Cruise Control Read online

  Cruise Control

  A Miami Jones Florida Mystery

  AJ Stewart

  Jacaranda Drive

  For the young, and young at heart.

  * * *

  And Heather.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  If You Enjoyed This Book

  Also by AJ Stewart

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Ron sank back into my office sofa, looking relaxed in a pair of Nantucket red trousers and a blue shirt. The fine winter sun shone in through the window, the shadow from the palm outside playing across his sun-splotched face. I sat at my desk, chair leaned back, boat shoes up where a normal person might have had a computer.

  “A cruise?” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  “You need a few days off to go on a cruise?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Is this a sailing thing?”

  “No, Miami. It’s a cruise. On a big ship.”

  “So you’re not crew.”

  “No. All good times, no responsibilities.”

  “Is the Lady Cassandra aware you’re going on a cruise?”

  “She’s the whole reason I’m going.”

  “I didn’t figure her for the cruise type.”

  “What’s the cruise type look like?”

  I shrugged. I had never been on a cruise ship so I couldn’t really say, but my impression was that it had something to do with enjoying buffets, and Cassandra wasn’t a buffet kind of gal. She was Palm Beach old money, the kind of person who preferred her food to come to her. I couldn’t blame her for that. I rarely felt the need to tend the grill at Longboard Kelly’s. Rarely.

  “Why a cruise?”

  “It’s a Super Bowl thing.”

  “You and the Lady Cassandra are going on a Super Bowl-thing cruise?”

  Ron smiled and sipped water from a bottle.

  “Have I fallen down the rabbit hole?”

  “No. It’s not your usual football crowd. It’s more about the movers and shakers of football. The owners, the network people. There’s going to be art auctions and dinners with Hall of Famers, that sort of thing.”

  “I still don’t see it as Cassandra’s bag of marbles,” I said. “So what gives?”

  “A lot of her friends are going, the Palm Beach set.”

  “Still not seeing it.”

  Ron screwed the cap back on his water bottle and sat up from his reclined position.

  “I’m going to propose.”

  “Propose what?”

  Ron raised an eyebrow.

  Then the penny dropped. For me. Everyone else on the planet had gotten there eons ago.

  “Marriage?”

  Ron nodded and grinned like a school boy.

  I said nothing more. The word on the tip of my tongue was seriously? But I figured that wasn’t the politic thing to say. It would sound like I thought Ron asking Cassandra to marry him was a bad idea, and nothing could be further from the truth. Ron and Cassandra had found each other while he and I were working a case at Palm Beach’s grand dame of hotels, The Breakers. They had both been around the block a time or two, and they were different, to be sure. Ron had an impish grin and a raconteur’s charm, and Cassandra had the grace of Diana Spencer. They had made each other smile from the get-go. And I knew Ron. He didn’t do alone very well. His wasn’t a solo voyage. He had been married twice—once well, once poorly—and had also been in a long-term relationship with the most amazing sprite of a woman, who had passed from this earth far too early. Ron was a romantic, pure and simple.

  The hesitation was all me. I wasn’t sure why. On the face of it, I suspected I couldn’t see the point. Ron and Cassandra were both of a certain age. Cassandra herself was a widow. They were happy as they were. They weren’t going to have a family and send kids to school. They weren’t going to buy a home—they lived in Cassandra’s Palm Beach apartment overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Marriage wasn’t going to change anything. But Ron looked giddy at the idea and that was good enough for me.

  “Congratulations.”

  Ron shrugged. “Not yet.”

  “And when is this all happening?”

  “This coming weekend.”

  “This weekend?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not the Super Bowl this weekend. It’s Pro Bowl weekend,” I said.

  “I guess a lot of the folks on the cruise will be at the Super Bowl next weekend, so they’re doing it a week earlier.”

  “Nice work if you can get it. Go on a cruise and then hang around in Miami for a week.”

  “I guess if you owned a team it would be considered work.”

  “I guess. But there’s something I don’t get. Why are you asking me for time off?”

  “Isn’t that what people do?”

  “I don’t know what people do. But that’s not what you and I do. Never has been. You need time, you take time.”

  “Thanks, Miami. But the thing is, there’s a client.”

  “What client?”

  “We’re seeing him in about five minutes.”

  “We are?”

  Ron nodded.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he made an appointment.”

  “We do appointments? Like, here in the office?”

  “When the occasion calls for it.”

  “Huh. I always thought our clients tracked us down at Longboard’s.”

  “I grant you, that does happen a lot.”

  “But this client is coming into the office? Very professional. So who is he?”

