Collateral Damage (12 page)

“Tell me what's going on,” said Jock. “

Do you remember me telling you about the medic who pulled my ass out of the fire in Vietnam at the risk of his own life?”

“Yes.”

“He came to see me last week.” I spent the next thirty minutes laying out all that had happened since I'd found Chaz Desmond standing at my front door. I ended with the story of my brush with death that morning.

Jock was quiet for a moment, sipping his O'Doul's. “What can I do to help?”

“I'd like to find out more about this Laotian, Souphanouvong Phomvihana and his operation. Can you get anything through your agency?”

“Sure. If he's on the radar of any of our intel groups, we'll have him.”

“What if he's not?”

“If he's in the poppy business, we'll know about him.”

My phone rang. J.D.

“Are you sober?” she asked.

“I am, but I'm not at all sure about Logan. Jock's here.”

“Bring Logan to your house and put him to bed. I'll meet you there with the
Dulcimer
file and we can see if anything turns up. It'll be good to have Jock's eyes on it, too.”

I hung up, looked at Logan, said, “Want to go home to bed?”

“Are you shitting me?”

“You look a little under the weather.”

“I always look like this. I'm more sober than about ninety percent of the people on this island. What did J.D. want?”

I told him.

“Then let's pay up and get this show on the road.” He got up from the table, threw some bills down, and walked toward his car. Steady as a rock.

We were gathered around my dining room table, the
Dulcimer
file spread out among the remains of the several pizzas we'd ordered from Oma's on Anna Maria Island, the ones delivered by a teenager driving a new Jaguar, an island oddity that amused me and ensured a generous tip. I liked the boy's chutzpah.

We'd been at it for a couple of hours. The day was dying. There would be no sunset this evening, at least not one that we could see. Dark clouds blanketed our island, hanging low and menacing, giving us a slight and unformed sense of dread, a feeling that evil was in the wind that blew from the mainland, a disconnected pathos that often comes on dismal days when the sun stays hidden and our little world is blighted by the grayness of it all. Perhaps it was only I who felt the small depression working up from my gut, the blackness of mood that I knew from experience could engulf me without warning and turn a merely bleak day into a dark abyss from which I was never sure I could escape.

I shook it off, mentally relegating the negative emotions to the oblivion that lurks somewhere deep in our minds where we banish thoughts that can overwhelm and ruin us. But I knew that dark tendrils of dread, like black wisps of some evil cloud, would play for hours at the edges of my consciousness, beckoning me into the pit. Maybe it was only the sequela of my brush with death beside a rain-swept beach on an island paradise that should not countenance violence, but was subject to it because the key was after all connected to the real world by substantial bridges that did not discriminate between predators and prey.

We'd gone over all the documents in the file, including a copy of the Coast Guard accident investigation. Each of us had read the statements of
witnesses and the survivors of the dead. Jock put down the last statement, shaking his head. “Nothing much here that makes sense. How many of the passengers did you talk to?”

J.D. said, “As many as we could. There was no passenger list, but we did get the credit card receipts of those who paid that way. If they paid with cash, we had no way of finding them.”

“I don't see but a few of the passengers' statements here,” said Jock.

“There weren't many,” J.D. said. “We talked to each one of the ones we could find, but most didn't see anything or know anything. We transcribed the statements of those who had anything of value, no matter how small the nugget of information. They're all in the file.”

Jock held up a handful of statements. “It doesn't look like any of these people ever saw the Hooters girl and the lawyer together.”

“No,” J.D. said. “All we have is a few people who think they remember seeing them on the boat. We had pictures of both victims and we e-mailed them to the people we talked to if they'd already left the area.”

“Were you able to find any kind of connection between the girl and the lawyer?” asked Logan.

“Nothing. Nada. Zip,” said J.D. “The lawyer and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Garrison, were staying at the Colony Beach and decided on the spur of the moment to take the boat. Katherine Brewster was at a B and B on Anna Maria and was following the suggestion of the owner, a Mrs. Jeanette Deen.”

