by AJ Basinski
“Oh my God,” I practically yelled into the phone. “Jesus Christ. What the hell is going on here?”
I immediately wondered if my questioning of him the other day about Sun Li had put him over the edge. I would be tormented by that thought for a long time afterwards. I felt sorry for his wife, Wanda, and their daughter, Janine, whom I had met at his house just a few days earlier. To me at the time of our meeting, Chandler seemed an unlikely candidate for suicide. But, who knows. Some people reach their breaking point and are pushed over the edge, sometimes by the smallest of things going on. You just never knew where the breaking point would come. Hell, I knew that some young guys, usually white guys, who get arrested for some minor offense, say drunk driving or disturbing the peace, and they end up dead in their cells in the county jail. I guess once they sober up, they kill themselves because they can’t believe they find themselves in jail.
I think that Janosz could tell how disturbed I was at this sudden turn of events as he said to me, “Mario, don’t beat yourself up over this. He did it and there’s nothing we can do about it now. Nothing.”
“Tell me how it happened,” I finally managed to croak out as I got back a little bit of my composure.
“Well, as far as we know, he apparently took the shotgun and was going to go hunting. At least that is what he told his wife. She didn’t think too much about it at the time because he often went hunting or fishing. But when he didn’t come home for dinner, his wife knew something was wrong and she went searching for him and found his body at the outer edge of his property, near a wire fence. His head was practically blown off and the shotgun was beside him with his hand still in the trigger guard.”
“Are you sure that it wasn’t some kind of freak accident? Zeke did not seem to be the kind of guy who would kill himself. He seemed so devoted to his family. And they seemed devoted to him.”
It did occur to me, of course, that one reason he might kill himself was because he was directly involved in the murders of Sullivan and Amanda. Or maybe he helped Elsa dispose of the bodies? Maybe he was the one who was tormented. Maybe he was afraid he would get caught. I’m sure that he would not have wanted to spend his last days in prison. There were a lot of maybes but no answers. I also wondered if I would ever find Sun Li now that he was gone. I was convinced that he had to have known something about her disappearance and knew where she was.
Hoping he had left some information concerning the whereabouts of Sun Li, I asked Janosz, “Did he leave a note or anything?”
“Yeah.” Janosz replied, “It was very strange. He left a single piece of note paper from the Bonita Inn with just one word written on it, ‘sorry’. Now here is the oddest part of all. The note was addressed to you. What do you make of that?”
“I’m not sure, but it sure does seem strange.” Of course, I immediately wondered if his expression of sorrow to me had anything to do with the disappearance of Sun Li. What else could it mean?
Chapter 41
Zeke Chandler was laid out the next day at the Bonnett Funeral Home for a wake. I thought it appropriate, no necessary, for me to pay my respects to the family. When I got there, the viewing room was already filled with people and flowers. Some of the flower baskets and wreaths surrounding the casket were trimmed with golden banners proclaiming, “Father,” “Husband,” “Grandfather.” In addition, the closed casket was piled high with dozens of yellow and white roses. I had been to many wakes and funerals, but I had never seen anything quite like this before.
But what struck me most was the sound of men, women and children wailing, almost in total unison. It seemed to rise to a fever pitch and then suddenly subside, only to pick up again and fill the room with sorrow.
Truly, this man was loved by his family and friends. That made it all the more difficult for me to understand how he could have participated in the murders of Sullivan and Amanda and the disappearance of Sun Li and then taken his own life.
Chapter 42
I intended to just pay my respects to the family, kneel, say a prayer and quietly leave, but as I was just about to leave the parlor where Zeke’s body was laid out, Janine, Zeke’s daughter, came up to me.
Before I could offer her my condolences, she looked me right in the eye and said, “My father did not kill himself.”
“Oh, I’m sure it probably was an accident,” I said as I embraced her.
“No, he was murdered,” she murmured in my ear as we were embracing.
“What makes you think that?” I said.
“My father was the best father in the world. He would do anything for his family and he would never, never even think about hurting his family by killing himself. And he knew how to handle a shotgun. He grew up with them. No, the only way this could have happened is if someone killed him and made it look like an accident or a suicide.”
“If that’s the case, who would have wanted him dead?”
“I’m not positive, but I have a pretty good idea,” Janine responded without any hesitation.
“And who is that?”
“Chief Shipley.”
I was stunned to say the least when I heard this. I started to ask her, “Why Shipley,” when a group of mourners came over to her to pay their respects. She left with that group before she could answer me, but gave me a knowing look as she did.
Shipley, why Shipley? I couldn’t get a handle around that one. What possible motive would Shipley have to kill Zeke Chandler? Then it struck me, I had been blind to the obvious. Shipley had murdered Sullivan and Amanda. That was why he had been dragging his feet with the investigation into their murders. That was why Shipley had been feeding me all that bullshit about gold and the CIA. But why? Why? What did he have to gain by their deaths? And what power did he have over Zeke that led him to refuse to tell me what happened to Sun Li?
