by Ralph Zeta
I thanked him, we shook hands, and I left.
***
We drove mostly in silence to the address Ham Gage gave us. It was not a long drive, but my lack of sleep combined with the rhythmic sound of the tires hitting the evenly spaced expansion joints in the pavement made me drowsy. I even managed to take a brief nap.
Sammy had his Denali XL set up like an on-the-go office, complete with wireless Internet service and a wireless printer/fax permanently mounted in the cargo area. While I interviewed Gage, Sammy had retrieved from court and police records as much information as was available on Elizabeth Gage and her ex-husband, Stefan Baumann, a naturalized citizen originally from South Africa. Sammy had done extensive searches under the name Baumann and had come up empty. There were no records of a South African with that name ever becoming a U.S. citizen or applying for a visa in the past ten years. So Baumann was most certainly just another alias. The man was good at his craft. But for the trail of deceit and wrecked lives he’d left behind, we couldn’t prove the man even existed.
It took a lot of effort to be someone without a past, especially in this day of computerized records of everything we have ever done. It seems that every detail of our journey through this life, every accomplishment, as well as our failures, is somehow entered, catalogued, stashed and sorted in countless databases and much of that information is available for sale to anyone willing to pay for the information. Officials in the know as well as actuaries everywhere, had access to reams of electronic data on everyone: birth certificates; school, medical, insurance, and criminal records; credit reports all available with a click of a mouse.
Further examination of police records and court filings and countless lawsuits and counter lawsuits, revealed the extent of Baumann’s crimes against the Gage family. Elizabeth Gage had inherited a medium-size marina, boatyard, and restaurant on the banks of the St. John’s River, along with two parcels of waterfront property totaling 150 acres. Baumann had somehow convinced her to grant him power of attorney, which he then used to secretly mortgage the properties. He had then sold the properties and vanished, leaving behind a financial disaster for all involved. In the aftermath, Elizabeth lost the land, and then the lenders foreclosed on the marina and the restaurant. She was later sued in civil court by the land buyers for the money they lost in the deal, and eventually was forced into bankruptcy. She was left with little to live on. No wonder her brother had tried to kill Baumann. I would have done the same thing, only it would have been a very private encounter. And I wouldn’t have failed.
Fourteen
The small community of Ponte Vedra Beach lies just southeast of Jacksonville and a short distance to the north of the old Spanish colonial city of St. Augustine, and has some of the most beautiful golf courses in the country.
Driving past Ponte Vedra and headed southwest on Palm Valley Road, we left behind the affluent country club neighborhoods with their majestic mossy oaks and entered an area of local palmetto thickets, swamp pines, and scrub. As expected, Elizabeth Gage’s home was nowhere near the beach, but out on the eastern fringes of an area known as Hastings.
The place had that dated, hard-bitten feel one often finds in some of the country’s rural hinterlands, the places seldom visited by outsiders, the places most of society tends to ignore. It felt like a throwback to the era of grand suburban sprawls; identical boxy homes with zero-lot lines the type promoted by unscrupulous developers as an affordable alternative to the relatively pricier middle-class neighborhoods just east of Route 210. Of course, these modest developments were located a “safe” distance from the more exclusive and substantially more expensive country clubs and riverfront and beachfront mansions.
A little farther south, hidden in even taller scrub brush and on the west side of a swamp area, we found Elizabeth Gage’s neighborhood. It wasn’t much to look at: just a few dozen rectangular rambler boxes with too many coats of paint and a few long-ago dead appliances dotting untidy yards. I had been to places like this before, and the feeling was still the same: I wanted to leave as soon as possible.
