Longboat Blues

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “Why do you say that, Dewey?”

  “Well, it was obvious that they was in love, or at least had something going. They’d sit here alone and hold hands and talk. You know how quiet it gets in here on week nights after everybody’s finished with happy hour.”

  “I never guessed they were a pair,” I said. “Logan told me after Connie’s death, but I got the impression they were just two people who met in the night occasionally.”

  “I don’t think so, Matt. There seemed to be more to it than that.”

  “Was Logan in here alone the night of the murder?”

  “Well, Connie wasn’t with him, but there was a man sitting with him for a little while. I don’t think they had but one drink a piece, and then they left.”

  “Did you know the man he was with?”

  “No, but he’d been in here a few times. I guess he was a tourist. I never saw him again after that night.”

  “Do you remember what time they left?”

  “It was before closing. You know, if I don’t have entertainment, I have to close at midnight. Some kinda stupid liquor law. And they was gone sometime before I closed. The place was busy that night, and noisy. After Logan left, everybody seemed to head home. I remember a couple of the fishermen from Cortez came in and got into an argument over their first drink. They had been somewhere else first I guess, ‘cause they was flying low when they got here. You know I don’t put up with that kinda crap, so I sent ‘em packing, and closed early. Logan probably left here around eleven.”

  “Did Logan and the man come in together?” I asked.

  “No, the other guy had been here for a couple of hours, sipping beer. He called Logan by name and they seemed to know each other. They were laughin’ and cuttin’ up, and then they left.”

  “Logan may have gone down to Frisco’s after he left here. Do you know anybody over there?” I asked.

  “You’ll want to talk to Slim Jim Martin. He owns the place and tends bar. He’s tall and skinny and mean as hell, and nobody messes with him much. He keeps a baseball bat under the bar in case he needs to quiet things down.”

  “You’re sure Logan left around eleven?” I asked.

  “Pretty sure. What’s this all about Matt?”

  “I’m trying to trace Logan’s route that night. I need to find the man he was drinking with, and maybe establish an alibi.”

  “I heard you was comin’ out of retirement. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “No. But I don’t seem to have much choice right now. Maybe when things settle down, Logan can get a real lawyer.”

  “I wasn’t suggestin’ you weren’t no real lawyer, Matt. I hear things, and I heard you used to have a pretty big reputation.”

  “Well, I quit, Dewey. Maybe I won’t have to take this case all the way in. We’ll see. I gotta go. If you happen to see the guy Logan was with that night, give me a call, OK?”

  “Bet your ass, boy. I hope you can save Logan’s bacon.”

  I had never been to Frisco’s, and did not know anybody there. It was nearing five o’clock, so I decided to walk the block down Bridge Street and see if Slim Jim could be of any help. It had already been a long time since the murder, and I knew that the more time that went by, the dimmer memories would get.

  Frisco’s was dark and small. There was a bar along one end of the room, with seven or eight stools taking up the space. A few tables were crowded into the rest of the space. This was a place for drinking. Nothing else. No pool, no music, no ambience.

  A man who probably stood six feet five and weighed 150 pounds was behind the bar. Two old guys in tee shirts huddled over glasses filled with dark whiskey at a table in the corner, not talking or reacting to anything. They reminded me of two cats sitting in a yard, side by side, seemingly oblivious to each other. I had always wondered if the cats had some sort of extra sensory perception that allowed them to communicate without words or gestures. I doubted that the old timers in the corner had that faculty.

  “Are you Jim?” I asked, as I slid onto a bar stool.

  “Yep, what’ll you have.”

  “Got a Miller Lite?”

  “Yep.”

  He put the bottle in front of me, and was turning away, when I said, “Got a minute, Jim?”

  “Yep.”

  A man of few words, I thought. “I’m Matt Royal. Dewey Clanton told me you might be willing to help me out with a problem.”

  “I doubt it, but if you’re a friend of Dewey’s, I’ll do what I can. She just called. Said you were coming in.”

  “Do you know Logan Hamilton?

  “Nope.”

  “I showed him the picture of Logan.”

  “Yeah, I know him. Didn’t know his name was Logan. Didn’t he just get indicted for killing that chick a month or so back?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Man. I never made the connection between this dude and Logan. I knew the chick too.”

  “You did?” I was surprised.

  “Knew her to see her. She came in a couple of times with your buddy there,” he said, pointing to the picture.

  I showed him the picture of Connie. “Is this the woman?”

  “Yep. I recognized her picture in the paper when she got killed.”

  I remembered that both the Bradenton and Sarasota papers had run pictures of Connie with the story about murder on Longboat Key. I never figured out where they got the picture, but it was the same one in both papers.

  “Do you remember the last time you saw Logan in here?”

  “Yep.”

  “When?” This was getting to be a difficult fact finding mission.

  “Are you a cop?”

  “No. I’m a just a friend of Logan’s trying to help him out of this jam.”

  “The night the chick was murdered.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked at me, exasperated. “That was the last time I saw your buddy.”

  “How is it that you remember that?”

