Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries) (18 page)

“Thanks. I’ll get somebody in today.”

Lester said, “I think I’m through here. You want some breakfast?”

“Sure. Got time for us to get cleaned up first? I need a shower. Bad.”

“I noticed. The Blue Dolphin doesn’t open until eight anyway.”

I laughed. “Screw you, Chief.”

Jock, Logan, Bill Lester, and I sat at a table in the restaurant, picking at the remainder of our food. Tracy brought another round of coffee, tomato juice for Logan. J.D. had joined us as we finished our breakfast. She ordered coffee and a plateful of pancakes and sausages and dug in like a starving lumberjack.

“Hungry?” I asked.

“Yeah. I missed dinner last night.”

“We had popcorn at Tiny’s. You should’ve come with us.”

She gave me one of those looks that women seem to keep in their arsenal. It reflected disgust, humor, and patience, all in one second. As if she knew she was dealing with inferior beings, that men had not evolved at the same rate as women. She was probably right.

Bill blew over the top of his cup. “Did you get anything, J.D.”

She nodded. Chewed the rest of the sausage, made a gesture that signaled she’d talk as soon as she swallowed. “Steve Carey canvassed the neighborhood and may have come up with something. The couple who live at the end of Broadway, right across the street from Moore’s, heard noise a little before three this morning. Some guys had pulled into Moore’s parking lot in a pickup and unloaded a kayak. They launched right there at Broadway.”

“Any description?” Jock asked.

“Not much. Said there were two of them, dressed in dark clothes. The homeowner thought they were probably fishermen getting an early start. They launched the boat and paddled off into the bay.”

“Is the truck still there?” I asked.

“Yeah. Stolen last night in Bradenton.”

“I’m betting there was nothing to help us on either the truck or the kayak.” I said.

“You got that right. No prints. Nothing. We’re thinking that they knew Steve was out front, so they decided to come in the back way, over the bay.”

“What about the one outside Logan’s window?” I asked.

J.D. shook her head. “Maybe he was the backup in case one of you heard the other one coming in the door. Or maybe he was planning to shoot Logan as soon as he heard the intruder shoot Matt. Who knows? These aren’t the brightest guys on the planet and they probably didn’t realize Jock was there.”

“Any IDs on the dead guys?” Jock asked.

“Not yet. We’re running prints. Should have something today.”

We started to get up from the table. Jock had gone to pay the check. I thought I saw something in J.D.’s face, an entreaty to stay perhaps, or maybe just a grimace at our bad manners in leaving while she was still eating. I sat back down.

“Y’all go ahead,” I said. “I need to talk to J.D. I’ll catch a ride back with her.”

When they were gone, J.D. said, “I’m glad you stayed. I wanted to talk to you about yesterday.”

“Go ahead.”

“I was a little pissy and I apologize.”

“Apology accepted, but you were actually a lot pissy.”

She smiled. “Probably so. I’m sorry. I tend to be a bit of a control freak, and I’m still trying to get my legs under me in this new job. Then I find a strange assortment of war heroes and a shadowy government employee who seems to have a lot of power with the DEA, and they want to go off and start a shooting war, and they won’t tell me what they’re doing, and I get very concerned.”

“You should. We haven’t been fair with you.”

“What’s going on, Matt?”

“Jock told me last night that I needed to bring you inside. He checked you out.”

“Checked me out? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that he wanted to know a little about you before he brought you into our little circle.”

Her temper flared. “Screw him. Where does he get off ‘checking me out?’”

“Calm down, J.D. Jock works for one of the most secretive agencies in our government. They do a lot of things that nice people don’t want to do. They do these things to protect our country, to make sure that the bad guys don’t take over.”

“So what? That gives him the right to dig into my personal life?”

“Only because he wanted to let you know who he really is and what we’re planning to do. He had to make sure you were who you seemed to be.”

She seemed a little mollified, but her dander was still up. “How deep did he go into my background?”

“Nothing real personal. He didn’t look at your medical records or school grades or check porn sites for your picture.”

She looked shocked, then laughed and threw her napkin at me. “I’m not on those sites, you pervert.”

