Deadly Catch, page 15
I slid the chain latch free and opened the door, just then remembering I was wearing only my skivvies. “Hold on a second, I’m not dres—”
Kate pushed through the door, wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me hard on the lips. “I miss you already, Mac,” she whispered and kissed me again as she kicked the door shut behind her. She put both hands on my bare chest and backed me toward the bed until my legs buckled, then curled up in my lap and crushed her lips against mine.
It had been a long time, and all the gentleman drained out of me in those few seconds. I wrapped my arms around Kate, returning kiss for kiss, then slid a hand underneath her shirt and cupped a braless breast. She shuddered when I gave the nipple a gentle squeeze.
Kate pushed away and stood silhouetted in the glare of the television. She stepped out of her flip-flops, lifted her shirt over her head, and slipped off her shorts and panties in one swift motion. She pressed her hands against my chest again and pushed me flat on the mattress.
My skivvies were off in a flash. Kate lay prone against me, panting. To hell with foreplay; maybe next time. I ran my hands down her back and cupped her firm butt. Just as I was ready to position her above me, she giggled.
“What’s so damn funny?” I was at full attention and loaded for bear. I’d never claimed to be the world’s greatest stud, but I’d never had any real complaints to speak of, either.
“I’m sorry, Mac,” Kate said, putting a hand to her mouth to stifle another laugh. She grinned. “It just dawned on me that here we are, naked in bed together, about to make love, and I don’t even know your real first name.”
“Mac.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Mac?”
“Okay, MacArthur. MacArthur Andrew McClellan. And don’t even think about laughing.”
Kate bit her lower lip. “I won’t, I promise.” She brushed her lips against my cheek. “Nice to meet you, MacArthur.”
“Mac.”
“Okay, Mac.”
“So, what’s yours?”
Kate pushed up on her elbows and smiled, her breasts still pressed against my chest. “Kate.”
I slapped her playfully on the rump. “Come on, I told you mine, you tell me yours. Fair is fair, as long as we’re playing doctor.”
“It’s Kate, I swear. No Katherine, no Katrina, no middle name. Just Kate Bell.”
“Nice to meet you, Just Kate Bell.”
Nearly every business in town closed Monday afternoon at two o’clock for Mayor George Herman Harper’s funeral. I hadn’t heard anything regarding the autopsy from Bo Pickron yet, but I figured he had to know the results since the medical examiner’s office had released the body to the family on Saturday. I drove to Parkersville that morning and bought a pair of appropriate slacks, a dress shirt and a matching sports coat. At one-thirty I stopped by Kate’s, and we rode together to the funeral.
We had to park almost two blocks away, and it was standing room only inside St. George United Methodist Church. St. George. How fitting. In a back pew a kindly older gentleman surrendered his seat to Kate. I stood behind her, leaning against the rear wall of the sanctuary.
Kate was attending out of respect for Maddie. I was there to people-watch and see who might strike up a conversation with who after the service. Outside, the humidity was oppressive, and the temp was pushing the mid-nineties. With the big double doors of the church standing wide open so those who couldn’t find room inside to sit or stand could hear, it was sweltering. I unbuttoned my coat and undid the top two buttons of my shirt, glad I’d opted out of wearing a necktie.
After all the preaching, praying, singing, and several eulogies from the upper crust of St. George’s political and social world, I grabbed Kate by the arm and led her to a shady spot under a sprawling live oak a few yards from the front steps.
“Dang, Mac, what’s the big hurry?” she said, rubbing her arm just behind the wrist.
I wormed out of my coat and loosened the cuffs of my shirt. “I was about to get heatstroke in there,” I said, rolling the sleeves midway up my arms. “Besides, this is a good spot to see who all’s here. If you notice anybody talking to somebody interesting, let me know.”
We could’ve saved ourselves the trouble. The receiving line looked to be a mile long, snaking around the side of the church as person after person waited to pay their personal respects to the grieving Widow Harper. From where I stood, she seemed to be holding up much better than she had at her niece’s funeral.
