by Diane Capri
Stepping carefully around the broken dishes, papers, clothes, and trash, I squatted down and reached for the photograph. The frame hung loose from one side. I slid the print out of the frame. We looked so happy, the three of us kids mugging for the camera, and my mother’s lovely slim body in a white one-piece suit. I wondered what she would have looked like if she’d had a chance to grow old. Thankful the photo had not been damaged, I slid it into the zippered side pocket of my shoulder bag. My brothers and I had very few photos of her or of Red.
From the center of the room I could see, through the open bedroom door, that the chaos was no less in the other room. Standing, I started to step across the debris and into the bedroom, and then I noticed that the seat tops were missing off the bolted-down marine barstools on the far side of the living room.
“No!” I trampled across my possessions and peered down into the hollow pipe that served as the base for one of the stools.
“Shit!” I picked up a spatula off the bar and threw it at the wall. It fell soundlessly onto a pile of file folders. Somehow, somebody had figured out where I kept my cash, in a hollow compartment in the base of one of the stools. The stools had come off a fancy sportfisherman B.J. did a remodel on, and aside from the fact that they were free, they took up less space in the little cottage. Sometimes I worked for folks who owned big custom boats and preferred to pay in cash. I didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t always deposit it in my bank account. What a mistake. My emergency money, two thousand dollars, was gone.
I shoved aside several corkscrews and linen dish towels and pressed my forehead against the cool Formica of the bar. Shit. Why me? Here I lived in one of the richest neighborhoods in the country in what is obviously the littlest, cheapest, poorest house in the neighborhood. Why would a thief think there would be anything to steal in here? Two thousand dollars was nothing in this neighborhood. But it had been my safety net. I stared into the empty hole. I’d always been convinced that most burglars wouldn’t even know that that type of marine chair base could come apart. I looked around the room. The TV and VCR were still there. That didn’t make sense. No crackhead or petty thief would have left them. Leaning against the side of my desk, I could see the laptop computer Neal bought me as a gift was still there in its carrying case. Curious.
There was only one other person who knew where I kept that cash stash.
Cleaning up was something I just could not contemplate at that point. Stepping over the food and debris on the kitchen floor, I opened the refrigerator door and reached for a cold beer. At least he hadn’t trashed the little bit of food and drink in there. As I pulled a can out of the plastic ring on the six-pack holder, it occurred to me that one beer was missing. When you’re single, the only one in the house doing any eating or drinking, you remember these things. I had bought that six-pack yesterday. I hadn’t drunk a single beer. But somebody had.
It was that beer that was the clincher. That and the fact that whoever had trashed my place didn’t really seem to be searching for anything, but rather had destroyed my property purely out of anger and meanness—a passion of sorts. That sort of angry passion was familiar to me, too familiar.
I fished around in my pocket for the card Detective Collazo had given me earlier, and I reached for the phone. At first I hadn’t intended to call the cops, since I’d already spent hours with cops that day, and I didn’t really see what good they’d do. On most break-ins in the neighborhood, they as much as told folks not to go on hoping they would ever see any of their stuff again. But this was different … apparently my home had just been trashed by somebody the cops thought I had killed.
***
“Of course. It had to be him, Detective.”
Collazo stood in the center of my living room looking around at the mess with a slack, almost bored expression on his face.
“Miss Sullivan, we will take your report, and we will investigate, and we will draw our own conclusions.”
I walked over to the laptop computer picked it up, and held it in front of his face.
“Does this make any sense to you? Or the TV there, or any of the other stuff in here that would be so easy to sell?”
He turned his back to me and walked over to the easel and my torn painting.“This is your work.”
“Well, it was. It’s garbage now.”
“Such a shame.”
Neal had always admired and encouraged my painting. He was forever telling me to take a few paintings to this gallery owner friend of his over on Las Olas. “Yeah. I am surprised he would do that.”
“He … you mean Garrett.”
“Of course. I mean, what about the money? What other possible answer could there be?”
“You claim he tossed the place just to cover the fact that he was stealing your money.”
“Obviously. That’s the only thing missing.”
“Garrett was a reasonably intelligent man.”
“In a street-smart kind of way, yes.”
“Yet you are saying that he wanted you to believe a stranger trashed and robbed your cottage here, but he did not take these valuables.”
“Maybe I surprised him and he wasn’t able to take everything he wanted to take. Maybe he was still in here when I pulled into the driveway, and he had to run when he heard my Jeep.” Or just maybe, I thought, he wanted to make it look like a burglary, and then that anger of his took over again.
“Perhaps you surprised some other burglar or kids, vandals, or—”
“But it had to be somebody who knew where that money was, don’t you think?”
He didn’t speak at first, and I was determined to wait, to make him answer that. When he did finally speak, he did so without turning around. His voice was so soft, I could barely make out the words. “Perhaps you overestimate the cleverness of your hiding place, Miss Sullivan. Many of the criminals in this town have worked in the marine industry at some point. Or yes, perhaps it was someone who knew where that money was.” He turned slowly and looked at me with those black eyes. “You knew where the money was.”
“Oh, come on, you don’t think I would do this to my own place?”
