by Tom Corcoran
I knew only two tactics to counter Liska’s sarcastic banter. Remain silent or speak in homilies.
“Everyone’s in a hurry,” I said. “We came to the Keys to slow down our lives, but we speed up after we’re here awhile.”
“We got a rain issue,” he said, sticking his thumb to the northwest. “The print people want a shot at that davit. Plus, we got a situation up the road. I need you there for an hour or so.”
“Should I have my booking agent review my contract?”
Liska ignored me. His mouth formed an odd smile as he peered at the corpse. I could almost hear his brain shift from its management hemisphere to its true detective side. “That tan, his forearms?” he said. “That’s his lifestyle in a jiffy. He never wore a watch.”
“I thought about that. The man was barely scraping by. He might have been one of the last old-time Keys dwellers not pushed out by all the incoming wealth.”
“Think he got to see himself die?”
“It was dark, no moon,” I said. “Or do we know that?”
“He was found at first light.”
“Somebody hooked him up and turned on the davit winch,” I said. “He heard pulleys, motor whine, and the twang of the cable adjusting itself on the take-up reel. He felt himself going away slowly. Probably smelled himself, too, while his murderer got in his car and drove home. From the surroundings and the stand-still drama, we might assume it wasn’t a robbery.”
“Don’t ever assume slobs don’t have money,” said Liska.
“Who found him?”
“Woman down the canal, going out for smokes at daybreak. She idled by and spotted him swinging.”
“She runs for cigarettes in her boat?”
“Florida snatched her license after four DUIs. She commutes to the store in her Boston Whaler. Happens a lot in the Lower Keys. She even drives it to church. What’s that fucking noise?”
I pointed to the cockatoo. “Bird.”
“If it wakes the dead, maybe our jobs will be easier.”
“I just saw two more shots I want.”
“I have a crime-scene crew waiting on your ass. You’ve got ninety seconds.”
“Where’s your regular photo ace? That schmuck from Marathon.”
“I fired him.”
Bobbi Lewis watched me snap my lens covers into place, stuff gear into my canvas shoulder bag. “Did you shoot any digital?”
“If the courts require film, why double up?” I said.
“I just thought, if you had two or three, you could e-mail them to me. Might help me write my scene report.”
I pulled my eight-megapixel Olympus from the bottom of my bag, then walked a semicircle to capture the surroundings. “Regarding my alleged escape,” I said, “you’ve got an open invitation. Aren’t you looking forward to a few days in the boondocks?”
“I have a full-time job, Alex. I used this year’s vacation time when we were naked in Grand Cayman.”
“Weekends, maybe?”
“Weekends, yes,” she said without smiling. “Thank you.”
“There’s another photo I want when you cut this one down,” I said. “The sticky side of that duct tape on his mouth.”
“We’ve tried that before,” she said. “No one can read fingerprints on top of duct-tape threads. It’ll get tossed out as inconclusive, so why bother?”
“Can’t hurt to take a couple shots. Let’s at least preserve the evidence.”
“I’ll try to arrange something.” She pointed. “The sheriff is waiting in his car.”
“One last thing?” I said.
“Probably not.”
“You called me out of bed before seven. You owe me one.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “Tell me what.”
“Forget you’re in a hurry long enough for a smile.”
“With this kind of shit going down, I save smiles for the weekends, too.”
“You’re tough.”
She raised her hand, pretended to scratch her forehead, and slid me a quick half-grin.
2
Kansas Jack’s character van was hand-painted a poster tone of royal blue. Faded bumper stickers covered its rear end. SAVE TIBET, STOP GLOBAL WHINING, SAVE OLD STILTSVILLE, and FUCK FEMA. BLOW THE BRIDGE. All of them wishful thinking. Jack had written Swizzle Rod with a red Magic Marker on his gray vinyl spare-tire cover.
