by Mark Stone
“What?” Jonah responded, looking up at me and breathing heavy. His face was turning green and his mouth settled into an uneasy sideways line across his face. He looked about a half a minute away from throwing his breakfast up all over this pier, but I had faith in him. If he was going to make a career of this, he was going to have to get used to dead bodies, even in a town like Naples. He knew that. He’d pull it together.
“There’s no hole in the jacket or the shirt. There’s no entry point in her clothing,” I explained. “And no visible blood either.”
“She changed clothes?” he asked, narrowing his eyes as he looked at the body.
“Not after a wound like that,” I answered. “Somebody changed her after the fact.”
“And dumped her out here?” Jonah asked. “Why would they do that?”
“No idea. Finish what you’re doing,” I said, standing. “Emma likes things to be thorough, and she’s not the kind of woman you let down if you can help it.”
That wasn’t necessarily true, of course. Emma was good at her job and she did like things tidy. I remembered that from way back when she used to babysit me. I also remembered that she had the heart of a teacher and the patience of a saint if the subject at hand didn’t involve NASCAR racing or television spoilers. It did a soul good to have a healthy fear of their boss though, and I figured Jonah could use that.
“Yes, sir,” he answered, swallowing his nausea and getting back to business.
I moved toward the edge of the pier where Emma was still on the phone.
As I neared her though, I saw that this was not a pleasure call. Her body was too tense. Her face was too tight.
“I understand that, but I don’t know what you expect me to do about it,” she said, pacing around the end of the pier. “I am sure,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you think I would call you if there was any doubt in my mind?” She stopped for a beat and took a deep breath. “Boomer. You have to call him. The ambulance will be here in minutes. You have to get him to the morgue. Don’t let him hear about this from someone else.”
She hung the phone up and stared out at the water for a few moments. Turning, she seemed to be lost as she strode toward me.
“That Boomer?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Yes,” Emma choked out. “I figured the quicker I let him know, the better we can deal with this.”
“I agree,” I answered, folding my arms over my chest. “It’s always better to map out a game plan whenever a murder takes place. I assume you’re also under the impression it was a murder.”
“The woman was shot, Dillon. Of course, it’s a murder,” Emma said, her voice cracking. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about who this woman was, Dillon. That’s where we’re going to get into the weeds on this.”
My heart skipped a beat. “You know her?” I asked, my brows knitting together.
“That’s right,” Emma said, her face falling even more. “You weren’t here, were you?” She exhaled loudly, and her entire body deflated as she did. “You met the district attorney, Ethan Sands?”
“I have,” I answered, remembering the less than cordial disagreement we had about my brother Peter and his possible involvement in a series of murders. In the end, Ethan had been right to wait for more evidence, and we both knew it. Peter had nothing to do with those murders. Of course, I wasn’t about to go back to the cocky DA and let him know how right he was.
“The woman you fished out of the gulf,” Emma said. “That’s Victoria Sands. That’s his wife.”
“His wife?” I asked, turning back to the body. “Boomer told me he wasn’t married.”
“He didn’t think he was,” Emma said. “Up until this afternoon, everyone thought Victoria Sands died three years ago.”
Chapter 3
News of a woman’s body being pulled from the gulf had spread pretty thoroughly throughout the town by the time Emma had finished up with her preliminary investigation and watched as paramedics loaded the corpse up into the ambulance. For all its big city bluster and new money flair, Naples had something of a small town feel to it, especially among the locals. You asked how peoples’ families were. You kept up with their accomplishments and shared in their tragedies. That meant that when something of note happened, it didn’t take long for it to work its way around.
I had three missed calls from my grandfather by the time I walked back to my truck, a beat up red Chevy that I bought for next to nothing once I made the decision to move back here, and started toward the sheriff’s department.
Tapping his name on the screen, I waited for the old man to pick up on the other end as I made my way up 101st and through the heart of the city. Like any time when the weather was even close to nice, people were out in force today. You had the tourists, of course. They were easy to spot with their oversized sunglasses and shirts with name of the town across their chests. You had the snowbirds too. They were a bit less noticeable. Coming down here every winter when the weather wherever they live the rest of the year got too bad for their delicate sensibilities, this crowd felt some sort of ownership over the town.
We knew better though. The real Naples didn’t exist in the pretty shell on 101st or the gleaming beachfront hotels that glittered along the coast. They were nice. Hell, they were better than nice, and they were definitely where most of the city’s money was made. The real Naples though, the true heart of this place, was under the surface. It was in the back-road houses and overlooked watering holes. It was in Rocco’s and The Pink Cloud; Places that barely had a sign on the wall let alone a write up in some fancy dining magazine.
Now I had nothing against tourists and I was even okay with the snowbirds, but they couldn’t call this place home. Not the same way we could.
“Where the hell you been?” My grandfather asked, bypassing the customary “Hey” I usually received whenever he answered the phone. “I called you three times.”
