Murder Key

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “Aren’t you usually here on Saturday evenings?”

  “Yeah. That’s true.”

  “Then there’s your answer. It’s just like Conley. He always jogged on the beach at daybreak. It’s just a matter of learning your schedules. If somebody wants you badly enough, they can watch you for a couple of weeks, or maybe just ask around. We’re all creatures of habit, and sometimes those habits can kill us. What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Matt?”

  “I don’t have a clue, Bill. Not a clue. But it seems like more than a coincidence that two different people tried to kill me right after I found those bodies on the beach. If they’re connected, nobody had time to figure out my daily patterns. What do we do from here?”

  “Since we’re in Sarasota County, the sheriff will take over the investigation. That’s the good news. They’re also investigating the Conley shooting. They found the slug that killed Conley.”

  “How?” I asked. “Surely that thing didn’t lodge in his head.”

  “No. The witness had one of those metal detectors. He goes out every morning looking for stuff in the sand. He found the slug, or what we think was the slug. We probably can’t use it for evidence, but we can compare it to the one that almost got you. I’m willing to bet the slug they’ll find in your car will be a match. It was 7.62 millimeter round.”

  Logan cleared his throat. “That’s an M-14 or something like it, right?” he said.

  “Yep. That’s the bad news,” said Lester.

  * * * * *

  An hour later, Logan and I were sitting quietly at the bar at Pattigeorge’s. I wasn’t too sure we needed any more merriment that night, but Logan said we deserved a drink after another near-death experience.

  Sammy, who knew everybody on the island, was behind the bar. We’d been there for about thirty minutes when a tall blonde woman came in and took a seat. She was about five-feet-eight, with shoulder-length hair. Her face was a bit angular for my taste, but her pale blue eyes made up for that. She was a beautiful lady, probably in her early thirties, and I was not surprised that Sam knew exactly what she drank. He started the martini as she walked through the front door, shook it, put it on the bar and introduced us to Marie Phillips. She took the seat next to Logan.

  We were the only three at the bar, and we talked for an hour or so in the desultory manner of people at ease in a familiar place. Marie was new to the island and lived in one of the big condos at the south end of the key that was reserved for the very wealthy.

  She told us she was in the “corporate world,” but made no effort to explain further. It was against the code of the key to delve too deeply into someone else’s life, so we left it at that.

  She said she was a Florida native, and she spoke with the accent of the central part of the state; not quite southern in her inflection, but enough so that it fooled the Northerners. Marie didn’t tell us where she had grown up, but I assumed it was in the Orlando area.

  She had another martini, said her good-byes and walked out into the night. Sam told us Marie had been in several times over the past few months, but she never talked much about herself. She was pleasant enough, but a little secretive. That was okay. Many of the islanders had fled to Southwest Florida to get away from a past they didn’t like to remember. The people of the key respected their silence.

  Sam told us that Marie had come in for dinner a couple of times with an older man, and he suspected that she might have a sugar daddy. Or, maybe she’d inherited a bundle, and the old gent was her father or a kindly uncle. It wasn’t likely that a corporate job for one so young would generate the income necessary to sustain a life on the south end.

  Sam had also seen her with a younger man, late thirties or early forties maybe, at the Haye Loft bar late one evening. They were sitting at a table in the corner, and if Marie noticed Sam, she didn’t acknowledge it. Sam didn’t know the man she was with.

  “A mystery woman,” said Logan. “The best kind.”

  Sam laughed. “Don’t get your hopes up, Logan. I think she’s a five star gal and you’re about a two star kind of guy.”

  Logan laughed. “Go to hell, Sam,” he said.

  The conversation moved on to other things, and Marie was forgotten.

  37

  Murder Key

  SIX

  Logan drove me home and dropped me at the elevator entrance to my condo complex. Earlier, I’d been advised by a Sarasota County detective that the Explorer was a crime scene and it would have to be processed at the forensics lab. The Sheriff’s department would have it towed there, and I should be able to pick it up in a couple of days.

  The cell phone rang as I entered my condo. “Matt, are you all right? I just got back from Lauderdale and read this morning’s paper.”

  It was Anne Dubose. The sound of her voice always made me feel like a better person than I am. She was my girlfriend, sort of.

  We’d met in the summer and had a hot affair that lasted for a couple of months. She had been a lawyer in Ft. Lauderdale, but recently moved to Sarasota and gone to work with a small firm. Our relationship had cooled substantially, but we saw each other every week or so, and we were good friends. We even shared a bed once in awhile, but I figured that wouldn’t last long.

  That bothered me, because I had developed some deep feelings for Anne. I knew that she was bound to meet someone who would become a permanent fixture in her life, and I would be left like detritus, on the roadside of What Might Have Been Boulevard. Ouch. That phrase sounded bad to my own ears. Maybe Willlie Nelson could use it.

  “I’m fine, Anne. Logan got the bad guy before he got me.”

  “That’s a relief. I don’t have anything to wear to a funeral.”

  “Right. How was Lauderdale?”