Beyond the yellow tape, Sheriff Liska’s personal car was wedged into a patch of palm trimmings, puddles, and toppled garbage cans. Just past the Lexus, my old nemesis, Deputy Billy “No Jokes” Bohner, leaned against his green-and-white’s front fender. A Kevlar vest under his starched white shirt bulked his torso. He mopped his doughy face with a paper towel, turned an eye to me, then looked away.
Liska lowered his passenger-side window. Cool air escaped the leather-scented interior. He said, “You doing okay?”
I leaned down to speak. “What’s with your lady detective?”
“Is she letting her mind run free?”
“That gets it.”
“It’s her first step in solving tough ones. So far it works.” The electric window started upward. “Hop in.”
I opened the door, noticed the light-colored carpet, and checked my shoes for mud. The cold, dry air hit me like I’d opened a freezer.
Liska said, “How do you feel about what you saw?”
“It wasn’t random. Someone hung him for show.”
“You just restated two facts,” he said. “I asked how you felt.”
“I heard you, and it forces me to ask what’s going on. Is touchy-feely the new fad in crime solving? She had me visualizing sci-fi back there.”
“She told me your cute ‘air dance’ remark,” he said. “Answer my question.”
“Start with numb,” I said. “I didn’t know him. He didn’t have style, but he had a right to not be dead. Someone hung him, and not one neighbor is out here bleeding sympathy or demanding justice.”
“Perfect,” he said. “You’re getting better at this. Another year, you might be a good cop. Like I said, I need you up the road.”
“Thanks for the upbeat words, Sheriff. Is it another murder?”
“Does it make a difference? Murder, car wreck, B and E—a picture’s a picture.”
“I’ve seen too many bodies the past few years and one too many today. Why would I want to sign up for more?”
“You’re getting used to it, in spite of yourself. You can stay on the clock.”
“Given my choice, I’d rather sell used cars in Tampa.”
“You could do well,” he said. “It’s a growing town.”
I didn’t answer him. I watched a letter carrier drive box to box.
“Why the attitude?” he said. “You too good for the work?”
“Let’s just say that the work is not my destiny. I take photos, ninety percent of the time not of dead people. Except for these crime gigs, it’s been a rewarding occupation. Fundamentally, I’m into sunshine and smiles. Do you feel a need to transform my life?”
“I want to help you reach your potential.”
“But it’s your version, not mine,” I said. “I have thirty hours to prep my house for a two-month rental, and I’m low on film. I wish to decline.”
“We got people waiting for you up there. Do I need to pull you off the clock, send you there against your wishes, and chalk it up to civic duty? Take it from a veteran civil servant. You’ll find it harder to cash that unsigned check.”
“My only civic duties are jury service, paying taxes, and not committing crimes.”
He turned to face me. “You could’ve stayed home in bed. Why’d you even come to this one?”
“My inner need for fantasy.”
“Follow that thought. If your girlfriend asked you to go to Marathon, you’d do it?”
“Dud question, Sheriff. She’s got a conscience. She knows she burned up today’s favors by dragging me to this one.”
Liska stared out the windshield. He looked tired, whipped, no
t at all like the eccentric but legendary case-closing cop of a few years ago.
I said, “Why me instead of Lewis, or one of your other detectives? Surely they know how to use a camera.”
“She’s busy with this, and they aren’t my detectives. You would be, and I respect your input.”
“It’s getting deep in here.”
“You’re right,” he said. “The truth is, I want you to represent me.”
“You want to deputize me?”
“Call it what you want. You’ll be a consultant.”
“On photographer’s pay?” I said.
“We can negotiate an adjustment. How did you get up here?”
“My motorcycle.”
“The forensic officers aren’t leaving soon. It’ll be safe. I want your opinion and a few pictures. I arranged for a chauffeur.” He pointed. Deputy Bohner, still hanging close to his vehicle, was chatting on a cell phone.
“I ride with your duty bully and take his crap? His venom is his reason to live. For the fourth or fifth time, I don’t want to deal with it.”
“I can’t imagine you’d let that doofus intimidate you. When I was elected to this job, he was my opponent’s campaign manager. I beat him, so you can, too. Give me your film, and I know the argument. You own the negatives and the rights. Like you could ever want keeper photos of low-life death.”
