Ron Base - Tree Callister 04 - The Two Sanibel Sunset Detectives

by Ron Base

  Bonnie Garrison lay curled beneath a flowered duvet on a king-size bed in the master bedroom. At first he thought she was asleep—he prayed she was asleep.

  “Bonnie,” he said. “It’s me, Bonnie. Tree Callister.”

  She did not respond. He steeled himself and stepped over to the bed and yanked back the covers. Bonnie lay on her side, naked and unmoving. He touched her skin. It was cold and hard. Rigor mortis had set in.

  There was no blood and no sign of how Bonnie Garrison might have died. Just a dead woman lying on her side in a bedroom on a sunny morning.

  Tree stood staring down at her, numb, resisting again the urge to flee. He had done this too many times, found too many dead bodies.

  Then he noticed the single flower lying on the bedside table—a black iris.

  His cellphone rang. He fished it from his pocket. A voice said, “Tree? It’s me. Ryde.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in trouble.”

  “Yes. I’m at Bonnie Garrison’s house.”

  There was a long silence before Ryde said, “What are you doing there?”

  “What do you think I’m doing? I’m looking for you.”

  “Don’t go inside,” he said.

  “Too late, I’m already inside.”

  “Oh, God.” As desperate as Tree had ever heard Ryde Bodie sound. “Listen to me, Tree. Okay? I didn’t kill her. I want you to know that.”

  “Where are you now?” Tree asked.

  “I came back from a run on the beach and I went into the bedroom, Tree, and she was like that. I swear she was.”

  “Then what makes you so sure someone killed her?”

  “What are you talking about? She’s dead. Someone must have killed her.”

  “There’s a black iris lying on a side table,” Tree said. “I’ve seen it before. Do you have any idea what it means?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice rising excitedly. “It was Paola and her bunch. That’s their calling card. It must have been them. They must have come to the house looking for me.”

  “You need to get back here, Ryde. We can phone the police and tell them what happened.”

  “That’s the thing, Tree. I’ve already called the police.”

  “When did you do that?”

  “Minutes ago. A few minutes ago. They should be there any time now.”

  Tree looked out the bedroom window just as the first of three police cruisers turned off West Gulf Drive, headed toward the house.

  “Ryde,” Tree said into the receiver.

  But Ryde was gone, and the police were pounding at the back door.

  28

  Tree emerged from the bedroom just as two officers with shaved heads burst into the kitchen, Glock pistols held in the department-sanctioned combat grip. Tree recognized one of the cops: T.J. Hanks was the officer who had stopped him on the way to rehearsal at the Big Arts Center.

  In unison, the officers screamed at him to keep his hands where they could see them and to get down on the floor. Tree tried to tell them he was a private detective working a case, but they weren’t interested. They just kept yelling, fingers on the triggers of the Glock, thumbs straight, ready to do the serious business of pumping him full of lead. He got to his knees, and T.J. Hanks moved forward. He pushed Tree down on his face before yanking his arms behind him and snapping handcuffs on his wrists.

  Meanwhile, the second officer, adopting a shooter’s crouch, ducked into the bedroom. Tree could hear him call out, “Ma’am? Ma’am? Are you all right, ma’am?” That was followed by an explosion of swear words—the officer discovering that Bonnie Garrison was dead. The second officer reappeared from the bedroom, paler and more bug-eyed than before, shouting something into the radio microphone clipped to his chest.

  Then T.J. Hanks was yelling in Tree’s ear, “What did you do to her? What did you do?” And Tree was trying to say he didn’t do anything. By now additional uniformed officers had entered the house, everyone milling around in confusion.

  Hanks and the second officer lifted Tree to his feet and hustled him outside and down the backstairs to their cruiser. The officers unceremoniously shoved Tree into the backseat and then left him there, hands cuffed behind him.

  Tree sat uncomfortably, watching as the usual array of emergency vehicles streamed up the road to the yellow house. Even a fire truck showed up. Everyone wanted to be part of a possible homicide on Sanibel Island.

  T. J. Hanks reappeared and climbed into the front seat holding a clipboard. Calmer now, Hanks asked Tree to explain what he was doing at the house. If he recognized Tree from their previous encounter, he gave no sign. Tree said he was on a case and Bonnie’s name had come up in connection with it. He knew her from the Big Arts Center and decided to drop around and ask her a few questions. When he arrived, there was no answer at the front door. He went around to the back, found the rear door open, became worried when there was still no answer, and entered and found Bonnie in the bedroom.

  Hanks made careful notes on the clipboard with a ballpoint pen. When Tree was finished, the officer grunted something Tree didn’t understand and left the car. Tree sat there for ten more minutes before he saw a familiar brown Buick come up the drive to join the growing armada parked around the house. Cee Jay Boone and Owen Markfield got out and were met by T.J. Hanks. Tree watched as the three huddled together. Hanks gestured toward the car with Tree inside.

  Abruptly, Markfield, his face reddening and twisting into an expression of anger Tree knew well, broke away and charged at the cruiser. He yanked open the rear door, shouting, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He grabbed at Tree’s shirt and jerked him forward before dragging him from the car.

