CHAPTER ONE
I opened the front door and was hit with two blasts of heat. Living in Southwest Florida, one type was predictable. The other seeped out of my client. This woman was so alluring, she could make a bishop pray like St. Augustine: “Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.”
“Mr. Luca?”
She was three levels past stunning. “Yes, Mrs. Talbot?”
“Please call me Ann.” She offered a manicured hand. It was smooth as a baby’s cheek.
“I’m Frank. Uh, come on in.”
I stepped aside, uncomfortable letting such a knockout into my house. Mary Ann and Jessie were out shopping, and there was no shortage of nosy neighbors to ignite rumors. Plus, with my history . . .
This was my first case as a private investigator, and already I’d learned a lesson; if I were to do this for more than the one-year leave I’d taken, I’d need to rent an office.
As she looked at the flimsy license on the wall, I studied the way her dress clung to her curves.
“You worked as a detective for the Collier County sheriff, am I correct?”
“Yes, ma’am. Homicide.”
She stiffened.
“But I’ve got fifteen years of other experience, including missing persons.”
“I hope you can find my husband.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I looked at my notes. “You said his name is John Talbot and he’s fifty-three. Did you bring the pictures I asked for?”
“Yes. Here are some photos.”
John Talbot was good looking. His salt-and-pepper hair looked like mine. But by the way his shirt hugged his chest, he was in much better shape.
“Was it a business trip?”
“Yes, to Atlanta. He went there often.”
“What day was this?”
“A week ago, March first. He went to see one of his customers. He usually goes up there once a month.”
Her husband had an engineering consultancy company, Talbot and Associates. The client he’d gone to visit was Southeastern Construction Corp. She provided a contact and I asked, “You said he went to Atlanta regularly. Was there anything unusual the day he left? Did he have extra baggage or anything like that?”
“No, everything was normal. John called me from the airport, said he was on a flight leaving at seven and would get to Fort Myers around nine. John said he’d be home before ten.”
“And that was the last you heard from him?”
“Yes. I was worried and called him continually, but he never answered. I called the police, and they said it was too early and I had to wait.” She exhaled heavily. “I feel they’re just not taking it seriously, so I checked around and was given your name.”
Mrs. Talbot knew a Lee County detective I’d worked a handful of cases with.
“What airline was he flying?”
“Delta.”
“Is there any reason your husband would have taken off?”
She crossed her shapely legs. “Believe me, I’ve racked my brain trying to think of something. Why would he have called if he was running away? He simply could have said he was staying an extra day.”
I tended to agree, but he could have been looking for a head start. I didn’t want to tell her it was a good way to buy time to melt into another state or country. Her husband may never have even gone to Atlanta.
When someone went missing, especially an adult, days passed before any real search occurred, and even that tended to be limited.
“Have you noticed any money missing or transferred out of an account?”
“John handled our finances, but it doesn’t appear as if anything is missing.”
“Have you contacted the credit cards for any activity?”
“Yes, there’s been nothing since he bought a drink at the Hartsfield Airport.”
“What about cell phone usage?”
“I asked Verizon, but they required a good deal of paperwork to complete. I’m hoping to get it soon.”
Privacy was important, and I was leery of all the intrusions technology had created. But in a case like this, it was one of the easiest ways to determine where someone had been.
“Let me know as soon as you get it. Now, I’m interested to know, when he called you, if you could tell he was actually at the airport.”
“Oh, definitely.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I heard the loudspeaker, in the background, say something about boarding a flight.”
“You have no doubt?”
“None, John was at the airport.”
I didn’t want to tell her it could have been any airport. “How did he get to the Fort Myers airport?”
“He took his car, a white Genesis. I don’t know the model, but it’s the smaller one.”
“You have the plate number?”
“I’ll get it for you.”
“Good. I’m going to need your husband’s closest friends and business associates.”
I wrote down the names and contact details and said, “All right, I’ll get right to work on this.”
“Do you think John’s all right?”
