3 A Brewski for the Old Man (23 page)

I came out of the police station shaken but still claiming ignorance. Why hadn’t I told him that Lacey had been at the Preserves with my gun? I guess because I was still hoping to wiggle out of it. When that little piece of news dropped on his desk, I was in shit up to my eyeballs. What would happen to me for letting a minor get her hands on an unregistered gun? I was sure that Florida had a new law — if your gun was used for a crime, you were equally as responsible for that crime as the person holding the gun. It would certainly have been madness to try and clarify this law with Styles. I didn’t even want to ask a lawyer…best to worry in silence. I only remember this new law because of a horrific newspaper story about the first person tried under the new law, a grandfather whose small grandson had picked up his grandpa’s gun and accidentally killed someone.

And then there was what would happen to Lacey if she were arrested for murder. Even if she could prove her innocence, and that didn’t look likely, what would it do to her messed-up head? But then, perhaps it was one way she could get help for her problems and any jury would see it as self-defense — even if she had taken the gun and driven out there. Still, I was hoping there was another option. Maybe I could find someone else to blame, always my first choice.

The Sunset felt like the best place in the world to be that day.

Miguel and Isaak seemed to have declared some kind of truce, no suppliers bugged me and the dining room was as full at lunch as the last Sunday before Christmas would be. Even the rain that started late in the morning didn’t scare the diners away. Gwen Morrison told me that we were over half-booked for dinner which, with walk-ins, meant a full house. At least something was going right.

I settled down to work, trying to forget the hard decisions I knew were coming. But not yet, now I needed a little timeout for myself and for me that meant fitting into the ebb and flow of the Sunset. At four the rain was long gone and the sun had come out again. I went into the dining room to lower the mesh blinds against the setting sun. The dining room is two-tiered; the upper tier is part of the old hotel and the lower tier, two steps down, is the former balcony. Some might see it as a tribute to a lousy building job, but the two-level dining room gives the Sunset a wonderful theatrical feeling, with the sun sinking in the west being the nightly performance.

Standing there with the beach spreading out before me, I was struck once again at the beauty of this place I lived in. Between the Sunset and the Gulf of Mexico there is only a thin strip of road, some tall, elegant, black light standards in a whimsical Victorian style, and some beach grasses bordering seventy feet of sand before the breaking waves. Umbrellas in rainbow colors danced in the breeze out on the beach. People folded them up and took them away each night, but every morning they sprang up again like flowers opening in the sun. You can pretty much tell the temperature by counting the umbrellas on the sand.

On the beach a small pot-bellied boy of about three ran from his father, laughing back over his shoulder as the man flapped his arms, pretending to be some scary monster. I watched man and child race in front of the water that lapped at the sand. It was a dolphin day on the gulf. Flat and on the cusp of a changing tide, there were no waves. You can see dolphins better on such days, although I always prefer to think that the calm water brings them out to play. Right on cue, as this thought entered my head, a pair of dolphins breached the waves. With backs arched, they rose from the water, shining and graceful.

A woman, sitting on a red towel, called out to the man and the boy, pointing offshore to the dolphins. The man swept the child up in his arms and pointed to where the dolphins broke the water again. The boy stiffened in delight and threw himself forward as if he might join the watery creatures. But his father held him tight, twirling him around, making the child swoop and fly in arcs about him while in the distance the dolphins rose and fell, pure and innocent, sweet and joyful — laughter on a sunny beach. Hot tears bit my eyes and a longing tugged at my heart.

“Sherri,” Gwen called behind me. I fingered away the tears and turned to her.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Sure, the sun got in my eyes,” I told her.

“Yeah, that happens. A woman in the bar wants to speak to you. She says she’s a friend.” Something in her voice, an undertone of disbelief or wry amusement, warned me.

“I’ll just close the shades and then I’ll go find her.”

“I’ll do it,” she said and moved beside me. “Go.”

I took one last look at the child, now riding on his father’s shoulders, and went to the etched-glass doors leading from the lobby into the bar. I stopped inside the door and drank in the smell of the room, smoky ten-year-old Scotch mingled with the musk of expensive perfume. Overhead the giant fans on pulleys creaked and groaned softly while Oscar Peterson played in the background.

I didn’t see anyone who might be waiting for me. At the bar a string of middle-aged women, wearing bright capris with matching tops, perched on the wicker-backed stools, laughing one bit louder than was polite or necessary. Two businessmen I knew sat in the farthest corner deep in conversation, talking in hushed tones, probably about some future development that would change all our lives. Their body language said plans were being made and money was involved. I always figured if I were smart enough and eavesdropped on enough power conversations, I could figure out how to get rich. But instead of becoming disgustingly wealthy on real estate deals, I’d bought the Sunset and worked seventy hour weeks just to service my debt.

I stepped farther into the room and looked around the potted palms. Sheila sat at a small round table with two glasses of wine in front of her. She lifted her hand. I went to her table and sank into the leather club chair across from her.

She looked like a runway model, exquisite in every way, with makeup that artfully highlighted her fine eyes and wide mouth. Her chartreuse silk pants and top and high-heeled backless sandals were the upscale version of what her plumper sisters at the bar were wearing.