“I'd like to talk to Mrs. Deen,” I said. “I wonder if she knows more than was in the statement.”

“You think she was lying?” asked Logan. “No. But there aresome questions that I'd like to ask. We know more now than the officer who took the statement did at the time.”

“What about Katherine's parents?” asked Jock. “Yeah,” I said. “I'd like to talk to them, too. I don't know if there is a connection between the
Dulcimer
killing and Jim Desmond's murder, but that was not part of the thinking when J.D. took their statements.”

“You're right,” said J.D. “And I took them over the phone. I've never met them.”

I was a bit surprised. “They never came down here?”

“No. The body was shipped back to Charlotte for the funeral. There really was no need for them to come here.”

Logan said, “Let's think this through for a minute. As I understand it, the only thing we have that might possibly tie the
Dulcimer
events and the Desmond murder together is the fact that the guy who came after Matt this morning was using a knife that was similar to the one that killed Garrison and Brewster on
Dulcime
r. And the only way to tie the attempt on Matt to the Desmond murder is that there may be a connection to some Laotian guy named Soupy who grows poppies for heroin dealers and who may still be pissed off at Jim Desmond for kicking his ass five years ago. That's pretty thin, Counselor.”

“Well,” I said, “when you put it that way—”

“Logan's right,” said J.D. “There's a lot of supposition going on here.”

“The fact that the murders all took place on the same day may be important,” said Jock.

“How?” asked Logan.

“Don't know,” said Jock.

“Coincidence?” asked J.D.

“Doubtful,” I said.

“Why?” asked J.D. “I don't like coincidence,”I said. “Another one of those famous Royal gut feelings?” asked J.D.

“You scoff,” I said, “but that gut has kept me out of some bad scrapes.”

“And got shot full of shrapnel, too,” said J.D.

“Matt been showing his scars around again?” asked Jock.

“Yeah,” said J.D. “Just about took my breath away.”

“Sarcasm is not healthy,” I said.

“Has he shown you the one on his ass?” asked Logan.

“Not yet,” said J.D.

“I don't have a scar on my ass,” I said.

“Pooh,” said J.D. “I thought I had something to look forward to.”

“If you're finished having sport with me,” I said, “let's get back to the matters at hand.”

“Are all lawyers such stuffed shirts?” asked Logan.

“Pretty much,” I said.

“I think I'd like to talk to Mrs. Deen and then make a trip up to Jacksonville and talk to Mrs. Garrison and on to Charlotte to meet with the Brewsters.”

“I think that's a good idea,” said J.D. “I'll make some calls. Pave the way with the witnesses.”

“When do we start?” asked Jock.

“I'll go see Mrs. Deen tomorrow,” I said.

The bar was in full swing, raucous, the music loud, the smoke-filled air alive with bawdy comments tossed randomly at the topless girls dancing on the elevated runways, writhing on the pole, their garters packed with five and ten dollar bills, giving the guys what they wanted, a fantasy of lust and fulfillment. The men knew it wasn't real, that it was only a mirage of sexuality. Yet a hope fueled by expensive and watered-down booze lingered in their fevered brains, a bare possibility of fulfillment that would be dashed as soon as the lights came up and the bartenders stopped serving and the dancers left with their tattooed boyfriends. The men would file out of the bar and drive to their homes, crawl into their lonely beds, and pass the night in alcoholic oblivion.

The young man glanced at his watch, turning his wrist to catch the minimal light from an overhead fixture. It was late and his friends had left an hour ago. He wasn't sure why he'd stayed, ennui perhaps, a seeming inability to get off his chair and leave. He hadn't drunk much, but had enjoyed the solitude, the anonymity of the bar on the edge of town late at night where no one knew his name. And truth be told, he enjoyed the slope of a well-rounded breast and the flexing of butt cheeks confined only by the single strap of a thong.

