“I had no idea,” Drue said. “Dad never said anything, and Mom sure didn’t. But then, there was a whole lot she never told me.”
Zee took off his sunglasses and swung them by the earpiece. He settled back in the booth. “Brice told me you had a lot of questions about Colleen Hicks. So that’s what this meeting is about?”
Before she could answer, a hand gripped her shoulder. Brice stood there. “Mind if I join you?”
The waiter appeared and Brice ordered a double martini.
When they were alone again, Zee opened the box and showed his friend the contents.
“Son of a bitch,” Brice said.
“Yeah,” Zee agreed. “She found it in the attic at the cottage.”
“So you did take it,” Brice said, nodding. “I wondered.”
“I’ve read most of the file,” Drue said. “And I talked to Vera Rennick, who has her own theories, but I’d appreciate it if you two would just please tell me the truth.”
“You might not like it,” Zee warned.
“I’m a big girl. I think I can handle it,” Drue countered.
Zee sipped his beer. “Yeah, you keep telling me that.”
“I told Drue I was having a thing with Colleen,” Brice said. “She’d already guessed that much.”
“Vera told me Colleen’s husband was abusive,” Drue said.
“That’s putting it mildly. Allen Hicks was a sadistic drunk,” Brice said.
“Piece of shit dirtbag,” Zee put in. “You know what our big mistake was? We should have taken him out and dumped him in Lake Maggiore that first night at the Dreamland. Let the gators take care of him.”
Brice filled his daughter in on the domestic call the two partners had responded to at the motel, the week before Christmas in 1975.
“There was nothing about that in the file,” Drue said.
The former cops exchanged a meaningful look.
“Colleen refused to press charges,” Brice said. “We never even called it in to dispatch, so there wouldn’t be any paper trail.”
“It started that night,” Brice said, looking miserable. “I thought I was being so damn clever. I told Sherri I had a study group on Thursday nights, but she eventually caught on.”
“And you knew Dad was having an affair with Colleen?” Drue asked Zee.
“It didn’t take a genius.”
“Things ramped up with her so fast, I didn’t realize, until it was too late, that Colleen had emotional problems,” Brice said.
“Total head case,” Zee agreed, swirling his finger beside his face.
“I guess it was in July when she really started talking crazy. Allen beat her up pretty bad. I kept telling her she should leave him, get a divorce. I offered to help her, but I was very clear that I was never going to leave Sherri.”
“You’d screw around on Mom, but you didn’t want a divorce?” Drue asked, her voice dripping scorn.
“Believe it or not, I loved your mom. Through everything, God help me, I loved her. When things got really crazy with Colleen, I realized, too late, that I wanted to make my marriage work. Your mom and I had a life together. We had plans. I was going to go to law school, we were gonna have kids.” He sighed and fished the olive out of his martini.
“And what did Colleen want?” Drue asked.
“She wanted to run away, assume a new identity, a new life. When I told her there was no way I’d leave, things got ugly. She got hysterical, made threats. She was stalking me, driving past the house. She even went to the office where your mom worked, to check her out! I didn’t find out ’til later that Sherri knew exactly who Colleen was.”
“What happened next?”
“She was calling me all the time, driving past the house, acting so crazy, I thought I’d lose my mind,” Brice said. “I couldn’t sleep. I got ulcers.” He looked over at his former partner.
“I told Jimmy what was going on with Colleen, all the wild threats. He told me he’d handle it.”
“And I did,” Zee said. “I made her understand that if she was going to go, she was going to go alone. We got her a fake driver’s license and a new social security card. It wasn’t that hard back then, before everything was computerized. She told me she was going to withdraw all the money from her and Allen’s savings account, hop a bus to Atlanta and start a new life.”
“Is that what she did?” Drue asked.
“As far as I knew, it was,” Brice said. “When she disappeared like she did, I thought that was a sign. That Sherri and I were getting a chance to start over. That I could make things right with her.”
Zee was staring toward the door, watching people drift into the bar.
“Jimmy?” Drue asked. “Colleen never did get on that bus, did she?”
“No,” Zee said. “She never did.”
He took a long swallow of beer and recounted the night, decades earlier, when Sherri, hysterical and already half drunk, had called him at home to say that she’d killed her husband’s lover, and was about to kill herself.
Brice stared, silent and uncomprehending, as his oldest friend told the story.
Zee sipped his beer and put the sunglasses on again.
Drue buried her head against her father’s chest and sobbed. When she finally regained her composure, Brice handed her a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table, and she blew her nose.
“You told me you could handle the truth,” Zee said apologetically.
“Because I thought, at first, Dad killed her. Then, I was sure it was you. I never dreamed Mom”—she said, sniffling—“Mom was capable of something like that.” She fixed her father with an accusing stare. “And you never suspected Colleen was dead? At all?”
“I didn’t want to know,” he admitted. “For years, I never stopped looking over my shoulder, wondering if one day, Colleen would just show up, and destroy my life for good. She was … unbalanced. It’s no excuse for what happened, or how I let her down, but looking back, I think now, maybe, she’d be diagnosed as bipolar.”
