Killer Listing

by Vicki Doudera

  Hideki Kobayashi shook his graying head. “No, you mustn’t do that, Darby. I am very interested to hear of your family and to know that your mother graced the Nihon Maru with her presence.” He picked up his fork. “We shall eat while it is hot, and then talk of St. Andrew’s Isle, but then I hope you will soon tell me more about your mother and her time on Nihon Maru.” He reached for his cell phone, glanced at the photo once more, and then put it in his jacket pocket. Picking up a pitcher of maple syrup, he poured a generous amount atop an enormous stack of blueberry pancakes and grinned. “No matter how much time I spend in America, I will never tire of the fabulous food.”

  _____

  When their dishes were cleared away, Mr. Kobayashi pulled out a small pad of paper and consulted some notes.

  “I am prepared to make an offer on St. Andrew’s Isle.”

  Darby felt a surge of adrenalin. This was one of her favorite parts of real estate: helping buyers come up with their strategy for purchasing a property. No matter how big or small the dollar amounts were, this aspect of the business got her blood pumping.

  “Tell me your thoughts,” she said.

  “I would like to offer full price. I believe St. Andrew’s Isle is worth forty million dollars, possibly more.” He peered through his reading glasses, an inquisitive look on his face.

  “I agree with you.” Darby told him of the market analysis she had seen that valued the estate at forty-five million dollars. “We know that Tag is eager to sell. Perhaps we could get a better deal. I’m certainly prepared to help you do that.”

  Mr. Kobayashi was listening intently. “I understand. But I do not want to offer less.”

  Darby nodded. “Fine, then let’s draw up the paperwork.” She pulled an offer form out of her bag and began jotting down details. “I believe forty million is a fair price. In fact, I think Tag could have commanded even more money had he asked a higher price.”

  “Certainly,” Mr. Kobayashi said, his face shiny with excitement. “I was willing to pay him fifty-five.”

  _____

  Back at the office of Near & Farr, Darby listened to a message from Foster McFarlin postponing his and Helen’s appointment. “Let’s reconnect on Monday,” his terse, deep voice suggested. Darby couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard agitation in the brief message.

  Next she phoned Helen’s new buyer, a man named Reginald Carter. The call was answered on the first ring.

  “Yeah?” A clipped voice, sounding exasperated, spat into the phone.

  Darby explained why she was calling but Reginald Carter cut her off mid-sentence.

  “Fine, whatever. Listen, I need information on waterfront properties. Anything up to ten mil. You can bring it by my boat at the Esperanza Shores Marina. You know where that is?”

  Darby took a breath. Esperanza Shores was where Kyle had been killed. She wanted this guy at the office, not the other way around. “Yes, but—”

  Again she was interrupted. “I gotta go. Bring it by the boat, soon as you can.” Click.

  Darby looked at the phone in her hand in disbelief. Had he even told her the name of the vessel? She shook her head and pushed redial.

  He answered with a grunt. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Darby Farr, from Near & Farr Realty. I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you after all. Good day.”

  She hung up the phone and grinned. She’d delivered a verbal front kick to the obnoxious Reginald Carter, and it felt good.

  _____

  Darby drove to the hospital just as the sun was beginning to sink in the sky. Mojito time, she thought, picturing Helen drinking her favorite beverage instead of lying in a hospital bed.

  She found her friend flipping through a golfing magazine. After giving Helen a hug, Darby asked, “What does your doctor say about stress? Are you allowed to have any?”

  “If you’re talking about presenting me with an offer, better hand it over, pronto,” Helen commanded. Darby gave her an envelope with Mr. Kobayashi’s offer. Helen pulled out the papers, saw the amount, and grinned.

  “Yahoo! What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

  “Very funny. Don’t they call that ‘gallows humor’?” Darby touched Helen’s arm and her voice grew gentle. “Can I help you with this? Want me to call Tag?”

  “Heck, no. I am perfectly capable of calling anyone with good news like this. Grab my cell phone from that plant over there, would you?” Darby walked to a large potted palm and found the phone wrapped in a tissue at the plant’s base.

