CHAPTER TWELVE
July on our key is a time when there are few tourists and we islanders meet for drinks and jokes and stories of other lives, those we lived before we found our paradise on Longboat Key. Some of the stories were probably even true, although we didn’t much care and never tried to sort out the truth from the fantasy. Everybody is entitled to start over, and our little island was as good a place as any for that.
I was sitting at the outside bar at the Hilton talking to Billy Brugger who had been slinging drinks in the place for a quarter of a century. He knew everybody, those still with us and those who had departed for other venues, those who had died and those who had simply moved away, perhaps tired of the essential sameness of our lives, bored with the little stimulus that island living provided, needful of the stress they’d left behind in the cities of the Midwest, or simply craving the daily contact of family and the familiar friends of their youths. He knew their secrets, the ones whispered to him over the bar late at night, when the whisperers had drunk too much and were a little maudlin, perhaps thinking of the homes they’d left to chase the sun to Florida. And Billy kept those secrets. He was as closed-mouthed as a sphynx, judicious in his friendships and in many ways a repository of all the island’s ills.
I’d stopped by Tiny’s after J.D. left. The chief was already into his second drink, chatting with one of the regulars, a commercial fisherman from Cortez. A couple of other locals sat at a table in the corner, intent on the golf game playing on the big flat-screen TV. Bill Lester never had more than two drinks when he was driving. We talked while he sipped on the last one and then headed home. I paid my tab and drove three miles south to the Hilton.
Billy looked at his watch. “She’ll be hitting the water in about five minutes.”
He was talking about the sun. He enjoyed the sunsets as much as I did, but would never admit it lest the locals think him as crazy as I. The people who lived on our key figured that when you’ve seen thousands of sunsets, the beauty pales into insignificance. But not for me. Each one was different from the others, the colors splaying across the water in ever changing patterns, the birds, a new flock each day, flying across the face of the sun on their way home for the night, the small formations of clouds hanging at the edge of the horizon, reflecting the last rays of the day. I was mindful of the fact that perhaps my fascination with the sunsets was that it was the last vestige of Old Florida, the land I’d known growing up, that part of my youth now buried under the condominium towers, parking lots, and thousands of new homes that fed the beast called progress.
“I know,” I said. “I can always depend on the sun.”
J.D. came up the ramp from the parking lot. “Hey, Billy,” she asked, “is he still sober?” She was pointing at me.
“Yeah. You can always tell. He’s not nearly as interesting when he’s not drinking much.”
J.D. took the stool next to mine. Billy poured her a glass of wine. “It’s time,” he said.
I turned my stool toward the Gulf, my back to the bar. The sun was just beginning to dip into the horizon. I watched as it sank, moving quickly as if glad to be done with this day, seeking a little rest before it started its rise over the mainland in a few hours.
I turned back to J.D. “Find anything at the Tropical?”
“Nothing. But I didn’t expect to. Their surveillance cameras are working and they save about six months worth of images on a computer. One of the techs is going through the pictures now, trying to narrow it down to the day of the shooting. See what we get. I’m not expecting much. He’ll let me know in the morning.”
“You hungry?”
“I could eat a cow.”
“How about a hamburger?”
“That’s a start. Can I have fries with that?”
“Sure. I’m in an expansive mood.”
We sat and ate and talked into the night. Friends stopped by, had a drink, joined the conversation for a bit and moved on to the next bar, the next set of friends. It was getting late and J.D. said she had to work the next day. I pointed out that retired guys didn’t even have to get out of bed unless they wanted to. She punched me with her elbow, got up, and pecked me on the cheek. “I’ll call you tomorrow as soon as I hear from the crime-scene people about those pictures. If we get anything, I’ll bring them by.”
The old peck on the cheek. She didn’t usually do that. Was it a sign? Was J.D. Duncan having erotic thoughts about me? Sure, Matt. Sure. Delusion is good for the soul. Keep thinking that way. Of course, I’d had more than a few erotic thoughts about her. But we were friends. Nothing more. Never even a hint from her that there was anything more. Well, maybe a hint, or maybe it was just my overactive imagination. I watched her walk down the ramp to the parking lot. She got into her Camry and drove away, waving as she left.
“Billy,” I aked, “did you happen to work the Desmond wedding in June?”
“Sure did. Who’d have thought the groom would be dead within twenty-four hours?”
“What was the setup?”
“The wedding was held on the beach just at sunset. We had a big tent covering the deck and the reception was held there. It wasn’t a big wedding, but everything was done first class. It wasn’t inexpensive.”
“Did you see any problems, fights, arguments, anything of that nature?”
“No. Everything was smooth. Why?”
“The groom’s dad is an old friend of mine from Vietnam. I’m looking into the murder for him. With J.D.’s help.”
“Wait a minute. There was one strange thing that night.”
“What?”
“A guy came up to the bar and wanted a drink. He wasn’t part of the wedding party, and I told him we were closed. He seemed pissed off about it and mumbled something about rich people taking over everything.”
“Anything else?”
“You mentioning Vietnam made me remember him.”
“Why?”
“He was Asian. But I’m pretty sure he was American. He didn’t have any accent at all. He spoke American idiomatic English. I don’t think you get that comfortable with a language unless you grow up speaking it.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He was pretty big. Not huge, but bigger than the average Asian. I’d say five ten to six feet tall, maybe one-eighty, one-ninety.”
“Did he leave right away?”
“No. He sat for a little while kind of staring at the party. I didn’t want to be rude to him, but finally I told him he’d have to move along.”
“Did he leave?”
“Yeah. Didn’t say another word. Just got off the stool and walked out.”
“Have you ever seen him again?”
“No. I’d never seen him before either.”
“That means he’s probably not an islander. Did you get the idea he was staying here at the hotel?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. He may have been a guest here. I didn’t ask and he didn’t volunteer.”
I sipped my beer, talking with Billy about fishing. He was planning to go with Logan and me next time we went out. I finished the beer, paid my tab, shook hands with Billy, and went home.