Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective (24 page)

Tree felt his stomach twist into a knot. “Except that we know he did.”

“Before he died, Ray swore to me he didn’t kill her.”

“I know. That’s what you told Cailie. That’s what made her start to think that maybe Ray wasn’t the killer and Chris was.”

“He didn’t want me to shoot him.” Vera said this in a way that suggested the idea of shooting husbands wasn’t so unusual.

“But it didn’t work,” Tree said.

She reached over to the silver box for another cigarette. “I hated Ray, hated what he did to our marriage, the way he betrayed me.”

“Ray would have said anything at that point,” Tree said. “Told any lie in order to save his life.”

Vera held the cigarette between her fingers. “But what he said was, he didn’t kill Kendra.”

This time Vera lit the cigarette herself. She drew deeply on it and then raised her head to let more smoke into the air. By now the room had filled with a pungent tobacco smell.

“That wouldn’t have been enough to go to the police with,” Tree said. “But it was enough to convince Cailie that she could lie, say that Chris confessed to her, and if you had a detective who was infatuated, and an assistant district attorney out for blood, it might be enough to get Chris indicted for his wife’s murder. Not a great case, maybe, but a case.”

“You’re supposing Cailie was lying,” Vera said.

“She was lying,” Tree said with a lot more conviction than he was feeling.

Vera said, “So we both have a dirty little secret, Tree. You don’t want the world to know your son killed his wife. I would prefer that everyone continued to think Ray committed suicide.”

“What makes you so certain I wouldn’t turn my son in if I knew he had killed his wife?”

“You won’t allow yourself to believe that. If you accuse me of killing my husband, however, then the rest of it will come out. Neither of us wants that, so we keep each other’s secrets.”

Tree rose to his feet. Vera said, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What’s that, Vera?”

“The recording Cailie made.”

Tree looked at her. “What are you going to do about the Dayton supermarkets?”

She flicked ash into the ashtray.

“Are you going to sell them to Freddie and her group?”

“Will that make it easier for me to get hold of that recording?”

“I have Cailie’s laptop,” Tree said.

“Where is it?”

“It’s in the car.”

“And that’s the only copy?”

Tree nodded. “I don’t imagine she would have given it to the police. Otherwise, you would have heard from them by now.”

Vera reached for another cigarette before she said, “Why don’t you go out to your car and get it?”

37

The Key West police found the bodies of Elizabeth Traven, Cailie Dean, and Joseph Trembath, as well as the five hundred thousand dollars in cash it appeared they had just dug up with a Glock entrenching tool on the grounds of the Hemingway Estate before a fight broke out, and they all ended up dead.

The assistant district attorney said he had little choice but to drop the murder charges against Chris Callister, since the prosecution’s main witness was dead. The ADA intimated he was not convinced of Chris’s innocence. There was, as Tree suspected, no talk of any recorded confession.

Chris decided to go back to Chicago. Sanibel Island was too small and too much had happened to him here. Sticking around, he said, would only encourage the police to find something else with which to charge him. Chicago would give him some distance from an unfriendly island and allow him to start over. There were no ghosts in Chicago—or at least not so many.

Tree drove Chris out to the Fort Myers International Airport. Chris wanted his dad to drop him off at the curb, but Chris was wrestling with three bags so Tree insisted on parking the car and accompanying his son into the airport, carrying one of the bags.

At two o’clock in the afternoon the main concourse was all but empty. Tree stood awkwardly with Chris outside the security area. Every time he looked at him, Tree tried hard not to see a killer looking back.

Sometimes he succeeded.

“Would you tell Freddie I’m really happy for her,” Chris said. “If anyone can run a chain of supermarkets down here, it’s Freddie.”

“I’ll tell her that,” Tree said.

“It’s going to be a big change in your life, I guess.”

“I’m not sure,” Tree said. “The deal is supposed to go through in the next week or so. We’ll see.”

“Look, Dad,” Chris said, “I know I haven’t said much, and I know I haven’t always sounded as though I do, but I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

“I’m not sure how much I’ve done,” Tree said. Knowing that was nowhere near the truth.

“If it wasn’t for you, if you didn’t believe in me, I’d still be sitting in a jail cell.”

Did he believe in his son? Yes, yes, he did, he silently insisted. He told himself that over and over again. Chris was innocent. Cailie was deceitful and untrustworthy. Ray Dayton had been fighting for his life when he swore to his wife he didn’t murder Kendra.

As if he had been reading Tree’s mind, Chris embraced his father with tears in his eyes. Tree could hardly believe it; a son being emotional about his father.

“Call me,” Tree said. “Let me know how you’re doing.”

“I will.” Chris quickly wiped the tears away and grabbed at his luggage. Then he paused and Tree was struck with the wild notion Chris was about to confess. The moment passed. Chris cast one more glance at Tree and then hurried away.

Tree watched until Chris had made his way through the security gauntlet, feeling at once relieved and sad, uncertain if he had regained a son or lost him for good.

Choking back surprising tears, he started across the concourse, almost running into Owen Markfield.

“I thought I’d come to witness the touching father-son farewell for myself,” Markfield said.

Tree didn’t say anything.

“I still think he murdered his wife.”

Tree remained silent. “What’s more,” Markfield continued, “I think you lied and cheated and you may have even murdered in order to cover up for him.”

“It’s always good to see you, Detective,” Tree said.

