But Calloway, that was a different story. He should have a personal interest. Jackie Merlot had taken a lot of the man’s money.
I made plane reservations that night from the phone in my little stilthouse cabin. I also spent nearly an hour calling old friends and former contacts around the U.S. as well as Nicaragua and Panama, trying to get a line on any mutual friends we might have in Colombia.
I knew there was a naval amphibious base on Cartagena Bay because I had billeted there years ago. But the people I had dealt with were long gone. So I called old friends and contacts and played the game of Hey, is what’s-his-name still doing this-or-that? And, When was the last time you saw…?
The more connections these prospective mutual friends had in Cartagena, the better.
I didn’t come up with a name, but I did come up with a description: an Australian expat who ran a little marina on the island suburb of Manga, which is just across the bridge from the old walled city of Cartagena. The Aussie was the friend of a friend, maybe a former SAS guy, maybe not, the woman I was speaking with didn’t know for sure.
The name of the marina was Club Nautico, and the Aussie, she said, might be a good source of information.
“Down there, everyone knows everyone else,” she reminded me.
She was speaking of the broader community of English-speaking expatriates in Central and South America. She was exaggerating-but not by much.
Club Nautico: It was a place to start, anyway.
Something else I did was risk a phone call to my Tampa workout friend, Maggie. Always, always, she’d called me to arrange our meetings. What would I do if her husband answered? I felt ridiculously illicit as I dialed the number. We were just friends; I wasn’t doing anything wrong, so what did I have to feel guilty about?
Maggie answered. She sounded delighted to hear from me. Her husband was out playing softball, so she could talk as long as I wanted.
We didn’t talk long. I told her I was going away for a few days. Told her that we’d probably be able to meet in Pass-a-Grille next week.
“Dinner at the Mermaid,” I told her. “Run five or six, swim maybe for half an hour, then ruin it all with food and lots of beer.”
She laughed. Maggie had a nice laugh.
Before we hung up, she told me something that was not a surprise: “Doc? I’m thinking about leaving him.”
While I was on the phone making reservations, I could look through the window at the porthole lights of Tomlinson’s sailboat throwing yellow tracks across the water.
Tomlinson over there getting everything shipshape, nice and neat and orderly. His daughter was coming to visit. His young daughter and the mother whom Tomlinson was determined to win back.
The last time Musashi had visited him (this had been months ago), I had had the misfortune of overhearing one of her attacks on him. Not that I had a choice. Sound carries across water, and Tomlinson’s sailboat is not anchored far from my house. I don’t know what shocked me most: the gutter quality of the woman’s profanity or her venomous assault on Tomlinson. He was a good-for-nothing impiety who clung to an adolescent past, had wasted his life, was a terrible example as a father and who didn’t make enough money to provide his daughter with the eloquent life, the clothes and the private schooling that she deserved.
It was a painful, disturbing attack to hear.
Dinkin’s Bay is a quiet place, even serene in a goofy, bawdy, fraternity house way. Yes, there is the occasional fistfight on the dock and more than the occasional drunken beer bash, but the marina community is peaceful, very peaceful, perhaps because individual members are allowed to embrace the private lives of our own choosing. Respect is implicit in such acceptance.
Musashi’s attack on Tomlinson, however, seemed designed to destroy the delicate scaffolding of his personal dignity.
The next day, when Tomlinson boated into the marina, I could see him searching the faces of the other liveaboards: Had they heard? Were they embarrassed for him? In our long friendship, it was the only time I’d ever seen him unnerved by that old and eternal debate: Should I be ashamed of what I am? Of who I am?
This was the woman he had invited back to his boat. This was the woman he had asked to go cruising with him to the Tortugas.
There is no explaining or understanding the intricacies of the human male-female relationship and, in such a circumstance of obvious abuse, all a friend can do is stand back and pretend not to see or hear.
I could, however, agree with Rhonda Lister, who told me, “Jesus Christ, what a poisonous bitch that Oriental twat is. Every woman on the islands over the age of twenty-one is wild about Tomlinson, but he’s wasting his time getting beat up by her.”
