by Tim Ellis
He finished the lemonade off and stood up. ‘Thanks. I’ll go and take a look, and then I’ll wander round the grounds.’
‘You know where I am if you need me,’ she said, lying back down on the lounger in an attempt to harvest the last rays from a sinking sun.
He walked back into the house, through the kitchen and into the enormous garage. The car was a new 7-series white BMW. Next to it was a bright red Dodge Viper SRT, but it was last year’s model. It crossed his mind that the Viper might be Roger’s little folly, but from what he now knew about the bank manager – and his wife Barbara – it was more likely to be her car than his. A fast car for a fast lady.
After a quick look inside the BMW he opened up the trunk – nothing. He pulled all the carpeting away, examined around and under the spare wheel, checked inside the light moldings – nothing. If he was being honest, that’s what he expected to find. He moved back to the inside of the car, but it was spotless. It was as if Roger Harrison had called in to have his car valeted on the way home on Thursday evening. He checked the glove compartment – nothing. He pulled the rear seat out – nothing. The last thing he did was switch the engine on.
Contrary to what Rae thought, he wasn’t a complete technological dinosaur. He followed her instructions and pressed all the buttons on the satnav until he found a list of addresses and zip codes. In an ideal world, he expected Rae would have connected her tablet to the satnav and simply captured the data. Instead, he had to write down the twenty-three addresses in his notebook that Harrison had felt necessary to store in the machine.
He switched the engine off and locked the BMW again. As an afterthought, he looked through the window at the inside of the Viper, tried the door – it was open.
It wouldn’t hurt to sit behind the wheel – just for a moment to see what it felt like. He’d never really had a hankering for a sports car. His two tours in Vietnam had swallowed up his crazy years, and then he’d had no money for a sports car. After that, came Cassie and the two girls. By the time he could afford a sports car it was too damned late, but he could understand how a grown man might desire something as beautiful as the Viper. He made himself comfortable in the red leather seat and gripped the steering wheel.
Involuntarily, his mouth began making a sound like a sports car with twin exhausts easing through the six gears. When he realised what he was doing, he smiled and climbed out of the car.
‘You crazy old fool,’ he muttered to himself.
Just before leaving the garage, he tried the Viper’s trunk – it was locked. He couldn’t imagine that Barbara Harrison would be stupid enough to stuff her husband’s rotting corpse, or his briefcase for that matter, into the trunk of her car. And even if she had, it was now Tuesday. She’d had over four days to dispose of any evidence. Not only that, although her morals seemed a bit lax, he didn’t think she was the type of woman who would kill anybody – never mind her husband.
He strolled round the grounds until he reached the jetty where the two boats were moored up. One was a small boat with a sail and an outboard motor. The other was a motor boat called “BABS”, which must have cost the Harrison’s in excess of a million bucks.
He climbed on board and searched the boat from bow to stern and starboard to port. There were four beds as well as the master suite, two heads and crew quarters. How the other half live, he thought. But were Roger and Barbara Harrison members of the “other half” club? Maybe the boat was a gift from Barbara’s parents as well.
He made his way back to the sun deck.
Barbara Harrison was still lying there half-naked.
Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, and he couldn’t see whether she was watching him approach or not.
‘You don’t look like a man who’s found the answer to Roger’s disappearance,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Another lemonade?’
‘No, I’ll make tracks, but I’ll be going to the bank sometime tomorrow.’
‘I’ll ring Fred Byrne the assistant manager, and tell him to give you full access to our accounts.’
‘Thank you. I’ll call or drive by tomorrow afternoon to let you know how things are going.’
‘I’ll wait to hear from you. Of course, if Roger walks through the door, I’ll be sure to let you know.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem to be taking your husband’s disappearance very seriously.’
She pulled a face. ‘He booked a two-week vacation without telling me. What am I supposed to think?’
‘He might have done that under duress, so that nobody would miss him.’
‘What do you mean?’
He sat in the chair he’d been sitting in before. ‘Look, it seems to me that Roger is a steady type of guy. He’s cautious, he plans for the future, he’s dependable. Is he a spur of the moment type of guy?’
‘Never.’
‘There we go then. What’s happened here hasn’t been planned – at least not by him.’
‘You think somebody’s kidnapped him?’
‘It’s a possibility. Is he the type of guy who would take a bullet for you?’
She nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I think he is. I’ve never thought of him in that way before, but I think if it came to it – he would.’
‘That’s what I think as well. I don’t think he’s with another woman. Nor do I think he’s gone away on vacation. He’s being coerced into doing something against his will, but I don’t know what, or by whom yet.’
‘Oh!’
He stood up to go. ‘Let’s see where we are tomorrow, shall we?’
‘All right, and thank you, Mr Gabriel. I was beginning to think . . . well, you probably don’t want to know what I’ve been thinking.’
He made his way through the house to the front door. ‘Nice car, by the way.’
‘You mean the Viper?’
‘Yes.’
‘Daddy bought it for my twenty-first birthday in February.’
