by Mike Nemeth
“Deputy Dobbins from the Cortes County Sherriff’s office, Simmons, Dickson, my daughter, my ex-wife, Glenda, and my former girlfriend, Susanne.”
“Now you’re playing hardball.” The lawyer scribbled the names on his notepad.
“What about Puralto? Did you find him?”
“Yes, that was easy. He’s a doctor, works at a clinic in Brandon. Married twenty-five years to the same woman, two kids. Upstanding citizen.”
“Ever own a condo in Seminole?”
“Briefly. Awarded to him by the court in a case against one Carrie Simmons. The doctor sold the place less than six months later.”
“Did she own the condo while she was married to Simmons?”
“Technically. The condo was purchased after the divorce was filed but before it went final.”
“She had Puralto lined up before Simmons filed. Add Puralto’s name to the witness list.”
Tony grimaced. “Why bother the poor guy, after all this time?”
“Why is everyone more concerned about his well-being than mine? Puralto establishes a pattern of behavior. I’ve seen lawyers do that on TV.”
It was Tony’s turn to grunt in disgust.
With my lawyer out of the way, I dialed Jamie’s cell phone number and was surprised that she answered.
“What’s up, Dad?”
It took a minute to organize my thoughts and find the right way to tell the story.
“Carrie has come to the boat twice without warning. I think she’s coming to kill me.”
“You don’t believe that murder plot stuff, do you?”
“Hard to say. That’s why I need a safety net—to protect myself if she comes back.”
Jamie gave me an exasperated huff. “Make her meet you in a public place, Dad. Not on your damn boat.”
“Sure. I’m talking about if she turns up uninvited.”
“If you’re worried about it, report it to the police. Why are you asking me for advice?”
“I could take her to the cove, down by Fort De Soto Park. Do you remember it?”
“Stop it, Dad. This is crazy.”
“Just to be sure, I thought you could meet me there, with your gun and your badge. Give me a hand.”
“No, no, no! I’m not risking my badge on your mess. Forget this ridiculous idea and report her to the police.”
“What if she snuck aboard? If I called you, would you help me?”
“No! Go stay in a hotel.” Jamie hung up on me.
Despite my daughter’s reluctance to get entangled in her father’s imbroglio, I was in a jovial mood. As I pulled into the marina parking lot, distracted by the joyful snippets of courtroom repartee ricocheting around my cranium, I didn’t see her until it was too late.
The red Jaguar sat nose-out, top-down, in the space immediately in front of the walking gate to my dock. A man lounged beside her in the front seat. Unsure of my next move, I stopped dead in the second rank. That was a mistake. My wife and I traded evil stares for a moment before I impulsively stepped on the gas to escape, but the Bronco was not designed to drag race a sports car. The agile Jaguar leapt out of its space and raced up the first rank of cars, parallel to my path, and it outpaced me. In a brazen display of recklessness, Carrie screeched through the corner and slid to a stop at the end of my rank, blocking my flight.
My reactions were barely adequate. The big Bronco skidded sideways and halted with its right bumper inches from the Jaguar’s passenger door. As I caught my breath, and Larry caught his, Carrie popped out of her car and ran around the backend, shaking her fist at me. Larry pushed himself out of his seat and onto the rear deck of the convertible. He looked ready to join the fun, but Carrie waved him back.
She hustled up to my door, and I rolled the window down in time to hear her say, “Get out of the damn truck!”
“Get out of my damn way!”
“You can’t run away like a little sissy. I’ll make you a deal, but you have to cancel the psychiatrist.”
“I don’t have to do squat. Admit it, Carrie, your tits are in a wringer.”
She kicked my car door. “I’m not going to the nuthouse.”
“Fine. Then it’s jail. You’ve always looked good in pinstripes.”
She kicked my door again, harder. I heard, rather than felt, the metal crumple as she screamed, “I’m not crazy!”
“Sure. Anyone can see that.” I waved my arm to encompass the whole scene.
