Red Shirt

by A. J. Stewart

  Red Shirt

  A Miami Jones Florida Mystery

  AJ Stewart

  Jacaranda Drive

  To my family, all across the world.

  And Heather. Home is where you are.

  Chapter One

  The week before Thanksgiving is like the calm before the storm in South Florida. Yes, it’s busy—turkeys are trussed and editorials discussing the difference between sweet potatoes and yams fill the radio waves and produce aisles at Publix. But behind the scenes the state of Florida prepares itself for the annual mass influx of snowbirds, those not-so-hardy but obviously intelligent souls who flee the harsh northern winters for the temperate climes of the Sunshine State.

  The chambers of commerce call it the season, and it begins in earnest on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Retirees eat their turkey and mashed potatoes with their families in Michigan and New York and Massachusetts, and then before the family squabbles turn to violence and the air turns too frigid, they hit I-75 or I-95—or they pack into flying sardine cans—and head south like well-to-do geese.

  I sat at the outdoor bar at Longboard Kelly’s enjoying the autumnal breeze, not the slightest chill in the air but no humidity either, perfect weather for shorts and flip flops and my shirt with the little sailboats headed for the kind of deserted island to which you’d take a picnic.

  I was drinking orange juice with Ron. Married life was treating him well—as it had once or twice before—so his new wife, the Lady Cassandra, had put him on a regimen of juice and fruit only before five p.m. I was under no such orders, with Danielle being away in Miami, keeping the race tracks and casinos on the straight-and-narrow in her new role with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement—but I draw the line at drinking in the mornings, especially on days that could turn out to be work days.

  “Is Danielle coming home for Thanksgiving?” Muriel asked as she wiped down the bar in front of us.

  “Not sure,” I said. “She’ll be back home today. Hopefully she knows more.”

  “Will you go down to Miami if she can’t come here?” asked Ron, a mustache of Florida’s finest juice lining his upper lip.

  “Depends if she’s working or not, and when.”

  “You’re always welcome to join us,” said Ron.

  “The Breakers for Thanksgiving lunch? Bit rich for my blood.”

  “Best stone crab in town.”

  “I prefer something a little less salubrious, but thanks. We’ll work it out. As long as I’m sitting in the Florida sunshine, it’s all good.”

  Mick, the owner of Longboard’s, wandered out from the cave-like interior. Like Muriel, he wore a tank top, but unlike Muriel he was built like a barrel and bore the personality of a tax inspector.

  “Workin’ hard,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Business always picks up when the snowbirds arrive,” said Ron.

  Mick grunted and turned, and as he did I noticed he was carrying a large fish over his shoulder. It looked like a marlin, but I am far from an expert on such matters.

  “Most people eat turkey for Thanksgiving,” I said, ever the comic genius. Mick grunted again and ducked through the door that led away to the kitchen.

  “He’s making fish dip,” Muriel said.

  That made both Ron and I smile. Mick was a wizard with the smoked fish dip. It was a popular restaurant staple in Florida, but few people had Mick’s gift when it came to producing a dip that would make you swear that saltine crackers were one of the five food groups.

  My phone buzzed on the bar, vibrating along the wood like a sardine gasping for oxygen. I checked the screen. I wasn’t in the mood for a robocall. But I saw Danielle’s name and picture appear, and snapped the device up.

  “Top of the morning to you,” I said.

  “Drinking already?” she asked.

  “Just Florida OJ, straight up.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “How’s the big bad city?”

  “Quiet, like it’s waiting for something to happen.”

  “I know the feeling. What about you? Any news?”

  “Good and bad. I won’t make it back this weekend. They’ve rostered me on.”

  “Is that the good or the bad?”

  “You better know which it is, mister.”

  “Fair enough. And the good?”

  “They’re giving me Thanksgiving off. I don’t have to be back on duty until Friday afternoon.”

  “That is good news. You want me to come down this weekend?”

  “You want to sit alone in my glamorous apartment?”

  Since her first posting would be an extended period in Miami, we quickly realized that doing the 80-odd miles back to Singer Island after every shift would grow tired fast, so we picked up a small studio apartment between Marlins Park and Little Havana for her to crash at. It was tiny and bland and had no cable—it had also, unfortunately, become her primary residence, as it seemed the FDLE liked to work their new recruits nice and hard.

  “I think I’m good where I am,” I said.

  “I do, too. Say hi to Ron.”

  “Will do.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I ended the call and looked at my orange juice, then at Ron and then Muriel. They were both looking at me.

  “I officially approve of this new you,” said Muriel.

  “What new me?” I asked.

  “The lovey-dovey you.”

  I shook my head and picked up my glass, but I was done with juice. I looked at Ron.

  “I need to hit somebody or something,” I said.

  “You’ll break your hand,” he said with a grin.

  “You’re not fooling anyone, Miami Jones.” Muriel flipped a towel across her shoulder and turned away into the darkness of the inside bar.

  Ron finished his juice and turned around on his stool to survey the courtyard. The tables were empty and the umbrellas all closed up.

