Found: A Matt Royal Mystery (8 page)

“No. I went to see Bud Jamison again this afternoon after I got away from the P.I. He gave me the names of all the people who were in the picture from 1948, but the ones he knows about are all dead. There were a couple of people who moved away over the years and he lost contact with them, so he doesn’t know whether they’re dead or alive.”

“Cracker Dix knew Goodlow,” I said. “He used to have coffee with him, Jamison, and two other old men over at the Cortez Café. He said they all just stopped showing up for coffee, and Ken never would give him an answer as to why.”

“Did Cracker know any of them by name?”

“He didn’t remember them, but he said they might be in his journal.”

“Cracker keeps a journal?”

“You don’t want to know. He did tell me the men died over the past couple of years. Goodlow and Jamison were the only ones left. Do you think they may be important?”

“I doubt it, but I need to cover all the bases. I’ll talk to Cracker tomorrow, show him the old pictures. If he knows the names of the old guys he had coffee with, he can tell me whether they were part of the crowd back in ‘48.”

“Why don’t you just ask Jamison?”

“I will. But if I know the names of the old gents and those guys were in the pictures, I can tell if Jamison is lying if he says they weren’t.”

“Why would he lie to you about something like that?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably not pertinent to anything.”

“Sounds like you’re just scratching around.”

“That’s half the job.”

The night often brings disquiet and dreams of dead soldiers and jailed clients, the ones I couldn’t save, the ones who didn’t deserve death or incarceration. That night, I dreamed of Jock Algren. We had grown up together in a small town in the middle of the Florida peninsula, best buddies who struggled with dysfunctional families and survived the trials of our teen years.

When Jock graduated from college, he joined the most secretive agency of the federal government, one so secret it didn’t even have a name. Over the years, he had become one of their top agents and he reported directly to his director and to the president of the United States. Jock had extraordinary powers given to him by the president and Jock gave the president deniability, cover from any mission that blew up in the politicians’ faces. So far, that hadn’t happened.

Jock was called on to do many things in fighting terrorists and other enemies of the United States. Sometimes he killed the bastards in cold blood, and while every one of them deserved his fate, when the body count reached some sort of undefined critical mass, the actuality that it was he who sent them to hell would sporadically slam Jock into a state of wretched self-loathing. He would slink onto Longboat Key and hole up in my cottage on the bay, watching the boats and birds and people and slinging back glass after glass of good bourbon. He’d talk and tell me about the horrors he’d seen, the men he’d killed, the destruction they had wrought that made them undeserving of mercy or due process. Just death at the hands of an assassin they had not seen coming. And when he’d drunk himself into a stupor, Jock would crawl into bed and sleep for hours. Some nights I’d
hear him sobbing through his pain, and the next morning he’d attack another bottle of bourbon.

Three or four days would pass without my leaving him. I made sure he ate enough to survive and I listened as he poured out the details of a life that was his personal scourge. And on the fourth or fifth morning, he’d wake up early, shower, and drink glassfuls of water. “Ready to run?” he’d ask, and I would know it was over, the bad days that we called the “cleansing time.”

We’d run the beach, pounding the booze out of his system, and then we’d go to the Blue Dolphin Cafe for a huge breakfast and lots of coffee. The old Jock would be back, the self-assured man with the ready smile and a kind word for everybody. He’d stay a few more days, play golf with Logan, drink his nonalcoholic beer at Tiny’s or the Hilton or Pattigeorge’s, joke with his many friends on the island, and then fly off to Houston and home until the wars again came knocking on his door, bidding him to join up and start the terrible process all over again. It was Jock, and men like him, who stood between us and the devils who crashed planes loaded with civilians into buildings filled with office workers. His work was honorable, but I knew that he left a little of himself on the battlefield after every skirmish. Someday, there would not be enough left of Jock Algren for me to help rehabilitate. And then my friend would die and a large piece of my life would go to the grave with him. I wasn’t sure how I’d survive that.

