The Last Breath

by Danny Lopez

  “Just checking out the beach,” I said, sounding obvious and stupid. “Saw a bunch of cops over at Liam’s place.”

  The two fishermen and Keith glanced back toward the parking lot. Liam’s cottage was on the other side of it, on the other side of the lagoon and the road. “Yeah,” Keith said. “I saw. Guess they’re looking into the drowning.”

  “I guess.” I didn’t know if he was referring to Liam or Jaybird. I left it open—for now.

  The two men ignored us, stared at the sea. About thirty yards out on the ocean, a small flock of seagulls floated, squawked, and dove into the water, fishing.

  “You ever find Liam’s kayak?” Keith said.

  I shook my head. “I’m told it could’ve drifted all the way to Venice.”

  “Totally possible.” He took a long sip of beer, then pointed at the cooler. “You wanna cold one?”

  “I’m good.”

  One of the fishermen took a few steps forward, feet in the water. I nodded toward Midnight Pass. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Keith glanced at the fishermen then turned and started walking south. I took a few quick steps to catch up. We walked side by side. I kept to the wet sand, an inch or two of water.

  “I can’t find Jaybird,” I said. I imagined that, despite the cops crawling over Liam’s cottage like ants, Keith had no idea Jaybird had been killed. The brief in the paper didn’t name him. For now, he was just a John Doe.

  “Did you try the Salty Dog last night?”

  “Yeah. And he wasn’t at the drum circle, either.”

  “That’s weird,” he said and let out a nasal chuckle. “Unless he shacked up with some babe.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Jaybird’s his own person, you know. Free as a bird.”

  “I like him. He has … character.”

  Keith laughed. “That he does. But not everyone takes to him.”

  “Can’t imagine him having any enemies.”

  He stopped, shook his head. “Enemies? Dude …”

  I laughed and let it pass. “I mean, people who don’t like him.”

  “Everyone’s got some of those, brah.”

  “People who dislike them?”

  He shrugged and started walking again. “But people are people, man. Like in winter. Sometimes we get some mighty righteous waves down at Blind Pass. But you get some surfers down there from Englewood and shit—think the beach belongs to them.”

  “I don’t surf.”

  “Well, there ain’t no need for anyone to be nasty, brah. The ocean is vast.”

  “I always thought surfers were a friendly bunch.”

  He laughed. “Most are. But not when it comes to waves. People can be total assholes—even surfers, yeah?”

  “There are assholes everywhere, I guess.”

  He pointed at me with his beer can. “That’s the thing, brah. That’s the thing.”

  “So,” I finally said, getting into what I really wanted to talk about. “I was at the Ritz-Carlton yesterday.”

  “Yeah?” He leaned down and picked up a Styrofoam cup and a candy bar wrapper and shoved them in his shorts pocket. “Why do people have to litter?”

  “Keith, about the Ritz?”

  “Yeah, fancy digs, that place, no?”

  “You know it?”

  “Yeah.” He laughed that nasal laugh, like he was mocking the place. “Though I don’t really hang out there. Not my style.”

  “You didn’t see me?”

  “What?”

  “Yesterday. I saw you there. I tried to catch up with you.”

  “I was working.”

  “You work there?”

  “No way.” He laughed again, took a sip of his beer, kept walking, his arms swinging freely. “I work for myself, brah. Rent boards and kayaks, yeah?”

  “Right.”

  He said nothing more. I waited. He took another sip of his beer, tilting the can all the way, draining it. Finally, I said, “So what were you doing there?”

  “Meeting clients.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “People see my ad, call me up. We meet and make a plan. I rent them boards, lead a group, whatever.”

  “I see.”

  He stopped walking. Turned around. The two fishermen were small figures like toys in the sand.

  “I work.” His words had a sharp edge to them, his head forward as he poked his chest with the empty can. “I have a family. An ex-wife, two kids. I love my kids, man. I support them in every way. It ain’t easy, and sometimes you feel like just bailing. But not this cowboy. I’d do anything for them.”

