Doc Ford 19 - Chasing Midnight (39 page)

A minute later, though, I realized I hadn’t ruined the mood by talking. Physiologies are different, and some of us need more time to recover than others.

I heard: “Ooohh. I’m still sort of, you know… sensitive. It’s just the way I am after I—
you know
.”

I was learning. The lady’s “you know” was unlike any in my experience. If there’s such a thing as a grand mal seizure with a happy ending, it was this woman’s “you know.”

So I smiled and said, “I see!” Then told her, “Let’s take a break. I’ve got more caviar, fresh from Mote Marine Labs. And mangoes in the fridge—a ripe Julie and a Nam Doc Mai. Mack and Jeth just made a mango run to Pine Island.”

“I like those guys,” the lady nodded, reaching for her bra, then hip-canting naked toward the door. “Everyone at the marina is so friendly and…
normal
.”

I was thinking,
Why disappoint her with the truth?
which is when the day’s mood was irrevocably changed.

Outside, I heard
clang-clang
—the ship’s bell I’d hung because I’m tired of being surprised by visitors. Then, from the kitchen, I heard the lady say, “Oh no. It’s
him
again.”

She could have meant any one of the three investigators, from various agencies, who had stopped by almost daily for the last three weeks. So I slipped into khaki shorts, a blue chambray shirt and was still hopping into my boat shoes when I exited to take a look.

I’d thought I was done with their questions. Two investigators had insinuated they were finished—probably exhausted from hearing the same repetitive answers from four primary witnesses: Tomlinson,
me, Darius Talas and Umeko Tao-Lien. And an unlikely fifth had, apparently, corroborated some of what we claimed: the billionaire widow, Sakura Lien. Then the woman had vanished at the first opportunity rather than risk more questioning—Switzerland, some said, although I now knew for a fact it was not true.

As Umeko had pointed out, Europe would have been a wiser choice than China, where, tannin beauty or not, Sakura might have been shot or beaten to death for murdering one of the country’s most illustrious (and cruelest) businessmen.

When I got to the kitchen, though, I was relieved to discover it wasn’t another cop who had clanged the bell.

“Tomlinson,” the lady told me as she hurried past to get into her clothes. “Why don’t you just adopt him and be done with it?”

“He won’t answer to a dog whistle, and they don’t make shock collars his size,” I replied, not surprised by her attitude. The lady had been smitten by my pal not so long ago. But then he had gotten stoned or drunk, or both, and had slipped his hand down her bikini on the pretense of helping her up onto a surfboard. It was outrageous, she thought, for a guy to hit on a girl his best friend had brought to the beach.

I liked that about her; the memory had spurred my fingers to action when they’d hesitated over her bra snap. Loyalty should not require a shock collar.

It is something I have stopped reminding Tomlinson about. He had remained outside, standing on the boardwalk, waiting for me to appear. Rather than opening the door, though, I called through the screen,
“What now?”

Instead of answering, he pointed at his watch, then at the setting sun, as if I was late for some appointment. Finally, he yelled, “Later than nine-thirty and we might miss something!”

I thought for a moment and then said, “Damn it,” because I’d forgotten that I had agreed to join him on Captiva Island for some mysterious event he had refused to reveal.

Behind me, I felt the woman’s fingertips trace the curvature of my spine, from shoulder to buttocks. “Something wrong?” she said into my ear.

I told her what was wrong. Then stood there like the fool I am and watched the lady’s smile vanish because I did not invite her along. “It’s Tomlinson’s deal,” I added as if that were explanation enough.

“I see,” the lady said, an autumn and vernal chill in her voice. “Well, when you and Huck Finn get off the river, make sure and give me a call.”

Then, for the second time in two months, I watched my handsome, curvaceous biologist friend, Emily Marston, march down the stilthouse steps and out of my life.

F
or three weeks, Tomlinson had barely said a word to me. He had smoked and moped and stewed to salve his scars, the lone exception being the day he had staggered to the beach, whistling Buffett songs, and tried to play grab ass with Emily.

