Cooler Than Blood (13 page)

CHAPTER 21

G
arrett leaned against the aqua-colored cinder block wall in Susan’s office. Susan, in beige shorts and a silk gold T-shirt, sat in a black swivel chair. It had a pad on it so she would be higher. A four-by-six picture of Jenny was on a shelf to her left. The background was a hill cloaked in Midwest summer green. Jenny’s home? Susan had told me she had visited there last summer, and I wondered whether that was when she’d taken the picture. I sat in the folding chair by her desk and momentarily thought it was going to collapse from my weight. A window air conditioner quietly hummed over Garrett’s right shoulder.

A pink minicassette player was on her desk. We had found it at an electronics store on US 41, the Tamiami Trail. Not the nostalgic section of the road that evokes images of paradise past captured on fold-down postcards, but the congested traffic-light-regulated strip of runway-wide concrete that makes you want to leave Florida in hopes of finding Florida.

I hit the “play” button. Rutledge identified himself, as well as Jenny, the time, and place. As I heard his voice, I thought of his dull eyes and dancing hands. I like incongruity; it sparks my senses.

He asked her a series of questions about the casual run-in Jenny and Susan had with Billy Ray earlier that day on the beach. He had her recite in chronological order her actions after Susan had departed for work and her subsequent encounter with Billy Ray. Jenny never raised her voice. She never broke.

“What did he say just prior to when he attacked you?” Rutledge asked her.

Jenny said, “Just some small talk, like, you know, ‘Remember me?’ I said, ‘Yeah, from this afternoon.’ Then he said something about Sherman.”

“Sherman?”

“I asked him if it was warm like this up in Georgia—he told us earlier in the day he was from there—and he said, ‘Sherman. That’s his name.’ Or maybe something like, ‘Yeah, baby, that’s his name.’ He seemed pretty excited about it.”

“About what?”

“Sherman.”

“I don’t follow,” Rutledge said. “Who’s Sherman?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he ever mention a Sherman again?”

“No. Didn’t he burn Atlanta?”

“Who?”

“Sherman.”

“Oh, him. Did he really burn it, or is that just legend?”

“Pretty sure he torched it.”

“Why would he talk about Sherman?”

“You’re kidding, right? Why would he try to rape me?”

“All right. Let’s move on. What else?”

“I told him that I was looking for turtles and that my aunt said they come to that area. He said she was hot too.”

“Hot?”

“Like, you know, attractive. Then he hit his head.”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How did he strike himself?”

“Slapped himself hard, like this.” I heard a dull thud.

“Okay. Then what?”

“I told him my aunt was behind me. I was scared. He wasn’t right. But I said it wrong. It came out weak…uncertain.”

There was a pause, and then Rutledge said, “What happened next, Ms. Spencer?”

“He said, ‘No, she ain’t, magazine girl. I saw her drive away earlier.’”

“Magazine girl?”

“Magazine girl…whatever.” She sounded ticked, and I knew why. She had picked up on the gist of the comment that had apparently eluded Rutledge. Jenny explained to Rutledge, “He said he saw her drive away. Get it? It meant he was watching. He was stalking me. I knew I was in trouble.”

“Okay,” Rutledge said in a conciliatory tone. “Then what?”

“He ripped off my shirt. My cheer shirt. I don’t know how he did it that fast. Just yanked it over my head. Then he hit me. Hit me hard. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to hang on.”

“Hang on?”

“You know, stay conscious. I started to drift, but he…he bit my breast, and I think that brought me back. I reached out, and a stick was there. I shoved it at him. Then I saw…and then…”

“Saw what?”

“Oh…nothing. I just lost track of where we were.”

“Okay, then what?”

I wondered what Jenny had seen. She didn’t come across as a girl who lost track of
any
thing.

There was a pause, as if Rutledge was waiting for Jenny to continue. During the time of the actual interview, it was now approximately a half hour prior to sunrise, and I heard birds in the background. It reminded me of my trip to the Ohio woods. I don’t know much about birds other than rote regurgitation. Morgan can identify nearly every species by sound. I know them by sight and the basics. They fly. The ones in my ‘hood eat fish. One particular osprey exists just to crap on my boat and screeches all day and half the night. And around a half hour before sunrise, they all let loose, no matter where they are.

Rutledge coughed loudly. Birds chirped.

“I was on top of him before I knew it,” Jenny said.

“How did you accomplish that?”

