Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries) (7 page)

“Did he know that you’re a lawyer?”

“I might have mentioned it. Why?”

“That may have been the reason he was looking for you.”

“Maybe.”

“Any other contact with him? After Key West?”

“No. That was the only time I ever met him.”

“Were you expecting him to come visit?”

“No.”

“A Longboat officer left just before you got here. He said this guy
was at your friend’s condo on Longboat the night before last. Can you think of any reason why he’d be after Hamilton?”

“No. I doubt that he was after Logan. He may have been visiting. He might have been looking for Logan to find out when I’d be back in town.”

“To your knowledge, did Hamilton know Osceola?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then why would he be looking for you at Hamilton’s home?”

“I’ve been off-island for several days. Boating down south. If Osceola had come looking for me, most anybody could have told him that I was gone and that Logan was my best friend. Abraham told the Longboat officer that somebody had told him to look up Logan to find out when I’d be back in town. Maybe he went looking for Logan to find out where I was.”

The detective looked skeptical. “It’s a theory.”

“And at least as good a one as yours,” I said.

I left the hospital more confused than I’d been all day. And this had been a confusing day. The more I thought about it, the better I liked my theory. If Abraham had come looking for me, he would have gone to the condo complex where I had lived until recently. That would have been the only address he had. I’d seen the condo manager at Tiny’s with her husband the week before Jessica and I left on our trip. We’d talked about some of the lesser-known anchorages in Charlotte Harbor, so she knew I was going to be off the island for a week or so. If Abraham had asked, she would have told him I was out of the area and would probably have given him Logan’s address. She wouldn’t have yet heard about the shooting in downtown and Logan’s absence from the key.

But why was Abraham looking for me? I’d only met him briefly in the Florida Keys the previous fall. He’d done me a favor, and I gave him my address in case he was ever in the Sarasota area. I didn’t really expect to see him again. He didn’t strike me as the traveling kind. If he really had some deal involving money and needed a lawyer, why hadn’t he hired one in Key West?

I hadn’t eaten all day and was starving. I stopped at St. Armands Circle and went into Lynches Pub and Grub for a hamburger and a beer. I knew the place would be full of locals and everyone would want to know about Logan. There had been a small article in the morning’s paper about the shooting. I didn’t want to get into it, but I needed a little food and some conversation.

Much to my surprise, the place was almost empty. There were a few tourists enjoying a beer or wine, but no locals. Except for Jill, the manager. She came over as I took a stool at the bar. A look of concern sharpened her
facial features. She put her hand over mine on the counter, said, “Matt, I’m so sorry about Logan.”

“Me too, Jill. Thanks, but he’s going to be fine. Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure,” she said, flashing a sad smile. “Miller Lite?”

“Yes. And a burger, too, please.”

“Coming up.” She pulled a beer from the cooler, opened the bottle, poured it in a frosted glass, and set the glass on a coaster on the bar. She went back to the kitchen to order my food.

I listened to the slight rumble of traffic on the street in front of the bar, the laughter of people strolling the circle, the buzz of conversation from a tableful of sun-reddened visitors. Minutes went by and Jill returned to the bar with my burger. We talked as I ate, conversation between two old friends, nothing of importance, just chatter, but hers was overlaid with a sadness born of Logan’s near death.

I left the bar and headed north for home. My sunroof was open and the soft night air enveloped me, a tincture of sea and distant orange blossoms floating on the breeze, stirring memories of youthful evenings at the beach with a pretty girl who daubed citrus scented perfume behind her ears.

I turned onto Broadway and found my way to my new home beside the bay. I parked in the driveway, walked to the front door, opened it, flipped on the light, and discovered chaos.

My house was a mess. Books pulled off their shelves and thrown haphazardly on the floor, TV screen shattered, desk drawers pulled out and emptied in random piles. I backed out of the front door and pulled my cell phone from the pocket of my shorts. I called Bill Lester at home.

“Bill, sorry to bother you. Somebody trashed my house.”

“Bad?”

“Pretty bad.” I told him what I had seen. “I haven’t been into the house. I’m hoping your crime-scene guy can find something.”

“Hang tight, Matt. I’ll start people moving on this. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He hung up.

