The man thought about that and then shook his head. “I did come on a little strong.”
Troy nodded. “For starters, what’s your name?” Troy pulled over a yellow legal pad and his fountain pen.
“Mark Johnson. I own a house up on 19th Street.” He paused and looked to Troy’s open office door. Angel Watson had come in through the back door with Jodi and Brett.
Angel stopped at Troy’s door. “I’ll be in my office, downloading photos,” she said. Jodi and Brett were staring at the glass upper half of the office door that Troy almost never closed. It said, in black lettering “Director of Pub ic Safety.” Some wag had scraped off the l before Troy took the job, and until someone confessed, he refused to let them fix it.
Troy nodded to Angel and looked at Johnson. “You were saying?”
“Oh,” Johnson turned back to face Troy. “I live in Miami but I used to visit here more often. Fish the Ten Thousand Islands. A few months ago I put the house up for sale, as-is, furnished. Just had some basic furniture in there anyway, and some kitchen things, enough for me for a weekend retreat. It’s still for sale.”
He paused. Troy nodded helpfully. “Tight market right now.”
“Yeah. It is. I decided to come over here for the Christmas season, get out of Miami and away from my relatives. I have a boat and I brought it along too,” he pointed over Troy’s shoulder at the window behind Troy. “Thought I would maybe do some fishing. But when I get to my house, it’s locked up. I mean the locks had been changed. And there were people living in it.”
“People, I take it, who hadn’t bought the house.”
“No, they had not. I asked them who they were and they said they were renting and had been there several months. Spic family. I never authorized anyone to rent the house. Why would I do that when I’m trying to sell it? Now they’re in there tearing things up.”
“You know that they are tearing things up? Or you just assume spics all behave that way?”
“Oh, right. Listen, I’m from Miami. It’s not like I don’t get along with Hispanics.” He laughed. “Got no choice there. I’m sorry. Just a little angry about it, is all. And what are you, anyway, you look Seminole.”
“Got the location, sir,” the speaker phone announced.
“Talk to me,” Troy said.
There was a pause and then, “Hello? I have the location. Hello?”
Troy sighed and pushed the button to reactivate the outgoing mike. “I’m on. Talk to me.” Someone read off a latitude and longitude and Troy copied those down.
“It’s not moving?” he asked. He disconnected the phone. “Sorry,” he told Johnson. “Priorities again. Please wait a few.” He looked at his computer and called up the town of Mangrove Bayou on a mapping program and fed in the coordinates for Barbara Gillispie’s phone. He reached for the radio in its charger on his desk and called Jeremiah Brown who, along with Angel Watson, was on duty.
“Jeremiah, get over to the Publix strip mall. You’re looking for a girl whose cell phone is stationary at that location. Looks like it might be behind the stores in the access lane and lot. I know that doesn’t make sense to you. I’ll send Angel by in a little bit to explain things.”
“Okay, Boss,” Jeremiah’s rumbling low voice came. He was the only person to call Troy “Boss.”
“Right now, look around for a person. In all the Dumpsters and anywhere else. Her name is Barbara Gillispie. That grocery will have a cardboard box crusher too. See if anyone there can open it up for you to look. And don’t let them run that thing without my permission.”
Johnson was staring at the radio, which Troy had laid on his desk. He looked up at Troy. “Jesus. I guess you do have to prioritize things. Missing girl?”
“I hope not. Just a precaution. By the way, watch the language in here. We have a no-cursing rule. Each word costs you a dollar.”
Johnson stared. “You’re shitting me. A police station with no swearing?”
Troy smiled. “We’ll put that one down to a bad try at irony.” He pulled out his wallet. “I’ll cover you. The rule is mostly for the staff. Some of us tend to be potty-mouthed. End of each month we use the money for a beer-and-pizza party. Now, have you called your real estate agent?”
“I did. One good thing about those people; you can get them on a Saturday afternoon. She had no idea what I was talking about. Oh, also, the For Sale sign is gone from the front yard and that key-holder thing she had hung on the doorknob is gone too.”
