James Swain - Bad News Travels

“I will,” she said.

“And leave the Ziplocs in case I find something.”

“You got it.”

He listened to Nicki and her father go downstairs. Then, he picked up a wadded piece of toilet paper lying on the floor. It had caught his eye as he’d scoured the trash can’s contents. To his relief, neither Nicki nor Nolan had noticed it.

He peeled the balled-up tissue apart. It contained a used condom and was brittle to the touch. Martin Daniels was an athletic septuagenarian, and it wasn’t a shock to imagine him having sex. The surprise was the condom itself — Manforce Pink Bubblegum Flavored. He knew it was this variety because of the hot-pink color and bubblegum smell. When he was a cop, he’d busted many streetwalkers. He knew this was a favored brand, and that it also came in a variety of tropical flavors.

Had Martin been paying for sex? It was a reasonable assumption, and he wondered if it somehow played into Martin’s decision to end things. He would wait until he got Beth alone before telling her, and let her decide what she wanted to do. It was going to be a painful conversation, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. He sealed the condom into a Ziploc, and washed his hands before heading downstairs.

Daniels liked to be in control. The majority of times she and Jon went somewhere, she drove. This had nothing to do with Jon’s skill behind the wheel, or the fact that he sometimes drove too fast. She simply needed to be the one handling the wheel.

The highway back into town was two lanes, and lined with palatial beachfront homes. She drove with her window down, the ocean breeze tingling her face. Jon was in the passenger seat, his nose whistle faint and true.

She waited a minute before speaking. “You’re holding back.”

“So are you,” he said.

She turned her head and stared at his profile.

“Explain yourself, ” she said accusingly.

“Watch out, there’s a squirrel on the side of the road,” he warned.

She looked straight ahead. There was no squirrel lurking on either side of the highway, and she began to fume.

“Don’t do that again,” she snapped.

“Sorry. Where are we going, anyway?” he asked.

“To the sheriff’s office. Should we flip a coin to decide this?”

“I’ll save you the trouble. I found more than a couple of bloody tissues during my search. I didn’t tell your niece or brother-in-law, but wanted you to hear it first.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because it’s not pleasant.”

Her eyes burned with tears. Losing her father had been awful, and she wasn’t ready for more bad news. She grabbed a bottled water out of the holder and chugged it.

“Want to do this later?” he asked.

“No. Lay it on me,” she said.

“Before I do that, I need to ask you a question.”

They came to a traffic light. Braking, she gave him her full attention.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“Do you want me working this investigation?” he asked. “It feels like your father was in a bad situation, and I could find things that will hurt you. I don’t want to ruin our relationship.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You sure?”

She managed a smile. Jon wasn’t pretty to look at, but he was smart and honest and he could be trusted, and she hadn’t found many men who had all those traits. He was a good one, and she hoped he stuck around for a while.

“Yes,” she added for emphasis.

He dug a plastic bag out of his breast pocket. It landed on the dashboard, and she stared at a used condom of the hot-pink variety. Her mind raced with the possibilities of where it had come from. She swore, which was something that she rarely did.

“Fuck. Where did you find that thing?”

“In the wastebasket in your father’s bathroom.”

The light changed, and she goosed the accelerator. Her face was burning with embarrassment, and she stared straight ahead.

“So my dad was having sex. Big deal,” she said defensively.

“I was more surprised at the condom. It’s a brand I saw frequently as a cop. It’s bubblegum flavored, and it’s edible.”

“Meaning what? That it came from a hooker?”

“That would be my assumption.”

Her father was the classiest man she’d ever known, and the image of him having sex with a cheap prostitute was too much to bear. In anger, she punched the wheel.

“I’m sorry, Beth,” he said.

“Don’t be. I needed to know,” she said. “Thank you for shielding my sister and her family from this. I appreciate that.”

Jon lapsed into silence, and she sensed that the conversation was bothering him. For a long minute, neither one of them spoke.

“You found something bad in your dad’s records, didn’t you?” he said.

“How did you know that?” she said.

“Because you didn’t argue with me about the hooker. It’s a reasonable scenario, but there could be others. Your father went fishing with a group of buddies. Maybe one of them used the bedroom to have sex. It’s a possibility. But you accepted that it was your dad, which tells me you and Melanie found something in your dad’s records.”

“Were you listening through the wall?”

“No, Beth, it’s just a hunch. I suggested that your dad may have entertained a prostitute, and you didn’t fight it. So what did you discover?”

“His bank accounts were cleaned out.”

“How much?”

“One point two million dollars. The withdrawals were made during the past few weeks in the form of money orders. Where it went is anyone’s guess.”

“That’s a lot of money. Do you think he was being blackmailed?”

“That’s what my sister thinks. Melanie said that Dad was acting weird, and seemed to be under a lot of pressure. Extortion is certainly a possibility.”

“By who?”

She’d been wrestling with that same question. Pulling into the sheriff’s station, she parked in the visitor’s space by the front door.

“Let’s see if we can find out,” she said.

Lancaster had never known a woman like Beth. She did not tolerate fools, or foolish questions, nor did she like to explain herself. He had no idea why they were visiting the sheriff, but knew that in due time he’d have his answer.

They went inside. Beth identified herself to the sergeant at the reception desk, and then she asked to speak with the detective investigating her father’s death. Until a final report was filed, Martin’s death would be treated as a possible crime, and was the responsibility of the sheriff’s department.

They sat on a couch to wait. He wondered how much information Beth planned to share with the detective in charge. Would she tell him about the missing money, or the condom? His gut told him no. If Saint Augustine had a black mark, it was its police force, which had been featured in a pair of sobering documentaries that had run on the public broadcasting channels.

As the story went, the girlfriend of a rookie cop had been shot at point-blank range, and the evidence pointed to her boyfriend having pulled the trigger. For reasons that were unclear, the police department had concocted a story saying that the young woman was despondent, and had taken her own life. This was physically impossible based upon how the bullet had entered the dead woman’s head, and the fact that the victim’s jaw had been broken before she’d died. All evidence pointed to her boyfriend being involved.

But the police department had stuck to its crazy story, and no charges were filed against the boyfriend. It was the kind of coverup that gave small Florida towns a bad name, and when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had tried to clear the air and conduct an investigation, the police had closed ranks, and made it impossible for the FDLE investigators to do their jobs. Justice had never been served.