Deception in Savannah: A Humorous Novel of Murder, Mystery, Sex, and Drugs

by Charles Dougherty

  She had patiently and somewhat sadly explained that security regulations prohibited passengers on the flight deck.

  "What all that mean, sister?" Dopey had asked.

  "Mean you can’t go, dumbshit. Hush before I bust your mouth," Dreadlocks had mumbled, ending that exchange.

  She had retreated to the galley, thinking that Dreadlocks must be a nervous traveler. While she had gotten the breakfast trays together, she had missed Ski Cat’s lecture to Dopey.

  "Looka here, Dumb-ass," Ski Cat had started in a reasonable tone of voice, "Remember Fat Tony say don’t do nothin’ to call attention to yourselves. Remember that, Dopey? Well, here we ain’t hardly even off the ground, and you callin’ attention. I gone bust your scrawny little ass, you don’t stop that."

  Dopey had tried hard to take his older brother’s criticism to heart, but here he was, flying first-class on an airplane. That was way cool. Ski Cat needed to cut him a little slack. As the flight went on, Dopey got more excited and more inquisitive, asking the stewardess things like how far was it from Miami to Disney World, and Ski Cat got grumpier and grumpier. Ski Cat was thinking Dopey had forgotten why they were doing this. He was acting just like one of those tourists. Not a brain in that boy’s head.

  "It's pretty far from Miami to Disney World," the stewardess told Dopey, "but there's lots of stuff to see close to Miami, like the Alligator Swamp Experience."

  Dopey got all wrapped up in that when she told him about the boat ride through the simulated Everglades, where you could watch Seminole Indian impersonators wrestle electric alligators, right there in the reconstructed wetlands off the Tamiami Trail. Ski Cat wished the stewardess would shut up. He was immensely relieved when they touched down in Miami. At least, once they got off the airplane, Dopey wouldn’t have anybody to talk to but him, and he had years of practice at ignoring Dopey.

  They picked up their luggage from baggage claim, and found the rental car counter without Dopey saying anything. Ski Cat was beginning to think Dopey had worn himself out, but he was mistaken. While Ski Cat rented the car with the credit card and driver’s license Fat Tony had provided, Dopey was looking at the brochures on tourist attractions displayed in a nearby rack.

  Just as the rental agent was asking "Mr. Smith" if he needed directions, Dopey walked up with a brochure for the Alligator Swamp Experience. Ski Cat had to stand there for another five minutes while the agent got maps for them and highlighted routes and wrote out directions for them to get to the tourist trap. Ski Cat was steaming when they finally got in the car. When Dopey started to say something, Ski Cat backhanded him so hard that the stocking cap flew into the back seat. Dopey, unfazed, calmly unbuckled his seat belt and scrambled into the back seat to retrieve his hat as Ski Cat drove away.

  Ski Cat already had directions to the Shelbourne. Tony had gotten them all fixed up with a suite, since they were confident that Connie was staying there. They just didn’t know what name she was using. Tony had told Ski Cat to keep looking around the hotel until he spotted her. Then they could follow her to her room. Once they had the room number, they could bribe a desk clerk to get the name she was using. Ski Cat pulled up to valet parking and handed over his keys. The attendant popped the trunk and a bellman grabbed their bags. Ski Cat caught Dopey’s arm as he was about to punch out the bellman.

  "But, Ski Cat, he takin’ our shit," Dopey hissed.

  "S’posed to, Dopey. You stick with Ski Cat. I show you how the rich folks live. Got little old broke down white men to tote they bags, see. He too old to run off with ’em. He be goin’ to bring ’em to the room, wait for a tip. You see."

  While Ski Cat and Dopey were getting settled into their suite, Connie was enjoying life at South Beach. She had spread her towel out on the hard packed sand, just on the edge closest to the hotel. She wanted to avoid the salt spray from the easterly wind. She was well oiled and wearing a middle of the road string bikini -- skimpy enough not to look out of place, but too conservative to attract attention, she thought. She was listening to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier on her iPod, recorded from a live performance by Alan Rea, as she roasted herself.

