Detective Fiction

by William Wells

  I did have a box of Cohibas aboard; Cubby knew that because he gave it to me. He got several boxes while on a fishing trip to Lake of the Woods in Canada, a country that enjoys free trade with Cuba. I told him the story about how JFK sent his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, down to Cuba to bring back a large supply of Antonio y Cleopatras just before signing the Cuban trade embargo. Rank definitely does have its privileges. I read about that in a book about Kennedy. You couldn’t attend a Catholic prep school or college without learning a lot about the nation’s first Catholic president.

  “It’s just Cubby,” I told Marisa. “Back in a sec.”

  I slipped on my boxers, khaki shorts, and a Cubs tee shirt and went out onto the deck.

  “Hope I’m not disturbing you,” Cubby said, referring to the possibility that Marisa might be aboard.

  “Not a problem, Cubby. Let’s go into the galley.”

  He followed me inside. I’d closed the door to the stateroom, protecting Marisa’s modesty. I took a bottle of Blue Moon ale, Cubby’s brand of choice, out of the refrigerator, along with a Berghoff for me. I also found an orange, cut a slice for Cubby’s Blue Moon, and poured the beer into a tall glass with the orange slice, which is the only way to serve it, as every bartender knows.

  I joined Cubby at the galley table. We sipped our drinks and he said, “Do you ever miss police work?”

  I pondered this for a moment, then said, “Once, about six months ago. But I lay down and the feeling went away.”

  Which was not completely true. I did miss the job sometimes, especially the adrenaline rush you got from being in harm’s way. Just like military combat in that regard. “Nothing is so exhilarating as to get shot at without result,” Winston Churchill said. Although, as I’ve reported, three times there was a result for me; it was all the other times that were exhilarating.

  Cubby took a long drink of his Blue Moon, put down the glass, wiped foam off his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “I know you were a good homicide detective, Jack. One of the best, according to people I know in the Chicago department. When it came to clearing cases, you apparently were a rock star.”

  I winced at the past tense, as Cubby knew I would. Clearly he wanted something other than a late-night beer and chitchat. He took another hit of the Blue Moon and said, “Thing is, the police chief down in Naples, Wade Hansen, is a friend of mine. We had lunch today. He told me he needs help with a tough case. I worked late tonight and decided to stop on the way home to tell you about it.”

  I felt a hit of adrenaline surge into my bloodstream at the mention of the words “tough case.” An old firehorse hearing the bell.

  Naples is a small town about thirty miles south of Fort Myers Beach on Florida’s southwest Gulf Coast. It is one of those places where the superrich congregate to spend the money they made somewhere else. Marisa told me that Naples, unlike Palm Beach, for example, is the home of “quiet money.” The city employs a New York PR firm to keep its name out of the news, and especially off those “best places to live” lists, she said.

  Quiet money? I guess that means they don’t grab people like me by the lapels and shout, “I’m rich and you’re not!” But when you see their penthouse condos and waterfront mansions, and their Bentleys, Porsches, Maseratis, and Ferraris, the effect is the same. Maybe the residents worry that, if the hoi polloi knew about all that wretched excess, they might form an ugly crowd, arm themselves with farm implements, storm the iron fences surrounding the palatial homes, and set up a guillotine in a downtown park. To a kid from Wrigleyville, Naples might as well be on the far side of the moon. The first time Marisa and I went to dinner in the city, I was concerned that the maitre d’ might size me up and say with a sneer, “Deliveries to the rear.”

  F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” Credit that literary knowledge to Brother Timothy, my English lit professor at Loyola. Interesting guy. He was a semipro boxer before becoming a Jesuit priest. “In the ring, I got the crap beaten out of me and the sense beaten into me,” he once told our class. “Some pugs see stars as they hit the canvas. I saw Jesus.”

  “WHAT KIND of help does your buddy need?” I asked Cubby, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Call it consulting,” he said. “Wade has a couple of possible homicides. His department doesn’t have much experience with that kind of thing. So I mentioned your name. The idea being for you to just take a look at the case files and tell him what you think.”

  Homicides? Now that fire bell was really clanging.

