Killer in Control

by Dorothy Francis

  So that’s what I plan to do today. Stand there and watch. I wonder what snakes eat. Grass? Special snake food that comes in boxes like cereal?

  “Hi, Kitt.”

  “Hi, Donald.”

  “You afraid of snakes?”

  “No,” I lie.

  “Want to touch it?”

  “No.” And that’s no lie.

  “If you won’t touch it, I know you’re afraid of it. Come on. Prove you’re not a scardy cat. Give it a pat on the head.”

  “No. It might bite me.”

  “Well, I suppose it might,” Donald says. “But you can see it’s not biting me.”

  “It knows you. It doesn’t know me.”

  “Then touch it on its side away from its head. Bet you think snakes are cold and slimy.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “You’re wrong. Their skin’s warm and dry.” He steps closer. “Give it a pat. I call it Homer.”

  I grit my teeth, reach out, and give Homer a very brief pat.” Donald is right. His snake feels warm and dry. I wonder why it looks cold and slimy.

  “Hey, you’re pretty brave for a girl. I’ll let you help me feed Homer, if you want to—unless you’re afraid of mice.”

  “Mice? You’re kidding, right?”

  Donald reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a tiny white mouse. It wiggles and tries to escape from his hand. “This’s Homer’s lunch”

  “But it’s alive.” I back off. The back of my neck feels cold, but my face feels sunburn hot. I’m sorry I disobeyed my mother. Sorry I disobeyed and came here like I promised my mother I wouldn’t.

  “Homer likes live mice, Kitt. Won’t eat ’em dead. He’d starve first. Homer wants them alive.”

  I start to back farther from him, but Donald grabs my wrist. I try to jerk away, but I can’t break his grip. I might be taller, but his hands are stronger than mine. Donald holds the mouse by its tail, dangling it above to Homer’s head with his hand that isn’t holding my hand. Homer lifts his head and opens his mouth. I never knew snakes had such big mouths. It looks big enough to hold a tennis ball—well at least a ping-pong ball. I can’t bear to watch. I squint my eyes shut.

  The mouse screams. It doesn’t shriek. It doesn’t squeal. It screams. I know it’s screaming for help and I want to help it, but I can’t. When I force my eyes open, I’m crying. The mouse’s inside the snake’s mouth making the snake’s head bulge. Donald holds onto the mouse’s tail, grinning until the snake moves its head and pulls the mouse all the way inside. I imagine that mouse still screaming inside the snake, but Donald doesn’t act sorry for killing the mouse.

  My stomach churns and I throw up my breakfast on Donald’s shoes. Orange juice, oatmeal with raisins, toast with grape jam. The mess puddles on Donald’s red and white tennies. My throat aches. I don’t care if I’ve ruined his tennies, except that I don’t want him to tell his mother and have her call my mother so my mother will know I disobeyed her.

  Donald scowls and drops my wrist while he tries to wipe my vomit from his shoes onto the grass.

  I run.

  I rub the bitter taste in my mouth onto my shirt tail.

  I wipe my eyes with my undershirt.

  I run all the way home with the sound of mouse screams echoing in my head. When I reach my yard, Mama comes to the door, smiles, and asks if I’ve been running a race. I nod a yes.

  I can’t tell Mama what happened without admitting I disobeyed her. I bury the snake and the screaming mouse scene in a corner of my mind and never speak of it to anyone. It lives there to haunt my dreams

  When I forced myself fully awake, I lay drenched with sweat. I rose and grabbed a big drink of water as if I could wash the nightmare into oblivion forever. While I took another shower I wondered about Donald. Where did he live now? I shuddered. He had showed no remorse for torturing that mouse. None. He had laughed. How could he have laughed! Was he a sociopath—a kid born without a conscience? I shuddered, trying not to think of a little kid without a conscience. Today Donald could be a serial killer at large. Or he might be the CEO of a Fortune Five Hundred corporation. According to The Textbook Sociopath, all sociopaths weren’t killers but serial killers were usually sociopaths.

