Free The Black Palmetto by Paul Carr

could, or could read his mind.
    Averting his eyes, Sam said, “Yeah, come on down.” He told J.T. where they were staying, closed the phone, and relayed the conversation.
    Simone listened, her arms crossed, eyes narrowed. When he finished, she said, “I warned you about him. If this blows up in our face, you're going to be sorry.”
    Maybe she was angry, or maybe she just didn't want to talk about the Black Palmetto.
    “This Palmetto business keeps coming up. Why didn't you tell me about their site being in Homestead?”
    Shrugging, she said, “What does that have to do with what's going on here?”
    “It might have a lot to do with it. If that facility had records lying around that named names in an illegal assassination activity, maybe Spanner took them and tried to use them to blackmail somebody in Iguana Key.”
    Shaking her head, Simone said, “There weren't any records lying around. I told you, we got rid of everything.”
    “Maybe you missed something.”
    “No, we got everything. Computers, servers, books, papers. We torched them inside a government van, then crushed it and dropped the burned metal block in a hole where no one will ever discover it.”
    Sam stared for a moment. “Is the research facility where the Black Palmetto was?”
    She sighed. “It's in the same building.”
    The Palmetto angle sounded more and more plausible.
    “What if somebody had another set of books locked away off site, for protection in case something like this happened?”
    At first she smirked, but then seemed to remember something. Sam could see the gears turning in her head.
    “You know, we grilled the people who worked there and turned up a few things they’d taken home, but there was this one guy who had left a month or so earlier. A psychiatrist. We never talked to him. But if he did have something, I don’t know how it could have gotten back into the research facility for Spanner to steal.”
    ****
    Sam felt sure he had locked the motel door when they'd left, but it now hung ajar. He put his finger to his lips and then pointed at it. With their guns at the ready, he reached inside, flipped the light switch, and kicked the door open. A body lay on the floor next to the far wall. Stepping inside, he scanned the rest of the room, and then eased past the body to the bathroom. His pulse pounded in his ears as he leaned around the corner of the jamb. Nobody there.
    “It's clear,” he said, returning to the bedroom where Simone knelt over the body.
    “You have some gloves?” she asked.
    “Yeah, I’ll get them.”
    Stepping outside, he scanned the parking lot for any signs of life. A calico cat lay in a clump of palmetto, chewing on a dead chipmunk. The cat stopped, peered up at him and bared its teeth, as if to say, This is mine, man. You get your own .
    He got the gloves and stretched on two of them. Back inside, he closed the door and handed a pair to Simone.
    It appeared that the man had died quickly. All the blood seemed to be contained on the front of his shirt. A shotgun lay close to his fingers, and a designer ball cap sat askew atop his head. Sam picked up the gun and smelled the end of the barrel. It hadn’t been fired recently.
    “His name is Morton Bell,” Simone said, examining the dead man’s driver’s license. “Maybe he's Jake Bell's father. He smells like booze. Probably got drunk and came here to kill you.”
    “Yeah. Somebody else must’ve had the same idea and was waiting here. He opened the door, came into the dark room, and the killer mistook him for me.”
    Standing up, Simone said, “You're a popular guy.”
    “Yeah, right. I wonder how they got in.”
    “Somebody could have called that clown at the desk and offered him some money to leave it open. He would have done it.”
    “We can't call the cops,” Sam said.
    Simone’s eyes widened. “No, they’d haul you off, for sure.”
    She made two drinks from what remained of the gin and tonic and handed him one.
    Sam took a swallow and