Clearwater Journals
By Al Rennie
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 by Al Rennie
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Image Credit: Photographer—Toni Frissell
Cover Credit: Rita Toews—probably the most patient cover creator ever!
Formatting Credit: L.K. Campbell—just great!
Dedication
For my wife—Marsha
How does she do it?
A few Reader Responses to Clearwater Journals after it appeared on Free e-books.
(Rated Number Two on their Top Ten List of all genres with more than 11000 “hits” in eight weeks.)
What a riveting story with bouts of wry humor. Again Please.—Bruce
Excellent read with more twists and turns than a road through the mountains. Enjoyed every minute!—Kingstonbears
A really well written book. Loved it a bunch. Hope he does another soon. Maybe a series???—Wa6ype
A truly fun read, great sense of humor and a good plot. I recommend this author with pleasure.—Evelyn
Excellent writing, fast paced, liked it a lot.—Toerien
Gripping story, believable characters. Would definitely recommend. Very well written. Thoroughly enjoyed it.—Rachel Caldicott
Put my life on hold until I finished it. Great read! You live the character’s emotions and you can’t be sure of the outcome until the last page.—Charles Hough
Could not put it down—Alta De Lang
Table of Contents
Crazy Things Happen In Paradise
The End of My First Date in Paradise
I’m A Cop Again—Well, In A Way
We Visit the Scene of the Crime
The End of an Almost Perfect Day
Mia and Phyllis—An Odd Tag-Team
One Step Forward—Two Steps Back
Hi Ho Hi Ho—It’s off to Work I Go
Life Takes a Definite Turn—For the Worse
Cooper and I Have A Heart To Heart
The Gold Medal or the Big Needle
Crazy Things Happen In Paradise
“So you used to be a cop in Canada?”
“Yeah, in another life a long, long time ago.”
I was talking with a cute young waitress named Mia at the Clearwater Beach International House of Pancakes—IHOP. I had started to come to IHOP regularly for my main meal of the day, and Mia was the reason. The other two places that I used to go to were nearer to my room, but the chance to see Mia had made walking the extra distance seem worthwhile. I hadn’t really said anything of consequence to her for the first week or so. I just enjoyed watching her. As the days passed, she seemed to take an increasing interest in me. I wanted to believe her attention was the result of my innate charm. More probably, her interest had grown in proportion to the generous tip I always sacrificed for her.
At first, when we finally did more than the serve and volley of ordering a meal, we made casual conversation—the weather—hurricanes and evacuation routes, Clearwater events, tourists and fishing. A week or so into that routine, she accidentally placed the wrong order in front of me. She apologized profusely claiming she had other things on her mind. Her embarrassment was evident. I teased her about being a blonde and having a mind to have other things on. And the verbal exchange started. She passed off my blonde insult with a quick wry smile and a verbal shot about single males eating alone every day at the IHOP—round one to Mia.
From that first short exchange, we began a daily ongoing banter that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was innocent. We were having fun.
Example: Did you hear about the two blondes who decided to drive to Disney Land? When they saw a sign that read “Disney Land left”, they turned around and went home.
Mia seemed to look forward to our verbal sparring as much as I did. Often, when I arrived for my meal, she would have an opening quip about tourists or Canadians. I soon realized that my stock of blonde jokes was running out pretty quickly. I made a quick visit to the local library’s Internet service, and my cup overflowth. There were enough jokes to keep me going for years.
Very soon, I began to consider my meal at the IHOP as the highlight of my day. I eagerly anticipated my walk along the beach to talk with her. The meal became almost incidental. No matter, I thank God that more than pancakes and waffles were on offer. I also realized that I really missed Mia on her days off.
On one memorable late afternoon, the relationship took a turn. It was rainy—cooler than it had been for over a week. There were not as many people in the restaurant. Mia took her break and arrived at the side of my table with a mug of coffee in her hand. She asked if she could join me. This was a first. Our interaction had always been “on the fly”. We had never sat down and looked at each other while discussing anything. I could see no harm in her sitting with me. In fact, I felt a tingle of fearful excitement at the prospect. Living alone can be lonely. I nodded and mumbled that sure, she could join me. She sat down. At first, there was an awkward silence. There were no jokes, no shots, just silence.
We just sat there like two very different beings from very different worlds considering those many differences as we looked at each other across the Formica tabletop. For whatever reason, confronted with the mental fantasy that I had created through the recent weeks, I did not know what to say. Perhaps it was the mutual awareness that we had just transcended some invisible boundary and moved into the new territory of a relationship that kept us quiet.
I smiled.
She smiled.
She was better at that game than I was. Too quickly, I began to feel even more embarrassed and awkward. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea after all. I didn’t know what she expected. Flip banter was one thing; intelligent and meaningful conversation was another. Finally, just as I was about to say something about the weather, she broke our uneasy silence.
“You know that my name is Mia,” she said quietly as her sharp blue eyes found something to intently study on the tabletop. She didn’t smoke, so she picked up her coffee cup and took a silent sip. I realized that although I knew her name, I had never said it to her.
“I know that,” I said nodding to the small plastic nametag attached to her waitress smock above her right breast. “And I’ve heard other people call you that.”
