by Ron Base
Tree ran his hand along the gurney. “So what did go on here?”
“We know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“They used the place to amputate a woman’s head. Someone was a very unhappy camper.”
____
Tree got out of his Tyvek suit and the shoe covers and gloves and placed them in a plastic container. Todd said goodbye and went back inside. Tree stood on the drive inhaling fresh Florida air. The elderly woman with the Jack Russell came along the street. She stopped when she saw Tree. The dog yapped a couple of times and bounced around on the sidewalk, delighted to see him. The woman did not seem nearly so pleased.
“Sure, I remember you.” She eyed him suspiciously. “The guy looking for the short sale.”
“That’s right,” Tree said. “Tree Callister.”
“They mentioned you on the news last night.” A black mark against him.
“I don’t know your name.”
She looked him up and down carefully before she said, “Myrna.”
“Well, Myrna, I’m still interested in this house.”
She looked surprised. “But they found a dead body—well, I guess it was you, wasn’t it? You found a dead body.”
“A terrible experience, no doubt about it. But it’s still a lovely house, and a good deal is a good deal. But I hear conflicting stories about who owns it. That guy in Orlando you talked about, you sure he’s the owner?”
“As far a I know. But then as far as I know usually isn’t so far at all. Talk to the real estate people. They can set you straight, I suppose.”
“I talked to them. They don’t want to say too much about the ownership. I keep hearing the name Michelle Crowley.”
“It’s like I told you before, never heard that name. Not unless it’s the housekeeper.”
“There’s a housekeeper?”
“Used to be. Saw her come and go a few times. Figured that’s who it was. Haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, come to think of it. Why? You interested in a housekeeper?”
“You never know,” Tree said. “I wouldn’t mind getting in touch with her to see if she’d be interested in staying on if I decide to buy.”
“I think she works part time at Jerry’s.”
“Jerry’s Supermarket?”
“In the coffee shop.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw her there,” Myrna said.
16
Half of Jerry’s was a supermarket, the other half a cheerful coffee shop where the locals congregated for breakfast and gossip. The place had pretty much emptied out by the time Tree got there. Two waitresses chatted against a sideboard at the back of the room. No sign of an African American waitress who might be Michelle Crowley.
Disappointed, he took a table by the window. One of the waitresses broke off her conversation, grabbed a coffee pot off a warmer, and hurried over with a menu.
“I’m Liz,” she said. “Your server will be here in a moment.”
“You’re not my server?” Tree said, taking the menu from her.
“This morning Michelle will be pleased to help you.”
Minutes later, Michelle appeared from the back, smoothing her hair, straightening her apron before heading to his table. She fit the description Elizabeth Traven provided for Mickey Crowley, except tinier and cuter. Tree made his reading glasses disappear.
“Hey there, I’m Mickey,” she said. “Have you decided on anything?”
“How’s your smoked salmon omelet?”
“Looks like you’re up for a little experimentation first thing in the morning,” she said with a grin.
“I’ve decided to live a little more dangerously.”
“Isn’t that just how we all live here on Sanibel? A little more dangerously? So go for it, man. Walk on the wild side. Order up that smoked salmon omelet.”
Impish humor played in her eyes. There was a wry twist to that full mouth.
“Guess I’d better order it then, otherwise, what are you going to think of me?”
“Seeing as how that’s what you’re having, nothing but the nicest things.” She gave him one more smile before plucking the menu from him and sashaying away.
He reminded himself that this young, sexy woman may have shared a house with a headless corpse. Maybe she helped remove the head. He reminded himself a couple of more times watching her serve other customers. Then she came back with his omelet.
“I forgot to ask you what kind of toast you wanted. But you look like a whole wheat kind of guy, so I brought you whole wheat.”
“As it happens, I am a whole wheat kind of guy,” he said.
“I can tell that about customers.”
“What kind of toast they like?”
“What kind of people they are.”
“What kind am I?”
“The flirt kind,” she said with another grin. Her eyes flashed again, and she was gone. Was he? The flirt kind? It had been a long time since anyone accused him of that. He bit into his omelet. Don’t let her distract you, he told himself. He was a detective, not a flirt. Flirting was part of his clever disguise.
“What did you think?” she asked when he finished.
“The walk on the wild side was worth it,” Tree said.
“It always is, man. It always is.”
“You think so?”
“Hey, when you’re my age, why not? What have you got to lose?”
“What? You think I’m too old for the wild side?”
“Are you kidding? You’re the man who ordered the smoked salmon omelet aren’t you?”
“I’m the guy.”
“Then you don’t just walk on the wild side, my friend, you run.” They both laughed, and then she was all business: “Can I bring you anything else?”
“Just the check.”
She pushed the check onto the table. “There you go.” She heaved a sigh.
“Long day?” Tree inquired.
“I got one of these boyfriends—I guess you’d call him demanding. I don’t get all the sleep a girl should.”
“Too much walking on the wild side?”
“Something like that,” she laughed. “Anyway, I’m off at four today, so it’s not so bad.”