His thoughts drifted. He was only two years out of a public high school and much of his worldview was shaped by that experience. He'd known the jocks, the geeks, the dweebs, the preppies, the poor kids, and the rich. He fell into a couple of those categories, rich and preppie. There had never been a question but that he'd go to college and join his father in the family business. But what about the dancers? What had they been in high school? He couldn't place them in any of the categories. What made
them become topless dancers? What drove them to undulate mostly naked on a stage and endure the catcalls of drunken men? Why were these pretty girls attaching themselves to men, boys really, who looked like societal dregs? It was all a mystery to the preppie from the suburbs.

He was not a snob. Far from it. He understood that there were people in his world who had not had his advantages, could not look forward to a future of prosperity and community acceptance. He appreciated the fact that he had been lucky to be born into his particular family, the son of a war hero who had become a man of substance and prominence in the city of his birth.

He was twenty years old and had, what, seventy more years to live? What he would do with those years would measure him as a man. Did it really matter that he didn't want the future that had been so meticulously crafted for him? His bridge year, the year between high school and college, half of it spent in Cambodia helping build a school in a place that had no sewage or running water or electricity, had given him a broader view of the world, one not circumscribed by the confines of a mediumsized southern city and its power structure, its flow of people and events little noticed outside its inhabitants' cloistered world.

He was going to have to have the talk with his father, explain his decision to follow a path other than the one ordained for him. It would disappoint the man, but the boy knew he would accept it, even encourage his son to find his own way to happiness and fulfillment.

He signaled for the waitress, paid his bill, and walked toward the entrance. He'd stop on his way home for a late-night burger and fries, maybe a milk shake. He hadn't eaten since lunch and even the little booze he'd consumed was taking a toll on his stomach. A little grease would be helpful.

As he walked toward the door, he was thinking about the next seventy years. He came from a long-lived family, so it was probable that he would live to see ninety. Maybe beyond that. He had a lot of life before him and he'd made up his mind. He'd talk to his father and then set out in the direction he wanted for himself. One that would take him happily through all the coming decades.

When the young man stepped out into the July night, he had less than two minutes to live.

Torpor. Malaise. Lethargy. These are descriptions that fit the year-rounders when the dog days of August approach and the heat and humidity hang so heavy over our island that their weight drives us to the ground, turning us into whining creatures who scurry like spider crabs from our air-conditioned homes to air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned markets or restaurants or bars and back again. The key is sparsely populated, with even some of the full-time residents fleeing to cooler climes in northern states or the mountains of the Midsouth. It is a time when few tourists visit our island and those who do are other Floridians who trade the heat of the interior for the anemic breezes that blow from the Gulf of Mexico. It is a time when listlessness stalks the island, when we fall into a kind of stupor that is interrupted only by our need for cold beer and whiskey and boozy comradeship with our fellow sun dwellers, those souls who gladly trade the blissful Florida winters for the harsh summers that drive less hardy mortals into cooler venues to the north.

August had crept up on me with little fanfare. Another month gone, a little closer to mid-October when our weather usually turns gorgeous for its seven month run up to the heat of the summer that comes early in our latitudes.

So, on the first day of August, I drove the Explorer north across the Longboat Pass Bridge onto Anna Maria Island, through the towns of Bradenton Beach and Holmes Beach and into the village of Anna Maria City that perches on the northern end of the seven-mile-long island. The bed and breakfast was a large and rambling Key West-style home that boasted five bedrooms, each with a private bath. It sat on the tip of the island with views over Passage Key Inlet to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge
and Egmont Key. A thin beach separated the water from the grass lawn behind the little inn.

A small brass sign on the front door invited me in. I walked into a large foyer with hardwood floors and a staircase ascending to the second floor. A desk sitting near the stairs held a computer and a small bell. A sign welcomed me to the Anna Maria Inn and suggested I ring the bell for service.