Quint Mitchell 01 - Matanzas Bay

by Francis, Parker

  “Here’s to ya.” Watts handed me the beer, and I thanked him.

  “Did I miss anything important while I was gone?” He gestured to the couple who had retreated into the shadows next to the water wheel and were wrapped together so tightly I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other started.

  “That Jack must have some magic beans in his pocket,” I said.

  Watts shifted his attention away from the two lovebirds. He seemed to be an earnest young man, and I had the feeling he wanted to open up to me about something. I didn’t want to talk about Poe’s murder case, but Watts was in a good position to hear some choice tidbits from his gossipy employer.

  “Has Clayton said anything about Poe and the Marrano murder?”

  Watts looked past me, his eyes drifting away into the darkness. My investigator’s antennae tingled, and told me Watts knew something.

  “Listen, Mr. Henderson is good friends with Dr. Poe, and if you know something that will prove his innocence, then he’d want you to tell me.”

  “I don’t really know if it’s anything. It’s just …”

  “What?”

  He took another slug of beer, licked his lips, and stiffened a bit. “You know that guy Denny who was at Poe’s house with us?”

  “Denny Grimes.”

  “Well, last night Mr. Henderson had a few too many, as he usually does. I was helping him to bed when he started talking about Dr. Poe and how he’d been arrested. ‘Wasn’t right,’ he said. Then he said they should be looking at this Denny guy. That he hated Marrano for getting him fired from his job with the city.”

  “Is that right? Anything else?”

  “Nah. He was pretty much out of it by then, but I remembered Denny seemed to have a hard-on about Marrano.”

  “Certainly worth looking into,” I told him. “Thanks.”

  Watts began looking around nervously. “Listen, don’t tell him I told you, huh? He’s probably just a loudmouth, and didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I was always looking for new angles when I worked a case, so I asked him, “Do you think this murder is linked to the Matanzas Bay development.”

  He snorted as if he thought it was a ridiculous idea.

  “What? You don’t agree?”

  “It’s not that, but it’s kind of funny when you think about it.”

  “Funny?”

  “I don’t see the sense in fighting over a development that everyone seems to want. And what gets me is it’s going to be built on the San Sebastian River but they call it Matanzas Bay. What were they thinking? I mean Matanzas Bay is right behind us.” He stabbed the air behind him with his thumb.

  “When you’re right you’re right.”

  “But they got the name from the Matanzas Inlet over by the Fort Matanzas National Monument, and that’s fifteen miles away. I don’t get it.”

  “One of the mysteries of marketing,” I offered.

  “You’ve been there, haven’t you?”

  “The Fort Matanzas National Monument? Sure, a couple of years ago.”

  “I’ve been there three or four times in the past six months.” Watts took a long swig from his beer before continuing. “I find it restful.”

  “It is quiet, but there’s not much to it.”

  “Guess it reminds me of a place I hung around in when I was a kid. The river flowed through the woods near our house and formed a huge lake. One day when I was maybe seven or eight years old I followed the riverbank and discovered this little bluff hanging over the water. It was surrounded by trees, and I’d sit there on the bluff pretending I was the last person in the world.” He smiled sheepishly and finished his beer.

  Holding up his empty bottle, he said, “Whoa. I’ve either had one too many or not enough.”

  “I can take a hint,” I said. “It’s my turn to buy.”

  FOURTEEN

  Back at home that night, I opened a can of clam chowder, poured the entire contents into a large bowl and popped it into the microwave. I carried the steaming soup out to my balcony. While waiting for it to cool, I watched the darkened surf beyond the restaurants and bars across the street. The surf was usually flat in the mornings; the sun dancing on the water as it crawled ashore, leaving streams of foam like the lace hem on a curtain. But tonight I heard restless waves breaking on the shore, and a moody veil of mist had edged across the water and hung gloomily over the shoreline. For a moment, the mist seemed to envelop me, and I visualized myself under water, unable to breathe.

