Found: A Matt Royal Mystery (35 page)

“That looks like Harry Robson,” I said.

“Careful,” said Jock. He put his right hand behind his waist, touching the pistol he always carried in a holster in the small of his back. Even when he was wearing sweatpants.

“He’s okay.”

“You’re probably right, but this has been one strange day so far.”

We walked toward the ramp. “Good morning, Harry,” I said. “What brings you to paradise?”

Harry said, “I stopped by your house. J.D. told me I could find you here. I need to talk to you guys. I’m not happy about the way my boss is handling the King investigation.”

“As your boss pointed out,” I said, “we’re just a couple of civilians. I don’t see how we can help.”

“I filled J.D. in this morning,” Harry said. “Jock, I don’t know exactly what you do, but I know you do it for the federal government and you’re the best we have at whatever it is you do.” He grinned ruefully. “I know from Bill Lester that you two get involved in all kinds of things that you probably shouldn’t and always come out smelling like roses.”

“Talk to us, Harry,” said Jock.

“Can I buy you lunch at Mar Vista?” he said.

“Do we have time to get cleaned up?” I asked.

“No. I’ve got to get back. Come on. I’ll give you a ride.”

The restaurant was busy but, at our request, we were seated at a table under the trees away from the other diners. We ordered drinks and looked briefly at the menus. “What’s up, Harry?” I asked.

“The press has been all over the King case. That always happens when we have a murder in the high rent districts.”

“You’re not surprised, are you?” I asked.

“No. But what does surprise me is how McAllister is handling it.”

“How’s that?” Jock asked.

“He’s telling the reporters that all the evidence leads us to believe that the murders were the result of a random robbery that went bad. There’s absolutely no evidence pointing to anything other than that this was an execution.”

“Maybe he can’t say that without causing a panic among the downtown residents,” I said.

“That’s a point, but why is he trying to pass that story off on me and the other cops?”

“Have you called him on his story?” Jock asked.

“This morning. I sat down with him and asked what the hell was going on. He said I just had to trust him on this one because it involved some very highly placed people. I pointed out that King and his girlfriend were not exactly high-profile folks.”

“No they weren’t,” I said. “Did you see the report J.D. sent to McAllister about her conversation with the girlfriend on the afternoon of the murders?”

“No. It’s not in the file. I assumed she hadn’t sent it.”

“Did he tell you that Josie Tyler called J.D. and left a voice mail just before the murders?”

“No. Did he know that?”

“I was there when J.D. told him,” I said. “I think the call is probably on the printout from the phone company as well.”

“I never saw the printout. It’s not in the file.”

“I can see why you’re concerned,” I said.

“There’s more,” Harry said. “I talked to the people who cleaned the manager’s office on the afternoon of the murders. They were both adamant that they did not knock the router’s plug out of the wall. They said it was under a table and a couple of feet off the floor. They would have run the vacuum cleaner under the table, but they couldn’t have knocked out the plug. They were aware it was there and that it was important. I think somebody unplugged it on purpose.”

“Who do you think did it?” Jock asked.

“I don’t know, but it has to be somebody with some juice with McAllister. The cleaning people told me that McAllister never talked to them. That’s just not something that an experienced detective would forget to do.”

“Maybe he thought somebody else was handling it,” I said.

“I doubt it. He was playing this one very close to the vest, not involving me or any of the other detectives.”

“Is that unusual?” asked Jock.

“Very much so. We usually work as a team and just report back to McAllister. If he ever does get involved in the investigation, he just becomes another member of the team. He’s never taken one over before and not involved the rest of us.”

“What was J.D.’s take on all this?” I asked.

“She thought it very odd. She wanted me to tell you about it, but she also seemed a little anxious to get me out of the cottage. I guess she’s still reacting from last night.”

“You know about the attack last night?” I asked.

“Yeah. McAllister mentioned it this morning. I’m glad you two are all right.”

“What did McAllister tell you?” I asked.

“Just that some shooters tried to take you and J.D. out last night, but that you managed to kill all three of the bad guys.”

