The Quick Adios (Times Six) (Alex Rutledge Mystery Series)

by Tom Corcoran

  From Beth: “Okay, I’m going to hope… Never mind. I know you’re not being an asshole like I was. There’s a real reason that you haven’t answered four times in the past three hours. I’ve changed my mind about not seeing you tonight, but right now I’m going to have a drink with my next-door neighbor. She wants to sit at Antonia’s bar and listen to the bartender’s jokes. Call if you want company.”

  Hell, yes, I wanted company. I wanted to yell out the door so she would be sure to hear me.

  Four empty voicemails had arrived from Dubbie Tanner. Finally he lost his mike fright: “Hope you don’t mind me leaving this in your message box. My partner, on a library computer, found Christi Caldwell, Emerson’s wife, on Facebook. He can’t get to her stats page until she accepts him as a “friend.” Her profile photo, we’re talking soccer mom.”

  Wiley may have thought that the library’s computers were secure, but I feared he had a surprise in store. I felt certain that the staff required some form of ID to use the machinery. If some agency wanted to find him, they could.

  I looked toward the main house, saw Anya Timber peer back at me from a kitchen window. Beeson’s remark that I should take my time may not have fit Anya’s idea of suppertime. Best to get inside, be a dutiful guest.

  I walked around the pool’s chlorine cloud, across a painted deck, and found the kitchen by way of a central room large enough for volleyball. Even with six or eight plates of food on the center island, I could smell Anya’s shampoo and conditioner. Her damp hair was tucked behind one ear, a touch that highlighted her loveliness.

  Beeson stood alongside a glass-front liquor cabinet at the far end of the kitchen. He shook a cocktail glass, rattled the melting ice in the dregs of his first toddy.

  “Drink, Mr. Rutledge?” he said. “There’s beer… and wine, if you’d rather.”

  I noticed an open Grgich Hills bottle next to Anya. I pointed at the Cabernet.

  Anya poured generously into a fourteen-ounce glass. Handing it to me, she tapped the U-shaped granite-topped island that held all the food. “This is albacore tuna salad, here are two turkey reubens and that’s hot beef and brie. Over there is vegetarian lasagna. This is eggplant rollatini. Please help yourself, Alex.” She pointed to one empty plate. “Justin and I are light eaters.”

  She had bought dinner for six to ensure that I had something I liked. I sipped the wine and watched Beeson fill his rocks glass with Johnnie Walker Green Label.

  Anya understood my reluctance to dig in alone. “I can make you a plate,” she said. “Is there anything you don’t like?”

  “Not on that table,” I said.

  Beeson and I watched as she created an assortment of salads and pasta, then slid the plate onto a teak party tray.

  “Shall we adjourn to the den?” said Beeson.

  I followed him out of the kitchen, spent another ten seconds in the huge central room and entered an entertainment center paneled in walnut, filled with mahogany furniture and leather chairs. Three 60-inch TV screens filled one wall, a bookcase filled another, and two sets of French doors faced the pool area. A sofa and three chairs were at the library end of the room, and eight theater seats faced the center screen on the wall. I didn’t see speakers, but knew there were plenty somewhere. Beeson pressed a remote and one of the screens popped on with a movie of a real aquarium. We sat and he raised his glass in a toast to something. The task ahead or my presence in his fine home. Or for no other reason beyond habit. Then he sucked down about fifteen bucks worth of scotch in one gulp.

  Anya joined us carrying a tray. She had fixed herself a small plate so I wouldn’t have to be the only one eating. She sat next to Beeson on the wide sofa. With his housemate next to him, Beeson went philosophic.

  “I’ve gone from no worries to high pressure, Rutledge,” he said, “but I’m still better off than ninety-nine percent of the people in this country. I quit running around like crazy three months ago and I thought things through. I had made a series of bad decisions, I won’t deny that. But I also tolerated second-rate associates. I can change that, and part of my rehab is hiring people like you.

  Anya stared at the fish. “You may be trivializing the word ‘rehab,’ Justin.”

