Not Safe After Dark: And Other Stories

by Peter Robinson

  “He was wearing flip-flops.”

  “Santa Claus was wearing flip-flops?”

  She nodded.

  “I suppose that might make a difference. Even so . . . It’s still a long way from the water. Maybe six feet. Schiller was a little guy, only around five four, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah. I thought about that, too. But he must have been walking fast, or running, then he tripped and skidded in. Those tiles can get pretty slippery, especially if they’re wet.”

  “But wouldn’t the piano just rip out of the socket?”

  Mary shrugged. “It was one of those ultralight things,” she said. “And it had a long cord.”

  Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why the hell Santa Claus should be running toward the swimming pool in the dark with a live electric piano in his arms, no matter how tight he was or how light the piano.

  A heron landed by the side of the moat. Just for a moment, I felt a slight shiver run up my spine to the hairs at the back of my neck. It was a sign I recognized. I was being watched. And not by the heron or the sunbather.

  Mary turned and walked back to the office, sandals clip-clopping against the tiles. I followed her, admiring the way her thigh muscles rippled with each step. I felt strangely detached, though; I could admire the sculpted, athletic beauty of her body, but I didn’t feel attracted to her sexually. But, then, it had been a long time since I had been attracted to anyone sexually, except maybe Karen Lee.

  Mary sat down at her desk again.

  “Look,” I said, leaning forward and resting my hands on the warm wood, “I know this might sound strange to you, but I’d like you to do me a favor without telling anyone or asking too many questions. Do you think you could do that?”

  Mary nodded slowly, tentatively. “Depends,” she said, “on what it is.”

  * * *

  When I got back to the condo, it was time for breakfast, but without the swim, my appetite wasn’t up to much. I put on a pot of coffee, drank a glass of orange juice, and ate a bowl of high-fiber bran. The healthy life.

  Usually I took my second cup out to the lanai and worked on one of the cryptics from the Sunday Times book of crosswords. That was one thing that always annoyed me about American newspapers: you couldn’t find a cryptic in any of them I’d seen. This morning, though, I took the two sheets of paper that Mary had printed out for me.

  OK, so Schiller was alone at the pool after the sing-along, or so Ed, Karen, and Ginny said. Anyone could have gone there in the dark, killed him, and tried to make it look like an accident. And at least three people knew he was there: Ed, Karen, and Ginny. Were they telling the truth?

  There was some risk—there always is with murder—but it was minimal. Most of the residents are elderly and they’re usually in bed by ten. This isn’t like some of the places where you get kids drinking all night and skinny-dipping; there are no kids at Whispering Palms.

  First, I looked over the list of condo owners I had persuaded Mary to print for me.

  Schiller’s unit was owned on paper by Gardiner Holdings, registered in Grand Cayman Island. If that didn’t set alarm bells ringing in an old gumshoe’s mind, what would? But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it meant.

  Ginny Fraser’s unit was a time-share, though Ginny herself wasn’t listed as owning any time.

  Ed Brennan’s unit was registered to a Dr. Joseph Brady in Waterloo, Canada, and Karen Lee’s to a travel agency called EscapeItAll, based in Sarasota.

  One way or another, these four had all ended up at Whispering Palms, Fort Myers, Florida, and I was damned if I could see any reason other than pure chance.

  So which one of them did it? And why? Or was it someone else?

  I pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose and reached for the telephone. Being a private investigator from Toronto has some advantages in Florida.

  * * *

  When I’d finished on the phone I felt the need to go out for a drive. Not far. Maybe over the skyway to Sanibel and Captiva. Lunch at the Mucky Duck. Seafood and Harp Lager. After all, I was on vacation, whatever Al said about gumshoes and the search for truth and justice.

  But when I walked out to the car, I saw Karen Lee bent over the front tire of her red Honda rental just a few parking spots down, white cotton shorts stretched taut over her ass.

