Finding Shelby Moore, Part VII

I was still hurting when we adjourned to the kitchen to discuss things. Shelby and Rachel sat at the glass and wrought iron table. I paced and kept myself from moaning, lest I look less than manly in front of the women.

“So what the hell are you guys up to? Conspiring with Carl on a publicity stunt?”

“Fuck you!” Rachel said. She got up from the table. If she took another shot at my midsection, I'd happily batt her in the head.

“Rachel, no!” Shelby said. Her voice was small, but commanded respect. And though Rachel clearly wanted to beat me until I peed blood, Shelby’s words stopped her. “Sit down, please.”
Rachel sat, but reminded me of a caged tiger.

“It was my idea,” Shelby said. “And it had nothing to do with Carl.”

“Shel!”

“Rachel, please. It was a stupid idea. We’re in over our heads and this guy might be able to help.”

“You don’t know him,” Rachel said.

Shelby studied me. Her eyes were a pale blue that would stop most mens’ hearts from beating. Her face was simple and beautiful and when she smiled, she induced you to want to take care of her. “You’re right. I don’t. But –”

“But nothing, Shel. You went from your father to Dom to Carl because you let your gut feeling guide you. Your gut feeling for men just sucks.”

I stopped myself from saying she didn’t have to worry about me. It was true, but neither of them knew that. They’d have to figure it out on their own.

“I thought you were working with Carl on this,” I said.

Working with that asshole? I’d like to shoot that asshole,” Rachel said. She stood and walked toward me.

I moved away a couple steps, but she went to the sink and got a glass of water. An audible sigh of relief wouldn’t have been manly, so I kept it to myself.

“Why did you meet him for lunch?” I asked Rachel.

“Because he’s about three steps behind you,” she said. “That son of a bitch. I told him off, but he definitely suspects something.”

“Suspects what?” I said.

They faked the kidnapping. But I wasn’t sure about the details. I’d thought Carl was in on it, but Rachel blew that theory away. I sat down at the table across from Shelby.

“You might as well tell me. I figured out most of it and all I need to do is dial the police and it’s all over anyway.”

Nothing happened. Shelby and Rachel locked eyes and tried to communicate with each other without saying anything. They remained locked that way.

I tired of waiting and pulled out my cell phone. Shelby reached across the table and put her hand on mine.

“Wait. Please.”

I put the cell on the table, but left it open. “I’m a licensed private investigator. That means I’m bound to call and let the authorities know that you’re here. If I don’t I’ll lose my license and go to jail. So you got some time to figure this out, but not much.”

They glanced at each other again and Rachel sat next to Shelby at the table.

*****

“Carl’s a loon,” Rachel said. “A dangerous loon. He decided he loves Shelby and that no one else should.”

I glanced at Shelby. She nodded. “He smothers me. I don’t feel comfortable around him.”

“He ever hit you?”

Another exchanged glance. “Yeah,” she said. “A couple times. He’s got a temper.”

I glanced at Rachel and back at Shelby. “Did he do…anything else?”

Shelby looked at the table and spoke. “There was one time. It was when things with my father were going badly. I got drunk and he was nice to me, and I kissed him. I shouldn’t have done it. But I did and he kissed me back, and…”

“Did he rape you?”

“No. It didn’t get that far. The phone rang first.”

I thought for a minute, during which both of them stared at me. “You got Internet?”

Rachel pointed at a laptop behind me in the living room. It was on, so I jiggled the mouse and the screen came to life. Within a minute I had what I wanted. When I picked up my cell, they both gasped.

“Relax, I’m not calling the cops.”

Carl’s wife answered on the third ring. I wondered whether she was loaded yet. “Hi, this is Shane Black. We, uhhh, talked the other day.”

“What do you want?”

“I need to talk to you about your husband, Mrs. Clayton.”

“Louise.”

“Okay. Did he ever hit you?”

She said nothing.

“It’s important, Louise.”

She remained silent. I waited her out.

“I, uhhh, I was young. And I angered him. He came home one night when we lived on base and he found me…I was unfaithful. He’d been gone for eight months and most of the time I didn’t hear from him. I knew he was cheating. Word gets around. Guys talk, even if they aren’t supposed to. And wives talk. I knew.

“He came home and I was with someone.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Carl beat him, then smacked me around. He can do that, you know, without making it obvious. It’s something he learned in the MPs. He smacked me around for a while. After that…well, the guy he beat didn’t press charges. He didn’t want other people to know.”

“You never did anything?”

“No.”

“He still beat you?”

“Once recently. He…after he told me that he didn’t love me anymore. I was drunk and I provoked him. He, uhhh, he also said that I was his and when he was done with me, no one would have me.”

“Thanks.”

“You don’t think he kidnapped Shelby Moore, do you?”

“I guarantee you he didn’t.”

“But—”“I have to go.” I flipped the phone shut and walked back to the kitchen. When I got there, Carl was there with the two of them. He held a gun on Rachel and Shelby.

