Death Among the Mangroves (2 page)

“Yessir. A rental. But we have to leave in an hour to get it back to the Naples airport and turn it in before our flight.”

“That should be long enough. Pack up and follow Officer Watson to the station. Let's pack up Barbara's things too. We'll look after them.”

Angel came back into the room. “Got a customer down at the station front door. It's not urgent. He can't get in because I locked up. I told him to wait there and someone would be along.”

“I'll go now,” Troy said. “You and the girls here pack up Barbara's things and you bring her suitcase to the station. We'll go through it there for any I.D. information.” Troy told her what to get from the girls in the way of information and photos, and left.

He walked from Beach Street around past the Sandy Shoes Café with its open-air dining. The staff at the restaurant had lowered the clear plastic curtains that would keep out the chill. The diners inside looked a little blurry through the plastic.
Like a Georges Seurat pointillist painting
, Troy thought. The tourist season was just getting into full swing and visitors were happy, business owners were happy, suppliers were happy, the mayor and town council were happy, and the police were resigned to it.

He crossed the Sunset Bay public boat ramps and parking, pausing to stay clear of a pickup truck hauling a big powerboat out of the water and off to the trailer parking area, and walked across the back parking lot of the town hall and police station. He had taken over in July from an incompetent police chief. This was his first tourist season in Mangrove Bayou, and he wondered if he and his staff were yet up to it.
Last thing I need right now, in a tourist-economy town, is some major case like a missing tourist,
he thought.

Chapter 2

Saturday, December 21

Troy let himself into the police station by the unmarked metal door that led from the parking lot to the cells and walked through the empty station to the front door. The station was the short side of an L-shaped building that also housed the town hall offices, the medical clinic and a small office for the volunteer fire department. There was no one in the cells but it was early yet on an in-season Saturday night.

He opened the front door to find a man, white, brown hair, blue eyes, five-seven, 150 pounds, on his doorstep. The man wore black slacks, a black button-down-collar shirt that was open at the neck, and some kind of fancy sneakers. Troy, whose footgear was restricted to Topsiders boat shoes and running shoes he actually used, was often amused by the whole running-shoe phenomenon among people who wouldn't dream of walking from the far end of the parking lot to the grocery store to buy their fried chicken.

Behind the man there was a Ford Explorer, with a thirteen-foot aluminum jon boat on a trailer, parked crossways in the visitor parking spaces.

“Christ! If you were inside all this time why didn't you let me in?” the man said. He eyed Troy's shirt and jeans. “And who are you?”

“Troy Adam. I'm the police chief. Come on in.” Troy led the man back to his office. “Have a seat. I'll be with you in a moment.” The desk, chairs, a leather-covered sofa and a low table in front of that were new, or at least less-used than the original furniture. Troy had changed it all and had the station repainted inside when he first took over in July, as part of an effort to break the old habits of his employees.

Troy called the company that managed the microwave tower in the circle at the west end of Barron Road. The tower had several cell phone antennae, the town's Internet access, and some other communication links. From the top, presumably, one could see the top of a similar tower near Naples to the north and also the one in Everglades City to the south. Troy wasn't about to climb the tower to find out if that was true. There were things one just took on faith. In a few moments he tracked down Barbara Gillispie's number and carrier and got them started on running a GPS trace.

“I'll stay on hold, if you don't mind,” he told some person in an office in Naples. In Troy's experience, phone people didn't seem to like to use telephones to call you back.

He put the phone on speaker and muted the microphone. “Now, what can I do for you?” he asked the man sitting across from him.

“I wait outside for half an hour in the cold. Then you make phone calls first. What sort of customer service do you have here?”

“Sometimes we prioritize,” Troy said. “What can I do for you?”

“You been sitting back here all this time while I pounded on the front door?” The man looked to his left. “And what sort of office has a big red fire exit door in it?”

Troy took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He gave the man his best CopStare for a long moment. “I would say it was the office of a very safety-minded police chief,” Troy said. “We have two officers on duty at the moment. Plus me. They're out on patrol as they should be. I wasn't in here when you called. I came in the back door a few moments ago because Officer Watson had told me you were here. If you don't like the staffing or the architecture, take it up with the town council. Until then, I'll ask one more time, what can I do to help you?”

The man thought about that and then shook his head. “I did come on a little strong.”

Troy nodded. “For starters, what's your name?” Troy pulled over a yellow legal pad and his fountain pen.

“Mark Johnson. I own a house up on 19th Street.” He paused and looked to Troy's open office door. Angel Watson had come in through the back door with Jodi and Brett.

Angel stopped at Troy's door. “I'll be in my office, downloading photos,” she said. Jodi and Brett were staring at the glass upper half of the office door that Troy almost never closed. It said, in black lettering “Director of Pub ic Safety.” Some wag had scraped off the
l
before Troy took the job, and until someone confessed, he refused to let them fix it.

Troy nodded to Angel and looked at Johnson. “You were saying?”

“Oh,” Johnson turned back to face Troy. “I live in Miami but I used to visit here more often. Fish the Ten Thousand Islands. A few months ago I put the house up for sale, as-is, furnished. Just had some basic furniture in there anyway, and some kitchen things, enough for me for a weekend retreat. It's still for sale.”

He paused. Troy nodded helpfully. “Tight market right now.”

“Yeah. It is. I decided to come over here for the Christmas season, get out of Miami and away from my relatives. I have a boat and I brought it along too,” he pointed over Troy's shoulder at the window behind Troy. “Thought I would maybe do some fishing. But when I get to my house, it's locked up. I mean the locks had been changed. And there were people living in it.”

“People, I take it, who hadn't bought the house.”

