by P J Parrish
They headed west, out of the airport, in Dodie’s Chevy, through a scrubland dotted with scrawny cows and billboards. The pastures soon gave way to a scorched-earth suburban sprawl of Arbys, Home Depots, and tract subdivisions with names like Cape Verde Isles and Paradise Palms. As they neared downtown Fort Myers, the numbing newness fell away, replaced by a pleasing funk of mom-and-pop motels, small businesses, and palm-shaded streets.
“It’s not what I expected,” Louis said, eyeing a roadside stand whose sign promised JUMBO SHRIMPS AND ORANGES SHIPPED.
“What isn’t?” Dodie asked.
“Florida.”
“Everybody says that. What’d you expect?”
“I don’t know. Coconuts. Water.”
“This is the mainland. Plenty of water where we’re heading.”
As they approached a high-arching bridge, Louis caught sight of a gray-blue river. The Caloosahatchee, Dodie told him. They went through a pretty neighborhood, the boulevard lined with towering royal palms standing guard like a precision drill team lining a parade route. Dodie flipped down his visor and steered the car due west into the sun.
They started across a two-lane causeway. The sign said WELCOME TO SERENO KEY. HOME OF THE WORLD’S BEST FISHING.
“This is it,” Dodie said proudly. “My little piece of paradise. All the water a man could want.”
They were crossing a large open bay, and the confluence of water and sky was sudden and startling, like being injected into a sparkling, bright blue ball. The bay extended in all directions as far as Louis could see, broken by green islands and the razor-wakes of darting Jet-Skis.
The causeway rose over a low-slung bridge and Louis watched a pelican ride the current, keeping pace with the car. Then, suddenly, it curved out to the water and rode inches above until it suddenly nose-dived in, like a paper glider crashing into the grass. The pelican surfaced with a fish in its bill. Louis laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Dodie asked.
“Nothing, nothing,” Louis said softly, settling back in the seat.
Sereno Key wasn’t a very big place, Dodie told him, as they touched back onto land. Only a couple thousand folks, some trailer parks, motels, landscaping nurseries, marinas, boatyards, and a small shopping area everyone called “the town center.” Sereno was a dog-bone-shaped island sandwiched between the Fort Myers mainland to the east, Pine Island to the north, and the gulf barrier islands of Sanibel-Captiva to the west. The mainland, Dodie informed him, was where “regular folk” lived, and Sanibel-Captiva was where all the tourists and “money folk” lived.
“We’re kinda in between here,” Dodie said, slowing the Chevy to accommodate the key’s two-lane main road. “Lots of retirees and folks who just want to be left alone.”
Sam and Margaret Dodie’s home was on the north end of the key on Tortuga Way, in a modest neighborhood cut with canals and lined with palms. It was a tidy, two-bedroom bungalow rendered charming by small touches: yellow paint with turquoise trim, a picket fence, shutters, and a porch decorated with wood cutouts of dolphins.
“Made them myself with the jigsaw,” Dodie said. He brushed his hand through a windchime as he opened the screen. “Margaret! He’s here!”
Louis had never met Margaret Dodie before, had never been invited to the Dodie home in the months he had lived in Mississippi. Sam Dodie had been the sheriff, his boss, and it had been a prickly relationship, growing from distrust to respect. But it had been strictly professional right to the end. Part of it, he knew, had been the place. Born and raised in Black Pool, Margaret Dodie probably had never had a black man sit at her dinner table. And her husband had probably never thought of inviting one, even Louis.
But if Margaret Dodie now felt the slightest bit uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. She greeted Louis cheerfully, like she’d known him for decades. She was a plump woman, bright blue eyes sunk in a pink pincushion face, framed by a helmet of silver-blond hair. She fussed over him, showing him to her guest room, setting up a litter tray for the cat, and finally ushering him and Dodie out onto the patio with a small cooler of beer.
The Dodies’ house looked out over a canal that led out through the twisting mangrove-lined waterway to Matlacha Pass. The patio was just a concrete slab but it was furnished with comfortable lawn chairs and festooned with Japanese lanterns and orchids, another of Margaret’s new obsessions, Dodie explained. Dodie’s own diversion, a new Sundance Skiff, sat at a small wood dock.