Finding Shelby Moore, Part VI

Rachel Fernandez was also a golfer, though not as good as Shelby. They went through high school together and she often traveled with Shelby to tournaments. According to Jeff, who took a break from seducing the Williams twins to talk to me, there were even rumors that Rachel and Shelby were more than best friends forever.

“Are they?”

“It’s possible, but Shelby’s had some fairly intense relationships with guys, too. She dated a quarterback for the Bucs for a year or so. And there were rumors that she was seeing that kid on those Disney movies.”

Those Disney kids blended together for me, but I understood who he meant. At least I thought I did.

I thanked him and hung up and set to work finding out where Rachel Fernandez lived. An hour later, I sat in front of a brick house in Carrollwood, set back from the road so it was well shaded under a tree, with a garage extending forward to the driveway.

A portable basketball hoop sat on the grass to the left of the driveway. The lawn was well-kept and the hedges were near perfectly trimmed. A covered walkway extended along the left side of the garage to the front door.

The house was probably twenty years old, but the wide paneling along the side of the garage was freshly painted. In my short time in Florida, I’ve noticed that if you don’t keep up with anything made of wood, it ages quickly.

Rachel answered on the second ring. She wore a loose pair of sweat pants and a tank top that didn’t appear to have a bra underneath. Her hair was up and unkempt. Clearly, she wasn’t expecting company.

“Can I help you?” she said.

At the question, my mind went blank. I had no client. So I did what I always do in these circumstances--blundered forward and hoped I didn't do too much damage. I pulled out my wallet and showed her my license.

“My name is Shane Black. I’m a private investigator lo—”

“You were at the beach when it happened,” she said. “Who’s your client?” It seemed like an odd question to start with.

I smiled congenially and tipped my head slightly to the side. Sly, I am. “I can’t disclose that.”

She nodded, but made no motion to let me in. “I’ve already talked to the FBI—a lot, in fact. I’m tired and this has kind of worn on me. Could you excuse me?”

I bunched up my lips in what I hoped would convey equal parts of disappointment and doubt at her sincerity. “I guess. I just have a few questions.”

She glanced inside behind her and then back at me and bit her lower lip. “Um, does the FBI know that you’re doing this?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re aware of my presence.” On a high-profile case like this, if I started to hang around with one of the principals in the case, they'd know. In fact, I expected them to have a friendly discussion with me soon.

“I really need to go,” she said. She pushed the door shut.

Instead of leaving, I sat in my car and watched. I spend nearly as much time in the car as I do in bed. In the early nineties, when I was still relatively new at this, I started eating to pass the time. After about twenty-five pounds, I figured that was a bad idea. Now, I was resigned to drinking coffee.

Fortunately for my caffeine intake, I didn’t have to wait long for something to happen. Ten minutes after I left her doorstep, Rachel pulled from the garage in a lipstick red Mitsubishi Eclipse. Her neighborhood was quiet and I needed to give her a little more space than I wanted to, so she wouldn’t notice me. But as harried as she looked, I could have been driving an Abrams Battle Tank and she wouldn’t have noticed.

She turned south on Dale Mabry and continued past the stadium. Then, she took a left on Columbus, drove a block, and pulled into the office complex where Carl’s office was.

“That’s interesting,” I said.

I drove past, then turned around and took up my position in the side street across Columbus Avenue. Within a few minutes, they came out from Carl’s office and went to her car. With Carl, I had to be more careful. He’d shown that he’d notice both the Abrams Tank and a late-model Accord.

As before, I followed Carl to Bahama Breeze. This time, I didn’t pull into the parking lot behind him, but kept driving to the gate for the apartments across the street. I put the window down and leaned out and made it look like I was trying to buzz someone to let me in. Carl and Rachel got out of the car and walked toward the restaurant. Rachel seemed animated and Carl didn’t seem to react.

I fiddled around for what seemed to be enough time, then backed up and drove the opposite way. I parked in the hotel up the street and waited. An hour later, the red Eclipse rolled past in the other direction.

I gave it a ten beat, then pulled into traffic after them. Unfortunately, I missed the traffic light onto the Courtney Campbell and lost them. They weren't at Carl's office, so I went back to Rachel's house.

The car wasn’t in the driveway, but I’d keep a car like that in the garage. I got out and rang the bell. No one answered after the first ring, so I leaned on it again, and this time left it pressed for about half a minute.

When Rachel opened the door, she was wearing black shorts and a white t-shirt with a palm tree on it. And she was angry.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said.

“How come you were at Carl Clayton’s office?”

Her eyes flew open wide and she opened then closed her mouth. “You—I—.” She pushed the door shut.

I braced it with my foot.

“I’ll call the police,” she said.

I pulled out my cell phone for her. “Here you go.”

For the second time, she was flummoxed. I could almost see her think this wasn’t supposed to work this way.

“What’s going on Rachel?”

She pushed the door harder, but nothing happened.

“Whatever you’re up to, they'll figure it out. If you level with me, you might control where and how it gets revealed. If you don’t, the FBI will unravel it in a time and manner of their choosing.”

She removed the pressure from the door, but didn’t step back.

“Where’s Shelby?”

