“A while back. It was before she put that skull and crossbones sticker on the front of her ride. She was hosting a group of fortune-tellers and wanted to book a cruise. When I told her my price, she said that the spirits had ensured I’d give her a significant discount. When I told her the spirits were wrong, she called me a few choice insults and drove that scooter right at me. I stepped aside. She kept moving and flipped me the bird as she drove away.”

  “What happened to the cruise?”

  “She paid full price. Now, what’s your point?”

  “What do you know about Jolly Roger?”

  She stopped chewing to wipe the corner of her mouth. Then her brow furrowed as she pondered the question. “The usual stuff. Real estate developer, made his fortune a while ago, single. Why?”

  “I think he knows more about the murder than he’s letting on.”

  “It did happen at his resort. I’m sure there are any number of things he’s having to deal with that nobody knows about.” She dipped a French fry into a little plastic container of mayo.

  “Sure, but what about this? I’ve gone through Fran’s notebooks from front to back and there’s no mention of Roger anywhere. You can look for yourself. There has to be a reason for that.”

  “I’m going to preface this comment by making it clear I’m playing devil’s advocate here. Could it be as something as simple as Fran not wanting to make the guy who owns his building mad at him? After all, that’s something Roger could hang over his head that nobody else could.”

  “That’s totally possible. Let me ask you this. Those security guys we passed when we were leaving Fran’s condo the other night. Have you ever seen them before?”

  She shrugged. “No, but I don’t get over to the Sea Breeze often. Roger hired them ages ago and had them keep a low profile. We’re probably noticing them now because he’s increased their visibility in response to the murder. You know, to show people there he’s taking their safety seriously.”

  Nic was good. She had a reasonable answer for everything. Which was why I was having this conversation with her. I was far from done, though.

  “What about the gun Roger had with him? That thing could have taken out a small village.”

  “True, but it’s perfectly legal to own one in this state. Whether that rifle is his way of compensating for something else, I’ll let someone else decide.”

  “He’s one of your regular clients, right?” When she nodded, I barreled on. “What do you do for him?”

  “I do a lunch cruise every Thursday for the residents and vacationers. It’s a three-hour trip around Choctawhatchee Bay. There’s a private island near Hogtown Bayou where we stop for lunch. The owner lets Roger show people around the place. It’s great for wildlife sightseeing.”

  Fascinating. “And does Roger accompany the folks taking the tour?”

  “Yep. He says it’s a value-added personal touch. The break at the island comes in handy. I use the time to tidy up the boat. In the summer, it’s a quick turnaround to prep for the afternoon cruise.”

  We sat in silence while we ate. I took the time to chew on the information, too. Something in a far corner of my mind was bugging me. Like when I get a mosquito bite on my back somewhere I can’t reach and need to use a ruler to scratch it. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what was niggling at me, though.

  “What’s with this sudden fixation with Jolly Roger?” Nic wiped her hands on a paper napkin. Her sandwich was gone. “Seems to me that Claudine’s got to be the murderer. Everything fits the profile, she doesn’t have an alibi, and she was even stupid enough to attempt to break into your place.”

  “You’re not wrong. It bothers me that that Roger’s not in Fran’s notebook. It’s like back in the day when I’d be working on an app. If the code was missing a single piece of information, or if that information was in the wrong place, the program wouldn’t run. Everything had to fit together, in the proper sequence, to get the desired result.”

  Nic nodded. “And Roger’s that piece of missing code.”

  “Exactly.” I’d barely touched my fries. I traded them for Nic’s slaw, which she’d ignored. “Until I can figure out what’s missing, I can’t be confident about whether the murderer’s Claudine, Sybil, or even Roger.”

  “What about the reverend?”

  “I don’t have anything solid beyond the fact that he grew up here and Cohen’s notebooks barely mention him. It’s weird that there are zero mentions of the guy’s affair with Claudine. To be honest, I’m afraid he’ll try to get me to join his church if I go talk to him. That would make it weird when I respond to that by asking if he’s been sleeping with Claudine. I’d rather avoid that if I can.”

  “Whatever floats your boat. Okay, back in your tech days, what would you do when you ran into a roadblock like this?”

  “I’d ask someone to look at the code.”

  “Except we’re not talking about code in a literal sense now, knucklehead.”

  “Right. Then I’d go back to the starting point. To see if I could figure out what had been entered wrong or if something was flat-out missing.”

  She snapped her fingers, then pointed at me. “Then that’s what you should do now. The notebooks are your one solid piece of evidence. Go through them one more time. Slowly, one page at a time. Maybe that way you’ll find something you missed before.”

  My phone buzzed. I needed to be at my next appointment in an hour. On the way back to Nic’s boat, she thanked me for lunch.

  “It’s the least I could do. I appreciate you taking the time to help me brainstorm. I’m getting closer. The answer’s out there, almost within reach.”

  “Then keep at it. And if I can think of anything helpful, I’ll let you know. I’m really proud of you, Elmo.”

  With Nic’s encouraging words floating through my mind, I kept focused on my appointments throughout the afternoon. Whenever the case began to invade my thoughts, I pushed it into the background. It wasn’t until I released the critters I’d been holding, two chipmunks, a raccoon, and a snake, that I let my mind go back to the question at hand.

