by Ron Base
Elizabeth looked distracted. “This club is part of the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. You probably don’t know that special water is required to irrigate the greens.”
“I didn’t know that,” Tree said.
“You play golf, Mr. Callister?”
“I don’t play anything.”
“No favorite sport?”
“If I didn’t know better, I might suspect you’re trying to change the subject,” Tree said.
“Do you think so?” Elizabeth said.
“The FBI has been questioning me.”
That triggered the surprise he had been looking for. “What about?”
“They seem to think your husband might be connected to all this.”
“All what, Mr. Callister?”
“Mickey Crowley. Her husband Dwayne. A man named Reno O’Hara, his son Marcello.”
A smiling boy of a waiter arrived and made a production of unfurling a white linen napkin for Tree. He asked the waiter for a Diet Coke. Elizabeth Traven arched her eyebrows.
“I thought detectives liked a drink,” she said.
“I’m the new breed,” he said.
The waiter returned with Tree’s Diet Coke and menus. The special was grouper. “Life in Florida,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “The sun shines bright, the private detectives arrive with surprises, and the catch of the day is always grouper.”
She sent the waiter for another drink before addressing Tree. “So. Let’s have it. Did you tell them anything about me?”
“No, I didn’t, although perhaps I should have.”
“Why should you?”
“Because I could get into a lot of trouble withholding information from federal agents.”
He told her about following Michelle Crowley to Naples, her rendezvous with Reno O’Hara, and their cozy dinner with Jorge. When he finished, those opaque, fathomless eyes appraised him coolly. “You’ve been busy,” she said.
“You don’t seem at all dismayed that your butler was having dinner with the woman you’re supposed to be so worried about.”
“I got past dismay a long time ago.”
The waiter came back with a second martini. He could hardly keep his eyes off Elizabeth. She appeared oblivious. A rich woman on a budget, she ordered the house salad.
He asked the waiter for a recommendation. “You can’t go wrong with the grouper sandwich.”
Tree ordered the grouper. The waiter scurried away casting a last, longing glance at Elizabeth.
“I spoke to my husband at some length last night,” she said.
“Yes?”
“We both agreed that for whatever reason, you’re attracting too much attention.”
“I’m attracting too much attention?”
“This situation with the FBI merely confirms what I’ve suspected, that you’re simply too high profile for us, Mr. Callister.”
Tree looked at her, dumbfounded.
“We’ve decided to terminate your employment.”
Tree probably should have said something, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of what it might be.
The grouper sandwich arrived, arranged around a foothill of coleslaw. The waiter had eyes only for Elizabeth as he presented her salad. Somewhat wistfully he asked if he could bring anything else. She couldn’t be bothered answering. The waiter looked crestfallen. A heartbreaker, Elizabeth Traven.
In more ways than one.
25
I shouldn’t be telling you this.” Todd Jackson lowered his voice to suggest that was exactly what he was about to do.
The sounds of Friday night football blasted through the Lighthouse, lost from time to time over Mr. Ray’s howls of derision. Life on the big screen TV was not unfolding the way it should for the Ray Man.
Tree leaned closer to Todd. “Tell me what?”
“Crazy as it sounds, the police have got you down for that body they found on Bowman’s Beach the other night.”
“Reno O’Hara?”
“That’s the guy. The thinking is you whacked him, and left him on the beach. That’s why his pals broke into your place. They were looking for revenge.”
“Boy, that’s a stretch.”
“You think so? Try this one on. They also got their doubts about the corpse on Barrington Court.”
Mr. Ray exploded at the TV screen. A helmeted gladiator had offended his sensibilities. Why, he shouted, couldn’t the damned referees see what he saw? Were they blind?
Tree raised his voice in order to be heard over Mr. Ray. “What? They seriously think I’m driving around Fort Myers beheading women?”
“Put it this way, they’re not ruling it out.” Todd sipped his beer.
Someone jostled against Tree. The bar was packed tonight. Freddie was out there somewhere in that sea of beer-drinking humanity. He felt depressed and agitated. Todd was not helping his mood.
“What about it, Tree?”
“You mean did I kill them? Absolutely. Killed them both.”
“Jeez, don’t tell me that. I could be called to testify.”
“Come on, Todd. Get serious.”
Todd looked very serious. “I’m only telling you what the police are saying. Trying to be a friend here.”
“Even though I could be a double murderer?”
“Who knows what anyone is capable of. I mean the things I see every week? You don’t rule out anything. Still, I do have my doubts about you as a killer.”
“I appreciate that, Todd.”
Mr. Ray elbowed his way through the crowd and pushed himself between Tree and Todd, face flushed. Someone started singing “Blue Spanish Eyes.” Mr. Ray shouted over the music.
“Hey, Tree. What’s this I hear about you and dead bodies?”
“How are you doing, Ray?”
“You found a body, I hear.”
“Detective Tree Callister on the job,” Todd said, trying to lighten the moment.
“That’s something isn’t it? Finding a dead body?” Mr. Ray focused intently on Tree. “Gonna buy you a beer.”
“No thanks, Ray.”
He looked around. No sign of Freddie.