“I know. I already ran a search.”

She laughed again. A magical sound and my heart did a little lurch.

“Okay,” I said. “Here’s the deal. You’re not going to like it because you’re a cop and cops are programmed to do everything by the book. We don’t always follow the book. Hell, we don’t even have a book to look at. But we do get results when we have to. Are you sure you want to hear the rest of this?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll shut up.”

“No. Tell me. I’ll forget we ever had this conversation. And I promise I won’t interfere.”

“We’re going after the biker chief on Thursday night. We’ve got no grounds to arrest him, and even if we did, he’d lawyer up immediately. We’d never find out who’s trying to kill us. I guarantee that Jock will get the bastard to talk.”

She winced. “Do I want to know how he’ll do that?”

“No.”

“How are you going to get him?”

“We’re going to walk into the bar he owns and ask him nicely to come with us.”

“Right.”

“And when he refuses, we’re going to drag his ass out of there.”

“Matt, I’ve dealt with those biker dudes. They’re not going to let you walk out of a bar with their leader.”

“I don’t expect them to.”

“How then?”

“We’ll use a little leverage.”

“I don’t guess I need to know about that either.”

“No. You don’t.”

She nodded.

“Where did you get the southern accent?”

“Wow,” she said. “Talk about changing the conversation.”

I laughed. “It’s time to get onto something less serious.”

“I was born in Atlanta, and moved to Miami when I was eight. I guess I never lost the early training.”

“And how Jennifer Diane Monahan become J.D. Duncan?”

She chuckled, a light sound in the back of her throat, a mini-laugh. She smiled. “My dad. I think he wanted a boy. I was named for my mother’s two sisters and I was meant to be called by both names, little Jennifer Diane. Typically southern, I guess. My dad shortened it to J.D. and that seemed to stick.”

“You didn’t turn out very boyish.”

She reddened slightly, a discreet blush. “My dad was a sports nut and he took me to every kind of game ever played in a stadium. He talked strategy and tactics to the point that I probably know enough to coach a football team and manage a baseball team. But he also took me to the ballet and the philharmonic and bought me frilly dresses and told me stories of princesses.”

“He sounds like a man of many interests.”

“He was. I miss him a lot.”

“Tell me about your folks. I only met your mom a couple of times. She seemed nice.”

“My dad was an Atlanta cop. Spent twenty years on the force, retired, and we moved to Miami. He went to work for the Miami Beach PD and spent another twenty years there. When he retired, he and Mom wanted to find someplace less hectic than Miami, and they ended up here.”

“I don’t think I ever met your dad.”

“Probably not. He died of a stroke the year after they moved to Longboat. He was sixty-one years old. Ten years ago. Mom stayed on until she had a stroke last year.”

“Why didn’t you come with them when your dad retired?”

“Oh, I was already married and working for Miami-Dade PD.”

“So Duncan is your married name.”

“Yeah.”

“Still married?” I asked.

“No. Divorced for ten years.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Nothing to talk about really. I married an idiot. He was a cop too. I put up with a lot for a couple of years, thinking we could make it, and then one night he punched me.”

“What’d you do?”

“I broke his arm and his jaw and then I arrested him for domestic violence.”

“You’re tough.”

“I’d been taking tai kwon do lessons since I was little. The bastard was an easy take-down.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got fired and the last I heard he was working for Wackenhut as a night security guard at a rest stop on I-95 up near Daytona.”

“But you kept his name.”

“Too darn much paperwork to change it.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

She looked at me for a moment, shook her head. “Whoa, Royal. What in the world is wrong with me? I’m giving you my life story like I’m talking to a shrink. It’s nobody else’s business.”

“I don’t talk out of school, J.D.”

She relaxed a little. “Your turn. Tell me how a macho soldier turned trial lawyer turned beach bum ended up in paradise.”

“Just lucky, I guess. But that does touch on my favorite subject.”

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“Me.”

“I’m not surprised. So tell me. I’ve spilled my guts to you.”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

She grinned. “I need to know more about my victim so I can work at solving the crime.”

I laughed. “Okay.” And I spilled my guts. Or at least some of them.

