Break and Enter (21 page)

“Consider it done,” she said.

“Good, because the sheriff has asked me to keep him posted as to progress in this case. He, in turn, is doing his best to keep his friend Howard and, therefore, the wife, off our case.”

Throwing a research challenge at Janet was like throwing a dog a bone. Less than twenty-four hours later she was in my office showing me the results. There were two active eBayers selling collectible items similar to those that were missing from the Jordan home, one of whom had only begun selling on eBay a couple of weeks after the murder.

“Well done,” I said. “Now all we have to do is find out who this guy is, and where he lives.”

“His listings say that the merchandise ships from Florida,” she said.

“Yeah, but where in Florida?”

“I have an idea about that, boss.”

“Tell me.”

“One or two of these things are in the under $100 category. Why don’t I purchase one of them and insist on paying by check or money order?”

“Go for it. I’ll get you some money from petty cash if necessary.”

On the home front, my predictions concerning Robbie and the new kid had been on the money. The two of them had become inseparable, and we were eventually invited to dinner at Sandy’s house. A pleasant dinner turned sour almost immediately when Ronald, or Ron as he preferred to be called, asked us if we had participated in last year’s pride parade.

“Certainly not,” I said.

“Yeah,” Mike said, “we don’t fit in with that crowd.”

“That crowd?” Warren parroted.

“For want of a better word,” I said, “the in-your-face crowd.”

“Don’t you want to display pride in being gay?” Ron said.

“Do you display your pride in having ten fingers?” I said.

“Or ten toes?” Mike said.

“The people who march in those parades aren’t celebrating their pride in being gay,” I said. “All they’re doing is making a statement that they’re proud of being flamboyant.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, “and they make the rest of us look bad.”

“How so?” Ron said, his tone becoming even less friendly.

“Because people see what goes on in those parades,” I said, “and proceed to tar all of us with the same brush. I’ve been ‘out’ at work for seven years in a profession that is noted for its macho and redneck attitudes. Nobody really pays any attention to my sexual identity at work anymore, at least not most of the time, but after those highly publicized pride events, some of them start looking at me in a funny way.”

“I’ve seen it happen,” Mike said. “Some of them act like they expect George to show up at work wearing a tutu or something.”

“When anyone asks,” I said, “and they do, from time to time, I just tell them that the people in the parades are the tip of the iceberg—the ten percent that is highly visible—and the rest of us are just like everybody else.”

Ron launched into a highly impassioned speech, the gist of which was that the parades were important, etcetera.

“We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that subject,” Mike said.

A stony silence ensued, and I had the feeling that there would be no more invitations. On the way home, I said, “That was predictable, wasn’t it?”

“Unfortunately,” Mike said. “Sad, but predictable.”

“We could have smiled and lied through our teeth.”

“No way, babe. If they aren’t man enough to take it when we tell it like it is, screw ’em.”

“You screw ’em. I’ll stick to screwing you, thank you very much.”

After we got home and had Robbie settled in his bed for the night, I turned to the computer and checked our e-mails. “Here’s some good news,” I said.

“Tell me.”

“Ernest has finished probating the estates of Robbie’s parents, and all claims against their estates have been settled.”

“How?”

“Robbie’s mother had a life insurance policy through her employer, and it was large enough to take care of her funeral expenses with enough left over to pay their bills.”

“Did his father have any insurance?”

“Nobody seems to know,” I said, “but it’s worth looking into. If there was any insurance, maybe the proceeds could be applied to the mortgage on Robbie’s house.”

“Speaking of that mortgage, what has Ernest found out?”

“All we have to do is keep the mortgage company happy. Our original estimate was that it would only take a couple of grand to make the house rentable.”

“What else?”

“Geez,” I said, “isn’t that enough?”

“I know you, and there’s something else you’re not telling me, so what else?”

“The property, as you know, includes almost ten acres, most of it along our creek.”

“And?”

“We won’t need any kind of zoning variance to build two or three rental cabins along the creek,” I said.