  “Well, he was drinking double scotches with a buddy, and getting drunk as hell. The buddy left, and he had a couple more and left. A couple days later I saw the picture in the paper and remembered that this guy and the chick would come in together some. It just stuck in my mind that he was here on the same night the chick got killed.”

  “Do you know who he was with that night?” I asked.

  “Nope. Never saw him before or since. And I got a good memory for faces.”

  “Do you remember what time he left?”

  “Nope. Is it important?”

  “Real important.”

  “When was she killed?”

  “The night of April 15.”

  “Hang on a minute,” he said, and disappeared through a door behind the bar.

  I sat, nursing my beer. The old timers hadn’t said a word since I came in, and I don’t think they’d moved either.

  Jim came back through the door, holding what appeared to be a receipt. “I remember that your buddy was the last guy out that night, and I locked the door as soon as he left. I always go to the bank next door and deposit the money in the ATM. Here’s the receipt for that deposit.”

  I looked at the receipt. It was time stamped for 1:44 A.M., April 16.

  “How long was Logan here that night?” I asked.

  “Couple of hours, maybe a little longer.”

  “Thanks. Can you hold on to this receipt for me? It might be important.”

  “I’ve got every receipt I ever got,” he said. “You know, banks will screw you every chance they get.”

  I thanked him and left. The old codgers in the corner were as still as stone.

  I drove back across the bridge onto Longboat Key, and about four miles further to the Golden Beach Inn. It was not quite 6:00, and I knew the general manager would be having his after-work drink in the bar near the indoor pool. I parked, walked through the lobby and out onto the covered pool deck. The pool bar was suspended above the pool, accessible only by a circular wrough
t iron staircase. There were two visitors sitting at one end smoking cigars, and a boy of about ten eating a pizza at a table in the corner. One of the men would occasionally look over at the child and say something.

  My quarry was at the opposite end of the bar, hunched over a tall glass of amber liquid. He was a big man in a rumpled suit and a five o’clock shadow. He wore a large class ring on his left ring finger, advertising that he had graduated from some Midwestern university known mostly for its football team. He glanced at me as I took the stool next to him.

  “Hello, Matt,” he said.

  “How you doing, Keith,” I said.

  “Not bad. We’ve got the summertime blues around here, but we’re doing better than last year.”

  “Good. Did you ever find a replacement for Connie?”

  “Yeah. She’s not as good as Connie, but she’s okay. I was surprised to see that Logan killed her.”

  “He didn’t Keith,” I said. “He’s been accused, but I don’t think they’ll be able to bring him to trial.”

  “Well, all I know is what I read in the paper.”

  “That’s not always the best source,” I said. “I want to find Connie’s ex-husband, Keith. Can I have a look at Connie’s personnel file?”

  “I don’t see why not. She won’t mind.” Keith Hastings was a dour man who had come to the key a couple of years before to manage the Golden Beach Inn. He did not live on Longboat and had never been friendly with the locals. He had hit on Connie a few times, and once, when Connie ran into him on the mainland in a bar, he had become abusive. He told Connie that she was a goddam tease, and that he was going to have her one way or another. He apologized the next morning, and Connie had let it slide. She said he was a good boss who let her do what she was supposed to do without interfering. That, according to Connie, overcame his occasionally hitting on her.

  I had met him a number of times in this very bar, where he came every day that he worked. He would have one drink on the house, drop a two dollar tip for the bartender, and leave. No one knew if he had a social life, but it was rumored that he had left a wife and family somewhere up north.

  “It might help me to get a lead on who killed her,” I said. “I think she would have wanted us to do everything we could to clear Logan.”

  “Sure,” he said, and finished off his drink in one swallow.

  In his office Keith pulled Connie’s personnel file from a large filing cabinet setting against one wall. “You can look through this, and I’ll make you copies of anything you want,” he said.

  It was a thin file, containing an application, a letter from the registrar at Northwestern University, attesting that Connie had received a Bachelor’s degree in social work twelve years before. She had gone to work at the Golden Beach four years before, and made $30,000 per year at the time of her death. She received job performance reviews every six months, and both Keith Hastings and his predecessor had given her top marks for a job well done.

  “I’d like a copy of her application and the letter from Northwestern,” I said. Do you have anymore information on her in another file, maybe?”

  “No, that’s it. We’ve tightened up some on our personnel policies since I took over, but I didn’t bother the employees who were doing a good job. Our later hires have a much more extensive background check.”

  “I appreciate this, Keith. Can I buy you a drink?” I asked.

  “No thanks. I’ve got to get home. Some other time.”

  “Any time, Keith. Thanks again,” I said.

  I went back to the bar for another beer, and a little conversation with the bartender whom I had known casually over the years. “Darlene,” I said, “Does Keith ever have more that the one beer here?”

  “I’ve seen him drink himself silly on two or three occasions. He was always in a foul mood when he did. Usually, though, he just has the one beer. I think he’s one of those mean drunks who knows it, and usually controls his drinking.”

  “When was the last time he got drunk here?”

