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I SAT IN THE WAITING room of the visitor’s area at the John E. Goode Pretrial Detention Facility or the PDF, as it was better known. A guard called my name and led me to a cold, empty room with a long table and a chair on either side.
I sat down in one of the chairs as the door opened behind me. A guard walked in and sat Philip’s brother Frank down in the chair across from me.
The guard left the room and peaked in through the small window in the door he’d closed behind him.
Frank kept his stare on me for a moment, not saying a word.
I gave him a friendly nod. “Hello, Frank.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said.
“I thought you could use a visitor. Someone to talk to.” I looked around the empty room. “Can’t imagine you have visitors lined up to see you.”
He dropped his eyelids halfway down over his eyes. “You the one who got me pinched?”
I slowly shook my head. “The neighbor you stole the car from had no trouble telling the Sheriff’s Office who stole her car.” I shrugged. “Although I will admit I encouraged her to make the call.”
He stared back at me, folded his arms at his chest. “What the hell do you want with me?”
I leaned forward on the table, my hands folded in front of my chin. I looked past Frank toward the guard behind the door. “I almost forgot, with so much going on, that you’d pulled a gun on me. I’m sure that’d go over well, tacked on top of an auto theft and assault charge.” I shrugged. “Maybe I should bring that up with someone?”
“I gave the car back to her that night. Even apologized. I simply borrowed it.”
I huffed out a laugh. “I’m sure the Judge’ll buy that one.”
“You’re not a cop. And you’re not my lawyer. I have nothing to say to you.”
“For starters, how about you tell me why you came after me?”
Frank took a deep breath, the veins in his neck thick as the pressure seemed to build inside him. “I was looking for my brother. Nothing more to it than that.”
“You ever think to, uh, I don’t know...maybe just ask me? Without the threat of shooting led through my skull?”
Frank turned and looked over his shoulder toward the door. “Keep your voice down, will you?”
“So why, after all these years, are you suddenly down here looking for Philip?”
“Because I need his help.”
“You need his help?” I leaned back in the chair and scratched my chin for nothing more than effect. “You know the Sheriff’s Office is saying Philip’s most likely dead, right?”
“Presumed dead,” Frank said.
“That’s correct,” I said.
“Philip spent just about as much time swimming in the oceans around the world as he has up on land.”
I didn’t break my stare. “And?”
“I’d bet he’s alive. And I’d bet he’s hiding. I wouldn’t put it past him...he blew up that boat all by himself. Just so he could hide.”
I leaned forward on the table again, as close as I could get to Frank without leaving my seat. “Would you bet the crystal pelican?”
He stared back at me, his chin up and his eyes narrowed. He took a moment before he spoke. “What do you know about that?”
“Not much, to be honest. But I get the feeling someone out there wants to get his or her hands on it. Maybe bad enough to kidnap Victoria and try to kill Philip.”
“Who’ve you talked to?” Frank said.
I looked back toward the guard behind the small window on the door. He was laughing with another guard, barely paying attention. “Doesn’t matter who. But I do understand it’s worth quite a bit of money.”
Frank shifted in the chair and leaned forward on the table. “It disappeared after my father died. There was a deal in place with this dealer, and...”
“Charles Weiss?”
Frank raised his eyebrows. “You know him?”
“He’s someone I’ve come across.”
“Well, nobody seemed to know where it ended up. I assumed Philip had it, or maybe even hid it. But, to be honest, we weren’t the closest of brothers. Especially over the past few years. It’s not like he’d tell me.”
We both sat quiet for a moment.
“So what’s your deal, anyway?” Frank said.
“My deal?”
“You workin’ for Philip?”
I shook my head.
“You’re a private detective, right?”
“Private investigator.”
“But you’re not working for Philip? Then why are you involved? Who hired you to come here and crawl up my ass.”
I folded my arms and stared at Frank across the table. “Who I work for is none of your business. The fact is, you pulled a gun on me. Then I showed up at your door and you ran. Which, coincidentally, is what got you in here in the first place.” I stood up and looked down at Frank. “Philip was my friend. And that boat was my home for the past three years. It could’ve just as easily been me on there when that bomb went off. And if you or anyone you’re friendly with has anything to do with planting that bomb or taking Victoria, I’ll see to it myself...you’ll go down hard. That might mean behind bars...or the wrong side of the ground.”
I headed for the door.