“The kind that the Realtor told us would rent for big bucks on a weekly basis in the summer and during the ski season?”

“Just so.”

“Hot damn.”

“Why don’t you call him tomorrow and find out what kind of cabins we need to build?”

“Will do.”

“And who up there builds them, and at what probable cost.”

“That too.”

“I’m so glad we’re on the same wavelength,” I said.

I had a surprise visitor Friday afternoon. There was a knock on the doorframe, and I looked up. “Crystal,” I said. “What a surprise. Come in and have a seat.”

“Hi, George. Good to see you.”

Crystal Young was the documentary filmmaker who, with her cameraman, had spent months following my people around, filming every aspect of our work and some aspects of our lives. It had grown from the original idea of making a training film into a projected miniseries.

“You too. To what do I owe the honor?”

“This,” she said, setting a good-sized box on my desk.

I opened the box and saw that it was full of DVDs. “What’s this?”

“Final product. Six episodes that will air, commencing in late April or early May, as soon as the current season is over. In addition, there is one DVD full of material we didn’t use.”

 “Cool,” I said. “Are you satisfied with the results?”

“Oh, yes. I’m more satisfied with this than I have been with any project I’ve done in the last fifteen years.”

“Crystal, you’re not old enough to have been doing this for fifteen years.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, but unfortunately I am that.”

“Who else has copies?”

“Just you, so far, but I have to go see the sheriff in a few minutes.”

“What about copies for my people?”

“There are several copies of each DVD in the box,” she said. “Feel free to make as many additional copies as you need.”

“I know what everyone who works for me will be doing this evening.”

“No doubt.”

“How long will you be in town this time?”

“I have a seven o’clock flight this evening, but I’m coming back next month to do the River Run.”

“Mike and I will look forward to it.”

“Are those two handsome men from Atlanta going to be here again?”

“Yes, they are,” I said.

“I did some research and found out quite a bit about those two.”

“And?”

“There’s quite a story there—several stories, in fact, but I expect by now you know most of it.”

“Probably.”

“I’m going to do my best to persuade them to let me do a story on them,” she said.

“Lots of luck,” I said. “Charles and Philip are two very private people. They’ve been thrust into the spotlight from time to time, but they don’t particularly like it.”

“I’m still going to try.”

“Have at it, but Mike and I can’t help you.”

“Whyever not?”

“Because they’ve become rather close personal friends, and because there’s an ongoing relationship there of which you’re not aware.”

“Can you tell me?”

I filled her in on our discovery of Robbie and subsequent events, up to and including the weekly counseling sessions. “That’s his picture,” I said, pointing at a framed five-by-seven on my credenza.

“He’s adorable. I wish all that had gone down while I was still filming.”

“Well, it didn’t, and I’m just as glad. That little boy has been through enough.”

“Point taken. I’ll look forward to meeting him next month.”

“You’re on.”

She left, presumably to go upstairs, and I called Janet and my other two lieutenants into my office. When they had assembled, I handed out the DVDs, explained how I had gotten them, and told them to make copies to pass along to their subordinates.

“There ought to be enough in there to keep everyone out of mischief for a few evenings,” I said.

They thanked me and left, and I wrapped up the report I was working on and went home for the day. Because Friday was our wine-tasting night, we didn’t get around to the DVDs until Saturday. After we had Robbie settled down for the evening, we started watching the them, and even with a lot of fast-forwarding through parts of the DVDs, it took us until almost midnight to watch them. The film had begun with interviews of the sheriff and Chief Bridges, and had concluded with interviews of myself and my three lieutenants. I was really touched by Crystal’s interview of Gregg Parker, one of the two lieutenants I’d inherited from the chief when he and I had been promoted. She had asked him how he had felt when I had been promoted over him, given that he was nearly twenty years older and had more seniority.

“I was annoyed at first,” Gregg said, “but then I got to wondering what difference it made. After all, I was counting the days until I turned in my retirement papers, almost marking time, if you will.”

“So, how did things turn out?” she said.