  “Several weeks ago. I don’t remember just when.”

  “Anyway to find out? It might be important on a case I’m involved in.”

  “Every drink I serve is put into the computer attached to my register. If my computer doesn’t jibe with the number of drinks sold the night before, I’ll hear about it from the food and beverage guys. I can probably figure out the date, because I always put Keith’s drinks under a management category. Let those guys figure out how to charge it.”

  She went to her computer terminal and worked the keys. “April 15,” she said. “I remember now, because I thought he was probably pissed about his taxes.”

  I sat in my living room, reviewing the application. The sun was setting in the west, casting a burnt orange reflection off the white clouds hanging above the bay. The tide was out, and through the glass doors I could see an egret wading in the shallows looking for a meal. He would stand very still for a long time, and then in the blink of an eye, drop his head into the water, and come up with a small fish in his beak. He would tilt his head, and the fish would slide down his throat. He would be there for hours, I knew. A bird of great patience.

  The information on the application was slim. Connie had been born 34 years before in Rockford, Illinois, and graduated from high school there. She had finished Northwestern in four years, and worked for two years for a foundation that ran a homeless shelter in Chicago. She had apparently married then, because for the next six years she listed her occupation as housewife. The Golden Beach manager had not written to the foundation for a recommendation, probably because of the passage of so much time.

  In the block for emergency contact, she had written “none” and then explained that her parents were dead and that she had been an only child. She had no known relatives.

  I had the feeling that the only person who would have wanted Connie dead was her ex-husband. I knew a little about spouse abusers from past cases, and I knew they were an unwholesome bunch. They were usually on some sort of power trip, and felt that their wives should be under their thumbs at all times. It was not that unusual for a man with a history of abusing his wife to go off the deep end when she screwed up the courage to leave him. A lot of homicides were committed by these men, who felt betrayed by the object of their abuse. This was the reason why most abuse shelters were hidden. The people who ran them were aware of the husband’s propensity for lethal violence and wanted to protect the poor woman.

  If Connie’s ex-husband had found out where she was living, he might have come looking for her. It was the only scenario that made sense. Unless Keith was in the picture somehow. He had made a few runs at Connie, and was threatening when drunk. I wondered if there was mere coincidence in his getting drunk on the key on the very night Connie was killed. I didn’t think Connie had any enemies, and I didn’t think Logan killed her, not even by accident during rough sex.

  I took off my thinking cap and headed for O’Sullivan’s for a dinner of wings and beer. I know, its not a nutritionally balanced meal.

  Chapter 10

  By the time I finished my jog on the beach and read the paper the next morning, it was almost ten o’clock , nine in Evanston, Illinois. I called the Chicago area information operator. A computer gave me the number of the Alumni office at Northwestern University and informed me that for 85 cents more, it would dial the number. Bad deal. I hung up and dialed the number myself. When you’re retired you have to be careful of these extra little expenses.

  When the phone was answered I explained that I was trying to find an address of an alumna and wondered whom I needed to talk to. The young lady on the other end of the phone explained that they did not give out that information, and I asked to talk to whomever was in charge. “That would be Mrs. Cooper,” the voice said, and sent me into the nether world of modern communications. I listened to a Puccini opera coming over the wire until it was abruptly cut off by another voice, “This is Mrs. Cooper.”

  “Mrs. Cooper, my name is Ma
tt Royal. I’m a lawyer down in Longboat Key, Florida, and I’m investigating the death of one of your graduates. I was hoping I could get the last address you had for her.”

  “Oh my goodness. I’m always sorry to hear that one of our people has passed on. What was his name?”

  “Actually, it was a woman named Connie Sanborne. She graduated there about twelve years ago.”

  “She was young, then. How did she die, if I might ask?”

  “She was murdered, Mrs. Cooper.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m afraid we have rules against giving out the kind of information you’re looking for.”

  “I guess that rule is to keep solicitors from bothering alumni, but that won’t be a problem for Connie,” I said.

  “Well, Mr. Royal, a rule is a rule, you know. If I broke it for you, I would have to break it for everyone.”

  Ah, I thought, the last refuge of the bureaucratic mind. “Would you let me speak to whoever is in charge up there?”

  “Why, I’m in charge, sir. I’m the alumni director.”

  “Would it help if our chief of police told you about Connie’s murder and vouched for me?”

  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” she said.

  “Would you call him at the station and then call me back?”

  “Alright, Mr. Royal. I guess I can do that much.”

  I gave her the police department’s number and hung up. She called me back in about twenty minutes.

  “I talked to Chief Lester,” she said. “He was very nice and told me I could trust you.”

  “Thank you for your effort.”

  “I pulled Connie’s file. This is the second time her death was reported, but it was a mistake the first time.”

  “That’s odd,” I said. “What was that all about?”

  “About four years ago we got a letter from her husband telling us that Connie had died and we should remove her name from our mailing list. A few days later we got a letter from Connie telling us that she had divorced her husband and taken her maiden name back. She also said that if we heard from him that she was dead, not to believe it. She gave us a new address.”