Authors: H. Terrell Griffin
I left that disreputable old man more puzzled than when I had arrived. I couldn’t figure any reason why someone would want to hurt Connie/Vivian. I knew I would have to get used to thinking of her as Vivian. Truth to tell, I was a little hurt by the subterfuge she had pulled on me and all the other island people. It was hard to think of this bumptious redhead as a crack driven prostitute and ex-convict. Do they call them ex-cons now? Perhaps ex-inmate would be more politically correct.
I drove north along the eastern rim of the lake and then turned west across its northern shore until I reached U. S. Highway 27. Heading north on 27, one slowly moves away from Lake Okeechobee, through cattle country, where the legendary cattle catchers of Florida history once roamed, and into the southern end of the citrus belt. It is a pretty drive, but like all of Florida, it is becoming overcrowded. I read that Florida has a net gain of a thousand people a day. When you think about all the old folks who die on a given day and the numbers of Floridians retiring and moving to North Carolina, the number of new residents each day must reach toward fifteen hundred. It is a staggering amount of people, and it is taking its toll on the Florida I knew and loved. Still, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
When I got to Wauchula I turned west onto highway 64, and chased the setting sun home to Longboat Key. I always get a lift when I cross the Manatee Avenue bridge to Anna Maria Island. Tampa Bay spreads out majestically to the north, crowned by the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, its golden towers marking the shipping channel. A phosphate carrier was steaming slowly under the bridge, putting out to sea from the Port of Tampa. A tendril of smoke curled lazily upward from the funnel just aft of ship’s bridge structure. I wondered briefly what exotic port it might be steaming toward, and decided it was probably headed for Baltimore. Anna Maria Sound and Sarasota Bay lie to the South. You can see the Sarasota skyline from the old drawbridge, and I always know I’m home. I drove south on Anna Maria island, crossed the Longboat Pass Bridge and a couple of miles further turned left into my condo complex and pulled into a guest parking spot. I would get someone to follow me down to the Colony Beach Resort the next day and turn in my rental car.
I stood under the shower, thinking about what I had learned over the past few days. I was at a loss as to what to do about Logan and Vivian. Things were becoming a little clearer, but I could not put the pieces of the puzzle together. Too many pieces were missing, and the picture was still fuzzy.
The facts of a case come to you just as they are. They don’t always fit your theories, and so you have to alter your strategy to fit those immutable facts. Sometimes the facts are unpleasant, and they begin to change your perceptions. You find that truths you never questioned are not truths at all. Connie was the perfect example. She was not who I thought she was. Yet, she was. She wasn’t the Northwestern graduate with an abusive husband, but she was the perky, sincere person we islanders had come to love. From a personal standpoint Connie’s background was not important, and there would be no reason for me to blow her carefully constructed cover. On the other hand, I was sure I would have to use Connie’s truths in some manner to defend Logan. Both truths.
I got dressed and headed for O’Sullivan’s for dinner.
The place was almost empty. It always is at the end of May. The winter crowd is gone and the summer people are waiting for their children to get out of school to come down. The girls were in Ireland visiting family. My old friend Dallas Mahoney was sitting at his usual place at the end of the bar. He was in his mid-seventies, and had owned a successful business before selling out and moving permanently to his vacation condo on the Key. His wife was in a nursing home on the mainland, where a creeping Alzheimer’s disease had finally robbed her of any semblance of sentience. She did not know him any more, and that hurt his heart. But it was a huge heart, and he maintained a quiet good humor. His three grown sons were spread about the country, all successful, and all doted on their dad, visiting him regularly. I admired and respected Dallas, and liked him more than almost anyone I’d ever met. Logan Hamilton was his best friend.
“Hey, you old coot,” I said, as I sat on the stool next to him.
“Well, well, well,” he grinned. “The famous attorney slips back into town. I heard you were up north doing the lord’s work.”
“You talk to Logan?” I asked.
“Yeah. He told me you were all over the Midwest looking into his case.”
“What else did he tell you?”
