Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective (20 page)

He got out of bed, feeling more anxious and uneasy than ever. He went out of the bedroom and found himself on a wrought iron walkway over a sun-dappled courtyard.

Tree crossed the walkway to an open door that led into an office with an antelope head mounted on the wall. A big man wearing shorts and a loose-fitting shirt stood writing at a lectern. He had dark hair and a mustache.

The man looked up from what he was writing and said, “Have you figured it out yet?”

The question surprised Tree. “Figured out what?”

“Why you’ve spent so many years following me around?”

“You know about that?”

“You’ve been at the house where I was born in Oak Park. The finca outside Havana. I’ll bet you even ordered one of those Papa Doubles at La Floridita.”

Tree looked embarrassed.

“I can’t even remember inventing the damned thing,” the man said. “Either I was too drunk or it didn’t happen. Personally, I favor the not happening.”

“I’m in an awful mess,” Tree said.

“I know,” said the big man. “When you’re anxious and worried, you start looking for the heroes from your youth in hopes they can help. Well, Tree, old pal, I wish I could help, but I can’t. At the end of the day, I’m just a writer. I stand here in the mornings with a stubby pencil and I cover pieces of paper with words. That’s all I do. In the afternoon I drink and get mixed up with the wrong women. I’ve got no particular insight into anything.”

“But you represent a certain demanding masculinity where things such as bravery and drinking and being able to use your hands when it comes to a fishing rod or a gun, matter,” Tree said.

“Are you trying to suggest they don’t?”

Tree shook his head “That’s the problem, I secretly believe they do, but I’m no good at any of that stuff. When Francis Macomber showed cowardice in the face of the charging lion, his wife despised him and went off and slept with the white hunter—the guy who stood his ground. That story has stuck with me all my life. I don’t care what women say. They are drawn to the white hunter who doesn’t run from the lion.”

“So you think your wife is going to go off and sleep with a white hunter, is that it?”

“I see the look in her eyes lately. She’s after bigger things—a chain of supermarkets. She could end up very rich. She looks at me and what does she see? A failed newspaperman playing at being a detective—and not a very good detective at that. Not a good father, either. He can’t even help his own son. Who could blame her for sleeping with a white hunter? Although, I’ve got to confess, I’m not sure there are a lot of white hunters around the Sanibel-Fort Myers area.”

“Well, I’ve buggered things up with women by and large, so I’m probably not the right fellow to be talking to, but maybe you’ve got to have more confidence in her,” the man said. “My biggest mistake, I believe, was that I did not trust the women in my life. I thought that if I didn’t shoot the lion, they would think I was a coward. What I didn’t understand is that they weren’t interested in me shooting a lion. They could care less.”

“What did they want?”

“The one thing I didn’t give them enough of,” he said.

“What was that?”

“Love, old pal. You can gamble for money and you can gamble for gold. But if you haven’t gambled for love and lost, then you haven’t gambled at all.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Tree said. “That’s from an old Frankie Laine song.”

“Never heard of him,” the man said. “What I say to you is true at first light. After that, though, who knows?”

“I come to you looking for help and you quote Frankie Laine?”

“Who’s Frankie Laine?” a voice said.

Tree opened his eyes and said, “You don’t know Frankie Laine?”

“The singer? You’re dreaming about Frankie Laine, the singer?” Freddie’s confused, lovely face loomed over him. “It’s time to get up. You’re going to miss Chris’s arraignment.”

31

At 10:30 A.M. Chris, in shackles, and outfitted with a prison-issue orange jump suit, was arraigned at the Criminal Division of the Lee County Courthouse in downtown Fort Myers, charged with murder under section 782.035 of the Florida Criminal Code. Chris, without his glasses, looked pale and unshaven, like someone, Tree couldn’t help thinking, who might have killed his wife.

In a badly fitting blue blazer he hadn’t worn since his
Tribune
days, and a tie Freddie thought she had thrown away, Tree sat in the spectators’ gallery with Freddie holding his hand. Cee Jay Boone passed, jerking her head up and down, her idea, Tree supposed, of a morning greeting. There was no sign of Cailie Fisk.

Edith Goldman asked for a bond hearing to set bail. The judge, a veteran of the local bench named Floyd Lallo, set a date for the following week.

The whole procedure lasted only minutes, everyone going through the motions without emotion, as though it could matter less, when in fact a young man had been accused of the worst crime of all, and his life hung in the balance.

Tree tried to catch his son’s eye as sheriff’s deputies escorted him out, but Chris stared straight ahead. Maybe Chris blamed him for all this; maybe Chris was counting on his dad to do a better job of protecting him, and he had failed.

In the corridor outside the courtroom, Tree asked Edith about the possibility of bail. “We’ll have to see. The prosecution will argue they had to go looking for him so he’s a flight risk. On the other hand, Chris has stuck around for months and didn’t try to run away. So we’ll see.”

“We’ll get the money,” Freddie interjected decisively.

“Have you heard anything about the evidence they have against him?” Tree asked.

Edith shook her head. “We don’t have the discovery yet. They’ll put that off as long as possible.”

“Supposedly Chris confessed to the murder,” Tree said.

“To this Cailie Dean. Apparently she’s a detective with the St. Louis police.”

“And Kendra’s sister,” Freddie added. “Isn’t there an argument to be made that whatever she got from Chris was coerced or there was entrapment—something?”

“Let’s see what they’ve got first, and then we can make some decisions.” Edith spoke in her irritatingly non-committal, professional lawyer’s voice.

Tree walked Freddie back to the lot across the street from the courthouse. When they got to her car, she hugged against him. “It’s all so cold and impersonal, isn’t it?”