  I stood and admired the view for a while then walked toward her and asked if she could use any help. Why not? She could only tell me to get lost, that she was perfectly capable of fixing the tire herself. Or she could accept my offer graciously.

  She did the latter.

  Turning on her haunches and shielding her eyes from the sun, she smiled and said, “Why, thanks, yes. I’d appreciate that.” She had dimples at each corner of her mouth. Cute.

  Then she stood up and brushed the dust off her hands. She was wearing a pink tank top, and a little sweat had darkened the cotton between her breasts.

  “Flat,” she said.

  A facetious reply formed in my mind, but before I could voice it she went on, “The tire. I should have done something about it last night. I thought something was wrong, maybe a slow leak. But I couldn’t be bothered. Then, when I came out just now, I saw it was flat.”

  “No problem,” I said, and in no time we took off the flat and put on the spare.

  “Thanks a lot,” said Karen, smiling. “It’s not that I’m helpless or anything. I mean, I know how to change a tire. But—”

  “Forget it,” I told her. “My pleasure.”

  “What I was going to say was it was nice to have a bit of company.” And she smiled again, giving me the full benefit of her dimples and baby blues. The front of her tank top was even damper now and I could see beads of moisture on the tops of her breasts, between the tiny hairs. She had her hair tied back and fixed with barrettes, but a few strands had come loose and stuck to her flushed face. Some ice queen.

  “Hot, isn’t it,” she said, waving her hand in front of her face. “Look, why don’t you come in and clean up? It’s the least I can do.”

  I could have gone to my own place, just a few buildings down, but I’m no fool. I followed her up the steps to her second-story unit. Inside, it was pretty much the same layout as mine: open-plan kitchen and living room, two bedrooms—one with its own bathroom—guest bathroom, and the lanai out front.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Karen said, picking up a few magazines scattered on the sofa. “I wasn’t expecting company. Please go ahead. Use the bathroom.”

  The bathroom was full of the mysterious paraphernalia of feminine beauty—potions, eyebrow pencils, little sponges, cotton wool, Q-tips. I washed the sweat and grime off my hands and face and flushed the toilet, using the noise to cover up the sound as I went through the drawers and cupboards. There was nothing out of the ordinary: soap, deodorant, shampoo, talcum, tampons, Advil, Maalox. The only interesting item was a bottle of Prozac. These days it seems half the world’s on Prozac.

  When I got back to the living room, Karen had just finished tidying things into neat piles. She smiled. “Cold drink?”

  “A Coke would be great.”

  “I’ll just go freshen up.” She looked down at her body and spread her arms, then seemed embarrassed by the gesture. In fact, now we were inside, her manner had grown much more nervous and I didn’t know how to put her at ease. Too many movies about the nice guy next door turning out to be a psycho, I suppose.

  “I’ll help myself,” I said. “You go wash up.”

  “OK . . . I’ll . . . er . . . It’s in the fridge. I won’t be long. Are you sure you’ll be OK?”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  When she went into her bathroom, the lock clicked behind her. As soon as I heard the shower start up, I began a quick search, not knowing what the hell I was looking for. If Schiller had been murdered, Karen had to be a suspect. Much as I hoped she hadn’t done it, she had been one of the three to know where he was after the sing-along. And how drunk he was.

 
All I found out was that Karen was halfway through The Concrete Blonde; that she more than likely slept alone; that she favored casual clothes but had a couple of expensive dresses; that she didn’t seem to watch videos very much; and that her musical tastes extended from Mozart to Alanis Morissette.

  When she came out, she was wearing red shorts and a white shirt. Her hair was still damp from the shower and it hung in long hanks, framing her pale oval face.

  “There,” she said, hoisting herself onto a stool at the kitchen counter. “That’s better. What a start to the day.”

  I poured her a Coke. “I guess you must still be pretty upset about your friend dying?” I said.

  “Bud. Yes. How did you . . . ? Of course. I’ve seen you in Chloe’s, haven’t I? Always alone. No wife? Girlfriend?”

