T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril (17 page)

“It doesn’t make sense.” I wondered how somebody like Pat got caught up in such a mess. And how a woman like Rosemary became involved with a criminal drug operation.

Brad finished a bite of sandwich, wiped his mouth. “Still having trouble with the fact that this tree’s branches lead to wealthy, accomplished people?”

“I’m not one to stereotype, but if I hadn’t seen the evidence, I never would have imagined that somebody like Rosemary could be into this.”

“Niche marketing at its finest. People like her have reputations to protect, so they’re typically not going to do anything stupid to get themselves caught. Nobody would ever suspect them as users or runners. We’re talking lawyers, business professionals, wealthy housewives. They have the cash to spend.” He ate more fruit, scanned the patio. “Plus, they justify what they’re doing because the drugs are manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. Medical grade, FDA approved.”

The early October day had stretched its way into the eighties. I wiped perspiration from the back of my neck. “In other words, they’re not shooting up with something manufactured inside an abandoned building, or standing on a dirty street corner to score a rock
of crack cocaine. So they don’t categorize themselves with the junkies you see on TV or read about in the newspaper.”

“Exactly.”

The last time I recalled sitting on the Block’s outdoor patio discussing a case with a hunky man, Ox was the person across the table from me. It was a few months ago, mid-August, sticky hot. The nearness of Ox made the humidity seem sensual and sultry and he must have felt the same way. Maybe we’d waited long enough and the timing was right, or maybe we were both sun-drunk. Regardless, the day turned into an afternoon I’ll never forget. Hours of pure bliss. We connected on every possible human level. Finally—after first meeting in high school when I taught him the eleventh-grade ropes and he taught me how to box—we slept together. And then his ex-wife showed up. To reclaim him. True, Louise had gone back to the West Coast solo, so that was something. But shortly after that little issue was settled, Ox had stepped into role of chaperone and headed to Connecticut for Lindsey’s internship.

“Hello? Anybody home?”

I looked up to see Brad watching me stare at the river. “Sorry, just thinking about something. I’m back.”

“So where are we on this thing?”

“Other than whatever it is you’re withholding from me?”

He smiled. “Other than that.”

“I’ve got another name for you.” I told him about CC’s Hair Boutique and Theresa, the woman who first told Karen about the network.

“Been there yet?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Going?”

“Yep.”

Ruby arrived at the table with the pub’s cordless phone tucked
under one arm. She gave me the handset and left with our empty plates.

“Hello, this is Jersey,” I said.

“Still missing me?” Ox said, and the air instantly grew hotter. My cheeks warmed.

I excused myself from the table. Outside on the sidewalk, I watched the cars and bicyclists and pedestrians, careful to stay close enough to the building to keep the cordless telephone signal. We talked for ten delicious minutes, condensed updates of our separate lives. I hit the off button and returned to the patio table, thinking the conversation hadn’t been nearly long enough.

Brad eyed the phone. “Was that your complication?”

“Come again?”

“You said that your love life is complicated,” he explained. “Was that your complication?”

I didn’t answer. Things with Ox were complicated, but it wasn’t any of Brad’s business.

Brad stood, stretched, stuck some money beneath a plate, and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll send somebody in to get a haircut at CC’s. Meanwhile, let me know if you manage to scrounge up something they don’t.” He joined the stream of people walking along Water Street.

Morgan was waiting
beneath a picnic shelter when I arrived at Halyburton Park. Even wearing everyday clothes, the man looked like a million bucks. It occurred to me that he blended beautifully with Wilmington’s beautiful-people crowd. If only he had a social life.

“Are you sure you weren’t followed?” he asked in greeting.

“Pretty sure.” I wondered why the clandestine tactics all of a sudden. Morgan had called shortly after Brad left the Block, demanding to meet at a public place, but one that didn’t have a lot of people milling about. Unless the city’s Parks and Recreation Department has a scheduled class or event, Halyburton Park is more of a nature preserve than anything else. It’s usually relatively quiet. Today, even the playground was barren.

“I took a roundabout route getting here to make sure nobody was behind me,” Morgan said.