  “What’s it doing in there?”

  “They were going to confiscate it, so I had to think fast.” She gave a glance to be sure none of the nurses were lurking about. “What happened with Foster? And that new buyer? Did you get in touch with him?”

  “Foster postponed and said for you to call him in Monday. As for your new buyer, he was a real piece of work.” She told Helen about the phone call to Reginald Carter.

  “Bottom fishers,” muttered Helen. “I am so sick of them. I’m glad you didn’t waste your time.” She waved the offer in her hand. “Now this is terrific. And here’s another good thing. The doctor says I can come home tomorrow if my stress tests are good.”

  “That’s great news!” Darby stood and gave her friend a kiss on the cheek. “Why don’t I take off so you can rest. I’ll be back tomorrow, but you call if you need anything, Helen.”

  _____

  Jack Cameron twisted the screwdriver between the door and the jam until the metal door swung open. He jammed the tool into the pocket of his jacket and gave a quick look around. Just before dusk and the development of Esperanza Shores was deserted. No construction workers, no condo owners, and certainly no real estate agents. What little activity there had been before Kyle’s murder had now come to a screeching halt. The place was a half-built ghost town.

  He pushed open the door to the model condo that served as Foster McFarlin’s office and stepped inside. The unit was identical to the one in which Kyle’s mutilated body had been found, and he knew from a friend who played cards with one of the detectives on the case that the murder had occurred in the same room in which he now stood. The image of Kyle’s body, lying in the morgue, flashed before his eyes. His knees buckled like he’d been hit from behind and he grabbed the side of a plush armchair for support. This was beyond excruciating.

  He took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his brow, and shook his head. Focus, he told himself. Focus on finding what you need …

  He crept to the unit’s den, set up as a home office and used by McFarlin when he was at the project. A notebook-type computer was in the middle of the desk, a cup of coffee beside it. Jack opened the computer and a job list appeared in front of him. The damn thing was already on.

  He pulled out the chair and sat down. Now to search the computer’s contents to find something—anything—that would incriminate the developer. He moved the cup of coffee to one side of the desk and paused, puzzled. The ceramic mug was warm.

  A faint noise raised the hair on the back of Jack’s neck. As he turned toward the door, he felt certain he already knew who he’d see. And he wondered, not for the first time that week, whether he was about to die.

  Candy Sutton’s murder was another rallying cry in Chellie Howe’s campaign to clean up the streets of Florida’s cities. Along with her own attack, the lieutenant governor could point to an ever-growing list of violent crimes the current administration was not preventing. It was a delicate balance, because she was part of the very status quo she was subtly disparaging. She had to beat the drum for reform, while at the same time appear to be doing her job. No one could get the wrong idea that somehow she was a part of the problem.

  Her new press secretary understood the approach perfectly, and unlike Mindy, he didn’t nag her about appointments or agendas. Fresh out of law school, R.B. Cloutier was quiet, authoritative, but not cocky. He was a Florida boy from the panhandle who wanted to work in politics, and Chellie had sensed right away that he
was perfect for the job.

  She wondered what the R.B. stood for. It wasn’t the kind of thing she would ask him, but she’d find out at some point. In the meantime, she was determined to keep their relationship professional, even if he was good-looking, young, and possessed of the kind of hard, strong body she’d always favored.

  Chellie looked down at the stack of newspapers R.B. had placed on her desk that morning. Had she even glanced at them during the day? She leafed through them now, noticing the headlines splashed across the front pages announcing Candy Sutton’s death. The woman was an interesting character: the highest paid female escort in Florida, commanding upwards of fifteen grand a night, as well as an art collector, with an impressive array of paintings, sculpture, and modern furniture. She’d also been the muse and confidante of several prominent artists, as well as many of Florida’s most powerful men.