She took a quick glance down to the tag and nodded and looked back capturing my eyes, “Oh yeah, after awhile you kind of forget it’s there. So what’s your story Joe? You can’t be a tourist unless you got a lot of money and are here for the season. But if you had a lot of money, I don’t think you’d eat here as regularly as you do—unless there’s something here more than the food.”
“Probably not,” I said smiling at her and wondering how she knew my name, “but you guys do make a very good waffle.”
“I guess, but after a while you can hardly even look at one. And the smell almost makes me gag.” She made a face, and took another quick sip from her coffee cup. Her intelligent blue eyes never released me. “So again, if you don’t mind too much, what’s your story?”
“I don’t mind at all I guess. I’ve been in Clearwater for almost three weeks now, and the only person I have had a sustained conversation with is the guy who works for the property management company that checks up on the old house where I live. The woman who owns the place, Mrs. Reilly, according to the property guy, is a bit of a flake. She still lives in the house, but I don’t usually know she’s there and even more rarely actually see her. The fishing boat owner I work for from time to time is not what you’d call a conversationalist unless fishing is the topic. I know squat about fish or fishing.”
I realized that I was rambling—a nervous habit. Still, I blabbed on, “And the security work I sometimes do on Sand Key is pretty lonely stuff. You just sign rich people in and sign rich people out. Every so often, you walk around the property. But if I tell you my story, you have to tell me yours. Agreed?”
“Well, that will be a short one sure enough, but yeah, okay, I agree.”
So I told her.
“Why Clearwater?” she asked.
“I visited here before when I was a kid. My folks brought my brothers and me to the area a few times. And I liked the place. It’s warm. I like the beach and the gulf. That’s gulf not golf. No snow, no ice. It’s kind of a nice change from home.”
“So what kind of cop were you? Traffic, a motorcycle or cruiser cop or what?”
“No, I was a detective attached to the Major Crimes department. I was moving along through the ranks—taking courses—that kind of stuff.”
“So why did you stop being a cop? Were you undercover and the bad guys found out you were a cop and now you have to hide out?”
She seemed to know about as much of how police forces work as someone who spent too much time watching too much television.
I smiled. I guess I could have shown her the scars, but I shrugged that one off.
She would have made a pretty fair interrogator. Her eyes never left me. But she was way too fast to jump to wrong conclusions.
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll save that mystery for another time. But I will tell you that I was married in another life—no kids. And here I am.”
But she was tenacious. For the next fifteen minutes she conducted a succinct Q&A. She got most of my life in a nutshell, but I held back the stuff about my brother as well as how my chosen career came to an abrupt end.
“What about your story now?” I asked.
“I got to go back to work,” she said with a quick smile as she rose from her chair with her empty coffee mug. “If you really want to hear my dreary story, I get off at nine. I’ll meet you right outside. Oh yeah, your bill is at the cash register. And I still want to know why you aren’t a cop anymore.”
I quietly finished what I could of my now cold meal—chicken strips—hot or cold, they taste about the same. It’s difficult to eat and tell your life story at the same time. I felt strangely discomfited by the abrupt ending to my meeting with Mia, but there was nothing I could do about that. Her quick smile was a warm touch. I watched her as she started serving another table. It was as if I didn’t exist and our conversation had never happened. There was no doubt about it. She had certainly surprised me. Then I had to ask myself—Was this a date? I didn’t know whether I would return to meet her at nine or not. Yes I did. Was she just messing with me or was she sincere? I mean I had to be at least ten or twelve years older than her—maybe more. Did she want something from me? Was she setting me up for something? And if this was a set up, what was that all about? All the innate cop suspicions that I believed had died long ago rose up in me with cynical lone wolf wariness. I wasn’t afraid. I was curious. I dropped a generous tip on the table and went to the check-out counter.
The overweight middle-aged woman, who managed the restaurant, was usually a naturally pleasant woman. She most often greeted me with a friendly smile. This time, there was no smile. She mutely looked at me as if part of my meal was still stuck to my face. She handed me my check. I paid; thanked her—nothing—and left.
Something to Think About
Even though it was overcast with a steady fine drizzle of rain falling, I decided to walk along the beach. The long wide strip of white sand was ripe with the warm smell of the sea salt and the partial remains of a decaying fish. There were only a few other people walking or jogging along the shoreline. Mainly tourists, I thought dismissively as I ambled quietly along the packed sand near the churning surf. A lone grey gull screamed protectively overhead and then swooped down upon the rotten fish carcass. Nature’s garbage men!
While I walked, I remembered the first time that I met Mia. She had greeted me at the entry to the restaurant, flashed that radiant smile with those brilliant blue eyes and led me to a table in her section. Mia was by nature gregarious. Our relationship had been built on those short, often humorous, verbal exchanges while I ordered my meal. To me, it seemed that she, like so many waitresses, young or old, was a natural flirt. I had watched her play with other customers in a similar manner—the Pretty Woman/ Cinderella dream of whores and waitresses everywhere—some good looking guy with more bucks than brains will come along and take her away from all this misery.
The banter between us had always been harmless and frivolous. There had not been anything sexual or suggestive in our exchanges—no hard line come-on. I had not seriously expected or even dreamed—well, perhaps I had fantasized a little—that anything would come of it. She had become a very pleasant diversion in my otherwise pretty ordinary day. She was the all-Canadian girl next door, but maybe not so innocent—and definitely not Canadian—the stereotypical tanned, blond, blue-eyed young beauty with the firm fit petite body of a cheerleader or gymnast that every adolescent male dreams about at some time in his teens. Those days were a distant memory.
