Due Justice Read Free

change, she turned her head and looked at me directly, unblinking.
    â€œDoctor Michael Morgan.” She thrust a small piece of newspaper toward me. “Here.”
    She’d been holding it crumpled up in her hand. The paper was wet, the ink smeared with her sweat. I flattened out the creases. The story was short, from the Tribune , dated about two weeks earlier. No pictures.
    DOCTOR MISSING
    Once prominent plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Morgan has been reported missing. Dr. Morgan lives alone and has become a recluse in recent years following his conviction on drug possession charges eight years ago.
    A few details followed, but nothing relevant.
    I realized I’d been holding my breath. I sat back in my chair and tried to breathe normally; Carly continued, looking straight through me.
    Dr. Morgan was a locally prominent plastic surgeon. Legendary. A boy wonder. Some said a genius. I’d never met him, but I’d seen his resume in my court files many times. Small town tax rolls listed entire populations in fewer pages.
    Morgan had been published more than once in every major American medical journal, authored two textbooks and done plastic surgery on three-fourths of Florida’s affluent citizens, males and females alike. He taught at the medical school; lectured on medical legal issues at the law school. In short, he was about as close to medical genius as they come.
    Cold sober now, I tried but couldn’t grasp the idea that Dr. Morgan had been so malevolently killed.
    Here in Tampa, murder sells for about five hundred dollars. At least, that’s the rate for carnies, drug pushers and street people. I don’t know about doctors. But Michael Morgan? What could anyone have had against him?
    I must have pondered too long. Carly rose, pushed her heavy rattan chair back from the table, and walked away. I figured she’d gone to powder her nose. We’d talk when she returned. Hash things out. Decide what to do.
    But she didn’t come back.
    After ten minutes, I went looking for her. The hostess said Carly left the building. I hurried outside to check the parking lot. No luck. No one around. Not even the valet.
    Hustled back into the house, through the restaurant and took the stairs two at a time up to our flat on the second floor. Ran through the den and to the window overlooking the driveway.
    Saw Carly’s gray sedan roll over the bridge from Plant Key to Bayshore Boulevard. Turned left, away from downtown, and lost sight of her between the palm trees and traffic.
    I stood there a while, staring toward her vanishing point in the swiftly darkening twilight.
    â€œBreathe in, breathe out; breathe in, breathe out,” I repeated to make my hands stop shaking as I slowly descended the stairs.
    How like Carly to get herself into disaster and dump it into my lap. I’d been rescuing her from herself most of her life, but this time she may have gotten into more than I could handle.
    For the first time, I noticed bustling activity in the dining room. Temporary staff my husband, George, hired to serve tonight’s fund-raiser worked purposefully.
    Carly was gone; I had no idea where. I called her cell, her home, and her office. Left messages. I could do nothing more tonight.
    Police Chief Ben Hathaway, along with everyone else who might be interested in Dr. Morgan’s disappearance, would be right here at George’s restaurant for the evening anyway.
    Besides, George was so nervous about this party that I had to do my part to make it a success. Rumors claimed Senator and Victoria Warwick, and Elizabeth Taylor, the actress and AIDS activist, might attend.
    Dr. Michael Morgan, and Carly’s involvement with him, whatever it was, would have to wait.
    If he was already dead, I couldn’t bring him back to life.
    Contrary to popular belief, judges know we are not gods.

CHAPTER THREE
    Tampa, Florida
    Wednesday 5:30 p.m.
    January 6, 1999
    I DRIFTED BACK TO the Sunset Bar, swallowed my