by Mark Stone
“Well, in that case, I guess I must have inherited it from my rich oil baroness aunt, Lydia Von Made-up Name,” Davey sneered. “It’s not mine, dude.”
“Well, it’s not mine,” I said. “Do you think the moving company screwed it up? This obviously belongs to somebody else.”
“They must have,” Davey said, pulling at the first of two latches holding the trunk closed.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “That’s not ours. You can’t just open it.”
“Of course, I can,” Davey said. “It’s been in our house for almost a whole day and a half now. Squatters’ law dictates it’s pretty much our property at this point.”
“I don’t think that’s how that works,” I said.
‘Whatever,” Davey answered, pulling at the other strap as I walked over to him. “If we’re going to give this back to whoever it belongs to, then we’ll need to know who that person is. A moving company stupid enough to get this mixed up probably won’t even know how to get us that information. Maybe there’s something inside here that would tell us that.”
I sighed. “I know you just want to dig around in there to be a snoop, but that made just enough sense for me to let it go,” I said in defeat.
“Another area where I excel,” he said as he pulled the trunk open. He gasped as he pulled it open, and my heart jumped as I looked at the contents. It was a single pistol and a white towel covered in blood that had been monogrammed with the letters G.J.
Davey slammed the trunk shut and looked up at me, his eyes wide and his mouth open. “What . . .” he muttered. “What is that?”
The pieces flew together in my mind as though I had been waiting for them to fall. The gun, the blood, and the letters on the towel. They could only mean one thing.
“G.J.,” I said. “It’s George Jenkins. Somehow, we’ve been delivered the weapon that killed George Jenkins.”
As the words tumbled out of my mouth, a knock came on the door. It was loud and jarring. “Open up!” the voice shouted. “It’s the police, and we have a search warrant!”
“Oh, no,” I said, my head jerking from the door back down to the very incriminating trunk. “This isn’t good. It isn’t good at all.”
Chapter 15
Davey’s eyes got even wider somehow as the booming knock on the door continued. His hand went up to his mouth in shock and he looked over the entrance to my new house, a place where a police officer now stood with a warrant to enter the premises.
“Are you sure?” he asked through splayed fingers. “Are you sure this is the thing that killed George Jenkins?”
“Of course not,” I answered quickly. “I’d have to run ballistics and all of that, but I’m guessing it is. I’m guessing this is the pistol that shot him in the head and this is the towel that was used to sop up his blood. A DNA test and a ballistics report will prove it. I’m also guessing that’s why the police are at my door with a damn search warrant. It’s connected. It has to be. Someone is trying to set me up.”
“Police!” the voice shouted again. “Be warned that we will enter the house. If you are armed, you will be treated as a threat.”
“But the only person who could set you up is—”
“The person actually responsible for killing George,” I said, nodding and breaking into Davey’s sentence. “I know, but that’s a realization for a time when the police aren’t a second and a half away from breaking the door down. If they find this in here, there’s no way they’ll ever believe it’s not actually ours. This is more than enough to get a murder charge.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Davey said, his hand moving from his mouth to his hair, clutching handfuls of the stuff nervously. “I watch Law and Order too!”
“Calm down,” I said. “There’s only one thing to do.”
The knock boomed again, nearly shaking the whole damn house with its severity.
“Surrender unconditionally and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court?” Davey asked.
“Not exactly,” I answered. Pulling the trunk back open, I scooped the gun and bloodied towel up and shoved them into Davey’s hands. “You have to find a place to stash this,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could as the pounding continued and a scream once again told me the police would soon enter.
“You want me to hide evidence?” Davey asked me, his eyes still wider than I thought a human being’s could have gotten. “You want me to, like, conceal evidence? Couldn’t I go to jail for that?”
“You could also go to jail for suspected first-degree murder,” I answered in a hushed shout.
“Good point,” Davey said, grabbing the stuff and turning. “Wait,” he said, turning back to me, his mouth turning downward. “Probably not the best time, but I really think I deserve the Porsche after this one.”
