The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [5]
“That you are, young lady,” he’d agreed in the outmoded way of his that she tried to ignore. “Concentrate on flying. Don’t be running off and getting married again.”
“Amelia Earhart was married, sir.”
He hunched his shoulders, as if nothing more needed to be said about Amelia Earhart.
She couldn’t resist. “Her plane didn’t crash because she was married.”
He hunched his shoulders again, returned her salute, and left.
***
As Annie sped around a rattling tractor, her cell phone rang. The caller’s area code was one she didn’t recognize.
“Lt. Annie Goode,” she said briskly.
“This is Vice Detective Daniel Hart.” The young man had a pleasant low voice. “I’m with the Miami Police Department. I’m calling about a fraud investigation and I need to locate your father, Jack Peregrine.”
The detective’s inquiry took her entirely by surprise. Her response was to accelerate. She passed two cars one after the other. Their drivers looked at her, taken aback by the noise of the sports car’s racing motor.
“Jack Peregrine,” the young man repeated, making a strange crunchy noise. “Sorry, I’m eating trail mix. I missed my lunch.”
“You shouldn’t,” she told him.
“You’re right,” he agreed affably.
“I wouldn’t know my father if I fell over him on the sidewalk.”
“A sidewalk? I love sidewalks but who walks anymore? My ex-wife would borrow a car to drive to her car in a parking garage.”
Annie downshifted before the Porsche banked a curve. “Detective Hert—”
“It’s Hart. Like, you know, thump, thump, thump. Sgt. Daniel Hart. Here’s the thing. Your dad, Jack Peregrine. I had him under surveillance. He gave me the slip.”
About to show her impatience, oddly she laughed instead. “Join the club. The ‘slip’ from what?”
“Well, for us it was a case of false pretenses, but now the FBI’s involved. They want him for defrauding Cuba.”
She laughed again, but a tight tense laugh that went on longer than she wanted. “I’m sorry? Defrauding Cuba?”
“Some swindle of a Cuban artifact. I don’t know why Americans just don’t leave Cuba alone.”
She asked Hart how her father had given him “the slip.”
He explained that Jack Peregrine had been the subject of a recent stakeout. Peregrine fled his Hotel Dorado room in South Beach, Florida, minutes before an attempt to arrest him. He climbed into the next room by the balcony and allegedly robbed the occupants of their digital camera on his way out.
Annie noticed her knuckles were white. “How’d you get this phone number?”
“We tossed your dad’s room before he took off. It was on the back of an old photo in his jacket. Says ‘Annie,’ and has this number on it.”
The news was astounding to her. “I’ve used this cell phone for less than a year! And I’ve had nothing to do with my father since I was seven.”
“What can I tell you, Annie? He had your number. So, you on your way to Emerald? Bride comes home?”
The man’s easygoing familiarity with her life angered her. “Is somebody playing a fucking joke on me?”
“Hey, take it easy.” There was a crackling noise of a plastic bag being crunched. “This was an old photo of Jack Peregrine with a cute little girl. Says Breakers Restaurant in West Palm. The little girl’s you, I figure. Bangs, pearl necklace, cowboy jacket. Great smile.”
Annie fought off the vivid memory of that pearl necklace and that cowboy jacket, both gifts from her father. She turned her neck side to side, trying to loosen the tension.
“So you haven’t seen him since you were seven?” The detective spoke casually, as if they were catching up on old friends.
Her hands gripped the Porsche’s leather-wrapped steering wheel. “No, I saw him once. Eight, nine years ago but I didn’t talk to him that time.”
Hart sounded skeptical. “Why not?”
The thought struck her that Hart was a crank caller of some sort. Or maybe some other crook in pursuit of her father. It wouldn’t be the first time.