Wyatt's Revenge: A Matt Royal Mystery Read Free Page A

before he left, so we don’t have that to work with. If we see another slug from the same gun, we can match it, but that’s a very long shot.”
    “What about time of death?
    “The medical examiner thinks he’d been dead about two hours when Donna found him. Puts it at about seven.”
    “There’re security cameras in the elevators,” I said. “Did you check them?”
    “Yes. We think we’ve got a pretty good shot of the killer coming up the number two elevator at six fifty-five. Unfortunately, he had his head down, and he was wearing a ball cap. His face is completely shielded.”
    “Anything else?”
    “No sign of breaking and entering. Either Wyatt didn’t have his front door locked, or someone had a key. Nothing was missing from his condo except his laptop. No signs of struggle. No fingerprints; at least none that don’t belong to people who had a reason to be there, friends and visitors. We’re beginning to think it was a professional hit.”
    “On Wyatt?” I said. “That makes no sense. Who’d want to kill Wyatt?”
    “I don’t know, Matt. I’m just following the evidence.”

CHAPTER THREE
    Debbie was where she always was on an early evening, behind the bar at Moore’s Stone Crab Restaurant on the north end of Longboat Key. She had been at the memorial, but left in mid-afternoon for work. She was a blonde forty-something refugee from Ohio winters and had been tending bar on the island for more than twenty years. Some years before, she had taken some computer courses and became a world-class hacker. Not many people knew that, and she liked it that way. However, she was a good friend, and I knew I could count on her to help. Particularly, since it would help solve Wyatt’s murder.
    The bar was horseshoe shaped and the plate glass windows gave a twelve-mile view down the bay to the city of Sarasota. There were docks and piers fronting the restaurant, and they were often crowded with boats bringing customers for the generous portions of seafood offered by the establishment. I arrived just before five to an empty bar. Debbie pulled a cold Miller Lite from the cooler and put it on a coaster in front of me. I cocked my head in a questioning manner, and she said, “Okay Royal. I’ll get you a damn glass.”
    She came back with a frosted glass. “Sorry I had to leave early today,” she said.
    “The party was winding down. I don’t think anybody’s at the Hilton but Cracker, and he’s drinking at the outside bar.”
    I hadn’t been in for a couple of weeks, and we talked quietly, catching up on the island gossip. Occasionally, a waitress came to the back service bar, and Debbie would excuse herself to fill the order. The TVs were all tuned to ESPN, and highlights of Sunday’s NFL games were being played and replayed.
    “Deb,” I said, “do you think you could hack into a credit card company’s main server?”
    “I can. The question is, will I?”
    “If I asked nicely?”
    “Okay. What do you need?”
    I handed her a piece of paper with the credit card number and Michael Rupert’s name. “I think this guy may have had something to do with Wyatt’s death. Will you see what you can find out about him?”
    “What’s his connection?”
    “I don’t know. He may have been the trigger man.”
    “Where’d you get his credit card number?”
    “I can’t say, Deb. I promised absolute confidentiality to the person who gave it to me.”
    “No problem, Matt. If I thought I couldn’t count on your discretion, I sure wouldn’t go around hacking computers for you.”
    “You’re a sweetheart.”
    “And Wyatt was my friend, too.”
    A couple I didn’t know came into the bar and effusively greeted Debbie. It was the time of the year when the snowbirds were starting to return, and they would stop in to see old friends at the places they frequented while on the key. I waved at Deb and walked out into the gathering twilight.
    I was on the dock in front of my condo just before noon the next day,