“Then why would he lie? It makes no sense. I tipped him, maybe not enough, but I gave him all the bills I had with me at the time. Even showed him my empty pockets.”
“He’s a sly one and he knows how to work people for tips,” Punt said. “Also, he never thinks the tips are big enough. I think that’s why he lied to you. Let’s go to Sloppy’s and talk to him right now, make him ’fess up. Then I’ll take you to lunch.”
“I want to hear the ’fess up part before I agree to lunch.”
I wanted to believe Punt. We walked the few blocks to the bar, dodging tourists who seemed to think they owned the sidewalk, sidestepping salespeople handing out brochures about this afternoon’s twenty-five-dollar dive trip to the reef, tonight’s moonlit dinner sail around the harbor. Sometimes I have to try very hard to remember that-if it weren’t for the tourists, Key West would be like a dry watering hole. It scared me to think what might happen to this island’s businesses if Americans once again had free access to Cuba’s natural sand beaches.
Consuela and Sloppy’s had a lot in common. You could hear them both from a great distance.
A jukebox blasted a rock rendition of “Bus Rider,” and tourists shouted at each other to make their words heard as they snarfed boiled shrimp steamed in beer and slurped margaritas. Punt led the way through a maze of customers, some standing in clusters, and some seated at tables. At the back of the room near the stage, a drummer, a guitarist, and a keyboard man warmed up their instruments, checking the sound system, probably seeing how many amps they could up the volume.
“Hey, Peg Leg,” Punt shouted and waved as he saw the janitor with broom and dustpan cleaning up shards of a Bud Lite bottle near the rear exit. The man limped toward us. I hadn’t noticed the limp this morning, but then he’d stopped me at the door.
“What you want?”
Those seemed to be his favorite three words.
“Want you to tell this lady the truth about Saturday night. You know damn well I came in here, that I sat in with the band on their ten to midnight set. Why’d you lie to her?”
Peg Leg held out his hand palm up. Then he rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “You stiffed me.”
“You expect a tip for lifting my guitar case from the stage to the floor?”
“Right. I expect. You stiff me.” Peg Leg gave me a sly smile and I knew he’d lied to me to even the score with Punt. One bad turn deserves another.
Punt pulled out a twenty and dangled it low beside his left leg and out of Peg Leg’s reach. “Okay you s.o.b., you tell this lady the truth, and be quick about it.”
With his lowered gaze never leaving the twenty, Peg Leg spoke up. “Punt Ashford be here last Saturday night. He play guitar with boys in band. Ten to midnight, then they break up. Leave.”
Punt raised the bill. Peg Leg grabbed it, pocketed it, limped away. “Now do you believe me?” Punt asked.
“I believe, and I apologize for doubting you. But Peg Leg says you left here. Where did you go? You said you and some guys jammed until three.”
“Went to Shim’s place. He lives on Stock Island. A bunch of us jammed there until the wee hours—maybe even after three. But that was long past the med examiner’s projected death time for Margaux. Let’s forget it and have lunch.”
“Deal. And I’ll pay. My treat. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
“Where would you like to go?”
I glanced at my watch. “Haven’t a lot of time left, but…”
“Yes? I can see an idea brewing.”
“We’d have time for a sandwich at Two Friends, and we could check on Consuela’s alibi at the same time. She said she went dancing there on Saturday night.”
“Someone will remember that, all right.” Punt laughed. “That postage-stamp dance floor would hardly allow space enough for more than two people—especially if Consuela was one of them.” We hurried toward the patio restaurant where white lattice work enclosed an open-air dining area apart from the bar, tiny bandstand, and dance floor hardly bigger than a dive flag. We both ordered grouper sandwiches plus iced tea, and an extra fiver encouraged the waiter to hurry.
“You work here on Saturday night?” I asked the waiter.
“No,” he replied. “Lose something?”
“No, but we need to talk to someone who worked here on Saturday until midnight.”
The waiter jerked his head toward the bar. “Bernie. Talk to him. He did the Saturday night scene.”