There were two answers. Unless she wanted to get away from her husband, neither of them were good. “I can’t say at this point. Let me investigate—”
Her lip seemed to quiver. “You can tell me; I want to know.”
The question running through my mind since her call was whether she was involved in the disappearance. “As soon as I have something to report, I’ll let you know.”
She nodded.
I slid a document across the desk. “I’ll need you to sign this agreement. It proves I’m working on your behalf. My fee is fifty an hour plus expenses.”
She picked up a pen. “No problem.”
I stood. “Okay. Let me get started.”
She smiled. “It just occurred to me that you look like George Clooney.”
“People do say that.”
“You’re actually better looking than him.”
Did she bat her eyes?
“Uh, let me show you out.”
We shook, and she held my hand a second too long. I was hoping she was feeling that I was her best chance at locating her husband.
CHAPTER TWO
Initially, I was wary of the attention thrown on me when I took my leave, but the publicity had generated a dozen calls looking to hire me. All the cases were mundane affairs.
After watching Mrs. Talbot sashay down the driveway, I called Derrick.
“Hey, buddy, how’d it go at physical therapy?”
“It’s getting old.”
“You have to do the work. It’s the only way to get back on your feet.”
“I know, just bitching a little. How’d it go with that woman, Talbot?”
I wanted to tell him she was one of the prettiest women on the planet, but said, “Good. Her name is Ann. She didn’t give me much. I don’t know if he’s in trouble or was looking to start a new life.”
“What’d she say?”
“Her husband, John, calls her before seven. The guy says he’s at the Atlanta airport and is catching a flight at seven. Said he’d get into Fort Myers at nine and be home before ten. But he was a no-show. Never called again, just disappeared. She reported it but was getting frustrated, felt they were blowing her off and was recommended to me.”
“Assume they checked the hospitals.”
“Yep, no John Does in Collier or Lee.”
“Hmm. Any marriage issues?”
“None that she mentioned, but we’ll need to dig in there.”
“No doubt, but first we should start with the airport. They have tons of video. Maybe he got a call or something and left the airport.”
“Yeah, fortunately, he was supposed to fly Delta, and Frankie can help.”
“He’s a good guy.”
“Yeah. I want you to find out as much as you can on Talbot and his wife. She gave me a bunch of contacts; I’ll text you some. We need to see if there was anything in the background that could have led him to run or get whacked.”
“Can’t wait to get started. I’m bored out of my mind sitting home.”
“It’s coming your way.”
I sent a text with the information to Derrick. He still hadn’t recovered from the shooting, and I still hadn’t gotten over the guilt I felt over it. Nor had I forgiven the sheriff for his lack of support. It was another reminder of how poisonous politics were. The truth didn’t matter; it was all about looking good.
Dialing the phone, I heard the garage door open. The girls were home. I shut the door to my office, waiting for my contact at Delta to answer.
* * *
Mary Ann was in the kitchen. Jessie was out back, practicing gymnastic moves on what little grass we had.
“You’re home early.”
“She found a dress she liked right away.”
“You mean I got another girl who shops like a man?”
I loved that Mary Ann shopped and rarely browsed. If she was looking for jeans, she’d go straight to that section of the store and find a pair she liked. There was no flipping through racks of blouses or looking at shoes like most women did.
“She has our DNA. How did your meeting go? I understand she’s quite the looker.”
“What? Who told you that?”
“Miriam. You know how nosy she is.”
Neighbors. Why couldn’t they be as attentive when a crime happened?
“Geez, get the woman a job or something.”
“What is the case about?”
“Her husband said he was on a seven p.m. flight out of Atlanta and called her from the airport. But I found out he was never booked on it and had actually taken an earlier flight that landed in Fort Myers at six p.m.”
“Why would he mislead her?”
“There’s a possibility she was mistaken. It looks like he was looking to buy time before going home.”
“A girlfriend?”
I didn’t want to tell Mary Ann the guy would have been nuts to cheat on his wife. “Could very well be that, or something else he didn’t want his wife to know about.”