  “You need a case,” he said.

  “I need to go to Sam’s Club and get some chicken wings. I see a weekend of college football in my future.”

  “That’s just a little sad.”

  “I’ll go for a run on the beach in the mornings.”

  Ron smiled in a way that suggested he had more to say but not the desire to bother saying it. I would have preferred Danielle to be at home, but when presented with an orange orchard, I figured I’d make orange juice. I knew the metaphor worked better with lemons, but I liked to think of myself as a rebel that way.

  My phone rang again and I picked it up. I didn’t recognize the number, but I had assumed it was Danielle again so I hit the green icon before I thought better of it.

  “Miami Jones,” I said.

  “Miami Jones?” asked the woman at the other end.

  “That’s right.”

  “Miami,” she repeated.

  “That’s right.”

  “They actually call you that?”

  “They actually do.” Not the government and not cops I didn’t know, and not debt collectors or spam callers, but I had no desire to converse with any of them anyway.

  “They don’t call you Morgan?”

  Morgan Jones. It sounded like one of those financial advice firms that you pay good money to in order to be told to buy low and sell high.

  “They do not,” I said, ready to hang up.

  “Well, Miami, it’s Kerry Barrett.”

  “That’s nice, Kerry. What is it you want? I’m quite busy here,” I said, glancing at Ron, who had slipped around the bar and was washing out both his and my dirty glassware.

  “You don’t know who it is, do you?”

  I had to admit, the name did not ring a bell, but I didn’t say that.

  “It’s Kerry. Kerry Dunbar.”


  I stopped breathing for a moment. That name I knew. I hadn’t heard it in a decade, and I hadn’t thought about it in a few years, but it was one of those names that I’d never forget. Like the teacher who helped you crack algebra, or your high school prom date. But Kerry Dunbar was neither of those things to me.

  “Kerry,” I said. “Jeepers.”

  “Jeepers? How old are you?”

  “You know exactly how old I am. How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, in that way people do when they are most definitely not fine. Then I recalled the name she had used—Barrett. Her married name. Perhaps she was getting a divorce. She had that sound about her.

  “How’s—Ray, was it?” I asked tentatively.

  “Ray’s great.”

  So not divorce.

  “It’s been a while,” I said.

  “A quarter of a lifetime,” she said.

  That sounded like a lot of time. But time was funny like that. A quarter of a lifetime for an eight-year-old kid was only two years, and for an eighty-year-old man it was twenty years, but the kid would swear it was longer. I hadn’t spoken with Kerry Dunbar in ten years, but she was one of those people who could walk back into my life like we had just had coffee yesterday.

  “It’s good to hear from you,” I said. “How’s Coach?”

  There was nothing for a moment, and then, “He’s not so great.”

  I felt the air sucked from my chest. I had been lucky in my life that I’d had a few mentors who had guided me through the obstacle course of life. My dad had been the first. And then, when he was no longer up to the job, I had Brian Dunbar. He had been the director of athletics at my local school in a time and place when that title was grand but the pay was not. He looked after sports at both the middle and high schools I had attended in New Haven, Connecticut. But he was more than a coach to me, as coaches sometimes are.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer. Coach Dunbar was a large man with a booming voice that would reverberate in your bones from two football fields away. I couldn’t imagine anyone or anything defeating him.

  “It’s complicated,” said Kerry.

  “It usually is.”

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Start at the end.”

  I heard her take a breath and compose herself. That did nothing to restore the oxygen to my lungs.

  “Did you know he had retired?”

  “No, I didn’t. What’s he doing?”

  Another deep breath. “Searching.”

  “Searching? For what?”

  “A purpose, I think.”

  I couldn’t imagine a man who had been so laser-focused—and who had impacted so many lives—struggling to find his purpose.

  “How? What does that mean, Kerry? He’s not keeping busy?”

  “I don’t know. It’s more than that, though.”

  “What else is it? Is he sick? Tell me straight.”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I mean, no, he doesn’t have cancer or anything like that.”

  My chest relaxed just a smidge.

  “So what don’t you know?”

  “He’s not sick, but he’s not well.”

  “That’s not making a whole heap of sense, Kerry.”

  “I don’t know how to express it. I think he’d love to see you.”

  “You mean like a video chat?”

  “No, I mean, like in person.”

  “You want me to come to New Haven?”

  “I know it’s nearly Thanksgiving. It’s a lot to ask.”

  Except it wasn’t a lot to ask. It was very little. It was the bare minimum. And she knew that. I owed Coach Dunbar everything. I wasn’t the man I had become purely because of him, but I was alive and a reasonably decent human being—and I owed him everything for that. And Kerry knew that, too. But she also knew that I didn’t do New Haven.

  I’d had another mentor during college, and then after I had finished riding the rollercoaster of professional baseball. The late great Lenny Cox had always said that you can’t go back. Your eyes are in the front of your head for a reason. Keep moving forward. I suspected it had been one of those maniacal ideas that the marines like to drum into their boys, but Lenny meant it in a bigger sense. So I didn’t go back. I didn’t do New Haven.