“How would I know?” Her tone belayed her words.

I pushed through the door. Rachel backed up, then rediscovered her resolve and jumped on my back, telling me to get out of her house. Before I could remove her, she raked her nails across my neck, leaving three parallel welts that smarted immediately.

“Get out of my house, goddamn you!”

I got her off and pushed her away. She was a small woman and I used my girth to control her, but not hurt her. Eventually, I’d have to either become more aggressive or leave. She accelerated things by kicking me in the knee as hard as she could.

“Ow, dammit.” I pushed her back against the wall without thinking about it. She knocked over a small table next to the door and her keys, purse, and cell phone fell to the floor. I stepped back to get a little distance.

“Stop it,” another female voice said.

Shelby Moore stepped into the hallway. I froze and Rachel took the opportunity to punch me in the groin.

Bitch.

Finding Shelby Moore, Part V

Lindsey came to me that night. She does that in my dreams sometimes when I’m struggling with something. We sat on Clearwater Beach in lawn chairs, the water lapping gently at our feet. I turned to her and gasped at her presence. It had been a long time since I’d dreamt of her and I’d forgotten how alive she made me feel.

“It’s you,” I said.

“You know I’m not real,” she said. She wore a tight blue one-piece swimsuit, and though her body wasn’t as tight as Carl Clayton’s wife’s, it turned me on more. For a few seconds, I had to remember to breathe.

“I don’t care. Your here.”

She smiled and the calluses on my heart dissolved. Our fingers intertwined. Normally, she didn’t touch me; she said the rules didn’t allow it. Tonight, she broke them. If she broke them a little more intimately, I wouldn’t leave. Maybe that’s why the rules existed.

“You looking into that girl’s kidnapping?”

“Not anymore.”

She pressed her lips together the way she did when I disappointed her and squeezed my hand. “How come?”

“Not mine to look into.”

“I think you should,” she said. “She doesn’t have anyone else looking out for her interests.”

“It’s a business, not a charity. Last time out, I almost died. Unless there’s a paying customer, I'd like avoid that.”

She nodded and wouldn’t look me in the eye. “You said since your love for your fellow man died with me.”

I nodded and looked away. I'd have pulled my hand from hers, but she might leave then.

“It hurts me to hear that,” she said.

“Lindsey do you know how many people died when I solved your murder?”

She nodded and her eyes glazed “Yeah. And I know who they were, too. But if I meant anything to you, you should try your best not to become a bitter old man.”

I closed my eyes, something I've never done before in a dream. “You’re asking a lot.”

“I know,” she said. “But something isn’t right about this and I think you know that.”

I opened my eyes and looked at her. The bathing suit was sheer, almost like a layer of paint. It was a cruel thing to wear when I couldn't have her.

“I can’t save everyone,” I said. “Sometimes people have to get out of their own messes—or not.”

“I’m not concerned about everyone. I’m concerned about you.” She stood and sat on my lap.
Again, I had to remember to breathe.

“I miss you so much,” she whispered in my ear. Unlike Clayton’s wife, there was no desperation in her voice. But there was hunger and the hunger almost ate me. I almost didn't want to come back.

At that point, I woke up and cursed myself for it. My hear seemed to rattle my ribcage with every beat. My hair was slick with sweat and I still had trouble breathing.

I stared at the ceiling a long time. If Lindsey wanted me to look into this, I’d do it. But she could have given me a little more information, maybe a place to start.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Most people learn after twice. That’s why there’s nothing in that saying about fooling me a third time. And yet, for the third time, I decided to look into this. This time it was because a false image of someone who didn't exist any more told me to do it.

*****

The FBI would’ve gone through Shelby's apartment, appointment book, e-mails, phone records, all that. They had the people and resources to do it. And they were under more scrutiny on this now than anyone. If Shelby died, they'd be blamed.

I didn’t need to fight the bureaucracy and I had a little more latitude to play a hunch. Now, I just needed to find a hunch.

I went back to the beach and walked through what happened again. The van would have been waiting someplace, probably in the parking lot where they'd taken her. It would have followed them there from someplace, meaning they probably staked out either Shelby's house or Carl’s apartment.

I stood by the rail at Frenchy’s and imagined the scene again. The van wasn’t moving very fast. There were no screeching breaks when it stopped. I thought about the parking lot itself. It was fairly full, typical for a summer afternoon.

I could see Shelby’s face from where I stood, but she didn’t react until the taser hit her. Then her body seized up and she fell into the side of the van.

I couldn’t see Carl’s face, but I did see him fall and heard him wail. Then, the big guy loaded Shelby into the van. Her smile stayed with me again. I'd seen it when I closed my eyes to go to sleep.

Getting tasered hurt like a son of a bitch. A friend of mine, a trooper named Tim Owens had prevailed on me to get tasered as part of a training exercise for some Boy Scouts. In return, he offered a steak dinner at his house. It turned out his wife, Karen, had invited a woman they wanted me to meet. That woman was Lindsey. I’d often joked about whether the payoff was worth the pain.

