Gumbo Limbo

by Tom Corcoran

  Okay, why was I gathering clues and following leads and generally acting like a self-appointed private eye? Why was I running the back streets of Key West like a chicken with his nuts in a wringer?

  Even better question. Why this claustrophobia? Newcomers are slow to recognize rock fever, also known as marl fever. I’d been through it a dozen times, could see symptoms as they rose from the horizon.

  Time to get off the island. Time to stretch my brain.

  My gas-guzzling sports car is a booster of testosterone octane, a patriotic statement, and fine transportation for the few times I must depart Key West on more than two wheels. To the untrained eye it’s a run-down 1966 Mustang fastback. Years ago I wangled a twenty-buck, ten-percent discount on a South Miami paint job because I let the body shop sell me outdated brown enamel. The wheels are gray primer, the upholstery is a combo of stiff Naugahyde and crumbled padding. A rectangular hole in the dash marks the glove box door’s former location. The emblems that once identified the classic as a Shelby GT-350H are kept in a kitchen cupboard. It’s got four-on-the-floor, and an engine rated at 306 horsepower. It hauls ass. The front disc brakes were rebuilt a few years ago. The filthy tires are expensive radials.

  The man on the street would estimate the Shelby’s value as less than I pay for insurance. Its actual value, though I’d never sell it, would pay off my home mortgage. But it’s tough on the eyes. The likelihood of its being stolen is up there with the odds of my swimming to Texas. I keep it in a one-slot garage behind Carmen Sosa’s house down the lane. Cheap rent, handy access, and the exhaust racket is the best burglar alarm for the money.

  It took ten minutes to unlock the garage and hood, reconnect the coil and battery wiring, twist the hidden fuel shut-off valve, resecure the hood, back it out, and lock the garage. It took another minute to towel off sweat and stash my cameras behind the front seat before I pulled out of Dredgers Lane. A stab of paranoia, or brilliant timing: just as I turned onto White Street I checked the mirror, saw a squad car swing into the lane.

  The light traffic on the Palm Avenue extension of Eaton reminded me why I enjoyed August in Key West. One-tenth the tourists; about half of the locals remained. Summer residents were never in a hurry, rarely rude, often giddy with cheerfulness, acknowledging the annual conspiracy to have the place to ourselves.

  Except for this year’s handful of unsociable visitors.

  I slowed on the Garrison Bight bridge to check Sam Wheeler’s slip. Fancy Fool probably two hours gone, another day on the flats with sweet young Sammy. The captain will suffer a spoon lure lodged in the heart. Driving out North Roosevelt, a difficult place to share with slower vehicles, I eased left from the curb to dodge puddles and give space to a bike rider. The few times I’d ventured by bike to the island’s east end, I’d stuck to Flagler. I wondered what fool cyclist would pick U.S. 1 on purpose, then wondered what route Abby Womack had taken the morning she’d been wounded. Approaching the bus stop, I tried to picture the attack, the angle of the shot.

  Junior detective strikes again.

  I made the light at the baseball fields, diced with traffic past Searstown and the car dealerships. Beyond the Stock Island bridge, passing Key Haven, I knew my destination. I’d brought my cameras. Time, again, to document the Bat Tower.

  I have spent hours trying to describe the remote, peaceful Bat Tower to the uninitiated. It is one of the Seven Wonders of the Florida Keys, along with Bahia Honda’s bridge to nowhere; the ugly, truncated frustum that marks the Southernmost Point; and Fat Albert, the government’s tethered blimp that electronically monitors Cuba. Imagine that, seventy-five years ago, a resort developer decided that his business success depended upon the elimination of mosquitoes from the Keys. He would build a wooden tower on Sugarloaf Key to house thousands of dark cypress cubbyholes, bat condominiums, then introduce a truckload of north Florida bats to their new abode. The bats would bunk for free, eat skeeters to their stomachs’ content, and stay on for generations of sun and plenty. The locals could stop swatting bugs, even sell bat crap for fertilizer. Everyone would win.

  He built the tower, the bats never showed, and the tower’s still there. I’ve photographed it for years, brought out-of-town visitors for Tower portraits, visited when I needed solace.

