by Paul Carr
Dalton clicked on Tara’s name and brought up her page. She appeared to be in her thirties, a striking woman with dark hair, large blue eyes, and a mesmerizing smile. He lingered on the photo for a moment before clicking on her background. It revealed that she lived in Islamorada. There were no photos of family members or friends, the page consisting only of a few posts each year. As he scrolled through them, he thought he might be wasting time, putting off heading home, until he spotted a photo from four years earlier. The image pictured a younger Tara, maybe in her late teens or early twenties, standing next to Riley Gunn. He looked about her age, probably years before he established Redgunn. The sun reclined on the horizon behind them. Another man stood in the background, half turned toward the sun, drinking from a beer bottle that obscured part of his face. She had written, Hanging out at Mallory Square, a long time ago.
Dalton thought the photo of her and Gunn must have been special, since it was her only personal one. All other posts shared images and thoughts from her connections, rather than her own. He wondered if the two had reconnected recently, and if she might be the other woman that had come between him and Hilda Wright. He found Tara’s number on a search and punched it into his phone. It rang several times without an answer.
****
Sunday came and went. Eric had errands for him that consumed most of his day. In the evening, Dalton relaxed on the deck with his uncle, some of the marina guests, and Cupcake. The cougar kept them entertained chasing bugs that buzzed around the tiki torches. Dalton tried Tara Sand’s number a couple more times without success.
On Monday morning, Dalton wore a lightweight suit to the office. The ME had released Riley Gunn’s body on Saturday, and his funeral was scheduled for 11:00 a.m. Crook saw him as he arrived and said, “You going to court today?”
“No, Riley Gunn’s funeral.”
Crook just nodded and said, “Oh.” He went back to his keyboard, maybe hoping he wouldn’t get roped into attending.
Dalton left the office at 9:40 and found a parking spot a block from the church. Perspiration beaded on his forehead and inside his coat as he made his way down the street and entered the vestibule. Being first to arrive, he took a seat on the back row. Mourners began entering a few minutes later. By 10:30 the room was completely filled. Tara Sand hadn’t been among those in attendance. Then, a few minutes before the service began, he saw her peek around the corner, searching for a place to sit. She looked stunning in a black dress. He stood, eased over to her and said, “Take my seat.”
Giving him a wary smile, she whispered, “Thank you,” entered, and sat down.
Dalton waited in a chair in the corner of the vestibule. When the service ended, Tara came out first and hurried toward the door. He stood and headed over to her.
“Ms. Sand, I’m a detective with the sheriff’s office investigating Mr. Gunn’s death. Can I have a few minutes of your time?” He held up his badge for her to see.
She frowned, mopped tears from her face, and said, “Okay, I guess.”
When they stepped outside, he told her they could talk in his car. “It’s right here on the street.”
As they got in, she said, “Can we get away from here?”
“Sure, where are you parked?”
“It’s several blocks down on the right.”
He pulled into traffic ahead of the crowd. “I saw a photo on social media of you and Riley from a long time ago and wondered if you’ve spoken with him recently.”
She began to cry. Between sobs, she said, “We went out a couple of times the week before he died.”
“Did you know about the party at his home?”
“Yes, he told me it was mostly a business party and would be boring for me.”
Dalton nodded. “His band members, some record producers, and his lawyer. Do you know his lawyer?”
“You mean Hilda?”
“Yes, Hilda. According to her, she and Riley had a thing, but he busted up with her over someone else. Was that you?”
She nodded and began crying again. “I thought we were finally going to be together.”
After a protracted silence, as her sobs abated, he said, “Do you know anyone who wanted to do him harm?”
“No. I’ve been thinking about that since it happened. Why would anyone want to kill Riley?”
Several reasons came to mind, but he didn’t think this was the time to share his suspicions. Maybe she didn’t know the man as well as she thought. He apparently treated his band members with little respect, and there didn’t seem to be any love lost by any of them. Earl had said Riley treated Wilbur Hess like dirt when he worked for him as a roadie. The lawyer, Douglas Vici had threatened him on the part of Raven Gardner or Eon Harbor, maybe both.
It seemed as if Tara had held onto her teenage crush, thinking things would be just as they had when they were young. People change. Being a rock star might change a person. Riley Gunn had seen and done a lot since dating Tara when they were young. He might have wanted a relationship with Tara for a different reason. Maybe he saw it as his salvation from a life of high rolling, parties, and drugs. And maybe it was just her perception of what was happening.
“That’s my car up ahead next to the palm.”
He found a space in the shade a couple of cars beyond hers and pulled in, leaving the engine running and the air blasting. “Do you know Raven Gardner?”
She frowned. “Sure, she was one of my friends when we were young. Why do you ask?”
“You keep in touch?”
“No. We had a falling out when we were in college. She made a play for Riley.”
“I spoke with her last week, and she said he wanted to get back together with her but she wasn’t interested. Said she had moved on.”
“That’s a laugh. They were never together to begin with. He mentioned he saw her recently about his lawsuit. She was flirty, and even invited him to her place for dinner. He thought she still carried a torch, but he said he never cared for her as anything other than a friend.”
