Cooler Than Blood (8 page)

CHAPTER 11

I
continued up the dirt-gravel drive, and fifty feet from the house, a man with a gun stopped me. He had a badge as well, but a badge doesn’t rattle my attention like a six-shooter does. I hit the button again, and my window obeyed. I like things like that.

“You a friend of the Colemans?” he demanded. He looked as if his clothes had been pressed while he was still in them. His hair wouldn’t ripple in a typhoon; not a crease marred his uniform, and his sunglasses covered the top half of his head. He had enough communications gear on his left shoulder to coordinate a NASA launch. A tag on his uniform said, “Kevin Trimble.”

“I’m being retained to look for a girl, Jenny Spencer, and—”

“May I see your driver’s license, please?”

I handed it over to Kevin, along with my Florida PI license. He separated them like playing cards and studied them in his left hand. His right hand remained free and in the vicinity of his gun.

“What’s your business here?”

“I’ve been retained by the family of Ms. Spencer to try to locate her. She was attacked a few nights ago by one of—”

“We’re fully aware of what happened to Ms. Spencer.” He handed back my PI license but not my driver’s license. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to take a look around and see if there’s anything that would help me locate her. What brings the cavalry out? Just get a warrant?”

“You don’t think we’re competent in that area?”

“Pardon?”

“You don’t think we’re capable of searching the premises? I think we can do our job better without civilians, Jake.”

“I’m not doubting your competence, Kevin. I would just—”

“That’s Officer Trimble to you.”

“And that’s
Mis
ter Travis to you.”

Trimble and I did a few rounds of staring, and then he said. “Stay here.” He walked off with my driver’s license. Like I was going to skip town without it.

I got out of the car and leaned against the side. I texted McGlashan that the cavalry was camped outside of the Colemans’ and inquired if he could put in a good word. I pondered where to rest my head that night, as my flight was late tomorrow morning. I debated whether to return to the airport and grab one of the on-site hotels or take a cabin in the nearby woods. Southeast Ohio was where the final cube of ice during the last ice age, around twenty thousand years ago, had finally succumbed to the sun and deposited foliage from Canada. Global warming isn’t a bad initiative around here—twenty thousand years on the global clock was three seconds ago. Maybe two. As far as an airport hotel room, it would have free chocolate chip cookies in the lobby and go downhill from there. I could already taste it. Smell it. That was close enough for me.

Fifteen minutes later, another man with a gun marched toward me. He halted about four feet away. “Mr. Travis?” He held my license, or what I assumed was mine, in his left hand.

“Yes.”

My new visitor was the Pillsbury Doughboy with a badge. He looked as if he finished off a six-pack every night and thought covering his habit with a uniform would add credibility to his lifestyle. His reflective sunglasses mirrored the green hills and blue sky. His ears were beet red, as if he and Rudolph shared the same gene pool. No nametag.

“I’m the sheriff in charge here. I got a call from a sheriff’s detective in Florida that you’re an ex vet and that I’m to share with you what we got.”

Ex vet? Isn’t a veteran already an “ex?” But at least McGlashan had come through for me, and hopefully Glow Ears would let me play. “Thank you, sir.” I said. “I’d be most appreciative of any information you have.” You have no idea how physically painful it is for me to talk in that manner.

“I don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Have any information I’m going to share with you.” He handed back my license.

“You’re not going to play any reindeer games with me?”

“What?”

“Help me out here? Do what’s in the best interest of finding a missing girl?”

“You need to leave now,
Jake.
We’re conducting an investigation on the property, and it’s closed to intruders.” He flashed me a fake smile and followed it with, “Have a nice day.” His right hand rested on his service revolver.

“Will you reconsider having me assist you? After all, this will always be the first time we meet—our country song.”

“Leave.”

“Perhaps confer with Dasher and—”

“Get the hell out of my county, son.” He fingered his gun.

“When the elves unionize, Sheriff,” I said as I twisted into my car, “you’ll feel the power of the little people.” I threw Flintstone’s car into reverse.

I know. Childish. Insipid. It didn’t even make the grade as a sophomoric retort, but he got to me. My chain gets yanked when people dislike me before I realize I dislike them.

