, the flap peeled away to reveal the serene face of Edgar Bunya, his eyes open and staring in blank wonder at Tree. One hand was positioned on his chest, clutching a Calla lily, the sign of Edgar’s friendship. Edgar, however, would make no more friends, and he would never threaten anyone with a machete again.

  Tree quickly re-zipped the bag.

  Then he returned to the salon where the duffle bags lay. He opened one of them. Instead of ten million dollars, he found a Glock entrenching tool made of black polymer with a spade-like pointed blade, a thick coil of rope, and two Pelican flashlights with rubberized handles. The other bag was empty.

  Tree closed up the duffle bags and then heard a noise above. He ducked into the stateroom. Presently, footsteps thumped against the deck.

  “All right, let’s get going,” he heard Elizabeth Traven say.

  “You sure you know how to handle this?” Cailie’s voice.

  “I grew up on boats,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve handled bigger than this.”

  “It’s starting to get rough out there,” Cailie said.

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “You need anything below?” Cailie’s voice.

  Tree tensed.

  “No, help me cast off, and let’s get going.”

  He heard the satisfying growl of twin engines starting up. The craft shuddered and then began moving, backing out of its dock space. The roar of the engines increased as the throttle was thrown forward. Tree heard one of the women say something, but couldn’t make out what it was.

  As the boat picked up speed, the ride abruptly became rougher. Tree braced himself.

  The motion of the boat as it entered the roiling waters of the gulf caused Edgar’s body to shift around on the bed. The wind rose into a high-pitched shriek. The craft rode onto the crest of a wave and then plummeted into the trough.

  Tree’s stomach did a somersault. He tried not to think about sea-sickness.

  Wind and waves shook the boat. This time Tree’s stomach executed a cartwheel. He broke into a sweat. Edgar’s body slammed against the bulkhead.

  His stomach dropped again. Tree staggered from his hiding place and got to the sink in the galley kitchen in time to throw up. He tried to retch quietly, but it didn’t work. Cailie’s frowning face soon appeared in the hatchway. She scrambled down the steps.

  “That’s a relief,” she said. “For a moment there, I thought Edgar had returned from the dead.”

  She raised her hand so that Tree could see the Glock. “Is that the same gun you used to shoot Edgar?” Tree said.

  “It’s indiscriminate. That’s what I love about the Glock. It will shoot anyone. So don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I’m too sick for stupid.”

  “My experience with you, Tree, is that nothing keeps you from stupid. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. Do me a favor. Raise your hands.”

  Tree thought of any number of smart replies to that cliché but decided against all of them. He raised his hands. She moved forward, gun at the ready, to pat him down. Rather professional, he thought, as she plucked his cell phone from his pocket.

  “I’ll hold onto this,” she said.

  From above Elizabeth’s voice called out, “What’s going on?”

  Keeping her eyes fixed on Tree, Cailie yelled back, “We have a stowaway.”

  “What?”

  “Tree Callister’s come for dinner.”

  Elizabeth’s disbelieving face, streaked with rain, popped into view. “Tree, good grief, what the hell are you doing here?”

  Another wave smashed the boat causing Edgar to hit the bulkhead with renewed force. Elizabeth’s head disappeared. Tree groaned and slumped forward.

  “Stay put,” Cailie yelled.

  “Shoot me,” Tree said. “Anything’s better than this.”

  “I’ll shoot you later,” Cailie said. “Right now, I need you to pull Edgar up onto the deck.”

  “Why do you want me to do that?”

  “He needs air. What do you care? Just do it.”

  “What happens if I don’t?” Tree said.

  “We’ll find room for you in that body bag,” she said.

  “I’m interested in how long you’ve been involved in this.”

  “I’ll bet you are.”

  “I’m thinking it’s from the time you first went to Elizabeth asking about your sister.”

  “Tree quit talking and lift up the body.”

  “Elizabeth probably saw the same things I saw: someone with a gun in a world of people with guns who could take care of the things she couldn’t take care of.” He nodded at the body bag. “Like Edgar here.”

  “Pick him up, Tree,” she said.

  “There aren’t a lot of people I would have put up against Edgar, but you would certainly be one of them, Cailie.”

  “I’m not going to tell you again.” This time there was a nasty edge to her voice.

  Tree couldn’t think of anything but to go along and perhaps delay the moment when Cailie would decide to put a bullet in him. If Edgar Bunya, with his machete couldn’t beat her, how could he?

  For now, he wouldn’t think about that.