With makeup this fresh and impeccable she hadn’t come here from somewhere else, everything about her was too unwrinkled and just-applied-looking. So had she dressed like this to impress me? But why would she go to all this trouble for a drink with me? “Because she wants something or is hiding something,” my brain replied. “She doesn’t want to appear weak or needy in any way and being impeccably turned out says power.” Interesting thought, but maybe she was on her way to somewhere else.

Her eyes were anxious and drawn and she wasn’t her normal relaxed self. “I ordered for you,” she said, following my glance.

“Thank you.” No use telling her I never drank when I worked. That road led in a direction I knew well, straight to Disasterville. “Nice to see you,” I told her and I meant it.

It took a while, several trips ’round the mulberry bush, before she said, “So, have you heard anything new about the murder?”

“Not a thing and I’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to read the paper. What’s happening?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know anything but rumors. The Preserves is full of them. Everyone is waiting for the next shoe to drop as they pass along the gossip, cruel tittle-tattle and idle speculation, while looking at their neighbor with suspicion and worrying about what the police know that they don’t.”

“Tell me about the rumors.”

Her shrug was artful; her eyes were on her glass. “Stories of sex parties up at the clubhouse late at night involving RJ and one of the other guards.”

“With residents or outsiders?”

“Residents.”

“Do you know who was involved?”

She uncrossed her long slender legs. “What’s the point of adding to the rumors, I don’t know anything for sure.” She leaned forward, knees together and elbows resting on her knees, and she looked down at her long slim fingers turning her engagement ring around and around. “I thought when he died it would be over, that I could forget about him.” Around and around went the ring.

I waited.

“It hasn’t gotten any better for anyone. Everyone in the Preserves seems to be on edge. Even golf games have been cancelled. It’s like we’ve become afraid of each other and don’t want to be standing too close in case we get splattered by mud thrown at someone else.” She raised her eyes. “Will it ever end?”

“Sooner or later. The cops will discover who did it or something else will come along to take everyone’s mind off Ray John. People really have a short attention span for drama. They always want the new and fresh sensation.”

“I just want it to be over. I thought it was when that bastard died.”

“Have the police interviewed you?”

Panic, raw and naked, raked her face. “No.” She straightened, rigid with fear. “Why would they?”

“No reason, I just figure they’ll be talking to everyone sooner or later.”

Her body relaxed slightly. She licked her lips. We were coming to the reason for her visit now. “Do you know…?” she hesitated, searching for a path through a minefield. “Did RJ’s stepdaughter say if he left anything behind, records or journals, anything like that?”

This was a new and interesting idea. “Not that I know of.”

“Do you think you could ask?”

“What exactly are you looking for?”

Her voice, normally rich and low, was tight with anxiety. “Maybe files on a computer. He didn’t have a computer at the clubhouse. Do you think he’d keep files on people, you know the ones he talked to about graffiti and drinking? Wouldn’t he keep a record of things like that on a computer at home?”

“Sounds like a possibility.”

“That girl who is staying with you, can you ask her?”

“If something like that exists, don’t you think the police already have it?”

“Oh shit,” she said and closed her eyes.

“Try not to worry, Sheila. If the police had Ray John’s records and you were in there, they would have been out to talk to you by now.”

She opened her eyes, swimming in tears and said, “Do you really think so?” “For sure.”

She pursed her lips and nodded and then she set her jaw. The tough competitor wasn’t about to give up the game.

“So where are you and the doctor guy going tonight?” I asked to change the subject.

“I’m not seeing him tonight. He’s at a meeting.”

“Well, you look great, too good to waste on a night of TV. Call someone and go out for dinner or a movie.” “How about you? Are you busy, Sherri?”

“Yes, unfortunately. I took last night off. Now I have to pay for it.”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes looking at something in the past only she could see. “Yes, paying for it — that’s the hard part.” Her smile was thin and sad, saying the bill would likely be more than she could bear.

Every table along the windows was full long before sunset and every seat in the bar was taken up by people waiting with their little square electronic pagers sitting in front of them. Isaak’s fame was spreading. Every night he came up with a new culinary sensation and if I didn’t go broke on his extreme use of exotic foodstuffs, he’d make me rich. He’d worked at the Bath and Tennis Club before coming to the Sunset and many of the diners from the B&T had followed him to the Sunset. Tonight he had a pot roast, mundane-sounding, but the meat had been marinating for three days in pickle juice and it had simmered in wine and bay leaf for hours. Heavenly nectar, like nothing I’d ever tasted. With it he was serving a French-Canadian dish of root vegetables — rutabaga, parsnips, carrots and potatoes whipped with cream and butter. Even the golden color made the dish special, while the taste had me moaning like an orgasmic Meg Ryan.

Isaak had been going to throw out the mound of pickles left over from marinating the roasts when Miguel had stepped in and started putting the sweet pickles on the sandwich plates. Simple, simple but it had been a great hit on the luncheon menu. Now if I could just keep the crazy Israelite from killing the pugnacious Mayan or vice versa, I was golden. Isaak’s talent and creativity were balanced by Miguel’s practicality and understanding of the thin line between profit and loss in the kitchen, something I could never get through to Isaak. I needed them both and hoped I could hang onto them both. Yes, I was pretty happy until the first bad news of the night walked in.