Vindication

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “You too, darling. I’ll see you.”

  As she walked toward her cart, J.D. turned off her recorder and looked back at the veranda. Kelly was sipping her drink and staring into space, a dejected look on her face. There is the picture of loneliness, J.D. thought. And of despair, and bitterness, and regret, and disappointment all rolled into one sad woman bereft of a future.

  CHAPTER 35

  IT WAS ALMOST eight by the time I got to Tiny’s. I’d caught the rush hour on I-275 as I drove into Tampa. The traffic had been miserable all the way from Bushnell, and Malfunction Junction, where I-275 and I-4 merge, was enjoying its usual dysfunction. I never drove through there that I didn’t think the death penalty would be appropriate for the traffic engineers who designed such an abomination. To be fair, a lot of these roads were designed before anyone could have reasonably foreseen Florida’s population explosion, but I wasn’t in a charitable mood. Off with their heads.

  I left my rental at the Hertz lot, caught the shuttle to the terminal, boarded the monorail to the long-term parking garage, and recovered my Explorer. I-275 through St. Petersburg was like a parking lot, but finally cleared some as I approached the Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay. By the time I finally got to the island, I was in dire need of a beer.

  The bar was virtually empty. Les Fulcher and Cracker Dix were sipping wine at a high-top table in the corner. Another couple, whom I didn’t know, were at the other table, holding hands, their drinks sweating on their coasters. Jock and Logan were taking up a couple of stools at the bar, and Susie, the owner of the place, was clicking at her computerized cash register running a tape of some sort that apparently gave her information she needed. She looked up when she heard the door open and moved quickly to the beer cooler. My bottle of Miller Lite was sitting on a coaster next to a cold glass by the time I got to the bar.

  “Thanks, Susie,” I said as I sat down. “I bet you’re in the mood for a little intelligent conversation for a change.”

  “Yes. Finally,” she said.

  “Who’re you?” Logan asked.

  “Just a stranger in town looking for a little human contact. It doesn’t look like I’ll find it here.”

  “Go to hell, Counselor. I think you just insulted Susie, but you drink enough beer and she’ll get over it. Glad you’re back.”

  Logan was my best friend on the island. He was a native of Massachusetts and had come to Florida for college at the University of Tampa. He became an executive in a financial services company, made a lot of money, and bought a vacation condo on Longboat. I’d first met him during those days when he’d spent as much time as he could among us beach bums before he had to return to the buttoned-down world in which he prospered. He took to the key’s lifestyle with an unrepressed ardor and became so much a part of it that he decided to retire at forty and move permanently to his vacation condo. His stated reason for his move to the key was that somebody had to take care of Matt Royal. He may have had a point, but once J.D. showed up, she relieved him of that duty. Mostly. He and I had become close and during Jock’s regular visits, he and Logan had discovered a mutual love of playing bad golf. They became fast friends and golfing partners, and on any occasion they thought warranted it, drinking buddies.

  “I didn’t expect you back so soon,” Jock said.

  “There’s not much I can do up there for the next week or so. J.D.’s coming down tomorrow for a couple of days, but she’ll need to get back.”

  “I heard back from the geeks. There’s nothing on a person named Olivia Travers in any database in the world.”

  “Another dead end.”

  “Are you going to win this case?” Logan asked.

  “Hope so.”

  “Want to go fishing tomorrow?” Logan asked. “Do the bay at first light?” I laughed. Logan never got up in time for an early fishing trip. He’d suggest one, and the next morning, when I called to get him out of bed, he’d always say that the bay looked too rough for boating. That was Logan-speak for “Leave me alone. I’m too hungover to think about getting in a boat.”

  “I think I’ll sleep in tomorrow,” I said. “J.D. will be here by midmorning. If the weather’s nice, you could get Marie and find Jock a woman who’s not too proud to be seen with him, and we can take Recess up to Egmont for a late picnic lunch.”

  “Nobody’s going to go with Jock,” Logan said. “At least, nobody I’d want to be seen on a boat with.”