Elizabeth’s home, like most of the identical structures on the narrow two-lane street that traversed her small neighborhood, was one of those typical 1960s single-story Florida white stuccos that are so plain and uninteresting: faded aluminum windows, glass blocks grown opaque with dinge, with dark roof tiles that were at least a decade or two overdue for replacement but still did what they could to protect a basic and rather unimpressive low-angle roofline. The entire structure seemed like a misguided effort at modern design that was somehow devoid of any forward thinking, a homestead that trudged more on the side of rat cage than a place you want to call home. Several rusty air conditioner boxes protruded in precarious ways from some of the windows. Each one of the shoe-box rambler homes on this unremarkable street was arranged in a strip-like fashion, as though the narrow passage-way that also doubles as if its main drag held some promise of a better life just ahead, all of course, a faux notion, nothing but the ingenious machinations of crafty developers and marketing types bent on selling their version of the American dream to unsuspecting buyers. But the false promise was there nonetheless and prospective homeowners, mostly young, hard working families, bought into this version of the dream only to end up trapped by its false promise, because once they bought into this sandy piece of paradise, they were forever stuck in mortgage purgatory, a place where a lifetime of mediocrity, dead end jobs and mundane routines gnaws inexorably at the dream and life itself. These streets were all the same; dead ends.
We parked in front of the house. The rain had eased, but low clouds were still racing south and east toward the Atlantic. Like most of the other yards on the street, Elizabeth Gage’s was an unkempt thicket of weeds, grass burrs, and untrimmed hedges. To the west side of the house, the desiccated skeleton of some long- dead tree stood eerily in the gloom. On the opposite side of the house, under the flimsy corrugated aluminum structure that passed for a carport, sat a dirty pewter-gray Ford Taurus. I walked up the uneven brick walk to the front porch while Sammy waited in the SUV. A fading sign warned solicitors not to bother.
I pressed the grimy plastic button that protruded from the belly of a weathered brass pineapple, and roused two or more smallish-sounding dogs to ferocious yapping. I heard someone fumbling with locks, a raspy female voice cursing, more fumbling, and eventually, the weathered wooden door creaked open.
Whatever vague image of a broken boozer I had constructed in my mind’s eye, it wasn’t what I encountered. I was expecting a middle-aged dipsomaniac, a wino, an insufferable neurotic, an overweight woman, perhaps addicted to God-knows-what, oozing of cigarette smoke and noxious BO.
The woman in the doorway was tall and a bit too slender. She looked to be in her late thirties, maybe early forties it was hard to guess her age beneath the mop of dishwater brown hair. Barefoot and wearing a thin, sleeveless cotton top and jeans cut off above the knee, she slouched against the doorjamb as if that were the only way she could possibly remain standing in her frail state. Even so, her pale alabaster skin had the look of a woman who once had looked after herself quite well. Her fingers were long and delicate, the nails short and as grimy and unkempt as her surroundings. She smelled of smoke and booze and sweat. With one delicate hand, she pushed the hair back from her face to reveal a lovely square jawline, high cheekbones, and full lips. The big hazel eyes, though, were another story entirely; cradled between thick layers of fine, dark long lashes, were expressive blood-shot eyes, feline eyes that did little to conceal the inner turmoil.
Squinting, she made a visor of her hand, shielding her eyes from the gray midmorning haze as though she hated it more than the interruption itself.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” I began to say.
“What do you want?” she asked, wafting rancid eighty-proof breath over me.
“I’m looking for Elizabeth Gage,” I replied. I tried my best to look harmless and nonthreatening something I’m told I can d
o fairly well. It’s all in the reserved but engaging smile I can muster on demand, or so Sammy tells me. And then there are those other qualities some my friends often refer to as being some of my best; things like my tanned, rugged boyish good-looks, all of that attractiveness sitting on top of my youthful looking physique, all my two-hundred and twenty-five-pounds stuffed into an aging body that struggles every day to keep as fit and trim as time-decay and Advil would allow.
“You people are all the same.” She pointed at the sign and wearily pushed herself away from the door frame before continuing. “What’s wrong with you?” she snarled. “Why can’t you respect people’s privacy?”
Done with me, she reached for the door with her free hand, but she misjudged the distance. Badly. With nothing to hold on to, she stumbled and, unable to regain her balance, went down face-first onto the grimy Mexican-tiled floor with the hard dull thump of bone and flesh suddenly encountering an unforgiving surface and feeling the impact. I had tried to stop her fall but couldn’t reach her in time. She moaned and tried to turn over onto her side. Her eyes were closed, and a thin line of spittle stretched across her left cheek.
