Before You: Sex on the Beach

by Bennett, Jenna

  We’d been at the cemetery last night.

  But maybe that was a different cemetery.

  “The old cemetery,” Wizard Dude said. “On Passover Lane.”

  That was the cemetery we’d been in.

  And that explained why the police had wanted to talk to Ty, I guess.

  Although it didn’t explain how they’d known we’d been there. I hadn’t seen anyone I knew on the walk from Captain Crow’s to the cemetery.

  But of course the streets had been full of people. Just because I hadn’t recognized anyone, didn’t mean someone couldn’t have recognized us. Or recognized Ty.

  Maybe the cop from yesterday morning had still been around somewhere, and had seen us go in. Just because we hadn’t seen him, it didn’t mean he couldn’t have seen us. And he would have recognized Ty from the beach yesterday morning.

  Unless there was some other reason the police came to find him when another rape victim turned up.

  Did they think he’d had something to do with it?

  Was he a suspect?

  He’d found the first victim. From the mystery reading I’ve done, I knew that that automatically meant he was a person of interest. The person who finds the body always is. And he had been in Captain Crow’s at the time when Elizabeth had—or might have been—drugged.

  He didn’t have an alibi for the time of the rape, or at least none I had provided. He hadn’t spent the night with me on Sunday.

  He hadn’t spent the night with me yesterday, either.

  I shot Wizard Dude a glance from under my lashes, but he was back to reading his comic again. He didn’t seem all that interested in any of this, frankly.

  I craned my neck and looked over the counter. The comic was the Japanese kind, and on the page he was reading, a scantily clad, big-eyed girl in a sailor suit was fighting off some many-tentacled octopus monster.

  Or maybe not fighting it off, exactly.

  Oops.

  I blushed, and so did Wizard Guy. I guess maybe he wasn’t too thrilled that I’d realized he was reading comic strip porn.

  I didn’t bother to apologize, just muttered a goodbye and made myself scarce as quickly as possible. But as I walked up the sidewalk away from the motel, I wondered whether someone’s choice in reading material—and the fact that they apparently liked to watch big-breasted cartoon characters in skimpy dresses get sexually assaulted by octopi—might make them more or less inclined to sexually assault someone in real life.

  INSTEAD OF Captain Crow’s Bar, I ended up at Captain Tony’s Saloon that night.

  Captain Tony’s on Greene Street was what used to be Sloppy Joe’s back in the days when Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West.

  The building was constructed in 1852, as an ice house that doubled as the town morgue. After that, it became a telegraph station, a cigar factory, a bordello, and several speakeasies, before Joe Russell bought it in the 1920s, and started Sloppy Joe’s Bar.

  But in 1938, when the landlord raised the weekly rent by a dollar, Joe and his crew moved the entire operation around the corner to Duval Street overnight, and that’s where Sloppy Joe’s sits now. I’d stopped by in the afternoon, on my sightseeing jaunt through town, and that’s when I’d learned all this.

  In 1958, a local charter boat captain named Tony Tarracino opened Captain Tony’s in the building where the original Sloppy Joe’s used to be, and although Tony was dead and gone now, his namesake was still going strong.

  By eight o’clock that night, I was sitting at the bar swilling Sprite, grinning at the very handsome, very flirtatious bartender. His name was Juan, and he had eyes like melting chocolate and lots of curly, black hair. Just what the doctor ordered. Nothing at all like Ty. If I played my cards right, I might even convince him to take me home... although I didn’t intend to try. If there was one thing I’d learned from this situation, it was that I’m not the kind of girl who can go out and get laid for the purpose of getting laid—or the purpose of losing my virginity. When that happened, I wanted it to be with someone I cared about, and not just a guy I picked up in a bar because he was good-looking.

  That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy talking to Juan. He seemed to enjoy talking to me too, about Key West history and about Captain Tony, who had been alive until Juan was in his late teens.

  “Family?” I ventured.

  He shook his head. “Just a Key West fixture. I was too young to tend bar then. And he didn’t own the place anymore. But he’d come in and work the room.” He smiled.

