Charlotte Douglas - Spring Break

Madison gazed at the picture and shook his head. “Mrs. Branigan only recently returned from Tallahassee.”

“When exactly was that?”

“I am not allowed to talk about my employers, a condition in my contract.”

“Thanks.” For nothing.

He shut the massive wooden door behind me, and I walked to my car.

The Clearwater Police Department was only minutes away. I arrived to find Adler working late. He was at his desk in CID and eating a foot-long steak-and-onion hoagey. Rarely had I seen Adler when he wasn’t eating, but where he packed the calories on his lean, muscular body was a secret many would kill for.

“Branigan’s wife claims he was at a fund-raiser in Tallahassee last night,” I said.

Adler wiped grease from his fingers and turned to his keyboard. With a few strokes, he accessed the Internet and pulled up a Tallahassee newspaper Web site. A few more keystrokes, and a news photo of Branigan and the governor, taken at Monday night’s party, appeared on his monitor.

“The wife’s story checks out,” he said. “You talked to Edward Raleigh yet?”

“Next stop,” I said. “What have you got?”

“According to this photo with Branigan, the governor was in Tallahassee Monday night, too. But I did some digging before you got here, and your Tampa murders occurred during his first run for office.”

“The one he didn’t win?”

“Right. But his publicity people released an itinerary for his appearances during that time. It’s in the archives on his campaign Web site. I cross-checked it with the dates of the original murders, and the governor was either in South Florida or the Panhandle when all three murders—and the attempt on young Deirdre Fisk—occurred.”

I nodded. “He was never high on the suspect list and eliminating him narrows our field.”

“The field’s getting smaller fast. Ralph Porter, my partner, tracked down the father of the teen who won the scholarship. He was in Gainesville with his son last night, scoping out the campus for the fall semester. The Hampton Inn confirms that the family checked in Sunday afternoon and are still registered.”

“And Representative Warner in Bradenton?”

“He wasn’t answering his home phone, so I called his Manatee office. His aide says the entire Warner family flew from Tallahassee to Big Sky, Montana, Friday for spring break. Gave me the name of their resort. I reached the manager by phone and he corroborates that they’re booked through next weekend.”

“So neither of us had any luck.”

“How about with your dognapper?” Adler took another huge bite of his sandwich. He must have seen the longing in my eyes. “Want some? I can give you half.”

“No, thanks.” I was still doing penance for tiramisu and would be counting calories the next few days. “I found the dog, but my client’s former employee is holding it hostage.”

“That’s easy enough. Have a uniform pick up the little beast.”

I shook my head. “My client insists on strict secrecy and no publicity. I’ll have to come up with another angle. Any ideas?”

“You could always send in Malcolm, disguised as Animal Control.” He grinned.

“Maybe, as a last resort.”

“By the way, I got a call this afternoon from Elaine Fisk to give me her temporary address and phone number. She said you suggested she move in with her friend for the time being, and she followed your advice.”

“Good. If whoever killed Deirdre did so to cover up three other murders, he’ll have nothing to lose by taking Elaine out, too, especially if he’s afraid she might ID him. But with all but one of our suspects from the photo with alibis, it’s looking more likely that her murder was random.” I nodded toward the case file on his desk. “Do you have any suspects from the park where Deirdre was found?”

Adler shrugged. “It’s a known hangout for drug users and dealers, hookers and homeless. A lot of those vagrants are mentally unstable. Deirdre’s wallet was empty. She could have been killed for a few bucks.”

“Or the killer could have taken her money to make it look that way.”

“We’ve canvassed most of the known regulars at the park,” Adler said. “Either nobody saw anything or nobody’s talking.”

“Any prints on the wallet?”

“Some smudged partials,” he said. “No matches in AFIS.”

I considered Adler’s description of the park’s seedy inhabitants. “There’s another possibility. Whoever killed Deirdre could have left her purse untouched, and someone else took her money before the cops came.”

The nerve endings in my skin went into spasms, and I reached into my purse for Benadryl caplets.

“The water fountain’s over there,” Adler said.

I crossed the room, washed down the pills and returned to his desk.

“So—” he dumped the papers from his takeout into the trash “—looks like we’ve narrowed our news photo suspects to Representative Raleigh.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying not to scratch, “if you don’t count the druggies, vagrants and prostitutes.”

“Let’s be optimistic. Maybe when you talk to Raleigh tonight, he’ll confess and save us a lot of trouble.”

I shook my head. “You know what they say.”

“What?”

“An optimist claims we live in the best possible world, and the pessimist fears it’s true.”

He grinned. “You’ve been at the books again.”

“Not often enough. I’ll see you at the autopsy in the morning.”

Afraid that once I reached home, I wouldn’t drag myself out again, I decided to ignore my grumbling stomach and visit Edward Raleigh before I called it a night.

When he wasn’t in Tallahassee, Raleigh lived on the edge of the golf course at the Osprey Country Club just north of town. I turned off Alternate U.S. 19 into the entrance of the classy subdivision, drove past the clubhouse that bordered Osprey Lake, and wound my way through the curving streets that followed the configuration of the golf course.

With my car windows down, I caught a faint whiff of orange blossoms from trees in the spacious yards. The hundreds of thousands of acres of commercial groves that used to overwhelm the county each spring with their heavy perfume were a thing of the past, victims of population growth and development, and the elusive scent made me nostalgic.

The sun was setting when I arrived at Raleigh’s sprawling Key West style home, and lights blazed through the angled Bermuda shutters on the front windows. A Cadillac with its trunk open was parked in the driveway, and a middle-aged man and woman stood at the rear of the car, holding pieces of luggage. I couldn’t tell if they were leaving or arriving.

I parked in front of the house, and they set down their bags when I left my car and approached them. “Mr. and Mrs. Raleigh?”

“Yes?” the man said.

I showed my ID, clearly legible in the light above the garage door. “I’m Maggie Skerritt.”

“I know you,” Mrs. Raleigh said. “You’re the detective who solved the Lovelace murder back before Christmas.”

“I was a detective. Now I’m a private investigator, and I’m helping the Clearwater Police Department with a case.”

“We can talk inside,” Raleigh said with warm hospitality and a politician’s smile. He probably figured me for a registered voter. “We’ve just returned from a trip to Mobile to visit our grandkids. Our grandson’s first birthday was yesterday. It was quite a celebration.”

“When did you leave Mobile?” I asked.

“Early this morning,” Mrs. Raleigh said. “We drove straight through.”

“If you can verify that, I won’t take any more of your time.”

Raleigh reached into the pocket of his shirt and handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s a credit card receipt for gas when I filled up this morning before we left.”