“I think two of the bikers are dead.”
“Sir, I need your name and a phone number where I can reach you.”
“I’ll wait here for the cops.”
“Sir, calm down and talk to me. Do you see any blood? Who are the victims? What is your phone number?”
I hung up. “Friggin’ bureaucrats,” I muttered.
“Matt, what the hell just happened?”
“I don’t know, but those guys were going to shoot us.”
We sat quietly. People were out of their cars, milling around, telling each other what they had seen. A sheriff’s department cruiser came around the corner of Honore, siren blaring, light bars flashing frantically. He stopped on the shoulder, went to the bikers lying on the street, felt for a pulse, spoke into his radio. He saw the shotguns lying on the road a few feet from the wrecked bikes. He went over, peered at them, but didn’t pick them up. He was a good cop. Leave it for the crime-scene folks.
I got out of the car, started walking toward the deputy. “Get back in your car, sir,” he said.
I kept walking toward him. He stiffened a bit, on guard. “Deputy,” I said, “I’m Matt Royal. I called this in. These guys were trying to kill me and my passenger. Call your boss. He’ll fill you in.”
“Who’s your passenger?”
“Call your boss, Deputy. Give him my name. He’ll tell you what he can. I’ll be in my car.” I turned and walked back to the Explorer. I could see body damage near the right rear wheel well. I walked to the other side. There was a gash in the metal just forward of the rear wheel, running along the side almost to the front door. My insurance company wasn’t going to like this.
I got into the car. “What’s going on?” Logan asked.
“I don’t know.” I pulled out my cell phone and called Bill Lester.
“Matt,” he said. “Where the hell are you and Logan and why did you take him out of the hotel? The sheriff is all over my ass.”
“Bill, we’ve got bigger problems than that. Some people just tried to kill Logan and me. I think they were the same people who were at the hotel.” I told him what I knew about the morning’s events.
“Marie is at the courthouse,” he said.
“Why?”
“She was on her way back to the key when a couple of bikers came up behind her. She thought they might be the same ones she saw at the hotel. She turned off Fruitville and stopped in the middle of traffic in front of the courthouse. She went inside and told the security folks she needed help.”
“Where is she now?”
“In a witness room on the first floor. A deputy is guarding the door. She’s fine.”
“Bill, I don’t like being out in the open. We’re sitting ducks. Can you get the sheriff’s office to let us go on and we’ll talk to them later? And I want to get Marie.”
“I’ll handle it.” He hung up.
I related all this to Logan.
“Those sons of bitches,” he said. “They’re after Marie.”
“I think they somehow found out where you were hiding. I don’t understand who these bikers are, though.”
“Hired guns, I’d guess.”
“Probably so. But who’s doing the hiring? And why?”
“I don’t know.”
The deputy walked over to my side of the car. “Is it drivable?”
“I think so,” I said.
“The sheriff said for you to go on home. Somebody will be in touch about this mess.”
“Thanks, Deputy. I hit them on purpose. They were trying to shoot us with those shotguns.”
“Well, you took ’em out, Mr. Royal. These two won’t be giving you any more trouble.”
I cranked the Explorer, pulled slowly around the dead bikers, and headed west.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I called Bill Lester and told him we had left the scene and were on our way back to the key. He was alarmed about the attempt on our lives and wanted us to come directly to the station to give a statement to him and his new detective. “It’s about time you met her anyway. And the Sarasota sheriff’s office will want a statement from you.”
“I’m on my way to pick up Marie. I’ll call you when I start back to the island.”
“Don’t forget, Matt. This is important.”
“I know. I promise.”
I drove to the Judicial Center on Ringling Boulevard and found a parking place. “Pull your hat low,” I said, “and stay here.”
“If somebody’s after Marie, I think it’d be better if there were two of us.”
“I doubt that the bad guys stuck around after Marie dodged into the courthouse. Besides, somebody wants you dead. Let’s wait until we get a reading from Bill Lester.”
