Authors: H. Terrell Griffin
I was up at 6:00 the next morning. The beer from the night before made me a little sluggish, but a handful of cold water in the face and a quick brush of the teeth at least made me coherent. I slipped into a pair of shorts, socks and Reeboks, and walked across the street to the beach. I jogged south, just above the water line, occasionally dodging a wavelet coming bravely a little higher than its brothers. The Gulf on my right was its usual turquoise color, without a ripple to break its smooth face. There were no clouds that morning, and the sun’s rays were slipping from behind the island, announcing the arrival of old sol, every Floridian’s friend. A squadron of pelicans skimmed the Gulf, fishing for breakfast. A raucous band of gulls was fighting over a dead fish, left by last night’s tide. As I neared them, they moved out of my path, squawking their displeasure at me for interrupting their meal. A mile or so out in the Gulf a small fishing boat headed north, its wake cutting through the green water like a surgeon’s scalpel. Life was good.
I approached the condominium that marked two miles from my starting point, and turned back north, keeping a steady pace on the hard sand. I was working up a sweat even in the mild April morning. I felt good. The endorphins were kicking in. JAPDIP, I thought, just another perfect day in paradise.
When I got back to my condo the light on my answering machine was blinking. I wondered who would be calling me that early. I hit the button and listened to the message. It was Logan, asking me to call him immediately. The message had come in about fifteen minutes earlier.
I dialed his number, and a voice that wasn’t Logan’s answered.
“Is this the Hamilton residence?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is Mr. Hamilton there?”
“He is, but he can’t come to the phone right now.”
“This is Matt Royal,” I said. “He left a message for me a few minutes ago asking that I call.”
“Oh hey, Matt. This is Bill Lester. Maybe you’d better come on over here.”
Bill Lester was the island’s current Chief of Police, and an old friend. “What’s up, Bill?” I asked.
“Do Logan and me a favor, Matt, and get your ass over here right now.” His voice was pitched low, urgent.
“Do I have time for a shower?” I asked.
“No.” He hung up.
Logan lived in a beach front condominium complex of about 40 units, all facing the Gulf. The parking lot was on the north side of the building, crammed between Logan’s building and the next complex down the line. There were three Longboat Key Police cars, two Manatee County Sheriff’s cars, a Longboat Key Fire Department ambulance and the Manatee Sheriff’s crime scene van parked haphazardly in the lot. A Longboat Key cop I knew was talking to a uniformed deputy at the entrance off Gulf of Mexico Drive. The cop recognized me and waved me into a parking place. I got out of my Explorer and walked back toward the building. I stopped and asked the cop what was going on.
“Let the Chief tell you, Matt. He’s waiting in Logan’s apartment.”
“Logan?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Logan is okay. He’s with the Chief.”
I let out a breath I did not know I’d been holding. I was relieved that Logan was okay, but still alarmed by the large police presence and the urgency in the Chief’s voice over the telephone.
I took the elevator to the fourth floor. An outside walkway ran the length of the building with the apartment doors opening onto it. I’d been here many times, drunk and sober, but I had never seen the place crawling with cops before. There was a deputy at the elevator when I got off, who asked if I were Matt Royal. I assured him that I was, and he said to go on down to Logan’s condo. At the door to Logan’s home was another Longboat policeman who waved me in, murmuring softly, “Glad you’re here, Matt.”
Everything in Logan’s condo was white. The walls and ceiling, the carpet, and the leather furniture. Even the tables and lamps were white wicker. One end of the living room was all glass, with sliding doors leading to a balcony overlooking the Gulf. The effect of entering the white room and seeing the green Gulf through the wall of glass was startling to the uninitiated. Logan had once told me that he was not particularly enamored of all the white, but a decorator he once kept company with had talked him into it while he was trying to talk her into his bed. Each was ultimately successful, but Logan was disappointed in both results. He ended up with a white living room and a memory of what he cheerfully described as the world’s worst piece of ass.
There was a yellow tape with black letters spelling out “Police Lines, Do No Cross” tacked across the front door of the condo. Two men wearing paper covers over their shoes were vacuuming the white rug. On the balcony, through the glass wall, overlooking the early morning placidity of the Gulf, lay a lump covered with a white bed sheet. A paramedic leaned against the balcony rail smoking a cigarette, his box of rescue equipment at his feet. I knew there was a body under that sheet, and for a moment I had the wild thought that maybe Logan’s decorator had met a fitting end in this white sarcophagus.
Logan was sitting at a dining table just inside the door, facing Chief Lester who sat across the table. Logan was wearing a pair of shorts and a T shirt with the logo of the Suncoast Offshore Grand Prix, a boat race held every July in our waters. His hair had not seen a comb that morning, and his eyes were red rimmed. He looked tired and about ten years older that he had the night before at Moore’s.