“Nothing. Said he couldn’t talk about what you and he discussed.”
Good for Logan, I thought. At least he’s got enough sense not to pass on information, even to Dallas. “How are things going?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, Dallas. Logan is not the most cooperative client I’ve ever had. He seems to be holding a lot back, and I don’t know why. I know you guys are real close. Has he said anything that might help me?”
“Not really. He did say that he thought Connie must have been nervous about her ex-husband just before she died, but that you had found out that wasn’t true. That’s about all he said.”
“What do you mean Connie was nervous? Logan hasn’t said anything about that to me.”
“I’m not sure exactly. I know that Connie was a little concerned about a week before her death. She said that she thought she was being stalked by someone. She wouldn’t say anything else about it. We thought she had maybe seen her ex-husband and was concerned that he might be looking for her. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and we didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it. After she died, we thought maybe the husband had shown up and murdered her.”
“Well,” I said. “It wasn’t the husband.” I didn’t need to tell Dallas anything else about Connie’s background. It would come out soon enough, and the people who had been her friends would be hurt by her lies. I hoped they would be able to get beyond her past and remember the lady she had become.
The next day, I parked in the visitor’s space at the Longboat Key Police station on Bay Isles Parkway. It was hot at eleven in the morning. A few cumulus clouds floated lazily through the cerulean sky. The hedges around the building cowered in the heat, their partially brown foliage a quiet rebuke of the watering restrictions imposed by the Southwest Florida Water Management District. The air smelled of newly mown grass, tinged with the exhaust of a police cruiser idling in the space next to the heavy glass entry door. I opened the door and walked into the lobby, grateful for the cool air that circulated in the room.
The reception area was small, befitting a small force. A Formica covered counter graced one side of the room. A gray haired woman in her sixties sat behind it typing into a computer. She smiled as I walked in and said, “Hello, Matt. Or is Counselor more appropriate these days?”
“Morning Iva,” I said. “You get any younger looking, I’m going to make a run at you.”
“You silver tongued devil. You make me wish I were twenty years younger and single.”
“Right,” I said. Iva had been happily married to the town maintenance supervisor for 35 years. “How’s our young captain getting along?” Her son David was an island standout. He had been a high school football star, graduated from West Point, and was serving as a company commander in the 82d Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. The entire island was proud of him.
“Oh, he’s doing great, Matt. I’ll tell him you asked about him. We’ll never forget your help in getting him the appointment to the Academy. He always asks about you. You here to see the chief?”
“Yeah, if he’s in. I don’t have an appointment.”
“He’s here. Hang on a minute.”
She picked up the phone and punched in a couple of numbers. “Chief, Matt Royal is here to see you.” She paused, and then said, “Yes sir.”
“Go on back,” she said to me as she hung up the phone and buzzed me through the gate next to the counter. I followed the hallway that led to the offices in the back of the station.
Like every thing else about the headquarters, the chief’s office was small, his desk covered in paper. He looked up as I walked in, a fleeting expression of despair on his face. “I’m a cop, Matt. What the hell is a cop doing with all this paper work? I’ve become a bureaucrat with a badge. How you been?”
“Been good, Bill. Got back yesterday, late.”
“Find out anything?”
“Nothing I can talk about yet. I wonder if you’ve found out anything else about Vivian Pickens.”
”No, but then I haven’t been looking, either. Manatee is handling all that now.”
“You don’t really think Logan did this, do you Bill?”
“No, I don’t, Matt. But its out of my hands now. If you come up with something I’ll be glad to help in any way I can.”
“Thanks, Bill,” I said, getting out of my chair and heading for the door.
“Matt, you know it would be better on Logan if he turned himself in.”
“I know, Bill. I know. See you soon.”
On my way out I promised Iva I’d come to dinner at her house soon.
A few days later, I called Elizabeth Ferguson at her office and asked if she would meet me for a drink at O’Sullivan’s after work. Strictly business, I told her. She agreed, but said she had to go home first and feed and walk her dog. We agreed to meet at 8:00 o’clock.
