Key West Gone into the Night

by Elizabeth Hilleren

  “Fine, I’ll find my boy myself. Let me out of here.”

  Sharkey showed him out of the building and then called communications and requested the details of a trace on his call to Carl Abbott the night of the murder.

  * * *

  Carl sat in his hotel room at his computer. He looked up the local newspaper and went to the personal ads section. He started writing: “Looking for my son. He was taken from the Key West Sands Inn Motel four nights ago. I am willing to pay $10,000 for information that leads to his safe return. Carl Abbott, Hyatt Hotel.” He added his personal cell number and sent if off. He paid for the advertisement just as Stephanie tapped on the door.

  “Come in,” he called, then realized he was at the hotel and had to open the door. He got up to open it for Stephanie.

  “You look guilty. What are you up to?”

  “I just put an inquire ad in the local paper.”

  “You what?” she said. Her eyes were bulging.

  “Calm down. It’s a long shot but I’m desperate.”

  “No. You’re insane. You’re dealing with thieves and murderers and God only knows what other deviants, and you’re flashing cash at them and telling them, I’m stupid, come get my money. You fool.”

  “Shut up,” he growled. “You got a better idea?”

  “Let the police…”

  “The police aren’t doing anything. It’s been five days. They keep telling us that after three days the statistics get grim. Well, they’re grim. I want my son back, and I’m afraid they have given up on finding them, ” he said, his voice rising with each word.

  “You think those people really read the ads? You think they can even read?”

  “You never know,” he said.

  “How will they contact you?”

  “Call my room or my cell.”

  “Carl, you told them where we’re staying?”

  “Yeah. You got a better idea?”

  “You are becoming dangerously stupid,” she said with a disgusted look.

  “Shut up. Go get another room if you don’t want to be near me.”

  “I will. But first, let’s eat.” She turned and headed out the door.

  “Wait,” Carl caught her arm gently. “Look, let’s go get a beer and relax. It’s a long shot, I know, to put the ad in the paper…”

  Stephanie let out a long sigh. “All right, I could use a drink myself.”

  * * *

  Harris sat down at a table in the Hog’s Breath Bar and ordered a sandwich and a beer. He was looking though his notes from his search of Susan’s house when a familiar voice spoke behind him.

  “Well, this is perfect. You and a beer.”

  Harris turned to see Stephanie and Carl behind him.

  “What do you want?” Harris said, closing his notes and trying to sound pleasant.

  “I see you’re working hard,” Carl said, sarcastically. “You’re everything that Stephanie said you were.”

  “I’m on bereavement leave and I’m having lunch. Get lost.”

  Carl stepped forward. “Hey,” he said, loudly. “Listen, you deadbeat.”

  Harris stood and went chest to chest with Carl. “No, now you listen. You’re disturbing my lunch.” Carl backed up and then started forward. Carl’s eyes went wild. Harris grabbed a glass of ice water off the table and tossed it in Carl’s face.

  “Chill or I’ll call my buddies at KWPD.”

  Harris saw the punch coming and deflected it. The bartender came over. “Hey, guys, take it outside or I’ll call the cops.”

  “I am a cop,” Harris said. “I’m off duty and this guy is hassling me.”

  “Out of here, fella,” he said to Carl who glared, turned toward the door, and walked out.

  “Sorry, officer.”

  “Thanks. It happens. I think I’ll just pay my tab and take my sandwich home.”

  “I’ll wrap it up for you.”

  “Thanks.” He threw a ten on the table and waved to the waitress. She smiled and waved back.

  Harris was on his way back home from the Hog’s Breath when his phone rang.

  “Harris,” the familiar voice of the Chief said. “I understand that you spoke to your son-in-law. You’re on bereavement leave and you’re not to involve yourself in the investigation.”

  “He just confronted me at the restaurant. Who called you?”

  There was a pause, then, “Your ex-wife. Look, I understand the position you’re in, but I need you to stay out of this.”

  “I have hired an investigator and a private eye. I have that right.”

  “You have that right, but I can’t stress enough that you can’t go out on your own and track people.”

  “Got it. Thanks for understanding. I won’t let you down.”

  “I know, Harris. I just don’t want to have to involve the law.”

  “I understand. Thanks.”

  “You take care now. Debbie and I have you in our prayers.”

  “Thank you, Chief.”

  The phone went dead.

  * * *

  Harris had a couple of hours before he was to pick up Amy from the hospital, so he went down and picked up tickets for the dinner sunset cruise.

  He lay down, set the alarm, and drifted off into a restless sleep.

  He was awakened by his home phone. “Yeah, Harris here.”

  “Detective Harris?” A soft man’s voice said.

  “Yeah.” He wiped his eyes and tried to figure out who he was talking to.

  “Who is this?” he demanded.

  “I need to see you. My name is Javier Trujillo. I’ll pick you up in five minutes at your backdoor.”

  Javier Trujillo parked on the street behind Harris’s house.

  Harris saw him coming through the gate and met him.

  “Come with me, detective. My car is in the alley.”

  Harris followed the young man to a dark blue sedan and got into the front passenger seat.