  “Same old. I took a couple of depositions yesterday and spent the night with friends. Nothing has changed. I’m glad to be living here.”

  “Do you know a lawyer in Sarasota named Dwight Conley?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “He was shot and killed on Longboat this morning, down near New Pass. Apparently, the same guys took a potshot at me about an hour ago.”

  “Somebody shot at you?” Her voice held a hint of fear.

  “Yeah. Missed, though.”

  “I’m coming out there.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said, without any conviction what-soever.

  “I know, silly. I want to. I’ll bring a pizza.”

  * * * * *

  Anne arrived an hour later, bringing a large pizza with everything but anchovies. We sat on the balcony, eating pizza and drinking beer. She was wearing shorts and a midriff blouse that exposed her delightful belly button as she leaned back in her chair. Barely past thirty, she was tall with short dark hair, hazel eyes and a body that men would have killed for in other ages. Her bare feet were propped on the balcony railing, her toenails painted a bright red. I told her the details of both shootings and repeated what the police had told me.

  “You don’t have any idea who might be trying to kill you?” she asked.

  “None. I can’t come up with a reason, either. I’d tend to think it was somebody from my past with a grudge, but what’s the connection to Conley? I never heard of the guy before this evening.”

  “Maybe the gunmen were hired by different people with different reasons to kill you and Conley. Then there’d be no connection, other than the hired gun.”

  “I think that’s way too much of a coincidence. It may not even be the same shooters, but the parallels are too great. I guess we’ll know for sure when the police get the ballistics done.”

  “Is my toothbrush still here?” Anne asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Then I can stay?”

  “Of course.”

  And she did.

  37

  Murder Key

  SEVEN

  I awoke Sunday morning to the smell of coffee. Anne had beaten me out of bed, and I could hear her rattling around in my ki
tchen. I took a quick shower, shaved and dressed, and joined her.

  Anne was wearing one of my T-shirts, and I noticed when she reached for a plate on a high shelf that she wore nothing else. Bacon was draining on the side board, and eggs were frying on the stove. I couldn’t think of a better treat on a Sunday morning than coffee, eggs, bacon and Anne’s bare butt. I kissed her cheek and wished her a good morning. The cheek on her face, that is.

  She smiled, and said, “Sleep well?”

  “Like a worn out old man. Your fault.”

  “Maybe we ought to stop that if it tires you too much.”

  “Don’t even think it, woman.”

  I retrieved the Sarasota paper from my door step, and read while Anne finished cooking breakfast. The large headline was about the Conley murder, with a side story about the shooting at the Hilton. Again, the reporter wrote that I had not been available for comment. I’m sure his voice was on my answering machine.

  Anne and I hadn’t seen each other in a week, and we caught up over breakfast. She was working on a civil case involving a fraudulent bank transfer, and she was enjoying it.

  “Still glad you moved here?” I asked.

  “Even more so after spending a couple of days in South Florida. This is home.”

  “Want to take the boat out?” I said, as we finished our coffee.

  “It’s going to be a gorgeous day. Why not?”

  Anne drove to The Market at Whitney Beach Shopping Center to stock up on deli sandwiches and beer, while I cleaned up the breakfast dishes.

  My twenty-seven foot Grady-White, with its twin 150 horse-power Yamahas, rocked gently in its slip in front of my condo. She was a center console fishing boat, white with navy trim. With all that had been happening I hadn’t been aboard in a couple of months, and that was unforgivable.

  As always, the engines cranked on the first try. We maneuvered out of the harbor and into the Intracoastal Waterway, headed for Longboat Pass and the Gulf of Mexico.

  We cruised north, moving at thirty knots and staying about two miles offshore. The sea was calm and the boat handled like the thoroughbred she was. We came into the beach at Egmont Key, near the north end where the remains of an ancient gun emplacement provided a concrete backdrop to white sand and turquoise water.

  At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the U.S. Army had turned Egmont into a fortress protecting Tampa Bay. Gun emplacements were situated at strategic points on the small island, and barracks, bunkers and, curiously, a red brick road had been built in the interior.

  When the Army gave up its garrison there, Egmont became a state park and wildlife sanctuary. People were not allowed onto the southern third of the island, and it was populated by every kind of seabird that lives along the west coast of Florida.

  The beaches of Egmont were still pristine, although the normal ebb and flow of the tides had eaten large portions of the shore. On a Sunday afternoon, there were families from all over the Tampa Bay area using the island and enjoying themselves, their boats anchored in the shallows.

  We lay on the sand on towels, swam when the spirit moved us, ate our lunch, drank our beer and napped. Anne’s lithe body was barely clothed in a bright yellow bikini, and I found myself hoping she would stay another night. The revolver was in the picnic basket, and if Anne noticed it, she didn’t comment.

  When the sun began to sink toward the horizon, we headed south for home. As we neared Longboat Pass, a pair of dolphins appeared in the bow wave, surfing along, enjoying life. The sun hovered just above the horizon, its orange and red glow burnishing the water. After a few minutes the dolphins peeled off and left us with a feeling of wonder at nature’s small displays of elegance.