I got back in the car and drove to the nearest Panera, where I got out my laptop and looked at videos of people being tasered. Most of them didn’t have enough resolution to show the tasee’s facial expression, but of the ones that did, none of them looked like they were smiling. Shelby was smiling. It must have been a grimace. Unless it wasn't.

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

Finding Shelby Moore, Part IV

We took my car to Shelby’s father’s house. It was less conspicuous than his Mustang. Her father lived in an upscale house in a gated subdivision in Odessa, a suburb to the northwest of Tampa.

“Shelby’s father was borderline abusive to her, the stereotypical sports parent. He washed out of a golf scholarship at Florida State back in the seventies. She was his chance to hit it big. So, of course, he’s been an overbearing pain in the ass. As soon as she turned 21, Shelby fired him. Gave him a bunch of money and told him to go away.”

“How come we’re here?”

“He said he’d make her regret the day she fired him.”

It was dusk and we were in a dead end a couple hundred yards up the road. The car was idling and the AC was running and I was remembering why I prefer to do stakeouts alone.

“Wouldn’t the FBI be all over him if he were really a suspect?”

“They interviewed him for six hours yesterday and told him not to go anyplace.”

I glanced over to him. He hadn’t shifted his gaze from the subdivision’s entry gate since we pulled in.

“I know this because I have friends on the Tampa PD and they hear things,” he said. “That’s what you were going to ask, right?”

“Sure.”

Nothing happened and both of us watched it not happen until nine.

“You think he’s going anywhere?”

“Eventually,” he said.

“Why do you think he has Shelby?”

“He’s the most likely person, as far as I can see.”

At ten after ten, a black Hummer H3 emerged from behind the gate.

“That’s him,” Carl said. He’d been slumped in his seat, but was now sitting up, pointing toward the car.

I waited for it to pass us, then pulled out after it. It drove south on Hutchison to Ehrlich Road, crossed it, went into the supermarket and came out with a gallon of milk. Then we followed him back to his community and watched him go in the gate.

“That was exciting,” I said.

“Maybe he’s seeing if someone’s watching him.”

“Maybe he needed a gallon of milk.”

Twenty minutes later, I took Carl home, then went home myself.

Jeff Spangler went to college with me. Then he became a sportswriter for the Albany Times-Union about the time I started working as an investigator. He moved up to the New York Daily News before covering womens’ sports for Sports Illustrated. When he got the job at SI, Jeff thought it was ironic to cover womens’ sports, considering how many women he’d uncovered in bedrooms and hotel rooms across the land. Jeff was a horndog, and some common friends had wondered if he’d had to agree to be castrated to cover womens’ sports.

Jeff could be rude and borderline sexist, but he had a way of cultivating sources. Even people who thought he was a knuckle-dragger did things for him. If something was going on in womens’ sports, Jeff Spangler knew about it. If didn’t know about it, he knew who did. He was a natural to call about Shelby and her father.

“Sorry I’m calling so late,” I said when he answered.

“Afraid you’d wake me up?”

“No, afraid I’d catch you in bed,” I said.

“Gotta work in the morning. I’m interviewing the Williams sisters tomorrow. After that, I think I'll play ice cream sandwich with them.”

“They'd kick your scrawny ass all over the hotel room."

He laughed. “When’s the last time you had sex?”

“Who’s president now?”

He laughed more. “I could set you up with Diane Tate.” Diane Tate was a professional golfer about my age who grew up in Saratoga. She'd recently been divorced by her husband, a club pro in Myrtle Beach.

“I think I can manage,” I said. “I need to know about Shelby Moore’s father.”

“I heard you saw her get snatched.” His voice lost its jauntiness. He was working now.

“Anything you can tell me on the record?”

The FBI was clear on my not talking to the media. They'd looked into me and knew I used the media when I felt the need.

“I can tell you what’s already in the paper. I’ve been on the outside of this one.”

“Except that you want to know about the father,” he said. “Were you working on this?”

“I happened to see it.”

Jeff was smart enough to pick up on my evasion, but he didn’t push the point. “Her father's an asshole. He cost her a lot of money with his bullshit. No one wanted to deal with him. She probably lost a couple million in endorsements because of it. And he treated her like his golf slave.”

“Physically abusive?”

“Just rumors. When Shelby was in high school, she broke her arm. Said she fell off a horse. But it happened right after she got caught skipping practice to go boozing one night. One of the teachers saw her. She got suspended from the team the next day, the--boom--she falls off a horse. The suspension didn't matter. She missed the rest of the year with the injury.

“Meanwhile, her dad gets tagged with a couple sexual harrassment suits and a battery charge. The second she turned 21, she emancipated herself and threw him out. He sued, so she gave him a lump sum and one percent of her tour earnings to go away. She made seven million last year, so his cut was seventy grand, give or take.”

“That’s not much.”

“You hinting at something?” he said.

“Wondering. He drives a Hummer and lives in a gated community in a pretty nice house. He’s not doing that on seventy grand.”

“He made a boatload of money as a day trader. He’s set."

"A lot of day traders lost money when the market went down."