I stopped by the Holiday Inn and ate a small pizza in the snack bar by the indoor pool and got to O’Sullivan’s just as Elizabeth was pulling into the parking lot in her small Chrysler convertible. She was wearing a pink sleeveless blouse, white shorts and white sandals. I waited outside the door for her and we walked in together.
“Do you want a table or the bar?” I asked.
“Bar’s fine.”
I ordered a Miller Lite and she asked for a glass of Harp. I was mildly surprised, as I had figured her for a white wine kind of girl. When I told her that, she laughed.
“Nobody in Statesboro, Georgia drinks white wine,” she said. “It’s either whiskey or beer.”
“How have you been?” I asked.
“Busy, Matt. And I’ve got to be in court at 8:30 tomorrow, so we’re going to have to make this quick.” So much for a friendly drink, I thought.
“I’d like to discuss the Hamilton case with you,” I said. “I thought this might be a better place than your office.”
“Bring him in, Matt, and then we’ll talk.”
“Look,” I said, “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll bring Logan in, if you’ll agree to start the trial the day after he shows up.”
“I don’t know if I can do that, Matt,” Elizabeth said. “There’s a lot of heat on my boss to get an arrest and conviction on this one.”
“Elizabeth, you’re not going to get a conviction,” I said without much conviction, “but I can guarantee the arrest. Logan doesn’t want to spend months in jail waiting for his trial to start. He’ll present himself to the Sheriff on a Sunday afternoon, we’ll waive arraignment and start the trial the next morning. Who would lose in that proposition?”
“What about discovery?”
“We could do that informally. You give me everything you’re required to disclose, give me thirty days to follow up on it, and Logan will appear. If you get a conviction he’s going to jail for a long time. All I’m asking for here, is that he not have to sit in jail waiting for trial.”
“I doubt my boss will go for it. We could start a whole new trend here. Every defense lawyer in the circuit will be asking for the same kind of deal.”
“Maybe if your boss is convinced that this is the only way he’s going to get Logan into a courtroom, he’ll agree to the deal.”
“I’ll run it by him, Matt. But don’t hold your breath.”
“Want another beer?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got to run. I’ll call you after I talk to the boss.”
“Thanks, Elizabeth. See you soon,” I said, as she climbed off the stool and headed for the door.
I sat for a while, nursing my beer and watching the cars flash by on Gulf of Mexico Drive. The Gulf was a dark backdrop, with only the lights of an anchored shrimper winking on the horizon. There were two tourist couples at the other end of the bar, talking quietly with Jill, the night bartender. Otherwise, I was alone with my thoughts. The Key is a sleepy place in May.
There is a phenomenon that occurs with some frequency on the island. People find paradise when they come here, and for the first couple of years they revel in their freedom from the worlds of theirs pasts, and they congratulate each other for having the good sense to move to our small corner of the world. Then that other world starts to intrude. Some find they do not have enough money to last a lifetime; others tire of the essential sameness of island living. Ours is a lush island, and it is also an island of lushes. We drink too much, too often and begin to wonder if we made a mistake coming here. We call it the Longboat Blues, and I was feeling a little of that as I sipped my beer. Not because I was on Longboat, but because the world had intruded with a vengeance on my little slice of paradise. Logan’s life depended on decisions I would make over the next month or so. I had been there before, but never with a friend for a client, and particularly not with a friend whom I was beginning to think might be guilty.
Logan was in the wind, and he might never be found. Was I doing him any favors by talking him into giving himself up and standing trial? I didn’t know. On the other hand I didn’t want him to be a fugitive, always looking over his shoulder; waiting for the inevitable day when he was arrested. If he had to go to trial, and I was convinced that he would have to do that sooner or later, then sooner was better.
I paid my tab and walked out into the night. The air was heavy with humidity, and the smell of burning trees drifted on the wind from the middle of the state. The rumble of thunder, slight as a whisper, teased my ears. On the horizon, far out in the Gulf, I could see the streaks of lightning. There was a storm out there somewhere, and I wondered briefly about the seaman on the ships that regularly ply the sea lanes. I climbed into the Explorer and headed home, feeling inexplicably sad. I had a case of the Longboat Blues.