I nodded.
Good for you.
I’d planned to take the day off. I wanted
to relax and catch up on my magazines. Check out the new fashions, see where the current hem length was supposed be. Maybe grab a matinee movie. Or else find some beach sand and stick my bare toes in it. One nice thing about Wilmington is that you can wear sandals almost year-round, as long as your toes look good. My toes still looked good from my last pedi, and I was ready to go
somewhere
and do
something.
Something to remind me that I really am retired.

Yet here I was, sitting at a picnic table with the judge’s brother. Before, I had to practically hook Morgan’s words and reel them out of his mouth. He didn’t want to talk. Apparently he had a change of heart, because now I’d been summoned. And it certainly wasn’t to pick up a paycheck, because nobody was paying me. To make myself feel better during the drive to the park, I started making a mental list of everything I planned to do sometime soon. Learn to ride a horse, for starters. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try, and there are nearby stables that give lessons. And paint. I might turn out to be a decent artist if I were ever to throw some colors on a canvas. And travel. I want to travel without toting weapons. Well, maybe just one weapon would be okay. I could always take my first official retirement trip on my boat,
Incognito.
Perhaps a nice long cruise to the Florida Keys, stopping to collect mile-marker souvenirs along the way.

“There’s a group of doctors who eat at the restaurant,” Morgan began.

I sighed. Back to reality. “My restaurant or your restaurant?”

“Argo’s,” Morgan said. “Their practice is called the Divine Image Group. They do plastic surgery, and one of them is a psychiatrist. Anyway, they have a standing reservation for dinner every Friday night. Lately, they’ve come in more often than that.”

“Okay.”

Morgan fingered a large splinter of wood on the corner of the picnic table, as though trying to press it back into place. “They uh … well. There’s something going on with them.”

“Would you like to tell me what that might be?”
And how it involves you or me?

“I think they’ve been prescribing drugs for patients who don’t really exist.” The words rushed out, as though he wanted to talk before he changed his mind. “One of them was in love with my mother. And they owe somebody a lot of money.”

Now, he had my attention. I garnered as much information from him as I could: full names of the doctors, how long they’d been friends with Morgan’s parents, whether or not they ever dined with anyone else at their table.

A couple arrived at the playground with a three-or four-year-old. The woman sat on a bench while the man helped the boy climb a slide. I guessed them to be the boy’s grandparents—nobody who had an interest in Morgan or me.

“When did you first meet these guys?” I asked.

Morgan explained that he hadn’t embraced the social aspects of restaurant ownership, but that his head server, Deanna, “made” him go meet the doctors because they kept asking about him. It was the same night that his ex-fiancée had come in with her old boss, he recalled.

“You ever hear anything more from Maria?”

“No,” Morgan said. “She was using me, the whole time, while she waited on Mark Greer to come around.”

“Her old boss?”

“Yeah. He’s getting a divorce so he can marry Maria.”

“You okay with that?”

Morgan removed his shades and looked at me. “Don’t have much choice, do I?”

Something about the judge’s brother was much different from when I’d first met him. Heartbreak? Acceptance? Experience? One month ago, Morgan had seemed tired, deflated, and nervous. Now, he emanated a sort of quiet confidence. He appeared more
capable.

“Wilmington is a great place to meet people,” I offered. “Lot of young professionals here, lots to do.”

He smiled. “I’ll get around to that in time.”

An elderly man arrived at the playground with a pair of binoculars and what appeared to be a bird identification manual.

Seeing him, Morgan pitched sideways and nearly fell into me.

“You okay?”

“Sorry,” he said, holding himself upright, palms against the top of our picnic table bench. “I get vertigo every once in a while. Had it on and off since I was a kid.”

That explained why Morgan sometimes had balance issues. The bird-watcher settled onto a bench and opened his book. Morgan stared. I asked if he recognized the man.

“No, it’s … well, it’s weird. It’s no secret that I haven’t spoken to Garland in years and years. I’m sure my sister told you. The only reason I even came to the memorial service is out of respect for her.”

“And?”