The chief was new to the job, having taken over from the retiring chief six months before. Bill Lester, thirty-seven years old, had spent three years in the Army Military Police Corps and sixteen years on the Longboat Key Police Department, rising through the ranks until he was second in command. When Tom Bishop retired, Bill was the logical and popular choice to succeed him. I had known Bill for years, and he had often joined Logan and me on snook fishing trips in Terra Ceia bay.
Bill had put on a little weight lately and, while he was not fat, he would have to be careful. His round face was punctuated by a small, neatly trimmed mustache that was as black as his hair. He was wearing a pair of beige dockers, a flowery shirt and boat shoes over a pair of argyle socks. On occasion I accused him of dressing the part of an island police chief as if he were waiting for the Hollywood writers to swoop down and make a movie about him. He always just grinned.
Leaning against the wall next to the chief was a large man of about fifty. He had a head full of hair, with the blonde of his youth losing to the gray of middle age. His face was ruddy, the face of a heavy drinker, with the little capillaries on the cheeks bursting into tiny veins of red. He was wearing a pair of brown slacks, a white short sleeve dress shirt and a solid brown knit tie. There was a tie tack of miniature handcuffs holding the tie ends together.
“Matt,” the chief said, “Come on in. The techs have cleared this area. Just don’t go any further. This is Detective John Banion of Manatee County.”
Banion did not move to shake hands. I stood in place, looked at Banion and then at Logan. “What’s going on Logan?”
“It’s Connie, Matt. Under the sheet. She’s dead,” he said in a strained voice.
It was a blow to the stomach that took my breath away. Not possible, my mind screamed. Not Connie. “How?” I asked.
“We know how,” Banion said, stepping closer to me. “We want to know who, but I think we’ve got that one answered, too.” The stench of day old booze and cigarettes emanated from the detective, assailing my nose and churning my stomach. I stepped back.
“What’s going on, Bill?” I asked.
“Logan called 911 at 6:05 this morning and said there was a body on his balcony. The call was routed to us because it’s in our jurisdiction. Dave Beemer was the shift commander on the midnight and was heading back to the station to get ready to check out, when he got the call. He was only about two minutes from here and came right up. He knows Logan and recognized the dead woman as Connie and called me on my cell phone. I was on my way in to work and came right here. Manatee or Sarasota always works our homicides, so Banion was called in. Apparently, Logan called you just before I got here. He said he wouldn’t talk to us until you were here.”
“Logan?” I said, turning to him.
“I figured if there was a dead woman in my house I would be a logical suspect, and I didn’t want to say anything without my lawyer being here.”
“Logan,” I said, “I’m not a lawyer anymore.”
“You’re still a member of the bar.”
“A retired member of the bar,” I said.
“I want you to represent me, Matt.”
The Longboat Key Police Department is small, and crime is almost unheard of on the island. There is the occasional theft from an unlocked car, but most of the calls to the police are about snakes in pools or cats in trees. Other than well heeled tourists, whom the town welcomes, strangers rarely visit the island.
In the 1950’s Manatee County decided to put a public beach on Longboat Key. Longboaters, not wanting the hordes of people and traffic that strain the roads on neighboring islands, voted to incorporate a town that would include the entire island. Once the island had its own town government, the county government would have to have permission from the town to put in public facilities.
Longboat Key is about ten miles long and one-quarter mile wide at its widest. The county line runs across the island at its center, with Manatee County to the north and Sarasota County to the south. While not unheard of, it is unusual to have one city situated in two counties. The system, however, works pretty well.
The Longboat Key police have jurisdiction over the whole island, but because of its small size and inexperience with major crimes, from time to time the counties’ Sheriff’s offices are called upon to render assistance with their more sophisticated evidence gathering equipment and technicians as well as detectives. Longboat Key police, however, were in control, and the Sheriff’s deputies reported to Bill Lester.
Logan’s condo was about ten feet north of the county line, and was therefore within the jurisdiction of Manatee County as well as the Town of Longboat Key.
I had practiced law in Orlando and came to hate the mess that had once been an honorable profession. I had tried a lot of cases in my career, and I did not think I had the energy to ever try another one. I found myself dreading trial or anything else to do with the process. Then disaster. My wife left me. I resigned from the firm, sold the house in Orlando, and moved onto my boat moored at a Longboat Key marina. I became a drunk, or close to it, and my life was saved by a good man. I enjoyed the quieter life of the key, and had not once missed the practice of law. Life was one long vacation, and if I ever started thinking about getting back into the rat race, I knew all I had to do was go to the courthouse and sit in on a trial. So far I hadn’t even had to do that. The thought of trying another case brought back all the dislike I had developed for the system. I sure as hell wasn’t going to get involved in a murder trial defending a friend. But, I didn’t think now was the time to tell that to Logan.
“Logan,” I said, “Why don’t you let me talk to these guys alone for a minute.”
“Sure thing, Matt.” Logan walked down to the bench by the elevator and sat down.
“What happened, Bill?” I asked the chief.
“The broad was strangled,” Banion said.