I wanted my silence to convey refusal. I offered no response.
“Remember the last time we saw each other, Rutledge? I came by your house to deliver a fat check and a word of thanks. You were happier about the money than my words of appreciation.”
“Sounds logical to me.”
“You were in your backyard, taking a shower. Was that your version of sense and logic?”
“We’re still on solid ground, Sheriff,” I said. “I guess I wanted to be clean.”
“It was pouring rain in a thunderstorm. Lightning flashed twice while I sat waiting on your porch. One bolt struck out on Fleming Street.”
“Do you live your life thinking the next flash will blow you out of your shoes, the next oncoming car could be a head-on?”
“No,” he said. “It takes too much time to worry about what-ifs. It’s time better spent on what’s next. Or earning a few bucks to pay for what’s next.”
“Why should I buy the future? It’s going to show up anyway.”
“Oh, you are an optimist,” he said.
“Comes from photographing more smiles than corpses.”
“Have I done you any favors or cut you slack in the past?”
“I suppose so,” I said, “but I have to believe I’ve got a credit balance.”
“You never know, Rutledge. It can’t hurt to bank another blue chip. And you’ll get paid for doing it.”
“Do I invoice you straight rate for this road trip?” I said.
“Whatever you see, don’t fuck around discussing it with other detectives. Report to me directly and hit me for a full eight hours.”
“I could stand ten.”
Liska grinned widely and slapped his palm on the steering wheel. “You see? Natural-born cop.”
His grin looked fake and his eyes looked sad and wary.
Deputy Bohner opened his cruiser’s right-side door and gestured as if offering a Louis XIV chair. The royal treatment, a couple of weeks before Bastille Day. I set my satchel on the grimy floor mat, then reached to pull the shoulder strap.
“Belt up,” he said.
“What am I doing, raking leaves?”
“We have our rules.”
“Nice carpet.”
He sucked snot up his nose. “Rubber’s what they give us.”
“Must grind your quality of life. You boys haven’t joined the union?”
Bohner hurried to his side of the car, keeping his eye on me, not trusting a civilian near his siren switch and radar rig. He cranked the motor, heavy-handed the shift lever, and fixed his eyes on the dash-mounted computer. Oblivious to our surroundings, he whipped a three-point turn, just missing a mailbox shaped like a grouper. Through the eight blocks from Kansas Jack’s house to U.S. 1, Bohner tapped his keyboard. His eyes never left the monitor. He tore himself away to check traffic before turning toward Big Pine Key, then mashed his pedal as if taxpayers were buying the gas.
“How far do we go?” I said. “Liska didn’t tell me.”
He pointed to the northeast as if to show me our exact destination. “Four miles past the Hump.” He won ten local-lingo points. It had been years since I’d heard the old nickname for the Seven Mile Bridge.
“Could I get a more specific clue?”
“All I got’s an address in Marathon,” he said. “The boss told you it’s another killing, didn’t he?”
“In a roundabout way. Are we late on-scene?”
“I don’t know about you,” he said. “I’m on the overtime clock.”
He’d been on duty during the predawn hours? “I thought rookies drew the all-night shifts.”
“Usually, yes,” he said, “but late hours don’t bother me. Once all the drunks get home, my workload drops big-time. Every so often I get a shot of spice.”
“Like a murder?”
“Or two.”
“Dead people don’t get to you?” I said.
“They kill the boredom. I hate risking my life for seat-belt citations.”
With no traffic ahead, he goosed his Crown Vic up to sixty-five. We sped across Little Torch Key, and I caught an over-the-shoulder glimpse of the house on Keelhaul Lane where I would spend my next eight weeks. A few weeks ago Johnny Griffin, an old college friend, had asked to rent my Key West cottage for July and August. A man’s home is his castle, and I didn’t want the hassle. I tried to squelch his idea by quoting two grand a week, but he didn’t back off his request. I warned him that I still wanted to think about it. Then Al Manning, a watercolorist who had fled Key West for a stilt home on Little Torch, asked me to help him find a house sitter. Someone to water plants and pay utility bills for the summer while he prowled the museums of Europe. His mention of a motorboat and an outdoor shower convinced me to volunteer.
