Quick Be Jack: A Jack Nolan Novel (The Cap's Place Series Book 3)

by Robert Tarrant

  Now I smiled, "She made the same promise."

  Marge replied, "And obviously kept it, or you wouldn't be in here asking me yourself."

  "You're exactly right. She didn't even tell me she promised, just that she didn't feel right about sharing."

  Marge nodded and said, "And I know I can count on the same discretion from you, Jack."

  I replied, "Absolutely, the only problem you'll have is that everyone who wants to know will be coming to you."

  "If they care enough to come and ask me, maybe I'll tell them. I just don't want it passed from person to person, like gossip about your love life."

  I gave my best impression of shock, "What, people gossip about my private life?"

  "What do you think those old fishermen are talking about, the weather? Heck, you're a cult hero to half of them."

  "Somehow I don't think you mean that as a compliment."

  "Well Jack, you probably have more potential in your life than to be deemed some modern day Casanova."

  I said, "Now I think you're trying to make me forget why I'm in here, but it won't work." Then I locked her in my gaze, "So, what's up? What's going on with you?"

  Marge's shoulders slumped and she said, "That's the million dollar question Jack. At this point, the doctors don't seem to have any answers. They keep telling me it could be this, it could be that, and with each new 'could be' comes another test."

  I asked, "When did this start? What exactly are you experiencing? I know you've lost some weight."

  "Yeah, it started with that. A couple of months ago I started losing weight and not feeling quite right. You know, tired, lethargic. So, three weeks ago I went to the doctor. Unfortunately, those are symptomatic of any number of conditions. Things running the gamut from stomach flu to cancer, with potential stops at abdominal infection, overactive thyroid, or even Crohn's Disease. And those are the ones I can pronounce. Over the last three weeks I've been poked and prodded more times than in my entire life. Including going through childbirth . . . twice."

  Her mention of childbirth would have been the perfect opening for me to ask about her children. Questions I should have asked of a friend long ago. I'm just not good at personal small talk. Once again, I didn't want to detour the conversation, so I kept quiet.

  Before continuing, Marge rubbed her forehead as if somehow that could keep the worries at bay. She said, "That's what's driving me crazy, the not knowing. Whatever it is, I'll deal with it, I just want to know."

  I said, "I can certainly understand that. What are they saying, they must be eliminating some things?"

  "Well, that's another interesting phenomenon. It's hard to get them to unequivocally eliminate anything. They say something like, 'The tests don't indicate this or that at this time, but we can't totally eliminate this or that until we have confirmation of what it actually is.' They use medical words, but that's what they're saying. It's so frustrating."

  I nodded, "Yeah, I can understand that. Are you still losing weight?"

  Marge answered, "I think the weight loss has slowed considerably, or maybe even stopped. At least it seems that way for the last week or so. Thank heavens. I've lost twenty-two pounds. There was a time when I would have loved to lose twenty-two pounds, but right now it's really scaring me, because I'm not trying to lose weight."

  "Sounds like a good sign, the weight loss ending. What about your fatigue, are you still feeling as fatigued, lethargic?"

  Marge shook her head, "I don't really know. Some days I think I feel better, but other days I feel like I can't drag myself through the day. There doesn't seem to be any pattern. I felt pretty good yesterday, and so far today I feel fine. Who knows what tomorrow will be like."

  I leaned forward and said, "You need to know that if you don't feel like coming in any day, just call me, I'll cover this place." Gesturing around the office, "The place may not run as orderly, but we'll stay afloat."

  Marge smiled, "Thanks, Jack. I do know that, but to tell you the truth, I worry that if I start staying home when I don't feel up to par, I'll just have more and more bad days. You know that slippery slope you're always referring to."

  "I hear you, just know it's an option. Maybe if you stay home and rest in the morning you'll bounce back and can come in during the afternoon." I paused and then added, "Of course, I'm just playing doctor here. I really don't know."