Not that he didn’t stop by the lab. On days he didn’t disappear in
No Más
, he visited regularly. Which also irritated the lady because he’d dragged his guilt—or whatever the hell was burdening him—inside my home like a silent weight.

On this hot July night, though, he was suddenly chatty for reasons I had yet to discover. And even more irritating than usual. As I drove my pickup west on San-Cap Road, past ball-diamond lights, Bowman’s Beach, then over the bridge onto Captiva, he was lecturing me on romance and my romantic failings.

I wasn’t in the best of moods to begin with. Now the man risked crossing a dangerous line.

He was telling me, “The reason you choose women schooled in the sciences is because they feel obligated to at least
pretend
sex can be recreational. Like it has no more importance than two primates playing drop the soap. Which can be a healthy attitude, if you actually believe it. But they don’t. So they’re torn between what they think and what they want to believe—just like you. No wonder your love life is so messed up. You’re screwing yourself by screwing
yourself
.”

The man paused, looked over his shoulder to check for cops, then popped open a fresh Corona. “See what I’m going for here?”

My truck’s an old Chevy, white on turquoise, not built like the trucks of today. My hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly, I realized, the plastic hoop was bending.

I said, “You’re going for another black eye? I’d suggest something I’d enjoy even more, but I don’t want to visit you in the hospital another goddamn time and listen to the goddamn nurses tell me how lovable you are while they jockey for the honor of wiping your ass.”

That caused the man to tilt his head back and laugh, snort, laugh again, then whack me on the shoulder. “That’s so…
Fordian
. You can say stuff like that and not even crack a smile—a lot of people wouldn’t know you’re joking.” He cleared his throat. “No, but seriously, Doc. The reason I—”

I interrupted, “Tomlinson, why are we on Captiva? You still haven’t told me. Why are we going to South Seas Plantation? And why the hell did you make me bring this?” I picked up the TAM thermal unit and slapped it on the seat beside me. “I gave up a fun night with a smart, fun lady—a lady with
morals
, by the way, which is probably why you don’t approve. So, at least have the courtesy to explain why I shouldn’t dump your irritating hippie ass at the pool bar right now.”

Tomlinson had been looking at the lighted ’
TWEEN WATERS INN
sign as we passed. “Whoa,” he said, turning to face me. “That was eerie. You totally read my mind. At the very moment you said it, I was thinking, ‘Pool bar at ’Tweenies. Stop for a beverage on the way home.’ Weird, huh?” The man smiled, maybe to let me know he was playing his stoned-hipster role, maybe not.

I pressed, “South Seas Resort is where the Dragon Woman has been hiding out, isn’t it? That’s why you won’t tell me.”

It was a question I had never asked even though I suspected that Sakura had spent a night or two aboard
No Más
. The man knew too many details about her testimony for there not to be an intimate connection.

Still smiling, he shook his head, but then the smile faded. “I finally figured out what happened that night. The night the dude from Iran was shot. Armanie.”

It had been three weeks, but I still didn’t feel confortable discussing the subject in more than a vague way. “Yeah. Someone shot Armanie, then someone lied to protect a woman—a murderess, likely—probably in the hopes you’d get her clothes off down the road.”

Slowly, a smile reappeared, but it was his serious smile. “With you, Doc, the fastest way to convince you of the truth is to make all the data available. Let your eyes communicate the results directly to your brain. So that’s what we’re going to do. Tonight, the Psychiatric Practitioners of Minnesota are having a cocktail party at the pool by the T-dock. It’s the first night of their annual convention. Bring this with you”—he tapped the thermal monocular—“and we’ll both relive what really happened that night.”

“Psychiatrists,” I said, trying to understand.

“And behavioral scientists, psychologists. Some of the best in the world. Plus their husbands and wives, of course. Mostly wealthy,
not that I would care, normally, but it can be an indicator of clinical success.”