He reluctantly agreed, pulled the hat low on his face, and slunk down in the seat. I walked to the front door, identified myself to the deputy at the security point, showed him my driver’s license, emptied my pockets into a basket, walked through the metal detectors, got my stuff, and followed the guard’s directions to the witness room where Marie waited.
Another deputy was at the door. I identified myself again, showed my license again. He was expecting me. I went into the room. Marie was sitting in a chair reading a magazine. She did not seem frazzled at all. She looked up, smiled, and said, “Is Logan okay?”
“He’s fine. Waiting in the car.”
“Then let’s go.”
“You okay, Babe?” asked Logan as I put Marie into the backseat.
“I’m fine. What happened to Matt’s car?”
Logan told her about our day as I drove out toward Longboat Key. As we were rounding St. Armands Circle, I said, “Guys, you can’t go home. People are looking for you.”
“I don’t think your house would be much better,” Logan said.
“No. Let’s go to Sam Lastinger’s. You’ll be out of sight there.”
Logan laughed. “It’s only three o’clock. Sammy’s probably still asleep.”
“He usually gets hungry around noon,” I said. “He should be up.”
Sam was the bartender at one of our favorite places on the key, Pattigeorge’s. He lived in an old house next to the restaurant, fronting on the bay. He joked about his long commute. He had a dock behind the house and kept a crab trap on the bottom of the bay, secured to a piling. He didn’t pay too much attention to whether crabs were in season.
I called Sam. He was awake. “Hey, Homey,” he said. “When are you coming in?”
“I’ll be at your house in ten minutes. I need a favor.”
“I’ll be here.”
I called the chief again. “I’m on my way to Sam Lastinger’s house. Do you want to meet me there?”
“I’ll send J.D. She needs to get into the loop.”
I wasn’t too happy about getting J.D. into the loop. I didn’t know her, didn’t know if I could trust her, and wasn’t looking forward to pinning my future to an ambitious woman who was new to our community.
I pulled into Sam’s yard, right up next to his back door. He opened it as Marie and Logan got out of the Explorer. He stopped dead still, a look of relief on his face. “Logan?”
“You got any Dewars in this shack?” Logan asked.
Sam let out a whoop. “Logan, my God, I heard you’d been shot.”
“Sort of,” Logan said.
“Come in. Come in.”
We followed Sam into the interior of his tidy little house. He gave Logan a big hug and then Marie. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Have you met the new Longboat detective?” I asked.
“No,” said Sam. “I didn’t know we had one.”
“She’ll be her shortly,” I said. “Let’s wait for her, and I’ll fill you in.”
“She’s a woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Good looking?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t met her. Does it matter?”
“It might”
I just shook my head. Sam’s mind often seems to work in a very linear fashion.
We sat quietly and sipped our drinks, nobody saying anything. A lull in a day filled with danger, a time to enjoy the friendship of people I knew and trusted. No more than three or four minutes had elapsed when there was a knock on the door. Sam went to answer it.
I heard a female voice with a slight southern accent say, “I’m Detective Duncan. I was told I could find Mr. Royal here.”
“Come in, Detective. I’m Sam.”
I watched as a tall woman, perhaps five eight or nine, walked into the room. She was a beauty. Mid-to-late thirties. Dark hair, cut just above shoulder length framed her face, startling green eyes, a quick smile that revealed even white teeth. There were small lines at the corners of her eyes. If she wore makeup it was so subtle as to be invisible. She was dressed in navy slacks, a white blouse with short sleeves, black low-heel pumps, and a demeanor that oozed confidence. A Sig-Sauer nine-millimeter pistol was holstered on her left side, butt facing forward, her badge fastened to the front of her belt. Her body was trim, long neck, a slight swell of breasts under the blouse, a delicate rounding of hips. She was a lady who stayed in shape, aerobics probably, maybe some light weights. There was no muscle mass of the kind that dedicated weight lifters build.
