The Blood-Dimmed Tide (John Joran Mysteries Book 22)

by Michael Lister

  “Since we’re here,” Reggie says, “why don’t you go interview the volunteers about Betty?”

  He hesitates.

  “I think fresh eyes on everything could really help,” she says. “Especially given your experience.”

  He smiles and nods and rushes off.

  “That’s a very good result,” Reggie says.

  “Getting rid of Raymond or finding Rick?” I ask.

  She laughs. “Both, I guess. I bet Phillip was a big talker before being partnered up with him. But I was talking about Rick.”

  “The best.”

  “Betty Dorsey’s story isn’t going to have that kind of happy ending.”

  18

  The bar in the Boatman is so full it’s a fire hazard, the loud, raucous crowd constantly stumbling and bumping into each other.

  One of only two hotels open in Gulf County, this dilapidated old inn on the Chipola River was built in the late ’20s as a fisherman’s getaway. A millionaire from Alabama named Jamie Lynn Lee wanted a place he and his fishing buddy friends could spend weekends without their wives, and he didn’t care if it turned a profit or even lost money. As it happened, it did neither.

  In the process of being restored and reopened by Lee’s great-great-granddaughter and her husband who inherited it, it is currently filled with evacuees from Port St. Joe, Mexico Beach, and Cap San Blas, with Duke Energy and Gulf Coast Electrical Cooperative employees, with reporters, contractors, FEMA workers, out-of-town cops and firefighters, Red Cross representatives, and a few families whose homes were destroyed by the storm.

  And though Kad Lee and her not-a-handyman husband could charge any price at all, they’re still just charging pre-storm prices.

  Because the storm has driven so many people from their homes and compressed them together, I’m hoping my visit here will enable me to interview a few different people who before the storm lived more than twenty-five miles apart.

  Though living conditions are marginally better now than a week ago—cell service, electricity, and running water have all been to some degree restored—life itself in this hurricane-savaged environment is still difficult, challenging, and anxiety inducing. The people drinking and talking and even occasionally laughing together are tired and dirty and stressed, and are attempting to alleviate some small portion of the apprehension and uneasiness they feel.

  Because we’re in a state of emergency, Reggie has instituted a ban on alcohol sales, which is why the bar at the Boatman is giving away what they have left and allowing BYOB.

  It takes me a few minutes to get from the bar to the table where Feather Stalnaker is waiting for me, and several times along the way my hands and arms are bumped and struck, causing the contents of the two glasses I’m carrying to slosh out onto my hands, onto the arms and backs of those pressing against me, and ultimately onto the already sticky unfinished floor.

  “There was a lot more in it when I left the bar,” I say as I set the partially filled glass in front of Stalnaker.

  “No worries,” he says, and lifts the glass toward me.

  I tap his glass with mine and sit down across from him.

  He looks around the room, and I follow his gaze.

  The too small hotel bar is filled with strangers—with only a few exceptions. Raymond Blunt and Phillip Dean sit at a table drinking whiskey with other loaner cops from around the state. Merrick, the Times reporters, and a TV news crew from a station out of Panama City are at one end of the bar. Arnie Ward, another investigator in our department, and a couple of Gulf County Deputies stand around a tall table with no chairs near the open entryway that leads to the lobby. Rudy Pearson, Carla’s dad and John Paul’s grandad who nearly killed my kids during the hurricane, is setting out dinner on a folding table in the far corner. And at the center of the bar, her back to it, taking it all into her mesmerizing green eyes, like a mildly interested anthropologist, is Randa Raffield.

  “Think it’s bad in here now,” Feather says. “Should’ve been here the first days following the storm—no electric or running water, hellishly hot, and the biggest, meanest mosquitoes you’ve ever had your blood sucked by.”

  Feather—his actual name—Stalnaker is a gentle, soft-spoken young man with long blondish hair, one side of which has a braid and a feather in it. As usual, the smooth, deeply tanned skin of his thin, boyish body can be seen through the open vintage leather vest—which along with his too short cutoff jeans shorts and cowboy boots are all I’ve ever seen him wear, like a kind of unspoken uniform.

  “Thanks for the drink, mate,” he says.

  “Pleasure,” I say, nodding in his direction.

  He uses phrases like no worries and calls everyone mate, but his accent is Deep South not English or Australian.

  He waited tables with Philippa Kristiansen at Shipwreck Raw Bar in Port St. Joe Beach before it and the small shack he was sharing with three other guys were damaged by Michael. Now he’s staying here—in a single room with five other guys.

  Though still very much in progress and unfinished, the Boatman shows what it can be—a charming, classic country inn that remains true to its fisherman roots. Nearly everything is genuinely antique, its decor a combination of images of idyllic freshwater fishing and what once had been the breathtaking natural beauty of the area before Michael blew in and blew it all away.

  “What’s your plan?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Don’t really have one, mate. No job. No place to live. No idea why I’m still here . . . except . . . don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

  “Is Shipwreck going to reopen eventually?”

  “Eventually, but . . . I won’t be able to survive until it does. It’ll be months—maybe longer.”

  He places his drink on the table and pulls out his phone.