It was a mystery.
I booked one of the Avianca flights out of Miami, a direct to Cartagena. The Friday-morning lunch flight and the food on that fine Colombian airline is almost always good. I asked the lady in reservations, tell me honest now, were there plenty of seats available? Told her I needed to know, because I was thinking about taking a friend, but wasn’t sure the friend could make it. I didn’t mind risking the money, but why bother if there would be seats available?
The nice lady chuckled and, in Spanish, told me, on Fridays the flight from Miami to Cartagena had plenty of open seats but the flight back would be full. The Sunday-night flight was just the opposite. Full going to Cartagena, plenty of seats coming back.
“On weekends,” she explained, “the Marimba people like to come to the States and party.”
By the Marimba people, she meant the happy people; people who’d made enough money in the drug trade to do whatever they wanted.
So I booked only one seat. A bulkhead seat, aisle.
The next day, among the strangest of the strange thoughts that went flittering through my brain was: Glad I didn’t book a second seat.
This was upon discovering Frank Calloway, my potential traveling companion, lying dead on cold Mexican tiles in his home on Gasparilla Island, village of Boca Grande, on a sun-dappled afternoon in April, a Thursday.
12
C alloway had been expecting me, right?
Right.
So why couldn’t I find the file on Jackie Merlot?
I went through the whole house room by room, no luck. The more carefully I searched, the more frustrated I became.
The file had to be there. The reason I’d boated from Dinkin’s Bay to Boca Grande was not just to meet and speak with Calloway, but because he’d said the information he had on Merlot was too delicate to risk allowing it to circulate outside his personal control.
Well… he hadn’t said too delicate, but that was the implication.
Read between the lines: Long ago, Calloway had been Jackie Merlot’s psychologist. Merlot wasn’t being treated for some simple emotional difficulty, there had been pathology involved. Why else would Calloway have observed aloud to Amanda that he was surprised Merlot hadn’t yet been institutionalized? Ethically, Calloway could not go to his ex-wife and tell her about Merlot’s psychological problems. But he could and apparently did tell a private investigator where to find the information he wanted to share with Gail. Probably directed him to specific places: schools or military offices or police records. And maybe, just maybe, Calloway had told the investigator where his old files were stored and maybe just maybe there’d been a recent break-in.
It depended on how far Calloway was willing to go to circumvent the ethical demands of his former profession and how badly he wanted to get specific information to his ex-wife.
So the file should have been handy, right? Maybe not out in the open, but at least in an accessible place. Didn’t matter that Calloway had decided to take a swim before our meeting, the file had to be nearby.
Right? Right.
So why couldn’t I find the thing?
Calloway’s study: Heavy wood and leather, chromium steel and thick champagne-colored carpeting. Plaques, diplomas and framed photographs beneath a white ceiling fan.
Frank’s
face dominated most of the photographs. Dark eyes, fixed smile. The man owned suits. Lots of suits.
There was a shot of him with his arm around Amanda’s shoulder. She wore a green cap and gown. They both looked very happy, particularly Amanda. Proud daughter with proud daddy. Maybe she and her stepfather had been better friends than she’d let on. Maybe she was reluctant to admit that she, too, felt betrayed by the man’s behavior.
In the corner was a well-organized computer station. Lots of shelves rising above the computer screen in tiers. Through the bay window, the Gulf of Mexico and western horizon were a panel of pastel blue on a ribbon of rust and turquoise.
It was getting late. How much longer did I have before Frank’s wife returned?
I was still carrying the dish towel, wiping off my prints as I went. Sound is amplified and sharpened when one is inside the empty home of a stranger. It jabs like a needle. Each time a car slowed outside, I froze. I went through the roll-out drawers. Checked for little hidey-holes behind the desk, beneath the heavy plaques. Got down on my knees and looked under the desk. Had he taped the file underneath?
Nope.
