part0039

Evan had just joined her at the bar in the Marathon Grill and Ale House where they’d had their last meeting. So much had happened since that meeting, he didn’t immediately know what she was talking about.

‘With Guillory,’ she prompted.

He took a leisurely sip of his beer, almost laughed to think how ridiculous the situation was—that Guillory’s biggest worry might be caused by petty jealousy. He realized now that it was the events that occurred in Garfield’s house and the stress she’d been under ever since that had fueled the hard time she’d given him over Cortez.

‘No more than usual.’

‘That bad, huh?’ She waited, but from the way he took another swallow of beer it was obvious that she wasn’t going to get any more details. ‘I’m afraid it’s bad news from me too.’

‘They won’t re-open the case?’

‘No. And I’m not surprised.’

Nor was he, his guilt at throwing the gum he’d found stuck to the underside of Winter’s table into the sea kicking in. He could tell from the tone of her voice, the lack of room for any discussion on the matter, that it wasn’t just what he’d done. Something else had happened.

‘The captain made it very clear that he didn’t want me to waste any more time on it. He made some very uncomplimentary remarks about the source of my information.’ She took a small sip of her drink in an attempt to hide the smile on her lips.

‘Uh-huh. Want to hear what he said?’

‘Nothing you haven’t heard before, I’ll bet. Anyway—’

‘You don’t like to be told what to do.’

Her drink stalled halfway to her lips which he’d already noticed had a nice red lipstick on. Then she put it down on the bar again.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

His eyebrows went up an inch, is that so?

‘Of course you don’t. I bet you had a day off the following day. Decided you hadn’t been down to Key West for a while. Maybe check out the guest house where the fire took place, see if there’s any gum on the underside of a chair.’

She gave him a guilty smile, you got me. But he hadn’t finished.

‘And it’d be an added bonus to stick it to that dick Deutsch. That’s what you called him wasn’t it?’

She nodded enthusiastically, then asked him if he was so clever, what happened next? He shook his head.

‘No idea. It obviously didn’t pan out.’

‘Nope. The owner was there when I got to the burned-out house, making arrangements for the repairs, that sort of thing.’

He knew what was coming now, the reason for the finality in her voice.

‘Let me guess. Throwing out all the old pool furniture while he was at it. Claiming it on the insurance too.’

‘You know, you might make a good detective one day. The yard was empty, everything cleared out. Even the pool was drained. So all I’ve got is maybe some residue of the gum you threw in the sea still stuck to the underside of the table on Winter’s boat and nothing to match it to.’

Evan washed the disappointment down with another mouthful of beer.

‘I don’t suppose I’d re-open the case, either. That still doesn’t change the fact that it was closed for no good reason before any of this happened.’

Cortez nodded, can’t disagree with you.

‘Maybe you’d like to take that up with the captain?’

‘That’d be the captain who made the uncomplimentary remarks about me?’

‘That’s the one. My boss.’

The last two words had a definite washing-of-hands feel to them. He couldn’t blame her. At least it meant he wouldn’t be compromising an official police investigation. That fact wasn’t lost on her either. The mischievous gleam in her eyes told him that.

‘It’s back to what Guillory said. How much trouble do I want?’

If that wasn’t an official endorsement to create as much trouble as he liked, he didn’t know what was. He finished the last of his beer in one swallow, believing that their meeting was at an end. When she didn’t follow suit and finish her drink too, he thought for a moment that she was going to suggest another one, maybe a bite to eat. Except it was something very different, something that was very out of character for her. Something that made him think she knew more than she was saying.