“Well, as I’m sure you heard by now, I’ve had some business to attend to,” I said, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. “And why aren’t you at the doctor, old man? I could have sworn you had an appointment right about now.”
“The lady doctor called me earlier and postponed. Said she had to do an emergency surgery or something,” he said.
“You can just call her a doctor, Grandpa,” I replied, turning off of 101st and taking a left toward the sheriff’s department.
“Hell, I don’t mean anything by it,” he answered. “You know me. I still call the remote control a clicker.”
I smiled a little as I pulled into the parking lot.
“And why are we talking about what I can and can’t call things when there’s something bigger going on? Heard you found a body today.”
“Is that what you heard?” I asked, putting the truck in park and stepping out into the lot.
“Don’t you be like that,” he said. “You know there’s no such thing as classified when it comes to family.”
“I definitely don’t know that, old man,” I said, shaking my head, smiling despite myself, and making my way toward the building that now housed most of my days. “Doesn’t stop you from telling me what you know about it though.”
“Not much,” my grandfather admitted. “Carter Wellman and his boys were further down shore. They saw the body from a distance. A woman or a girl, right?”
“Now you know if there’s a question mark at the end of that sentence I can’t answer it,” I replied, pushing through the doors and into the offices.
“Y’all run a tight ship over there, don’t you?”
“Only way to do it,” I said. “I think I’ll be home late tonight. You can get dinner for yourself?”
“I took care of myself for fifty years before you were born and twelve while you were up North pretending to be a Yankee. I think I can handle feeding myself.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “And get to that doctor’s appointment. Dr. Day couldn’t have postponed it too long.�
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“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “Keep pushing me, little boy, and I’ll spring a hole in this fancy boat of yours.”
“You could,” I mused. “But then where would you live?”
“You got me there,” he admitted. Then, his voice dipped back into seriousness. “You be careful out there, Dilly.”
“Always, Grandpa,” I answered. “I’ll see you soon.”
Hanging up the phone, I took a look around the office. The Collier County Sheriff’s Department was a big enough force for the size of the community we were working within. They weren’t exactly the most seasoned when it came to this sort of thing however. Middle class locals aside, Naples was an ultra-white-collar community. Crime in general was way down from the national average, and violent crime was almost unheard of. That was why I had very little doubt that when word of what I’d pulled from the water today spread from the upper echelon of the community, it’d undoubtedly hit the news. You can’t keep murder in Mayberry a secret for long, even if Mayberry had grown a bit from the way you remembered it.
I moved toward my desk, readying myself for the living nightmare that was writing a report about what had just happened. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the necessity of such things. Records had to be kept for investigations to even take place. I just hated the fact I had to do it. I was a man of action. At least, I liked to think I was. To me, that was a good enough excuse as to why I had such a hell of a time stringing even a rudimentary sentence together.
I wouldn’t have time to lament my fate now though. No sooner had I made it to my desk that I heard Boomer’s voice sound throughout the pit. “Storm! Is that you? Get in here!”
Boomer had taken to calling me by my last name during working hours. I understood why. Offering me a job without many of the hoops other officers had to jump through was proof enough of preferential treatment. He didn’t need to go around talking to me like we were drinking buddies too. Even though we were, it would only serve to drive home a point that the chief of police probably didn’t want to have get out.
Still, it was as weird as hell hearing him call me that.
“Be right in, Chief,” I answered, repaying his formalities with a little of my own. Tossing my phone onto my desk, I walked toward his office.
“Hey, Dillon,” Tammy, the dispatcher said to me cheerfully as I walked by. She was a good-looking woman with blond hair so light it was almost white, pale porcelain skin, and copper eyes that only served to set off the rest of her features. Boomer liked to tease me about the fact he thought the woman had a crush on me (after hours, of course). I didn’t pay it much attention though. I was just getting my sea legs back, so to speak. I wasn’t looking for anything like that. At least, not right now.
“Hey there, Tammy,” I responded anyway, shooting her a polite smile and nodding kindly at her. “Nice day.”
“Every day’s a nice day if you believe it is,” she answered, smiling.
“I’ll have to try that sometime,” I said, smiling wider and heading into Boomer’s office.
Chief Boomer Anderson had always been a hell of a pig. All the way back to when we were kids, the man could never manage to keep things in order. Now that we were grown, it was clear nothing had changed.
Papers sat strewn, not only on his desk, but also messily across the floor. His waste paper baskets were filled and even overflowing, and there were cheeseburger wrappers littering his side counter.
“There was no need to tidy up the place just for me, Boom,” I said once the door was closed behind me. We might have still been on the clock, but I wasn’t about to call my best friend “Chief” with nobody looking.
“Sit down, Dil,” he said, glaring up at me. I could tell from the tone of his voice that whatever we were about to discuss wasn’t pleasant.
“What’s going on?” I asked, plopping down on a chair across from him. “I was just about to fill out a police report about Mrs. Sands.”