It was a little more than a half hour drive back into Greenwood. I should have asked Boone the name of the Orry’s friend who’d brought Zach with him on the boat last summer, but I didn’t think that would lead anywhere. No excuse, though. I stopped at an outdoor store that doubled as a munitions depot. It had a more extensive firearm and knife selection than anything I’d seen,
in aggregate
, during five years with the US Army. No foreign armed force (Kent State, 1970, was internal) had invaded Ohio since Morgan’s raid in 1863. But by gum, these Buckeyes were ready for the next son of a bitch to set foot on their land. I selected what I needed for the night and received directions to a campground. I hit a grocery store and a liquor store and killed time at a bar, where I was instantly recognized as someone no one knew. I drove back out to the Colemans’.

Rudolph and the herd had pulled out. I approached the property from the back side and hiked through a few hundred yards of dying ash trees before I arrived at the house and the pole barn. A yellow police tape laced the barn as well as the house. A gray cat didn’t seem to mind as it sulked around the partially open sliding door. I wondered how many dead geckos Hadley III would have for me when I returned.

The barn was clean. I assumed the sheriff had confiscated any equipment used in the clandestine chemistry trade. Stainless steel shelves and stained tables were all that remained from a lab that likely produced methamphetamine, commonly referred to as meth. Facemasks littered the floor. I strolled behind the barn but found nothing except dead grass in the circular pattern of barrel bottoms. The house was next. It was locked. I busted the window on the back door. I searched the rooms.

The only items I found of mild interest were several brochures in a kitchen drawer beneath the silverware tray. I stashed the brochures in my pocket. As for the silverware, no one had bothered to keep the forks, spoons, and knifes separate from one another.

Even though it was late, it was still light. I was a thousand miles north of home, and the curvature of the earth afforded me over an hour more of daylight, split evenly at both ends. I headed south on Route 33 and took a right at the Shell station, like the man with the lip ring at the munitions depot had instructed. I navigated cautiously, as he had warned, around the boulder that encroached upon the road and narrowed it to a nasty one-lane turn. A stoic crooked cross struggled to clear a clump of Queen Anne’s lace that swayed in the breeze; someone hadn’t paid attention. I pulled into a deserted campground. Lip Ring had said the owners of Camp Tecumseh didn’t have the funding to operate the camp for a full summer, and it wouldn’t be used until next week.

Moses had planted the pine trees. A small pond with one shoreline curved like a woman’s hip centered the camp. Kayaks rested on its muddy bank. A dozen cabins circled the pond and battled the trees for airspace. A solitary male mallard paddled across the glassy water, and its wake followed without choice. My eyes are drawn to displaced water. I understand the physics, yet it retains a magical fascination to me. A dirt road disappeared higher into the wooded hills, where in the fading light I could still make out a lonely cabin peering between branches. A truck in its third decade pulled up behind mine, and a man in his seventh got out and sauntered over to me. He wore a pair of jeans and a cream shirt, both twice the size they needed to be. He was a slight man and stood under the massive trees.

“Campground’s closed,” he said. The gentle float of his voice was incongruous with the implications of his words.

“I know,” I said. “I’m only here for one night, and I heard this is a special place. Hoping I could just lay my mat in one of those cabins, if you don’t mind.”

“From around here?”

“Florida.”

“Long way to camp for one night.”

“It is.”

“Where you off to in the morning?”

“Airport.”

“Anybody joining you?”

“Just me.”

“Take your pick. They’re all empty.”

“What about that one up there?” I pointed to the high cabin that overlooked the others.

“That’s Wyandot. She’s a good one. You can take your car up the road and park it there. Have a pleasant night.” He started to turn toward his truck.

“Mind if I use a kayak in the morning?”

He turned around slowly. “Help yourself. But the pool’s locked.” He skipped a few beats then continued. “Careful if you jump the fence.”

As he drove away, I made out the bumper sticker on his fender—E
VERYTHING A MAN NEEDS: AN OLD PICKUP, A YOUNG WIFE, AND A MAP BACK TO
K
ENTUCKY
.

I navigated my car up the narrow path and parked by the cabin. As I sat on the deck, twilight softened night’s arrival with the patience of a glider that took a mile to drop the last fifty feet. I poured some bourbon into a plastic cup. I unwrapped a cigar, smelled it, clipped the end, lit it, and took a deep drag. Those acts, coupled with the selection of the cigar, represented ninety percent of the enjoyment I receive from any cigar. The temperature went down with the sun, which rarely happens in Florida.

I swatted bugs all night.

At five thirty, a half hour before sunrise, seven million birds woke me.