Tree slipped out from the table and got to his feet. “You made it very pleasant,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Make sure you leave me a million dollar tip,” she said.
“Done.”
“That’s my man.”
____
Michelle Crowley had a demanding boyfriend? What about her beloved husband, Dwayne, cooling his heels up at Coleman?
Back at the office, he googled Michelle Crowley’s name but that didn’t yield anything. She wasn’t on Facebook or Linkedin or any of the other social networking sites that he could easily access.
He ran Dwayne Crowley through the inmate locator on the Coleman Prison website. Dwayne was there all right. The inmate locator didn’t give much information. Dwayne Robert Crowley was twenty-nine years old and would be released sometime this year.
He had more luck at Prisonlife.com. Dwayne had listed himself on the website’s Pen Pals section. His photo showed a pumped, pasty-faced guy—a face fearsome enough to cause widows to faint and orphans to break into tears. What was visible of his right shoulder was adorned with tattoos like black flames.
“This open-minded individual is a Leo who loves to laugh almost as much as enjoying seeing others laugh,” he wrote. “I love life as I look at it as a GRAND ADVENTURE.”
His message continued: “I enjoy working out, cooking, outdoors, traveling, listening to music, reading and love pets. Since my incarceration, I have brightened my horizons by taking vocational classes and am currently taking a course to be a professional fitness trainer.
“In the last year I have strived to better myself mentally as well as physically, but still feel incomplete and hope to find that special someone to share some time with while I get through these long, lonely days and nigh
ts. Could that someone be you?
“I would love to get to know a woman who is also open-minded, understanding and who would love to share a laugh with a kind-hearted guy. I know you are out there in hopes of crossing each other’s paths, so I’m sending this SOS in search of that special someone.”
Hard to resist a loving soul like Dwayne Crowley. Every woman’s dream man. Never mind that he was sitting in a maximum security prison. A minor impediment to true love. Hopefully, a prospective partner would not be put off further by the fact that wonderful Dwayne supposedly was married to loyal Mickey, presumably unaware that her husband was sending out SOS messages to “that special someone,” not his wife.
17
A couple of minutes after four o’clock, Mickey Crowley, still in her uniform, came down the ramp from Jerry’s and walked to a dusty black pickup. She unlocked the door, got in, and then drove out onto Periwinkle Way.
Tree followed her east off the island. Mickey drove along McGregor Boulevard onto Summerlin Trail, and then headed south on Tamiami Trail.
By the time Tamiami Trail became Ninth Street and the well-appointed shops and restaurants of downtown Naples, dusk was falling. Mickey turned left at Tenth Street and went down a block or so before swerving into an apartment complex.
Tree parked his car in time to see Mickey hurry up a flight of stairs in a two-storey block adjacent to the street. Halfway along the walkway, a shaft of yellow light appeared, and Mickey disappeared into it.
Tree went back to his car and got in. From this vantage point, he had a good view of Mickey’s apartment. Maybe this was where she lived, and she was home for the night watching Dancing With the Stars. Here he was sitting in the dark, feeling like an idiot.
His cell phone rang. He looked at the readout: Freddie.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m on stakeout,” he said.
“You’re on what?”
“Stakeout. I’m watching someone’s apartment.”
“Where?”
“In Naples.”
“You’re watching an apartment in Naples?” Freddie was not doing a great job keeping incredulity out of her voice. “Why are you doing that?”
“It’s Mickey Crowley, the woman Elizabeth Traven hired me to look into.”
“You found her?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“What’s she doing?“
“Right now? Sitting in an apartment on Tenth Street.”
“You should have phoned, Tree. I’m sitting here waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry. In all the excitement, I forgot.”
“There’s excitement in sitting outside someone’s apartment?”
“So far, no.”
“Do you have any idea what time you’ll be home?”
“I’m not sure about that, either.”
“Well, don’t expect me to be here when you get back.”
“What?”
She chuckled. “That’s the line in the movies, isn’t it? You know, when the wife or girlfriend doesn’t want the hero doing whatever it is he’s got to do, isn’t that the line she always uses?”
“Something like that,” Tree allowed.
“I thought I’d try it out since lately you seem to be running your life more and more like a movie.”
“I prefer to think of my life as a cheap detective novel.”
“Whatever it is, be careful.”
Up on the walkway, the yellow light flared again. “Someone’s coming. I’ll call you later.”
“Tree, I mean it. Be careful.”
“I will. Don’t worry.”
He closed his cell phone. Mickey Crowley in a strapless silver mini-dress descended the stairs, the cute waitress transformed into nighttime Florida hottie.
She carried a beaded purse and leaned against a tall man in a creamy suit. It took Tree a moment to realize the tall man was Reno O’Hara.
They reached the sidewalk arm-in-arm, laughing together, and then disappeared around the corner. Tree waited a few moments before following them onto Sixth Avenue. Tree squeezed through the crowds on Tamiami Trail, keeping Mickey and Reno in sight as they passed the boutiques and sidewalk cafes, afraid Reno might glance around and spot him. But Reno was oblivious to anything but Mickey.