Kept pausing to listen.
Couldn’t find the file.
In the massive bedroom, with its bathroom sauna and pool-sized tub, there were all kinds of interesting discoveries to be made in the dresser drawers and beneath the bed.
Frank and the new Mrs. Calloway apparently enjoyed sexual aids and pornography. Lots of plastic toys and interesting photographs and unmarked videocassettes.
If such sexual play had been a part of Gail’s life before the divorce, perhaps Merlot had had an easier time talking her into it after the divorce.
But still no file.
I was very happy to leave that bedroom. Snooping through the personal belongings of married couples does not mesh with the self-image upon which I rely to govern my daily activities. I felt like a sneak. I felt like some low-life voyeur.
I’d already searched the downstairs thoroughly. Decided to give it one last quick sweep. I was in the den, looking under magazines, looking under sofa cushions. If I turned my head one way, I could see into the kitchen: Frank’s torso and bare feet were visible through the doorway. Turn my head the other way, I could look through translucent curtains to the driveway and street outside.
Good thing, too. I was shuffling through a stack of books when I saw a car swing fast into the drive. A new ‘Vette convertible, black on black, top down. I stood there just long enough to see an attractive blond woman slide out. Hair spray and a body that bounced and flexed within an expensive white tennis outfit.
The quickness of her movements suggested that she might be irritable, maybe angry. That was my impression.
I recognized her face from photos all around the house. It was Frank’s trophy wife, Skipper. I didn’t linger to assess or admire. She appeared to be not just irritable but also in a hurry. In a few long strides, I was through the kitchen and out the busted glass door into the pool area.
It was there that something odd and unexpected caught my attention. Something lying on the deck: A checked scarf lying near the screen door. Bright checks on a white field. The little squares were raspberry red.
What was a scarf doing there? It seemed out of place, accidental. I’m not sure why I did it, but I did: I leaned and swept the scarf up in my right hand like a rider on a horse, then closed the pool door very, very quietly behind me.
A few moments later, I was on the beach strolling along, the scarf bunched up in my big hand. I had a role to play. It was not a difficult role: big wind-burned tourist in khaki fishing shorts and gray polo shirt enjoying the sunshine through his wire rimmed glasses. I did not allow myself to meet the eyes of fellow strollers who now paused to exchange glances that, at first were puzzled, then concerned.
There was a noise…
What was that noise?
Even above the sound of rolling waves, everyone on the beach could hear it: a shrill staccato howl that seemed to grow progressively louder. It originated from the shadows beyond the sea grapes.
A lady in a gigantic sun hat waddled toward me as if seeking shade or protection. She wore a blue polka-dot swim dress and was carrying a basket of shells. Zinc oxide was smeared across her pink face. The rapidness of her breathing illustrated a neuron fear. The next level is panic.
To me, a stranger, she said, “Sir? Is… is that the sound of a woman screaming?”
I continued walking, as I answered, “Yes, ma’am, a woman screaming. I believe that it is.”
The Temptation Restaurant, a fixture of Boca Grande’s tiny crossroads downtown, is only a few blocks from the beach and so was a short walk from the late Frank Calloway’s home. It’s in an old stucco building next door to an art gallery, across a sleepy street from Island Bike amp; Beach, not far from Italiano Insurance and the Boca Beacon newspaper offices.
If I’d hustled to Whidden’s Marina, hopped in my skiff and really pushed it, it was possible, just possible, I could have been making the turn past Woodring Point and into Dinkin’s Bay during the last, last pearly glow of dusk. Truthfully, that’s what I would have preferred to do. Get home, speak confidentially with Tomlinson, let him help me decide the best way to break the news to Amanda that Frank was dead.
How do you tell someone that she is now twice a paternal orphan?
But racing away from Boca Grande was not the smart thing to do.
Nope.
I needed to be seen around town. I needed to do some talking and be remembered. If asked, the efficient Ms. Betty Marsh would quite accurately inform the police that, yes, the late Mr. Calloway did have an appointment on Thursday afternoon. It was with a man named Ford, a Dr. Marion Ford.