A hard clap of thunder woke me in the wee hours. Lightening danced over the bay outside my window, with the thunder following close behind. The storm had moved over the island, and I was glad for the shelter provided by my bed. There is some atavistic fear of storms, but when snuggled in a warm bed, there is a feeling of safety, of relief for the calm found in any structure.
The storm was moving fast, and the sound of the thunder receded quickly across the bay. I drifted back to sleep, only to wake an hour later from a troubling dream. I was rummaging around down deep in my soul, being chased by dragons through close tunnels, my nascent claustrophobia screaming at me to wake up. The anemic light of a sunless dawn was creeping over the mainland. The sky was overcast, the bay gray and rippled with whitecaps where the wind caught the tops of the small swells; the way it is in winter when the cold fronts tumble out of Canada. Only it was hot out there, the air conditioning working overtime to keep the heat at bay. A hard rain was falling, the drops hitting the aluminum railings of my balcony with a staccato rattle. My sleep was finished.
There would be no jogging on the beach today. I showered, fixed a bowl of cereal, retrieved my St. Petersburg
Times
from the front door and settled in for a quiet morning. I was on my third cup of coffee when the phone rang. It was Molly O’Sullivan.
“I hope I’m not calling too early,” she said.
“No, been up for hours. I thought you were in Ireland.”
“We got back yesterday. Had a great time. Matt, do you remember me mentioning that a guy came by the restaurant one night last spring looking for Logan?”
“Sure. You thought it was a little suspicious.”
“Yeah, well, I think I saw him yesterday going into the police station.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not positive. I was in my car coming back from the post office picking up my mail. I saw him going into the station, and thought he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. It came to me in the middle of the night that this was probably the guy looking for Logan. I haven’t been able to get back to sleep thinking about it. I thought you’d like to know.”
“I sure would, Molly. Can you describe him?”
“Sort of a tall guy. Probably in his fifties. About six feet, graying black hair, around 200 pounds.”
“What time did you see him?”
“It must have been about four. We landed at Tampa about two and caught the shuttle down. I dropped my bags and went to the post office.”
“I appreciate this Molly. Don’t mention this to anyone else. It may be very important. I’ll see if I can find out who this guy is.” We exchanged a few pleasantries and hung up, with me promising to stop by and hear about her vacation.
It was a few minutes after eight, so Iva would be at work at the police department. I called her.
“Iva, it’s Matt Royal.”
“Nice to hear from you on such a dreary day, Matt.”
“Thanks, beautiful. I wonder if you can help me with something.”
“Sure.”
“ I saw somebody going into the station yesterday that I should know, but for the life of me I can’t place him.” I repeated Molly’s description. “He came in around four o’clock.” I hated lying to Iva, but she’d probably forgive me.
“That was probably Mr. Cox. He came to see the chief.”
“The name doesn’t ring a bell. Is he a lawyer?”
“No, I don’t think so. Hold on. He gave me his card when he came in. Here it is. Sam Cox, Vice President for Security of Rundel Enterprises, Incorporated.”
“Well, I guess he just looked like someone I know. I hope he isn’t planning to open an industrial plant on our island,” I said, chuckling.
“I think he might have some problems with zoning.” Longboat Key is the tightest zoned community on the planet, and the thought of something industrial on the island was laughable. “He said something about his company planning an event on the Key and he wanted to meet the chief in case any security matters came up.”
“Thanks anyway, Iva. See you later.”
“Bye, Matt.”
I hung up the phone, feeling for the first time that there may be some hope for getting Logan out of this mess. But I had to find Sam Cox, and figure out what he had been doing on Longboat Key the night Connie was killed.
The first thing was to find out something about Rundel Enterprises in the public records. You would be surprised at what a paper trail we leave with the bureaucracies as we go about our daily lives.