“Wait,” Frank said.
I stopped and turned to him.
“What if I was willing to help you? How about...you help me, I help you?”
I looked back toward the door, ready to walk away rather than listen to what kind of deal Frank wanted to negotiate.
“You said you talked to Charles Weiss, right?”
I took a couple of steps toward Frank and nodded. “Why?”
“I don’t know what he told you—if you did talk to him—but that deal he had with my father...the whole thing almost got called off.”
“What do you mean?”
“My father didn’t trust him, didn’t think he’d come through on what he’d promised.”
I paused a moment, my eyes right on Frank’s. “Is that why Charles went to you?”
“You don’t miss a beat, huh?” He looked toward the door.
“So, what, you help Charles pull off the deal with your father, he cuts you in on a share?”
Frank nodded as the guard walked in, said the visitation was over, and dragged Frank out the door ahead of me.
––––––––
I SAT AT THE BAR FOR a quick drink but to also talk to Billy. He was one of those people you could talk to. And he’d actually listen. And when asked—only when asked—he’d give you his advice. And it was usually pretty good.
“Didn’t see you upstairs this morning,” he said as he poured Jack into my glass.
“Just got back from the detention center,” I said. “Philip’s brother Frank got arrested for stealing his neighbor’s car.”
“He stole his neighbor’s car?”
I nodded. “He used the word ‘borrowed’ but that’s not the way I saw it. The judge won’t see it that way either, unless the woman decides to drop the charges for some reason.” I sipped my drink. “He did it right in front of me, so I could help put him away for a bit if I wanted to.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“I went there to see what he knows about Philip. And about this clown Charles Weiss.”
“Frank’s the one who pulled the gun on you?”
I had my glass up under my mouth. “Yeah, that was Frank.”
Billy poured four drafts of beer from the tap, held all four mugs together and carried them across the bar without spilling a drop.
He walked back over and leaned with his hands down on the bar in front of me. “But he’s not the one who shot you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“No leads yet on who did?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
Billy crouched down behind the bar and came up with an unopened bottle of Jack, cracked the top and put it up on the shelf behind the bar. “Did you meet your friend last night?” he said.
“Kathleen?” I nodded. “She’s married.”
“Oh.”
I lifted my glass. “Separated, I guess. But her husband knows about me.”
“She said that?”
I nodded. “Alex thinks I’m being paranoid, but there’s a little part of me wonders if this had something to do with me being shot.”
“You mean, it might not be connected to Philip?” Billy tilted his head a bit. “Really?”
I shrugged my shoulder. “I don’t know. I was sure it had to do with Philip. I mean, why would the husband show up out in Neptune Beach, like I’m ever out there...”
“I’d have to side with Alex. You’re being paranoid.”
“Then the boat blows up...I start to wonder, maybe—”
“Henry, they kidnapped his fiancé. Are you trying to say the explosion’s not related?”
I felt my face get twisted. “A coincidence?”
Billy shook his head, pulled the towel from over his shoulder and wiped out the glasses he pulled from the dishwasher behind the bar. He nodded toward my empty glass. “Another?”
I pushed my glass forward.
Chloe—Billy’s most loyal employee who he considers family—walked in from the kitchen, tying her smock around her waist. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, seeming out of breath. “Hey Henry.” She gave me a big smile.
Chloe had recently graduated from college, but kept working for Billy. She was smart. But like Billy, she enjoyed being behind the bar. It didn’t hurt that her boyfriend, Jake, was in charge of the kitchen.
“Henry, someone was in here looking for you a couple of days ago. Didn’t know where you were, and wouldn’t have told him if I did.”
“Him?”
She nodded.
Billy and I looked at each other.
“You get a name?” I said.
“No. And he wasn’t very friendly.”
“What’d he look like?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Dark hair. A little heavy, wore a black t-shirt, black pants. Had a chain on his neck that matched his thick gold watch.”
Billy leaned toward me, just over the bar. “The husband?”
Chloe threw up her hands and covered her ears. “I don’t want to know a thing.” She walked away, started chatting with one of the older couples down the bar.
Billy dropped two cubes in my glass and poured a shot of Jack over the top. “Any idea?”
“This guy Charles Weiss...he’s the one involved with Philip or Philip’s father...maybe Frank, too. Well, he has this guy working for him. A bodyguard, I guess. Didn’t talk much, but sounds like someone Chloe just described.”