* * *
There was a chance someone had picked up Talbot from the airport. Sweeping a parking lot the size of the airport’s for Talbot’s car was not something I’d expected to be doing as a PI.
Talbot was only supposed to be gone for a day. I was betting he’d parked in a short-term lot.
Circling the lot made me dizzy. If I were working for the sheriff, I’d have had a couple of rookies doing the looking. I exited the covered parking garage without seeing his car.
Pulling into the long-term lot, my cell rang. It was my client.
“Hello, Mrs. Talbot.”
“Hello, Frank. Please call me Ann.”
Her voice was breathy.
“Sure. What’s going on?”
“Two things. I received the phone records from Verizon, but there’s no call from Atlanta. It shows Fort Myers.”
“Yeah, I confirmed your husband took an earlier flight out of Atlanta.”
“But why? And where is he?”
“You said you had two things.”
“Oh, I went online to check AMEX for activity, and there was a charge from Regional Southwest Airport for twenty-eight dollars. It wasn’t there before, but it’s backdated to March second.”
I headed for the parking lot’s exit. Talbot had paid for more than a day’s worth of short-term parking.
“All right. Your husband arrived earlier than expected and left in his own car. Send me over the phone records.”
“I can bring them over, or we could meet tonight.”
“Uhm, I-I’m busy tonight. If you don’t mind, can you put them in my mailbox?”
“Oh, okay.”
I hung up quickly. Pushing her out of my mind, I focused on her husband. Where were you, John?
He’d come in early, buying a block of time before his wife expected him home. Why? What did he have to do? I needed to find his car. It had to be fast because it didn’t sound like he’d run. At least not voluntarily.
CHAPTER THREE
The bell chimed, and I hustled to the door. It was Derrick and Lynn.
“Your first day and you’re late?”
I kissed his wife. “I’ll take it from here.”
“What time should I get him?”
“Give us two hours.”
She pecked Derrick’s cheek, and I wheeled him into the den.
“You want anything?”
“No, I’m just happy to be out of the house.”
“What did you find out on the Talbots?”
“They came down from Connecticut right after they married, over twenty years ago. John and Ann Talbot are low-keyed, but the family up north has money and connections. His grandfather even served as chief of staff for the governor up there.”
“Wonder why they left?”
“One of John’s friends said he hated the winters and taxes.”
“He landed in the right place.”
“They live in Park Shore, in a house valued at a million five. His business, Talbot Consulting, has four employees. Brian Blade is his right-hand man. He said Talbot cherry-picked his clients and that their services were expensive. He gave me the contact at the customer Talbot went to see, and they said it was a normal visit to go over structural issues on a new job they were about to break ground on.”
“That was good thinking, saves me time knowing why he went to Atlanta. You know, even though you’ve been sitting on your ass, you still got it, kid.”
“And you’re still a wise guy.”
“What did you expect? You know what else they were working on?”
“He said they’d been hired for two big projects in town, the Gulfshore Playhouse and the renovation of Artis.”
“What’s that?”
“The Philharmonic.”
“Oh yeah, I don’t know why they changed the name.”
Derrick shrugged. “There’s no doubt he’s well-connected to get those jobs.”
“Probably, but he could be donating his services.”
“I asked about that, and Blade said no.”
“Like I said, there’s no rust on you, kid. What about their marriage?”
“By all accounts they’re happy. Never had kids though.”
“Don’t know what they’re missing.”
“Couldn’t tell if it was a conscious decision or a medical issue.”
“It’ll come out. Right now, we need to find the car.”
“Is the sheriff looking for it?”
“Supposed to be. I let Lee County know about it too, and they put it on their sheet.”
“Good. What’s next?”
“I have a printout of the calls Talbot made the last fifteen days. You want to run it down?”
“Absolutely.”
“Start going through it. I’m going to see the wife. I want to take a look around the house and grab any electronics he used.”
* * *
I snaked along Belair Lane, turning onto Willowhead Drive. Talbot’s one-story house sat on a narrow lot but backed up to a lake. Its beige color dated the home, but they’d redone the landscaping. Derrick said it was worth a million and a half. Unless they’d remodeled the interior, it was accurate.
