Baja Florida by Bob Morris Page A

play. The digital voice first announced that the mailbox was full and then told me it had twenty-two new messages.
    I sat back and listened. Calls from credit card companies. Calls from Gloria Delgado. A call from Mickey Ryser. A call from Abel Delgado’s bank.
    As the messages played, I went through the desk drawers. Found some framed photographs. One showed Abel and Gloria Delgado on their wedding day. She looked about thirty pounds lighter and a whole lot happier than when I’d seen her earlier. He looked considerably older than I had imagined him, in his forties, with a thick neck, black hair spiked with gel, and a much grimmer expression than the situation called for. Tough cop with a pretty young bride. Another picture showed the Delgado family a few years later. Gloria held the little boy, who looked no more than a month or two old. The little girl sat on her daddy’s lap. Abel Delgado didn’t look any happier in that photo than he did on his wedding day.
    Then a woman’s voice came on the answering machine:
    â€œYes, Mr. Delgado. This is Helen Miller with H.M. Associates in Charleston, calling about that young woman you are looking for, the one with the sailboat. Got something if you want to give me a call.”
    I grabbed a pen and scribbled down the number she read off. There were only two more messages after that and none of them meant anything to me.
    I used Delgado’s phone to call the number in Charleston. Helen Miller answered on the third ring.
    â€œAbel Delgado’s office returning your call,” I said, which was kinda not a lie. “Got a message saying you had some information for us regarding Jennifer Ryser.”
    â€œOh yeah, right. I’m in my car right now, don’t have the case file in front of me,” Helen Miller said. She had a nice voice. Smoky, with a pleasant low-country lilt to it. “But I can give you the gist of it.”
    â€œI need all the gist I can get,” I said.
    Helen Miller laughed. She had a nice laugh to go with the nice voice. It made me wonder what she looked like. A little innocent wondering never hurt anyone.
    â€œTook me a while to search the state’s boat registration data base, but I finally found a vessel registered to a Jennifer Ryser of Mt. Pleasant. Bought brand-new about five months ago. Paid cash. A Beneteau 54.”
    â€œNice boat,” I said.
    â€œYeah, about nine hundred thousand dollars’ worth of nice, according to the state sales tax receipt. You want the boat’s name?”
    â€œYou bet.”
    â€œ Chasin’ Molly ,” she said.
    Molly, after Jen’s mother. A fitting moniker for the boat. Spirits in the wind.
    â€œYou find out anything else?”
    â€œNope, that’s all you asked me to find out.”
    â€œOh yeah. Right…”
    â€œIs this Abel Delgado? You don’t sound like the same guy I spoke to.”
    â€œI’m an associate. My name’s Clete,” I said. “Clete Boyer.”
    â€œLike the baseball player?”
    â€œYeah, like him.”
    â€œMy father was a Yankees fan.”
    Just my luck.
    â€œOl’ Uncle Clete,” I said. “Quite a guy. My mother’s favorite brother. That’s why she named me after him.”
    A pause on the other end of the line. Then:
    â€œSo how come if your mother was Clete Boyer’s sister, then your name is Boyer? Didn’t she have a married name?”
    â€œMy mother was a very progressive woman. Way ahead of her time.”
    â€œOh, really?” Helen Miller didn’t sound very convinced. “Look, I’ve got about three hours in this. I’ll send an invoice.”
    â€œThat’ll be fine. And, please, go ahead and add an extra hundred dollars to it. I appreciate how quickly you got back to us about this matter.”
    â€œVery generous of you, Mr. Boyer.”
    â€œThat’s the way we do things here at Delgado Investigations,” I said.