So there were two sides to the story. If what Riley told Tara was true, Raven Gardner had two motives for murder: a lawsuit, and rejection. She also had sufficient height to have done the shooting.
“Do you know Wilbur Hess?”
“Wilbur? He used to hang around with Riley in high school. Kind of an introvert, as I remember. Riley made fun of him. Why would you ask about him?”
“He was murdered the same night as Riley. The same person probably killed both of them.”
“That’s a shock. I haven’t thought about him in years. I used to feel sorry for him, the way Riley treated him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He did lots of things for Riley, probably hoping his popularity would rub off on him. Riley used him like a servant.”
“From what I gather, he was still doing that. Hess was the band’s roadie, and more recently he became a source for drugs. Riley and at least two other band members bought cocaine from him on a regular basis.”
“Huh. I heard Riley almost died last year of an overdose, but he told me he was off the drugs. I guess he had me fooled.” She stared out through the windshield, maybe rethinking her relationship with Gunn and remembering more of his dark side, rather than the teenage fantasy she had carried for so long and built up in her mind.
“Riley and Wilbur were arrested about a week before their murder for fighting. Do you know what that was about?”
“No. He didn’t mention it to me.”
“Okay, if you think of anything that could pertain to Riley’s murder, give me a call.” He handed her one of his cards.
She got out, and Dalton drove to the office. Not knowing who Riley was seeing before his murder had nagged at him, but now that he knew, it didn’t seem to be of any benefit to the investigation. What Tara had said about Hess sounded like a motive for him killing Riley, but someone had murdered him, too.
Springer came out of his office and caught him as he approached Crook’s desk. “W
here’ve you been?” the lieutenant asked.
“Gunn’s funeral. I wanted to talk with the woman he had been seeing recently. She showed up at the church.”
“Did you learn anything new?”
Dalton shrugged. “Not really. She and Gunn went together when they were young, but she’d been out of touch with him for a long time. I got the impression she didn’t know much about his current life.”
The lieutenant gave him a smirk. “So Jimmy Earl is still the best suspect you have.”
They had been through that already. There were good reasons why Earl hadn’t been arrested. Dalton glanced at Crook, who picked up his phone and punched in a number.
A second later, the phone rang at Dalton’s desk. “I need to get that.” He turned and headed toward his workstation.
Springer sighed and stomped away.
“Thanks,” Dalton said into the handset.
Crook chuckled. “You bet.”
When they hung up, Dalton phoned the officer who had arrested Gunn and Hess for disturbing the peace.
“You remember what they were fighting about?”
The officer paused, then said, “Nah, I just remember they were both three sheets and calling each other names.”
“Do you have the address or phone number of the person who called it in?”
“Why do you need this information?”
“I’m investigating the murder of both those guys. What they were arguing about could be important.”
“Okay, I’ll look it up and call you back.”
They hung up, and a few minutes later the phone rang, the officer on the other end. He gave Dalton the address and phone number of the man who had called 911 about the disturbance. Dalton punched in the number. When a man answered, Dalton asked about the fight.
“I don’t know what it was about. It was just a lot of noise, late at night. They were calling each other awful names I don’t want to repeat.” The neighbor sounded elderly, a tremor in his voice.
“You didn’t hear a reason why they were arguing?”
“No, like I told you…wait they were arguing about a man. Give me a minute, and maybe I’ll remember his name. Hmm. Oh, yeah, it was Ian something.”
When the man didn’t continue, Dalton said, “Could it have been Eon Harbor?”
“Yeah, Ian Harbor. That’s the guy they were yelling about.”
Chapter 9
Gunn and Hess had been arguing about Eon Harbor. Dalton mused over what might have happened as a catalyst for the fight. A year and a half before, the Redgunn band had stayed at the Eon Harbor hotel in Thailand, where someone convinced Riley that he had hurt or killed a woman. Hess had been responsible for the reservations and could have helped set Riley up. Vici, a lawyer and probably a surrogate for Eon, had threatened Riley if he didn’t drop the lawsuit against them. The threat probably involved what had happened at the hotel.
The phone they had found in Hess’s closet could be the key. Dalton called CSI Tarver. “You figure out how to open that phone yet?”
“No. I just handed it over to the techs this morning. None of them were in on Saturday.”
“It could be important, so put some pressure on them.”
Tarver paused, then said, “Yeah, okay, but those guys don’t report to me.”
“Who did you give it to?”
Another pause. “Randy Teal.”
“Okay, thanks.” He hung up.
He found Teal’s office location and number in the address book. The guy’s desk was on the second floor, so he took the stairs and found him in the corner of a large room, surrounded by electronic equipment. Teal looked about twenty-five, with shaggy blond hair and thick glasses. He lay back in his chair with his keyboard in his lap staring at a giant computer monitor. When Dalton approached he sat up and gave him a wary look. Dalton introduced himself and asked about the phone.
