Ray switched on the radio as he drove away from the motel. Nothing about a murder, at least not yet. Soon the media would be all over the story: sex gone awry and a revengeful hometown killing-hot story of the year.
Police might already be looking for Loraine, maybe that's why she left her house and went to the motel. When they find her, he knew he'd be next. What if they clear her because of self-defense, and he goes to jail as an accessory?
What he should do is stop worrying about her and drive straight to the police, yet he had given her a three o'clock deadline. Waiting a couple of hours shouldn't hurt. Find this Tammy and convince her to report the rape, then Loraine will have her justification for shooting Barner. That's all he's going to do and then he's out of it. Goodbye crazy Loraine, you're only a one-night stand from hell.
He phoned the Tammy Jerrold number given by Loraine. No answer. He left a message.
What's next? Norma Martin was a waitress at the Jardin Café, so said Loraine. Maybe she can be Loraine's excuse for dishing out instant justice at gunpoint. He remembered passing the Jardin Café in the sticks on the county's far western edge. He headed there.
Ray drove from the motel across the Intracoastal Waterway Bridge to the mainland. He looked down at the waterway that divided island living and the mainland, from the Georgia line down to Key West. The waterway ran through the middle of Park Beach, leaving the barrier island and the mostly privileged on one side and the less fortunate on the other. The Jardin Café was far out on the less fortunate side.
He drove west beyond the charming old section of town and through the unremarkable new neighborhoods on into the countryside. Once spread with shady citrus, the area was almost entirely cleared to make way for progress. He was west of town now, skirting the south county line, driving along a canal. Canals were frequent in this area. Not the picturesque winding boating canals leading to the ocean from private docks positioned at the foot of vast sloping lawns behind great houses, as in Fort Lauderdale. Up here, they called the roadside drainage ditches canals. Designed to catch rain runoff but sometimes catching a vehicle that got too close to the soft shoulder on a Saturday night. People can drown driving home.
He found the Jardin Café sprawling back from the highway on a narrow and deep lot more valuable than the creaky wood structure sitting there. At one time, it was a tolerated boozing hangout named the Jungle Club for the dense woods nearby. The woods were gone now. There never had been a garden near the Jardin Café. There was a new roof and fresh paint however, mandated by the last hurricane.