John Miller - Too Far Gone

“I understand you waited on Gary and Casey West yesterday at lunch. Are you familiar with them?”

“Sure,” she said. “They don’t ask for me, but if I’m lucky they sit at one of my tables. Their kid’s name is Deana. Mrs. West’s some kind of rich photographer, and he’s like a writer or something. What’d they do?” she asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” Manseur said. “Mr. West reported losing a valuable wristwatch and we’re retracing his routine from yesterday.” Alexa had to fight back a smile at the way Manseur changed the lost article from the wallet she had suggested. It was subtle, but told her he felt a need to put his initials on her suggestion to make it his. He was a man after all.

“Oh, that’s terrible. They’re regulars, every Friday. Yesterday they sat at a table up by the front door, but they don’t have a regular place or anything. They’re really nice and super-good tippers. I didn’t see a watch after they left. I didn’t see him take it off, but it seems to me he usually wears an inexpensive watch. Like a Timex or a Citizen, because we’ve discussed the way, you know, they’re rich, but not flashy. No bling for him.” A look of quiet terror crossed her features. “They don’t think I took it, do they? I would never do something like that.”

“They didn’t suggest you took it. We think a pickpocket might have. Did the Wests leave together?” Manseur asked.

Cindy’s brow creased as she contemplated the new question. “No, he left a few minutes before she and their kid did. I’m pretty sure Deana was still eating when he left. You wouldn’t believe how much that little girl eats. Mr. West paid the bill with cash. I know because he tipped me seven dollars and a nickel, which was their change. He always does that-tips the entire amount like that. I remember because it wasn’t very busy around that time, which it usually is on Fridays. But not like Saturdays. The hurricane thing has people jumpy, and I guess most people are putting wood on their windows, gassing up their cars, and stuff.”

“How did they seem?”

“Like usual, pretty much. They’re always laughing and joking around and like.” She looked off across the restaurant. “Happy. I mean, why not? They’re good-looking, young, and rich.”

“Nothing about them yesterday was different?” Alexa asked.

The waitress looked at her, surprised.

“You said ‘like usual, pretty much.’ So something was different. What was it?”

“Well, when I took their orders, she made some comment like, ‘I want to look at the menu,’ and he said, ‘As though there’s some mystery. She wants the gumbo.’ She said, ‘I can order my own food,’ and he said, ‘Excuse me,’ or something like that. Snippy. And anyway, she ended up ordering the gumbo, and they laughed about that. He was right. She always orders a bowl of gumbo and eats only half of it.”

“After that things were normal?”

Cindy nodded. “Like always.”

“So she wasn’t upset when he left?”

“Not at all,” she answered, glad to be on the positive side of her clients again. “They were talking and laughing like always. I remember thinking what nice people they were. He stood up, they kissed-I remember wishing my husband kissed me like that-and she touched his cheek and watched him all the way out the door. Oh, and he tried to kiss the baby, but she didn’t let him. Gosh, I hope he finds his watch. Anything else?”

“Thank you, no, Cindy,” Manseur said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Oh,” she said, laughing, “my name’s not Cindy, it’s Nancy. I wear the tag because I don’t want people to know my real name on account of some men can be too friendly and bug me, but I don’t wear my wedding ring because it really cuts down the tips. How skitzed is that? Plus, my husband is the jealous type. Men tip more if they think you’re single. Do you guys want to order anything?”

“Coffees,” Manseur said, closing the notebook. “Black for me. Alexa? And we’ll be eating breakfast.”

“Black is fine,” Alexa said, lifting a menu.

“Right up,” Cindy, who was really Nancy, told them.

“By the way, Nancy,” Alexa said, “did you notice any odd people in here yesterday? Maybe hanging around outside while the Wests were in here?”

“Odd people…in here? Throw a rock.” Nancy walked away laughing.

A minute later, she returned with two mugs of hot coffee and two menus. “I don’t think most people even know who the Wests are. Sometimes people who know them are here and they visit and like that. But not yesterday that I noticed.”

“Did you see any older green vehicles?” Alexa asked.

“No. Well, there was a beat-up SUV that I saw drive by about five or six times.”

“Wouldn’t be an SUV,” Alexa said. SUVs didn’t have glass headlights.

“Thanks, Nancy.” Manseur smiled. “You’ve been a big help. If you remember anything, please call me.” He gave her one of his cards. Unlike his boss, he only had one kind, with his office phone, fax, and cellular printed on them.

Nancy tucked the NOPD card into the back pocket of her jeans after reading it. “Is there a reward for this missing watch?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Manseur told her.

Nancy turned and went back to work.

“So it sounds like there was serious trouble in paradise,” Alexa said, opening the menu.

Manseur looked at her with a puzzled expression.

Alexa laughed. “I doubt their marriage could have survived the gumbo incident.”

Manseur smiled and shook his head. “Obviously they love each other.”

“He was abducted,” Alexa said. “There’s not a doubt in my mind. So there’ll be a ransom demand, or he’s dead.”

“See anything you want to eat?” Manseur asked, opening his menu.

“Detective Kennedy mentioned the seafood gumbo,” Alexa said. “Best on the Lakefront, he said.”

Manseur said, “Breakfast of champions.”

Betty Crocker felt like an idiot as she followed Parnell’s wide backside through the weeds and around the stunted trees and bushes. She had to fight laughing out loud, because the fool kept waving his hand around in the air, gesturing commands. The trouble was Parnell hadn’t told her what his signals meant. As far as she could tell, he could have been saying anything from “Follow me” to “Gal, I’ve got me some itchy-ass hemorrhoids.”

She was carrying the video camera and was tempted to film him from behind, but she was afraid she’d erase the hulk toting up into his private dwelling that sheet-wrapped object Parnell said was probably a gator with its tail chopped off.

Wildlife and Fisheries Officer-in-Training Betty Crocker followed the wide-ass fool Elliot Parnell onto the blistered-wood dock that anchored the floating-on-rusting-oil-drums, crooked little shack. Betty was careful to avoid the pool of crusted blood that looked like a pizza-sized scab that had flies scrambling over it and buzzing in the warm still air. On the dock, just underneath the tin porch roof, bowls of rusted fishing hooks and all manner of spring-loaded traps and empty-halfway-up scum-coated milk jugs were stacked helter-skelter on chicken-wire crab traps. The shack’s windows were covered inside with burlap sheets.

Parnell was sweating, so his shirt looked like he’d been juicing oranges using his armpits. The gun, a Smith amp; Wesson. 38, in his hand was rock-steady. He reached out and slowly turned the shack’s doorknob.

“It’s not locked.” Officer Parnell’s voice creaked just like the hinges on the door.

Pushing it open, Parnell looked inside. He took a step into the shack and his right foot crashed through rotten boards to his left knee. His right leg folded, causing him to bang his knee.