“Oh, yeah. I’m working on it now, but with this phone, you have only a few tries for a password, and then it locks up. Then you can’t unlock it without erasing everything on it and starting over. I know you need whatever is on the phone, so I’m looking into this guy’s background to try to figure out his password. But like I said, I’ll get only a few tries and it’s over.”
“You think you can figure it out?”
Teal shrugged. “Maybe. If I can’t, I can try the carrier, but they probably can’t unlock it without destroying the data, either. The state lab might figure out some kind of backdoor into the device.”
“That sounds like it could take a while.”
“Yeah, they might have others ahead of you.”
Dalton sighed. “Okay, do what you can, but make it quick, and call me if you run into a dead end. I know somebody who might be able to unlock it.”
The techie gave him a wary look, as if to say, I think you’re dreaming.
Later, at Crook’s desk, Dalton said, “Have you learned any more about Eon Harbor?”
His partner gave him a questioning glance. “Like what?”
“I asked you on Friday to see what else you could find on them.”
“Oh, yeah. I kinda got sidetracked researching Colin Casey’s finances and setting him up for the appointment on Saturday.”
“All right, find out what you can. And this time look for William Chan, too. He’s the guy running the show in Key West.” He told Crook about the argument between the two murder victims concerning the company.
“Their name keeps coming up,” Crook said.
“Yes, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
The lieutenant stepped over and said, “Deputies found a dead man at his home a few minutes ago. It looks like a suicide, but you two need to go out and take a look.” He gave Crook the information while Dalton got his notepad from his desk.
When they reached the car, Crook said, “You drive and I’ll navigate. I know where this is.”
“You get the guy’s name?”
“Yeah, it’s Blake Owen.”
“Blake Owen?” Dalton glanced at him. “That’s the environmental engineer who was going to testify for the Gunns in their lawsuit. I talked to him last week. When I told him Riley’s mother was considering going forward with the case, he said he had changed his mind about giving testimony. I assumed he got scared because Riley got murdered.”
“You think he was afraid enough to commit suicide?”
Dalton thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t know.”
“If not, that means…”
“It means somebody wanted to shut him up.”
They reached the address and parked on the street behind a couple of sheriff’s cruisers. Key West PD jurisdiction didn’t extend that far north, so they probably wouldn’t show up. Two deputies sat in one of the cars. Dalton went over and told them to stay there and to not allow the news media or anybody other than law enforcement to enter the property.
The house, which appeared to be an aging pre-fab, sat at the end of a shady street, several blocks from the Gulf. They went inside and found Blake Owen in the living room. He lay back in a recliner with his eyes closed, as if napping. Two deputies stood close to the body. Both had solemn expressions on their faces, maybe wishing they could be somewhere else. An open pill bottle sat on a table next to the chair. It was empty, and its cap lay on the floor, as if snatched off in a hurry. According to the label on the side, it had contained an opioid pain medication prescribed for Owen five weeks prior. The label indicated a quantity of thirty pills. A cocktail glass also sat there with what appeared to be whisky dregs in its bottom.
“Who called it in?” Dalton said to one of the deputies.
“Cora Leach, the next-door neighbor. She said he was supposed to come to her house for dinner last night and didn’t show. His car was in the driveway today, but he didn’t answer the phone, so she walked around the house and saw him through the window. The medical examiner is on his way.”
Dalton called Tarver and explained the situation. “We need your crew to scour t
his place.”
When he got off the phone, the deputy said. “Looks like a simple suicide. He took a bunch of pills.”
“Yeah, it might look that way. You and your partner go canvass the neighborhood and see if anybody remembers seeing any strange vehicles in the last couple of days. Don’t worry about Cora Leach. We’ll talk to her.”
The deputy rolled his eyes and walked away.
Dalton checked the front and back doors for any signs of tampering, but didn’t find any. The back door had a simple lock, no deadbolt. When the CSIs and the ME arrived, Dalton and Crook went next door.
Cora Leach had silver-hair, wore tortoise-shell glasses, and probably remembered the Eisenhower administration. She invited them in and offered something to drink. Both declined.
When they were seated, Dalton said, “You told the deputy you saw Mr. Owen through his window.”
“I saw the pill bottle on the table, and he looked dead. Did he overdose?”
“We’re not sure yet. Do you know why he had the pain pills?”
She shrugged. “He twisted his knee a few weeks ago, but I thought he’d gotten over that. He told me he was taking three pills every day for the first week or so.” If he started with thirty, that meant he didn’t have many left by the day before.
“So you expected him for dinner last night and he didn’t show?”
“Yes, I told him to be here at seven. When he didn’t come over, I waited thirty minutes before calling. He didn’t answer, so I figured he forgot and went somewhere. I got a little steamed, and didn’t bother to call him again until a couple of hours ago. He still didn’t answer, but I went out and saw his car in the driveway. I knocked on the door a couple of times before I started thinking something might be wrong, and I walked around the side and looked in the window. He was just sitting there, but he looked strange to me. I had a key, but I didn’t want to go in. I gave it to the deputy when he arrived.”