Double Whammy (35 page)

Crescent Beach is a few miles south of St. Augustine. The broad expanse of sand is sugary white, but packed so hard you could drive a truck to the water's edge without fear of getting stuck. For a long time Crescent Beach and adjacent communities existed in a rare and splendid quiet. To the south, Daytona got all the publicity and the crowds to go with it; to the north, the beach at Jacksonville was still clean enough to keep the city folks home on weekends. As the condo market boomed in the seventies, though, developers scouted and scoured all of the state's oceanfront possibilities, and spied lovely Crescent Beach as a promoter's wet dream—the perfect escape. See Florida as it used to be! Enjoy the solitude of long romantic walks, the Atlantic nipping at your toes! Lie down among the dunes! The dunes became a crucial selling point for North Florida's long-ignored beaches, because the people in South Florida didn't know what a dune was—the developers had flattened them all back in the fifties. True, by Northern standards Florida dunes weren't much to write home about—stubbled little hillocks, really—but the condo salesmen made the most of them and customers thought they were quaint. Once the building boom took hold south of Jacksonville and the beachfront became clogged with exclusive resorts and high-rises and golf communities, the state was forced to start buying up the remaining dunes, making parks, and nailing boardwalks every which- way to keep the dunes from getting leveled. Mysteriously, tourists would drive for miles and pay admission just to see a three-foot crest of sand with a few strands of sea oats—a genuine touch of wilderness among the cabanas.

Lanie Gault had not chosen Crescent Beach for its dunes. She hadn't chosen it at all; a lover had bought the condo and given it to her for Valentine's Day in 1982. He was a wonderful and basically harmless man, had his own insurance company, and Lanie didn't mind that he was married. He wasn't the sort of guy you wanted to have around
all
the time anyway. Every other weekend was just fine. It lasted for about two years until his wife found out—somebody called her up with the juicy details. The insurance man couldn't figure out who would do such a thing, but Lanie knew. It was her brother. Dennis never admitted to making the phone call, but Lanie had no doubt he was the one. Dennis couldn't stand the insurance man (nothing new) and for months had been telling her to clear the deed and dump the guy, he's bad news. He
isn't
bad news, Lanie had argued, thinking: He's just slightly boring. When the wife found out, Lanie was angry with her brother but also a little relieved. A few days later the insurance man came to the condo and told her he was moving back to St. Louis and kissed her good-bye. Lanie cried and said she understood and asked if he wanted her to give the condo back. The insurance man said heavens no, it's all yours, just don't tell anyone where you got it. A week later Lanie put in brand-new wine carpeting and decided maybe her heart wasn't truly broken after all.

Lanie's condominium was on the east wing of the ninth floor, and featured a scallop-shaped balcony with an ocean view. One of the things she liked about the building was the security—not only a gatehouse at the entrance, but an armed guard in the lobby and a closed-circuit TV bank. Nobody got upstairs without clearance, and the security people had strict instructions to phone ahead, no matter what. Given such procedures, Lanie was understandably alarmed to be awakened by someone knocking on the door. She squirmed across the king-size bed and snatched the phone off the nightstand and called the desk. The guard said, “It's the police, Miss Gault, we had to let them up.”

When she opened the door, she saw the problem. Jim Tile was wearing his state trooper's uniform.

“Can I help you?” Lanie asked.

“Not me,” Jim Tile said, “my friend.”

R. J. Decker peeked around the corner of the doorway. “Remember me? We exchanged bodily fluids not long ago.”

Lanie looked stunned to see him. “Hi,” she said tentatively.

The two men walked in; Jim Tile courteously removing his Stetson, Decker closing the door behind them. “I can see you're wondering how to play this scene,” he said to Lanie, “because you don't know how much I know.”

“What do you mean?”

Decker opened the living-room curtains without remarking on the view. “Lovey-dovey is one way to go. You know the bit:
Where you been? I missed you. Why haven't you called?
But that's only good if I don't know that you went to the New Orleans cops. And if I don't know you helped your brother set me up.”