  “What do you mean by possible homicides?” I asked. “You get a corpse with a bullet hole in it floating in the Chicago River, or someone in a dumpster with a kitchen knife in the gizzard, and know you’ve got an actual murder.”

  “One of the deaths was an apparent heart attack, apparent because there was no autopsy, and the other was a fall down a staircase. Wade suspects that those two deaths might have been murders. Something about the circumstances. He wasn’t specific about that with me. He just said he could use a set of experienced eyes to review the case files. If you’re interested, you have an appointment with him and the mayor in the mayor’s office in city hall tomorrow morning at eight thirty.”

  “You already made an appointment for me?”

  “If you don’t want to go, I’ll call Wade to cancel before I go the airport.” He smiled and added, “He said they’d have coffee and doughnuts.”

  What cop, or even an ex-cop, could resist an offer like that? Cubby had me at murders, even possible ones, but the coffee and doughnuts greased the skids, as he knew they would.

  “Okay, Cubby, I’ll go to the meeting, just to hear what they have in mind. But I might not do anything more. I’m out of the cop game and I’ve got the bar to run.”

  “Fair enough. Wade understands that.”

  WHEN CUBBY was gone, I went back into the stateroom, which is a pretentious term for a bedroom on a little houseboat like mine, but that’s the proper nautical terminology, so I use it. Marisa and Joe were both sound asleep. I joined her in bed and soon sunk into the sound sleep of a person who’d put his ass in harm’s way and survived, and now got a monthly check in the mail for his trouble.

  I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that conversation with Cubby Cullen was about to propel me into the heart of a mystery that would challenge the abilities even of Detective Sergeant Jack Starkey, and possibly bring an end to my idyllic new life.

  4.

  A DOUBLE HOMICIDE, MAYBE

  At seven thirty the next morning, I was cruising south on Estero Boulevard toward Naples in my red 1963 Corvette Stingray convertible, not coincidentally the same kind of car Jack Stoney drives, and also, not coincidentally, the same kind of car Tod and Buz drove in the old Route 66 TV series I loved as a boy.

  I never did know why their names, which I saw in the show credits, were spelled in that unusual way, dropping the final “d” from Todd and “z” from Buzz. But that didn’t matter, because the car was the real star of that show. I dreamed of someday owning one like it, and now I did.

  I’d driven down from Chicago in my Jeep Cherokee, which was good for the long winters. A bad-weather “beater,” such vehicles are called. In Florida, I didn’t need four-wheel drive, so I decided to realize that boyhood dream.

  I bought the classic ’Vette at an auto auction I saw advertised in the Fort Myers News-Press which was held at the Sarasota County Fairgrounds on Ringling Boulevard. I did my homework; using Kelley Blue Book and Hemmings Motor News as guides, I determined that the values of vintage Corvettes run between $54,000 and $130,000, depending upon the model, options, and condition. My ’Vette was not the pricier ZO6 model; it had a 340 horsepower V8, standard transmission, air-conditioning, AM-FM radio, red leather seats, and power windows. It was in good condition, having been driven 80,000 miles by its original owner, according to the fact sheet.

  I maybe paid too much at $63,000 because of a bidding
war with some elderly gent wearing an ascot and Panama hat. Maybe he was a savvy collector, or a shill for the auction house. You know what they say: If you don’t know who the sucker is in a poker game, it’s you. Boys and their toys.

  As soon as Bill Stevens learned that I’d bought the ’Vette, he had Jack Stoney, not to be outdone by his flesh-and-blood counterpart, sell his 1974 green Pontiac GTO convertible—that Goat being a sweet ride in its own right—and get the same model Corvette too. He paid a bargain price at an auction, of course.

  The sparkling waters of the Gulf of Mexico were on my right and Estero Bay on my left as I drove over the Lovers Key Causeway. I’d violated the laws of classic car restoration by adding a nine-speaker Bose audio system, similar to the system I have in the Phoenix. It was cranked up loud, playing the haunting strains of “Hotel California” by the Eagles.

  Sorry, Marisa, but Bach has no place in a Corvette.