He went to go past, but Markfield blocked his path. “Also there is the matter of the missing nine million, five hundred thousand dollars.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The government of Tajikistan is making a lot of noise about an American cabal led by Henry Dearlove that ripped it off to the tune of ten million dollars for services that were never rendered. The Key West police have been working with the FBI and the State Department on the investigation. The thinking is that your friend Elizabeth Traven was in cahoots with Cailie Fisk or Cailie Dean, and they conspired with Joseph Trembath to kill off Dearlove and other members of the cabal and keep the money themselves. They were in the process of digging up the loot when some sort of falling out occurred that ended with the three of them dead. About five hundred thousand dollars was recovered at the scene. The question is, where is the rest of the money?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be too quick to believe the government of Taji—whatever it’s called,” Tree said.

“The Key West police suspect there was a fourth person at the scene,” Markfield continued. “The Fort Myers Beach police have found a car registered to Joseph Trembath parked in a lot at a marina over there. The speculation is that a fourth man got away from the Hemingway house with the money, drove back to Fort Myers and dumped the car.”

“This is all very interesting,” Tree said. “But I don’t know what it’s got to do with me.”

“Cailie Dean, of course, turned out to be the sister of your son’s murdered wife. She went undercover using an assumed name to get close to Chris. She extracted a confession from him, and was to be our main witness.

“You’ve been mixed up with Elizabeth Traven in the past. Incidentally, I forgot to mention the yacht leased by Elizabeth that was found moored dockside at Key West.”

“I didn’t even know Elizabeth was interested in yachts,” Tree said.

“Also, Joseph Trembath was working for Miram Shah who was a client of yours, was he not?”

“That’s right,” Tree said. “I knew Elizabeth obviously, and my son, not knowing who she was, got mixed up with Cailie, but I don’t believe he confessed anything to her.”

“I think you are that fourth man, Callister. You were involved with all of them. You killed Cailie because she had evidence against your son. You murdered the other two to cover up Cailie’s murder and then you took the missing money for yourself.”

“Sure, it’s in the trunk of my car,” Tree said. “Do you want me to get it for you?”

“Where were you the night all this went down?”

“I wasn’t in Key West, that’s for sure.”

“Then where were you, Callister? Your wife was in New York so she can’t provide you with an alibi,”

“I’ll tell you what, Detective. Why don’t you phone Edith Goldman? She’s my lawyer. If you want to formally question me, let’s do it with her present.”

“Maybe I will do just that. You are going down for this, I swear you are.”

“This is all a lot of crap, Markfield, and you know it. I would have to be a whole lot smarter than I am to pull off what you’re describing.”

“I think you specialize in making people believe you’re less than what you are, Callister. I’ve seen you pull that stunt before. It works for others, maybe, but it doesn’t work for me.”

“No, I’m pretty much as dumb as I look. Now will you get out of the way?”

“This isn’t over. I’m going to spend the time it takes to get that money back and nail your ass.”

Markfield brushed past and walked off down the concourse.

38

The thirty-two-foot Cobalt, in all its gleaming black and white glory, was the replacement for Rex’s destroyed
Former Actor
. Ivory-colored seating swept elegantly away from a control panel that would have looked at home inside a space craft. The boat already had been christened
Former Actor Too.

Tree along with Freddie and Todd Jackson and many island Chamber of Commerce members had contributed to a boat fund for Rex. A local marina happened to be sitting on the repossessed Cobalt and was willing to let it go at a fire sale price.

Now everyone gathered on the dock at Port Sanibel Marina to admire the new craft as crimson light fell along its shiny surfaces. At this time of the afternoon
Former Actor
Too
appeared to float on a dream.

“It just goes to show you,” Rex said with as much excitement in his voice as Rex could muster about anything, “sometimes it’s not so bad when someone blows up your boat.”

“Yeah, you end up with a better one,” Todd Jackson said.

Rex turned to Tree. “Why do I suspect you’re behind this?”

“Not me, it was all I could do to blow up the first boat,” Tree said.

Rex, in a burst of affection Tree seldom saw from his old friend, hugged him. “We’ve been friends too damn long, that’s the problem,” Rex said in a choked voice. ‘We’re starting to be nice to one another.”

“Yeah we’ve got to watch that,” Tree said, unexpectedly moved.

Everyone crowded aboard the
Former Actor Too.
Rex broke out champagne and they all toasted Rex’s new boat, and, if truth be told, the happy fact of Rex in their lives. Rex again told the story of how he battled flames and high waves to reach the safety of Useppa Island after the
Former Actor
sank beneath the waves.

“At the end of it, there’s a great story to tell, that’s the important thing,” Rex said later when he and Tree had a moment alone. “But what I still don’t get is exactly
who
blew up my boat.”

“The police think it was Dr. Edgar Bunya, the guy you saw at the Visitors Center, although they have yet to find his body.”

“So he killed the guy on Useppa Island?”

Tree shook his head. “That was probably Cailie Fisk. Edgar got there with his goons looking for Elizabeth, found the body, and decided they didn’t want to stick around trying to explain things to the police. We showed up as they were trying to make their escape.”

“So they let us have it with a grenade. Kind of an overreaction, don’t you think?”

“Well, that was Dr. Bunya for you.” Tree said. “He probably saw me, worried that I recognized him and could place him at the scene of a crime, and decided to do something about it.”

“Then it’s all your fault,” Rex said.

“It usually is,” Tree said.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for the past forty years.”

Later, Rex told everyone about Jack Palance when he was making
I Died A Thousand Times
and the funny way Jack had of peeling a banana.

As she listened, Freddie took Tree’s hand, tacit acknowledgment perhaps of how close she had come lately to losing this flawed husband of hers. He marveled for the millionth time at how fortunate he was to have this beautiful woman in a life that on this sun-drenched Florida evening was not so bad after all.