Charlie Foreman sat at his desk staring at the yellow piece of paper he’d taken from Blakemoore’s office. It wasn’t making any more sense than it had the day before. Royal still hadn’t returned his call and he’d left another message on the damned answering machine first thing that morning.

He’d taken a little time the night before to learn something about Longboat Key. There was a wealth of information on the town’s Web site. It was a wealthy enclave just off the coast of Sarasota. The island was divided at its middle into two counties, Sarasota in the south and Manatee to the north. It appeared to have a very professional police department with a chief named Bill Lester.

He looked at his watch. Almost nine. Hell, he’d call Chief Lester, see if he knew anything about Matt Royal. He dialed the number he’d found on the Web site.

“Longboat Key Police Department, Officer Calhoun speaking.”

“Officer, this is Lieutenant Charlie Foreman of the Collier County Sheriff’s Department. May I speak with Chief Lester?”

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. He’s not in right now.”

“It’s important that I talk to him, Officer. It has to do with a homicide.”

“I’ll forward you to his cell phone.”

Charlie listened to the electronic clicks coming through the phone, then the sound of a phone ringing on the other end of the line. It was answered. “Chief Lester.”

“Chief, my name’s Charlie Foreman. I’m a lieutenant with the Collier County Sheriff’s Department.”

“Good morning, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”

“I’m investigating a homicide down here. A lawyer was shot to death in a drive-by last Saturday.”

“That might not be all bad.”

Charlie chuckled. “You’d usually be right, Chief, but this guy was harmless. He was the town of Belleville’s only lawyer and he wasn’t very good at it. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for anybody to kill him.”

“Where did it happen? Naples?”

“No. Belleville. A little town in the eastern part of the county, out near the Glades. I’m the resident deputy there.”

“A drive-by in the Glades? I thought that was big-city stuff.”

“So did I, Chief. The world, she is a changing.”

“How can I help you, Lieutenant?”

“A name has come up in the investigation. The man lives on Longboat Key, but he hasn’t returned the two messages I’ve left on his machine. You’re a small town, so I thought you might know him. Matt Royal.”

“I do know him. In fact, I just finished having breakfast with him. How did his name come up?”

“I found it in a file in the decedent’s office. That was the only name that wasn’t somebody around here. I thought Royal might know something or have some information that’ll help figure this thing out.”

“Did you know that Royal is a lawyer?”

“No, I didn’t. What kind of practice does he have?”

“None, really. He used to be a big courtroom gun over in Orlando, but he made some money and retired early. He helps out some of the islanders occasionally, pro bono, but mostly he fishes and drinks beer. What else was in the file?”

“Not much. It was real thin. One piece of paper, and the other stuff on it didn’t make any sense. The file belonged to an Indian, probably from over on the reservation. Abraham Osceola.”

“Holy shit, Lieutenant. There may be a connection. Abraham Osceola is in a hospital in Sarasota in a coma. Somebody bashed his head in and then tried to shoot him after he was hospitalized. He’s a friend of Royal’s. And somebody’s been trying to kill Royal.”

“There
is
a connection. Tell me about Royal.”

“Stand-up guy. He’s a buddy of mine.”

“What do you know about Osceola?”

“Nothing. He’s one of the Bahamian Black Seminoles. He’s not from the reservation.”

“I’ve read about those folks. Don’t know much about them.”

“Look, why don’t you fax me a copy of the notes in the file and let me see if Royal knows anything about it? I’ll get back to you this afternoon.”

“I’d appreciate that, Chief. Let me have your fax number.”

Professor Archibald Newman was not what I expected. He stood a couple of inches above six feet, had a head full of gray hair worn just over his ears, a gray mustache, heavy eyebrows, and a prominent nose. His eyes were ice-cold blue and a little startling as they bore into you with the intensity of a laser. Laugh lines edged each eye, softening the hardness of his face. Here was a man who worked out regularly. There was no fat, no softness that I could see. He wore khaki slacks, a long-sleeved oxford cloth button-down dress shirt, a dark blue silk tie. A stainless steel hook protruded from his right sleeve where his hand should have been.