“And that whole big police investigation, where they dragged lakes and consulted psychics and questioned sex offenders, all those years, nobody ever connected the two of you to the disappearance?” Drue asked.
“No,” Zee said, shrugging. “Nobody ever even came close. Until you found those newspaper clippings of your mom’s. And then the file.”
“And what would you have done? If the cops had arrested somebody? An innocent man? What would you have done then?”
“It never came to that,” Zee said. “That’s why I waited so long to retire. I figured, if I was still a detective, I could do something, if there was eventually a real suspect. And it’s why I took the file, when I did leave. I probably should have burned it.” He pulled the box closer. “And now I will. Tonight. As soon as I get home. And the whole thing will be done. For good.”
“Do you really believe that?” Drue asked. “Have you seen Vera Rennick’s blog? It’s called Have You Seen Colleen? She’s determined to solve the case. And she’s got a huge following of amateur cold-case detectives.”
“Oh God, her,” Brice muttered. “That damned woman, stirring things up.”
“She can stir things all she wants,” Zee said defiantly. “There’s no trail. No file. Nothing to connect either of us to Colleen Hicks.”
Brice raised his head and stared at his best friend. “Unless they find the body.”
“They won’t,” Zee said. “It’s been forty-two years.”
Brice clutched his forehead with both hands. “Jesus. I thought this nightmare was over. Honest to God. When I got together with Wendy, I figured, finally. This is happy. No more chasing, no more crazy. I built the law firm, tried to do good, to help people. I’m sixty-eight and we’re having a baby. And now this?”
Zee grabbed Brice’s elbow. “Calm down, okay? If it ever came to that, you’ve got a legit alibi. You were nowhere near Sunset Beach that night. You were clear across the bay taking a class in Tampa. Remember?”
/> “Doesn’t matter,” Brice said. “I know I didn’t kill her, but I look guilty, even to me.”
“You’re not,” Zee said firmly. “Nobody’s guilty. Not you, or me or Sherri. It was an accident. She fell and hit her head, and if it ever came to that, which it won’t, then I’m the one taking the heat, not you.”
Brice’s shirt pocket lit up, then buzzed. He took out his phone and read the incoming text. “I gotta go,” he announced. “Wendy wants me to pick up Chinese on the way home.”
“Go,” Zee said, making a shooing motion. “Go take care of your wife and baby. I’ll hang here with Drue for a while.”
* * *
Drue gulped her glass of wine and when the waiter came back, ordered another round for both of them.
“So,” Zee said. “I can tell, we’re not through with the questions, are we?”
“Sorry,” she said, but she wasn’t, and he knew it too.
“Since we’re laying everything on the table tonight, tell me, Jimmy. You and Mom?” She swallowed more wine, for courage. “Did you two get together?”
He avoided looking at her, gazing around the room, up at the huge mounted tarpon on the wall.
“You know, Big Jim, one of the guys who started this bar? He was a helluva fisherman. He took me out tarpon fishing one time, back in the day. Too much like work for me, you know? You can’t even eat the damn things.”
“About Mom,” Drue said gently.
“I’m getting to that,” Zee said. “Yeah, I’m not proud of it, but we did have a thing. Your dad was in law school at Stetson, and when he wasn’t studying, he was working nights as a security guard for concerts at the Bayfront Center and the Curtis Hixson, over in Tampa. The marriage was in trouble. And by then, Frannie and I were divorced. Sherri was lonely, and I was a shoulder to cry on. We had that shared secret, you know? It only lasted a short while.”
“Do you think Dad knows?”
“No,” Zee said firmly. “Never. It was over, almost as soon as it started. Your mom got pregnant, and it was the happiest I’d ever seen her.”
Drue’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Hold on. Are you telling me…?
“No!” he exclaimed. “God no. I swear it. I’ll admit, there was a moment there, when she told me, I guess I kind of secretly thought, maybe? But Sherri set me straight. The timing was off. And when you were born, and I saw you? Lucky for you, you’re Brice’s kid, no ifs, ands or buts.”
“No offense, but I’m really glad,” Drue said. “I think I’ve had enough shock for one week.”
“None taken,” Zee said. He toyed with his sunglasses again. “Hey, did you know I was at the hospital when you were born? In fact, I’m the one who took your mom to the hospital.”
“I never knew that.”
He placed his hand over his heart. “True story. Brice was in a hearing at the courthouse up in Clearwater, and your mom was at Publix, when her water broke. Your dad had a beeper, but we didn’t have cell phones back then. Sherri went to the customer service booth and had them call the station. I’d made detective by then. Dispatch radioed me, and I hauled ass across town with flashers and sirens. Never so scared in my life, that she’d have that baby in the back of my Crown Vic. But we made it to St. Anthony’s, and by the time they wheeled her into the delivery room, your dad was right there with her.”
Drue smiled. “That’s a nice story, Jimmy. I wish I’d known it before.”
He started to say something, but shook his head.
“What?” Drue asked. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s nothing,” Zee said.
“Please tell me,” she begged.
He put the sunglasses on again. They were, she realized, his personal invisibility cloak.
