The next morning I was up and ready to go just before sunrise. My ribs still hurt, but I felt rested and ready. I phoned the hospital and waited five minutes before someone would pass along any information about Mia. No change. I was really starting to believe that Mia might not make a recovery. I packed all my stuff in the trunk of the powerful Jaguar and then slowly drove away from the Maple Leaf Hotel. Seven minutes later, I parked outside the IHOP and went inside. The late night shift was just ending. I didn’t recognize any of the staff. The hostess was a six foot four black kid who looked more like a NFL middle linebacker than most of them do. I ordered the short stack of Nut and Grain pancakes and a large glass of milk and sat quietly looking around at where I’d first met Mia. As I sat there, pushing pieces of pancake into the syrup, I remembered the way we had started so far apart and how we had moved into an incredibly happy relationship. That relationship was now wrecked. I knew that Mia, even if she managed to recover physically, would never be the same. I knew that because I had been there, done that when those two peckerwoods in the convenience store parking lot years ago had robbed me. I finished my pancakes, dropped a tip, paid the bill and left.
The sun was rising behind me as I sat in the public parking lot with the Jag facing the Gulf. I knew what I was going to do. I just wasn’t certain how I was going to do it. I phoned Detective Cooper at the number he’d given me the last time that we had talked. There was a pause on the line. The dispatcher asked me to identify myself. I told her my name and waited. I thought that somehow I’d been disconnected, but just as I was about to push the tiny red end button on the cell, I heard a harried voice. It wasn’t Cooper; it was Chance Kemp.
“Fred’s unavailable right now. I asked that calls from you be directed to me. Where are you? What do you want?”
“I was wondering what had happened with Billy Ray?”
“He’s still in custody. We’re probably going to have to kick him loose sometime later today. Anything else?” His tone, more than anything, told me that he had more important fish to fry. He wanted to get on with his busy day as top cop.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Have you been able to locate Langdon? I was supposed to meet him with you and Cooper today at lunch—remember?”
“Well, Stuart Langdon won’t be able to make that date Joe,” Kemp said quietly. “He was found dead in a Tampa alley late last night—multiple stab wounds.”
I didn’t know what to say. My mind was racing. Cops make enemies as certain as the sun rises every day. But Langdon getting killed had to be related to everything else that was going on around me.
“I’m sorry,” I finally managed to get out. “Do you know who did it or why?”
“We have no one, but we strongly believe that his death is somehow tied in with this Vickie Doulton case your friend stirred up. His wife, Babe, claims that you and Miss. Doulton gave him a fresh outlook on his life. I doubt that, but I know for a fact that after his heart attack and mandatory retirement from the force, he went into a deep depression. That’s when he started drinking more heavily. I haven’t been as close with his family as I once was. Babe said he told her you were just like him when he was a young guy. That’s why he threw himself into this. It got him killed.”
‘Load on the guilt, why don’t you, Kemp? You prick’, I thought as I listened to the growing silence.
“I don’t know what to say,” I confessed. I felt rotten, but I didn’t know what Kemp thought I could do about it. “If there was any way I could turn this all back to before two days ago, I would. I didn’t want any of this—for Langdon or for Mia.”
“I think you should come here to my office. There are things that you and I need to talk about,” Kemp said.
“Why, and what?”
“There are a number of questions that have to be answered,” he replied adamantly.
‘And guilt to be added’, I thought. This guy is an administration prick with his own personal agenda. I’m not going to go anywhere near the cop shop. I should just get on with it.
“What time does Billy Ray walk?” I asked wanting to get what I needed before I hung up on the jerk.
“I can hold him until sometime after we’ve met. I can even tell you where he’ll be released.”
Tit for tat—no meeting equaled no time of release and location of Billy Ray. Billy was the key to what I did next. Kemp was definitely onto me. No surprise there, you don’t get to be top cop by being stupid. But worse than that, I was getting the distinct feeling that he was trying to use me. Well, two can play at that game.
“There’s no way I’m coming into your office, so if you want to meet me, I’ll be a Crabby Bill’s at noon,” I said and hung up. Fuck him.
I spent the rest of the early morning going through my plans again and then again. I tried to anticipate the problems that might develop. About half of those problems ended up with me being dead. I worked hard to devise good working solutions for each of those problems. I then imagined the problems that those solutions might create. I still ended up dead in a few of the variations. But the planning had improved my odds. I then wondered if the worm on the hook is calculating the angles the same way when it is dropped in the water. I dismissed that whole line of thought as a bad analogy.
