'No. Sorry.'
'How long are you going to be here?'
'I'm leaving today. I came in yesterday and talked to the Sarasota police, but they're no help. I came out here last night, and finally worked up the nerve to call you.'
'I'm glad you did. You can't stay for a few days?'
'Afraid not. My other stepdaughter Gwen is so upset about her sister that I don't want to leave her alone for too long. Jeff tries, but she needs her mother. Me.'
Laura had moved on into another life that didn't include me. I understood that, but I felt left out. She was still part of me, and yet she wasn't. I was used to that, and my life had moved on as well. What might have been will never be. Somebody ought to write that on a tombstone somewhere. Maybe someone had.
'It's moving too fast,' she said.
'What is?' I asked, puzzled.
'Time.'
'What're you talking about?'
'We're on a collision course with death you know'
'From the moment we're born.'
'Yes, but it's coming closer now. Closer than I want to think about.'
'We've got a lot of years left, Laura.'
'Do you remember when we were young, the day we got married?'
I remembered every moment of it. Sometimes, at night, when I couldn't sleep, I'd retrieve those memories from back where they live, hidden away like precious gems in the vault of my mind. I'd wade into them, take myself back to that warm spring day in Orlando, smell the flowers in the church and the slight vanilla aroma of her skin as I leaned in to kiss her at the altar. I'd hear the swell of the organ as we strode up the aisle into the rest of our lives. And because I'd be overwhelmed by regret for what might have been, I'd quietly store them away again, to be brought out and caressed when my soul demanded a visit with Laura.
'Yes,' I said. 'I remember.'
The waiter appeared and poured us more coffee. The sun was higher now, its rays more concentrated, heating up the patio. A gull cried in the distance, a chair scraped away from a nearby table. Then there was quiet.
I said, 'I'll see what I can find out about Peggy.'
Laura gave me a picture of her stepdaughter taken in a garden on the day she graduated from high school. 'This was taken in June, in our yard at home.'
There was no point of reference that would give me her height, but she was a lovely girl. Five feet seven, Laura said. Peggy was wearing her graduation gown and holding her diploma. She was smiling. She had blonde hair reaching to her shoulders, a nose that might have been a little too perky for my taste, and good legs below the hem of the robe.
I took the picture and told Laura I'd do what I could. 'You realize this is a long shot,' I said. 'I'll show the picture around here on Longboat and the other islands, but the chances of anybody remembering her are slim.'
'I know, Matt. But I don't know what else to do. I'll keep trying to get the police involved, but I don't think they're going to help. Maybe you'll get lucky.'
We talked a while and drank another cup of coffee.
She looked at me, staring at my face for a long time, long enough that I was getting uncomfortable. Then she shrugged, as if snapping out of a trance.
'I've got to go,' she said. 'I've got a plane in a couple of hours.'
'I'll be in touch.'
We hugged each other and she left. I watched her walk across the deck with the languid movements that had always been Laura. She'd never understood how beautiful she was, and she didn't posture with any intent of evoking desire in men. Her movements were as natural to her as breathing. She was the most desirable woman I'd ever known, and I'd let her slip away.
We were connected now, if for just a little while. And even if it was a connection born of her life without me, I would enjoy being a small part of her universe, like a distant planet circling a warm and seductive sun.
I didn't know it was the last time I'd ever see her alive.
CHAPTER THREE
I drove straight to the Longboat Key Police Department's new headquarters building on Gulf of Mexico Drive. My buddy, Bill Lester, was Chief of Police. I wanted to file a missing persons report.
'Not possible,' Lester said. I was sitting across the desk from him, sipping the coffee his secretary had brought me.
'Why not?' I asked.
'By definition, she can't be a runaway. She's legally an adult. The fact that she doesn't call home while she's on spring break just isn't enough to indicate foul play.'
'Bill, this girl is in some sort of trouble or she wouldn't be out of touch with her parents.'
'I don't doubt you, but we have to follow protocol. I need more than the fact that she stopped calling her daddy. Is there any evidence of foul play?'
'No.'
'Then I can't do anything.'
I knew he'd help if he could. I thanked him and changed the subject.
I said, 'Do you know anything more about the body I found at Pelican Man's yesterday?'
'No, but let me check with Sarasota PD.'
The morning paper didn't have much information. Just a big story on the front page about the body being found. No identification or cause of death.
Bill reached for his phone, and after a short conversation hung up and turned his attention back to me. 'They don't know much,' he said. 'The autopsy is scheduled for today, but they think he was shot once behind his right ear. It looks like an execution. His prints don't match anybody on file.'
'I thought you could just about find anybody today if you had fingerprints.'
'You can. If they're in the system. But if the person never served in the military or got licensed in some occupation that required prints or was never arrested, he wouldn't be on file. There're a lot of reasons why some people might never have their fingerprints taken.'
'Let me know if you hear anything,' I said, and left.
At my condo, I scanned Peggy's picture into my computer, cropped it so that I had a good head shot, and ran off several 4 x 6 prints. I'd start at the northern end of Anna Maria Island and work my way south to the southern end of Siesta Key.
Bartenders have good memories for attractive young women, so I'd start there. If that didn't turn up anything, I'd try hotels and then the condos that rented by the week. Maybe I'd get lucky.
I called my friend Logan Hamilton. 'Want to do a little barliopping tonight?' I asked.
'Absolutely,' said Logan.
He'd recently retired from his executive position with a financial services company, telling anyone who asked why he'd quit early, that he had all the money he needed, and Matt Royal needed a playmate. I explained why we were going.
We started at the north end of Anna Maria, an island connected to Longboat Key by a drawbridge spanning Longboat Pass. Our first stop was The Sandbar, a restaurant and bar hugging the beach near Bean Point. One drink and no luck later, we headed south, stopping at each bar, having one drink, and striking out.
We left the last bar on the south end of Anna Maria, planning to head home and to bed. Logan suggested that we stop at Pattigeorge's on Longboat for a nightcap. We drove across the bridge heading south to mid-key, where the restaurant overlooked Sarasota Bay.
