“I can’t explain myself to me. I useta own a clothing store … Big Man of Boca … ever heard of it?”
“I never looked for a big man’s shop,” I said and laughed.
Tucker smiled.
“What happened to your business?”
“A bad economy and a national chain put me out of business,” he said. “Now I’m just trying to survive until something else comes along.”
“Never give up, Lincoln” was all I could think of to say.
“I tried so hard, but here I am. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.”
“Any advice?” Lincoln Tucker asked as he picked up his two bags of charity.
“Try again. Never give up.”
Officer Dowd and I returned to the car and continued our tour.
“That’s the Wayne Barton Center and the Florence Fuller Center across,” she said.
I looked out the window. “What’s their purpose?”
“Education facilities. They teach the poor how to break the cycle of poverty.”
“How about the homeless?”
“They’re welcome,” she said. “But the homeless usually drop out of society because of trauma or mental illness. Most don’t want a way back in. Why are you so interested in our homeless? No one told me.”
“I’m investigating an attack on one. And I’m trying to find another one.”
“Good luck with that,” she said, shaking her head. “Florida is number one in the nation for attacks on the homeless, and nearly half those attacks are done by other homeless people. Can you tell me who you’re looking for?”
“No. It’s confidential. Sorry.”
“I understand. Mind if I ask you another question?”
“Mind if I don’t answer?”
“No. It’s up to you,” she said. “Is it true you were Boston’s most decorated policeman?”
“One of them. I was also one of the most demoted. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of.”
“I’ll bet you did a lot of things you were proud of.”
“I always tried to do the right thing,” I told her. “Sometimes my methods were questionable.”
“Did you ever kill a man?”
“Yes, it’s a matter of public record. But no one ever killed me.”
She laughed.
She pointed at Grace Community Church and told me free clothes were available there.
“Do you think I need them?” I joked.
She laughed again.
“Let me ask you a question,” I said, reversing roles. “Where would you look for a hiding homeless person?”
“A bus station. Most homeless are transient. We encourage them to leave town. We feed them, clothe them, and put them on a bus. It’s called Greyhound therapy.”
“Good thought. Anywhere else?”
“Parks, soup kitchens, hospitals … Baker centers-”
“What kind of centers?” I interrupted.
“Baker centers. Medical clinics that evaluate mental health under terms of the Baker Act. They also supply medical assistance like an emergency room.”
Tell my sister I’m going to the baker.
“Can anyone go to a Baker center?”
“Yes. Originally people were brought to a Baker clinic involuntarily to determine if they were a potential danger to themselves or others. In 1996, the act was expanded to include people seeking voluntary admission and evaluation.”
“Are there Baker centers in Boca?”
“They’re in most of the public hospitals,” she said.
“Any private facilities?”
“I only know of one,” Officer Dowd said, turning into the parking lot at police headquarters. “It’s on Boca Rio Road, near the turnpike.”
She parked the cruiser, and I jumped out, hurrying toward my Mini.
“What’s the rush?” she called after me.
I turned around and walked quickly back to her. “I’m sorry,” I said, shaking her hand. “But I have to run. Thank you for your help.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the Baker.”
The Boca Rehabilitation Clinic on Boca Rio Road was a privately owned facility treating Baker Act patients. No receptionist was at the reception desk when I arrived, so I let myself into the in-patient area. I found a room marked bailey and entered without knocking.
She was in bed, unconscious, looking as if she had finished second in a two-person knife fight. Her forehead, cheeks, arms, and shoulders were crisscrossed with stitches to close deep gashes. Her eyes were swollen shut, and her breathing was labored. At least she was breathing. I remembered a tough Boston cop named Shannon McPhee, six foot four, 240, who survived shootings, knifings, riots, and car crashes … only to die of a staph infection from a small cut on his foot. Bailey was more than a foot shorter than McPhee and at least 140 pounds lighter, yet she’d survived a date with Mac the Knife. Go figure.
“Who are you?” a frightened woman’s voice asked from behind me.
I turned and saw a younger, neater version of Bailey. “I’m the man who called you on Bailey’s phone,” I said and walked toward her.
She inhaled deeply, clenched her fists, and screamed until her face turned red and her breath ran out. Without pausing, she gulped in more air and screamed again. I didn’t try to stop her, figuring whoever came to rescue her could rescue me from her. A nurse I recognized burst into the room and pointed at the human alarm system.
“Kayla, stop screaming,” she ordered.
Kayla stopped.
“Eddie, what are you doing here?” Nurse Joyce Weinberg asked. I knew her through my personal nurse, Claudette.
“I’m on a case,” I told her.
“Who is this man?” Kayla asked the nurse.
“He’s a private detective,” Nurse Weinberg vouched for me.
“Why does my sister need a private detective?”
“She doesn’t,” I said. “She was helping me with a case.”
“That’s ridiculous. She can’t help herself,” Kayla said.
“How did you get into this part of the clinic?” Nurse Weinberg asked.