“You fish?” Dodie asked.
“Nope,” Louis said, smiling.
“You will, you stay here long enough.” Dodie took a swig of beer.
Louis settled back into a lounge chair. He could feel his muscles unclenching, his mind slowing. Maybe it was just the combination of the breeze, the pleasant brackish smells, or just the beer. Maybe it was Dodie’s cheerful yakking. Whatever it was, he found himself thinking about childhood again, his “other-child childhood,” as he had only recently come to think of it. This time Higgins Lake in Michigan. A sunset over gray-blue water. The smell of marshmallows on a fire. The feel of cold sand between his toes. The first summer his foster parents had taken him up North.
A sound drew his eyes to the canal. A couple of kids were paddling out toward the open water in a canoe. Out toward the pass, Louis could see other small islands dotting the water like squat green pond turtles. It looked almost oriental somehow, like pictures he had seen of Japan.
“Another?” Dodie asked, reaching into the cooler.
“Why not?”
Dodie handed him a fresh Heineken. “I remembered.”
“I see.” Louis nodded to the Heineken that Dodie had just uncapped for himself. “When you start drinking this foreign shit?” he asked, smiling.
“Can’t get no Jax here.”
“You told me once you’d never leave Mississippi.”
“Well, I thought about trying to stick around, you know, afterward.” Dodie shrugged. “But Margaret, well, she always wanted to see Florida, so we came down here on that vacation I’d been promising her. After Busch Gardens, we came over to Sereno Key here and decided we kinda liked it.”
“Nice place,” Louis said.
“I guess I should thank you for it,” Dodie said. “What you did up in Mississippi got me a nice big retirement settlement.”
They fell silent, Louis lost in his memories of Black Pool.
“So you don’t miss Mississippi?” Louis asked.
“ ’Bout as much as a hemorrhoid,” Dodie said.
Dodie let out a satisfied belch. Louis looked out at the water. A large white wading bird had appeared on the dock, its slender neck bent in a graceful S, its long legs picking carefully along. Suddenly, it took flight over the water, its huge white wings stark against the deepening sky.
“Okay, so why me for this job?” Louis asked.
“Well, I heard you were out of work,” Dodie said.
“You hear why?”
“Yeah . . . yeah, I did.”
“You hear all of it?” Louis asked without looking at him. “You heard what I did?”
Dodie nodded slowly. Margaret came out to announce that dinner was in ten minutes. Dodie waited until she left.
“You don’t owe me no explanation, Louis,” he said. “But I’ll listen if you wanna talk about it.”
Louis’s hands encircled the cold bottle. “Maybe later,” he said. “So what exactly am I supposed to be investigating here?”
“A man named Walter Tatum was found murdered, and his wife, Roberta, is the prime suspect,” Dodie said. “Her lawyer is the one who’s hiring you. He wants you to find other suspects, or at least something so’s a jury would find reasonable doubt.”
“When do I meet this lawyer?” Louis asked.
Margaret came out onto the porch. “Sam, Mr. Bledsoe’s here.”
Dodie rose, looking at Louis. “How ’bout right now?”
Scott Bledsoe was a bland-looking man of about forty, tall and pale with thinning blond hair wisping
over the sunburned spot on his scalp. His outfit of polo shirt, khakis, and sockless loafers spoke of family money somewhere, or at least an Ivy League diploma hanging on the wall. He moved with an odd, liquid grace that made Louis think of the white bird on the dock.
In deference to Margaret, dinner conversation was kept to small talk and compliments to Margaret on her yellowtail snapper in mango-tequila sauce. Louis learned that Bledsoe had lived in Fort Myers all his life and had never been farther north than Tallahassee, where he waited tables to put himself through law school. He and Sam Dodie had become friends after meeting at the marina; they both loved to fish.
“So, why me, Mr. Bledsoe?” Louis asked, as Margaret brought out plates of key lime pie.
“Sam said you were good,” Bledsoe said.