  On the gulf side of the road, mostly Spanish-style minimansions stood among smaller ranch-style houses and cottages, as well as some rundown shacks. Many of the latter two categories had for-sale signs out front. These were teardowns; an owner could get a million plus just for the beachfront dirt. Some of the for-sale signs were from Marisa’s agency, Paradise Realty. Each transaction earned her a commission several times my annual Chicago PD salary.

  Seagulls wheeled and cackled above the azure waters; overhead, a canopy of fluffy white clouds drifted across the sky. An osprey plunged head first into the gulf, like a dive-bomber attacking a carrier, coming up with a wriggling silver fish for breakfast. I slowed as a snowy egret strolled on spindly legs across the roadway, taking its own sweet time.

  I drove south on Estero Boulevard to Bonita Beach Road, swung left for a mile, and then right onto Vanderbilt Drive to Vanderbilt Beach Road, where I turned left near the entrance to a palatial Ritz-Carlton beachfront hotel. I came up behind a yellow Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible, sticker price about 450K. Marisa told me that Judge Judy has a condo in Naples and drives a car like that. Maybe it was her. If I paid that much for a car, I’d have to live in it.

  I hung a right onto US 41 South and made the fifteen-minute drive to Fifth Avenue South, the downtown Naples equivalent of Worth Avenue in Palm Beach and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I turned right onto Fifth and rolled past the ultrachic restaurants, art galleries, jewelry stores, and clothing boutiques, as well as a great many banks, stock brokerage firms, and trust company offices. When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he said, “Because that’s where the money is.” Which is why all those pricey eateries, shops, and financial institutions are here. With the top down, I could almost hear the dry rustling of bonds maturing and the ka-ching of stock dividends accruing.

  Which is not to say I wasted any energy envying the wealthy residents of Naples. My police department pension, generous book-editing fees from Bill Stevens, and profits from The Drunken Parrot were more than sufficient to meet my needs. We are who we are. To paraphrase another Willie (Shakespeare), jealousy is a green-eyed monster.

  NAPLES CITY hall is located on Riverside Circle, a quiet street lined with banyan, royal poinciana, and palm trees just south of the downtown shopping area. I turned into the parking lot, pulled into a visitor’s spot, and went inside.

  I was wearing a navy blue blazer with brass buttons over a white, open-collared shirt, tan slacks, and Top-Siders, no socks. If I washed ashore on Martha’s Vineyard, I could stroll right into the nearest cocktail party and ask for a towel and a gin and tonic. But even in my yacht club uniform, I didn’t feel that I belonged in Naples. As they say at the Baby Doll Polka Lounge, you put lipstick on a pig and it’s still a pig.

  I found the information desk in the lobby and told an older, smartly dressed woman with tortoise-shell reading glasses hanging on a gold chain around her neck, and her grey hair in a bun, that I had a meeting with Mayor Charles Beaumont and Police Chief Wade Hansen.

  She told me the mayor’s office was on the second floor and gestured toward a stairway and an elevator. Unlike many Florida residents, I still had all of my original joints, so I took the stairs, two at a time, just to impress the woman.

  I turned right down a hallway, came to the mayor’s office, opened a double glass door with the mayor’s name painted on it in gold lettering, and stepped into the lobby. A very pretty young woman sat behind the reception desk. I introduced myself and said I had an appointment with Mayor Beaumont and Chief Hansen.

  She told me that her name was “Kathi with an i,” and that they were expecting me. I guess she was accustomed to providing that spelling to everyone she met for the first time, just to clear up any confusion if they ever needed to write her name.

  Kathi with an i stood, led me down a hallway, knocked on a closed wooden office door, opened it without waiting for a reply, and stepped aside, allowing me to enter a large, well-appointed corner office with a view of a big jacaranda tree in full bloom though the window. Marisa knew all about trees, as well as flowers and plants, and would often point to them and tell me their names. In return, I offered to teach her what I knew about firearms, which is a lot, but she declined.

