Ron Base - Tree Callister 02 - The Sanibel Sunset Detective Returns

by Ron Base

  Who chose that moment to stroll across the park to the courthouse, a slim, elegantly tailored woman with coiffed blond hair, reminding Tree of a middle-aged Lana Turner. Lawyers in bow ties; Lana Turner look-alikes outside ancient courthouses. He was in a 1950s Ross Hunter melodrama. Rock Hudson could have portrayed the romantic fool of a reporter framed by corrupt Southern cops.

  “Sorry,” Edith said, coming to a stop at the bottom of the steps. “The assistant district attorney, Mr. Lee Bixby, as he usually does, kept me cooling my ridiculously expensive heels.”

  Tree and Freddie stood up to meet her. “What did he have to say?” Tree said.

  “Young Mr. Bixby appears determined to nail your ass,” Edith said.

  “But Tree had nothing to do with Elizabeth Traven coming to our place,” Freddie said. “He was still with the police when she showed up at the door.”

  “Depending on where this goes, we just may have to convince a jury of that,” Edith said. “Here is what they are arguing, and you might as well hear this, too, Freddie. They are saying Tree and Mrs. Traven were having an affair and conspired together to murder Brand Traven.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Tree said.

  “I don’t have to be, because they are,” Edith said. “Or they claim they are—which is the same thing.”

  Tree looked at Freddie. “You know this isn’t true.”

  “Of course I do,” Freddie said.

  “She’s a client, that’s all.”

  “Look,” Edith interjected, “no matter what the truth of their allegations, the fact is they don’t really want you, Tree.”

  “They’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

  “What they want is your co-operation in their investigation. They want you to tell them something they don’t already know.”

  “But I don’t know anything.”

  “Apparently you do. They want you to implicate Mrs. Traven. Until you co-operate with them, you will remain charged with a very serious crime.”

  They were interrupted by the arrival of T. Emmett Hawkins. He shook Tree’s hand and nodded at Edith. “Sorry to interrupt, Edith, but I wanted to have a quick word with your client.”

  Edith looked at Tree who shrugged. “It’s okay, Edith.”

  “No, it’s not okay, Tree. He is going to want you to agree to things you should not be agreeing to, if you want to avoid going to jail.”

  “Now, Edith.” Hawkins drawl had become particularly honey-soaked. “Mr. Callister is a big boy. He’s not going to agree to anything he damned well doesn’t want to.”

  Edith glared.

  Hawkins guided Tree over to a small park dominated by an old banyan tree, its roots gnarled and twisted into a thick trunk. Hawkins stopped and inhaled deeply as he took in his surroundings. “It really is lovely, isn’t it? A little bit of the past. You know the county was named in 1887 for Robert E. Lee?”

  “The South will rise again,” Tree said.

  “Providing you believe it ever fell in the first place, and more than a few folks around here would argue that notion.”

  Hawkins leaned forward so that Tree could see the smooth crown of his head overlaid with wisps of white hair. He lowered his voice and that had the effect of thickening his accent even more.

  “I’ve just been speaking with Mrs. Traven. She asked me to remind you that nothing has changed. She still wishes to retain you.”

  “She does, does she?”

  “You can co-ordinate your activities through me, Mr. Callister. I’ll report back to Mrs. Traven.”

  “Do you think this is a good idea? After all, I am charged myself.”

  “Mrs. Traven is a woman who knows what she wants and doesn’t entertain much in the way of alternative suggestions. For good or ill, Mr. Callister, she wants you.”

  “I’m not sure what I can do for her.”

  “You can prove her innocence.”

  “Me?” Tree didn’t mean to sound quite so surprised.

  Emmett Hawkins blinked a couple of times before he said, “It’s the bow tie.”

  “What about it?”

  “It makes people believe I’m more flamboyant and therefore more successful than I am. But I’m not, you see. I’m merely a local criminal defense lawyer. My offices are around the corner. I should probably say office. Mostly, I rely on public defender cases. If I am to believe Mrs. Traven, she is broke. There’s no money for investigators. You’re it.”