  “That’s cool. Did you always want to work here?”

  He nodded. “This was the coolest place in the world to me, growing up. Jimmy Buffett got his start here, did you know?”

  I didn’t. I barely knew who Jimmy Buffett was. But I made encouraging noises, and Juan kept talking.

  About halfway through the evening, one of the Key West patrol officers came in, and climbed up on the stool next to me. Juan provided him with a Coke and the greeting, “Enrique must be shitting bricks.”

  The cop, the same one I’d seen outside the cemetery the night before, on my way to Captain Crow’s, nodded. “Fit to be tied.”

  Enrique... Fuentes?

  Yes, I could well imagine Detective Fuentes being beside himself at this new development. Not just one girl one night, but two girls in two nights now. That was almost like a serial rapist, wasn’t it?

  It made me—and probably Ricky Fuentes—expect that another girl would be found naked somewhere in town tomorrow morning.

  And it made me—and surely Ricky Fuentes—realize that right now, somewhere in Key West, some pervert was targeting another girl... and there was absolutely nothing either of us could do to stop it. There were too many vulnerable girls in Key West this week, and too many guys preying on them. No one could keep an eye on everyone.

  “What about the FBI?” Juan asked. “How’s that panning out?”

  The cop snorted. “The FBI is useless.”

  And then he must have realized I was sitting here, because he shot a glance my way and clammed up.

  “It won’t hurt her to know what’s going on,” Juan told him. “At least she’s one girl we don’t have to worry about.”

  The cop nodded morosely. He looked like a vulture hunched over his glass, with a beaky nose and a small head on a skinny neck.

  Juan added, “I still think Enrique shoulda gone out with the information instead of trying to take care of it quietly.”

  “It wasn’t the detective’s fault,” the cop said, confirming my suspicion that Enrique was Detective Ricky Fuentes. “It was the brass. And the mayor. And the Chamber of Commerce. If we cancelled spring break, every business in Key West would suffer. Including this one.”

  Juan shrugged, conceding the point. “I still say people oughta know. If they wanna come here anyway, then it’s on them.”

  The cop shrugged.

  Neither of them said anything for a moment, so I ventured a question. “The girl this morning... does she remember anything?”

  The cop shook his head. “Just that she was out on the town, and then she woke up in the cemetery.”

  “I was there last night,” I confessed. “Walking through on my way back to the hotel. Around ten.”

  “She probably wasn’t there yet,” Juan said. Smart guy; he’d figured out what I was thinking. “It probably happened later.”

  “So there wasn’t anything I could have done.”

  They both shook their heads.

  “I found the girl on the beach, you know. Yesterday morning.” And Lord, didn’t it feel like it was a lot longer ago than that? “What happened to her?”

  “She flew home,” the cop said. “This afternoon.”

  “And she never remembered anything, either?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “This is scary.”

  Juan smiled. “Just stick with us, Cassie. We’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  “Thank you.” I sipped my Sprite. “I’m down here with two
friends. They’ve both hooked up with guys they met here. I haven’t seen either of them since this morning, and I’m a little worried.”

  They exchanged a glance. “Is either of your friends a blonde?” the cop asked, reaching out to touch the end of my hair with a fingertip. “Because so far, this guy seems to like blondes.”

  “Mackenzie is, usually. Darker than me, though. And she’s dyed her hair brown for this week.” They both looked at me, and I shook my head. “Don’t ask. Anyway, Quinn isn’t. Blond. She has dark hair and dark eyes.”

  “Who’s the guy Mackenzie has hooked up with?” Juan asked with a glance at the cop.

  “He’s local. His name is Austin. He tends bar at Captain Crow’s sometimes.”

  Juan smiled. “I know Austin. I don’t think you need to worry about him.”

  “Oh. Good.” That made me feel a little better, anyway. Something tight loosened inside me. “Quinn’s guy is here for spring break. James something. Some privileged Ivy League dude with a villa and a sailboat.”

  They both shook their heads. “Haven’t come across him,” the cop said, and it was hard to tell whether the tone of his voice was disappointment or satisfaction.