With her left hand, she grabbed my outside mirror and levered herself onto the running board so she could pummel my arm and shoulder with her right fist. On cue, Larry stood in his seat, ready to lend a hand. I wasn’t about to brawl with an ex-con, so I threw the Bronco into reverse and jerked backward a few feet, cranking the wheel to the right to get a better angle on the space between the Jaguar and a parked car. The sudden movement flung Carrie off the truck. Like an ice skater doing a leaping spin, Carrie turned three hundred sixty degrees in the air, but she failed to stick the landing. Her right foot struck the ground and acted like a pogo stick, bouncing her up in the air, arms and legs akimbo, before gravity smashed her into the pavement, tailbone first. She shrieked in agony.
Larry was about to run to his boss or mistress or whatever she was to him, but I cut him off by rolling forward until my bumper leaned on the Jaguar’s right rear wheel well.
Larry waved a bandaged arm in horror. Carrie yelled, “Stop it!”
Slowly, I increased power until the Jaguar’s rear end began to lurch sideways. As the Jag crab-walked, Larry lost his balance and grabbed the windshield to steady himself. Carrie struggled to her feet and shouted at me, but I couldn’t hear her over the roar of my engine.
Howling deliriously, I applied full power. Smoke and acrid fumes enveloped the scene as the Bronco burned rubber and bulldozed the Jaguar out of the way. Carrie limped toward my door, shouting profanities, but I did not stop pushing the Jaguar until there was room to pass around it. I backed away from the crumpled Jag, cranked the wheel to the left, and stepped on the accelerator. Accidentally, I snagged her rear bumper, and as the Bronco circled the Jag I ripped Carrie’s bumper from its anchors like I was peeling a banana. Her bumper scraped the asphalt as I dragged it through the parking lot to the cheers of a growing crowd of spectators. Larry tried to chase me down, but he was no track star.
When I bounced out into the street, Carrie’s bumper wrenched free to lie in the middle of the street, forlorn evidence of the violent confrontation. The onlookers shouted encouragement as I made my getaway like a hit-and-run driver. Three blocks later, I hid the Bronco in the downtown mall-parking garage and inspected the damage. Two streaks of Jaguar red paint on the bumper and the imprint of one size-seven shoe on the driver’s door were the only signs that my truck had been in an altercation. The Bronco had won another bar fight.
Curious to see how the other guy looked, I pulled a ball cap low over my eyes, walked back to Beach Boulevard, and blended in with the onlookers. Carrie neither called the cops nor summoned a wrecker. As Larry used a tire iron to pry the quarter panel off her right rear tire, she paced gingerly, stopping every few feet to place both hands on her lower back and push her pelvis forward to relieve the pain. Once the tire was free, the two of them jumped into the Jag and found that it was drivable, at least in the loosest sense of that word. Barely making ten miles an hour, teeter-tottering from side to side like a broken old man, the Jag hobbled through the parking lot as the crowd pointed and jeered and snapped photos with their smartphones.
In the street, Carrie paused to allow Larry to pick up the bumper and prop it over his shoulder in the passenger seat. Then she gave the crowd a one-fingered salute and eased down the street. As the tortured clang, clang, clang of her ruined gearbox receded, the crowd dispersed.
I waited for her to turn out of sight before I retrieved the trusty Bronco and parked it in the space Carrie had vacated. Although Carrie had five hours to reach Cortes County for her rendezvous with a sheriff’s deputy, I doubted the Jaguar could be her ch
ariot. I also doubted that Carrie would “go gentle into that good night.” Like a wounded bear, she would look for ways to gain revenge. All afternoon and well into the evening, I sat in the aft cabin, watching the parking lot and the walking gate with my Berretta in my lap, but neither Carrie nor Larry returned to the marina.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
On Wednesday, the marina was deserted. The tourists had returned to their mundane lives, and the weekend boaters were at their offices and businesses. As soon as Tony’s office opened, I called my lawyer seeking confirmation that Carrie was being examined. Melissa answered and told me Tony was conducting a deposition and couldn’t be interrupted.
Melissa said, “Your wife made quite a scene. Refused to go with the deputy, so they called her lawyer and the lawyer drove her to the hospital.”
“Which one?”
“I assume West Florida Psychiatric Center in Tampa,” Melissa said, “but she’s way up there in Cortes County, so it could be Orlando or Gainesville or anywhere there’s a bed.”
