A Visible Darkness (3 page)

Billy was looking east now. In between the high rises, out past the Intracoastal Waterway to the red tile roofs of the beachfront mansions and estates of Palm Beach. I let him stand in silence, the dark skin of his profile a silhouette against the hot glass.

“You don’t think that’s kind of a shaky motive for murder?” I finally said.

He turned his dark eyes on me.

“M-Max. Since when has greed been a shaky m-motive?”

4

W
e walked up Atlantic Boulevard for lunch. The breeze had pulled the temperature down into the mid-seventies. An early lunch crowd was mixing on the street with women in business skirts, office workers in pressed white oxfords and cinched ties, and tourists in shorts and tropical prints floating from one window display to the next.

As we walked Billy explained how he’d tried to slip his theory in through the back door of the Broward Sheriff’s Office. His contacts were extensive, but his pleadings fell on deaf ears. Drug enforcement, computer crime, demands from every sector to keep kids safe. School resource officers, traffic details in an overflowing maze of urban streets. Rapes, robberies and
real
homicides. Too much crime, too little time. “Bring me something with substance, Billy. Hell, the M.E. won’t even go out on a limb.” Even his political connections told him to back off. “It’s not a good time to be screaming that they won’t investigate crime in the black community. Not now, not with some
theory,
Billy. You got to pick your battles.” He’d hired a P.I. who after three weeks came up with nothing: “I know that neighborhood, Billy, and nobody knows a damn thing about old ladies getting killed.”

The recitation of his dead ends pulled at Billy’s face, but still a knot of jaw muscle rippled in his cheek. When I suggested his suspicions might best be handed off to an insurance investigator, he was, as usual, ahead of me. He had contacted several who worked for the three different companies who insured the five women. There had been little interest. They too had written the deaths off as natural and paid out without question. Only one of the companies, a small, independent firm, had agreed to send out a representative. We were meeting him for lunch.

“I am s-sorry, M-Max. I’m asking too m-much. But I only want your advice.” Billy said. “You decide. I w-will introduce you and b-be off.”

Billy was not an ungracious man. I looked at him when he said it. I know he felt my eyes on him.

“This is w-why I need your help,” was his only response.

As we approached Arturo’s, one of Billy’s favorite sidewalk cafes, I could see a tall, thick-bodied man pacing the curb in front. From a distance I thought of one of those Russian nesting dolls, rounded at the top and sloping down to a wide, heavy base. Ten steps closer and I thought: lineman. His muscled neck melted down from the ears into thick shoulders and then, like a lava flow, down through the arms and belly, settling in the buttocks and thighs. I had played some undistinguished football in high school at tight end. I knew from unsuccessful experience how hard it was to move such a man off that substantial base.

Ten more steps and I thought: ex-cop.

The man had turned our way, his head tilted down, one hand in his pocket, the other cupping a cigarette. He made himself look like someone lost in thought but I could see he was scanning the block, his eyes, in the shadow of his heavy brow, measuring every pedestrian, noting the makes of cars, marking those in parking spaces. Nothing entered his turf without being scrutinized. And that included us.

A few more steps and he took a final drag, flicked the cigarette into the gutter and squared to meet us.

“G-Good afternoon, Mr. McCane,” Billy said, stopping short of handshaking distance. “This is M-Max Freeman, the gentleman I t-told you about.”

McCane took my hand in a heavy, dry handshake.

“Frank McCane. Tidewater Insurance Company.”

I nodded.

He had gray hair cut short to the scalp and looked to be in his mid-fifties. His face had a florid, jowly look. His nose had a broken bend as if from a quick meeting with a bottle. It also held a web of striated veins from a longer association with the same. But his facial features were overpowered by his eyes; pale gray to the point of being nearly colorless. They gave the impression of soaking in all the light that entered their field and reflecting back none. I am six-foot-three, and we were nearly eye to eye.

I held his gaze long after the appropriate time for a business handshake. Without a flinch of emotion his eyes moved off mine, focused on something behind my left shoulder, and then swung to the other side. Street cop, I thought. Street cops hate to be stared at. They need to know what’s around them. I knew from walking a beat myself. Once a street cop, always a street cop.

