The homicide detective from the Naples Police, Mehan, met them where the entrance to Lantern Island joined the main five-lane drag. He didn’t like doing it, but he showed up. “Explain to me why we’re standing out here in hundred and ten degree heat, hundred and ten percent humidity, when we got a nice cool interview room—crank the AC up high, even buy you a Coke, you ever think of that?”
Jerry just gave him stone. “We have something we think you ought to see. And we can’t leave this spot.”
Mehan glanced over to where Julio sat slightly hunched over inside Wayne’s truck. Julio might have started communicating with God, but it didn’t make him pals with strange cops. “You’re gonna tell me the reason, I hope.”
Jerry nodded to Wayne. Tell the man.
Wayne set it up. Showed him the pages from those Tatyana had printed out. Explained the connection between Triton and Cloister. “There’s no reason why they would enter into a partnership with themselves unless they were hiding something. As in, sweeping profits under the carpet.”
“We’re back to this scam thing of yours, am I right?”
Jerry said, “Let him finish.”
Mehan sighed heavily. He used two fingers to pluck the shirt off his chest.
Wayne described their meeting with Neally. Then he showed Mehan the strip of newspaper.
Mehan tried hard to hold onto his skepticism. “He gave you this how?”
“When he shook my hand.”
“After he told you he couldn’t help you.”
Jerry said, “Now tell him the good part.”
“There’s more? You got to be kidding me. What, he gave you a map with a skull and crossbones?”
Tatyana said, “This is serious, Detective. We have an elderly gentleman who’s been abducted and the possibility of a serious statewide scam.”
“I am still waiting for the first bit of evidence on that scam deal.” But Mehan was no longer sneering.
Wayne described what had happened at Easton Grey’s on Saturday. The false gardeners, the surveillance amp, the cameras. And Foster being kidnapped the next morning.
Mehan looked from one to the other. “You got somebody official who’ll back you on all this?”
Jerry opened Tatyana’s phone, keyed in a number, said, “Jerry Barnes for Officer Coltrane. Yeah, I’ll wait.”
Mehan accepted the phone. “Officer Coltrane? Detective Mehan, Naples Homicide. We spoke yesterday.”
Jerry waited until the detective stepped away to say, “I believe we finally got the man’s attention.”
A Lexus SUV turned off the highway and pulled past them. Wayne glimpsed an all-too-familiar face wearing a startled flash of recognition. The car continued another hundred feet or so before the brake lights came on.
The young woman emerged stiffly from the car. It was Patricia, but different. Four years older. Slightly fuller around the middle. Far better dressed. Her hair was cut stylishly short and the ends frosted. Perfect makeup.
But her rigid anger was exactly the same as he had seen, and caused, all too often.
“Wayne?”
“Hello, Patricia.”
“What are you doing here?”
Wayne was still sorting through various responses when he felt another person step up beside him and declare, “He is with me.”
“And you are?”
“Tatyana Kuchik.” She offered a business card. “Counsel to the Grey Corporation.”
The restyled Patricia took her time over the card, using it as a focal point while she reknit her day. “You’re a lawyer.”
“That is correct.”
Memories flooded back at the sight of her face pinching up tight, compressing her lips and her eyes. Wayne ached with the ability to name the reason for every line that extended almost to her hairline.
Patricia asked Tatyana, “What’s he done now?”
“Wayne is aiding us in an important investigation.”
Patricia took in the unmarked cop car with the flasher on the dash. Mehan stood two steps away from Jerry, listening to the phone and watching the drama with a faint smirk.
Patricia said, “I’m a little out of practice. Is that cop talk for he’s not been arrested yet?”
“Wayne is not in trouble, ma’am. He’s a consultant—”
“Whatever. I do not want to hear.”
She stomped back to her car, then turned back for a parting shot. The line might have been different, but the song was one he recalled all too clearly. “You stay away from my family!”
Mehan slapped the phone shut and walked back over. “Charming lady. She’s got to meet my ex. They can have coffee, trade arsenic recipes.” He handed Jerry back the phone. “Okay. Coltrane confirms what you’ve told me. Everything except the abduction, which they still have on the books as a missing person.”
Wayne stared at the space where Patricia’s car had been. The air still shivered from the heat.
Jerry said, “Foster Oates was abducted.”
“No note, no ransom, no call. Guy’s got no assets to speak of.” Mehan raised his hand to stifle Jerry’s protest. “I hear what you’re telling me, and it don’t matter. Where I’m standing, there’s nothing to substantiate your claims. And nothing to tie what we got here into this surveillance deal clear on the other side of the state.”
Tatyana’s ire raised the day’s temperature another notch. “You’re dismissing everything we have just shown you?”
“Absolutely. This has waste of time written all over it.”
Jerry stabbed at the strip of newspaper dangling from Mehan’s hand. “What about that?”
“Come on, man. You’re a cop. You know chain-of-evidence rules same as me.”
“My friend’s been abducted and this is the first clear indication—”
“Correction. Your friend is missing. And for all I know you got that homeboy hiding in your truck to write this up.”
“Julio is clean.”
“Sure he is. That’s why he’s plastered to the floorboards.” Mehan handed Tatyana the strip of newspaper. “Soon as you got some real evidence, you be sure and give us a call.”