But I felt that there was something more to her—something beyond her obvious physical attractiveness. She seemed to me to be an intelligent individual with a quick wit and a neat sense of humour. It was only her eyes that tipped me to the fact that she had seen a more of life than might be guessed at first glance. Shortly after we met, I found myself wondering why someone like her would have to take a job at IHOP. Now, after her invitation to meet her at nine, maybe I would find out. Or maybe I was reading more into her invitation than was actually there. If she thought I was the Richard Gere to her Julia Roberts, she was going to be disappointed. Throughout my meander towards home, I continued to play the various scenarios in my head. Whatever it was, I was already looking forward to meeting her again that night.
I had a few hours before I had to start back over to the IHOP. I wondered about driving over in the Jaguar. That would impress her. Too Richard Gere—the Jag would stay in the garage. I had a shower and a fresh shave, the second of the day, a personal record. I wondered what I should wear. I realized that I was more alive than I had been in more than a decade. Perhaps alive was not the word. More like curious or intrigued. Then, I as I was wondering if this was going anywhere, I also realized I was being more than just a little bit silly. I mean there had been nothing more than an invitation to meet her after work so that she could honour her side of our agreement. She would tell me her story. I would make some appropriate comment and then, thank her. She would go home. I would go home—end of story. And tomorrow the Florida sun would shine and nothing would be different in my life or hers. Boy! Was I ever wrong!
A First Date in Paradise
I reached the restaurant at ten to nine. I wondered about going inside, but then I remembered the stone faced manager when I paid my bill earlier. I decided to wait outside. It wasn’t raining anymore although the darkening sky was still overcast with heavy cloud cover. No starlit night tonight. As I stood there, I mentally re-played the various scenarios I had developed through the late afternoon. I actually laughed out loud at myself. I must be losing it—becoming delusional. Maybe spending too much time alone in the sun isn’t such a good thing.
“Do you often laugh like that when there’s no one around?” she asked smiling at my obvious embarrassment.
“Er—no, actually I was thinking of a joke someone told me recently.”
“Really? It must have been pretty good. Tell it to me.”
Caught again—damn. “Well, it really wasn’t a joke—er—it was more like a humorous incident.”
“I’m listening. It sounds even more interesting.” She was still smiling at me. Evidently, she had recognized my discomfort. She was enjoying herself.
“It was nothing,” I confessed. “I was actually thinking about this.”
“This? What’s this?” She was really into it now. She was laughing at me. And then I was laughing with her.
“Okay, so where do you want to go to tell me your pitiful story?” I asked. “I mean that’s what I’m here for—right?”
“That’s right, and pitiful is a pretty good word for it,” she replied lightly—almost as if somehow she had forgotten that was supposed to be why I was here. “Let’s go somewhere that’s not too noisy.”
“Well, we could go to this charming Waffle House I know about. It’s off the ground floor of the new Holiday Inn—used to be the Ramada. The food is pretty good if you like pancakes or waffles. The waitresses there are like waitresses everywhere—kind of goofy—and they often smell like syrup and waffles.”
The former Ramada Inn was about two hundred yards back in towards the loop. It was the IHOP’s main competitor in the open twenty -four hour a day mid priced food group.
“Goofy?” she playfully hit my arm and then did a quick sniff of her jacket. “Who was standing here laughing out loud to himself a minute ago? Do I really smell like a waffle and syrup?”
“No, you smell great,” I said as we started walking down the street towards the sound of the gentle surf washing up onto the beach. So much for romance! I had just told her she smelled great. God, I’m an idiot. “I was just kidding about going to the Waffle House. There’s a fairly quiet coffee place slash bar just along Gulfview. It’s supposed to be okay.”
The place that we went into was really about as upscale a restaurant/bar as you can find anywhere on the beach. That’s not saying much. It was called Frenchy’s South Beach Cafe. Everybody, who had been on the beach for more than a week, just called it Frenchy’s. In some upscale urban areas, the joint would have been summarily condemned to a quick meeting with a large wrecking ball. In Clearwater Beach, Frenchy’s was considered quaint.
The interior was darkened and the red and white checked vinyl covered tables were candle lit. There was some quiet elevator type music—Kenny G, I think—playing softly in the background. A jockey size maitre d’ led us to a quiet table near the back corner of the almost empty dining area. The dinner crowd had finished and moved on. The drinkers would start arriving after ten o’clock the miniature maitre d’ said haughtily, as he handed us black plastic covered menus. He was responding to my observation about the shortage of people in the restaurant.
Mia didn’t even open her menu. I did and made a mental note to return sometime in the future. “Want a dessert or something more than just coffee?”
“No, you go ahead though,” she replied with a fleeting smile. Something was on her mind. It wasn’t romance, and it had to do with me. Still a cop I thought as I continued to do a quick scan of the menu.
The little guy returned with a Bic pen and a small spiral note pad held primly in front of him. He looked like a public school teacher about to give a spelling dictation. If he was expecting to take a nine-course meal order, he was going to be disappointed. And he certainly wouldn’t need the order pad. “What can I get for you lovely folks tonight?” he asked in a voice that oozed deep-south.
I nodded to Mia. “Just coffee for me.”