“Someone could just pull up the sign,” Troy said. “But they’d have to use a hacksaw to get that lock box off the doorknob.”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought. In fact, it’s not even the same doorknob. The whole thing’s been replaced.”
“Key went into the doorknob? Not a separate deadbolt?”
“Yeah. Doorknob had that thing on the inside you turn to lock it. Why?”
“Probably easier to cut off the knob, which is only cheap brass, and then punch out the lock, than it would be to cut through a case-hardened lockbox hasp.”
“Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, I want those people out of my house, and pronto. It’s my house and I want to sleep in it tonight. Without company.”
“Can’t say I blame you. Let’s do some research.” Troy turned to his computer and called up the property appraiser’s web site and checked the address. Mark Johnson was listed as the owner.
“Have you paid your taxes on the property?” Troy asked.
“Yeah, of course. What, you think I’m some sort of deadbeat?”
Troy looked up from his keyboard. “I have to gather information, Mr. Johnson, if I am to help you. Don’t take it personally.”
“Sorry. You’re right. But, in fact, the taxes was one reason I wanted to sell. Back when I bought it Mangrove Bayou was a no-place backwater. It still is, no offense.”
“None taken.” Probably wouldn’t have hired me, even on a temporary basis, had this been a larger town and there were more applicants than a guy who was fired from his last job and who has nightmares about killing people.
Johnson was looking out the west window at Sunset Bay and the lights in the condos beyond it. “Well, when the yuppies moved in, and when they built the place up for tourists, property values went through the roof. Place I bought for twenty thousand ten years ago is worth ten times that now. Mostly it’s the land, not the house, but that means the taxes are too rich for my blood just for an occasional weekend retreat. I’ll sell it, take the money, and run away, very fast. But, yes, I pay the damn taxes every year.”
Troy got out another dollar. “Oops. Sorry,” Johnson said.
“Next one’s on you,” Troy said. “About the taxes, good to know. Who’s your realtor?”
“Frieda Firestone. Firestone Properties.”
Troy made a note. “One of the few local realtors. Not much call for them here. Small town, low turnover. She’s known as Frieda the Flipper, I’m told.”
“Well, she sure better not have flipped my house without telling me.”
“It’s just an alliterative nickname. Far as I know she’s a straight arrow.”
“Alliterative?”
“Frieda. Firestone. Flipper. All start with the letter F.”
“Oh. I see. Funny.”
“Apparently not so much. Here’s what I can do,” Troy said. “I’ll go over there right now and talk to those people. I need to find out to whom they pay their rent and then I need to locate and talk to that person. I need to find out if a crime has been committed, and if so, what sort of crime. I can do something about crime. If no crime has been committed, it’s up to you and the civil courts. I don’t do civil, only criminal.”
“How long is all that going to take?”
“You tell me. I don’t see much chance of sorting it all out tonight, though. If you want to stay in town, go over to the Gulf View Motel and tell the manager, fellow named Loren Fitch, that I said to give you Room 221. Probably the only vacant room in town tonight.”
Jo
hnson stared at Troy. “How the hell could you know something like that?”
“That’s a dollar. And I’m the police chief of Mangrove Bayou. I know everything. But, personally, I advise you to go back to Miami and let me take care of this as best I can.”
Johnson was shaking his head. He pulled out his wallet and took out a five and laid that on the desk. “Got change? This is sort of funny, having to pay to talk to a cop.” Troy looked in his own wallet and pulled out four singles and pushed those across. He added another to the two on his desk and put Johnson’s fiver into his wallet.
“That won’t do,” Johnson said. “I want those people evicted. Why can’t you kick them out right this minute?”
Troy shook his head. “Of course you’re angry. I would be too. But evictions are fairly complex legal matters and are handled by the sheriff’s office. I’ll get with them if that seems the way to go. But Christmas is next Wednesday and I suspect we’re looking at some delay.”
