Fatal Decree by H. Terrell Griffin Read Free Book Online

she’d been home watching TV or something, got hungry or lonely, and came down here.”
    “Did she make a point of saying goodbye to anybody at the bar?” asked J.D.
    Sam was quiet for a few moments, replaying the evening in his head. “I think she did stop to talk briefly to Susan Phillips. But it was a very short conversation.”
    “Do you have Susan’s phone number?” asked J.D.
    “Sure.” Sam pulled his cell phone from his pocket, opened it, and scrolled down his phone book, gave it to J.D. “Here it is. Use this if you want to call her.”
    J.D. took the phone and walked out the front door. She was back in a few minutes. “Susan said that she stopped Nell as she was leaving to make sure she was all right. She looked a little frazzled, and Susan wondered if the stranger she was talking to had upset her. Nell said that he hadn’t, but he was asking her if she lived alone and some other personal things. Nell told him to leave and he did. Nell said she was going home. She didn’t seem worried at all, so Susan wasn’t alarmed.”
    “I think I need to go see Gene,” said Jock.
    “Want some company?” I asked.
    “No, podna. I think it’d be best if I go by myself. Can I borrow your car?”
    “Sure. J.D. can take me home.” I looked at her. She nodded. I handed Jock my keys and he left.
    I looked at J.D. “What now?”
    “I’m going home and calling the chief of detectives in Miami-Dade. I need to light a fire under somebody down there. There has to be a connection to some perp I put away. Otherwise, why would the killer involve me in his madness?”
    “Maybe the call was somebody’s idea of a joke,” I said.
    “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ll call Miami and see if we can come up with any names.”
    “You realize it’s Sunday,” I said.
    “Yeah, calling the chief at home will add a little urgency to the situation. He and I go way back.”
    “Matt,” Sam said, “you want to go boating this afternoon?”
    He had recently bought a forty-six-foot Hatteras motor yacht that had been built forty years before. The boat was in great shape with almost new Detroit diesel engines and a new paint job. The interior had been a shambles, but Sam had put it back together and was living aboard.
Sammy’s Hat,
as he’d named her, was moored behind the restaurant.
    A couple of months earlier, Sam, Mike Seamon, Logan Hamilton, and I had brought her around from Melbourne on Florida’s east coast. It had been a slow cruise down through the Florida Keys with a two-day layover in Key West. By the time we pulled the boat into her new slip behind Pattigeorge’s, we were tired, hung over, sunburned, and happy to be home. It was the kind of trip that would add to the store of island legends, and we were not above embellishing our tale with gross exaggerations.
    I looked at J.D. “Why don’t you come along? You can call from the boat and there’s nothing else you’re going to accomplish today.”
    “I don’t know, Matt. I feel like there’s got to be something I can be working on.”
    “Look,” I said, “we know all we can at this point. When you get the records from Miami, you’ll have something that may begin to shed a little light on this. But until that happens, you’re just going to be stumbling around in the dark.”
    “I guess you’re right,” she said. “The soonest I’m going to get the stuff from Miami is tomorrow morning. Let me call Sharkey. See if he has any thoughts.”
    She walked out the front door, digging her phone out of her pocket. She was back in a few minutes. “He said for me to take the day off. We can start fresh in the morning.”
    “Come on, J.D.,” said Sam. “Let’s run down the bay and have lunch at Marina Jack.”
    “Okay,” she said. “I’ll run home and get changed. Matt, do you need anything?”
    “Nope. If we decide to go swimming, I’ll just skinny dip.”
    “Oh, please,” she said, grinning. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

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