The ringing phone jangled me out of sleep early the next morning. I eased my eyes open, ruing the beers I'd had the night before. Over served. Again. Light was just beginning to make its way through the opening in my drapes. The clock read six a.m. This had better be good, I thought.
I reached for the receiver. "Hello." I think I groaned.
"Matt, there's a body in Durante Park. I need you down here." It was Bill Lester.
"Sure, Bill, but why?"
"I think you know the dead guy."
"Who?'
"Jake Yardley."
"I'll be right there."
"Park at the end of Gulf Bay Road. Take the trail to your right, and you'll find us."
Durante Park takes up thirty-two acres on Longboat Key, about three miles south of the north end of the island. It is a haven of wetlands, mangrove forest, and salt marsh. Various species of waterfowl and shore birds make their homes there. Trails and boardwalks snake through the area, and unobtrusive little signs are placed at intervals, describing the plants and birds.
I parked the Explorer next to two police cars, and began walking down a shell-topped trail. The sun was still rising out of the bay and light filtered through the mangrove branches. The air was cool, the sky clear. It was quiet, and I could hear a dove coo in the distance. The breeze off the Gulf brought the soft hum of tires on Gulf of Mexico Drive.
I came to a boardwalk and bore to my left. The bay stretched to my right, the early morning sun reflecting off its still surface. A mullet jumped and splashed loudly as it fell back into the water. Was the fish trying to escape a predator or was it just imbued with the joy of living? Who knows?
I heard voices ahead. I rounded a turn and saw two Longboat cops standing in front of a line of crime scene tape anchored to the rails of the walkway. They were talking quietly, almost whispering.
"Morning, Matt," the one nearest me said. "The chief is waiting for you. Don't touch anything. We're waiting for the sheriff's crime lab people."
I ducked under the tape, walked around another curve, and stopped at a gazebo that faced the water. There was a bench across the back of it. There was an emergency phone attached to the wall next to a plastic rack holding brochures. A sign on the phone said that it connected directly to the Longboat Key Police station.
Bill Lester was standing in the middle of the gazebo, his back to me, talking into his cell phone. Jake Yardley was sitting on the bench, his arms spread across the rails behind him, his chin on his chest. He looked like a man catching a catnap, perhaps resting from a walk around the park. He was wearing shorts, a golf shirt, and running shoes, all white. A large splotch of red across his chest added a touch of color. Blood.
Just past the gazebo, an older woman stood on the boardwalk, holding a leash tied to a golden Lab. The dog was lying on the walk, apparently bored with the drama surrounding him. The woman looked pale, scared, and distracted, as if she would rather be anywhere but here, sharing her slice of paradise with a dead man and a police officer.
Lester turned to me, snapping his phone shut.
"Thanks for coming, Matt," he said. "Is this your buddy?"
"He's not my buddy, but that is Jake Yardley."
"That's what his driver's license says."
"How did you know I knew him?"
"The Bradenton Beach Police Chief sent me the statements you and Logan gave the other night. He knows you guys are friends of mine. It was a courtesy."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Don't know. Mrs. Johnson was walking her dog at first light and found him," he said, pointing to the distressed woman with the dog. "Called us on the emergency phone."
"It looks like Jake was posed after he was killed. I don't get that."
"Neither do I. Maybe we'll know more when the crime lab guys get finished."
"Chief?" It was the cop at the tape. "CSI's here."
"About time," Lester said. He turned and went up the boardwalk to meet them. "Take Mrs. Johnson back to the station and get a statement," he said to the officer. "Matt, can you and Logan meet me for lunch at Mar Vista?"
The Mar Vista restaurant, known to locals as The Pub, is in the Village at the north end of Longboat Key. This was the original settlement on the island, and a place where working people and poorer retirees could still afford to live. It had been a thriving community for many years before the developers discovered our island and began to build bigger and bigger condominium projects for wealthy refugees from the Midwest and New England.
The Mar Vista hugs the shoreline of a little lagoon that meanders off upper Sarasota Bay. Tables and chairs are arranged on a patio overlooking the water. Servers were trudging back and forth between the kitchen and the tables, delivering lunch to the patrons.
Logan and I sat on the patio and ordered soft drinks. Logan told the server we were waiting for one more person. The noon sun was warm and a light breeze blew off the water, rustling the fronds of the palm trees that provided sparse shade to the diners. A large yacht, gleaming with white paint and polished bright work, cruised the Intracoastal, heading north toward Tampa Bay. A go-fast boat bounced over the yacht's wake, and with unmuffled engines roaring, passed to port.
Chief Lester arrived, walking among the diners, stopping to say hello to some of them. Bill was mid-forties about five foot eight, and while not overweight, sported a little paunch that didn't quite hang over his belt. He was wearing the same clothes as that morning: a navy blue golf shirt with a Longboat Key Police badge embroidered over the left breast, khaki pants, and black athletic shoes. No weapon was visible.
He took a seat at our table, grinned, and said, "You guys get into more trouble. I don't know how you do it."
Logan laughed. "It ain't easy," he said. "Not at all."
"What'd you find out about Yardley?" I asked.
"First off, lie's not Yardley," said Bill. "His real name is Clyde Varn. He's got quite a rap sheet. Fingerprints confirmed it."
"What else?"
"He didn't live in that condo in Tampa, where you met him. His driver's license, the one with the name Yardley, had an address in Brooksville, but Varn hasn't lived there in years."
Logan leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "Who is he?" he asked.
"He used to be hired muscle for some of the drug rings that work out of south Florida. Apparently, he was some kind of a freelancer; worked for whichever group needed him. He's been arrested a dozen times, but only convicted once. Possession of marijuana. Did thirty days in the county lockup in Miami-Dade."
I said, "What about the condo in Tampa?"
"Owned by a Bahamian corporation. We're trying to find out who the shareholders are. That could take a while."
Logan took a sip of his cola. "Did the crime lab people find anything?"
The chief shook his head. "Not much. He'd only been dead about an hour when Mrs. Johnson found him. He was shot on the boardwalk, about fifty feet from the gazebo where we found him. There was blood splatter in the area, and they found scuffmarks on the boards. Looks like the killer dragged him to the gazebo and propped him up."
"Why?" I asked.
"Who knows? Why kill him on Longboat? Maybe they were trying to send a message to somebody. Maybe to the two of you."
I shrugged. "If somebody was, I don't understand the message."
We sat quietly, sipping our colas. The waiter came, brought Bill a glass of iced tea and took our food orders. Logan asked for scallops, the chief chose a burger and fries, and I ordered a salad.
Bill said, "Tell me more about this guy and your meeting the other day."
Logan and I filled the chief in on what we knew about Yardley and why we went to see him. While we talked, the waiter brought our food and refilled our drinks.
Bill said, "It's got to be connected to Peggy somehow."
I chewed a bite of salad. "What in the world was he doing with Peggy?" I asked.
The chief looked up from his burger. "I wondered about that myself. I did some checking on missing young people in this area. Manatee and Sarasota have had reports of about twenty people missing in the last year. All of them were late teens or early twenties, all over eighteen. Male and female."
Logan speared a scallop with his fork. "Why wouldn't somebody get interested in that many disappearances?"
"Nobody put them together. There were one or two or three in various jurisdictions, both counties, Bradenton, Sarasota, Venice, North Port. They were all adults in the eyes of the law, so nobody got excited about them."
"I bet their families did," I said.
"You know what I mean, Matt," said Bill. "Cops have a lot better things to do than look for kids old enough to make their own decisions."
"I guess," I said. But I was thinking that Peggy's disappearance might be more than it seemed. I didn't like that thought.