The waiter made a quick head bob and looked at me. “Diet Pepsi on ice with lime and this dessert here—Death by Chocolate—with two forks or spoons—whichever works best.”
“Very good, Sir,” and he turned quickly and disappeared immediately in the direction of the kitchen.
“Two forks?” Mia said smiling at me again. She was relaxed. Her mind was made up. “You must be a dreamer.”
“Not my worst sin,” I said. “Besides, when you see this dessert, you may want some and, like any good boy scout, I’ll be prepared.”
She just laughed quietly and took a quick look around.
“So,” I continued, “now you owe me your story. So let’s have it.”
“Yeah,” she said, “but I have a few more questions for you.”
“Cheater,” I said shaking my head. I was starting to feel more comfortable with her. “You can ask me your questions after I hear your story. But only if I can ask you some more questions as well. Agreed?”
“Well, my story is pretty short. I’m not that old you know?”
“I was a cop. What are you? About twelve?”
“Right,” she smiled sweetly and went on. “Up front—I am twenty seven. I was born in Tampa, so in a way, this is my home area. I quit school and left home when I was fifteen. Even though I have taken some night courses, I haven’t graduated from high school, and that’s why I can only get work as a waitress. My folks still live in the area. Well, my Mom and step Dad do. I don’t know where my biological father is. He left my Mom, and my sister and me when I was about eight or nine. I came back here two and a half years ago when my sister died. And that’s about it.”
“Whoa! Fifteen to twenty seven—that’s a few years unexplained there Round Eyes. Why did you quit school and leave home at fifteen? What happened then? And how did your sister die? Come on. I was a cop—remember? I need details. Just the facts ma’am.”
Just at that moment, the waiter arrived with our drinks and a large white ceramic bowl filled with chocolate ice cream, covered with chocolate syrup and teaspoon size chunks of brownies. Hershey chocolate bar pieces were generously sprinkled on top of three dollops of thick whipped cream. He placed the calorie packed dessert on the table mid way between the two of us with two long handled silver spoons.
“Enjoy!” he said with a quick smile and left us alone. My kind of waiter.
“You’re going to eat that?” Mia asked leaning back from the table her eyes wide open. She pointed at the large chocolate concoction. “It’s a heart attack in a bowl.”
“No, we’re going eat that,” I said reaching for one of the two silver spoons. “Dig in and fill in the rather large gaps in your life while you’re at it.”
“How do you stay so fit looking eating something like that? If I had even a small bit of it—I mean a person could get fat just looking at it. You must have some great metabolism Joe!”
“I won’t eat anything tomorrow. Or I’ll jog longer. This is really good.” I said licking my lips and rolling my eyes. “You’re missing a once in a lifetime!”
“Well, maybe I could try a little—but just a bit.”
“Good eh? Now fill in the blanks.”
“I left home cause I couldn’t get along with my step dad. He is not a very nice man. To this day, he still frightens me. Anyway, I drifted up to Ocala and worked at a horse place for around six months during the winter. A lot of wealthy farms from up north send their horses to the Ocala area for the winter. There were a number of spreads from Canada wintering there. Anyway, there’s always lots of work to pick up then. From there I moved to Orlando and worked for a few months at Disney and Sea World for minimum wage. Then, a guy saw me and hired me to work in his club. Things kind of went from there. I started to drink too much. I worked as a dancer in clubs up there and then moved up into Georgia. I lived with a guy there for a few years. Just stuff like that.”
Mia stopped talking and took another spoonful of calories.
“And?” I said prodding her to continue.
“And about three years ago, just around Christmas, I phoned home. I talked with my Mom and my sister for the first time in about eight years. My sister was almost fifteen years old by then. She was six when I skipped out. After that, I would phone once every two or three weeks mainly to talk with Vickie. That was my sister’s name. She wasn’t really bright, you know. I felt sorry for her. She always had trouble in school—special classes—but not like really retarded. Do you know what I mean?
I nodded. It was enough. Mia continued.
“And a really nice kid too. I felt bad that I had left her there with my step dad. When we talked, she didn’t actually say it; she’d be afraid to, but it sounded like she was having a lot of problems living at home. I really felt for the poor kid. So, in my head, I kind of made her my project. But before I could help her, I had to get myself straight. I stopped drinking and started to save some money. Sometime in the late spring that year when I phoned, Vickie told me that she really had to get away. She wanted to visit me. I said that was cool cause I had been trying to get up the nerve to come home to visit her. We set up a time. I was going to meet her at the bus terminal in Orlando, and she was supposed to stay with me for a week or so. She never showed up. When I phoned home the next day to see what had happened, my Mom told me that she didn’t know anything about Vickie coming to visit me.”
“Did you believe her?”
“I had no reason not to. I figured that Vickie must have been afraid to tell her.”
“So, in a sense, Vickie was planning on running away.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, my mom told me that Vic was missing. A few days later, maybe a week, she was found dead off to the side of a dirt road that leads to the local make out spot. She’d been strangled with her own panty hose. I came home for her funeral, and I ended up staying. But in a weird way, you see, Vickie actually saved my life. And that’s it—end of story.”
Mia looked up at me. Her eyes had started to brim, but she was almost defying me to ask for more. When I said nothing, she scooped the last spoonful of our dessert.
“What happened to the guy who killed her?” I asked. Cop curiosity. There were still all kinds of gaps, but that one seemed the easiest to fill.