“I don’t know
how
,” she said with a tinge of irritability. “I was just
there
. I found a stick. Listen, I didn’t think of killing him—it’s not like that; I just didn’t want her to go down. I pumped that stick like she was going to sink, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

I glanced over at Susan to seek confirmation regarding Jenny’s confusing reply. She shot me a quick glance, and I knew why. I recalled her telling me of Jenny’s duty to pump the boat out and her feeling of failure—and of her desire to please her father in her dreams. I also remembered Susan’s supplication to me.
“What do you do with that?” she’d demanded.

“I’m not following,” Rutledge said. “Who is ‘her?’”

“My father’s boat.”

“A boat?”

“What about it?”

“Your father’s boat was going to sink?”

“No, sir. Not on my watch.”

I wondered if Jenny had put her dream to rest on the beach that night.

Rutledge tossed her a litany of questions about her actions immediately after she’d realized Billy Ray was dead. Jenny took them in the same matter-of-fact voice in which she’d addressed all his previous questions. If there was any guilt in her action, or remorse in her decisions, it was buried too deeply to detect. She explained how she had stumbled upon a towel she had spotted earlier and wrapped it around her before she returned to Susan’s.

He inquired why she had waited so long to notify the police.

“We were talking,” Jenny told him.

“Will you identify who you were talking with, please?”

“My aunt, Susan Blake.”

“About what?”

“Life. Lots of things. But not about what had just happened.”

“You got attacked on the beach, turned on your assailant, killed him, wrapped yourself in a beach towel, strolled back here, and then took the next few hours to repose and discuss life?”

“Washed myself off first.”

“Pardon me?”

“Before I wrapped myself in the beach towel, I washed off in the Gulf. I had…stuff on me. The water was warm, not much cooler than blood. Did you know that?”

Rutledge cleared his throat. “Would you like something to drink, Ms. Spencer?”

“No. I’m fine. Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Know that the Gulf of Mexico, at least at this time of the year, isn’t much cooler than blood?

“Um…no, I missed that.”

“Not by much, but I was relieved to cool down at least a little. I read somewhere that the salinity of the Gulf is approximate to the salinity of blood. Temperature, blood, and salt. Never expected to find that out for myself.”

“Okay. Let’s back up just a second. You returned here and talked for hours with your aunt about events unrelated to your traumatic experience. Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I had more important things to discuss.”

“Than an attempted rape and murder?”

“That’s correct.”

“With all due respect, Ms. Spencer, you’re challenging my imagination.”

“Eric, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“I believe you introduced yourself as Detective Eric Rutledge.”

“That’s correct.”

“Tell me, Eric.” Her voice ran decades ahead of her years and had been gaining conviction throughout the interview. “What in your male past causes you to think that you can imagine what I’ve been through in my life and how I should react after someone attempted to rape me and I successfully defended myself?”

Garrett let out a low whistle. I thought of the spiked water bottle and caught myself smiling.

Rutledge’s voice came back in clipped military fashion. He gave the time—6:17 a.m.—and reiterated the participants’ names and the location. An osprey screeched. The tape went silent.

I recalled my exchange with Officer Kevin Trimble. “
Eric, right?
” And I’d thought I was tough. I wanted to find this girl so she could teach me a few lessons.

I looked over at Susan. Her jaw was tight. I’d been too absorbed in listening to give her much attention while the tape played. “The reference to her father’s boat,” I said. “Is that what you mentioned? Her dream?”

Susan glanced up at me. “Even more. It was the last time in her life that things were right for her. She’s just trying to get it back. That’s all.”

“I don’t understand how that—”

“Jesus.” She spat it out and bolted out of her office. I glanced up at Garrett.

“Move,” he said.

I found her behind the bar, scrubbing glasses at a frantic pace. As if at that moment, as the earth spun, there was nothing more critical than the cleanliness of that stemware and the speed and proficiency with which that simple task could be accomplished. I leaned in across the bar and inquired whether there was anything on the tape that was counter to the brief version Jenny had given when Susan first had gotten home that evening. She assured me there wasn’t.

“She told me what happened,” she said as she finally ceased her fitful motion and dropped her hands to her hips, “but not the details she gave Rutledge.”

“You need to listen again, just to—”

“Did you hear what she said?” I didn’t know which part of the conversation she was referring to. Then I realized it was a question that wasn’t meant to be answered by the person it was directed to, but by the one who’d asked it.

“No,” I said. “What did she say?”

“Cooler than blood.” A shudder went through her shoulders. She glanced down, and I imagined her staring at a sticky, black, rubber mat under her feet. “I don’t know. Maybe she was in shock.” She came back up. “What do you think?”