Once our iced tea sat before us, we rose and threaded our way to the bar.
“You know Bernie?” I asked Punt.
“No. Don’t think he’s my kind of people.”
“Bernie?” I stepped up to the bar and motioned to him, and when he came over, I shouted my question above the sound of Madonna begging Argentina not to cry for her. “Did you see Consuela here dancing on Saturday night?”
Bernie grinned and nodded. “Right. Everybody working that night saw her—and heard her!”
“She stay ’til closing time?”
“She came and went throughout the evening. That’s Consuela.”
“Did you know her partners?”
I offered Bernie a tip, but he refused the tip and refused to answer. Nice guy, Bernie. I pocketed my bill and we inched back to our table and ate our sandwiches.
“Guess Consuela has an alibi of sorts,” I said. “But we’ll have to track down her Saturday night dance partners. She could have left for a while and then returned. Some job, keeping track of Consuela.”
“It may be possible,” Punt said. “I’ll work on it. See what I can do.”
“Wish I had more time right now, Punt. I hate to rush through a meal, especially through a grouper sandwich, but I have to get back to my office—to work. I’m making another house call.”
“Thought you didn’t do much of that sort of thing. Who’s the important patient this time?”
“Beau. He called early this morning. How could I turn him down? He looked so down and out last night.”
“He’s under big-time pressure right now.” Punt gulped his iced tea. “I’m surprised he even found minutes for a treatment.”
“I know I can relieve some of his stress. Of course, I said yes.”
“You’re an easy mark, Keely Moreno. Maybe I’d be interested in a few treatments if you came to my house.”
“Don’t count on it.” I paid our tab and we hurried back to my office.
“Let me drive you to Dad’s place,” Punt offered.
“Not today, Punt. I’ll ride my bike.”
Punt shrugged. “Your call, but I stopped by your office for a reason. How soon are you free this afternoon?”
“Right after Beau’s treatment. Why?”
“Let’s work together on this alibi checking.”
“Consuela’s?”
Punt shook his head. “Later. I’d like to drive up to Key Colony Beach, talk to some people who were in charge of that fishing tournament.”
“You doubt Beau’s alibi? You think he might be guilty of…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
“No, I don’t think Dad’s guilty. No way, but I want to check out his alibi, in case the police do a rotten job. Now that they’ve officially called Margaux’s death a homicide, I know they’ll check on Dad’s story. I want to collect my own primary source information for the family.”
“Good idea, I suppose.”
“Will you drive to Key Colony with me this afternoon? We’ll do some investigating, have dinner. Sound okay?”
I wanted to say no. I’d put a mental block between me and the male inhabitants of my world, and I planned never to get involved with any man ever again. Men were on my no-no list—big time. Yet Punt’s invitation tempted me more than I wanted to admit. It would be fun to have a night out—a night away from Key West and all the problems I faced here. I didn’t try to fool myself into thinking Punt’s interest in me went any further than checking Beau’s alibi. I’d seen Punt scooping the loop with a variety
of babes. He had cosmopolitan tastes.
“May I pick you up here a little after two?”
“Okay. Let’s do it. I’ll be ready.”
As I watched Punt leave, I thought of Gram. Gram has some strange Cuban beliefs. For instance, she believes that two people never meet for the first time accidentally. She believes that they meet when they need each other. I’ve known Punt for years, but for some reason I felt that we were strangers meeting for the first time today. So where was the need? I disliked pursuing that line of thought too far.
I loaded my reflexology gear onto my bike and pedaled toward Grinnell Street, hating to admit that I wished I’d taken Punt up on his offer to drive me. I’d have felt safer ensconced in a car, even a convertible, than I felt riding my two-wheeler. Facing this appointment with Beau left me feeling more vulnerable than I cared to admit. I remembered seeing Jude yesterday morning. What’d he been doing in this Grinnell Street neighborhood? Lordy, had that only been yesterday? It seemed as if a month of Sundays had passed since I discovered Margaux’s body.