“What do you mean? I’m offering to buy you a beer.”
“I don’t drink beer, Ray.”
Ray’s face had gone slack. “What? I can’t buy you a beer, is that it?”
“No, Ray.” Todd looked nervous. Tree started away. Ray put his hand on his arm.
“What’s the matter with you? What the hell’s the matter?”
“Let go of me.”
“Ray, take it easy,” Todd said. He looked more nervous.
“Take it easy? You expect me to take it easy when I offer to buy a man a beer and he turns me down? He insults me? And you want me to take it easy?”
Ray’s voice had risen to alarming levels.
“Ray, take your hands off me,” Tree said.
“Take my hands off you? Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? I’m a decorated war veteran. You’re a loser. You’re lucky I give you the time of day.”
Tree thought of Savannah Trask threatening him. He thought of Shawn Lazenby shoving him around in a parking lot. Elizabeth Traven firing him. Now this. Enough.
He slugged Ray Dayton.
A stinging pain shot through his fist when it connected with Ray’s jaw. Ray’s mouth twisted weirdly. His eyes bulged in surprise as he tumbled backward, his glass taking flight. The next thing Todd was holding him, as though Tree might tear Ray apart with his bare hands.
Freddie was beside him. Even with her mouth open, her eyes wide and unblinking, Tree thought she looked irresistible.
____
“I’m not going to lose my job,” Freddie said on the way home.
“I punched out your boss,” Tree said. He sat beside Freddie in the passenger seat. He felt terrible.
“How’s your hand?”
“It hurts.”
“You shouldn’t hit people with it.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,�
� Tree said.
“You weren’t thinking, but never mind. I wonder if we should go over to emergency and have them take a look at it.”
“On a Friday night? It’ll be a zoo. It’s fine. I might have sprained it, that’s all.”
“You could have broken it.”
“You don’t think I can punch a guy without breaking my hand?”
“I don’t know. How many guys have you punched in your life?”
“Dozens,” Tree said.
“I hate to say, ‘Ray had it coming.’ But Ray was cruising for a bruising, as we used to say. What got into you, anyway?”
“Maybe I’m just tired of everyone pushing me around.”
“Poor boy, is everyone pushing you around?”
Tree played his trump card.
“Also, I got fired at lunch.”
“You saw Marcello? He wants his six bucks back?”
“It was seven, and it wasn’t Marcello. Elizabeth Traven.”
Freddie was silent for a time. “That’s a surprise. Isn’t it?”
“I‘m attracting too much attention, apparently.”
“Now there’s a criticism of you I haven’t heard before.”
“That’s what she told me.”
They drove in silence until they reached Andy Rosse Lane and Freddie turned into the drive. She stopped the car and looked over at Tree. “Think about why Elizabeth would fire you.”
“Right now we’ve got bigger problems than Elizabeth Traven. Suppose Ray fires you over this.”
“You never know.”
“You’re being very calm, Freddie. What will we do?”
“Live on your detective salary.”
“In a cardboard box under an overpass.”
“Well, at least we’ll be together.”
He kissed her and said, “How did you get to be so wonderful?”
“Years of practice. But let’s go back to Elizabeth and why she got rid of you.”
“I just told you. I’m too high profile.”
“Let’s say it was something else. For the sake of argument.”
“You see? You just can’t imagine me getting too much attention.”
“Let’s say Elizabeth was looking for something and found it.”
“What would she be looking for?”
“What’s everyone looking for?”
“Marcello?”
“It would explain why he hasn’t come back for those letters.”
“So what you’re saying is Elizabeth didn’t hire me to protect her from Mickey. She hired me because she thought I knew where Marcello was.”
“Now is that brilliant detective work or what?” Freddie grinned.
“But why would she want him?”
“I don’t know, but she seems to be mixed up with all sorts of people who do.”
____
Inside, Freddie yawned, said she was dead tired, kissed him, and went off to bed. He thought more about Marcello. Where did he go each time he disappeared? He knew bad people were looking for him, yet he felt confident enough to leave. That meant he had found a safe place to hide. But where would a twelve-year-old find that place—close enough to get back to Tree and Freddie whenever the spirit moved him?
No. It couldn’t be.
His glasses had disappeared. It took him fifteen minutes to finally locate them on top of the microwave. How the hell did they get there? He went out to the garage and turned on the overhead light. Metal filing cabinets from his newspaper days stood in a corner, otherwise the interior was pretty much empty. He stared up at the trap door in the ceiling; the dangling pull-cord.
He yanked at the cord. The accordion staircase folded neatly down. Tree climbed the stairs into the attic above the garage. It had been a long time since he had been up here. The light was dim but he could make out cathedral-like joists supporting the peaked roof, the paint cans he had piled in a corner and then forgotten about, not far from the sleeping bag on the plywood floor. The sleeping bag didn’t belong to him. Tree got on his knees, brushing against the Tampa Rays baseball cap. The sleeping bag was a Coleman with goose down insulation. Fairly expensive. The flap dropped open. Someone had stitched a patch into the fabric. The patch was neatly lettered:
Marcello O’Hara
1188 Estero Blvd.
Fort Myers Beach, Fl.
