No Right Turn

by A. J. Stewart

  He snarled at me. He knew my kind of trouble, and he didn’t want any of it, clearly, because he pushed his chair out and stood with a huff. “You know our power went out, right?”

  “I am aware,” I said. “I want to see the morning before the hurricane, if you have it.”

  He led me into the back of the building, a corridor leading to small offices. Most looked used, but none had actual people in them. Real estate agents didn’t make their dough sitting in the office. The kid led me into an office that looked like all the others except for the lack of paperwork lying around. There was a computer, which he brought to life, and he tapped and clicked and up came the video.

  The shot showed the front of the offices, across the parking lot and onto the westbound lanes of Southern Boulevard. It was those lanes I was interested in. Unlike the video at the Beadman residence, this one had a time stamp. I got the kid to pull it up to when I wanted it. I figured it had been fifteen minutes to deliver the F-88 and then I allowed fifteen minutes’ grace to get down to Southern. In reality, it would take longer, especially in storm conditions and with traffic trying to flee the island at the last minute, but I wanted to start watching too early, not too late.

  I watched the traffic zoom by, looking for the truck. I didn’t see it. I watched well past the time it could have possibly taken the truck to get there. The kid huffed and puffed as he waited. He had his ear out for the squeaking door in case a potential buyer wandered in, but the real estate business wasn’t exactly humming directly after a hurricane. Except for my house. Folks seemed awfully interested in that.

  When I had seen enough, I thanked the kid and walked out. I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t seen the truck. I was just covering my bases. Southern Boulevard was the most southerly crossing on this part of the island, and I knew for a fact that the middle of the three crossings was still open when the truck would have been leaving. That was my next stop.

  The second stop would be easier. I jumped on the freeway and got off at Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard and then backtracked on myself. The building I wanted overlooked the on-ramp for I-95 North at Okeechobee. I parked in the lot and wandered in. The building was an apartment complex for senior citizens, with lake views on one side and freeway views on the other. I knocked on the door to the office I wanted and was asked to come in. I did that.

  The guy sitting at the desk was a good-looking black kid with a winning smile. He gave me the smile.

  “Mr. Jones,” he beamed.

  “Leo, how’s it going?”

  “It’s all good, sir, it’s all good.”

  “How’s the property management game?”

  “Learning plenty, sir.”

  “You’ll be a mogul before you’re thirty, Leo.”

  “That’s the plan. What can I do for you?”

  “I need your eyes, Leo, I need your eyes.”

  Leo had been taken under the wing of my good friend, Sal Mondavi. Sal was a grumpy piece of work with a heart of gold, which he exhibited by giving kids with troubled backgrounds money to pay for college. Many of the kids did odd jobs for him in return, although he never asked for it. Leo had helped Sal with his computers and set up video surveillance in his pawn shop. Sal had ensured Leo graduated college without a mountain of debt.

  I suspected the apartment building would have security cameras covering the parking lot that overlooked the freeway on-ramp, and within seconds, Leo had the video I wanted. The traffic was heavy on I-95 with folks trying to make a late break for it, but eventually, we saw the moving billboard that was Dale Beadman’s transport truck. I saw the green truck with DBR on the door. Dale Beadman Racing. The truck crawled up onto I-95 and headed out of shot. I checked the time on the video. It had been a slow haul off the island. Lots of people had been caught out by the late call on the intensity of the hurricane. But the truck had made it onto the freeway and headed for Charlotte.

  I thanked Leo for his time. I’d crossed the t’s and all that and seen the delivery vehicle on its way. Now I needed to figure out how the cars that were left behind had come to disappear.

  Chapter Eight

  The shadows were growing long as I headed back across Blue Heron and onto Singer Island. I had a mind to head straight for Longboard Kelly’s, but something in my guts turned my sails for home. I decided what I needed was a run on the beach, just to clear the cobwebs. I’m not a natural runner, few pitchers are, but I enjoyed the sea breeze and the feeling of the endorphins that kicked in toward the end. I figured I’d call Danielle when I got home and see if she was up for it.

  I stopped before I got to the front of the house. I saw the notice on the door and for a moment I thought FPL must have been letting me know they were doing repairs to the dead power cables or something. But FPL tended to stick their notices on doors with masking tape. This notice was tacked to my door with a nail. I wasn’t impressed with the damage to my door, even though the thing was waterlogged and would have to be replaced. There was a principle involved. I pulled the notice from the door, leaving the nail in place.

  The seal of the County of Palm Beach was at the top. I read the note and then I read it again. The notice was summed up in the bold type at the top of the paper: Code Violation. Unfit for Habitation. Apparently, the county had made the determination that my home was so damaged by the hurricane that it was no longer appropriate for human life. It went on to say that all persons, I assumed including me, were to vacate the premises and not enter again until all violations had been rectified and subject to inspection by an officer of the Planning, Zoning and Building Department, County of Palm Beach. The letter was signed illegibly by someone called Peter Malloy, Enforcement Inspector.