  A man was seated behind a desk and another on one of two club chairs, drinking coffee from china cups. They stood when I came in. As promised, there was an open box of Dunkin’ Donuts on a coffee table. I’d overslept and skipped breakfast. I spotted a jelly doughnut with my name on it and hoped it had strawberry filling, my favorite.

  I had no trouble telling who was who. I am, after all, a trained detective. The mayor was obviously the taller guy in his early seventies with a full mane of slicked-back silver hair, wearing an outfit similar to mine, but made of better fabrics. A patrician. The police chief was of medium height, bald and muscular, with a square jaw and a tattoo of an eagle, globe, and anchor on his left forearm bearing the motto “Semper Fi.” A former marine, like me.

  He was wearing a starched white uniform shirt with epaulets and a gold badge, blue twill pants, and a wide shiny black leather duty belt holding a pair of silver handcuffs, a can of Mace, and a Beretta semiauto pistol in a black holster.

  I wasn’t carrying. I was accustomed to having to walk through a metal detector when entering a municipal building, and, even though I had a concealed carry permit, the people didn’t know me here, so I didn’t want to cause a fuss. But this was Naples, not Chicago. There’d been no metal detector in the lobby, or any visible security at all. I could have strolled in with a shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missile, unless the reception lady was a lot tougher than she looked.

  “Jack, I’m Charles Beaumont and this is Chief Wade Hansen,” the mayor said, walking to me. “We appreciate your coming to discuss a possible situation we have.”

  We all shook hands and hizzoner gestured me into one of the club chairs. Hansen took the other chair. Beaumont sat on the sofa and asked if I wanted coffee, which I did. He poured a cup for me from a pot on the coffee table and didn’t mention the doughnuts, which left me conflicted. Would it be impolite to help myself this early in our relationship?

  I said to both of them, “I don’t know if I can be of any help, but I’m happy to hear about what’s going on and tell you what I think.”

  “That’s all we expect, Jack,” Hansen answered.

  Now that we were friends, I decided to go for it. I stood, walked over to the doughnut table, picked up the jelly doughnut, and took a bite. It was strawberry. Remembering my mother’s admonition to not speak with my mouth full, I took a moment to chew and swallow as I returned to my chair, then looked at Hansen and said, “I assume you’ve got detectives on your force, chief.”

  “We have two, and they’re very competent,” he answered. “But they’ve been here their entire careers and have no experience with this kind of situation.”

  “Which is?”

  The mayor stood, walked over to his desk, picked up a sheet of paper and a pen, and handed them to me. “Before we tell you more, I need you to sign this confidentiality agr
eement,” he said.

  I scanned the agreement. It required me to keep everything I was about to learn an absolute secret in perpetuity or the City of Naples, Florida, could remove my testicles and make me eat them—or words to that effect.

  By now, I was curious. I signed and handed the document back to Beaumont. He glanced at it, maybe to make certain I hadn’t signed it “Eleanor Roosevelt,” which is, in fact, how I’d first signed my divorce papers, and put it back into the drawer.

  The mayor nodded at the police chief, who began by saying, “Six months ago, a woman drowned in her swimming pool while doing laps. She was seventy-eight years old. She was a widow, and her son and daughter, who live in Boston and Philadelphia, didn’t want an autopsy. The death was ruled as being due to natural causes. Maybe a stroke or heart attack.”

  “And you think it wasn’t one of those?” I asked.

  “Something about it bothered me,” Hansen said. “Read the file and see what you think.”

  I finished the doughnut. A dab of strawberry jelly dripped onto my shirtfront. I left it there, so as not to call attention to this egregious faux pas.

  “Ten days ago, a seventy-two-year-old man broke his neck by falling down a staircase in his home,” Hansen told me.

  “Old people trip sometimes,” I said, deductively.

  I’d tripped stepping onto the deck of the Phoenix a few months ago, bruised my shoulder and sprained my ankle. And I’m not all that old. It was midnight on a moonless night; a heavy rain had made the deck wet and slippery and I was wearing cowboy boots. Boaters’ tip: always wear deck shoes when boarding a boat after a rain, even when stone-cold sober.

  “They do,” Hansen responded. “But, again, it just seemed to me that something wasn’t right . . .”