Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective

by Ron Base

  He was sitting like that when Cailie reappeared. “I thought I told you not to move.”

  “You told me to take it easy.”

  She stepped past him and grabbed one of the duffle bags and heaved it up through the hatchway. She did the same thing with the other bag.

  Then she turned to Tree, leveling the gun at him. “Stand up.”

  Tree pushed himself against the bulkhead and used it as leverage to propel himself into a standing position. The effort sent stars spinning and dancing before his eyes. Dimly, he heard Cailie tell him to go up the stairs. He wasn’t sure he could do it since his legs felt rubbery. He stumbled up the steps, fell forward and then crawled onto the deck.

  The night was calmer, the wind having died down, but the sky remained dark and full of threatening clouds. The boat swayed gently, secure in its slip. Elizabeth Traven, framed by shore lights flaring out of the darkness, said, “I don’t believe this.”

  “What don’t you believe, Mrs. Traven?” Tree said.

  “I don’t believe how stupid you are. I tried to warn you to stay away. Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone?”

  “Maybe I just had to see you drive a boat through a storm at night.”

  “Impressive, don’t you think?” Elizabeth said.

  “I wouldn’t have thought you could do it, but I should know by now that when you are desperate, there is nothing you won’t do.”

  Cailie came up on deck. She said to Elizabeth, “Why don’t you put the bags in the car while I keep an eye on our friend here.”

  Elizabeth didn’t argue. She picked up the bags and carried them off the boat. Cailie, meanwhile, knelt to Tree. “Okay, Tree, there’s a car not far from the dock. We’re going to walk to it, and you are not going to give me any trouble, do you understand?”

  “Where are we?”

  She stood, shaking her head. “Anything you need to know, I’m going to tell you. Right now all you have to do is keep your mouth shut and get to the car. Okay?”

  He struggled to his knees and then lifted himself to his feet. He did not feel quite so wobbly. His head was clearer now, too. He stepped off the boat onto the dock, Cailie following. It suddenly struck him—for no reason other than the absence of any other possibility after such a grueling ride—that they must be in Key West.

  Cailie guided him past rows of sleeping pelicans awaiting fishermen with the morning catch. They went along a passageway between two boat houses and out to a parking lot where Elizabeth was putting the duffle bags into the back of a Toyota Rav 4.

  “Tree, I want you to get into the front passenger seat,” Cailie said. She opened the door for him and then guided him inside.

  Elizabeth slammed shut the rear hatch door and got behind the wheel. Cailie meantime slipped into the back seat and leaned forward so that the snout of the Glock rested against the base of Tree’s neck. “Just letting you know I’m here,” Cailie said.

  Elizabeth cast what Tree thought was a furtive glance in his direction, but didn’t say anything. She started the car forward.

  _________

  Thunder rumbled ominously as Elizabeth drove swiftly through the empty residential streets of Key West. Lightning lit the roadway for an instant, and then reduced it to a darkness intersected by the Rav 4’s headlights.

  Elizabeth turned a corner and Tree saw that they were back on Whitehead Street, at the Hemingway Estate. Elizabeth turned onto Olivia Street and pulled over to the curb.

  She switched off the motor and took a deep breath, as though steeling herself for what was to come. What, Tree wondered, was to come? Elizabeth threw him another look, as if to say, I tried to warn you! But she quickly pulled her eyes away and was out the door. Cailie jabbed the gun barrel against his neck. “All right, Tree. This is where you make your exit.”

  On the street, Elizabeth opened the rear hatch. Cailie produced a key and called to Elizabeth. “Undo Tree’s handcuffs will you?”

  Elizabeth looked sharply at Cailie. “Are you sure?”

  “Tree knows that if he tries anything, I’ll shoot him.”

  Elizabeth took the key from Cailie and then stepped behind Tree. A moment later, the handcuffs came off, and Cailie moved back a couple of paces to get a better view of her target in case she had to shoot it.

  Elizabeth produced a key of her own and went over to a door embedded in the wall running the length of the street. She inserted it into the lock turned it, and the door creaked open. “All set,” she called out as she disappeared inside.