  I checked the time. The offices of said inspector would be closed. Lucky for him. I left the front door alone and strode around the back of the house. The speedboat was still there, lying at a jaunty angle as marooned boats tend to do. I pulled apart the plastic that we had stuck up where the sliding door used to be and stepped inside. It felt dark and damp but far from uninhabitable. I’d paid good money for worse hotel rooms. I threw the notice on the counter and went to the fridge and opened it to realize that I had no power. There wasn’t a cold beer on the premises, which only served to further darken my mood.

  The fix for a bad mood is a good run. It either improves my outlook or it delivers the mean reds in full fury. It’s an each-way proposition. I grabbed a t-shirt and shorts from my SUV and changed in my bedroom as the carpet squelched beneath my feet. The street had an eerie calm to it as I ran down toward City Beach. There were no birds flapping around looking for their nightly perch, no warm lights from the windows of homes. I jogged past the closed-up shops and bars at Ocean Mall and through the dunes and out onto the beach. The ocean had pushed the sea debris up to the high tide mark. The vendors with their beach loungers and umbrellas and boogie boards were nowhere to be seen. The water looked serene, almost inviting, showing the other side of its considerable mood swings. I ran on the hard sand north past the hotels and high-rise condos, until the island thinned out. My pulse was up and the good hormones should have kicked in, but I still felt uneasy.

  I turned and ran back before the sun disappeared and I lost my bearings completely. I almost missed the cut through the dunes back to the mall. I dropped my pace to a walk through the parking lot of the mall and wandered back home in junglelike darkness. The lights were glowing from across the Intracoastal and I figured there must be some kind of transformer still out of action, preventing power from making it back to Singer Island. I was okay with the dark. It suited my mood.

  My mood, however, picked up as I reached my house and saw Danielle’s truck parked out front. She was sitting in the cab reading something on her phone. I walked across the front of the truck so she could see me without being startled. I find it best practice not to spook firearm bearing law enforcement types, even the ones that love me. She picked up on the movement and buzzed the window down.

  “You’re even sweatier than you
were this morning. How is this possible?”

  “Went for a run.”

  “Uh-oh. What happened?”

  “Come inside, I’ll show you.”

  We went in through the front door this time, and I handed her the letter that I had left on my counter. She read it over and then read it again.

  “How did they ascertain the house was unfit?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I’m going to take a shower.”

  The power might have been out, but the water was running just fine. Underground pipes versus overhead wires. Go figure. The only downside was that I hadn’t relit the pilot on my hot water heater, so the shower was frigid, but that cooled me down quicker. I got dressed and found Danielle sitting on the counter. The furniture in the living room was damp or dead, so it was as good a place to sit as any. She had lit a camp light and was reading something on her phone.

  “You know it’s not really the county’s job to enforce code violations here,” she said.

  “No?”

  “No. Code violation in an incorporated area is a city thing. The county might do a preliminary damage assessment, but that’s not what this is.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I don’t know. It’s—”

  There was a hefty knock at the door. It was no Mormon knock. Those boys tended to prefer doorbells anyway. This knock was serious and laced with intent. Danielle slipped off the counter onto the damp carpet. I went to the door.

  It was a sheriff’s deputy with a bright flashlight pointed at my face. The county seemed to have my number today. I couldn’t see the deputy behind the beam, and he didn’t recognize me.

  “Deputy,” I said, with my hands in front of my face. “How can I help you?”

  “Sir, are you aware that this dwelling has been declared unfit for habitation?”

  I was tempted to say no, but lying to law enforcement about easily proved facts never ended well, so I went with, “Is that so?”

  “Yes, sir. You must vacate this property immediately.”

  His eyes and his flashlight beam drifted over my shoulder and then got wide.

  “Danielle,” he said.

  “Todd,” Danielle replied. “Won’t you come in?”

  He hesitated but came inside. We stepped to the counter so we could see each other by the camp light. The deputy pointed his flashlight down but didn’t turn it off. I tried to blink away the purple splotches that now marred my vision.

  “I didn’t know this was your place,” said the deputy to Danielle.

  She nodded. “Have you met my fiancé? Miami Jones.”

  He looked at me but didn’t offer to shake hands or anything. “I’ve heard of you.”

  “What’s this about?” asked Danielle.

  “Sheriff got a call about illegal use of a condemned structure. Possible looting.”

  “Do we look like we’re looting?” I asked.

  He didn’t look at me. “The call came in to the sheriff himself. He put the call out. I don’t think he knew it was your place, Danielle.”

  “Well, it is.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think that matters now. Someone with the sheriff’s personal number called it in. The dwelling has been condemned, apparently.”

  “Not condemned,” said Danielle, picking up the notice on county letterhead. “Unfit for habitation. Whatever that means.”

  “Either way, you shouldn’t be here.”

  “It’s not unfit for habitation,” I said.

  “You an engineer?”

  “No, but are you telling me an engineer crawled under the house to check the joists?”

  “I have no idea, Miami. But the call is on the sheriff’s radar, and that means trouble for you. I’ll tell him it’s your house, Danielle, but that’ll cut you some grace to get out, not to stay. You got anywhere you can go tonight?”

