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

washing my boat and sweating in the heat. My cell phone rang. It was Debbie.
    “Matt, this guy is a ghost. That credit card is the only thing he has in his name. The bills are sent to a post office box in Fern Park, Florida, wherever the hell that is. The only other Michael Ruperts I found are way too old or still just boys. This has to be your guy, but there’s nothing else about him anywhere.”
    “I’m not surprised. It was a long shot, but at least we know where the bills go. He’s probably using an alias and has a fake driver’s license and the credit card to use when he’s traveling.”
    “You want me to keep looking?”
    “No, thanks. I’ll see what I can turn up with this information.”
    She hung up, and I went back to the business of scrubbing the boat’shull. Who was Rupert? The fact that he didn’t seem to exist made me think that he might be a contract killer. But who would be interested enough in Wyatt’s death to pay someone to kill him? And who was the man at Cracker’s restaurant with Rupert the night before the murder? I’d have to find Rupert and backtrack to whoever ordered Wyatt killed.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Logan Hamilton was my friend. He and I had come to the island at about the same time, and we discovered a mutual enjoyment of the watering holes on the key and the people who frequented them. Logan had worked in the financial services industry, retired early, and was enjoying life in the sun. He was originally from a small town outside of Boston. He’d come to Florida as a college student, and then was a soldier in Vietnam, first as an infantryman, and after flight school, as a helicopter pilot. He traveled the world in his business, never really settling down and never marrying. He was a gentle and kind man who quietly supported every charitable endeavor in our little world.
    I found Logan at Tiny’s, a small bar on the north end of the key. It took up a corner adjacent to the Village, the oldest inhabited part of the island, home to people who could never afford the condos on the gilded south end. He was sitting on his usual stool, a baseball cap covering his balding head. He was wearing a golf shirt, shorts, and running shoes without socks, his usual attire. Logan stood about five feet eight and had put on a little weight over the past couple of years. His graying hair was fighting a losing battle with baldness. A Scotch and water sat on the bar in front of him.
    I took the stool next to Logan. “Hey, buddy.”
    He turned toward me and lifted his glass. “How’re you doing, Matt?”
    “Fine. I need to talk to you about something I heard yesterday.”
    “What’s up?”
    I looked around to make sure no one else was within earshot. “I think I know who killed Wyatt. I’m going after him.”
    “Whoa. Hold on a minute. Turn it over to the cops, Matt. They know how to handle these things.”
    “Won’t work. I doubt they could get enough evidence to arrest him, much less convict.”
    “How do you know you’ve got the right guy?”
    I knew that Logan would keep his mouth shut, so I told him what I’d learned from Debbie and Cracker. “It’s not much evidence for the cops to go on. No prosecutor is going to take a case this thin into court. I’m not going to let this guy walk.”
    “Bill Lester says he thinks it was a professional hit.”
    “If that’s the case, the shooter knows who hired him. I’ll work up the chain.”
    “Matt, listen to yourself. You’re a retired lawyer who hangs out on the beach. This guy’s probably a professional. You could be getting in way over your head.”
    I was in good shape. I pointed out that I ran every day and worked out occasionally with a martial arts instructor, honing the skills the army had taught me long ago. I could take pretty good care of myself in a fight and knew how to use a gun. “I used to be a professional myself,” I said. “I can handle this.”
    “Need some help?”
    Logan had made his argument for sanity. It hadn’t