The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office sent a platoon, boats converging on the island from all directions. The Coast Guard turned up and I heard later there might have been a DEA team, but I don’t recall speaking to them. Altogether there were too many boots for the job at hand. They taped off the living room, and I answered the same set of questions more times than I cared to. Later the sheriff’s deputies took us away on launches, each on our own vessel, and I ended up in an interview room, where I answered the same questions all over again. The Monroe County guys called their counterparts in Palm Beach County. They said they had spoken to Detective Moscow, and that my story checked out. I told them that one of the guns they found on Will was responsible for the deaths of Lenny Cox and Alec Meechan, and that the other was owned by Lenny, and stolen from him postmortem.
As it turned out, the island Will was hiding on was only minutes the other way from Big Pine Key Fishing Lodge, where I had left Lenny’s truck. But I didn’t drive it home. Lucas did. He left his boat with the sheriff, and one of the deputies promised to transfer it up to Islamorada, where a guy Lucas knew would collect it and return it to Miami.
It was just after noon when Lucas dropped me back at Singer Island. There was no furniture, nothing to eat, not even a fridge. But my old apartment was the past, and this was the future, and it was the looking forward that was keeping me together.
“You driving all the way back to Miami?” I asked him .
He nodded. “Work tomorrow. The kid can’t cover for me forever.”
“Drive safe.”
“Yeah. So, Lenny’s, next week.”
I nodded. “I’ll see you there.”
I found that in my absence the power and water had been connected so I took a shower, and then I lay in the middle of the sunken living room, on the shag pile carpet, and fell asleep. My phone woke me. It was Ron, at my old place, looking for me. I told him were I was and he came and collected me. I didn’t much feel like being out in the world, but Ron put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye and told me, it’s better this way . I suppose he knew something about it. Sometimes the very moment you most want to be alone is the moment you most need friends.
Longboard Kelly’s was the same but different. I assumed everything was going to be like that from now on, but in the case of Longboards, it was literal. Mick had replaced the stools under the palapa shade. The worn old rickety things were out, and new thick wooden numbers built to withstand a hurricane were in. I wiggled my butt around on it.
“How’s it feel?” asked Muriel.
“It will get better with time,” I said.
“Just like you.” She smiled, passing me a beer. Ron and I toasted with our beers, Muriel with her club soda. Mick wandered into the inside bar. He nodded hi, like it was just another day, and then produced a hammer and banged a nail into the wall, where he hung a photograph. It was framed, a black-and-white shot, but not so old. A portrait of Lenny Cox, sitting under the very palapa we sat under, looking back into the courtyard, the late sun framing his face, his hard skin glowing, a smile on lips and a cheeky glint in his eye. We toasted all over again, and Mick wiped the picture with a towel, and then he retreated into the kitchen.
“He’s a big softy,” said Muriel.
“I’ve always thought so,” I said.
I sipped my beer and watched the people wander in, the buzz building in the air. Ron turned on his stool and looked at it too, and he smiled. Then he sort of dropped it, and looked at me.
“Do you know what will happen to Mandy?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not really. The detective in Monroe County said it would take a while to sort out, but he wasn’t sure if there was anything she’d done wrong, technically. She didn’t know about the murders and wasn’t there when they happened, so there’s no homicide charge, and they hadn’t yet committed fraud with the life insurance, so maybe nothing there either. He said it might turn out to not be worth the effort, with Will dead.”
Ron nodded. “I’m glad. She wouldn’t do well in jail.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t so sure.
“But what I don’t get is why they were on that island,” said Ron. “Why hadn’t Will made a run for it?”
“The detective said it’s not that uncommon for a perp to lay low not too far from home, somewhere they feel safe, until the wind blows over. He thinks they would have headed for the Caribbean, or maybe South America, sooner or later. He said they’ll probably get that out of Mandy, in due course.”
“She bet on the wrong horse again,” said Ron, sipping his beer.
“She did. And Will pretty much confessed about the embezzlement, so hopefully that helps Keegan out. ”
“I heard his lawyers are motioning the FBI tomorrow. As long as they get the missing millions back, I think they’ll be happy. So that leaves Celia.”
