The Last Breath

by Danny Lopez

  I raised my hands to stop him. “You’re not making any sense, Cody. Can you tell it from the start?”

  He let out a sad, broken chuckle. “When the fuck did it all begin?”

  “Did you kill Liam and Jaybi—Terrence Oliver?”

  He looked at the camera. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it and bowed his head and nodded. “I fucked up.”

  CHAPTER 36

  IT WAS NOON when I finally left the Sheriff’s Office at the County Building on Ringling Boulevard and took an Uber to my place. I made a quick sandwich with stale bread, got a cold Siesta IPA, and sat at my computer to write a brief report for Bob Fleming.

  Mimi jumped up on my desk and lay there purring on a swath of sun. Outside, the sky was clear. In the empty lot catty-corner from my house there was still the big sign for Dieter and Waxler’s nine-story condo building that would never get built. And across the sign in big block letters it still urged buyers to hurry: 90 Percent Sold!

  A historic bungalow was gone and in its place was a flat square of lies. It had all been for nothing. And if Alex Trainor had had his way, he’d have a few million in the Caymans and there’d be a lot of unsatisfied condo owners standing at the end of my street wondering where their building had gone. I only hoped whoever ended up with the lot would build a nice little house, something quaint that jived with the neighborhood.

  I finished my sandwich, took a long sip of my beer, and reread my report:

  According to Cody Harkin, the man who has confessed to murdering Liam and his business partner, Terrence Oliver, it all began in April when Liam’s company, Beach City Holdings, purchased a house on Beach Road in Siesta Key from a man named George Finney.

  Mr. Harkin had invested his life savings with a real estate developer, Alex Trainor, who had purchased the house adjacent to Mr. Finney a few years earlier. When Beach City Holdings purchased that house, it foiled Mr. Trainor’s development plan to build a condominium in the double lot he would have otherwise owned, causing Mr. Harkin to lose—or at least block—his investment.

  According to Mr. Harkin, Mr. Trainor said something to the effect of, “If Beach City Holdings was out of the way, we could proceed.”

  Mr. Harkin, desperate to turn a profit on his investment, took those words literally and on the night of July 9th of this year, he suffocated Liam in his sleep using a pillow, then he tossed his body into the Intracoastal.

  Almost two weeks later, and a day after I was hired by you, Mr. Harkin hit Terrence over the head with a hammer, tied his leg to a cinderblock, and threw him into the Intracoastal.

  It appears as if Mr. Trainor was running a scam, selling fraudulent real estate. This part of the case is currently being investigated by the authorities. Both Mr. Harkin and Mr. Trainor are in custody.

  I finished the note offering my condolences with a little personal note wishing Mr. Fleming a quick recovery and that I hoped he would find happiness in the future.

  Maybe it was too thick and syrupy, but I felt like the poor man didn’t deserve such suffering. I didn’t know if he’d stay with Brandy. I certainly wouldn’t. But most people cannot stand being alone. And as someone who had a distant relationship with his own daughter, I can understand his effort to get close to Liam.

  There was a lesson in there somewhere—a bunch of them, actually. Certainly, I knew I did not want to find myself estranged from Zoe in the future. I didn’t want her telling her husband or her children how her father was never there for her. I made a note to put more effort into our relationship, even if Nancy protested. I just needed to talk with her, listen and give her support—everything Bob Fleming did not do for his son.

  I set up a spreadsheet with my expenses for the job and included the automobile damage my poor Subaru had suffered thanks to Brandy Fleming’s pill pushers, all of which happened during the course of the investigation. It was a legitimate expense. But I knew a guy who knew a guy in Bradenton who did pretty good bodywork on the cheap. I guestimated the damage at about two grand. Then I printed out the report and my expense sheet and drove over to the corner of Palm Avenue and Main Street to see Pearlman.

  “He’s not in,” Vivian said and invited me to sit.

  “I guess he’s got his work cut out for him,” I said.

  “He always does.”

  “Is Mr. Fleming okay?”

  “He’s at the Betty Ford Clinic in California,” she said with a wave of her hand. “He’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

  I handed her the envelope with my report and expenses. “It’s all in there. Explains the murders.”

  She set it on the side table next to her chair and locked eyes with me. “Thank you,” she said. Both of us like old friends sitting in the two cushy high-back chairs. All we were lacking were martinis and cigars.

  “It’s my job.”

  “You think they’ll also charge Alex Trainor with the murders?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “I can’t excuse Cody Harkin—Cap’n Cody. I mean, he did kill Liam and Jaybird, right? But Trainor was pulling the strings. Cody was just a sucker, thought he was making an investment, then worked himself into a corner. His life savings were gone. Trainor, on the other hand … That son of a bitch deserves some kind of punishment.”

  “All for a little piece of the beach,” Vivian said, shaking her head.