  Tree landed on the ground with such force it knocked the wind out of him. Vaguely, he could hear Markfield yelling, although he could no longer make out the words. Markfield grabbed him by the arms and hauled him away from the cruiser across a grassy patch into a tangle of bushes. Then Markfield began kicking him. Tree, his hands bound behind him, frantically tried to roll away, but Markfield made sure Tree didn’t get far.

  Eventually—only a couple of minutes had elapsed, but it seemed forever—through a veil of pain, Tree became aware of Cee Jay yelling to “stop this.” Trying to hold Markfield back. She was soon aided by T.J. Hanks. Surprising—Tree thought for sure Hanks would prefer to join in the kicking.

  It was Hanks who finally managed to pull the enraged Markfield away. Cee Jay knelt down to Tree, and said, “Hey. Are you all right?”

  No. Not really, Tree thought. But he decided that a non-committal grunt was best at this point.

  He noticed officers watching blank faced from a distance, as if hesitant to get too close to the object of Markfield’s rage, although from the look of some of the cops, they would not have minded giving him a kick or two themselves.

  Cee Jay shifted him around, did something to his bound hands and the next thing the handcuffs came off and he was being lifted into a sitting position.

  “We better get him to hospital,” Tree heard Cee Jay say. This from the woman who once tried to kill him. Their relationship was evolving, he decided.

  “He’s all right,” someone said. That was more like it, Tree thought through the enveloping pain.

  He no sooner thought this, than somehow he was on the ground again surrounded by a trio of emergency medical workers, two young males and a slim, freckled female. They took turns snapping questions, beginning with, “Tree? Can you hear me, Tree?”

  Loud and clear he thought, although when he opened his mouth to say this, he wasn’t certain anything came out.

  That was a moment before everything, curiously, turned pink—why would the world become pink, he wondered—and Tree ceased to worry about saying anything.

  29

  When Tree regained consciousness, and tried to lift his arms, he discovered his wrists were bound in restraints attached to a hospital bed. A young doctor with blond hair, carefully parted at the side, and with a
distracted, professional manner, said, “You don’t have a concussion.”

  “How do you know?” Tree asked.

  “I’m a doctor,” the doctor said. Of course, Tree thought. That would explain everything.

  “Why am I tied to the bed like this?” Tree said.

  “Because you are a dangerous criminal,” the doctor said. As if being a dangerous criminal was the most natural thing in the world.

  “I’m not dangerous,” Tree said.

  “Says you,” replied the doctor.

  “Can you tell me what’s wrong with me?”

  “Yeah, they didn’t beat enough of the crap out of you.”

  The doctor swirled from the room, a bundle of youthful, purposeful energy. Everyone was young, Tree thought. The police were young, the emergency medical people. Everyone but Tree Callister. What did any of them care if a sixtyish private detective survived or not? They had their whole lives ahead of them. Tree was nearing his end, and aching. Let him die at the side of the road, food for the buzzards. Were there buzzards in South Florida?

  Cee Jay Boone came into a watery focus. She was a little older than the rest. Maybe she wouldn’t feed him to the buzzards.

  “Tree,” she said. “You are under arrest.”

  Or maybe not.

  “What am I under arrest for?” His voice sounded tired and strained and old.

  “Assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest,” Cee Jay said. To her credit, she managed to say it with a straight face.

  “You know that’s not true,” Tree said.

  “Tree,” she continued in a formal voice. “I know you’ve heard this before, but you do have the right to remain silent. You also have the right to a lawyer, and further, anything you do or say can be held against you in a court of law. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “I understand,” Tree said.

  “And are you willing to answer questions now without an attorney present?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Also,” Cee Jay added, “we are holding you as a possible accessory to the murder of Bonnie Garrison.”

  Tree groaned and said, “Come on, Cee Jay. Why would I kill Bonnie Garrison?”

  “The medical examiner thinks she was strangled, but maybe you can help us with that, Tree.”

  “No, I can’t, Cee Jay.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said. “Here’s the game plan. They’re going to keep you here at Lee Memorial tonight for observation. Then tomorrow we will move you to the Lee County Jail. You’ll be held there overnight before being arraigned on the charges I’ve just outlined to you.”

  “This is crazy, Cee Jay.”

  “Is it?” she said. “If that’s the case, Tree, start co-operating, and things will get a whole lot less crazy real quick.”

  “Can I at least see my wife?”

  “I want to help you out, Tree, I really do. We’ve had our differences in the past, I know. But I’ve actually grown to like you. Even so, I need you to help me before I can do anything for you.”

  “I told the officers everything I know,” Tree said.

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  Cee Jay offered him a knowing smirk before she departed, leaving him alone with his pain, and giving him plenty of time to mull over the gloomy state of his life. Except his mind was a fuzzy blank. The pain killers did that to him, he suspected. They did everything except kill the pain.

  A nurse swished into the room. She looked familiar. “Lindsay?” he said.

  She blessed him with a smile. “You’ve got a pretty good memory there, Mr. Callister.”

  “How could I forget?”

