Ron Base - Sanibel Sunset Detective 01 - The Sanibel Sunset Detective (19 page)

“Anyway,” said the first voice, “it’s finished tonight.”

“Can’t be too soon for me.”

The voices trailed off. Tree waited a minute or so before stepping back into the hall. He reached the door at the end, hesitated a moment, and then threw it open.

A flat screen television dominated a small room. Tree had never seen such a big TV, would not have known they even made them that size. Nicole Kidman in high definition loomed above Marcello on a chaise lounge. Tree thought the boy asleep, but as he bent down he could see he was awake, staring listlessly at the screen.

“Marcello.”

The boy looked at him with bleary, drugged eyes. A watery smile didn’t quite work.

“You all right?” Tree said.

The boy slowly turned his head back and forth. “They want to—”

“What is it, Marcello?” Tree said.

“Operation.” In a voice so slurry, Tree wasn’t certain he had heard him correctly.

“Operation? Is that what you’re saying?”

The boy nodded. “Don’t want operation. Don’t want it.”

“I’m going to get you out of here, okay?”

“No operation.”

“No,” Tree said.

He gathered Marcello in his arms and carried him out into the hall, back through the house and outside into the glare of the sodium lights. Marcello opened his eyes, moved his lips, but said nothing. Tree took a deep breath and started down the steps.

He came out the gate and got to his car, dropping Marcello into the passenger seat, wrapping a seat belt around him. Then Tree crawled in the driver’s side and started the engine.

What had he done? he asked himself as he sped away along Captiva Drive.

What the hell had he done?

27

I
can’t believe you did it,” Freddie said when he arrived home with Marcello and told her what happened.

“I can’t believe you just walked into someone’s house, picked up a little boy and carried him out again,” Freddie continued. “What’s more—and this is the part I really have trouble with—I can’t believe you did it alone. I can’t believe you left me lying here, went out in the middle of the night, and did this.”

“If I woke you up and told you what I was going to do, you would have stopped me.”

“I would have gone with you,” she said.

“Besides, I wasn’t so sure what I was going to do until I did it. Frankly, I’m almost as surprised at myself as you are.”

“We should call the police,” Freddie said.

“No, we shouldn’t,” Tree said. He then told her about seeing Mel Scott on Estero Boulevard.

“Are you certain it was him?”

“Certain enough that it makes sense why Marcello doesn’t want to have anything to do with the police. As far as he’s concerned, the police are in cahoots with the people who want to hurt him.”

“Including Elizabeth Traven.”

“Including Elizabeth Traven,” he said.

“What a mess,” she said, her voice thick with excitement. They were way out of their comfort zone. He suspected they both thought that was not a bad thing.

Undressing Marcello after Tree carried him into the guest bedroom was like manipulating a rag doll. Once she got his clothes off, Freddie laid the boy on the bed and tucked covers around him. She smiled down, a beatific smile for a sleeping child, Tree thought, not unlike the one plastered on his face.

They crept from the bedroom leaving the door ajar. Freddie retreated to the kitchen for a badly needed glass of wine. Tree stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower to relieve the tension. He emerged feeling better, but aware again of his aching hand. Otherwise, he was unscathed. Not bad for a sixty-year-old, he thought, smiling into the bathroom mirror. The insouciant action hero smiled back.

Freddie was half way through her wine when he arrived in the kitchen wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. They ate leftover chicken along with a salad, seated at the kitchen table. Tree related Marcello’s fears about an “operation.”

“Maybe he does need an operation,” Freddie said. “Maybe it’s legitimate. Maybe something is wrong with him.”

“If that’s the case, why haven’t we heard about it? Why doesn’t Marcello know? Why is Mel Scott involved? Why is everyone trying to hide their involvement?”

“But if there’s nothing wrong with him, why would they be operating?”

“They drugged him,” Tree said. “Nobody who wants to help a child drugs him into semi-consciousness. I don’t know what they were planning, but it wasn’t good. Whether we’re right or wrong about Marcello, he’s safer with us. We don’t know about these other people. That’s as good a reason as I know for doing what I did.”

“I’ll try to remember that when we’re e-mailing each other from our respective prison cells.”

He carried their plates to the sink. She watched him scrape chicken bones into the recycling. “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it quickly, my love.”

“I know.”

“It won’t be long before various people start to think he’s here and come looking for him. How are you going to protect him then? Particularly if they’ve got the police on their side.”

“They’ve got Mel Scott,” he amended. “We’ve got Cee Jay Boone and the FBI.”

“Do you?” Freddie raised an eyebrow. “Can you trust anyone?”

Good question, one Tree didn’t have an answer for. Not tonight. All he knew was that, somehow, no matter what, he would protect the boy. He wasn’t even sure why. He just knew he was going to protect him.

____

They awoke early and together checked the guest bedroom. Marcello lay curled on his side fast asleep, mouth slightly open, a fist pressed under his nose. They decided to leave him like that. Freddie dressed and drank the coffee Tree made for her. Then she went off to work.

At 8:30 the phone rang. It was Cee Jay Boone. “Haven’t heard anything from our friend Marcello, have you?”

“Not a thing,” he replied. How convincingly he had learned to tell bareface lies. He wouldn’t have thought he possessed such a talent. Perhaps he should go into politics. “Why? Is there anything new?”

“Just checking in,” she said. “It’s been a while since we talked.”

“What about our corpse?”

“Which one?”

“The one without a head.”

“What about it?”

“Have you identified it yet?”