“How would McAllister know about that?” I asked.

“It was a pretty big story down at the station. The word gets out quick anytime a cop is involved in a shooting. I’m not concerned that McAllister knew about it.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Only that it happened near your house.”

“Harry,” Jock said, “what do you want us to do about this?”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know, Jock. I thought I ought to tell J.D. about my suspicions, and she wanted me to tell you two. She has an interest in the murders since they’re tied into a case she’s working here on the island. I can’t go to anybody in my department. McAllister’s been around a long time and is owed a lot of favors. I just thought J.D. ought to know. And she thought you and Matt should know.”

We finished our meal, talking about inconsequential things. Harry left and Jock and I walked home to find J.D. and Katie sitting in the living room. Katie was sobbing, spasms shaking her whole body, struggling to catch her breath and then sobbing some more. J.D. was sitting across from her, a stunned look on her face, a rictus of horror and disgust and unfathomable sadness.

Katie got up as we walked in, excused herself, and went into the guest room and slammed the door. “Is she all right?” I asked.

“No, but I think she’ll be better now that she’s got some of that out of her system.”

“Some of what?”

“The reason she didn’t want her parents to know she’s alive is that she’s as much afraid of her dad as she is of McAllister.”

“Tell us about it,” I said.

“George Bass abused her as a child. Sexually. She doesn’t think her mother knew anything about it, and Katie tried to put it behind her when she left for college. I guess that’s one of the reasons she fell for Jim Fredrickson. She wanted to be independent of her father.”

“Did Katie ever confront George?” I asked.

“Yes. A week before her disappearance. She went for a short visit to talk to George. She didn’t want her mom to know what was going on with her, so she went at a time that she knew her mother would be out of the house volunteering at the hospital. Katie asked George for help. She told him that she was addicted to some kind of drug and told him what she’d been doing in order to get the drugs. She wanted George to help her get away from Jim and into rehab.”

“He refused?” I asked.

“Not only did he refuse, he blew a gasket. He told her that she was nothing but a whore, selling herself for drugs. She was no better than the streetwalkers. Apparently things got real tense, real quick. Katie asked George if he’d thought her a slut when he was sneaking into her room late at night when she was a little girl.”

“And George’s response?” I asked.

“He laughed. He told her that she wasn’t his child, that he and Betty had adopted her when she was an infant. Katie didn’t believe him, so he brought her the adoption papers. She asked why they hadn’t told her before now, and he said that it was because Betty didn’t want to raise the issue. Ever.”

“That must have been devastating,” I said.

“It was. Katie told George that she was going to the cops. She knew that her husband and his cronies were involved in some bad stuff and she was going to turn them in and get herself into rehab.”

“George’s reaction?” I asked.

“He said he’d kill her if she went to the police. He told her that he and Jim were in business together and there was a lot of money to be made. If she upset that apple cart, he’d kill her. Betty, too. ‘You’ve got your mother’s life in your hands,’ he told her. His exact words. The last thing George said to her before she left, and I’m quoting Katie directly, was, ‘You fuck up and she dies.’”

“Katie’s father was working with her husband?” Jock asked.

“Apparently, so,” J.D. said.

“Then George Bass would have known that Katie was alive,” Jock said. “McAllister would have told him.”

“Maybe not,” J.D. said. “Katie was the only one who could put McAllister at the Fredrickson house the night Jim and the woman died. If he let on to George that he knew Katie was alive, he, McAllister, would have to explain his presence at the time of Jim’s death.”

“And,” said Jock, “there was always the chance that George Bass would try to protect Katie from McAllister.”

“You might be right, Jock,” said J.D. “McAllister wouldn’t have known about the abuse. That’s not the kind of thing George would have told him. He might not have even known that George was not Katie’s birth father. In that case, McAllister couldn’t be sure that George wouldn’t do whatever he could to protect his daughter.”

“J.D.,” I said, “did you ask Katie about the other two men who were raping her on a regular basis?”