I tossed and turned in the bed, the dreams and thoughts crashing around in my turbulent brain. I felt J.D.’s hand on me several times, her quiet whisper letting me know she was there. Finally, I got out of bed and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Four a.m. on a dark Thursday morning. A time when predators roam the earth.

I took my cup into the living room and sat in the dark, staring at the bay through the sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio. The security lights on my dock cast shadows on the black water, providing an unsettling sense of dread.

I crept back into the bedroom and retrieved a pair of shorts, a sweatshirt, and my running shoes. I put a note for J.D. on the kitchen counter and left the house. The only way to rid myself of this creeping anxiety was to run it out of my system. I jogged down Broadway to Gulf of Mexico Drive and headed south, past Cannons Marina and the Euphemia Haye
Restaurant. I turned around at the Centre Shops and picked up speed as I ran north toward the village. I slowed to a walk when I reached Broadway and ambled toward home. It was still dark, and the coolness of the early morning was quickly drying the sweat I’d exuded during the run. The endorphins had kicked in and my mood was definitely on the upswing.

A car turned onto Broadway from Gulf of Mexico Drive, its headlight beams startling me for a second. I moved to the left edge of the road, giving it plenty of room to pass. I could hear the car as it approached and knew it was slowing. I looked over my shoulder, but the headlights’ glare obscured my view. I stepped onto the grass berm, looking for an escape route. I had no reason to fear a strange car in my own neighborhood, but the adrenalin was beginning to flow into my system. I told myself I was being stupid, imagining things, finding threats where there were none. Still, better safe than sorry.

I was a step or two from bolting into the yard of a dark house, when the car came to a stop and a familiar voice said, “Hey, Matt. You’re out early.”

I turned to see a Longboat Key Police squad car and an officer I’d known for years. “Morning, Joe. Just running off last night’s pizza. How’s the night shift working out for you?”

“Kind of quiet, but I did see a black Corolla that’s on my ‘watch for’ list. The same one that was tailing J.D. yesterday.”

“Where?”

“Parked a couple of houses down from yours. I ran him off, but I’ve been driving by every half hour or so to make sure he hasn’t come back.”

“Was it the same driver Steve Carey stopped yesterday?”

“Yeah. Some private eye from Tampa named Ben Appleby. Said he was working a case but wouldn’t tell me anything else. I had no reason to hold him, but I told him it would be in his best interest to get off the island until daylight.”

“When was that?”

“A little after two. He hadn’t been there long. I drove by an hour or so before, and he wasn’t in the area.”

“Thanks, Joe. I’ll tell J.D. I wonder what this guy’s up to.”

“No telling. Take it easy, Matt.” The window slid up and the car moved on.

It was still dark and J.D. was fast asleep when I returned to the cottage. I looked at my watch. Almost six. I took a shower in the guest bathroom and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt I found in the dirty clothes hamper. They would probably last one more day. I drained the coffee pot and made fresh, poured myself a cup, and went back to the sofa.

Why was Appleby watching my house in the middle of the night? Maybe it was time to pay him a visit. If J.D. was in danger, I needed to know about it. Should I tell her I was going to Tampa? Not a chance. She’d think I’d gone into protective mode and that would piss her off. She had told me often enough that she didn’t need my protection. I’d have to think on that some more.

“You’re up early,” said J.D. as she came out of our bedroom. Her hair was tousled and the left side of her face was a bit wrinkled from where it had rested on the pillow. She was barefoot and wearing nothing but the old T-shirt she slept in. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Not well.”

“Want to go for a run?”

“Already been.”

“Wow, aren’t we industrious.”

“Want some coffee?” I asked. “I just made it.”

“That’ll help.” She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a mug bearing the logo of the Miami-Dade Police Department. “What’s on your agenda today?” she asked.

“Not sure.” I hated lying to her, but I thought it’d be better than starting an argument. “What about you?”

“I’ll see if I can get with that witness Porter King and then I think I’ll go have a conversation with Captain McAllister. See if there’s anything new on Katie.”

“Are you going to tell him about the photo you got?”

“No. At least not yet. I need to know more about what’s going on.”

