The Alex Shanahan Series

by Lynne Heitman

  “That’s not what I did.”

  Jack followed Bobby around to the other side of his desk and leaned against the inside edge. “There was no drug deal. There was a plane crash, and I think you had something to do with bringing it down. Sold a bad part… installed a bad part… the proof is in the logbook, isn’t it?”

  I watched Bobby closely. I figured Jack was throwing stuff at him to see what stuck. Bobby was lapsing into serious fidgeting—rubbing the ball of his thumb across his forehead, turning back and forth in the limited area behind his desk, trying not to trip over Jack’s feet. “Last I saw Johnny McTavish, he was sitting up at the terminal drinking a cup of coffee. And I don’t know anything about that plane crash, and I don’t know anybody named Jimmy.”

  “Here’s what I came to tell you, Bobby. You are way, way out of your league. You’re a small-time dirty parts pusher who got mixed up with the big boys. Now you’re in for a plane crash, a murder, and, if you’re not careful, for the same thing that happened to McTavish. And I’ll tell you why. John was only a threat to them because he knew you. And now that you have participated in his murder, you’re an even bigger threat. In fact, I don’t know why they didn’t kill you instead of him. Maybe I’ll ask Jimmy when I see him.”

  Bobby’s expression froze. He wasn’t even blinking.

  “That’s right.” Jack said, “I know Jimmy better than you do. We go way back. I hate him and he hates me, and before this thing is over, you’re going to find yourself squeezed between the two of us, and that’s a bad place to be. You know what you should do, Bobby?”

  If Bobby knew, he didn’t say.

  “Cut a deal while you still have the leverage, because depending on how much you know and when you knew it, you could be in line for the death penalty. We have that here in Florida, and we’re not one of those pussy states that’s afraid to use it.”

  Again, Bobby rubbed his thumb across his forehead. He adjusted his tie. He rocked back on his heels. And then he shook his head. “Any leverage I have I’ll use where it counts and that’s with the Feds, not you. You’ve got nothing to offer me.”

  Jack stood up and smiled down at him. “Call the cops. Call the Bureau. Call whoever you want. Just make your deal and don’t take too long. And if you get stuck and you need help in trying to decide what to do, picture yourself bleeding to death in a Dumpster with a blade in your throat. See if that doesn’t get you motivated to do the right thing.”

  Bic had provided a ride for us down to the maintenance hangar, but Bobby hadn’t been so gracious as to provide return transportation. We were outside on foot, navigating the circuitous pedestrian route, since we weren’t allowed to cut across the active ramp. We’d been walking a few minutes before Jack spoke again. “What did you get from that interview?”

  “Besides the fact that Bobby Avidor is a loathsome pig?”

  “Try to work around that.”

  “That would be tough.”

  “When you’re talking to someone who may have done a murder, or committed any crime, you’re going to get a lot of subterfuge. You have to make yourself look past it for what’s important. And you can’t let it be personal. When I look at Bobby Avidor, I don’t see the worthless piece of crap I know him to be.”

  “What do you see?”

  “I see a man on the other side of a business transaction. He’s got a piece of this puzzle I have to solve. He’s the connection between John and Jimmy, and if Jimmy did kill John, that’s a key piece. We’d be doing well to get him to talk to us.”

  “Won’t Jimmy know that, too?”

  “Jimmy knows,” he said. “If he did kill John and Bobby knows it, I don’t understand why Bobby is still walking around. Jimmy doesn’t leave loose ends.”

  “Maybe Jimmy still needs him for something.”

  He reached up and took his glasses off. “Maybe,” he said, wiping the sweat from his eyes, “he just hasn’t gotten around to this particular loose end.”

  Watching him sweat made me realize how hot I was. I lifted my hair off the back of my neck and held it up, waiting for a cool breeze. “So our job is to first help Bobby define his options, and then to help him see that we’re the best one.”