  “Okay, Tree, pick up those duffle bags and follow her,” Cailie said.

  That’s why he was still alive, he decided. They needed a packhorse. He lifted the bags out of the Rav 4 and then followed Elizabeth through the door.

  It was as if he had dropped down the rabbit hole into a darkness broken only by the outlines of palm fronds and dense foliage.

  Cailie crowded behind him. “Put the bags down, Tree, and then step away.”

  He dropped the bags to the ground. Cailie bent to unzip one of them, pulling out two Pelican flashlights and the trenching tool. She handed Elizabeth a flashlight and threw Tree the trenching tool. He should have caught it adroitly, just like they do in the movies. But this wasn’t the movies: he dropped it.

  “Honestly, Tree, you’re such a klutz,” Cailie said, rising with her gun in one hand, the Pelican flashlight in the other. Tree bent to pick up the digging tool.

  Cailie said, “Now we’re going to follow our friend Elizabeth and she’s going to show you where to dig.”

  Tree turned to Elizabeth. “You’re kidding. This is where you buried the ten million?”

  “I keep telling you, there isn’t ten million.” Elizabeth sounded irritated.

  “Old washed-up spies trying to kick start a second career for themselves, but not having much success until the president of Tajikistan fell into their laps,” Tree said. “You collected the money from the president’s man, Dr. Edgar Bunya. But then when it became apparent Miram Shah and Zoran were basically phonies, that they couldn’t really help Emomali Rahmon get into the country, you and Dearlove decided to keep the money for yourselves and rip off the other two.

  “But then Edgar came after you, and you knew you were going to need some muscle.” Tree looked at Cailie. “That’s where you came in, Cailie. Once you and Elizabeth hooked up, it didn’t take long to decide that the easiest way to keep all the money for yourselves was to get rid of the others. You weren’t in Key West to follow me—I probably came as quite a shock. You were there to kill Hank Dearlove. I’m still not sure why you saved me from Edgar Bunya, other than the fact that my body lying around Key West would have needlessly complicated things. Edgar was the last hurdle you had to overcome, and maybe the most dangerous. But tonight he’s swimming with the fishes.”

  “You’re forgetting about one other impediment,” Cailie said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You,” she said. “What nobody counted on was Shah bringing you into the mix. So good on you, Tree. You fooled everyone. But it’s too late for the clever detective. We don’t have the time. So let’s get a move on.”

  Another rumble of thunder was accompanied by a spatter of raindrops as Elizabeth started down a pathway that in the light of the Pelican flash wound through the thick undergrowth. Eventually they broke into a clearing near one of the giant palms scattered throughout the property. Elizabeth stopped, looked around, saw something familiar and pointed to the ground. “There you go, Mr. Callister. That’s where you dig.”

  Tree took a deep breath and went to work.

  ________

  He thrust the point of the blade into the ground, expecting to encounter a sandy undersurface. In fact, the soil he dug into was moist and easily turned. As he worked away by the light of the Pelican flashlights held by Cailie and Elizabeth, he glanced at the women from time to time, his mind swirling, trying to think of a way out of this.

  He said to Cailie, “I suppose this is the ultimate reveng
e, isn’t it? Chris spends the rest of his life in jail. You end up rich—and you get to kill me.”

  He looked at Elizabeth. “But the question is, what are you going to do with Elizabeth here? She’s going to become inconvenient as soon as I dig up the money, isn’t she?”

  He snapped his fingers.

  “Wait a minute. That’s it. Elizabeth won’t be inconvenient if you kill her and make it look as if the two of us got into an argument over the buried money and ended up killing each other. You’re not that greedy; you’ll even leave something behind to make it look good. No one will ever know about your involvement, no one will be the wiser—and you’ll be rich.”

  Cailie said in a tense voice, “Shut up, Tree.”

  As Tree resumed his digging, he saw Cailie’s eyes flick nervously in Elizabeth’s direction. But Elizabeth just grinned and said, “You can hardly blame Mr. Callister for thinking that way. After all, Cailie, you do have the gun.”

