I exhaled. “Morning, Vargas. Everything’s hunky-dory, okay? Can we talk shop?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Mommy. I’m gonna be around awhile. You have anything?”
She nodded. “Foster moved down here sixteen years ago. He was born in Minnesota and taught in Hermantown, a suburb of Duluth, for close to a dozen years before resigning. I didn’t like the way the administrator said he resigned, and I remember my sister saying you usually need twelve years to be vested in a school pension. When I mentioned that it was strange he’d walk away so close, she agreed. It was the way she agreed; I knew she was holding back. So, I called the Hermantown PTA and tracked down the president during the time, a guy named Joe Saturn.”
“Get to it, Vargas. I’m dying of suspense.”
“Saturn said a parent had complained that Foster had acted inappropriately with their son. Something about being in a closet with the seven-year-old.”
“Scumbag. What happened?”
“He said it was never pursued further because the parents of the child didn’t want to have their kid stigmatized, and there were no other witnesses.”
“They let it go?”
“Afraid so, but SCU found a ton of child porn on his laptop, so Foster’s gonna be a guest of the State of Florida for a long time.”
“He should be hung.”
“Maybe. What about the boat?”
“Zippo. No blood or fibers. Nothing. Neighbors also verified that Blake was always going sailing in the middle of the night.”
“Blake is clean?”
“Seems to be.”
“We back to square one?”
I didn’t need the reminder. Every investigation has a ton of dead ends, but I was getting tired of chasing ghosts in this one.
I said, “I got to call Robin and tell her that her husband was just being used by that creep Foster.”
Chapter 40
Luca
Tired after another fitful night’s sleep, I slipped a disc in, put my elbows on the desk, and hit fast-forward. When I found the spot where Blake and his boat appeared I resumed normal viewing speed. The grayness rolled by, but there was nothing of note as the first of the beach walkers came into the lot. It made no sense to pay as close attention to the day visitors since it was now the second day he was missing. Even speeding the video up, it was taking a ton of time. Before I knew it, my pee alarm went off and I took a potty break.
The parking lot grayed with the onset of dusk and I eased the tape back to normal speed. At 8:09 a dark-colored Audi A6 came into the lot, catching my attention with its weaving. A drunk? It pulled close to the entrance and parked. Fifteen minutes passed and then the driver’s door opened. I had my eyes on the bald man who emerged when the passenger door swung open and a long-haired woman in slacks came out waving to her man. Baldy, who didn’t appear inebriated, walked over to her. They linked arms and disappeared down the boardwalk.
The couple came back from their walk at 9:23 and drove off. Shortly afterward, one of those tiny Fiats came in the lot. Sure enough, it was a young couple who got out and began necking. They retreated into their car and left the lot when a Lincoln SUV came into the lot at 10:37. I watched the Lincoln start to bounce gently at 11:05, and they had their fun until leaving at 12:21.
The parking lot was quiet until 2:08, when one of the ugliest cars ever made, a Nissan Cube, came into the lot. The white Cube drove slowly into the lot as I struggled to see if anyone other than the driver was in it. I paused the tape. It looked like it was a male wearing a baseball cap driving, but I still couldn’t tell if he was alone.
The Cube headed for the left corner of the lot and disappeared from the tape, out of the camera’s view. The time stamp on the video kept rolling, but there was nothing to see. I was begging for something to pop out of the grayness. Finally, at 2:41, the Cube came back into view and headed out the lot. I slowed the video as the passenger side came into view. It looked like someone or something could be in the passenger seat, but it was impossible to tell.
I rewound the video to get the license plate number as the Cube came in. The damn plate wasn’t readable. I stopped the tape and zoomed in. All I could get was the last three: 7KW. I jotted it down and moved on.
The herky-jerky video showed nothing until 4:28 a.m., when a white or maybe silver Ford Focus came in, parking close to the entrance. A guy I figured in his thirties got out, leaned on his car, and lit a cigarette. He took a couple of drags and flicked it into the brush. What’s the matter with people? I wanted to ring the moron’s neck as he drove off.
Soon the lot was awash in daylight and a parade of walkers and sun worshippers began streaming in with their paraphernalia. The lot emptied as I fast-forwarded to a 5:00 p.m. time stamp and paused it to go to the bathroom.
I made another call to Kayla but was greeted by her answering machine. After leaving a message, I grabbed a coffee and bagel from the kitchen and sat back at my desk. At ten, the lovers started to drip into Clam Pass. Some took walks, and others, well, who knew what was going on inside those cars? There were always two cars in the lot until 1:09, when it emptied. At 2:31 one of those Chrysler PT Cruisers came in.
It didn’t pull in head-on but instead parked across a couple of spots near the entrance. Two guys got out and opened its hatchback. I inched toward the screen as they dragged out what looked like a large black plastic bag. The men carried the bag, which appeared heavy, and headed down the boardwalk.
What the hell was in that bag? What was the color of the wrapping they found Gabelli in?