“Did you find anything else up in that attic at the cottage?”
“Not really. An old sewing machine, some boxes of baby clothes, my grandmother’s photo albums. Mom wasn’t really a saver.”
“See any luggage up there?” he asked casually.
“As a matter of fact, yeah. I think I did see some old suitcases. Why do you ask?”
He reached into his pocket and placed a crisp fifty-dollar bill on the tabletop. Then he stood up, the cardboard box tucked under one arm.
“You’re the detective now,” he said. “Check it out. Understand?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t understand at all.”
“You will.”
* * *
When she got home, she stripped down to her camisole and a pair of shorts and climbed up into the attic. The heat was palpable. She’d brought a flashlight, but there was still enough sun shining in through the west-facing attic window that she easily spotted the stack of luggage.
Nothing interesting, she thought. A graduated set of blue Samsonite suitcases, the heavy old kind nobody wanted anymore because they didn’t have wheels. She pulled each case out, snapped the latch and looked inside. Nothing except for satin lining and some dried-up silverfish carcasses. It wasn’t until she’d pulled out the biggest suitcase that she spotted it—a cream-colored train case, shoved all the way back into the eaves and covered with a thick coat of dust.
Sweat poured off her face and down her arms. She grabbed the suitcase, sat cross-legged on the rough floorboards and opened the lid. The top was mirrored, and when she saw what was reflected inside, it took her breath away.
Stacks and stacks of banded bills. She lifted a bundle out and saw that there were more bundles beneath. She remembered the yellowing newspaper clippings her mother had squirreled away all those years ago.
Jimmy Zee was wrong. It didn’t take a detective to figure this out. She was looking down at the money Colleen Hicks had withdrawn from the bank on the last day of her life. Her running-away money. She rifled the bills, twenties, fifties and hundreds.
“Now what?” she wondered out loud. “What the hell do I do with all this money?”
63
Drue called Jonah from the attic. “I know this sounds crazy, but is there any way you could come out to my house tonight? I promise there won’t be any more armed maniacs skulking in the bushes. Oh, and bring your laptop.”
“Sure,” he said. “I’m leaving right now.”
True to his word, the Audi pulled into the drive at Coquina Cottage not quite an hour later.
* * *
“Word at the office is that you got a big promotion today,” Jonah said. They sat comfortably side by side on the living room sofa.
“Thanks, Geoff,” Drue said sarcastically. “I guess Wendy must have assigned him to deal with applicants applying to the online job posting.”
“Are you excited about the prospect?” he asked.
“I sort of am,” she said. “Scared and nervous, but thrilled that I’ll be escaping from that damned cubicle.”
“Looks like I might be escaping soon too,” he said casually.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve had a job offer. Contingent on passing the Florida bar exam later this month. Second time’s the charm, right?”
“From who?” she demanded. “I mean, Dad’s offered you a job, right?”
“Brice and I have talked,” he said. “But there’s another offer on the table.”
“Tell me it’s not those shysters at Secrest, Fuller, Post,” Drue said. “I heard they have a mobile legal unit in a converted school bus that actually chases ambulances. You wouldn’t go to work for the competition, right?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Jonah said. “So let’s change the subject. What’s this legal matter you can’t discuss with your own father?”
“It’s complicated. And I don’t want to put Dad in a compromising position.”
“I, on the other hand, would love to have you put me in a compromising position,” he said.
“Maybe later.” She removed his hand from her knee, went into her bedroom and brought out the train case, setting it on the coffee table in front of him.
“Op
en it,” she said.
He did as directed, staring down at the stacks of currency. “Is this your way of telling me that your side hustle is drug dealing? Or money laundering?”
“I found this up in the attic,” she said, ignoring his attempt at a joke. “It’s been hidden up there since 1976. And I’m not sure what to do with it.”
He picked up a stack of bills, riffling them like so much Monopoly money. “After eavesdropping on that conversation with your dad the other night, I took the liberty of reading that Have you seen Colleen? blog. I read up on the case too. I have a pretty good idea of where this money might have come from. Does this mean you know what happened to her?”
Drue gulped and nodded. “Yes.”
Jonah stood up and walked around the living room. “I respect that Brice is your dad, but Drue, if he killed her…”
“He didn’t,” she said quickly. “And neither did Zee. All I can tell you is that I found this money.”
“Let me guess. There’s seven thousand dollars.”
“Yes. More or less.”
“Now I see why you can’t talk to Brice about this.”
“Colleen has no family left, just in case you were going to suggest that. Her parents died in 1980. She was an only child, and she and her husband never had children. Allen Hicks remarried two more times, and he never had children either. Besides,” she said. “Everyone who ever knew Allen Hicks agrees that he was a bad, evil person.”
Jonah riffled the bills again. “I’d say this money would be evidence in a criminal matter.”
“Which means, if I turned it into the police, they’d ask me a lot of questions about how it got up there in my attic. They might even come over here and dig up my yard or something.”
“That’s a possibility,” Jonah agreed.
“If I give this money to the police, they’ll keep it,” Drue said.
“Yes. I think that’s true. It would probably go into their general fund,” Jonah said.
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