“You mean tonight? Right now?”
“I mean as soon as I finish my drink.” She sat on the couch opposite him and smiled over the lip of her glass. “I mean in like five minutes.”
He looked at the large watch strapped to his wrist. “I’m timing you. Mark 10:05.”
“Hey, what happened about the boat?”
“I found it on the first phone call.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Superior police work, remarkable investigative ability, and a lucky shot. Bennie Filigree is harbormaster at the yacht club here and works in Florida during the off-season. I gave him a call to get some advice on where to look.”
“A call where?”
“The Kallaway Yacht Club in Clearwater. When I gave him the boat registration numbers he told me he was looking at it.”
“The numbers?”
“The boat. It was right outside the window moored at the marina.”
“And Hal Warren?”
“Bernie’d seen him.”
“Alive and well?”
“Bernie said Hal was shacked up with some girl on the mainland. He’d had a call from her on Hal’s behalf that asked him to watch after the boat.”
“Then Hal could be dead?”
“Jesus, L.C., anything is possible. But, he is in Florida not Connecticut.”
L.C. left the living room and went into the bedroom where she pulled a nightcase from the closet and began to pack.
“What in hell are you doing?” He asked from the doorway.
“Packing.”
“You don’t have to do that. I mean, we don’t have to go to a motel. I thought we could … you know, right here.”
“If I can get down there tonight, I’d have all day tomorrow to look for Hal and could be back here for business Monday morning. I’m catching the first flight to Florida.”
It was several hours later as the airliner passed over North Carolina before L.C. began to wonder if she were running toward the solution of a murder, or away from Will Barnes.
Chapter Twelve
New England’s founding fathers would twist in their rocky graves if they were capable of realizing the magnificent transition. She lay her head back against the seat, closed her eyes, and let the warm Florida sun bathe her face. The cab turned onto a long causeway that led to Clearwater Beach.
The Kallaway Yacht Club did not have closed membership as she had feared, but was a motor inn with a public marina, tennis courts, and a large Olympic size pool surrounded by cabanas and stands of palm trees. She paid the cab and followed the bellboy through the lobby to the registration desk. As she waited for her room assignment, she examined a large bulletin board to the left of the desk. There were a dozen photographs of smiling people arranged in a montage of varying recreational activities: a white haired couple dancing in the Starlight room, a bikini-clad girl poised on the high board at the pool, and Hal Warren on the deck of his boat with his arms around two girls. She smiled.
Her room was on the second level and had a small balcony overlooking the marina and water. She changed into shorts and a loose peasant blouse before going out on the balcony.
It was the largest boat docked at the marina and close enough for the registration numbers to be identified. Although utility lines ran to the dock near the gangway, the boat appeared shuttered and devoid of life. She sat on a small wrought iron chair and watched the boat for a few minutes.
In the lobby she asked where she could find Bennie Filigree, and was directed to a small building at the end of the dock. The office was a tiny room that hung partly over the water and had a small air conditioner laboring in its single window. The door was unlocked and she stepped inside. It was barely large enough to hold a cluttered desk and two wooden chairs. She had resigned herself to a long wait when she heard oaths that seemed to come up through the flooring of the office.
She went outside and looked over the dock to see Bennie working on the engine of an eighteen foot inboard. L.C. leaned against a post and watched the wiry man work on the engine. He straightened up, let out another string of oaths, and then kicked the recalcitrant machinery.
“That never helps,” she said with a laugh.
He squinted in the sun up at her with black Irish eyes that glinted angrily until he recognized her. “L.C. Converse. What in hell are you doing down here?”
“It’s been snowing in Connecticut. You blame me?”
“Hell, no.”
“What’s the problem with the engine?”
“Son of a bitch keeps choking out.”
“Let me take a look.” She leaped lightly down to the motorboat and bent over the engine. Bennie handed her a wrench, stepped out of her way, and hoisted himself back on the dock where he sat with his feet dangling off the edge.
“Thought you were a sail type.” he said as he pulled a newspaper from his back pocket and folded it back to the sports page.
“I am. Hate motorboats, but an engine is an engine,” she said with pursed lips as she examined the carburetor.
“How does Tiny Tot in the fourth sound to you?”
“Who’s the jock?”
“A dog, L.C. Dogs don’t have no jocks, that’s why I bet them. I figure without somebody on top of them telling them how fast to go, that I’ve got an even chance—maybe.”
“Uh huh,” she replied noncommittally and engrossed with the engine. “I think I see your problem.”
“Hell, a man’s got to have some recreation, so I play the pups a little.”
“Any adjustment to the accelerator pump requires an adjustment to the bowl-vent valve. Start it up.”
He stepped back into the cockpit and started the engine as L.C. made one last adjustment and put back the engine house cover. “Keerist, you’re O.K., L.C. Want a job?”
“I’ve got one, thanks. Understand that Hal Warren’s boat is over there.”
“Yep, that’s Hal’s. I’m keeping an eye on it, and two places down is Wadsworth Strickland’s.”
“You heard that Wadsworth died?”
