“Dang it! This place will be crawling with cops. And you know what that means.”
“Yeah. No snapper. No fish fry for us. And now we’re stuck with all this bait.”
The news spread like a wildfire’s inferno. Neighbors came out of their houses to gawk and try to look at what the boys had discovered. Cars showed up, drivers slowing down to see if they could catch a glimpse of the body from the roadway.
By the time Jackson and Tessa pulled up they had to park on the other side of Willie’s convenience store because the onlookers had gathered and tested the boundaries of the crime scene tape.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission were already there. No doubt due to Jessup Sinclair calling it in. Deputies had promptly sealed off the area with yellow tape. From the sidewalk down to water’s edge the roped-off area kept news crews back near the curb. Reporters and cameramen edged toward the rope trying to get an on-air interview with anyone who would talk to them.
Because they couldn’t get anywhere near Rumrunner Cove, Jackson took Tessa’s hand in his and ambled up to where Jessup stood guarding the pathway.
It was the first time in almost two weeks that Tessa had spoken directly to the police chief. Not since reporting Ryan missing had she bothered. Now anger boiled to the surface at the man’s lack of interest in finding her brother. “Anything you want to share with us?”
Jessup adjusted his gun belt. “Not much. Boys found a partial body, a torso, hung up between the rose mallow and maiden cane. That’s all I know.”
“Is it Ryan?” Tessa asked.
Jessup’s face didn’t hide his annoyance at the question. “I don’t know that for sure yet.” He cast an eye toward the crime scene techs and coroner. “And neither do they. The body’s so decomposed it may take weeks to get an ID.”
Tessa found his callousness rude and unnecessary. “You never really wanted to find Ryan, did you? Why is that? What did my brother ever do to you that kept you from looking for him?”
In a defensive posture Jessup crossed his arms over his chest. “I put out a BOLO. That’s standard procedure, same thing any other agency would’ve done. I made calls to other states. That’s also standard. What else did you figure I should do?”
The chief’s coldness pissed Jackson off. “What the hell did Ryan Connelly ever do to you?”
Jessup met Jackson’s anger with stone-cold silence.
The two men glared at each other until Jackson finally muttered, “I see why the state didn’t think you were up to handling a high-profile case like Livvy’s disappearance. After all, this woman’s brother’s been missing for almost a month and you barely went through the minimum. We won’t take up any more of your precious time since we see how busy you are, relegated to traffic detail.”
That last part hit a nerve. “You keep that attitude up, I’ll find a way to jerk a knot in your tail, boy. You wait and see if I don’t. You Indigos think because the town carries your name, you run this place, but you don’t.”
Jackson leveled a deadly stare. “But you and Oakerson do, is that it? Right there with your buddies, Royce and Dandridge. Do me a favor. Give your pals a message for me. You’ll screw up eventually and when you do the Indigos will be right there waiting for it to happen. My brothers and I aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. At least not until we get some answers. Sooner or later, you’ll have to deal with us.”
“Is that a threat? Are you threatening a member of law enforcement?”
Without another word, Jackson spun on his heels, Tessa’s hand grasped tightly in his. “I’d like to pop his face.”
“I know the feeling. His apathy has always bugged me. The day I got here, I went to see him before I even checked into the hotel. My initial impression then was that he was hiding something. I thought I might be overreacting due to my state of mind at the time. I was fearful for Ryan. But now I’m sure I wasn’t dramatizing the situation. Is that usual? Is it normal for law enforcement to be so…uncaring, so unfeeling?”
“It seems to be Jessup’s. I wonder why that is?”
“I almost asked him outright what he was doing at Royce Buchanan’s that night. But I was afraid I’d tip our hand.”
“As soon as Dad confronted Dandridge that ship already sailed.”
Chapter Twenty-Two - Fire
Confronting Jessup did nothing to alleviate the overwhelming sadness she felt that Ryan had likely been found.
Tessa had been sitting on the Indigos’ porch watching the light fade as the sun dropped behind a bank of clouds. The crickets and tree frogs serenaded her. The fireflies came out to show off.