I rewound the tape and made a note of the license plate, which was visible as they came in, and grabbed the case file. Thumbing through, I confirmed Gabelli had been wrapped in black plastic. What threw me off was that there were two men. Usually, when more than one person is involved in a killing it involves organized crime or gangs. We’d seen no evidence Gabelli’s bookies had anything to do with his disappearance, but had we cleared them too quickly? Was this another one of my slipups?
Chapter 41
Luca
Sipping a coffee, I headed to my office feeling like warmed-over dog doo. It was four days running I’d slept like shit. The nightmares had returned after an unusually long hiatus that I’d been grateful for. I’d been dogged by nightmares involving the Barrow kid, but they came never more than once every couple of weeks and never on consecutive days. Why the sudden ramp-up? Getting cancer, peeing like a girl, and having to take Viagra ain’t enough?
Making things even spookier was a disturbing new twist. Now the unsettling visions starred me in the third person.
In the past, almost every Barrow nightmare I suffered through featured the Barrow kid hanging from all sorts of places. Most often he was suspended in his jail cell, but he also showed up in my closet, the garage, the refrigerator, even my office. It had always been the same: Barrow twisting ever so slightly, feet pointed due south, chin on chest, shoulders slumped with his eyes wide open, boring holes in me.
The new iteration that kept me from sleeping had two versions. In the first one I was lying in a hospital bed with the drapes drawn. A pair of doctors came in and told me my cancer had come back and that I had just days left to live. When I tried to ask questions, they opened the drapes, revealing a giant-sized Barrow hanging from exposed pipes. The oversized Barrow was shrieking that he’d finally gotten his revenge on me.
Even scarier was the one I’d had the last two nights. In those nightmares, I went to my oncologist’s office for an urgent visit but I couldn’t get in because the waiting room was filled with dozens of Barrows hanging from the ceiling. Frightened I’d miss my appointment, I began banging into the bodies, snaking my way through the hanging corpses into a stark examination room. There was nowhere to sit or be examined and I started to panic. I tried to leave but the door disappeared when I grabbed the doorknob. When I slumped to the ground, a doctor appeared, telling me the cancer had spread. When I asked the doctor what could be done, he sh
ook his head and pointed. A door materialized. The doctor ushered me through it, into a room filled with empty coffins. When he asked which one I would like, each of the coffins had me laid out naked in them.
I had to find a way to shake these, I thought, as I nodded at Vargas and sat.
“You look terrible, Frank.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t tell me nothing. What’s going on?”
“Having trouble sleeping, that’s all.”
“Too much on your mind?”
“Just having some crazy dreams.”
“Tell me. My grandmother was Greek. She taught me quite a bit about how to interpret a dream.”
“They don’t mean anything. It’s just random things being crunched together.”
She shook her head. “Couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Come on, Vargas, that’s hocus-pocus. Tell me why, then, say you see someone in passing that you hadn’t seen in a while, but you get distracted and forget about them. Sure enough, they’re in your dream that night.”
“There’s two different types of dreams. Everybody has that happen. What you’re experiencing, the repeated, disturbing nightmares, is totally different. Something’s triggering them.”
Was she right? “So, you’re a shrink now?”
“I'm just trying to help you get some sleep, that’s all. Why don’t we go through it?”
I stared silently and took a sip of java.
“Come on, what do you say, Frank? It can’t hurt.”
She should only know. The Barrow stuff did hurt. I didn’t know what to do. She was a good listener, but she was also into silly things like horoscopes. Besides JJ, I never said anything to anybody. JJ and I were buds. We shared things guys wouldn’t, and not a drop ever leaked out.
But Vargas knew how to keep her mouth shut. She’d proven that, and she really gave a damn about me. I considered her a true friend. I know it’s twisted, but the fact is most guys ain’t friends with women. They’re generally looking to hop in the sack with them. At times, Vargas was attractive physically, but the more I knew her, the more I appreciated what a good person she was.
When I got hit with the cancer. Vargas was genuine in her concern and didn’t dish out the macho crap most cops do when a fellow officer is in trouble.
“Hey, Frank, you in there?”
“Uh, sorry, was just thinking.”
Vargas rolled her chair over to my desk.
I said, “Not now, Mary Ann.”
“Are you sure, Frank?”
“Yeah.”
“You got to get it off your chest.”
“I know. Look, we’ll talk about it another time. Okay?”
“Your call. Frank, I’m not the one getting nightmares.”
***
I hung up the phone and leaned back in my chair shaking my head. Not only was I physically exhausted, but I was tired of hitting brick walls. The PT Cruiser lead turned out to be nothing more than two do-gooders camping out at the beach to protect sea turtle nests. I’m telling you, I got nothing against turtles, and I think the effort to protect their nests is a good one. In fact, I think baby turtles are cute. However, we seem to be going a little too far interfering to be sure they make it into the gulf before some bird grabs them as dinner. What about the birds? Don’t they have to eat?
Maybe this case just isn’t gonna be resolved. Maybe twenty years from today a bored Collier County detective will eat up his day by poring over this cold case. It was seeming likely, and it pissed me off. A break seemed in order.