“I let myself in,” I said. “No one was at the front desk.”
“Oh my God,” Kayla said, rushing to Bailey’s side. “You have to increase security.”
“Your sister is not in danger here,” the nurse assured her.
“This guy just walked into her room,” Kayla said adamantly. “Any madman could walk into this room and attack her again.”
“She wasn’t attacked by a madman,” Nurse Weinberg said.
“Of course she was.” Kayla’s voice grew louder. “Look at her injuries. What kind of a wild animal does this to a helpless old woman?”
“A raccoon,” Nurse Weinberg said.
Kayla’s jaw dropped, and a long pause followed.
“A raccoon?”
“That’s what Bailey told us when she came in here covered with blood,” Nurse Weinberg said. “We treated her for rabies, distemper, and infection, and the drugs worked in no time.”
Raccoons made sense to me. Florida was loaded with raccoons. The little bandits don’t fear humans, and they’re big fans of garbage. I figured Bailey had been spying on the two fat Yankees fans from behind a Dumpster when the raccoon struck. Bailey and I heard scratching sounds before she was attacked, and they were probably claws on metal. She was on the phone with me at the time and must have thrown her phone into the Dumpster after shouting clues. Next, I figured she stole another bike and pedaled her wounded body several miles to the Baker center.
“Are you sure it was a raccoon?” Kayla asked.
“I’m sure,” Nurse Weinberg said. “We did all the blood tests.”
“They don’t usually attack humans,” I said.
“Why a raccoon?” Kayla asked.
“She was near garbage,” I answered.
Kayla choked back a sob, sniffled, fussed with her sister’s bedding needlessly, then dejectedly walked out the door.
Nice going, schmuck, I said to myself.
“You have a way with words,” Joyce said. “A bad way.”
“I suppose I could have been more tactful.”
I found Kayla sitting on a bench in the corridor. I sat next to her. She looked haggard.
“A raccoon,” she said, looking at me helplessly, shaking her head. “My sister was fighting with a raccoon over garbage.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant. Sorry.”
“I’m sorry I blamed you.”
“I would have blamed me, too, before I blamed a raccoon,” I told her.
She held out her hand. “I’m Kayla Carr.”
“Eddie Perlmutter. I never knew Bailey’s last name.”
“Her married name is Sweeney.”
“She was married?” I asked, surprised. I never thought of Bailey having a husband.
“It’s a long, sad story.”
“I’ll listen.”
Kayla told me a long story with a sad beginning and ending, and the middle part wasn’t a lot of fun either.
“Joyce Weinberg told me you were a real smooth talker last night,” Claudette said at breakfast the next morning.
“Apparently the nurses’ grapevine never sleeps.”
“What happened?”
I told her about the Pearl City tour and the Boca Rio clinic. She said I was a genius to figure out the Baker clue and I agreed. Then I told her the Carr family saga, starting with the parents.
“What a burdensome gene pool,” Claudette said when I finished. “An alcoholic father and a manic-depressive mother …”
“And the apples didn’t fall far from the crazy tree.”
Bailey became an alcoholic at an early age. She was drunk as a teenager, drunk as a young adult, drunk when she became a thirty-five-year-old, first-time bride, drunk the night she got pregnant, and drunk the night she drove her car into a stone wall and ended her pregnancy. When she regained consciousness, she learned her baby had died and her husband had disappeared. She recovered from her injuries and disappeared, too.
“How did she get someone to marry her in the first place?” Claudette asked.
“Kayla said it was timing and circumstances.”
Bailey got reacquainted with a former high school classmate who became a widower when his young wife died of cancer. He had remained single and lonely for several years until he saw Bailey at a high school reunion. Her exuberance made him feel alive again, and he asked her on a date. Unaware that her party moods were fueled by substance abuse, he made three big mistakes. He fell in love with her, he made her pregnant, and he married her.
“Poor man,” Claudette said. “I wonder what happened to him. No one just disappears.”
“Jimmy Hoffa did,” I said. “Besides, it was about thirty years ago … like in the middle seventies. He’s probably dead.”
“Not necessarily. Bailey’s still alive.”
“Barely … and what’s your point?”
“Maybe they could reunite after all these years,” Claudette fantasized. “Wouldn’t that be romantic?”
“He’d probably strangle her.”
“You’re no fun,” Claudette said with a pout. “Did Kayla ever get married?”
Kayla never married. She suffered from melancholy as a child and was painfully lonely. Her teens were lost to the depression she inherited from her mother, and she battled with suicidal tendencies. In her twenties, Kayla had to care for her deteriorating parents while her sister lived a carefree, happy-hour lifestyle. In her early thirties, after both parents had died within six months of each other, Kayla was appointed executor of their small estate and kept what few assets remained. Bailey was drunk at both funerals.
“What a sad story,” Claudette said.
“Yeah, culminating in a raccoon attack in a garbage Dumpster.”
“You can be a real idiot sometimes.”
“I know.”
