CHAPTER FIVE
I took my paper and coffee onto the patio. It was getting warmer as the sun rose higher. I was starting to feel a sheen of sweat brought on by the high humidity. Soon it would be too uncomfortable to sit outside. It was time for my morning jog on the beach.
I was just tying my running shoes when my cell phone rang. The caller I.D. told me it was J. D. Duncan.
“Good morning, again,” I said.
“You had breakfast yet?”
“No. I was just going out for a run.”
“If you’ll join me at the Dolphin, I’ll buy.”
“Does this include Chief Warrant Officer Jacobi?”
“No. He’s gone back to Cortez to finish a preliminary report or something.”
“You’re on. What time?”
“Right now. I’m just pulling into the parking lot.”
“See you in five.”
I put on a ball cap and drove out to Broadway, took a left on Gulf of Mexico Drive, and rode south. The royal poinciana trees that lined the road were in bloom, providing a canopy of red blossoms that brightened the island, a neat juxtaposition to the foreboding cloud that had encapsulated my paradise.
I turned into the Centre Shops, a small plaza set among seagrape trees, bougainvilleas, banyans, and other local flora. The Blue Dolphin Café was housed there and during the summer served mostly the local population. In the winter, during what is known as “The Season,” snow-birds flocked there for breakfast and lunch giving the place a buzz that was absent in the doldrums of summer.
J.D. was in a booth near the front door. She stood as I approached. She was wearing a short-sleeved blouse, blue slacks, and low-heeled navy pumps, what she called her detective uniform. Her hair was pinned back from her ears and she was smiling. Her belt held a holstered Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol, a small case for her cell phone, and the gold detective’s badge. A handheld police radio sat on the table.
She gave me a perfunctory hug, the kind that our islanders almost always give, a token of friendship, no more. J.D., whose real name was Jennifer Diane Duncan, and I had become good friends in the months since she had come to our key. We’d share drinks with friends at Tiny’s on the edge of the Village or Mar Vista or the Hilton or Pattigeorge’s, the occasional lunch or breakfast, and sometimes we’d go off by ourselves to one of the local restaurants or take my boat to Egmont Key for a day at the beach. Our relationship never progressed beyond that, even though there were moments, like now, when my heart skipped a beat at the sight of her.
She’d been very professional that morning at my house, and I had expected nothing less. She was working a case and had a colleague from another agency with her. It would not have been seemly for her to hug the witness. She was seeking information, but she also knew that I would be more forthcoming over a leisurely breakfast than in a staring contest with the Coast Guard.
We took our seats and the waitress brought me a cup of coffee and a glass of water. One thing about the Dolphin, they knew their regulars and what the regulars liked. J.D. was already half finished with her first cup. I knew she had a large capacity for coffee, perhaps a legacy of all those years in the cop business.
“Sorry about Jacobi,” she said. “I just met him this morning when they called us out about the bodies they found.”
“Not a problem, cupcake.”
“Cupcake?”
“Um, Detective?”
“There. Isn’t that better?”
“Sounds kind of formal.”
She grinned. “Yeah, but it won’t get you shot. ‘Cupcake’ just might.”
“Point taken, Detective.”
“I wanted to make sure you haven’t thought of anything else about last night before I go talk to Logan.”
“No. I gave you and Jacobi everything I remember.”
“Okay. Just checking, Studmuffin.”
“Studmuffin?” I asked.
“You don’t like it?”
“No. It fits.”
She smiled and my heart jumped up and did a little jig. “Right,” she said and gave her attention to the server who’d come to take our breakfast order.
“Is Jacobi going to be investigating the murders?” I asked.
“No. That’ll fall to me. Jacobi is an accident investigator. His job is to find out what caused the boat to go aground. Since the Sister Keys are part of the Town of Longboat Key, the murders are my jurisdiction.”
“Do you see any connection between the shooting on the beach and the knifings on Dulcimer?”
“No. Well, at least not yet. There may be. I am curious about one thing you said this morning.”
“Yes?”
She took a bite of her scrambled eggs, chewed for a moment, sipped her coffee. “You’re pretty sure Dulcimer was making the dogleg when she went dark.”
“Yes. She made the turn to the east, but never came back westerly.” “Okay. It was about that time that she headed toward you and the bar and just seconds later the engines died. Right so far?”
“Yes.”
“Almost immediately after that, the generator shut off.”
“Right.”
“Somebody had to kill both Garrison and the girl and dump their bodies overboard in the time between when the lights went out and the Coast Guard got the generator running.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Assuming these weren’t just random attacks, the killer would have had to stick close to the victims so that he’d know where they were when the lights went out.”
I saw where she was going. “There had to have been at least two people involved. One to take out the captain and the other to kill the victims.”
“You’re pretty good at this,” she said.
“Then we’re assuming the attacks weren’t random.”
“Yes. I think if the killer had just been on a rampage, he wouldn’t have had a buddy in the pilothouse.”
I thought about that for a minute. “It’s kind of circular reasoning, but it makes sense. Unless there was a connection between Garrison and Katherine, the killings were random. But, the very fact that there were two bad guys aboard, and the confusion on the boat was planned, would militate against the assumption of random killings. There must have been some connection between the two victims.”
“Probably so. We just don’t see it yet.”
“What about a connection to the dead guy on the beach?”
“Same problem. If there is a connection, we can’t see it yet. Desmond, the man on the beach, was from Atlanta, Garrison was from Jacksonville, and Katherine was from Charlotte. Katherine and Desmond were in the same age range, but Garrison was old enough to be their father. Mrs. Garrison had never heard of either Katherine or Desmond.”
It was a puzzle that would not be solved that morning. What I didn’t know was that it wouldn’t be solved over the next month either.
We finished our breakfast, catching up on island gossip and speculating more about the murders. On Longboat Key, a detective’s job is mostly about investigating car break-ins at the North Shore Road beach access or the occasional home burglary. Homicide seldom intrudes on our cosseted island, but murder was no stranger to J.D., and I knew she’d handle these with the same intensity she’d brought to her job in Miami.