  “Look at this,” he says, swiping through his photos.

  He then places the phone in the center of the table facing me and begins to show me pictures of the damage done to the restaurant where he and Philippa had served steamed seafood to tourists.

  The poorly taken pictures show not only the damage done to Shipwreck but everything around it.

  “Now, look at this,” he says. “See that?”

  He shows me another picture of the damaged old convenience store building that houses the raw bar restaurant.

  “Yeah.”

  “Now look. Same day.”

  He swipes to the next picture that shows Philippa Kristiansen surveying the damage with everyone else.

  “It’s after the storm,” he says. “Proves she was alive after the hurricane had come through.”

  “Yes it does,” I say.

  “And look . . .”

  He zooms into the background behind Philippa. It shows the battered beach flattened by the winds and tidal surge, which no longer has any dunes.

  “See? Oh, wait. Sorry . . . There.”

  He uses his finger to slide the picture over a little to the left. It shows the collapsed beach house that Philippa had been found in.

  “Don’t have to just take my word for it anymore, mate,” he says. “Photographic fuckin’ evidence. There she is alive after the hurricane and there’s the house she was found in already destroyed.”

  19

  “This where you’re staying?” I ask.

  Randa smiles. “You asking as a cop or as a friend?”

  I’ve stepped over to the bar to see if Kad Lee can spare a minute for me, and Randa, assuming I had come to see her, had engaged me in conversation.

  “Do you consider me a friend?” I say.

  “Of course,” she says. “A dear friend. Why?”

  I shrug. “Just wondered. We probably have different definitions of what it means to be a friend.”

  “If you’re worried I haven’t forgiven you for arresting me, don’t give it another thought,” she says.

  I laugh. “No, that’s not what I meant, but—”

  “We’re all good, you and me,” she says. “I understand why you did wh
at you thought you had to. And it all worked out. I’m truly free now—for the first time in a very, very long time.”

  “Well, I just hope you’ll use all that freedom for good,” I say.

  “I am.”

  “You can still have a good life,” I say.

  “I plan to. Already beginning to.”

  I nod, but not like I mean it.

  “And to answer your question,” she says, “yes, this is where I’m staying. Not a lot of options around here these days. I’m lucky to have a room. They didn’t have one for me at first. Eventually, I’d like to buy a place around here—or maybe even build. I’d like to be on the water. It’d be a dream to live on the Dead Lakes, but I’d settle for the Chipola or the Apalachicola.”

  Kad waves at me from behind the bar and motions me out into the lobby.

  “Take care of yourself,” I say to Randa.

  “I’m learning to,” she says.

  As I begin to move away, she says, “Let me know if I can help you in any way. I’m good at solving crime, and I’d be more than happy to help you again. We make a formidable team.”

  I don’t ask what she means by again nor why she thinks we’ve ever been a team—formidable or otherwise—but instead press my way through the crowd and into the small lobby. The lobby is the room closest to being finished, the brick, tile, and mantle of its grand fireplace restored, its hardwood floors refinished, its opulent chandelier and the mahogany banister of the wide, winding staircase that leads up to the guest rooms redone and polished to gleam.

  “Open a quiet little country inn, they said,” Kad says. “It’ll be fun, they said. You might be bored but that’ll just give you more time to work on your poetry.”

  I laugh and thank her for giving me some of what she doesn’t have much of right now—her time—and promise to be quick.

  “We’re taking another look at the death of Charlie West,” I say, “and I wondered if you’ve thought of anything else since you spoke with the other investigator?”

  Charlie died a little less than a week ago—on the same day that my friend Brad Price died in a tragic accident while clearing hurricane debris with his tractor. It was also the night that the electricity in town first came back on.

  “Oh, no,” she says. “Does that mean it may not have been an accident?”

  “Not necessarily,” I say. “Just trying to be thorough. It’s too easy for things to get missed in a post-storm environment like this.”

  “I bet it is.”

  “Is there any reason you can think of that would indicate it wasn’t an accident?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “A few things just seemed odd to me, but I figured y’all know a lot more about this stuff than I do, so I let it go when the other detective didn’t seem too interested in it.”

  In looking at the crime scene photos I noticed something odd as well. The position of the body was all wrong for it to have been an accident—unless it’s just the angle or perspective of the photo, which is why I’d like to see the location for myself. But first I want to hear what she found incongruent with it being an accidental death.

  “Would you mind sharing them with me?” I ask. “The things you found odd.”

  “The whole thing,” she says. “I mean, he was in great shape and he was young and vibrant. So it’s hard to imagine him falling, you know? Plus, the floor of that shower is not slippery at all. I put down way more safety strips than I should have. I was so paranoid about someone falling. And—”

  “Do you mind if we go take a look at it?” I ask.

  “Well, we don’t have any empty rooms, so . . . Or did you mean the actual shower he fell in?”

  “It’d be helpful to see the actual one he was found in.”

  “I guess we can ask the guest if they mind, but . . . I really don’t want to remind them someone died here, you know?”

  “Tell you what . . . Are all the bathrooms the same?”

  “Identical,” she says. “Every room.”