  Despite the muggy heat, I shivered, feeling thorny fingers of anxiety scratching my back, prickles of apprehension warning me things were going to get a lot worse before they improved.

  I ate the chowder, trying to focus on the other problem weighing me down, letting my thoughts skip back two weeks to a lunch date with Serena Howard, and the time when our relationship hit the rocks.

  Things couldn’t have been going better between us then, or so I thought, and somewhere in the back of my mind I hoped this lunch meeting would be another step binding us closer together. I still recalled every detail of our lunch date at the restaurant called Stuff of Dreams.

  ***

  Stuff of Dreams was a cozy café on Aviles Street sitting between a wine shop and one of the many art galleries lining the block. We hadn’t eaten there before and I glanced around the restaurant, taking in the old brick fireplace dominating one end of the rectangular room before reading my menu. It listed a half-dozen stuffed calzones along with pita-wrap sandwiches and salads. Each description ended with the phrase stuffed to perfection, and I understood where the restaurant’s name had originated.

  “What a disappointment,” I said to Serena, who had this Vanessa Williams thing going on today. Her hair swirled dramatically across her forehead; her earrings, little gold balls dangling from delicate chains.

  “You haven’t even tasted the food yet.”

  “No, I’m sure the food is good. I thought it was a tribute to The Maltese Falcon.”

  “The old Humphrey Bogart movie? What does that have to do with the menu disappointing you?”

  “Not the menu, the restaurant’s name, Stuff of Dreams. It’s the last line of the film. You know, after Sam Spade has solved the crime, found the missing statue of the falcon, turned the beautiful but murderous Brigid O'Shaughnessy over to the police, he’s asked what’s so valuable about the statue?”

  I put on my best Humphrey Bogart face, snatched an imaginary cigarette from my mouth, blowing the imaginary smoke into her face before proclaiming, “It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.”

  Serena laughed at my impersonation. “Perfect. So Sam Spade reads Shakespeare?”

  “Huh?”

  “They stole the line from Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. Actually, what Prospero said was, ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on.’ It worked for him, so I guess it’s a good exit line for a sneaky private detective.”

  She gifted me with one of her dazzling smiles, and I laughed. “Touché! I should learn never to get into a game of literary one-upsmanship with an English Lit major. I’m looking forward to discussing Shakespeare’s plays in more detail later tonight, particularly, All’s Well that Ends Well.”

  “Are you sure it won’t be Much Ado About Nothing?” she retorted.

  “Ouch. Maybe Taming of the Shrew might better suit you.” I had exhausted my knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays, but before I could prove it, my cell phone played its little song in my pocket. Still smiling at Serena, I pulled out the phone, flipped it open and read the Caller ID.

  Not him again. I stared at the phone wondering what to do. As much as I hated these calls, dreaded the way they left me drained and guilt-ridden, I’d never failed to answer them before. In a strange way, I considered them cathartic therapy for both of us. But his timing couldn’t be worse. As I started to power off the phone, Serena asked, “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

  I shrugged, hesitating, my finger resting on the off but
ton. “No, it can wait. Besides, I don’t want to interrupt our precious time together.”

  “Go ahead, we haven’t even ordered lunch yet. It may be important.” Serena spent most of her day on the phone and understood the necessity of keeping in touch.

  As the phone continued beating out its urgent tone, she looked at me curiously, picking up on the invisible waves of anxiety radiating out from me. “Well?” she asked.

  Despite my misgivings, I depressed the talk button and put the phone to my ear, turning slightly away from her. The sound of his breathing greeted me, rasping and rapid. “Do you know what keeps me going?” He didn’t expect an answer and I didn’t give him one. “Waiting for you to die. If I had the courage, I’d rip your fucking heart out myself, but instead I have to wait.” I heard him sniff and waited along with him. “Wait for God to punish you.”