Bo Pickron was there, just as he’d been at Maddie’s funeral, standing straight and tall in support of his sister. The only interesting thing Kate or I noticed was when Ben Merritt approached the bereaved Mrs. Harper. The sheriff of Palmetto County conveniently found someone to hold a conversation with as the St. George chief of police took Marilyn Harper’s hand and whispered something in her ear.
After that little show, Kate and I left.
Wednesday morning I was at Carl’s Sandwich Shop across the highway from Gillman’s having a BLT for breakfast when my phone rang. It was Bo Pickron.
“The autopsy and the forensics report showed it was a suicide, cut and dried,” he said. “The powder marks, blood spray pattern, bullet angle, it all shows George put the pistol to his right temple and pulled the trigger.”
“And he was right-handed?”
“Yeah.”
So much for my theory that Friendly George’s buddies did him in because he wanted out of the drug business. Hell, I wasn’t even sure he was involved in that mess at all, other than stuffing Ben Merritt’s pocket to keep Brett Barfield out of trouble.
“You got any theories why he would’ve done it?” I said. “Was he depressed or taking any medications?”
There was a pause. “Keep this quiet. George wasn’t on anything that I know of, but my sister was. Her doctor put her on Xanax when Maddie died. But the autopsy showed that George had enough of that shit and booze in his system to knock out a mule. He was the type who kept his emotions inside, but Maddie’s death hit him hard. He must’ve gotten the pills from Marilyn and mixed it with his bourbon. Xanax can cause suicidal thoughts in some people. That could be the reason he wound up killing himself.”
“How’s your sister holding up?” Pickron was being uncharacteristically cooperative, and I figured it would be polite to ask.
“She’s okay; a lot better than with Maddie.”
“Have your investigators come up with anything?”
“Nothing you don’t already know. What about those photos?”
“No word yet. I’ll bring ’em by when they’re ready. You might recognize something of interest I don’t.”
“Later, McClellan.” Always the charmer.
That afternoon Mark Bell called Kate at work. The photos were ready. I hoped like hell they’d lead to something. I’d been down enough dead ends already.
After Mark’s call Wednesday afternoon Kate asked the Gillmans for the next two days off. She hadn’t seen her folks in a while and planned to visit family and bring the photos when she returned Friday night. She invited me along, but my insurance check had arrived in Tuesday’s mail. I decided to go trailer shopping instead.
I left early Thursday morning for Tallahassee where a dealer sold the same line of camping trailers I’d had before. By five that evening I was setting up house in my new twenty-two-foot Grey Wolf parked among the pines at site 44. Home-sweet-home again.
I was up at daybreak Friday. I hadn’t been fishing since the day my old trailer burned. With Kate away I decided to spend the day wetting a hook. There were only a couple of vehicles in the lot when I arrived at Gillman’s. I grabbed my tackle and headed for the docks.
I did a double-take when I saw Lamar gassing up a boat near my slip.
“Hey, no eyepatch,” I said. A nasty, wide red scar ran from just above his right eyelid to just under the eye, then made a ninety-degree turn and ended at the outside corner. From the looks of it he was damn lucky he still had the eye. “You know, you don’t look as much like Johnny Depp as I thought.”
He glanced my way and grinned. “Morning, Mac. Who?”
“Johnny Depp, the guy who played Captain Jack Sparrow, the pirate.”
“Oh, him. Tonya’s got his poster plastered on her bedroom wall. Thanks for the compliment, I think.”
“How’s the vision?”
Lamar screwed the gas cap on and stepped off the boat onto the dock. “Still a little blurry, but not bad for a scratched retina.”
I started the motor. Lamar came over and freed my bow line while I took care of the stern. “Hope you learned your lesson about using safety goggles.”
“Damn straight,” he said, as I backed out of the slip.