  “Okay, give me just a minute. I think I know what we can do.”

  I fight my way back into the bar and over to where Merrick and the Times reporters are.

  “Hey, John,” Merrick says, as if he’s had a little too much to drink. “You remember Tim Jonas and Bucky Swanson.”

  Hippie Bucky and boyish Tim, like everyone else I encounter these days, including myself in the mirror, appear exhausted.

  “Hey guys, how’s it going? I want to thank you for your coverage of what’s going on here. Your concern for our area really comes through in your pieces and in your pictures. I can’t believe how little attention the hurricane and its aftermath are getting.”

  “Our pleasure,” Tim says. “We can’t believe it either. We were surprised the Herald pulled Gabriela and Grover back so soon.”

  “People have disaster fatigue,” Merrick says.

  “Or just news fatigue,” Tim says. “Between the chaotic Trump presidency and the wildfires in California and the million other things bombarding us every single day . . .”

  “It’s true,” Bucky says. “People have no fucks left to give.”

  “Makes what y’all are doing all the more important, and I appreciate it. Maybe we can get some attention and get some real help down here. Hey, I’ve got somebody waiting on me and I need a quick favor.”

  “Name it,” Merrick says.

  “Do you have a room here?”

  He nods. “Been bunking in with these guys since the Herald crew left.”

  “Could I borrow your key and your room for just a few minutes?”

  Tim and Bucky turn to look out into the lobby and Merrick laughs.

  “I guarantee it’s not how it sounds,” Merrick says to them. “No way he’s borrowing our room for a quickie with anyone other than his wife, and she’s not here.”

  “I was wondering . . .” Tim says. “We’ve seen your wife in court and not only is she smokin’ hot and wicked sexy and intelligent, but what she’s doing for you right now in there is . . .” He trails off as Merrick continues to glare at him.

  “No, I’m working on something, and the owner says all the rooms are the same, so instead of disturbing another guest I figured I could just take a quick look at yours.”

  “Sure,” Merrick says.

  “As long as when you can you’ll give us an exclusive interview about it,” Tim adds.

  “I don’t know when that will be,” I say, “but when I can . . . sure. I’ll only talk to y’all.”

  As Merrick hands me the key I can feel Randa staring at us.

  I take the key and rush out of the bar as quickly as the crowd will allow, and a few minutes later, Kad and I are in the reporters’ room, studying the shower.

  The rooms of the old inn are small, the bathrooms even smaller than most. In a concession to space, there are no bathtubs, only a small, narrow, white-tile shower stall. The three-sided stall is less than three feet by three feet and is fronted by a plain white shower curtain. Beneath the curtain is a raised tile ridge that comes up off the floor about four inches and is maybe six inches wide. It was on that ridge that Charlie West supposedly hit his head, but based on the crime scene photographs and now seeing it in person, I don’t see any way he could have. And I think Kad has reached the same conclusion.

  “See?” she is saying. “See how much grip tape is on that shower floor? No way someone slips in there—especially someone young and fit. And see how small the shower stall is?”

  “I do,” I say.

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking,” she says. “If you’re in the shower and fall . . . how do you hit your head on the ridge right here? But I can’t see how you could hit it from the outside of the shower either—not with the way the toilet and door and sink are situated.”

  I nod. “Good point. Anything else occur to you?”

  “Nah, guess that’s about it.”

  “Okay, thank you very, very much. That’s been extremely helpful. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate i
t.”

  “You’re welcome. I want it to have been an accident. I really do. So I hope I’m wrong. I mean, maybe he collapsed instead of fell over. But if he didn’t, if it wasn’t an accident, I want you to get whoever came into my place and did something like that.”

  “We’re gonna do our best. Well, I know how busy you are, so, I’ll let you get back down to the maddening throng, but if you think of anything else . . . please let me know as soon as you can.”

  She says she will and turns to leave.

  As she reaches the door I say, “And for now let’s keep this all to ourselves.”

  “Nobody will hear anything from me,” she says. “This is the last thing I want out there. No matter what it is—accident or . . . something else. I can’t even bring myself to say it.”

  When she is gone, I run water in the shower for a few minutes to get it good and wet. I then take off my shoes and socks and wet my feet. I then turn off the water and get in the shower stall and try to re-create Charlie West’s fall.

  I fall in every conceivable direction. I collapse several times. I even get out of the shower and walk back toward it to get into it. But no matter what I do, I can’t ever come close to landing how West did, and I can’t figure out a way for his head to strike the ridge the way it did from any kind of fall.

  20

  “Please tell me you’re not cheating on Anna,” Randa says as I descend the last of the stairs into the lobby.

  Her straight, longish auburn hair is even shinier tonight, her narrowed green eyes even more implacable.

  “I’m not.”

  Through the open French doors of the bar I see Lucas Burke, an inmate I worked with at Potter Correctional Institution a few years back. He smiles and waves when he sees me and it takes a moment for me to recognize him. I’ve never seen him not wearing an inmate uniform before and he no longer has the pale prison skin and bad buzz cut that he had back when I knew him.

  “That’s not what it looks like,” Randa is saying.

  “Things are often not what they look like.”