“But they’re just criminals squatting in my house.”
“Mr. Johnson, let’s get one thing straight right now. The renters are probably not the issue. They may be acting in good faith. The person to whom they are paying the rent might be a criminal. Let me find out. But you leave those people alone. They’re mine to deal with, not yours.”
“I suppose. How would you like it if this were your house?”
“I wouldn’t. I’d hate it. But I’d still obey the law. Leave them alone. Let me find out what’s what and update you.” He slid a notepad and his pen across his desk. “Give me your address and phones. Email too, if you have that.”
Johnson picked up the fountain pen and tried to write with the nib upside down. He looked at it, puzzled. “Sorry,” Troy said. “Here.” He handed Johnson a ballpoint pen out of Troy’s middle desk drawer. Johnson wrote down all his contact information.
They shook hands. Troy let Johnson out the front door. Johnson got his Ford Explorer and boat trailer turned around and headed back to Barron Road. That would take him five miles east to U.S. 41—the Tamiami Trail—and the long drive back to Miami. Troy put the money from his desktop into the Bad Words Jar behind the counter in the lobby. He checked his watch. At least Rudy Borden would still have his service station open. Johnson would need to gas up before that drive. Miami was one hundred miles and thirty years distant from Mangrove Bayou.
Chapter 3
Saturday, December 21
With Jeremiah looking for a girl, or worst-case, a cell phone, and in the dark, and Angel joining him, Troy decided his officers needed reinforcements. And he was it. He walked back to his rental condo at the Sea Grape Inn and took his own car and drove to the shopping mall. There were actually three malls in Mangrove Bayou and the strip mall with the Publix grocery store was the smallest. Both department Suburban trucks were parked behind the mall buildings, lights flashing.
Troy pulled in with his Subaru Forester that he could probably have parked inside one of the Suburbans. His predecessor had wrecked the old chief’s car and the town council had never bought a new one. Jeremiah was inside a Dumpster, digging around, holding a flashlight in one hand. Angel had climbed onto one of the side handles that the truck would use to hoist the Dumpster and was looking down and helping with a second flashlight.
“Many are the duties of the Mangrove Bayou police officer,” Troy said, looking in. “Including Dumpster diving.”
Jeremiah looked up and smiled. He was so large he took up half the Dumpster himself. There was a spot of something—Troy hoped it was only mayonnaise—on Jeremiah’s jet-black forehead.
“No people in here, Boss. ’Less you count me, feeling around for a phone. Probably gonna need to toss all this out onto the pavement to go through it.” Jeremiah sang bass in his church choir and when he spoke he rumbled like a level two Richter-scale earthquake.
“Tried dialing the number,” Angel said. “It rang at my end but didn’t hear it anywhere around here.”
“The phone company said it was here,” Troy said.
“Then it’s here,” Angel said. “Or within ten meters or so, at least. That’s the accuracy for the GPS.”
“I actually knew that,” Troy said.
“Jeremiah, need me to spell you in there?” Angel asked. “I’m smaller.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “You might sink out of sight, little lady. And one messed-up uniform is enough.”
“Maybe Chief Adam can help you,” Angel said. “He’s tall.”
“Sorry, Angel, that would be my cue to hit the streets and patrol while you fine officers Dumpster dive. Got an errand to run anyway. Official police chief work. Oh, and one more thing. Shut off those flashing lights on the trucks. We don’t need to be waking up half the town with them.”
It was a drive of only a few blocks south on 19th Street to pay a visit to some soon-to-be-unhappy renters. He rang the doorbell and a short, skinny Hispanic-looking man answered. Inside, Troy could see a living room and, through an archway, a woman and two kids sitting at a dining table. Swell, he thought.
“I’m Troy Adam, the Mangrove Bayou police chief.” He showed the man his badge since he wasn’t wearing a uniform. “You aren’t in trouble but I’d appreciate it if you could step outside with me a moment. No need for the kids to be hearing this.”