“What happens now?”
“She will be interviewed by a psychiatrist today, and then a second psychiatrist will review the findings and decide whether he needs to interview the patient to confirm a diagnosis. Then they’ll prepare a report of their findings.”
“Tony told me they’ll take seventy-two hours to decide what to do with her.”
“They can’t hold her for more than seventy-two hours to examine her, but they can release her at any time.”
“Unless she needs to be kept in the asylum, right?”
“Oh no. Since she hasn’t been charged with a crime they won’t keep her no matter what their findings.” Before I could react, she amended her pronouncement. “Let me take that back. If they advise in-patient care, your wife could take their advice and voluntarily commit herself.”
Fat chance. “So if they decide she’s crazy, they’re just going to let her go?”
“If they conclude she should be detained involuntarily, they have five days following the examination to get a court order for a commitment. That’s the way it works. The judge reviews the report and decides whether or not to detain her.”
Unbelievable. Why would a judge get to second-guess the experts? “Will we know when she’s released?” Or will I have to walk around with a loaded gun?
“Since you’re the petitioning party, they’ll notify us and we’ll pass it along to you.”
“Terrific.”
I checked the cloud account and found that Carrie had not been online since mediation. Weird. Sure she was reading my mail somehow, I left her a present to find when, and if, she was released from the hospital.
Tony,
We know about Puralto, but keep Fred looking for other people she cheated with.
Randle
Driving into my old neighborhood in Dolphin Beach on Thursday morning felt strange. I had only been gone a few days, but it already felt as though I were returning to a childhood home after years away. Carrie and I kept our deeds, car titles, and wills in a safe-deposit box at the Community Bank on Gulf Boulevard. If something untoward happened to me, I wanted to be sure Jamie inherited my worldly goods and that Carrie didn’t.
Carrie had beaten me to the punch once again. An amendment to her will had been sworn on September 23rd, the day after the Baker Act show cause hearing date had been set. Originally, we were cross beneficiaries in the event one of us passed away. That is common practice in marriages. In the event we both passed away, our estate would be divided equally between our children, Travis and Jamie. Again, a common practice. The new amendment, however, named Carrie’s sister, Connie Mae Tomkins, as her sole beneficiary. So Connie had found a way to restore her status as family bank. Why would Carrie agree to that? Loyalty to the Tomkins clan?
I stopped that scam in its tracks by amending my will to name Jamie as my sole beneficiary, cutting Carrie, and therefore Connie, out of my will.
While the bank’s notary public prepared my amendment, I received a text message from Tony: Trial motion filed. Crawl in a foxhole and keep your head down.
On the way back to the boat, I called Connie’s cell phone but received no answer. Presumably, she was at work, as though this were a normal day in the life of a bean counter.
When I reached the boat, I established an alibi for the weekend. I arranged to meet with the IT guys and my team in Atlanta on Friday afternoon to review their design of the new automated loader for closed medical cases. To cover Monday, I set a meeting of all senior executives to walk through the design and approve the implementation plan.
The arrangements with Glenda were far more complex, but she excitedly took notes and reveled in the prospect of assisting me.
That afternoon, Tony called. It sounded like he was in a bar—probably the 19th hole at the Belleview Biltmore. “Melissa texted when I was on eighteen. Your wife was released an hour ago. Kept her less than forty-eight hours, so it’s probably not a good sign.”
“When will we hear something?”
“They have five days to write a report.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone has all the time in the world except me.”
I called Connie again and reached her voice mail once more. I wanted to hear the inside story of Carrie’s examination, so I left a message to call me back.
Friday, I felt like Henry Hill in the movie Goodfellas, running desperate errands with police helicopters following my every move. I packed my bags for a week’s stay and waited for thunderstorms to pass. As I waited, smoking a cigar in the aft cabin, I called my friend Jerry Louks and arranged to meet him for happy hour. I needed a favor.
