Florida Is Murder (Due Justice and Surface Tension Mystery Double Feature) (Florida Mystery Double Feature) (37 page)

We stood for several seconds facing each other, neither of us certain what to do next. I was intensely aware of the way his royal blue T-shirt was stretched taut across his pecs and then fell loosely around his narrow waist. He smelled faintly of coconut soap. Buddies though we were, I couldn’t not be aware of B.J.’s sexiness. Part of me wanted to bury my face in that chest, wrap my arms around his waist, and hope the events of the day would vanish. Another part of me wanted to be sure I never depended on a man again the way I had depended on Neal.

“When you didn’t show up this morning, I took the head apart myself. It doesn’t seem like just this morning—more like days ago.”

B.J. leaned down and gave me a brotherly kiss on the cheek. “I’ll take care of that tomorrow. And please, don’t hesitate to call me for
anything
else.”

I turned, ready to climb into the Jeep, but I paused, my hand resting on the door handle. “I wonder if he’s out there somewhere in the dark, hurt and wondering when they’re going to find him.” I didn’t want to cry. It was too soon. We didn’t know anything yet. That would be like giving up. “You’re right about one thing, though, B.J.—he’s a tough one, that’s for sure. He won’t go easy. But I just keep thinking, if only I’d got there sooner … maybe none of this would have happened.”

“This is not your fault, Seychelle.”

I turned halfway and tried to smile at him over my shoulder. “Easy for you to say.”

***

When I pulled Lightnin’ into the drive at the estate, I shut off the engine and just sat there in the Jeep for a few minutes listening to the slow ticking noises of the cooling engine. I felt achingly tired, like some kind of big vacuum had just sucked every ounce of energy out of my body. Collazo’s words—“We know where to look: family, friends, ex-lovers”—kept replaying in my head. The way he told the story did make a certain amount of sense. I was certain that if I had ever seen that gorgeous body alive and draped across Neal, I’d have
wanted
to kill her.

It took an effort to open the Jeep door, go through the gate, and walk back to my cottage. Abaco met me at the gate and danced up the path ahead of me, turning to look back as though wondering why I wouldn’t stop to pet her. I just wanted to fall into bed. When I tried to push my key into the doorknob, the door swung ajar, and although I thought it a bit odd, no alarms went off in my head. I pushed open the door and switched on the overhead light, and my brain was so fuzzy, it still didn’t register the mess that was all that was left of the inside of my cottage.

I stood and stared, confused, wondering for just a second if I had somehow come home to the wrong place. Then I saw the photo of my mother with all three of us kids, a picture that was taken when I was eleven, the summer she died. It rested on a pile of books that had been pulled off the shelves, and there were several shards of broken glass remaining in the frame.

I stepped into the room, dropping my keys to the floor, and gravelly bits of glass and pottery ground into the soles of my shoes. In the center of the room, I surprised myself when I let out an audible little gasp as I turned around surveying the damage. My cottage was really only two rooms: the front room, a combined living room, kitchen and dining room, and a small bedroom with bath in the back. A bar separated the kitchen from the living area, and now all the contents of the kitchen drawers—utensils, pot holders, towels, and toothpicks—had been spilled across the counter. There wasn’t much food in the place, but what little was there—a few cans of Campbell’s soup, fruit cocktail, catsup and other condiments—had been dragged out of the cupboards and tossed onto the floor, in many cases breaking on the white tile. I had kept an easel in a corner of the living room that generally had a work in progress on it. Painting was something I’d learned from my mother: one of the few happy memories I had of her. I normally had my watercolors and brushes set up on the TV tray next to the easel. Now the easel lay broken like kindling, the paints were probably somewhere in the mess, and the intruder had taken the time to tear my painting of the historic old Stranahan House into pieces.

Stepping carefully around the broken dishes, papers, clothes, and trash, I squatted down and reached for the photograph. The frame hung loose from one side. I slid the print out of the frame. We looked so happy, the three of us kids mugging for the camera, and my mother’s lovely slim body in a white one-piece suit. I wondered what she would have looked like if she’d had a chance to grow old. Thankful the photo had not been damaged, I slid it into the zippered side pocket of my shoulder bag. My brothers and I had very few photos of her or of Red.