The man, looking puzzled, stepped outside and closed the door, and he and Troy stood on the porch. “Eduardo Martinez,” the man said. “What’s going on?”
Troy explained the situation. Martinez, of course, protested. “I paid my rent. Broken no laws. Never broke in here.” He looked angry about it.
“I suspected as much,” Troy said. He actually had no idea at this point that the Martinez clan was innocent but he was a good judge of character and liked what he saw. “You didn’t create this mess. But you’re in it now. Fact is, the man who rented this place to you apparently did so illegally. The real owner wants you evicted so he can sell the house. I don’t have any choices here, and neither do you. Who rented this house to you?”
“The Reverend Heth Summerall. He’s a minister of some sort. Got to be some kind of mistake.”
“Not one that I can find,” Troy said. “But I only stopped by this evening to talk to you and give you a heads-up on this. Why don’t you come by the police station some time tomorrow and you and I can figure out what to do about it.”
“This is bullshit.”
“Yes, it is. I’ll try to buy you some time to look for another place to stay, do what I can for you. Seems to me the main thing is not to upset the kids. But the law is the law and the Reverend Heth Summerall appears to have violated it and you are the victim. Come by and see me tomorrow.”
Troy drove away and started patrolling the town. He didn’t mind arresting people for the big crimes, he thought as he drove. It was the little things that he sometimes had to do that bothered him. Kicking people out of their home at Christmas time had to be right near the top of horrible things to have to do. It was, he thought, almost Biblical.
Chapter 4
Sunday, December 22
Jeremiah found Barbara Gillispie’s cell phone after several hours of searching and tossing out trash from the Dumpster. It had the ringer turned to vibrate-only. He brought that back to the station in an evidence bag and someone at the strip mall got the job of shoveling everything else back into the Dumpster. There was no sign of Barbara Gillispie and there were no useful phone calls listed on the phone.
Troy spent Sunday morning organizing a search for her. For a community dependent upon tourism, losing a visitor was bad for business and everyone knew it. With Mayor Lester Groud’s help, he divided up the inland bays and salt marsh into sections and some of Groud’s fishing-guide friends went out in shallow-draft boats to look. Others headed out to pick through the nearby mangrove islands, a far harder task. They also covered the three larger islands making up the town itself, and the sheriff’s department had a helicopter buzzing around the offshore mangroves too.
Cilla
Dowling rang the station’s front doorbell just after eleven a.m. Dowling was the local editor and reporter for the town online newspaper, the Bayou Breeze. Troy let her in and they went back to his office. She was about fifty, a thin, tough five feet, six inches with a tanned, weathered face, brown hair and eyes. She always wore her hair long in a single braid. She was wearing blue jeans and a matching denim blazer over a purple shirt with the collar out.
“No bulging chest today?” Troy said. Cilla was usually seen in too-tight tee shirts with journalism slogans across her large breasts.
“Too cold for that. Besides, I already know I can’t vamp you out of a story. Why waste them. You must know why I’m here.”
Troy saw no reason not to tell Cilla everything he knew about Barbara Gillispie’s disappearance, which, at this point, wasn’t much. “And all the help, tips, anything at all that I can get, will be appreciated.”
“You going to put up a reward for information?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know where I’d get the money. If we do, I’ll call you for sure.”
“Who would make a decision on a reward?” Cilla asked. “Lester Groud, maybe?”
“He’s the mayor. I guess so. I’ll find out. We’ll both find out. But with any luck, she will turn up soon.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I’m hoping so.”
Dowling crossed her legs to give her something to write on in her reporter’s notebook. She had a barb-wire tattoo around one ankle. “We rely on tourists for our living here,” she said. “Letting one go missing can kill this town. If you don’t find this girl pronto the whole news business is going to drop down on you like the D-Day invasion. Don’t you forget little old me when that happens.”
Death Among the Mangroves Page 2