  Once I had calmed down, I dressed and prepared to face the day. Shorts. Sandals. Green tank top. When I’m out of uniform, I wear lots of green. Shelby says it brings out my eyes. But I no longer care what Shelby says. I wear green because I like green and because it calms down the red of my hair. After I made my bed, I laid my two books on the bedside table, pulled Dad’s medallion from the velvet bag where I’d hidden it with his diary, and thrust it into my pocket. Maybe sometime later in my life I could bring myself to wear it around my neck as I used to, but not yet, not while I remained on suspension.

  “Have a good night?” Janell asked when I entered the kitchen where she stood at the stove already making coffee and warming cinnamon rolls in the microwave. I knew if there had been any word from home about the perp she would have told me, so I didn’t ask.

  “Had a great night,” I lied before I spoke the truth. “I like waking up in Florida, with family. I’d forgotten how close The Poinsettia is to the sea. I can smell the ocean on the trade wind and hear the gulls screaming.”

  Janell smiled and poked a tendril of fiery hair behind her ear. “Every morning I pause at our bedroom window. I can see the ocean from there and I don’t ever want to take that view for granted. It has a different look every day. Unique colors. Unique shapes in the waves. If I ever get homesick for Iowa, I look at the sea and it reminds me of how lucky I am to be here.”

  “How can I help you this morning, Janell?” I eyed the electric orange juicer lying on the countertop, the orange rinds in the sink. “You carry breakfast out to the pool every morning?”

  “Right. If you’ll tote the coffee pot and the rolls, I’ll bring a pitcher of juice and the fresh fruit. Some things are already out there.”

  “Will do.” I picked up the coffee and rolls and followed Janell to the poolside patio where we set our breakfast treats on a white iron table surrounded by white all-weather chairs. Janell seemed not to notice when the morning dew dampened the hem of her blue caftan, but she grabbed a napkin and wiped the dampness from the table top and the chair seats.

  Sun filtering between palm fronds warmed my head and shoulders, but the dark shadows it cast into the pool matched my thoughts. The greenness of the plants in the Cummings tropical garden bespoke the careful attention of both Janell and the grounds keeper. Elephant ears. Aloes. Cactus? I could do without thorns, but how could I have overlooked the banana plant and the fruit tree laden with oranges!

  I glanced from this Eden to the B&B at the side of the patio, hating to think about Abra Barrie who had slept there only a few nights ago. I liked the woman without ever having met her or known her—liked anyone interested in finding renewable energy sources. My blood boiled if I thought too much about all the millions we taxpayers paid the Arabs for their oil. We give them our help in establishing a democracy—they give us $3.00 oil. I liked the days when oil was cheap and people were valuable. I’d wondered if that time would ever come again.

  “Will Hella Flusher be having breakfast with us?” I snapped my attention back to the iron table and the breakfast goodies.

  “Not this morning. She begged off after enjoying a glass of orange juice, saying she needed an early morning walk on the dock. I think she’s allowing us to have a little more family-only time before the morning engulfs us.”

  “Think the police will come around here again today?”

  “They may. But I hope not. Rex will join us in a few minutes. He’s doing some repairs on the café. High winds have hit us fairly hard last summer and fall, but we’ve been able to open for business every night. We plan to open as usual tonight and hope some customers show up in spite of—everything.”

  “Janell?”

  “She paused at my tone and the question in my voice.

  �
��What were you and Rex doing last Friday afternoon when the ME says Abra Barrie died?”

  “You don’t think we’re into murdering our guests, do you?”

  “Of course not, but I was wondering if you both had air-tight alibis.”

  “No. We don’t. We have alibis of sorts, but I’m afraid they’re both a long ways from being air-tight.”

  Before I could learn more about their alibis, airtight or otherwise, Rex approached from the café, the sun gleaming on his baldness.

  “Morning, women. Got a handout for a hungry working man?”