  I secured the boat and washed it down as Anne took our belongings upstairs to the condo. When we were finished, she thanked me for a wonderful day and left for Sarasota and an early morning hearing on Monday.

  37

  Murder Key

  EIGHT

  I decided not to jog the beach on Monday morning. If the shooters were counting on me keeping a schedule, the easiest way to throw them off was to vary my routines. I would jog later in the day.

  I was sitting in my living room drinking coffee and reading the morning paper when I heard a knock on the door. It was only a little after seven, early for social callers. I peered through the spy hole and saw John Algren.

  He was about six feet tall, with a wiry build that belied the power that could surge out of his body when needed. He was very tan, and had a U shaped fringe of black hair setting off his bald pate. A small area of skin was peeling from sunburn on the crown of his head. He’d been playing golf without his hat again. He was the smartest man I’d ever known.

  I opened the door to a bear hug from my best friend since junior high school. “Jock, my God it’s good to see you,” I said, coming up for air. “What brings you to paradise?”

  “I thought you might need somebody to watch your back.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Anne called me last night. I caught an early plane into Tampa, and here I am.”

  John, who had acquired the nickname of “Jock” in high school, was a frequent visitor to the key. He had gotten to know most of the islanders, and a couple of months before, on his last visit, Dotty Johansen threw an elaborate party on the beach behind the Hilton, where she formally decreed “that henceforth and forever-more, Jock Algren was an honorary Longboater.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, old buddy. How about some coffee?”

  “That’d work.”

  Jock had left high school on the same day I did. While I headed for the Army, he went to engineering school on scholarship. He played on the basketball team, and was a member of the school’s ROTC unit. Near the end of his senior year, he’d taken a bad fall on the basketball court, and the college newspaper reported that Jock had ruptured the ligaments in his knee. The injury and the surgery to repair it would end his basketball career and any thoughts he had of being commissioned in the Army.

  Jock was heavily recruited by the major oil companies, and when he graduated he went to work for one of them in its inter-national department. Jock was still with the company.

  A couple of people at the very top of his company, a few people in the government, and I knew that Jock had never hurt his knee, never had surgery, and was certainly not medically unfit for military duty. He had been recruited by the most secretive intelligence agency our country has.

  My friend spent a couple of years in training, and then became a deep-cover operative, doing things for the government that no one ever wanted known. Jock had maintained his cover with the oil company, and now was in fact an employee, living in Houston. However, the government would call on him when needed, to do things that needed to be done.

  When the call came, and it always did, the chairman of Jock’s company would send out a memo that Mr. Algren would be off somewhere in the world on a special mission for the chairman, and Jock would be back in the field hunting and killing people who would do harm to the United States.

  Years before, his boss in the government had given Jock permission to tell me what he did for the country. Jock had no living family, and he had convinced the boss that somebody had to know the real story in case anything happened to him. He still complained about phantom knee pain, and he couldn’t play golf worth a damn.

  I brought the coffee back to the living room and sat in my recliner. Jock was on the sofa, his stocking feet propped on a low table.

  “Tell me what happened, podna,” he said.

  I gave him the whole story. “I don’t know who they are or why they’re trying to kill me. It doesn’t make any kind of sense.”

  “How’s Logan?”

  “Logan’s Logan. He’s staying in town this week to give me whatever help he can. You know Logan; generous to a fault.”

  Logan had a job in the financial services industry that kept him traveling most of every week. He was sticking around this week for me, but now that Jock
was here, I’d tell him to go on and do his work, and I’d see him on the weekend. I picked up the phone to call him.

  Logan agreed to meet at Lynches Pub on St. Armands Circle for lunch. He and Jock had become good friends during Jock’s visits to the key.

  “You got a gun?” Jock asked me as we got back to our coffee.

  “Yep.” I got it out of the drawer in the coffee table. “A thirty-eight caliber revolver.”

  “That’s good for close work. Anything else?”

  “No. If they come after me with that M-14 again, the only thing I could defend myself with would be a rifle. I can’t be carrying one of those around. If they get close, the thirty-eight will do the trick.”

  “You’re right. I guess we’d better try to figure out who these bastards are.”

  My cell phone rang. It was Marcie McFarland, Anne’s law partner in Sarasota.

  “I heard you’ve taken up target shooting for a hobby, except you’re the target.”

  “Not by choice, Marcie. Not by a long shot.”

  “Is that a pun?”

  “Maybe. I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Anne mentioned that you asked about Dwight Conley. I knew him, and I thought I could fill you in a little.”

  “That’d be a big help. What can you tell me?”

  “He was a nice guy. My sister, Dawn, used to date him, but not seriously. Dwight came to Sarasota about ten years ago, about the same time I did, and opened an immigration practice. He’d built it up into a pretty thriving operation. Dwight was well respected in the Bar Association, and by the U.S. Immigration Judge up in Bradenton. He did a lot of work for the Mexican migrant workers that seem to congregate in Manatee County. Dwight lived on Bird Key, and nobody I’ve talked to can figure out why anyone would want to kill him.”