Death Among the Mangroves (18 page)

“Sometimes I amaze even myself,” Troy said. “Now get out of here. I have important police chief things to do.”

Chapter 27

Thursday, December 26

No sooner had Cilla Dowling left than June buzzed his intercom. “Got a visitor. Private investigator hired by the Gillispies.”

“The hits just keep on coming. Send him back.”

“How do you know it's a him?”

“I'm the police chief of Mangrove Bayou. I…“

“…Know everything. Bullshit. Someone already told you.”

“That's a dollar,” Troy said.

“Why do I bother to work here? You make me pay all my salary to the jar?”

“I don't make you go all potty-mouth on us.”

“Cord MacIntosh,” the man said as he entered Troy's office. He handed Troy a business card. He was taller than Troy and more muscular, with a deep tan, medium-length brown hair and blue eyes. “Don't I know you?” he asked. “From Tampa P.D.?”

“I believe so. Pull up a chair. Used to work with Ramon Bustello Prado in Major Crimes,” Troy said. “Seen you around.”

“Good old Bust, yeah. He's still there. I thought you got fired.”

“I did.”

MacIntosh sat in a visitor chair and looked around. “Looks like you landed on your feet.” He looked at Troy's office door with the faded black lettering that read “Director of Pub ic Safety” and smiled. “This is pretty cool.”

“I'm in hog heaven.” Troy looked at the card. “
Cordwainer
. You come from a long line of cobblers, do you?”

MacIntosh smiled. “You know, almost nobody knows what a cordwainer actually is.”

“Probably so. Only guy I ever heard of with that for a first name was Cordwainer Smith, who wrote science fiction long ago.”

“Ah. That was actually a pseudonym for Paul Linebarger. Needless to say, I looked it up.”

“I did not know that. Now what can I do for you today?”

“Peter Gillispie has hired me to, as he put it, oversee your work. Finding his daughter,” MacIntosh pointed at the corner of Troy's desk, “whom, I see, you have framed and sitting on your desk. Recognize her because Gillispie gave me a photo to use. Where did you get that one?”

“From one of her friends.”

“You always keep photos of victims framed and on your desk?”

“She talks to me. Late at night. Her dad had mentioned that he might hire someone. So you hotfooted down here to read my files?”

MacIntosh shook his head. “I told him I needed to look things over. I can do homicide. Done them in the past. But one that has dragged on so long, and down here in the—if you'll pardon the expression—sticks. And no body. And over ground already covered. Are you guys any good? Gillispie didn't think so.”

“We have our moments. You were anyone else, I'd give you my shit-kicker spiel.” Troy took out a dollar and laid it on his desk. “Tell you all we did here was write parking tickets. But I know you, or know
of
you. Bust thinks you're good at this; he's told me so. So, yes, we're good too. And we're making progress. No promises yet but we're getting there.”

“So what advice would you have for me?”

“You're fishing. No harm, no foul. Officially, I welcome an extra pair of eyes on the lookout. Unofficially, my advice is to drive back to Tampa and find some work that will last longer and pay better. If you get my drift.”

“Aha.” MacIntosh thought about it a moment. “The pay is pretty good right now. But I like to earn it. That's sort of a fetish of mine. You're closing in on someone. I'm not only trailing in the dust, I may be two steps back at the finish.”

Troy had a thought. “How much do you want to do to earn that pay?” he asked.

“Not a slacker. Whatever it takes. Why?”

Troy told MacIntosh about the Gillispie case, leaving out only the part about the chart plotter. It took some time and when he was done he put up the Gillispie file on his computer and pulled a legal pad closer. He wrote on the pad and ripped off the top sheet. “Here's a way you can help.” He handed the sheet to MacIntosh. “Top item is the address and unit number of a storage unit rented by the Stiders. I sure would like to see inside it but I can't get a search warrant. The good judge keeps shortstopping those.”

“You want for me to B-and-E a storage unit in Naples. What would I be looking for?”