  “What’s this all about?” Harris said, buckling his seatbelt. “You know that every cop in town is looking for you?”

  “I suspected as much, but I need your help.”

  “You kill my daughter Susan?”

  “No, of course not. I would never physically harm her.”

  His eyes were on the road and they were heading for Roosevelt Boulevard. Harris didn’t find it hard to see why Susan might have fallen hard for this handsome young man. Black hair, hazel eyes and attractive features. He followed the road until they crossed over the water to Stock Island. Neither of them was speaking. Javier drove around to the far side of the island and then pulled into a driveway surrounded by bushes and ferns and pushed the button to open the garage.

  Harris opened the car door and got out, pulling his gun from his holster.

  Javier emerged from the car, looked over the car roof at Harris, and gasped.

  “No, please don’t kill me,” Javier pleaded.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t? And don’t think twice about pulling anything because I won’t,” Harris said in a deadly, low voice. His eyes held the terrified eyes of Javier.

  “Now, walk slowly around the car and open the door to the house. Oh, and close the garage door.”

  Javier did so, slowly, and walked to the door. Opening the door, he walked across the kitchen and turned towards Harris.

  “You got some coffee?” Harris said.

  “Yes, in the cupboard, on the left.” He pointed to the cupboard next to the refrigerator.

  “Good. Sit.”

  Javier sunk into one of the kitchen chairs while Harris made coffee.

  “Here,” he said putting a glass of water down in front of the young man. He then sat down with his coffee. His eyes bore into Javier’s.

  “If you didn’t kill Susan, then who did?”

  “I believe it was her husband, Carl Abbott. He was insanely jealous of me and the fact that she had my child. He didn’t say it, but I’ve seen such jealousy before in people’s eyes.”

&
nbsp; Harris sipped the coffee and looked steadily at Javier.

  “Okay, start from the beginning of this whole thing. You take the kids?”

  “No, Ricardo Vasquez did. He’s my uncle.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants my boy.”

  “Susan and your boy. Remember she’s the mother of that child.”

  Javier cringed. “I know…”

  “What part did you play?”

  “I betrayed her. I told her to meet me and I drove her out to a deserted road. She said Carl wouldn’t let her take Tyler to Chile and she couldn’t leave Tyler here. I said I would pay her enough to live here if I could have Mateo during the summer to learn the language and the culture of my family and of my country. She said that she would never let Mateo go to Chile without her. She insisted that Mateo was born in the US and he’s a citizen and will grow up here. That’s when she went berserk. She wasn’t getting her way. She struck me and jumped out of the car and she ran away into the bushes. I was angry, and I left her there. She was alive when I last saw her.”

  He sighed at the memory. “I tried everything to stifle Vasquez’s plans, but she was obstinate. I knew she would be. I pushed and she fell into his plan. While she was away from the motel Vasquez had the children stolen away. About an hour later I went back out to bring her back into town. But when I found her, she was dead.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was pissed. I loved her. I went to Vasquez and complained that killing Susan was not part of the deal. He told me he didn’t know anything about her. All he wanted was the young child for his lover.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “As I have had time to think about this situation, he had no reason to kill Susan. I believe it was Carl Abbott who killed her.”

  “Why Carl?”

  “Like I said, he was insanely afraid of losing his son to Chile. He was afraid Susan might steal away with his child. He was also upset that his ‘wife’ was seeing a foreigner. I think he may have felt rejected by the situation.”

  “Yeah, I got a bad feeling about him myself. He’s pretty headstrong.”

  * * *

  Back in Key West Amy was waiting at the entrance to the hospital for Harris to pick her up. After twenty minutes she tried to call home but got no answer. She tried his cell phone, and it didn’t even ring.

  She dialed Sharkey and was connected.

  “Amy, what can I do for you?”

  “It’s Harris. He isn’t at home and he was supposed to pick me up almost forty minutes ago.”

  “He might have gotten hung up on something.”

  “His cell phone isn’t working.”

  Sharkey’s left eyebrow lifted. “Okay, I was just leaving the office. I’ll come pick you up and we’ll see if we can locate his car.”

  “Thanks. It’s just not like him…”

  “I’ll be there shortly.”

  Sharkey said good night to Jenny who was just about to leave.

  “Big night?” Sharkey asked.

  “No.” She smiled. “You don’t think that this case will end soon, do you?”

  “It seems to get more and more complicated by the moment.”

  “Have a good night.” She smiled and waved.

  Sharkey headed straight to the hospital and picked up Amy.

  “Sharkey, it’s just not like him. I’m worried,” Amy said.

  “I understand. I’m concerned too. Let’s go check your house. He might have just fallen asleep. He’s been keeping unusual hours recently.”

  “His car is in the garage…where would he go on foot?

  “I can’t imagine…unless he was taken by someone?”

  They entered the bedroom.

  “He always sets an alarm, and it was set for five o’clock and it ran down. He never turned it off. His phone is never dead. It’s too important to him.”

  Sharkey reached over and took Amy’s hand. “Okay, take a deep breath and let’s go in and see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

  Amy checked the phone charging pad. No phone.

  “Where does he keep his gun?”