  A definite hint of flirtation there, I thought. “My wife died three years ago. Auto accident.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. That must be terrible.”

  I shrugged. “There’s good days and bad. Were you very close to Mr. Schiller?”

  She looked away. “Not really.”

  “I don’t mean to pry or anything,” I said, “but were you . . . I mean, what drew you to him?”

  “I don’t know. We weren’t an item, if that’s what you’re getting at.” She blushed. “I’d just been through a painful divorce. I was depressed. I suppose I came down here to escape . . . I don’t know . . . I guess maybe I succeeded. Bud and the others, they were my escape. It was all fun. No demands. Bud was a laugh. He never took anything seriously.”

  “You were one of the last people to see him alive, weren’t you?”

  Karen nodded. “Yes. With Ed and Ginny.”

  “What happened?”

  “We’d all had a bit too much to drink. When everyone else left after the carols, we started joking around by the pool. I fell in. I wanted to go home and change out of my wet clothes, so the three of us came to my place. Bud said he had a couple of things to do, then he was going to turn in.”

  “Did he say what he had to do?”

  “No. Just a couple of things.”

  “Do you think he could have been meeting someone?”

  “I suppose so . . . I . . .” She looked me in the eye. “Why?”

  “Just curious. How did he seem?”

  “He was very drunk.” She frowned, then went on. “You know, I’ve thought time and time again that we should have done something, that I should have said something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, made him come with us, something like that. Somehow I feel responsible.”

  “Don’t be silly. There’s no way you could have known.”

  “Even so . . . I can’t help feeling guilty.” She held her hands up. “Look, I don’t know how we got into this, but it’s a beautiful day out there and I don’t want to get even more depressed.”

  Interview over. “You’re right,” I said, getting up. “I’d better be going myself.”

  She walked me to the door. “Thanks for the help. It was nice talking to you.”

  “You, too.” Before she could close the door on me, I turned. “Don’t think this too presumptuous of me,” I began, “but how would you like to come out for dinner or a drink tonight?”

  “Tonight?” Her face dropped. “Oh, I can’t. I’m busy.”

  I started to turn away. “It’s OK. I understand. Believe me. My mistake, especially after what you said about the divorce and all. I’m sorry.”

  But she rested her warm hand on my arm. “It’s nothing like that,” she said. “I don’t want you to think I’m making an excuse. I’m not. I really do have something going on tonight. The three of us are having a sort of wake. I couldn’t miss it.”

  Maybe this wasn’t the brush-off, then. Heart thumping, fear of rejection bringing me out in a sweat, I persevered. “How about tomorrow night, then?”

  She smiled. “I’d love to. Really, I would.”

  “Great. Do you like seafood?”

  “Sure.”

  “How about the Big Fin?”

  “Fine. Look, I’ll meet you at the bar there at seven. I’ve got some running around to do first, and I’m not sure if I’ll have time to get back here. OK?”

  “Fine. Big Fin. Bar. Seven.” I walked off, grinning like an idiot.

  * * *

  The phone started ringing, the way they do, the minute I stuck my key in the door that afternoon. I put the groceries I’d bought at Publix on the kitchen counter and picked up the extension.

  “Jack, it’s Mike.”

  My partner. “You were quick.”

  “Well, partly it’s a slow week.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And partly there’s not a hell of a lot to report.”

  “Go ahead anyway.”

  “Nothing on any of the people on the list. Squeaky clean, every one of them.”

  “What about Schiller?”

  “That’s the only interesting part. As far as I can make out, nobody knows him. I checked out the Kingston address you gave me. It’s owned by a couple called Renard. They confirmed that a man called Bud Schiller rents it from them and the checks come in regularly.”

  “Where from?”

  “That they wouldn’t tell me. Anyway, I got the name of the guy next door to the Schiller place, and he said the house is empty most of the time.”

  Now what the hell did that mean? “Anything else?”