  “You were a visitor the last time I saw you, now you’re a patient. How did that happen?”

  “I’m lying here trying to figure it out,” Tree said.

  “The last time you came here you were in charge of security, although I thought you were a little old for that job,” Lindsay said. “This time you’re a dangerous criminal.”

  “I’m evolving,” Tree said.

  “I still think you’re a little old,” Lindsay said.

  “I’m not a little old,” Tree said. “I’m too old.”

  “You’re not going to hurt anyone, are you Mr. Callister?”

  “I’m too weak and I hurt too much to be much of a threat to anyone.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said. “Can I get you anything?”

  “How about some water?”

  She poured water from a blue pitcher into a plastic glass, and then added a straw which she pressed gently between his parched lips.

  “How’s that?” she said when he’d had enough to drink.

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  “All part of the service here at Lee County Memorial,” Nurse Lindsay said. “I’ll come back a little later with your meds. Try to get some rest.”

  She left the room and Tree closed his eyes. A moment later, he was in a deep sleep.

  ________

  By the next morning, the pain killers Nurse Lindsay had given Tree began to wear off, and it seemed like every single part of him was on fire. Nonetheless, he was deemed well enough to be transferred over to the Lee County Jail on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Nurse Lindsay helped him dress. “Are they really going to put you in jail?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said.

  “I’ve never met a jail bird before,” she said.

  “You’re young,” Tree said. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you—plenty of opportunity to meet more jail birds.”

  When she finished getting him dressed, Lindsay said, “Good luck, Mr. Callister.”

  “Thanks, Lindsay. My experience with jails is that I’m going to need all the luck I can get.”

  Shortly after that, Tree was shackled and transferred by prison van to the county jail. Once inside, he was told to strip, his street clothes were taken away, and he was outfitted with a red jump suit. Then he was taken to a holding cell filled with inmates similarly clad in red jumpsuits. The cell smelled of a combination of urine and sweat. It was so crowded Tree couldn’t find a place to sit down. He finally got a guard’s attention, and was allowed out to make a phone call. “You call collect,” the guard said. “Four bucks for fifteen minutes.”

  He telephoned Freddie at work. Did he detect a moment’s hesitation before she agreed to accept a collect call from him?

  “Where are you?” Freddie said. “I’ve been frantic.”

  “Now don’t get mad at me,” Tree said. “But I’m in the Lee County Jail.”

  Dead silence and then, “What did you do this time?”

  “I didn’t do anything—except find Bonnie Garrison’s body. What they say I did was assault a police officer and resist arrest.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Freddie said.

  “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time to talk, Freddie. Can you call Edith Goldman and tell her what’s happened? I’ll be arraigned tomorrow morning at which time they will probably set bail. I’ll need Edith there, and you, too.”

  “To write a check, I suppose.”

  “Unless you want me to rot in jail,” Tree said.

  “Don’t tempt me,” Freddie said.

  ________

  “Those were good days,” said a man with one lens of his glasses blacked out as Tree was returned to the holding cell. “We were more like businessmen than criminals. We would bring the weed in by boat through the dense mangroves, and the local dealers would take delivery. It seemed as though everyone was involved, so there was very little interference from the authorities.”

  One of the inmates hanging on the man’s words said, “What happened?”

  “The Reagan administration happened. That Hollywood actor who could not remember anything unless it was written down for him, he destroyed the business. There were raids and arrests and it just got so much more complicated that we gave it up, and of course everything has become a lot more di
fficult since then. It is not the same business at all. Now we are bad guys. And it’s become too dangerous.”

  He touched at the blackened lens before he glanced up at Tree and said, “You appear lost, my friend.”

  Tree said. “Yeah? Do you think so?” Trying to sound tough. As though he was not the kind of guy you should mess with.

  The man seemed unconcerned. “You had better sit beside me. There isn’t much room here.”

  “Thanks,” Tree said. A thin beard covered the man’s gaunt, pale face, and gray hair flowed to his shoulders. Uncertain light glinted off that black lens as he watched Tree seat himself

  “What’s your name?” the man asked.

  “Tree Callister.”

  “I am Jorge Navidad.”

  The two shook hands and Jorge Navidad said that although he was originally from a small town in Northern Mexico he had resided in the South Florida area for the past thirty-five years. “Now of course they want to deport me.”

  “Why do they want to do that?”

  Jorge smiled. “They appear to think I sell drugs. I tell them this is nonsense. How could I do such a thing? But they don’t appear to believe me. What about you?”

  “A cop beat me up and put me in the hospital. Then they charged me with assaulting a police officer.”

  “So you have not been here before?”

  “Actually, the last time I was in here, I was charged with murder.”

  Jorge’s eyes narrowed, as if he was looking at Tree in a different way. He said, “So you are a very dangerous hombre.”

  “You could say that, but it wouldn’t be very accurate.”

  “No? And how is it you’ve been misrepresented?”

  “I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t even assault the police officer.”

  Jorge grinned. “You see? We are all innocent men here. It is a jail filled with the innocent and wrongly accused. Just ask any of these men.”