Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective (6 page)

“She says she is seriously considering selling the business.”

“I guess that’s not too surprising. Vera never struck me as the kind of person who wants to run a chain of supermarkets. Any idea who she would sell it to?”

“She might sell it to me,” Freddie said.

“Whoa, hold on there a minute. Are you seriously thinking of buying Dayton’s?”

“You don’t think I can?”

“Can you?”

“Let’s put it this way: there appears to be real interest from my people in Chicago.”

“You have people in Chicago?”

“Investors I’ve worked with in the past.”

“You would
own
Dayton’s?”

“I wouldn’t own it, exactly, but I would head a syndicate that would purchase the five stores in the chain, yes.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said, even though he was. “I mean, if anyone could pull off something like this, it’s my wife.”

“Well, thanks for that vote of confidence, but it is all in the very early talking stage,” Freddie said. “Vera is all over the place. One day she wants me there, the next she doesn’t. One day she wants to sell; the next she’s thinking about hanging on.”

Tree sat there taking all this in.

“The silence,” she said. “What does that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. I’m excited for you. I hope it happens.”

Did he really mean that? He wasn’t certain. At moments like this Tree realized just how far away he was from the world in which Freddie operated. He wondered what the reaction would be if he went to Chicago looking for enough money to buy a chain of supermarkets. He wouldn’t even know whom to ask. Freddie did. That was the difference.

She sipped at her wine, and said, “Tell me about your day.”

“Rex has a new boat, and, of course, can’t get the engine started.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve got a new client.”

Freddie raised her eyebrows to encourage him to go on.

“The former head of Pakistani Interservice. Apparently, it’s the Pakistani equivalent of the CIA. His name is Miram Shah.”

“The former head of the Pakistani secret service is here?”

“He’s living on Useppa Island. They took me out there by boat this afternoon to meet him. He wants me to work for him.”

“To do what?”

“To find his missing fiancée.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to believe who his fiancée is.”

“Try me,” Freddie said.

“He says he’s engaged to Elizabeth Traven.”

Freddie’s face darkened perceptibly. “Elizabeth Traven is going to marry a Pakistani spy? I don’t believe it.”

“After I got back from Useppa, I dropped around to her place.”

“Oh, great,” Freddie said.

“She wasn’t there. The gate was locked. The place looked deserted.”

“And you’re going to do this? You’re going to try to find her?”

“What would you say if I said yes?”

She rose and came over and bent to kiss his mouth. “Tree, my darling, Tree, we are getting too old for this. I am sixty now, remember?”

“That’s impossible,” Tree said. “I know that’s what you told me in Paris in order to lure me into bed with you.”

“If I was trying to lure you, I wouldn’t tell you I was sixty.”

“You’re lying through your teeth.”

“Nonetheless, we could be on the verge of, financially, not having to worry about anything. I don’t want to spend the rest of whatever life I’ve got left wondering whether my husband is coming home.”

“I always come home,” Tree said.

“This from a guy who no sooner became a private detective than he got himself shot.”

“It was a couple of weeks at least.”

“Who was almost dinner for two alligators.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you about that.”

“And not so long ago lost most of his front teeth in a beating.”

“But the point is, I survived the gunshot wound. The alligators didn’t eat me, and I’ve got lovely new teeth that make me look like Brad Pitt.”

“No, the point is, you’ve been very lucky. But one of these days your luck is going to run out.”

“It’s going to run out for all of us,” Tree said. “It’s how you live until you die. That’s what makes the difference.”

“You’ve been reading Hemingway again.”

That reduced them both to silence.

“To tell you the truth, I’m worried about Elizabeth,” Tree said finally. “What’s she doing mixed up with spies?”

“It’s not worry,” Freddie said. “The correct term is obsession.”

“No, it’s not. I didn’t look these people up. They came to me.”

“But how do you think they got your name, Tree?”

“They say they got it from Elizabeth,” Tree said.

“Why is she giving them your name? And if this guy really is a spy, why does he need you? Doesn’t he know other agents who could find Elizabeth? And I don’t believe Elizabeth was about to marry some Pakistani spy and then, like some fluttery Tennessee Williams heroine, ran away at the last moment.”

“Do Tennessee Williams heroines run away?”

“Blanche DuBois did. How do you think she ended up in New Orleans?”

“Elizabeth is no Blanche.”

“She’s up to something, and that can only mean trouble for you. I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I would stay as far away from this as you possibly can.”

“I’m going to make a couple of phone calls, that’s all,” Tree said. “Besides, I’ve already taken their money. Three thousand dollars.”

Freddie shook her head in feigned exasperation—or maybe not so feigned. “I’m going in to make us some dinner.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“I’m worried about you.”

“I keep telling you, Freddie. There’s nothing to worry about.” Was there? Well, actually there probably was, but not tonight.

“So if I told you that since we got back from Paris, you don’t seem the same, what would you say?”

“I would say that Paris wasn’t Paris this time—for either of us.”

“No,” Freddie said evenly. “I don’t suppose it was.”

She gave him a fleeting look and then went into the house.

7

On his way down Captiva Drive the following morning, Tree again stopped by the Traven mansion. The gates remained locked tight. He tried Elizabeth’s cell phone. It rang a dozen times. No one answered. The call did not go into voice mail.

