The Last Breath

by Danny Lopez

  “You can trust me,” I said.

  She sighed, looked past me. “About four months before Liam drowned, he met me outside the office and asked me to help him buy a house on Siesta Key.”

  “He needed money?”

  She shook her head. “He wanted me to negotiate with the owner.”

  “Please,” I said, “from the beginning. And in detail.”

  “This man inherited the house from his uncle. He was getting ready to sell—”

  “Where? What man? Details, Vivian. Please.”

  She stopped, took a deep breath. “His name was George something. I forget. Liam approached him about buying his house on Beach Road. But there was another interested party.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. All Liam told me was to keep in touch with this guy and keep offering more money.”

  “No limit?”

  “Liam didn’t say. He just wanted me to be in touch with the guy and if at any time he said he had a better offer, to take it up by a hundred grand.”

  “You meet the guy?”

  “Once. We had lunch at the Old Salty Dog on the key. He was in his fifties. Nice guy but not from here. Apparently, his uncle died and left him the house and he was cleaning the place out, had a garage sale and was going to sell the house and go back to whatever town he’d come from in Massachusetts.”

  “And Liam won the bidding war.”

  Vivian chuckled. “He had unlimited funds.”

  “Courtesy of his father’s guilt.”

  She nodded.

  “What did he pay for it?”

  “Three point three.”

  “Million?”

  Vivian didn’t seem fazed.

  I said, “I could live on that for the rest of my life.”

  “He overpaid. But it’s a beachfront house, around the corner from the Village. If he hadn’t died, he’d make the money back eventually.”

  “But he died. Or was killed. And so was his business partner.”

  She shook her head. “When I heard he drowned, I just … I was in shock, in a total daze for days. I just couldn’t believe it.”

  “And?”

  “A week after Liam drowned, Mr. Pearlman asked me to get him information on three private detectives.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. Or at least I didn’t know it then. I gave him the information on three people.”

  “What came out of it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did any of them come for an interview or look at the police report?”

  “No. A couple of days later, you showed up. That’s all I know.”

  “So you’re just curious about what happened to your friend.”

  “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “What happens to the company now that both Liam and Terrence are dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Vivian …”

  “I swear. I don’t know anything about his company. He handled all that through a lawyer. Bidding on that house on Beach Road was the only time he asked me to do anything to help. And all I ever did was answer the phone and tell that guy we’d go a hundred grand higher.”

  “That guy. You didn’t like him?”

  She shrugged. “I felt he was taking advantage of Liam.”

  “You think maybe there wasn’t another bidder?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe at first. But then he was just calling and saying the other interested party had made a better offer.”

  “And you did what Liam instructed.”

  She nodded. “I offered a hundred grand more. No questions.”

  I took a drink of tequila. I didn’t see exactly how this could motivate someone to kill. I said, “And this was four months ago.”

  “About. Yeah, early April.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but it might be worth looking into.”

  Vivian nodded. “What about his so-called friends?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve met most of them.”

  “That entourage of freaks that hung out at his house drinking and smoking dope. Some of those people looked pretty sketchy. Maybe he got in a fight with one of them.”

  “I don’t see it,” I said and took a sip of tequila, touched a lime wedge to my tongue. “When people lash out in anger, it’s immediate. These murders had to be premeditated.”

  “What about Tessa Davidson?”

  “What about her?”

  “She was obsessed with him. Maybe—”

  “No. She could never do it—” I caught myself being too quick to defend her. I added, “She would’ve needed help. And she seems pretty distraught over it.”

  Then my phone rang. John Blake.

  “Okay,” he said getting right down to business. “I got the goods you asked for.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “Terrence Oliver … wasn’t he the guy that was just found off Blackburn Point?”

  “The one and only,” I said.

  “Well, he’s clean. Has a prior for possession of marijuana about seven years ago up in Gainesville. Pleaded no contest. Did community service.”

