Free Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries) by H. Terrell Griffin Page B

folks.
    I got out of the car, started walking toward the deputy. “Get back in your car, sir,” he said.
    I kept walking toward him. He stiffened a bit, on guard. “Deputy,” I said, “I’m Matt Royal. I called this in. These guys were trying to kill me and my passenger. Call your boss. He’ll fill you in.”
    “Who’s your passenger?”
    “Call your boss, Deputy. Give him my name. He’ll tell you what he can. I’ll be in my car.” I turned and walked back to the Explorer. I couldsee body damage near the right rear wheel well. I walked to the other side. There was a gash in the metal just forward of the rear wheel, running along the side almost to the front door. My insurance company wasn’t going to like this.
    I got into the car. “What’s going on?” Logan asked.
    “I don’t know.” I pulled out my cell phone and called Bill Lester.
    “Matt,” he said. “Where the hell are you and Logan and why did you take him out of the hotel? The sheriff is all over my ass.”
    “Bill, we’ve got bigger problems than that. Some people just tried to kill Logan and me. I think they were the same people who were at the hotel.” I told him what I knew about the morning’s events.
    “Marie is at the courthouse,” he said.
    “Why?”
    “She was on her way back to the key when a couple of bikers came up behind her. She thought they might be the same ones she saw at the hotel. She turned off Fruitville and stopped in the middle of traffic in front of the courthouse. She went inside and told the security folks she needed help.”
    “Where is she now?”
    “In a witness room on the first floor. A deputy is guarding the door. She’s fine.”
    “Bill, I don’t like being out in the open. We’re sitting ducks. Can you get the sheriff’s office to let us go on and we’ll talk to them later? And I want to get Marie.”
    “I’ll handle it.” He hung up.
    I related all this to Logan.
    “Those sons of bitches,” he said. “They’re after Marie.”
    “I think they somehow found out where you were hiding. I don’t understand who these bikers are, though.”
    “Hired guns, I’d guess.”
    “Probably so. But who’s doing the hiring? And why?”
    “I don’t know.”
    The deputy walked over to my side of the car. “Is it drivable?”
    “I think so,” I said.
    “The sheriff said for you to go on home. Somebody will be in touch about this mess.”
    “Thanks, Deputy. I hit them on purpose. They were trying to shoot us with those shotguns.”
    “Well, you took ’em out, Mr. Royal. These two won’t be giving you any more trouble.”
    I cranked the Explorer, pulled slowly around the dead bikers, and headed west.

CHAPTER TWENTY
    I called Bill Lester and told him we had left the scene and were on our way back to the key. He was alarmed about the attempt on our lives and wanted us to come directly to the station to give a statement to him and his new detective. “It’s about time you met her anyway. And the Sarasota sheriff’s office will want a statement from you.”
    “I’m on my way to pick up Marie. I’ll call you when I start back to the island.”
    “Don’t forget, Matt. This is important.”
    “I know. I promise.”
    I drove to the Judicial Center on Ringling Boulevard and found a parking place. “Pull your hat low,” I said, “and stay here.”
    “If somebody’s after Marie, I think it’d be better if there were two of us.”
    “I doubt that the bad guys stuck around after Marie dodged into the courthouse. Besides, somebody wants you dead. Let’s wait until we get a reading from Bill Lester.”
    He reluctantly agreed, pulled the hat low on his face, and slunk down in the seat. I walked to the front door, identified myself to the deputy at the security point, showed him my driver’s license, emptied my pockets into a basket, walked through the metal detectors, got my stuff, and followed the guard’s directions to the witness room where Marie waited.
    Another deputy was at the door.