"Not him. He diversified while he was doing it. Houses, property. Owns a couple restaurants. If he took her, it's to prove he owns her, not for money."

"What about her mom?"

"Not in the picture. Died when she was six."

“She a party girl?”

He laughed. “Until the thing with her arm. After that, she wanted to know everything about the business. By the time she was 21, she was capable. Day after her birthday, she fired her father and hired Crosetti.”

“He’s not much of an improvement,” I said.

“He’s the right guy for her. He'll bust your balls if he needs to, but he does it for her. He knows where his bread's buttered and because he's the hardass, she gets to be the nice Shelby everyone goes gaga over.”

We fell into silence. I tried to figure out what question to ask next. Jeff used his quiet time to jump to conclusions.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “You wouldn’t know about Crosetti’s temper unless you’d pissed him—you were working security for her.”

“I promise you I wasn’t,” I said.

“Then what?”

“I’m just interested in this working out right.”

“The security guy’s name is Carl Clayton,” he said. “I talked to Crosetti today. He said Clayton got fired. Said the only reason she got taken was because of his incompetence."

“They blind-sided him. Jumped out of a van and tasered them both. Clayton told them walking on the beach wasn’t wise. Nothing he can do.”

He said nothing.

“You might want to talk to him about it,” I said.

“Been trying. Could you set it up?” he said.

“I can try. You got any thoughts on who might have done this?”

“Crime’s not my venue, unless it’s steroids, doping, or trying to cut your ex-wife’s head off , then running away in a Ford Bronco. You, on the other had, seem to attract it. I know a mortician sennding his kid to college because of all the people you killed up here last year."

He was joking, but I still had nightmares about killing those people. I let it pass.

"Seriously, I like Shelby a lot. She's a great kid. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know."

And with that, we were done. I was done, too. The FBI was handling this and I had no skin in the game. For the second time, I walked away.

Finding Shelby Moore, Part III

In the old days, you could find out where someone lived by having a friend at the phone company. Now, it’s easier. If you know a little about someone, you can find the rest without breaking a sweat. It was great if you were looking for someone, not so good if you were hiding. Carl Clayton had been out of the house for six weeks, so it wasn’t hard to find him.

He lived in an apartment off Hillsborough Avenue a couple blocks north of Raymond James Stadium where the Bucs play. The website even gave me his apartment number. And they say customer service is dead.

I went home, took a cold shower, and was sitting in my car mostly out of sight when Carl left his apartment the next morning.

Driving a vintage Mustang is great. Spenser drove one on TV. Carl Clayton drove one, too. I drove a green Honda Accord that I picked up used just before I moved. It only had about seventy thousand miles on it, and the previous owner, the state trooper who’d been murdered, had taken great care of it.

I followed Carl to his office, in the second floor of a second-rate, office building a block south of the stadium. He got out and walked next door to 7-Eleven to get coffee, then went to his office. I had my Dunkin Donuts coffee, which I drank slowly. I’d feel like a terrible idiot to lose him because I had to take a leak from drinking too much coffee.

He sat inside his office and did something. I sat in my car and listened to a Brian Freeman book on CD. His main character, Jonathan Stride, had a dead wife, too. What is it with detective novelists and dead wives? Dave Robicheaux, John Francis Cuddy, Jonathan Stride. Even Magnum, P.I. Maybe I should have thought of that before I took up this line of work. Anyway, Stride, a conflicted cop from Duluth, wound up in Las Vegas with a sexy cop named Serena Dial and they fought crime together.

I’d moved to Tampa to be near a sexy woman named Lynne Deane to maybe fight crime together, and I hadn’t seen her in three weeks. I sipped my coffee and made peace with the realization that I was working this case to keep me from getting drunk in my apartment.

At lunchtime, Carl came out and got in his car, drove to Sweetbay to get a sub, then drove back to his office. The book ended and I had nothing to do. The Devil Rays, Tampa’s attempt at Major League Baseball, weren’t on until evening.

I sat in the car and gave into the feelings of regret about Lindsey and all that had happened since her murder. I allowed these feelings out periodically, but for short periods of time. If I gave them free reign, I’d be laying at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, my body providing food and shelter for a family of crabs or something.

I took a bathroom break at the 7-Eleven a little after two and almost missed the FBI guys who came to his office. They walked up, knocked on the door, then entered. When they left two hours later, he got in his car and drove west, opposite the direction they went.

The Courtney Campbell Causeway extends about seven miles across the northern part of Tampa bay to Clearwater. Without it, the trip would take twice as long as it does, which would cause issues with beach-goers and Scientologists.

Instead of crossing the causeway, he turned right at its beginning and drove behind an abandoned hotel to a place called Bahama Breeze. He got out of his car and went in. Bahama Breeze looks like a giant Key West-style house with a massive porch. Lynne liked it there. We’d talked about eating there, before she dropped off the face of the earth.

I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and my stomach was growling as I watched Carl walk up to the porch. He stopped with his foot on the first step, then walked back toward me. He’d discovered me and it didn’t see useful to deny it or run.