  Tree allowed the words to sink in. “Supposing she’s guilty?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “It might interfere with proving her innocence,” Tree said.

  “Mrs. Traven has faith in you,” Emmett Hawkins said.

  Great, Tree thought.

  18

  Freddie drove Tree to the police compound where they had towed his car. “What did Mr. Hawkins want?”

  “He wanted to make certain I was on side,” Tree said.

  “On side with what?” Freddie asked.

  “With the idea that Elizabeth Traven didn’t kill her husband.”

  “But she did kill her husband, didn’t she?”

  “You heard her. She says she didn’t.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I can’t believe you think she’s innocent.”

  “What was Elizabeth like when she arrived at our place?”

  “Calm,” Freddie said. “Ridiculously calm, now that I think about it. She said she had to see you. When I told her you had gone over to her house thinking she was in trouble, she just nodded and said she would wait for you to return.”

  “She didn’t say anything about Brand?”

  “Not a thing. I asked her if she was in trouble. She said she would like to sit out by the pool. She asked for some water, but otherwise, she sat out there, staring into space.”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Tree said.

  “So you’re going to help her?”

  “I don’t know that I can.”

  “Edith is right, Tree. You could go to jail over this.”

  “All the more reason to help her,” Tree said. “If she doesn’t go to jail, I can’t go to jail.”

  When they reached the compound, she kissed him and said she had to get to work.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “Among other things, believing me.”

  “And what is it that I believe?”

  “That I was not having an affair with Elizabeth Traven. I did not help her kill her husband.”

  She looked at him.

  “You do believe me?”

  “Whatever you do, don’t go on the lam. Otherwise, I lose twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Is that what they call it?”

  “Or have I watched too many old Warner Bros. movies?”

  “You can never watch too many old Warner Bros. movies,” he said. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I believe you.”

  Freddie did sound as though she meant it.

  Didn’t she?

  “Incidentally,” she continued, “in all the excitement, I forget to tell you that neither Chris nor Kendra came home last night.”

  “They’re probably there now,” he said. “Wondering what happened.”

  But they weren’t at the house when Tree arrived back. He tried Chris’s cell. No answer. There was nothing on the house phone voice mail except reporters asking Tree to call.

  He took a long shower and then tried Chris’s cell again. Still no answer. Restless, he decided to walk over to the Keylime Bistro and get something to eat.

  News of the murder and Tree Callister’s role in it, had failed to reach the neighborhood. No one gave him a second glance as he seated himself at an outside table shaded by the thatched roof of the restaurant’s bandstand. A youthful waitress gave him a guileless smile and the menu. He ordered coffee. Then he sat back, closing his eyes, inhaling the
warm air, trying to push the events of the last twenty-four hours into the background.

  He opened his eyes as two men seated themselves at the table. They had round, pale faces that went nicely with their pink, hairless domes. Two bald brothers under the Florida sun.

  One of the bald brothers wore glasses. He smiled broadly when he said: “You don’t mind if we join you, do you?”

  The waitress returned with Tree’s coffee. “Have you decided what you would like to order?”

  “Not yet,” Tree said.

  “Don’t let us interrupt you,” the larger bald brother said. Bear-like, he could have been a character created for a Pixar animated feature—except not nearly so cute.

  “Yeah, please,” said the brother with glasses. “Go ahead and order.”

  The waitress turned her smile on the two interlopers. “Can I bring you gentlemen menus?”

  “No we’re fine,” the bear-like guy said.

  “I’ll just stick with the coffee for now,” Tree said, abruptly not hungry any more.

  “Well, if you change your mind…” The waitress widened her grin and hurried away.

  The brother with the glasses leaned forward as though to get a better look. “Maybe you can help us with a little argument we’re having.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tree said. “What’s this all about? Who are you?”

  “My friend here buys into the traditional government-sponsored line, you know, that NASA landed Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969.”

