Castle Cay by Lee Hanson

assistant, Luz.
    “ What?”
    “Nothing,” said Joe. “Have we heard from
Johnson & Cummings?”
    “Yup. The check came in yesterday,” she said.
“I deposited it. $8,600.00.”
    “Hallelujah!”
    Joe had been waiting for that case to
settle.
    “What else?”
    “Angela called a couple of times,” said
Janet, offering the information like a glass of sour milk.
    Angela D’Amato was Joe’s ex-girlfriend. He
broke up with Angie two years ago when he became hopelessly
attracted to his new tenant. He told her he thought they should
“see other people”. Of course, the only person Joe wanted to see
was Julie.
    But that didn’t happen. Joe really tried to
avoid Angie…but sometimes he didn’t try too hard. Janet didn’t
approve.
    “I’ll call her later,” he said, flipping
through the card file.
    He found the one he was looking for:
     
    Sawyer Aerial Photography
     
    Will Sawyer was a pilot that Joe had met when
he was in the service. He was a few years older than Joe, but they
were both Florida boys away from home, and they had become good
friends.
    Joe punched in the number.
    Will’s wife, Carolyn, answered the phone. Joe
talked to her politely for a minute or so, before asking for
Will.
    “Hey, Buddy!” said Will, “How’s it
going?”
    “I’m good,” said Joe. “How’s everything down
in Miami?”
    “Great! When are you coming down? We’ll pull
up some bugs!”
    Will had a boat; Joe went down every so often
to help him with lobster traps.
    Joe told him about Julie’s case, particularly
about the growing significance of the island, Castle Cay.
    “So, I was hoping I could hire you to take me
there, get some photos?”
    “When?” asked Will.
    “As soon as you can.”
    Will paused. Joe waited.
    “Tomorrow’s Saturday and I’m open,” he said
at last. “There’s a tropical depression southeast of Haiti. That’s
far enough away, but you never know in hurricane season. It may
ground me pretty soon. How fast can you get here?”
    “I can be there this afternoon,” said
Joe.
    “Yeah, okay. And Joe, I’ll only charge you
for my costs.”
    Joe closed his eyes and pumped his fist.
    All right!
    “Thanks, Will. I’ll grab a cab to your house
from the airport. See you later.”
    Joe hung up and reached for his card file
again to look up Sherman Dixon’s number. He located the card and
rang the number.
    Long time since I talked to Sherman…
    Sherman and Joe had gone to Florida State
University together. What a time that was! They were campus heroes.
It was all about babes, booze and football. Their senior year of
college was a continuous party. Sherman graduated and went into the
FBI.
    Joe graduated and went into rehab.
    Joe remembered his mother going nuts over his
decision to join the navy after getting out of there. He would
never forget his father’s sharp rebuke: “Let him go, Dot! It’ll
make a man out of him.” How he had hated Big Joe for saying that.
Of course, his father had been right on the money.
    “Dixon, here.”
    “Hi, Sherm. It’s Joe Garrett.”
    “Joe! Good to hear from you! Did you see the
game last Saturday?”
    Joe knew he was talking about FSU. Sherm was
still a huge Seminole fan, even though he didn’t live in Florida
anymore.
    Joe could picture the big black man standing
in front of the TV in the den, yelling, “GO! GO!” at the FSU
quarterback while his wife and two little girls looked on,
mystified.
    Joe said he’d missed the game, and filled
Sherman in on Julie’s case.
    “I’m thinking about this guy, Avram Solomon,
the dead man’s brother,” Joe said. “Just thinking…but maybe the
brother is involved with the Tambini family up there, and maybe it
somehow connects to the death in Key West.
    “I mean, Julie was really close to this guy,
Sherm, and she’s a hundred percent sure he didn’t kill himself.
Now, I know you can’t tell me anything about any ongoing cases, and
I wouldn’t ask you to,” said Joe. “But I thought you might be