As she rubbed the right side of her face, I entered the relative darkness of her living room and approached her. The stale air reeked of cigarette smoke blending with the sweet tang of mildew. I heard movement and looked at her: a sad figure lying in a fetal position against the red and gray floor. She turned her face to the side and got sick, then didn’t move after that. Her breathing became quieter, deep and rhythmic. I couldn’t believe what I saw: she had passed out right where she laid, a sorry mess of grime, vomit and spit.
I gently turned her so that she could not aspirate and drown in her own bile, and then examined the bump on her forehead. I examined her pupils next. They were both the same size and not overly dilated. I had seen my share of head injuries before; she would survive this.
In the messy kitchen, I found paper towels and a plastic bag. I mopped up the vomit on the floor and used a wet towel to wipe her face and lips, then dumped the soiled towels in the bag and knotted it. I called Sammy on the cell and asked him to join me inside.
Sammy entered the house and reluctantly took the measure of the cool, stale air. He pinched his nose and shot me a look that said, Really? But in the end, neither of us had any real choice. We needed to help this woman.
Sammy closed the door and grudgingly gave me a hand. We gently lifted Elizabeth off the floor and took her down a long, narrow corridor that must have once been painted in some version of white. We saw a bathroom to the left, and two small bedrooms to the right. The door at the end of the hallway led to a room dominated by a cherry-stained queen-size four-poster bed. Treading carefully over the mess on the floor, we placed Elizabeth on the bed. I told Sammy to canvass the neighbors, ask if there was someone living nearby who could stay with her tonight. Also, he would see if he could find someone we could pay to clean up the house. Sammy left, and I went quickly through every inch of the house. It was dirty and littered with empty cigarette cartons, greasy pizza boxes, and countless small white Chinese food boxes, some encrusted with old, stale food and fuzzy green growth. The kitchen trash can overflowed with empty vodka and rum bottles, and filled ashtrays and dirty dishes and pans lay strewn over every horizontal surface. There were no pictures or art anywhere, not so much as a photograph. It was as if the person who lived here had no prior life or simply didn’t want to be reminded of it. From the looks of things, it was obvious she lived alone, drowning her sorrows in gallons of booze, surviving like a sick animal, somehow trapped in an open-door prison of her own making.
I found the map of Florida and the Caribbean islands her brother Ham had mentioned in one of the two smaller rooms, which had been set up as an office. This seemed to be the only space in the house that received any measure of care. It was cluttered, but everything was laid out in neat piles and off to the sides. Below the map sat vintage battleship gray Steelcase desk. The map looked like a pincushion; its face cluttered with clumps of red, yellow, and white pushpins scattered on its creased surface. Most were clustered in the southeastern tip of Florida, but there were also large clusters of pins in and around Nassau, Exuma, Abaco, Bimini, and Turks and Caicos. A few white pins marked islands as far south as the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Vieques, Tortola, Virgin Gorda and St. Barts.
While I didn’t know the precise significance of the colored pins, if Elizabeth had indeed tracked Baumann to the places marked on the map, it appeared almost certain I might be going on holyday after all.
Fifteen
Sammy was dwarfed by a woman wearing a blue and white striped apron that clashed mightily with her gaudy floral muumuu. Her wide chubby feet were stuffed into pair of old green rubber sandals that had seen better days. Sammy introduced her as Louise Mullen, a retired nurse’s aide and Elizabeth Gage’s neighbor.
Mrs. Mullen had been blessed with one of those large rotund frames linebackers everywhere only dream about. Her considerable size and heft made her face and head look too small for her size. She was a fairly tall woman and seemed to be in her early sixties. She had short gray hair that covered her small thick ears and she wore gold-toned wire rimmed glasses. I explained the situation and Elizabeth’s condition to Mrs. Mullen, who looked more like a retired prison guard than a nurse. She remained silent and regarded me, then Sammy, then me again with a skeptical glare.