That question warranted a response. “I don’t think she was in shock. I’ve rarely heard someone so composed and in control of her facilities.” I wasn’t sure I believed that, but it was what I wanted Susan to hear. I told her I’d keep her in the loop. My phone rang on my way to collect Garrett.

PC said, “The Hardy Boys are here.”

“Look like the pictures I gave you?”

“Close enough.”

“Any sign of a girl?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Why ask a question if you don’t believe the answer? They’re cleaning up, but I don’t know how long they’ll stay, knowing someone—”

“Stay with them. Don’t let them out of your sight.” I disconnected.

I didn’t bother to inform Rutledge or McGlashan. Some things are best accomplished outside of the law.

I retraced my path on I-75 north and tailgated every scumbag who got in my path. Jenny’s voice took residence in my head, and I wondered what, or who, she had seen on the beach that night. She had claimed to Rutledge that she was flustered and lost track of the conversation. But then she compared Billy Ray’s blood to the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico. My Polaroid picture of Jenny was going high-def.

Flustered and lost track?

No way.

CHAPTER 22

“J
ake-o, man, care for a SweeTart?” Boyd asked without taking his eyes off his phone.

Garrett and I found PC and Boyd close to where I’d instructed PC to set up his observation post. It was the same place Garrett and I had started in the predawn hours on what was quickly morphing into a marathon day. PC had a T-shirt on that said, “I Love Bacon.” He was a 140-pound jagged collection of bones, attitude, and enough energy to fire up a nuclear plant that supplied half of Manhattan. He wore a red sweatband that made his hair look like a mushroom cloud on the top of his head. Boyd had grown a beard since our last encounter and was halfway through a sleeve of multicolored SweeTarts.

“I’m good.” I settled in next to PC. “What’ve you got?”

“They’ve been in and out, loading up the car,” PC said. “But about thirty minutes ago, they went in the house and haven’t emerged.”

Garrett asked, “Any trips to the garage?”

“Just one,” PC replied. “Didn’t take anything in or out.”

“Water,” Boyd said without lifting his eyes off his phone.

“Water?” I asked.

“Yeah. Curly walked out with a bottle of water in his pocket. Not there when he went in.”

“Okay.” I glanced at Garrett. “Drive straight up? Say we’re lost?”

“Let’s go.”

I instructed PC and Boyd to stay. Boyd brought his head out of his electronic world and said, “Roger.” Garrett and I got into my truck and approached the house for the second time that day, but this time by road, not by bush. We came up the long gravel drive and past the single-car garage. Twenty feet from the back door, I killed the engine. The screen door flung open, and Randall Coleman tumbled out. His shoulders were as wide as the door, but his legs were thin, like his gym membership only included from the waist up. He had a dimple on his chin that matched a deep V between his eyes. He wore black jeans and a size-too-small T-shirt.

“Excuse me,” I said as I got out of the truck. “I was looking for Franklin Dixon’s place, and I heard—”

“Off my property, chum.” Randall took a few steps toward the truck. “Can’t you read? No trespassing.”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“I can’t read.”

I glanced at Garrett, but Garrett’s eyes were locked on the house. I had Randall. I was deciding on whether to engage him in Hardy Boy trivia—Dixon was a pen name used by the numerous authors who wrote the series—when Garrett sprinted toward the house and took one leap over the three wooden steps that led to the back porch. He rocketed past Randall before Randall registered that Garrett had even moved. I covered the distance that separated Randall and me in two strides and hit him high. My momentum carried us off the porch, and I landed on top of him on the ground. The gravel embedded in his right cheek. My mouth was in his left ear. The Boone position.

“Where’s Jenny? Do
not
tell me you don’t know. I know you had her in the garage.”

“Kiss my—”

“No, no, no,” I interrupted. “You don’t understand.” I brought his right arm up behind his back. He winced and kicked. “Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll snap your arm like a dead twig.” He started to speak, but I closed the door. “I won’t ask twice. Jenny Spencer. Where is she?”

“Don’t know.”

I raised his arm. His upper lip curled up in an involuntary spasm; his eye tightened as he grunted.

“I don’t know. They took her.”

“
They
? You think I’m that simple? Listen to me: breaking your arm is my appetizer.
Where is she?”

“Okay, man. Let me breathe. We owed money, and I think they got to her. She was just gone. Key’s missing from the hook, and your girlfriend wasn’t—”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“I’m just sayin’—”

“Who has her?”

“Let me up so I can at least talk.”