“Nice to see you, Frank.”
Ann was in another red dress. She was no wallflower. “Same here. As I mentioned, I’d like to look around his office, if you don’t mind. And I’ll need to check any laptops or computers he used.”
“John took his iPad with him. I asked Apple for help locating it, but they denied me because of privacy laws. I’m his wife, for God’s sake, and he’s missing.”
“Between the tech and phone companies, I can tell you they don’t make it easy. I’ve got my partner going over your husband’s phone records. By any chance did he have Find My Device on the tablet?”
“What’s that?”
“An app to trace a misplaced device.”
“Oh. Not that I know of. Here’s his office.”
I watched her buns sway as she led me into a room right off the foyer. It had dark wood floors and a glass-and-stainless-steel desk. Architectural drawings and pictures of groundbreaking ceremonies hung on the walls.
“No desktop in here?”
“John uses his tablet most of the time.”
“No other computers?”
“There’s one in our bedroom. You want to see it?”
Bedroom? Could it get any more uncomfortable? “Uh, yeah. Let me look around here first.”
Three narrow drawers ran across the top of the desk. Fishing through them, I didn’t find anything interesting. I combed through the drawers of a credenza that was covered with pictures of the couple playing tennis and on the water.
“You own a boat?”
“Yes, we keep it at Naples Bay Resort.”
“That’s the place with all the covered buildings, right?”
“Yes, it reminds me of Portofino.”
There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in the unit, and I went to the closet. A gray firebox sat on the floor. “May I?”
“Of course.”
I rifled through the files. Most of the paperwork was estate related: trust documents, wills, and insurance policies. The home’s deed and auto titles made up the rest.
“You want to see his computer in the bedroom?”
I did but was uncomfortable. “Sure. He has his own closet?”
“Yes, come this way.”
We skirted a remodeled kitchen, with modern lacquered cabinets and white countertops, into the family room. I followed her into the master bedroom. She had a great walk.
“Where’s the computer?”
“In my closet.”
Ugh. This was getting too personal. She walked into a large room. It was a closet like a Ferrari was a car. It looked like the women’s department at Nordstrom. I averted my eyes from the lingerie section and headed to a desktop sitting on a vanity spanning an entire wall. I was lucky it was an HP, as I was inept at navigating Macs.
Opening the browser, I went straight for the history tab. Sticking in a thumb drive, I copied the list of sites visited from the PC. “How often does your husband use this?”
“Not often, but at times he does. Some websites just don’t work the same on an iPad.”
Didn’t not often and at times have the same meaning? “I’d like to have a look in his closet.”
She pointed across the hallway. Her husband had a quarter of the clothing she did, but it was still double what I owned. I checked his sports jackets for anything in the pockets but only came up with a ticket to a charity event. I went through a bank of drawers. The bottom drawer was filled with sweaters.
Digging to the bottom, I came up with a magazine. I did a double take when I saw the name.
CHAPTER FOUR
The publication was Swinger Magazine. I peeked out the closet. Ann was sitting on the bed, checking her nails. I thumbed through the magazine. There were articles with pictures of everyday people and pages of personal ads from swingers looking to meet other swingers.
Were the Talbots engaging in sex with other couples? A snake writhed in my stomach. The thought of someone allowing his wife to have sex with another man, possibly even watching, was enough to throw a splash of bile against the back of my throat.
I put the magazine back. It was their choice how they led their lives, and it wasn’t illegal. I tucked the information into the back of my mind, but it crept back. If this turned out to be a homicide, it might be relevant.
Some man might have had buyer’s remorse allowing Talbot to screw his wife, or maybe it was Talbot pursuing someone’s spouse outside of the couple’s swapping activities that drove the husband to kill Talbot.
Ann smiled as I left the closet. “You find anything?”
Did she know the magazine was there? For a second, I wondered whether it was an elaborate way of feeling me out. “Do the two of you socialize much?”
“About as much as anyone else. We have tennis friends and one or two couples at the marina that we get together with occasionally.”