By ten o’clock, my brain was numb. The local shops were all open, and the tourists were heading to the beach. I drove away from the parking area to withdraw more money from my bank account and find a good map of the entire area with all the streets identified by name. I then stocked up on water, Diet Pepsi and a variety of food, mainly bread products and chocolate bars, at the local Walgreen’s before walking up to a Surf and Sand shop.
At the large souvenir emporium, I picked up some hats, sunglasses and the type of T-shirts that the tourists love. Almost as an afterthought, I added a navy, red with white numbered New England replica football jersey—another Tom Brady. I could use that stuff in different combinations to alter my appearance if and when I needed to. I knew where I was going to get a weapon, but that was best left until after meeting with Kemp if the guy even bothered to show up. I didn’t really believe that he would. But I had to give him the benefit of the doubt.
By eleven thirty, I had parked the Jag well away from Crabby Bill’s restaurant. I found a spot to sit at the marina fishing docks. A lot of regulars, as well as tourists were strolling around watching the early morning charters return with their catch. The hard wooden bench I sat on allowed me a good sight line to the entry of Crabby Bill’s. It also provided enough cover that I wouldn’t stick out like a matador in a maternity ward. I had to know with absolute certainty that I wasn’t walking into some kind of a Kemp engineered set-up. This meeting with the top cop was supposed to be a kind of off the record event. I didn’t want any surveillance thrown around me while I sat there eating my fish and chips. Although I needed the Billy Ray information, I was prepared to take a quick hike if I suspected that this was a trap. I was also watching for any sign of Billy Ray, Sammy or No Name because I knew they were out there looking for me.
At eleven fifty, a new black Lincoln Town Car pulled into a vacant parking space a hundred or so feet away from the side of the restaurant. Chance Kemp climbed out, did a quick two arm above the head stretch and a sneaky visual scan of the area before he slowly walked around to open the front passenger door. I didn’t like it already. Top cop was wearing shinning black loafers, tan pressed chinos and a check blue Madras shirt under a lightweight navy blazer—the better to hide his gun. He took another quick look around before opening the big Lincoln’s door. When it was open, a slim woman, who looked as if she might be in her early to mid thirties climbed out. She walked shakily beside Kemp into Crabby Bill’s. The woman was dressed in a simple yellow dress and beige sandals. She was holding a gray plastic Wal-Mart bag loosely at her side. I checked around the entire area. There did not appear to be any other new arrivals. No undercover cops. So far, I felt fairly safe, but I sat and waited for a few more minutes anyway.
Just as I was about to head for
the restaurant, I spotted Sammy Tolla idling along the dock checking faces. He appeared to be alone. I didn’t want to waste any time with Sammy. I stood up slowly and, keeping my face towards the signs and notices along the back edge of the pier, I shuffled along towards him. I slipped four quarters into a big coke machine and waited for the can to drop. While shaking the icy can in my hand, I slid around the side of the dispenser away from him. I waited for Sammy to reach the right spot. I could see him as he kept coming. When he was almost even with me, I lobbed the pop can into the air. It hit the deck two feet in front of him and exploded in carbonated spray. Sammy saw the can hit. He danced back and away just as I made my run at him. He went cart wheeling over the side of the dock. With a resounding smack he slammed into the backside of a moored fishing boat called Gotcha Two, and slid silently beneath the surface of the dirty water. He didn’t even know what had hit him.
“Help,” I yelled jogging quickly up the dock. “My buddy just fell into the water.” Nobody had been watching closely enough to know I had put him there. I hoped he could swim, but I really didn’t care.
The Blackberry chirped and vibrated. “Nice going Doc. Enjoy your lunch. Check under the Jag’s driver seat later,” Max said still laughing.
Five minutes later, I walked across the restaurant floor to where Kemp sat. His back was against the far corner outside wall gunfighter style. He had an unobstructed view of the entire dining area. He and his companion were studying their small lunch menus. I was only a few feet into the room when the muscular cop stood to greet me with a false, chilly smile—old pals united. We quickly shook hands and then he introduced me to his companion. The young woman had shifted in her chair so that she could look up at me.
“Paula, this is the gentleman your father told you and your mother about, Joe Holiday,” stated Chance Kemp in a soft, solemn voice. He then looked at me. “Joe, this is Stuart Langdon’s only daughter, Paula.”