  Janell poured Rex a glass of juice and offered him a roll while he reached for a cup and the coffee pot. I spooned chunks of fresh strawberries, banana, and papaya onto my plate and sat back to enjoy the treat. We’d only been sipping and munching for a few minutes when Rex spoke. As usual, his tone was quiet, but it riveted me to my chair as did his words.

  “Kitt, Janell and I are going to ask a big favor of you. We hope it won’t turn your stay here into a busman’s holiday, but we’d like you to help us find the person who murdered Abra Barrie. No, maybe that’s not exactly what we want. Maybe we just want you to help us prove that we and our workers are innocent and that the guilty one has nothing to do with The Poinsettia. You’ve been in police work and law enforcement for several years now. We need you—especially since the police keep dwelling on the human blood they found on my boat.”

  “How about it, Kitt?” Janell said. “If you’ll help us, we’ll do a private investigation of the people connected with The Poinsettia.”

  “Right,” Rex agreed. “With your police background, you’ve got the skills, the know-how. I hope guilt doesn’t point a finger at any of our people, and if we can prove their innocence, the police will feel free to leave us alone and start searching elsewhere. What do you think?”

  “I think I’d like to help—very much like to help and, under the present circumstances, I’m flattered you’ve asked me.”

  “The present circumstances you refer to will soon be past circumstances. We’ll have to work quickly while you’re still in Florida. The minute your suspension ends, they’ll want you back in Iowa.”

  “You’re surer of that than I.”

  “Be a positive thinker,” Janell ordered.

  “Janell made notes on the alibis our workers gave the police on Saturday. They called us all in and talked to us together. No Miranda warning. Strictly off the cuff—they said. The info Janell has came right from their mouths. Will you take a careful look at those alibis and then do some in-depth checking on each person?”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Janell’s notes will be a good starting place. Glad you took careful notes.”

  “I’ll help, too, in any way I can,” Rex said, “but I’m still repairing wind damage on our dance floor and snack bar. We were hit hard last summer and it could happen again.”

  “I remember watching the weather channel for well over a month and worrying about you.”

  “We’re lucky the damage wasn’t worse,” Rex said. “I’ll help all I can with an investigation. We want to see this murder solved. One of our largest fears is that it might turn into a cold case that will have the locals gossiping and speculating for years to come.”

  “We want to see justice done,” Janell said, “but at the same time we need to see our business continue to succeed.”

  “Of course. Good thing your business thrives on tourist trade. The murder, if it’s like most murders, will soon fall out of the news. Cops may remember it, but most tourists will never hear of it.”

  “The locals have long memories,” Janell said. “I’ll help you all I can, but I’m no detective and time’s of an essence.”

  “Not only must we consider your being called home soon,” Rex said, “but we must also consider the way our police department sometimes works. S-l-o-w-l-y. I think they’d prefer to push the murder under a palm branch, weight it down with coconuts, and forget about it.”

  “I’m guessing they do their best,” I said. “Most police departments do—if they’re anything like the one I work for—worked for.”

  “They can’t stall in trying to solve this case,” Rex said. “Police from other areas are searching for a serial killer. Right now the search is pointing to Key West.”

  Chapter 5

  “Of course I’ll help you in any way I can,” I said. “You’re family. Where will we start? When do we get started?”

  “Great, Kitt.” Janell gave my arm a squeeze. “We’ll get started as soon as possible. We need all the help we can get.”

  “And all the locals are family where this murder’s concerned,” Rex said.

  Suddenly the tropical garden I’d seen as warm and comforting morphed into a jungle-like prison. All its green vines and thorns were closing in on me, holding me in place. I wanted to help solve Abra Barrie’s murder. Yes. I wanted to help get a serial killer off the streets. Yes. But I didn’t want to offer help that might place Janell or Rex under closer scrutiny. Janell had started to tell me where they were last Friday afternoon, but she’d been interrupted and I didn’t want to ask again. The fact that the police had found human blood on Rex’s boat loomed large in my mind although I couldn’t imagine him harming anyone. They hadn’t proved that the blood was Rex’s.