  “Look at it this way,” Juan told me, “if your friends are with these guys, chances are they’re safe. It’s the girls who are out on the town partying who have to be careful.”

  Like me. Except I was forewarned and forearmed, so chances were nothing would happen to me. It was one of the girls who didn’t know what was going on who was going to fall victim to this creep.

  Yeah, I agreed with Juan. They should have gone out publicly with this information. At least that way, people would have been aware.

  Juan’s eyes fastened on something over my shoulder, and the corners of his mouth turned down. “Madre de Dios, ‘mana. Abuela would roll over in her grave if she could see you.”

  I turned my head, and found myself face to face—or nose to chest—with Charisma, the drama student from Syracuse.

  Who was busy sticking her tongue out at Juan.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him, “what did you call her?”

  He looked at me. “Nothing bad. ‘mana. Short for hermana.”

  I nodded. That’s what I’d thought. My Spanish was a bit rusty, but it was one of the first words I’d learned, ten or so years ago, in middle school.

  La familia.

  Padre, madre, hermano, hermana.

  Father, mother, sister, brother. Or brother, sister, more accurately.

  Abuela meant grandmother. The one who was spinning in her grave.

  “You’re siblings?” I said.

  They both nodded, and now that I saw them together, the family resemblance was obvious. Same big eyes, same high cheekbones, same full lips.

  And with that fact established, they went back to their conversation. “I’m just trying to fit in, gordo,” Charisma said. “Enrique has drafted everyone he knows to hang out in bars this week.”

  Enrique again. Ricky Fuentes.

  Who looked a lot like both Juan and Charisma—or whatever her name was—now that I thought about it.

  “Is Detective Fuentes also your brother?”

  “Enrique, then Alma, then Lupe, then Juan, then me,” Charisma said.

  “Carmen,” Juan added.

  Right. Carmen. Charisma. Close enough.

  She was wearing another skimpy tank top tonight, along with a pair of cutoffs that barely hid her butt, and on her feet a pair of strappy sandals with ridiculously high heels. Somehow she managed to make the outfit look great, even if the shirt proclaimed, Weapons of Mass Distraction across her chest.

  “I saw you yesterday,” I said. “At Captain Crow’s.” With Ty.

  She nodded. “I was there.” And then she took a closer look at me and seemed to realize something. “Oh.”

  Yep. That was me. The one he left you for.

  “Enrique asked me to keep my eyes open,” Charisma—Carmen—said, with a shrug that set those weapons of mass distraction bouncing, “so I stuck close to Ty. I figured if anything was gonna happen, he’d be the one to watch.”

  Right. My mouth tasted sour, so I drank some more Sprite. Next to me, the cop finished his Coke and slid off the barstool. “I should get going. Back to work.”

  Juan nodded. “See you, Stan. Keep your eyes open out there.”

  Stan lifted a hand and ambled off toward the door, all skinny arms and legs with outsized feet and hands. Carmen said something to Juan, but it was low enough and fast enough—and Spanish enough—that I didn’t catch it. I sucked Sprite through my straw, morosely.

  “So you and Ty,” Carmen said, “you’re together?”

  I shook my head. “Oh, no. No, we’re not. Just friends. He has a girlfriend in Washington.”

  “Oh.” She looked at Juan, who looked back at her with a grimace. Carmen turned back to me. “I thought, when he left Captain Crow’s so fast yesterday...”

  “We’re just friends. He walked me back to the hotel. And then he left without going inside.”

  “Have you seen him today?”

  “I went looking for him,” I admitted, “but he wasn’t there. The guy at the motel told me the police had come and picked him up.”

  They both nodded. “Enrique isn’t the type to waste time,” Juan said.

  Obviously not. “Do you know anything about the guy who works at Richardson’s Motel? Wizard Dude? He was reading Japanese cartoon porn.” With tentacles. Eww.

  Carmen turned her lips down, and looked ridiculously like her brother for a second. “Ronnie Briscoe. Reading about it is about all he’s capable of. He’s a little weird, but generally harmless. I think.”