  Again, the off-season’s benefits. No traffic on the Overseas Highway. I reached the turnoff next to the sky-diving operation in fifteen minutes flat. On the north side, a hundred yards from Florida Bay, I shut down the Shelby, hefted the camera bag, and gave myself to the wind in surrounding pines, the birds warning of my presence. Out of habit, I began to check shadow angles, frame photographs of the tower through various lenses, click off a few prelim shots. My nerves softened in the sun’s heat. My body took immediate energy from the mangrove air, and the peace and solitude.

  My mind had other ideas. Within five minutes I caught myself slamming questions, twisting the odds, looking for loopholes. Had Abby’s attack come from a car, I wondered, or from a twowheeled vehicle? Or had the shooter aimed from a parking space on the south side of the road? Liska hadn’t mentioned his investigation of Abby’s wounding. Had a silencer been used? Any witnesses?

  Shit. So much for getting off the rock.

  Twenty minutes later I hung a left into the Blockbuster lot and found a defensive parking spot between a clump of crotons and a Japanese four-door. I took my camera bag so my film wouldn’t bake, locked up and went in.

  “Help you?”

  Sure. Find two murderers, a burglar, a firebug, and a missing executive. I said, “Looking for an old movie.”

  He waved his arm. “All over the room.” The guy was a fashion martyr. Eight pounds of metal ornaments north of his neck. I wondered why his upper ears didn’t flop over like a beagle’s.

  “Charley Varrick,” I said. “Made in the early seventies. Walter Matthau.”

  “Let’s check over here.”

  “I tried to get in here the other day when it rained. But I ran into all kinds of cop cars and rescue wagons.”

  “Shit, man. Lady got shot, right over there, across the street. Dude stood outside my front door, I’m watching him like he’s my next customer. He lifts a rifle and pops one off. I look at the bus stop, this girl’s down, stone-still.”

  “They catch him?”

  “Hell, no. He skidded the rifle under a Pontiac Grand Am, right next to the handicap space. Dude gets into a white Mustang convertible and boogies.”

  “A rent-a-car?”

  “Like a million identical in town every day.”

  “What happened to the lady?”

  “Well, I’m looking for my keys so I can close up and help her. But this big fucker on a Harley stops his hog to block the far lane. And when he goes to help her she starts freaking, on her back, waving her arms and legs like a dyin’ cockroach, whacking the Harley dude … Man, that girl was pissed.” The clerk reached past me. “Charley Varrick. Never heard of it, but we got it. You got your membership card?”

  “Hell, I forgot it. Can you hold that till later?”

  “No sweat. It’s not like two people want an old movie the same day.”

  Outside, I waited for a traffic lull, then hurried across to the three-sided bus shelter. A fresh Plexiglas panel on its rear wall. A stain in the concrete.

  Three fresh questions: Whom had Abby called? Why had she called then, in the rain? And how had the shooter located her? I wondered if she hadn’t seen and recognized a man who might be linked to Zack’s enterprise, had seen him as a danger, and was calling to alert someone else. If the man knew that she’d spotted him, and did not want to be announced, he might shut her up with a bullet. If that was true, Abby could identify her assailant. But my “teammate” hadn’t said a word.

  All of this, of course, supposed that the attack was related to Zack’s plan to distribute the “trust.” At this point, on the fourth day of weirdness, I knew better than to doubt judgment and ignore coincidence.

  One more thing. I checked the thin pock
et in my camerasatchel lid. Sure enough, my three remaining copies, Olivia’s blow-ups of the burned-hand man. The Blockbuster clerk had watched me survey the street. I walked back inside. He regarded me warily, wondering, I’m sure, if he should trip the silent alarm.

  “You find your membership card?”

  “No.” I held up the three-by-three photo proof. “This guy ever come in here. Maybe rent that Charley Varrick movie?”

  The young man studied the picture. “This dude came in here two days ago. He wanted to rent Backfire. But he wasn’t a member, he wouldn’t show me any ID and … You work for the company?”

  “Company?”

  “Blockbuster.”

  “No. I’m a photographer.”

  “ … so he offered to buy the fuckin’ tape for a hundred bucks. It’s not for sale in this store. But I know they’re selling that number at Kmart, fourteen ninety-nine. I kept the slip case, sold him the tape, went to Kmart and bought a replacement.” He handed the photo back to me. “This dude made me a nice bonus, day before yesterday.”