Bennie turned off the engine, wiped the seats with a rag, and climbed back on the dock with L.C. “Yeah, I heard it the other day when his son called me. It must have been in the papers down here, but I don’t read the obits, only the sports page. Want a beer?”
“I accept in payment.”
Back in the small office Bennie opened a cooler and tore the tabs off two cans of Bud. L.C. took a sip of cold beer and noticed that her new white shorts had a streak of grease along one side. “How come Herb Strickland called you?”
“About his father’s boat. Says he has a buyer and wants me to bring it North.”
“I would think at this time of year you could sell it easier down here.”
“That’s what I said. I told him that I knew a reliable broker in Clearwater that I could list it with, but he said he’s got a live one up in Lantern City and wants me to bring it up, pronto, before the snow melts.”
“He’s in some hurry.”
“You know it. I’m going to have to cut my time short down here to get it back up there next week.”
“Next week?”
Bennie shrugged. “He’s paying. Guess they want to get the estate settled fast.”
“That makes sense. Have you seen Hal Warren the past week?”
“Nope. He came down a few weeks ago. We had some real good parties on the boat until he went off one night and never came back. Some dame called and said he was staying with her and asked me to take care of the boat, keep the air and power on, and generally watch over it until he got back.”
“I’d like to go on it, Bennie.”
“I can’t do that, L.C. They asked me to watch over it. I’m responsible. What’s the sudden interest in Hal’s boat? First a long distance call from Will Barnes, and then you arrive down here.”
“I really want to go through that boat.”
He shook his head. “Come on, L.C. Don’t put me in a position …”
She lo
oked over the air conditioner and out the small window. “I see up the way that you’ve got a V-8 pulled out.”
“That’s a real bitch. It’ll take me all afternoon to get the mother back in.”
“Two could do it in an hour.”
He smiled. “You drive a mean bargain. Want another beer first?”
Her blouse had caught on the tackle and ripped along the back, and her shorts were now so unrecognizable that she wondered if they’d let her back through the lobby to her room. Bennie had offered to loan her a pair of coveralls, but she had declined, saying they’d be too hot in the warm sun.
When they finally installed the engine, he slipped her a set of keys and mumbled something about going off to lunch, and for her to put them back on the rack in the office when she was through; then he hurried from the dock.
The Warren boat was in excellent shape. Bennie had obviously been taking good care of it since the call from Hal’s girl friend. She walked along the deck and into the main saloon.
Within ten minutes she had discovered the body cramped in fetal position in the food freezer.
“I found Hal Warren,” L.C. said over the phone to Will Barnes.
The chuckle on the end of the line seemed to come from halfway around the world. “I won’t say it, I promised myself I wouldn’t say it; but at least you’ll get some sun down there.”
“You don’t understand. I found him on his boat in the food freezer.”
“Stay out of that guy’s clutches. I’ve heard about him. A few frozen filets from the freezer, then the wine. Do you know he’s got a wine cellar on that damn boat? How do you have a wine cellar on a boat?”
“You’re not reading me, Will. I’m calling from the police station.” She looked up at the bored detective with the heavy black eye brows who was pretending not to be listening to the conversation. “Hal was in the freezer. He’s dead.”
“How?” The voice immediately changed. The laughter disappeared to be replaced by an almost brusque authoritative quality.
“Evidently stabbed. They’re performing the autopsy now. Don’t you think you ought to pick up Dore Warren? She certainly had the motive, shunned woman, the estate, all that.”
“The thought occurred to me that it would be logical to talk to the deceased’s estranged wife.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that. They think Bennie Filigree might have done it.”
“Good God, why Bennie?”
“He had access to the boat, and claims some woman called him on Hal’s behalf, but they can’t locate her. Then there’s the question of the missing money. They think Hal must have had a good part of the ten thousand left, and Bennie’s in deep with his bookie.”
“Let me talk to the officer in charge of the investigation. You coming home tonight?”
“Tonight or tomorrow.”
“Put the officer on, and L.C …”
“Yes.”
“Take care, will you?”
She handed the phone to the waiting detective and went into the room where Bennie was sitting uncomfortably on a straight metal chair while two bulky plainclothes officers hovered over him.
“You’re into your book for three thousand, and you dropped the stolen money at the track.”
“No, I don’t go to the track. I bet the dogs, I don’t watch them.”
“Tell us where you dropped the knife in the water. We’ll find it eventually, you know.”
“I don’t know anything about a knife.”
“Make it easy for yourself, Filigree.”
One of the officers noticed L.C., put his hands gently on her shoulder and led her from the room. They kept her another hour going over her statement.
It came to her later in the tub as clarity began to return through the morning’s numbing events. What she had suspected had come to pass. Hal Warren was dead.
But then who had been killed and tied under the pier?
Chapter Thirteen
It took less than an hour to rent a car, buy a map of the area from the lobby newsstand, and make a few phone calls. The funeral home that handled the Strickland cremation was only a few minutes away across the causeway, the condominium even closer. It took some cajoling with Doctor Hoover’s answering service and the hospital to track him to his country club, but she had finally managed it. She took a last bite from the sandwich she’d had sent to the room and went to the parking lot for the rental car.