  “And the Ritz?”

  “Shit. So sometimes I sneak into the hotels to meet the clients. We’re not supposed to solicit guests. Not here at the beach and not at the Ritz fucking Carlton. So they call my cell, we make an appointment. I meet them at the ramp or Lido. But tourists that don’t know the area sometimes ask me to come to their hotel or to meet them at Starbucks. Gotta be discreet, though.”

  “Look, Keith—”

  “I was meeting a group of tourists, alright?”

  “Hey. I was just asking.”

  He stared at me a moment, then started walking back to Turtle Beach. “What’s the fucking problem, brah?”

  “I saw Mrs. Fleming there.”

  “So what the fuck, brah?”

  “I thought maybe …”

  “You think me and her …” He laughed …“that we were doing the nasty? Man, your imagination’s working overtime, brah.”

  “I’m sorry. It just struck me as odd.”

  He looked to the side, focused on my eyes. “I got a call from a tourist. Two families from some place in Michigan heard about the mangrove tunnels in Lido and wanted to go out on kayaks. But they wanted to talk to me first, look at the map. It’s just business. But it’s against the policy of the Ritz.”

  For that brief instant, during that defensive monologue, it seemed his surfer drawl had disappeared. “Where did you meet them?”

  “At the hotel, brah. I just told you.”

  “What part?”

  “At the bar, man. We sat at one of the tables in the back and made a plan. That’s all.” He stopped walking. “Why am I even explaining this shit to you, brah?”

  “Look,” I said, “I’m just trying to find out about Liam. And now it seems Jaybird’s disappeared.”

  He stared at me, his blue eyes piercing through me as if he were looking for something hidden in the back of my brain. “Well that Jaybird ain’t the type that hangs out at the Ritz, brah.”

  I raised my hand, held it up between the two of us. “Don’t get me wrong, Keith.”

  Then his face froze. “You think Jaybird … Oh, brah, really? You think he did Liam in?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “But I can’t find him.”

  “Dude.”

  We started walking again. “I don’t know what to make of it,” I said.

  “Why don’t you just let the cops do their job?”

  “I am.”

  “Jaybird’s a strange little dude. Maybe he had like a double personality or something.”

  “Maybe.”

  We were coming closer to the two fishermen. Behind them the crowd at Turtle Beach had thinned out. A single engine Cessna flew over Siesta Beach to the north pulling a banner behind it.

  “Those two guys you’re hanging with,” I said. “They surf?”

  “No way, brah.” He laughed and tossed his head to the side, moved his hair out of his eyes. “They just fish. And not very well.”

  “Good friends?”

  “Just beach people, brah. We hang out.” He raised his empty beer can. “Gave me a cold one. Can’t say they’re not cool.”

  “The brotherhood of the beach,” I said.

  “No shit.” He touched my arm with the can and nodded. “The brotherhood of the beach. That’s who we are, brah.”

  CHAPTER 23

  I LEFT KEITH and the fishermen at Turtle Beach and g
ot in my car, cranked the AC, and waited for it to cool off. When I pulled out of the parking lot, I turned right on Midnight Pass Road just to check out the action at Liam’s house. There was still activity, but just one crime scene van, a cruiser, and the unmarked Grand Marquis.

  I went a little farther down and made a tight U-turn at Ophelia’s on the Bay and drove back north, passing the house again.

  My instinct kept screaming that Keith was guilty. But my brain kept getting in the way. Brandy Fleming wasn’t Liam’s real mother. And from the sounds of it, Liam didn’t spend any time with his father—or Brandy. So why would he care, tell his old man about Brandy’s affair?

  And then there was Jaybird. How did his murder play into that scenario?

  It was just after three in the afternoon. I drove to Tessa’s apartment. There was no answer at the door. I walked the few blocks to the Old Salty Dog. Things were quiet. Just a few tables. It was that time of day when restaurants seem to catch their breaths after the lunch rush. A change of shifts: a slow winding down from the first and a slow prepping for dinner of the second. In this town, with all the old people, dinnertime started at about five p.m. with early bird specials beginning at four.