I took a kayak out and did cartoon circles in the stagnant pond. I beached the kayak where I had found it, scaled the pool’s fence, and stripped off my clothes. I dove in the unheated pool and nearly cryogenically froze my body. I did my forty-minute swim in thirty minutes.

I returned to the munitions depot and left Lip Ring the simple provisions: a mat, thin blanket, and pillow I had purchased for my one-night stay. He asked if I would like my money back. I said the gear was his. He told me to come back soon. I made two stops on my way out of town.

CHAPTER 12

I
retrieved my truck at Southwest Florida International and headed to the Buccaneer Motel on the northern end of Fort Myers Beach. Several Buccaneer brochures in various stages of fading had been in the drawer—under the deranged silverware tray—in the Colemans’ house. Perhaps they frequented the joint. It was worth a stop.

The one-story building was off the water and across from a closed oyster bar. The motel was likely built in the 1950s, but it was neat, clean, and recently painted. A few cars dotted the asphalt parking lot, where steam from a morning shower dissipated into the air. A pair of brightly painted metal chairs rested outside each room. The beach, bars, and restaurants were within a two-minute walk. The old gal had location going for her.

A woman’s back was to me when I entered the sparse lobby and stepped onto the spotless linoleum. She turned as I approached the counter. “May I help you?” she asked.

She wore a soft white shirt. A loose string laced the top in lieu of buttons. Several layers of necklaces dropped low on her freckled chest and rested on the top of her breasts. I wanted to drop low on her freckled chest. Strawberry-blond hair sprouted freely on both sides of her face.

“Certainly.” I already had my phone out. “I’m looking for a couple of guys I believe may have stayed here in the past.”

Upon my request, McGlashan had texted me pictures of Randall and Zach Coleman that he had obtained from Rudolph. He also had shared with me that the Hocking County sheriff
had
just received a search warrant, and that was why I’d been blindsided by the posse at the Colemans’. I planned to flash the pictures around in hopes that someone would recognize them. McGlashan’s degree of cooperation indicated to me that he had more pressing matters to pursue than chasing down a runaway teenager. If he were actively engaged in finding Jenny, he wouldn’t be outsourcing his responsibilities.

“I’ll pass,” she replied. She hadn’t even bothered to glance at a picture of a smiling Randall Coleman after he’d been arrested for DUI.

“You didn’t even try.”

“Nope.” She shuffled some papers.

“How about if I give you a million dollars?”

She glanced up at me. She looked as if she belonged at a photo shoot for an album, back in the day. I wasn’t of buying age when albums had their initial run, but I have a decent—high-triple-digit—vinyl collection. I like fondling my music and am especially desirous of back covers, or inside sleeves, on which a third party has written about the recording session. Such verbiage is referred to as “liner notes.” The rear cover of Sinatra’s
September of My Years
stirs the graves of English poets—
Of the bruising days. Of the roughed lips and bourbon times. Of chill winds, of
forgotten ladies who ride in limousines
. I get rocked before the needle even scratches the record. I also prefer to hear the music the way it was originally heard. I play my swelling collection on a 250-pound 1961 floor-model maple Magnavox—
great voice
in Latin. The turntable has “Imperial Micromatic”
written beside it and “Stereophonic High Fidelity” etched across the inside back. Kicks the living shit out of “iTunes.”

She said, “Cash up front.”

“A girl is missing, and I think this guy might be involved. I’d appreciate any help you could give me.” I wondered what she would look like covered in whipped cream.

“What’s your name?”

I extended my hand over the counter. “Jake Travis.”

“Tuesday.” Tuesday had soft hands.

I flashed her my phone again. “I have reason to believe this man might be involved in the abduction of a young girl, from this island, less than a week ago, and—”

“Does this have anything to do with Susan Blake’s niece?”

“Do you know her?”

“Which one?”

“Either.”

“Susan and I go way back. We served on the chamber committee for business owners for years.”

“You’re the owner?”

“This sick puppy is mine. Susan hire you?”

“More like a favor. We met a year ago, had dinner, got along, and now she needs help.”

Tuesday leaned in across the counter. She smelled like warm vanilla, and my appetite surged. She held that pose for a few seconds then inquired, methodically, in half time, “Are you the guy who invited her to dinner, primed her for information, and then ditched her?”

