After a hearty breakfast of cold chicken, granola bars, and peanut butter on crackers, Nick stuffed his backpack and set off on his bike for the two-mile ride to his grandparents’ home. When he arrived, he called Bruce and reported that their part of the island had electricity. Some of the neighbors had returned, and work groups were getting organized to clean up the debris and tack FEMA tarps across damaged roofs. The busy streets were passable and traffic was moving about, but many of the side streets were still blocked. According to a policeman, the southern half of the island had full power and downtown could expect it later in the day. For the northern half it could be another week.
Bob was antsy and tired of camping out. He wanted to go home, but with no car and no electricity he would be hot and stranded. He hung around and helped Bruce pick up litter in the backyard. They helped a neighbor cut up branches and remove hanging gutters. It was August 10 and a high of ninety-eight was predicted.
At 9:20, Bruce got a text from Polly McCann. She had landed in Jacksonville and was searching for a rental car. “It’ll take hours,” he said to Bob. “Poor girl.”
Bored with hard labor, they headed toward Nelson’s place to see if the state police had arrived. For almost an hour, they drove the island to observe the destruction and the cleanup. They stopped at Mercer’s cottage and walked around it. Bruce shot a video and sent it to her. Amy lived in a high-end gated community a mile inland. The gate was missing and they drove the streets. Fallen trees were everywhere, but Amy’s home had been spared serious damage. He shot another video and sent it to her. The hospital had reopened and its parking lot was full.
Two large vans were parked at Nelson’s, one in the drive and the other in the street. To make sure everyone knew serious matters were at hand, both vans were marked in bold letters: FLORIDA STATE POLICE—CRIME SCENE UNIT. Two unmarked cars were parked in the street. A few neighbors gawked from their porches.
Bruce and Bob stood at the police tape and finally caught a glimpse of Captain Wesley Butler. He walked over with a friendly hello, shook their hands, and lit a cigarette. After a round of meaningless chitchat, Bruce asked, “So how’s it going in there?”
“Can’t discuss it,” Butler said, officially.
“Of course not,” Bob mumbled sarcastically.
Bruce wanted to ask, “What about the damned hard drive?” But he knew he would get nothing.
Butler asked, “Where’s your third amigo, that kid who knew everything?”
“We fired him,” Bruce said. “He’s off the case. Say, look, Mr. Kerr’s sister will be here later today, flying in from California. She’ll want to see his place, maybe gather some personal items. What are the rules here?”
Butler was already shaking his head. “Sorry. No one goes in until we’re finished and we’ll be here all day. Good way to kill a Saturday, huh?”
Well, he’s been dead for five days, Bruce thought. About time you got here. But that was unfair. The storm had upset all schedules and routines. Butler excused himself and returned to his work. Two technicians in white mummy suits hauled out a rolled-up rug and placed it in a van.
What about the damned hard drive? Bruce realized that neither he nor the family would know anything about the investigation for days or perhaps weeks. Standing at the police tape, he was as close as he would get to the evidence.
As they were leaving, a neighbor walked over and asked, “What’s going on here?”
“It’s a crime scene,” Bruce said, nodding at the two vans with billboards painted on all sides. “Nelson was killed during the storm.”
“Nelson’s dead?” the neighbor gasped.
“Afraid so. Head wounds.”
“Why are the police here?”
“You’ll have to ask them.”
They drove to Bob’s condo and spent an hour hauling trash and debris to the curb. It was depressing work made even worse by the heat. An insurance adjuster had promised to stop by later in the day. There was a rumor that Curly’s Oyster Bar was open down south, near the Grand Surf Hotel, and they decided to explore.
Polly McCann arrived at Bruce’s shortly after two and knocked on the door. The doorbell wasn’t working because the electricity had not yet reached downtown. She was about fifty, California slim and trendy with a smart boy’s haircut and designer eyewear. After a long night on the plane she looked remarkably fresh. Bruce offered her a bottle of cold water and they sat in the den and began covering the preliminaries.