I called Johnny Griffin and we cut a cash deal. By Labor Day I would hold sixteen grand in crisp hundreds. The money would help pay off my house by year’s end. With my money worries defused, I could have my own summer vacation, spend weeks paddling Manning’s kayak through mangrove channels, taking his outboard to Marvin Key, counting clouds above Picnic Island.
On the flip side, being stuck in a cruiser with No Jokes offered nothing but crossfire.
Liska had plugged me straight into it. He knew that Bohner and I had a history of pissing matches. Our spats weren’t so much bad blood as disregard for each other’s view of mankind. The deputy, because of his badge, always assumed an upper hand. He hated what he perceived as my useless calm. My advantage was not giving a shit. I could have told him that most inner peace was outer illusion, but I didn’t want to lose ground.
Except for an oncoming speeder whom Bohner blue-lighted, then elected not to stop in the Key Deer zone, our ride was uneventful. He rolled a steady seventy over Bahia Honda. Then, with oncoming traffic, he fell behind slowpokes on Missouri Key. We paid the price for his being the fuzz. No one in front of us would dare blitz the limit. He regained lost time by kicking up to eighty and passing twelve cars on the Seven Mile Bridge. I sensed that the clear road ahead ticked down his anxiety a notch or two. He let his computer drift into sleep mode.
Rolling across Knights Key into Marathon, Bohner threw me a curve. He shook a slim yellow box. “Gum?”
I suspected only a power washer could get the marching soldiers out of my mouth. “I haven’t had Chiclets since I don’t know when.”
“One or two?” he said.
“Two, if that’s okay.”
No Jokes Bohner civil and generous? Something read hinky.
A quarter-mile farther we slowed quickly, skidded on gravel to go right on 10th Street South. A forest of signs greeted us: DEAD END, P
RIVATE, KEEP OUT, DO NOT ENTER. The stained posts at the entrance to Florida Straits Estates were decorated with four-foot leaping dolphins in pale aqua. Someone had painted hot-pink lipstick on them. A shirtless big boy stood out front, a fortyish ex-linebacker type, square-jawed with shaved sides and a mullet cut gone ponytail. A tattooed panther crawled his shoulder. I didn’t guess he was the hired greeter, like they have in Wal-Mart. He could have been waiting for a bus or doomsday. He didn’t look like he cared which came first.
We drove thirty yards of two-track concrete before Bohner’s tires crunched on scallop shells and dirty marl. The manufactured homes on Trailer Heaven Lane were presentable with paint schemes more stylish than their shapes. Sea Cloud Terrace was a step down—old trailers and several parked cars sporting primer paint and mini-spares.
Bohner waved at another deputy, slipped past a roadblock at Pearly Gate Court, and parked a few yards from the action. Liska had asked for my opinion and a few pictures. I took one camera, shoved my bag into a shadow on the car floor, and made sure Bohner clicked the locks. Approaching the scene, he took his time, swiveled as he walked, as if his legs were hinged to his shoulders. He was my ticket in. I slowed my pace so I wouldn’t arrive first.
This end of the trailer park looked like a motor court in the style of Florida, 1952. Any form of maintenance had last been done before 1992. It now was a museum of disuse and poverty; the “estates” were Nomad car trailers and weathered Winnebagos parked a lifetime ago. Fenced yards held remnants of long-dead palms. Two Hobie Cats sat on a vacant lot, their faded hulls crusted with mildew. Plastic bags hung from thin shrubs like out-of-season holiday streamers. The stench of a rancid Dumpster fought down the odor of death. Most residents had replaced their broken glass with cardboard flats. The most common window treatment was the black garbage bag. Two sour-faced women in stretched tops and cheap sneakers sat on slat steps in front of their open doorways. I suspected that oxygen reached their lungs only through cigarette filters.