“I’m still here,” he said, “and I’m going to hold off retiring for a while.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to explain,” he said. “Let me tell you a story. Two years ago, my wife and I bought a larger home in a different neighborhood. The kids weren’t too happy about that because they had to change schools. Two or three months after the move, I realized that my oldest son, who had been in the band since sixth grade, was spending a lot more time practicing his trumpet than before, so I asked him why. He told me that his old band director had made him practice, but his new band director made him want to practice.”

“So you’re saying that Captain Martin manages to bring out the best in people?” Crystal said.

“Yeah,” Gregg said, “something like that.”

“Wow,” Mike said, turning the DVD player off. “That’s quite a tribute.”

“It’s a lot to live up to,” I said.

“Handle it, babe, handle it.”

Sunday morning after our workout, we met Carl and Jim at the Derby House for breakfast. The first thing Carl said was, “Hi, Robbie. Did you know that your daddies are going to be on TV?”

“They’ve already been on TV,” Robbie said.

“When was that?” Carl said.

“In Atlanta,” Robbie said. “I saw them on TV when they were running in that race.”

“Oh,” Carl said.

“I guess that means you watched the DVDs,” I said.

“You bet, boss,” Carl said. “They were terrific.”

“Yeah,” Jim said. “I can’t believe how much personal stuff they used. That shot of Janet’s husband taking a swing at you and being hauled off to jail was priceless. Too bad they blurred out the bastard’s face.”

“True,” Carl said. “Unlike so-called reality TV, that was neither staged nor scripted.”

“I’m hungry,” Robbie said.

“I guess that settles that,” I said. “Hunger is more important than incipient fame.”

The Friday before the River Run came, and we picked up Charles and Philip at the airport. When they saw the extent of the construction at our house, Charles said, “Are you sure you don’t want us to stay at a hotel?”

“No need,” Mike said. “Robbie is looking forward to sleeping with us for a couple of nights.”

We gave them a quick tour of the addition, which was still a long way from being completed.

“As you can see,” I said when we were looking at the master bathroom, “we pretty much copied your shower design.”

“No problem,” Charles said, “it’s not patented.”

As we had done the previous year, we took them to the Friday night wine tasting with us, and we had a great time with the group. Instead of going to dinner with the group, though, we took a bottle of wine to the Pizza Italian and filled up on lasagna and garlic bread.

Carl and Jim came by Saturday morning and picked up Robbie, and they planned to take him to a vantage point somewhere in San Marco, so that he could wave at us as we ran by. Despite her promise, Crystal didn’t show up for the race.

It was a little chillier than it had been the previous year, but we warmed up quickly enough and didn’t feel it. Mike and I were watching opposite sides of the street as we ran, and he was the first to spot Robbie, who was on Jim’s shoulders at the time. We waved at him as we drew abreast of them and passed by their vantage point, and after the race, we met up with them for breakfast at the Derby House. We had a great weekend and were sorry to see our guests leave Sunday afternoon.

Robbie’s six months of weekly visits with Lydia had stretched well beyond the original timeframe planned, but we were now only going to Atlanta every other Saturday. We hoped that would drop to one visit a month in June and stop entirely by the end of the year. Not that we didn’t enjoy our trips to Atlanta and our visits with the Barnett family. We were merely anxious to return to our old pattern of one weekend a month in the mountains.

I invited Mr. and Mrs. Murchison to my office near the end of the day on the last Friday in March, and I had also asked Janet, Carl, and the sheriff to be present. When we were assembled, I asked Janet to bring us up to date, which she did.

“To summarize,” she said, “we found some of the late Mr. Jordan’s collectible items were being sold on eBay, so I bid on one of them and won the auction. I insisted on paying by check, and when I mailed the payment, I paid an extra fee at the post office that required that the envelope be signed for.”

“Whose idea was the eBay thing?” the sheriff said.

“Captain Martin’s,” Janet said.

“The address was a post office box in Tampa,” I said, “but the Tampa police were unwilling to assign a plainclothes officer to watch the post office every day.”