Riding slowly, I delayed reaching Beau’s house as long as possible. How could I bear to walk up those front steps again or walk through that doorway into the house? I chained my bike to a palm tree and lifted my supplies from the baskets. The yellow crime scene tape no longer outlined the property, and the trade wind blowing through the bougainvillea vines sent petals tumbling to the sidewalk—petals the color of blood.
Thirteen
REMEMBERING YESTERDAY MORNING at the Ashford home, I steeled myself to avoid looking through the window beside the front entrance, but of course I couldn’t keep from looking. I relaxed only slightly when I saw someone had drawn a shade across the window. The police? Beau?
I hesitated for a moment, and Beau opened the door before I could knock. His shoulders drooped and his shirt looked like the same one he’d worn yesterday. Dark circles under his eyes told me he’d had little sleep and probably little, if anything, to eat.
“Hello, Keely. Thanks much for coming to the house.”
I started to say, “It’s my pleasure,” but that seemed wrong for the occasion. “Glad I can help you, Beau. I’m pleased that you called.”
“Don’t think I could have made it to your office. There’s been a crowd nosing around here all day. Police. Reporters. Mortuary personnel. Jass. Punt. Everybody cleared out a while ago. Lunch time, I suppose.”
Beau made the situation easier for me, perhaps easier for himself, too. Keeping his back to the chair where Margaux had been sitting, he urged me across the room toward the stairway, leading to the second floor.
Gold-framed paintings and photographs of Ashford ancestors lined the walls, the women looking prim-faced in their black dresses and lacy collars, the men looking macho in their sea captain garbs—billed caps, dark, brass-buttoned coats.
“I’ve set up an adjustable lounge chair in my den. Hope it’ll work for us.”
From the foyer in the upper hallway, he motioned me through a wide doorway and into a sunny room that overlooked the palms surrounding the backyard pool. I’d used the same chair for Margaux’s treatments, but I tried to erase that thought from my mind.
Beau’s den had a lived-in look and I guessed that cleaning people had do-not-enter, do-not-touch orders. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three walls: some of the books had been pulled forward, some of them placed horizontally across the tops of other volumes. The array of books made it clear to me that Beau didn’t get all the research information for his columns from the Internet. Papers and notebooks lay stacked on a mahogany desk beside a computer. The thing that held my attention was a small box of gold rings.
Following my gaze, Beau smiled.
“Artifacts from the Atocha?” I asked as I began to set up my portable foot bath and arranged lotions and towels.
“Yes. The rings were personal possessions of the passengers aboard that ill-fated galleon.” He picked up one of the rings and offered it to me. “See if you have a finger it will fit.”
The ring was far too small for most of my fingers, but it fit perfectly on my right pinky. I examined the gold circlet with its green stone carefully, turning it this way and that. An emerald? A priceless antique? Who had this ring belonged to? Who had worn it centuries ago? I suddenly felt speechless as I eased the emerald from my finger and laid it in his hand. Our eyes met in an unusual directness.
“Oh, my.” That was all I could think of to say. When I broke our gaze and again looked down at the ring box, Beau dropped a heavy gold chain around my neck—a chain with gleaming links that dangled to my waist. Its weight made me want to stand straighter. “Oh, my.”
“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Beau asked. “This gold affects me the same way, Keely. Makes me want to say, ‘Oh, my.’ After centuries of tumbling around in sea and sand, silver corrodes, turning ugly and black, but gold holds its gleam forever.”
“These rings and the chain—they belonged to…to people who lost their lives centuries ago, right?”
“Right. These artifacts weren’t listed on the ship’s manifest a scholar found in Madrid. The manifest listed mainly gold bars, silver bars, doubloons, pieces of eight. Oh, and maybe some anchors and astrolabes.”
“The manifest failed to mention the jewelry?”
“If it was a notable piece, perhaps one belonging to some crowned head, it might have been listed. The rings in this box were contraband probably smuggled aboard in the passengers’ pockets. They might’ve worn the rings and lockets, of course, but if the ship authorities saw them, the owner would have been taxed.”