I stood on the sidewalk, curious about who would vandalize my home. It didn’t look as if anybody was searching for anything in particular. It appeared to be some sort of rage-induced need to destroy. I wanted to go inside, to see how they had gotten in, but I didn’t want to disturb any evidence.

I looked at my watch. Nine p.m. I walked next door and rang the bell. Cotty Johnson answered, wearing a bathrobe. She looked at me and said, “Come on in, Matt, but don’t get any ideas just because I’m half-dressed.”

Cotty was an eighty-something-year-old widow, a good friend of many years. I laughed and followed her into her living room. A sitcom of some sort was playing on her TV, the sound turned low.

“Want something to drink?” she asked.

“No, thanks. I just got home. Somebody trashed my house.”

“Trashed your house?”

“Yeah. It looks pretty bad. I called the police.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It’s kind of scary. We don’t have much of that on the island.”

“I know. Did you see anybody hanging around?”

“There was a guy in a go-fast that tied up at your dock and went inside early this afternoon. I assumed he was one of your buddies.”

A go-fast is what the islanders called a cigarette-style high-powered boat, a kind we see a lot of in our area.

“Can you describe the boat?”

“Sorry, Matt. I didn’t pay that much attention. Besides, I don’t know a lot about boats.”

“What about the man driving it?”

“He was a big white guy. Shaved head. He was wearing jeans and a tight T-shirt. Sunglasses, the kind the aviators wear. Probably six feet two or three. That’s about all I can tell you.”

I laughed. “Nothing much gets by you, huh Cotty?”

I heard a car drive up out front, saw blue lights flickering in the darkness. “Thanks, Cotty. The cops are here. I’d better go. They may want to talk to you later.”

“Anything I can do to help, Matt.”

I walked back outside and met the uniformed policeman as he was getting out of his car. “Hey Matt,” he said. “The chief said to get my ass over here pronto. He’s called out our CSI guy. What’s going on?”

“Vandals, I think. But it may be more than that.”

“You think it’s tied into Logan’s shooting?”

“Could be. Cotty Johnson saw a guy in a boat come into my dock this afternoon. He went inside the house. The back door wasn’t locked, so that wouldn’t have been hard to do.”

“I’ll wait for CSI before I go in. If there’s any evidence, we’ll find it. Chief’s lit a fire. You know how he can be when he gets riled.”

I knew. As I stood chewing on the question of who the tall bald guy was, the chief pulled up in his unmarked Crown Vic. He motioned me over to a streetlight and took out his notepad. “Talk to me, Matt.”

I told him what I’d found when I opened my door, what Cotty had told me about a large bald man and how that description fit the man who
had hired Jube Smith to find me. I told him about Jube accosting me in Logan’s hotel room.

“Did you call the sheriff’s office?” Bill asked.

“No. I don’t think Jube is dangerous. He just needs to get back on his feet. The description of the bald man isn’t enough to help find him.”

“Any idea who he is?” he asked.

“None. I’d think this had something to do with Logan’s problem, except Jube didn’t seem to have any idea who Logan was.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not connected.”

“No. Jube probably doesn’t read the newspaper. He might not have known about Logan.”

“What about the black guy in the hospital?”

I told Bill what I’d told the Sarasota detective. “By the way, Kintz could be your twin.”

“Yeah, but I think I’m better looking.”

“I don’t know, Bill. He’s pretty stunning.”

“Yeah, well, I’m the chief and he’s not. Kintz pisses me off.”

“Why?”

“How’d you like to have people mixing you up with somebody all the time?”

“That’s not Kintz’s fault.”

“Right. He could move to California or something.”

“You’re just jealous because he dresses better than you do.”

A car turned into my street and parked behind the chief’s cruiser. The CSI guy. He came over to us, carrying a large case. “Hey, Matt, Chief,” he said. “Anything I should know before I get started?”

“No,” said Lester. “Go on in and do your thing.”

“How long before I can get in the house?” I asked.

“Give me an hour,” said the CSI guy. “By then, I’ll have a pretty good idea of whether there is any recoverable evidence.” He turned and headed for the front door, leaning a little to his right as the heavy case pulled on his arm.