“Surreal,” Tree agreed. “As though you’re watching a bad movie full of actors who aren’t very convincing.”

“Listen, they want me in New York tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to have to fly out this afternoon. Are you all right with that?”

“Of course. There’s nothing much you can do here for the moment. How long will you be gone?”

“Three or four days. Depending on how the meetings go.”

“Good luck,” Tree said.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m probably going to need it.”

They kissed. A perfunctory kiss? Distracted? Hard to tell. Tree didn’t want to read too much into it. But as Freddie got into her car he feared there was a distance between them that had nothing to do with the miles between Sanibel and New York City.

_________

At the office, Rex entered bearing lattes.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Tree said, accepting the cup.

Rex plopped himself down in the chair across from Tree’s desk. “How did it go?”

“As well as you might expect when you’re sitting in a courtroom watching your son in shackles being arraigned for the murder of his wife.”

Rex sipped at his coffee. “You think you’ve got trouble. I just got off the phone with my insurance company. Guess what? My policy doesn’t cover grenades blowing up a boat.”

“I feel terrible about what happened, Rex,” Tree said. “Really, I do. I’m going to make this up to you, I promise.”

“You’ve got enough to deal with right now,” Rex said. “Let me worry about the boat. You take care of Chris.”

“I haven’t done a very good job of that, either. What do you do when you’re son is charged with murder?”

“You believe,” Rex said. “You believe he didn’t do it. You hang onto that.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Tree said.

“I’m here if you need me. Anything, anything at all, Tree. You know that.” Rex stood up, looking unexpectedly embarrassed. “And that’s the last time in this friendship I’m going to be serious.”

“I appreciate that,” Tree said, grinning.

“We get too serious and we might be overtaken by real life, and we wouldn’t want that.”

“No way,” Tree said.

“That real life is a killer,” Rex said.

Vera Dayton appeared in the doorway. Hiding his surprise as best he could, Tree said, “Vera.”

“Hey, there, Vera,” Rex said.

“I was just passing by,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Have you got a moment?”

Rex disappeared. Tree rose awkwardly. “Come in and sit down.”

She was done in island chic this morning: white slacks with matching white jacket over a scoop-necked blouse in silky blue; no sign of the drunk from their previous encounter in the well-to-do woman who gazed uncertainly at Tree as she seated herself.

“I heard about Chris—his arrest.”

Tree felt his stomach drop. “Yes,” he repeated.

“I thought you should know, I’ve just come from the police. I told them I don’t think your son killed his wife. I believe, as I have always believed, that it was Ray.”

“What did the police say?”

Her eyes darted around the office, as if the answer might be somewhere in the picture of the marlin on the wall. Finally deciding it wasn’t, she said, “They asked if there was anything I wanted to add to what I had already told them. I said, no. But I asked them to keep in mind that Ray committed suicide, that if he had not murdered Kendra, there was no reason for him to take his own life.”

“Look, I appreciate this, Vera,” Tree said. “I know it’s very awkward for you to talk about this.”

“I don’t know why they had to reopen it,” Vera said, sounding abruptly agitated. “It had been settled. We’re all trying to get on with our lives. Now the nightmare starts up again.”

“I’m afraid it does,” Tree said.

“Do you have any idea what evidence they have?”

“Not really,” he said, not wanting to tell Vera any more than he had to. Not that he knew much, anyway.

The telephone rang. Tree looked at it.

Vera got to her feet. “I should be going.”

“No, it’s all right, Vera. They’ll leave a message.”

It rang again.

“There’s something else I wanted you to know.”

Tree looked at her. Again, her eyes nervously swept the room. Tree said, “What is it, Vera?”

“I’m not going to sell my stores to Freddie and her group.”

“You know I’m not involved in this,” Tree said.

The telephone kept ringing. Vera’s voice rose over the sound. “Of course I know you’re not involved. How could you be? What would you know about it? What does anyone know about it?” She sounded angry. “I’ve thought about it long and hard. I’m not selling. I’m not going to do it.”

“Please,” Tree said, “You should talk to Freddie. She’s on her way to New York, but you should talk to her.”

Vera said, “I shouldn’t be here. I’ve got to go.”

And she left the office.

The phone rang again. Tree grabbed the receiver.

“Hey, man, it’s Melon.”

Tree silently groaned. Melon was the last person he wanted to talk to today. No, he was the second last. Vera was the last, but it was too late for her.

“Melon.”

“Wow, I just heard about your son on the car radio. That’s pretty heavy, man. I just wanted to call to say how sorry I am.”

“Thanks, Melon, I appreciate that.”

“If there’s anything I can do, you let me know, okay?”

“Right now, there’s not much. We’re just hoping we can get him bail next week.”

“I was talking to Liz about you last night,” Melon said. “She was saying how much your son means, and that you’d been through a lot together.”

Tree gripped the receiver tighter. “Liz?”

“Sure, man. Liz”

“You mean Elizabeth Traven?”

“Yeah, Liz. She dropped in for a drink.”

“I’m trying to get a line on where she’s staying.”

“I think Captain Rick has a bit of a crush on her.”

“Captain Rick?”

“He owns half the properties around Times Square. He let Liz use the apartment. Gave her a terrific deal on the place.”

_________

The apartment was located above a T-shirt shop fronting Times Square, the entrance reached via a flight of stairs at the rear of the building. Tree stood on the beach facing a sand-colored façade edged in turquoise. A big towel adorned with skull and crossbones hung from a balcony railing. Blinds covered the second floor windows, so it was hard to tell if anyone was home.