‘Twenty one! I didn’t think you were a day over eighteen.’
She laughed. ‘You can have a drive of it, if you want?’
‘Thanks for the offer, but I’m far too old to be driving a sports car.’
‘You’re never too old to feel young again.’
He smiled like a lost cause.
Barbara opened the door and said, ‘I’ll get the gates for you.’
He nodded and made his way out to the bright yellow Nitro, which had paled slightly when compared to a red snake that had a maximum speed of 220 miles per hour.
***
Rae walked up the drive.
A blond-haired boy of about thirteen or fourteen was dribbling himself and shooting baskets.
‘You need an opponent,’ she said.
‘Yeah! Got any?’
‘I might.’
‘Hey! Nice tats.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Do they go all the way down?’
‘Do your parents know you have a dirty mind?’
He laughed. ‘My dad says it’s healthy.’ He started bouncing the ball around her.
‘Is that right?’ She stepped in, stole the ball off him and scored a basket.
‘Not bad for a girl.’
It was her turn at offence. She side-stepped him, turned and shot the basket. ‘Typical boy – all talk and no action.’
He grinned. ‘Is that right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ she said fainting left, spinning right, pirouetting like a ballerina and shooting the basket. ‘You have played this game before, haven’t you?’ she taunted him.
He stopped and put his hands on his hips. ‘Where’d you learn to shoot baskets like that, lady?’
‘Same place as you, only I was good at it.’
She came to a standstill, tossed the ball between her left and right hand, and her lip curled up. ‘You given up, boy?’
‘Yeah. You got a boyfriend?’
‘Are you offering?’
‘I might.’
; A tall thin woman came out of the front door. ‘Can I help you?’
Rae threw the ball at the boy, took her press card out of her pocket and moved towards the woman. ‘Butterfly Raeburn from the Record. I’m looking for Ronnie Paterson.’
‘Why?’
‘I’d like to speak to him about the body he found on Porpoise Point on Friday morning.’
‘Butterfly! Is that a real name?’
‘People call me Rae.’
‘Yeah, I can understand why. So, it looks like you already found my Ronnie?’
‘We were just shooting baskets, mom,’ Ronnie chipped in.
Rae laughed. ‘You mean I was shooting baskets. You were standing there like a spectator.’
He grinned. ‘Yeah.’
‘Ronnie has already told the police everything he knows.’
‘I know. I’d just like to ask him a couple of questions – that’s all.’
She crossed her arms. ‘Go on then?’
‘Hi, Ronnie.’
‘Is Butterfly your real name?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I like it.’
‘Thanks. So, you found the body?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you want to describe what happened?’
‘I’d just finished my paper deliveries and was riding my bike along the Point coming home. I spotted the man’s legs just below the sea wall and was curious.’
‘Which he shouldn’t have been,’ Mrs Paterson interrupted.
‘I stuck my head over the sea wall and shouted to him, but he didn’t move.’
‘So, you went down there?’
‘Which he shouldn’t have done,’ his mom chipped in again.
‘Which I won’t do again, mom.’
‘You’d better not, my lad.’
‘How many times do I have to promise, mom?’
‘How many promises have you got?’
‘So yeah, I went down to see who it was mainly. I mean, the sun was up already. It was gonna be another hot one, but this guy had a suit and an overcoat on. Anyway, I seen plenty of dead people on the television . . .’
‘Not on my television you haven’t, Ronald Paterson.’
‘. . . And this guy was dead.’
‘Did you notice anything unusual about him?’
‘He had a cigarette behind his ear.’
‘Which one?’
Ronnie half-turned to work out left from right. ‘Yeah – his right one, but there was also a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his mouth with the ash still on it. I reckon it went out, but it burnt his shirt collar before it did. And the more I think about it, the more I think he must have died while he was smoking that cigarette.’
John Doe must have still been alive when the old couple saw him. Was that his last cigarette?
‘You seem to know a lot about cigarettes, Ronnie Paterson,’ his mom challenged him.
‘I don’t know anything about them, mom.’
‘And make sure you keep it that way. Only stupid people destroy their health with cigarettes.’
Ronnie rolled his eyes. ‘Like dad, you mean?’
‘Exactly like your father,’ Mrs Paterson said, shaking her head. ‘Smoking and drinking himself to death. He’s on the slippery highway to Hell that’s for sure, and you’ll be joining him if you don’t stay away from cigarettes, drink and women.’
As much as Rae was enjoying the lessons in motherhood from Mrs Paterson, she really wanted Ronnie to stay focused on the dead body. ‘Did you call the police then, Ronnie?’
‘Yes. Well . . . no.’
‘No?’
‘There was something else.’
‘Oh?’
‘Wait here.’
Ronnie ran into the house.
Rae looked at Ronnie’s mom who shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. Just like his father, he is. Joe and I divorced three years ago, but he still has contact with Ronnie – when he remembers, that is. Have you got kids?’
‘No, thank you,’ Rae said.