“Heavens, Cord!” I never said such a thing. Why, that sounds unlawful. Or something. But, whereas I have to follow some rules, I know that P.I.s are given a little more latitude. Hypothetically speaking, I'd be interested in anything that could possibly have to do with the abduction and murder of one Barbara Gillispie.”

“Hypothetically speaking. And the other note? Looks to be a car description.”

“That's the license plate, VIN and description of the car Mark Stider was driving up until yesterday.” He explained about the Stiders taking the Porsche and disappearing east on the Tamiami Trail. “They came back together in the judge's Mercedes, so the Porsche is somewhere east of Everglades City. That probably means Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. My guess is that they sold it there, maybe to some chop-shop the good judge knows of. Or they had it scrapped…”

“Or they deep-sixed it in some canal off U.S. 41,” MacIntosh said.

“Possible. But that scenario doesn't give us anything to work with. I don't have the manpower to send someone over there and you're probably better at it anyway. If you can track it down that would be useful.”

“You want me to find a sports car somewhere in Dade and Broward counties?” MacIntosh said. He folded the paper and put it into a shirt pocket. “How hard could that possibly be?”

“Didn't say it would be easy. Said it might help me. Think of it as a challenge.”

“I certainly will. And if I deliver on this?”

“I'll tell Mr. Gillispie privately that I could not have closed the case without your help. No promises that what I tell him will do anything for you.”

“Humm. I'll think on it. No promises this side, either.”

“Otherwise,” Troy said. “So long as you stay out of my way and my officers' way, no problemo. Oversee away. You find anything useful, give me a ringy-dingy.” Troy looked at the card. “Nice print job. Doesn't actually say on it what you do. Just your name and phone.”

“I wanted the ones with the Sherlock Holmes hunting cap and the magnifying glass. But they were too expensive.”

“Ah. But with this anonymous card you can tell people you're with an insurance company, or a doctor's office or pretty much anything you want to make up. Generic.”

“Heaven forfend! Hadn't thought of that. Great idea.”

Troy grinned. “I find anything I want you to know, I'll call you.”

“Sure you will.”

“No. I might. It would depend. I'm not a hard-case about private investigators, as I know some cops are. You're more eyeballs on the problem and you're free, at least to me. I'm curious: if you find the body while in the employ of the Gillispies, do you get the reward?”

“Don't see why not. How about you and your cops?”

“No. We're sort of exempt from such bonuses.”

“Too bad. A little incentive wouldn't hurt. Think I'll take a stroll around town, since I'm here and if you don't mind. Maybe do lunch at the yacht club. I have reciprocal privileges. Is it possible to book a motel room in this town?”

Troy laughed. “It's the season. On top of that there are about a half-hundred reporters infesting us and chasing after any scrap about Barbara Gillispie. Stop by the Sea Grape Inn and ask Mrs. Mackenzie if she has anything for a friend of Troy's. Maybe she has a soft place for Scots names. That fails, go find Loren Fitch at the Gulf View Motel and tell him I said for him to give you the spare room he always holds back. If all that fails I promise not to arrest you for sleeping in your car.”

“Thanks.” MacIntosh pointed at Troy's desk. “What's with the dollar bill?”

“We have a Bad Words Jar.”

“Ah. Thus the
badinage
with the woman out front.”

“You own a boat?”

“Ah, because I mentioned the yacht club. Yes. Live on one. Sailboat in Tampa.”

Troy nodded. “Enjoy our town. Avoid the press. And check in with me often.”

Chapter 28

Thursday, December 26

At six p.m. councilman and principal Doctor Howard Parkland Duell came in through the connecting door to the town hall offices. Troy waved Duell to a chair. “Doctor Duell, what can I do for you this fine evening?” he asked.
I will be polite, I will be polite.

Duell waved that aside. “We have a problem, a situation I'm surprised you haven't noticed yourself as yet.”

Troy sat up and faced forward and folded his hands on his desk and looked attentive. However much he despised Duell, the man was one of his bosses, Troy told himself. “Really? What have we overlooked?”