  I felt the familiar blade slicing into my organs, blood rushing from my head. I glanced at Serena hoping to find her still engrossed in the menu, but she watched me with a puzzled expression.

  “Are you there?” the voice screamed into my ear.

  “Yes, I’m listening,” I managed to say. Serena raised an eyebrow and canted her head toward me.

  “You took her away from me. Took away my ….” The sobbing began. “… my little girl.” He lost it at this point, and I struggled to keep control.

  I listened to the man’s wracking sobs for another moment before putting an end to it. “I’m sorry,” I said softly and closed the phone. My eyes felt moist and I wiped a hand across my face before looking at Serena.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked. “You look terrible.” She leaned forward and touched my face.

  I’m actually a very good liar. I’ve found it to be a helpful trait in my line of work, but I have difficulty lying to someone I care about. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it some other time.” I picked up the menu and pretended to examine the calzones.

  Serena pulled my menu down. “Who was on the phone?”

  I saw clouds of suspicion and doubt slide into her eyes.

  “Are you seeing someone else, Quint?”

  “No, baby, it’s nothing like that, but—”

  “But what? Why can’t you tell me?”

  I let out my breath, met her eyes and told her the story. “Three years ago, I was driving home after a party at a client’s house in Jacksonville. It was about one-thirty in the morning, and I went through the green light at an intersection and …” I halted, seeing the intersection in my mind and fearing what came next. Serena remained quiet.

  “I don’t remember seeing her car until she turned in front of me.”

  “Oh, my God,” Serena said.

  “I was only doing fifty, but it seemed like … like the world had shifted into hyper-drive. No time to do anything.” I reached for the glass of water and swallowed a gulp.

  “She was only nineteen years old, I found out later. Coming home from a date and talking to her boy friend on her cell phone.”

  “Quint, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s funny what tricks your mind plays, but suddenly we went from moving at warp speed to slow motion. The world froze for a moment in the instant before she saw me. The light from the street lamp caught her face and framed it like a tinted photograph, her head tilted to one side. She was laughing.” I had lived through this scene so many times it felt like I was reading from a script.

  “The phone was in her right hand, and she turned the steering wheel with the other. Then she saw me closing on her, probably heard my brakes screeching. By then we were only a few yards apart.”

  Serena had a hand over her mouth, her eyes slightly glazed as though she could see the car bearing down on her.

  “I’ll never forget her face. The terror. The realization she was going to …”

  “Die?”

  I nodded. “It was over quickly, for what it’s worth. I couldn’t do anything for her.”

  “Were you charged for her death?”

  I shook my head. “I’d only had one drink at the party, and passed a field sobriety test. It turned out the traffic signal wasn’t working properly, and we both had green lights. They considered the mechanical failure of the lights, the fact she was distracted by the cell phone and declared it an accident.”

  “And that phone call?” she pointed at my phone still sitting on the table.

  “Her father. The poor guy had a nervous breakdown. He and his wife divorced and he went to pieces. He calls me to … I don’t know, because he doesn’t know what else to do.”

  “He’s been calling you since the accident?”

  “Only for the past year or so. Sometimes a month will go by between his calls. But now he’s calling more frequently.”

  “What does he say?”

  I hesitated, not wanting to repeat the vicious names and gut-wrenching language he used. “You have to remember he believes I killed his only child and got away with murder. “He blames me and wants me dead, let’s leave it at that.”

  “But it was an accident. A horrible accident, true, but he can’t hold on to those hateful feelings for the rest of his life.” She searched my face wanting, I thought, some reassurance that she was right.

  “Maybe, but I’ve ruined his life, so I figure the least I can do is put up with his phone calls.”

  Serena shook her head. I realized she was processing what I’d told her and hadn’t come to the same conclusion. “It’s tragic, Quint, but the man needs professional help. You can’t allow him to keep persecuting you for something that wasn’t your fault.”

