Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective

by Ron Base

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Tree continued. “Have you had a chance to talk to Edith?”

  The question made Chris pull himself together. He sat up straighter, taking a deep breath. “Briefly,” he said. “I’m going to be arraigned tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be there,” Tree said. “As long as this takes, no matter what, I’ll be there for you.”

  Chris looked suddenly anxious. “Have you heard from Cailie?”

  “Cailie?” Tree said in a tone that suggested she was the last person he expected to hear from. “You know about her? You know who she is.”

  “I know what they’re telling me.” Chris sounded more weary than surprised.

  “You had no idea she was Kendra’s sister?”

  “They didn’t get along. Cailie was critical of what Kendra was doing—or wasn’t doing. The two of them had stopped talking. You know we got married in Las Vegas, just the two of us. No families. I don’t think I ever saw a photo of Cailie. They say I confessed everything—whatever everything is—to Cailie. That’s so crazy.”

  “Do you need anything?” Tree asked. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  Chris leaned forward, his face taking on an intensity Tree had not seen before. “Please, Dad, contact Cailie. Tell her I understand what’s going on, I do. It makes no difference. We can get past this. Tell her that, please. I don’t hold any of this against her.”

  Tree stopped himself from blurting, “You’ve got to be kidding”—perhaps because he had enough self-awareness to recognize that his son was not the only male in the family who fell victim to beautiful, lying, coldly manipulative women.

  Instead, he said, “Do you know where she’s staying?”

  “She’s rented a condo over at Sea Bell Road by Blind Pass. Talk to her, Dad. Make her understand that I still love her.”

  “Do you think that’s the best thing right now?” Tree said, choosing his words carefully. He felt as though he was crossing a minefield every time he opened his mouth in front of Chris.

  “It’s the only thing,” Chris said vehemently. “It’s all that counts.”

  29

  It was dark by the time Tree turned into the condominium complex where Chris said Cailie was staying on Sea Bell Road. He parked the Beetle feeling tired and depressed, wondering what he was going to say to her. “My son still loves you even though you’ve just had him arrested for murdering your sister?”

  That didn’t sound quite right.

  A black Ford Fusion shot into view and slammed to a stop. Sanibel Island Detective Owen Markfield opened the driver’s side door and jumped out.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Callister,” he said. Markfield looked smart in a navy blue Polo shirt that hugged his slim torso.

  Caught by surprise, all Tree could say was, “Detective Markfield.”

  “Answer me,” Markfield ordered. “What are you doing here?”

  The muscles rippled beneath his Polo shirt. He looked ready for a fight.

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” Tree said.

  “If you’re here to harass Ms. Dean then it is my business—it’s police business. Now tell me what you’re doing here, otherwise I’d be happy to talk about this at police headquarters.”

  “I want a word with Cailie.”

  “She’s under police protection,” Markfield said. “You’re not going anywhere near her.”

  “It’s all right, Owen,” Cailie said. She had come out of the passenger side of the Ford, dressed head to foot in black, her hair pulled into a bun, accentuating the lines of her clear, lovely face.

  “You don’t have to deal with this jerk,” Markfield said.

  Cailie did not take her eyes off Tree when she said, “Owen, why don’t you wait for me at the apartment?”

  Markfield appeared to have difficulty getting his head around the idea. He nodded slowly. “Any trouble Cailie, you just call out. Hear?”

  “Park in front,” Cailie said. “I’ll be along shortly.”

  Markfield gave Tree a dark look before swaggering back to the Ford Fusion. He climbed inside and drove away.

  Tree stared at Cailie. “Don’t tell me, you and Markfield—”

  “Just two police officers bonding together over a particularly difficult case.” She smiled. “Are you jealous, Tree?”

  “I think the word is amazed,” he said.

  “Owen believes I need protection.”

  “But we know better, don’t we, Cailie?”

  “In Owen’s immortal words, what are you doing here?”

  “I know who you are,” Tree said.

  “Good. That makes things easier. What amazes me is why it took you so long to figure it out.”

  “Well, it’s as you said, maybe I need another Sanibel Sunset detective to help me with these things.”

  “I’m afraid I’m no longer available,” Cailie said.

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Despite myself, I kind of like you, Tree. I started out hating you because as far as I could see, you had protected Chris, helped him lie to the police about my sister. Kendra and I never got along. All our lives we were very different people. I despised what she became, but she didn’t deserve to die. She was my sister, and she was dead and I was sitting there in St. Louis not doing a thing about it.”

  “So you decided to do something,” Tree said.

  “I was angry. I wanted to destroy you, and your wife, too.”

  “So you arrived on Sanibel, found out where Chris was working, checked into the hotel and arranged to meet him.”

  “That part was easy enough,” Cailie said. “Chris was very anxious to forget about his poor dead wife, and tell me all about his father, and the trip to Paris he was going to take with his wife Freddie, how much he liked the Closerie des Lilas and kir royale.”

  “Chris loved Kendra, he wouldn’t hurt her,” Tree said.