“No, they had not. I asked them who they were and they said they were renting and had been there several months. Spic family. I never authorized anyone to rent the house. Why would I do that when I'm trying to sell it? Now they're in there tearing things up.”

“You know that they are tearing things up? Or you just assume spics all behave that way?”

“Oh, right. Listen, I'm from Miami. It's not like I don't get along with Hispanics.” He laughed. “Got no choice there. I'm sorry. Just a little angry about it, is all. And what are you, anyway, you look Seminole.”

“Got the location, sir,” the speaker phone announced.

“Talk to me,” Troy said.

There was a pause and then, “Hello? I have the location. Hello?”

Troy sighed and pushed the button to reactivate the outgoing mike. “I'm on. Talk to me.” Someone read off a latitude and longitude and Troy copied those down.

“It's not moving?” he asked. He disconnected the phone. “Sorry,” he told Johnson. “Priorities again. Please wait a few.” He looked at his computer and called up the town of Mangrove Bayou on a mapping program and fed in the coordinates for Barbara Gillispie's phone. He reached for the radio in its charger on his desk and called Jeremiah Brown who, along with Angel Watson, was on duty.

“Jeremiah, get over to the Publix strip mall. You're looking for a girl whose cell phone is stationary at that location. Looks like it might be behind the stores in the access lane and lot. I know that doesn't make sense to you. I'll send Angel by in a little bit to explain things.”

“Okay, Boss,” Jeremiah's rumbling low voice came. He was the only person to call Troy “Boss.”

“Right now, look around for a person. In all the Dumpsters and anywhere else. Her name is Barbara Gillispie. That grocery will have a cardboard box crusher too. See if anyone there can open it up for you to look. And don't let them run that thing without my permission.”

Johnson was staring at the radio, which Troy had laid on his desk. He looked up at Troy. “Jesus. I guess you
do
have to prioritize things. Missing girl?”

“I hope not. Just a precaution. By the way, watch the language in here. We have a no-cursing rule. Each word costs you a dollar.”

Johnson stared. “You're shitting me. A police station with no swearing?”

Troy smiled. “We'll put that one down to a bad try at irony.” He pulled out his wallet. “I'll cover you. The rule is mostly for the staff. Some of us tend to be potty-mouthed. End of each month we use the money for a beer-and-pizza party. Now, have you called your real estate agent?”

“I did. One good thing about those people; you can get them on a Saturday afternoon. She had no idea what I was talking about. Oh, also, the For Sale sign is gone from the front yard and that key-holder thing she had hung on the doorknob is gone too.”

“Someone could just pull up the sign,” Troy said. “But they'd have to use a hacksaw to get that lock box off the doorknob.”

“Yeah. That's what I thought. In fact, it's not even the same doorknob. The whole thing's been replaced.”

“Key went into the doorknob? Not a separate deadbolt?”

“Yeah. Doorknob had that thing on the inside you turn to lock it. Why?”

“Probably easier to cut off the knob, which is only cheap brass, and then punch out the lock, than it would be to cut through a case-hardened lockbox hasp.”

“Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, I want those people out of my house, and pronto. It's my house and I want to sleep in it tonight. Without company.”

“Can't say I blame you. Let's do some research.” Troy turned to his computer and called up the property appraiser's web site and checked the address. Mark Johnson was listed as the owner.

“Have you paid your taxes on the property?” Troy asked.

“Yeah, of course. What, you think I'm some sort of deadbeat?”

Troy looked up from his keyboard. “I have to gather information, Mr. Johnson, if I am to help you. Don't take it personally.”

“Sorry. You're right. But, in fact, the taxes was one reason I wanted to sell. Back when I bought it Mangrove Bayou was a no-place backwater. It still is, no offense.”

“None taken.”
Probably wouldn't have hired me, even on a temporary basis, had this been a larger town and there were more applicants than a guy who was fired from his last job and who has nightmares about killing people
.

Johnson was looking out the west window at Sunset Bay and the lights in the condos beyond it. “Well, when the yuppies moved in, and when they built the place up for tourists, property values went through the roof. Place I bought for twenty thousand ten years ago is worth ten times that now. Mostly it's the land, not the house, but that means the taxes are too rich for my blood just for an occasional weekend retreat. I'll sell it, take the money, and run away, very fast. But, yes, I pay the damn taxes every year.”

Troy got out another dollar. “Oops. Sorry,” Johnson said.

“Next one's on you,” Troy said. “About the taxes, good to know. Who's your realtor?”

“Frieda Firestone. Firestone Properties.”

Troy made a note. “One of the few local realtors. Not much call for them here. Small town, low turnover. She's known as Frieda the Flipper, I'm told.”

“Well, she sure better not have flipped my house without telling me.”

“It's just an alliterative nickname. Far as I know she's a straight arrow.”

“Alliterative?”

“Frieda. Firestone. Flipper. All start with the letter
F
.”

“Oh. I see. Funny.”

“Apparently not so much. Here's what I can do,” Troy said. “I'll go over there right now and talk to those people. I need to find out to whom they pay their rent and then I need to locate and talk to that person. I need to find out if a crime has been committed, and if so, what sort of crime. I can do something about crime. If no crime has been committed, it's up to you and the civil courts. I don't do civil, only criminal.”

“How long is all that going to take?”

“You tell me. I don't see much chance of sorting it all out tonight, though. If you want to stay in town, go over to the Gulf View Motel and tell the manager, fellow named Loren Fitch, that I said to give you Room 221. Probably the only vacant room in town tonight.”

Johnson stared at Troy. “How the hell could you know something like that?”

“That's a dollar. And I'm the police chief of Mangrove Bayou. I know everything. But, personally, I advise you to go back to Miami and let me take care of this as best I can.”