  Kerry Dunbar knew that, and she knew why. But here she was, a decade since we had last spoken, asking me to do just that.

  “Talk to me, Kerry. There’s more.”

  Again the pause and the breath. “Dad’s retirement savings. They’ve been lost.”

  “Lost? What do you mean, like stolen?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. He invested the nest egg, I guess, and now Mom’s heard on the grapevine that the investment is a bust, or something like that.”

  “Did you call the investment people?”

  “They’re not returning calls, and Dad’s in denial.”

  “Because he invested poorly?”

  “Because of who he invested with.”

  “Who did he invest with?”

  There was no reply.

  “Kerry, who did he invest with?”

  “There were thousands of kids came though Dad’s athletics programs over the years,” she said. “But only two that he ever thought of like sons. You were one. He invested his retirement savings with the other.”

  “Who was the other?”

  “Brett Pickering.”

  I said nothing. Ron frowned at me from behind the bar, no doubt in response to my own expression. I felt the breeze on my neck and bright blue sky beckoned me toward the beach before the rush of frozen interlopers.

  “I don’t know what you think I can do,” I said.

  “I heard you handle things like this. Investigate things, right?”

  “I’m not sure this is in my wheelhouse.”

  I was saying the words but I wasn’t buying them. The sun faded in my mind and I felt the breeze grow cold.

  I was going back.

  Chapter Two

  I went home to Singer Island and packed an overnight bag. I wasn’t sure if I could take toothpaste or if the security chums would see that as a security threat this week, so I left it out and decided to buy some on arrival. It took five minutes to put on a pair of chinos and pack some shirts, jocks and socks, and then ten minutes to rifle through my drawers to find a pair of jeans. They had been in there so long that the creases looked permanent, but I suspected the chinos might not be enough.

  I drove my SUV down to Palm Beach International and parked in the lot. I hoped that I wouldn’t be away long enough for the parking to cost more than the flight, but it was going to be a close call.

  PBI is a lot smaller than either the Fort Lauderdale or Miami airports, and it’s my kind of speed. There are more smiles and less stress than the bigger airports. The downside was that the aircraft often didn’t fly directly where you wanted to go, but that was no kind of problem for me now. The route between Palm Beach and Westchester County, New York, was like a shuttle line between the homes and workplaces of the well-heeled in lower New York State and their winter homes in Florida. Of course, the truly uber-wealthy flew on their private jets, but the terminals designed for the rest of us were still more comfortable than most.

  The following week was going to be travel hell, so the week before Thanksgiving is always a good time to go anywhere. I bought a ticket at the counter, where the woman was disappointed that I didn’t want to pay extra to check a bag but smiled when I agreed to be up-sold to a seat with extra legroom. She looked at my bag and then looked me up and down as if to say that tropical shirts and chinos weren’t the height of New York fashion. Then she sent me on my way.

  I was in the terminal with a bottle of water and a sandwich that had swapped price tags with a lobster dinner from a fancy downtown hotel when I finally got a moment to call Danielle.

  “You’re going where?” she said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “
Are you sure?”

  “No, I’m not sure.”

  “Okay, well, this could be good for you.”

  “I’m not seeing that.”

  “It could be an opportunity for growth.”

  “Learning flower arranging is an opportunity for growth. This falls firmly in the category of things that should be swept under the carpet and never spoken of again.”

  “You’re being a bit dramatic.”

  “Time will tell.”

  “Well look after yourself. Call me.”

  “I will.”

  “I wish I was coming with you.”

  “It ain’t gonna be a weekend in the Hamptons.”

  “I know. I still wish I could be there for you.”

  “Only half as much as I do.”

  “I can try to switch a shift.”

  I knew she would, but something nagging in the back of mind was telling me I had to do this alone. Perhaps it was my inner adult. I hate that guy.

  If anything, Westchester airport is even smaller than PBI, out in the sticks as it is. It has neither the transport links nor the flight destinations of JFK or LaGuardia, which makes it better in every other respect. I wandered over to the car rental desk that my insurance had directed me to use the last time someone had wrecked my own vehicle, and since they had been nice that time, I offered them my business again. They were nice but not quite as smiley as their colleagues had been in Palm Beach, but I wrote that off to a lack of sunshine and a whole host of other reasons that I kept to myself. I was directed out to a lot to find my car, no shuttle required.

  It hit me the moment I stepped outside. All of it. For starters, it was dark. Not nighttime, just dark. Heavy clouds hung overhead, painting a silver hue over everything below. It was as if the idea of color had been sucked from my brain and I was struck colorblind. It wasn’t that there wasn’t any color—although there seemed to be a lot more black and silver cars—but I had to work harder to render it in my mind.

  The second thing was the smell. I wasn’t in New England yet, but this part of New York had nothing in common with the big metropolis to the south. It smelled like New England—or more precisely, it didn’t smell like Florida. The dominant scent was a mix of pine and freshly laid tar.