  “Sounds pretty innocent.”

  “Yeah, he does. But Keith Peterson doesn’t come across as a guy you’d wanna hang out with. Guy’s got two possessions with intent to sell.”

  “Pot?”

  “Yeah. Got probation and community service.”

  “Not so bad,” I said.

  “Well, he also has a couple of domestic abuse calls, but no charges. Then three months ago his wife, who is now his ex-wife, took out a restraining order against him.”

  “Shit.”

  “He can’t get near her. Or their kids.”

  “What?”

  “They’ve got two boys, nine and twelve. Can’t get within five hundred feet from them.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as the scene outside Liam’s house played out inside my head: Keith telling me he’d been kayaking with his kids in Ten Thousand Islands. And he’d brought back the kayak. The missing kayak.

  “Thanks, John. I owe you one.”

  “You don’t want to hear about the other one?”

  “Tessa?”

  “Tessa Davidson: assault and battery in Longmont, Colorado, six years ago. Assault and battery in Sarasota.”

  “When in Sarasota?”

  “November 9th of last year.”

  “What did she get?”

  “Probation in Colorado. The one here was dismissed by the judge.”

  “Who was the plaintiff in Sarasota?”

  “Guy named Lewis Stevenson.”

  “Who the fuck is that?”

  “Don’t know,” John said. “You good?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  I hung up, stared at my drink, my mind reeling. At that moment, I had erased the fact that Keith had lied. I was just thinking of Tessa. What the hell?

  Vivian laid her hand on my arm. “You okay?”

  I blinked, came out of the trance. I took a generous last sip of tequila and waved my credit card at the bartender. “I gotta run.”

  CHAPTER 30

  IT WAS GETTING late. Dark storm clouds moved from east to west. Another day, another storm. It all seemed to be moving toward Siesta Key.

  My instinct was to go straight to the Old Salty Dog and face Tessa, see what she had to say about her obsession with Liam. Her jealousy. The two assault charges against her. Damn it all. She knew all the players. She was knee deep in it. And I was a fool for being blind to it.

  But I convinced myself that my primary target was Keith Peterson. He lied to me. And he’d had the kayak. He was up to something, and I was going to get to the bottom of it once and for all.

  On my way down to Turtle Beach, I called Detective Kendel, left a message: “I’m on my way to Turtle Beach. Keith Peterson gave me a false alibi when I asked him about Liam’s death. And I’m pretty damn sure he’s having an affair with Mrs. Fleming. And just in case you have
n’t figured this out yet, Liam Fleming and Terrence Oliver were partners in a real estate corporation called Beach City Holdings. They’d been buying distressed properties around the key and out in East County. Now they’re both dead.”

  I skipped crossing on the north bridge to Siesta because I was way too tempted to stop by and face Tessa. Instead, I raced down the Trail and drove Tessa’s Fiat over to the south bridge. My gut told me Keith killed Liam. And Terrence either knew this or was a part of it. Then it went bad between Terrence and Keith. Or Keith and Tessa were in it together. It was a stretch, but I do have a paranoid mind when it comes to these things. Tessa was angry at Liam for using his friendships and acting like a beach bum when he was buying up property to develop the key. That could’ve been Keith’s motive as well.

  The parking lot at Turtle Beach was half empty. In the area reserved for trucks with trailers where the boat ramp was, I saw Keith’s cream Toyota Land Cruiser, a trailer hitched to the back with two kayaks, two stand-up paddleboards, and a small surfboard.

  I parked on the beach side, crossed the street and over the wood barricade to the Land Cruiser. The front windows were open. Keith wasn’t around. I walked to the back of the truck, to the small boat trailer with a weird aluminum homemade rack welded on so a dozen kayaks or boards could be stacked one over the other.

  The kayaks on the rack were simple plastic ones, nothing like the fancy one he’d dropped off at Liam’s house the day I met him. The paddleboards were at the top of the rack—unattached. Two long paddles rested on top. The surfboard was at the bottom. It was dirty, like maybe it hadn’t been used in a while.

