A Mighty Fortress (35 page)

I picked it up and jotted some notes in the notes app of my iPhone. There was no return address on the envelope. The cell number she’d jotted down was the same one I already had, the one that turned out to be registered to a pay-as-you-go company in Miami, and the envelope was scanned in Miami. As far as I could tell, all signs were pointing to Brian
 
Blane or Blare or whatever the hell his name was.
 

“You sure you don’t know anyone in Miami she might be staying with?” I asked, just to make sure I’d covered all bases.

He shook his head, as if to stress the absurdity of the question. “Miami? Heck,
I
don’t know anyone in Miami.”

I glanced around again, just to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything. “So how much of this did you tell the police?”

He shook his head again. “Not a damn thing other than that Angel didn’t live here no more, she had nothing to do with me, and I didn’t want to talk about her. That was all true, and it kept me in Betty’s good graces.” He smiled uneasily, and his right eye twitched.

I patted him on the shoulder. “I appreciate your help, Bob, and I’ll do my best.”

He stopped me. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I looked at him, clueless.

He was writing something down. Then, he handed it to me. “You need my number. To let me know when you find her. And to call me back about your book, when you get around to writing it.”

I smiled and nodded at him before I put the number in my back pocket. Then I left.

I sat in the Volvo, parked by the taco stand, watching Wauchula’s equivalent of rush-hour traffic sputter by. There was a lot of information to sort through, and more than ever, I wanted to know what had happened to Sal, why he had a conflict of interest, and why he’d been looking for Evangeline in May. I’d tried calling him at his office number but hadn’t received a response. I used my phone to Google for any more news about his death, but still found nothing. After searching for his home phone number, I found a listing for “Barton, S. & C.,” and remembered that Sal’s wife’s name was Connie. I thought it was worth a try, so I dialed the number.

It was Sal’s voice again. “This is the Barton residence. Please leave a message and we’ll call you back.” This one was digital, and his voice didn’t sound as stilted as the business recording.
 

I waited for the beep. “Hey Sal, it’s Milo Porter. I tried reaching you at the office, thought I’d try you at home.” I left my number, told him to give me a call, and hung up.

I checked the time again. I knew the case was taking me to Miami. I really wanted to go back to Tampa first, but I was already halfway to Dade County. I was doing some math in my mind when my phone rang. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was Sal’s home number. I answered cautiously: “Hello?”

“Is this Milo?” asked a woman’s voice.
 

My heart sank when I realized she was crying. “Yes. Is this Connie?”

She mumbled yes and sobbed.

“Connie, I hope you remember me. Is everything okay?”

“No,” she cried. “No, it’s not.”

“Is something wrong with Sal?”

She cried louder. “Yes, he’s in the hospital!”

“Connie, what happened?”

“He—” but she stopped with another sob. “I’m sorry, Milo. I can’t talk about it over the phone.”

“Where is he?”
 

“Tampa General.”

“On Davis Islands?”

“Yes,” she said. She took a deep breath. “I’m here now.”

Miami would have to wait. “I’ll be there in two hours.”

It was still early enough in the day that I avoided heavy traffic on my way back to Tampa. I took the same route back and got off 275 at the downtown exit. From there, I hopped the bridge over to Davis Islands, where Tampa General stood overlooking the outlet where the Hillsborough River runs into Hillsborough Bay. I parked, checked in with the receptionist, and learned that Sal was in a room on the third floor.

I took the elevator up and slowed as I reached the door to his room. The door was ajar enough that I could see the bed holding Sal, but I couldn’t see his face. Connie sat in a chair next to him. It looked like she was fighting sleep, staring up at a muted TV. I stuck my head in the doorway just enough to be seen by her and not Sal. She finally noticed me and stood up.
 

She pulled the door all but closed on her way out. She looked me in the eyes and bit her lip.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” she said. “You don’t look quite yourself.”
 

My awkward appearance seemed a welcome distraction to her, so I played along. “Yeah, I had a rough week.”

