The Hound of the Sanibel Sunset Detective (16 page)

“I was thinking on the way here that you might be able to help me out.”

Tree looked dubious. “Me? What can I do?”

“I think I’ve still got some juice left in me. Every time I think I don’t, I run into someone like that kid back there.”

“They still know who you are, Kelly, that’s for sure,” he said.

“I can work that to my advantage—as long as I have the right story. There is a great deal of interest in you in Chicago, thanks to that young reporter who’s been writing about you.”

“You mean Tommy Dobbs.”

She nodded. “Tommy has turned you into a bit of a local celebrity. I’d like to do something on television with you, in connection with the recent events that put you back on the front page. The two of us packaged with a great story. I believe it’s a combination WBBM won’t be able to resist.”

“Kelly, I don’t know what’s going on myself. Even if I wanted to do what you suggest, I wouldn’t know what to tell you.”

“I just picked you up off the side of the road looking like a drowned rat. This is not the life of a quietly retired Chicago newspaperman. You’re involved in something, and whatever it is, I want to be part of it.”

“You’ve got the wrong idea about me,” Tree said.

Kelly tried to keep the irritation off her face—the irritation Tree had seen many times during their marriage when she wasn’t getting her way.

“You know what, Tree? I’ve been accused of many things, but getting the wrong idea about you is not one of them. I could always see right through you.”

She took a deep breath before continuing. “Just so you know, I’ve already talked to Jim Wetherall at WBBM. They’re interested. They want an outline of how I plan to approach the story. All I need from you is your agreement to do this.”

“But do what, Kelly?” It was Tree’s turn to show exasperation. “You may think you know me, but right now, there’s nothing.”

“I want to stay here, Tree. I really do. But I can’t be sitting around doing nothing. I’ve got to find something.”

“So what you’re saying is that if I agree to a story, you’ll stick around?”

“I’m saying there would be a reason to stay,” she said.

“What about Rex? Isn’t he reason enough?”

“Put it this way, he’s a reason, but not enough of a reason.”

Tree swallowed his rising anger over her attitude and said, “I don’t even know if there is a story.”

“There’s always a story,” Kelly said with confidence, a quality she never lacked.

“Let me ask you something,” Tree said. “That kiss the other day. What was that all about?”

“We used to be married, Tree. We used to kiss.”

“But we’re not married anymore.”

“I forgot myself for a moment, that’s all.” She shifted those long legs around and gave him a knowing look. “Would you like me to pull over so I can forget myself again?”

“Kelly,” he said, alarmed. “Keep driving.”

“Have it your way,” she said. “Do we have an arrangement or not?”

“Arrangement?”

“Arrangement. A deal.”

“About kissing?”

“About the story.”

“Okay, if this turns out to be something, you can have it, for what it’s worth,” Tree said. “I don’t believe anyone in Chicago is all that interested, but if it helps you, fine.”

Kelly kept her eyes on the road ahead. But she smiled. Tree saw that smile many times when they were married. A Cheshire cat smile. Kelly the Cat.

Victorious.

24

I
t was late in the day by the time Kelly dropped Tree at the house on Andy Rosse Lane. This time she did not try to kiss him. But she did give him one more of her Cheshire cat victory smiles, and reminded him that they had “an arrangement,” and he must keep in touch.

Tree gritted his teeth. He would have been wiser to call Freddie. He would have been wiser to do so many things.

As soon as he walked in the front door, it was apparent that neither Freddie nor Clinton was there, but that someone once again had been in the house and torn the place apart. Furniture had been upended, pictures stripped off the walls. In the master bedroom, the mattress had been lifted off the bedframe and thrown onto the floor. The contents of the dresser drawers were scattered across the room. Freddie’s closets had been examined with a vengeance. His tiny closet with its meager wardrobe was untouched.

As he stood there worrying about what had happened to Freddie and the dog, the phone on the bedside table rang. The LCD readout showed that it was Freddie. Tree picked up the receiver. “Where are you?” he said.

“I’m at the office with Clinton,” Freddie said. “I came home with him, saw what someone had done to the house, and got out of there.”

“This can’t be happening again,” Tree said.

“Well, it is,” Freddie said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“My cellphone is dead,” Tree said.

“Are you all right?” Freddie said.

“More or less,” Tree said.

“You’d better come here,” Freddie said.

“I can’t,” Tree said.

“Why not?”

“Someone stole my car.”

“Why would anyone steal the Beetle?”

“It’s a long story,” Tree said.

“It always is.” Freddie issued a sigh. “I don’t want to leave Clinton here alone, and I don’t think it’s safe for any of us in the house right now.”

“I’ll meet you at the corner in half an hour,” Tree said. “That’ll give me a chance to change into some dry clothes.”

“What are you doing in wet clothes?”

“Part of the long story,” Tree said.

_________

After Freddie hung up, Tree stripped off his damp clothes, showered, and began to feel slightly more human as he toweled himself off. He had just finished dressing in a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt when there was a knock on the front door. It was at moments like these, he thought, that he wished he had a gun.

Or maybe it was better at moments like these that he didn’t have a gun.

Another knock, much more authoritative this time. When he opened the door, Detective Cee Jay Boone said, “Good evening, Tree. How have you been?”

With her was another detective, Owen Markfield. Tree groaned inwardly. These were the two people he least wanted to see right now.

“The cream of the Sanibel Island police department right here on my doorstep,” Tree said, putting on his best game face.

