Deadly Catch (22 page)

I nodded. “Do you think Tom suspected that Ben Merritt might’ve been involved with drugs? Marijuana, in particular.”

Joyce took a sip of coffee and set the cup down. “Tom never come right out and said so, but yes, I think he did.” She pointed to one of the envelopes. “He was doing some investigating on his own without Ben knowing about it. Took a bunch of pictures. Y’all have a look and see what you think.”

For the next several minutes Kate and I flipped through a couple of dozen black-and-white Polaroids. I couldn’t make heads or tails out of some, but a few caused both Kate and me to sit up and take notice.

“Isn’t that Mayor Harper sitting in Chief Merritt’s car?” Kate said, holding the photo up for a closer look.

“That’s Friendly George, all right.”

“Look at this one, Mac,” Kate said, her voice rising. “That’s the
Miss Nora
, one of the Barfield boats.”

It was a profile shot taken in poor light conditions but clear enough to make out the name painted on the starboard bow. In the background across the bay I could make out the faint lights of the four-story St. George Hotel. That meant the photo had been snapped from either a boat or from Five-Mile Island.

“And here’s one of the chief and Brett Barfield,” Kate said. “Brett drove that car when I first came to work for the Gillmans.”

I took the photo from Kate and stared at it. Merritt was leaning inside the driver’s side window, but there was no mistaking who it was. The driver was mostly blocked and in shadow, but Kate was sure it was young Barfield.

Other photos showed promise, but they would take closer scrutiny to see if they would be of use. A good magnifying glass would help, but if we could get access to a computer photo program we might hit real pay dirt.

I gathered up the photos and stacked them like a deck of cards. “Could we borrow these?” I asked Joyce as I slipped them back into the envelope. “I promise we’ll take real good care of them.”

“Sure,” she said, lowering the cup to her lap. “Y’all keep ’em long as you like. I know my Tom done nothing wrong for them to fire him. Maybe the pictures’ll help prove it.”

I handed the envelope to Kate, who placed it inside her purse. “What’s in the other envelope?” I said.

Joyce frowned. “That’s the accident report,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “A loose brake line caused the brakes to fail.” She paused and dabbed at her eyes. “A school bus was stopped on the road and kids was crossing. My Tom had the choice of running into the bus, hitting the kids or taking to that ditch. It’s just like him to do what he done.”

Kate told Joyce how sorry she was and what a wonderful man he must have been to sacrifice his life to save others. A couple of minutes later we stood up to leave.

“Oh, there’s one thing I almost forgot to mention,” Joyce said as we walked onto the porch. “I don’t know if it’s important or anything, but the day Tom had his accident he’d been in Parkersville to see the sheriff about something or other. I never did find out what it was about, though.”

We stopped for lunch at a Subway on the outskirts of Headland, looking through the photos again as we ate. “Wish to hell Tom Mayo had had a decent camera when he took these,” I said, squinting at a blurry shot of Ben Merritt and someone I didn’t recognize. “You got any kind of photo program on your computer?”

Kate finished a bite of her sandwich and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Just Picasa. It’s a free download. It works okay for general stuff, but I doubt it would do much of what we need. My brother could probably help.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah, Mark, my younger brother. He works in graphics at a print shop in Destin. He’s got a Photoshop program at home and access to a lot of other equipment at work. He restores old and damaged photos on the side.”

I glanced at the photo again. “These aren’t damaged, just lousy quality.”

Kate’s lips pursed around the straw as she sipped her iced tea. “Stop being so negative.” She wiped her hands on a fresh napkin and rummaged in her purse for her cell phone.

“What’s this going to cost me?”

She grinned as she dialed a number. “Supper, maybe. Mark owes me.”

After leaving the Subway we drove to Kate’s hometown and met her brother when he got off work at five. Kate and I followed Mark to a nearby restaurant that featured an in-house brewery and enjoyed a nice meal and specialty beers on the back deck overlooking Destin Harbor.

Thirty-year-old Mark Bell was an amiable guy who shared Kate’s auburn hair and fair complexion. We briefly discussed Maddie’s case with him, and then he studied the stack of photos and concluded he could enhance many of them.

“There’s a few here that might give me trouble, but overall I think you’ll be pleased with the results.”

He refused when I offered to pay for his services, saying that if it would help Kate, that was good enough for him. “I’ll need a few days, maybe a week. I’ll give you a call when I’m done, Moolah.”

“Moolah?” I said to Kate after we said our good-byes to Mark and headed east on Highway 98 back to St. George.