  I nodded. I was really just scrambling frantically to come up with a suspect that wasn’t Ty.

  Not that I thought Ty had it in him to drug and rape someone. Not when it came right down to it. But it seemed maybe the police did. And it was possible they knew something I didn’t.

  Was it significant that I had been a blonde in a pink dress that first night he picked me up, and a blonde in a pink dress had been raped later on?

  And was it significant that a girl had been raped and left in the cemetery the same night he’d taken me there?

  Was it possible that there was something seriously wrong in his head, so that he could walk me back to my hotel, acting like the nicest guy in the world, and leave me on the doorstep even when I asked him to come upstairs, and he could go and viciously rape some other girl just for the crime of looking like me or being where I’d been?

  It didn’t seem likely—not the guy I knew, or thought I knew—but at the same time, it was hard to be sure. I didn’t really know him, after all. A couple of hours over two days isn’t enough to get to know someone, even if it is enough to imagine yourself in love with him.

  A glass materialized on the bar in front of me. Stemmed, with pink liquid inside, and a little blue umbrella hanging over the side. “On the house,” Juan told me with a wink. “You look like you could use something stronger than Sprite.”

  I eyed it suspiciously, and he chuckled. “Don’t worry, querida. It’s practically virgin. Just looks more festive than what you’ve been drinking.”

  “If you’ve made it this far,” Carmen chimed in, “we don’t want nothing to happen to you now.”

  No, we didn’t. I took a sip from the glass, and when I couldn’t taste the alcohol, decided it was probably OK.

  One turned into two, but although I felt a tiny little buzz in my veins, it was no more than that first night at Captain Crow’s when Ty picked me up. I sat and listened to Carmen—who wasn’t a drama student at Syracuse, obviously—tell Key West ghost stories, egged on by her brother.

  “Did you make it to the Audubon House today?” she asked me.

  I shook my head. “The bird guy?”

  She nodded. “He was here and in the Dry Tortugas in the 1830s, and drew a lot of birds. Captain Geiger, who was the original owner of the house, is said to walk. They say he
’s guarding his fortune.”

  “Where’s his fortune?”

  “Buried somewhere in the grounds,” Carmen said. “And his daughter Hannah’s portrait is haunted. They had to move it out of the public part of the museum because it made people sad.”

  A haunted portrait. I couldn’t quite determine whether that was better or worse than a haunted doll.

  “The Hard Rock Café used to be the Curry Mansion. Did Ty show you William Curry’s gravestone when you were in the cemetery yesterday?”

  “I think he might have mentioned it,” I said, since the name sounded familiar. It wasn’t one we’d stopped at, though.

  “Curry was Florida’s first millionaire. He built the house for his son Robert.”

  Obviously there were a lot of men—and dolls—named Robert in Key West history.

  “But when William passed away and Robert inherited all the money, he couldn’t handle the responsibility. He committed suicide in one of the bathrooms after losing the entire fortune.”

  Yowch. “So the Hard Rock Café is haunted?”

  Carmen nodded. “And at Fort Zachary Taylor, down at the state park, you can see ghost soldiers lining up in formation and hear gunshots and whistles.”

  “Wow.” That was one of the places I had planned to go today, that I hadn’t made it to. After hearing that Ty was at the police station, I’d been a little distracted, to be honest, and hadn’t gotten as much done as I had wanted. I figured I’d go back out tomorrow, to see some more.

  “And has anyone told you the story of Count von Cosel and Elena?”

  Juan rolled his eyes.

  “No...” I said, watching him.

  Carmen smiled. “You’ll like this. A man named Karl Tanzler, who sometimes called himself Count Carl von Cosel, worked as an X-ray technician at the Marine Hospital in Key West in 1931. He fell in love with a girl named Elena Milagro de Hoyos, a Cuban immigrant. Karl was in his fifties, and Elena was twenty-two, and dying of tuberculosis. He tried to cure her with a concoction of gold leaf and water.”

  For tuberculosis? “That’s crazy.”

  “Tell me about it,” Juan muttered.