“Let’s get some coffee,” said Lester. “The Market’s still open.”

The Market was quiet. Andrew, who owned the place and worked sixteen hour days every day, was behind the deli counter. Two older men sat on the stools arranged along the length of the counter, sipping coffee and talking quietly.

“Chief, Matt,” said Andrew. “Coffee?”

“Please,” I said.

“Anything to eat?” asked Andrew.

I looked at Lester. “No,” he said, “just coffee. Black.”

We took our cups and retreated to a table in the corner. Bill blew over the top of his cup, took a sip, smiled, and said, “Hits the spot. Why couldn’t you have discovered your problem while it was still daylight?”

“Because you told me to go to the hospital to meet your buddy Kintz.”

“Right. What were they looking for, Matt?”

“You mean in the house?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t have any idea. None. I don’t understand why anybody would want to kill Logan or Abraham or screw up my home.”

“These things don’t just come out of the blue. There’s got to be a connection. You and Logan have been hanging out for years, so Abraham would seem to be the new factor in the equation. Any thoughts on what he was doing here?”

“He must have been coming to see me for some reason having to do with the money thing he mentioned to your officer. Abraham’s not the type to lie to a cop. I’ll go see the manager at my old condo tomorrow; see if Abraham went there. It makes sense that if he couldn’t find me, someone
would send him to Logan. He’d never met Logan, so that’s the only reason I can think of for him being at Logan’s condo on the night of the shooting.”

We sat for an hour, talking about old friends, fishing, the weather, and occasionally veering back to the problems at hand. Who would want to kill Logan? Did they want to kill me, too? I thought so, since somebody had sent Jube Smith after me with a gun. This thing had to be tied in to Osceola and his money issue. That was the only connection, but even if somebody was trying to kill Abraham over money, why were Logan and I in the line of fire? It was a puzzle.

The chief’s cell phone rang. He answered, hung up, and said, “The CSI guy says you can go home.”

The house was an even bigger mess than when I’d last seen it. The CSI guy was waiting by the front door when the chief and I drove up. “Sorry about the mess, Matt. I used a lot of dust trying to get a good fingerprint. Nothing.”

The chief said, “In all that mess, you didn’t find anything?”

The CSI guy shook his head. “I’m afraid we don’t know any more now than we did an hour ago. Whoever the guy was, he wore gloves. He was a careful son of a bitch. He went through every drawer and nook and cranny in the house. Looked like he was in a hurry.”

“So it wasn’t just vandalism,” I said. “Somebody was looking for something.”

“Looks that way,” the CSI guy said.

I stood at the threshold, hesitant to go in. The disaster was reflected off the dark floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bay, a mirrored effect caused by the darkness on the other side of the glass. A double mess. Finally, I moved forward, beckoning to the chief to follow. We toured the house. The place looked as if a tornado had blown through.

“You need some help cleaning this crap up?” Lester asked.

“No. I’ll call Joy Fitzpatrick tomorrow. She’ll get some women from her cleaning service in to take care of things.”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“What?”

“Beer. We need beer and Tiny’s is just down the street.”

“Can’t hurt.”

“Might help.”

“Probably will.”

“Then, let’s do it.”

And so we did.

The coffeepot was where I’d left it. The coffee was in the refrigerator. I stumbled around trying to get coffee and water into the maker. It was touch and go. The beers at Tiny’s had turned into more than was good for me. I was feeling a little numb as I stumbled across the debris-strewn living room into the kitchen. The early morning light streaming through the windows did nothing for my mood. My head hurt, my hands shook, my stomach growled and did flip-flops when I moved. A monumental hangover. Never again. I’d never drink again. Right. Well, at least not that day. Damn Bill Lester and his bright ideas.

I threw some bacon and sausage into a frying pan, thinking that a little grease and coffee would help me regain some semblance of life. When the meat sizzled to a well-done hue, I took it out of the skillet, put it on a paper towel to drain, cracked four eggs into the pan and fried them over easy. Bread went into the toaster. When it was all done, I sat at the table and ate. I was feeling better. I went to the front door to get the morning paper, took it to the patio in back with a second cup of coffee, and breathed in the clean salt-laden air blowing gently off the bay. I was going to survive.