“I ran into one of your cops this morning, Joe Carson. He said he’d had to run off that P.I. from Tampa, Appleby, about two this morning.”

“Where was he?”

“Parked down the street.”

“Doing what?”

“According to Joe, he was just sitting there. Maybe watching the house. I don’t know.”

“I don’t like that.”

“I don’t either,” I said. “Maybe you ought to talk to him.”

“Maybe, but I’m not sure I want him to know that I know he’s following me.”

“What’s the downside?”

She thought about that for a couple of beats. “I don’t know, come to think of it. Maybe I ought to let him know I’m on to him. That might scare him off. But I’m so jammed up with this murder and Katie, I just don’t have time to go see him.”

“What if I set up a meeting with him? I could drive up to Tampa this morning.”

She was quiet for a moment and then nodded. “I don’t see why not. Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” I smiled to myself. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

“I’ll see if our dispatcher can run down a number for him.”

I was at the apex of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, one hundred seventy-five feet above the ship channel that runs through Tampa Bay. I always get a bit nervous as I cross this beautiful span. It’s a long way down.

I was on my way to a meeting with Ben Appleby. I and the Rohrbaugh R9’s 9mm pistol in the holster I carried stuffed into my pants at the small
of my back. I wasn’t sure what I was going to run into and I thought the little six-shot weapon would provide me with a bit of confidence.

I’d called Appleby an hour before and apparently awoken him from a deep sleep. “Mr. Appleby,” I said. “My name’s Matt Royal. Does that mean anything to you?” He might already have connected me to J.D., since he was parked outside my house. I’d decided it didn’t matter. Either he’d meet me or I’d go find him.

“No. Should it?”

“Probably not. I’m a lawyer and I need some investigative work done. You were recommended. Can I meet with you this morning?”

“Recommended by whom?”

“I don’t remember. Somebody I met at a bar luncheon recently.”

“What’s it about?”

“Some surveillance on an errant husband.”

He laughed. “Guy fucking around, huh?”

“Something like that. I need some dirt as soon as possible.”

“Okay. Meet me at eleven.”

“Give me your office address.”

“I’ll come to your office.”

“Sorry,” I said. “That’s not possible. I’ll explain when I see you.”

“Okay. I don’t actually have an office. I pretty much work out of my car. Can you meet me out by the Tampa airport?”

“Not a problem.”

“Okay. There’s a Denny’s on Highway 92 about three blocks north of its intersection with I-275. How will I know you?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll find you,” I said. J.D. had given me a photo taken from Appleby’s Department of Motor Vehicles file, the one that shows up on his driver’s license. It was not what I expected.

I had envisioned Appleby as a small, dark man, but he was actually blond, tall, and thin as a rail. He was sitting in a booth in the back of the restaurant, a cup of coffee in front of him. He looked tired. The midnight surveillance wasn’t working too well for him.

“Mr. Appleby?” I asked. “I’m Matt Royal.”

“Sit down. You want coffee?”

I shook my head and took a seat across from him. “What I want is to know why you’re following Detective Duncan.”

A look of puzzlement crossed his face. “What? I thought we were here to talk about a divorce case.”

“Listen to me,” I said, my voice low and hard. “I want to know why you were following Detective Duncan yesterday and why you were parked in front of my house in the wee hours of this morning.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, moving to extricate himself from the booth.

“Yes, you do, and if you get out of that seat, I’m going to follow you to the parking lot and beat the shit out of you.”

He leered at me. “That might be harder to do than you think.”

“I doubt it.”

“You’re not a cop.” A statement, not a question.

“I’m not.”

“Who are you?”

“I told you. I’m a lawyer.”

“I’m not impressed.”

“I’m also Detective Duncan’s, how shall we say, boyfriend.”

“Ah.”

“Yes. Now why don’t you simply tell me why you’re following her and sitting outside my house in the middle of the night?”

“You don’t want to know.”

I leaned back in the booth, sighed, and smiled. “I want you to try and follow this logic, Mr. Appleby. If I actually didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked the question. How difficult can that be?”

“Look, Royal, the people I work for are not the kind of people you want to fuck with.”