Louis took a bite of the tart pie. “There have to be plenty of private investigators here you could have used,” he said. “Why pay to bring me all the way down here?”
Bledsoe glanced at Dodie, then back at Louis. “Well . . . ah.” He toyed with his fork. “Frankly, I thought a black man might be better for the job.”
Louis sat back in his chair. “And you couldn’t find one around here?”
Bledsoe again looked at Dodie. “Sam said you were good.”
Dodie was busy with his pie. Louis looked over at Margaret, who looked embarrassed but confused as to why she should be.
“I think I’ll get the coffee,” she said, rising.
Bledsoe looked back at Louis, his pale cheeks coloring slightly. “Roberta Tatum is black,” he said. “Her husband Walter was black. I thought having someone she could relate to might be helpful.”
“You’re her lawyer. You can’t relate to her?” Louis asked.
Bledsoe’s lips pulled into a line. “My client hired me because I’m the best criminal lawyer around here. But Roberta Tatum sometimes has trouble communicating. She’s . . . well, difficult.”
Louis looked over at Dodie. For a second, he was pissed, but he wasn’t sure why. Then Dodie looked up at him, and over a forkful of yellow pie, his blue eyes met his.
“I just thought you could use the work, Louis, that’s all,” he said.
Louis’s eyes slid back to Bledsoe and stayed there as he tried to reason whether he should be upset or not.
“Why don’t we go outside?” Dodie said, rising.
Louis rose and followed Dodie and Bledsoe to the patio. For several minutes, the three sat quietly watching the sunset. Dodie clicked his Zippo and as he lit the citronella candles, Louis studied his face. He looked like a kid who had gotten caught doing something wrong but wouldn’t apologize until he could figure out exactly what it was he did.
Bledsoe finally spoke. “Look, Mr. Kincaid . . . if I’ve offended—”
“Louis. If I’m going to work for you, it’s Louis.”
Bledsoe nodded and sank back in his chair. Even in the dim light of the candles, Louis could see the relief in the man’s face. Roberta Tatum wasn’t the only one who had trouble communicating.
“So, how was Walter Tatum killed?” Louis asked.
“Police believe he was first disabled with a shotgun wound to his leg,” Bledsoe said. “But he died from seventeen stab wounds in his chest. He was also beaten very badly, but that was postmortem.”
Louis heard a tightness enter Bledsoe’s voice with the last words. He had a feeling that despite being “the best criminal lawyer around,” Bledsoe had little experience with such violence.
“His body was found in some rocks along the causeway,” Bledsoe said.
“The same one we drove in on,” Dodie added.
“Was he killed where he was found?” Louis asked.
Bledsoe nodded. “Shot by his car, then dragged down to the rocks and stabbed and beaten.”
“They think a woman did this?” Louis asked.
“Murder for hire,” Bledsoe said. “She’s got an ex-con brother. He’s disappeared but there’s a warrant out for him. They think he actually pulled it off, but that they conspired together.”
“What does she have to gain?” Louis asked.
“They have some money, a very profitable store out on Captiva, and there was life insurance.”
“Did you bring the file?” Louis asked.
“No, I wasn’t sure Sam wanted to get into all that tonight. Stop by my office tomorrow and we’ll go over things.”
Louis wished Bledsoe had brought the file. Suddenly, he was anxious to get started. “Witnesses?” he asked.
Bledsoe sighed loudly. “We should be so lucky. Not a one. People fish along the causeway but no one’s come forward. The ME figures it happened late, and to make matters worse, it was raining hard that night. Sereno Key is a quiet place, we close up pretty early over here. Not much reason for anyone to come over from the mainland late at night unless they live here.”
Louis was silent, his mind already starting to turn over the pieces.
“So, where do you start?” Bledsoe asked.
“With your client,” Louis said. “Tomorrow morning?”
Bledsoe nodded. “I’ll call Chief Wainwright and arrange it.”
They fell silent. The air was heavy with the scent of low tide, orchids, and citronella. The sky was ablaze, orange and pink ribbons cutting across the red backdrop.
“Nice sunset tonight,” Dodie said.