  The burned-hand man, bitten by his vice. But not the same man who’d shot Abby. From how many directions were dangers coming?

  I checked my watch. Almost time for Dubbie Tanner to commence his beer-cadging routine at Schooner Wharf.

  Stuck at the First Street light, I glanced toward Sam Wheeler’s boat slip. Fancy Fool had returned from the salt. Sam Wheeler and Captain Turk of the Flats Broke stood under the dock canopy, sipping from cans, chatting. No sign of Sammy, I went straight through the First Street intersection, turned into the charter marina parking lot.

  Sam pitched his empty into a barrel and walked over. The front of his shirt and trousers caked with salt and fish blood. “You’re my dinner date tonight, if they don’t get back from Miami at a decent hour.”

  “Claire left a note. Why Miami?”

  “Marnie’s on a mission. She knew she was screwing up, her drinking all the time. Maybe it was the looks you gave her that day she had a terminal hangover. She said you gawked like she’d dropped off a spaceship. Now she’s got a whole new work ethic. I hope it takes.”

  “What’s the mission?”

  “She got on the Internet yesterday and hooked up to a passenger aboard the Hispaniola Star, the cruise ship in town the morning of the Conch Train murder. She asked the passenger to post a reward, a hundred bucks for anyone with video of the crowd at the murder scene, and a thousand bucks for the first video to lead to a conviction. The ship’s been to Cozumel and Grand Cayman. It was due back in Miami at ten. On the chance that someone came up with a video, Claire went to meet Marnie’s Internet friend. And Marnie’s gone up to Lauderdale, to track down the sheriff’s punk son, Howie.”

  “I’d call that a mission. You give it a kick start?”

  “Didn’t say a damn word. I see it as journalistic conscience. She overheard Sheriff Tucker refer to his dead daughter-in-law as ‘Jon Benet Ramsey.’ He and two deputies got a chuckle out of it. Now she’s out to kick ass. The sheriff’d be better offthrowing in the towel than dragging this out to Election Day. Last night she stayed on her computer until, shit, three A.M., catching up on stories and deadlines.”

  “I need a dose of her energy. I’m about ready to sail off into the sunset.”

  “Not me. I got work. You really want to leave this sleepy, tropical resort full of beautiful young women?”

  “You’re working on a heart attack, Captain Smooth. Paid, cash-in-advance, peaches-and-cream, future-champ-angler heart attack.”

  Sam looked as if he wanted to defend himself, but said nothing.

  I said, “I don’t want to go anywhere. But I gotta. Can you manage dinner alone?”

  Wheeler laughed. “My eyes may wander, but my can opener’s always in the same place.”

  16

  Instinct can send you in ominous directions on ill-timed quests for harebrained reasons. Once in a while it pays you back. This time by subliminal warning: “Slow down. Check your mirror.” Not too sudden. I rolled the top of my foot off the gas pedal and eyes-only checked the speedo. Jesus, help me. Forty-six in a thirty on Truman with a blue roof bar glowing in the afternoon sun, thirty feet off the bumper. Maybe not a traffic stop; Liska had warned me that I’d be arrested. I threw my signal, braked smoothly, turned onto White. The cruiser went straight, perhaps home-bound, the end of the day. I suspect only in Key West do police cars have taxi-style “Off-Duty” lights in the roof rack.

  A stupid episode, sweating a traffic ticket like a damned death sentence. Four days of cuckoo shit had tripped my paranoia switch. I turned at the old National Guard Armory and stuffed it down Southard. Revisiting adolescence, the torque rush, controlled wheel hop, rapping tailpipes.

  Bad timing. The cruiser had come around the other way. It sat at the stop sign on Frances, fat and ugly, its left blinker going. Oh, boy.

  I closed the throttle and signaled for a right onto Grinnell. Refusing to check the mirror, I caught the green at Fleming, hooked right, and scooted down Dredgers Lane. I eased into the yard. The sheriffs department vehicle followed me down the lane. I got out and stood there.

  Detective Bobbi Lewis walked toward me. She stood about five-eight. She looked no-nonsense, but without the macho swagger so many female enforcement officers affect for credibility. She wore a white cotton polo shirt with an embroidered badge emblem, and dark blue slacks. Eight yards away, a deputy slouched behind the wheel of the idling Crown Vic.