“I’m pleased to meet you,” she said softly extending her slim manicured hand for me to take. “My father told mom a little bit about you.” It was quite evident that Paula Langdon was slipping in and out of the shock that accompanies grief. She must have been crying steadily since she had learned of her father’s death. Her face was pale and her glassy blue eyes were red rimmed. She held a wad of damp tissue in her left hand.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I replied as gently as I could. This wasn’t quite what I’d expected. I didn’t know where Kemp was going with this or why Paula Langdon was with him. To add to my guilt I guessed.
Kemp directed me with a short head nod to the seat beside Stuart Langdon’s daughter. The top cop then withdrew two four by six photos from his inside jacket pocket.
“You hurt your head Joe?” Kemp said as he nodded to scrapes on my temple. Fred Cooper told me that you needed these.” They were pictures of Billy Ray Boyle and Sammy Tolla.
“I stumbled into a door when I woke up this morning. Thanks for the pictures.” I’d show them to Ida May later. I could hear the sound of an approaching siren.
Chance Kemp went on to explain to me that, in spite of recent sad events, Paula’s grieving mother had asked him to allow her daughter to join us at our lunch today. Mrs. Langdon wanted to be sure that I received something that she was positive her husband would want me to have. Kemp went on to tell me that he had assured Mrs. Langdon that he would have been pleased to pass along anything that she wished to give me. Despite his assurances, the widow Langdon had insisted that her daughter accompany him. Whatever the reason, it must have been very important to the lady. Her daughter was still visibly distraught as she had every right to be. Her father had just been found murdered, and her mother expected her to sit down to lunch with Kemp and the person who might bear some responsibility for her dad’s death. Who wouldn’t be upset?
Someone else who didn’t trust Kemp? I wondered. Interesting. At that moment, a waitress appeared to take our lunch orders. I stuck with fish and chips. Kemp ordered a shrimp salad, and Paula Langdon asked only for Perrier water. There was a prolonged lull after the waitress left. I watched as an ambulance turned off the loop into the marina parking lot.
Finally, Paula spoke as she handed me the Wal-Mart bag beneath the level of the tabletop. “This is from my mother and me. There is a note inside the box.” She glanced quickly at Kemp. “Please don’t open it until you are alone. We will both pray for your safety.”
“Thank you,” I said as I accepted the package from her and left it sitting on my lap. It weighed a couple of pounds. I wondered again what could be so important about this package that a grieving widow would send her only daughter to give it to me.
“I’d like to return to my mother now Uncle Chance,” Paula said gently as she started to quietly cry once more.
“Of course,” Chance Kemp replied as he hastily pushed back from the table and came around it to assist Paula.
I stood up as well to offer assistance. None was needed. Paula Langdon and I briefly shook hands again and went through the nice to meet you routine before Chance Kemp led her away from the table. People in the dining room sensed that there was a problem and paused to stare as the two of them left together. Paula was holding the already soggy tissue to her eyes.
I’d forgotten to get the information on Billy Ray’s release. “What about Boyle?” I called out to Kemp.
He quickly turned back towards me, held his open hand to his ear and mouthed the words—Call Me!
I nodded once. I’d think about it. I moved around the table to sit in the space Kemp had just vacated. I set the Wal-Mart bag on the chair beside me praying that it wasn’t a bomb. What the hell was that all about? Life sure is a funny thing at times.
The waitress arrived with our orders.
“Someone get sick outside?” I said. “I just saw an ambulance pull in.”
“No,” she replied with a quick laugh. “Some guy fell off the dock and hit his head on one of the boats. I guess the poor guy almost drowned.”
After I finished and paid for the two and a half lunches, I took a leisurely stroll along the docks and back toward the Hilton Hotel. The ambulance had long since left with the unfortunate Sammy, but now I’d have to look out for his pals as well as the cops. I needed time to find out if I had picked up any additional attention. I tried a number of evasion techniques including two double backs and an in the front and out the back of a souvenir shop. When I was reasonably certain that I was not being followed, I headed for the parking area. Again, following the old dictate that you can never be too careful, I checked to see if it was being watched. And again, I saw nothing suspicious. The Blackberry chirped again.
“You’re clear,” Max said, “and I’m impressed. Do you need anything?”
“No, I’m good Max. Thanks.”
“No problem,” he replied. “I’ve got some stuff to do for Frank. I’ll be gone for awhile. Stay safe Doc.”