  His stomach twisted again and he dashed to the sink, expunging green bile—all that was left in his system.

  “What’s the matter with you? You’re always seasick,” Cailie said disgustedly. “How do you live in South Florida?”

  “Uneasily,” Tree said.

  Feeling even weaker and more nauseous, he turned back to the body and, with some effort, pulled if off the bed. Edgar, Tree decided, was not going to go easily into a bad night.

  “I’ll need help,” Tree said.

  Cailie looked even more exasperated. “God, you can’t even move a body by yourself. What good are you?”

  “After I’m on the deck, you prop up Edgar so I can pull him up.”

  “All right, but hurry.”

  Tree managed to clamber up the steps, despite being thrown around by the rocking boat. When he poked his head out the hatchway, he was hit by a blast of wind and rain. He took deep gulps of refreshing, salt water-saturated air as he lurched onto the deck.

  Despite its size, the Sea Ray was a cork being tossed around in hell’s washing machine. Tree caught a glimpse of wind-flattened wave-tops in a storm-filled darkness before turning his gaze to Elizabeth. She was a sight, soaked to the bone, seated in the cockpit chair huddled over the wheel, fighting to keep the wildly yawing boat on course, eyes fixed on the glow of the GPS screen in front of her. Outside that tiny glow, the world was pitch black. How could you have any idea where you were headed on a night such as this? “You’re crazy,” Tree called to Elizabeth. But either his words were lost in the wind, or she chose not to hear him.

  The boat shook from the force of another wave, knocking Tree hard against the hatchway. He looked down to see that Cailie had managed to get Edgar upright against the stairs. Tree grabbed the body bag with both hands.

  “Can you lift him up a bit?” Tree called.

  “Hold on,” she said. “Let me get myself properly positioned.”

  Cailie had no compunction about wrapping her arms around Edgar’s corpse and lifting it up, while at the same time Tree got a better grip on the vinyl material and pulled hard. Edgar reluctantly rose upward. A lot more pushing and pulling was required on both their parts to get Edgar out the hatchway onto the rolling deck. The rain against the vinyl bag made a sound like exploding firecrackers.

  Cailie came up through the hatchway, unperturbed by a dead body or the howling fury of the storm.

  “Get him over the side.” Her voice was strong and clear above the wind.

  “I don’t want to do that,” Tree said.

  “Yes, you do, Tree.” The raised gun was a kind of punctuation.

  Tree bent down to once again take the edges of the body bag and pull it to the stern of the boat. In o
rder to get Edgar over the side, he had no choice but to hook his hands under Edgar’s arms inside the bag and hoist him up. Edgar through the vinyl felt loose and malleable. Rigor mortis had come and gone. Edgar had been dead for a while.

  Tree got him up onto the stern and then did more pushing and pulling until the body finally dropped to the swim deck. It rolled back and forth a couple of times but didn’t go into the sea. Tree was sure he would have to somehow get down to the lower deck and push it off. Then a big wave slapped against the boat, rocking it violently, and the glistening white body bag was gone.

  He heard Cailie say something. Tree twisted around in time to see her lunging at him. For an instant, he was certain she was going to shoot him. Instead, she made a sudden flicking motion with her Glock hand. The barrel clipped his head and, amid starbursts, he leapt into the black, rainy void of the night.

  33

  Tree regained something like consciousness, soaking wet, his head hurting, his stomach aching. When he tried to sit up, he discovered his hands had been handcuffed behind him. He lay on his side on the cabin floor, steady beneath him, the pounding seas finally at rest. He silently promised whatever gods controlled these things that if he ever got off this boat in one piece, he would dedicate his life to being the good boy his mother always said he could be if only he would just do as he was told.

  “Take it easy, Tree.” Cailie’s voice came from somewhere behind him. “We’ll be docking in a few minutes.”

  Tree tried without much success to twist around to her. “What are you doing?”

  “Be quiet Tree or I will shoot you.”

  “You’re always so calm when you threaten me,” Tree said.

  “I’m calm because I know what I will do,” she said. “You should know, too.”

  “Come on, you wouldn’t shoot me, would you?”

  She smiled. “You’d better shut up.”

  The boat’s engines gurgled into neutral. Tree felt the boat nudge against what he assumed was a dock. They had landed. But where?

  He heard the shuffle of feet going up the ladder. He strained around and saw that Cailie had left the cabin, and he was momentarily alone. The air filled with the sweet, sickly smell of his vomit. He struggled around and managed to get himself upright.