Bitter Legacy Page 5

  I shook my head. “I don’t think cops are necessary. He didn’t seem to recognize Logan, and I believed him about his wife being sick. He’s just a guy at the end of his rope. Sometimes all a person like that needs is a chance. I heard Nestor Cobol was looking for another hand. Maybe that’ll work out.”

  “Matt,” Logan said, “what the hell is going on around here? Why would somebody take a shot at me and then come after you?”

  “Who knows,” I said. “I don’t like it.”

  “Are the two connected?” asked Marie.

  “They have to be,” I said. “I can’t imagine that different people are after us. They think Logan’s dead and I’ve been gone. I’m back and they came looking for me. It’s got to be the same people.”

  My cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. Bill Lester. I answered.

  “Matt, where are you?”

  “I’m in Logan’s palatial hotel suite. You guys aren’t spending a lot of money on this.”

  “It’s better than he deserves.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “I just got a call from Sarasota PD. They’ve got a guy down at Sarasota Memorial they think you might know.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Don’t know. He had a piece of paper in his pocket with your name and address written on it. Logan’s, too. No ID. Somebody hit him on the head with something hard. Tossed his hotel room. He’s still in a coma.”

  “Where’d they find him?”

  “He was in one of those old motels over on the North Trail. Checked in with a false name. Paid cash. Somebody heard a commotion, called the manager, and they found him in his room.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nope. But he might be from the Caribbean.”

  “Why do they think that?” I asked.

  “The woman who owns the motel said he spoke English with an island accent.”

  “White or black?”

  “He’s a black man.”

  “What name did he use to check in?”

  “Abraham Royal. Any relation?”

  “No. But I might know him,” I said.

  “One of my guys was on routine patrol Friday night and found a black man at the front door of Logan’s condo building. That door has a code that you need to punch to get in. The guy didn’t have the code and wouldn’t or couldn’t give us a good reason for being there. He identified himself as Abraham Osceola and said he had come to the key looking for you. You weren’t here and somebody told him to ask Logan when you’d be back.

  “He said something that didn’t make a lot of sense. He wanted you to help him with some kind of big money deal. One of my officers drove him across the bridges to Cortez and let him out. We had no reason to hold him. Now I wonder. Do you know this Osceola guy?”

  I paused for a beat. “I met him once. Last year, down in the Keys. Do you think there’s a connection between Abraham and the guys gunning for Logan?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m figuring the guy in the hospital must be the same Abraham who was at Logan’s”

  “He probably is. But I can’t imagine why anyone would try to kill him.”

  “What about the big money deal he mentioned to my officer?”

  “Abraham isn’t the kind of person to get into big deals. Maybe he was just putting your guy on for some reason.”

  “Could be. The officer who took the black man from Logan’s is on his way to the hospital to see if he can identify the guy. You’d better get over there too. Check in with a Detective Kintz in the ER.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The scent of orange blossoms floated on the soft spring air, the night closer now, a time for owls and other predators, of human garbage who visit their sickness on the unsuspecting, who stalk the innocent and the unwary. The old house sat deep in the grove, hidden from the roads that traversed the area. It had a tin roof, rusted by years of summer downpours, and a sagging front porch that ran the width of the house. The windows were large, built to catch the minimal breeze that stirred the heat of a Florida summer. A crescent moon hung high in the sky amid a million pinpoints of light, suns for other solar systems, emitting energy that took thousands of years to reach this dark spot on a ragged peninsula hanging from the bottom of the continent.

  The house smelled of age and decay and ancient family quarrels. The bare boards of the floor had not seen wax in a generation and they creaked with every step. A single bulb, suspended from the ceiling by a braided electric cord, cast its frugal light over the figure of a man hunched at a computer terminal. He was in his fifties, his thinning gray hair at odds with his head. He was paunchy and wore the pallor of a man too long away from the sun. His face hadn’t seen a razor in several days, the stubble gray and itchy. He wore a pair of faded jeans and a plaid shirt found in the mission box at a local church. He was barefoot, his toenails hardened and yellow, his soles gray with callouses.

  He sat alone in the night, wandering the Internet, trolling for bits of information, for customers and victims. He stared at the monitor, occasionally scratching his face or stroking the keyboard. The stale odor of his unwashed body permeated the room, vying with the smells of fried food, beer, and whiskey. A box with the logo of a local fried chicken chain rested on the floor beside his chair, bones from several meals overflowing the container.

  A cell phone sat on the table next to the keyboard. It rang. The man picked it up, looked at it, opened it, answered. “Yeah?”

  The voice on the other end was raspy and ancient. “You get Royal?”

  “Not yet.”

  The voice came again, breathless, wheezy, deep southern accent. “I’m not paying you to sit there with your thumb up your ass.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “What happened today? I thought you were going to bring him in.”

  “My subcontractor fucked up. Sent in an amateur.”

  “What about yesterday? Can’t you do anything right?”

  “It was a long shot. I’m told we had the best marksman money can buy.”

  “Hamilton’s still alive.”