“She knew about it, but as Will hadn’t claimed to be dead, it’s anyone’s guess if that was illegal. So she might even still get the life insurance, and not have to wait seven years for it.”
“I think they’ll fight that. The insurance company will claim he died while committing a crime, and that she was party to the crime.”
“I think Celia’s up for a fight like that. But she was up to something with Drew Keck, too. I thought he might have killed Will for her, but when I saw the life raft in the storeroom I knew it wasn’t that, ’cause I knew Will was alive.”
“Drew appeared back at the yacht club,” said Ron.
“And?”
“It was the boat he was working on. Will had reneged on their deal to split the profits on the restoration, but Celia was liquidating all Will’s leftover assets. I bet that was part of Will and Celia’s deal. That’s why she could wait seven years for the insurance, because she was selling Will’s stuff to finance herself until then. So Drew renegotiated the deal with her, and he sold the boat. Up in Savannah, I heard.”
“What was the split?”
“Eighty-twenty his way, is the word on the dock.”
“She told him he drove a hard bargain. She was right.” I sipped my beer and spun back around to watch Muriel at work.
“So how are you?” I asked him.
“I’m still ticking.”
“Good.”
“And I’m doing a twilight this week with Amy and Felicity. You should come. ”
I didn’t take my eyes from Muriel. “Nah, I think I’m going to stay off the water for a bit.”
“Suit yourself.” I felt Ron look at me. “You should probably take a few days off,” Ron said.
“Did you?”
“I wanted to keep busy.”
“Me too.”
“So I guess it’s work tomorrow.”
I nodded. “We need to find a place for all those boxes of Lenny’s stuff.”
“Just leave them in the second office.”
“How will we work in there?”
“We won’t,” said Ron. “I don’t need a desk much. The sofa’s what I prefer. So I’ll just crash in your office.”
“It’s not my office. It’s Lenny’s.” I looked at Ron and he frowned. He was shaking his head.
“No. It’s your office. It’s your firm. Lenny’s office was in an old strip mall. Just the way he liked it.”
I nodded slowly and sipped my beer. Everything changes. I wiggled down into the hefty slab of wood I was sitting on. Everything changes, even the things that don’t.
Chapter Forty-Eight
RON DROPPED ME back at Singer Island. My bike wasn’t there, and I had no food or drink, but I was okay with that. Ron promised to pick me up the next day and take me to find a car. He said it was time to grow up and I couldn’t fight him on it. I ambled up to the front door and found two large, long cardboard boxes sitting on my doorstep. There was a delivery note shoved between them, and I had to lift the top one to get at it. The box was heavy. I unfolded the note. It read: contents, two chairs , and at the bottom in scrawled handwriting it read: Happy Housewarming,
Sal . I smiled and shook my head. I opened the door and dragged the boxes inside, and then realized I had nothing to open them with. I took a good while to pick apart the well-glued seams and open the first box. Inside was a deconstructed lounge chair. There were instructions and hardware, and little tools to build it. I had nothing better to do, and nowhere to sit, so I got to work. It took longer than was necessary to put the thing together, but in the end I had a nice new lounger with a cedar frame and blue cushions. The headrest moved up and down, so I could sit up and read, or lay it flat and sleep. With no library to hand, the second option was the better one. Under the headrest were wheels, and I dragged the chair out the sliding door onto the patio. The sun was falling and in my face as I looked across the water at Riviera Beach. I seriously contemplated that nap, but it was too sunny and I had no shades, so I went inside and put the second chair together and dragged it out to its mate.
By the time I was done the sun was still bright but the lower trajectory had taken the sting out of it, so I positioned the chairs to the view and lay down. It was comfortable, and I put my hands behind my head and took it in. It was a real Florida view, sun and boats and gulls. Long shadows reached across the water from the opposite shore like tendrils. It brought a smile to my face, which I felt bad about so I dropped it. I wasn’t sleepy. If anything, I was afraid of sleep, and the dreams that would come. I was afraid that my tomorrows wouldn’t be as good as my yesterdays, that Lenny was a hole that couldn’t be filled, by me or for me. It wasn’t a train of thought worthy of such a wonderful view on such a beautiful evening, and it was rightly interrupted by the distant sound of banging. It sounded like my front door, through the sliding back door that I had left open, but I couldn’t imagine anyone stopping in on me, since very few people knew I was there. Regardless, I was comfortable and wasn’t getting up. Then I heard a call of anybody home , and my ears pricked up like a hunting dog. I looked to the side of the house and saw Deputy Castle appear. I wondered for a second if I had indeed fallen asleep, but it all felt real enough.