She chuckled, but in no time she was crying. I put my arms out, and she cried into my chest. This might have been the third time I’d ever seen Connie Barton, but it felt like I was the closest person she had right now.

“What happened, Connie?”

After a moment of sobbing, she pulled away and looked me in the eyes. She leaned forward, and I almost thought she was going to kiss me, but she was just moving close enough to whisper, “He tried to hang himself.”

“Are you serious?”

She nodded. “In his garage.”

I thought back to Sunday night, when Scalzo, Kiki, and Jimmy beat me in Scalzo’s garage. “The one off Gandy, where he works on his cars?”

She nodded again. “He tried to hang himself,” she repeated, as if trying to convince herself more than me.

At least I knew Wilcox wasn’t lying about that. “Tried?”

Her sobbing hid a smirk, a nascent realization of the absurdity of what she was getting ready to explain to me. “He didn’t tie the knot well enough. They think as soon as he lost consciousness, the knot slipped and he fell to the ground. Otherwise, he’d be much worse off than he is. Lucky for him, someone was next door and heard the fall, and ran over to see what the problem was. Apparently, when he fell, he knocked over his tool cabinet and it sounded like Armageddon.”

She stared me dead in the eyes, almost daring me to comment, if not laugh. “I guess he’s lucky,” I said, knowing that wasn’t the right word.

“He’s asked about you.”

“He’s talking?”

“He wanted to know if I’d heard from you. Last night he was mumbling something about a letter. Do you know what that means?”

I thought for a moment. “I have no idea.”

She lowered her voice even more. “They’re not sure… you know, he was unconscious for a while, so they’re not sure if there was any brain damage yet or whether he’s just out of his mind.” Then she seemed to remember something else. “There were problems with his blood test, too.”

I was about to ask what she meant, but just then a nurse appeared. “Excuse me,” she said as she pushed the door open.

Connie stood next to me while the nurse attended to Sal. I still hadn’t seen him, and I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to. A moment later, the nurse walked out and told Connie it was okay to go back in.

Connie looked to me. “Do you want to see him?”

I swallowed hard. “Why don’t you see what he says first?”

She nodded and went in the room. I stood in the doorway and heard her whisper that I was there to see him. I didn’t hear him answer, but a moment later she reappeared and nodded for me to enter.

Sal was covered in the hospital sheet, which he’d pulled up around his neck. He also had his chin pressed down, as if to hide the ligature marks. His eyes were glassy, but they managed to follow me across the room. He nodded weakly when I reached the side of his bed. “Porter,” he whispered. “Thanks.”

I put my hand on his. “I don’t know what to say, Sal.”

He shook his head without raising his chin, glancing at Connie. “Don’t say nothing.”

“Okay. I’m here for you, buddy. I wish you knew that.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I guess I don’t.”

He turned his eyes on Connie and waved to her. I thought he was calling her over, but she obviously read him better, as she told him she’d give us a minute alone and closed the door behind her.

Once we were alone, Sal asked me, “Did you get my letter?”

I thought of all the mail I’d left in my kitchen. “I’m sorry, man. I haven’t checked my mail all week. Not sure what you know, but I’ve had a busy week.”

“You look like shit,” he said, as a tear appeared on his cheek.

“Yeah, Sal, I guess we’ve both seen better days.”

He gestured for me to move closer, so I did. “Throw it away,” he whispered.

“What?”

“When you get the letter, please, throw it away.”

“I don’t understand.”

He struggled to take a breath. “I saw things. I want to live. Please throw it away.”

“Sal, I’ll do whatever you want, buddy. I want you to live, too.”

He nodded. “Good.”

I didn’t want to push it, but I had to see if Sal could answer any questions. “Sal, just raise your hand if you don’t want to talk anymore, but I have to ask if this—if what happened to you had anything to do with your conflict of interest.”

He stared at me for a moment. His eyes welled with tears before he slowly nodded.

“I don’t want you to talk about it if you can’t.”

He just nodded.

“Why were you looking for that girl back in May?”

He stared at me for a moment. “Scalzo,” he gasped.

“He hired you?”

Sal nodded.

“To find her?”