  “I might even have believed you. As difficult as I made things for you, I might have believed you in the end—until Chris started talking too much.”

  “He convinced you that he killed his wife?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Tree said.

  “That’s understandable. The point is, the police and the district attorney, do.”

  Tree gritted his teeth. “I came over here because Chris wanted me to talk to you.”

  She said nothing, and in the darkness it was hard to see if there was any reaction.

  “He believes the two of you can get past this.”

  He expected a derisive laugh, but all she said was, “We probably can—as soon as he spends the rest of his life in prison.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Tree said.

  “There is a confession—recorded.”

  “A confession from Chris?”

  “I’ve already said too much.”

  Tree said. “As long as there is breath in me, I’m going to fight to make sure he doesn’t go to prison.”

  She shook her head. “Then I don’t have anything to worry about, do I? At the rate you’re going, there’s not going to be any breath in you for much longer.”

  30

  When Tree finished telling Freddie about Cailie Dean, she said, “I suppose that explains why she was in Paris and then in Key West coming on to you.”

  “It doesn’t really explain much of anything,” Tree said. “She does things to destroy our marriage and then she saves my life. Right now, none of it makes any difference. What matters is that she could put Chris in jail for life.”

  Freddie put her hand gently on Tree’s knee. “You are not going to want to hear this. But you may have to deal with the fact that Chris did say something incriminating to her—and she did record it.”

  “I was there, and I know he didn’t kill his wife,” Tree said.

  “You were there, and you covered up for your son and arranged things so that it looked as though you might be the killer. I wonder if
that’s blinded you to what may have actually happened.”

  “No,” he said angrily.

  She leaned back, removing her hand from his knee. “I hope for Chris’s sake you’re right.”

  They stood at the same time, and he wrapped his arms around her. She nestled against him. “Oh, Tree,” she said. “Oh, Tree.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  She pulled away from him. “It’s probably a lousy time to bring this up.”

  “What is it?”

  “They want me to fly to New York in a week or so and meet with some investment bankers and some of their SMEs.”

  “Their what?”

  “Subject matter experts.”

  “What are they?”

  “In this case, specialists in putting a deal like this together and stick-handling it through the banks.

  “I thought your investors had the money.”

  “No one has anything, as such. What they have is the ability to raise money. At some point everyone has to go to the bank. We are at that point.”

  “Of course,” Tree said. “Do what you have to do.”

  “I don’t like the idea of leaving you right now,” Freddie said.

  “I’ll be all right,” Tree said.

  Lying through his teeth.

  ________

  Tree’s eyes shot open.

  He found himself staring at the ceiling, wide awake. He could hear Freddie’s gentle breathing beside him in the darkness.

  He got out of bed, feeling more anxious and uneasy than ever. He went out of the bedroom and found himself on a wrought iron walkway over a sun-dappled courtyard.

  Tree crossed the walkway to an open door that led into an office with an antelope head mounted on the wall. A big man wearing shorts and a loose-fitting shirt stood writing at a lectern. He had dark hair and a mustache.

  The man looked up from what he was writing and said, “Have you figured it out yet?”

  The question surprised Tree. “Figured out what?”

  “Why you’ve spent so many years following me around?”

  “You know about that?”

  “You’ve been at the house where I was born in Oak Park. The finca outside Havana. I’ll bet you even ordered one of those Papa Doubles at La Floridita.”

  Tree looked embarrassed.

  “I can’t even remember inventing the damned thing,” the man said. “Either I was too drunk or it didn’t happen. Personally, I favor the not happening.”

  “I’m in an awful mess,” Tree said.

  “I know,” said the big man. “When you’re anxious and worried, you start looking for the heroes from your youth in hopes they can help. Well, Tree, old pal, I wish I could help, but I can’t. At the end of the day, I’m just a writer. I stand here in the mornings with a stubby pencil and I cover pieces of paper with words. That’s all I do. In the afternoon I drink and get mixed up with the wrong women. I’ve got no particular insight into anything.”

  “But you represent a certain demanding masculinity where things such as bravery and drinking and being able to use your hands when it comes to a fishing rod or a gun, matter,” Tree said.

  “Are you trying to suggest they don’t?”

  Tree shook his head “That’s the problem, I secretly believe they do, but I’m no good at any of that stuff. When Francis Macomber showed cowardice in the face of the charging lion, his wife despised him and went off and slept with the white hunter—the guy who stood his ground. That story has stuck with me all my life. I don’t care what women say. They are drawn to the white hunter who doesn’t run from the lion.”

  “So you think your wife is going to go off and sleep with a white hunter, is that it?”

  “I see the look in her eyes lately. She’s after bigger things—a chain of supermarkets. She could end up very rich. She looks at me and what does she see? A failed newspaperman playing at being a detective—and not a very good detective at that. Not a good father, either. He can’t even help his own son. Who could blame her for sleeping with a white hunter? Although, I’ve got to confess, I’m not sure there are a lot of white hunters around the Sanibel-Fort Myers area.”