“You mean, relive it
clinically
,” I said, and was suddenly no longer irked with my old friend. In fact, I was touched because I finally understood what he had in mind. The man felt so ashamed of what he’d done that chaotic night, he wanted me to experience, with a physician’s help, what had driven him to pull the trigger.

Tomlinson stared at me for a moment and then started to laugh.

I said,
“What?”
totally confused.

He replied, “You’ll see.”

The temptation was to boot the man out of the car and call Emily to beg forgiveness. Instead, I concentrated on my driving.

South Seas Plantation, at the northern tip of Captiva Island, is one of Florida’s historic treasures. Almost five hundred acres of tropic theater that, over the years, has provided luxuriant solitude to luminaries from around the world. The resort is isolated by water on three sides and a security gate to the south. We were a mile past the gate, almost in sight of the Plantation House and swimming pool cabanas, before Tomlinson got control of himself.

He sat back in his seat and said, “Doc, you are so totally overthinking this! We’re not going to a hotshot pool party to be analyzed by a group of”—he stopped to reorganize his thoughts, or to swallow a spasm of laughter, then tried again—“Don’t think of it in terms of shrinks from Minneapolis. Keep it basic. Here’s the way I filed it when I heard they were meeting:
blond lady doctors with really nice tits
. Simple, see? Real or fake, who cares? It shows their hearts are in the right place. Most of the wives are Scandinavian stock, too, so we’re going to see some of the Gopher State’s finest.” He pointed to a parking area. “I scoped it out last night. From that row of trees, you can see the pool.”

Two minutes later, we were standing behind a screen of cabanas
and young coconut palms. On the other side, a steel drum band played while forty or fifty people milled around a pool of luminous jade, drinks in hand. Most wore shorts and tropical shirts, but several women were in swimsuits and wraps. And near the pool steps, a covey of five blondes were chatting away waist-deep in water.

“Okay,” I said. “Now what?”

Tomlinson pressed the thermal monocular into my hand. “Take a look at the ladies through this.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you insane? I’m not some damn Peeping Tom—”

“Doc,” my pal said, “I wouldn’t ask you to do it if it wasn’t important.”

I started to argue, but he interrupted, “You were wrong about Sakura staying here—but she did spend two nights on my boat. That’s how I figured out why you saw what you saw that night. Until then, I was pretty down, man—
offended
—because you immediately assumed the worst. You’ve got reasons not to trust me, I admit it, but I still wish—” Instead of finishing, he shrugged, then chewed at a strand of his shoulder-length hair.

Shaking my head, I put the monocular to my eye for a few seconds, then said, “Okay, so what am I supposed to be looking for? Sakura?”

“Take a real look,” Tomlinson insisted. “Sakura flew to Spain three days ago, so don’t worry about that. Take a
close
look, focus the damn thing, and think about the night you saw me shoot Armanie.”

So I used the focus, I fiddled with the contrast, and then, abruptly, my breathing changed because I understood why Tomlinson had brought me here.

To confirm he was right, though, I checked the pool again without the monocular. I saw five women, one with a hibiscus behind her ear, two with particularly gorgeous breasts.

Then I tried the thermal-sensing monocular again and saw
three
women chatting with what now appeared to be two males, thinly built, each with a warming gloss of long hair.

I turned to Tomlinson, who was nodding but appeared a little sad. “Silicone doesn’t register a heat signature,” I said softly, then cringed at my own obtuseness. “My God—I should have realized. Breast implants! You weren’t protecting Sakura because she saw you shoot Armanie. You were protecting her because
she
pulled the trigger! Why didn’t you tell me she’d had—”

Tomlinson held up his hand, gazing at all the pretty ladies from Minnesota. “It doesn’t matter now,
hermano
. Let’s get a drink, pick out a couple of new doctor buddies and take them home to the lab. Maybe after a couple of rums, I’ll explain something I know for sure: the Dragon Woman’s heart definitely
is not
in the right place.”