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

by Ron Base

  “And you didn’t tell me.”

  “I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it at the time, and I didn’t want to upset you unnecessarily.”

  “Don’t worry about upsetting me, I’m a big girl,” she said. “I repeat: I don’t like it when you keep things from me—no matter how bad they are.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “But you hide more and more.”

  “I try not to.”

  “Well, try harder. I suppose that explains why you asked me about Ray’s place in Naples.”

  Tree nodded. “When Aksel’s thugs came looking for Kendra, he arranged for Chris and her to hide out here.”

  “But Ray being Ray, he wanted Kendra all to himself, so he moved her to the house on Woodring Road. Have I got that right?”

  “I think so.”

  Freddie went on: “Maybe when he finally had her alone, maybe that’s when it became apparent that Kendra was not going to be his true and everlasting love; she was not about to be any man’s true love.”

  “Kendra used men. She wasn’t crazy enough to fall in love with them.”

  “Ray wouldn’t like that at all.”

  “According to Chris, Kendra phoned him. He went around to the house on Woodring Road. They ended up making love. That’s when they used the belt.”

  Freddie arched her eyebrows. “A belt? What did they do with a belt?”

  “Things we’re not about to try at this stage in our lives,” Tree said.

  “Then Ray came to the house, is that how it happened?”

  Tree nodded. “He was supposed to be at the Kiwanis dinner that night, but he never showed up.”

  “He would have seen Chris’s car in the drive,” Freddie said. “He must have slipped inside and overheard them making love. It would have made his blood boil.”

  “Then Chris left to go to the pharmacy for Kendra,” Tree said. “Ray went upstairs, found her still in bed and used the belt to strangle her.” He paused. “Of course this is all wild speculation.”

  “Except Ray is inside, dead,” Freddie said.

  Tree looked at her hard. She shrugged uneasily.

  “I don’t know. Does any of this make sense? I guess there isn’t a suicide note.”

  “Not unless we missed it.”

  “Ray would never write something like that. It would be too hard for him to admit he could be so weak. Better he just shoots himself and leaves us all wondering: could Ray kill? I don’t know the answer. I suspect I never will. Do we really believe anyone we know is capable of murder? I don’t believe we do. But people end up killing each other all the time, don’t they? So what are we to think? What are we supposed to think?”

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  “No, no, it’s not. How did we get here, Tree? How did we get so far into darkness? How did we stumble into this world of corpses and people doing bad things? How did that happen?”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. Tree held her for a while. He didn’t know what to say. He knew how they got here, and so did she. It was him; he was responsible for this. But having arrived in this dark place, he could not find the way out. He was trapped here.

  Tree let go of her. He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and called 911.

  51

  Last night I saw The Searchers for the first time in years,” Rex Baxter said. “It really is John Wayne’s greatest performance. No other star of that time came close to what he achieved, not Brando or Clift, no one played a character approaching the complexity of Ethan Edwards in that movie.

  “And Tree is absolutely right,” Rex went on. “The Searchers is as much a rumination on life and death as it is a western about the price of hatred and the cost of revenge. At the beginning, a door opens into the light, and at the end John Ford closes that door again, and we are alone in darkness. That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? Infinite darkness interrupted briefly by light, all of us alone at the end. When it was over, I wept.”

  “Jeez, Rex,” Todd Jackson said.

  “I wept for us all, for the futility of life and the certainty of death, the knowledge as we get older that the door closes and we are alone in darkness, and there is nothing we can do about it.”

  “I’ve never heard you talk like this,” Todd said.

  “Well, there you go,” Rex said. “Maybe it was the movie, or maybe it’s just one of those nights.”

  Everyone had retreated to the Lighthouse after the services for Ray Dayton. Vera, Ray’s widow, had decided not to attend, understandable under the circumstances. Besides, she had never liked Ray at the Lighthouse on Fun Fridays. She did not like what a few drinks did to him. No one did.

  The previous day the police had released details of Kendra’s autopsy. Two different types of semen had been found in her vagina. One of the types belonged to her husband, Chris.

  The other was matched to the late Ray Dayton.

  Nobody talked about any of it.

  Finally, Todd Jackson ventured that he liked Ray; despite everything, he couldn’t help but like the guy. After all, he had served his country in Vietnam. Someone pointed out that he hadn’t actually served in Nam. He’d been a supply sergeant in the Philippines.

  “Who cares?” Todd. “The fact is the guy put himself on the line for his country. How many of us can say that?”

  Freddie, who had come to Sanibel Island because Ray hired her, said nothing. She didn’t cry in front of everyone; that was not her style. But she stayed close to Tree, clasping his arm.