Dr. Glenn Kessler was my mandatory Boston Police Department psychiatrist when I was a crazy young cop. He retired from the force long before I did and became a bestselling author of self-help golf books. I consulted with him on occasion about my cases and decided to call him concerning the homeless.
“Eddie, good to hear your voice,” he said.
“You never said that before,” I reminded him.
“You’re a kinder, gentler Eddie Perlmutter now.”
“An older, slower Eddie Perlmutter maybe. Is bad golf still happening to good people?”
“Thank God bad golf never ends,” he said cheerfully. “We’re in our second printing.”
“Congratulations. Do you think you can still analyze non-golfing psychos?”
“I think so. Try me.”
“I have a case involving a homeless man and woman. I’d like to understand them better.”
“Did you know there are homeless golfers? It’s in my book. They’re players without a home course.”
“That must be terrible for them,” I said. “But the homeless I’m talking about are more traditional. They don’t have homes.”
“How unusual.”
I told him about Weary Willie and Three Bag Bailey.
“They’re both classic cases,” he said. “She doesn’t feel worthy of a relationship or a home. She probably can’t forgive herself for something terrible she did in the past.”
“That’s her. What can I do to help her?”
“You have to encourage her to forgive herself. And that won’t be easy.”
“Okay,” I said. “And what about the clown impersonating Weary Willie?”
“He’s not impersonating anyone. He’s living someone else’s life so he doesn’t have to live his own. He probably suffered an emotional trauma at some point and ran away to start over. It’s called a dissociative fugue.”
“That sounds about right, too. He can’t be helped though. He’s in a coma.”
“Comatose people just don’t listen,” Kessler joked. “The thing is, Eddie, you have to deal with each homeless case individually. They’ve suffered a personal trauma that put them on the streets. There are no set answers or magical solutions. Sorry. Got anything else?”
“I have a case concerning pill mills in Florida. Ever hear of them?”
“Sure. Terrible business. Some doctors don’t care how they make money, and the State of Florida gives them a license to steal. That’s a legal matter for the State of Florida to resolve, not me.”
“We’re investigating a Catholic church-”
“Altar boys again,” Kessler moaned.
“Not that I know of. I don’t know what kind of case it is yet. Forget it.”
“Anything else?”
“Our biggest investigation is financial fraud,” I said. “But that’s your field.”
“I’m an investor. What company are you investigating?”
“I’d rather not say. Our investigation isn’t conclusive yet.”
“I understand,” he said. “I feel very fortunate to have done so well using the same investment company for years.”
“Who do you use?”
“B.I.G. Investments,” he said proudly.
Oh, shit. What am I supposed to do? Should I tell him or not? I felt I had to tell him. “That’s the company I’m investigating.”
“What for, making his clients too much money?” Kessler laughed.
I didn’t laugh with him. “No, for fraud.”
A prolonged silence followed. “You’re kidding, of course?”
“I’m serious,” I said.
“Were you hired to investigate him?”
“No. We’re freelancing.”
“Is this another one of your Boca Knights crusades?”
“I suppose it is.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Dr. Kessler said. “B.I.G. has been investigated by the best of them, and no one found anything wrong.”
“If you’re referring to the Securities and Exchange Commission as the best of them, I disagree.”
“What if they’re false profits? What if he’s a fraud?”
“Be very careful with that word, Eddie. If you start an unsubstantiated rumor, you could ruin a lot of innocent people, including me. But you must be wrong. I’ve withdrawn substantial profits.”
“If he’s a fraud, you may have to return the money. But I haven’t accused anyone of anything yet.”
“No, but you’re making me nervous,” Kessler said. “I’m going to call the guy who put me into this fund and hear what he has to say.”
“He’s going to tell you everything is fine.”
“I’ll call you back.”
An hour later, Kessler called me back. “My man says everything’s fine and he wants to talk to you.”
“You told him about me?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes, and I gave him your office number. I thought you’d like to hear his side of the story.”
I didn’t bother to tell him that the last guy who investigated Grover disappeared.
“Who’s your adviser?” I asked.
“Jimmy Hunter. You’ll like him.”
“I don’t think so. So you’re leaving your money with Grover?”
“Actually, I invested more,” my highly educated psychiatrist said.
Now I believed in bokos.
Jimmy Hunter called fifteen minutes later.
“What took so long?” I asked.
He chuckled. “I try to address all allegations immediately.”
“We haven’t alleged anything.”
“And I want to keep it that way. I suggest we meet as soon as possible.”
“Why are you concerned about a small-time detective agency like ours?”
“You’re being modest, Mr. Perlmutter. You’re well-known in South Florida, and we have many high-net-worth clients there. Mr. Grover has a winter home in Palm Beach with family and friends in the area. We’d like to avoid needless negative publicity … especially in his backyard.”
Sounds reasonable. “I have to talk to my partner.”
“That would be Mr. Dewey?”
“Yes, it’s his investigation. Give me your private number. I’ll call you back.”
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