  “Watch it,” Jock said. “I’m a walking aphrodisiac for the average woman.”

  The conversation meandered from boating to golf, politics to weather, and, of course, to women. In the end, we decided to provision at Harry’s Deli, load Recess, and head for Egmont Key, a state park at the mouth of Tampa Bay, accessible only by boat.

  Sometime, in the shank of the evening, an attractive Memphis native named Cindy, one of the servers at the Haye Loft, walked into Tiny’s. Her southern accent and friendly nature made her a favorite with her customers. She was a regular among those whom Sam Lastinger, the bartender at the Haye Loft, called the second shift, the servers and bartenders who came to Tiny’s each evening when the island establishments where they worked closed for the night.

  “Cindy,” Logan said, as she took the stool next to him. “You want to go boating tomorrow? You can be Jock’s date. He claims to be a walking, breathing aphrodisiac.”

  “Boats always do that to me,” Cindy said, grinning.

  “You’re the woman I’ve been looking for all my life,” Jock said.

  “Ah, Jock,” Cindy said with a laugh. “With you there, I won’t even need the boat.”

  Sam came in with his latest girlfriend, a tourist from Minnesota whom he had met at his bar about an hour earlier. “Did I hear you say something about a boat ride?”

  “A trip to Egmont for lunch tomorrow,” I said. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  Jock and I had one more beer and left for home and bed. Logan stayed for a few more with the second shift. I was tired and my bed was calling me. I lay down in my clothes, and the next thing I knew, sunshine was pouring through my bedroom windows and the aroma of frying bacon was teasing my olfactory receptors. Jock was cooking breakfast. Time to get up and shower.

  “Jock,” I said over breakfast, “I talked to the sheriff from Coffee County yesterday. It seems that her computers were hacked, but her IT guys can’t determine much about the hack. They said it was so sophisticated it must have been a government agency that invaded the sheriff’s network. However, the sheriff’s people were able to determine that Danny Lathom was the target. Do you think your people could take a look at the sheriff’s computers and figure out the identity of the hacker?”

  “Maybe. I’ll give them a call.”

  “I’ve got an email from the sheriff with a copy of her report attached. I’ll forward it to you.”

  Tuesday was one of those days when everybody calls their relatives in the still-chilly North to rag them a little about the gorgeous days that a Florida spring produces. The ride to Egmont was smooth, the turquoise water crystal clear, the sun bright, and the sky cloudless. J.D.; Logan; his girlfriend, Marie; and I sat in the stern while Jock took the helm with Cindy in the seat next to him. Sam and the woman from Minnesota lounged on the bow cushions.

  After lunch on the beach and a dip in the Gulf, still cool from the winter chill, we motored back to my dock, and cleaned up the boat. We agreed to meet later at the Lazy Lobster for dinner. It was a day of sunshine and easy living, a day that was not at all unusual in our subtropical paradise.

  Sam had called the restaurant’s owner, Michael Geary, and secured us a table. We dined on the patio under the trees, an evening with good friends, good food, and good conversation. A fine way to end what we referred to as JAPDIP—just another perfect day in paradise.

  CHAPTER 36

  J.D., JOCK, AND I went to the Blue Dolphin restaurant for breakfast on Wednesday morning. The island was slowing down, moving inexorably toward the summer doldrums. Those of us w
ho lived on the key year-round reveled in the quiet of those months when we ventured out in the heat only when we were heading for the water. Even the beach sand would be so hot some days that we raced to the relative coolness of the Gulf. It was the season when J.D. and I spent a lot of time on Recess anchored on a sandbar in the bay or simply drifting in the Gulf. When we sweated too much, we just went overboard and cooled off.

  Spring had officially arrived and the day was bright and cool, the humidity low, the thermometer hanging in the low seventies. “Sure you can’t stick around, J.D.?” I asked. “Recess would be happy to see us, and a little sun would do your pasty complexion some good.”

  “Pasty?” she asked. “You’re a sick person, Matt Royal.”

  “I’ve been telling him that for years,” Jock said.