  “Yeah, but we went through his apartment last night. No documents. My people are going to grab Royal tomorrow.”

  “Forget Royal. Just kill him. Hamilton, too.”

  “Okay.”

  “Get your ass in gear, boy. You hear me?”

  “I hear you.”

  “I’ll be in touch.” The phone went dead.

  “Pissant,” muttered the man at the computer. He lay the phone down and returned to his keyboard.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Night had fallen by the time I reached Sarasota Memorial Hospital. The buildings of the campus were awash in the light pouring from every window. I parked in a lot near the emergency room. A red neon sign above the entrance told me where I was. An ambulance in the driveway, its stern against the loading dock, rear doors open. Quiet now, its run finished, its patient delivered. The engine ticked as I walked by, the sound of a cooling motor, tired from its dash to the hospital.

  I’d been told to meet a Sarasota detective in the emergency room waiting area. When I walked through the automatic doors, I saw a man in a suit standing at the counter, chatting idly with the woman who sat at a computer. I walked over. “I’m looking for Detective Kintz,” I said.

  The man turned to me. “Mr. Royal? I’m John Kintz.”

  We shook hands. “I appreciate your coming down,” he said. “I’ll get us a conference room. A little privacy, you know. Have a seat and I’ll be right with you.”

  I had one of those fleeting moments of déjà vu, or something like it, a swelling of near recognition of the man, but not quite. He was a stranger, a man I’d never seen, as far as I knew. Yet my subconscious was clanging alarms, trying to tell me something that my conscious brain needed to know. Then recognition dawned. I didn’t know the man, but he looked uncannily like Bill Lester, the Longboat Key chief of police.

  The detective disappeared through another set of doors th
at led into the bowels of the hospital. I took a seat. There were several others in the waiting area, some trying to nap, their heads against the backs of the uncomfortable chairs. They were waiting. Waiting for news of loved ones, those who had disappeared into the maw of the ER, the sick or injured friends or relatives. It was a feeling of powerlessness, of impotency and fear, and of dread and hope.

  I remembered how scared I was when I was thirteen and my mother had to go to Orlando to the hospital for what we thought was a brain tumor. I prayed a lot that summer. I thought about this as I sat in the cheerless waiting area in Sarasota. Everything was gray: carpet, furniture, the waiting patients. A soap opera played on the TV in the corner. A map of the world decorated one wall. A blonde woman with dark roots, late middle age, wearing a gray dress, and packing an extra thirty pounds, dozed on one of the chairs. Her husband, a dark Hispanic of indeterminate age, came by now and then to hug and kiss her, worry etched on his face.

  The detective returned in ten minutes, apologized for keeping me waiting. I followed him through the interior doors, down a hall, and into a small conference room. A table, one end stacked high with journals and other loose papers, took up most of the room. A large portrait of a pretty blonde lady with a pronounced widow’s peak, wearing a pink blouse and white skirt, stared from the wall. A small bronze plaque dedicating the room to the woman was affixed to the frame. I wondered who had loved her and when and where and how she had come to have this poor space named for her.

  “Do you know Chief Lester out on Longboat?” I asked the detective.

  He laughed. “Oh, sure. People get us mixed up all the time. He called to tell me you were coming. Said you were old friends.”

  “Yeah.”

  The detective gestured me to a seat. He sat across from me and pulled an eight by ten photograph from the file he carried. It showed a black man lying in a bed, an IV in his arm, an oxygen cannula affixed to his nostrils, his eyes closed as if sleeping. “Do you know this man?”

  “Yes. His name’s Abraham Osceola. He’s a Seminole Indian.”

  “Mr. Royal, this man is black and he apparently has an island accent.”

  “Mr. Osceola is one of the Black Seminoles who left Florida in the nineteenth century and went to the Bahamas.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s kind of complicated and not something you read about in the history books. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a number of escaped slaves joined the Seminoles in Florida. They lived among the Indians and intermarried. The children of those marriages were part of the tribe and were considered Seminoles. At the end of the First Seminole War, and again after the Second Seminole War, many of the Indians’ black relatives fled in canoes to Andros Island in the Bahamas, where slavery had been outlawed. Their descendants are still there, and in most ways are indistinguishable from the other Bahamians.”

  “Does this man live in the Bahamas?”

  “I think he lives in Key West.”

  “How do you know him?” the detective asked.

  “I met him briefly in the Keys last year. I don’t really know him or anything about him.”

  “Why would he have your name and your buddy’s name in his pocket?”

  “I don’t know. Hamilton is my best friend.”

  “Did you know that Osceola was in Sarasota?”

  “No.”

  “Could he have come to see you?”

  “I suppose. He told the Longboat police that he had come looking for me to help him with a deal. But I don’t know why he would.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “I was in a boat off Key West, and he was in a kayak. We chatted for a while and he told me his name and that he lived in the area. He used to work the fishing boats. He’s retired now.”

  “Did he know that you’re a lawyer?”

  “I might have mentioned it. Why?”