  “His name is Fred Connors. I guess he heard around the traps what I do, because he cornered me at a party last night. He said he had something delicate to investigate and asked if he could make an appointment to discuss it.”

  “Not an insurance thing? I don’t do insurance things, Ron.”

  “I didn’t get that impression.”

  The muted noise of distant downtown traffic eased through the open window, until finally we heard someone coming in through the front door and the mumbled dialog with our office manager, Lizzy. Then Lizzy stuck her head in and announced Mr. Connors.

  The man who walked in was preceded by an aroma that I thought to be distinctly English, but I couldn’t say why for sure. Ron and I both stood and the man’s gaze swept across me and onto Ron, who nodded. They shook hands.

  “Ron, thanks for seeing me.”

  “Of course, Fred.” Ron turned to me. “This is Miami Jones.”

  The man offered me his hand. “Frederick Connors,” he said.

  He was right. In this world, there are Freds and there are Fredericks, and despite what Ron said, this guy was most definitely a Frederick. He was average height, ab
out five-ten, and a little wider around the belt line than his physician probably advocated. His gray suit was the kind of expensive material that shone at certain angles, and he wore a pink, French-collared shirt with no tie, open at the neck, offering up a little tuft of black hair below his Adam’s apple. His pocket square was cut from the same cloth as his shirt.

  I offered him a seat. Ron took the other visitor’s chair. I looked at Connors’ face. He was a well-groomed guy. I often let my stubble grow, out of laziness more than style, but I never let it go to full beard. Besides getting too itchy, it seemed to require more maintenance than keeping no beard at all, unless you went for the lumberjack look, and that was no kind of look for the South Florida heat. But Frederick Connors clearly didn’t mind the upkeep. His beard was black as coal and trimmed to perfection. There were no stray hairs, the edges as sharp as cut AstroTurf. The hair on his head was thick and black, too, and contained some kind of product that would likely keep it in place during gale-force winds.

  “Mr. Connors,” I said. “Ron tells me you have something delicate you wish to discuss.”

  “Yes, Mr. Jones,” he said. “Most delicate.”

  I thought I caught a hint of an accent, perhaps Middle Eastern in some way, but it was so refined that it might not have been there at all.

  Connors hesitated and then glanced at Ron. “You are married to Lady Cassandra, yes?”

  “Not married,” said Ron. “Not right now.”

  “But you are together.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Connors nodded to himself like he was reconsidering the entire thing.

  “Is there a problem, Fred?” Ron asked.

  “Lady Cassandra is an acquaintance of my wife.”

  “I’m sure,” said Ron. “Cassandra seems to know everyone on the island. Who is your wife?”

  “Ana.”

  “I’m not sure we’re acquainted.”

  “She runs a jewelry store,” said Connors. “Anastasia’s.”

  Ron nodded. “Oh, that Ana.”

  “That Ana?” I asked.

  “Anastasia’s is a Palm Beach institution,” said Ron. “Anyone who is anyone in Palm Beach gets their jewelry from Anastasia’s.”

  “That right?”

  Ron saw I wasn’t convinced. “It’s on Worth Avenue.”

  I gave him my mildly impressed face. Worth Avenue was the ritzy shopping district in Palm Beach. I didn’t get there very often. Ron gave up and looked back to Connors.

  “What is your hesitation, Fred?” Ron asked.

  “As you say, Ron, everyone knows everyone on the island.”

  Ron nodded again. “Would you prefer to speak in confidence alone with Miami? I’m happy to step out.”

  Connors frowned and shook his head. “No, sir.”

  Ron said, “I can assure you, Fred, that anything you say here, stays here. I have many clients on the island, and I do not discuss their matters with Cassandra or anyone else.”

  It was true. There was no such thing as PI–client privilege. We weren’t lawyers. But there was a code of ethics, and there was common decency. Besides, spreading your clients’ news all over town was the fast track to having no clients at all. Ron took his position of trust seriously. He would have been a good priest. Except for the drinking and the eye for the ladies. But people trusted him. He was discreet. Me, not so much. But I didn’t know that many people in Palm Beach who I wanted to tell anything to anyway.

  Connors took a deep breath and looked at me and then at Ron.

  “My wife is having an affair.”

  I said nothing. Neither did Ron. It was a grave pronouncement and deserved some consideration. Ron swiveled around and grabbed a bottle of water from the bar fridge and handed it to Frederick. He took it but didn’t open it.

  “Tell me your story,” I said.

  “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “At the end. Who is the guy she’s seeing? Or woman?”

  “It’s a man,” said Connors. “I don’t know his name. I don’t know who he is.”

  “Okay. When did this matter come to your attention?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a few weeks ago.”