Garrett sprang out of the back door and shoved a younger man down the steps. He had bushy, curly hair and blushed, high cheekbones. Zach Coleman was a Ken doll with flesh. That made him an incongruity in his world. Not that violence and crime have a face, but they have a distinct look—an odor—and it wasn’t Zach Coleman. I released the pressure on Randall’s arm and grabbed the back of his T-shirt to yank him up. His shirt ripped, and his face smashed back down into the gravel before his stout arms had time to break his fall. I blew my breath out and took a step back. Zach dissolved into a ball on the ground and buried his head in his hands.

“Tell me why and how you abducted her and who you think has her.”

Randall rolled over and stood up. He glanced at Garrett. “Why do you give two shits?”

“Friends of the family. Give it to us straight, and we won’t call Wyatt Earp on your chemistry operation.”

“Go ahead.” He let out a huff. “Ain’t nobody gonna come after us.” He cut Garrett another look. Gauging his odds.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said.

Randall came back to me and took a moment.

“Just tell him.” It came from Zach as he raised his head out of his hands. I was surprised at the strength of his voice. “If you don’t, I will. It was wrong. I told you. I told you then that it was wrong.” Zach’s eyes pierced his brother.

I was going to say something but decided to let them get their thoughts in order. I saw blood on the gravel and realized it was dripping from my right elbow. Two white plastic chairs were on the concrete pad by the side of the porch. I tossed the dirtiest one to Randall and sat in the other. Randall took a seat, paused for a few seconds, and then said, “What do
we
get?”

“A life free from me.”

It was Zach who told the story. They were no more than half a day behind their younger brother, Billy Ray. They raced after him as soon as they’d realized he had vanished.

“What made you think,” I asked, “that he’d go straight to a motel in Florida just because he’d been there before?”

Zach answered, “He was too dumb to know or care. I doubt Billy Ray even thought of another place.”

“Me and Zach,” Randall cut in, “always scored in Florida. Know what I mean? Billy Ray—his battery was missing a few cells. He’d wander around the parking lot, chanting some song after we kicked him out of the room. Last spring, said he had it. Said it was time to get himself some sunshine tail. Soon as he went missing, I knew where he was going and what he was going to do.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then what?”

Zach explained that they drove through the night. When they didn’t see Billy Ray’s car at the Buccaneer, they drove down Estero Boulevard and checked other motels. They found their brother’s red Honda partially hidden from the street in the public parking area McGlashan had described to me at Susan’s. “We found him a little farther down the beach.”

“He was all reversed,” Randall added. “His insides were on the outside.”

“What time was this?”

“Dunno. Early, still kind of dark.”

“I found Jenny’s T-shirt,” Zach said. It shot out like a confession. “It had her first and last name on it. I knew her. Spent a day with her on a boat last summer. I didn’t know she was in Florida.”

“Why did you hightail it after Billy Ray? Skip the part where you tell me you were concerned.”

“We just wanted to—” Randall started.

“The money was gone,” Zach said. “We figured maybe she knew something about it.”

“What money?” I took a step toward Zach, but he was looking at his brother.

Randall said, “They don’t need to—”

“Two hundred eighty-four thousand dollars,” Zach said.

“He had that on him?”

“Score from our largest deal,” Randall said, as if now that the money was on the table, he might as well stake his claim. I turned to face him. “Takes a big kitchen to house that much dough,” he continued. “Had to be in the trunk. We had a big blowup with Billy Ray night before he ditched—told him he was out of the family business. Figured he took the money to get back at us. That’s why we jumped on the saddle after he left. Otherwise, we wouldn’t give a flying fuck. But when we found him on the beach, his talkin’ days was done. We headed back to his car, and it was locked. I needed a crowbar. By the time we got to Home Depot and back, police tape was around the car, and the trunk was open. We slowed down, like everybody else, but kept going.”

Garrett asked, “Why didn’t you take the lug wrench out of the trunk of your car, break the window, and release the trunk lid?” I realized I hadn’t told Garrett what McGlashan had said at Susan’s house—the trunk release lever inside the car was broken.

“Well, now,” Randall said, “that would have been—”

“It was busted,” Zach said. “Stud face here ripped it off a year ago—lost his patience with it. Only way in the trunk was with a key. Damn thing was…’bout halfway back from Home Depot, I realized I had the extra set on me. I don’t know…I just wasn’t thinking straight. Seeing him there like that. I mean, Billy Ray wasn’t right and all, but he was still my brother.”

“What time was that?” I wanted to return to the money but decided to cover the specifics first. I thought it odd that Zach referred to Billy Ray as “my brother” and not “our brother.”