“Go!” I said as quietly as I could, pointing for him to haul ass. Turning toward the door, I messed my hair up, undid a couple of buttons on my shirt, and jogged to the door. Opening it, I yawned and rubbed my eyes with my free hand. “Hello?” I asked, blinking hard.
In front of me stood a tall, sandy-haired officer I’d never seen before as well as Abe Jenkins, the sheriff and George’s father.
“What the hell took you so long?” Sheriff Jenkins asked, pushing past me with enough force to knock me backward.
“I was asleep, and what the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“This is a search warrant,” the other officer said, handing me a sheet of paper with a big, swooping signature at the bottom. “It gives us the legal right to search the premises in connection with a possible crime.”
“I know what a search warrant is,” I answered.
‘Good. Then you’ll understand that you need to stand back and allow us to do our work. Anything else will be considered obstruction of justice,” the other officer said.
“Who else is in the house? Where’s your friend?” Sheriff Jenkins asked, looking me up and down.
“I don’t know,” I lied, rubbing the back of my head.
“You don’t know?” the sheriff asked, peering at me. “You don’t know whether your best friend and roommate is actually inside the house?”
“I do not,” I said, continuing to lie. “Like I said, I was asleep.”
“Right,” he said. “With your belt and your watch on?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, looking down at myself.
“It’s nothing, I’m sure,” the sheriff said. “I just find it odd that while you didn’t have time to completely button your shirt, you found time to loop your belt and put your watch back on.” His eyes trailed down and stopped at my feet. “Not to mention tying your shoes.”
“I have a weird routine. What do you want me to say?” I asked, my heartbeat quickening just a little.
“Charlie, I need you to search the house for the other one, Davey Winters. Be careful. He was in the Army, too, so he’s trained,” Sheriff Jenkins said, looking at the other officer.
“Davey’s not going to hurt you,” I scoffed, narrowing my eyes at the sheriff. “Like I said, he didn’t have anything to do with the death of your son, and neither did I.”
My chest tightened as Charlie went into the back rooms looking for Davey. I had just sent him to hide a supposed murder weapon, and if this officer caught him before he had a chance to dispose of it, it could incite a bad incident. In fact, it could be the thing that got Davey shot.
“Davey!” I shouted, the idea running through my mind like water. “Davey, if you’re in here—”
“Trying to warn your friend of something?” Sheriff Jenkins asked, looking at me unblinkingly.
“Of the fact that there’s some unexpected stranger running around inside our house,” I explained. “He wouldn’t take the surprise very well, and like you said, he’s been trained by the army.” I took a step toward the sheriff. “I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to your officer.”
“I wouldn’t worry about him,” the sheriff said. “Your friend might have been
trained by the army, but Charlie Westerbrook was trained by me.”
“I’m assuming you think that’s just as good?” I asked with more than a little bit of incredulity in my voice. “’Cause, you know, the army is pretty intense. I’m not saying the police academy in some midsize Florida town isn’t as good, but you know, it isn’t as good.”
“Where did you get this trunk?” Sheriff Jenkins asked, his eyes trained on the leather trunk where Davey and I had found the incriminating evidence.
“It was a gift,” I lied, pulling instinctively at the first thing I could think of. I shuffled uncomfortably before walking over to the man and the trunk, placing a foot atop the closed lid. “From my grandmother before she died. Why do you ask?”
“Because I also got one like it from my grandmother,” Sheriff Jenkins said. “Well, I got it from my mother, and she got it from my grandmother. It was supposed to be passed down to the women in my family, but my mother never had a daughter. So, she had to make do with me. I never had a daughter, either. So, I made do with George. It burned in the house the other night, along with him and everything else he owned.” His eyes trailed back up to me and sat there menacingly. “Or, at least, I thought it did.”
