I convinced Rambler that a fresh grouper sandwich was worth his effort. I arrived at Dockside first and nursed an iced tea on the covered patio. The tide was crawling in, and seagrass ran across the top of the water under the bridge and in toward the canals. The dolphins like to feed against the far seawall, but they weren’t there. I gazed over the water and felt reflective and thoughtful, but I had nothing to reflect upon and my thoughts were bare, as if a stranger unto myself. It was a combination that had been occurring frequently. At first it was unsettling, but no more. For I’ve come to realize that it is perfectly acceptable to do lazy backstrokes on a calm sea while staring blankly at the clouds.
Harry, the resident pigeon, did a pigeon walk under the table, pecking the plank floor for scraps of food. I flicked a leftover crumb, but the little guy didn’t see it. Other pigeons, unable to rally the nerve, stood on the dock and observed their comrade who, with unexampled bravery, toddled under tables and between patrons’ legs.
Rambler pulled out a chair across from me. Harry scuttled off to another table, more annoyed than afraid.
“You got the film?” he said. We’d discussed the case on the phone. He leaned forward and then back, as if testing his chair for a home position. He rolled his long-sleeve shirt halfway to his elbows.
“I do. And you?”
He nodded and scooted his chair a fraction of an inch. His vacant eyes scanned the calm green water and the houses that lined the shore on the other side of the channel. Rambler rarely exhibited comfort in his surroundings.
“A federal marshal asked you to investigate Mr. Keller’s death as possibly being premeditated,” he said, summarizing what I’d told him on the phone. His voice carried equal part contempt and bewilderment. I wanted to believe that his tone also included a dose of admiration, but that was likely an embellishment.
“The marshal is an acquaintance of mine,” I said, although I owed him no explanation.
That earned a harrumph. “We were told not to indicate that the purpose of the robbery might have been murder.”
I asked him if the police had gleaned any information off the other victims. He indicated they had not.
“Accent?”
He flipped open his hands. “Little hard to ascertain from ‘everyone on the floor’ and ‘hands on heads.’”
“Much money in the till?”
“Not at that time of day.”
“The convenience store,” I said. “That’s not really a bad part of town, is it?”
“Not till now.”
“Did Andrew usually go there?”
He tented his hands and landed a hard glare. He was the one who normally asked the questions. “It’s close to one of his stores and part of his routine. Coffee stop. Sometimes gas.”
I drilled him on the getaway car—no one claimed to have seen one—and other questions that in aggregate gave me nothing. After we’d devoured fish sandwiches in silence, he reached into a wizened leather notebook he’d brought with him. He unzipped it and handed me a manila folder.
“This was in Mr. Keller’s car. We can’t make sense of it and have no way of knowing whether it was related to the double shots he took.”
Inside the folder were pictures of a woman. “Who am I looking at?” I asked, although I thought I knew.
“Elizabeth Walker. Wife of Charlie Walker. NRA lobbyist. Kingpin of Tallahassee.”
Some of the pictures were out of focus, and in others she was partially blocked by people. I recognized the background as the Vinoy hotel, where Keller said he’d run into her. I shifted my attention to her face and my world became unplugged.
Elizabeth Walker, flattened out on a glossy piece of paper, stared at me, her eyes latching onto mine. I had the curious sensation that my life had been scripted long ago, and the woman—and the moment—had arrived. And in that split second, that indivisible element of time, I felt high and cold, as if at an edge and ready to accept the ending. But the sensation pulled back and would not reveal itself to me. I tried to dismiss the bullshit surreal feeling, but as I closed the folder, a shudder tingled up the back of my neck. Elizabeth Walker knew. Knew that I’d seen her. Knew that we were going somewhere high and cold.
“Technically, they should go to the wife,” Rambler said from a galaxy away. “But I’m guessing she won’t miss them.”
Her heart, man. She’s in pain.
“Hey, Sam Spade. I’m talking to you.”
“Anything else in his car?” I said, rallying my mind from the shadows.
“Why? You think for some reason I’m holding back?”
“Doing my job.”
“It’s not your job, it’s a request. No.”
“Keller’s phone?”
“You recall the part in the surveillance video where the shooter leans over? He snatched his phone. We got a positive on that. The fat woman behind the counter saw him pocket it.”
“Did he grab anyone else’s phone?”
“No.”
“Can you pull records and see his call history?”
“Sure. Want your windows cleaned too?”
I leaned back in my chair. “I appreciate what you’re doing.”
Rambler stood. I did likewise.
“Don’t call me,” he said. “You eat here often?”
“I’ll be back in two days.”
He strode out of the restaurant and I reclaimed my seat. A light breeze lifted off the water. It blew in the opposite direction of the tide so that surface debris now floated against the current. I broke off a piece of bun I’d held back and tossed it on the floor. Harry, glad that my lunch date had departed, tottered up to it, his head pecking at the floor. I thought of opening the folder but was afraid of the eyes inside. I told myself to forget her. After all, I had other things on my mind. The big day was coming and I worried if Morgan, my neighbor, had everything ready.
Who was I kidding? Morgan would be prepared; was I? And if not now, when; and if not Kathleen, who? A kamikaze pelican smacked the water, and at that precise moment, I understood why my thoughts were empty and I had nothing to reflect upon. Why I was so content doing a lazy backstroke. I didn’t know it worked that way, and now that I did, I joined the league of most fortunate men.
4
“She’s a beautiful woman,” Kathleen said, her admiring gaze on the picture. “But her eyes no longer hold the sparkle they did when she was young.”
Pictures of Elizabeth Walker from the folder littered the glass table on the screened porch that still held smudge marks from Andrew Keller’s foot. A few pictures were of Elizabeth before she’d transitioned from a brunette to a blonde. Hadley III sniffed one of the brunette pictures and then nestled on top of it, delicately folding her front paws underneath her in a move the beach yoga instructor would swoon over.
“Age,” I said absentmindedly to Kathleen’s observations.
“I’m not so sure about that. Maybe something more definitive. She lost her father and a brother on the same day?”
“She did. She has another brother, but he’s quite a bit younger.”
I’d given her details of Elizabeth’s personal life that I’d Googled. Her father, George, was killed in a car accident, along with his oldest son, Benjamin. Her mother also predeceased her. She and Charlie were married three years after the accident. Andrew had mentioned that she was engaged at the time of the accident, but that person was lost to time. Her professional career started in banking, and despite a meteoritic rise, she’d abandoned it to start a prominent nonprofit dedicated to childhood literacy.