At long last, the rain turned to steam rising from the pavement, and I carried my bags to my car. I dropped the Bronco at the dealer for a routine service and accepted a loaner vehicle, which I drove to the beach house to retrieve my stolen goods from under the dock. Then I self-parked the loaner at the Don CeSar Hotel, the “pink palace” on Gulf Boulevard, and walked four blocks to a strip mall. Enterprise Rent-A-Car met me there with a nondescript rental in Glenda’s name, and I took possession. Back in the Don CeSar parking lot, I transferred my luggage and stolen goods to the rental car and took off for Atlanta.
That afternoon I reviewed our product demo with my team. At seven p.m., I checked into the Technology Park Hilton, had a couple of drinks with Jerry, ate dinner, and watched a college football game as though my life were normal. What do terrorists do the night before they plant a bomb?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
On Saturday morning, I waited in the hotel room until the maid arrived. She could confirm I had spent the night. Downstairs in the hotel restaurant I generated a dated credit card receipt by having breakfast. Before I left for Florida at two p.m., I messed the bed to make it look slept in.
Connie had arranged to take the Tomkins family to Clearwater Beach this weekend, and Carrie had been released from the mental hospital in time to make the trip, so the country house should have been unoccupied. Nonetheless, I cruised slowly past the house at ten p.m., checking for signs of life. The place was buttoned up and dark, but I could see that the backyard spotlights were lit. I made a U-turn, cruised back to the house, and pulled into the garage side of the driveway.
Wanting to spend as little time as possible outside, I immediately pushed the “open” button on a garage door remote that I had not surrendered to Carrie. The door opener I had handed over when I moved was an old one that had stopped working long ago. As the door rose, a nondescript beige sedan appeared, nose pointed toward me. I slammed on the brakes. My heart tried to punch a hole in my chest, but I forced myself to wait. No one came out onto the porch, no one walked out of the garage, no one emerged from the shadows. Maybe she was just inside the back door with my pistol cocked. As time drifted by, I realized she probably had hitched a ride with Connie.
If this were a movie, everyone in the theater would be yelling, “No, don’t go in there,” but I rolled up the driveway, did a three-point turn,
and backed into the garage. As a precaution, I left the door open in case I had to fight my way out of the situation. Nothing happened.
Before I got out of the car, I donned surgical gloves and grabbed my MagLite flashlight. Wondering if I could go to jail for breaking into my own home, I pulled on a cord attached to a door in the ceiling and a folding ladder dropped in front of me. I unfolded the ladder and climbed into the storage space above the garage. When the alarm system had been installed, Carrie had objected to mounting it in a closet or any other interior space. It would have been an eyesore or something in the way of her wardrobe, so the technicians had mounted the equipment in the storage space above the garage. It had required running both electricity and a phone line into the space and had cost hundreds of dollars more than a conventional installation. Now I was happy I had made the investment. I pulled the electrical plug on the alarm system and disconnected the RS-11 cable for the phone line. Sure I wouldn’t trip the alarm and alert Carrie, I descended into the garage.
I stood quietly in the garage for a moment and listened for the dog, but I couldn’t hear him. For a weekend away, Carrie either would have taken the dog or hired someone to feed and water him for her. Since the whole family was at the beach, I couldn’t imagine who would have performed that favor, but I couldn’t risk getting eaten alive by that beast, so I had to go looking for him. From the car I took a cloth satchel containing the files I had stolen on the day I moved out of the house. I looped the satchel over my head so I wouldn’t lose it in the chaos that was sure to follow. Then I reached for my bait, a stuffed bunny rabbit I had purchased at a pet store. It was a toy designed to be torn to shreds by predator dogs, and that’s exactly what I hoped would happen.
I walked into the backyard to the near fence line and yelled inanities to flush out the dog. Nothing happened. I shook the chain-link fence, hoping to alert the dog if it was napping inside, but it did not appear. Maybe the dog was enjoying a weekend at the beach. To be sure, I shook the chain-link fence violently, causing it to rattle, and the dog did appear, just its head and shoulders squeezing through the second-story doggy door. There it stayed, glaring at me. I pretended to climb the fence and the dog just watched, assessing the threat as minimal. Dropping to the ground, I showed him the bunny rabbit and shook that at him. Like an alligator emerging from its den to stalk its prey, the dog slowly emerged in its menacing totality and stood on the balcony, snarling at me.