  “It’s more than that,” I said. “Trainor was a real piece of work. He convinced Cap’n Cody to invest with him. The old guy sold his guitar collection, whatever investments he had for retirement. Everything. He used the money for a down payment on the first house at the start of that stretch of Beach Road a couple years back.”

  “Why did Harkin go for it?”

  “He’s a fixture in the Village. I guess he’s been there for years. He knew Frank Finney. He knew the old guy was sick. He knew he was going to either sell or die. I guess he figured it was a done deal. It was just a matter of waiting.”

  “That’s where Liam came in,” she said.

  “Yeah, when Liam bought that house, it stopped their plans.”

  Vivian crossed her legs, leaned forward on her chair. “Why didn’t Trainor just sell the house and split the profit with Harkin?”

  “’Cause he’s a slimeball. The son of a bitch had a bigger scam going. He borrowed on the house.”

  “So it was underwater.”

  I nodded. “He set up this shell corporation, Dieter and Waxler, bought an old bungalow, which so happened to be in my neighborhood. He flattened it and put up a sign for a future luxury condo and started selling pre-construction.”

  “He never intended to build it?”

  I shook my head. “But I think the cops will have a hard time proving that.”

  “Wow.” She sat back on her chair and touched her chin with the tip of her fingers. “The whole beachfront property was never really going to be developed?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “Maybe if he’d bought the Finney house, he might’ve run another scam.”

  “Or maybe he would’ve built it. I mean with the county commission talking about closing Beach Road …”

  “Well, that’s another thing,” I said. “Apparently our good county commissioner Troy Varnel is now being investigated for fraud.”

  “He was in on it with Trainor?”

  I nodded. “Took a nice little bribe to get behind the closing of Beach Road.”

  “Well, someone else’ll build something there,” she said.

  “In the downtown lot?”

  “Sure, and on the Beach Road properties.”

  Sadly, Vivian was right. That was how it was going to be. That was how it always was. Del Pino had said a trust had been set up for the properties. I had no doubt they would eventually sell out to a developer. Or maybe they would buy Trainor’s house on the corner and develop the last piece of unobstructed ocean view in Siesta Key. Except now they probably wouldn’t close Beach Road.

  “You can’t beat progress,” I said.

  “That’s what they
say.”

  CHAPTER 37

  ON SUNDAY AT sunset I went to the beach for Jaybird’s celebration of life. It was probably the nicest day we’d had all year. The clouds weren’t threatening rain and there was a breeze that kept the temperature at a tolerable level. The drum circle was bigger than I’d ever seen it—even for a Sunday. The huge crowd extended from the sea oats almost all the way to the lifeguard station.

  And forget somber. This was a party. The drumming, as disrupting and out of rhythm as always, made some kind of sense this time. It seemed to jive in some place where order and disorder meet and people simply live by emotions and good vibes.

  I sat on the sand and closed my eyes and listened, felt the vibrations against my ribs and the breeze against my face. I could hear the laughter of the children and the song of the ocean behind me as small waves lapped against the sugary sands of the Siesta Beach. And for a moment I felt this immense sense of peace, something I’d never felt before or since.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw Tessa inside the drum circle tapping Jaybird’s old ratty djembe drum. After a moment, she passed it to the young man sitting next to her. He began tapping it and shaking his head left and right to the rhythm of the circle. Tessa wiped the tears from her eyes and stood. The young man with the drum passed it to the person next to him. Like that, Jaybird’s drum went around in a circle until the older lady sitting next to me passed it to me. I placed it between my legs and tapped with my eyes closed. I could see Jaybird on the day I met him for the first time. He was smiling up at me, staring at my scarred ear. He was as real as life. Maybe he’d really had the key to happiness. Unlike Bob Fleming who’d pursued a career and money, Jaybird had pursued a lifestyle, one of friends and nature and personal freedom—and of a place he loved.

  After a moment, I had this strange feeling that he was nodding at me. That he understood that I understood. And that I’d said goodbye. I stopped drumming and caressed the drum once over the tight skin and passed it to the person sitting next to me.

  The sun went down in a spectacular sunset. The array of clouds splashed in warm hues of orange and the sky took on this light iridescent blue. Willow, the hippie girl who’d pointed out Jaybird to me almost two weeks ago, walked to the center of the circle and gestured for everyone to quiet down.

  “This is a great day for Jaybird,” she said. “We’re gathered to celebrate the life of a man who brought us together as human beings and taught us to protect nature’s gift.”

  The event went on for about twenty minutes with some of Jaybird’s friends telling of his antics, or sharing a memory. They spoke of his love of nature and of surfing and of the help he’d given others, or the simplicity of his life as an example of how to live in harmony with Mother Nature. It was very moving to see friends coming together for a friend. But it was also wonderful to feel the kindness that seemed to reverberate through the drum circle at sunset, something I had been too damn cynical to acknowledge when I first came here and met Jaybird. There was a true sense of community among these people. That was exactly what was missing in the world today.