  “That doctor in Waterloo, Joseph Brady, he checks out. He’s Edward Brennan’s family doctor, has been for years, and he rented the condo to Ed for the first time a few years back. Apparently the poor guy needed to recuperate from some illness—nothing specific, you know doctors—but I got the impression this Ed character had suffered various health problems on and off over—”

  “Mental or physical?”

  “Can’t say. But Brady’s a family doctor, Jack, not a shrink.”

  “OK. Go on.”

  “So it was a kind of convalescent holiday. He liked it and kept coming back.”

  “How about EscapeItAll?”

  “Perfectly legit. They own a few condos down the Gulf Coast and rent them through local agencies. Quite a lot of the Toronto travel agents do business with them, and the ones I talked to said they never had any problems.”

  “And the time-share?”

  “Also legit. There is one thing, though. Virginia Fraser, one of the names you gave me?”

  “Right.” Ginny Fraser.

  “I talked to the woman she rented from, and it turns out that the dates Fraser got weren’t available originally.”

  “So?”

  “So she paid over the odds.”

  “Aha. On welfare, too. Is that all?”

  “Just about. Gardiner Holdings, that company in the Caymans? Looks like it’s the front of a front of a front. I couldn’t even get a whiff of the real movers and shakers behind it.”

  “OK,” I said. “Thanks a lot Mike. You did good work.” Then I hung up and mulled over what I’d learned.

  * * *

  “Gee, I dunno, Mr. Erwin. I really shouldn’t be doing this,” Mary said when she found the right key.

  “It’ll have to be cleaned out, anyway,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just . . . Still, you are a licensed private investigator, right?”

  “Right. And maybe we can check on next of kin, make sure no one’s gonna come down and file a lawsuit against you.” I hated pressuring her that way, but I had to get inside Schiller’s condo if I was to get any further. I was now more or less convinced that someone—either one of his three pals or someone he had arranged to meet—had gone to the pool and murdered him. It would help if I could find out whether he had anything to hide.

  Still biting her lip, Mary turned the key in the lock.

  Schiller certainly traveled light. A quick search of the master bedroom revealed only warm-climate clothes and a tattered Tom Clancy paperback on the bedside table. No papers in the drawers, no photographs,
nothing. The cops must have taken his passport. The bathroom held only what a single man’s bathroom would, and the guest bedroom was empty except for the bed, stripped down to its mattress. Kitchen and fridge contained the usual—milk, bread, condiments, a couple of TV dinners, cutlery, booze. By the looks of it, Schiller ate out a lot.

  In the living room, the stereo, TV, and VCR took up one corner. A cabinet under the VCR held a stock of tapes. One of the movies was from a local rental store, and it was overdue by two days. The tape was still in the machine.

  “I’ll take this back tomorrow,” I said to Mary, casually slipping the tape back in the box.

  Mary just nodded and glanced nervously at the door.

  “I think that’s about all,” I said, “if you want to go now.”

  Mary was out the front door like a shot. “You didn’t find anything about next of kin?”

  “Nothing. No news is good news. Don’t worry.”

  She flashed an anxious smile. “I’ll try not to.”

  And I hurried back to call the courier company. It was late, but with luck, they could get a package to Mike overnight.

  * * *

  “Jack?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Mike.”

  “Hang on . . . Just a minute . . .” I sat up quickly. It felt like I had to drag myself a long way back from God knew where. I rubbed my eyes and checked my watch. Three thirty in the afternoon. I must have dozed off after lunch. I opened the fridge and popped the tab on a can of Michelob, then picked up the phone again. “Yeah, go ahead, Mike. Sorry about that.”

  “No problem. I took the video down to Ident first thing this morning. It was a bit of a mess—must have been a popular movie down there—but Harry found a match you might be interested in.”

  “Schiller’s got a record?”

  “Not Schiller. The only prints we could find on file belong to a Sherman Smith.”

  “That rings a bell.”

  “It should do,” he went on. “Remember that land scam twenty years ago? Smith defrauded hundreds of people out of their life savings.”