The Olive Bay Condominium development was composed of attached town houses built in clusters around the ever present shuffle board courts and swimming pool. She glanced at the large sign mounted over the sales trailer.
OLIVE BAY RETIREMENT CONDOMINIUMS
WHERE LIVING BEGINS UNDER THE SUN
The salesman inside who greeted her wore a leisure suit with a multicolored shirt open part way down the front. He must have been fifty, but fought valiantly for thirty.
“I’m Dale Hawkins, sales manager. Welcome to Olive Bay.”
His hand remained over hers a beat too long before he reluctantly dropped it away. “I’m Laura Converse, and I’m interested in one of your units.”
“Fine, fine,” he replied and led her to a large wall map where colored pins protruded from the outlines of various units. “We do have one or two choice locations left.”
“Actually, I’m not retired yet, but …”
“Don’t worry about it a minute. The by-laws say you’re supposed to be over 50, but they’ll never stand up in court.”
“And I’m interested in a unit held by an estate.”
His smile dropped away. “In that instance you’ll have to negotiate with the executor. We only sell the units just completed.”
“Can you tell me where the Strickland unit is?”
“Strickland.” He examined the legend at the bottom of the map and located a pin at the end of a cul-de-sac. “Yeah, I remember that one. The old guy passed away a few weeks ago. Used to sing Irish patriotic songs in the middle of the night. We had lots of complaints over that.”
“Irish songs? Wadsworth Strickland was head of the S.A.R. back in Lantern City.”
“S.A.R., SOB, I don’t know about that. All I know is that he’d get tanked out of his mind and start singing.”
She stood on the steps of the Strickland condominium and pressed her face against the window. Curtains had been removed from the windows, the furniture had been placed near the door, and large cartons were piled along one wall. Obviously Toby expected a moving company to ship the remaining items back to Connecticut. It was unlikely that anything incriminating would have been left behind.
She left the apartment and began to walk back to the entrance of the development. A large building at the head of the street had a small wooden sign planted in the grass near the door.
OLIVE BAY ACTIVITIES AND RECREATION BUILDING
The social director, a woman of indeterminate age with hips that were beginning to bulge her tight pants suit, was mumbling to herself in her small office when L.C. knocked on the open door.
She looked up and squinted toward the door. “They eat the Ping-Pong balls. That’s the only answer. They eat them like hors d’oeuvres.”
“I’m L.C. Converse, and I wonder if I could talk to you about one of the residents who recently died?”
“Do you know how much Ping-Pong balls are a gross? Oh, never mind, come in. Do you have a cigarette?”
L.C. sat across from the cluttered desk. “I’m afraid not. Did you know Wadsworth Strickland?”
“The Mad Irishman. Not very well. He never came out of his unit. I looked in his garbage can once when I was searching for Ping Pong balls, and it was stuffed with empty liquor bottles. Never knew a man could drink that much.”
“Did you ever see him?”
“He only lived here a few weeks before he died. And his daughter-in-law kept him pretty well secluded.”
“Then you wouldn’t know what he looked like?”
“He had me come in to play checkers with hi
m once. Then his daughter-in-law came home from the store. She was mad as hell, said he was ill and shouldn’t have visitors.”
“Describe him.”
The social director shrugged. “How could I? After a few years of this work all the old geezers look alike.”
Doctor Aldis Hoover sliced an iron shot into a bunker at the sixteenth green and began to swear. He climbed back in the golf cart next to L.C. and jammed his club back in the golf bag on the rear rack.
“Play here twice a week and that’s the millionth time I’ve been in that bastard.”
“You say you saw Mr. Strickland several times before he died?”
“Saw him that day, not four hours before. Told the stubborn bastard that he’d die if he didn’t lay off the sauce. There wasn’t any liver left, and his daughter-in-law wouldn’t let him go to the hospital. She said she’d take care of him. Happens that way sometimes.”
“What?”
The golf cart whirred noiselessly across the fairway. “Well, I shouldn’t really say, but she killed him as sure as if she’d put a gun to his head.”
“How?”
“The booze. Gave him as much as he wanted. Hell, maybe she was in a hurry to get the estate settled.”
“Doctor, how do you know that the man you were treating was Wadsworth Strickland?”
“How? He told me so, his daughter-in-law told me. What do you want me to do? Take his fingerprints?”
“Can you describe him.”
“Sixty, maybe five-five. No liver, no liver at all.”
L.C. watched as the doctor climbed from the cart and glowered at the sand trap. Wadsworth Strickland was at least six feet tall and closer to seventy than sixty.
With an easy overhand, Doctor Hoover picked up the golf ball and threw it toward the green. L.C. pretended not to notice.
Subdued organ music filled the mortuary from hidden speakers. A cadaverous man in dark suit and tie met her unctuously at the door. “May I help you?”
“Yes. I’m from the Strickland family and we need a receipted bill for the services you recently performed for the family.”
The Killing Edge Page 14
