“Oddest damn thing that ever happened around here.”
“Did you know he was supposed to meet me in Longboat Key, Florida, this morning?”
“No, I didn’t. He called me last night and told me to cancel all his appointments for this week. Said he and Julie were going on a vacation. He didn’t want to be bothered. For anything. He was adamant about that part.”
“What time did he call you?”
“It must have been around ten. I was getting ready for bed.”
“I tried his cell phone and got no answer. Not even voice mail picked up,” I said.
“I had that phone cut off first thing this morning. Chaz’s orders.”
“Did you try to call him at home this morning or on his cell before you cut it off ?”
“Yes to both. No answer at all.”
“Did he take the plane?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m supposed to fly down to Jacksonville this afternoon and the captain just called to say the plane was ready anytime I wanted to leave. So I’m assuming Chaz didn’t take it.”
“Mr. Macomber, this is very important. If you hear anything from him, ask him to call me immediately.”
“I’ll do it, Mr. Royal.”
I turned to Jimbo, puzzled, and not a little bit worried. I told him what happened and who I’d talked to.
“I know Paul Macomber,” said Jimbo. “He used to run a bank in Jacksonville, and Chaz hired him away. Paul handles all the negotiations with customers and handled all the buyouts of other firms. He’s a finance guy and a big part of the success of the firm. Been with Chaz a long time.”
I called Jock on his cell phone, told him what happened. “I’m worried, Jock. This doesn’t sound like Chaz. He takes off without letting anybody know where he’s going and apparently decided to do so after he talked to me.”
“Let me see if I can get my agency to put some traces on his credit cards. If he uses one, we’ll know where he is. I’ll be on back out to the house in a few minutes.”
I hung up and looked at Jimbo. “I don’t like this, Top. Taking off like that tells me he’s guilty of something.”
Jimbo nodded. “Or maybe he’s dead.”
Jimbo waited around to see Jock. They’d met before and after a few minutes of catching up with each other, Jimbo left for home.
“Did you get Doc’s credit cards on a watch list?” I asked Jock.
“Yeah. If he uses one, we’ll know it within seconds.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“I do too. It doesn’t make sense that he’d run. Even if he thought you were closing in. I doubt that he killed his son, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have any reason to kill the other two. If he’s being blackmailed, whatever is the basis of it would have to be terrible to make him run.”
“Do you think he’s dead?” I asked.
“Don’t know. Maybe somebody took him.”
“We need to get J.D. over here, and see if the Atlanta police can give us a hand.”
J.D. did not answer her cell so I called the police department. I identified myself to Iva the dispatcher and asked to speak to J.D.
“Matt, we don’t know where she is.”
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t check in this morning. She’s not answering either her cell or her home phone. I sent an officer by her condo, but she wasn’t there. The manager let him in, but there was no sign of her. Her gun belt and badge were still on the sofa and the bed wasn’t made. A full pot of coffee was on the burner. Her car is in its parking space. We’re worried.”
“What’s going on?”
“We don’t know. I’m calling all her friends. I left you a message on your home phone. Did you get it?”
“No. I haven’t checked messages this morning. You must have called while I was in the shower. Keep me posted, Iva.”
I hung up. “J.D.’s missing,” I said to Jock. “What the hell is going on?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
I was stunned. J.D. was missing, and it didn’t sound as if she had left her condo willingly. She wouldn’t have left a coffeepot on, nor would she have left her gun out in plain sight. It always went into the safe when she got home and only came out when she was headed for work.
I didn’t know what to do. J.D. was more than a friend. She had become an important part of my life in the few short months since she’d come to the key. I sat, my mind wandering, afraid that I was somehow responsible for whatever had happened to her.
“Matt,” said Jock, “Gear up, buddy. Lock and load. We’re going to find her.”
“I don’t know if I have the energy, Jock.”
“The Army didn’t give you the Distinguished Service Cross back in Vietnam for sitting on a sofa and staring at the bay. Off and on. Isn’t that the old Army saying? ‘Off your ass and on your feet.’”
I laughed sourly. “Yeah, and ‘drop your cocks and grab your socks.’ You have a plan?”
“Not yet. We’ll figure it out as soon as you stop feeling sorry for yourself. Then we’ll go get the bastards and bring J.D. home.”
Jock was the most deadly serious man I’d ever known. When his country or his friends were in peril, he was a force of reckoning. The only way to stop him was to kill him. And a lot of men had tried to do just that. None of them had survived the encounter.
I mentally shook myself, like an old dog just out of a bath. Jock was right. We didn’t have time for me to sit around mired in self-doubt. There was another old army saying that fit the situation. “Mount up,” I said, and we began to draw up a plan to slay the dragons and rescue Fair Guinevere.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Chief Bill Lester came through my front door, a look of concern on his face. I’d called him fifteen minutes before and asked if he could stop by. “Nothing,” he said. “Not a goddammed clue as to what happened to her.”
“Take a load off, Bill,” said Jock. “We’re trying to figure this out and there are some things you need to know.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how much you’ve been paying attention to what we’ve been doing on the Desmond and Dulcimer murders,” said Jock.