  “A long time ago, I interviewed John Wayne’s daughter,” Tree said. “She told me that when her father died of cancer at the age of seventy-two, after more than two hundred movies, after all the people he had worked with over fifty-odd years in the business, the legends formed, awards won, none of it mattered. At the end, there wasn’t a screen legend anywhere to be seen, simply an old man dying of cancer, surrounded by his family. That image has stuck with me ever since. John Wayne dying, his family around him.”

  Silence. Someone cleared his throat.

  “I didn’t like Ray, but I feel sorry for him,” Tree continued. “He ended up alienating everyone, a lonely man desperately looking for love, willing to kill because he couldn’t get it. He should have been like John Wayne. He should have had family with him. Someone should have been holding his hand as he left. This shouldn’t have happened.”

  Freddie gripped his arm tighter. Nobody said anything.

  _________

  Nearing sunset, Freddie and Tree turned off onto one of the manmade islands supporting the three bridges of the Sanibel Causeway. A few vehicles were parked facing the beach. A lone windsurfer sliced the shallows just off shore. A couple had set up lawn chairs in front of their SUV and sat drinking beer, awaiting the end of the day.

  Freddie wrapped her arm around Tree and helped him down to the water’s edge. The failing sun cast Freddie in a golden halo. The rising breeze turned her into a wind-blown siren of the sea—at least in Tree’s eyes. He thought he had never loved her so much as he did at this moment.

  “When I was in the Myakka State Park,” he said, “they handcuffed me to the bodies of Ferne Clowers and Bailey Street, although they call Bailey, ‘Slippery.’”

  She looked at him closely. “Slippery Street?”

  Tree moved his head up and down in acknowledgment. “In order to get free and not become dinner for a couple of alligators, I used Slippery’s straight razor and cut their hands off.”

  He marveled at how lovely she looked even with her eyes widened in astonishment.

  “Slippery carried a straight razor around?”

  “That’s the kind of guy Slippery was.”

  “I see.” The evening shadows heightened Freddie’s astonished look.

  “Well,” he said. “You don’t want me holding things back from you.”

  “No,” she said.

  “So I thought I had better tell you.”

  “My God, Tree,” she said. “I married an unemployed Chic
ago newspaperman who once drank too much.”

  “I don’t know what happened to that guy,” Tree said.

  She said, “What are you going to do about Chris?”

  “What can I do?” Tree said. “He’s my son. I have to stand by him.”

  The sun was disappearing below the horizon in a bright yellow explosion. The war of the worlds was being fought out there somewhere beyond the horizon.

  “I just want you to know,” Freddie said.

  “What?”

  “That I’m with you in this. Whatever it takes.”

  “Even though I’m missing two front teeth?”

  “Even though,” she said softly.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “And we won’t die alone, Tree. We will die with each other. Whatever we have to go through, we do it together. We share the pain. That’s what it’s all about, after all. The pain as well as the happiness. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he said.

  The sun turned crimson an instant before the sea swallowed it, and the day was gone.

  Tree kissed Freddie and she kissed him back, and then they turned and headed away from the shore toward the car.

  Together.

  Acknowledgements

  Like Tree Callister, my paper in 1975 sent me down to Newport Beach, California, to interview John Wayne at his home. And just like Tree, Wayne promptly pumped me full of tequila, a drink I had never had before and have never had since.

  I suffered accordingly the following day.

  He was sixty-eight when I met him and had just starred in a now-forgotten police thriller called Brannigan. Watching him move gracefully and comfortably through his memorabilia-filled living room, I reached the same conclusion Tree does: it was hard to imagine the iconic western hero in a cowboy hat, a six-gun strapped to his waist, riding a horse.

  But otherwise, he was everything you might imagine: blustery, outrageous, bigger-than-life, and vastly entertaining. Out on the patio overlooking the harbor and an old wood-frame pavilion across the way, he did tell the story that’s in the book about how he used to go dancing there as a kid, laughing that these days he and the pavilion were all that was lit up at night.

  It’s funny how certain images keep reasserting themselves as you are writing a book. As I toiled away on The Sanibel Sunset Detective Returns, I kept seeing that moment on the patio, the Duke, as everyone called him, wearing a blue blazer, not as tall as I imagined, and looking a bit like someone had pumped him full of air. I understood even way back then that I was meeting one of the most iconic figures in American movies, and that the moment was fleeting, and I had better mark it carefully.

  As I stood there listening to him hold court, it was not difficult to see the history of talking movies right there in front of me. He had started out as gofer on silent films, graduated to the talkies and become the biggest star the movies ever produced. No other star made as many films or lasted as long (over fifty years) or remained so popular. No one was quite like him before he came along, and certainly there has been no one like him since. As Rex Baxter points out in the book, his kind of rugged masculine individuality has disappeared from the screen.