Logan and I stood, introduced ourselves and Marie. She smiled again. “I heard you’ve gotten yourselves into a bit of trouble.”
Logan laughed. “If you consider two attempts on my life a ‘bit’ of trouble.”
She nodded. “The chief filled me in up to a point. Tell me what happened.”
“Sit down,” I said. “This is going to take a while.”
“Sam,” said Logan, “get me a Dewars first.”
“Coming up. Detective?”
“I could use a glass of water.”
Sam moved toward the kitchen.
He returned with a tall Scotch and water for Logan, a Miller Lite for me, and a glass of white wine for Marie. Sam was drinking bottled water and handed the detective one.
“Bad night?” I asked.
“Yeah. They’ve got to start closing the Haye Loft earlier. Eric pours a heavy drink, and I stay way too late.”
“All their fault,” said Marie.
“Detective,” I said, “I don’t yet know what’s going on, but somebody tried to kill Logan and they took some shots at me today.” I told her the whole story, stopping once to refresh my beer. At some point Logan wandered into the kitchen and returned with another tall glass of whiskey.
When I finished talking, and Logan and Marie had told their stories, the detective said, “There’s got to be some connection to Abraham. Chief Lester told me that Abraham wanted you to help him with some kind of big money deal. What kind of money would he be talking about?”
“I don’t know. He always worked the fishing boats out of Key West. I’m sure he never made a lot of money, so I don’t think he’d be talking about an investment. Maybe he stumbled over a sunken Spanish galleon. A treasure ship.”
Logan shook his head. “That’s pretty far-fetched. Besides, if it was treasure, why would he need you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he thought he needed a lawyer to handle the contracts with salvors. Deal with the government. You know the feds always get a piece of the action on any treasure found. Sometimes they want more than their share.”
“Do you know anything about that area of the law?”
“No, but Abraham wouldn’t know that. And the thought of money like that brings out all kinds of bad guys. Maybe he mentioned it to the wrong people.”
“Who?” asked Sam.
“That, my friend, is the question we have to answer before it gets us killed.”
We sat quietly, sipping our drinks, the sound of cars passing on Gulf of Mexico Drive intruding into the silent room. I was facing the back windows, staring at the bay. We had eaten up the afternoon. The water had taken on the golden hue of the sunset over the Gulf reflecting off low-hanging clouds. I could see a boat moving slowly into the cove behind one of the mangrove islands, a fisherman in a flats skiff. The water was still, the late afternoon calm of a Florida spring. We were nearing nightfall, the darkness creeping over from the mainland, blanketing the bay in its soft opacity. I was not sorry to see the end of this day. I wondered briefly what the morrow would bring. Why was someone trying to kill Logan? Why Abraham? Why me? What the hell had we gotten ourselves into?
“I have a plan,” I said.
“Mr. Royal,” said Detective Duncan, “I appreciate your cooperation, but you need to forget whatever plan you have. This is my case. I do the planning and the execution. You sit tight and stay out of my way.”
I was a little surprised by the steely tone in her voice. “Look Detective,” I said, “I’m not exactly a novice at this sort of thing. I think I can be of help.”
“You can’t, sir. The chief told me a lot about you. I know about your war record and some of the other scrapes you’ve been in, but this is now my case. I’ll work it and I’ll solve it and I’ll put the bad guys in jail. You stay out of my way.”
I shook my head. “You’re new here. You don’t know the island or the people. I do.”
“I’ve been a cop for fifteen years,” she said. “I worked all over Miami-Dade County. I was in lots of places where I didn’t know the people or the neighborhood. I’ll handle this.”
She stood to leave. “Come by the station in the morning to give a statement.” She looked at Logan and then me. “Both of you.”
She turned abruptly and walked out the front door.
“That,” said Logan, “is a hard woman. What do we do?”
“I wonder what she looks like naked,” said Sam.