  A waiter was moving from table to table, checking ketchup bottles and salt and pepper shakers, wiping down tabletops with a rag, tucking in chairs. The woman who’d been working as a hostess last night was parked at the wait station near the kitchen, rolling silverware into paper napkins. The bartender, a lean white guy with a hipster haircut gelled to the side, was folded over the counter, carefully slicing limes into neat wedges.

  I sat on a stool. I was the only one there. When I inquired, the hipster bartender said Tessa had the night shift. Came in at five. I asked for a pint of the JDub’s and a plate of fish and chips.

  After I ate, Felipe came out of the kitchen wearing a long white apron, his hair in a black net. He sat beside me, looked straight ahead at the bottles of booze on the shelves. “So, you find anything about Jaybird?”

  I shook my head. “But the cops are all over it.”

  “Good. I hope they catch the motherfucker.”

  “Me, too.”

  He sniffled and looked to both sides, left and right. We were alone except for the bartender who was at the far end of the bar, his back to us, stocking his condiment rack with olives, maraschino cherries, cocktail onions, sliced pineapple triangles, and strawberries.

  “Jaybird was a simple guy,” Felipe said quietly. “But what I don’t understand is why he get so pissed off about Beach Road.”

  I pushed my plate away and looked at him. “The county wanted to take away his beach.”

  Felipe shook his head. “I know is about the beach. But is also about the houses. He was very angry when some rich guy buy a house on Beach Road.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “One night last summer, we were out back taking a break, smoking a little mota, no? And Jaybird very angry. I say, ‘que pasa,’ and he say, ‘Some piece of shit rich fuck wanna buy up Beach Road.’”

  Liam and Terrence Oliver. Beach City Holdings.

  “I say to him take it easy,” Felipe went on. “There is plenty of beach for all, no?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But I get him. Developers are taking away the beach, the views. One day there’ll be nothing left for the rest of us.”

  The average residents were losing the battle. Our representatives were selling out to the developers. Always. When the building boom exploded in downtown Sarasota a couple decades ago, they passed a noise ordinance to appease the condo owners. A friend explained it to me a while back. Behind the ordinance were a couple real estate guys who were having a hard time moving units. The noise ordinance took care of that. No loud music after eleven p.m. meant no more clubs and bars. No more live music. The people that brought downtown back from the dead were kicked out by the developers, the real estate agents—and city council.

  Now there was this little stretch of road that was not even a road. Our county commissioners were making a gift to the homeowners across the beach. Liam and Terrence Oliver and whoever owned the third house were poised to receive a stretch of oceanfront property. Everyone else lost.

  I didn’t get it. Who in the hell was buying all of these multimillion-dollar one-bedroom condominiums?

  Felipe shrugged. “A couple of months later the county decide to close the road. That’s when Jaybird start the petition to stop them. Make a big fight for them.”

  Weird. Maybe Jaybird didn’t know he was protesting against Liam. Two friends at opposite ends of a battle. Liam knew about Jaybird. But Jaybird didn’t know about Liam and Beach City Holdings. Unless of course, he did.

  No. I couldn’t see Jaybird killing Liam. And then who killed Jaybird?

  Felipe pushed himself off the stool and gave me a pat on the back. “I go back to work,” he said and disappeared down the steps back to the kitchen.

  The bartender pointed at my empty glass. “Another?”

  I shook my head. “Just the check.”

  But I really wanted to stay because I wanted to hang with Tessa. I wanted to sit at the bar of the Old Salty Dog and talk with her, try to figure out if Jaybird knew Liam owned Beach City Holdings—if he knew he was protesting against his best friend’s investment.

  That’s when Rachel Mann called.

  “What’s up?”

  “Copek’s happy hour thing,” she said. “You’re going, right?”

  “Shit.” I’d completely forgotten about the event. And it had been my idea: Charley’s guests would write slogans for the beer, and whoever had the best slogan got a free case of Siesta IPA. The little contest would free me up from writing slogans for him. Besides, I had promised Brian Farinas a few drinks.