“Yes. The lawyer, Wayne Evans, was one and the other was Dwight Peters, the man Jock thought was Bonino.”

“Damn,” said Jock. “I think I’d better talk to David Sims and see if I can get some more time with Peters. I guess he’s still in the Manatee County jail.”

“He probably is,” said J.D., “but let’s take care of McAllister first. He’s the real threat.”

“What about the U-166?” I asked.

“I didn’t get to that yet,” said J.D.

“Maybe McAllister can enlighten us,” said Jock.

J.D. said, “I also want to know why King was interested in Bud Jamison, and we still don’t have a clue as to who killed old Mr. Goodlow.”

J.D. stood up. “I need to check on Katie,” she said.

“What are you thinking about how to take McAllister?” I asked Jock.

“We go in hard and fast and quiet about three in the morning, wearing ski masks. He’ll be sound asleep. We wake him up with a couple slaps, show him our weapons, and drag his ass out of bed. He’ll be a bit disoriented. We throw him in the trunk of the rental and drive out somewhere to the woods, drag him out, tie him to a tree, and throw a hood over his head. Then we start asking questions.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Only one hitch. Where the hell do we find ski masks in Florida?”

Jock grinned. “I have a couple in my suitcase.”

I never ask about those things. Who knows why he’d be carrying ski masks around with him in his luggage? It’s probably better if I don’t know.

Katie had composed herself and followed J.D. back into the living room. “Sorry about that,” Katie said. “I’ve never told a soul about what my father did to me. Talking about it brought back some terrible memories. Things I’d buried a long time ago.”

“Are you up to some more conversation?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m not sure how much else I can tell you.”

“Talk to us about U166.”

“I don’t know much about that. I heard the men talking about it several times. I thought it might be a street drug, one of those things the kids cook
up. Like Ecstasy or meth. I just assumed that J.D. would know what it was and would maybe be able to connect it to somebody. It was a shot in the dark.”

“Do you remember any of the conversations?” Jock asked.

“No. Sorry. They just talked about making a lot of money out of it.”

“Katie,” I said, “I’d like you to close your eyes, and really think about the answer to what I’m about to ask you. The question might sound a little weird, but it might jog your memory some.”

“Okay.” She shut her eyes.

“Do you remember the men ever talking about a submarine, specifically a World War II German submarine?”

She was quiet for a moment or two. Thinking. Her eyes popped open. “Yes,” she said. “They were talking one night and not paying any attention to me. I must have been less drugged than usual. Anyway, I heard Porter King talking about a submarine. Something about stumbling over the wreckage, but they needed a key. I don’t know what to, but it sounded important. Like they had put a lot of effort into the deal and without the key, they wouldn’t be able to make the money they planned on.”

She held up her hand, as if holding us off, and closed her eyes again. We sat quietly. She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t remember anything else about that conversation.”

“Did you ever overhear them talking about the submarine after that?” I asked.

“No. Not that I can remember. Sorry.”

J.D. said, “Logan might be right about the submarine after all.”

We were sitting in the living room of Captain Doug McAllister’s home on a large tract of land out near Myakka City. The place had once been a working farm, but now was just a large house isolated by the fallow fields surrounding it. It was four o’clock on Thursday morning and McAllister was tied naked to a straight chair facing us, a black hood covering his face and head.

J.D. had found the address and we looked it up on Google Maps. The house sat back from the highway, shielded from the traffic by a grove of old-growth live oaks. A driveway led from the main road through the trees to the house. The location and isolation of McAllister’s home led us to a change of plans. Why not be comfortable while discussing matters with Mr. McAllister?

We drove the rental with its crumpled rear quarter panel and stopped at the entrance to McAllister’s property. Jock doused the headlights, and we turned quietly into the trees. When we were sure our car wouldn’t be spotted from the road, we parked. We were dressed in jeans and black sweatshirts and black running shoes. Jock handed me a ski mask, a pair of latex gloves, night-vision goggles, and a rifle from the trunk. He picked up a shotgun and a small satchel and we walked carefully toward the house.