Louis had never seen such a spectacular display. “Where do those colors come from?” he said, almost to himself.
“Dirt,” Bledsoe said. “Just a lot of dirt in the air.”
Chapter Three
He imagined that under different circumstances she was an attractive woman. She was large, maybe five-ten and a good one-seventy, but firm-skinned. Her skin was what was called blue, so dark her features seemed to blend together like ripples in an inky reflective pool. Her chopped black hair was a mess, haphazardly held back from her round face by two plastic barrettes, and she was wearing a shapeless orange jail smock. Still, Roberta Tatum held herself proudly as she paused just inside the door, staring at him.
“Where’d Bledsoe find you?” She had a sharp voice that bounced off the green concrete walls.
Louis shifted under the intensity of her eyes. They were a piercing black that reflected the florescent light like geodes.
“Michigan. A friend of a friend,” he said.
She grunted out a bitter laugh. “I didn’t think Bledsoe knew any black people. But then again, maybe you don’t qualify as black.”
She was staring at him, daring him to fight back. From his spot sitting behind the metal table, he just looked up at her calmly.
“Do you?” she demanded.
“What does it matter?” he asked, hearing a hint of weariness in his voice.
“Because!” she said sharply. She turned away. He waited while she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one. She took two long drags, blowing the smoke out in raspy streams before she turned back to face him.
“Do you think it would matter if I was some white bitch living out on Sanibel, driving a Mercedes, buying Moët and Chandon instead of selling it? Do you think I’d be in here if my skin wasn’t black?”
“I don’t know,” he said evenly. “I imagine you would be here if you were guilty, regardless of your color.”
“You imagine?” She shook her head, derisively.
Louis kept her gaze, trying to read her, trying to keep his own anger at bay. Shit, he was here to help the woman. He needed to hear the truth, not a recitation of all the crap she thought the world had heaped on her. He looked over her shoulder at the door. He could see Bledsoe’s pale face filling the small pane of reinforced glass. His expression was hangdog, almost resigned.
“How much of my money is Bledsoe paying you?”
Louis looked back at Roberta Tatum. “A hundred a day plus expenses.”
“I can get a whole box of you at the Winn-Dixie for two bucks.”
He knew she meant Oreo cookies, but let the remark go. Bledsoe had told him tha
t Roberta Tatum probably would be more cooperative without him there. So much for that theory. Well, one more try and he was out of here. He motioned to the empty chair. “Please, Mrs. Tatum, sit down.”
She slid slowly into the chair across from him. His eyes dropped to her hands. Her hands were long and tapered with perfectly sculpted red nails. The pinky fingernail had a small diamond stone in it.
Louis opened his notebook. “Tell me what happened that night.”
He had already read the file Bledsoe had given him earlier. He had read the police statements, but he needed to hear her version. Seconds passed. He waited, listening to the raspy intake of her cigarette smoke and the light tapping of her red nails on the metal table.
“We had a fight,” she said finally.
“A bad one?”
“We didn’t draw blood this time, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“The fights got physical?”
“You know fights that don’t?”
“How physical?” he asked, writing.
She eyed his notepad. “I dunno. Walter’s knocked me upside the head once or twice. I guess I pulled a knife on him a couple times.”
Those details hadn’t been in the police reports. He stared at her.
Roberta Tatum stared back. “What, your kind don’t fight like that?”
Louis set down the pencil and closed the book. All the lightness he had felt last night on Dodie’s patio was gone.
“Look, Mrs. Tatum, this isn’t about me or Bledsoe or the shade of anyone’s skin. It’s about you. You and your brother are the prime suspects in a murder and I’m trying to help you. If you don’t want my help, just tell me and I’ll leave.”
She was staring at him. For several seconds, he sat there, debating whether to open the notebook or get up. His eyes flicked up to the door. Bledsoe was still there. He felt her touch, light on his hand.
“Look, they don’t get it,” she said quietly. She tilted her head toward the door behind her. “None of them get it. Bledsoe, that cop Wainwright. They don’t get that what Walter and me did to each other, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like we actually hurt each other. It’s just how we fight.”