  I ran my hand over the surfboard and looked across the parking lot to the boat ramp. Maybe Keith was out on the lagoon or the Intracoastal, paddleboarding or leading a group on kayaks. When my hand reached to the back of the surfboard, I felt a bump. It was the place to attach the leash. It didn’t have one.

  I glanced at the paddleboard. It had a long coiled leash that looked like one of those old telephone chords. I walked slowly to the side of the SUV, peeked in the window. No leashes.

  My heart raced. No. I told myself to chill. Anyone could have a surfboard without a leash. And if Liam and Jaybird had been killed by the same guy, there would have to be two leashes missing. If—and that’s a big if—Liam had been drowned in the same way as Jaybird. Besides, Keith, young and strong as he was, could not have managed it alone.

  The rain was getting close. I could smell it coming from the south. I crossed the street, walked over to the beach side. It was almost empty. A few families with their colorful umbrellas were still holding out, getting the last few minutes of beach before the late afternoon downpour.

  To my right, near the trailer park, a few couples were taking in the sunset, drinks in their hands. A man blew into a conch like a native calling his warriors. To my left, by the south end of Turtle Beach, a man was fishing alone. Another man was reeling in his gear trying to beat the rain that was now coming fast like a huge gray sheet, stretching south and west.

  I made my way back to the Fiat, sat in the driver’s seat, my eyes staring across the road at Keith’s Land Cruiser. I told myself to be patient, not to jump the gun and go to the Old Salty Dog. Tessa was not going anywhere. And Keith had lied. Tessa had just kept her own secrets a secret. I couldn’t blame her for that. We all had them.

  The rain started with a drizzle, then intensified in a flash. In less than a minute, Turtle Beach was awash. It came down gray and hard, causing a racket on the roof of the little car.

  The rain made me think of Zoe. She was born in late August. That month it rained more than it had rained all year. When Nancy went into labor, the drive to Sarasota Memorial was slow and difficult because of the flooded roads. It wasn’t apocalyptic floods, the kind that washed away cars and inundated houses, but it caused huge problems: power outages, closed roads, events canceled, constant tornado warnings. And I was called in to work to help cover the storm.

  I missed the birth.

  I got to the hospital hours after the fact. And it was still raining when we brought that little peanut of a girl home the following evening. She was seven and a half pounds and all reddish and wrinkled. I’ll never forget how she felt in my arms, light and soft, her head still covered in the hospital cap, her squinty eyes. And when I held her up to my face, I swear she smiled at me.

  I took my phone out and dialed Zoe’s mother in Texas. But she said Zoe was at her piano lessons, wouldn’t be home for at least another hour. “And when she comes home, we’re having dinner. I would rather you didn’t call her then,” she said in that rancorous tone that irritated me more than anything in the world.

  I ended the call. The windows of the Fiat had fogged up. I wiped the windshield with my hand and looked out my side window. I wrote her name: Zoe: a big Z like Zorro and then an O with a happy face, a lowercase E.

  After twenty minutes, the rain let up some. There was no movement out on the parking lot. All I could think of was that Keith was out there somewhere getting soaked. I adjusted my seat a little and thought of starting the engine and cranking the AC for a few minutes so I could cool off and defrost the windshield, when a white Maserati drove up.

  It stopped in the middle of the road between the place where I was parked and Keith’s truck. It just sat there idling for maybe a minute. Then the passenger door opened and Keith stepped out into the rain. The Maserati moved forward. Keith ran to his truck.

  The Maserati did a U-turn outside my line of vision and drove past me on its way out, taking a left out of the parking lot and heading north on Midnight Pass Road.

  Keith moved around his truck, rolling up all the windows. Then he paused, hopped over the wooden fence, and ran diagonally to my left.