Stepping away seemed to work for me. Not all the time, but sometimes, things hit you when you’re not knee-deep in a case. Time for this detective to dust off an old case.
I got up and dragged a box of files over, running my hand over the archives. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I pulled one out and started reading.
Halfway through the papers documenting the investigation into the murder of a Boris Laskin, an intern knocked on the door and handed me a report.
It was the DMV license plate report I’d requested on the Cube. I plopped it into the in-basket and got back to the Laskin case. A reference in the case to a stolen car made me stop and I grabbed the DMV report.
Two pages of plate numbers, and who they were registered to, surprised me. That many people wanted a Cube? And in white? Maybe they limited the color choices. This would require a ton of follow up. Maybe we could get the uniforms to run them down. I flipped the first page over and my heart began to race.
Chapter 42
Stewart
“Risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.” - Leo Buscaglia
I saw him from the kitchen window; it was that damn detective again. Heading down the stairs, I pulled my inhaler out, took a hit, and opened the door.
“Oh, hello, Detective Luca. What I can do for you?”
“I’ve got a couple of questions for you. May I come in?”
Hell no, you can’t come in. “Sure.”
He sat in the same chair as the first time he came, but this time I wasn’t offering him anything. It doesn’t pay to be nice to these guys.
“Do you own a white, 2010 Nissan Cube?”
“Nope.”
The detective drew a document out of his pocket and unfolded it. “Really? Well here’s a copy of the registration.”
“I used to own one, but I sold it.”
“Now’s not the time to be playing games, Mr. Stewart.”
Screw you, Luca, you said do I ‘own’ one. “Perhaps you should be clearer when questioning.”
The detective wasn’t happy. He stared at me for a bit too long, then he said, “You go down to Clam Pass often?”
“I like the beach there, but I don’t go as much as I would like. Besides, I think Vanderbilt’s nicer.”
“You mean at night?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Detective.”
The bastard dug into his pocket again. What was he, a magician?
“Here’s a photo of you in your Cube driving into Clam Pass in the middle of the night on May first.”
I looked at the gray, grainy picture and said, “Is that against the law?”
“No, but it lines up nicely with the day that your best friend went missing.”
I smiled. “Oh, I get it, so now you think I must’ve taken Phil’s body there and dumped my best bud in the water.”
“What were you doing there that night?”
“It wasn’t me. I lent my car to a neighbor.”
Luca threw his head back and snickered. The smug son of a gun said, “And how is it you recall that?”
“It’s easy, Detective Luca, it’s the night my best friend in the whole world disappeared. I have a crystal-clear recollection of that night.”
“I see. And who is the neighbor you say you lent the car to?”
“I didn’t just say, I did let him use my car. Lenny Nership, he lives just across the street. You can go and ask him.”
“Believe me, I will.”
Man, I was really starting to hate this guy. “Be my guest.”
“What’s his address?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not the one directly across from me but the one to the left. He’s the lower unit.”
“Why’d you sell the car?”
“What, selling a car’s a crime these days?”
“Did you trade it in or sell it privately?”
“Traded it.”
“Where?”
“You can save yourself a lot of time by just going to see Lenny.”
“Where was it traded in?”
This Luca was anal and getting on my nerves real fast. I was thinking of giving him a Lexus dealer or something to jerk him around, but said, “Germain Honda, down on Davis.”
The detective made a note. He looked like he was about to ask another question, but he stood, jammed the notebook in hi
s pocket, and said, “That’ll be all for now.”
I watched him through the window. Sure enough, he made a beeline to Lenny’s place. I knew Lenny wasn’t home and smiled at the thought that Luca would have to make another trip. The next time he comes around I’m not going to answer the door. What did being so available get me anyway?
***
Early the next morning, Lenny texted me and said that Luca had just left. Said the detective wanted to know if he borrowed my Cube and that he told him yes. When Luca asked him why, he said he had a date and that his car was a junker. And that was the end of that.
I hoped Luca would leave me alone now.
Chapter 43
Luca
Vargas took one look at me and said, “What happened?”
I shook my head. “I really thought we’d tie Stewart to Clam Pass. But it seems he lent his car to a neighbor.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the neighbor had a date and his car’s a junker, so he used Stewart’s Cube.”
“Date part going to Clam Pass at night makes sense.”
“I know, the guy was a little off, though.”
“You think he was lying?”
“No, no. I mean he was just kinda weird, I don’t know, like a touch of autism or something.”
“What? Now you can diagnosis autism?”
“No, I don’t know what else to call it. He was the kinda guy who’d have his car covered in stickers. You know what I mean?”
Vargas shook her head. “You know, Frank, anybody else would think you’re crazy.”
“Me? You’re the one who believes in stuff like horoscopes.”
“Don’t get so defensive, Frank. I was trying to say that I did understand what you meant by the sticker reference.”
“You did?”
“You’re wound too tight, partner. You still not sleeping?”
I nodded.
“I think I can help if you just open up a little.”
I nodded.
“Tell me about the dreams.”
Vargas closed the door and I opened up. I told her about the recurring nightmares featuring the hanging Barrow kid and the new twist about me dying.
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