  “Which is what happened,” the big bald guy without glasses said peevishly. “You would be out of your mind to believe anything else. All this conspiracy stuff is nonsense.”

  “Not so fast, Elmer,” the guy with the glasses said. “There is reliable evidence that in fact the Americans did not land on the moon. That in order to beat the Russians, NASA, with the help of the British filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, conspired to make it look as though there was a moon landing, when in fact it never happened.”

  “This is so utterly ridiculous, Fudd,” Elmer-without-the-glasses said. “It’s not worth the breath it takes to argue the point. Why would Kubrick ever allow himself to get involved in such a hare-brained conspiracy?”

  “Because the government agreed to provide him with the unlimited ability to make movies without ever leaving his estate in England,” Fudd said. “If you look at the facts, Elmer, which of course you refuse to do, you would see that after 1969 Kubrick never left England and never again made a studio movie. Where did his financing come from at a time when every other director in the world was scrambling for money? Let’s face it, the guy was no Steven Spielberg when it came to box office hits. The money had to come from NASA.”

  “In return for some unused footage from 2001: A Space Odyessy? I don’t believe it.”

  “It wasn’t just the unused footage, although they did incorporate some of it,” maintained Fudd. “He actually filmed the faked moon landing. We have his widow’s sworn testimony. Kubrick also oversaw filming of the so-called astronauts on subsequent moon ‘landings.’”

  “Elmer and Fudd,” Tree said. “You guys are Elmer and Fudd?”

  The two men looked at him blankly. “What’s wrong with that?” said Fudd.

  “Come on. What’s going on here? What’s the joke?”

  Fudd turned his head so that the light glinted off his glasses, making him somehow more ominous. “What makes you think this is a joke, Tree? You’re not one of those suckers who has been duped into believing we actually landed on the moon. Are you?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  Fudd said, “Maybe we’ve been watching the local TV news this morning, Tree. Maybe we know all about you and the trouble you are in.”

  “Or it could be,” interjected bear-like Elmer, “that it goes beyond that.”

  Fudd looked vaguely irritated. “Goes beyond that? How could it ‘go beyond that?’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It could mean we knew about Tree even before all the stuff on the news,” Elmer said.

  “Okay. I see your point.” Fudd nodded eagerly. “Yes, of course. Maybe we did know all about Tree, the former Chicago newspaperman, tossed out of the profession he loved after many years of loyal service. Tree, who then retreated to Sanibel Island with his lovely wife, Freddie, to become, what? What is it you became down here, Tree?”

  “What do you guys want?” Tree said.

  “Fudd, you know very well that Tree turned himself into a private detective, a life-changing decision if there ever was one—albeit a pretty stupid decision, if you ask me.”

  “Hold on there, hoss,” Fudd said. “That’s a trifle unfair, don’t you think?”

  Elmer said, “Think about it. A sixty-year-old guy decides to become a detective. He knows nothing about it, has no experience. What sort of moron does that? He leaves himself vulnerable to exactly the sort of trouble he now finds himself in.”

  Fudd bobbed his bald head up and down. “I see your point, yes I do. Tree was indicted on very serious charges this morning. He’s got bigger problems to deal with, so perhaps we should get to the point of our visit.”

  Elmer trained his eyes on Tree. “I apologize to you, sir. Of course we should get to why we are here, so we can get the problem resolved as quickly as possible.”

  “Resolve what?” Tree was growing impatient.

  “The issue of Kendra and her husband, Chris.”

  Now that really did catch Tree by surprise. “What about them? What issue?”

  Fudd had been rocking back in his chair. Now he stopped. “We represent a client persuaded by your son and his wife to invest in their Chicago enterprise.”

  “An online dating service,” said Elmer in a knowledgeable voice.

  “I believe that’s what it was,” said Fudd. “In due course, Kendra made certain promises to my client, promises she failed to keep. Not only was my client cheated out of a great deal of money, but he feels personally betrayed by Kendra Callister.”