  I found his presence curiously comforting as I wrote the book, recalling that encounter, from time to time replaying his old movies (particularly The Searchers), marveling again at how good he could be on the screen when he was working with a John Ford or a Howard Hawks. Is it too late to thank him for that constant memory of a pleasant evening long ago in Newport Beach? I think not. Nor is it too late to again thank George Anthony who, as the Toronto Sun’s entertainment editor, took pity on a young reporter and John Wayne admirer and assigned him to the story. George and I have remained friends ever since.

  A lot of people made this book possible, beginning with my brother Ric, who in addition to being the world’s best brother, not to mention the president of the Sanibel-Captiva Chamber of Commerce, has become a partner in these Tree Callister adventures, a combination of publisher, marketing guru, and reliable island guide (although any mistakes in the book are mine, not his). I say this every time we do a book and it just becomes truer— I could not do any of it without his enthusiasm and support. What a bro!

  And further words of heartfelt thanks to my sister-in-law Alicia, who patiently puts up with me, and provides great lines of dialogue which I enthusiastically steal.

  I have met a large number of welcoming, wonderful people on Sanibel and Captiva islands who have been immeasurably helpful in making The Sanibel Sunset Detective a success. The chamber’s Bridgit Stone-Budd not only did the brilliantly-executed, eye-catching covers for both novels, but also worked overtime to be present at book signings and generally help promote the book.

  Richard Johnson at Bailey’s allowed me into his store countless times; Hollie Schmid at the Sanibel Island Bookshop made me a bestselling author on the island. Thanks also to Scott and Candy Thompson, Paul and Susan Reynolds at PocoLoco, Chris Clark of Paradies Shops at the Fort Myers airport, John Tonsager at Jerry’s Foods, Joanne Nappi at The Sporty Seahorse Shop, Duane Shaffer at the Sanibel Public Library, Susie Holly at MacIntosh Books and Paper, Josh Stewart at Adventures in Paradise, Barb Harrington at Royal Shell Vacations, and everyone at the Lighthouse Restaurant. Special thanks to Colleen and Earl Quenzel, my best customers. Back in Canada, the Milton Chamber of Commerce let me on the street and Sarah Moore allowed me into her bookstore. My neighbor and pal, Kim Hunter, got me to Florida and entertained along the way.

  I’m fortunate to work with an incredible creative team that has no problem holding my feet to the fire and making me a better writer. My wife, Kathy Lenhoff, was, as always, first out of the gate to read the book and make helpful comments. My son, Joel Ruddy, was an early enthusiast for the latest Tree Callister adventure.

  Old friend Ray Bennett, the Hollywood Reporter’s London theater critic, read the manuscript while visiting in Toronto and made great suggestions. Lexie Lenhoff, with whom I have worked on every book I’ve written since 1990, once again saved me a hundred times over with her line editing, as did my daughter, Erin Ruddy, editor of What’s Up, Canada’s Family Magazine.

  I am particularly indebted to another old journalism friend, Bob Burt, who really went to work on the book, and not only uncovered mistakes but identified plot inconsistencies, and generally contributed insights and suggestions that made me remember what a truly great editor he is. Thank you, Robert!

  Finally, I must thank award-winning author and former journalist David Kendall, “the closer,” who came in at the end of the process to make dozens of small, precise suggestions that resulted in a better book.

  In the midst of everything this past year, my dear friend Brian Vallée died of cancer. Not only were we best pals for over forty years, but Brian, in addition to being an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and bestselling author, was also the publisher of West-End Books. All of us who knew and loved him, including his long-time partner, Nancy Rahtz, were left in shock by the suddenness of his death. As I sit here writing these words, I still can’t believe he is gone.

  But that’s part of the whole set-up, isn’t it? Life and death, the door opening to let in the light for a brief period and then the door closing again into darkness. No one could have known it that night, of course, but less than four years later, John Wayne would be gone. He would make only one more movie, the classic The Shootist. He gave few intimations of mortality that night, merrily holding forth with a glass of tequila in his hand. But the next day, suffering, he admitted, a monstrous hangover, he was more reflective.

  “Now I have yachting friends and tennis friends,” he said of his life in Newport Beach. “I try not to get caught up in a little group where—where it really hurts to lose someone. When (silent western star) Harry Carey died, that was a great loss. I was a younger man then, and it was a shock to find that people die.”

  “But now we know they do.”

  We know all too well. Hail and farewell, John Wayne, and y
ou too, Vallée B. I could not have made it through without the two of you.

  Coming Soon

  A New Tree Callister Adventure

  Another Sanibel

  Sunset Detective

  Read Ron’s blog at

  Ronbase.wordpress.com

  e-mail Ron at

  ronbase@ronbase.com

  Check out The Sanibel Sunset Detective Website

  ronbase@ronbase.com