  He smiled. “Exactly. And hope he’s smart enough to make his choice before it’s too late.”

  “How does Bobby know the FBI has this case? He didn’t even mention the local police.”

  “Another good point,” he said. “I plan to ask Patty if she told him. If she didn’t, he might have been contacted by this Agent Hollander.”

  My cell phone rang. I flipped it open to answer, saw that the call was from Detroit. “What day is this?”

  “Friday.”

  “Uh-oh.” I flipped it closed without answering. My heart pounded out the classic I-overslept-for-the-exam panic.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m supposed to start my new job on Monday.”

  “Your new job?”

  “Yeah. I sort of forgot about it, but I’m due in Detroit on Monday.” I’d quickened the pace so much that even Jack, with his long legs, was having a hard time keeping up.

  “Alex, you forgot you were supposed to start a new job?”

  “I’ve been distracted. Can I catch up with you later, Jack? I have to go and take care of this thing.”

  When he didn’t answer, I turned to find that he had stopped and was several paces behind me. Then I realized it was because I’d broken into a full-fledged trot. The good news was my ankle was feeling much better. I jogged back to him.

  “How are you going to take care of it?”

  “I’m not sure. I have to go make some calls. But you can use my car if you need it. You know where it is.”

  I started to reach for the keys, but he waved me off. “Call me later when you’ve got your life worked out. I can’t wait to hear this story.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Wow.” I appraised the crowd. It spilled out the door and snaked halfway down the block. “I would like to eat sometime tonight.”

  “Don’t worry.” Jack put his hand on my back and led me past the line. The guy at the door—I wouldn’t exactly call him a maitre d’. More like a bouncer—stuck out his hand the minute he saw Jack. “Hey, man,” he yelled, “good to see you back.”

  Jack returned the gesture and leaned in so he could be heard. “Can you help me out tonight, Al?”

  Al glanced at me. “Two?”

  Jack nodded and we were in. I’m sure I felt more than one laser stare into the back of my head from the poor schmoes at the door who had to wait their turn.

  Al took us through the small dining room, a bright, noisy place. Waiters and cooks were yelling over the serving bar. There was a lot of clanging—silverware on plates, plates going into the dishwasher, dishes shoved onto the counter. Several patrons in bibs worked on crab claws and lobsters. And there was lots of skin showing. This was the kind of place people came to in boats. Indeed, when we emerged onto the deck, I spotted a whole line of boats tied up in the boat parking lot, or whatever you call it.

  “You sit over here.” Jack held a chair for me, the one that faced the water. “That way you don’t have to sit and stare at me all night.”

  The waiter came right over as we took our seats. He greeted Jack as if they were a couple of old pals and left two large plastic menus. When the waiter left, Jack was grinning.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  He shrugged as he unfolded his napkin. “I like this place.”

  “I guess so. I’ve never seen a red carpet rolled out so fast. How come they know you so well here?”

  “I did one of the owners a favor once when I was on the job.”

  “Is Al the owner?”

  “Al’s his nephew. Ike and his brother Bernie own the place. It’s been in their family for fifty years.” He kicked at the splintering deck. “It hasn’t changed much in all that time, either.”

  “What did you do for them?”

  “Be
rnie likes to gamble. Ponies, dogs, football, basketball, jai alai—you name it. He got into some trouble once on some money he owed. He was about to have his liquor license yanked. I helped him work out a deal where he got to keep it if he paid off all his debts and entered a twelve-step program, which he did. It all worked out.”

  “That was a nice thing you did.”

  “Hey, I didn’t want them going belly-up. They have the best stone crabs in town.”

  “It was still a nice thing you did.”

  He stared down at his plate, then rolled back in his chair and gazed out across the deck. Jack never seemed to know what to do with a compliment. “I hate these wildfires,” he said. “But the smoke sure makes for some beautiful sunsets.”