“Dunno. Seven thirty. Give or take.”

“Someone beat you to it.” I realized I’d spoken the exact line to McGlashan. It seemed that everyone connected to Jenny, like characters in a play, were a step behind to an offstage presence that no one had seen. “Someone knew the money was in the car and where the car was,” I said.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Randall said.

“You check his motel room?”

“Whaddya think?” Randall asked. “Zach talked some babe with a thick rope of midnight hair to let him in the room, but it didn’t look like he was ever there. We was just covering the bases, though, ‘cause once we saw that trunk open, we figured that was where Billy Ray had stashed the cash.”

Thick rope of hair. Allison had lied to me about not recognizing Zach. She had hesitated when I’d shown her Zach’s picture at Grouper’s place, the Matanzas Bar and Grill. I should have picked up on that.

“Who beat you to it?” I asked.

Randall said, “Like we’d be here bullshittin’ with you if we knew?”

“It wasn’t all our money,” Zach cut in. “We owed half of it to our partners. We were trying to break into the Tampa market, you know. We met these guys once, and they said they could use some supply. We—”

Randall cut him off. “They don’t care about that.”

“Pretend I do.” I took a step toward Randall. “Tell me how a pair of Bobbsey Twins like you ended up with that much money.”

He hesitated before he came in. “We’d done work with them before. This was our first time collecting the money, keeping the books, so to say. They supplied the material, set us up to do more quantity. We moved the product both here and up north.”

“Who are ‘they?’”

“A group out of Tampa. We were told they were tied-in to an operation up north, but we just dealt with the guys at our level.”

“Up north?” I asked.

“Yeah. Chicago, I think.”

In a dormant section of my brain, a warning light flickered on, like a soldier gently aroused from a long sleep. “I don’t think any organized crime in Tampa is under a Chicago umbrella,” I said. “The Trafficantes are long gone, and they had ties to New York, not Chicago. I don’t think there’s anything based out of Tampa.”

“Yeah?” Randall held his sneer. “I’m sure they run their plans past you.”

I swatted a gnat away from my face. “You think they were on to Billy Ray, and they took the—”

“No way, man. They don’t know shit about him.”

“You thought Jenny would lead you to the money,” Garrett cut in.

Randall eyed him. “She was the last to see Billy Ray alive. We figured she even did him in. Maybe he told her about the money, and she decided to help herself, you know?”

“With a crowbar?” Garrett asked. “You think she had one in her beach bag?”

“Told you,” Zach said to his brother.

“Shut the fuck up,” Randall said. “For all we knew, she got someone to help her. We just wanted to question her. That’s all.” He sounded conciliatory. It was dawning on him that with Zach’s altar-boy, confessional demeanor, he was the prime bad guy.

“How did you know where to find her?” I asked.

“Tell him, Curly,” Randall bossed his younger brother.

Zach gave him a look then came back to me. “She mentioned, the one time I saw her, that she had an aunt down here. I told her we came down as well, you know, to the same area, and—”

“You pussy ass,” Randall cut him off. “Just get to it. Little bro here is all country—likes Blake Shelton; ain’t that so, Curly?—so when we found her T-shirt, he recalled that her aunt’s last name was Blake. It wasn’t too hard to find her street after that.”

“How did you lure her out?” I asked Zach.

Randall came in before Zach had a chance. “That was Zach’s move. He attracts chicks like flies on shit. He had her number from last year, along with the number of every other babe south of Columbus. Called her and said to come quick—said he had something to give her but was waiting on the corner for a ride he didn’t want to miss. That girl ran down the street without even putting her shoes on. She trusted you, didn’t she, Curly?”

“Eat shit.”

“Why didn’t you drive up to her house?” I asked.

“Because,” Zach said, “dickhead here didn’t want anybody on the street to see us. Guess that didn’t work out, did it,
bro
?”

Before Randall fired off another retort and we all entered family counseling, I said, “Tell me about the money.”

Randall shrugged. “Two hundred eighty-four thousand. Half was ours. The other hundred forty-four we owed our partners.”

“Hundred forty-two, numb nuts,” Zach said.

“Did Jenny know about the money?”

“Oh, yeah,” Randall said. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. He was top-heavy, and the chair fell over backward. He scrambled to his feet.

“You’re one sorry motherfucker,” his brother observed.

Randall ignored him and landed a hard stare on me. “She knew. She said Billy Ray told her that he had two hundred eighty-four big ones in the car, something like that, and—”