  Who was the person in charge of the plot to murder Fran Cohen?

  After dinner, I sat at my desk and stared at the notebooks. Each one had a unique cover. One was red, one was green, and the other featured alternating white and black vertical stripes. Each one contained one hundred pages. I wasn’t looking forward to flipping through three hundred pieces of paper. Like Nic said, before I did anything else, I needed to make sure I hadn’t missed anything within the stout paperboard covers.

  I was about a third of the way through the one with the red cover when I stopped. The answer to the nagging itch in the corner of my brain finally came through.

  “Dude.” I gave Oscar, who was curled up on top of a small stack of papers on my desk, a head scratch. “What if, instead of flipping through each of these pages, I count them. Maybe I’m missing something because it’s really missing. As in gone.”

  He responded with a slow blink, then reached out to me with his right paw. Maybe he was only stretching. I chose to believe otherwise.

  “I’ll take that as an affirmative.”

  Ten minutes later, I had my answer. Two of the books had all one hundred sheets. The one with the red cover was missing four. I flipped through it at a turtle’s pace, analyzing the center binding stitching for telltale signs the absent sheets had, in fact, been removed.

  I hit pay dirt a third of the way in. It was easy to overlook, but scraps of paper no larger than one of Oscar’s claw clippings remained along the spine’s edge. With mounting excitement, I flipped through the rest of the notebook book until I came across a corresponding spot two-thirds through. With the gentlest of tugs, I pulled. Two sheets came free from the binding.

  The conclusion was inescapable.

  Someone had torn two pages out of the notebook. Due to the stitching-like binding of the booklet, two corresponding pages had been left behind. Those remaining sheets, which I had just come across, were no longer attached to anything. Did that mean someone had been in a hurry in his attempt to dispose of incriminating evidence? Or was it the result of something completely innocent? I scratched my chin, trying to force an answer to come to me.

  Then, another idea popped into my head. According to Sybil, Fran had claimed to be working on a history of Paradise Springs. What if he’d used that same cover story with Roger? And in the middle of his research found out something really bad about Mr. Raines? I mean, so bad it ended up in murder?

  “Time for more research.” I dropped a kitty treat in front of Oscar. He was a stellar wingcat.

  Roger owned the Sea Breeze Resort and Condominiums. You can find almost anything about a business on the internet if you know how and where to look. With that in mind, I determined that a corporation named RRPS, LLC purchased the property in 2009. A report in the Palladium said it was a cash deal and that by keeping the resort out of foreclosure, the LLC got it at a big discount off the original asking price.

  If you considered a purchase figure of seven million dollars a discount price.

  Roger was listed as the company’s president. No other officers were mentioned in any Secretary of State filings. That led to my next question.

  How did Roger come up with that kind of money?

  “What now, Elmo?” Nic didn’t seem happy to hear from me. Explosions were going on in the background. She must have been watching one of her favorite action-adventure movies.

  “Did Roger ever tell you how he made his money before he came here?”

  “Yeah.” The sounds of mayhem ceased. “He said he made a bundle in the tech world right before the dot-com bubble burst. That he was lucky he got out when he did. Why?”

  “Following a hunch. Did you know Roger paid cash for the Sea Breeze?”

  “I did not. Must be nice to have that kind of cash lying around.”

  “No doubt. Thanks for the help. I’ll let you get back to your guns and explosions.”

  I ended the call before she could ask any questions. The sinking feeling in my gut suggested the less she knew about my hunch, the better.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I was the ripe old age of twenty when the dot-com bubble burst. Friends and colleagues went from the penthouse to the poorhouse in months. I escaped financial ruin because I was too young to have any money to invest at the time. Over twenty years later, memories of those dark days were still as fresh in my mind as if they’d gone down twenty days ago.

  Very few people who’d jumped on the internet commerce wagon train escaped unscathed. A select few made money. Despite using all of my computer skills, after an hour of searching, I could find no evidence that Roger Raines was one of them.

  In fact, I couldn’t find any evidence of his involvement in the tech sector at any time.

  Which was odd, because like I said, for me those awful times back in 2000 when I was studying computer science were seared into my mind. They were as vivid as my mom’s memories of the 1983 Beirut bombing that took my dad’s life.

  I had no memory of Jolly Roger from the days of my tech-filled youth. The Web made no mention of him. It left me with one conclusion.

  “Hey, Oscar, what’s that thing your grandma likes to say about those Sherlock Holmes stories she likes? When you’ve eliminated all the impossibilities, whatever you have left, regardless of how improbable it is, has to be the truth. Something like that, right?”

  He bumped his head against my hand. His encouragement was gratifying. Especially since most of the time, he ignored my musings.

  That had to mean Roger was a big, fat liar about how he made his money.

  The code in my head had revealed the problem. It wasn’t a matter of the data in the sequence being entered incorrectly. Some of the data was flat-out missing.

  I had, finally, identified the missing data. Now, I could start filling it in and once complete, it would reveal the person responsible for Fran’s murder.

