Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective (13 page)

“You take a lot of people there?” Tree asked.

“It’s unbelievable, man. Like what is it with the guy? He just wrote stuff, right?”

“You’ve never read Hemingway?’

“Reading, man. Get real. I play video games.” Dominik laughed, like the whole idea of reading was beyond ridiculous.

Tree tried to imagine Hemingway playing a video game. He did not have that kind of imagination.

The day’s first visitors were already streaming through the main entrance at 702 Whitehead as Tree’s pedicab pulled up. Tree told Dominik to wait while he went to the ticket booth.

“Is Hank here?” Tree asked the young woman in the booth.

The woman checked a clipboard hanging from a hook on the wall beside her. She shook her head and said, “Hank’s not scheduled today.”

“He did such a great job yesterday I wanted to give him something. I’m leaving town today. Any chance I could get his address and drop it around to him?”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, sir. You can leave it with me in an envelope if you wish.”

“I wanted to give it to him personally.”

“I’m really sorry. We can’t give out personal information.”

Tree walked back to where Dominik waited at the curb. “Do you want to earn a quick twenty bucks?”

Dominik looked at him suspiciously. “Doing what?”

“Just go over there by the ticket booth and collapse.”

“Collapse? You mean like fall down?”

“As though you passed out.”

Dominik said, “Fifty bucks.”

“What?”

“You want me to do something like that, it’s fifty bucks.”

“Done,” Tree said. “Now get going.”

Dominik eased off his bike. “What are you going to do?”

“I won’t be far away,” Tree said. “Just collapse. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Dominik held his hand out. “Not that I don’t trust you.”

“Twenty-five now,” Tree said. “The other twenty-five when it’s all over.”

“Fair enough,” Dominik said. Tree got his wallet out and put two tens and a five into the pedicab driver’s outstretched hand.

Dominik stuffed the bills into his pocket and then walked briskly over to the entrance and stopped. He stood there and then his knees buckled, and he issued a loud gasp before dropping to the pavement.

Tree saw the woman in the ticket booth start and then call out, “Pete!” before she hurried out of the booth and rushed to where Dominik lay on the ground.

Tree crossed to the open ticket booth, and, as casually as he could, reached in the open window to lift the clipboard off its wall hook. Quickly, he scanned it. Dearlove, Hank. Thirteen William Street in Key West.

Tree returned the clipboard to its hook. He turned to see the young woman from the ticket booth and another attendant, presumably the guy named Pete, with Dominik who by now was sitting up. A small, concerned crowd had gathered around. Tree pushed through, announcing, “It’s okay, I’ll take care of him.”

The young woman looked up at Tree. He could see the confusion on her face. With help from Pete, Tree got Dominik to his feet.

“Dehydrated,” Dominik said.

“Still feel like driving me?” Tree said to him.

“No problem,” Dominik said. “I’m okay now.”

The young woman and Pete traded glances.

Back on the street, Dominik said, “How’d I do?”

“Award-winning,” Tree said. “Billy Wilder said he could turn anyone into an actor. You’re the proof of that.”

Dominik said, “Who’s Billy Wilder?”

“Can you take me over to William Street?”

“For another fifty bucks.”

“Come on, Tree said. “Give me a break, will you?”

“It’s the American way, man. Fifty bucks.”

________

Ten minutes later, Dominik swooped onto Fleming, crossing Duval before swinging left on William Street and arriving in front of number thirteen. Tree handed him the twenty-dollar bill they finally had negotiated. “Sure you don’t want me to wait around?”

“I can’t afford you,” Tree said.

“I can make you a very attractive deal,” Dominik said.

“I’m just a poor, starving tourist,” Tree said.

“Sure you are, man. Getting guys to collapse onto the pavement for you? Come on. You’re up to something that you shouldn’t be, and when that happens, man the dollar signs start to fly.”

“Is that the American way?” Tree said.

“What I came to this great country for.”

“I’ll be fine,” Tree said.

Dominik looked disappointed, and Tree wondered how big a lie that statement would turn out to be.

The house, with its gleaming white verandas on the upper and lower levels, was set among lush palm trees behind a white picket fence, a fine example of the Queen Anne style that had arrived in Key West late in the nineteenth century.

Tree opened the gate and went up the walkway to the porch. He mounted the steps leading to the screen-door entrance. The inner door was open. From inside, Tree could hear the husky tenor voice of Tony Bennett.

Tree rapped on the screen door.

“Hello,” Tree called. There was no answer.

Tree knocked again. Tony Bennett stopped singing. Silence, save for the insect sounds coming from the lush foliage crowding the house.

Tree opened the screen door and stepped inside, calling out again. His voice echoed through the interior. He stood in the entranceway, listening to the soft, motorized whir of an overhead ceiling fan. He called out a third and fourth time.

A ginger-colored cat padded along the main hallway running the length of the house. It was a Hemingway cat, Tree noticed, polydactyl, with six toes on each of its front paws. The cat spotted the intruder, and let out a loud meow, twitching its tail.

A tail brushed with crimson.

The cat twitched and turned back along the hall. Tree followed it into an octagonal-shaped, pine-paneled sitting room. Five shuttered windows filtered slivers of midday sunlight, outlining the overturned coffee table, the smashed lamps, torn-apart sofas and easy chairs, their stuffing scattered across the pine floor.

The same kind of damage had been done to a similarly paneled study with archways, featuring sunburst transoms, looking onto a pool area. A wood-carved desk had been upended. Various editions of Hemingway’s novels had been yanked off the surrounding shelves and thrown haphazardly to the floor. Papers and files were strewn everywhere.