My mouth went dry as I looked at the man. “I’m sure there are a lot of trunks like this around,” I muttered, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Perhaps, but there’s something distinct about my grandmother’s trunk, a tear in the lining on the interior bottom. She hid a Star of David in it when she fled from the Nazis in Germany. I used to ask her why she did that. I mean, if she got caught, that Star would have been enough to ID her as a Jewish woman. It would have meant her death. I used to ask my grandmother why she would ever risk her life like that over what amounted to a little trinket.” He cleared his throat. “Do you know what my grandmother used to tell me when I asked her that question, Mr. Lucky?”
“I’m not sure how I possibly could,” I admitted, my foot still perched on the lid of the trunk.
“She cursed at me,” he answered. “And she never cursed. But every time I would bring that up, she would say, ‘It’s not a damn trinket, Abraham. It’s a symbol, a symbol of who I am, of who we are as a family.’ You see, Mr. Lucky, my grandmother believed there wasn’t anything you didn’t do for your family. I guess she and I are alike in that way.” He took a step toward me. “Move your foot.”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” I said, swallowing hard and holding my foot exactly where it was. I had very little doubt in my mind that if Sheriff Jenkins inspected that trunk, he’d find his grandmother’s Nazi-hiding tear. If he did that, it wouldn’t matter whether Davey managed to hide the gun and towel. He’d arrest us on the spot.
“It doesn’t matter what you think is necessary,” the sheriff said. “I’m the one with the badge and the warrant. So, I’m going to ask you one more time to move your foot. If you don’t do that, I’m going to arrest you for interfering with an investigation and haul you downtown. Then I’m going to look in the trunk anyway. So, you have a decision to make. You want me to look into this thing right now or while you’re in handcuffs? Either way is fine by me.”
“Look,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m sure there are a lot of tears in a lot of trunks that are similar to the ones you described. If you’d just—”
“You have the right to remain silent,” Sheriff Jenkins said. “Anything you say can and—”
“Fine,” I said, moving my foot and bracing for the worst as the man knelt down, pulled open the lid, and inspected the inside. “But it doesn’t prove anyth—”
“It’s not here,” Sheriff Jenkins muttered. Looking up, he stood with wide eyes and a clenched jaw. “It’s . . . it’s not here.”
My heart jumped and a weight lifted from my shoulders as I realized what he was saying. “Y–Yeah,” I muttered, swallowing hard. “Of course, it isn’t. I’m sorry you lost everything you did, your grandmother’s trunk included, but it’s not here. In fact, nothing you’re looking for is here.”
“We’ll see about that,” Sheriff Jenkins said. As he spoke, Charlie walked back in. Davey stood beside him. “Found this one out in the back yard. I think he was doing yoga or something.”
“Damn snowbirds,” Sheriff Jenkins muttered. He turned back to me. “We’re going to search your house now. I suggest you keep your distance and allow us to do our jobs.”
I looked over at Davey, who gave me the slightest of nods.
“Fair enough,” I said, looking back over at the sheriff. “We’ll get some lunch and let you do what you need to do. In fact, while you're here, maybe you can figure out a little interior design issue we’ve been having. Where do you think the couch would look best?”
“Get out,” Sheriff Jenkins said before going on about his search.
As Davey followed me out the door and toward my car at the end of the driveway, I whispered. “Did you find a safe place to hide the stuff?”
“So safe that only a handful of lucky ladies have ever been there before,” he said.
“What?” I muttered.
“At this moment, I have a gun and a blood-stained rag pressed against my crotch,” he answered. “So, yeah, I think I’ve earned the Porsche.”
Chapter 16
“I had no idea you knew this much about boats,” Davey said, standing beside me as we pulled a trawler I had just rented into New Pass, a pier on the north end of Big Hickory Island. In truth, I knew enough about boats to get myself around on one, and in fact, my uncle had always been something of an enthusiast. He fashioned himself as something of a lover of the salt life, though since he spent most of his life in Nebraska, you couldn’t exactly ‘call him Ismael’, if you know what I’m saying. In any event, during one of our many family trips to the beach, my Uncle John would toss us on any vessel he could find and we’d dart around the water like we were Gilligan and the Skipper, sans the horrible clothes and comically long shipwreck ordeal, of course.
