Clearwater Journals

by Al Rennie

“I could contact Langdon for you. He seemed to be a sweet old guy in a grumpy old fart sort of way. He was always nice to me. Maybe, he could get you copies of those reports,” Mia stated quietly. She was processing what I had just suggested and suddenly seemed a little distracted. Something was bothering her.

  “What’s not to be nice to you?” I commented idly. “The old cop probably thought he was in love, but I still don’t think he’ll help us too much. Helping us might put his pension at risk—depending on the agreement his bargaining group has with the city. But I guess it’s worth a try. What about the others I mentioned. Do you know many of those people?”

  “Here’s the thing Joe,” Mia said looking down at the sand in front of her, “my mom—no problem. I think she’s still hurting and needs to get this thing behind her. I mean she kind of let herself go during the year after Vickie died. In some weird way, I think she blames herself. My stepfather, Ted, and stepbrother, Terry,—I don’t think you’ll get anything there.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s like it never happened. They don’t even want to talk about it. Both of them have told me more than once, and told my mom a lot more than that, that it’s done. Get over it; get on with your life. I don’t understand why, but it’s like they don’t care anymore.”

  For the second time, a red flag went up in my mind about Mia’s father—and now her stepbrother. This was the same guy who was friendly with Billy Ray. Maybe stepfather and brother want it to go away because somehow one or both of them were involved. Mia was perceptive. She must have heard the same little voices I did. ‘De Nile’—a river in Egypt. I wasn’t ready to go there with her yet. I wondered briefly if Mia had ever gone to a therapist—probably not. Maybe at some point in the future, she would trust me enough to open up that particular area of her life. For now, she was still dealing with those demons alone.

  “Okay, Mia, so let’s not bother telling your mom and stepfather about what we’re doing. It would probably just piss them off and create more problems for us than we already have. Let’s concentrate on finding this retired cop, Langdon. We can see where it goes from there.”

  “Alright, let’s get a phone book,” Mia said. She ascended gracefully to an upright position. She looked down at me as I struggled to get my feet under me. Graceful is an adjective seldom used to describe anything I do.

  ‘So much for a quiet romantic evening viewing a perfectly beautiful sunset with this incredible woman,’ I thought as I finally managed upright. ‘Instead, I have to go find a phone book.’

  “What are you—some kind of acrobat? How did you get up like that?” I asked looking at her as she stood waiting.

  “Just cross your legs at the ankle and stand up. It’s not hard at all. Remember I used to be a dancer of sorts. I still do yoga sometimes.”

  “Great. Mia the elastic lady,” I grumbled. “You’ll have to show me that trick again sometime. Who knows when I might be sprawled out on some forgiving surface—like a bed—with a beautiful woman at my side and want to stand up in under a nanosecond?”

  Mia ignored my beautiful woman and bed comment, laughed, grabbed my hand and dragged me back towards the street. “I think there’s an old public phone booth in the parking lot of that Surf and Sand souvenir shop. Let’s go.”

  An open phone booth lit by a single fluorescent light sat at the front corner of the small parking lot. Large moths and other flying insects, big and small, attracted to the light, had claimed the area as theirs. I flailed my arms crazily in a futile attempt to drive the little buggers away. They weren’t going anywhere.

  We scrunched over and quickly moved in to get to the ravaged phone book inside its hard gray plastic cover. The book and cover were hanging from the booth’s scratched aluminum corner shelf at the end of a six-inch plastic covered link chain. We did a quick search for ‘Langdon, S’ in the uncertain light. There were three in Tampa, two each in Largo and St. Petersburg and one in Clearwater. We agreed to try the Clearwater Langdon first.

  “I need your cell,” she said.

  “Good luck—I don’t have one.”

  “I don’t believe it. I hook up with the one guy left in the world who doesn’t have a cell,” Mia exclaimed. “How do you survive?”

  “Who am I going to call?” I asked reasonably. “And where is your cell if you are so twenty first century?”

  “I don’t have any minutes left.”

  We huddled together in the limited space with all the nasty flying creatures. Mia did the talking. She knew the guy—or at least had met him. I jammed in as close as I could to her when she had an answer. Her perfume was intoxicating. I wanted to kiss her neck. I didn’t. I continued unsuccessfully to beat away the random attack of the flying night stalkers.

  “Is this the residence of the retired police officer, Stuart Langdon?” There was a nervous quaver in Mia’s voice. Maybe it was excitement.