  Another smile, "You're doing as well as all of the white coats I've been seeing and at least you admit you don't know the answer."

  Marge shifted in her chair and started to sort a stack of invoices on the desk. I took that to mean that we were finished discussing her health. I stood and said, "Anything I can do to help you, just ask. And I won't tell anyone anything about your health, I promise."

  "Thanks Jack."

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Tim's funeral was held Saturday afternoon. I hadn't been able to see PJ in the hospital, I don't know if it was as much her medical condition, or rather a desire to keep reporters at bay, but they wouldn't let anyone visit except immediate family. The information we were receiving was from Angela, via Sissy. Angela was staying with her grandparents when they were not all at the hospital. It sounded like PJ's head injury was worse than the doctors had thought at first. Evidently, she had two scalp injuries that they believed were attributed to either grazing bullet wounds or hitting her head against something else during the ordeal. One of the impacts had been traumatic enough to cause a concussion. The swelling in the area between her brain and skull had not receded as quickly as the doctors had expected, but they had not detected any bleeding within her brain. She wanted to attend Tim's funeral, but the doctors said absolutely not.

  I did attend Tim's funeral. It was held at the Hollywood Center, a 6000 seat arena style entertainment venue, located at Escapade. Every seat in the building was occupied. Police officers from every state were in attendance and the procession of police vehicles stretched for miles. Tim's widow, Marilyn, a tall thin woman with long blond hair and his two daughters, younger versions of her, all looked so frail in the forefront of the huge mass of uniforms. Even from my vantage point in the second tier, I could see his daughters bodies shuttering in grief during the service.

  The streets of the procession were lined with people waving small American flags. Traffic was snarled for hours in Hollywood, but no one seemed to mind. It was as if the entire city, the region, and to some extent the country, had lost a favorite son. Having seen this same scenario play out too many times before, I knew that in a matter of days something would occur somewhere else in the nation in which the police were in error and these same legions of mourners, whipped into a frenzy by police bashing activists and a controversy hungry media, would again take to the streets, but screaming for the heads of the officers they today revered.

  By the time I got back to Cap's Place, the early evening crowd was building. I hadn't seen Elena since Thursday morning, so I was happy to see her sitting on my stool at the end of the bar. I was wearing my funeral suit, which elicited several comments from locals, until they realized why I was wearing a suit and quickly shut up, half of them chastising the other half. Elena gave me a warm smile as I approached.

  I leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, "Hi there, I'm really glad you're here tonight. Thanks for coming."

  She looked up at me with that devilish glint of hers and said, "You can thank me properly later."

  Cindy, a waitress who Dana was training to tend bar, came up and asked if I'd like a beer. I replied, "Not just now, thanks. I'm going to run upstairs and change first." I motioned toward the empty stool next to Elena, "Save me a seat, I'll be right back." I gave Elena another peck on the cheek and headed for the inside stairs.

  When I got back downstairs, I found a cold Landshark sitting at the spot on the bar next to Elena. Cindy had just set a glass of wine in front of Elena and they were talking about some clothing store I'd never heard of before. Of course, that description probably fits eighty percent of the stores in the ar
ea. I took a long pull on the beer. Elena broke off her conversation with Cindy and said, "Gosh, I hope the guy sitting there doesn't mind you drinking his beer."

  "What? Oh, I thought . . . I didn't know."

  She smiled, "Just kidding you, Jack. Of course that's yours. Just thought you could use a little levity, no doubt it's been a tough day."

  I couldn't help but smile. I put my arm around her shoulders in a light hug, "You're the best. What do you say we finish our drinks and go upstairs, where it's quieter?"

  "Oh, you think you can just waltz in here like you own the place, let me put a couple of glasses of wine on your tab, and I'll just follow you upstairs to bed? That's what you think?"

  "No, no, I had no idea you were charging the wine to my tab."

  "Not only wine, but you're going to buy me dinner. Then I may consider going upstairs with you."