I eased out of the canal, crossed the sandbar, and headed east. I kept about a football field’s length off the beach, content to ride the calm bay at low throttle, enjoying the early-morning cool before the heat and humidity set in like a wet wool blanket. I didn’t have any wire leaders with me, but I decided to give trolling a try anyway. I tied on the biggest deep-running lure I had in my tackle box, opened the bail on my spinning reel, and let the line trail out behind me. I had no idea how to troll, so I ran off about fifty or sixty yards of mono and closed the bail. I propped the rod against the corner of the stern, made myself as comfortable as I could in the seat, and waited.
In a few minutes a boat approached from the east. When it drew closer I saw it was one of Barfield’s boats, about a fifty-footer rigged for longlining. That meant it was headed way out for the deep-water gulf, probably after swordfish or yellow-fin grouper. I wondered if that would be the only haul the boat would be carrying when it returned in a week or so.
I was thinking about Kate and how much I missed her when I heard a rattling behind me. I turned around just in time to see my spinning rod with the hundred-dollar Okuma reel bend, lift off the deck, and slide over the stern into the water. Shit! So much for my trolling skills. I had two other rods aboard, but that combo had cost me damn near two hundred bucks. Well, no use crying over spilt milk—or submarining rod-and-reel outfits.
A few minutes later two more Barfield boats passed by heading for the open gulf. One was also rigged for longlining. The other had several “one-arm bandits” mounted on the rails; its crew was going bottom fishing for snapper or grouper or whatever was in season this time of the year.
I started to rig up again and then decided to hell with fishing. I’d spend the morning taking a little sightseeing excursion around Barfield Fisheries instead. I opened the first beer of the morning and toasted my lost rod and reel. After wishing it a final “bon voyage,” I gunned the throttle.
Approaching Barfield Fisheries from the water was impressive. There were five docks about fifty yards long running parallel to each other and about twenty yards apart. The second and fourth docks were shaped like a plus sign with a big crane sitting in the middle of the cross-member. It was easy to see that the cranes could easily boom over to service the two docks on either side. Sunlight glared off the roofs of the aqua buildings that rose in the background.
Pilings ran along the outside of the two outer docks, with room enough for a large boat to fit easily between the pilings and the dock. But what really grabbed my attention was the vinyl-covered chain-link fencing that ran the length of the pilings and disappeared under the water. Between each dock was a gate rigged with metal framing to raise up and fold overhead like a garage door. When I got to within fifty yards or so of the docks I noticed several anchored buoys with signs that read in big bold letters: NO TRESPASSING BEYOND THIS POINT!
It didn’t take an Einstein clone to figure out the Barfields wanted their privacy. I eased the throttle to idle and quickly rigged up one of my spare rods. I began making a show of fishing, staying in one spot for a few minutes and then puttering along to another. Being as inconspicuous as I could, I snapped several pictures with my cell phone. From this distance the quality would most likely suck, but Kate might be able to do something with them on her computer.
I kept at it for a good half hour, making sure I stayed well outside the warning buoys. I even caught and released several silver trout. A couple of times I noticed men in hardhats staring my way. I waved, hoping they’d take me for a friendly tourist out for a day of fishing. It seemed to have worked because each time they returned my greeting.
Then I noticed a guy at the end of the nearest dock scanning me with a pair of binoculars. I slowly turned my back to him and nonchalantly reeled in my line. I made a show of securing my rod in the rack, putting the motor in gear, and puttering away.
I’d just turned off the TV after watching the late news when my phone rang.
“Mac, I just got home,” Kate said. “Can you come over right away? You have to see these photos.”
“Aren’t you working tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but you’ll really want to see what I’ve got here.”
I couldn’t resist. “Okay, and if we’ve got time maybe we can take a look at the photos, too.”
“Very funny. What happened to Mac the gentleman?”
“Kate the seductress.”
“Just get your butt over here.”
I was dressed and at Kate’s in fifteen minutes. She gave me a quick kiss at the door and led me into the kitchen. On the table was a stack of 8×12 photos. She picked up the top photo and handed it to me.
“Look at this one and tell me who you see.”
I held the photo up and turned it away from the glare of the overhead lights. “I’ll be damned!”