“Nothing, they never caught him—if it was a him.” I could see the hook. It was baited very nicely. But still I went on.
“When we were talking earlier, you knew that I had been a cop. Do you remember? I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that to you. How did you happen to find out about that bit of my history?”
Just a little hesitation—a bit of color—maybe more if the light in the bar had been better.
“I must have heard it from someone.”
“I see,” I replied knowing that she had just lied to me. Waiting. Watching her face reflect the mental calculations she must have been doing. I had not taken the hook—yet. Still waiting. The Kenny G recording had been replaced with a string of Jimmy Buffet songs. I think the one playing was called Why Don’t We Get Drunk? Or maybe it was Cheeseburger In Paradise. It didn’t matter. After awhile, most of them sound like Margaritaville.
“Okay,” Mia said, “so I asked around after you came in to eat a few times. You looked like a nice guy, and I was curious. I’m not dating anyone right now, so I asked around a bit. Someone told me that they had seen you over by the docks working for one of the fishing charters. I know a few guys from over there—customers who come in for early breakfast, so I asked. One of them said you sometimes went out with the Frankie Donner boat. He said you were an ex-cop from Canada named Joe Holiday.”
Mia looked over to the door and stopped talking. It seemed that the colour drained from her face. She mumbled something that I couldn’t hear. I became vaguely aware of a minor disturbance somewhere behind me near the bar’s entrance.
We Have Visitors
Wondering if I was falling for one of the oldest tricks in the book, death by distraction, I took a quick glance over my shoulder. Two guys who looked as if they had already spent too much time in bars today were uncertainly making their way towards our table. I didn’t recognize either one of them, so I turned back to Mia.
“I see,” I said again. There was more to her explanation. I could be patient.
“Mia! I thought that was you. Long time no see babe. You lookin hotter than ever.” It was one of the young drunks. “How ya doin?”
The two guys stopped at our table and one of them—a guy who looked like he could do stand in stunt work for Arnold Swartzenegger in his prime leaned heavily on the edge of our table. His beery breath was enough to make me edge back in my chair. “I heard you were working somewhere out here. They got a strip club on the Beach now for all the old farts?” He laughed loudly and looked back over his shoulder to see if his buddy was enjoying his incredible wit. His buddy smiled weakly but looked around nervously. This wasn’t the kind of bar he was used to—no country music, pool tables or any other stumbling drunks.
“I don’t do that anymore Billy Ray,” Mia said anxiously. “I told you that before. I haven’t done it for a few years now.”
“Maybe you could do a little private show for Sammy and me? Show us what you got. We won’t tell no-one. What you say to that babe?” he asked as he pushed hard in over Mia. She shrank back in her chair while looking over at me for help.
“Maybe you’ve had a little bit too much to drink there buddy, eh? And you’ve forgotten your manners too—yeah?” I said quietly while slipping my hand over the long handled silver spoon that still had a bit of melting whipped cream dripping from its tip.
“And who the fuck are you?”
“Just a friend of Mia’s. I really don’t think she wants to talk with you anymore right now.”
“Well, fuck you and the horse you rode in …
That was about as far as he got. I swept his arms and kicked the table out from under him hoping that Mia would react fast enough to get her legs out from under the collapsing table.
Gravity took over, and Billy Ray crashed to the floor in an awkward drunken sprawl of legs and arms. His friend, Sammy, made a sudden lurching move towards me. As he did, I wheeled around and rammed the spoon up under his chin. He hadn’t seen my weapon, so he was probably wondering if I was about to cut him a new mouth. Billy Ray was working awkwardly to get his legs under him when I kicked him in the face—hard. He went out like a cheap light bulb in a power surge.
The diminutive waiter arrived on the run anxiously trying to make sense of the scene in front of him.
“We’ll be leaving now,” I said to a stunned Sammy. “You and Billy Ray here can look after the rest of the damages.” I quickly peeled off three twenties from my money clip and handed them to the waiter.
When we were outside and moving quickly back towards the IHOP, Mia grabbed my hand. “I’m parked at the back of the lot. Are you okay Joe?”
“Yeah,” I replied looking back to see if anyone was following us. There was no one.
When we reached the back of the IHOP parking lot, Mia led me to an older model dark coloured Honda Civic that had definitely seen better days. The relic looked as if it might have been in a few recent fender benders—maybe more than a few. Even in my adrenaline driven rush, I remember thinking, “This woman might not be a great driver.” Mia unlocked the doors, and we got in.
“Why did you have to kick him?” she screamed as she fumbled to get her keys into the ignition.
“Did you see the size of the guy? Six three or four—maybe two-forty to two-sixty! And drunk to boot! And with a friend almost as big!” I replied incredulously. My voice was too loud. The adrenaline pump was just starting to ease off. I made an effort to lower my volume hoping that she would follow suit. “Me—I’m six one—maybe one ninety—one ninety-five if I eat too many Death by Chocolates. You really don’t believe that I should have fought fair—Marquis of Queensbury shit? That big mother would’ve killed me.”
“I guess so,” Mia replied quickly as she fired up the reluctant Honda.
“What was that all about anyway? The one guy, Billy Ray, obviously knew you.” She started to pull the car out of the parking space without checking her mirror or anything else.