“Connie, Detective,” I said. “Her name was Connie Sanborne, and she was the sales manager at the Golden Beach Inn. She had a degree from Northwestern University, and an ex-husband who pounded on her regularly, until she screwed up the courage to run to a battered woman’s shelter. She put her life back together, one piece at a time, and then she moved down here and started a new life. She was bright and pretty and a good friend. She was a lot of things Detective, but she sure as hell wasn’t a broad. You keep that in mind.”
“Fuck you, Counselor.” Banion turned and walked away.
“Nice guy,” I said.
“He’s pretty rough,” said the chief, “but he’s a good detective and closes a lot of cases.”
“I guess that’s why the Sheriff puts up with him.”
“You got it. Look, it appears that Connie was strangled. There’s no blood and her throat is bruised. We’ll know a lot more after the techs are done and the docs get the autopsy results in. Right now, we’re going with strangulation as the cause of death.”
“Are you going to arrest anybody?”
“If you mean Logan, the answer is no. At least not yet. But I’d like his word that he’ll stick around town for the next few days.”
“I’ll talk to him. He looks kind of ragged. How about if I take him back to my place for now?”
“Sure, but he can’t take anything out of the apartment. It’s still a crime scene.”
“We’ll get by. Call me if you need us.”
“What happened, Logan?” We were sitting in my living room overlooking Sarasota Bay. The sun was high and the water was smooth as a mirror. A small houseboat was chugging slowly southward, barely making a wake. The large white pelicans that came from the north to winter with us were floating near the channel, resting up, I suppose, for their journey home. I had made coffee and fed Logan a couple of half stale donuts. He seemed to be feeling better.
Logan was 5’10” and getting a little chubby. His belly hung over his belt like a small melon, not too big, but obvious. His hair was sparse now, and what was left was turning from brown to gray. A few strands were combed over the bald pate in a last ditch effort to halt the creeping erosion. He was from Massachusetts, and if you closed your eyes when he talked, you heard John Kennedy.
“I don’t know, Matt. I got up to get a drink of water from the refrigerator, and it was just light enough to see Connie on the balcony. I thought at first that she was sleeping out there, but when I opened the door I knew she was dead. I saw a lot of dead people in Nam, so I knew. I shut the door and called 911.”
“Do you have any idea what she was doing in your condo?”
“No, but you know we had a thing going, didn’t you?”
“What kind of thing?”
“I guess we were what you might call fuck buddies. For the past year or so we’d get together now and then for sex. Just two single people taking the edge off. It wasn’t love or anything, although you know I liked her a lot. We all did. Anyway, sometimes she’d just come over and surprise me. I didn’t particularly like her doing that, but it didn’t happen often, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“Did she have a key to your place?”
“Yeah, but so do half the people on the island.”
That was true. Logan was generous, and since he was gone a lot on business, he let friends use his place if they needed to sleep visiting relatives or for whatever reason. I had used his condo for a couple of nights the month before while mine was being painted. He had told me to keep the key in case I needed it again.
“Was she planning to come by last night?” I asked.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“What time did you get home?”
“Late, around 2:00 this morning.”
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary when you came in?”
“I was drunker than a hoot owl, Matt. I went to Bridge Street after I left you last night.”
Bridge Street was in Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island near the marina that stored Logan’s boat. It had three or four rowdy bars frequented by tourists and commercial fishermen from Cortez across the bay. Logan would go down there sometimes to listen to the local rock bands that played the bars. He always had a first class hangover the next day.
“Could you have run into Connie and not remembered it?” I asked.
“My memory’s a little spotty about last night, but I would remember if I had seen Connie. I spent most of the evening talking to an old army buddy I ran into. He left, and I had one more drink and drove home.”
“I wonder if she was killed in your condo or brought there afterwards. Do you think you would have heard someone coming in after you went to bed?”
“I doubt it. I had a lot of scotch in me. I only got up because I was so thirsty. You know how booze does that to you.”
“Maybe we’ll know more after the techs and the docs do their things. What about her ex-husband?”
“You mean as the murderer?”
“Is it possible?”
“I guess it’s possible, but I don’t think she’s seen or heard from him for several years. I doubt he even knows she’s in Florida.”
“Well, we’ll let the police sort all that out.”
“Do they think I did this, Matt?”
“I don’t think Bill Lester does, but that creep Banion seems to think you’re the bad guy.”
“Will they arrest me?”
“Not on what they’ve got now. I think they would have to turn up some pretty good evidence that you did it before they could charge you. If the time of death was before you got home, I would guess you’re in the clear. If it was somewhere between two and six in the morning you won’t have an alibi, and it might be hard to convince them that Connie was murdered in your house and you slept through it. But what about a motive? You had no reason to kill her. I don’t think you have to worry, but it’ll be a few days before we know for sure.”
“I’m real tired, Matt. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go lie down for awhile.”
“Help yourself. If you need anything, holler.”