Kate laughed. “Yeah. That’s the nickname my brothers gave me when we were kids. ‘The Fabulous Moolah,’ greatest woman wrestler of all time.”

“Moolah,” I said again and busted out laughing.

It was past ten that evening by the time I stopped my Silverado in Kate’s driveway. I switched off the engine and got out to walk Kate to the door. “You might as well stay the night,” she said.

“I can get a room.”

“Why on earth waste all that money on a motel when there’s a perfectly good bed right inside?”

“Your neighbors might talk.”

Kate unlocked the door and stepped inside. “The Fabulous Moolah says to quit being so dang stubborn and get your butt in here.”

Who the hell would dare argue with The Fabulous Moolah?

I was up early and had a loaded omelet and toast ready for breakfast by the time a sleepy-eyed Kate sauntered into the kitchen wearing a bathrobe. We’d stayed up late talking over what we’d learned from Joyce Mayo and wondering where to go or what to do next.

Kate yawned, remembering too late to cover her mouth. “Mmm, smells delicious. A gentleman and a chef to boot.”

I divided the omelet onto plates. “Coffee just finished dripping. Grab us a couple of cups.”

Kate stifled another yawn as she opened a cabinet for the cups. “Did you get the newspaper?”

“No, I’ll go get it.”

“If you don’t see it, check the shrubbery.”

I found the damp rolled-up newspaper lying on the grass next to the steps. Kate had poured the coffee and was sitting at the table sipping hers by the time I got back to the kitchen. I slid the rubber band off and dropped the paper on the table, then grabbed our plates from the counter.

“What on earth!”

I turned around, holding a plate in each hand. Kate was staring at the front page, the color drained from her face. “What is it?”

“Dang, Mac—George Harper is dead!”

Mayor Harper found dead at home of apparent suicide
.

I set our breakfast aside and pulled my chair next to Kate’s so we could read the article together. The half-page account boiled down to this: Marilyn Harper had awakened last evening around eight-thirty in the upstairs bedroom where she’d been resting because of a migraine headache. A few minutes later she’d discovered her husband in his downstairs study, slumped face-down on his desk. Thinking he was asleep, she called to him from the doorway, and when there was no response she walked into the study to find a pool of blood on the desktop and a revolver lying on the carpet beside the chair where he sat.

Mrs. Harper immediately dialed 911, and within minutes a rescue squad was on the scene. Attempts to revive the mayor proved futile; he was rushed to Parkersville Memorial Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival by the attending emergency room physician.

According to St. George Chief of Police Ben Merritt, the investigating officer at the scene, Mrs. Harper hadn’t heard a gunshot or any other disturbance. Earlier that afternoon she’d taken medication for her migraine, and as was her habit, wore a sleeping mask and earplugs to bed.

The spent bullet was found embedded in a nearby bookcase and recovered. The pistol, registered to George Herman Harper, age fifty-one, of St. George, Florida, was collected as evidence and would be examined for fingerprints and ballistics by the FDLE in Tallahassee. An autopsy was pending.

The omelets had gotten cold by the time we finished reading the article. I placed them in the microwave for a minute. Kate picked at hers, too upset to eat much. I ate mine and finished hers while she dressed for work. I scanned the article again. There was no mention of Patrolman J.D. Owens being on the scene. I hoped he was still working the night shift and had been there with Merritt.

After Kate left for work I poured another cup of coffee and sat out on the back deck to try to sort things out. If it
was
a suicide, there would be powder traces on George Harper’s gun hand and powder burns where the bullet entered his head. The autopsy would show that, and I was sure Bo Pickron would be on top of it. Whether he would share that info with me was another matter.

But why would Friendly George have offed himself, and now of all times? With Maddie out of the picture, he had control of all his late brother’s wealth and property holdings. If he really was involved with the drug operation, his cut was all gravy now that Maddie was dead. He no longer needed a nest egg.

But what if George Harper hadn’t been part of the drug mess? Why the hell would he have put a gun to his head and blown his brains out? Guilt maybe, believing his son Brett was dead and that if he would’ve owned up to being a father to him, things might have turned out differently? Remorse over Maddie?

Okay, what if Harper
had
been part of the drug op but wanted out now that he no longer needed the money? There was always the chance the operation could be busted at any time, and that could mean a lengthy stay in the state or federal pen depending how deep the operation went. At fifty-one, Friendly George wouldn’t be around very long to enjoy his newly inherited wealth if he spent the next twenty years in the slammer. What if he’d wanted out, but his compadres said no?