The cat stopped near a trail of red splotches leading onto the terrace. He let out another screech, his red tail twitching back and forth. Tree, now having trouble breathing, forced himself to follow the blood path onto a tiled pool deck surrounded by luxurious gardens.

Hank Dearlove’s body lay at the bottom of the three steps leading down to the pool deck. Dearlove, in a flowered shirt similar to the one he had on the day before, lay on his back staring up at a cloudless sky he would never see again.

18

The ginger cat slithered against Dearlove’s body, issuing another high-pitched shriek, its tail twitching, picking up more blood. Tree bent down beside Dearlove, pale and stiff on the terrace. Tree couldn’t tell how long he had been dead or what killed him—but he was dead all right, no doubt of that.

Tree rose and went back inside the study to search for a telephone. The cat reappeared, calmer now, rubbing himself against Tree’s thigh. Tree gently pushed him away, not wanting to be struck by that bloody tail. His gaze fell on the framed photographs adorning the walls: Hank Dearlove, crisp and pressed in a suit and tie, posed with a solemn-looking Vice President Dick Cheney. He shook hands with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. He was part of a group of men posing at a cocktail party. Some of the men held up glasses and laughed into the camera. He recognized a younger, fitter Miram Shah and a burly Javor Zoran.

Tree looked around the room. Someone had yanked all the drawers out of the overturned desk, spilling its contents across the floor. Tree knelt to the mess of papers and books. Various letters and correspondence were addressed to HENRY DEARLOVE, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

An antique telephone stood on a rosewood side table in the corner. Tree picked up the handset. As he did this, he spotted the brochure lying on the floor.

The Island Inn on Sanibel.

He called 911 and when the operator came on the line, he briefly told her what he had found at Thirteen William St. Then he hung up. By now he had some experience with these things. No use spending a lot of time on the line with 911 operators. The police would arrive soon enough.

Tree picked up the Island Inn brochure and went out onto the porch to gulp in a lungful of warm summer air. William Street for now was deserted. That was about to change. He leaned against the railing, staring at the bright, inviting photos contained in the Island Inn brochure:
A tradition since 1895.

His phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out. Now he had a signal. He looked at the readout on the screen: Freddie.

“Where are you?”

“I’m still in Key West,” he said. “I called you earlier but couldn’t get any service.”

“So you’re all right? I was worried.”

He thought: I spent the night in another woman’s hotel room, and I just discovered a corpse. Couldn’t be better.

Aloud he said, “I’ll call you later and fill you in.”

“Okay, but are you still looking for Elizabeth Traven?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she’s not in Key West.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I just drove past her on San-Cap Road.”

________

As soon as the Criminal Investigations branch of the Key West police department identified the corpse in the house on William Street, the number of local police officers and Monroe County Sheriff’s Department major crimes investigators increased exponentially.

Tree was interviewed by two detectives, Lieutenant Manny Valdez, who headed the department’s major crimes unit, and Detective Nicholas Conde.

He gave the officers his narrow version of the truth: impressed with guide Hank Dearlove’s insights during his visit to the Hemingway house, he decided to award Mr. Dearlove a bonus for his efforts.

When he arrived at the Hemingway house, he discovered Mr. Dearlove wasn’t working. He happened to spot Dearlove’s address on a clipboard, saw that it was nearby, and decided to go to his residence. When he arrived, the door was open and the bloody cat was wandering around. He went inside and found Dearlove’s body out by the pool.

Simple, straightforward, and not too much of a lie. Neither Valdez nor Conde commented on his veracity, or his lack thereof. It was only when Conde asked him what he did for a living that the atmosphere changed.

“You’re a private detective?” Lieutenant Valdez’s voice contained a sharper edge. He was fortyish, heavyset, with black hair brushed away from a high forehead. He wore a sports jacket and a tie in a southernmost world where no one wore a jacket let alone a tie.

“That’s correct,” Tree said.

“Not around here.”

“On Sanibel Island.”

Lieutenant Valdez paused before he said, “I wouldn’t have thought there is a lot of call for private detectives out there.”

“There isn’t,” Tree said. “But once in a while, there is. That’s where I come in.”

“Are you here on a case?” Conde inquired. He was older than Valdez, slim, with a hard face that looked as though it had been cut out of stone by a high wind. He wore a short-sleeved, open-collar shirt, less formal than his boss without detracting from the impression he was the soul of rugged, military-type discipline.

“No,” Tree said, trying not to take his eyes away from the two officers or do anything that would indicate he was lying through his teeth.

“You’re not here on a case.” Conde turned the question into a declarative sentence.

“No.”

Conde again: “Then why are you in Key West?”

“A little sight-seeing overnight,” Tree said reasonably. “I’m a bit of a Hemingway buff, but I’d never seen where he lived in Key West.”

Conde sat back in his chair and said, “Hemingway,” making it sound like a bad word. “I’ve never been able to get into Hemingway.”

“No?” Tree tried to look interested.

“Everywhere you go in the Old Town, there are photos of the guy standing beside the biggest damned fish you ever saw.
The Old Man and the Sea
? I took that in high school. Old guy after a fish. I dunno. What’s the big deal there?”

“Do you have any idea who this guy is?” An exasperated-sounding Lieutenant Valdez.

Tree said, “You mean Hemingway?”

Valdez jerked his thumb in the direction of the corpse by the pool, now covered by a sheet. “No, the guy out by the pool. Henry Dearlove.”

“I thought he was a guide at the Hemingway house.”

“Name doesn’t ring a bell?”

“It didn’t, no.”