Life's a Beach Then You Die Read online

  Chapter Seven

  I was pondering my discoveries about Ray when the doorbell rang. It was Ed, standing there with a cigarette in his hand. I thought about telling him what I found, but it didn’t seem like the right time. We were on the way to visit Ray’s widow and telling Ed his dead buddy was a crook now didn’t seem seemly. I’d tell him later.

  “Hey, Max. You ready?”

  “Sure, let me get my report.” I went back to the office, got my briefcase and joined Ed in the car. As he backed out of my driveway, he said, “We’re getting to her just in time. She’s leaving early tomorrow to visit her folks.”

  Ray had lived on the mainland in Venezia, an upper class riverfront neighborhood in Quay Assisi. The Kenwood home wasn’t far from mine, maybe a ten minute drive. It was a big house, L-shaped with a three-car garage forming the small side of the L. Even in a depressed real estate market, it was probably worth a couple of million.

  Ed pulled into the Kenwood driveway next to a silver Mercedes SUV bearing the Florida license plate “ONE BBW”. I could see luggage piled high in the back of the vehicle.

  We walked up to the house and Ed rang the bell. After a few moments of silence, the door swung open and a very large, very pretty woman in a sleeveless red dress filled the doorway. She was as tall as I was and as wide as Ed. She looked sad at first, but brightened when she saw Ed.

  “Ed!” She cried and hugged him. She wrapped both arms around him and squeezed. For a moment, I thought his feet might have left the floor.

  Ed grunted out, “Kathleen, this is Max Fried.”

  She released Ed, turned and hugged me tightly, too. If I were a foot shorter, her expansive breasts would have had me struggling for air.

  “Boy, you’re a puny one, aren’t you?”

  I just smiled. At six foot three, 180 pounds, I had never thought of myself as puny, but I guess when you’re as large as Kathleen is, size is relative. I wondered how to extricate myself when Ed said, “Max has some papers for you. Shall we go inside and sit?”

  She released me. “Of course, where are my manners? C’mon in.” I thought I heard a touch of the Carolinas in her voice.

  We followed her through the house into the living room. Soft jazz playing on the sound system gave way to Nat “King” Cole singing “The Christmas Song”. Kathleen sat on a sofa facing an unlit fireplace where two empty red stockings hung from the mantle. She tossed her head, flicked her hand to throw her long black hair over her right shoulder and patted the seat next to her. Ed sat down and I took a white leather chair across the coffee table from them. There was an empty glass sitting next to a book on the table. I strained to read the book title but could only see the cover photo. It looked like a romance novel. She pushed the closed book away and said, “I just finished.”

  “Kathleen,” Ed began, “we found what you wanted on Ray’s computer, but first, Max has a few questions, OK?”

  She nodded her approval. I removed a photograph and my report from my briefcase. Ed took them from me and placed them on the coffee table in front of Kathleen. The photo was on top.

  “I found this image in one of your husband’s emails. Do you recognize anyone?”

  She picked it up and Ed leaned over to take a closer look at it. “Just Ray,” she said. “Boy, does he look young there, probably taken before we met.” She smiled, “Mmm, Ray was a good looking kid.” She handed the photo to Ed. He looked at it, grunted and handed it back to me.

  I put it back in my case and asked, “Do you know Ben Horton?”

  “No, who’s Ben Norton?”

  “No, not Norton, Horton, apparently someone Ray did business with. They exchanged emails. I thought you might know him.”

  “What if I did?”

  Her question made me uncomfortable. I realized I should have thought this through more before I started asking her questions. “I uh, thought he might know more about some of Ray’s business dealings… that he might have additional information.”

  She sat up straighter and stuck out her chest. “Then ask him. Why are you asking me these things?”

  Ed pointed to my report on the table, “Max found the bank accounts, credit card and investment information you wanted.” Kathleen softened a bit and looked down at the papers while she lit a cigarette. Then she reached out and thumbed through the pages. “Ray was a lot of fun and he always provided for me, but he never let me in on his business. Thanks, I really needed this.”

  Ed put his hand on hers. “There’s a small… complication.”

  She sat back and looked at him. Ed looked at me, paused and then continued. “After Max obtained the information, someone broke into his home and stole Ray’s computer.”

  Kathleen looked genuinely surprised. “What? Why would someone do that?” She looked at me as if she expected an answer. I didn’t have one so I said nothing. Saying nothing when I knew nothing was a recently acquired skill I wished I learned earlier in life. It seemed to work now because Kathleen turned back to Ed and said, “None of this makes any sense.”

  Ed asked, “What do you mean?”

  She shook her head from side to side. “First, the police tell me that Ray had a heart attack. Now, you tell me that someone stole Ray’s computer. Ray was a fit as a fiddle and he was a simple sales rep.”

  I didn’t realize it but I must have reacted when she said Ray was fit because she glared at me and said, “People just assume that if you’re big, you’re not healthy. Ray had good numbers. Low cholesterol. Low blood pressure. Good sugar levels. The guy just had good genes. His Daddy was over 100 when he died. I don’t believe Ray had a heart attack. No, not Ray.”

  I asked her, “So you think he had an accident and that’s it?”

  “I don't know. I wasn’t there, but if he did, I can collect money from his accident policy too.”

  I asked, “Did you tell this to the police?”

  “You kidding? The first sign of any foul play and the cops come after the spouse.” She looked me up and down. “Don’t you watch TV?”