“Not much. I figured J.D. would tell me anything I needed to know.”
“We think there’s a chance that Chaz Desmond is dirty,” said Jock. He told the chief all that we knew about Doc and the Evermore Foundation. “We’d decided to confront Desmond, and Matt asked him to come to Longboat for a meeting. He was due here at eleven this morning. He didn’t show. Matt called his office and it looks like Desmond disappeared sometime last night.”
“You think it’s connected to J.D.’s disappearance?”
“Be quite a coincidence if it wasn’t.”
“Any ideas?” asked the chief.
“There’s one big loose end,” I said. “Bud Stanley in Macon. The guy who runs the Otto Foundation.”
“I’m thinking we ought to pay him a visit,” said Jock.
“We think J.D. was taken this morning,” said Lester. “Her condo looks as if she was getting ready to go to work. Her gun belt and clothes were laid out, coffee on, her cell phone next to her gun. When the crime-scene techs went through the condo they found a pastry in the microwave. Looked like she was fixing a quick breakfast.”
“Did the techs find anything that would be helpful?” I asked.
“Nothing. They got a lot of fingerprints, but so far we’re just turning up people who would have reason to be in her condo. Friends and such.”
“None of the neighbors saw anything?”
“No. The place is almost empty. Most of the owners are snowbirds and it’s quiet during the summer. She was probably gone before the maintenance manager came to work.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” I said. “If we go to Macon, maybe we’ll find something.”
“That’s a long drive,” said Lester.
“I’ve got an idea.” I picked up my
phone and called Desmond’s office in Atlanta. I identified myself and asked to speak to Mr. Macomber. I was put right through.
“Did you hear anything?” he asked.
“No, but there’s a police officer here on the island who has been working on Jim’s murder and she’s missing too.”
“You think they’re connected?”
“Don’t know, but there is a man in Macon I need to talk to very badly.”
“Okay.”
“I need a plane to get there and back.”
“Okay.”
“I was thinking about yours. When are you going to Jacksonville?”
“I’m leaving for the airport in a few minutes.”
“How long are you going to be there?”
“Overnight.”
“Can you send the plane to Sarasota to take a friend and me to Macon and back?”
“I’ll have to run that by Harry Anderson.”
“Who’s that?”
“Our general counsel. If he says it’s okay, I’ll send the plane on down.”
“You’ll let me know?”
“Five minutes.” He hung up.
I fixed some more coffee while we waited. It was almost one o’clock and I was getting hungry. The phone rang.
“The plane will be at Dolphin Aviation in Sarasota at three thirty. You can have it until midnight tonight. After that the pilots are going to have to take a break. If you need the plane tomorrow, I can get back to Atlanta on commercial.”
“That’s great, Paul.”
“Anderson said Chaz would blow a gasket if we didn’t help you out.”
“Sounds like a smart lawyer.”
“Sometimes,” he said and hung up.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Jock and I were at the airport a little after three. We’d picked up some sandwiches at Harry’s Continental Kitchens Deli and drove directly to the airport. We were standing on the tarmac just outside the small terminal when Desmond’s jet taxied up. A window opened on the pilot’s side of the aircraft and Fred Cassidy, the same pilot who’d flown me to Jacksonville and Charlotte a few days earlier, stuck his head out.
“I’ll let the stair down, Matt. Come on aboard.”
Jock and I climbed the steps to the cabin and belted ourselves in. Fred stuck his head into the cabin and said, “We’re ready to go. Should be in Macon in about an hour. There’re some soft drinks in the refrigerator.”
We took off to the northwest, out over the bay and the barrier islands that defined its outer boundaries. We flew up the coast for a short time and then turned back to the northeast on a track for Macon, Georgia. I reached for my cell phone to call ahead and reserve a rental car. No phone. I’d left it sitting on the coffee table in my living room. I mentally kicked myself and borrowed Jock’s phone. When we landed in Macon an hour later, a car was waiting for us.
By five, we were sitting in the parking lot of the strip center on Riverside Drive that housed the offices of the Otto Foundation. Two women came out and one turned to lock the door. We sat and waited.
“Maybe he’s already gone,” said Jock.
“One way to find out.” I used Jock’s cell phone to dial the number of the foundation. Bud Stanley answered on the third ring. I hung up.
“He’s in there,” I said.
“Unless he forwarded the phone to someplace else.”
“No. I saw some movement behind the big window. Probably Stanley moving across the room to answer the phone.”
“Okay.”
We sat some more. At five thirty, Stanley came out of the front door, locked it, and walked to a gray Toyota Camry parked in front of the building. He pulled out of the lot and drove southeast on Riverside Drive. We followed, Jock driving. He let two cars get behind Stanley before he entered the southbound traffic. We didn’t have far to go. Stanley took a right onto College Street and drove a couple of miles before turning onto a residential street lined by renovated Victorian homes. He pulled into the driveway of one in the middle of the block and parked in the detached garage. Jock drove by slowly. I saw Stanley leave the garage and walk into the house.