“I went out with Billy Ray once or twice just after I came back here to live. He’s a friend of my brother, Terry. They hang out at the same gym. At first, he was kind of nice to me. I didn’t know too many people around here anymore, so I thought—what the hell! On the second date, I found out what a jerk he is. He said he wanted to take me shopping which sounded kind of nice. And then he took me to a porn joint out by the dog track. He wanted me to pick out a few sex toys and then sleep with him and his friend. He’s a pig. He also thought it might be a great idea for me to hook for him—maybe make some home fuck and suck movies. I told him to get lost. I haven’t seen him in months. If I ever do see him coming, I usually take a quick hike in the other direction real fast.
The End of My First Date in Paradise
We pulled away from the almost empty parking lot heading back towards the loop and the Memorial Causeway. The streets were quiet, not much traffic of any kind, and no sign of Billy Ray or his buddy, Sammy. Mia drove by Crabby Bill’s restaurant and the marina docks and continued north along Mandalay Avenue past about ninety-four souvenir shops selling everything from suntan oil and bathing suits to jewellery and assorted sizes of hollowed out alligator skulls. We had not talked. Mia seemed to have become absorbed in her own thoughts which might have explained her reckless driving—but probably not. It was as if I wasn’t there.
Finally, she snapped out of her trance and cleared her throat. She made a wide right hand turn and another left and stopped on Poinsietta in front of what was once a Tru-Value hardware store—now an empty space for rent. The whole friggin coast of the Gulf of Mexico to park, and she picks the front of a former Tru-Value hardware store to park. I knew there wasn’t any romance in the air tonight.
Mia turned off the Honda’s ignition. The old car chugged a few times and died noisily. Before the car’s last wheeze, she had pivoted in her seat to face me. There was no light from the hardware store shell and the streetlight on the lamppost across the road made it relatively difficult for us to see each other. Maybe Mia wanted it that way.
“Do you still want to hear the rest of my fucking pathetic life story?” she asked quietly. There was a sense of urgency in her voice that had not been there before. Her frustration was almost palpable.
“Sure,” I replied. I knew that I was soon going to have to make a decision. The information about her murdered sister that she left out for me earlier was the reason I was sitting here now.
“In the time that I kind of skipped over,” she smiled weakly, took a deep breath, and started uncertainly, “I did some pretty trashy stuff and a lot of stupid things. Things I’m not proud of. I am not a good or even a nice person. Even as a kid, I did things, and things were done to me, that should never have happened. I’m not going there, so please don’t ask me to. But you have to know, right from the get go, that I’m not a nice person.”
“I usually make those kind of judgments for myself,” I interrupted. “And I don’t usually judge too harshly. Life sometimes bites you and you bite back. Even as a cop there were things I did then I might not do now. You have to learn to forgive yourself—and as a sideline I write for a Chinese fortune cookie company.”
Mia laughed lightly, and that was a good sign. “Okay, to me you are a good guy, and I don’t want to see you get hurt. I don’t like seeing anyone get hurt. Anyway, when I contacted my family—that was maybe just a bit more than three years ago—I was about to bottom out. The dancing that I had started out doing in strip clubs had gone to escorting and then, finally, just outright hooking. I was drinking and partying too hard. I wasn’t happy. In fact, I couldn’t even remember what happy felt like. Killing myself seemed like a reasonable solution—the only solution. I even had enough pills to do it I think. But when I talked with my sister, Vickie, she sounded like I did when I was her age. I decided that I wanted to come back here when I was feeling better and help her to avoid the mess that I had fallen into. Maybe even get her to move in with me and I could take care of her. I felt that if I could do that, my life would have served some purpose. Does that sound weird?”
I shook my head—no. To tell me these things was not easy for her. The inner conflicts, the fears and memories could be read on her shadowed face. Her blue eyes were dark and shiny as they looked quickly at me and then hastily strayed back down towards the floor.
“Okay, so when she was found dead, I came back home for the funeral. I talked with the police a lot. At first, I felt like it would only be a few days before her killer was caught. Now, here it is three years later, and they’re not even trying anymore. The head detective in the investigation, a gruff old cop named Langdon, has retired. No one cares about what happened back then except for me—and maybe my mother. Everyone else has gone on as if nothing ever happened—as if Vickie had never been on this earth. That’s not right. My sister was a real person. She may not have been real smart, but she had dreams and hopes. She deserved to have a real life. I can’t just throw her out with yesterday’s garbage. So when I found out you were an ex-cop, I kind of developed this plan in my head to seduce you into helping me find whoever murdered Vickie.” Mia stopped abruptly and raised her eyes to look at me. “Does that make any sense to you?”
“I guess,” I said, “but I must have slept through the seduction part unless you thought the encounter with Billy Ray and his bud, what’s his name, took care of that.”
She laughed again. That sounded good. “No,” she smiled at me and captured my eyes. “The Billy Ray thing was an unforeseen and unfortunate accident. In my original plan, I allowed a couple of weeks to find out if you were smart enough to be able to help me. I wanted to get to know you. I thought that maybe after you fell for me a bit, I’d ask you to help me find Vickie’s killer.”
“Pretty sure of yourself around the falling for you stuff there Sweet Cakes. What if it turned out that I was a gay caballero and not turned on by your clever little seduction slash manipulation plot?”
