James Swain - The King Tides

“The Zack Kenny we want was born on May 5, 1983,” he said.

Nicki checked the cases. “I’ve got a match.”

“Let me see.”

She turned the iPad so the screen faced him. “It’s the fifth case from the top.”

He found the case and clicked on it. A new page came up with links to the charge filed against Kenny and the various court proceedings. He hit the link that would let him see the charge. A new page appeared, and he read it.

“What did you find?” Nicki asked.

“Four months ago, a lady named Karissa Clement from Delray Beach placed a restraining order against him. Kenny isn’t allowed to see her or call her on the phone. Do you think if I called Clement and told her that he was stalking you, she’d talk to me?”

Nicki nodded excitedly. So did her parents. He pushed the iPad back to Nicki.

“Find her for me,” he said.

Nicki giggled and started her search. In his experience, teenage girls were not easy company, their mood swings and raging hormones the definition of bad chemistry. Nicki was different and a real delight to be with.

“What can this Clement woman tell you?” Melanie asked.

“Maybe nothing or maybe everything,” he said. “I’ll find out when I talk to her.”

“So you don’t know for sure,” Melanie said.

“There are no crystal balls in investigations. You go where the leads take you.”

“I think I found her,” Nicki said. “Karissa Clement of Delray Beach has a résumé posted on LinkedIn and works as a registered nurse at Delray Medical Center. There’s some background information and a contact phone number.”

“Let me see,” he said.

Nicki slid the iPad in front of him, and he had a look. LinkedIn was a popular site for business people looking to network or find a new job. Clement’s page contained a brief work history along with favorable postings from people she’d worked with. She hadn’t posted a photograph of herself, so there was no way of telling how old she was. But it wasn’t a common name, and he had to think this was the same woman who’d put a restraining order on Kenny. He gave Nicki her device back and rose from his chair.

“I’m going to go find a quiet spot, and give her a call,” he said.

“Do you really think she’ll help you?” Melanie asked.

Most people didn’t want to get involved in other people’s problems. That was different with people who’d been victimized, especially women, who did not wish the bad fortune that had happened to them to strike someone else.

“Yes, I do,” he said. “Let’s hope I’m right.”

Boston’s in Delray Beach was Lancaster’s idea of a bar. Fifty different draft beers on tap, clams on the half shell, and a clear view of the ocean. The four-lane road in front was ankle deep in water from the King Tides, and he parked several blocks away.

It was nearly three o’clock. Karissa Clement had agreed to meet up at the bar and answer his questions concerning Zack Kenny. Over the phone she’d sounded willing to talk about her ex-boyfriend, which he took as an encouraging sign. Getting victims of abuse to relive difficult memories was never easy.

He was running late and started to hurry. First impressions were important when interviewing victims, and he didn’t want Karissa not to like him. Kicking off his Topsiders, he crossed the flooded street and hustled down the sidewalk toward Boston’s.

At the front door, he put his shoes back on and entered. The interior walls were covered in framed memorabilia of all the good things that Beantown had to offer. Happy hour didn’t start until four o’clock, and the place was quiet.

He took a chair at the bar and cased the room. Two seats away, a drunk sipped rum and chatted to a cockatiel perched on his shoulder picking at his beard. Three seats from him, a teenager in cutoffs drank a Coke, her feet barely touching the floor. There was no sign of Karissa, and he wondered if she’d gotten cold feet.

“Looking for someone?” the female bartender asked.

“I’m supposed to be meeting a woman at three,” he said. “She’s named Karissa, lives in town. Has she been in?”

“That depends. Who are you?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

“Were you once a cop?”

“I was. Don’t tell me I once ran you in.”

“Hardly. I knew from the way you scanned the bar when you sat down. Most customers stare at the TV first. You didn’t. That was a tell.”

“You’re very observant.”

“I see a lot. If a person walks into a room and there’s a TV on, their eyes will go to it first. I read that ninety-nine percent of the population does that.”

“What does the other one percent do?”

“Nothing. They’re blind. What’s your pleasure?”

“Give me a Corona, no fruit.”

“You got it.”

While she poured his beer, he checked his cell phone for messages and found none. He’d hit a dead end, and he decided not to let the trip go to waste.

“What’s the best thing on the menu?” he asked.

“I’m partial to the lobster bisque,” she said, serving him.

“Give me a bowl and some crackers.”

“Coming right up.”

He sipped beer and watched the soccer match on the TV. The best part of living in Florida was that it didn’t take very long to feel like you were on vacation. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied the bartender talking with the teenager in a hushed voice. The teenager hopped off her stool and came toward him.

“You must be Jon,” she said.

He hated to be wrong. This girl was too young to be Karissa. Then he noticed the crow’s-feet around her eyes and realized she was much older than he’d thought.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore you,” he said, unable to hide his surprise.

“It’s not the first time it’s happened,” she said. “Let’s get a table in the restaurant so we can have some privacy.”

He threw down money for the bisque and the beer, and they went into the adjacent restaurant, which had old black-and-white photographs of commercial fishermen and the Red Sox adorning the walls. They picked a table in the rear of the otherwise empty room.

“I realize it’s none of my business, but how old are you?” he asked.

“I’m thirty-one, soon to turn thirty-two,” she said. “I know, I don’t look it. You said over the phone that you wanted to talk about Zack. Is he up to his old tricks?”

She had turned the conversation to her ex-boyfriend without prompting. That was unusual, and it made him wonder if she had an ax to grind.

“Your ex-boyfriend is stalking my client, who happens to be fifteen years old,” he said. “I did a background search, and saw that you slapped a restraining order on him. I was hoping you might tell me why you did that.”

“I was afraid he was going to hurt me.”

“Was he violent?”

“Our relationship was moving in that direction. He was texting me every half hour, and when I didn’t answer him right away, he’d call me. I work in a hospital ER as a nurse, and we’re not allowed to keep our cell phones powered up. Zack started showing up when he didn’t hear from me, demanding that I stop what I was doing so he could see me. He got escorted off the hospital grounds a few times.”

“Were the police called?”

“No. The hospital handled it internally.”

“Is that normal procedure where you work?”

“I asked them to.”

She frowned at the memory, and he could tell that the conversation was starting to hurt. She eyed his glass of beer sitting on the table. He pushed it toward her, and she picked it up and took a long swallow. It left a foam mustache on her upper lip. She wiped it away and then took a deep breath to get her courage up.