He was still nodding. “Client. Big client wanted her back.”

“You have any idea who it was?”

He shook his head.
 

“Did you find her for him?”

He nodded.

“Where was she?”

“Miami. Working.”

“And you brought her back?”

He shook his head. “Just told him where she was.”

I didn’t think I was going to get much more information from him, but there was one thing I needed him to shine some light on. “Sal, do you know that you and Scalzo both have a garage in the same complex?”

He nodded.

“Do you know why that is?”

He nodded again. “The landlord.”

With the whirlwind of a week I’d had, I hadn’t checked to see who owned the garage complex where Sal worked on his hotrods and Harleys and where Scalzo, Kiki, and Jimmy had added some color to my face Sunday night. “Who’s your landlord, Sal?”

He whimpered as he said, “Tim McSwain.”

It was late in the afternoon when I left Tampa General. I felt like I should go by the house before I left for Miami, but there really wasn’t anything I needed from home. I had no spare clothes with me, but all the clothes in my closet at home screamed
Milo Porter
; nothing even suggested
Brian Blare
. So I’d have to do some shopping once I got to Miami, whether I went home or not. I could run the skip trace on Blare from my hotel on my laptop, and the hotel would have toiletries. Yes, there was no reason to go home first.

It was getting too late to make the five-hour drive to Miami, so I called and found the next flight on my drive to the airport. I was just in time to catch one leaving at 5:30.
 

During the flight, I gave a lot of thought to what role, if any, Evangeline might have played in Scalzo’s death. She’d had enough time Sunday night to go by Chad’s apartment, do the job, and reach her dad’s by the time he said she was there. If the police were protecting someone, they might have used her to do it, and now they, or whoever they were protecting, might want to remove her from the equation.

That also raised the question of who the police were protecting. I kept going back to Fred Mitchell, who’d had a keen interest in the case since Day One, and had a lot of reputation to protect with his election for State Attorney. Not to mention the fact that he seemed to have C-Rod working at his disposal, and something about his investigation just didn’t sit right. And though I could think of no reason why the police would want to protect him, the fact that Mattie conveniently disappeared the same night Kara almost died and so much evidence disappeared from his office left a dark cloud of suspicion over Mr. Wilcox as well. Then there was Tim McSwain, who it seemed had been blackmailed by Scalzo. If Scalzo was blackmailing McSwain, then I had to ask who else he might be blackmailing. Who had the most to hide?

I still had a hard time seeing how Angie fit into all this. Of course, the revelation about Tim McSwain gave me a lot to think about. It was clear that dealings between McSwain and Scalzo had gone south. McSwain was clearly an important client of Scalzo’s, and one infatuated with Angie, too. It didn’t seem that far-fetched that McSwain had the clout to make Angie change her plans. Or did he? If she was supposed to see Blare that night, and Blare was helping Scalzo make inroads in the porn industry, would Scalzo really have Angie stand Blare up for McSwain? One thing I was certain of was that Ms. Hunter would have a few questions to answer when I found her.

The flight to Miami barely lasted an hour. I’d need a car Saturday, but for Friday night, I was content to take a cab downtown. I found a reasonably priced Hampton Inn located off Brickell Avenue. That it was connected to a highly rated gastro-pub certainly helped my decision. When I handed over my credit card during check-in, I wondered whether I’d be able to get Vinnie Pilka, or maybe even Giuseppe, to pay this bill. Something told me that was wishful thinking. And to think, this all started with Mattie making me an offer that was too good to be true: six grand to serve a subpoena. I’d already earned that money two-fold and still had the weekend to go.

The hotel was nice, but they were light on toiletries, particularly for someone who had as much to shave as I did. Fortunately, there was a Publix less than a mile away, where I bought a toothbrush and deodorant. The walk was refreshing. A nice wind was blowing in from the Atlantic.

Back in my room, I wanted to take a shower, but I had nothing to change into. That would have to wait until tomorrow.

I called Batch, the gastro-pub next door, and asked if they had Wi-Fi. Having confirmed that they did, I grabbed my backpack and took the elevator down.