I opened the door and stood up. The nice thing about watching from inside the car was the air conditioning. A wave of heat hit me when I opened the door. It was mid-afternoon, but the sky to the east looked like apocalypse. Unlike the rest of the country storms, in Florida storms can move eastward or westward. Today’s were moving westward.

“I picked you up when we went around the airport,” he said. “How long were you following me?”

“I showed up at your office about an hour ago.”

“You’re lying,” he said.

“So are you.”

He told me I might as well come inside, and I did. We sat inside at the bar. A youngish guy in a pale yellow and gray Hawaiian shirt took our order. Carl ordered the fish tacos and a Scotch. I ordered a burger, side salad, and a club soda. I wanted beer but the club soda was better for me.

“What made you change your mind about working this?” he said.

“Something your wife said while she was sitting on my lap shoving her tongue down my throat.”

He stopped arranging his napkin on his lap and looked up at me. I expected anger, but instead there was bewilderment, then resignation.

“She give you the e-ticket ride?” he said. There was bitterness, but no anger in his voice.

I shook my head. “Decided I didn't want to ride the rides today.”

“You’re nuts,” he said. “Even when things weren’t going well with us, the sex was always incredible.”

“Maybe it’s not about the sex.”

He froze at those words and sadness coated his eyes.

“Your wife told me about your feelings for Shelby,” I said. “Shelby give you the e-ticket ride?”

Anger flashed through his eyes, but I was just re-using the phrase he’d used. “No. No rides. I—she doesn’t see things that way.”

I nodded.

He took a long pull on the scotch, then avoided my gaze. “Why would she? She’s 23, rich, beautiful. She could have anyone she wants, so why go for a 53-year-old has-been?”

“You have a woman of about fifty at home who’s pretty well-to-do and an absolute knock-out. Why go for a kid?” I knew the question was incendiary, but I asked it with a soft edge in my voice. I wanted the answer.

He closed his eyes, smiled, and leaned his head back. “My wife's a beautiful woman. But she didn’t move around with me while I was in the service, and we both…it was a long time apart. When I retired, we talked about whether to divorce and we decided to give it a shot. She’s just not cut out to be a cop’s wife.”

“You think Shelby is?”

He shook his head. “I’d quit for her, if that’s what it took.”

“You’re messed up.”

“I love her, though,” he said. “And I want to find her. And you’re gonna help or you wouldn’t be here.”

The bartender brought our meals and brought me another club soda. Carl nursed his Scotch.

“How come?” he said.

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”

The bartender asked me if I wanted something else. I opened my mouth to ask for a draft, but said, "Nothing" instead.

Finding Shelby Moore, Part II

After my wife was murdered, I took a case in Tampa to get away from the memories and my inability to get access to the information to investigate. Eventually, I figured out who shot her to death and who had it done. In the process, a lot of people had died, including a couple friends. In response, I moved to Florida to get away from all of it. Unfortunately, memories and guilt aren’t confined to a physical location.

Now, I lived in an apartment on the causeway in Dunedin, Florida. The tourism brochure told me that Florida’s the happiest place in the world. I’d never been in Florida in August and wasn’t enjoying the heat. Instead of going outside and watching bikinis, I unpacked and drank a beer.
I was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Carl Clayton.

“Oh it’s you,” I said in a one stream monotone intended to show my lack of enthusiasm.

He walked past me into the apartment. “What did you see?” he said.

“Come in”

“When I got tased. What did you see?”

I took a deep breath and assumed the posture Lindsey said I always took when I was angry. “I gave all this to the FBI.”

“Now you’ll give it to me.”

“I could throw you out.”

He stepped close and sneered at me. “I don’t think you can.” He was probably right.

My heart wasn’t into the fight. Besides, if I talked to him, maybe he’d leave. “I saw a white van, no markings, no rust, black trim. Like a fleet van. Two men got out. A third drove. The two guys wore work clothes and ski masks. The little one got out the back and tased Shelby. The bigger one tased you. They threw her in the back and left you. The van had a Florida plate.” I told him the number. “It turned right on the main drag in Clearwater Beach. I ran to the curb, but it was gone.”

He nodded and stepped away from me, which reduced my irritation level marginally. I walked past him to my beer.

“Can I have a beer?” he said.

“No.”

He nodded again and sat down. “Crosetti’s a prick. They’re going to sue me. I told him—and Shelby—that I wasn’t enough and that she shouldn’t be walking the beach like that. He told me to give her what she wants and quit being a pussy.”

“Nice mouth,” I said.

“He’s a prick, but he helps Shelby make a lot of money.”

“Why would she need more than you for security?” I pulled some books out of a box and put them on a shelf. They were Beverly Lewis, Lindsey’s favorite.

“Sorry?” My question took him by surprise.

“I called around on you. You’re pretty formidable, based on what I’ve heard. Why does she need more than you? What’s the threat against her?”

He looked up from the couch and smiled. “I did my homework, too, didn’t think you were that good. Someone with a little more skill would wouldn’t have killed half of upstate New York.”

