Part 3 (1/2)
”s.h.i.+t. Can you call that deputy from Apalachicola?”
”What am I supposed to say? h.e.l.lo Officer. Somebody kicked in the door of my office in Mobile tonight, and now my secretary can't find her appointment book. So, I was wondering if you'd mind driving back out on the island there and checking on a female client who I told you earlier today was a man. And, by the way, I know I wouldn't tell you the client's name today and I'm still trying to keep it a secret because it might put her in danger, but...”
”You got a better idea?”
I didn't like it, but I dialed up North Florida information and then the sheriff's office in Apalachicola. Deputy Mickey Burns was off duty. ”We have a deputy on patrol. Is this an emergency?”
”I don't know. Probably not. I just asked for Deputy Burns because he helped me earlier today. I'm a lawyer in Mobile. I've got a client on the island who may be in trouble. It'd be a big help if your patrolman could just ride by and check on her.” The operator agreed to have a deputy do just that. I gave her the address and said goodbye.
Joey said, ”You know if you don't say it's an emergency they'll take f.u.c.king forever to get there.”
”Yeah, I know. But I'd have to do a lot of explaining to call in an emergency on St. George from a car phone in Alabama.”
”We're in Florida now.”
”Thanks for the update. But to make it an emergency you usually have to say someone's inside your house or you're in some kind of imminent danger.”
”I know all that. I used to be a cop.”
”Then what are you b.i.t.c.hing about?”
”I just don't like it.”
The truth was that we were both worried and irritated and feeling impotent and, in general, acting pretty graceless under pressure. I asked, ”How much longer?”
”If we don't run into any blue lights, we'll be there in less than two hours.”
I glanced at the digital clock on the dash. 10:33. Yellow-tinged high beams swept gray pavement ahead of the Expedition as it lunged and swayed and rocked along Highway 98 northwest of Panama City. Every ten or twenty miles, bright eyes stared and fixed on the headlights as whitetails froze along the roadside. ”It'd be hard to miss a deer at this speed if it was in the road.”
Joey said, ”f.u.c.k 'em.”
More road. Joey turned on the radio and played with the search b.u.t.ton until he found a soft rock station. I put up with Mariah Carey for a while, then reached over and turned it off when an old Journey song came on. Joey didn't complain. I don't think he realized I had done it.
We had been outside of cellular range for some time. As we neared Panama City, the in-service light flashed on, and I tried Susan again. She answered on the third ring.
”Where have you been? Are you okay?”
Susan sounded surprised. ”I'm fine. You knew I was going to pick up Carli from work.”
”You've been gone a long time.”
”She didn't get off till after ten. I had to wait. What's wrong? Has something else happened?”
”I don't want to scare you.”
”Then that's not a good way to start.”
”Sorry. Look, somebody broke into my office about three hours ago. All they took was Kelly's appointment book. It probably doesn't mean anything, but the book had your name in it. And, you know, after everything that happened today.”
”We're fine, Tom. Carli's here. We're locked up in the house, there's a guard at the gate, and I put the .38 in my purse. Go back to sleep. We can figure all this out in the morning.”
I said something like, ”Uh.”
”Is there more to it?”
”Kind of. Joey and I got worried when we couldn't get you. And, we're most of the way there. We'll probably be knocking on your door in about an hour.”
”Tom, that's sweet.” Now she sounded amused. ”Like I told you, we're fine. But you're almost here now, so you may as well come on. I'll put some coffee on.”
”It was Joey's idea.”
After I ended the connection, Joey said, ”Everything okay?”
”Yeah.”
”What was that about something being my idea?”
”She was thanking me for coming.”
I looked over at Joey's face in the glow from the dash. He looked like he was thinking about that. ”Want to turn around and go home?”
”No. We've come this far. I'll feel better if we go have a look around.”
The dash clock glowed 12:18 as we pulled onto Susan's driveway and a motion detector light popped on. Susan met us at the door.
We were sitting at the butcher block table drinking decaffeinated coffee when Carli descended the dark staircase and walked into the downstairs light. She wore a maroon Florida State football jersey for a nightgown, and a huge white towel wound around and covered her head like a turban. Wet black curls peeked out from beneath the towel. Susan said, ”Feel better?”
Carli just smiled and sat down next to Joey. Susan introduced them.
I said, ”Did you tell Carli why we're here?”
”I told her about your break-in. I also told her there's no reason for her to get worked up over it. Right? We don't have any reason to think the break-in was connected to Carli in any way, do we?” As she spoke the last two words, Susan gave me a meaningful look.
I'm not stupid, or, if I am, I can at least take a hint. I looked at Carli and said, ”No reason at all. Joey and I are only here because we tried to call Susan to tell her about the burglary, and we couldn't get her. If we had known she was just out picking you up from work, we would have stayed in Mobile.”
I wasn't the only nonstupid person at the table. Carli said, ”But your office got broken into after I talked with you today about those guys on the beach. And Susan told me what happened with those painters at the beach house where it happened.”
”Carli, it's easy to tie unrelated problems together when you're scared, but, like Susan says...”
Carli kept going. ”You called here right after you figured out Susan's name was in that book they stole. And you drove all the way here at midnight when we didn't answer the phone.” Silence hung in the air above the table. ”Isn't that right, Mr. McInnes?”
”You can call me Tom.” Carli sighed and lowered her eyes to stare at gnawed, glitter-pink fingernails. ”Carli, you really don't need to worry. Not about my office break-in, anyhow. You have to understand my and Joey's history with Susan. I got her into a pretty nasty mess about six months ago, and she ended up getting hurt pretty badly.”
Susan interrupted with surprising force. ”That was not your fault.” She held my eyes for a few beats and then turned to face Carli. ”My husband was killed last summer. They found Tom's younger brother a couple of months later on the bottom of the Alabama River. It wasn't easy and it cost him, but Tom found out what happened. While he was doing it, I got attacked by someone involved in both deaths, but that wasn't because Tom did anything wrong or messed anything up.” I opened my mouth to interrupt without really knowing what I wanted to say, but Susan kept talking. She was still looking at Carli. ”I just want you to understand that Tom feels some misplaced sense of duty to me because of what happened. That's why he and Joey drove down here in the middle of the night, and, as much as I hate to admit it, even to myself, that's how I knew he would drop everything and help you if I asked him to.”
Carli looked up at me for a moment. The towel on her hair had tilted to one side, and the insides of her eyelids, the part just inside her lashes, had turned red. I tried to smile rea.s.suringly.