“I consider all possibilities.”
“Seems to me like you’ve only been considering one possibility ever since this whole mess started, Detective.”
“Garrett is gone, Miss Sullivan. The blood on the boat, the distance to shore ... how could he have made it?”
“Detective, Neal used to be a Navy Seal. He was probably wearing scuba gear. If you don’t think he could have swum that distance underwater, you don’t know the Seals.”
“I see no evidence to convince me the man is still alive, and”—he waved his arm to indicate my cottage—“a little event like this is not going to change my mind on that count.”
“Little event? What are you talking about? Neal was in here tonight, I’d bet my life on it.”
“I see.” He slipped his gold pen from his pocket and began to write in those tiny letters on the pages of his notepad.
I pointed at the officer taking photos of the mess. “Have them check for fingerprints. I know you’ll find Neal’s prints in here.”
He looked up at me and squinted his eyes. “Yes, you’re quite correct there, I’m sure. You said earlier that Garrett lived with you. This place will still be covered with his prints.” He picked up my torn canvas of the Stranahan House painting. “It would take a very desperate person to destroy things just to try to throw suspicion off himself.” He walked up very close to me and said, almost into my ear, “Or herself.”
“Jesus.” I stepped back from him, putting distance between us to give me some measure of comfort. “Wait a minute. Hold on. Somebody breaks into my home, and when I call you guys for help, you come in here accusing me?”
“There is no sign of any forced entry.”
“Well, Neal had a key to this place at one time. Maybe he made a copy. Or hid one out in the yard somewhere.” My voice was getting higher and more strained. I sounded guilty
to myself. But it was Neal, dammit, I knew it. I had to make him understand, but I wasn’t willing just yet to tell him about the rage I had seen in Neal that one time. “Detective, I don’t care what you think about all this,” I told him, waving my arm at the mess in the room, “but the truth is I did not kill that girl or Neal. She was dead when I got aboard the Top Ten, and somehow, Neal got off alive. He was here tonight in my cottage. You’ve got to believe that.”
“No, Miss Sullivan, you’ve got to think about the kind of trouble you’re in. If you don’t have an attorney, I suggest you get one, and I expect to see you at the station tomorrow morning, first thing.”
After they’d left, I sat on the stool top I had replaced and finished my now warm beer, staring across the room, seeing nothing.
How had this happened? How, in the course of one day, had I become a suspect, apparently the only suspect, in a murder case? This didn’t happen to people like me. Innocent people didn’t go to prison for crimes they didn’t commit, did they? I was not that naive. Of course they did; innocent people had been found to have spent years in prison, in solitary confinement, even on death row. The thought of prison terrified me. I had to come up with a plan, because if the police weren’t looking for other suspects, someone had better start.
But just then, I wanted to sleep, and I knew I couldn’t do it in the cottage. I turned off the light, left the porch light on, and locked up. Collazo was right about one thing: I couldn’t see any sign of the lock having been jimmied. I figured there was one place I could sleep safely without having to worry about whether or not anybody was coming back.
Abaco rubbed up against my thighs.
“Some watchdog you are.” I rubbed her ears. She seemed very pleased with herself.
I looked around the beautifully manicured yard with its large live oak tree blocking the view of the stars. It was dark in among the hedges and shrubs, the butterfly garden, and the shed on the far side of the house where the Larsens stored their recreational toys. The night sounds of crickets and the brush rustlings of the creatures who survived in suburbia sounded natural and soothing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Had he really been here? If so, how did he get from the Top Ten offshore to here in the past fifteen hours? Or did I just want so much for him to be alive that I was stretching the evidence to make myself believe it? Maybe it was just a thief, and something—Abaco or a boat or even my returning—scared him off before he could take all the goods. I put my hands under Abaco’s chin and lifted her face. “God, I wish you could talk. It was him, wasn’t it? You’d have torn up anybody else. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Angry as I was about my trashed house, I was more relieved by the evidence that the son of a bitch was still around. Wrapping my arms around the dog’s neck, I whispered, “He’s alive, isn’t he, girl?”
I walked down the dock and climbed aboard Gorda. Abaco looked at me as though asking permission to come aboard. “All right, you useless dog.” I would feel better with company.
When Red built Gorda, he knew there would be times he would have to take her down to Miami or up to Palm Beach, and he wanted to be able to sleep aboard. The main wheelhouse had three windows across the front, with the wheel and all the engine instruments on the console below. To starboard, aft of the wheelhouse door, was a chart table with a swing-out stool, and aft of that was a narrow bunk stretched across the bulkhead. To port, through the bulkhead aft, steps led down to the engine room with the tiny enclosed head in a corner, while in the center sat the single 220-horsepower CAT D342 six-cylinder diesel that powered the tug. In spite of the engine room insulation, sleeping on the little aluminum shelf over the engine was nearly impossible due to the heat and noise when under way. But tonight, I knew I’d feel far safer sleeping there than in the mess that was my cottage. I reactivated the alarm system and fell into the bunk without bothering to undress. I wasn’t awake long enough to realize how uncomfortable I was.