  “That may have been the reason he was looking for you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Any other contact with him? After Key West?”

  “No. That was the only time I ever met him.”

  “Were you expecting him to come visit?”

  “No.”

  “A Longboat officer left just before you got here. He said this guy was at your friend’s condo on Longboat the night before last. Can you think of any reason why he’d be after Hamilton?”

  “No. I doubt that he was after Logan. He may have been visiting. He might have been looking for Logan to find out when I’d be back in town.”

  “To your knowledge, did Hamilton know Osceola?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then why would he be looking for you at Hamilton’s home?”

  “I’ve been off-island for several days. Boating down south. If Osceola had come looking for me, most anybody could have told him that I was gone and that Logan was my best friend. Abraham told the Longboat officer that somebody had told him to look up Logan to find out when I’d be back in town. Maybe he went looking for Logan to find out where I was.”

  The detective looked skeptical. “It’s a theory.”

  “And at least as good a one as yours,” I said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I left the hospital more confused than I’d been all day. And this had been a confusing day. The more I thought about it, the better I liked my theory. If Abraham had come looking for me, he would have gone to the condo complex where I had lived until recently. That would have been the only address he had. I’d seen the condo manager at Tiny’s with her husband the week before Jessica and I left on our trip. We’d talked about some of the lesser-known anchorages in Charlotte Harbor, so she knew I was going to be off the island for a week or so. If Abraham had asked, she would have told him I was out of the area and would probably have given him Logan’s address. She wouldn’t have yet heard about the shooting in downtown and Logan’s absence from the key.

  But why was Abraham looking for me? I’d only met him briefly in the Florida Keys the previous fall. He’d done me a favor, and I gave him my address in case he was ever in the Sarasota area. I didn’t really expect to see him again. He didn’t strike me as the traveling kind. If he really had some deal involving money and needed a lawyer, why hadn’t he hired one in Key West?

  I hadn’t eaten all day and was starving. I stopped at St. Armands Circle and went into Lynches Pub and Grub for a hamburger and a beer. I knew the place would be full of locals and everyone would want to know about Logan. There had been a small article in the morning’s paper about the shooting. I didn’t want to get into it, but I needed a little food and some conversation.

  Much to my surprise, the place was almost empty. There were a few tourists enjoying a beer or wine, but no locals. Except for Jill, the manager. She came over as I took a stool at the bar. A look of concern sharpened her facial features. She put her hand over mine on the counter, said, “Matt, I’m so sorry about Logan.”

  “Me too, Jill. Thanks, but he’s going to be fine. Can we talk about something else?”

  “Sure,” she said, flashing a sad smile. “Miller Lite?”

  “Yes. And a burger, too, please.”

  “Coming up.” She pulled a beer from the cooler, opened the bottle, poured it in a frosted glass, and set the glass on a coaster on the bar. She went back to the kitchen to order my food.

  I listened to the slight rumble of traffic on the street in front of the bar, the laughter of people strolling the circle, the buzz of conversation from a tableful of sun-reddened visitors. Minutes went by and Jill returned to the bar with my burger. We talked as I ate, conversation between two old friends, nothing of importance, just chatter, but hers was overlaid with a sadness born of Logan’s near death.

  I left the bar and headed north for home. My sunroof was open and the soft night air enveloped me, a tincture of sea and distant orange blossoms floating on the breeze, stirring memories of youthful evenings at the beach with a pretty girl who daubed citrus scented perfume behind
her ears.

  I turned onto Broadway and found my way to my new home beside the bay. I parked in the driveway, walked to the front door, opened it, flipped on the light, and discovered chaos.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  My house was a mess. Books pulled off their shelves and thrown haphazardly on the floor, TV screen shattered, desk drawers pulled out and emptied in random piles. I backed out of the front door and pulled my cell phone from the pocket of my shorts. I called Bill Lester at home.

  “Bill, sorry to bother you. Somebody trashed my house.”

  “Bad?”

  “Pretty bad.” I told him what I had seen. “I haven’t been into the house. I’m hoping your crime-scene guy can find something.”

  “Hang tight, Matt. I’ll start people moving on this. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He hung up.

  I stood on the sidewalk, curious about who would vandalize my home. It didn’t look as if anybody was searching for anything in particular. It appeared to be some sort of rage-induced need to destroy. I wanted to go inside, to see how they had gotten in, but I didn’t want to disturb any evidence.

  I looked at my watch. Nine p.m. I walked next door and rang the bell. Cotty Johnson answered, wearing a bathrobe. She looked at me and said, “Come on in, Matt, but don’t get any ideas just because I’m half-dressed.”

  Cotty was an eighty-something-year-old widow, a good friend of many years. I laughed and followed her into her living room. A sitcom of some sort was playing on her TV, the sound turned low.

  “Want something to drink?” she asked.

  “No, thanks. I just got home. Somebody trashed my house.”

  “Trashed your house?”

  “Yeah. It looks pretty bad. I called the police.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s kind of scary. We don’t have much of that on the island.”