  She shoved aside the stack of papers and buzzed R.B. in the outer office. “Can you grab me a salad?” He agreed and she stood, her heels adding a good two inches to her height, and thought about her schedule for the next day. She planned to attend a church service somewhere, with the aim of grabbing a little more media attention. Too bad she couldn’t head over to the East Coast, where she could remind voters in Stuart and Daytona about the importance of being tough on crime, without, of course, ever bringing up the Kondo Killer.

  She checked her Smartphone for messages, straightened the piles on her desk, and flipped through a magazine without stopping to read anything. A rap on the door startled her, and she snapped out a “yes” before remembering it was not Mindy on the other side.

  R.B. pushed open the door, a Cobb salad in hand. “I brought you a vitamin water, too,” he said. “I understand pomegranate’s your favorite.”

  His voice was so soothing, Chellie noticed, nodding her head as he placed the salad on her desk. “Thanks. You can take off. See you on Monday.”

  He nodded and backed toward the door. “Have a good Saturday night.”

  She winced as he closed the door behind him. It was Saturday, wasn’t it, and she was here, alone, working at her desk. How pathetic she must look to R.B.! A lonely workaholic woman with a philandering husband, and nothing but a salad to keep her busy on a Saturday night.

  Kyle Cameron took Foster from me. Kyle Cameron and her seductive smiles. She felt the old anger well up inside, as familiar as a bad dream, and this time she knew there would be no squelching it down. The rage was molten, rising through her body like lava, turning her red hot with its intensity and fire.

  “Kyle needs to be stopped …”

  Chellie thought back to her luncheon with Alexandra Cameron. After not hearing from her old college friend in years, she’d been surprised by an invitation to meet at the Serenidad Key Club. “I’m hoping to run some ideas by you regarding school lunch programs and new nutritional guidelines,” Alexandra had explained. Normally, Chellie would have declined, but with John Cameron such a substantial donor, she’d agreed on the spot.

  They had known their conversation would turn to Kyle. How could it not? Chellie was sipping her second glass of Chardonnay when Alexandra became oddly detached, insisting that her sister-in-law was out of control. “Kyle needs to be stopped,” Alexandra had said, her gray eyes slightly out of focus. A moment later, she’d seemingly dropped the subject.

  “That serial killer,” Alexandra had mused to Chellie. “You know, the one targeting real estate agents?”

  “A real monster.” Chellie crinkled up her nose. “He chops off one of his victim’s pinkie fingers as a little souvenir.”

  “Really?” The gray eyes flashed with interest. “That’s not in the papers.”

  “Of course not,” Chellie had said. “I have the full police report.”

  Now Chellie pushed the Cobb salad aside and opened her bottom desk drawer. She pulled out the photograph, looked at the image, and read Kyle Cameron’s sappy words scrawled on the back. The anger spilled out and over her, drenching her like a torrential rain, and before she began sobbing on her desk she had ripped the photo to shreds.

  _____

  The bungalow was eerily quiet without Helen, and Darby turned on the radio to have something—anything—in the background. She ripped some lettuce into bite-sized pieces for a simple salad and listened to the public radio station report international news, her brain hearing only part of the newscast. Afghanistan. Reporter. Killed. Improvised explosive device … She fled from the kitchen to the tiny living room and the radio, her thoughts on Miles Porter.

  She held her breath and listened to the story. A Canadian reporter, Claudette Bouchard, was killed with four Canadian soldiers in the province of Kandahar … Darby exhaled slowly. It’s not Miles. While she was relieved to know that he was safe—at least for the moment—her heart ached for the journalist and the soldiers who had perished.

  Darby thought back to the last time she’d spoken with Miles. Had three weeks really passed since he flew to the war zone? His job as an “embedded” reporter with a group of American Marines was incredibly dangerous, and more so all the time. Seventeen journalists—reporters just as committed and courageous as Miles—had perished in Afghanistan since the start of the war in 2001.

  Darby pictured the lanky reporter she had met in Maine. Why had he felt the need to accept such a perilous assignment? Because I’m a reporter, he’d explained, brushing back a strand of her long black hair. If we ever have a hope of ending these wars, we need people in the trenches telling us what’s going on.