Chapter VI
Abaco’s barking blended right in with my dream. I was running, running hard and scared in total darkness. I was barefoot, struggling to run in sand, then mud, deep thick muck that sucked at my feet. The darkness was so complete I couldn’t even see my body, but I knew something was back there, getting closer. I opened my mouth to try to scream for help, but no sound came out. My voice was gone. As I started to crawl up to the surface, out of my dream, the first thing I became aware of was a distant muffled voice calling, “Hello, hello, is anybody home?”
I opened one eye and blazing sunlight assaulted my retina. Gradually, my eyes began to make out shapes in the glare. This wasn’t my cottage. There was no bare aluminum ceiling in my cottage. When I saw the instruments and the helm, I remembered where I was and why I was there. I groaned and pulled the pillow over my head.
Abaco stopped barking briefly, growled a low throaty rumble, and scratched at the wheelhouse door. She wanted to get out and protect her territory.
“Hello? Miss Sullivan?”
Whoever it was didn’t seem to want to go away. Apparently I had no choice but to get up and deal with him, whoever he was. It was beastly hot in the closed wheelhouse, as the sun had been up for quite a while, beating on and heating up the aluminum superstructure. I disentangled my legs from the damp, knotted sheet and stood up. My mouth tasted like bilge water from too much beer the night before, and I knew I smelled even worse. Through the wheelhouse window I could see a man standing at my cottage, pounding on the door. It was unusual for anyone to come back here. It required entering private property through a closed gate. He was wearing what looked like a very expensive suit and fancy tasseled loafers. He exuded power and confidence. In the hand that wasn’t beating on the door, he held a briefcase.
“Persistent fellow,” I said aloud. When I attempted to comb my fingers through my hair, the strands seemed hopelessly tangled. Giving up, I slid my fingers under Abaco’s collar, unlocked the wheelhouse door and slid it open. The dog barked, and the man spun around at the sound, a startled expression on his face. When he saw me struggling to hold on to the dog, a fleeting expression of distaste passed over his face. I guessed I looked about as bad as I felt.
I leaned down. “Abaco, stay.” She sat down obediently, surprising the hell out of me.
“Miss Sullivan?”
“Yeah, that’s me. Sorry about my appearance.” I gave another futile swipe at my hair. “Things were a bit of a mess last night, and I slept on the boat.” For some reason I could not define, I found myself not wanting him to know just what the inside of my cottage actually looked like at that moment. “I guess I kinda slept in.” I slid the wheelhouse door closed. “What time is it, anyway?”
He raised his wrist and glanced at his watch. It looked expensive. “It’s nearly nine-thirty. I apologize for waking you.” He walked across the grass and extended his hand to me. “My name is Hamilton Burns, and I would like to talk to you if you have a few minutes. It’s about the Top Ten.”
He had my attention then. I stepped onto the seawall and shook his hand.
“Seychelle Sullivan, but I guess you know that already.”
He nodded.
“Look, it’s so hot inside, why don’t we just sit over here?” I led him over to the picnic table in the shade of a big live oak tree.
He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and brushed away the leaves and seeds on the rough wood bench. He explained, “I am an attorney, and I represent the owners of the motor yacht the Top Ten.” He set his briefcase on the table and snapped the catches. Raising the lid, he removed some half glasses and put them on. “They appreciate very much the efforts that you went to yesterday to secure the yacht after the unfortunate events that occurred aboard the vessel.”
Unfortunate? I thought. I’m not sure that’s the way Neal or Patty Krix would have described the events.
“My clients have enlisted me to present you with this check.” With a flourish, he produced a cashier’s check from behind the lid of his briefcase. “I think you will find it r
epresents a very fair sum, and upon your acceptance, we will ask you to sign this document certifying your receipt of the check.”
I looked down at the check. It was made out to me in the sum of ten thousand dollars. I’d never seen a check that big with my name on the “pay to the order of” line before. Unless you count those fake sweepstakes ones you get in the mail all the time, but, of course, they don’t count. No, this one was real, and since it was a cashier’s check, I could exchange it for cash that very afternoon. The check impressed me, and Burns could undoubtedly see that on my face.
That must have been what he was counting on. The document he was pushing at me was several pages long, and he had all the top pages folded back. Only the last page, which required my signature, was showing. Obviously, he was so certain I would jump at the ten grand, he didn’t think I’d worry about little things like reading the document he was asking me to sign.
What he wasn’t counting on was the fact that I knew perfectly well that this was a pittance compared to what that boat was worth and what I was entitled to as the salvor. And as much as I needed money at that point, ten thousand dollars wouldn’t do me a bit of good when it came to buying out Maddy. I needed more than twice that amount. And what I resented most of all was the assumption that he could just come traipsing in here with his fancy clothes and take advantage of me.
I picked up the salvage documents. “Do you mind if I read this?”
“It really isn’t necessary. It’s just the standard form for this sort of thing.”
“Mmm.” I glanced through the contract, the heavy paper crackling as I folded back each page. “I see. And since I’d have trouble understanding all these great big words, I really shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about it, isn’t that right, Mr. Burns?”