Under The Sand (eBook)

Chapter 3

Reporter Wes Avery was still smarting from the first and second rejections of his proposed series about problems with local security when his boss doubled down.

“Wes, I told you we aren’t doing it. There is no crime problem on this island.” Sara Fortune punctuated her remark with the kind of look his mother gave him as a kid when he brought home a bad report card or tracked mud into the kitchen.

Wes smirked in response and headed outside for the peeling blue bench by the door to the weekly newspaper, the Island Sun. If she thinks I’m giving up on this, she’s crazy was written all over his face. He’d dealt with recalcitrant editors before at other, bigger newspapers. He was mulling the strategy he’d use with the female publisher when Randy Long, the paper’s graphic designer and photographer, slid into the space next to him on the bench.

“Still no luck with the lady in charge?” Randy observed. It was more a statement than a question from the man with the ponytail and crooked smile who had worked at the Sun longer than anyone. When Wes arrived about eight months ago, he had been told that Randy could recall every story ever published but seldom volunteered information unless he liked you.

“Naw,” Wes said. He reached for the cigarettes in the pocket of his pink golf shirt. He lit one up and took a big drag, inadvertently enveloping both him and Randy in a cloud of smoke. “Explain to me why she had to float my idea around town. Who does that? The Chamber didn’t like it. The sheriff was insulted at the suggestion that he and his deputy couldn’t handle any problems —especially in the summer when most everyone was gone. That’s two law enforcement people to protect several thousand during the season and four hundred in the summer, including some celebrities, a bunch of millionaires, and several billionaires. All soft targets.”

Randy nodded. “Bruce Webster and his new deputy, Alex Pendry. Not exactly your idea of the A-Team, eh? You do know that Bruce isn’t really a sheriff.”

“What?” Wes said, his eyes widening. “I saw him get sworn in.”

“Technically, he’s the senior deputy in charge. The tradition of calling the head law enforcement person on the island the sheriff started maybe sixty years ago. It stuck. The rich people here liked it. Made them feel important. So . . . “

Wes nodded as if to say he understood, then shifted in his seat so that his hazel eyes were focused on his coworker. “‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ Sara asked me. Oh, I don’t know. Since I moved here, there have been at least two major storms, five murders, the bust-up of a drug ring, and—”

“Little Chicago,” Randy interrupted. He chuckled and stroked his wispy beard.

Wes didn’t respond to Randy’s humor. He knew Chicago, loved Chicago, and hated the crime that plagued many big cities these days. He didn’t want anything like that, even on a smaller scale, happening to this island, and he wished Chicago would fix its problems soon so that he could feel comfortable returning to its fabled blues bars.

He took another drag on his cigarette. “At least the fire department was able to step in and help with the storms and their aftermath. Sara said those were anomalies. No big deal. Can you believe that?”

Randy cleared his throat and adopted a serious expression that Wes understood to mean he was about to impart vital information.

“You’re talking about security? A couple of years ago, there was a plan floated to put an emergency communications system on the south end of the island with a dual repeater and backup power. For some reason, it never took off. Guess the powers that be were focused on planting trees in the median of the road that skirts those beachfront mansions. County didn’t want to spend more money than they had to on this island. Those good old boys in charge never do. So that was that.”

Wes ran his hand through his close-cropped brown hair and frowned, accentuating the character lines on his face. “You’re telling me that the only reliable means of communication on this island is that cell tower next to the flower shop?”

“Even the firefighters use cell phones to communicate with each other during an emergency. That’s what one of ’em told me not long ago,” Randy said. “And I’ve heard that sheriffs in the surrounding counties don’t talk much to Bruce. They were all tight with Sheriff Fleck. Their deputies also stopped coming into our county to help, but I don’t know why.”

Wes shook his head and poked his cigarette into a nearby bucket of sand. “I’m not giving up on those stories, Randy. We gotta let people know. Promote change. That’s our job. If we piss off someone in charge, too bad.”

Wes cared about his newly adopted community, especially the welfare of another of its year-round residents, a woman named Leslie Elliott. She had been in charge of public relations for the big-city electric utility Wes had reported on when he worked for the Daily News, a midwestern newspaper. They spoke at least once a week and occasionally had lunch. After she quit her job and moved to the island with her mother a little over a year ago, she sent Wes a text with her new phone number and followed up with a casual email about the advantages of living in Florida.

No worries here, she wrote. The big news this week is who won the local tarpon fishing tournament, what the ladies’ club is doing to raise money for charity, and my mother’s progress in the hunt for a sexy senior citizen she can, ahem, hang out with. By the way, my career as a mystery writer has—sorry to say—not taken off yet. She followed her message with a string of laughing emojis.

When Wes was offered a buyout during a round of layoffs at the afternoon paper to which he had given a big chunk of his life and gotten little in return, he decided to head south and snap up a job opening on Leslie’s island. At the time, he pegged it a happy coincidence that she was an inhabitant.

Wes knew from hearing property owners talk when he first arrived that they believed they were surrounded not just by turquoise waters but also a cocoon of safety. Life on the island mirrored the 1950s, with a quaint village where the shops sold mostly ice cream, beachwear, Florida trinkets, and fishing equipment. The favored form of transportation was by golf cart. A swing bridge controlled access to this ten-mile-long strip of land, creating the illusion that anyone who committed a crime could be easily captured as they tried to escape across the causeway and head into the next county. But Wes soon discovered that the perception was not necessarily reality. He was getting plenty of big-city, crime-related material to report on whether he liked it or not.

As Wes mulled over his coworker’s comment about the backup communication system that never was, Randy got up and leaned over the balcony of the second-story newspaper structure to converse with someone in the parking lot below. When he finished, he returned to his seat and shared a new piece of information.

“J.T. says today’s the last day for fresh fish at the market—they’re closing for ten days next month—in case you want to stock up on anything, like cigarettes.”

Wes nodded and reached into his shirt pocket for another smoke, then hesitated, remembering his pledge to Leslie to cut back.

As if reading Wes’s mind, Randy grinned. “So, how are you and Leslie getting along?”

Wes flashed a goofy smile in Randy’s direction. His face reddened. “I’m taking her to dinner tonight in Sarasota. Thinking about popping the question.”

Randy nodded and tugged at his beard. “You got a ring?”

“A ring? Do I need one? This isn’t the first time around for either of us. She’s in her midforties. You think that’s a deal-breaker?”

Randy got up and stretched. “You don’t know much about women, do you?” he deadpanned as he reached for the door handle and went inside, leaving Wes to ponder if there was any truth to his coworker’s comment or if it was just a playful jab at the reporter’s bachelorhood.

Wes bounded down the steps from the newspaper office to the street below with Randy’s words nagging at him. What did he know about women?

He knew his first wife had left him for a younger man, a stockbroker she met in a bar. He didn’t mourn her departure, but savored the freedom his independence provided for full immersion in his job. He knew that Leslie was one hell of a public relations expert. The way she responded to his pointed questions used to drive him up the wall. Never a lie, but she could tap dance around the answers better than Ginger Rogers, the classic movie star from the 1940s. And he knew she was a damned attractive woman, with that wispy, reddish hair, pretty face, and slim figure. She was always watching her diet—and, lately, his, too, although he thought they both drank too much wine for their own good. Leslie...