When he got to the office, he sat for a few more minutes thinking about Cailie—kicking himself for not telling Freddie about her. He actually contemplated phoning her at work. But then what was he going to say? “Hi, honey. Incidentally, I forgot to tell you. The week we went to Paris to celebrate your birthday? I went out, met another woman, had dinner with her, and then went back to her hotel room where she bared her breasts and kissed me. I didn’t do anything, of course—except not tell you about it until now. And I’m only telling you now because I think she’s shown up on Sanibel.”

No, he decided, that was not the phone call he was going to make this morning.

His reverie was interrupted by the arrival of a tall, heavyset man with an impressive head of curly white hair. He leaned in the doorway and pointed a sausage-like finger at Tree. “You the detective?”

Tree looked at him. “Who are you looking for?”

“They said downstairs, you, the detective. Upstairs. Is that right?”

“I’m Tree Callister, I run the Sanibel Sunset Detective Agency.”

The man ventured further into the room. He wore a loose, collarless shirt that did little to hide the belly drooping over his khaki cargo shorts. His flip-flops barely contained feet the size of small boats. His toenails badly needed clipping, Tree noticed.

“I am Javor Zoran,” he announced. As though that explained everything.

“Mr. Zoran,” Tree said. “Take a seat, please. What can I do for you?”

Instead, of moving to the visitors’ chair, Zoran placed thick fists on either hip, as if preparing to engage Tree in a fight to the death.

“Tell me, how much you charge for this detecting?”

“Look, first of all, why don’t you sit down? If I can help you, then we can discuss price.”

Javor Zoran eased himself gingerly into the chair in front of Tree’s desk. Once settled, he looked carefully around him, concentrating on the doorway.

“You are going to leave door open?”

“Do you want me to close it?”

“I do not want anyone overhearing us,” Zoran said.

Tree got up to shut the door. “Is that better?”

Zoran seemed to think it was. Tree reseated himself and looked expectantly at his visitor.

“Okay,” pronounced Zoran. “Here is the thing. You are detective, I need detective to find missing person.”

“What missing person is that?”

“A friend is missing person.”

“Have you contacted the police?”

The idea appeared to horrify Zoran. “The police? Why would I talk to police?”

“Because they are the people best equipped to find missing persons.”

“I come to you to find missing person. And you tell me to go to the police? What kind of detective is that?”

“I’m merely making you aware of your options, Mr. Zoran.”

“No, no police. I want discretion. You can give me this, Mister Detective Callister? This discretion?”

“I can certainly be discreet,” Tree said. “When did you last see your friend?”

“One week ago.”

“Where? Where did you last see this person? Here on Sanibel?”

“No, no. Not Sanibel. Key West. We were in Key West. You must go to Key West and find her.”

“Her—this is a woman I’m looking for?”

“Yes, of course. Only a woman can give a man trouble like this.”

“You think she’s still there? Still in Key West?”

“No, I tell you to go to Key West because she is gone, and I pull a big joke on you.” He glowered across the desk. “You are not dumb detective, are you Mr. Callister?”

“Whatever I am, I’m going to need more information than I currently have, Mr. Zoran. What makes you so certain this person is missing?”

“Okay, we go to Key West one week ago. We have great time together. This is a woman with whom I am very much in love. This woman change my life. I have had many women, but no one like this woman. The week comes to an end. I drive to Miami. Business. Three days ago, I am back on the island, on Sanibel. I phone her. No answer. I go to her place. It is locked up. No sign of her. She has disappeared into the air.”

Zoran slumped forlornly in his chair: the lover confused and hurt. “I don’t know what to do. How many detectives on this island? Only one I can find. You. So I come to you. You go to Key West, and you find her.”

“You think she’s still in Key West?”

“She is not here.”

“Okay. I’ll need a name and a photo,” Tree said. “And any other information you have on your friend.”

“You want photo, Mister Detective Callister? I give you photo.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a four-by-six photograph and handed it to Tree. Zoran, his big gut folding over his swimming trunks, posed on a Key West beach with a woman in a bright red bathing suit. The woman was wearing sunglasses. Tree looked at the photo and then looked at it again. No. It couldn’t be.

He glanced up at Zoran. “Tell me who this is,” he said.

“Her name is Elizabeth Traven,” Zoran said.

Tree shook his head. Was he really hearing this?

“What is wrong with you?” Zoran demanded.

Tree threw the photograph onto the desk. “Who are you, Mr. Zoran?”

“I am most valuable of things.” He reached into his pocket again and this time produced a wad of one hundred dollar bills that he threw on top of the photograph.

“I am a customer. You go to Key West, Mr. Callister. You find my Elizabeth. You will find out why she disappears like this. Maybe she no longer wants me, I don’t know. You will find out. If you do not want to do this, then you will discover something else about me.”

“And what is that, Mr. Zoran?”

“It is not a good thing to disappoint me,” he said. “It is not a good thing.”

“That’s not a threat, is it Mr. Zoran?”

“How could you imagine such a thing?”

“Because I’d hate to start off a relationship with the client threatening me.”

“You find my Elizabeth.” Zoran said it like it was a marching order.

“When you were in Key West, where did you and Elizabeth stay?”

“A hotel. The Southernmost. You know it?”

Tree nodded. “How do I get in touch with you?”

Zoran stood and for the first time since he entered the office, he smiled. It was not a nice smile.

“I will contact you, Mister Detective Callister.”