Found: A Matt Royal Mystery Read Online Free Page B

morning run, so I needed to get home, change, and jog my daily four miles on the beach. “You want to go run with me?” I asked Logan.
    He looked at me as if I’d slipped a gear. Logan had recently retired from the financial services company he’d worked for since he graduated from college. He had made a lot of money, and, as he said, he’d never wasted it on a wife or kids. He was young for retirement, but so was I, and maybe that’s what made us such good friends. Logan stood about five feet ten and had lost most of his hair. What was left had turned white, so he looked older than he was. He had gained some weight since he gave up working for a living and, if he wasn’t careful, he would become one of those retirees who did nothing but drink and watch television. I was worried that he was drinking too much, but he seemed to have a large capacity for alcohol and he was never a sloppy drunk.
    “You go ahead,” he said with a grin. “I’ll catch up.”
    “Right.”
    The door to the parking lot opened, letting in light and a little fresh air and Cracker Dix. He greeted us in his English accent, took a stool, and ordered a glass of white wine. “Matt,” he said, “you’re here a bit early. What’s up? J.D. dump you?”
    “Not yet, Cracker. I just stopped in to rescue Logan.”
    “It’ll happen,” Logan said.
    “What’ll happen?” asked Cracker.
    “J.D. will dump Matt’s sorry ass. Soon, probably.”
    “Ah,” said Cracker, “a match made in paradise. Can’t go wrong.”
    “You hear about the mess on the bridge?” Susie asked.
    “Yes,” said Cracker. “I also heard that the asshole who went off the bridge killed old Ken Goodlow.” News travels fast on our small island.
    “Did you know Goodlow?” I asked.
    “Yeah. I met him when I first came to the island. Used to drink with him over in Cortez. He got me a job on one of the boats that used to work out of the fish houses over there.”
    “I didn’t know you worked the boats,” I said.
    “Sure did. Lasted one whole day. Wouldn’t have been that long if the captain hadn’t refused to bring me in early.”
    Cracker Dix was an expatriate Englishman who had lived on Longboat Key for thirty years without losing his English accent. He was in his late fifties, bald as a cue ball, and dressed, as usual, in a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a single-strand gold necklace. He had a gold stud in his right earlobe and an IQ that rested somewhere in the stratosphere.
    “Any idea who’d want to kill him?” I asked.
    “None. Everybody liked the old codger.”
    “Did he have a family?”
    “No. His wife died some years ago and they never had kids. The closest thing he had to family was Bud Jamison. Those guys were tighter than a virgin’s—”
    “Don’t say it,” interrupted Susie.
    Cracker grinned. “Well, you get my meaning.”
    “We all got it,” said Susie.
    “Anyway,” said Cracker, “they’ve been buds since World War II.”
    “Is Jamison married?” I asked.
    “No. I think he was once, years ago, but his wife died before I met him.”
    “I’ll pass this on to J.D.,” I said. “She’ll probably want to interview him.”
    “She probably already knows,” said Cracker. “Everybody in Cortez knew those guys were close. But, there was something that happened two or three years back.”
    “Like what?” I asked.
    “Don’t know.”
    “Then what makes you think something happened?”
    “Back then, there were still several of the old guys left, and they had coffee every morning at the Cortez Café. I was seeing a woman who lived nearby and when I’d spend the night with her, when her husband was traveling, I’d join the old guys for coffee.”
    “Cracker,” Logan said, “did you ever have a woman who wasn’t married?”
    Cracker was quiet for a moment, thinking. “A couple,” he said finally. “But you know, they get all clingy, want to spend all their time with you. It’s smothering. Married women are