Chapter 43
Later that day I received an unexpected visitor to my cottage: Janine Chandler, Zeke Chandler’s daughter. I could see immediately as she entered the room that she had been crying quite a bit. Her face was stained with tears and her eyes were red-rimmed. I wasn’t surprised as she had just lost her father.
“Would you like something to drink,” I said to her as I invited her to sit down at the kitchen table in my small kitchen.
“No, but thank you very much.”
“Well, what can I do for you Janine? Again I am so sorry about your dad. I know he was a decent man,” I said. “At the funeral parlor, you told me that you thought it was Shipley who had murdered your father. Why did you suspect Shipley?”
“I’m pretty certain that my father was being blackmailed by Shipley”.
“What do you mean? Why would he blackmail your father?”
“About a week and half ago, Shipley came to our house and asked to speak to my father. They sat on the front porch just like you and my dad did the other day. They talked for almost an hour. I couldn’t hear what they said but when Shipley left, my father looked like he had just seen the devil himself. He was scared. And my dad was never scared of anyone or anything. I asked him what was wrong when he came into the house but he refused to answer me, dismissing it as nothing. I knew, of course, that there was something going on.”
“And what do you believe was going on?”
“I don’t know whether my father had told you, but my father had killed a man in a fight in Chicago in a bar years ago. That was why he retired from wrestling. He was afraid it might happen again.”
“Yes,” I said, “he had told me all about it one night when we had some drinks together at the bar at the Inn. He told me that the prosecutor determined that it was an accident and no charges were ever brought against him.”
“Yes, it was an accident but Shipley apparently had found some evidence that there was some animosity between my dad and the man who he killed. Shipley apparently was very good at finding information on people to use to attack their weak spots when he needed or wanted to for his own purposes. I believe he told my father that he was going to t
ake the information he had found to the Cook County prosecutor in Illinois. And even though this incident happened a number of years ago, I believe my father was very concerned that something might happen to him even at this late date that he might be charged with murder. And since it was murder, there is no statute of limitations.”
"So, you think Shipley used that evidence to blackmail your Dad? Why wouldn't your dad just go to the DA down here?"
"He was afraid, I think."
“So you think that Shipley blackmailed your Dad into helping him with the murders?”
“Yes. I don’t think that he actually participated in the murders themselves. My Dad would never do anything like that. But I do think Shipley got my Dad to help him out with the disposal of the bodies and the disappearance of Sun Li.”
“That‘s what I think too. I can’t imagine your Dad being involved in the actual murders. I do think Shipley somehow also persuaded your Dad to help him get Sun Li out of the picture in the hope that I would leave the island. Janine, I feel like a fool and that I let your father down.”
“No, please don’t think that. My father was very capable of taking care of himself and his family. But this Shipley somehow was able to set him up.”
“Maybe if I had never come here to Palm Island, none of this ever would have happened and your Dad would still be alive.”
Chapter 44
Even though I was haunted by the thought I was somehow responsible for Zeke’s death, I knew it was way too late now to worry about what might have been. I needed to figure out an action plan to find Shipley and rescue Sun Li and I needed to do it now. I knew that the longer I waited to do something to try to find Shipley the more danger Sun Li would be in.
Zeke clearly knew everything but was afraid to tell me. Now, even though he had kept his mouth shut and held up his end of the bargain with Shipley, he was now dead. He would have to pay. On this point, Janine and I agreed. I thought about calling Janosz, but I knew that I had to handle this myself. It was no longer business, this was personal.
Chapter 45
Later that day, I climbed into the Mustang and began driving aimlessly around the island, trying to collect my thoughts. It got dark early that day and there was very little traffic on the road. As I drove around the island. I noticed a dark colored van that seemed to be following me. If I sped up, he would speed up and if I slowed down, he would do the same. I decided that I would pull off the road and see if he would pass me by. When I did pull off, he roared past me. I was relieved. Just another crazy Florida driver.
I quickly got back on the road and headed towards the Inn. When I turned the corner a short way down the road, I saw the same van with its lights out, coming directly at me in my lane. He was on me so quickly that I had almost no time to react. This was not just your usual run of the mill crazy Florida driver. Now there was no doubt--- this guy was trying to kill me.
I stood on both my horn and my brakes as hard as I could. The tires of the Mustang squealed like a new born calf as I drove off the side of the road, just missing the van as it was coming towards me. We were so close to smashing into each other head on that the van grazed the side of the Mustang, completely shearing off the side mirror on the driver side. On the other side, I scrapped by a large royal palm that stood beside the road as I veered off the road.
I somehow managed to get the car back on the road and gunned the motor to get the hell out of there before he returned. But when I looked in the rear view mirror just a few hundred yards down the road, I saw the van behind me again. He must have turned around down the road. I could see that he was bearing down on me like a bat out of hell.
I tried to pull away from him by stomping on the pedal to the floor, but he was right on my bumper. A couple of times he actually ran into my bumper. Fortunately I was able to retain control of the car as we sped along in tandem at 80 miles an hour on this narrow unlit road. When I looked in the rearview mirror, I could see that the driver was wearing a black mask that covered everything but his eyes. It was the same mask that the guy in the Escalade back in Little Havana was wearing when he opened fire on me with the Uzi.