“Deputy,” I said.
“Danielle,” she said, stepping onto the patio. She glanced through the open sliding door and saw the empty interior. “You some kind of monk?” She smiled and all the bad things in the world wafted away.
“Just bought the place. Haven’t even moved in yet. ”
She turned and looked at the view. “Nice. You do all right for yourself, for a guy who never seems to wear long pants.”
“It’s a trademark. I wasn’t expecting any visitors.”
“Sorry to barge in, but I heard what happened in Monroe County. And after Lenny, you know. The girl behind the bar at Longboards said you’d be here.”
I made a note to buy Muriel a drink.
“Anyway, I just wanted to see if you were all right. I completely understand if you’d rather be alone.”
“I’m glad for the visit, honestly, but I’m not feeling very chatty.”
“With a view like this who needs to chat?”
That made me smile. Then I dropped it. “What about your husband?”
She gave me a wistful look. “I don’t have a husband. I have a mistake.”
I frowned, not sure what that meant.
“I’m divorced,” she added.
I nodded, gently. She was right. Sally’s intel was indeed out of date.
“I don’t even have a fridge yet, so I can’t offer you anything to drink.”
She held up a six-pack that she had been holding by her side. “I brought provisions.”
“You are good.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I didn’t know the half of it, but suddenly I really wanted to. Then she held up a cell phone.
“And I have a wide variety of delivery options in my phone, so dinner is on me.” Then she made her mistake. She shot me that half smile—part of the mouth, but all of the eyes. And that was that.
“And it looks like there’s a spare lounge chair here,” she said.
“Just put it together. Hasn’t even had a maiden voyage.”
“May I?” she asked, handing me the six-pack and stepping around my chair. I watched her move around me. The sun lit her up from behind like a Rubens painting, and the world looked better. Not great, but a hell of a lot better. I smiled. I knew sadness would come, and it might stay a while. But not tonight. I gestured to the lounger.
“It’s all yours.”
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About the Author
A.J. STEWART WROTE marketing copy for Fortune 500 companies and tech start-ups for 20 years, until his head nearly exploded from all the stories bursting to get out. Stiff Arm Steal was his fifth novel, but the first to make it into print.
He has lived and worked in Australia, Japan, UK, Norway, and South Africa, as well as San Francisco, Connecticut and of course Florida. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his two favorite people, his wife and son.
AJ is working on a screenplay that he never plans to produce, but it gives him something to talk about at parties in LA.
You can find AJ online at www.ajstewartbooks.com , connect on Twitter @The_AJStewart , Facebook facebook.com/TheAJStewart or Google Plus .
Books by AJ Stewart:
Stiff Arm Steal
Offside Trap
High Lie
Dead Fast
Crash Tack
Three Strikes
Acknowledgements
THANKS, AS ALWAYS, to all my readers who send me feedback. A huge thanks to Constance and Marianne for their editorial and proofing expertise, and the readers on my inner circle reading team. These books don’t happen in isolation, so thank you. Any and all errors are mine, especially but not limited to my fictionalization of life in and around a yacht club. I've frequented more than my fair share, and better people are hard to find. And the Dark ’n’ Stormys aren't too bad either.
I've mixed the fictional with the real life. Many places in the book exist. Those with an eagle eye will, for example, notice that Guanabana's in Jupiter is in its expanded form even though the story takes place in spring 2008 and this expanded restaurant didn't open until December 2008. It's fiction, so I get to do that. All real life places are used in a completely fictionalized way, and in no way represent endorsement of my work by them. I may or may not have enjoyed a beverage or two at any number of these places.
Jacaranda Drive Publishing
Los Angeles, California
www.jacarandadrive.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover artwork by Streetlight Graphics
Copyright © 2015 by A.J. Stewart
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author.
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