What had been one of the fuzzy Polaroids was now a focused shot of Marilyn Harper and Lamar Randall cuddled side-by-side in a late-model Lincoln Continental. There were trees in the background but no landmarks of any kind that I recognized. Marilyn was behind the wheel, with Lamar so close to her you’d be hard-pressed to slip a sheet of card stock between them.
“Now this one,” Kate said.
Same vehicle, same location, but their arms were around each other and they were clearly lip-locked.
“There’s more,” Kate said, thumbing through the stack until she found what she was looking for. “Here.”
I took the photo and the magnifying glass Kate handed me. A man with long dark hair and a goatee was walking from the Harper’s detached garage toward Tara. Mrs. George Harper was standing in the open doorway, waiting.
“That’s Lamar, too, don’t you think?” Kate asked.
I studied the man with the magnifying glass. “Unless he has a twin brother.”
Two more photos at the Harper residence showed much the same thing, and though the quality wasn’t as good, there was no mistaking Lamar. So much for unrequited love. Mare and Lamar were obviously an item, or had been when Tom Mayo snapped these photos.
Kate opened the refrigerator, grabbed two beers, and handed one to me. “I wonder how long that’s been going on.”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t find any connection between them in the yearbooks I looked through, but Lamar’s had that tattoo a long time. And we know from Bo Pickron that Friendly George was screwing around on Marilyn from the get-go. Maybe she was giving the good mayor a dose of his own medicine.”
Kate took a sip of beer and slowly shook her head. “Lamar. I can hardly believe it. I thought he and Debra were happily married.”
“I’d be willing to bet Lamar’s been Marilyn’s lap dog for a long time. If she asked him to jump, he’d bark, ‘How high?’”
“Maybe. But still, poor Debra.”
I shrugged. “Love is a many-splintered thing.”
We spent the next half hour or so poring over the photos. Mark had been right; some of the photos were still so poor we couldn’t make heads or tails of them. But there was one shot Kate and I both found real interesting. Two men were standing beside the bed of a pickup truck, and from the gesturing that had been frozen in time, they appeared to be arguing. The photo had been taken at a distance, but the man with his back to the camera looked like our newly-discovered Romeo, Lamar Randall. The other person was in shadow, and his face was partially blocked, but Kate swore it was Brett Barfield.
“See the watch on his wrist?” she said, yawning. “See how the watch face is at the bottom of the wrist? That’s how Brett always wore his watch.” Kate yawned again. “I’m sorry, Mac, but I can barely keep my eyes open, and I’ve got to open the store at six-thirty.”
I waited for an invitation to stay the night, but all Kate offered was another stifled yawn.
Mark had made two copies of each photo. We agreed it would be wise if Kate kept one set and Joyce Mayo’s originals, and I took the other set. I still wasn’t convinced my trailer fire was an accident.
“Oh, by the way,” I said, heading for my truck, “tell your brother I said he’s a genius.”
After dinner and drinks at The Green Parrot Saturday evening Kate and I drove back to her house. I’d studied the enhanced photos more that day and had come up with a plan. I still hadn’t replaced the laptop I’d lost in the fire, but Kate said we could use hers.
First, Kate uploaded the photos of Barfield Fisheries I’d taken with my phone to her computer; she’d see what improvements she could make with the Picasa program later when she had time. Next, she downloaded Google Earth to her hard drive, and then I entered the address for the Harper residence. I zoomed in until we had a nice close up showing a matchbox-size Tara and the surrounding property. A narrow dirt road ran through the woods beside the Harpers’ property line. It would make a nice area to park and do some trespass snooping like Tom Mayo had obviously done.
Kate printed out two copies, and then we did the same with the Barfield photos. I was determined to gain access somehow, even if it meant taking to the water like a fish.
“When is Lamar’s day off?” I said as I studied the satellite shot of the Harper place.
“Usually Tuesday or Wednesday. It varies.”
“Can you check the schedule and find out for this week?”
