by Derek Fee
The Coral Bean Café was deserted and they chose a table by the window with a view over the beach and the blue water beyond.
‘There’s something wrong here.’ Moira stirred a thin stream of milk into her coffee. She’d had the feeling that there was something off since she examined Carmichael’s apartment. She hadn’t known why, but it was there in the back of her mind.
‘There most certainly is something wrong here. That fucking idiot Sin has put a two thousand mile round trip on us for nothing. I should make the SOB carry the cost. That would teach him a lesson.’
‘Ricky was working on the credit card.’ This was an aspect that Moira wasn’t completely happy with. Credit card companies tend to be litigious and they do not appreciate hackers. She hoped that their connection with Ricky wouldn’t land them in jail. ‘The name Jamie is unisex. So if a man managed to get his hand on a credit card with the name Jamie Carmichael on it, he would have no difficulty in passing it off as his own. So, let’s not put the blame on Ricky until we’ve worked out this situation.’
‘You think that our Miss Carmichael might be dead.’
‘If the person who checked in here and used her credit card to pay is a man, then I think she could very well be deceased.’
‘Holy shit!’ Shea was thinking about what O’Malley had said. They had discovered virtually nothing, but they might have already signed their own death warrants. ‘So, the guy in the room upstairs could be either the murderer or one of the murderers.’
‘That’s a possibility. I was watching the receptionist while she was dialling. She called nine four zero three. Let’s assume that the nine is the number that goes before dialling a room number and we can deduce that Jamie Carmichael is in room four zero three. Do you want to give it a try?’ She was thinking about Brendan’s metaphor of them putting their heads into the lion’s mouth.
Shea drained his coffee. ‘And if this Carmichael guy comes back while we’re upstairs?’
Moira drained her cup. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
T he fourth floor of the Coral Beach Resort was home to thirty-four rooms. Moira and Shea had made sure that the receptionist’s attention was elsewhere when they made their way to the elevators. The sign at the exit from the lift indicated that room four zero three was to the right. Near the end of the long carpeted corridor they passed a maid’s trolley stationed outside a room whose door was opened.
‘Shit,’ Shea said loudly as he stood in front of the door of four zero three. ‘I left the key downstairs at the pool.’
Moira was experienced at improvisation. ‘You really are a pain in the ass, Frank.’ Moira punched him playfully on the arm.
Shea went back along the corridor to the maid’s trolley. He could see that the maid had been watching their little drama. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket. ‘You couldn’t help me out here, could you?’ He made sure she saw the money. ‘We’re on our honeymoon and, well, you know the way it is.’
‘Sure.’ The maid pocketed the money and walked with Shea to room four zero three and used her passkey to let them in. She smiled at them. ‘You sure do make a handsome couple. I hope you have a long and happy life together.’
Moira smiled. ‘Thank you, we will have if I can train this big moose not to forget his head.’ She delivered another playful punch to Shea’s shoulder and he put his arm round her and ushered her into the room.
The maid turned and went back to work. She wished that God had given her a head of hair like that woman. It was so damn red it just couldn’t be real.
They entered the room and Moira was aware that Shea held her a little longer than was necessary. It might have been accidental, but she didn’t think that Shea did too many things by accident.
The room was a standard hotel room, small, long, narrow and rectangular. Straight ahead was a large floor-to-ceiling three-panelled window leading to a small balcony. There were two queen-sized beds with barely enough room to pass between them and the chest of drawers against the opposite wall. A twenty-four-inch flat-screen TV sat on the chest of drawers. The en-suite bathroom was directly inside the door, next to a cupboard for hanging clothes.
Moira looked for luggage. There was only a small weekend bag and several large shopping bags on the floor beside the bed. She opened the cupboard. ‘Take a look at this.’ She held the door wide for Shea. The clothes on the rails were unmistakeably female. There was a black wig on the shelf above the clothes. ‘Maybe our friendly receptionist needs an eye test.’