It had only been a matter of hours—it wasn’t even official yet, but she was pretty certain those boys had come across Ryan’s remains.
She thought back to what she could have done differently? If the body turned out to be his, he’d likely been dead since the day he checked out of the hotel to come home. That meant by the time she got curious enough to start getting concerned, he’d already been taken from her. Someone had prevented him from leaving town. But who? And why? What clue had she missed? She still put Walker at the top of the list. But was she suffering from tunnel vision? Anniston kept reminding her that a good investigator kept an open mind.
As she sat there, a fresh resolve moved through her. She would find Ryan’s killer no matter what she had to do or how long it took.
She wavered about making the phone call to her dad. Although she had to do it before the news hit the wire that a body had been found. She didn’t want reporters showing up on his doorstep bombarding him with stupid questions. There was just one problem with that. She didn’t want to hit her father with bad news without definitive proof that it was Ryan. Even though she might be convinced, was it fair to her dad to crush whatever hope still remained in his mind?
She sighed into the night air.
Jackson joined her on the porch and hunkered down in front of her. “Do you need anything? Is there anything I can do? Mom’s making you some hot tea and fixing a plate of sandwiches.”
“Thanks, but right now I couldn’t eat a thing. I’ll have to call my dad before word gets out. The thing is do I give him hope or do I tell him straight out what I really think? I don’t want him seeing it on the news and thinking I shut him out. What a horrible way to learn that you’ve lost your only son.”
“It’s too early to think like that.”
Tessa thought otherwise. “No, it has to be Ryan. When you were bugging Sinclair, I heard one of the techs from the medical examiner’s office say that the body had likely been in the water for three weeks or longer. That fits the time frame.”
Jackson set his jaw. There was no denying the span of time might match up to the state of decomposition. But the look on Tessa’s face told him she wasn’t completely prepared to accept it. “It was an extraordinary step you took coming down here alone to find your brother. I should’ve told you that before now.”
“That’s what families do.”
Jackson thought of his own situation. He could be walking in Tessa’s shoes at any moment. When his mother appeared with a plate of sandwiches and a pitcher of lemonade on a tray, he could tell the thought had crossed her mind, too.
“What happened to the hot tea?” Jackson asked.
Lenore set the tray down next to Tessa and took a seat in one of the rattan chairs. She fanned her face. “It’s way too warm out here for that. Tessa needs something cool and refreshing and full of protein. That’s why I made my specialty, egg salad sandwiches fixed with yogurt and smeared with avocado and topped with sliced tomato from my garden.”
“Thanks, Lenore. But…”
She laid a hand on Tessa’s shoulder. “No buts. You want to find out what happened to your brother, you have to keep up your strength. No doing without. You’ll get through this. We’ll all help you and see to it.”
Anniston’s SUV screeched to a halt at the curb. Raine jumped out of the passenger side and ran up to the porch. “We got here as soon as we
heard. Do you know for certain if it’s Ryan?”
Tessa shook her head. “Jessup was adamant about that. The coroner doesn’t know yet and won’t for quite some time. I feel so much better having you guys around though.” She picked up a sandwich off the tray. “I’ll eat because I want to know how Ryan died and who did it. Damn it, I want answers.”
Lenore filled a glass with lemonade, handed it off. “If I know my boys, they won’t quit until they get answers. So that part will come.” She cut her eyes toward Raine and Anniston. “And these two are your reinforcements.”
Tessa couldn’t deny it.
Later, they banded together again in a brainstorming session around the dining room table.
Anniston crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the tall hutch that took up one wall. “Over the next few days I know we’ll be anxious for news. But until then there’s another matter I need to bring up. I delved into Indigo’s crime history over the years on island and came up with an interesting tidbit that at least needs to be explored.”
Garret stretched out his legs. “That research probably took ten minutes or less. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a crime wave before now.”
“Oh really? Then what can you tell me about the other missing persons case that happened on island?”