  And it was missing in me.

  After the speeches and after the ashes had been spread across the beach and in the shallows of Siesta Beach, and the sun had gone down and only a thin stream of crimson lay across the sky like a parting kiss, Willow returned to the center of the circle and raised a few papers up over her head for everyone to see.

  “Friends,” she announced. “It’s a shame and a real bummer that Jaybird isn’t here to see this, but here it is. A little good news. We’ve gathered enough signatures in the petition to place the amendment to save Beach Road on the ballot in November!”

  Everyone applauded. The drummers banged on the drums. People hopped up and started dancing again. The party got a new boost.

  I stood and started toward the parking lot when a hand grabbed my arm, laced itself under mine.

  “Hello, stranger.” It was Tessa.

  “What’s this?” I said. “I thought you were ignoring me.”

  “I was busy.” She turned me around and we started walking north on the beach, our bare feet touching the water whenever a wave broke. “All these friends, so many people I hadn’t seen in a while.”

  “You’re a popular girl,” I said.

  “I’ve met a lot of good people here on the key.”

  “You sound like a person who’s getting ready to leave.”

  She shook her head. “On the contrary. I’m digging in.”

  “Really?”

  We were coming up to the north end of the beach where it made a small curve. To our right was that short stretch of Beach Road that had caused so much trouble.

  “Jaybird and Liam’s company …”

  “Beach City Holdings.”

  She brought me closer to her and squeezed my arm. We stopped walking. It was almost dark. The sky was a deep blue and the sea seemed to perform a magic trick reflecting the colors of the sky, which blended with the phosphorescence of the waves.

  “Their lawyer called me.”

  “Joaquin del Pino?”

  “In person.”

  “What’d he say?”

  She smiled and turned slightly to the side so the lights of the Village reflected in her beautiful eyes. “It seems Liam and Jaybird put me in their will.”

  “For real?”

  She nodded. “My apartment building.”

  “I know.”

  “What?”

  “The day I found Cap’n Cody behind the Salty Dog. I was coming to tell you.”

  She frowned. “You thought it gave me a motive.”

  “Not really,” I said. “Del Pino told me you didn’t know. So it couldn’t be a motive, now could it?

  She smiled. “I’m a landlord.”

  “You are.”

  “I was wrong about him,” she said sadly.

  “Sounds like Liam was very generous.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But I don’t mean about that. It turns out they never wanted to develop the land. They were doing the opposite. They were buying land to protect it. Midnight Pass and Beach Road and the properties out East.”

  “Del Pino told me they set up a trust.”

  “That’s right. The Nature Conservancy is going to manage the properties and keep the land undeveloped.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yup.”

  “What about the houses on Beach Road?”

  “That will be up to the board of the Conservancy. But del Pino said Jaybird and Liam wanted it to be part of the beach, like a park. They might tear down the houses and leave it vacant, even if the county closes the road.”

  “Damn.”

  “I feel like a fool,” she said. “All this time I thought he was faking it. I thought he was using all of us to find deals on the island so he could develop the land.”

  “And he was doing the exact opposite.”

  She rubbed the side of her face against my shoulder, maybe tears. I didn’t see. Then she turned and pointed at the water. “Look, dolphins!”

  In the shallow, two dolphins swam back and forth playing in the waves. It was beautiful to see them in the dim light of dusk, their skin reflecting the last of the sunset.

  Tessa ran to the edge of the water and raced up and down the beach alongside them. It was almost as if they were all playing together: Tessa laughing and holding her arms up in the air and kicking at the water while the dolphins raced and jumped out of the water where the waves broke.

  My phone rang. Zoe.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Hey, whatcha doing, little one?”

  “I’m not little,” she said.

  “I know. It’s just a saying.”

  “Well, I’m not little. I’m growing up. Mommy says too fast. You need to find another nickname for me.”

  “Fine,” I said. “How about peanut?”

  “No. That’s from when I was a baby.”

  “Okay, how about linda? That’s Spanish for pretty.�
�

  “I’m not sure,” she said seriously. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  I laughed. “You think about it all you want and let me know.”

  “Guess what? Mommy said I can stay with you an extra week when I come over.”

  “Really? That’s great!” I watched Tessa knee deep in the water, waving at the dolphins. Beyond her the sky was falling and the stars were smiling.

  “Listen, Zoe, I was thinking. Maybe instead of going to one of those all-inclusive resorts we talked about, we just stay in Sarasota. Make it a special beach vacation?”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. We can learn to surf and go kayaking and do all kinds of cool things.”

  “Can we make a sandcastle?”

  “We can make anything you want, baby.”

  “Daddy!”

  “What?”

  “I’m. Not. A. Baby!”