“You have a few minutes to talk to us, Tree?” Cee Jay said this in a way that did not leave a whole lot of choice. A handsome African-American woman, she had lost considerable weight since the last time he had seen her—the newly trimmed Cee Jay, lean and mean and ready to give Tree more trouble.

They had a complicated history together, beginning with her attempt to kill him. She denied the attempted murder charge, and in fact the court had thrown out the case against her. Since then, perhaps out of some deep-seated sense of remorse, she had arranged to help him out on a few cases. But she had also arrested him on more than one occasion. Thus he was never sure at any given time whether she was going to be an ally or an enemy.

“I was just on my way out,” Tree said.

“We won’t take long, Callister.” Owen Markfield, he of the youthfully smooth, sun-burnished skin, the perfectly coiffed blond hair, the expensive aftershave—Owen Markfield was another matter, entirely. He most definitely fell into the enemy category, loudly vowing to destroy Tree in retaliation for perceived past criminal acts. Nothing to those acts, of course.

To
most
of those acts.

So far Markfield had failed in his quest for vengeance.

So far.

“Come in,” Tree said, stepping back to allow the two detectives to enter.

When Cee Jay saw the look of the place, she came to a stop and turned to Tree. “Are you renovating?”

“We’re in the process of making some changes,” was the way Tree framed the lie. Right now, he did not want to deal with a B and E investigation that would only raise more questions than he had the inclination to answer.

“It looks like someone broke in,” Markfield said.

“What can I do for the two of you?” Tree said.

“The Fort Myers police have asked us to assist them with an ongoing murder investigation,” Markfield said, producing the notebook he always seemed to have on hand when he encountered Tree.

“The investigation of whose murder?” Tree asked.

“Come on, Callister, don’t start out like this.” Markfield already sounded fed up, and he was barely in the door. “You know damned well whose murder we are talking about.”

“It’s Edith Goldman, Tree,” Cee Jay interjected gently.

“I’m afraid there’s not much I can help you with,” Tree said. If Owen Markfield was already irritated, Tree thought, it might have something to do with the fact that, as usual when he was around, Tree barely opened his mouth before the lies began to tumble out.

“You found her body,” Cee Jay said.

“So you know that my wife and I both gave statements to the Fort Myers police.”

“Your name is also on her calendar,” Markfield interjected. “She had you down for a meeting the day before she died. Also, you are listed on her phone log a few days before that.”

“Yes, like I told the Fort Myers police, we talked about a possible assignment.”

“What kind of assignment?” Markfield asked.

“No idea,” Tree said. “We never got that far.”

“Why not?” Markfield, demanding.

“Because I told her I was retired, that I wasn’t taking on any more clients.”

Markfield looked at him, failing to hide his surprise. “You retired?”

“That’s right,” Tree said.

Markfield snorted derisively and made a notation in his notebook. Cee Jay said, “When did this retirement happen?” She too sounded dubious.

“I recently moved out of my office at the Chamber of Commerce,” Tree said, a statement that at least approached the truth.

“It appears Edith was mixed up with some pretty unsavory characters,” Markfield said.

“Well, she was a criminal defense lawyer in Lee County,” Tree said. “I don’t suppose she was getting a lot of calls from Harvard Business School graduates.”

“We believe that one of her clients was a Montreal, Canada, gangster by the name of Vic Trinchera,” Cee Jay said. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

Tree managed to look her straight in the eye when he said, “Why should it?”

“Shortly before Ms. Goldman’s death, Vic Trinchera was murdered in Miami.”

Tree didn’t say anything.

“In her calendar, Edith Goldman penciled Trinchera’s name beside yours.” Markfield had picked up the thread of the conversation.

Tree made a show of looking confused. “I don’t know what to say about that.”

“You could say something like, ‘I find that peculiar,’” Cee Jay said.

“Okay. I find it peculiar.”

“You are certain you don’t know this guy,” Markfield said.

“I know who he is now,” Tree said, skirting an outright lie.

“So you do know who he is.”

“His death was all over the news,” Tree said.

“There’s also something else,” Cee Jay said.

“Yes?”

“We received a report of an abandoned car in Coral Gables.”

Tree didn’t say anything, but the muscles in his stomach began to tighten.

“A 1980 Volkswagen Beetle,” she continued.

“Registered to you, Callister,” Markfield said.

“Yes, as a matter of fact my car was stolen in Miami earlier today.”

“So then why didn’t you report it stolen?” Cee Jay said.

“I guess I didn’t have the time,” Tree said.

Markfield jerked his head up from his notebook. “Your car was stolen, and you didn’t have time to report it?”

“I’m having trouble getting my head around why two detectives on Sanibel Island would be so interested in a banged-up old Volkswagen stolen in Miami,” Tree said.

Markfield issued one of the smirks Tree had come to recognize as a prelude to trouble. “Exactly. Why would two busy detectives like us ever be interested in a rusted-out old Volkswagen in Miami? Can you explain that?”

“I’m the one who’s asking, Detective.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that there was a body in your car, Tree,” Cee Jay said.

Markfield shot Cee Jay a dark look that suggested his punchline had been robbed from him. Then he addressed Tree. “Do you know anything about that?”

“Whose body did they find?”

Markfield’s eyebrows shot up in amazement. “What? Depending on whose body it is you might know something about it?”

“I don’t know anything about a body,” Tree said.

Cee Jay said, “The Miami police have identified the dead man as a local artist named Crimson, although they say his real name is André Manteau.”