Free Florida Is Murder (Due Justice and Surface Tension Mystery Double Feature) (Florida Mystery Double Feature) by Diane Capri, Christine Kling Page A

me in the first place. Not because she had any special affection for me. It’s just that I’ve always been the problem solver. And she certainly had a problem. Where else would she go?
    But this time, George was as distressed by Carly’s situation as I had been, maybe more. If I try to mother everyone who comes along, George takes in strays, any stray, as long as they’re a stray. Because Carly had been estranged from the family lately, George was particularly protective. He’d always liked Carly and he felt protective of her.
    “Don’t you know someone to whom you could entrust this information in confidence?  It seems the sort of thing that needs to be disclosed, but I certainly wouldn’t want Carly to be arrested just for having suggested the possible identity of a dead man,” he said. George still believes in all American institutions.
    “I think I’d have to give some reason for my suspicions. Since I never learned why Carly was asked to leave the prosecutor’s office, I’m not sure that if I disclosed her name, she wouldn’t become a suspect. I can’t risk that.”
    George and I debated the ethics and the practicalities for another hour before concluding that perhaps the tried and true “anonymous phone call” was the best way to go. Since it was scrupulously important, at least to me, that I not be involved, George volunteered to make the call from a pay phone in the local supermarket. I was amused and surprised. Until he suggested it, I wasn’t really sure George knew where the local supermarket was, and cloak and dagger is clearly not his style. I’m not sure he even knows who James Bond is. George really is a sport.
    We agreed on what he would say and how he would say it. I told him it was important to keep the call to less than three minutes so that it couldn’t be traced. After we got everything worked out, he went downstairs to drive himself to the phone.
    I waited for what seemed like forever. By the time George got back, I’d already finished three more drinks and smoked two more cigars. One a day is my usual self imposed limit. I saw his car pull up in the driveway and I poured us both another drink. George is not a man meant for intrigue and I knew that he would be at least as shaken as I was.
    “Well, what happened?” I pounced on him as soon as he walked in the door.
    “It went as well as can be expected. I called the downtown branch instead of 911. I know all 911 calls are taped. I disguised my voice and I said ‘I think the body you found yesterday morning in Tampa Bay is Dr. Michael Morgan’.”
    “Did they act like they believed you?”
    “They asked me to repeat the information. After I repeated it twice, making a total of three statements in the very same words, I hung up. I think the whole call took about two minutes. Then I got back in my car and drove directly here.”
    “Were you followed?”
    “Christ, listen to you!  I don’t know whether I was followed. I’ve never been followed in my life except in a funeral procession. I’d have no idea how to find out. Did you see anyone else come up the driveway behind me?”
    I told him I hadn’t and we both tried to calm down. At the moment, it appeared this was the most we could do. I had called Carly twice after George left. No answer. For all I knew, she could have moved or changed her number. In any event, we’d given the authorities the information we had and, with luck, we wouldn’t have to deal with it further. I made a mental note to look up whether obstruction of justice was an impeachable offense first thing tomorrow morning. I was sure I knew the answer, but pretending I didn’t gave me some hope.
    We had the dinner George had suggested earlier sent up to our dining room and, although neither of us said anything, I knew we were both waiting for the evening news. At 11:00, we turned on the local broadcast. Frank Bennett carried the major stories, including the unidentified body. He recapped the prior