  “He seeks redress,” Elmer said.

  “Redress,” Fudd repeated. “I’m not sure that’s the right word.”

  Elmer turned his big head toward his partner and unleashed a cold-eyed glower. “Redress most certainly is the right word. He wants his money back. Redress.”

  “All right, fine. Have it your way.” Fudd heaved a sigh and looked over at Tree as though to say: You see what I’m up against. “Redress it is. He wants redress.”

  “Redress for what?” Tree said.

  Both men looked vaguely surprised. Elmer spoke: “He wants her back, of course.”

  “Wants who back?”

  “Who?” said Elmer. “Who does everyone lust after in this convoluted little scenario? Well, not the two of us, of course. We are beyond lust where she is concerned. But no one else appears mature enough to see her for what she is and keep their hands off her.”

  “You’re talking about Kendra,” Tree said.

  “Bingo,” said Fudd.

  “But who wants her back?”

  “Our client,” said Elmer.

  “Who is your client?”

  “Ask your daughter-in-law,” Elmer said.

  It was Fudd’s turn to deliver a laser-like scowl. “I told you not to say that,” he snarled. “I made it clear that I didn’t want you saying that.”

  “Why not? What’s he gonna do? Not ask Kendra. How ridiculous is that? We say to him our client wants Kendra back, but we won’t say who the client is. Does it not stand to reason he would ask her?”

  “I told you not to say that,” Fudd repeated.

  “Maybe you should stop giving me so many orders,” Elmer said. “Maybe you bark so many orders, it all starts to get confusing, and I forget things.”

  They were interrupted by the reappearance of the waitress. She looked unhappily at the coffee and then addressed Tree. “Is your coffee all right, sir?”

  “It’s fine,” Tree said.

  “It’s just that you don’t seem to have touched it.�
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  “It’s fine.”

  She looked at Elmer and Fudd. “Sure I can’t bring you gentlemen anything?”

  “You’re very kind,” said Fudd with a shake of his head.

  The waitress, looking uneasy, wandered off.

  “Anyhow,” Fudd said, “that’s where we are, Tree. That’s what brings us to this lovely island.”

  “Our first visit,” added Elmer.

  “But hopefully not our last,” Fudd said.

  “You guys seem to be threatening me,” Tree said

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” said Fudd. “We’re not there yet. At the threats, I mean. We’re approaching you today, Tree, because you seem to be a sane, reasonable adult, and we need to enlist your help with two young people who are not behaving responsibly.”

  “I’m not sure what Kendra promised your client,” Tree said.

  “I thought that was clear enough, Tree,” said Fudd in an annoyed voice. “She promised to be with him. He would invest in the business, and she would go off into the sunset with him. Not that I can imagine either Kendra or my client walking into any sunsets, but nonetheless, that’s the promise that was made.”

  “Why don’t we say forty-eight hours?” Elmer said.

  “Forty-eight hours for what?” Tree demanded.

  “It’s the time we’re giving you to deliver Kendra to us and produce some sort of repayment plan for my client.”

  “Repayment plan? What kind of repayment plan?”

  “A repayment plan that retires a five hundred thousand dollar loan,” Fudd said.

  “They owe five hundred thousand dollars?” Tree said in astonishment.

  “Lot of money, isn’t it?” Elmer said. “More than a private detective earns these days, I’m willing to bet. But that is how much our client is willing to settle for.”

  “That’s impossible,” Tree said.

  “Tree, I don’t know you very well so I hate to make snap judgment calls,” Fudd said. “But what kind of parent were you, to allow your son to grow up so stupid?”

  “Chris isn’t stupid.” The assertion sounded lame, even to Tree’s ears.

  “Anyone who gets himself mixed up with a woman like Kendra and then pisses off our client, you’ve got to wonder if he was properly raised.”

  “Believe me, Tree,” Elmer said, nodding at his companion, “we both know something about the lack of proper parenting.”