  I’d had my head buried in the sand—literally. Three days in Siesta trying to figure out this mess: Liam and Jaybird. And Tessa. Now the other part of my life was catching up with me.

  “Swing by and pick me up,” Rachel said.

  “What’s wrong with your car?”

  “Nothing, but I’m drinking. And we’re going to the Cock & Bull later to check out Dana’s band, right?”

  “I don’t know.” I was thinking of Tessa, the case.

  “Come on, Dex. Be cool.”

  “It’s not that.” I glanced at my watch; it was still early. “I was going to catch the sunset at the beach.”

  Rachel laughed. “Since when?”

  “It’s just—”

  “Got a romantic date?”

  “No. I—” But she was right. I wasn’t going to catch the sunset. And it wasn’t a date. It was Tessa. I just wanted to sit with her, enjoy her company. It had nothing to do with Liam and Jaybird.

  “All right,” I said, trying to man up to my responsibilities. “I’ll be at your place in an hour.”

  Before heading out of the key, I drove by Tessa’s place. She wasn’t in—or didn’t want to open the door. Then I drove up to Beach Road. I parked a block away where the road ended and became that tiny stretch of sand and asphalt.

  I made my way up to the end where it ended and back, looked at the three houses. There wasn’t much to them. Small, old-school cottages from the forties or fifties: one story, concrete block, small windows. In another neighborhood, they would be worth a hundred grand, maybe less. Once, a long time ago, that was Siesta Key.

  But I guess that was everywhere.

  You can’t stop progress. You can’t paralyze the future. And it wasn’t as if everything was perfect back in the day, in the fifties or the sixties—or even a few years ago. It’s strange how we cling to a past, to the way things were. Nostalgia is a peculiar bird.

  I sat on a rock on the beach side of the washed-out road. The sun burned down on me without mercy. Clouds far to the north and east. Maybe today we’d be spared the summer afternoon storm.

  Maybe not.

  At least there was a pleasant breeze. A group of tourists on pastel-colored beach cruiser bikes came riding to the end of the
road and stopped. Their faces glowing red. One of them pointed to the water. They got off their bikes and pushed them onto the beach to where there used to be an old concrete pier. Yeah, a long time ago. Now it was just rocks. On one side, a gang of teenagers hung out smoking and drinking and having a good time.

  This was what Jaybird was fighting for. This was what he wanted to keep.

  I walked to the other side of the road where the property to one of the houses began with a small low fence about three feet high. I counted the steps across the road: ten steps, about twelve feet. There was a sign in the yard of one of the houses: Private Property Keep Off.

  I imagined a fence or a wall separating the properties from the beach and the place where the road started again toward the Village. Even if they allowed a path for beach access, a wall or signs telling people to stay off would limit the openness of this part of the beach. Past the road on the beachfront were a few low condos ending with the Terrace, that big seven-story monster on the corner where Ocean Boulevard ended and met Beach Road.

  Problem was, some realtors promised homebuyers they owned the beach in front of their house, but it’s not that simple. Florida’s coastline is public. In some parts, like Point of Rocks and North Lido, when the storms come and erode the sand, the beach becomes narrow, sometimes right up to the property lines. In order to pass, people are forced to walk over the backyards, pissing off the homeowners. All the county commissioners and the State can do is spend millions of tax dollars to re-nourish the beach by pumping sand back from the sea. Tax dollars mean public property: public beach.

  No. You can’t beat nature at its own game.

  CHAPTER 24

  RACHEL’S LITTLE GARAGE apartment off Osprey Avenue was nice and cool. She’d had her AC running on high all day, so when I walked in, I got a whoosh of freezing dry air. Her couch was covered in camera gear.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “For tonight,” she said. “I have to take pictures at Copek’s and the Funky Donkeys at the Cock & Bull.”

  “For work?”

  “Copek is work. The band is a favor. For Dana.”

  “So you guys getting back together?”

  She grinned. “Kind of.”