  She was pondering the logistics of collecting the half-million dollars from that jerk, Rick. Cash still seemed like the way to go. She didn’t really want it in cash, but that appeared to be the easiest way to get it out of the country. All she had to do was get to the Bahamas with it, and then she could make it disappear into a series of bank accounts Rick and his buddies and the IRS would never find. She was thinking of how long she could live in the Bahamas, and how well, with that kind of money. She had in mind a small settlement on one of the Out Islands, where there wasn’t much going on. She could always take a trip to Nassau or Freeport once in a while, if she got bored.

  As Connie imagined spending her money, two Miami Beach cops were rolling along the beach in their Ford Bronco. They were a few hundred yards south of her, cruising at about 15 miles per hour. Patrolman Mary Hill, 32 years old, tanned, with short, brown hair sat in the passenger seat. Mary had the kind of build most guys spent hours a day working out for and never quite achieved, except for the breasts. Most guys didn’t want those, although in South Beach, one couldn’t generalize. Mary’s life partner found Mary to be her heart’s desire, breasts and all.

  Her partner in the patrol unit was gay, too. He had also come to be her best friend. A handsome, clean-cut Irish-Catholic boy from the Midwest, his parents still had no idea that grandchildren were not in the cards. Donnie O’Toole was unattached at the moment, and he thought this was the best job in the whole world. Driving the unit up and down South Beach on a beautiful day was like walking around in a candy store. He was in the middle of describing the delectable treat he had seen playing volleyball a few minutes ago and Mary was listening like an indulgent older sister. She was thinking about what a neat kid Donnie was when they felt a thump and heard a piercing scream.

  They stopped the unit and got out to find Connie writhing in agony, screaming and cursing as she clutched her right foot. Her foot and ankle were already swelling and taking on the multicolored purple and pink hue of a Biscayne Bay sunset. Mary felt sorry for her as Donnie called for an ambulance. She felt sorry for Donnie, too. He was such a nice, pleasant kid, and he was a natural for the Miami Beach Police Department. His career was almost certain to be cut short by this incident, though. Running over a civilian on the beach through sheer carelessness would do it, she thought. It had happened too many times in the past couple of years for the brass to overlook it. She hoped he would find some other work to keep him in South Beach.

  Connie felt better almost immediately after they gave her the shot. She wondered what it was. She thought before they gave it to her that something was wrong with her foot, but now she wondered what all the fuss was about. These people acted like they were worried about her. There was a police sergeant saying something to her when she closed her eyes, hoping he wouldn’t think she was rude if she took a little nap, just for a minute.

  Sam had Belk’s "Barrera, Connie" file on the desk in his den. He and Jimmy studied the single sheet of paper from the file. It obviously listed the person to whom Belk was to send the video if Connie pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the file to indicate what that trigger might be.

  They were safe for the moment, since Rick was playing along with Connie and they had Belk’s copy of the DVD. They wondered what else Connie might have done. She had hinted at multiple copies of the video in her phone call to Rick. Belk might have another file, somewhere, with the financial statements and details on when to release the information. Or maybe Connie had used more than one person. She could have any number of people poised to drop the dime on Dr. Rick.

  She had seen through the money-laundering scheme, so Sam was not about to underestimate her. He popped the video into his DVD machine and pressed play. He and Jimmy were both shocked when the screen showed buxom young women in bikini bottoms with no tops, dancing to rock music as the title splas
hed across the screen in lurid script.

  "Spring Break Gone Bad," read Jimmy, aloud. "Sorority Babes at South Beach."

  "What the hell!" Sam exploded, "Somebody’s messin’ with us, Jimmy."

  Day 10, Midday

  Kathy, listed as Joe’s next of kin, had gotten the call from the hospital at about 3 a.m. A squad car had found Joe unconscious in Wright Square, slumped on a park bench. He was in the Emergency Room at Memorial, in stable condition, but still unconscious, with a large, swollen knot on the side of his head.

  Kathy's first thought when she heard that Joe was hurt had been to call Dave. He was immediately wide-awake, and he quickly took charge of the situation. He told her to get dressed and make coffee, and 20 minutes later he was ringing her doorbell. Dave and Kathy had been waiting at the hospital since about 4 a.m. They had decided not to call Anna until there was more to report.