Shea nodded. ‘Perhaps our trip hasn’t been in vain after all.’
Moira continued to search the room. She found female underwear, some jeans and shirts that could be either male or female and toiletries that were essentially female. ‘It looks like Miss Carmichael could be mistaken for a man when she wears male clothes.’
‘OK, we know it’s our Jamie Carmichael. Now all we have to do is find her.’
‘Something is off here,’ Moira said taking another look around the room. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I got the same feeling in her apartment.’
‘We need to get out of here.’ Shea was getting increasingly nervous.
At that moment, someone could be heard singing outside the door.
‘Too late.’ Moira pushed Shea into the bathroom and went back to the bed and sat down.’
Jamie Carmichael was singing Jonas Blue’s version of ‘Fast Car’ when she slipped her key into the door of her room. She was finally feeling like she was on vacation. She had risen late after what was certainly her best night’s sleep since she went on the run. The Coral Beach beat the hell out of the cheap motels she’d been staying in. She had a leisurely breakfast downstairs in the Atlantis restaurant before taking a stroll along the beach. She contemplated buying a bathing costume of either gender, but since she was brought up in Memphis she wasn’t much for swimming and she sure as hell didn’t need a tan. She walked for an hour along the beach. It felt good to think that she had simply panicked. Maybe Greg had decided to change his life and run with some stripper bitch. Whatever the reason for his disappearance, it had nothing to do with her. She was still singing when the door closed behind her, but she stopped abruptly when she saw a Becky with flaming red hair sitting on the edge of her bed. ‘Oh fuck!’ She spun round, but her escape was blocked by some fuckin’ ninja looking like a young Harrison Ford.
‘It’s OK.’ Moira could see that Carmichael was scared out of his mind. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and was very tall and slim, which seemed to emphasise his budding breasts. His hair was cut almost to the skin and his face was fine featured. She was beginning to understand the male and female clothing. As either a man or a woman Jamie Carmichael would be considered very handsome.
Carmichael turned. The redhead was standing with her hands spread.
‘Everything is OK. We’re not here to hurt you. We’ve been engaged by Mrs Gardiner to look for her husband. All we want to do is talk to you. Please relax, everything is alright. My name is Moira McElvaney.’
Carmichael tried to relax. The woman had some kind of funny accent like she was a foreigner. At least they hadn’t produced guns. Well, not yet. She moved back into the room. Maybe they were what they said, just a couple of private dicks hired by Greg’s wife.
‘The man blocking your exit is Frank Shea. He’s a friend of the Gardiner family.’
‘So Greg is still missing?’ Carmichael spoke to Moira. The redhead seemed to be the boss.
‘He hasn’t been seen for nearly three weeks now,’ Moira said. ‘We’ve only been on the case for a few days, but I can tell you that we’re getting nowhere fast. We’ve been through his home and the office and we’ve come up with nothing. We’re hoping that you can help us out.’
Carmichael was breathing normally now. She had been raised to recognise threats and she didn’t feel threatened. ‘Harrison’ Shea had left his station at the door and moved to the body of the room. If she w
anted to bolt, now was the time. ‘I’m afraid you done struck out with me. I have no idea why Greg went missing. Wasn’t nothin’ to do with me. How did you guys find me?’
‘We have a guy who can trace the use of credit cards,’ Moira said.
Carmichael stamped her foot. ‘I knew that would get me. But I was sick of cheap motels. I tell you runnin’ ain’t no fun. If you ever have to go on the run, have plenty of foldin’ money.’
‘What’s with the clothes?’ Shea said. ‘Why are you posing as a man?’
Carmichael faced Shea. ‘Because I am a man, you asshole.’
‘And the women’s clothes?’ The penny was beginning to drop for Moira. The female underwear was the clue.
‘I’m in transition,’ Carmichael said.
‘How long?’ Moira asked.
‘Since I left Memphis and went to Boston.’
‘Let me get this straight,’ Shea said. ‘Jamie Carmichael is a man who is transitioning to a woman?’
