Found: A Matt Royal Mystery (7 page)

“Can you think of anything else about the murder?”

“Sorry. I wracked my brain all night, but there’s nothing more I can tell you. I couldn’t sleep. I never saw anybody killed before. And Ken was a friend. It was just awful. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it out of my head.”

“I’m sorry you had to see all that, Ann. I’d better go. I need to get back to the station. If you happen to see Mr. King, will you give me a call? I really need to talk to him.”

“I’ll call you the minute I see him.”

The women chatted for a few more minutes and J.D. left, stopping by the manager’s office on her way out. She sat for a few minutes in her car, thinking, and then called Martin Sharkey, her deputy chief. She asked him to run Porter King’s name through the databases and see if anything came up. She wanted to know all she could about King before she talked to him.

She called the sheriff’s forensics office and asked about any results on the car they pulled out of Longboat Pass or any information on the man that was in it. Nothing. She sat for a few more minutes, frustrated at the pace of officialdom. She picked up her phone again and called Bert Hawkins, the chief medical examiner of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit, identified herself, and was put through.

“Ah, my favorite detective,” said Dr. Hawkins. “You must need something.”

“Now, Bert, what if I called just to hear your voice?”

“Then I’d think you had finally come to your senses and dumped Matt and were coming on to me.”

J.D. laughed. “If you were single, I’d probably do just that. As it happens, I do need something.”

“What can I do for you, J.D.?”

“We pulled a John Doe from Longboat Pass yesterday. He should be in your morgue. I was wondering if you could get to his autopsy today.”

“Already done. I got to it first thing this morning.”

“I guess the sheriff doesn’t have your report yet. What can you tell me about him?”

“Not much. He was in good health, probably in his mid-thirties. He didn’t drown. No water in his lungs, but his spinal cord was severed up in the neck area. Died instantly.”

“Is that an unusual injury?”

“Very common in car wrecks. Usually we see it in high-speed rear-enders. The lawyers call it whiplash, which isn’t very scientific. It’s a flexion-extension type injury. The head is knocked to the rear and then immediately to the front. If the force is sufficient, it can sever the cord.”

“This wasn’t a rear-end collision.”

“I know. I think it probably happened when he hit the bridge railing. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and the force of hitting the railing would have thrown his head into the steering wheel. There was an abrasion on his forehead consistent with that theory. The steering wheel stopped his head’s forward progress, but his chin would have kept going. That would have thrown his head back at an awkward angle, snapping his neck.”

“Did he have any marks on his body, any wounds, tattoos, surgical scars, anything that would give me a lead on his identity?”

“He’d been shot sometime in the past, but it looks like a pretty good doc cleaned him up.”

“How so?”

“The bullet went into his abdomen and ruptured his colon and took a part of his liver. Whoever took care of him got everything fixed.”

“Any idea how long ago?”

“Probably years.”

“Did you get some blood samples for DNA?”

“Of course, and I put a rush on them for you. You should have some results tomorrow.”

“Will you ask the lab to test for any genetic markers that could tell us where he’s from?”

“That’s a little more complex, but we can do it. Probably narrow down his ethnicity, but we won’t be able to tell you where he’s from. He could have been born in Sarasota, and we couldn’t tell you that, but we could tell you if he is of Chinese extraction, say.”

“Is he Asian?”

“No. Not in appearance. I was just using that as an example.”

“Thanks, Bert. Call me when your wife kicks you out.”

He was chuckling as he hung up.

J.D. shook her head in frustration. She was no closer to identifying the shooter than she had been when she woke up that morning. Sharkey
called before she could start her car. “King lives at the same address as the murder yesterday, drives a black Acura SUV, and is fifty-two years old. No warrants and nobody’s looking for him. His record is clean as a whistle and he’s lived on Longboat for a little over a year. Does that help?”

“It confirms what I know. So I guess that’s a help.”

“What’s your interest in King?”

“The security video showed him talking to our shooter just before the murder. King was gone by the time Goodlow was killed, but I want to talk to him.”

“Do you think he’s got something to do with the murder?” Sharkey asked.

“Probably not, but I’ll interview him. See what he does know. I’ll keep you posted.”