Any good will I felt for him vanished. “Don’t be an asshole.”

He didn’t move except thumbing the arm of the couch. It was the couch Lindsey and I made love in the day I proposed to her.

“Help me find her,” he said.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

His look hardened. “It’s important.”

I opened the door for him. “A lot of my love for humanity died with my wife.”

He walked at me, then stopped and glared again. I managed to not wet my pants as I waited for him to leave and closed the door behind him.

****

After Carl left, I sat on the couch looking at a picture of Shelby in Sports Illustrated. She didn’t look like Lindsey and yet in her face, I could see my wife. I fingered my ring as I studied the picture.

My research showed Carl’s resume was rock solid. He was tough, thorough, and experienced. A few people hinted might be too eager to mix it up, maybe not the worst thing when you’re guarding a rich, 23-year-old hottie.

The Claytons lived in a comfortable house in Brandon. I pulled up in front of Clayton’s house a little after seven, but didn’t see his ’68 black Mustang in the driveway. I rang the bell anyway.

A woman about my age answered the door wearing a tight-fitting gold, one-piece bathing suit and holding a tumbler of amber liquid with ice. From the smell that wafted from her drink, the beverage wasn’t suitable for children. “Can I help you?”

“Carl here?”

She chuckled. “No. Would you like to come in?”

I shrugged and stepped in. She closed the door behind me.

“Did I say something funny?”

“Not intentionally,” she said. Her body was lithe and nearly perfect. The bathing suit fit like a second skin over her sleek hips and torso and firm-looking breasts. Her face lacked make-up but looked pretty anyway. Her hair was a little spiky in the middle, then tapered out to the side in a modified page-boy cut of some sort.

As she padded away from me, she wiggled her hips a more than necessary. “Want a drink?”

“Got coffee?”

She laughed. “No, I meant a drink.”

“Beer would be nice.” I really wanted coffee.

She came back with a bottle of Heineken, not my favorite, but it was free. She walked to the living room and sat down on a leather couch. She crossed her leg and took a drag on her drink, which she’d filled while she got my beer.

“Can help you with something?”

I sipped the beer. The first time I had a Heineken, I didn’t like it. I could tolerate it now, especially if it was cold. This beer was very cold.

“You can give me the fridge this beer came from,” I said. “Cold.”

She chuckled as if I were a child who’d just said something adorable.

“I need to talk to Carl about Shelby Moore.”

Her lips tightened for an instant, then she caught herself.

“Is there a problem with that?” I said.

She shook her head and anger flashed. “No problem. I threw him out six weeks ago.”

She tipped the glass back and drained it. Then she closed her eyes and let the booze flow through her. Within a couple seconds, she opened her eyes again, the anger apparently washed away by the alcohol.

“He said he loves her, after all the shit he’s put me through,” she said. “I’ve spent hours working out to stay attractive for him. I was the good military wife and I’ve never caused any problems. And this—this girl—is what he wants now. I’m better looking, more fun, and better in bed.”
She thrust her chest forward a little, which wasn’t necessary, given how she filled out the swimsuit.

“I haven’t seen you in body paint.” I wanted to break the moment, but as soon as the words left my lips, I regretted them. She walked over to me, sat on my lap and kissed me on the mouth. The liquor taste in her mouth was nice, an Irish Whiskey by the taste of it. I didn’t move, but I reacted.

“I bet the wonderwhore can’t do this to you,” she said. She was considerably drunker than I thought, not that my body minded.

The last time I was with a woman was six months ago, when Lynne Deane, who might mean something to me or might not, helped me figure out my wife’s murder. We thought we were going to die and found solace in each other. Six months is a long time.

I kissed her back and ran my hand across her flat stomach. A part of me said to stop, but the rest of me didn’t hear it very well. She leaned in and the touch her breasts against my chest as electric. I moaned. I wasn’t going anywhere and somewhere deep down, that disappointed me.
Her suit was low-cut in the back and I snaked my arm around her and under the fabric to reach for her breast. As I passed over her ribs, she stiffened and bit my tongue. Maybe it had been a while for her, too. Our ragged breathing fell into cadence with each other.

“Your husband’s a fool.” My voice sounded surreal.

“I know,” she leaned forward whispered in my ear.

“He’s a cop.”

“He’s an asshole.” She stuck her tongue in my ear, which surprised me by feeling good, then nibbled my ear lobe, then whispered. “Don’t make me beg.”

She ran her hand down my chest and I thought of Lindsey’s friend Amy. After Lindsey died, Amy comforted me. Eventually, we slept together, which turned out to be one of my worst decisions. Amy had nibbled my ear.

“How about you carry me upstairs?”

I closed my eyes in disbelief at my next words. “I can’t.”

Her arm snaked around my back and under my pants. I bit my lip and suppressed a moan as her hand slid down over my ass.

“I can’t. Mrs. Clayton.” My calling her Mrs. Clayton broke the moment. I didn’t know her by any other name.

She stood up stiffly. “I see.”