Lanie sat down and fiddled with her hair. Jim Tile went to the kitchen and fixed three glasses of orange juice.

“Another way to go,” Decker continued, “is the Terrified Witness routine. Murder suspect barges into your apartment, scares the shit out of you.
Please don't hurt me. I'll do anything you want, just don't hurt me.
That's if you're trying to sell me the idea that you really believe I killed Dickie Lockhart. Which is horseshit.”

Lanie smiled weakly. “Any other choices?”

“Try the truth,” said Decker, “just as an experiment.”

“You got a tape player?” Jim Tile asked.

Lanie said, “On the balcony, with the beach stuff.” She shook her head no when Jim Tile offered a glass of juice.

The trooper went outside and got the portable stereo. He came back and set it up on the coffee table in the living room. There was already a cassette in the tape player.

Jim Tile punched the Record button. He said, “You don't mind?”

“Hey, that's my Neil Diamond you're erasing,” Lanie complained.

“What a loss,” Decker said.

Jim Tile fiddled with the volume dial. “Nice box,” he said. “Graphic equalizers and everything.”

“Let's start with Dennis,” Decker said.

“Forget it, R.J.”

Jim Tile said, “She's right. Let's don't start with her brother. Let's start with Robert Clinch.”

Lanie stared coldly at the big black man. “I could get you in a lot of trouble.”

“Don't flatter yourself,” said Jim Tile.

Decker was impressed at how unimpressed Jim Tile was. He said, “Okay, princess, guess who killed Bobby.”

“Dickie Lockhart did.”

“Wrong.”

“Then who?”

Jim Tile got up and opened the glass doors to the balcony. A cool breeze stirred the curtains. Lanie shivered.

Decker said, “Dennis didn't think much of your affair with Bobby Clinch, did he? I mean, a sexy high-class girl like you can't be sneaking off with a grotey redneck bass fisherman.”

“What?” Lanie looked aggravated, not cool at all.

Jim Tile said, “Your brother had Robert Clinch killed. He hired two men to do it. They waited for him at the Coon Bog that morning, jumped him, then rigged his boat for a bad wreck. Dennis wanted everyone to think Dickie was behind it.”

“No,” said Lanie, glassy-eyed.

She really doesn't know, Decker thought. If she's acting, it's the performance of her life.

“Bobby wasn't getting anywhere on the cheating,” she said numbly. “Dickie's people were too slick. Dennis was impatient, he was riding Bobby pretty hard. Then . . . well.”

“He found out you and Bobby were involved.”

Lanie gave a shallow laugh. “The sportfucking, he didn't mind. A different fella each night and he'd never say a word to me. Whenever things got serious is when he acted weird. Like when Bobby said he was going to leave his wife and go away with me, Dennis got furious. But still he would never do what you say. Never!”

Decker said, “Lanie, he needed you more than he needed Bobby.”

“For what, Decker? Needed me for what?”

Decker tapped his chest. “For me.”

By now Lanie was crying. Not the best job of crying Decker had ever seen, but still pretty convincing. “What are you saying?” she hacked between sobs. “You think I was whoring for my own brother! I cared for Bobby, you don't believe me but it's true.”

Jim Tile was not moved. In years of writing traffic tickets, he'd heard every imaginable tale of woe. With his usual remoteness he said, “When's the last time you spoke to him?”

“Bobby? I saw him the night before he died. We had a drink at a shrimp place over in Wabasso.”

“Did he tell you he was going to the lake?”

“Of course he did—he was so excited. He'd gotten a tip that Dickie was hiding his fish cages in the Coon Bog. Bobby was thrilled as anything. He couldn't wait to find the bass and call Dennis.”

Decker said, “Where did the tip come from?”

“Some guy who called up Bobby, wouldn't give his name.”

“It was a setup,” Jim Tile said, “the phone call.”

“Now, wait,” Lanie said. She kept looking down at the tape player.

Time's up, Decker thought. He sat next to Lanie and said, “Call me nosy, but I'd like to know why you framed me.”

Lanie didn't answer. Decker took one of her hands and held it very gently, as if it were a baby animal he was afraid of squeezing. Lanie looked frightened.