  Neither had any idea as to why Joe had been in Wright Square last night. They both thought he was going home after their evening together, and that was all they could tell Joe’s boss, Lieutenant Charlie Thompson, who met them at the Emergency Room. They had assumed until they talked to the Lieutenant that Joe must have gotten a call about a case, but nobody in the department knew of any reason why he should have been in the square.

  Tests revealed a subdural hematoma, promptly taken care of by an on-call neurosurgeon. After a little while in recovery, Joe was moved to the intensive care unit, and Kathy and Dave had trailed along like camp followers, feeling helpless and frustrated.

  They were both dozing in the semi-comfortable chairs when a nurse came out and said, quietly, "Kathy? Are you Kathy?" Suddenly they were both wide-awake.

  "Yes, I’m Kathy. What is it?" Kathy responded, alarm clear in her voice.

  "Your brother is asking for you," the nurse said.

  Kathy thought that was wonderful news, and she leaped to her feet to follow the nurse to Joe’s bedside. The neurosurgeon had been guarded in his prognosis. He had told them Joe was physically strong, and that there appeared to be no permanent damage, but, he explained, with head injuries, there were no certainties. He went on to say that Joe had taken a blow to the side of his head from something heavy, with no sharp edges, so there was lots of bruising and swelling, but no penetration or fracture. Now that the pressure had been relieved from his brain, Joe stood a fair chance of full recovery. This had sounded gloomy to Kathy, but Joe’s asking for her was great news, according to the nurse. Arriving at Joe’s bedside, she took his hand.

  "It’s me, Joey. I’m here," she said.

  "Sorry for the scare, Sister," Joe answered. "I’m okay, I think."

  "I’m so glad," Kathy said. "What were you doing in Wright Square?"

  Joe looked confused.

  "I wasn't in Wright Square," he protested. "I was sitting on a bench, watching that place Donald told us about, to see if that Ski Cat guy was really a drug dealer. How’d I get to Wright Square? What am I doin' here, for that matter?"

  Kathy told him as much as they had been able to piece together. She was worrying that Joe's confusion was a result of his injury when the neurosurgeon came in and introduced himself to Joe. He kept up a steady line of easy patter while he checked Joe’s vital signs and asked how Joe felt. Joe said he felt hung over, but otherwise okay. The doctor chuckled and began a quick neurological exam, checking Joe’s reflexes and motor skills. He remarked that Joe looked good as new, and said that they would move him to a private room as soon as one became available. Joe, of course, wanted to go home. The doctor explained that they would need to keep a close watch on him for the next day to make sure there were no further complications.

  "You want to let Charlie Thompson know where I am, Kathy?" Joe asked after the doctor left.

  "Sure, Joe, I'll do that," she agreed, "I'll be back soon. You get better quickly." She wasn’t too surprised to find Charlie Thompson talking with Dave when she entered the waiting area.

  "So how is he, Kathy?" Charlie asked.

  "Asking for you already and wanting to go home, so I think he's okay," Kathy said.

  Dave suggested to Kathy that they go get some lunch, and Charlie recommended a barbecue joint just a couple of blocks south on Waters Avenue.

  Ski Cat thought it was damned hot in Miami. It was as bad as Savannah. He decided to do the indoor job today, and let Dopey go to the beach to look for Connie. He found a table in the coffee shop that gave him a view of the front entrance of the hotel, as well as the pool area. Ski Cat ordered coffee and settled back to watch the television over the bar. Dopey had eagerly rushed out to the beach, agreeing to check back with Ski Cat in a couple of hours. Ski Cat considered telling Dopey to take off the stupid hat, but thought better of it. He should probably be thankful Dopey wasn’t wearing water wings or something.

  A news flash on the television caught Ski Cat’s attention. "Beach Police run over another sunbather," read the ticker across the bottom of the screen. That tickled Ski Cat’s perverse sense of humor. He gave his attention to the Hispanic newswoman with the fiberglass hairdo as she went into detail. He didn’t learn much, except that a female tourist, not identified by police sources, had been run over by one of the department’s Ford Broncos driven by two Miami Beach cops. Her injuries were not life threatening, but she had been taken to the emergency room. The accident had happened earlier today, right outside their hotel. Ski Cat was sorry he had missed the excitement. It would have been fun to see the cops get in trouble for a change. He wondered how they would manage to weasel out of this. The newscaster was saying this lady had been lucky; the last sunbather who had been run over by the cops had died of her injuries.