From the center of the room I could see, through the open bedroom door, that the chaos was no less in the other room. Standing, I started to step across the debris and into the bedroom, and then I noticed that the seat tops were missing off the bolted-down marine barstools on the far side of the living room.

“No!” I trampled across my possessions and peered down into the hollow pipe that served as the base for one of the stools.

“Shit!” I picked up a spatula off the bar and threw it at the wall. It fell soundlessly onto a pile of file folders. Somehow, somebody had figured out where I kept my cash, in a hollow compartment in the base of one of the stools. The stools had come off a fancy sportfisherman B.J. did a remodel on, and aside from the fact that they were free, they took up less space in the little cottage. Sometimes I worked for folks who owned big custom boats and preferred to pay in cash. I didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t always deposit it in my bank account. What a mistake. My emergency money, two thousand dollars, was gone.

I shoved aside several corkscrews and linen dish towels and pressed my forehead against the cool Formica of the bar. Shit. Why me? Here I lived in one of the richest neighborhoods in the country in what is obviously the littlest, cheapest, poorest house in the neighborhood. Why would a thief think there would be anything to steal in here? Two thousand dollars was nothing in this neighborhood. But it had been my safety net. I stared into the empty hole. I’d always been convinced that most burglars wouldn’t even know that that type of marine chair base
could
come apart. I looked around the room. The TV and VCR were still there. That didn’t make sense. No crackhead or petty thief would have left them. Leaning against the side of my desk, I could see the laptop computer Neal bought me as a gift was still there in its carrying case. Curious.

There was only one other person who knew where I kept that cash stash.

Cleaning up was something I just could not contemplate at that point. Stepping over the food and debris on the kitchen floor, I opened the refrigerator door and reached for a cold beer. At least he hadn’t trashed the little bit of food and drink in there. As I pulled a can out of the plastic ring on the six-pack holder, it occurred to me that one beer was missing. When you’re single, the only one in the house doing any eating or drinking, you remember these things. I had bought that six-pack yesterday. I hadn’t drunk a single beer. But somebody had.

It was that beer that was the clincher. That and the fact that whoever had trashed my place didn’t really seem to be searching for anything, but rather had destroyed my property purely out of anger and meanness—a passion of sorts. That sort of angry passion was familiar to me, too familiar.

I fished around in my pocket for the card Detective Collazo had given me earlier, and I reached for the phone. At first I hadn’t intended to call the cops, since I’d already spent hours with cops that day, and I didn’t really see what good they’d do. On most break-ins in the neighborhood, they as much as told folks not to go on hoping they would ever see any of their stuff again. But this was different … apparently my home had just been trashed by somebody the cops thought I had killed.

***

“Of course. It had to be him, Detective.”

Collazo stood in the center of my living room looking around at the mess with a slack, almost bored expression on his face.

“Miss Sullivan, we will take your report, and we will investigate, and we will draw our own conclusions.”

I walked over to the laptop computer picked it up, and held it in front of his face.

“Does this make any sense to you? Or the TV there, or any of the other stuff in here that would be so easy to sell?”

He turned his back to me and walked over to the easel and my torn painting.“This is your work.”

“Well, it was. It’s garbage now.”

“Such a shame.”

Neal had always admired and encouraged my painting. He was forever telling me to take a few paintings to this gallery owner friend of his over on Las Olas. “Yeah. I am surprised he would do that.”

“He … you mean Garrett.”

“Of course. I mean, what about the money? What other possible answer could there be?”

“You claim he tossed the place just to cover the fact that he was stealing your money.”

“Obviously. That’s the only thing missing.”

“Garrett was a reasonably intelligent man.”

“In a street-smart kind of way, yes.”

“Yet you are saying that he wanted you to believe a stranger trashed and robbed your cottage here, but he did not take these valuables.”

“Maybe I surprised him and he wasn’t able to take everything he wanted to take. Maybe he was still in here when I pulled into the driveway, and he had to run when he heard my Jeep.” Or just maybe, I thought, he wanted to make it look like a burglary, and then that anger of his took over again.

“Perhaps you surprised some other burglar or kids, vandals, or—”

“But it had to be somebody who knew where that money was, don’t you think?”

He didn’t speak at first, and I was determined to wait, to make him answer that. When he did finally speak, he did so without turning around. His voice was so soft, I could barely make out the words. “Perhaps you overestimate the cleverness of your hiding place, Miss Sullivan. Many of the criminals in this town have worked in the marine industry at some point. Or yes, perhaps it was someone who knew where that money was.” He turned slowly and looked at me with those black eyes. “You knew where the money was.”