  More Web searching unearthed another attention-getting piece of data. Prior to his purchase of the Sea Breeze, the man had kept a low profile. So low, I wasn’t able to find anything about him. That issue wasn’t unheard of. Gobs of people, in the interests of privacy, lived their lives without leaving a digital trail behind them.

  Jolly Roger didn’t fit that profile.

  While he wasn’t a publicity hound, his image often appeared in social media posts promoting resort activities. As one of the major employers in town, he wasn’t shy about voicing his opinion about issues that affected the resort.

  Like in a recent report in the Palladium. The article covered a development commission meeting. He’d attended to voice his opposition to Fran’s push for the development of more resorts.

  Most folks took his position with a grain of salt. He was only trying to keep the competition out, right?

  What if it was really a move to keep the area’s profile lower than the neighboring communities like Destin and Panama City Beach? That way Roger, or whoever he really was, could keep whatever suspect activities he was running under the radar.

  I needed to talk this through with someone. It couldn’t be Nic because I didn’t want to put her in any more danger than I already had if I was right. She could take care of herself, no doubt, but I’d asked a lot of my ex-girlfriend. More than I probably had a right to.

  Though, to be fair, she hadn’t objected much. At the end of the day, it wasn’t up to me to make decisions for her. If I crossed a line she didn’t want me to cross, she’d let me know. Man, she was cool. I didn’t want that coolness to lead to her being in someone’s crosshairs, though.

  Rambo wasn’t right, either. He was too close to the matter at hand.

  A look at the clock on the wall gave me the answer.

  “Gotta go, Oscar. I have a vampire to track down.”

  If someone had told me two weeks ago that I’d approach the Springs’ Lord of the Night for help, I would have laughed out loud. Then run away and hid to make sure it didn’t happen.

  My, how drastically things could change in a matter of days.

  It didn’t take long to find him. He was in the early stages if his route and had just picked up a plastic bag Goob had left for him. Dressed in black from head to toe, he was a living, breathing shadow as he glided toward his car. Though I still wasn’t certain about the living part.

  “Mr. Longfellow, could I have a few minutes of your time?” My mouth went dry. It took all of my self-control to stay where I was by his driver’s-side door.

  “Some would say I have all the time in the world.” As he gave me a fang-filled smile, his trunk popped open. He must have pressed a button on a key fob concealed somewhere on his person. That was way more reassuring than assuming he opened it with his mind.

  “Um, yeah. I need to apologize for my assumptions about you. They were hurtful and unfair. I promise to do better.”

  He looked at me. Despite my fear that he was going to hypnotize me, I maintained eye contact. Especially after his last comment.

  “Thank you.” He removed the surgical-style gloves he was wearing, also black, and offered to shake.

  I took his hand in mine. It was as cold as the inside of a refrigerator. Despite my struggle to live up to my words, I forced a smile.

  “Your wheels are amazing.” I released his hand and pointed at his vehicle. Even in the dark of night, it had a mirrorlike shine. “Cars today don’t have anything like the character of these babies.”

  “Indeed.” He ran a black-painted fingertip along the trunk’s edge, then watched as it closed. Without any evident prompting from him. “It was a gift from my parents.”

  “That’s too cool. Do they live in the area?” A little buttering up couldn’t hurt.

  “No. They moved away. A long time ago. They were originally from Europe and decided to return to their homeland.”

  That was it. No more small talk. Either the person in front of me was the world’s greatest con artist or he really was a vampire. If that was the case, I had no desire to let the conversation go on any longer than necessary.

  “I hope they’re happy back home.” I rubbed my hands together. “So, I could use your opinion about someone.”

  “This is related to your investigation, yes?”

  “It is. I took your advice and talked to Sybil—”

  “And almost paid for that encounter with your life, I understand.” He grinned, revealing those fangs again.

  “Yeah. The bump on my head still hurts. She confirmed everything you told us. I’d like to get your take on somebody else, though.” I took a deep breath. “I think I know who’s responsible for Fran Cohen’s murder.”

  “Since you’re here, alone, mere feet from me, after dark, I’m assuming you no longer consider me a suspect.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “In that case, do tell.” He opened the car’s passenger door and gestured for me to get in. Like I had any real choice in the matter.

  Once we were seated, he pressed a button to start the car. The only way I could tell it was running was a low-level vibration that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “We can talk while I continue with my route.”

  I told him about what I’d learned since our last conversation, avoiding any mention of the notebooks. The Vampire was in there. And Fran’s observations about him weren’t kind.

  “You were already living here when Raines moved to the area, right? Do you remember anyone talking about his background at that time? You know, things like his qualifications to run a resort, where he got his capital to buy the Sea Breeze?”

  He drummed his fingers on the polished wooden steering wheel while Rush’s Geddy Lee sang about the downside to living in the limelight.

  “Those are thought-provoking questions, Mr. Simpson. As I recall, the powers that be were too excited about the purchase to ask many, if any, probing questions. The resort was suffering, occupancy was down, and maintenance was lax. That, in turn, led to the town suffering. His appearance was akin to a white knight arriving astride his charger, ready to lead the bedraggled forces to victory. I believe his purchase was in cash. That went a long way toward silencing any potential critics.”

 

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