  I opened the menu and checked out Bernie and Ike’s offerings. A few items cooked simply. I liked it. “What is a stone crab anyway?”

  He leaned forward and settled into a lecture pose. This was a subject he could obviously warm to. “It’s a special kind of crab with huge claws. That’s the only part you can eat. If you see one it looks like a couple of huge claws with this tiny crab body attached.”

  “What makes them so special?”

  “Wait until you taste one.”

  “What makes them so expensive?” According to the menu, an eight-crab-leg dinner was almost twenty dollars.

  “They’re protected. It used to be you could walk out the back door and pick them up off the beach around here. Development pushed them south, so now you only find them in the Keys and along the Gulf Coast.”

  The waiter returned and we ordered. With a build up like that, I had no choice but to order the specialty of the house, the stone crab plate. I also ordered a beer, a compulsive move since I rarely drank beer. But it seemed like the only drink possible on a balmy early spring evening in Florida with stone crabs on the way.

  Jack ordered club soda. When our drinks came, he took the straw out and settled back in his chair with it. “So, tell me about this job you forgot you had.”

  “I didn’t forget I had a job. I lost track of what day it was.”

  “Airline job?”

  “I’ll be the Vice President of Operations for a startup in Detroit.”

  “That’s impressive.”

  “We have two airplanes,” I said. “Everyone but the president is a vice president.”

  “Will you be doing something you like?”

  “I’ll be working like a dog. My already limited social life will shrivel up and die. I’ll be running the field operation, which is the part of the business I love, but I have to do it from headquarters, which is the part of the business I hate. I’ll live in Detroit and I’m not sure how to feel about that.” My entire body blanched at the very thought of one of those wicked winds skidding across the Great Lakes. “I’ve never been to the city, only the airport. It is a good sports town.”

  “Sounds like a great job,” he said in a complete deadpan.

  “But…?”

  “But nothing.”

  “This is the perfect job for me. I’ll love it. Why are you saying I won’t? Are you saying I shouldn’t take this job?” I twisted in my chair and fortified with a sip of beer. It was cold and quenching and had definitely been the right call. “I’ve already accepted. They’ve turned off all their other candidates. I can’t do that to them. Sure, they gave me another week, but only because I begged and pleaded and they didn’t have any better alternative. I’ve probably already damaged their confidence in me, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to reschedule my move. I’m going to have to put everything in storage.”

  He set his drink on the table and crossed his hands in his lap.

  “All right. The truth is, I’ve had a hard time being unemployed. It’s been scary. I’ve always worked. I don’t know what to do with myself when I don’t work.”

  “You’re doing something now.”

  “I’m not earning money. I need money. My severance is gone. I’m using the last of my savings to be down here. What if I get sick? I need health insurance and disability coverage and a retirement plan. I have to work. There’s no one to take care of me.”

  “There’s no one to take care of anyone. In the end we all take care of ourselves. Some do it better than others. Don’t say you’re taking this job because you need an income or benefits. There are lots of ways to earn money. You don’t have to do what you’ve always done.”

  “I need structure.” I used my finger to draw a line in the condensation on my beer glass. A straight line. “I like structure.”

  “I noticed. What I’m saying is to build your own structure. You’re smart enough. You don’t have to take the easy way out.”

  He smiled. I brooded, because he was on to something. I’d never been excited by the Detroit opportunity, and accepting the offer had felt like agreeing to move back home with my parents. There had to be something to the fact that I had forgotten about it. Completely.

  “Look at it this way,” he said. “If you really wanted that job in Detroit, why would you be sitting on a deck in Florida?”

  I was left to ponder that question as the waiter served up our dinner. There was barely enough room on the table for the two big plates. The claws, as advertised, were huge. They were served cold with coleslaw on the side, a big basket of assorted rolls that smelled homemade, lots of drawn butter, and a metal pail for the refuse.

  I waited until the waiter left to lean over and ask Jack, “Are they always served already cracked like this?”