  His confident grin froze, rictus-like, and he wiggled his arm a moment, swirling the ice in his glass. “I meant only to praise a fine photographer, dear. I suppose I was bragging about leaving behind all my destructive habits.”

  “You paint with a broad brush, my love,” she said.

  Beeson looked away from Anya, didn’t respond. A cold expression enveloped his face, his eyes locked on his drink glass. The liquor was gone. I couldn’t tell if the topic fatigued him, or he resented Anya’s making her comment in front of me. He stood shakily. “When she starts to edit my pronouncements, Alex, I know it’s time for one of us to go to bed. Please excuse me.”

  Beeson left us in the mini-theater watching the aquarium. Anya reached for the remote, pressed it several times. The aquarium went dark and another screen began showing a movie of a beach in the Caribbean. The camera was fixed, pointed at the water, at lapping waves, tree fronds swaying to each side of the view. Other islands were visible in the distance.

  “British Virgins?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Anya. “An old friend of mine has a home there, and he sends me one of these every month. Justin’s not too wild about them. Would you like another glass of wine? Or some other drink?”

  “Wine, thank you, but I can pour it.”

  “Good, because, I’m going for a swim.”

  She stood, unfastened a snap about six inches under her left armpit. Her wrap-around dress hit the floor. She removed her watch, bracelets and earrings and placed them in a small glass bowl. Beautifully nude, she opened the French door and said, “Join me. The pool is heated.”

  My mind filled with warring visions: her lovely derriere illuminated by the pool’s sub-surface lights, Beeson in a bank canceling payment on my $1,500 check, and the rest of my pay flying away, into the night sky. A documentary on sex play of dolphins flashed through, then images of closets full of lethal weaponry in the large home of a security-conscious man. Finally a close-up of Beth with a scowl of disapproval as I told her quite innocently what had happened in Sarasota.

  I stayed put, though I forgot to refill my wine glass.

  Anya swam ten or twelve laps, alternating freestyle and breaststroke, during which time I inspected the wall-sized bookcase. A lower shelf held coffee table-sized art books. The next two shelves were for Eileen’s books, Harry Potter first editions, some well-worn classics, several teen thrillers and books from her elementary school days. The rest of the bookcase was filled with a collection of fairly recent mysteries and general fiction.

  Looking back at the pool, I noted that Anya had switched to backstroke which I found enjoyable to observe. She took a break in the shallow end, the one closest to the open glass door. With her elbows resting on the edge of the pool she said, “Two things, Mr. Rutledge. We don’t care about shrinkage here, especially when it’s this cold outside. And Justin won’t mind, I promise.”

  “It’s the chlorine that gets me,” I said. “I dated a varsity swimmer in college. She never understood why I wouldn’t watch her compete in the natatorium.”

  “I guess I’ve gotten used to it.”

  Graceful in every move, she boosted herself out of the pool and leaned over to remove a towel from a lidded wood box near the doorway. Standing just outside the French door, she dried herself erotically, on display, though I didn’t know why. Being human, I wasn’t going to turn my head. Maybe she needed to show off; or she simply didn’t care. She made sure to remove moisture underneath her breasts and trapped in her pubic hair. The hair, oddly, blonde.

  She replaced her wrap-around garment.

  “Your first name is kind of exotic,” I said.

  “Yes, I guess exotic is what I intended when I started using Anya. My real name is Tonya. I changed it when that notorious one came along
in figure skating. My sister’s name is Sonya.”

  “Does she live here in Sarasota?” I said.

  “The Florida panhandle. She works in a lumber yard outside of Tallahassee, sells domestic and import hardwoods. There’s a lot of pressure to be one of the guys, so she has to act tough. You can imagine the crap she gets up there because of our last name. “

  “I suppose Plank might be worse,” I said.

  She laughed like I had told her the best joke of the year.

  “Does she look like you?”

  “Identical twins,” said Anya. “It’s one reason we have to live in separate towns.”

  “You and Justin must share a solid love and mutual trust.”

  “Trust, yes.”

  “I know he loves you,” I said. “You don’t love him?”