‘Good choice. The trouble with children is that they’re non-returnable.’
‘Not like husbands.’
‘Exactly. But even they seem to hang around like unwanted gifts once you have no further use for them.’
Ronnie burst through the front door as if he was being chased by a swarm of bees. ‘Here,’ he said, thrusting his balled fist towards Rae.
She opened up the palm of her hand like a Venus flytrap.
He dropped something heavy into it. ‘I know I shouldn’t have taken it, but I couldn’t resist the gold penknife. I feel terrible.’
‘Oh, Ronnie!’ his mom said.
‘Sorry, mom.’
‘I’m so embarrassed. Didn’t your father and I teach you right from wrong?’
He hung his head and shuffled his feet. ‘Yes you did, mom.’
Rae looked down at what Ronnie had put in the palm of her hand. There was a gold chain with a golden eagle feather knife attached to it by a gold ring. The handle of the knife was designed like a golden feather, the blade was black and the head of a beautiful golden eagle had been engraved in a circle above where the blade rotated outwards. Rae could understand how a thirteen year-old boy might be attracted to such an object.
Pick me up.
Wrap your hand around my handle.
Open up my blade.
Am I not beautiful?
Just think about how I would impress your friends.
I’m yours.
Take me home.
Keep me.
Yes, it was certainly a knife a boy would want to take home and keep, but she wasn’t interested in the knife. On the ring was also a key, which had Palatka Railway Station and the number 33 etched into it.
Her heart began to jitterbug. She guessed the key opened a left luggage locker. What was in the locker? Should she tell the police? She’d have to talk to Tom – he’d know what she should do. It was evidence in a – what? Was the man’s death a suicide as Laura Jordan seemed to think, or was there another story inside that left luggage locker?
She put the gold chain with the knife and left luggage key into her rucksack.
‘Are you going to tell the police?’ Ronnie asked.
‘I don’t know, but if I did you know you’d be in serious trouble?’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘I’m working with an ex-policeman – he’ll know what to do.’
‘Can I have the knife back when you’ve finished with it?’
‘Ronnie Paterson!’ his mom said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him towards the house. ‘You’re grounded for the rest of your life – get inside.’
‘And my offer still stands,’ Ronnie called over his shoulder.
‘Oh, what offer is that?’ she asked.
‘If you’re looking for a boyfriend – I’m your man.’
She gave him an affectionate smile. ‘I’ll bear it in mind, and thanks for talking to me.’
Chapter Four
His plan was to drive over to the station and see Mona, but he guessed six-thirty was probably too late – she would have gone home long ago. Instead, after three attempts, he found her home number in his phonebook and called.
‘Hi Mona,’ he said in a happy-go-lucky voice.
‘What do you want?’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘That’s no way to talk to the man you used to spend all your waking hours with for five years.’
‘That was a long time ago, Tom. I’m somebody else’s partner now. You deserted me, remember. What do you want?’
‘Can’t a guy ring up his favorite detective and ask how she is?’
‘I’m the only detective you know. What do you want?’
‘Would you like to come over to my place – I’m cooking?’
‘Before I agree to act as a guinea pig in one of your food trials, what do you want?’
‘Do I have to want something?’
‘I can’t remember one time you contacted me when you didn’t want something. Well?’
‘A few minor things is all, but I also want you to know that if you say go to hell – the offer of being poisoned still stands.’
‘Go to hell.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll pick you up . . .’
‘No, I have to do something first. I’ll be at your place around eight.’
‘Anything special you want me to cook?’
‘You know I always liked your spaghetti and meatballs.’
‘Coming right up, Madam.’
The call ended.
She’d come round, and they both knew she’d come round. She always came round in the end. He just had to work his old Tom Gabriel magic on her.
He called in at the grocery store, bought the ingredients and then headed back to his home – or at least the place he’d been living in for the past four years – Suite 13 at the Casablanca Inn.
After wrecking her truck, and acquiring his PI’s licence in September, Allegre Gabbamonde – the owner of the hotel – had allowed him to stay for free, but it had cost him. First, he’d had to pay for the repairs to her “prizewinning vehickle” that she’d loaned him and he’d wrecked, which amounted to just over three thousand bucks. Next, he had to agree to continue as on-site security from eight o’clock at night until eight o’clock in the morning. It was a sleeping duty, and he could take a night off now and then if he needed to do a stake-out or such like, but she’d made it quite clear that it was to be more “then” than “now”.
After parking the Nitro, he decided to show his on-site security face around the hotel before going up to his rooms and preparing Mona’s spaghetti and meatballs.
Everything appeared quiet until he reached Allegre’s rooms. She was sitting in her rocking chair on the veranda smoking the rum, ginger and cherry Black Cavendish tobacco from her old clay pipe as she did every night. Rattlesnake, her grey shih-tzu dog that she’d rescued from death row in the dog pound, was lying at her feet spitting at him.
‘Well, if it ain’t Mister-on-site-night-time-sleeping-security-Gabriel. You know you got a visitor?’