  “Well, I’ve buggered things up with women by and large, so I’m probably not the right fellow to be talking to, but maybe you’ve got to have more confidence in her,” the man said. “My biggest mistake, I believe, was that I did not trust the women in my life. I thought that if I didn’t shoot the lion, they would think I was a coward. What I didn’t understand is that they weren’t interested in me shooting a lion. They could care less.”

  “What did they want?”

  “The one thing I didn’t give them enough of,” he said.

  “What was that?”

  “Love, old pal. You can gamble for money and you can gamble for gold. But if you haven’t gambled for love and lost, then you haven’t gambled at all.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Tree said. “That’s from an old Frankie Laine song.”

  “Never heard of him,” the man said. “What I say to you is true at first light. After that, though, who knows?”

  “I come to you looking for help and you quote Frankie Laine?”

  “Who’s Frankie Laine?” a voice said.

  Tree opened his eyes and said, “You don’t know Frankie Laine?”

  “The singer? You’re dreaming about Frankie Laine, the singer?” Freddie’s confused, lovely face loomed over him. “It’s time to get up. You’re going to miss Chris’s arraignment.”

  31

  At 10:30 A.M. Chris, in shackles, and outfitted with a prison-issue orange jump suit, was arraigned at the Criminal Division of the Lee County Courthouse in downtown Fort Myers, charged with murder under section 782.035 of the Florida Criminal Code. Chris, without his glasses, looked pale and unshaven, like someone, Tree couldn’t help thinking, who might have killed his wife.

  In a badly fitting blue blazer he hadn’t worn since his Tribune days, and a tie Freddie thought she had thrown away, Tree sat in the spectators’ gallery with Freddie holding his hand. Cee Jay Boone passed, jerking her head up and down, her idea, Tree supposed, of a morning greeting. There was no sign of Cailie Fisk.

  Edith Goldman asked for a bond hearing to set bail. The judge, a veteran of the local bench named Floyd Lallo, set a date for the following week.

  The whole procedure lasted only minutes, everyone going through the motions without emotion, as though it could matter less, when in fact a young man had been accused of the worst crime of all, and his life hung in the balance.

  Tree tried to catch his son’s eye as sheriff’s deputies escorted him out, but Chris stared straight ahead. Maybe Chris blamed him for all this; maybe Chris was counting on his dad to do a better job of protecting him, and he had failed.

  In the corridor outside the courtroom, Tree asked Edith about the possibility of bail. “We’ll have to see. The prosecution will argue they had to go looking for him so he’s a flight risk. On the other hand, Chris has stuck around for months and didn’t try to run away. So we’ll see.”

  “We’ll get the money,” Freddie interjected decisively.

  “Have you heard anything about the evidence they have against him?” Tree asked.

  Edith shook her head. “We don’t have the discovery yet. They’ll put that off as long as possible.”

  “Supposedly Chris confessed to the murder,” Tree said.

  “To this Cailie Dean. Apparently she’s a detective with the St. Louis police.”

  “And Kendra’s sister,” Freddie added. “Isn’t there an argument to be made that whatever she got from Chris was coerced or there was entrapment—something?”

  “Let’s see what they’ve got first, and then we can make some decisions.” Edith spoke in her irritatingly non-committal, professional lawyer’s voice.

  Tree walked Freddie back to the lot across the street from the courthouse. When they got to her car, she hugged against him. “It’s all so cold and impersonal, isn’t it?
”

  “Surreal,” Tree agreed. “As though you’re watching a bad movie full of actors who aren’t very convincing.”

  “Listen, they want me in New York tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to have to fly out this afternoon. Are you all right with that?”

  “Of course. There’s nothing much you can do here for the moment. How long will you be gone?”

  “Three or four days. Depending on how the meetings go.”

  “Good luck,” Tree said.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’m probably going to need it.”

  They kissed. A perfunctory kiss? Distracted? Hard to tell. Tree didn’t want to read too much into it. But as Freddie got into her car he feared there was a distance between them that had nothing to do with the miles between Sanibel and New York City.

  _________

  At the office, Rex entered bearing lattes.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” Tree said, accepting the cup.

  Rex plopped himself down in the chair across from Tree’s desk. “How did it go?”

  “As well as you might expect when you’re sitting in a courtroom watching your son in shackles being arraigned for the murder of his wife.”

  Rex sipped at his coffee. “You think you’ve got trouble. I just got off the phone with my insurance company. Guess what? My policy doesn’t cover grenades blowing up a boat.”

  “I feel terrible about what happened, Rex,” Tree said. “Really, I do. I’m going to make this up to you, I promise.”

  “You’ve got enough to deal with right now,” Rex said. “Let me worry about the boat. You take care of Chris.”

  “I haven’t done a very good job of that, either. What do you do when you’re son is charged with murder?”

  “You believe,” Rex said. “You believe he didn’t do it. You hang onto that.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” Tree said.

  “I’m here if you need me. Anything, anything at all, Tree. You know that.” Rex stood up, looking unexpectedly embarrassed. “And that’s the last time in this friendship I’m going to be serious.”