  Her honey brown eyes glinted like they were imbedded with granite chips. What she said next took me completely by surprise.

  “This was a white girl wasn’t it?” Her jaw tight, voice low. “You wouldn’t put up with this kind of harassment from a black man.”

  “Serena, this has nothing to do with the girl’s race.” I reached for her hand. She snatched it away and I felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me, surprised at the ferocity of her feelings. My mind went blank for a moment. It felt like an eternity before I could answer.

  “If you must know, the girl was black, and …” I paused and fumbled for something to say that would erase the anger in her eyes. “And she looked a lot like you.”

  She appraised me for a long moment before speaking. “This was never about me, was it? It was all about her.” The look on her face made my stomach roll over.

  Her voice took on a far-away tone, and I strained to hear her. “You’re only using me as some sick compensation to assuage your guilt.”

  “No, you don’t understand.”

  “I understand perfectly. You’re reaching out to a local girl of color to make yourself feel better.” Serena stood so abruptly her chair tumbled to the floor. “Well, I don’t want any part in your therapy sessions.”

  Heads turned as she bolted from the restaurant.

  FIFTEEN

  The scene at Stuff of Dreams still haunted me. We’re all products of our culture and environment. Although Serena obviously had a different frame of reference, I never knew her to be conflicted when it came to race. Despite our three-month relationship, huge chunks of her past were unknown to me mostly because I hadn’t bothered to probe too deeply.

  We’d been seeing each other for nearly a month before our relationship advanced into a more intimate phase. After that first time, lying naked in her bed, I gently rubbed the light sheen of sweat glazing her abs. Serena’s eyes were closed, and I let my fingers crawl up toward the swell of her breasts, exploring an erect nipple and tracing the dark tattooed areole surrounding it. She smiled and I heard a low hum, like the purr of a cat, from deep in her throat.

  Up to that point, she’d shared only random bits of her life, mostly in answer to my innocuous questions. She told me her father had been born in St. Johns County, moved to Chicago in the sixties, and later married. I learned she had no brothers or sisters, and her parents had divorced when she was thre
e years old. Her mother died of breast cancer several years after the divorce.

  Lying in bed together that night, I told her I wished her mother were still alive so I could thank her for having the foresight to give birth to such a beautiful baby. Instead of responding to my offbeat compliment with a smile, a kiss, or, as I hoped, another round of lovemaking, she simply nodded. Without a word, she pulled a framed photograph from the drawer on the nightstand and handed it to me.

  I stared at the photo of a couple who were obviously very much in love. A young black man in an army uniform had an arm wrapped around a willowy young woman with long blonde hair. She was nearly as tall as the soldier, smiling into the camera as if posing for the cover of a magazine. The soldier stared at the woman with a look reflecting a fierce and unrestrained love.

  “This is your mother and father?”

  Serena nodded and took the photo back, gazing at it for a moment before setting it on the night stand.

  Obviously, I knew Serena was of mixed parentage, but it wasn’t until I saw the photograph of her mother and father that she became defined in my mind as a product of black and white. And as I hit the replay button on our lunch scene, my words came back to me wrapped in layers of guilt and confusion … If you must know, the girl was black … And she looked a lot like you.

  Could Serena be right? Was I somehow drawn to her because of my feelings of guilt?

  ***

  At my office the next morning, I brought up the home site for the St. Augustine newspaper on my computer. I typed Matanzas Bay Project into the box to search the story archives and up popped page after page of articles dating back nearly three years. Scanning through them quickly, I verified that the St. Johns Group received the green light to begin construction several months back.

  From the beginning, William Marrano was clearly the prime mover behind the project, pushing the mayor and the rest of the commission to sell the city property to the St. Johns Group. One of the articles, dating back six months, reported on a bitter clash between Poe and Marrano at a city commission meeting. Poe addressed the commission, accusing them of selling St. Augustine’s legacy to the developers for 30 pieces of gold.