  Danielle looked at me. I nodded. I didn’t want to make trouble for her. I sure wanted to stick it to the county, but Danielle had only recently resigned from the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office to join the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. As the state’s version of the FBI, it tended to hold a trump card over the PBSO, and it would not be a great way for her to start by being seen to be taunting her old boss. And the fact was we did have somewhere to stay.

  “Give me a minute,” I said, and I wandered out the back, through the plastic sheeting and onto the patio where the cell phone reception was better.

  “Lucas,” I said.

  “Hey, Miami. How’s the cleanup, mate?”

  “So-so.” I told him about the notice and the deputy. “Is your condo still available?”

  “Of course, it’s yours.”

  Lucas had offered us the use of his two-bed rental condo at PGA National. I never even knew he had an investment property, but there was plenty of stuff that I didn’t know about Lucas. He was hardly overbooked anyway, he said. Every course in South Florida was currently oozing warm moisture like a wrestler’s armpit. That’s the thing about summer hurricanes. It really sorts the wheat from the chaff when it comes to diehard golfers.

  “Just collect the keys from the property manager. I’ll give them a call.”

  “I appreciate it, Lucas. Really.”

  “Anytime, mate.”

  “How are things in Miami?”

  “We’re right as rain, pardon the pun. It’s a marina. The tide went up, the boats went up. The tide went down, the boats went down. It’s all in where you tie them.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “Listen, Miami. I was thinking about going and checking on Lenny tomorrow.”

  “I was thinking about that, too.”

  “In the arvo, that okay?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, then. I’m buying. And thanks again.”

  I cut the call and went back inside.

  Danielle and Todd were still chatting, but they both fell silent when I came back in.

  “We’re all set. Lucas’s condo.”

  Todd nodded. “Good. It’s better that way. This place is a bit of swamp, anyway. I’m sure you’ll sort it all out tomorrow.” He nodded and turned for the door. “Sorry for the trouble,” he said as he turned his flashlight to the path and stepped outside.

  We watched him walk back to his car from the doorway. Danielle put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Thanks, MJ,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “I know you didn’t want to go.”

  “Hey, I hear Lucas’s condo has HBO.”

  “Since when do you care about television?”

  “I don’t. I’ve just never seen HBO, that’s all.”

  We packed some clothes and toiletries and locked the front door despite the rear being nothing more than plastic sheet. I hoped the sheriff’s office was as vigilant about real looters as they were about the nonexistent ones.

  We each got in our vehicles, and Danielle followed me away to PGA National.

  Chapter Nine

  Lucas’s condo was a lot more comfortable than the Singer Island swamp. It was a two-bed, two-bath two-story townhouse off the Avenue of the Masters. There was water and power and all the modern conveniences. I tried the television and found HBO. It just looked like regular TV to me, so I shut it off. The refrigerator worked, but there was nothing but bottled water in it, so we grabbed corn chips and a six-pack from Publix and sat in the small courtyard. There was no golf course view, but it was dark anyway, so I didn’t see the point. It was a nice, if bland, condo. Pretty fancy for a guy who lived in a room above the office at the South Beach marina.

  There were a handful of folks on the golf course when we left the following morning. Danielle headed away to help people whose homes had been declared unfit for habitation but didn’t have friends with rental condos at the local golf course, and I headed into the office.

  Clematis Street was not getting better. Seagulls were feasting on mounds of garbage, and the stench was reaching biblical proportions. The lot by my office had been cleared
, so I parked and ran up the stairs. Ron and Lizzy were already there, sipping on coffee in my office.

  “How is everyone?” I asked, taking the sofa since Ron was in my chair.

  “Well,” said Ron. “And you?”

  “Homeless,” I said. I explained what had happened and where we had ended up.

  “So not exactly homeless, then,” said Lizzy. “Homeless people live on the street. They don’t even get to try HBO.”

  I wanted to fire back a witty retort but nothing came to mind, mainly because I knew she was right and I was being melodramatic. I was lucky I wasn’t sleeping in a school gym.

  “What do we know?” I asked.

  Ron drummed his fingers on my desk. “Well, Mr. Beadman seems to have done rather well for himself.”

  “That’s news?”

  “Not really. But I mean his companies. He got into automotive engineering. His company, Beadman Automotive Engineering, develops vehicle technologies—fuel systems, antilock brakes, that sort of thing. He was already a successful driver, but his business was where the real money came from. They license the technology they develop to car manufacturers. Seems they’ve come up with a few systems that get used in most cars these days, and the residuals look pretty good.”

  “So he’s rich.”

  “He is, but as you say, that’s not news. It hasn’t all been plain sailing. I was able to find a few lawsuits.”

  “Aha.”

  “Companies get sued, it happens. But two suits stuck out in particular.” Ron shuffled through his papers as he sipped his coffee. Lizzy sipped her coffee while she waited for him to continue. I didn’t have a coffee so I just waited.

  “He was sued by former business partners over the development of a fuel injection system that he patented. Seems he and the partners, well, parted company, shortly before Beadman announced the new system. The partners claimed that he had developed the system while in partnership with them but had held it back until after he had bought them out, knowing the value of the company would skyrocket.”

  “And did it skyrocket?”