  “Just a little joke, my sweets,” I said.

  “Well, to be truthful, I wish I didn’t have to leave, but I’m meeting Ruth Bergstrom for lunch.”

  “Are you looking for anything specific?” I asked.

  “You mean other than wanting to know why she’s implicated my aunt in her friend’s murder?”

  “No. I guess that’s enough.”

  “I want to try to get a sense of her. I’ve talked to several people, mostly ladies in the book club, who just don’t like her. Some of them can’t put a finger on just what it is they don’t like, but somehow, Ruth puts off a bad vibe. I want to explore that some. Maybe I’ll break the case.”

  “Maybe she’s just got a congenital nasty disposition,” Jock said.

  “Yeah, but even taking that into consideration, I can’t see any reason she’d try to make Aunt Esther the scapegoat in a murder.”

  “I’d think if she’s trying to hide the theft of a book that made Olivia a lot of money, that’d be reason enough.”

  “Maybe Ruth shot Olivia,” Jock said.

  “That’s my thinking,” J.D. said. “Maybe I can get her to slip up over lunch.”

  “I’m going to miss you,” I said.

  “Yeah. Me and my pasty complexion,” she said. “I’m sure you will.”

  “Matt, I’m not surprised that you act like an idiot,” Jock said, “but I’m astonished at how often you do it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll get the check.”

  “Good,” J.D. said. “I’ve got to hit the road.”

  J.D. was on the road by midmorning, navigating the thick traffic on I-75 on her way back to The Villages. She’d arranged to meet Ruth Bergstrom at the Glenview Country Club for lunch.

  She drove through the gate and past the carefully manicured golf course to the clubhouse. She arrived a few minutes early and was greeted by a hostess who guided her through the barroom. Dark wooden booths lined one side of the room beneath a mural of a golf course set among rolling hills. A long bar ran the length of the opposite side, its chairs empty except for a lone man nursing a beer at the far end. A line of tables was placed between the booths and they were full of men in golf clothes discussing their games, not a plate of food in sight, only glasses glistening with beer and whiskey.

  The hostess led J.D. to a table on the enclosed veranda overlooking the course. Minutes later, Ruth arrived. J.D. wondered if she was about to have lunch with a murderer. She had met a lot of them when she was climbing the ladder at the Miami-Dade County homicide unit, but to her knowledge, she’d never had lunch with one.

  Ruth was escorted to the table by the hostess and took her seat. “I hope I didn’t hold you up,” she said.

  “Not at all. You’re right on time. I got here a little early. I wasn’t sure how to find the place.”

  “My husband plays a lot of golf here. The course is twenty-seven holes and he usually plays every one of them. He says it’s a tough course.”

  “Do you play?”

  “Oh, Lord no. These guys get addicted. The main reason we moved here was so that he could play golf every day. The nine-hole courses are free, and I think that attracted him more than the courses themselves. You have to pay to play the championship courses like this one, and now he refuses to play the free ones. He just has a good time, regardless of whether we can afford it.”

  The waitress came and took their orders and returned quickly with their drinks. Iced tea for both. “Your sandwiches should be out shortly,” she said.

  “Are you getting settled in?” Ruth asked.

  “I think so. I had to run down to Miami yesterday and just got back.”

  “I hope everything’s all right.”

  “Yeah. Just some more legal nonsense about my divorce.”

  “Are you thinking about settling here permanently?”

  “Afraid not. I’ll be going back to Germany for a two-year tour when my leave is up.”

  “What do you do in the Army?”

  “I’m an intelligence officer.”

  “Like chasing spies and that sort of thing?”

  J.D. chuckled. “Not really. We mostly analyze data and advise our commanders.”

  “You must have an exciting life.”

  “Sometimes. But I’m afraid most of it is mundane work.”

  “I think I’d like to live in Germany,” Ruth said, wistfully.

  “Have you ever been there?”

  “No. I’ve read a lot about places all over the world, but I’ve never been anywhere other than The Villages. Talk about boring. Now I’m just a golf widow.”