  “How?”

  Connors made to take a deep breath but didn’t. He was a measured guy. “You see a man once, you think nothing of it. You see him twice you think maybe he is a customer or a business associate. But I kept seeing him. Over and over. In places where I wouldn’t see him if he were a customer or an associate.”

  “Such as?”

  “First at the store. Then at the golf club. Then again at the store. I followed her one time. She was supposed to be at a lunch with the girls, at The Breakers.”

  “And he was there?”

  “Yes. I suspect he had taken a room.”

  “I see.”

  “But the last time was at home.”

  “Your home?”

  Connors nodded deliberately. “Yes. I was supposed to be up in Cocoa Beach, on business.”

  “What do you do, Mr. Connors?”

  “I run a franchise business. A chain of fast-casual restaurant outlets.”

  Fast casual wasn’t my idea of food. I didn’t really know what it meant exactly, and I certainly leaned toward the casual side of things, but I knew I preferred to take my food slowly rather than fast. I preferred to do most things slowly. I reserved fast for freeway driving and pitching.

  “So you weren’t in Cocoa Beach?”

  “I was. But I came back early.”

  “And you saw him, this Guy X?”

  “Yes. He was leaving my house.”

  “You saw him in your house?”

  “Yes. Well, not inside. But I was driving down the street and I saw him come out of our front gate. He looked around like he was up to something.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I pulled over to the side of the road.” He took a phone from his inside jacket pocket. “And I took this.”

  He turned the screen toward me. On it was a photograph. A mid-distance shot of a Palm Beach street. This was not some suburban subdivision. There were no sidewalks, no open lawns. High fences and hedges channeled the eye toward the man in the picture. It was no portrait, and he was a good distance away, but it was clear he had heavyset features and dark eyes. He didn’t look a million miles away from Frederick Connors himself, if Connors shaved the beard. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps his wife had an eye for a certain look.

  I took a good look at the picture, trying to commit as much of the face as I could to memory, and then leaned back in my chair.

  “What is it you would like us to do, Mr. Connors?”

  “Find out who he is. Confirm what they’re doing.”

  “We could do that,” I said. “But first let me ask you, have you spoken to your wife about this?”

  “Asked her if she’s having an affair? No, I want pictures before I do that. I need to consolidate my position.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, if she is planning to run off with this man, I need to make sure I have evidence in case I need it.”

  I took a long slow breath. I wasn’t a fan of the peeping Tom type of work. It didn’t sit right. It wasn’t so much that people didn’t have a right to know, or that they didn’t deserve the truth. It was more that I always felt like by the time someone wanted pictures of events, those events had already been preordained. The end was going to be ugly regardless.

  I looked at Ron and he shrugged.

  “Okay, Mr. Connors. We’ll look into it for you. I’ll just need all the relevant addresses—your home, your wife’s work, any other places they are likely to meet.”

  “Oh, I know where they’ll meet. And when.”

  “You do? Where?”

  “This weekend. There’s a cruise.”

  I glanced at Ron again. He wasn’t shrugging or nodding. But his eyebrows were up near his hairline.

  “A cruise, you say?”

  “Yes. It’s part of the whol
e Super Bowl circus.”

  “And your wife is going on this cruise?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And this man, Guy X.”

  “I don’t know for sure. But it makes sense.”

  “Can I ask why you are not going on the cruise with your wife?”

  “I don’t cruise.”

  “I don’t tango, but I still dance when my fiancée asks me.”

  “My wife didn’t ask me. It’s not a vacation. She’s there in a professional capacity.”

  “Doing what?”

  “They’re having an auction. Jewelry, rings, art, that sort of thing. My wife has created some rings for the occasion.”

  “So it’s work. It’s still a cruise though, isn’t it? She surely can’t be working all the time. Couldn’t you hang by the bar while she’s doing her thing?”

  “I don’t cruise.”

  “You mentioned. What does that mean?”

  “I don’t like cruise ships. I don’t like water. I don’t swim.”

  “You don’t have to swim, Mr. Connors. That’s what the boat is for.”

  “I mean, I can’t swim. Being on the water makes me, well, apprehensive.”

  I nodded. I could see that. I swim well, so boats don’t faze me. But then again, I can’t fly and I have traveled by aircraft more than once.

  “I understand, Mr. Connors. You’re right, it does provide ample opportunity. There’s just one problem. They’ll be on a cruise ship. I won’t.”

  I considered briefly the idea of dropping Ron into the slot, but I didn’t want to ruin his big moment with the Lady Cassandra. He’d gone so far as to ask for time off, for crying out loud.

  “I can get you on the boat,” Connors said.