The police might say to me, You want to hear something really strange? After Calloway died, somebody went through his stuff and wiped all the prints clean. They might say, Someone was there, someone was in the house. So why didn’t you call us and tell us the man was dead?
If the police had questions, any questions, I wanted my answers to be easily corroborated. The Temptation was where I chose to be seen and be remembered.
Annie was behind the bar when I walked in. She’s a large chestnut-haired woman with a good smile. When I straddled a stool, she raised her eyebrows and said with mock anger, “So? You don’t have time for your old friends anymore? You too busy to jump in that skiff of yours and fly north more than once or twice a year?”
For all the tourism, for all the transient comings and goings rightfully associated with the ratty, tacky character that is Florida, the community of waterfolk remains tight and dependable and it doesn’t change much from generation to generation. Annie had been born and raised on the islands. She knew everyone that I knew and more.
“During tarpon season,” I said, “you’re always so busy. I hate to come up here and get in the way.”
“We look that busy?”
There were a couple of men locked in private conversation at the end of the bar. In the dining room, they’d pushed three tables together and a dozen or so cheerful-looking women were drinking iced tea and eating salads.
“Everybody’s out fishing the hill tide,” Annie said. “Tarpon’ll be on a sure ‘nuff feed. So if it wasn’t for you and the Sarasota Ladies’ Something-or-Another Book Club in there, this place’d be like a tomb. Jim and Karen done left. Hey-how about I read your fortune?”
Annie liked playing with tarot cards. It was her little hobby. I ordered a Bud Light and a bag of chips while I waited on one of Smitty’s grouper sandwiches. I proceeded to tell Annie my sad story as she laid out the tarot cards.
“I make an appointment to talk to this guy, I run my boat all the way up here, and the man’s not home.”
Annie was slapping the cards down on the bar, looking at them. “Geez, what a jerk,” she said. Her mind was on the cards. “You’re goin’ on a trip real soon. Pretty long trip, too. Where you goin’?”
“Colombia. I’ve got a morning flight out of Mi
ami tomorrow on Avianca, so-” I stopped chewing for a moment. “How’d you know I was going somewhere?”
“You got the Three of Swords up next to the Ten of Swords. The last time I saw that, one of the Hamilton boys met a girl at the Pink Elephant and the two of them drove her mini-van all the way up north someplace. Dee-troit? Maybe Cleveland or a place like that. Those cards, they almost always mean some kinda trip.” As she spoke, she was looking at the checkered scarf I had placed on the bar. “Where’d you get that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that before.”
I patted it. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Looks handmade. The checks, that berry color, looks like they mighta used natural dye.” Fingers at the top corners, she held it out for a more complete inspection. “Whew! Kinda smells funny, though, don’t it. What is that? Like a fish smell.”
I sniffed my fingers. Yep, sour and fishy.
She said, “Smells just like some of the tarpon fishermen come in here after a hard day. ’Course then, Doc, maybe that’s the way biologists smell, too. ’Scuse me if I don’t check.” She placed the scarf back on the bar. I balled it up and stuck it in my pocket.
I said, “Did you hear what I was telling you? This guy I had the appointment with, Frank Calloway, that’s his name. I was supposed to meet him at his house at six-thirty sharp. But like I told you, nobody home. Stood there like an idiot knocking on the door.”
“Knocking on the door?”
“Yeah.”
“What, he didn’t have a bell?”
The woman didn’t miss much.
I told her I’d tried the bell first, but figured it was broken because no one answered the door.
“I don’t know any Frank Calloway. Never even heard the name. Where’s he live?”
Gilchrist Avenue, I told her.
“Oh, one of the Beach-Fronters. But pretty new to the area, right? The old-timey Beach-Fronters, I know all them.”
“Yeah, I think the Calloways have only lived here a few months. Pretty rude, if you think about it. Have me run my boat all the way up here, then stand me up.”
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