“I don’t know about ‘ditched.’ I left her standing—”

“Jake, right?” She tilted back away from me. What a sad world. “I don’t know you, but I know one thing.” She paused. I had no choice but to go in without armor.

“Go ahead.”

“You walked away from Susan Blake. Congratulations. You’re my new dumbest person in the world. And to think your vote counts as much as mine.”

I wanted in the worst way to counterpunch, but sometimes you have to stand and take it.

Once the Susan connection was on the table, Tuesday called in the reserves. She allowed me to search the room that had been assigned to Billy Ray. It hadn’t been booked to anyone else and was clean; the housekeeping log showed that it hadn’t been serviced. Tuesday explained that meant the room, even though paid for, was never used. At my insistence, she summoned all her employees to stop by the Matanzas Bar and Grill so I could interview them. It was on the bay across from her sick puppy and just a long enough stroll to sweat my shirt. I knew the place well from my year on the beach.

I took a wooden stool at the mahogany bar that preserved old postcards of Florida under strata of shellac. That is where the past belongs—immobilized under transparent layers so we may see it but never touch it again. Black-and-white pictures of the damage from Hurricane Donna hung on the wall to my right. She was the last big one, a cat four in 1960, until Charley swung by in 2004. Grouper gave me a tuna salad on wheat toast and an iced tea. He wore a polo shirt with his restaurant’s name and a spotless white apron folded down at the top and tied around his waist. His real name was Peter. But young Pete’s first word had been cast from his lips while his father fished the piers of the canal behind their home. His mother’s protests were never enough to overcome what the stars had ordained.

“What’s the deal again?” he asked. He untied his apron, tossed it under the bar, and wrapped another clean one around his midsection. He picked up a glass and dried it with a towel.

“I’m camping out here while she calls her employees. They’ll drop by within the hour. She wanted me to send a photo to their phones, but I insisted on a face-to-face. Only four, including Tuesday, rotate on the front desk.” Grouper knew Tuesday and Susan as members of the local bar and restaurant association, and I had filled him in on Jenny’s disappearance.

“She was okay with sending them here?”

“Why not?”

Grouper shrugged. “Nothing. I hope that girl surfaces. But she
is
eighteen. Maybe she just needs to hang with herself after what she went through.”

“You know much about eighteen-year-old girls?”

“Nothing.”

“Makes two of us. But as a breed, I don’t think they’re a solitary species.” I changed tack. “What are you doing with Susan to the south and Tuesday to the north?”

He put down the glass and shrugged again. “Susan, underneath—she’s got a bit of a nuclear streak. I just don’t swing from that tree.”

The man changed his apron five hundred times a day and operated one of the nicest waterfront places I’d ever been to. He sported two pierced ears and was president of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Florida. He reopened the organization after it had shuttered its doors and left five hundred children proof that no one gave a damn. He swung pretty effortlessly from tree to tree, but I didn’t challenge him on that.

“And Tuesday?”

Grouper didn’t have a chance to answer, as a girl blitzed me from my right like a heat-seeking missile. “Are you Mr. Travis? ‘Cause I’m Allison, and Tuesday asked me to stop by, and it’s my day off, so whatever it is, make it snappy.” She popped her gum the split second her verbal attack ended. She took the stool next to me.

She wore a low-cut brown sundress and smelled of suntan oil and spearmint. Her thick jet-black hair was wrapped in cords that fell down the left side of her head and beyond her shoulders. Her clavicle looked like a hanger with skin and two balloons on it. She slid over onto the half of her stool that was next to me. She was the type who invades the space that separates strangers. I held my ground. Pleasure to do so. I gave her the background pitch and brought up the pictures on my phone. She hesitated at the picture of Zach.

“Curly’s cute,” Allison said, “but here’s a flash for you: I’ve never seen those guys. I’m mostly part-time when someone calls in sick, like Daniel does about every day ‘cause he can’t handle a watered-down margarita on a full stomach, but Tuesday puts up with him ‘cause he’s been there, like, forever. I gotta go. Sorry I can’t help you find…”

“Jenny.”

“Right.” She slid off her stool and touched me lightly on my right arm. “I was yanking your cord, not knowing her name and all. We’re having a fire on the north beach tonight. Why don’t you drop by?”

“You see them, or hear of them, I’d appreciate a call.”

I gave Allison my card. She tilted her head and placed the card in the low front pocket of her sundress. Her bony right hip brushed against me on her way out the back door. Her essence hung around like humid air after a downpour.