  I took a drink of my beer and said casually, "Oh, I know you'll go upstairs."

  "Just how do you know that?"

  "Because I saw your overnight case up there, you'll at least need to go up to get that. By the way, how did you get in up there?"

  The devilish glint again, "Oh, I have my ways."

  One of the small booths along the far wall opened up and I said, "Grab your drink, let's take that booth before Renee gives it to some paying customers."

  As soon as we got settled into the booth, Elena ordered one of the salads that were creeping into the menu at an alarming rate. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries. My order elicited frowns from both Elena and Renee. Now even the people that work here are critics of my diet.

  I gave Elena a rundown on the funeral. When she called this morning she said she could rearrange her day and attend with me, but I told her it wasn't necessary. That's when we decided it would be better for her to drive up here rather than me fight the traffic to drive south after the funeral.

  When Renee brought our orders, I asked if she had seen Moe. She said she heard Dana talking on the phone with him earlier and he's said he was stopping at home to change his clothes and then he'd be in. I must have had a puzzled look on my face, because she added that Moe had attended Tim's funeral. A few months ago Moe wouldn't give the time of day to a cop, with the exception of Mickey of course, but now he was attending Tim's funeral.

  After talking about the funeral for awhile Elena steered the conversation to the proposed addition to Cap's. I knew what she was doing, letting me talk through the bad stuff and then guiding me into something positive. This woman is really starting to grow on me.

  It was obvious that Elena had put considerable time into thinking about our building project in the couple of days since I'd last seen her. She was spewing ideas at a pace I couldn't possibly absorb. I held up my hand in a stop gesture and said, "Whoa, you've got to slow down. I can't keep up."

  Elena smiled and patted my hand, "You don't need to worry about that. I'm going to work with Marge and Moe and we'll iron everything out."

  A low rumble, "I'm going to do what?"

  We both looked up to see Moe approaching our booth. I nodded and said "Oh, hi Moe. Elena was just explaining to me how I didn't need to be concerned about the plans for the addition since you and Marge would work out all of the details with her."

  With the slightest grin, "Sounds about right to me, Boss. We try not to bother you with the detail stuff around here 'cause we know you're focused on the big stuff." A faint smile crept across his face.

  I said, "Yeah sure, something like that." Then added, "I didn't know you were going to Tim's funeral, we could have gone together."

  Moe looked down at the floor and then back up at us, "I didn't know for sure if I was going until the last minute. I finally decided I wanted to go because Tim had always treated me good. I actually always enjoyed our debates about sports. He seemed like a good guy. Too bad . . ."

  I nodded, "Yeah, he was a good guy, sure was too bad." No reason to sully Moe's memory of Tim with PJ's suspicions.

  Moe muttered, "I'll leave you two to your dinner." With that, he turned and walked back toward the kitchen.

  Elena asked, "What's the latest you've heard about PJ? She getting out of the hospital soon?"

  I told her everything I knew, which wasn't really much. I also told her I was hoping that once Tim's funeral was behind us, maybe some of the media interest would die down and the hospital would lift the restrictions on visitation. Of course, as the only living person who had been present at the largest gunfight in South Florida in recent memory, it's inevitable that the reporters will be doing everything they can to get PJ's story. So maybe visitation restrictions won't be lifted.

  Elena stayed the night. Somehow I found it comforting to have her with me as this episode seemed to wind toward closure. I hadn't realized it, but I had been pretty wound up ever since PJ first told me of her suspicions about Tim. I didn't know if it was the fact that Tim might have been the leak, or the reawakening of so many unpleasant memories that had me so stressed. Regardless, it just felt good to fall asleep with my arms around Elena.

