Read Online Designed to Kill by CHESTER D CAMPBELL - Free Book Online
Authors: CHESTER D CAMPBELL
Tags: Mystery
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gate. I certainly wasn’t going to change any minds without some evidence. Right now I had a sergeant convinced Tim left The Sand Castle despondent and suicidal, a developer and a contractor ready to swear the accident was Tim’s fault, a missing condo key and two sets of missing plans. I also had an engineer persuaded that the design was flawless and the contractor likely was not. In short, I had a puzzle with lots of pieces that didn’t match.
11
The setting sun cast long, slanted shadows across the Intracoastal Waterway as we crested the Theo Baars Bridge , a high-arched span that connected the mainland to Perdido Key. This twelve-mile-long sandspit where we had bought our condo was known as Old Gulf Beach when Baars got the county to build a road onto the key in 1924. After two efforts at constructing a resort hotel in the area died with the 1929 crash, the island languished for the next four decades. In the 1960’s, the Department of the Interior put it on the map as Perdido Key— perdido being Spanish for “lost,” as well as the name of the nearby bay that a bunch of dumb pirates got lost trying to find. Development of houses and condos got under way in the seventies, and by the end of the decade the National Park Service had bought up the eastern half of the key to save the land from further destruction by four-wheel dune buggies. The area became part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.
Just before Perdido Key Drive swung to the right, paralleling the surf on its way to Alabama , we turned left onto Johnson Beach Road , which dead-ended at the entrance to the National Seashore. Swinging back toward the darkening waters of the Gulf, we headed for the parking lot behind Gulf Sands Condominiums. A cluster of plants with dark blue blossoms flourished among the spiky shrubs that lined one side of the road, the wiry trunks of palm trees stretching high above the other. We found less than a dozen cars nosed up to the crossties that flanked a flower bed and concrete walkway in front of our building.
Jill swung her head around as I parked near the elevators at the center. “Looks like we’ll have the place to ourselves,” she said.
The building was a box-like structure without the fancy lines of newer condos, but each unit had a large balcony that faced the Gulf, only yards from the broad white sand beach. The structure was eight stories high with eight units on each floor. There would be lots of unlighted rooms tonight.
“It was probably like this Friday night,” I said. “Nobody around to notice Tim’s comings and goings.”
I could have used a witness to his demeanor, as well as the time he left for the Seashore. I hoped I would be able to confirm one thing with the Medical Examiner, however—the time of his death.
After rolling a baggage cart out of the storage room, I piled on all of our bags and boxes. We always brought too much. Boarding the elevator, we lumbered toward the second floor. The narrow balcony that served as a walkway at the front of the building was deserted as I pushed the cart along, its screeching wheels echoing through the early evening quiet. Since Jill’s left arm was still too weak to be of much use, she carried only a handbag slung over her right shoulder. Dr. Vail had forbidden her to hold anything heavier than a cup of coffee in her left hand.
She unlocked the door and switched on the hall light, then propped the door open for me to roll in the cart. Walking ahead of me, she stopped beside the dining room table, stuck her nose in the air and sniffed.
“Do you smell that?”
I hadn’t noticed anything in particular. “What?”
“Shalimar. Somebody’s been in here wearing Shalimar.”
“If you say so. You’ve got a sharper nose than mine. However, Sergeant Payne didn’t impress me as a man who would use Shalimar. I’d say he was more a Giorgio of Beverly Hills type of guy.”
“Be serious,” she said. “Nobody should have been in here
11
The setting sun cast long, slanted shadows across the Intracoastal Waterway as we crested the Theo Baars Bridge , a high-arched span that connected the mainland to Perdido Key. This twelve-mile-long sandspit where we had bought our condo was known as Old Gulf Beach when Baars got the county to build a road onto the key in 1924. After two efforts at constructing a resort hotel in the area died with the 1929 crash, the island languished for the next four decades. In the 1960’s, the Department of the Interior put it on the map as Perdido Key— perdido being Spanish for “lost,” as well as the name of the nearby bay that a bunch of dumb pirates got lost trying to find. Development of houses and condos got under way in the seventies, and by the end of the decade the National Park Service had bought up the eastern half of the key to save the land from further destruction by four-wheel dune buggies. The area became part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.
Just before Perdido Key Drive swung to the right, paralleling the surf on its way to Alabama , we turned left onto Johnson Beach Road , which dead-ended at the entrance to the National Seashore. Swinging back toward the darkening waters of the Gulf, we headed for the parking lot behind Gulf Sands Condominiums. A cluster of plants with dark blue blossoms flourished among the spiky shrubs that lined one side of the road, the wiry trunks of palm trees stretching high above the other. We found less than a dozen cars nosed up to the crossties that flanked a flower bed and concrete walkway in front of our building.
Jill swung her head around as I parked near the elevators at the center. “Looks like we’ll have the place to ourselves,” she said.
The building was a box-like structure without the fancy lines of newer condos, but each unit had a large balcony that faced the Gulf, only yards from the broad white sand beach. The structure was eight stories high with eight units on each floor. There would be lots of unlighted rooms tonight.
“It was probably like this Friday night,” I said. “Nobody around to notice Tim’s comings and goings.”
I could have used a witness to his demeanor, as well as the time he left for the Seashore. I hoped I would be able to confirm one thing with the Medical Examiner, however—the time of his death.
After rolling a baggage cart out of the storage room, I piled on all of our bags and boxes. We always brought too much. Boarding the elevator, we lumbered toward the second floor. The narrow balcony that served as a walkway at the front of the building was deserted as I pushed the cart along, its screeching wheels echoing through the early evening quiet. Since Jill’s left arm was still too weak to be of much use, she carried only a handbag slung over her right shoulder. Dr. Vail had forbidden her to hold anything heavier than a cup of coffee in her left hand.
She unlocked the door and switched on the hall light, then propped the door open for me to roll in the cart. Walking ahead of me, she stopped beside the dining room table, stuck her nose in the air and sniffed.
“Do you smell that?”
I hadn’t noticed anything in particular. “What?”
“Shalimar. Somebody’s been in here wearing Shalimar.”
“If you say so. You’ve got a sharper nose than mine. However, Sergeant Payne didn’t impress me as a man who would use Shalimar. I’d say he was more a Giorgio of Beverly Hills type of guy.”
“Be serious,” she said. “Nobody should have been in here
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