‘How long have you felt that you were really a woman in a man’s body?’ Moira asked.
‘For a hell of a long time.’ Carmichael sat down on one of the beds. If these guys could find her, then so could the bad guys. Always assuming there were bad guys out there.
‘How did you get the job with Gardiner in Concord?’ Moira sat beside her. ‘It’s a long way from Memphis.’
‘That was the attraction. Nobody in my family knows that I’m transitionin’.’
‘What has this to do with Greg’s disappearance?’ Shea asked.
Moira stared at him. ‘Why don’t you go downstairs and get yourself a cup of coffee?’ She wondered whether most men were missing the empathy gene.
Shea saw the look on Moira’s face and realised that he’d screwed up. He had always considered himself open-minded, but all this talk about gender and transitioning made him uncomfortable. Tolerance wasn’t typical for someone brought up in an Irish enclave in Southie. In the seventies, the Irish in Boston were among the most vehement opponents of bussing. He didn’t want to accept Moira’s suggestion, but he could see that he was becoming a problem. There were a lot of lessons he could learn from Moira and they weren’t all about investigating. ‘I’ll meet you in the coffee shop.’
Moira watched him leave. ‘My partner is a bit deficient in the empathy department.’
‘Don’t worry, he’s not alone.’
‘So, you’ve basically been living as a woman for the past six months or so?’
Carmichael nodded.
‘Did Gardiner know?’ Moira asked.
‘I don’t think so. I was pretty careful and he was all about his family and the work. But he was a good man.’ She realised that she had used the past tense. ‘Somewhere in all the shit in his office you’ll find a spreadsheet with all the outstanding amounts he’s owed by his clients. He was, sorry is, shit at collecting his bills. If he knew about me being a man, he never showed it.’
‘What caused you to run?’ They were sitting side by side and Moira put her hand on Carmichael’s.
‘Something, I don’t really know.’ Carmichael was absentmindedly fingering the USB at the end of the chain round her neck. She was thinking about giving it to the redhead, but it was her ace in the hole and she wasn’t about to hand it over until they got better acquainted. I just got real scared when he didn’t show up for two weeks. He had something going on and I got the feeling that he didn’t just disappear. And I didn’t like the way the detectives from Miami were questioning me.’
‘How were they questioning you?’
‘There was a mean one who kept asking me what I knew about Greg’s business, like I was in on some kind of deal that was goin’ down. I didn’t like the way he was tryin’ to make me part of whatever was happenin’.’
‘Do you have any idea what he had going on?’
‘Something big, he was real excited. You could see that he thought he was going to make a killing or something. But he was keepin’ it real quiet.’
‘Shea is an expert on finance and he’s been examining Gardiner’s files. As far as he’s concerned, they’re as clean as a whistle.’
‘This wasn’t something to do with the normal clients. I saw this new guy in the office only once, a well-dressed white dude. He smelled of money. Greg closed the door and I didn’t hear the conversation.’
‘I’ve never met Gardiner, but from what I’ve garnered from his family and at the office, he’s a meticulous file keeper. Surely he had a file on this new client of his.’ Moira took out her notebook. She had noted down Gregory Gardiner’s mobile and home phone numbers. The police would surely have already subpoenaed his phone records. She could have kicked herself. She took out her phone and called Ricky.
Carmichael watched as the redhead talked to some guy about getting Greg’s phone records. She had already decided that her and her partner were on the up and up. Maybe it was because there was safety in numbers, but she didn’t feel so afraid anymore. When the phone conversation finished, she turned to Moira. ‘I’d like to help you find out what happened to Greg. Maybe if we find out, things might get back to normal. I know I can’t continue livin’ like this. If I don’t find out what happened to Greg, I’ll be lookin’ over my shoulder for the rest of my life.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
S hea was on his second coffee. He had contemplated having a stiff drink at the bar beside the pool. Watching some of the ladies in their swimwear might reset his gender meter. In a way, he empathised with Carmichael. In Southie, he’d been the clever kid, the outsider. He was good at schoolwork, but shit at sports. Aside from Brendan, he had no real friends. He could imagine how difficult it was for Carmichael to grow up in a macho environment feeling all the time that there was a woman under his male skin. But he was still twitchy about men becoming women and women becoming men. He was a little surprised when Moira entered the coffee shop with Carmichael in tow. He stood as they approached, but Moira signalled for him to sit.