“And who are you again?” she asked, crossing her huge, jiggling arms over the ample shelf of her chest. Her voice was raspy and flat and there was a small but palpable southern drawl to her vowels.
I told the truth: I was a lawyer out of Palm Beach, working for a client who may have been wronged by the same man who had swindled Elizabeth, and Sammy was my associate, a retired cop and private investigator. We were here to ask Elizabeth a few questions and tell her that perhaps we could help her recover some of what was taken from her.
Louise looked me up and down before saying anything else. “So Elizabeth doesn’t know who you are? No relation to her or her brother?”
I shook my head.
“What happens if you don’t recover nothin’? Who’s gonna pay your fancy Palm Beach lawyerin’ fees? It ain’t gonna be her, that’s for sure.”
“If I don’t recover, she doesn’t owe me a dime the risk is all mine.”
Her semi crooked smile said she wasn’t buying my story.
“So you’re doing this because of what the goodness of your heart? Please.”
I smiled. This woman was nobody’s fool. “Nothing of the kind, ma’am,” I replied, turning the charm up to medium-high. “Yes, I am a lawyer, but, improbably as it may sound, I am also one of the good guys.” I really needed to convince her to help us clean up and sober up this unconscious woman who just might be my only hope of locating Baumann before he went completely off the grid. “And my motives here are not especially noble.”
She glanced at me sideways.
“Mrs. Gage here is possibly the only person I’m aware who can lead me to this man we are looking for. I really need her to be coherent enough so I can ask her a few questions. And who knows? If I can get some of the property this crook stole from her, then she benefits and so do I. Win-win for both of us. “So you see, Mrs....?” I placed my tanned hand on her pale skinned arm and went for the closing. Her skin felt cold and clammy. The fact that she was not repulsed by my touch and she did not much mind my hand remaining on her arm was a clear indication I was getting there.
“Mullen,” she answered dryly.
“Mrs. Mullen, I do want to help Elizabeth as much as I can. What happened to her shouldn’t happen to anyone. And as you can see...” I glanced about at our disordered surroundings. “She could use a helping hand. Ultimately, my intentions here are what you would expect from a typical lawyer: neither honorable nor dishonorable but simply economical: I take a fee from whatever I recover. Her situation improves by what I recover, and so does mine. We both benefit. It’s all ab
out money.” And I gave her my best closing simile.
That did it. The need to make money; it was something she could understand. Mrs. Mullen agreed to help and to look after Elizabeth Gage. She would feed her and bathe her, get her in clean clothes, and keep her away from the booze. She would spend the night with her. We settled on a price and I paid her in cash. Next, she called two women she knew who cleaned houses for a living. They agreed to come over that afternoon and tidy up. By the time Elizabeth Gage woke up tomorrow she wouldn’t recognize herself or her home. I then sent Sammy off to the closest grocery store God only knew when she last had a solid meal.
By the time we got squared away with the house cleaners, groceries, lunch, and Mrs. Mullen, it was past four in the afternoon. A light rain was falling, easing the heat considerably. Elizabeth would not be of much help until at least tomorrow morning, maybe longer. She was not in good shape. We made plans to stay at a hotel in nearby Ponte Vedra. Sammy and I would return in the morning, and try to get a bead on Baumann.
***
We arrived back at Elizabeth’s home by midmorning the next day. Mrs. Mullen said her patient had a rough night, tossing and turning, restless sleep, but she had kept her dinner down and she had a light breakfast. She was experiencing the typical symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, including sudden mood shifts and bouts of aggression. Compared to yesterday, though, at least for the moment, she was rational and as emotionally stable as could be expected from someone in her condition. She told me Elizabeth was expecting me. She knew who I was and what I wanted. She had reacted negatively at first. She refused to talk to anyone about that man, she had said. Especially to a stranger. She also informed her that I had been hired by another victim and that I was after her ex-husband. She also told Elizabeth that I looked like a person who could extract a measure of justice in the process.