“It was your brother's idea, wasn't it?”

“At first he talked about blackmail,” she said. “He asked if I knew any good photographers who could follow Dickie and get the pictures without him knowing. I thought of you, and Dennis said fine. He said to keep you interested and I said okay, anything to get back at Dickie for what he did.”

“What you
thought
he did,” Decker interjected.

“Dennis said it was Dickie who killed Bobby. I believed him, why shouldn't I? It made sense.”

Jim Tile said, “So Dickie's murdered, then what?”

“Dennis calls me in New Orleans.”

Decker said, “Just what the hell were you doing there anyway?”

“He sent me,” Lanie said. “To make sure you weren't goofing off, he said. He was pissed off because you weren't telling him much on the phone.”

“So you drag me into bed, then steal my. film?”

“Who dragged who?” Lanie said sharply. “About the film, I'm sorry. It was a shitty thing to do. Dennis said he was dying to see what you'd got. Said the stuff belonged to him anyway.”

Decker held her hand just a little tighter. “And you actually believed all this?” he asked agitatedly. “These errands didn't strike you as a little odd? No light bulb flashed on in your beautiful size-four brain?”

“No,” Lanie snapped, “no light bulbs.”

Jim Tile said, “Getting back to Dickie's murder . . .”

“Yeah,” Lanie said, shifting her eyes to the trooper. “That morning Dennis called me in New Orleans, all upset. He said Decker had gone and killed Lockhart. Dennis was afraid.”

Jim Tile said, “He told you he might be a suspect.”

“Right. He said Decker was trying to frame him, and he asked me to go to the police.”

“And lie?”

“He's my brother, for God's sake. I didn't want him to go to jail over a crazy goddamn fish murder. Bobby's death was bad enough, I didn't want to lose Dennis too. So I went down and gave a very brief statement.” She looked at Decker again. “I said you dropped me off on your way to see Dickie Lockhart. That's all.”

“It was plenty,” Decker said. thanks a heap.”

“Dennis sounded desperate.”

“And with good reason.”

“I still don't believe you,” Lanie said.

“Yes, you do,” said Jim Tile.

It was all Decker could do to hold his temper. “Any other little Dennis favors we should know about?”

Lanie said, “Can you turn that thing off?”

Jim Tile stopped the tape machine.

Lanie got up and led them through the apartment to the second bedroom. She opened the door as quietly as she could. The room was totally dark; the shades were not only drawn, but the cracks were sealed with hurricane tape. Lanie turned on the ceiling light.

A young long-haired woman lay in bed, a pink cotton blanket pulled up to her chin. Her bluish eyelids were half-closed and she breathed heavily, with her mouth open. Some pills and a half-empty bottle of Dewar's sat on the nightstand.

Jim Tile looked at R. J. Decker, who said, “I've seen her before. At the tournament in New Orleans.”

“Name's Ellen O'Leary,” Lanie said in a dull voice. “She's not feeling well.”

 

In a fury Decker pushed Lanie Gault to the wall, pinned her arms.

“No more games,” he said. “Who's this girl?”

“I
don't
know,” Lanie cried.

“You just came home one night and there she was, passed out in bed?”

“No, a man brought her. Dennis asked me to look after her.”

Decker said, “You're a very sick lady, Elaine.”

“Easy, man,” said Jim Tile. He sat down on the bed next to Ellen O'Leary and studied the labels on the pill bottles. “Nembutals,” he said to Decker.

“Swell, a Norma Jean cocktail.”

“Just to make her sleepy,” Lanie insisted. “She'll be all right, R.J. Every night I give her soup. Would you get off me, please?”

Decker grabbed Lanie's arm and led her out of the bedroom. Jim Tile flushed the pills down the toilet and went to the kitchen to fix coffee for the woman named Ellen. He was wondering how much stranger things would get.

Decker himself was frazzled. Lanie was impossible.

“What did your brother say about this woman?” he asked her.

“He said to keep an eye on her, that's all. Keep her sleepy and out of trouble. He said she was a danger to herself and others.”