“It never crossed my mind,” she said as she dropped her small tanned hand onto my thigh. “But I guess I might have asked someone like Billy Ray to seduce you then. Are you?”
“Are I what?” I was suddenly having trouble concentrating on our conversation as her hand moved softly toward my knee and then gently back up my inner thigh.
“Gay?”
“Certainly not. Who told you that?” I said finding my deepest voice.
Mia laughed and her eyes lit up. She took her hand away. I tried to get focused again on her proposal about what I thought she expected me to be able to do. It wasn’t easy getting that directed.
“So you think, because I got away with my life when we met Billy Ray, that I am the ex-cop for the job—and that is ex-cop? Mia, you don’t need muscle; you need brain. Three years after the fact with no co-operation coming from the local cops and no status to approach anyone for information, you’ll also need an incredible amount of luck—which from the sounds of it, neither of us has in any quantity.”
In spite of my effort to keep it light and yet sound reasonable, Mia cowered back into the driver’s seat of the Honda as if each of my words was a stick hitting her. Her blue eyes had started to brim when I had started my reply. Now, they were flowing freely. I silently cursed myself for always having been a sucker for tears. I sat there and watched her. I didn’t know what she would do if I reached out to comfort her, so I did nothing. I waited.
Finally, she stopped crying. Well, not quite, but the odd sniffle can’t be counted against her. She slowly reached towards the car key still in the ignition. “So you won’t help,” she stated quietly. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact. “I’m sorry I bothered you Joe. I’ll take you home.”
I sat there feeling like a total waste of skin. She had bet on me, and I had failed her.
Mia must have found out more than my name and where I sometimes worked. She drove unerringly towards my rooming house. As she pulled to a stop at the curb in front of the old bungalow I share with my crazy landlady, I gave up.
“Mia, I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you. I said to be successful, to even stand a chance of finding out who killed Vickie, we would have to have an incredible amount of luck. Up front and to be honest with you, I don’t think we’ll be able find the killer. But if you want to try, I guess I could help—for a little while. I mean it isn’t as if my social calendar is crammed with events. But, and I’m telling you this right now, if this gets too hairy—you know—dangerous—we go directly to the cops. Pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars. Do you agree?”
She turned towards me and said nothing. She stared at me with glassy eyes that were penetratingly sharp. I guess the deep stare was her form of bullshit detection. I knew right then that her life had taught Mia the importance of cynicism. How many times had men lied to her to get what they wanted from her? Had I just capitulated because I wanted this relationship to develop? Yes! I tried to hold her stare. I wondered if I there was a chance in hell that I could do something here—probably not. She must have sensed my self-doubt.
“Okay,” she said quietly and leaned forward to kiss me gently on the cheek. “Thank you. What do we do now?”
“We do nothing just yet. It’s late, and I have to catch up on my beauty rest,” I replied. She smiled and then laughed. I was beginning to love that laugh. “I go to the library tomorrow and do a search on the Internet and the stacks. I’ll put together a list of the information we’ll have to find. I’ll also create a whole batch of the questions that we’ll need answers for. Once that’s done, and as soon as you can get free from work, we’ll sit down and figure out where we go from there. Does that sound fair?”
“Yes. And thank you,” Mia said simply.
“No problem,” I said. Who was I kidding? There was nothing but problems. “Are you okay to get home on your own?” I added as I reached for my door handle.
“I do it every night Bub,” she replied lightly. “Tell me tomorrow at the restaurant when you want to meet again.”
“Yeah, okay, but listen—don’t tell anyone about what we’re doing just yet. It could be dangerous, and we don’t know who the good guys and who the bad guys are.” Prophetic me.
Mia looked a bit confused. But she promised that she would keep this whole plan our little secret. Then, she put her junker in gear and drove off leaving me beside the curb watching her taillights flicker from view. “I must be nuts,” I said as I turned to go to my room. I believe I may have had a big smile on my face.
I’m A Cop Again—Well, In A Way
My arrangement with the Donner Fishing Charter was pretty loose. Frankie Jr. could call me if he needed an extra body to keep the charter guys in beer, chips and bait. As well, I was expected to fill dead air with friendly chatter about the trivia of Clearwater and Gulf of Mexico. I knew where Hulk Hogan lived and where John Travolta had built his mansion. I could talk about the value of local real estate but not Scientology—or Tom Cruise. Stuff like that. I was free to accept or reject the offer of the day’s work without any hard feelings. Frank had the same arrangement with five or six other retired guys who would go along on the excursion for bare minimum wage. When I entered my room after watching Mia drive away, I checked my answering machine. Although I could have used the money, there were no requests for my services. I could go to the library the next morning and do what I had promised Mia.
The next morning was classic Clearwater Beach for me. The sun was bright and hot. The sky was incredible iridescent shades of blue with not a cloud in sight. There was only a puff of wind, and the fresh morning air around my head was a fine salty blend of gulf water, tropical vegetation and my coconut butter tanning oil. Six or seven screeching Wild Parakeets were squabbling over the nesting rights in the Foxtail Palm behind the garage. That palm, that anchors Mrs. Reilly’s little backyard garden, and her garage are right across from my bedroom window. Damn, I love Clearwater Beach. Every morning, I wake up glad to be alive. Most mornings like this, I’d grab a book and my breakfast and sit in one of the two blue and white striped lawn chairs in the small yard doing little more than working on my tan. Not this morning though. Today, I had to start my investigation for Mia.
