Chapter THIRTEEN
Monday morning. The village was alive with people leaving for work. One of the things I like best about being a beach bum is that I didn’t have to join them. I was drinking coffee on the patio and reading the morning paper when Jock came out, a steaming cup in hand.
“Have you talked to your people yet?” I asked.
“I let the director know we’d gotten the one we think killed Nell, but I want to wait until we hear from forensics and get an ID on the dead guy before I give him a full report.”
“You think there’s more to this than just the guy you shot?”
“Yes, but I don’t know what. We’ve still got some digging to do.”
“Want to go for a run?”
“Sure. What about the statements?”
“I’ll take my phone. If we get the call, we’ll come back.”
We ran on the hard-packed sand of the beach, leaching the lethargy out of our systems. If you weren’t careful, the desultory rhythms of the key would overtake you, turn you into a couch potato or worse. When there was no schedule, no plan to your existence, the sheer randomness of life would overwhelm you and turn you into a TV-watching, booze-swilling barfly. Running seemed to give some purpose to my existence, a way to corral the uncertainty of the day, to know that there was at least one thing I had to accomplish each day. Four miles on the beach. A tiring, sweating, balls-to-the-wall run. Then I’d slip back into beach bum mode.
We finished our run at the North Shore Road access ramp and walked back through the village to my home. The peacocks that roamed the area were out in force that morning, pecking at the lawns and shrubs, occasionally letting out one of their raucous cries. They were pretty, but messy, and the village people were a bit schizoid about them. They liked the image of the birds running free in the neighborhood, but hated the mess they made and the god-awful noise. And the birds bred faster than rabbits. Every few years, the flock was thinned, and many of the birds were taken to a farm out in the east end of the county. For a while, a relative peace would fall over the village, but soon enough, the little buggers would start procreating again, and the problems would start all over.
As we were nearing my house, J.D. called. “The forensics people are finished with Nell’s BMW. Found some interesting stuff, but it didn’t answer many questions. The only fingerprints that didn’t belong in the car were the dead guy’s. A man named Pete Qualman, twenty-three years old, did time at Glades Correctional. He was released on parole two months ago. Never checked in with his probation officer.”
“What was he in for?” I asked.
“Held up a convenience store in Orlando when he was eighteen. Got six years and released in five.”
“Any connections to Miami?”
“None that we can find. Guy lived in Orlando his whole life. Dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and mostly worked at fast-food joints and did drugs.”
“Anything else in the car?”
“A couple spots of blood that were definitely Nell’s. The techs think she was probably shot while she was sitting in the driver’s seat. We’re thinking that when she came out of Pattigeorge’s, the killer was hunched down in the back seat. She probably died right there in the parking lot.”
“At least it was quick,” I said.
“Yeah. They also found some rope that matched the one Nell was bound with and some boat keys that matched the stolen boat. Another interesting tidbit was the mileage on the car. Nell had her oil changed at the BP station on the south end of the key Friday afternoon. The little sticker they put on the window, you know the one that reminds you when your three thousand miles is up and you need more oil, didn’t jibe with the odometer. Somebody put a little over three hundred miles on it after the oil change. I don’t think Nell did that after she left the BP.”
“Did you check the time of the service?”
“Of course I checked. She paid with her VISA card at five fifteen Friday afternoon. And her neighbor told me that the BMW was in the driveway of Nell’s house between six and eight, because the neighbor was sitting on her front porch chatting with her husband during the entire two hours.”
“What about the gun that was used to kill Nell?” I asked.
“Nowhere to be found. He must have ditched it somewhere. I ran the ballistics through all the federal databases, and there’s no indication that the gun has been used in a shooting anywhere in the country since it was used to kill the Miami victims.”
“Any thoughts on how he came into possession of that particular gun?”
“No. And that scares the hell out of me. Where did he go in that BMW after he killed Nell? And where did he get the gun, and what did he do with it? He’s too young to have been involved in the Miami murders. Was he just a killer hired by the real Miami murderer? If so, where is the real killer, and why does he want me dead?”
“This isn’t doing my indigestion any good. Did you get anything from Miami yet?”
“Not yet. It should be along shortly.”
“What about the statements?”
“An FDLE agent’s coming down from Tampa. He’ll talk to me and then he’ll meet with you and Jock. I’ll call you when he gets here. Bye.”
I related the information to Jock.
“Doesn’t sound good, podna. Maybe I shot the wrong man. It’s obvious that he’s not the killer from Miami.”
“It’s also pretty obvious that he’s the one who killed Nell.”
“It could be just a fluke that the pistol ended up in Qualman’s hands. Or maybe, the killer from Miami is running this show and wanted to let J.D. know that he’s still out there.”
“And you want the guy who ordered the hit.”
“Damn right. It’s an article of faith in the agency that if you take out one of us, you pay the price. You die. And that applies to our families.”
“You shot the right man. It just might not be the one you wanted most.”