  She felt emotion welling up inside. Why was she keeping her distance from him? Obviously he was too far away for a relationship now, but why did it seem she was ignoring the man completely? She bit her lip and faced the truth: her feelings for Miles were strong, and they frightened her. It was far easier to forget he existed than to confront the fact that she could lose him.

  She thought of the day she’d learned of her parents’ disappearance, the way the whole bottom had dropped out of her life, and the same hollow emptiness filled her as it had when she was fourteen.

  I run the risk of losing Miles, too, she thought. But that was life, wasn’t it? People died doing dangerous things, yes, but they also perished on sailing outings and hosting open houses …

  Darby took a deep breath and figured the time difference between Florida and Afghanistan. It was pre-dawn in Kabul, too early to phone anyone. She sighed and resolved to call Miles Porter first thing in the morning.

  _____

  Jack Cameron stood slowly, looking into the fierce eyes of Foster McFarlin. The developer had his arms crossed in front of him, a hard look on his face. “Figured I’d see you, Cameron,” he drawled, “but I never dreamed you’d stoop to breaking into my building. What were you fixing to do, set it on fire?”

  “You know damn well why I’m here, McFarlin.” Jack slid his eyes over the room, finally settling them on the developer’s face. “I’m here to find out why you killed her.”

  Foster McFarlin remained expressionless. “Then I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.” He cocked his head to one side, as if sizing up his opponent. “I didn’t kill Kyle.”

  Jack Cameron felt the old recklessness welling up inside him, the same wild energy that had driven him to do so many stupid things. “Hell you didn’t!” he yelled, flying across the desk at McFarlin, “I’m going to do what you did to my wife …”

  Cameron’s fist connected with Foster McFarlin’s jaw but the developer barely flinched. He seemed to regard the desperate man for an instant before swinging back with an uppercut to Cameron’s stomach that caused him to double over in pain. Next came a cross that smashed the side of Cameron’s face and sent him crumpling against the wall.

  Jack Cameron tried to move but could not get to his feet. McFarlin stood over him, rubbing his jaw where Jack’s punch had connected. “Not a bad jab, Cameron. I’m going to have a nice bruise in an hour or so.” He strode to his desk and glanced at the computer, pushed a few buttons and seemed satisfi
ed.

  “You don’t deserve an explanation, but what the hell—I suppose I’m feeling sorry for you.” He straightened up from the computer and regarded the bloody heap that was Jack Cameron.

  “Kyle and I had dinner together at a little place in Coconut Grove the night before she was killed,” he said. “She set it up—asked me if we could take the jet so that we’d be someplace private. I’m not stupid. I guessed she was ready to call our little relationship quits.”

  McFarlin grew thoughtful a moment, but a groan from Jack Cameron brought him back to his explanation. “We went to the restaurant and experienced what I would call a very awkward meal. Finally Kyle said she didn’t want to see me anymore, except in a professional capacity. She had news on that score, too: she said she was leaving Barnaby’s to join a small company. When I asked her why, she said her life was about to change and she couldn’t take the atmosphere at Barnaby’s any longer.” He peered down at Jack Cameron and continued. “We talked about my properties. She convinced me that she was still the best broker to handle them, no matter who she worked for, and that she’d continue to make me money, provided we could deal with each other like grown-ups, on a purely professional basis.” McFarlin shook his head and folded his hands once more. “I agreed.”

  Another groan from Jack Cameron, but this time he managed to get himself to a sitting position. He rubbed the side of his face and gave McFarlin a look that was oddly detached.

  “Then what?” he asked.

  “Then we went back to the airstrip, got in the plane and flew back. I dropped her at her condo, told her to work her ass off at that open house, and that was it.” His voice grew softer. “That was the last time I saw her.”

  Jack Cameron looked wildly around the room. He was trying desperately to keep his cool, and when he spoke it was in clipped words through clenched teeth.

  “You’re telling me you weren’t angry at her? She gave you the brush-off like that, and you weren’t ready to bash in her fucking skull?”

  McFarlin spread out his hands. “Look, I’d been trying to end our—relationship—for weeks.”