  Sunday we went to Hollywood beach for a couple of hours and walked up and down Broadwalk. Somehow it just isn't the same with the huge Margaritaville Resort towering over the historic bandshell. Still, we had a great time and I was disappointed when Elena told me that she had to get started back toward Miami Beach in order to put in a few hours work to prepare for the coming week. I could vaguely remember those days from my lawyering career, but with each passing week at Cap's Place the memory gets fainter.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Tuesday morning Sissy called and told me that PJ had called and said that she was going to be released from the hospital sometime later in the day. Sissy said that PJ sounded tired and a little disoriented, but I guess that's to be expected given everything she had been through. PJ said she couldn't go home as the media had her house under siege, but she promised to call Sissy when she got settled somewhere.

  I was sitting at the bar just before noon, contemplating what to have for lunch, when Justin came in. He glided onto the stool next to me and ordered a Coke. I resisted the peer pressure and ordered a Landshark. Justin turned to me and asked, "With Tim dead, what do you think PJ will do about her concerns?" Small talk and easing into a thorny topic are not in Justin's playbook.

  I replied, "I don't know, but knowing her as I do, I doubt that she will do anything that could tarnish Tim's name at this point. What's to be gained? Without Tim as the link it seems it would be impossible to learn who was the connection between him and the killer, regardless of whether the connection was intentional or not."

  Justin took a drink of the Coke that Cindy had just set down and said, "I agree with your assessment, but let's try to verify that, even encourage it, as soon as possible." His statement didn't come across as a casual suggestion.

  I nodded and said, "She's going to be released today, so as soon as I can talk to her I'll broach the issue."

  Justin's steely eyes held me for a long moment, he nodded and simply said, "Good."

  Our attention was drawn to the television as Cindy turned up the volume. It was another press conference with the police chief speaking. The chief announced that PJ was being released from the hospital today and thanked the community for its support during this most difficult time. He then turned the podium over to Lieutenant Hassinger who gave an overview of the results of the investigation to date.

  Hassinger said that ballistics reports had indicated that multiple rounds from the male suspect had struck Tim and that one round fired from Tim's handgun had struck the male suspect. He also indicated that at some point during the gunfight Tim had pressed the emergency alert button on the portable radio, but that the fight was over before responding units had arrived.

  The investigation indicated that while under heavy gunfire, PJ had retrieved the rifle carried in the trunk of the detective's car and engaged the suspects first from behind the car, then from behind a cement abutment, and finally from a position standing in the ope
n that gave her a direct line of fire into the open suspect vehicle. The rounds fatal to both suspects had been fired by PJ's rifle.

  When asked by a reporter why PJ would have moved to a position affording her no cover he replied tersely, "Detective Johnson believed that Detective Donovan was seriously wounded and unable to move from the line of fire in their vehicle. She was attempting to draw the suspect fire away from Detective Donovan while at the same time improving her line of fire at the suspects."

  A young female television reporter who had probably been hired because of her photogenic appearance proved it by asking, "Lieutenant, can you comment on the fact that the two detectives chose to engage two heavily armed suspects themselves rather than waiting for backup?"

  An already commanding persona, Hassinger seemed to grow even larger as he glared down at the petite blond. Finally, he spoke, "As a part of an ongoing investigation, the detectives were conducting surveillance of the two suspects. The two detectives were in an unmarked car and the two suspects opened fire with assault weapons in an obvious ambush. If you believe that constitutes choosing to engage the suspects, then you and I have a different definition of the word choose. What these two officers did was choose to fight for their lives and the lives of the public they had sworn to protect." With that, Hassinger stated that additional information would be found in the packets being distributed and he walked off the small stage, ending the press conference. It was obvious that the media would not be getting any sound bites from Lieutenant Hassinger in the near future.

  Within seconds, the talking heads were telling us what we had just heard as well as background information on the two suspects. It turned out that until two years ago, when she was fired for a violation of the company's drug policy, the female subject had worked as a secretary at an armored car company in Tampa. The male subject was her brother. He had lost his business, his home, and ultimately his marriage, while his National Guard Unit served repeated tours in Iraq.