  I couldn’t see where he went. Parked cars blocked my view. I stepped out of the Fiat. I could see the top of Keith’s head. He was about twenty yards away, facing the passenger side of a red SUV or truck that was backed up into a parking spot.

  I started walking slowly toward him.

  Keith nodded, stepped back from the truck, and turned. He saw me, smiled, started toward me.

  The truck started its engine, pulled out of the parking spot. It was a red pickup, right side scratched and dented from the front wheel passenger door—the truck that ran me off the road.

  The passenger saw me—probably recognized me, because a second later, the truck spun its wheels on the wet asphalt toward the exit.

  I ran back to the Fiat, got in. I sped out, the little tires spinning, the car fishtailing almost all the way across the road to the other parking lot.

  I stabilized the car, sped forward. But Keith stood in the middle of the road with his arms out. I slammed on the brakes. The car skidded a few feet, stopped inches from him.

  I hopped out. “What the fuck, Keith?”

  “What’s going on, brah?”

  I waved toward Midnight Pass Road. “That asshole crashed my car the other night. Almost got me killed.”

  He turned to look, but the truck was gone.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  Keith pointed at me, smiled like a clown, forced a laugh. “They’re cool.”

  “Why’d you lie, Keith?”

  The rain kept coming down, only lighter. He licked his lips and looked left and right like he was lost. “What’re you talking about, brah?”

  “You weren’t in Ten Thousand Islands with your kids.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “I know about the restraining order.”

  His face tensed, jaw clenched. The rain pelted down, lightning flashed north of us. He turned quickly and started toward his truck.

  I followed. “And that was Mrs. Fleming dropping you off—”

  He hopped over the low barricade and got into his Land Cruiser.

  “Keith, don’t. The cops are on their way.”

  He started the engine and gave me a look, his eyes wide and wild with panic. Then he sped in a circle, the back of the tr
uck skidding, the trailer fishtailing. The two paddleboards flew off as he raced out of the parking lot.

  I ran to the Fiat and followed.

  He took the stop sign and turned, screeching and skidding—north on Midnight Pass.

  I floored it.

  Within seconds we hit seventy on that narrow road. I kept on his tail. The trailer bounced around up and down, left to right, the tires picking up a cloud of rainwater from the road, blinding me.

  I fell back a little, putting some space between us as we approached the Crescent business district near Stickney Point.

  Keith’s Land Cruiser swerved left, passed a Hyundai going the speed limit on the right. He bumped the curb at the median as he came to the intersection. The Land Cruiser skidded left. Then right. The trailer hit the curb hard, went airborne. The Land Cruiser made a one-eighty. The trailer fell over.

  I slowed down.

  Keith never stopped. He kept the wheels spinning, turned the Land Cruiser around, and took a right onto Stickney Point—the south bridge—dragging the trailer on its side. Traffic on the opposite side of Midnight Pass stopped despite the green light.

  I followed. The lights of the drawbridge were flashing. The traffic barrier was down. The bridge was going up. Two cars were stopped in the right lane. The left lane was free.

  Keith gunned it, dragging the trailer on its side.

  I thought he was going to try and jump the opening of the bridge like in the movies. Crazy. But he slammed on the brakes, skidded. The Land Cruiser hydroplaned sideways, hit the median and bounced back and smashed against a car in the right lane.

  I pulled over, hopped out, and ran. Keith stepped out, glanced back in my direction, sprinted to the side of the bridge—stopped—looked down the bridge. It wasn’t a long fall. He could jump, swim to shore. Run. We’d catch him eventually.

  “Keith!” I was about thirty feet away. An older man who had been driving the car Keith hit had stepped out of his car, dazed.

  “Why’d you kill them?” I yelled. I was twenty yards away, walking fast, my phone at my ear, telling the 911 dispatcher what was happening.

  At ten feet, I stopped.

  “What’re you talking about?” he yelled.

  “Liam and Terrence—Jaybird. Why’d you kill them?”