She paused too long before she said “no.” He wondered if he wasn’t surrounded by much more accomplished liars than himself—Cee Jay Boone, Elizabeth Traven, and Savannah Trask topped the list.

“I hear it’s Dara Rait.”

“Do you? Who do you hear that from?”

“Dara owned an art shop on Estero Boulevard in Fort Myers Beach. I believe she lived in an apartment above the studio. I think she lived there with Marcello. Or do you already know that?”

“I’ll look into it,” Cee Jay said in a neutral voice. “Thanks for the information.”

“Am I a suspect?”

“A what?”

“A suspect. In Dara’s murder. Or Reno O’Hara’s?”

“You hear that, too?”

“Is it true?”

“Everybody’s a suspect,” she said and hung up.

He went down the hall and found Marcello sitting up, blinking and rubbing his eyes. “Where am I?”

“You’re back at my house.” Tree perched on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“You took my letters.”

“And you lied to me.”

Marcello didn’t say anything.

“Are you hungry?”

“Sure,” he said.

Tree offered scrambled eggs and toast, not expecting Marcello to agree to such exotic fare. But for once he nodded assent.

“You know how to work the shower? Of course you do. You’re a big guy, after all. Take a shower. Freddie washed your clothes last night. They’re on the counter in the bathroom.”

“You got my letters?”

“Take a shower. And no escaping out the window, all right?”

Tree got back a slow nod. “I want to hear you say ‘yes.’”

“Okay,” Marcello said.

____

By time the toast popped and the eggs were done, Marcello was dressed and in the kitchen, still sleepy-eyed. Tree put a plate in front of him. Ketchup? Marcello said yes, and even added a welcome “please.” By the time Tree returned with the Ketchup half the eggs were gone.

Between mouthfuls Marcello asked, “How’d I get here?”

“I brought you home last night.”

“Why?”

“Because you said people were going to hurt you. You talked about an operation, and you didn’t want that.”

Marcello took this in without comment. He bit into another piece of toast.

“That’s true, isn’t it, Marcello? You were afraid those people at the house were going to hurt you?”

“They were after me,” he said.

“They live in that big house on Captiva Road?”

“I don’t know where they live,” he said.

The telephone rang. Tree did not recognize the number on the digital display. He pick up the handset. A rumbling voice said, “Mr. Callister?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“Brand Traven calling.”

Tree gripped the receiver harder. “Sorry?”

“Brand Traven. You’re doing some work for my wife.”

Caught off guard, Tree could only repeat, “Yes.”

“I wonder if we could talk. Face to face.”

“Is that possible?”

“It is if you can come up to Coleman.”

When Tree didn’t immediately reply, Traven rumbled again. “Mr. Callister? Are you able to do that? Could you visit me?”

Visit? Interesting way of putting it. “When would you want to do this?”

“You’re a couple of hours away. Come up first thing tomorrow. I’ll leave your name. You’ll need photo ID. A driver’s licence will do the trick. You’ll also need my inmate number. Do you have a pen handy?”

“Hold on,” Tree said. He glanced at Marcello. He occupied himself moving a crust of toast back and forth along the table. “How are you doing?”

Marcello shrugged and concentrated on the toast. Tree found a pen and went back to the phone.

“My number is 18331-454. Also, be careful about how you dress.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Avoid anything khaki. They’ll think you’re trying to look like an inmate and that’s a no-no. Also don’t wear dark clothes. They might think you’re trying to impersonate a guard. For some reason they don’t like Polo shirts, either. I usually advise visitors to wear a light-colored sports jacket, jeans, a light-colored shirt with an open collar. That usually does the trick.”

“All right,” Tree said.

“I used to read you in the
Sun-Times
. Good stuff.”

“Thanks,” Tree said. Flattered despite himself.

The line went dead. Tree replaced the phone on the wall. Marcello was at the counter, on his tiptoes, reaching for a box of Wheaties. Tree went over and pushed the box so that the boy could get to it.

He poured cereal into a bowl, added two per cent milk, sliced a banana into it, and placed it in front of Marcello. He frowned. “I don’t like bananas.”

“You don’t like bananas? How can you not like bananas?”

“I don’t like them.”

Tree sighed and then meticulously removed the banana slices floating in the milk amid wheat flakes. He put the bowl back in front of Marcello, who now beamed.

Tree sat and watched the boy eat for a couple of moments. “I was just talking to a man on the phone.”

Marcello looked at him expectantly.

“His name is Brand Traven. Does that name mean anything to you, Marcello? Brand Traven?”

Marcello looked fearful. “The Bad Man,” he said.

“So you know the name.”

“The Bad Man,” Marcello repeated.

“Why? Why is he so bad?”

Marcello concentrated on making his spoon go in and out of the milk and cereal, fascinated by the tiny plops and splashes he produced.

“Marcello,” Tree said.

The boy took a deep breath. “He made me have the operation.”

He continued to play with his spoon.

“He’s the Bad Man. The Bad Man.”

28

T
he Federal Correctional Institution-Low, surrounded by chain link fences and topped with razor wire, is located outside the town of Coleman, set away from a country road between Interstate Highway 75 and the Florida turnpike. It’s part of a much larger complex that includes medium and high security prisons.

Tree wore his brown-check sports jacket, jeans, his good pair of Ecco dress shoes, and the striped dress shirt he bought for his daughter’s wedding. Even so, prison guards inspected him closely. He might as well have arrived with a hacksaw buried in a birthday cake.

He had to show his driver’s license, fill out paperwork, take off his belt, remove his shoes, and allow himself to be marked with an ultra-violet stamp so as to ensure the inmate he was visiting didn’t walk out in his place.