The Clearwater Beach library is on Mandalay Avenue just up the street and across the road from the Hilton Hotel. It shares a small pink strip mall with an ice cream joint, a souvenir shop, a gym and the headquarters for the Jolly Trolley. For a buck twenty five you can ride the entire beach from north to south as well as the Island Estates, Clearwater and Sand Key. You want to ride all day on the trolley? It’s the same price—a buck twenty five. One of the drivers, a young guy on a disability pension from the army named Sam Langford, told me about a woman on her honeymoon. She had had a fight with her new husband at the Hilton Hotel. The angry young lady got on the trolley with a picnic hamper and two library books and rode the open bus all day. Her husband had thought that she had been mugged and called the cops.
Because there are not a large number of actual permanent residents on the beach, the library is minor league by any standard. It is a satellite of the new main, very large and very expensive, City of Clearwater Public Library. Most of its lending business is done in the prime season—February to May. As it is has only limited shelf space, it is minimally staffed and supplied. The available space is divided into a small office for the librarian on duty, tiny—his and her—washrooms, and the main floor where the books are shelved. There is a bank of four older computers with Internet connection. As well, there is a smaller bank of in house computers used to maintain the accounts of its borrowers. On these computers, you can check the availability of the various titles stocked on the shelves and reserve new books just out. There are two substantial worktables with four chairs at each table. Near the washrooms along the back wall, there is a single row of four study carrels each with its own hard wood armchair. The operation was a pretty standard and simple and almost never busy.
One of the two things that made this library distinctive from others I have visited was the display of “on sale” art painted by local artists. Almost all of the framed pieces were done in the airy pastel shades popular with the west coast Florida painters. One of the best artists is a very talented woman named Helen West. She and her husband can be found, on almost any evening, selling copies of her work on Pier 60. I have one of her prints hanging over the headboard of my bed. Almost all of the canvases on the library walls were for sale at reasonable prices.
The other distinctive feature was the prevalent aroma of incense. When I visited the library the first time to take out a membership, I had asked about the pungent scent. The librarian smiled at me and admitted with a soft chuckle that she regularly listened to the Beatles and burned sandalwood incense in her office. She claimed it helped her to concentrate. I wondered if she sometimes she used it to disguise the odor of marijuana. It’s the way a cop is taught to think.
During my most recent visit, I had been looking for more blonde jokes. The on-duty librarian, on that occasion, had been an older, gray haired lady who was tanned to the shade of an over ripe banana. My impression of her then had been that she regarded all libraries as sacred places where only incredibly reputable and scholarly people toiled in total silence. She, in turn, took her few responsibilities in the small library seriously.
This time when I entered, the same gray haired lady did a quick take on me and bit her upper lip. Maybe she remembered that I was the guy who had been looking for all the blonde jokes that he could find. This time I realized immediately that she did not like what she saw. Maybe my appearance led her to believe that I was there to be a pain in the ass again. I had the feeling that rubber flip flops, ragged blue jeans, and a decaled rust coloured T-shirt declaring my love for Clearwater Beach were not, in her opinion, the attire suitable for serious scholarly work.
When she had been on duty that cool rainy afternoon that I had spent looking up blonde jokes, she had had to remind me four times that laughing was not permitted in the library. She had forcefully asked me to leave on that occasion. Now I was back.
This time out, I figured it might be a good idea to have her on my side. I quietly claimed a place at a vacant worktable. I pulled out one of the hard wooden chairs neatly spaced around it and placed my worn backpack on another. I slowly approached the elder lady with feigned trepidation. I tried to imagine how a slightly retarded grade ten high school student might ask his brilliant mathematics teacher for help doing quadratic equations. It didn’t matter; the old doll was reserved in her response.
“Can I help you sir?” she asked professionally.
I explained what I was looking for. She gradually became interested and then warmed to my genuine request for her assistance.
Maybe she was bored or maybe she believed that she could get me out of there faster if she helped me. Whatever her motive was, after I explained to her what I needed, we were soon talking like old friends.
The librarian’s name was Ida May Thornberry. She was from a small town in upstate New York where she had been the local public school librarian. Her husband, a former fireman named Eugene, “his friends called him Guy”, had gone to fight his big fire in the sky—cancer. But, during the course of his life, he and Ida May had put aside enough money for the two of them to fulfill their adult dream of living in Florida. Her two daughters now visited her with their families once every winter. She lived in a small apartment building in the City of Clearwater—“not the beach, far too expensive”. She rode the local bus to her job every day that she had library duty. I guess she was lonely. I got all that information without even asking.
As soon as I told her that I was looking for anything and everything that I could find on the murder of a teenage girl in Pinellas County three years ago, Ida May hit the computer like Sherlock Holmes on “crank”. If she had believed that I was demented from our first meeting, her assessment of me was probably confirmed when I could not even tell her the last name of Mia’s sister. I had forgotten to ask. So much for all those finely honed police skills flooding back. I’d not even managed to get the dead girl’s full name.
Mrs. Thornberry was not in the least deterred by my lack of information. She started with obituaries in the St. Petersburg Times and Tampa Tribune. She then hit the smaller weekly papers like the Belleaire Blabber. In a very short time, we were building a fairly comprehensive file on the murder of Mia’s sister—Victoria Anne Doulton.
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