  “Yes, I do,” Cailie said. “I do have the gun.”

  “That gun is very important to you, I know,” Elizabeth said.

  “Let’s finish this,” Cailie said.

  “But it’s not going to mean much,” Elizabeth said. “The gun, I mean.”

  “No?” Cailie said.

  “Were you really planning to shoot me?” Elizabeth asked Cailie.

  “Of course not,” Cailie said. “Why would I do that?”

  The words were barely out of her mouth before Joseph Trembath appeared out of the darkness. Tree no sooner recognized him and saw the gun, then Trembath was pulling the trigger.

  34

  Cailie looked vaguely shocked, her head snapping back, the breath screaming out of her. It was the most astonishing thing, Tree thought. One moment she was there, the next moment she was a lifeless heap on the recently-turned ground—a heap somehow still clinging to that Glock pistol.

  The shooting signaled the gods to open the heavens and deluge the duplicitous earth.

  Through the falling rain, a big lion with a black mane charged him. Tree could not make his legs move. He was Francis Macomber, in a bad place, frozen with fear.

  “So sorry, old man”

  The lion vanished, and rain-soaked, hard-faced Trembath—no sign of the jovial Englishman tonight—jumped into focus, pointing the gun that was about to end Francis Macomber’s cowardice and Tree Callister’s life.

  Another voice echoed through the rain: “No!”

  Elizabeth Traven lurched in front of Tree as Trembath’s gun went off.

  She cried out. It took Tree a moment to realize she had been shot. Trembath, seeing what he had done, shouted something as Elizabeth’s legs went out from under her and she collapsed to her knees near Cailie. She looked around, as if confused by what had just happened.

  Tree did not even think about it. He just swung the entrenching tool he held, swinging it with all his might at Trembath’s astonished face. The steel edge of the blade sank into Trembath’s cheek and then ripped through his nose, sending out a crimson spray.

  Trembath staggered back, screaming. His gun went off again, and the lion came back, galloping toward Tree, coming to finish him off.

  Tree raised the entrenching tool, using its pointed edge as a spear, thrusting it hard against Trembath’s chest.

  The point didn’t sink in very far, but it was enough to stop the lion’s forward motion.

  Trembath fell back raising the gun, and Tree was certain he was about to be shot. The sound of the gunshot reverberated through the rain-swept night. Tree waited for the bullet to smack into him.

  Except the bullet failed to arrive.

  Instead, Trembath dropped his gun and fell to the ground. Now Tree saw Elizabeth sitting up, holding Cailie’s Glock.

  Tree knelt down to her. Elizabeth allowed the gun to drop from her hand. Her eyes fluttered and she tried on a smile that did not fit very well.

  “Here we are, Mr. Callister. What do you think of this?”

  “Not a whole lot, Mrs. Traven.”

  She tried a better smile. “You fooled me again.”

  “We keep fooling one another. Why did you do that?”

  “What did I do?”

  “You saved my life.”

  “Did I? Imagine that.”

  And then she was gone. Tree held her for a time before he gently lowered her to the ground. He got to his feet, thought about it, and then went over to Cailie’s body. He went through the pockets of her jeans without finding his cell phone. She must have tossed it over the side when they were at sea. But he did find a set of keys attached to a plain silver ring. A small metal license plate also hung from the ring. It read, KOPPER1. He shoved the keys into his pocket.

  Then he went over to the hole he had dug. The gunshots would soon bring the police. He started digging again.

  Something moved at the edge of the clearing. Tree stopped to see what it was. A six-toed ginger cat came into view, its eyes piercing, its tail stiff and twitching. Tree stared at the cat, and the cat stared back at him.

  35

  By the time Tree turned the Rav 4 onto Truman Avenue, the rain had stopped. He got to the turnoff for North Roosevelt Boulevard remembering that would put him on A1A. A1A swept him away from the island onto the interlinked causeways crossing the keys, past Marathon and Big Pine Key and then Key Largo. By now everything was locked up against the dampness of the night, the world plunged into darkness until the lights of Miami International Airport blazed through the post-rain haze.