“So even in those days, people hated paying taxes, tried to avoid them.”
“Remember however, back in those days gold chains served as money. When the owner wanted to buy something, he paid for it by snipping off a link of his chain—or perhaps several links.”
“The doubloons?”
“Of course they were spendable, too. Ever seen one up close?”
“Only in Mel Fisher’s museum.”
Beau removed the doubloon he wore around his neck and placed it in my hand. “The Spaniards were a two-faced bunch, Keely. Pious. See the cross of Christ on this side of the coin?”
After I nodded, he flipped the coin over. “They were also mercenary. There’s the king’s mark on the back—the mark that shows that the king’s tax had been paid. Those aspects of Spanish personality were to be the subject of this week’s column in the Citizen, but I’ve no heart for writing today. I may beg off and repeat a column from last year.”
Beau replaced the gold chain and doubloon around his neck. “To me the real and lasting treasure of the Atocha lies in the found jewelry such as the rings. Those pieces tell the human story of the galleon.”
“A human story and a very sad story, too.”
“I can’t look at a ring or a chain without thinking of the people aboard that ship—people with hopes, dreams, desires. People from across the centuries may have differed a lot in their thoughts, but little in their feelings. The sensations of hurt or happiness, jealousy or joy, remain the same even when separated by hundreds of years.”
I could tell how much Beau enjoyed touching and thinking about the treasures from the Atocha, telling me their stories. I hated to pull him back into the present moment, but I knew he had other appointments this afternoon, and I remembered Punt who’d soon be waiting for me. Again, Beau eased the situation by moving the box of rings aside and pushing some buttons on the adjustable lounger.
I spread a towel in front of a low chair suitable for him to use during the footbath and he sat down with a sigh. Once the lime-scented water swished around his feet I sensed his mood lift slightly.
“Best thing I’ve felt today.” He smiled and I let him enjoy the water an extra minute or so before I dried his feet and motioned to the lounge chair.
“Anything special you want me to work on today, Beau?”
“My eyes and my lungs burn. My joints hurt. Feel like I haven’t slept for a mon
th.”
I began therapeutic pressure on the small toe next to his large toe, and immediately we both felt the crystalline deposits begin to break up.
“Wow!” he exclaimed, but he didn’t withdraw his toe from my grasp.
“Too much pain?”
“Of course not. I’m no lily. Use whatever pressure’s necessary. It’s the end result I’m interested in.”
I took him at his word as I applied more pressure. “The discomfort you feel is in direct proportion to the quantity and size of the crystal buildup.”
“Some of them seem a lot sharper than others.” Beau closed his eyes, but I knew he wouldn’t fall asleep. Now and then a frown etched his forehead and I felt his foot grow tense. When that happened, I worked on his arch and he relaxed again.
Over an hour had passed before I’d done all I could to help his eyes, lungs, and joints, and to relieve his stress. When I finished I offered a hand to help him up and out of the chair.
“Thanks, Keely. I may need more than one treatment before this week ends.”
“Give me a call and I’ll see if I can work you in—at your convenience. Always glad to help.”
Beau let me out of the house by a side door and I appreciated his thoughtfulness. Two-fifteen. Punt would be waiting. When I arrived at my office, he sat enjoying a cup of espresso and visiting with Gram. I unlocked my door and he joined me, helping carry my work equipment inside. Once things were back in place, I prepared to lock up and leave.
“Car’s on Angela Street.” Punt grinned. “That is, it’s on Angela if it hasn’t been towed away at its owner’s expense.”
Gram frowned as I told her goodbye and we headed for Angela. “No more work today?” she called after me.
“Had a cancellation, Gram. Be back ready to work in the morning. Or maybe in the afternoon if…Punt, do you know when Margaux’s memorial service will be?”
“Cremation’s later today and the service will be at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon in the garden at their Grinnell Street home.”
We walked the few blocks to Angela Street and eased into the Karmann Ghia.
Pier Pressure Page 10
