Free Key Lime Blues by Mike Jastrzebski Page B

now was the right time to tell her about the stolen money.
    My first inclination was to ignore the call. Subconsciously, I reached into my pants pocket where I used to keep a roll of Tums. They weren’t there because I hadn’t needed them since moving to paradise, at least not until a couple of days ago. A good deal of the stress I’d experienced as a P.I. had been the result of working for my mother. She’d made demands on me she never would have made on another operative, and she was much less forgiving of my mistakes.
    Unfortunately, I’d agreed to pick her up at the airport when she arrived. The last thing I needed was for her to be hanging around while Frankie and his goons chased after me. With a sigh, I plopped down on the top step of the porch and flipped the phone open.
    “Hello Mother.”
    “I got a call from Frank Szymanski this morning,” she said. “He said you screwed up the meeting with the girl. He wants his fee back. Are you doing this on purpose?”
    A middle-aged couple dressed in matching white shorts and gaudy shirts rode by on bicycles and waved when they saw me. I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me, but in Key West that didn’t matter.
    I waved back. “I didn’t screw anything up, Mother. Szymanski’s man was waiting for her with a gun. He didn’t leave me a choice.”
    “That’s bullshit and you know it. She stole something from him. He wants it back. It’s a no-brainer, Wes. We were hired to find her. You did your job, you found her. I would think you’d be more concerned about who killed Nick.”
    “So you knew all along that this wasn’t about unrequited love?”
    “Not until he called this morning.”
    “It seems to me Frankie Szymanski should be our number one suspect.” I said.
    “What would he have to gain by killing Nick?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Nick could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    “I believe it was you and Nick who taught me not to believe in coincidence,” I said.
    “I know. But shit does happen, and sometimes it is only a coincidence. You need to keep an open mind.”
    “This really doesn’t have anything to do with Nick,” I said. “I couldn’t let them hurt the girl.”
    “She’s a thief Wes. Not to mention the fact that she’s a stripper and a whore. She put her own tits in the wringer and it’s not up to you to pull ‘em out. You’re not screwing her, are you Wes?”
    “This isn’t about sex, Mother. I reacted to a situation and did what I thought was right.”
    “Maybe I should have left you tending bar and handled this myself.”
    “Maybe you should have.” My words shut her up for about thirty seconds. I could almost see her reaching for her cigarettes when she let out a loud sigh.
    “This isn’t about the stripper, is it?” she said. “This is about the other girl.”
    “The other girl has a name. And this has nothing to do with Celine or what happened to her.” Even while the words sprang from my mouth I knew she was probably right. It wasn’t only in my dreams that I thought about Celine Stewart.
    In June of the previous year, Myron Stewart, of the Stewart department store chain, hired us to install a new, state-of-the-art security system for his house to replace the inadequate one installed when the house was built. Before we could complete the job, his daughter was kidnapped.
    Two days before our crew was scheduled to install the system, we’d received a frantic call from Stewart demanding to see one of our investigators. I took the call.
    Stewart lived in Farmington Hills in a six thousand square foot house. Twenty years earlier, when the house was built, it was considered a showpiece. When I got there, it was still damn impressive.
    Myron Stewart answered the door himself. He was dressed in a pair of pressed khaki slacks, a white silk shirt left open at the collar, and a green Christian Dior tie he’d loosened to allow his massive neck a little room. Myron wasn’t fat, just short with