‘You’ve got a new recruit for your little investigative team.’ Moira could see from Shea’s face that he was conflicted by the news.
‘Great.’ Shea tried a smile, but it died on his lips. ‘You guys like a coffee?’
Moira and Carmichael looked at each other and laughed. ‘We’re not guys,’ Moira said. ‘But we girls would die for a coffee right now. What will you have, sister?’
‘Cappuccino,’ Carmichael said.
‘Make it two,’ Moira said.
Shea went to the bar and ordered. Ricky had become a vital part of the team, but what could Carmichael add? Still, if Moira was on board with her joining them so was he.
When he returned with the cappuccinos, Moira filled him in on her conversation with Carmichael. It was imperative that they find out what Gardiner had been up to in the six months before he disappeared. It might have something to do with the mysterious visitor to his office and it might not. What was certain was that Gardiner had got mixed up in some scheme that ended with him disappearing either voluntarily or under duress.
‘Where do we go from here?’ Shea asked.
‘Is the plane still at the airport?’ Moira asked.
‘As far as I know,’ Shea replied. ‘They told me I had the use of it for two days at least.’
‘Then I think we should go to Miami,’ Moira said. ‘That’s where this whole disappearance thing started.’ She turned to Carmichael. ‘Can you remember the names of the detectives from Miami PD who interviewed you?’
Carmichael thought for a moment. ‘The mean one was called Gattuso and the other one was Halliday.’
‘You think we’re just going to drop in on Miami PD and they’re going to open up to us?’ Shea said. ‘Is that how things work in Northern Ireland? You let people walk in off the street and you tell them the status of an investigation?’
Moira knew that he was right. There was no way that either Gattuso or Halliday would speak to them. She sipped her coffee and prayed for inspiration. They needed to be official someho
w. She looked at Shea. ‘Get on the phone with Jean. Ask her to call the detectives in Miami and tell them that she’s engaged a private investigator to look into Greg’s disappearance. That private detective is one Frank Shea. She’s to tell them that you’re on your way to Miami and that she’d be grateful if they would extend you the courtesy of briefing you on the status of the investigation.’
‘I like your style, girl.’ Carmichael and Moira high-fived.
Shea took out his phone and followed Moira’s instructions. While he was speaking, Moira took out her own phone and began a search on the Internet.
‘Jean is on board,’ Shea said when he had hung up. ‘She’ll call back after she’s finished with Miami PD.’
‘Coastal Printing,’ Moira said mostly to herself.
‘What’s that?’ Shea asked.
‘I’ve just been looking up print shops in the area,’ Moira said. ‘Coastal Printing is on our way to the airport. We need to stop off there and print some business cards.’ She finished her coffee and prepared to stand.
Shea motioned to her to sit. ‘Shouldn’t we discuss this course of action before we start flying off to Miami?’
Moira spoke to Carmichael. ‘Go upstairs, pack a bag and check out. We’ll pick you up in the lobby.’
Carmichael finished her coffee and left.
Moira watched her leave. ‘That girl is holding out something on us.’
‘What do you mean?’ Shea was a bit surprised. Moira and Carmichael seemed to be getting along fine.
‘I’ve interviewed hundreds of people and attended more psychology classes than I care to remember. There’s something she’s holding back. Maybe she doesn’t quite trust us yet or maybe she doesn’t realise that what she’s holding back is so important. She’ll spit it out when she’s ready.’
Shea looked puzzled. ‘We definitely need a strategy. We’re buzzing about like a couple of blue-assed flies. We need a direction.’