  He had already plowed in and was sucking a piece of meat from a tiny crevice in one of the big claws. “Unless you travel around with your own ball-peen hammer, I don’t know how you’d get them open. Feel how hard the shell is.”

  The shell was indeed as hard as any I’d ever encountered, but not being a crustacean connoisseur, that didn’t mean much to me. And it didn’t matter anyway once I started to eat because he was right. Stone crabs were well worth the trouble. The meat was tender and sweet and firm—a rare and delightful experience, especially with all that drawn butter, and most especially when eaten on an open-air deck in good company and the presence of a violet sunset.

  Jack tossed a shard of crab shell into the bucket. “Let’s review the case,” he said. “Start from the beginning.”

  “Me?”

  “I want to see what you’re writing down, what you’re paying attention to.”

  A test. A challenge. That was all I needed to hear. I wiped off my fingers—eating stone crabs was a messy business; you had to peel off the shell with your fingers and dig out the meat. I pulled out my little notebook and flipped to the first page. “Okay. John flew down to Miami on Monday March fifth from Boston and arrived in the early afternoon. He met Bobby Avidor for a cup of coffee. Bobby says they talked about Terry’s drug deal. I say John was here to confront him on parts. Whatever they talked about, John left for The Harmony House Suites and Bobby made sure he had a good alibi for the night. He asked Phil Ryczbicki out for a drink. They stayed out until after two. After that, Mr. Avidor was observed in the parking lot enjoying a blow job in the front seat of his car.

  “John checked in at The Harmony House Suites, did normal hotel things. Sometime after ten he left his room. He came back just before one in the morning. Wherever he went and whomever he saw, he heard something that worried him enough to call his brother in the middle of the night and assign him to look after his family. And he told them he was coming home. Sometime after that call and before six, he disappeared. Someone packed his things and returned his rental car so he wouldn’t be reported missing.” I flipped back to my notes from the first discussion with Pat Spain. “John’s body was found on Wednesday in a Dumpster. He was killed someplace else and left there. None of his valuables were missing, and the murder weapon has not been recovered. Since then, we’ve established that Avidor is in the bogus parts business, probably with your pal Jimmy Zacharias, and that John was in possession of the logbook from an airplane that crashed in Ecuador. He had
a diamond ring from the same crash. I think those are the high points…” I thumbed through the notes. “Oh, and the FBI has an interest in this case for reasons unknown.”

  “I think their interest has to do with the crash,” he said.

  “Why?”

  Jack put down the claw he’d been working on to go for some bread. “I tried to reach Damon Hollander today. I was told he would be ‘unavailable for several months and could someone else help me?’”

  “That’s no way to do business. What’s that all about?”

  “I suspect he doesn’t want to talk to us, but the really strange thing was no matter who I spoke to over there, whenever I brought up the Sentinel crash, the conversation stopped dead. There is definitely something going on that no one wanted to tell me about.”

  “Can someone else help us? Don’t you have any buddies over there like Pat who will give you the inside scoop?”

  “No. Listen to this. Patty called me back. There’s a group of detectives that work out of the airport station that specialize in crimes against the airlines. She asked around and found out they also had a case that was recently yanked out from under them by the Bureau. It’s a repair station that they suspect is moving dirty parts. They think it’s one of Jimmy’s places. Guess who took the case?”

  “Damon Hollander? He’s supposed to be a drug guy. Why would he be interested in them? Unless it has something to do with John’s murder.”

  “Exactly.” He picked up the claw he’d been working on and resumed peeling.

  “This is good,” I said. “It feels like progress.” I picked up my pencil. “What’s the name of this repair station?”

  “Speath Aviation.”

  “Speath?” I grabbed my notepad and felt that tingling thrill that meant something was about to fall together in a way that would make me warm all over. “I know that name.”

  “How?”

  “Because Felix…” I couldn’t find the page I needed.

  “Who’s Felix?”