  He turned onto the Florida Turnpike going north to I-75. By five o’clock in the morning, he was speeding through Big Cypress National Preserve, an hour outside Naples. He was surprised he had gotten this far, expecting a fleet of police cars to descend on him in hot pursuit, lights flashing. But then maybe, just maybe, he had done everything close enough to right back at the Hemingway house to get away with this—at least until he finished what he needed to do.

  He thought about Cailie who probably believed she would be able to eliminate the competition for the missing ten million dollars, but either she didn’t know about, or hadn’t counted on, Trembath being hooked up with Elizabeth.

  Trembath he could understand. It was his job to eliminate Cailie, correctly divining that if they did not take care of her, she would take care of them. Trembath probably hadn’t expected Tree to be part of it, and had little choice but to get rid of him along with Cailie—and make it look as if they had killed one another, not illogical considering their connection to Chris.

  What mystified Tree was why Elizabeth stepped in front of the bullet meant for him. Did she care more than he ever imagined? Or was it a spontaneous gesture, an instant of terribly misplaced loyalty to a long-time adversary? Or maybe she had just stumbled at the wrong moment. Whatever it was, it had cost Elizabeth her life—and saved his.

  He had briefly considered sticking around to try to explain to the police what had happened, but decided there was no time. Soon enough they would be everywhere and it would be too late to do anything. By now they had discovered the three bodies in the Hemingway compound. Initially, it would look as though Trembath had shot the two women before one of them shot him.

  Once they had identified the bodies there would be more questions than answers but if his luck held none of it would lead to him. Even if they were able to connect the dots and arrive at Tree’s doorstep, they would not arrive for a while. That would give him enough time, and right now, time was what he needed.

  As he reached the outskirts of Fort Myers, daylight streaked a cloudless sky to begin another perfect Florida morning. It was just past seven when he pulled into the parking lot at the marina adjacent to Doc Ford’s Restaurant. He went over to where he had parked the Beetle, seemingly an eternity ago, found a chamois cloth in the back and spent the next few minutes rubbing down the interior and exterior of the Rav 4, removing any traces of his presence. Then he locked the Rav 4 and got into the Beetle and started the engine.

  At this time of the morning, th
ere was almost no traffic coming off the bridge onto San Carlos Boulevard. The Beetle was just about the only car on the causeway to Sanibel Island. He was dead tired as he pulled into an empty space outside the condominium on Sea Bell Road. It didn’t matter. He had to keep going. He opened the glove compartment and reached into the box of latex gloves Todd Jackson had given him. If Tree was going to be a detective and find dead bodies, he should at least be wearing protective gloves, Todd said.

  He tried a couple of the keys on Cailie’s silver key chain until he found the one that opened the door to her condo. He spent some time struggling into the gloves before stepping into the dim interior. The closed blinds kept out the morning sun. He shut the door behind him and stood listening to the soft hum of the central air conditioning.

  At first glance the apartment, with its flat white walls unadorned with pictures, was as anonymous as the woman who rented it. Slowly, however, as Tree’s eyes became accustomed to the dimness, he began to pick out certain things: the laptop on the desk by the windows; the files piled beside the computer. More papers on the counter forming a barrier between the galley kitchen and the living room.

  Something moved through the darkness, causing Tree to gasp. Then he saw that it was a black and white cat. Everywhere he went, cats, he thought. The cat leapt onto the computer desk, turning its fine, feline head to regard Tree, cat’s eyes gleaming out of the darkness.

  Tree went over and carefully reached out to scratch its ears. The animal didn’t seem to mind at all. It closed its eyes with pleasure and began to purr.

  The cat trailed Tree into the bedroom. Cailie hadn’t made the double bed the previous morning. Gym clothes were discarded on the carpet. Casual, stylish clothing hung neatly in the closets facing the bed. Women’s cosmetics and lotions crowded the bathroom counter. She had left a bath towel on the floor. He opened one of the drawers below the counter. Inside was a .38 police revolver—Cailie never far from a gun. He left it where it was and closed the drawer.