CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Only I didn’t go home. I stopped at Tiny’s, the small bar on the edge of the Village that served as sort of a clubhouse for the northenders. It was quiet with only a few people huddled at the bar. I knew them all, the late night denizens of the Village and one mid-key condo dweller, my buddy Logan Hamilton. I hadn’t seen much of him lately. He was in love and spent much of his time with his lady, Marie Phillips, who lived in one of the high-rises on the south end of the key.
“You get dumped?” I asked as I slid onto an empty stool between him and Les Fulcher.
“Right. How would she ever replace me? She had one of those girlie things tonight. Dinner at Michaels and drinks at Marina Jack.”
“Girlie thing?” “Yeah, you know. The girls get together and gossip. Marie probably likes to tell them how great I am in the sack.”
“Just another group of nice people lying to each other, huh?”
“Well, exaggerating, maybe. Just a little.”
I turned to Les. “How’s retirement?”
“Lots of fishing.”
“Catching anything?”
“Not much.”
“I haven’t seen you lately. I heard you’ve been off island for a while.”
“Yeah. For two months. Went to Guam.”
“Guam? What’s a broken-down firefighter doing in Guam?”
“Broken-down my ass. I retired in the peak of health. Still got my youthful glow. I am the epitome of boyish exuberance.”
“How’s the knee?”
“Gotta get it replaced. I go in the hospital the first of the month.”
“So why Guam?”
“I’ve got a buddy out there and I spent some time fishing and diving.”
“When did you get back?”
“Yesterday.”
“I guess you heard about the murders we had last month.”
“Yeah. I knew Jake Prather, Dulcimer’s captain. He used to live next door to me in the Village.”
“Sorry about your loss.”
“I hadn’t heard anything about it until I got in yesterday. I went to see Janice, his widow, this morning.”
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s doing okay, I guess. Jake had some life insurance. Not much, but it’ll see Janice through. Did you know them?”
“No. I knew the name and I knew he ran Dulcimer, but I don’t think I ever met him.”
The conversation turned back to inconsequential things. Tiny’s owner, Susie Vaught, kept the beer coming and joined in the conversation. It was a pleasant evening on the downside of July, old friends gossiping, trading fishing spots, laughing at the crazy politics of our island. We decided that July was the safest month on the key since the Town Commission didn’t meet. All its members were up north somewhere trying to escape the heat.
I was up early the next morning, jogging the beach as the sun rose over the mainland. I ran two miles south and turned for the trek back to my starting place. I left the beach and walked down Broadway and into the Village and home. The peacocks were roaming the streets hunting their breakfast. People were walking their dogs, waiting patiently while the animals sniffed the ground and found the best place to do their business. Full daylight was on us and the air was getting wetter with the humidity that always comes with the sun in summer.
I showered, shaved, put on clean shorts and a T-shirt with the logo of a local restaurant and took my newspaper, coffee, and a muffin to the patio. It was still cool enough in the shade of the overhang to enjoy the outdoors. It was not yet eight o’clock.
My phone rang. J.D. calling.
“The techies came up with some pictures from the elevator cameras at Tropical,” she said. “You want to see them?”
“I’ve got coffee on.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I’d moved back inside and the new pictures were spread over the coffee table. The first thing I noticed was that the person in these pictures was wearing the same clothes as the person in the pictures from the Grand Beach elevators. The second thing was the size of the new guy. There was no clear shot of his face. He was wearing the same ball cap as the one from Grand Beach and he kept his head down.
“Did you notice the clothes on this one?” I asked.
“Yeah. They look identical. Like a uniform or something.”
“Same briefcase.”
“Identical.”
“And this is a pretty big guy,” I said.
“Yes. You can tell by comparing his size to the elevator door. I’d say he’s around five feet ten. Not huge, but bigger than the Grand Beach guy.”
“The time stamps match. The one at Grand Beach and this guy were going up and coming down at about the same time.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “We’ve got at least two people involved in this. A hit team?”
“Looks like it. Maybe more than two.”
“More than two?” she asked.
“What if Jim hadn’t gone jogging that morning. This was their last chance to get him before he left for Europe. There had to be someone else as a backup.”
She thought about it, her teeth massaging her lower lip. “Or maybe there was a backup plan. If he hadn’t jogged that morning, they may have planned to get him somewhere else.”
“You could be right. But why? Who’d want to hit a young guy just out of college?”
“If we answer that question,” she said, “we’ll probably have an idea of who the shooters were.”
“Even if we don’t get the shooters, if we can figure out the why and the who behind this, I’ll have somebody to sue. We can take it from there.”
“Where do we start?”
“The statements from Chaz Desmond and Jim’s wife, Meredith, weren’t much help. I wonder if I might have a little more luck. Not being a cop, and all.”
J.D. bristled a little at this. “You think you can take a better statement than I can?”
“No. Not at all. But Chaz is my old friend and the guy who wants me to proceed with this suit. He can get me to Meredith as part of the family. There just might be secrets there that they would share with me that they’d want to keep out of the public record. And by talking to you they would be afraid that everything would become public sooner or later.”
She relaxed, smiled, sat back in her chair. “Good recovery, chum. But I think you’re probably right. And there’s nothing to lose by trying.”
“So it’s okay with you for me to talk to them?”
“Sure.”
“How about the other witnesses?”
“No problem. Just keep me informed.”
“Suppose we set up a new file, one that’s not part of the official file. That way I can assure the witnesses that while I’ll share the information with you, it’ll be completely off the record and that you won’t use it without their explicit permission.”
She was quiet for a beat, thinking this over. I knew it went against all her training. The rules are specific. Everything goes into the master file. All evidence and statements are to be kept for use in a trial. She would be breaking all kinds of regulations by going off the reservation, as it were.
“I don’t know, Matt,” she said after a minute or so. “I work for the town. I don’t know if I can hide anything from the prosecutors and other cops.”
“Think of it this way, J.D. I don’t have to share any of this with you. I can claim attorney-client privilege or work product and keep it out of the hands of any of the authorities. But I’d like your help. Besides, you’re at a dead end on this case. You’ve got no suspects, no motive, no nothing. You can’t possibly hurt the case by working with me off the books.”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“Suppose I talk to the chief. If he agrees, will you go along with it?”
“If the chief gives me the okay, I’m in.”
“There’s a good girl.”
“Girl?”
“There’s a good detective.”
“That’s better,” she said.