J.D. hung up and pulled out onto Gulf of Mexico Drive, heading north toward her condo. It was time for lunch and she didn’t want to fight the crowds. She’d make a salad and get back to work.

She gradually became aware of the black Toyota a couple of car lengths behind her, driving at the same speed she was. Nothing out of the ordinary about that, except that she’d seen the same car, or one just like it, behind her as she was leaving Matt’s house that morning. She picked up her phone and called dispatch. “Who’s on road patrol this morning?” she asked.

“Steve Carey is the only one working right now. The other guy is in court in Sarasota.”

“Do you know Steve’s location?”

“He just radioed in. He’s watching traffic in front of the Catholic church.”

“Thanks,” said J.D. and hung up.

She dialed Carey’s cell phone. “Steve, it’s J.D. I’ll be passing you northbound in about three minutes. There’s a black Toyota Corolla following me. I’ve seen him twice today. Will you pull in behind him and run his tag for me?”

“Sure. You want me to pull him over?”

“Let’s check on the tag first. If it turns up as stolen, get him. If not, stay with him, but call me back with a name.”

“Got it.”

J.D. passed the parked patrol car and gradually slowed her speed by ten miles per hour to give Steve a little more time. She decided she wouldn’t turn into the road that led to her condo, but keep driving. If Steve didn’t get back to her, she’d keep going and cross the bridge onto Anna Maria Island. Her phone rang.

“J.D.,” said Steve, “the car’s registered to a corporation named SMI, Inc., based in Tampa. No reports of it being stolen.”

“I want to know who’s driving that car. I want you to drop back way behind him.”

“I’ve already done that. Didn’t want to spook him.”

“Okay. I’m going to speed up to about sixty miles per hour. If he wants to stay with me, he’ll have to break the speed limit. You get him and give him a ticket for speeding and let him go. Treat it like any traffic stop. His license will tell us who he is.”

“If it’s not a fake.”

“That’s the best we can do for now. I don’t want him to realize I’ve made him. I’m up to sixty now and he’s keeping pace.”

“I’ll have him in a minute,” said Steve, and J.D. heard the wail of the siren cutting through the cool air.

Dusk shrouded the islands as darkness swallowed the day’s final moments, the last traces of light bleeding slowly from the sky. I drove across the bridge and onto Longboat Key, glad to be home, tired from the drive, and in need of a cold beer. I’d called J.D. from the road and arranged to meet at Tiny’s.

The place was quiet, a few locals enjoying the short interval between the time the afternoon crowd left for home and the evening crowd began to stir. J.D. was at the bar talking to Logan Hamilton and his girlfriend, Marie Phillips. She apparently hadn’t dumped him yet.

A cold bottle of Miller Lite appeared on the bar as I sat down next to J.D. She kissed me on the cheek. “You have a good day?”

“I did. How about you?”

“Made some progress on the murder, I think,” she said. “Were the Basses any help?”

“Maybe. Did you ever get the impression that there was trouble in Jim and Katie’s marriage?”

“Not really. She’d complain about him sometimes, but I always thought that was just the usual ebb and flow of marital bliss. Why?”

“I’ll fill you in later. Hey, Logan, Marie.”

“Matt,” Logan said, “heard you were off-island.”

Our key leaks information, most of it no more exciting than the comings and goings of the islanders. “Just for the day,” I said.

“Where’d you go?”

“Orlando.”

“That doesn’t sound real exciting.”

“It wasn’t. How’re you, Marie? Still putting up with my buddy, I see.”

“He needs supervision, Matt,” Marie said, “and I’m the only one crazy enough to take on such a long-term project.”

“You guys want to go to dinner?” Logan asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Too many people this time of the year.”

“We could go to the Haye Loft,” he said. “Pizza and dessert. If we go now, we’ll beat the crowd.”

I looked at J.D. “Sounds good to me,” she said. “I need to make an early night of it.”

Pizza and beer topped off with a calorie-laden piece of key lime pie had lulled me into a near torpid state. J.D. and I were huddled on my sofa, the sound of her voice pushing me closer to sleep. “And so,” she said, “I stripped naked and jumped on top of old Bob, just about giving him a heart attack.”