  “You realize I have a selfish reason for wanting to help, don’t you?” I looked at the ground, unable to meet their eyes. “Maybe working on this murder will help me atone for my mistake back home.” I got off the subject of that shooting quickly—before either of them could comment.

  “And another reason, I can identify with Abra Barrie. I’d like to help find her killer. She was working to improve our environment. Helping make people aware of sources of renewable energy is a good and logical place to start. It’s one reason I’m driving the Prius. I want people to notice it, to ask about it. I wish I could have known Abra. I think we had a lot in common.”

  Janell stood and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Whatever your reasons for helping find this killer, they all boil down to the fact that you’re a good person, Kitt. Never forget that.”

  Rex’s cell phone rang and he spoke to a caller briefly before he pocketed the phone and turned to us again. “Police. They want me at headquarters—again. Now. Didn’t say why, but I don’t think they’re serving tea and toast.”

  “I thought they’d asked all their questions last Saturday,” Janell said. “I hope their questioning isn’t going to be an on-going thing.”

  “Maybe they’re going to give you the go ahead for cleaning up your boat.” I wished I could forget about that blood, his boat.

  “They could have mentioned that over the phone. But they didn’t.” Rex gulped the last of his coffee then strode toward the carport and wheeled his bicycle onto the path to the front gate.

  “Why don’t you take the car?” Janell called. “I won’t need it to get supplies until later in the morning.”

  “And we could take the Prius for that errand,” I added.

  “Arriving in the car would tell the chief I place extra importance on this meeting. Going to play it cool. Going to ride the bike as usual.”

  Rex left and I pushed my plate and juice glass aside, no longer interested in breakfast. Janell refilled her coffee cup and settled back in her chair.

  “During tourist season, we only use the car for essential driving—usually to the grocery store or the lumberyard for supplies. If we’re lucky we can find side streets with little traffic and a parking slot at Fausto’s or Strunk’s. But for ordinary errands, we ride our bicycles.”

  “I noticed heavy traffic when I arrived yesterday.”

  “Right. The traffic’s hard to deal with—SUVs and live-in campers clog streets originally designed for horse and buggies. But we smile and tell tourists our crowded streets are a part of Key West’s charm. And while parking places are hard to find, I’m sure there’ll be one waiting for Rex at the police station. Wish I could have gone with him.”

  “May
be he’ll be back soon. In the meantime, how about giving me the scoop on your workers and their alibis?” I hoped that would take our minds off Rex’s command performance at the police station.

  “Sure. We’ll get to that, but first let’s stop pussy-footing around your problems back home. You must have had good reason for shooting that guy. Want to tell me about it?”

  “I hate thinking about it, hate talking about it. But maybe it’ll be a relief to tell you the whole story. You and Rex are the only family I have left.”

  “So give. What happened?”

  I gave her all the details leading to the shooting. “And there we were with guns drawn in this dark smelly pet shop.” The thought of the animal odor reminded me of last night’s nightmare and I had to gulp more juice before I could continue. “I saw the perp raise his arm, point his gun at my head—and I fired first. Several minutes later we discovered he wasn’t armed. Had a phony pistol, a child’s toy. Can’t understand why he risked pointing a fake gun at a police officer. Dumb butt. Didn’t he know he was putting his life on the line?”

  Janell took my hand, clasping it in both of hers. “I’m so sorry this happened, Kitt. I know the kind of person you are. Straight arrow all the way. What kind of a person was this man?”

  The scum of the earth as far as I’m concerned. “A crook. A druggie. A scofflaw with a long rap sheet. And maybe a sociopath. He’d appeared in court many times before. Chief Gilmore told me he’d never seen the guy show any remorse for his crimes.”

  “And in spite of his record, he was still on the street.”

  “Yes. Janell, there’s a whole underbelly of society that law-abiding citizens like you and Rex know little about. The police arrest the same people for the same type of offenses time after time. We risk our lives to get criminals off the street only to have the courts release them all too soon back into society where they’re free to commit their crimes again. And again. They get by with no more than a slap on the wrist. It’s discouraging, but it’s no reason for me to have shot a man.”