“And all of a sudden, I’m thinking about him a lot. My father. I keep seeing people that remind me of Garland. Like at the restaurant, a stray bum came in to use the toilet. He could have been Garland’s double, in the face, anyway.” He looked again at the man on the playground, who’d gotten up and went strolling into the trees, binoculars pointed at the branches. “And that man there. Something about him made me think of Garland again. My mind is playing tricks on me.”

“Let’s walk,” I suggested, and we made our way to a short nature trail. Naturally, Morgan would begin to wonder about his father, now that he’d taken charge of the restaurant. I had constantly wondered about my father, growing up, during the marines, and later, while chasing down bad guys. I wondered what he looked like, and if he’d married, and if I had any half sisters or brothers, and if he’d be proud of me. And most often, why had he left? Blood relationships are a strange and powerful thing.

I asked Morgan if he could tell me anything else about the doctors and their prescription-writing activities. He shook his head: No, nothing.

“How did you get this information?”

He didn’t answer for several steps. Finally, “I overheard them talking.”

“To whom?”

“They were talking to each other. The three of them.”

A pair of squirrels darted up a tree in front of us. “In Argo’s?”

Morgan scooped to pick up a stone, tossed it into the trees. “Yes.”

I asked if anyone else overheard the doctors’ conversation.
No.
I asked if Morgan had discussed the subject with anyone besides me.
No.
I asked if he’d been waiting on their table himself.
No.
I asked if they ever mentioned the name of the person or people they owed money to.
No.
I asked if Morgan was certain he’d heard things correctly.
Yes.

We stopped at a clearing and stared at a flock of twenty or thirty American goldfinches feeding in the bushes at the edge of a pond. About the size of a sparrow, they’re hot lemon yellow and beautiful. They always migrate south in the fall.

“Exactly how did you manage to overhear such a private conversation, Morgan?”

“I just happened to be in the restaurant at the same time they were, Jersey. That’s it. When I heard my mother’s name mentioned, my ears perked up and I kept listening. I heard everything perfectly clearly. And no, they obviously didn’t know that I could hear their conversation.”

“So you were in the dining room, then?”

He gave me a look that translated meant,
Well, duh.

We headed back to the visitor center, where we’d parked our cars. His nondescript sedan and my shiny black hearse. Morgan said
he was going to the restaurant. I wanted to interview Deanna and asked him if Deanna was scheduled to work at Argo’s.

“Not tonight, why?”

“Just wondering if the head server gets to take off on weekends,” I fibbed.

We pulled out and pointed our vehicles in opposite directions. I dialed Argo’s and, claiming to be Deanna’s next-door neighbor, asked for her cell number. I waited on hold for less than a minute before getting the information.

When I dialed Deanna, she sounded almost breathless. “Hello?”

“Deanna, hi, it’s Jersey. I’m a friend of Morgan’s.”

“My boss, Morgan?”

“Right. Listen, can I meet you somewhere to talk for a minute?”

She was getting dressed to meet friends at Level 5 for drinks, she said. Afterward, they planned to see a musical comedy at City Stage. I needed only a few minutes, I told her, and I could meet her at the bar. She hesitated. I mentioned that I’d buy their first round of drinks.

“Sure thing, then,” she said. “See you there.”

Level 5
is, as its name suggests, located on the fifth floor of a hundred-plus-year-old Masonic building. It has an outdoor rooftop bar with an energizing view of downtown, an inside bar, and a two-hundred-seat theater. Interestingly, the building’s fourth floor consists of condos, the third floor is suite rentals, and the remainder of the building is occupied by businesses. If you’re ever in the area and want to check out Level 5, you’ll have to purchase an annual membership. One of those weird alcohol control things. The state of North Carolina says that to obtain an Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission permit to serve booze, an establishment must either have at least 30 percent food sales or become a private club. Since
Level 5 doesn’t have a kitchen, they charge patrons five bucks each year to join. Some area bars only charge one dollar.

Deanna was beneath the rooftop’s canopy with a cluster of hip, exfoliated, oiled, gelled, and scented friends. A quick introduction told me they were all hospitality people and a few were also up-and-coming actresses. The two of us moved away from the rest of the group, Deanna carrying a pineapple martini and me a Bass Ale in the bottle.