  “Who wants to know?” the replying voice was deep, female and grated on the ears like a slightly rusty rasp going over a hollow metal bar.

  “Sergeant Langdon investigated the murder of my little sister almost three years ago. Her name was Victoria. It’s really important that I talk with him if this is his home.”

  “It is—but he’s er.. drunk. Just a sec; I’ll see if he wants to speak with you.”

  There was the sound of a telephone receiver hitting something solid and then nothing. Mia waited. After a minute, she looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. I realized that she had started to shiver.

  “Give it another minute,” I said.

  We waited and just as Mia started to make a move to hang up, there was that raspy, grating voice again. “He’ll be right with you.” Thunk—the receiver banged the wall one more time.

  “Pleasant woman,” I commented idly, “probably a big fan of midget wrestling and the opera.”

  Mia giggled. We waited. Two minutes passed. Finally a voice came on, “What do you wan’?” Langdon said as only a guy with a massive load on could say.

  “Is this Sergeant Langdon?” Mia asked quietly.

  “No—it’s Mr. Langdon. I ain’t a cop no more. What do you wan’ lady?”

  “It’s me—Vickie Doulton’s sister, Mia. We met and talked a few times when you were following up on her death. How are you?”

  “I think I’m between drunk and hung over, and I don’t know since when—maybe Viet Nam. I repeat—what do you wan’?”

  “I wondered if a friend of mine and me could meet you and talk about your investigation into the death of my sister.”

  “I toll ya, I ain’t a cop no more. There’s nothing to talk about. I didn’t get the guy that did it. So friggin’ sue me.”

  “I know that, but I wondered if we could talk with you anyway. Maybe take you to lunch somewhere. It wouldn’t take long.”

  “Listen Missy, I did everything I could to find your sister’s killer. It’s not my business no more.”

  “Okay, I understand that, but could you at least meet me and my friend? Have lunch with us? My treat—bring your lady friend if you want.”

  “That would be the frosty fuckin’ Friday in August,” the cop muttered followed by a goofy kind of chuckle. Then, for no apparent reason, he relented. “Yeah, okay, if you leave me alone now—Crabby Bill’s in Clearwater Beach—you know the place?... Just at the end of the Mem causeway?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Mia replied—excitement creeping into the edge of her voice.

  “You and your friend—noon tomorrow, your treat.” Thunk. He missed the phone base. “Shit!” Picked it up and dropped it again. This time it landed in the right place and the connection was broken.

  “He’ll meet us,” Mia said to me.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I heard. Tomorrow, noon, Crabby Bills, your treat! Do you think he’ll remember? He sounded like he was kind of out of it. He also didn’t sound like he’d win too many Mr. Nice Guy contests if you know what I mean. I don’t think I’d be counting on too much support from this guy
. But at least, if he shows up, I can get a read on how competent he was in conducting the investigation.”

  “Yeah, well, he was always a bit of a diamond in the rough—even when he was a working cop—maybe because he was a cop. Retirement hasn’t mellowed him out any I guess. So what do we do now?”

  I looked over my left shoulder to where the sun had crashed below the Gulf of Mexico’s horizon ten minutes earlier. “Well, we’ll follow up and meet him tomorrow. For now, it seems that we missed the last of the sunset. I guess we could go back to the beach, and you could show me that speed rise levitation thing you do. Or you could take me home and introduce me to your mother, or we could drive over to where your sister was found. Maybe we could get something to eat if you’re hungry—any or all of the above.”

  “How about checking out where they found Victoria, and then, if we still feel like it, getting a bite to eat someplace. But no more Death by Chocolate! Jeez it’s got cold all of a sudden eh?”

  It was true. When the sun goes down at this time of year in Florida, the night air can cool off pretty quickly. Tonight, with a gentle wind coming in off the Gulf, there was an unexpected chill factor. I thought I was finished with that term—wind chill. Like when the weather guy in Ontario says, “It’s zero degrees outside folks, but with the wind chill factor it will feel like minus twenty five.” I realized that I didn’t miss Canada at all.

  As Mia turned to look at the Surf and Sand, a sleek black Mercedes slowed to a crawl on Gulfview Blvd., in front of us. The car’s windows were darkly tinted. I couldn’t be certain, but somehow I felt the driver was studying us. Then he rocketed away. I looked at Mia, but she seemed not to have noticed.

  Mia and the Jaguar