Garret looked puzzled. “I don’t understand. Tessa’s brother may no longer be missing. She may finally get a resolution so I’m not sure that counts.”
Anniston sent him a strange look. “I’m not talking about Ryan, but the one that happened two decades ago. In fact, it’s one for the record books. I first discovered it online and then ended up at the public library going through newspaper articles on microfiche. It’s an old missing persons case from twenty-five years earlier. A woman by the name of Darla Pendleton was last seen here. She wasn’t a local. What struck me about it were the similarities to Ryan’s case. You see, it was rumored that Darla was in town to meet a person who’d offered her a job. This was 1992. Back then Internet wasn’t widely used by the general population. So Darla used old-fashioned correspondence to communicate with her potential employer. She apparently answered a classified ad. Got here in town and her family never heard from her again.”
Raine piped up. “Wait. Could that be the one my mom mentioned when Livvy first went missing? Mom brings it up from time to time. There were rumors that this woman was Royce Buchanan’s mistress.”
Anniston’s eyebrows rose. She tossed a thick file folder on the dining room table. “That would be another layer to the puzzle. I discovered Darla Pendleton is the sister of Braden Pendleton.” She saw blank faces staring back at her.
But it was Garret who voiced what they were all thinking. “Who?”
“You’re kidding? Don’t you guys ever pick up a newspaper? Pendleton is the state senator from Miami who mysteriously disappeared two years ago after going out to sea on a fishing trip. It’s been an unsolved cold case back there ever since. What no one ever talks about, though, is his sister vanished right here on Indigo Key long before her younger brother became a politician. My dad also found out Braden once had a connection to Royce Buchanan.”
Tanner grunted. “You could’ve saved yourself some time on that one. You want to know the last bill Braden Pendleton rammed through the legislature in Tallahassee at the midnight hour right before he went missing? Ask me, I’ll tell you everything there is to know about it. That bill took away the conservation designation on the marshland south of town. Taking away that favored Royce’s golf course and gave it a chance for clear sailing through the city council. It stunk to high heaven two years ago when it happened and it still does today.”
“Politics and developers make for strange bedfellows,” Anniston said aloud. “I’m beginning to wonder how far back this thing goes. Getting rid of the designation must’ve come at a high price.”
“That’s a shame to hear the designation’s been snatched,” Jackson noted. “I worked on the wetlands project when I was in high school, was part of the team of people who fought for that area to stay protected. Even back then it was Dad’s idea to fight the developers.”
Tanner nodded. “I took you out there to appreciate the natural beauty of the place. Just like my daddy took me when I was barely out of diapers. Put a protest sign in my hand. My dad and I sat in front of a big old road grader that looked to me like an ugly monster at the time. Back then the developers wanted to turn the land into a shopping mall. We fought and we won that battle. After I met your mother, we used that remote location to go out there and make out.”
Lenore slapped her hubby on the shoulder. “No one wants to hear about that.”
“I do,” Garret said with a twinkle in his eyes.
Mitch, who’d been standing in the far corner of the room, whacked his little brother on the head with a rolled up magazine. “You’ve always been weird and a whole lot warped.”
Tanner ignored the byplay and jabbed a finger in the air. “Who knew it would take a bunch of shady political backroom deals and bribes from the corporate bigwigs to take away that beautiful spot? The same spot where Koda Indigo first landed on island with his woman. Which just goes to show you why I didn’t go down without a fight. This Key's been part of my family’s history and still means something to me.” He put a hand over his heart. “In here. So I got me one of those environmental lawyers out of Key West. He used a few legal maneuverings to put a ding in Royce’s plans over the last two years. I don’t know how much Braden Pendleton got paid to try and get rid of the conservation status, but I can tell you this much. Buchanan didn’t count on me stonewalling him with a crafty attorney of my own. We came up with a strategy and proved that area is prime wetlands, home to an assortment of whooping cranes and broad-wing hawks. Those birds have made that area a nesting place for centuries. We used that to our advantage to stop the golf course.”
Jackson grinned. “Good for you. I’d hate to see the area become just another fairway.”