As we stood on the sidewalk, Arturo approached from under the awning of his cafe. He had recognized Billy and knew how to treat an important customer.

“Ah. Mr. Manchester. Gentlemen, gentlemen. So good to see you, sirs,” Arturo started, talking to us all but looking only at Billy. “May we seat your party please, Mr. Manchester?”

A gracious host, Arturo had taken Billy’s hand in both of his and was guiding him toward a table.

“Arturo, gracias,” Billy said. “P-Please take care of m-my guests. But I cannot s-stay.”

“Of course, Mr. Manchester. I am disappointed but honored.”

Billy turned to us.

“I have a m-meeting. Mr. McCane will fill you in, Max. I will sp- speak with you later.”

I watched as Billy walked away. McCane had not moved from his spot on the sidewalk. When Arturo again extended his palm to an umbrella shaded table, I turned to him.

“Let’s eat.”

The big man sat in a chair and then scraped the legs across the flagstone so he could sit at an angle to the glass-topped table. He lit a cigarette and ordered “sweet tea.” I asked the waiter for a Rolling Rock and McCane cut his eyes at me.

“Ya’ll were on the job somewhere?” he said, the New York cop phrase sounding odd in his southern accent.

“Philadelphia. Ten years.”

“Retired?”

“Quit,” I said. “Took disability after a shooting.”

“I seen that scar,” he said, his eyes going to the penny-sized disc of scar tissue above my collarbone. I repressed the urge to touch the soft spot left by a bullet that had miraculously passed through my neck without killing me. I stared across the street, a flash of sun on the window of an opening door flickering behind my eye where the memory of the pale face of a dead twelve-year-old boy hid. I blinked away the vision.

“You?” I asked, turning back to McCane.

“Charleston P.D. for a while. Then over to Savannah some. Retired there. Picked up this investigative work through an old boy I knew for years. Money’s all right. Don’t like the travel much.”

The waiter brought my beer with a glass. McCane sipped his tea, and refused to look as I took a deep draw from the bottle.

Out in the street a river of cars filled up the block and then flushed away with a change of the stoplight. It was a bustle, but unlike a fall day in a northeast city. The people weren’t locked onto a destination; the subway, the train station, the office building where they could get out of the cold. Even on a busy downtown street here you can not stand under a blue sky next to a palm tree and be in too much of a hurry.

“Hard to find P.I. work down here?” he asked, taking another drag on his cigarette.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said, wondering how much Billy had told him about me. “Why do you ask?”

McCane released a lung-f of smoke.

“You know. Just figured if you had to work for him,” he said, nodding in the direction Billy had walked, “things must be tight.”

“It’s a favor,” I said, recognizing now the subtle edge of racism in the man’s voice.

“Yeah, well,” he said. “It all spends the same, don’t it?”

The waiter came back for our orders. I asked for grilled yellowtail, knowing Arturo’s chef would spice it nicely with a Cuban flavor.

“Black beans, sir?” the waiter asked.

“Yes, please.”

McCane had not looked at the menu.

“I’ll have the same,” he said. “Nix the beans, heh?”

The waiter nodded politely and left. When he was gone McCane shifted into business mode.

The connection between two ex-cops was settled at arm’s length. I now knew why Billy called me in to work with a man with whom he could not.

“My company owns three of the policies written on these women more than forty years,” he started. “Some go-getter salesman comes down here in the ’50s. Figures Florida is boomin’ what with all the young WWII vets makin’ a new start.

“But he gets down here and the GIs and flyboys have already been scooped up by insurance companies with government connections. But this ol’ boy ain’t gonna waste a trip. He sniffs out another market and works the other side of the tracks, sellin’ to the blacks who have a few bucks because the whole place is flush.”

Again he seemed to stop a moment for effect.

“Got to give the boy some credit. He targeted the women. The housekeepers who had regular work in white homes. Shop owners who were runnin’ little businesses. He sweet talks them with the old promise of security for the kids. Something for their future. A better life for them when you’re gone. He signs up dozens of them, gets a few bucks up front, figures what the hell, they get a few premiums in before they quit paying, it’s easy money.”

I ate while McCane talked. I was listening, but watching other customers come and go, marking cars in traffic that held more than one male, and noting that each time I took a drink from my beer, McCane would look away. I was also thinking of Billy’s history lesson.