  “In the bedroom drawer in a lockbox. It opens with rings we wear.

  “Let’s check it.” They went into the master bedroom and Amy pulled the box out of the nightstand.

  She opened it with her ring. “It’s empty.”

  “Okay, stay calm.”

  They searched through Harris’s home office.

  “Sharkey,” Amy said, re-entering the bedroom. “He changed his shirt and the one he was wearing is on the floor. He never leaves clothing on the floor, never. The towel next to the sink is still wet and there’s water all over the vanity and on the floor, like he just quickly and carelessly splashed his face with water. The bed is mussed,” Amy explained. “So he must have been napping.”

  “Amy, we’ll do everything we can to find him. However, remember he’s a fine detective, and he knows how to handle things.”

  “I know. I just love him so much. He has to be safe.”

  “Try not to worry. I’ll be in touch. Lock the door and don’t let anyone in.”

  Her nurse’s face returned, and she nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

  * * *

  Chichi and Jerry sat waiting for Alex to arrive with the information he had on the case.

  “You hear anything from your mom about them coming to talk about our wedding?”

  “Yes, I did hear, but you’re not going to like it.”

  “Go ahead, make my day.”

  “Well, my dad is involved in a huge contract that will take the next three months before he can get away.”

  “That’s too bad, I was hoping he would be at the wedding.”

  “What?”

  “I warned you,” he said softly, “it’s a power game. Sometimes I don’t play well with others when I don’t think they are playing fair with me.”

  She shook her head. “Great, a macho war.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  Chichi stood and said, “We’ll talk about it later.”

  Jerry smiled. “Okay.”

  Alex came in and handed Jerry a thumb drive. “I must warn you that anything that you find out about the people involved in this case must be held in the strictest confidence. Her financials and notes on whom I talked to and the information I attained are all here. I also talked with Sharkey and got some information on the investigation.”

  “Keeping confidences is standard procedure in our industry,” Jerry said.

  “Basically, the police have Susan’s body and I understand that they’re looking for the father of Susan’s new baby. He’s off the radar, along with his kid and Harris’s other grandson. It’s all there. I tried to lay it out so it should be easy to follow. I can tell you that Harris’s ex-wife is a handful. Pretty easy to see why they aren’t together anymore. Harris paid child support until Susan was eighteen.”

  “Poor Harris,” Chichi said. “He’s really in a bad place, not being able to help with the investigation.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got to get to work, but if you have any questions or if there’s something I can do, just let me know. Work understands and will cover for me.”

  “Great. Okay, we’ll take up where you left off. Thanks for all of this,” Jerry said.

  “Sure thing. Good to see you both.”

  “You too, Alex.”

  Chichi pulled up a chair to look over Jerry’s shoulder.

  “Kidnapping is one of the worst jobs anyone can ask you to work on.”

  “You’ve done it before?”

  “No, but it’s difficult at best. Sharkey has his work cut out for him. Let’s see if we can help,” Jerry said. “So, from what I can gather, Harris’s daughter was in deep debt.”

  “Let’s check out what we can find on Susan Abbott, AKA Susan Harris.”

  “I’ll get started with that and I’ll check with Gabby at the insurance company and see what she can come up with.”

  Je
rry looked through Alex’s gatherings from Susan’s house. He noted the picture of Harris on the mantel.

  “Hey, take a look at this picture of Harris.”

  “That’s him? He’s so young,” Chichi said smiling at the picture. “Wow.”

  “The note here says that she supposedly hated him. Do you keep pictures of people you hate on your mantel?”

  Chichi laughed. “Only if they have a target on their face. Usually, little girls adore their dads and that love never dies. I know.” She gave Jerry a look through slitted eyes.

  “Too bad for me. Susan’s husband, this Carl Abbott, sounds like a real jerk. I’d start tailing him right away,” Jerry said.

  “Okay, he’s at the Hyatt. Alex has pictures of Carl and Harris’s ex-wife Stephanie Williams.”

  “Humm, didn’t age well,” Chichi said. “Looks like a barracuda.”

  “Chichi.”

  She giggled. “Oh, you think that wasn’t nice? Harris is such a good guy and I understand that he’s going to get hitched to a truly lovely lady.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Cami Sharkey.” Chichi smiled like she had personal access to a covert source.

  “Let’s head over to the Hyatt and scope this guy out.”

  Chichi grabbed her lightweight windbreaker and climbed on the back of Jerry’s big, red, V-Rod Harley.

  * * *

  The Hyatt was crowded with people. He found a parking spot on the corner and they walked over to the hotel.

  Chichi put on her wide-brimmed hat and sauntered over to the huge parrot in a cage. “Got to say hello to my favorite parrot.” While she cooed and talked to the bird called Ode, Jerry sat down in the outside lounge area across from the elevators and main desk.

  He pretended to be studying a brochure he had picked up in the concierge area. Chichi came from Ode’s cage and wound her way by the turtle pond, and then wound through the hot tub area and the pool and over to the outdoor bar.

  She ordered a tall iced tea and casually scoped out the bar. There were several people sitting at the bar and about six couples at tables. The waitress brought her the iced tea. “Will someone be joining you?”