She taught physics at a community college in Redwood City. Her husband chaired the math department. They had two sons, both in college at UC–Santa Barbara. Her parents were in their early eighties and battling more health issues than most of their friends. They were devastated by Nelson’s death and unable to make decisions. Polly was his only sibling and had been handling their parents’ affairs for years. Nelson’s ex-wife had already remarried and divorced again, and would not be a factor. Their parting ten years earlier had left scars, and they truly loathed each other. Mercifully, there were no children.
“He didn’t talk about the divorce and I knew better than to ask,” Bruce said.
“The marriage was a bad idea from day one,” she said. “Nelson finished Stanford Law at the top of his class and took a big job with a high-powered firm in San Francisco. It was a grind, ninety hours a week, lots of pressure. For some reason he decided to further complicate his life by marrying Sally, a real flake who drank too much, worked too little, and was looking for money. I tried to talk him out of it because I couldn’t stand the woman, but he wouldn’t listen to me. They quarreled constantly, so he put in even more hours at the office. He made partner at thirty-one and was knocking down close to a million a year. Then he realized that one of his clients was illegally selling military software to some authoritarian governments, and he wanted to blow the whistle. He did talk to me about that. He knew his legal career would be over, you can’t rat out a client and expect to survive as a lawyer, but he thought the government would make it worth the trouble. Plus, he was really sick of the big-firm racket. So he did the right thing, got a check for five million in return, and happily fled the office. But his timing was bad. He should have pursued the divorce before he blew the whistle. His wife lawyered up and they found evidence of an affair with a coworker. He lost big, cracked up, and we had to put him away for six months. Then he started writing. Does this sound like whatever he’s told you?”
“Pretty close. He never told me how much he received from the government. He did say that she had better lawyers and clearly won the divorce. I got the impression it was a brutal ordeal.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Have you had lunch?” Bruce was happy to share his peanut butter and crackers, but was suddenly nervous about offering food to a fairly hip Californian. No doubt she survived on nothing but raw vegetables and protein shakes.
She smiled and hesitated and said, “Actually, I’m starving.”
“Then step into my kitchen where the air is slightly cooler than out on the street.” She followed him to the snack bar and watched as he rummaged through the pantry and found a can of tomato soup. “Perfect,” she said.
“And for appetizers we can offer chunky peanut butter and saltines.”
“My favorite,” she said, much to his surprise.
He put the soup on and opened the peanut butter. “How well did I know Nelson Kerr? Well, I considered him a friend. We’re about the same age, with similar interests. He’s been here for several dinner parties. I’ve been to his place. We’ve had dinners out. My wife fixed him up with one of her friends but the romance lasted less than a month. He was not that aggressive with women. We spent time at the bookstore drinking coffee and talking about books and writers. I thought his pace was a bit slow for a genre author and encouraged him to write more, but I do that with most of my writers.”
“Your writers?”
“Yes. There’s a clan of them on the island and I’m the den mother. I encourage all of them to write more so I’ll have more to sell.”
“How well did Nelson sell?”
“His last book did about a hundred thousand copies in print and digital combined, and his numbers were steadily increasing. I pushed him to do a book a year. He was on the right trajectory with his career, but Nelson had a lazy streak. I said that to him once and he gave some lame excuse about still being tired from big law. I said that was nonsense.”
“Did you ever read his stuff before he sent it to New York?”
“No. With some writers I do, but I’m known to have a lot of opinions so most shy away from my editing. Nelson asked me to read his latest, said he had finished the first draft and was polishing up the second.” Bruce decided he would discuss the hard drive later. There was so much ground to cover.
He poured the soup in a bowl and presented it to her. She smiled and said, “Thanks.”
“What color wine do you think goes best with tomato soup?” he asked.
“Let’s postpone the wine.” She stirred the soup, blew on a spoonful, and tasted it. “Compliments to the chef.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“So, Bruce, was my brother murdered?”