“But some of these women kept up with their payments,” I finally said.

“Yeah. And some even bought additional policies over the years. Especially this last one. Two hundred thousand worth when she sold to the viatical investors.”

I finally cut to it: “You think someone killed them?”

“Hell, I don’t know. The cops don’t think so. The M.E. don’t. But your boy Manchester does and he’s got some kinda clout, cause here I am.”

Billy’s famous connections, I thought. But back in his office he’d admitted that without the cooperation and inside knowledge of the insurance carrier his abilities were limited. McCane picked at the fish, washing nearly every bite down with his tea.

“You know why Manchester’s bringing you in on this? Cause unless you got some kinda inside track I don’t know about, I’m not sure how it’s gonna help,” McCane said.

I didn’t answer because I didn’t know myself.

“Maybe you know people we can use for an inside look, cause I’m tellin’ you, the incident reports are damn thin and I ain’t gonna get shit from the relatives,” McCane said. “To be honest, this is lookin’ like a bad fishin’ trip to me.”

I drained my beer and came close to agreeing with him out loud. But I kept it to myself.

“I’ll get with Billy,” I said as the waiter cleared the table, presented the check and offered Cuban coffee as a parting gift from Arturo. I took the shot of sweet caffeine. McCane took the check and pulled out a silver clip of folded cash and refused my offer to split the cost.

“Expense money,” he said with a slight grin. “They do take American, right?”

When I got back to Billy’s office, he was still out. I left word with Allie that I’d call him as soon as I could and update him on my lunch with McCane. She raised her eyebrows at the mention of the insurance investigator’s name.

“Will you be taking over for Mr. McCane?” she asked, an optimism in her voice.

The question caught me off guard. Billy knew how deep my vow had been to leave police work behind. He wouldn’t have spoken openly about bringing me back in, even if that were his intention.

“I mean, it’s just, you can see that he doesn’t have much respect for Mr. Manchester,” she said.

“He’s Old South, Allie,” I said. “Some people never leave it behind.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not my business,” she said.

“No apology necessary.”

As I turned to leave she said, “Have a nice day, Mr. Freeman.”

I got my truck out of the garage, gave a short wave to the alert attendant, and headed back west. The heat of the day was rising off asphalt and concrete, parking lots and the tarred flat roofs of the myriad strip malls leading out through suburbia. The palms and sand pines did not lose their color in fall. The traffic would slowly increase with the number of winter migrants from the north. And like every place in America, the Christmas decorations would be up by Thanksgiving. My first winter holiday here I watched as a man pulled up next to me at a light with a Christmas tree from some tented lot stuffed in the open back seat of his convertible. I knew he was smiling because it was 30 degrees and snowing back in New York. But it still didn’t seem right.

I kicked the A.C. up and the outside temperature on my dash readout said 79. Farther west I pulled into a plaza grocery and loaded up with supplies: coffee and canned fruit, a few vegetables and thick loaves of dark bread. Sometimes I stayed out at the shack for a month at a time without coming in. But I had the feeling I’d be back to the city soon enough. When Billy got onto something, he was relentless. If he wanted me in on this, whether to prove or disprove his suspicion, he’d have a plan.

By the time I reached the boat ramp the sun was on its downward slide. A ragged ceiling of high cloud was drifting over the Glades, its edges already glowing with streaks of pink and purple. I flipped my canoe and started loading. I was lacing a small waterproof tarp over the groceries in the bow when I heard the crunch of footsteps on the shell growing louder behind me.

“Mr. Freeman?”

I turned to face the new ranger, a man in his thirties with thick blonde hair and creases at the corners of his eyes from hours of squinting into hard sunlight. He was about six feet tall, lean and tanned and dressed in uniform. His hand came up with an envelope as he stepped up and stopped.

“The Park Service wants a copy of this to go to you, sir.”

“And what might this be?” I asked, taking the white business- sized letter, but not looking down from the ranger’s eyes.

“You’ll have to read it, sir. A copy has also gone to your attorney. My understanding is that the state is attempting to break your lease on the research station, sir.”

“And why would the state be interested in doing that, Mr., uh, Griggs?” I said, reading from the nameplate mounted above the ranger’s pocket.