An older lady with blue-and-green fingernails was next. “You can call me LeAnn,” she said. She wore a force field of perfume. I scooted to the far edge of my stool in search of fresh air.

“I was at the flea market and don’t take too kindly to having to drop by,” she said, “but I’d do anything to help find Susan Blake’s niece.” The photo I showed her meant nothing to her. I checked her name off the list that Tuesday had scrawled on Buccaneer stationery.

“What’s the deal with Tuesday?” I asked Grouper after LeAnn had left. “She’s just across the street from you, and for my—”

“He’s been waiting for you. Came in a second after your last one.” He nodded down the bar, where a man sat with his feet on the bottom rung of his stool. His right knee bounced up and down, like he was drilling for oil. His sandals were on the floor under his stool, and his right hand caressed a half-full or half-empty—your choice—glass of amber liquid. I grabbed my iced tea, shifted four seats to my left, and settled next to the last name on the list. I’d been waiting for him. Tuesday told me he was the one who had checked in Billy Ray.

“Daniel?” I asked. His blue eyes looked younger than his face, which the sun already had started to tighten and crease.

“That’s me.”

“I understand you were at the front desk a few days ago when Billy Ray Coleman came around.”

“Yup. Surprised he was here without his brothers.”

“You know them?” I held up my phone with Zach Coleman’s picture. He gave it a cursory glance.

“Yup.” He took a sip of his beer.

“Tell me.”

“Sure.” His eyes seemed to bounce around, even though he was looking at me. He didn’t speak.

“I was thinking
now
, Daniel.”

“Oh, yeah, I got it. Well, that’s Zach Coleman. Not a bad dude. If you’re looking for someone, you know, who did something bad, and Tuesday said you were, I doubt it’s him.”

“Why do you say that?”

“’Cause he’s a follower, know what I mean? Now his brother, Randall? That’s the man. Know what I mean?”

“Enlighten me.”

Daniel rolled for ten minutes, not that he had that much information, but the man couldn’t talk in a straight line. The salient facts, however, finally surfaced. The Coleman boys had been in numerous times over the years for weeklong stays. Randall paid with cash. Always Randall. Always cash. Zach gawked at the girls, and the girls gawked back. Billy Ray spent time wandering the parking lot and beach when his brothers brought girls back to the room. They partied hard, but Randall always palmed Daniel a pair of twenties.

“Tuesday,” he said, “wouldn’t put up with rowdies, but they’d come down in March—what the hell did she expect? I know we ain’t the Lani Kai, but we ain’t Disneyland either, man. You gotta go north for that kiddie shit.” I assumed he meant Walt Disney World, but I didn’t make Daniel as one who’d squabble over geography or proper corporate names.

“Anything else you heard or might recall that would be beneficial to me?”

“Nope.” He brought his right fist up to his chest and suppressed a beer belch. “They did say…” He paused as if he expected another burp, but it didn’t come. “They did…that means I think heard Randall mention…no, it was Zach. Yeah, Zach said it. No way would Randall say it—he’s too tight, you know? Randall runs like a river. All smooth like, but you never know what’s around the bend, know what I mean? One moment you’re enjoying the scenery, and the next you’re in the fight of your life. You ever do any white water rafting?”

“What did Zach say?” A middle-aged woman with a pleasing figure in tight jeans strolled past us.

“God
damn
, you see that?”

“It’s a wonderful world, Daniel. Stay with me. What did Zach say?”

“Zach? Oh, yeah. Not to me. But they came in one night, and Zach asked Randall if they were going to the farm.”

“They got land up in Ohio.”

“Yeah. I took copies of their driver’s licenses. Had to, even though they was always cash. Tuesday wanted to be able to locate anyone in case they did damage. Anyways, Randall said yeah, something about going to see Wesley—said they’d be back for dinner. I thought, is he gonna fly up there and back, you know, Ohio, in one day just to see some guy? But then Randall asked Zach if he put gas in the car, and I wondered if Randall was talking about meeting this guy at some local place, you know?”

“Wesley. What did he say about Wesley?”

“I dunno. I just remember hearing the name. I had a friend once named Wesley, and I figure that’s why I remember that. Wesley Varker. Sweet Lord, did he ever have one hot seventy-two Camaro.”

I leaned closer into Daniel. “Tell me everything.”