He was back and so was the Uzi, which I saw the masked driver was pointing out the driver’s side window.
Then I saw the muzzle flash of the Uzi as the bullets tore through the plastic rear window of the Mustang. I ducked my head down as far as I could while still managing to keep control of the wheel of the Mustang just with my chin. Just then another car appeared, coming out of the parking lot of a restaurant. Thank God for him, whoever he was. The masked guy in the van stopped shooting and backed off from behind the Mustang.
Somehow the guy in the van managed to disappear as I pulled into the parking lot of the Bonita Inn. There was no doubt now—someone wanted me dead.
One crazy thought kept going through my mind as I was trying to avoid getting killed: How in the hell was I going to explain the bullet holes and broken side mirror to the gal at the Hertz counter when I returned the Mustang in Miami? Crazy, isn’t it?
Chapter 46
Not counting the man I had shot that day I was having lunch with Shipley, there were now three people dead on Palm Island: Mark Sullivan, Amanda Blakely and Zeke Chandler. In just a matter of weeks, this tranquil little island which almost no one had even heard of was now the center of attention across the nation as newscasters from the national networks saw a story here. And I was right in the middle of it all. When I had retired from the LAPD and took a job with the cruise line as the head of security, I thought that was the end of my career as a homicide investigator. Little did I know that it was just beginning of a new phase of my life that I never could have anticipated when I retired.
And I still had no idea where Shipley or Sun Li were. I knew time was definitely running out on Sun Li. I had to find her and find her fast or I would lose her forever.
Chapter 47
This was a lot for me to get my head around. Did Shipley, a man I had once trusted with my very life when we had worked together on the LAPD betray me? More importantly than that now, had he kidnapped Sun Li? And, if he did, where in the hell was she?
I decided that I had to confront Shipley directly. When I stopped by his office, the deputy told me that he hadn’t been in the office that day, but he gave me his home address.
I drove to his home, which was built on stilts on the bay side of the island. It looked like a traditional Old Florida home. When I rang the doorbell, a woman who I presumed was his wife answered the door. Immediately. It was like she was expecting someone. I wondered if the deputy had called and told her I was on my way.
When she opened the door, I could see she was startled. Obviously she was not expecting me.
She was a pretty brunette with slightly smoky gray eyes. She looked rather frazzled. Even though it was now late afternoon, she was still wearing her pink nightgown.
She pulled the nightgown as tightly as she could around her as she asked me, “Can I help you?”
“I’m Lt. Morales,” I said. “I’ve been working with your husband on the double homicide case here on Palm Island and I just wanted to talk to him for a few minutes. His deputy said he might be home since he left the office early today. He and I had worked together years ago on the LAPD.”
“Morales? My husband never mentioned anyone with that name. In any case, he’s not here anyways.”
“Mind if I ask where he is?”
“He went fishing a couple days ago.”
“Do you know where he went? It’s a big island.”
“He didn’t tell me where. Never tells me anything lately.”
With that she slammed the door shut before I could say anything more. I was surprised that she was not upset that her husband was gone for a few days.
As I was leaving the Shipley driveway, another car drove by on this rather deserted road. At first, I thought it might be Shipley returning home. But when I glanced over as the car passed me, I recognized Mike Schafer, the maintenance man at Els
a and Amanda’s B&B, Xanadu. What the hell would he be doing over here near Shipley’s house?
I drove slowly down the dirt road and saw Schafer’s car turn around at the end of the cul de sac and then pull into the Shipley driveway. I stopped the car down the road but I could still see Schafer get out of his car, look around and then climb the steps to the Shipley house. The door opened as soon as he got to the top of the landing and he went inside. Before the door closed behind him, I could see him and Shipley’s wife passionately embracing and kissing. Whoa! I said to myself. What the hell is going on here?
One thing was obvious: they were having an affair.
I decided to go back to Shipley’s office and see what I could learn that might help me find Shipley. When I got there, his deputy was closing the office for the day. I had met him earlier and didn’t think he was the brightest light on the Christmas tree. He looked like a guy who had taken too many hits on the football field. Oh, he was big and looked like a weight lifter and I’m sure he could rough up a suspect, if necessary, but I was sure I could get what I needed from him.
I asked him if I could wait for Shipley to return. At first he hesitated, but then I assured him that I wouldn’t touch anything and just wait patiently. He looked once more at his watch and then finally said, “Okay.” I figured he just wanted to get home for dinner.
As soon as the deputy was out the door, I walked over to Shipley’s desk. Sitting there on top of the desk was a copy of Sun Tse’s “The Art of War.” One of the pages was turned over when I opened the book. Highlighted in yellow was the following: “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.” That little aphorism explained everything to me. Shipley got me involved in the murder investigation in order to keep an eye on me. He must have thought I was on the island for some purpose other than a vacation.