He took a deep breath, walked to the fridge, opened it to fetch a beer, realized he’d had two already, removed nothing, closed the door and leaned against it with his arms folded across his chest. “I’m not sure, but a few things are certain. Number one, Nelson is dead.” He described Nelson’s body when they found him. He summarized Dr. Landrum’s summary of the autopsy and cause of death.
She listened without blinking, without emotion, and without eating her soup.
“And number two. There was a woman involved. Ingrid.” He took a deep breath and told Bob’s story from start to finish, slowly and with every detail he knew. Polly stared at the table and never picked up her spoon.
“And number three. The police are investigating now, at this moment, and you can’t enter Nelson’s condo until they’re through.”
“Sounds like murder to me,” she said softly, but again with no emotion.
“It’s murder, Polly. Any suspects come to mind? Something from his past that he never shared with anyone here on the island?”
“Well, Ingrid is certainly a suspect.”
“Indeed. But why? They had just met. If she had no motive, then she did it for money.”
She shook her head and shoved the bowl away. The soup was cold, and it was probably the last can of Campbell’s Tomato. Bruce hated to see it wasted, but the stores were reopening and it was time for a grocery run. It takes a disaster to make you appreciate the basics.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t think of anyone. As far as I know, his only enemy is his ex-wife, but she got the money and lost interest. You have a theory?”
“Yes, and mind you I’ve spent the last five days with Andrew Cobb, ‘Bob’ as we call him for some reason, who’s a convicted felon who now writes some pretty graphic crime novels. He’s out there in a hammock snoring off his lunch of oysters and beer. You’ll meet him soon enough. And there’s a visiting student here named Nick Sutton who works in the store and reads virtually every crime novel published. We’ve had more than enough time to kick around various theories.”
“And your best one is?”
“It’s a long shot but we have to start somewhere. Ingrid was a pro who came and went and will likely never be found. The man who paid her is someone who doesn’t want Nelson’s next book to be published.”
“That’s pretty farfetched.”
“Agreed. But right now we have nothing else.”
She squinted her eyes and mulled it over. After a moment she asked, “And do you know what the book is about?”
“Not a clue. Do you?”
She shook her head. “I found his books difficult to read and we never talked about them. In fact, we haven’t talked much at all since he moved here. Nelson was a loner, especially after his troubles.”
“He was paranoid about getting hacked. It’s happened to some writers and musicians. Stuff was stolen. So he wrote offline. Somehow the bad guys knew what he was writing.”
“Oh, Nelson was definitely paranoid. He rarely used email. He even thought his phones were tapped. We corresponded by old-fashioned snail mail.”
“How quaint. I got the impression that he was always looking over his shoulder.”
“No doubt,” she said. “And he wasn’t like that until the whistleblowing episode.”
“And you say he cracked up?”
“After the divorce, which, as I said, happened after his departure from the law firm. Severe depression or a nervous breakdown or whatever they called it. We locked him away in a fancy joint for six months and he made a nice recovery. Still in therapy, though.”
For the first time, her eyes were moist. She removed her glasses and blinked a few times. “About a month ago, I received an overnight package from Nelson. In a letter he said he was enclosing his latest novel on a thumb drive, wanted me to hold it for safekeeping. He asked me not to read it until further notice. He gave me his new phone number. I wrote him back and asked why he was changing his phone number again, but he never answered, never explained.”
“Where’s the thumb drive?”
“In my pocket.”
“Let’s keep it there. And you haven’t read the novel?”
“Not a word. And you don’t want to?”
Bruce looked at her untouched tomato soup and asked, “Are you finished?” She’d had two sips and two crackers.
“Yes, I’m sorry. My appetite vanished.”
“Let’s go back to the den where it’s cooler.”
They moved to the den and he closed the door to the kitchen. Out on the veranda, Bob’s bare feet were visible dangling from the hammock.
Bruce said, “I’d rather not read the novel, not now anyway, because I want to answer no if I’m ever asked by the police.”