“What? Who the hell is Bob?”

“Are we awake now?”

“Geez, yes. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Fantasy, dear. Nothing more, but it appears to have woken you up.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was kind of dozing off.” I sat up straight. “So tell me about your day.”

“Not a lot to report. I found out the name of the man we saw on the security tape talking to our shooter. Porter King. He lives in the complex, but apparently is out of town. I’ll try him again tomorrow. The big surprise was that somebody was following me today.”

“Following you? How?”

“In a car, dummy. A black Toyota Corolla.”

“I’d think a black Lincoln Town Car would have been more intimidating.”

“Probably, but the Corolla was bad enough.”

“Any idea who it was?”

“A private investigator from Tampa.”

“You been fooling around with a married man?”

“Not lately.”

“Any idea why he was following you?”

“No. I had Steve Carey pull him over for speeding and find out who
he is. I don’t think he would have connected the traffic stop to me. I’m going to find out a bit more about him before I do anything.”

“Want me to go talk to him?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

“I could send Jock to see him.”

J.D. laughed. “The guy would die of fright. When’s Jock due in?”

“Sometime this weekend. He’ll let me know when his plans gel. He’s taking a little downtime in Rome.”

“Must be nice.”

“He’s been doing agency work,” I said, “so I don’t know what kind of shape he’ll be in when he gets here.”

J.D. was quiet for a moment. “Matt, if he needs you, I’ll stay at my place. Let you two do what you do. Get him clean. I’ll stay out of your hair.”

“Thanks, but I hope it won’t come to that. He and Logan are supposed to play in a golf tournament next week at the Longboat Key Club, so maybe it won’t be too bad. I appreciate your understanding, though.”

“I love him, too, you know.”

“I know you do.”

“He’s family.”

I smiled. “He is.”

“So, what did you find out in Winter Park?”

“I’m not sure. I think there was trouble in Jim and Katie’s marriage.” I filled her in on my discussion with the Basses. “Do you think Jim was abusive?”

“I never thought about that,” she said. “But it did seem that Katie withdrew during the three or four years before she disappeared.”

“How so?”

“She hardly ever called. For a long time, we talked every week or so, but then the calls almost came to a halt. When I called her, she always seemed to be in the middle of something and couldn’t talk more than a few minutes.”

“Did you see much of her during that period?”

“No. She almost never came to Miami, but I used to visit her in Sarasota a couple times a year. The invitations stopped about the same time as
the phone calls. I didn’t attach any significance to it. I just figured she was building a new life here with Jim and I wasn’t part of it. Friends do grow apart, you know, so I thought that was what was happening.”

“The same kind of thing was going on with her parents. George seemed to think she was being mentally abused. They didn’t think it was physical.”

“Jim was always pretty intense. Maybe the pressures of the law practice were making him worse.”

“Did Katie ever talk to you about having children?”

J.D. smiled. “Yeah. She wanted a houseful. I don’t know why she didn’t start a family. I thought it might be a physical problem with one of them, but it wasn’t my place to ask.”

“Did she ever say anything about Jim not wanting kids?”

“No.”

“She told the Basses that Jim didn’t want children. Apparently he was adamant about it.”

“Katie never said anything to me.”

“Do you know why Captain McAllister would still be calling the Basses to ask if they’d heard from Katie?”

“No, but I assume he hasn’t given up. He and Jim were buddies, and there is always one case a cop can’t solve and can’t let go of.”

“Do you have any of those?”

“A couple, but when I left Miami, I put them behind me. I wouldn’t be able to work the cases from here, so I had to let them go. But they still haunt me.”

“I think you might want to have another talk with McAllister,” I said. “See if he’s found out anything more.”

“I plan to do that. I’ve been debating whether to show him the picture of Katie.”

I thought about that for a minute. “I don’t think I would. Not yet, anyway. That’s kind of our ace in the hole. If Katie’s alive, she’s either being kept somewhere by somebody or she’s intentionally hidden herself away from her world. If she’s reaching out to you after all this time, there must be a reason.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I guess you’re no further along in your investigation of Ken Good-low’s murder.”