“My God,” said Marie. “Do you ever stop?”
“I was just saying,” said Sam.
Marie shook her head. “Geez. Will you ever grow up?”
Sam grinned. “I hope not.”
Logan laughed. “Okay, Matt. What do we do about the lady detective?”
“We’ll just ignore her. As I said, I’ve got a plan of sorts.”
“Talk to us,” said Logan.
“Marie,” I said, “don’t you have a sister in Orlando?”
“Yes.”
“I think you should go stay with her until we sort this mess out.”
“That’s your plan?” she asked derisively.
“Part of it. I want you out of the way so that Logan and I don’t have to worry about you. We can operate a little better on our own.”
An argument ensued, with Marie enumerating all the reasons she should stay, and me being obstinate. Logan sat and smiled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The lights were low, giving little reflection off the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony. The city of Sarasota glowed across the bay, its lights reflecting off the water. The ancient man sitting in the recliner could see the graceful bridge that tied the city to Bird Key. Red and green lights atop channel markers blinked rhythmically in the dark.
The old man was alone, his mind wandering over the years of his life, a sense of ineffable sadness pervading his thoughts. He would die soon, and that knowledge brought with it memories of lost opportunities, of old friends now gone, of women he had bedded and the one he had loved. He wasn’t afraid of death, but he resisted it, tried to keep the unknown at bay, uncertain of what the end of life would bring. Another life? Heaven? Hell? He didn’t know, and that was the only thing in his life that he’d ever questioned.
He had been so certain about everything else. And now, when he was weak and nearing the end of the road, they were trying to take it away from him. He couldn’t have that. It didn’t matter to him personally, but there was a principle involved. His grandfather had taken the land, farmed it, eked out an existence, and died land poor; lots of land, little money. His dad had found the family fortune under the grass that had fed livestock for fifty years, and he, the last male of his line, had turned that fortune over many times, so that now he was rich beyond wealthy.
He sighed, and sti
rred in the chair. He scratched his cheek, feeling the day-old stubble, the thin skin of age, the wrinkles that multiplied every year that he breathed. He was a slight man, small and wizened, his hair mostly gone, the remainder gray wisps of what once had been. He’d never been big in stature, but his mind had been outsized, his intelligence higher than most, his drive to achieve constant. He’d bested them all, all those bright Ivy Leaguers who’d never understood that they’d met their better. Because he was better, better than them all put together. And he’d left a lot of bodies, figuratively, in the ditches beside the road of life. He liked that metaphor, understood that it was trite, but thought it apt. He’d never killed anyone, not in the physical sense, but there were a lot of men, and some women too, who’d thought they could outsmart the little man with the big southern accent. So he proved them wrong, killed their futures, their dreams, their beliefs in their own superiority. And now, in his dotage, he sat in his recliner and thought about them, remembered every one, and wondered if he had been too tough, too harsh, too unfeeling. Well, too late to do anything about them now. But he’d paid a price for his success, in loneliness and isolation. Too late now to change anything, even if he wanted to.
Where the hell was Donna? She’d been with him for years, taking care of his houses, and now nursing him in his last days. He had to pee. Where the hell was that woman?
He heard footsteps on the stairs. “Donna?” he yelled.
“Coming, sir.” A woman in late middle age came into the room. She was all white. White hair, white skin, white dress, white stockings and shoes. Her skin had the pallor of one who never took the sun, who ventured out only after darkness. Her eyes were the pink of the true albino.
“Where’ve you been, woman?”
“I told you I was going to the Publix.”
“Right. I forgot. I need to pee. Help me up.”
The woman came to him, took his upper arms, and pulled him from the recliner. He stood unsteadily, balanced by the strength of his helper. She reached out and took the walker from beside the chair, handed it to him. “Can you do this alone, sir?”
“Are you asking me if I can take my pecker out and pee without help? Goddamnit, yes. So far. When I can’t do that anymore, you just go ahead and kill me.”
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