I briefly dropped by the Clearwater Beach library and found Ida May cataloguing some new books. I showed her the two four by six photos that Kemp had passed along to me. Ida May looked at the pictures of Billy Ray Boyle and Sammy Tolla carefully. After a moment, she nodded her head and said that, yes, these two jokers who had been looking for me the morning before. I guessed that at some time in the afternoon, Billy Ray had been dispatched to watch the hospital. No Name had replaced him as Sammy’s babysitter.
Ida May looked up at me and told me to be very careful if I ever met them because she was now certain that the two of them meant to seriously harm me. I thanked her for all her help and confidently told her again that they would not be bothering her in the future.
“But mums still the word,” I said.
Ida May nodded her old head slowly. There was no doubt in my mind that she must have been wondering what I had done to get these two birds so badly pissed off at me. I was wondering that myself.
I returned to my car and then drove slowly over to the Sand Key condo complex. I was starting to put my own plan into operat
ion. The first item on my list was to get a weapon.
Luckily, the guard on duty, a middle aged guy named Henry Crank, was on duty. He was working on a crossword in the security shack at the entrance when I arrived. He opened the gate for me. We had met a few times before. I told him that I was just there to go for a quick swim in the pool. We’re not really allowed to use the pool or tennis courts if it’s really busy, and we don’t. Generally, we considered it a job perk not to be abused. One of the guards, a month or so ago, had brought in all twenty-two of his relatives for a birthday party on a hot Sunday afternoon. He doesn’t work with us anymore. Henry told me that it had been a slow day so far and waved me into the parking lot with a wide smile.
Crank didn’t know that I intended to swipe the short barrel Winchester 94 carbine that is kept locked up in a cupboard right behind where he was standing. I knew it was there; all the guards did. None of us really knew why it was there. For psychological support or to blast a beached shark, I guess. I doubted that the thing had ever been fired. I wasn’t even certain that it was loaded. Since I didn’t want to have to explain why I was carrying a rifle across an open parking lot, I had parked the car as close to the security shed as I could. I only had to figure out how to get Crank to go on patrol around the property while I was here, and then the carbine was mine.
Just before I got out of the Jag, I decided that it was safe enough to open the wrapped box in the Wal-Mart bag that Paula Langdon had given me. I thought again about checking to see if the damn thing was ticking. Inside the bag, I found a heavily taped, brown paper wrapped parcel the size and shape of a shoebox. In fact, when I peeled away the tape and brown paper, that’s exactly what it was—a shoebox that, at one time, had contained a pair of size eleven double E New Balance black walking shoes. Now it contained a computer generated note, a loaded Sig Saur P230 automatic pistol with its safety on, an extra loaded clip and an unopened box of Federal 9 mm bullets. As well, either Babe or Paula had carefully wrapped something else in a soft baby blue hand towel. As I gently unravelled the towel, a MX12 Reflex Suppressor—the Cadillac of silencers—fell into my hand. Impressive, I thought as I started to read the note:
Dear Joe Holiday:
Please accept the contents of this box as a gift from my husband, Stuart and me. I know that he would want you to have them. I know that I want you to have them and to use them wisely.
In his day, my man was quite a marksman and also a knowledgeable gun collector. This one was a favourite. For some reason, Stuart never registered this weapon, so I guess it is virtually untraceable. The silencer simply screws onto the barrel that was threaded to accept it. The bullets were loaded properly into the clips while I was wearing rubber gloves. I hope this information is useful for you.
You probably do not know this about Stuart, but the last three or four days have been the happiest and soberest days he’s enjoyed since he had his first heart attack. When he suffered that attack, he was forced to retire from the police force. He owed his newly found happiness to his meeting with you and Mia Doulton. I’ve been told that the young woman is listed in critical condition. I will pray that she recovers fully.
If you need to contact me for any reason at all, please call the number on the back of this note. Please destroy the letter after you have read it and memorized the phone number. My daughter and I will pray for you and your success.
Babe Langdon
I wasn’t fooled for a minute. Babe Langdon wanted retribution. I didn’t blame her. Her note and the contents of the package were her invitation for me to wage war against whoever had killed her man. I could do that. I put the note and the rest of the contents back inside the box and then the box back into the bag. I had a weapon. I could decide later if I needed the carbine. The plan was coming together.
Just as I was about to leave the condo parking lot, I remembered Max’s invitation to check under my seat. I reached under and pulled out a Glock 27—just like the old days. It was neatly rolled up in a white towel. I checked. It was loaded and good to go. I didn’t expect or get a note from Max.
Kemp Blows a Fuse