  Ski Cat noticed a fair number of sunburned white people coming and going as he divided his attention among the television, his breakfast, and surveillance. So far, though, he hadn’t seen anybody who resembled Connie. About half of the tourists looked like the ones Ski Cat saw in Savannah; they were almost invariably somewhere between pudgy and disgustingly fat. But the rest of the people were of a different kind, unfamiliar to Ski Cat. They weren’t sunburned pink. Their hue ranged from a coppery color to almost as dark as the dusty, blue-black skin he and Dopey shared. These darker people looked fit; the women were shapely and the men muscular. They looked and acted confident and appeared bent on enjoying life. Ski Cat found that uplifting, somehow. He wondered where they came from and why Savannah didn't get tourists like them.

  At first, Ski Cat had been worried that he and Dopey wouldn’t look like tourists because of being so black, but he felt right at home here, gold chains and all. Nobody gave him a second look. He started to relax, and wondered how Dopey was doing out on the beach. He was lazily thinking about checking his gold Rolex when Dopey came jiving into view. He still had the hat on, but Ski Cat noticed he was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt that said "South Beach Thong Inspector" on it. Ski Cat wondered what that meant, and where Dopey had gotten the T-shirt. At least it was better than the gray one that said "Chatham County Department of Corrections" that Dopey had been planning to wear before Ski Cat had caught him earlier. Ski Cat’s ruminations were interrupted as Dopey pulled out the other chair and sat down at his table, a stupid grin splitting his face from ear to ear.

  "Hey, Ski Cat," Dopey shrilled. "Man, they got enough tits out there to open a dairy farm. Never see so many. All different, too. You ought to see. We could catch us a few, take ’em back home and open a topless bar. Then we wouldn’t have to sell no dope for Fat Tony no more."

  Ski Cat would have shot him to shut him up, but he didn’t have his piece with him. Fat Tony had told him he couldn’t carry it on the airplane, and anyhow, he didn’t want Ski Cat and Dopey getting into anything violent down in Florida. "Just watch," were his orders, "and don’t attract attention." Ski Cat figured Dopey heard the first part, anyway.

  "Dopey, shut up, you dumb shit. I always knew I’s a only child. You can’t even be no kind of kin to me, you so dumb. You see any sign of Connie, amongst all them tits you been loo
kin’ at?"

  "Connie?" Dopey asked, a puzzled frown creasing his forehead.

  Ski Cat signed the check and grabbed Dopey’s hand under the table. He quickly folded Dopey’s left little finger so he had his own thumb on top of Dopey’s nail and his index finger around the outside of Dopey’s flexed digit. He put pressure on with his thumb, stretching Dopey’s knuckle joint beyond its normal limits.

  As tears came into Dopey’s eyes, Ski Cat said, "Okay, Dopey. I’m goin’ to turn you loose in a minute, and I want you to follow me to our room. I’m goin’ to hurt you a little more, help take your mind off them tits, okay?"

  Dopey nodded tearfully at his big brother.

  When they got upstairs, Ski Cat reminded Dopey of what they were supposed to be doing in Miami Beach, and how Dopey needed to be quiet and not draw everybody’s attention to their presence. Dopey seemed appropriately remorseful, and he agreed that tits were just tits. He protested that so many, and all at once, were distractions.

  "Dopey, dammit, you screw up one more time and I'll fix you so tits won't distract you no mo'."

  They had a room service lunch and then resumed their search for Connie. Ski Cat kept Dopey by his side this time, though. No way was he going to let that dipshit out of his sight again. Not here, in this place. Dopey might get led into sin.

  By late afternoon, they had spent fruitless hours combing the beach and checking the pool. The crowds were thinning out as the tourists went inside to get ready for their evening’s entertainment. Ski Cat thought Dopey had been pretty good. He thought his lecture must have hit home, but then Dopey handed him a coupon for a topless, bottomless bar and grill that advertised steak for $5.95. A topless girl on the beach had given it to him while he inspected her thong. Now Dopey wanted the two of them to go there for dinner. Ski Cat patiently explained things to Dopey one more time. How could he want to spend money to look at naked women when they were all over the beach for free?