Randy White - Everglades

“What makes you think that?”

“Because he told me. A few months before Geoff disappeared, he told me he was going to ask Shiva for some kind of resettlement. It had to do with all the money and property we’d given the Ashram. Geoff was about as mad as I’ve ever seen him.”

I asked her, “Did Shiva agree?”

“Yes. My husband said he had no choice. I don’t know what he meant by that.”

It took her a few minutes to explain that she didn’t know all the details, but the resettlement had something to do with a property the Church of Ashram owned on the northeastern edge of the Everglades.

“They’re trying to put in housing, hotels and at least three casinos. The casinos have to be built on Indian land for some reason, but that’s part of the plan because the church’s acreage butts up against reservation property. Even so, I know they were having permitting problems. Geoff told me that.”

I asked her, “Why would Florida Indians allow anyone to build on their land? That makes no sense.”

“Not their property, really. Shiva’s property. He’d sell the Indians his acreage for some ridiculously low price. A dollar, or whatever it takes to be legal. There’s a federal law that says an Indian tribe can incorporate purchased property as part of their tax-free reservation. In return, they’d let Shiva build his development and casinos. He’d pay them a percentage of the gross. That’s what he’s trying to get them to do.”

She added, “But the incorporated tribes-the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe-weren’t interested. That’s the last I heard. Geoff told me Shiva was going crazy trying to get them to go along with his idea. Money, political pressure, everything. He even started dressing like an Indian, trying to kiss up. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. But, the last time I spoke with Geoff, he said Shiva had an out. A way of making it work.”

“Did he give you any details?”

“No.”

I sat for a moment, thinking about it before I said, “Your husband. The deal he struck with Shiva. He was to get a piece of the casino development?”

“Yes. A big piece. Enough for him and Shiva to patch up their differences. But then Geoff disappeared.”

DeAntoni told her about the photograph.

Hands folded in her lap, the lady shuddered, staring off toward the mangrove circle that creates Dinkin’s Bay.

A bright night. Jupiter was like an illuminated ice shard in the April dusk. To the northwest was a dome of foggy light floating on a rim of gray: the stadium lights of Sanibel Elementary School. A Little League game was going on there, or maybe one of the beer-bash softball games.

DeAntoni said, “You don’t have to look at it. You already been through a lot. And I’m not the kind’a guy who’d upset a woman for all the fuh… fuh…”

He paused, flustered, trying to edit himself in midsen tence. “For all the, uhhh, freakin’ tea in China. So if you don’t want to see the picture, you want me to drop the subject, you just tell me, and it’s mum’s the word.”

Touched by his deferential manner-this huge, burly man behaving like a respectful adolescent-she smiled, reached and patted the back of his hairy hand. “You’re very thoughtful. If I’d known what kind of man you were, that you were just doing your job, I’d have felt safer, actually.”

Unsettled by the flattery, DeAntoni made a flapping gesture with his free hand. “You kiddin’? If I had some dago ugly as me followin’ me around, I’d’a called the fuckin’ cops myself.”

Sally seemed not to notice that DeAntoni slapped his hand over his own mouth, nor did she react to the profanity.

“If you have a picture of Geoff that proves he’s alive, I’m more than willing to look.”

“Okay. But I got to warn you right now, Mrs. Minster. There’s another woman in the picture. She ain’t naked or nothing, but she’s kind’a naked. Topless, I mean. I don’t want your feelings gettin’ hurt.”

Her voice steady, not giving it much emotion, Sally said, “The picture won’t bother me. My husband was having sex with the Ashram girls from the time he became a member. Little zombies is what they’re like. It’s allowed. Even if he’s still alive, he’ll never be my husband again. So why don’t you call me Sally? Or Ms. Carmel, if you want to keep it formal.”

When DeAntoni grinned, I noticed for the first time that his upper incisors were a bridge. He’d had his teeth knocked out-no surprise there. “Formal? Oh, no way do I want to keep it formal… Sally.”

My old friend smiled at his eager manner. “Then go get the photos, Frank.”

They were digital photos printed on Kodak ink-jet paper, ultra-glossy, of a man lying on a beach chair, his hand on the thigh of a lean, dark woman. She wore a string bikini bottom, no top. Pink cloth no bigger than the standard dinner napkin. The man looked to be naked but for a billed fishing cap. Both of them comfortable, two lovers judging from the relaxed poses, a couple used to intimate contact.

The photos were similar, both taken from the side, so the man’s face was clearly visible. Because her head was turned away from the lens, the woman’s face was not. In the first photo, you could see her body in profile, and that her brown hair was sun-bleached copper and salty, tied back with a crimson scarf that protruded from a straw sun hat. In the second photo, her back was to the camera, so all you could see were her hips and the hat’s brim.

At the bottom of the photos were a digital date and time stamp: Feb. 2, 4:32 P.M. and 4:35 P.M.

Today was Friday, April 11th. Geoff Minster had supposedly fallen overboard the previous year, somewhere near the Gulf Stream, on his way to Bimini, the night of October 27th.

If the dates were accurate, the photos had been taken three months after Minster had supposedly died.

DeAntoni handed the prints to Sally, who looked at them briefly, shaking her head in distaste or disapproval. She then handed them to me.

“It’s like he’s gone insane,” she told me. “Over a period of three years, he went through a complete personality transformation. Now he does something like this. It’s sick. Truly sick.”

I held the photos, saying to DeAntoni, “Isn’t it easy to change the date stamp on a digital camera?”

He nodded, “You go to the menu, change it to anything you want. Question is, why would someone fake the date, unless they knew Minster was gonna disappear? Why would anyone intentionally want to cause that kind of trouble?”

I said, “Well, one possibility comes to mind. Not a pleasant one.”

“What’s that?”

I said, “If someone planned to murder Minster, they might change the date, take the photograph. Kill the man, but make people like yourself keep looking, thinking he’s still alive. If authorities continue to search for him, they’re not going to waste time searching for the murderers.”

As DeAntoni said, “I hadn’t thought of that one,” Sally murmured, “What an awful idea. It never crossed my mind someone would want Geoff dead.”

I asked DeAntoni, “Are these your only copies?”

“No. I got two more prints made. One’s at my office. One’s with Everglades Home and Life. That’s the insurance company that may have to pay Mrs. Minster-Sally here-four million-five. Did she tell you that it seems pretty certain that the court’s going to rule in her attorney’s favor? Once that happens, the Department of Vital Statistics will issue a death certificate, and then the company will have to pay.”

I nodded as he added, “So I kind’a feel bad asking you to help me. I’m the one trying to prove you shouldn’t get the money.”

I raised my eyebrows, looking into Sally’s handsome face, seeing the dullness of her eyes enliven slightly, as she said, “Before I found my church, before my life changed, wealth and possessions-all that stuff-social status? They meant something. Now, though, I couldn’t care less about the money. So that’s the problem. Money. It’s one of the reasons I came to see you, Doc. And why I’m happy to help you find Geoff if he really is still alive.”