CHAPTER TWO
My buddy Logan Hamilton and I were having lunch at Mar Vista, the bay-side pub in the Village on the north end of Longboat Key. The year-rounders, those of us who don’t go north in the spring and return in the late fall, know better than to sit outside in June. The heat and humidity, while not as bad as August, is brutal. Even the sea breezes that blow across our island don’t bring relief. It is just hot air. Logan said it reminded him of trial lawyers, my former profession. I never argue with him when he’s right.
We sat at a table next to a wall covered in currency of every kind, much of it American greenbacks. Many of the bills had messages scrawled on them from people who had left them along with their names and the dates of their visit. I wondered what made otherwise sane people tack good money to walls or throw coins into fountains. Like much of the human condition, it was a mystery to me.
Logan and I were planning a fishing trip for that evening. We thought we might have some luck after dark anchored off the north end of the Sister Keys just outside the channel. And if the fish weren’t biting, we had beer and a lot of lies to tell. We’d get to Moore’s Stone Crab Restaurant before closing and have a drink or two with Debbie the bartender. Maybe a nightcap at Tiny’s. Not a bad way to spend a hot evening in Southwest Florida.
I was having the Caesar salad with blackened shrimp and Logan had ordered his usual, deep fried scallops and a Dewar’s and water to wash it down. I felt the heat as the door to the parking lot opened behind me. Then, a voice. “Matt Royal, there you are.” Cotty Johnson. I turned and saw my eighty-something-year-old neighbor coming toward us. “Hey Logan,” she said.
Logan and I stood. Cotty pecked us both on the cheeks. “Join us,” I said.
“No, thanks. Shirley Beachum is on her way. We thought we’d see how the vodka stock is doing.”
I laughed. “Sit until she gets here.”
Cotty took the chair next to Logan, across from me. “I guess you heard about the guy getting shot on the beach this morning.”
I hadn’t. Cotty knew everything that happened on the island, and often knew it before anybody else. No one ever figured out how she knew so much so quickly.
“Shot?” asked Logan.
“Yes. Apparently a high-powered rifle. The police think the gunman was in one of the condos just south of the Hilton. Got the guy right in the chest. He was dead before he hit the sand.”
“Who was he?” I asked. “A local?”
“No. Some guy from Atlanta. Got married yesterday. He and his bride were staying at the Hilton. He went out for a jog early this morning.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Not really. There were a couple of people on the beach who heard the shot and saw the guy hit the ground, but nobody saw where the shot came from.”
“Any leads at all?” Logan asked.
“Not that I’ve heard. Bill Lester and that new detective J. D. Duncan are still at the Hilton doing whatever it is they do.”
Bill Lester was the Longboat Key chief of police and J. D. Duncan was a detective who had recently joined the force after fifteen years with the Miami-Dade Police Department.
I felt another heat blast as the door opened again. Shirley came over to say hello and she and Cotty went to the bar and took seats. By the time they left, all the island gossip would be told and retold. As good a way as any to spend a hot afternoon.
Logan sipped his Scotch. “What do you make of the shooting?”
“No idea. I wonder who the victim was.”
“The Chamber of Commerce isn’t going to like this. They’ll be afraid the publicity will scare the tourists away.”
“I don’t know. It’s not like people regularly get mowed down on our beach.”
“You’re probably right.”
Our conversation turned back to fishing. We put together a plan that mostly involved the question of where to get the beer and bait. We decided on Annie’s in the settlement of Cortez across the bay.