James Swain - No Good Deed

“Toole was horrible looking, wasn’t he?”

“His eyes weren’t normal. He looked like he was sleepwalking.”

“How did it make you feel, knowing it was him?”

“Horrible. I knew that it could have been me, and not poor Adam. Let’s wrap this up.”

“Just one more question.”

He braced himself. He knew what her question was, and wanted to answer her in such a manner that there would be no doubt in her mind that he was telling the truth about the course that his life had taken as an adult, and the decisions he’d made.

“You became a member of Team Adam after retiring from the police department,” Gamble said. “Did you know at the time that it had been named after Adam Walsh, and that his parents were responsible for it being started?”

“Believe it or not, I didn’t,” he said.

“How is that possible?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I didn’t say that. It just seems unlikely that you wouldn’t know.”

“I knew who John Walsh was through America’s Most Wanted . But I wasn’t aware of the other things he and his wife had done, like establishing the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and helping start the AMBER Alert program.”

“But you did make the connection.”

“Not right away. When I was asked to join Team Adam, I assumed the name had a biblical connotation. At my first orientation, I was given a handbook with the Team Adam guidelines. Adam’s photo was on the cover. That’s when I knew.”

“Did it give you goose bumps?”

Certain things in life were meant to be, and when they happened, their occurrence almost felt preordained. At that moment, he’d known what he was going to do with the rest of his life, and it had made him feel whole.

“I guess,” he said. “I need to go.”

“One more question.”

“You’ve run out of those.”

“This is a simple one. How did your brother feel when he learned that you’d become a member of Team Adam, and had dedicated yourself to finding missing kids?”

“My brother never found out.”

“Why’s that?”

“He died before I had a chance to tell him.”

“That’s sad. I’m sorry.”

She’d wanted a happy ending, but those were in short supply these days. Her question made him wonder how Logan would have reacted to the news that he was working for the organization founded by the parents of Adam Walsh. His brother would have seen the irony of it, but would Logan have appreciated the rest? Most people spent their lives not knowing why they’d been put on this earth, but a lucky few did, and he was one of those lucky few.

He walked her outside to where her car was parked. She gave him back the handgun he’d given her for protection a few days ago. He said goodbye and started to walk away.

“I’m sure he would have been proud of you,” he heard her say.

He drove back to his hotel with his phone resting on his leg, the purple dot still parked in the waters north of Honeymoon Island. Dexter and the broker appeared to be bunked down for the night, and he assumed their boat had sleeping quarters.

As he entered his hotel room, he got a call from his favorite teenage sleuth. He wanted her news to be good, and wash away his conversation with Gamble. He kicked off his shoes and sat on the room’s solitary chair before taking her call.

“Hey, Nicki, what’s up?” he asked.

“I got a hit,” the teenager said excitedly. “The Outlaws have another business they’re running on the side, and I found out what it is.”

There was no greater pleasure than cracking a case wide open, the surge of adrenaline better than any drug.

“Are you near your laptop? I just sent you a link,” she said.

He scooted his chair up to the desk and booted up his laptop. It had gone into sleep mode, and was slow coming to life. “Which of the companies was it?”

“Hurry Sunrise,” she said. “The other two were duds.”

Going into his inbox, he opened Nicki’s email, and clicked on the link. Hurry Sunrise was a charter fishing outfit that operated out of the marina that he and Daniels had visited that day. The company had been in business for thirty years, and specialized in taking large groups on three- and four-day excursions. There were photographs of sunburned clients holding trophy fish up to the camera, along with testimonials saying how great the staff were.

He found himself shaking his head. He knew guys who ran charter fishing companies in the Keys, and they barely scraped by. It didn’t seem like the type of business the Outlaws would be involved with, and he wondered if there was something below the surface that he wasn’t seeing.

“Are you sure this is the right Hurry Sunrise?” he asked.

“I’m positive,” Nicki said. “The company has a charter fishing license, which I traced to a Saint Petersburg address that is also the Outlaws’ clubhouse.”

“Huh,” he said in frustration.

“What’s wrong?”

“It just doesn’t sound like a business they’d be involved with.”

“Well, that’s the strange thing, I’m not sure they really are running a business. During one of the talks you gave to my class, you said that a good investigator would run down every lead, and see where it took her. So I took your advice, and called the contact number on their site.”

“You called them? That was nervy.”

“Actually, it was fun. I got an answering machine that said the company wasn’t taking any bookings, and that I should leave a message. When I tried to do that, a recording said the mailbox was full.”

“That’s strange.”

“That’s what I thought. For the heck of it, I called two other charter fishing companies that operate out of the same marina, and told them I was looking to hire a boat for my father’s birthday party. They were more than happy to take my business. I asked them what dates were best, and both companies said their calendars were wide open.”

“So business is slow, except for Hurry Sunrise.”

“I don’t think Hurry Sunrise has any business. You told my class that crooks use legitimate businesses to hide illegal activity. What was the expression you used?”

“A front.”

“That’s right. I think Hurry Sunrise is a front.”

It felt like a dead end. He had hoped that one of the Outlaws’ shell companies had purchased a building to house the gang’s victims, and that Nicki would turn up the real estate transaction, and that would lead him to breaking this open. Instead, she’d found a charter fishing company that had stopped doing business for reasons that weren’t entirely clear.

“Good job,” he said, not wanting to burst her bubble.

“Thanks. What do you think it means?”

“I have no idea. Why would a gang of crooks run a business, but not take any customers? It doesn’t add up.”

“It bothered me too. I wanted to call the previous owner, and ask him, but I didn’t think he’d talk to me.”

“What previous owner?”

“His name is Captain Peyton Lynch. He’s mentioned in the company’s reviews on Yelp. I found his address and phone number on Whitepages.com. He lives in Dunedin, which isn’t far from the marina.”

“How do you know this guy sold the company?”

“A reviewer on Yelp mentioned it, and said he really missed him.”

If Peyton Lynch was local, perhaps he’d know why the Outlaws had decided to stop taking customers after purchasing his business. He needed to call the guy, and see if he could get him talking.

“That’s some excellent detective work. Good job,” he said.

“Thanks. Do you want Captain Lynch’s phone number?”

“Please.”

Dunedin refused to bend to corporate America. Lining Main Street were eclectic shops and restaurants and several microbreweries. The locals had somehow managed to keep out franchise restaurants and chain retail stores, and it gave the place a special feel.