“It’s not that you aren’t…I mean…holy geez, but—”

“But you can’t sleep with another man’s property,” she said. “Even if she wants to.” Her voice was cold and hard.

“It doesn’t have to do with you being property. You’re drunk and we’ve never spoken before twenty minutes ago.”

“What do you want to do, go on a date?”

I shrugged slightly. “It would do in a pinch.”

“Fuck you,” she said. She pulled her glass back to throw her drink at me, then changed her mind. So she walked away from me, swaying her hips a little extra as she did. She looked really, really good.

Finding Shelby Moore, Part I

It happened faster than I could react. A van pulled up in the parking lot where the man and woman walked side by side. The panel door slid open and a smallish guy thrust his right hand toward the woman. She fell, hitting her head on the door then didn’t move. A larger guy jumped out and did the same to the guy. He fell, but his shriek of pain and despair was unmistakable from my perch more than a hundred yards away.

They guy who fell managed to spastically tried to get up, but couldn’t. The big guy and the little guy picked her up and got back in the van. As they picked her up, I saw a faux smile on her face, a grimace from the pain. It drove off, while the guy who was with her tried to stand, but couldn’t. A taser does that to you.

* * *

When the FBI finished with me, I was summoned to Dom Crosetti’s office. Crosetti was my client, the business manager for Shelby Moore, the 23-year-old golf wunderkind who got kidnapped while I watched. Carl Clayton, her 51-year-old bodyguard was there, too. He was the man Crosetti hired me to observe. Crosetti seemed to think Carl wasn’t doing his job well. Maybe Crosetti was right.

“This is total fucking bullshit,” Crosetti yelled as he paced across the floor between us. If Patton had been an overweight, third-generation Italian who wore a suit in August in Tampa, Florida, he’d have been Dom Crosetti. “There was fucking two of you there. And a little guy and a fat guy in a fucking van snatched her from under your fucking noses.”

You can tell someone’s angry when they annunciate the final G on the end of the f-bomb. Crosetti annunciated four of them.

“I was a hundred yards away and I can’t run an 8-second hundred-yard dash.”

Crosetti turned and glared at me. He opened mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “Why the fucking fuck were you that far away?”

If they didn’t hear him in Cuba, they weren’t paying attention.

“You paid me to be that far away. I was keeping an eye on Carl, remember?” Once, I’d have responded with at least as much volume and rage as Crosetti. But you didn’t affect guys like that by out-yelling them. You did it by refusing their invitation to escalate. My words were matter-of-fact and Crosetti looked like he just ate a lemon. He turned away from me.

“Carl,” he said. “The fucking security genius. Nice how you put up a fight, you goddamned pussy.”

Carl didn’t say much, which didn’t surprise me. According to my research on him, he was a pro’s pro. He spent twenty years as an MP, retiring with a full pension before he was forty. Then he was a Tampa cop for eight more years before he went private. Now, he handled person security for some of Tampa’s biggest names, at least according to his website.

A year ago, Suncoast Management Consultants hire him to provide security for Shelby, the second most successful golfer on the LPGA. In her short career, she’d amassed a fortune in endorsements, including a clothing line sold at Target, a line of Callaway golf clubs, and nearly as many commercials as Tiger Woods. Unlike Tiger, she looked incredible in body paint in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. She’d played a bit role as a woman who got taken by the smoke monster in the first season of Lost and was rumored to be taking acting lessons during the off-season.

To have the world’s biggest female sports star snatched from him would forever make Carl Clayton’s name infamous and invalidate a three-decade career.

“You told me to give her what she wanted. She wanted to walk along the beach. I told her not to, Dom. But we did anyway.”

“Don’t fucking blame this on me,” Dom said. “There was a guy with a video camera and he got the whole thing. All you did was lay there. You didn’t even fucking fight back.”

Carl stood and took a step toward Crosetti, then turned away from him.

“What?” Crosetti said. “You want to take a pop at me? It would be a hell of a lot more than you fucking did when they took Shelby.”

Carl paced away, then stopped, closing his eyes and looking down at his feet.

“You ever been tased?” I said.

“You aren’t part of this. Shut the fuck up,” Crosetti said.

I stood. “Your muscles don’t work. You tell yourself to get up and deal with it, but you can’t. You certainly can’t—”

Crosetti took a step toward me. He wasn’t a large man, and he was overweight, and I could dump him on his ass without breaking a sweat, but he was intimidating—even if I didn’t feel threatened by him. I’d be intimidating, too, if someone stole my meal ticket and I was terrified about it.

“I said shut the fuck up,” he yelled, like a poor parent unable to control a precocious toddler. Spittle sprayed on me and he purposely crowded my space. Guys like Crosetti, in my experience, want you to react. I didn’t.

“The FBI is working it now,” he said. “You’re fired. You’re a mouthy fucking son of a bitch anyway.”

He turned to Carl. “You,” he said, saying the word as a curse. “I’m not done with you yet.”
Crosetti turned to me. “I told you you’re fired; get the fuck out of my office.”

I stood and walked past him. “I’ll have my invoice to you by close of business tomorrow.” To my surprise, he didn’t object.