I was dying to ask her if they exchanged partners when they did. “It might be useful to talk to them.”
As she gave me the contact info, it was tough not to envision her romping around. Finishing up, I headed back to my office with one more question than I came with.
* * *
I pulled into our driveway. A woman was sitting in a Honda across from our house.
“Who is that lady out there?”
The doorbell rang as Mary Ann said, “She wants to see you, been waiting for over an hour.”
“About what?”
“Her daughter.”
I swung the door open. “Can I help you?”
“Frank Luca?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, thank God.”
Though I couldn’t see Mary Ann, I knew she was rolling her eyes. The woman introduced herself and said she needed my help locating her daughter. If it weren’t a kid, I’d have questioned the wisdom of pursuing two missing persons at the same time.
I stepped aside. “Come in.”
Sherrie Coyle had close-cropped hair and was about forty. She sat at the edge of the chair.
“It’s my daughter, Carla. She’s been gone for three days.”
“How old is she?”
I cringed when she said, “Eighteen.”
“Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“No, but I know she’s probably with Teddy.”
“And he is?”
“Her boyfriend.”
“She ran away with him?”
“Not exactly. You see, she had a big fight with my husband over Teddy. Jeremy hates the kid and told her to stop seeing him.”
“Did you report her as missing?”
“Yeah, I went to the police, but when I told them she was probably with her boyfriend, they said she was an adult.”
“How old is Teddy?”
“I think he’s twenty-one.”
“What’s his last name?”
“I, uh, don’t know.”
“Do you know if he has a job?”
She shook her head. I wanted to shake some sense into her.
“And you’re sure she’s with him?”
“She better be. I mean, Teddy’s not the boyfriend I’d have liked Carla to have, but deep down, he’s a good kid.”
“Have you tried contacting Teddy?”
“Yes, he won’t tell me where she is.”
“But you believe he knows?”
“She has to be with him.”
“What did he say when you asked about her?”
“That he doesn’t know where she is. But I can tell he’s lying.”
“Where does Teddy live?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t live with his parents. His father is in jail, and his mother is on drugs.”
At least she had a valid reason not to be enamored about who her kid was dating. “You have his phone number, right?”
“Yeah, I took it off her phone one day.”
I wrote down the number. “Do you have any reason to believe she may be in danger?”
“Not really. I’m worried sick about where she is, where’s she sleeping . . .”
“Who is her best friend?”
“Carla has really been keeping to herself and Teddy since she graduated from Golden Gate High.”
“Is she working?”
Another shake of the head.
“When she was in school, who was her best friend?”
“Nancy Cardinale. She lives a couple of blocks away from us and works at Bed Bath and Beyond on Airport-Pulling Road.”
“Is she close with any family?”
“Just my husband’s sister, Lara. She lives in Winter Park.”
I slid my engagement agreement across the desk. “You’ll need to sign this, and I’ll get going.”
She started reading. “Fifty an hour? I can’t afford that. I mean, how long is this going to take?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping it will be quick.” I reached for the document and crossed out the fee. “I’ve got a daughter, so I’ll reduce it to forty.”
Mary Ann was doing her laps as I showed Mrs. Coyle to the door. “She’s a good swimmer.”
“It helps keep her MS at bay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to be, she’s a fighter and is doing great. Anyway, I’ll be in touch.”
I went back to my office and sent a text:
Teddy, my name is Frank Luca. I’m a private investigator. The Coyles hired me to locate their daughter. I realize she’s an adult, but all I’m interested in knowing she is safe. Please tell me where I can see her, and I promise not to tell the parents. We can meet in a public place if you wish.
After an hour without a reply, I sent another text telling Teddy I wasn’t going away. Fifteen minutes of silence passed, and I headed out to see Carla’s girlfriend.
The traffic on Airport-Pulling was lighter than usual. I pulled into the parking lot when my phone rang. It was Sergeant Trillo, a contact of mine in the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
“What’s up, Ray?”
“We found the car you were looking for.”
“John Talbot’s Genesis?”
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