  “What would you like to do?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t really have the money to do much of anything. We live on our pensions and Social Security, and that doesn’t leave enough to do a lot.”

  “Suppose you came into some money. Say, a long-lost relative dies and leaves you a bundle. What would you do with it?”

  Ruth laughed. “I’d divorce the hell out of James for one thing. He probably wouldn’t even know I’m gone. He’d just shack up with one of his chippies.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “He thinks I don’t know,” Ruth said. “Did your husband ever pull that on you?”

  “That’s the reason for the divorce.”

  “You poor thing. If we had the means I’d divorce James, but there just isn’t enough money to take care of two of us living separately. As it is, when he’s at home, I usually stay in my own bedroom.”

  J.D. smiled. “Okay. After you got a divorce lawyer, what would you do?”

  “Off to Europe, I think. I’d visit all the great art museums, soak up the history, maybe learn French. Find one of those neat Parisian cafés and meet a rich Frenchman. But I’d save enough of the money to set me up for life. My greatest fantasy is to be in a situation where I don’t have to worry about money.”

  “If you had all that money, where would you live?”

  “I’m not sure. Some place warm. Maybe the Caribbean, but I’ve read that many of those islands have a lot of crime. South Florida? Who knows, but I’d be kissing this place good-bye.”

  “What about your kids?”

  “What about them?” An edge had crept into her voice.

  “Would you use some of the money on them?”

  “God, no,” she said. “Those people don’t care if I’m alive or dead. I never hear from them.”

  “Are they in contact with James?”

  “No. And he doesn’t give a damn about them either.” She looked at J.D. questionably, perhaps suspiciously.

  J.D. changed the subject. “I read Beholden,” she said. “Your friend wrote a very good book.”

  “Lot of good it did her.”

  “Yeah, but hitting the New York Times best-seller list is a real big deal. Did she make a lot of money on the book?”

  “I don’t know. I never asked her about that.”

  “A shame to end her life just as it was about to take off. Do you have any idea why that woman from the book club would have killed her?”

  “Esther Higgins is her name. I think she’s mentally ill. She seemed to really believe that she’d written the book and that Olivia and I had co
nspired to steal it from her.”

  The waitress brought their sandwiches and asked, “Do you need anything else?”

  Ruth shook her head and J.D. said, “Don’t think so. Thank you.”

  When the server had gone, J.D. asked, “Did you actually see the manuscript?”

  “I did. She gave it to me and asked me to read it and see if I thought it was worth trying to get an agent.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I read the first few chapters and it was terrible. I just told Esther I didn’t think it was ready for publication.”

  “After the murder, were you afraid Esther might come after you?”

  “Oh, yeah. Her lawyer was bringing up what they call a bail motion before the judge tomorrow. I was going to testify that I feared for my life if they let her out of jail.”

  “Do you have to go to the hearing? I think that would be scary.”

  “No. They canceled it. The prosecutor told me the lawyer withdrew his motion or something like that. Esther has to stay in jail until the trial.”

  “I guess that was a relief.”

  “It sure was. No telling what that woman is capable of.”

  “Had you had any trouble with her before she killed your friend?”

  “No. She seemed a little pushy, but it didn’t bother me. I just didn’t like her very much.”

  “I wonder how the Higgins woman got Olivia to meet her for dinner. I read in the paper that she told the traveling aide that she was going to dinner with a friend. That wasn’t you?”

  “No. I’d promised a neighbor I’d drive her to the Orlando airport that evening, and I couldn’t back out on her. I didn’t get home until late. I don’t have any idea who she was supposed to meet. In fact, I didn’t even know she was coming to The Villages until I saw it in the paper. I called her in Atlanta, and she told me it would be a really quick trip and that we’d get together after the book tours were over.”

  J.D. moved the conversation into more mundane matters about The Villages. When they’d finished their sandwiches, J.D. looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go, Ruth. I told Judy I’d be at the store by one thirty.” She waved at the server and mimed signing a check. “I’ve really enjoyed the lunch.”