  “When I was nineteen I fell in love. When I was twenty-nine, the man I dated for ten years broke my heart. It hurt so badly, I promised myself that I would never allow it to happen, I would never fall in love again.”

  “He committed a crime against your heart?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “He did a lot of damage.”

  “For the rest of your life, will you punish the victim?”

  “That’s not it at all, Alex. I’m protecting the victim.”

  “By removing love from your life?”

  She laughed but looked worried. “Not entirely. But, yes, I’ve banned love from my love life.”

  “And you find romance on TV or in books or by watching other people?”

  “That’s it,” she said. “Spectator sport. And painless.”

  “What was the deal in the airplane, the overwhelming silence?”

  “Mister Big Deal is afraid to fly. He views small talk as a lame attempt to cover up his fear, so we’ve learned that silence works best.”

  “Born with the fear,” I said, “or did he have a near-miss?”

  “It’s a recent addition. A business school associate of his died in a small jet crash in Arizona. The man’s partner had paid someone to sabotage the plane. The partner almost collected five million from an insurance company.”

  “It’s good when bad guys get caught,” I said.

  “That’s the first time you’ve voiced an opinion tonight,” she said. “You’ve been very quiet.”

  “If I told you my opinions, we both would be in trouble before morning.”

  An honest smile. “We don’t want that, do we, Alex?”

  I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. “Nope,” I said. “We certainly don’t.”

  Anya walked toward the main part of the house. I watched her go. The view was just as enjoyable with her clothing in place. I had behaved honorably. Was I required to deprive myself of one last vicarious pleasure?

  Walking back to the guest quarters, I pondered Beeson’s fear. Did he specifically know of someone who would like to kill him? Or was he naturally, or unnaturally, paranoid?

  I called Beth and got her voicemail. A one-minute explanation of my plight and whereabouts would have to do. I was too wiped out to return the other phone calls. I buried myself in luxurious pillows and fell asleep wondering why Anya, like Beeson, felt compelled to give me details of her life story. Her best line had been, “I’m a smart woman with big boobs. Get over it.”

  I slept well in spite of a few wind gusts that caused branches to brush the guest house roof. My phone’s alarm went off at 6:00. Five minutes later I learned that my quarters shared the rear wall of the garage. I heard Anya’s Boxster start up with its distinct rumble, then back out and depart. Stretched out under the covers, my head deep in a huge down-filled pillow, I had the strange feeling that, having seen every square inch, or cubic inch, of Anya a few hours earlier, I might never see the woman again.

  I showered, elected not to shave, gathered my stuff and zippered my bag. Call it a motel habit, I checked to see if I had left my travel shampoo in the shower, dropped anything in the bedroom, forgotten to unplug my phone charger. All clear… until I saw the white corner of an envelope sticking out from under a cabinet-style night table. It wasn’t mine, I knew, but I nudged it free. It wasn’t an envelope.

  The photo had been rendered on a home printer. The image of Anya nude near the pool didn’t surprise me after the previous evening’s swim party. I thought for a moment that the other nude woman in the picture might be her twin sister Sonya. They were the same height with similar smiles and hair styling, almost identical figures. They hugged, posing for the camera, their arms behind each other’s waist, and all their charms on display. Then I recognized the other woman, knew where I had seen her before and knew that it was not Sonya Timber.

  My immediate reaction was that I couldn’t slip the photo back where I found it. Anyone could come upon it. It was Anya’s private business, and perhaps not Justin Beeson’s. It certainly wasn’t his daughter Eileen’s. I stuck the print in a flat pocket of my camera bag. I would give it to Anya when I next saw her.

  7.

  Beeson knew the lingo, didn’t have to check the picture menu. Staring at his sun visor, looking fifteen years older than when he shook my hand in Saluté nineteen hours earlier, he canted his head toward the Mickey D’s microphone. “Four Sausage McMuffins with eggs, two hash browns, two large coffees, black, extra napkins.”

  He looked at me with a questioning expression then a grimace of pain. The distress from turning his head too quickly.

  “Black is good,” I said.

