Randy White - Deceived

“They’re fishing pliers ,” I replied, showing her. “I had a charter this morning, but my client canceled.” I slipped the pliers back. “Your personal life is none of my business. It never crossed my mind that you’re-”

“Oh, stop it.” Birdy made a shushing motion, already tired of the topic, then patted the steering console of my skiff. “You’ve got the day off, huh? If I pay for the fuel, how about you take me out there?” She pointed toward the island where the remains of a western pyramid was elevated by trees.

“I’ve got to pick up clients at one and it’s nearly noon now,” I said, which was true but also a way of dodging her request-working for free is no way to run a charter business and it was the sort of offer I get a lot. Instead, I offered to show her the Marlow cruiser and explain the work needed to make the boat livable. By the time we’d finished the tour, I’d changed my mind. I liked Birdy Tupplemeyer, appreciated her high-energy way of dealing with awkward matters, so I suggested she come back tomorrow.

“I’m booked for the morning,” I explained, “but I can show you around in the afternoon. Are you off?”

She shook her head. “I’m new, so it’s Mondays/Thursdays off. But I could use a personal day.”

I rechecked my watch. “Okay, then. We’ll split the fuel. In return, maybe you can give me your opinion on a case I might be starting. It has to do with my mother, and maybe a bogus charity. Oh, and there’s something else-”

Sitting on the flybridge of the cruiser-a boat that was soon to be my home-I told the deputy what had happened to me at the Helms place and the little I knew about the murder of Dwight Helms. Despite Tupplemeyer’s energy and impatience, she was a thoughtful woman, and I soon felt comfortable enough to also share my fears about Levi Thurloe, too.

That night, when Loretta called in tears, claiming there was a man watching her from the yard, I was at the computer in my Uncle Jake’s office, a two-room CBS that adjoins a strip mall off Pondella Road. Lots of traffic and neon glare; cars with subwoofers that rattle the windows. For the last three years, I’d been living here alone and had done my best to convert the place into a homey apartment, even though I knew it would never feel like home.

Loretta called around ten. I had finished my charter at seven and arrived at the office thirty minutes later. My routine when entering the place seldom varied. I locked the door behind me and put the teakettle on while I showered. Changed into jeans and a clean blouse, then settled myself at the desk to work. Tonight, my routine changed slightly because the first thing I did was check e-mails-but still no word from Ford. More disappointing was that the two cheerful notes I’d sent him hadn’t been opened, possibly not even received in the remote Venezuelan village where he’d said he would be working.

“Shit!” Birdy Tupplemeyer’s affection for profanity was rubbing off on me because that was my reaction. I got up, rechecked the door lock, then fussed with the heavy curtains that shielded me from outside noise and the eyes of loiterers in the parking lot next door.

Stop fretting, I told myself, and returned to the computer, carrying a mug of mango tea. Joel Ransler had postponed our charter to investigate what he said was a murder scene. It didn’t take me long to find the few facts available. An eighty-two-year-old man, Clayton Edwards, had died of “multiple wounds” in a Sematee County mobile home park and his trailer had been ransacked. Murder-robbery was suspected.

The name Edwards is mentioned often in Florida history, so I spent another fifteen minutes searching for more information, then gave up. I had a lot to do: Fisherfolk Inc., the nonprofit organization based in Carnicero, had to have a founder, possibly even a board. What were their names? There were newspaper articles I needed to read about the Dwight Helms murder, and I also wanted to confirm what Birdy had told me about the Candors.

What kind of psychiatric research had Dr. Alice Candor conducted? Birdy hadn’t had time at the sheriff’s department to find out, or it was possible that medical journals were kept locked to all but subscribers. I also wanted to run a background check on Joel Ransler, who had confirmed by text he was meeting me at the dock in the morning. Everything about the man seemed genuine and likable, so why did I distrust him? No… that wasn’t fair. Truth was, I didn’t want to trust him because… why ? Was it because I found Ransler attractive, was flattered by his interest, even though I was already in love with a good man?

Nothing wrong with that, my conscience insisted. Finish with the computer, then go to bed. You won’t have to sleep in an office much longer.

It was never easy for me to be alone in this building at night. Living next to a strip mall was like waiting for a traffic light to change or for a bus to arrive-some sudden transitional signal that would thrust me forward into my future. Finally, it was happening. The beautiful little Marlow cruising boat would soon be my home, which is why most of my things were already packed in boxes. The office was becoming an office again, but that didn’t change the emptiness I felt as I sat alone, trying to ignore the headlights and rumble of passing cars, the voices of faceless strangers who parked outside to use the fitness center or to buy beer at the Shop N Go.

Soon, the search engines, which debit our agency monthly, began to produce information I could not have found on my laptop, and the noise outside was silenced. One by one, I created folders labeled Fisherfolk , Candors , and Helms Murder , then dragged files into them as they appeared. I wanted to arrange the files chronologically before I began my reading. Because I dreaded what I might discover about the murder of Dwight Helms, I also wanted to save it for last.

I opened the Candor file first, even before the search engines had completed their work. Everything Birdy told me about the couple was true, but her words hadn’t had the impact of seeing the mug shots of Dr. Alice Candor and her husband glowering at me from clippings in the Toledo Blade and Cleveland Plain Dealer . The charges made against their company, Firelands Physicians Regional Health Care, had made headlines. Something Birdy hadn’t mentioned was their company had also managed rehab clinics for the state penal system. It was a lucrative contract that had been canceled when six inmate patients followed through on a suicide pact that, supposedly, didn’t include a note explaining why they’d killed themselves. During the scandal that followed, letters to the editor about the Candors were so venomous, it was no wonder they had fled to Florida-a state where the best of people, and the worst, come to reinvent their lives.

Raymond- I now knew the husband’s name. I had seen him from a distance and hadn’t noticed his graying mustache or his pale, nervous eyes. A dog that fears his master’s voice and hand-the expression on the husband’s face was similar. Alice Candor’s credentials-degrees from Oberlin, Ohio State, and Johns Hopkins-suggested that she, the overachiever, was the dominant of the two. She had done research at a psychiatric hospital prior to going into private practice, then chairing Firelands Health Care, but had published in only two journals. As feared, access to both was restricted, then further restricted when I attempted to subscribe: licensed physicians, medical students, and authorized clinicians only.