“Will the police find it?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure they’ll confiscate his computers and get search warrants to look at everything. But if I were a gambler, I’d bet the desktop hard drive was snatched about the same time Nelson was murdered.”
“Should I hand over the thumb drive?”
“For now, let’s say no. You can always do it later, or not.”
“I’m confused. Under your theory, Nelson was likely murdered because of this novel I’m holding in my pocket, right?”
“It’s just a theory, and a shaky one at best.”
“But it’s all you have, right?”
“Right. He was killed by a professional for a reason.”
“Got that. So someone has to read the novel to begin unraveling the crime. Who? You? Me? The police?”
Bob’s feet slowly dropped to the tiled floor of the veranda. The rest of him followed, and he stood for a long minute stretching and rubbing his eyes like a bear leaving hibernation. As things slowly came into focus, he got his bearings and lumbered toward the door.
Bruce said, “Bob’s done with his nap. He’s a member of the team so we’ll need to brief him.”
“And the thumb drive?”
“Sure. He’ll have an opinion or two. Plus he’s a convicted felon with a brilliant criminal mind, who doesn’t trust cops and prosecutors.”
Bob stepped into the den and introduced himself to Polly.
The lights flickered, came on, went off, came on again, and Bruce and Bob held their breath. When it was apparent that the electricity was back for good, they exchanged high fives and couldn’t stop grinning. Bruce quickly adjusted thermostats and left to turn off the generator, whose constant rattling had gotten under his skin. Civilization was back, with hot showers, cold water, clean clothes, television, the works. The camping trip was over. However, they managed to temper their excitement in the presence of a grieving sister.
Bob agreed that they should sit on the thumb drive until they heard from Wesley Butler, if indeed he bothered to call. He had promised to do so when his crime scene unit finished its business.
Polly asked, “Do the investigators meet with the victim’s family for updates? I’m sorry, but I have no idea what to expect.”
Bruce said, “I don’t have a clue. Luckily I’ve not been through this before.”
Bob said, “I had a buddy in prison one time. His family went through a murder. It was awful and all that, but to make matters worse the cops wouldn’t tell them anything. They finally hired a lawyer to get some information.”
“I’d prefer not to hire a lawyer,” she said. “I just hired a mortician.”
“You won’t have to do that,” Bruce said, as sympathetically as possible. “Our police chief is a good guy and I can talk to him.”
“Thank you.”
“Would you like to rest? Your bedroom is upstairs and is now much cooler.”
“That would be lovely, Bruce. Thank you.”
She went to her rental car and fetched an overnight bag. Bruce showed her to a guest room and closed the door. He returned to the den and sat across from Bob, who said, “I like her.”
“She’s far too old for you, Bob. She’s almost your age.”
“Well, Ingrid was forty or so, so I can be flexible.”
“You’ll never outgrow the young divorcées in string bikinis.”
“I hope not. Why did I bring up her name? You know, Bruce, looking back, there was something odd about her. The whole time I was with her and through everything we did it was like her mind was somewhere else, always calculating, always planning her next move. She was detached from the moment, as if she was just going through the motions. I mean, I really didn’t care because the sex was pretty great. Now I guess it makes sense. But how was I to know?”
“You can’t beat yourself up over her, Bob. No one could have predicted it. You were having fun with a nice-looking woman.”
“No doubt about that, but it does nag at me.”
“You gotta let it go.”
“I’ll try. I need a shower. My last one was in Lake City, I believe, in a square tub with an empty tube of shampoo. Seems like a month ago.”
“Upstairs on the right. She’s on the left so give her plenty of space. I guess you’re piling in for a few more days. Welcome again.”
“Thanks, but I’m leaving soon for Maine. I want cooler weather and I need to get away from this place. The insurance company is already giving me the runaround and I don’t feel like fighting right now. How long is she staying?”
“She just got here. I have no idea. She mentioned a memorial service next Saturday in California and I’m already thinking of ways to avoid it.”