“Theft. Blatant theft. Of electricity. The town's electricity.”

“Electricity,” Troy said.

“At the park.”

Troy nodded. Helpful. “One thing Mangrove Bayou has is a lot of parks.”

“The one at 17th and 18th streets and Indiana Avenue, over by the Collier River,” Duell said. “The park picnic pavilion there.”

“Yes. Seen it.” Actually, Troy thought, he had seen it from Lee Bell's bedroom, across the river. He decided not to go into detail. “Park faces the Collier River. I've seen the pavilion. Does it have an electric line to it? I didn't know.”

“It does. For the use of citizens with, say, electric picnic implements. I'm not surprised at your ignorance, given the sloppy nature of your work for us to date.”

“Aha. Is this electricity somehow leaking out and splashing on the ground? James Thurber once had an aunt or some such relative who thought that could happen. He wrote about it.”

“You have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Do you think it was Thurber's mother?” Troy said. “Could have been his mother. I can't remember.”

“Who cares about James Thurber? No that's not the prob…”

“I care about James Thurber. Deeply. Big on P.G. Wodehouse too. Don't think Wodehouse ever mentioned electricity but he once visited Florida and wrote about Jupiter Island.”

“What the hell are you babbling on about?”

“It's my sloppy mind. Sorry. Tell me about this electricity theft. Are they plugging in electric rotisseries now? I thought they just used those charcoal grill things.”

“There's some woman using the electric outlet without authorization.”

“Who authorizes use of the electric outlet?”

“Well, no one. But she's not having a picnic. She's some vagrant. She comes by and hooks up her cell phone and her chair.”

“Her chair.”

“Wheelchair. She has one of those battery-powered wheelchairs.”

“Battery-powered wheelchair?”

“Are you some sort of parrot?” Duell said. “I thought you had a high I.Q.”

“I used to. This conversation is lowering it.”

“Well, try to keep up.”

““I'll try. When does she do all this electricity stealing?”

“At night when nobody's watching, as you would know if you paid any attention.”

“Apparently you do. I would have deputized you had I known that you spent nights patrolling. So what would you have me do about this?”

“Arrest her. She's stealing town property in the form of electricity. We're not the charging station for vagrants. That outlet is for the use of citizens having picnics and not for vagrants with electric wheelchairs.”

“Not to mention the cell phone,” Troy said. “Bet that sucker soaks up a lot of juice too.”

“This is not amusing, Chief Adam.”

“Sure it is. Does anyone have picnics in the middle of the night? I'm not up to speed on picnics. Sounds as if the woman is using the outlet during a slack time. Why, if she didn't have plugs in it, the electricity would just be oozing out onto the ground.” Troy was trying not to laugh.

“Electricity doesn't ooze, you idiot. And that's not the point.”

“If I'm not mistaken,” Troy said, “we have a charging station right on the other side of this building, in front of the town hall, for electric cars. It's free.”

“Sure we do. That's because we wish to encourage use of electric cars here. So what?”

“So we offer free town electricity to anyone who can afford a thirty-thousand-dollar electric car that needs Lord knows how many amps and volts or whatever goes to make those run, but I am to arrest a crippled woman for wanting to charge up her wheelchair and her cell phone?”

“You put it as badly as possible. But yes. That's what you are to do.”

“Can you cite a law this woman has broken?”

“That's your job. Trespassing? Vagrancy? What's wrong with stealing electricity?”

“Stealing electricity is hooking up to your neighbor's house, or fiddling with the meter so as to not have to pay the bill. It's not charging your cell phone or using a plug for your laptop. People do that all the time, at airports, shopping malls, wherever. And she's not trespassing, just using the park at odd times.

“And I'm not big on vagrancy,” Troy continued. “What makes a vagrant, exactly? Poor? Homeless? How poor can she be if she has an electric wheelchair and a cell phone? And I've always thought that it's better to solve the base problem than toss people into jail because they can't find anyplace better to sleep. What am I supposed to do with them in the morning? This is a police station, not a hotel.”