They arrived at an Italian place. Reno shook hands with the maître d’ who seated them at an outside table where they could observe the passing crowd. Menus the size of the tablets from the Mount of Olives were presented.
Tree crossed to the other side of the street for a better view. A waiter delivered drinks—beer for Reno, something tall and colorful with a straw for Mickey. They lifted their glasses in a toast. A third guest arrived. Reno smiled broadly and rose to shake the man’s hand.
Jorge, major domo to Elizabeth and Brand Traven, sparkled elegantly in the light from the streaming traffic.
____
Tree watched for a while and then walked back to the apartment complex. He stood at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor. He could see a light behind the partially-drawn drapes in the apartment Mickey and Reno had vacated.
He climbed to the top of the stairs and started along the walkway. Someone stepped from the shadows, making him jump. A thug-like character in a T-shirt barely containing rippling muscles focused a dead man’s stare.
“Good evening.” The bright voice of a harmless retiree headed back to his apartment.
The muscle guy didn’t say anything. Tree eased past him, certain this was Dwayne Crowley, Mickey’s beloved husband, the sensitive Coleman inmate who would love to share a laugh.
He did not strike Tree as someone interested in sharing laughs.
Tree rounded a corner to a second set of stairs and took them back down to the ground floor. He found himself at the rear of the complex. A pool area glowed under amber lights. A patch of grass ended at a roadway running past Naples Bay.
He followed the road around to where he had parked the Beetle. Mickey Crowley leaned against it, her silver dress shimmering under a street light. She held an unlit cigarette in one hand, the beaded purse in the other. He could see the rose tattoo Elizabeth Traven mentioned, a crimson dab on her bare shoulder. She was humming something he didn’t recognize.
“You heard Rihanna’s new album?”
“No,” Tree said
“I am so into that girl. What she’s been through? Her father a crack addict, all that. I didn’t even want the download, right? Like I went out and bought the CD.”
Tree looked around. No sign, so far, of either Reno or Dwayne. Just Mickey, tattooed and sexy in the night.
She held up the cigarette. “I don’t suppose you got a light?”
“Sorry.”
“Didn’t think you would. You don’t look like a smoking kind of guy. I can tell about these things. No smoking. No Rihanna.”
“What kind of a guy do I look like, Mickey?”
“Like I told you earlier, a flirt.” She smiled. “So I guess you got it, huh? That taste. Stronger than coffee, right? Makes you do crazy things, walking around on three legs, thinking, maybe I can get close, get that taste.”
He stared at her, not sure what she was getting at.
“On the one hand, I’m flattered, man. Not pissed off or anything, just flattered that you want to be trailing me around. Thing is, you got the wrong number here. I mean, really. I am no one to mess with.”
“No?”
“Here, let me show you something.” She opened her purse and pulled out a gun. Its steel surface gleamed under the street light.
“The Beretta Tomcat. I love it. Lightweight. Easily concealed, carries seven rounds in the magazine, and yet it has great stopping power. Never mind the diamonds, man. This is a girl’s best friend.”
She held the gun casually, as though she had held a lot guns.
“So you see, my flirty friend, although I’m sure you don’t mean any harm, all you want to do is get into my pants, but you are definitely sniffing around
a girl with a gun, and that’s not healthy. Get my drift?”
“I think so,” Tree said.
“Tell you what. Why don’t you get in your little car, and drive back to Sanibel or wherever you came from? Next time you come into Jerry’s, I’ll bring you that smoked salmon omelet, the one that got you started on the wild side, and pour you some coffee, and we’ll act like none of this happened.”
Tree felt hugely embarrassed. She obviously thought he was some sort of stalker. He had an irrational urge to tell her he was really a detective following her for a client. But that was dumb. This way he could get out of there before Reno or Dwayne showed up to make things really complicated.
“Sorry about this,” he said.
“Don’t be sorry, man. Just be going.”
She stepped away from the car. He went around unlocked the door and got inside. He glanced back at Mickey, silvery in the night, the Beretta Tomcat luminous in her hand.
He had waited a lifetime to have that particular image seared on his brain.
18
Freddie reheated the chicken she had prepared earlier and then sat with him in the kitchen while he ate. Women in short dresses pointing guns made him hungry.
“Manolo Blahnik first thing in the morning, that’s impressive.”
“They were sandals.”
“Nevertheless, four-inch heels when you’re just wandering around the house and not even expecting company. There’s a woman dedicated to heels.”
“She was expecting company.”
“You?”
“Well, I phoned before I went over there.”
“Aren’t rich women supposed to seduce private detectives?”
“It’s a state law. You hire a private detective you have to sleep with him.”
“Make sure she takes off the Manolo Blahniks first.”
“I’ll try to keep it in mind.”
She watched him eat the chicken for a time. “So, did she?”
“Did she what?”
“Try to seduce you?”
“Freddie, I’m sixty years old.”
“That doesn’t stop anything.”
