“A detective will call you,” he replied, and was gone.
I felt dazed. Yesterday, on the phone, Kermit had said he might have to hike across the pasture to rescue the orange seeds he’d left behind. This was in the afternoon, shortly after I’d left the greenhouse. Why would he return to the property late last night?
A couple of plausible answers flitted through my mind-the threat of frost, an argument with his wife. Both made sense. But why had she reported her husband missing at the exact time he and I were exchanging texts?
It took her a while to get here with the keys, the deputy had told me.
Two scenarios emerged: Kermit had texted me from his truck, then left without his phone. Or… a person posing as Kermit had sent those messages, then deleted them before locking the phone in the truck.
Who?
Someone knowledgeable, that’s who. And strong enough-or sufficiently charming-to keep a loving father away from his home.
Kermit might be dead.
The word shock accurately describes the electric jolt that radiated from my spine upward. It sharpened my senses and narrowed my focus.
I did a slow turn. Beside the boat ramp was a van, windows dark. Nearby was what I had assumed was a mullet boat, engine running. No… the boat had twin engines, which my ears confirmed. Only the elevated helm was visible. It wasn’t a tower, but this was no guarantee it wasn’t Larry’s over-powered cat boat. Hinged towers can be removed.
I stepped backwards into my SUV, locked the doors, and removed the pistol from my shoulder pack. It was in an old Galco holster; soft saddle leather designed to be concealed by a jacket or shirt. I slid it onto my belt and positioned it comfortably against the small of my back. As I fitted the pistol into the holster, headlights panned the windows, and a car pulled in beside me.
A white Lexus SUV.
Thank god, Sabin Martinez.
***
As relieved as I was, I waited until Martinez was walking toward me, smiling through his Hemingway beard, before I got out. I held up a warning finger. “We have a problem,” I said.
“Not if you’re worried about Larry.” He motioned to his car. “Come on. I’m freezing my tail off out here.”
“It has to do with Kermit Bigalow. Do you know him?”
“The citrus expert Harney hired about four months ago. Yes, he’s a good man. Harney trusted him. What’s this about?”
A good and trustworthy man- the words caused me to wince.
I said, “A deputy just called. Kermit didn’t go home last night. They found his truck near the gun club, off the main road. His wife reported him missing around ten.”
“That’s not like him.” Martinez, wearing a hooded parka, blew into his hands for warmth. It gave him time to think. “There’s probably a simple explanation, but don’t count on it. First Reggie, now this. It was around ten?”
“That’s when his wife called the police,” I said, then explained about Kermit’s phone; that maybe I’d exchanged texts with someone else.
“Damn it… I didn’t anticipate him going after anyone but you.”
“Larry?”
“That’s one of the names he uses. I left him at the bar last night around seven. Everything was all set, I thought. In fact, I was sure of it until just now.”
I nodded toward the seawall. “That might be his boat. I didn’t see him, but he could be behind that van, for all we know.”
Martinez shook his head in a dismissive way, which freed his gray ponytail from the hood. “Impossible.”
“How can you be so sure? You believe he has something to do with Kermit disappearing. Maybe Reggie, too. You just said as much. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
A sharp look reminded me that questions were not welcomed. “You don’t want to know, Hannah. Just take my word for it.” He blew into his hands again, and found the eastern sky. “The sun won’t be up for half an hour. How about we sit in my car, with some heat, while we talk?”
“The place I’m headed,” I said, “I need to trust the person with me. I’ll leave you here, Mr. Martinez. I’d hate to do it, but I will if you don’t tell me the rest.”
“My, my… Captain Hannah,” he said in a musing way as if thinking back to his days with Harney Chatham. “Okay. Yes, I think Larry got his hands on Reggie. Maybe Kermit, too. Larry’s real name-you wouldn’t recognize it-but, years ago, Lonnie had a thing for him. Lonnie had a thing for a lot of football stars. This guy-Larry-he’s the only one she cared enough about to help after he’d killed somebody. It’s a long story. Point is, you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
I remembered Birdy say she had found zero information about the man prior to his twenty-fifth birthday. “Good Lord… Larry… he’s actually Raymond Caldwell,” I said. “That never crossed my mind.”
“Reggie must’ve told you about what happened,” Martinez said. “No one else could have. Well… Lonnie, of course, but she wouldn’t. She’s paying him to screw up the project because she hates you and your mother-wants the orange tree patent, and everything else.” As he spoke, a pair of rough-looking teens appeared from behind the van. They wore yellow rubber coveralls, as commercial fishermen often do, over layers and layers of clothing. They stopped to light cigarettes, then got into a boat whose name I didn’t recognize when they pushed off.
Now Martinez’s expression asked, Convinced?
“Orange trees can wait,” I said. “If you’ve got proof that Larry has something to do with Kermit, or what happened to Reggie, you have to call the police.”
“That would be unwise.”
“We’ve got to! Kermit might still be alive.” I said this with more emotion than intended. It did not go unnoticed.
The man repositioned his ponytail while studying me. “You and Kermit, yes… I can see that happening. A strong guy with a sense of humor. You’d be a good match, you two. But there’s nothing we can do now. Besides, I told you, I was in a bar with Larry last night. People saw us together. He’s a talker. He might have told someone I booked his boat for this morning.”
“You didn’t. You chartered Larry’s boat?”
“Buddy Luck,” Martinez said, nodding. “Tell you what, if you won’t get in my car, how about we sit in yours-at least until there’s enough light to check for frostbite.”
He started toward my SUV but stopped when he realized I hadn’t followed. “Look… Caldwell disappeared years ago. He’s presumed dead. Forget ever hearing this, but he might disappear again”-Martinez considered the sky, then his watch-“if he shows up for our charter on time.”
“Where are you supposed to meet?”
Off Cape Romano, the man informed me. It was an uninhabited island to the south. “In about an hour,” he added. “Seven-thirty, give or take. The guy’s not very punctual.”
There wasn’t much light. I moved just enough to observe his reaction, before saying, “You’re using me as bait, aren’t you?”
If he lied, I would leave him there and drive home. No… I would go straight to Salt Creek Gun Club, seeking the fate of a good man I had wrongly treated with suspicion.
Martinez, reading me, too, said, “Yes… exactly. As bait. Why else would I stand out here trying to reason with a woman I promised to protect?”
Sunrise was a gray intrusion, slower for the frigid weight of darkness and stars. I stopped south of the Coon Key light to let my face thaw and watched a gloom of silhouettes brighten into islands. Already, we’d stopped twice because of the cold.
“I should’ve asked before we left,” Martinez said. “Did you bring a gun? In my glove box, there’s a Glock compact. I went off and forgot the darn thing.”
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