“Oh, come on, you don’t think I would do this to my own place?”

“I consider all possibilities.”

“Seems to me like you’ve only been considering one possibility ever since this whole mess started, Detective.”

“Garrett is gone, Miss Sullivan. The blood on the boat, the distance to shore ... how could he have made it?”

“Detective, Neal used to be a Navy Seal. He was probably wearing scuba gear. If you don’t think he could have swum that distance underwater, you don’t know the Seals.”

“I see no evidence to convince me the man is still alive, and”—he waved his arm to indicate my cottage—“a little event like this is not going to change my mind on that count.”

“Little event? What are you talking about? Neal was in here tonight, I’d bet my life on it.”

“I see.” He slipped his gold pen from his pocket and began to write in those tiny letters on the pages of his notepad.

I pointed at the officer taking photos of the mess. “Have them check for fingerprints. I know you’ll find Neal’s prints in here.”

He looked up at me and squinted his eyes. “Yes, you’re quite correct there, I’m sure. You said earlier that Garrett lived with you. This place will still be covered with his prints.” He picked up my torn canvas of the Stranahan House painting. “It would take a very desperate person to destroy things just to try to throw suspicion off himself.” He walked up very close to me and said, almost into my ear, “Or herself.”

“Jesus.” I stepped back from him, putting distance between us to give me some measure of comfort. “Wait a minute. Hold on. Somebody breaks into my home, and when I call you guys for help, you come in here accusing me?”

“There is no sign of any forced entry.”

“Well, Neal had a key to this place at one time. Maybe he made a copy. Or hid one out in the yard somewhere.” My voice was getting higher and more strained. I sounded guilty to myself. But it was Neal, dammit, I knew it. I had to make him understand, but I wasn’t willing just yet to tell him about the rage I had seen in Neal that one time. “Detective, I don’t care what you think about all this,” I told him, waving my arm at the mess in the room, “but the truth is I did not kill that girl or Neal. She was dead when I got aboard the
Top Ten
, and somehow, Neal got off alive. He was here tonight in my cottage. You’ve got to believe that.”

“No, Miss Sullivan,
you’ve
got to think about the kind of trouble you’re in. If you don’t have an attorney, I suggest you get one, and I expect to see you at the station tomorrow morning, first thing.”

After they’d left, I sat on the stool top I had replaced and finished my now warm beer, staring across the room, seeing nothing.

How had this happened? How, in the course of one day, had I become a suspect, apparently the only suspect, in a murder case? This didn’t happen to people like me. Innocent people didn’t go to prison for crimes they didn’t commit, did they? I was not that naive. Of course they did; innocent people had been found to have spent years in prison, in solitary confinement, even on death row. The thought of prison terrified me. I had to come up with a plan, because if the police weren’t looking for other suspects, someone had better start.

But just then, I wanted to sleep, and I knew I couldn’t do it in the cottage. I turned off the light, left the porch light on, and locked up. Collazo was right about one thing: I couldn’t see any sign of the lock having been jimmied. I figured there was one place I could sleep safely without having to worry about whether or not anybody was coming back.

Abaco rubbed up against my thighs.

“Some watchdog you are.” I rubbed her ears. She seemed very pleased with herself.

I looked around the beautifully manicured yard with its large live oak tree blocking the view of the stars. It was dark in among the hedges and shrubs, the butterfly garden, and the shed on the far side of the house where the Larsens stored their recreational toys. The night sounds of crickets and the brush rustlings of the creatures who survived in suburbia sounded natural and soothing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Had he really been here? If so, how did he get from the
Top Ten
offshore to here in the past fifteen hours? Or did I just want so much for him to be alive that I was stretching the evidence to make myself believe it? Maybe it was just a thief, and something—Abaco or a boat or even my returning—scared him off before he could take all the goods. I put my hands under Abaco’s chin and lifted her face. “God, I wish you could talk. It was him, wasn’t it? You’d have torn up anybody else. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Angry as I was about my trashed house, I was more relieved by the evidence that the son of a bitch was still around. Wrapping my arms around the dog’s neck, I whispered, “He’s alive, isn’t he, girl?”