  They hadn’t come to issue a traffic citation.

  “Got a minute?”

  “I got a choice?”

  She looked around me, at the porch and its furnishings. “That’s an old one, schmuck. You work for us. Why the friction?”

  “Who’s your buddy in the car?”

  “Billy Bohner, also known as ‘No Jokes’ Bohner.”

  “I thought I recognized the charming Mr. Bohner.”

  “Don’t be skeptical of the man’s sense of humor. He’s a prince.”

  I stared at her.

  She understood her own humor had been called to question. “Let’s start on this verse. He’s an all-time dick, no argument. His fellow deputies call him Mr. Leash Law. I’m in the car with him for the same reason he’s in the car with me. We both got told to get in the car. Can we talk a sec, and get this done?”

  “I assume he needs to keep you in sight. How about here on the porch?”

  “Fine.”

  “How about a Coca-Cola?”

  “Great.” Her hard heels clicked on the porch floor.

  “With a slash of rum poured into it?”

  “Even better. Sorry I called you ‘schmuck.’”

  One possible reason for her presence: my name in the paperwork Liska had been forced to relinquish when Sheriff Tucker had taken away the Conch Train murder case. Detective Lewis had been ordered to look for Zack Cahill. I wouldn’t let her think that I intended to be uncooperative, but I wouldn’t give the woman any gems. Fair is fair. In my mind the case still belonged to Liska. I hadn’t given Liska any helpful information, either. I unlocked the door and took a Coke and a beer from the refrigerator, then spiked the soft drink with Appleton’s. Spur of the moment, I flipped on the stereo, punched up a CD by Zachary Breaux, jazz guitar par excellence. Not loud enough to get Bohner’s attention. Enough to put Detective Bobbi Lewis at ease.

  Back on the porch: “How do things look for my friend, the banker?”

  “Accessory to homicide.” She tasted the rum and took a deep breath. “A warrant has been issued by the court. The deputies have an arrest-on-sight alert. You may already know this, but he’s probably not around anymore. He boarded a commercial flight to Miami the afternoon of the murder.”

  My phone rang. The machine could get it. “He’s had three days to get out of town any damned way he pleased. He could’ve ridden a moped to Atlanta by now.”

  “If we ever prove that you helped him slide out, you’ll be charged with accessory to murder, just like Mr. Cahill.”
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  “I was not a witness to the murder. I was in Liska’s office when the first report came in. I haven’t seen Cahill in almost a year. Even if I bodily carried Mr. Cahill to the airplane boarding ladder the afternoon of the murder, there’s no proof that I was aware of his alleged complicity. I didn’t know about the fingerprint on the alleged murder weapon until the next day. You might say I’m a traditional island cop-out. I knew nothing about nothing.”

  “You know how to frame an argument. What year did you flunk out of law school?”

  “I used to live with an attorney. I spent three years playing defense.” I raised my beer for refuge. Under my outward cool, I was too hyper to taste it. Something a few sentences back prompted a new thought. “I’m curious,” I said. “If a fingerprint was found, obviously the hypo wasn’t wiped clean. The puncture wound would’ve left blood traces on the needle. I assume the FDLE’s DNA Data Lab compared Omar Boudreau’s blood to residue on the alleged murder weapon. They’re quick on turnaround. Any word of a hot hit?”

  Lewis’s eyes chilled about ten degrees.

  I continued: “If there isn’t a match, who’s to say that another hypo didn’t kill Omar, and the one in the trash can, for whatever reason, was planted to implicate Cahill?”

  Lewis lowered her eyes, grinned on the side of her mouth that “No Jokes” Bohner couldn’t see, and shook her head. “Your roomie must’ve been a good lawyer. You play excellent defense.”

  I didn’t answer. My phone rang again. “Machine earns its keep.”

  She put a tone of official response into her voice. “The information you’ve requested is specifically reserved to pending grand jury testimony. We are unable at this time to release information or comment in that regard.” She took a sip of rum and Coke. “They’re supposed to fax their report tomorrow.”

  “Where do you go if it’s a cold hit?”

  “We got the name of the Conch Train driver, and one passenger. Some idiot tourist from Nebraska stepped forward. He thought he saw someone in dark clothing run from the scene. He wanted to know when he’d be featured on America’s Most Wanted.”