“Stop that right there,” Boomer said, waving his finger at me. “I can’t have you going around referring to the body you just came across as Victoria Sands.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I balked, leaning forward in my chair. “You know me better than to think I’d ever talk about an ongoing case with a civilian.”
“Of course, I do,” Boomer answered. “But I don’t just mean civilians. Until I tell you differently, the woman you pulled from the gulf is officially a Jane Doe, even to people in this office.”
“That’s fine, Boom,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “But Emma identified her. She was pretty sure about it.”
“I know how sure she thinks she is, Dil. But she’s jumping the gun. She saw a bloated corpse on a pier and expects me to go calling the damned district attorney to tell him that the wife he thought had died three years ago when her boat went down out in the middle of the Gulf has turned up. She’s been alive all this time. Until a bullet took her out that is.”
My mouth tightened. Boomer had a point. There was little to gain by him assuming things until he knew for sure. Still, I understood where Emma was coming from. “Ethan is your friend. He’s probably Emma’s friend too. She likely didn’t want him hearing the news from strangers.”
“And I can appreciate that, but it’s not enough for me to go on. When Victoria Sands’s boat went missing, it was a big story. Ethan was just a public defender back then, but there was still enough talk to put him through the wringer in terms of public opinion. There were questions about what she was doing out on the water that late at night, as well as whispers about connections she might have had to some unsavory characters in town. The fact that Ethan got to where he is despite that is a testament to how impressive he is at his job.” Boomer shook his head. “I won’t put that man through that again, and I sure as hell won’t condemn him to mourning his wife for a second time until I know for damned sure that it’s her.” “I can understand that,” I said, impressed even though I didn’t admit it.
“Unless the sea life has nibbled too much of them away, we should have fingerprints within the hour. If not, we’ll have to go with DNA, and that’ll take a little longer. In any event, not a word to anyone about this until we have confirmation.” He took a deep breath. “And now for the reason I asked you to come in here.”
“What?” I said. “That wasn’t the reason?”
“I wish,” Boomer said, running a hand through his hair. “Something else happened while you were out fishing with your nephew today.” He blinked at me and set his jaw. “It’s not good.”
Chapter 4
My body tensed up as I looked over at Boomer, waiting for him to tell me what had just happened. My mind was racing with possibilities, each worse than the last. The first scenario, of course, involved my grandfather and the cancer he had been fighting for the last few months. I had just talked to the old man seconds before I walked in here though. It couldn’t be him. Then I thought about Boomer’s girls, his wife and daughters. If they had been hurt, he wouldn’t be sitting here so calmly though. I knew that like I knew my own reflection. Couple that with the fact that both Charlotte and Isaac were doing well and probably face deep in some of the best ice cream southern Florida had to offer, and I wasn’t quite sure what my friend was alluding to.
“Well, don’t just leave me hanging, Boom,” I said, resting against the back of my chair, my left leg bouncing up and down the way it did whenever I got nervous; a tick I must have picked up from the Storm side of my gene pool, seeing as how both my grandfather and my mother thought it was a damned irritating habit. “That’s not the kind of thing you can just lay out there without following up on it.”
Boomer sighed heavy, which set my heart to racing even more. This man was my best friend in the entire world, which meant he knew me better than just about anyone on this spinning blue rock. It also meant he knew what was going to grind my gears and get me worked up. If he was having this much hesitation in telling me what had gone down, then it meant he knew how it was going to affect
me.
“Spit it out Boom,” I said firmly, my leg bouncing like a paint mixer.
“Alright then,” he said, leaning up in his chair so far that he rested his elbows on his sinfully messy desk. “An hour or so ago, a unit with a K-9 in tow pulled over a black BMW driving East on the Golden Gate Parkway, right before you hit Tamiami Trail. It was swerving in and out of lanes erratically and the driver then failed a field sobriety test after refusing a Breathalyzer.”
“Okay,” I asked hesitantly, unsure of what this had to do with me.
“The K-9 reacted to the car and, based on that, the officer searched the car. He found twenty kilos of cocaine in the trunk. “
“So, you caught a runner,” I said. “A drunk runner at that. Ten bucks says the car was boosted too. BMWs are like bicycles in this city.” I shook my head. “So, what does this have to do with me, Boom? You want me to look into it?”
“More or less,” Boomer said uneasily.
“What is it?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “What aren’t you telling me.”
“The person in the car, Dil,” Boomer said, clearing his throat. “It was your brother.”
“What?” I asked, sure I had misheard. My eyes grew to the size of saucers and my leg jutted to a stop immediately. “My brother?” I shook my head. “You found my brother, Peter Storm, drunk driving a drug car on the Parkway in the middle of the afternoon?”
“Trust me. It surprised me as much as you,” Boomer said, exhaling loudly as though telling me this had lifted a huge weight off his shoulders.
“That doesn’t make any sense, Boom,” I said, pushing forward in my seat. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Peter is a sack of garbage. There’s no denying that. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around what the hell he would have to gain from running drugs.”
“You’re assuming this is the first time,” Boomer challenged, his bushy eyebrows shooting up.