CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was nearing noon as I crossed the Longboat Pass Bridge. I’d planned to meet Jock at Moore’s Stone Crab Restaurant for lunch. Logan had a morning doctor’s appointment and then was going to meet Marie for lunch in downtown Sarasota. J.D. was lunching with the chief to bring him up to date on our evolving views of the cases.
I was a few minutes early, so I swung by my house. I wanted to call EZGo Travel. I dialed information and asked for the Charlotte number. There was no listing. I thought that strange, but then figured it was probably in one of the suburbs. I went to my computer and Googled EZGo. Nothing. Nowhere in the entire country. I went to the North Carolina public records. No listing for a corporation or a fictitious name filing for EZGo. Some of the Charlotte suburbs are in South Carolina, so I checked those records. Nothing.
I called Jeanette Deen. “Hi Jeanette, this is Matt Royal. Sorry to bother you again so soon.”
“No bother, Matt.”
“Do you have an address for EZGo? The place where you sent the gift certificate?”
“I’m sure I do. Hold on a minute.”
I heard the keyboard clicking and she came back on the line. “It was to a post office box in Charlotte,” she said, and gave me the box number.
“Thanks, Jeanette. I’ll try not to bother you again.”
“Anytime, Matt. It’s not a problem.”
I drove down to Moore’s. I usually walked, but it was August and my Explorer had a healthy air-conditioning system. I’m no fool.
Jock was sitting at the deserted bar talking to Debbie, who had been serving drinks there for the past twenty years. She was a good friend and I think secretly had a thing for Jock. I joined them.
“I heard somebody was trying to kill you yesterday,” she said.
“News travels fast.”
“There’s never new news on this island. It’s old before it has time to germinate a little. The gossip telegraph works very well, even in August.”
“Well, I’m okay. In case you were worried.”
“We probably need a better class of killer on this island. You know, somebody who knows what he’s doing.”
“Ah, Deb. You’d miss me.”
“Well, I’d sure miss those big quarter tips you give.”
“You’re worth it, babe.”
She laughed, threw a dish towel at me and went to the beer cooler for my Miller Lite.
“Did you find out anything?” Jock asked.
I related my conversation with Jeanette Deen. “She sent the gift certificate to EZGo Travel Agency in Charlotte, but there is no such business.
Just a post office box. I’ve got the credit card number that the certificate was charged to. Maybe that’ll give us some more information.”
“You going to ask Deb to check it out?” he asked.
“Yep. We’ll save your agency for the hard stuff.”
“Check what out?” Deb asked.
“I just need a little hacking job,” I said.
“Geez, Royal. There’s no such thing as a little hacking job. They’re all big. What do you need?”
“Some information on who pays the bills on a certain credit card?”
“You got the number?”
“Of course.”
“Give it to me. I’ll check it out when I get home tonight.”
Debbie was a very competent hacker. She’d taken some computer courses at the local community college just for her own edification. The further she got into it, the more she realized she had a gift. Before long, she was hacking her way into all kinds of databases. It was a hobby for her, and she never took anything of value or shared the information with any-one else. I was probably the only person other than Jock and Logan who realized what she could do. She’d helped us out before.
Back at my house, I typed a note of my conversation with Jeanette Deen into my computer and e-mailed it to J.D. and Doc Desmond. Jock was on his cell phone, which had some sort of encryption that ensured the privacy of his conversations. He was talking to somebody at his agency headquarters in Washington.
“They’ll get back to me on Soupy,” Jock said as he closed his phone.
“Thanks. We may be chasing wild geese with the Dulcimer murders. If Soupy sent a team to take out Jim Desmond why would they kill two people who apparently have no relationship with each other or with Desmond? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe Soupy is the wild goose.”
“You’re thinking that he might not have anything to do with any of this?”
“That’s one option. Another is that Dulcimer and Jim are just coincidences.” He held up his hands. “I know, I know. You don’t like coincidences, but sometimes they happen.”
“What would you guess the percentages of that are?”
“Near zero, but that doesn’t make it impossible.”
I shook my head. “You may be right, but I don’t like it.”
“I agree,” said Jock. “Let’s keep digging. We’ll either hit a complete dead end or we’ll turn over a rock somewhere and find our answers.”
I thought he was right. I called Mrs. Garrison in Jacksonville. “My name is Matt Royal, Mrs. Garrison. I’m a lawyer in Longboat Key and I’ve been retained to look into the deaths on the Dulcimer.”
“I remember you, Mr. Royal. You pulled me out of the water. But who would be looking into that now? I gather that the police haven’t been able to find much of anything.”
“My client’s son was killed on Longboat Key the same day as your husband. There may not be any connection between the murders, but I need to cover all the bases. May I come to Jacksonville to meet with you tomorrow?”
There was a silence on the other end of the phone line, a slow exha-
lation of breath. “I don’t see why not. I’ve talked to the police twice, so I’m not sure there’s anything else I can tell you.”
We agreed to a time for me to be at her house and then I called the Brewsters in Charlotte. I told them the same thing I’d told Mrs. Garrison and they agreed to meet with me two days later. It would take me that much time to drive to Jacksonville and then on up to Charlotte.
I called Chaz Desmond to tell him what we’d learned and how confused we were. “I’m going to Jacksonville to talk to Mrs. Garrison and then on up to Charlotte to see the Brewsters.”
“When are you planning to go?”
“I’ll drive up to Jacksonville tonight and meet with Mrs. Garrison tomorrow. I’ll go on from there to Charlotte and see the Brewsters the day after tomorrow.”
“I’ll send my plane. You can leave in the morning, meet Mrs. Garrison and then fly on to Charlotte. You’ll be home tomorrow night.”
“That sounds like a plan, Doc. I’ll make sure the Brewsters are free tomorrow afternoon.”
“Be at Dolphin Aviation at the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport at eight in the morning. My pilot’s name is Fred Cassidy.”