“That’s just it. If Royce gets his way he’ll drain the marsh, fill it in with packed dirt, and then pour concrete for an ugly clubhouse. That’s just the beginning. They’ll bring in architects to build a resort and we’ll never get it back. Never. That land will be gone for good.” Tanner’s voice cracked with emotion. “My grandkids will never get to enjoy the beauty of the place, like it’s been for centuries.”
Jackson felt the sudden blow of remorse. “You took me out there as a kid so I’d appreciate the flora and fauna. It’s one reason I work with ecosystems today. I should’ve helped you more. Why didn’t you mention it two years ago? I could’ve found more lawyers to help or written an opinion on the damage Buchanan’s plans would do to the environment. It seems I’ve turned my back on so much that’s happened here over the years.”
“You’re not alone,” Mitch said with a grimace. “I barely take time out to show up for Christmases. I’d forgotten I’d promised Blake to take him out to hunt for treasure.”
Garret raised his hand, midway up. “Guilty. Some time back, I promised to teach Blake and Ally to surf but I never carved out the time to do it. We’re sorry, Dad.”
Tanner waved them off. “You boys have the right to live your own lives as you see fit. I raised you to find the thing you loved doing and go for it. You’ve all done that. I don’t expect you to come back and fight my battles for me.”
“But we’re family,” Jackson said, looking around at his brothers. “The island’s our home, too. We should’ve done more.”
Anniston took a seat at the table, began to make notes in her iPad before looking Tanner’s way. “So who in town were the people in your corner? Who were the opposing players other than Buchanan and Pendleton?”
“Initially, I had the support of the town council. But that started falling away little by little about six months ago when Dandridge stood up and made a speech at one of the meetings then used his pulpit to do the same on Sunday morning. His support for Buchanan caught me off guard. Boone said the idea of
playing eighteen holes every day ultimately won him over.”
Mitch sat down next to Jackson. “So where did Walker stand on all this?”
Tanner made a growling sound in his throat. “Where do you think? Right where you’d expect. He wanted that golf course, thought it would help him turn the Vitamin Hut into a multi-million dollar outfit wining and dining fancy backers.”
“I wish I had my whiteboard,” Anniston grumbled as she began to assemble her thoughts. “So let’s go over what we know. During the month of September five people go missing without a trace. We have a salvage boat that never leaves South America sitting offshore. We don’t have a clue why it’s here. We have a group of locals led by Walker’s father that will definitely benefit from turning a marshland preserve into a high-end golf course. Not sure why Livvy and Walker would have to go missing for that to happen but somehow Ryan fits into all this. I’m just not sure where. But he comes to town…meets Walker in person and then…disappears.”
Garret had his own suspicions. And it was as good a time as any to bring up what they’d discovered in the tracking log from Walker’s boat. “Walker and Ryan never got out of Sugar Bay to the open sea. You don’t go deep-sea fishing out in the harbor. The currents wouldn’t have carried Ryan’s body to where it was found if he’d been dumped in the Atlantic. They never went fishing. So says the GPS coordinates.”
Anniston shot him a look. “And you know this because…?”
“Garret downloaded the information from the transponder,” Jackson declared. “It would explain why Ryan’s body washed up at the cove where it did. I ran the tide and current analysis from Labor Day weekend. It jives.”
Tessa had been listening from the doorway. “You’re saying the digital print proves Walker didn’t take him fishing? At all? Then what was Ryan doing all those days from Saturday to Wednesday when he was last seen? With Walker, I might add.”
Jackson sent her a sympathetic look. “We suspect Walker tried to pull Ryan into some kind of shady scheme, maybe spending a few days to butter him up and build up his pitch into a solid bait and hook. Ryan either resisted, or discovered the plan was a scam, threatened to go to the authorities, and Walker had to get rid of him. So he tossed him overboard on his yacht. During Labor Day weekend, the Misty Dawn never got farther from the dock than a thousand feet.”
The Indigo Brothers Trilogy Boxed Set Page 26