90250
Tree looked at his watch. It was just after ten o’clock.
26
The Fort Myers Beach fishing pier glowed through the darkness. A late-night couple ambled hand-in-hand across Times Square headed for the beach. The vacancy sign flashed on at the Pierview Hotel. The souvenir shops along Estero Boulevard were closed tight. A few college kids shuffled in and out of Nemo’s, while the skinny guy behind the counter at Shep’s Subs and Tropical Treats eyed his watch. The wood-carved Indian warrior in front of the Cigar Hut didn’t give Tree so much as a second glance.
Eleven-eighty-eight Estero Blvd. was a two story frame shack painted ocean blue. A multi-colored sign over the door said “Dara.” Painted street scenes and ocean views with palm trees were framed and mounted in the window. The interior was dark.
Tree stepped back and looked at the second floor. A light burned in an upper window, illuminating the staircase running up the side of the building. He was standing there, debating what to do next, when the door at the top of the stairs opened, and a woman stepped out.
Mickey Crowley in jeans and a tank top, not as flashy at Fort Myers Beach as she had been in Naples, came down the stairs, turned, and called back.
A man appeared on the landing. He cradled a limp bundle in his arms. The bundle was a little boy.
Marcello.
The man came down the stairs. Tree couldn’t quite make him out.
The man followed Mickey to a black SUV parked behind a lattice wall. Tree could see Mickey slide behind the wheel. The man opened the rear door and pushed Marcello inside. He closed the door, waved at Mickey, and then turned to go out onto the street. That’s when Tree got a pretty good look at him.
He couldn’t say for certain it was Detective Mel Scott, but it sure looked a lot like him.
____
Mickey drove over the causeway onto San Carlos Boulevard. When she turned left onto Summerlin Road, Tree began to suspect where she was headed.
Traffic was light at this time of night so Tree had no trouble keeping the SUV’s taillights in view. His cell phone buzzed and jumped on the passenger seat. Freddie. She had probably awakened and found him missing. He decided not to answer it. He had enough to contend with right now.
As soon as the SUV came off onto Periwinkle Way, the traffic abruptly dwindled. Reflexively, Tree fell further back, fearing Mickey would realize she was being followed.
But apparently Mickey had no such concerns as she came along Sanibel-Captiva Road. It didn’t take her long to reach the Traven house.
The front drive was bathed in sodium light like a stairway to heaven. Only a Busby Berkeley chorus line singing “We’re In the Money” was missing.
Tree waited until Mickey’s SUV drove through the electric gates, and then he pulled the Beetle over to the shoulder south of the entrance. He sat for a time, summoning the nerve to do what he was about to do.
He must be out of his mind.
He thought about phoning Freddie. But she would merely confirm what he was thinking, that in fact he was out of his mind and should immediately come home.
He got out of the car, closed the door, and strode through the gate, up the lighted drive, feeling terribly exposed, thinking someone would jump him.
No one did.
Tree climbed the staircase, crossed the porch and tried the door. To his surprise, it opened. He stepped inside the foyer, footsteps echoing against Carrara marble tiles. He expected Jorge to appear, demanding to know what he was doing in the house at this time of night. But there was no Jorge. He heard distant music.
Tree went along a sisal-carpeted hall. Voices came toward him. There was a door
to the right. He opened it and found himself in a dimly-lit bedroom.
The voices grew nearer. “It’s up to you, of course, but I don’t see the problem.”
A second voice said, “The problem is them, my friend, the problem is them.”
“Always a challenge. A certain type of person agrees to this, and they are usually not easy to deal with.”
“These are worse,” the second voice said. “At least she is.”
Two men passed, heads bent together. One man wore a green hospital smock.
“Anyway,” said the first voice, “it’s finished tonight.”
“Can’t be too soon for me.”
The voices trailed off. Tree waited a minute or so before stepping back into the hall. He reached the door at the end, hesitated a moment, and then threw it open.
A flat screen television dominated a small room. Tree had never seen such a big TV, would not have known they even made them that size. Nicole Kidman in high definition loomed above Marcello on a chaise lounge. Tree thought the boy asleep, but as he bent down he could see he was awake, staring listlessly at the screen.
“Marcello.”
The boy looked at him with bleary, drugged eyes. A watery smile didn’t quite work.
“You all right?” Tree said.
The boy slowly turned his head back and forth. “They want to—”
“What is it, Marcello?” Tree said.
“Operation.” In a voice so slurry, Tree wasn’t certain he had heard him correctly.
“Operation? Is that what you’re saying?”
The boy nodded. “Don’t want operation. Don’t want it.”
“I’m going to get you out of here, okay?”
“No operation.”
“No,” Tree said.
He gathered Marcello in his arms and carried him out into the hall, back through the house and outside into the glare of the sodium lights. Marcello opened his eyes, moved his lips, but said nothing. Tree took a deep breath and started down the steps.
He came out the gate and got to his car, dropping Marcello into the passenger seat, wrapping a seat belt around him. Then Tree crawled in the driver’s side and started the engine.
What had he done? he asked himself as he sped away along Captiva Drive.
What the hell had he done?
27