It wasn’t a masterclass education, and I figured any kid who’d grown up pressed against the Gulf like the people in Bonita Springs did would be able to school me in most areas of nautical knowledge. Still, it was enough to allow me to take girls out on the ocean when we were stationed on the other side of the state, which definitely came in handy, and it was enough to get us here today. Though I wasn’t exactly sure how productive this meeting would be.
“Where the hell are we, anyway?” Davey asked as I tied up the boat and we stepped out onto the pier and then the beach.
“Big Hickory Island,” I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets and breathing in lungfuls of fresh, salted air. “It’s a vacation spot, mostly for fishing, if I’m not mistaken.”
I shouldn’t have had to clarify that. At this very moment, throngs of people stood by the water, tossing lines into the blue depths in hopes of coming up with delicious fleshy treasure. From the looks of it, Big Hickory Island served as kind of an oasis. Tossed just far enough off Bonita Springs to be its own separate entity, the island had a more laid back feel than the already laid back Bonita Springs. Though the sheer numbers of boats in the water and people on the beach were enough to tell me this was no hidden gem, it was definitely less crowded than what I’d come to expect from Bonita Springs in the small amount of time I’d called it home. Still, with white sandy beaches that housed more seashells than I had collectively seen in my life, it was no less atmospheric and fantastic. I had to take just a second to appreciate that, even if it wasn’t the reason for my visit.
“This whole damn state is a vacation spot,” Davey said as we trudged through the sand and toward the black car that my Uber app told me was waiting there for us.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I answered.
“Only in the sense that we didn't move here years ago,” Davey responded, checking out bikini-clad girls in a way that was almost inconspicuous. “Even without the seventy million, we’d have been able to have a hell of a time.”
“Is that w
hat this is?” I asked, looking over at him. “A hell of a time?”
“This is what my grandfather used to call ‘rug days’,” Davey said.
“Rug days? What exactly are rug days?” I asked, feeling the weight of the backpack across my shoulders. It held the gun and the towel that had, up until a few minutes ago, found their home in the front of Davey’s pants. It also served as a big part of the reason I opted to get here by boat and not car. Knowing the sheriff was watching us and knowing that he was, at this moment, busy tearing through my new house, looking for evidence he wasn’t going to find, I decided it was safer not to be in my car. In a car, I could be stopped. We could be searched, and being searched would turn up the planted evidence I was trying to hide. I didn’t need that. A boat added an extra layer of protection, and right about now, I needed all the layers I could get.
“You know how, when you were a kid, they used to hang rugs from trees or chairs and just beat the hell out of them to get all the sand and dirt and other grime you drag onto them from your shoes out?” Davey asked, looking over at me.
“I guess,” I answered.
“Well, my grandfather always believed life would do that to you as well,” Davey answered. “Sometimes, it would just hang you up and beat the hell out of you, but it could mean good things. It could mean the universe was trying to clean you up, get all that gunk and dirt out so that you can be used for something great.”
“I wish the universe wouldn’t try so hard,” I admitted as we walked up to the black car, shot the guy a wave, and got inside. I gave the guy inside the address to a beach house where Parker told me he would be and got a quizzical look from the driver.
“I'm sure he sent me the right address,” I said, reading his look.
“Yeah. I know where it is. I’m just surprised you’re going there. I’ve never actually seen anyone in that house,” the driver answered.
For the next ten minutes or so, the man driving the car told us about Big Hickory Island, Little Hickory Beach, and the medium-sized life he lived growing up in both of them. The detail he gave in telling these stories was, at once, impressive and excruciating. By the time he got to his fourteenth birthday party, a sparsely-attended Star Wars-themed beach effort which—spoiler alert—did not go well, we had mercifully pulled up to our destination, a gated mansion that sat at the end of a huge driveway.