Jock parked the rental on the street three houses down from Stan-ley’s. We stayed on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. We were walking through a neighborhood that had been there for a hundred years or more. The houses all had been lovingly restored, and it was obvious that these weren’t just modern knockoffs.
“Looks like a pretty expensive neighborhood,” Jock said.
“Yeah. Pretty high on the hog for a charitable foundation administrator.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Don’t have one. Put on your ugly face and let’s see what happens.”
He scowled at me, grimacing, his lips tight, his nose a bit flared. I said, “You look like you’re constipated. Try something else.”
We mounted the steps onto a large porch that wrapped around the house. I knocked on the door and we waited. In a minute, Bud Stanley opened it and looked at me. Recognition dawned.
“Mr. Royal, this is a pleasant surprise.” He made no move to invite us inside.
“May we come in?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m off to a function. I don’t mean to be rude, but your timing is bad.”
“We need to talk,” I said.
Stanley looked from me to Jock. “Who’s your friend?”
“He’s not a friend. Let’s just say he’s an associate.”
“Well,” Stanley said, “I wish I had time to be hospitable, but as I said, I have to go.”
He started to close the door. I reached out and stopped it. He glared at me.
“We just want to talk,” I said.
“Do I have to call the police?”
“I don’t think you want to do that, Mr. Bracewell.”
Stanley looked at me for a moment. I could see his resolve drying up, but he wasn’t going to give it up easily. “Who the hell is Bracewell?”
“Robert Charles Bracewell, late of Lompoc Prison.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Okay. Call the police. Maybe we can get them to run your fingerprints. The very least that’s going to do is really fuck up your evening.”
He gave it up then. His face seemed to sag, deflate a little, his shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly, and he backed up pulling the door open. “Come in,” he said.
He led us to a living room just off the entrance foyer, told us to take a seat. He sat in a recliner that was situated so that its occupant had a direct view of a large flat-screen TV sitting in an entertainment center against the opposite wall.
“Get up, Mr. Stanley,” Jock said.
“What?”
“Get your ass out of that chair. Now. And keep your hands where I can see them.” Jock was holding a .38-caliber pistol, pointed at Stanley’s chest.
“What is this?” A note of indignation rode the rising voice.
“Now,” said Jock. “I’m not asking again.”
The man stood, hands in front of him, palms out, a sign of peace or of surrender. Maybe both.
“Matt,” said Jock, “check the cushions on the sofa. I don’t want to find any weapons there.”
I pulled the cushions and checked down the sides of the sofa. “Nothing,” I said.
“Okay, Stanley,” said Jock. “You sit there. I’ll take the recliner.”
“I don’t have any weapons,” said Stanley. “Who are you people?”
He made himself comfortable on the sofa. I took a chair across from the sofa and Jock sat in the recliner, his pistol pointed at Stanley.
“I’m looking for some friends,” I said, “and I’m hoping you know where they are.”
“Who?”
“Chaz Desmond and a Longboat Key detective named J.D. Duncan.”
“How am I supposed to know where they are?”
“They’ve disappeared. You’re a bad guy. Maybe you had something to do with it.”
“I’m not the sam
e guy who was in Lompoc. I’ve turned my life around.”
“Maybe.”
“I know Desmond, but I have no idea who Duncan is. Besides, what does any of this have to do with me?”
“We think your friend Soupy was responsible for the murder of Jim Desmond. Now Chaz has disappeared and so has the detective who was investigating the murder.”
“I told you before, I don’t know anything about that. I doubt that Soupy would be involved.”
“Are you still running drugs for him?” I asked.
Stanley’s face changed, suddenly, like a light going off, or maybe on. I thought I saw a trace of fear cross his eyes, a subtle tell that a good poker play would never allow. I’d hit a weak spot, a punch that he hadn’t seen coming.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, blustering.
“I know that you and your dad were in the drug business with Soupy’s dad. It isn’t much of a stretch to think that you’re still involved. You just happen to have a nice little charitable organization that sends kids to Laos where Soupy is one of the biggest growers of poppies. I’m thinking that somehow you use the kids to bring the drugs into this country.”
“Nice try, Mr. Royal.” The voice came from the entry foyer, a deep rumble with a southern accent. I looked to my left and saw an Asian man, a stranger, standing in the doorway, a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun pointed in my direction. “Tell your friend to drop his pistol or I’ll blow your head off.”
I glanced at Jock. He was looking at the Asian, but his pistol was pointed directly at Stanley. “If you pull that trigger,” said Jock, “Stanley dies.”
“So does Royal,” said the man with the shotgun.
“If I put the pistol down what assurance do I have that you won’t kill us?”
“This blunderbuss will be heard in the next block if I fire. I don’t want the trouble. You let Stanley go and we’ll leave quietly. No fuss, no blood.”
Jock thought about it for a beat and then laid the pistol on the floor.
“Use your foot to push the pistol to Stanley,” the Asian man said.
Jock did so, the pistol sliding easily on the hardwood floor. Stanley picked it up, pointed it at us, and smiled.
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