  I didn’t need breakfast yet, but I hoped that the food smells would mask the stale scotch escaping the man’s pores, the persistent vapors that had thrown me a second-hand buzz for almost twenty minutes.

  Back at the house a half-hour earlier, hauling my duffel and camera bag into his kitchen, I had entered a culinary war zone. The coffee machine was steaming, the bean grinder a mess of dry grounds. He had readied cups, sugar and cream.

  “How we doing this fine Tuesday morning?” he said. “Ready to kick ass?”

  Four English muffins popped from an elaborate toaster. Burned muffins, a waste of good food, a fine toaster. He was trying to be gracious, going through the motions, but he wanted to get the show on the road. The coffee was strong on water, light on java. He put away the jam and butter, the cream. Left the mess for later. For Anya.

  We passed through the central cavern, the leather odors of the huge, impersonal living room, and left by the front door. True to Beeson’s outward image of fastidious wealth, his dew-covered yard and foliage had been trimmed with precision.

  My phone rang. I had forgotten to switch my ringtone to silence. Three seconds later, Beeson’s rang, too. I let Dubbie Tanner go to voicemail. Beeson took his call with a grunt.

  He listened for a half-minute, said “Thank you, honey,” and thumbed his end-call button. “Never happened before,” he said, “but a very bad sign. Eileen’s mother didn’t show. She never came home last night. Anya’s usually off to the gym by 6:45, but she had to detour to take my daughter to school. Pisses me off. I hope it’s not the start of a new bad habit.”

  Those were the last words he spoke until he placed his food order. When the young woman at the window handed him the hot cups and open bag, he said, “Let’s wait and eat in my parking lot while you dream up more good shots.” He drove away and added, “We’re really in no hurry. I just wanted to get the hell away from my own bedroom. Even with Anya sleeping next to me, my ex-wife, the loopy bitch, inhabits the darkness. I should have kept the boat and given her the damned house.”

  I saw that as a perfect moment to keep my mouth shut. A mile northward on I-75 a white polyethylene bag floated forty feet above the roadway. It skidded, dove and lifted, pushed by drafts from the truck and car traffic. It reminded me of sea gulls that play winds above bridges in the Keys. I had been gone only fourteen hours, I thought, and a plastic bag was making me homesick.

  Eight miles farther he took Bradenton Exit 217, went east a few hundred yards. Just past a Burger King we turned onto Ranch Lake Boulevard and fol
lowed the curving road back to the south, parallel to the Interstate. A minute later, parked in the road in front of 23 Beeson Way, we each took one or two bites of lukewarm McMuffin and dumped the rest back into the bag. The coffee was a lifesaver for me. Beeson was toughing it out, fighting his way through nausea.

  Daylight told the story. The forest combined slash pine, sabal palms and oaks, with ferns and saw palmetto dominating the ground cover. Beeson had clear-cut several acres of dense Florida scrub to pave his slice of property. The rich hammocks to either side remained mercifully undisturbed. I had to wonder how he got permits for his project. “Beeson Way” had to be the stubby driveway that connected his property to the boulevard.

  “Is there a web page that lists the building for sale?” I said.

  “My real estate slackers showed me something,” he mumbled, “but it’s not my department. They scanned glamour shots from that first brochure.”

  “I think you need to stress utility. You could have a map showing your proximity to big trucking depots and the Sarasota airport. The site could link to a slide show of my photos, inside and out. It also could highlight your state-of-the-art connection to the Internet.”

  “I don’t know about that. Every last one of my ex-wife’s emails comes straight to my desk. But state-of-the-art, I can’t promise…”

  “You must,” I said.

  “Why didn’t I call you two years ago, Rutledge? I’ve got one of the boys coming in to help you this morning. He should be here anytime.”

  In the closed vehicle, his stale odor was overwhelming the bagged food. I grabbed my camera bag with one hand, the door handle with the other. “The light is about to be right,” I said. “I could knock out a few sun-up exteriors to stress function.”

  “That window to the left of the entrance?” he said. “That’s my office. Tap on the window when you want to come in. I’ll buzz the door for you. But don’t tap with anything metallic. You’ll light the place up like a county fair.”