by Tom Corcoran
I had all the confirmation I needed. The link between Kansas Jack Mason and Milton Navarre was as vast as the U.S. Navy.
Not too damned specific, I thought. It was like saying that the killer had once been in Florida.
17
I turned on Al’s ceiling fans and opened windows, then triggered an avalanche by dialing my voice-mail access code. Seven missed calls spewed out, the newest first.
Connie at the Naples ad agency: “Alex, please get back to me on that furniture job in Georgia. If you get this, I need to hear from you today.”
A small, rational region of my brain told me to call back and accept the gig.
Monty Aghajanian, in precise FBI fashion: “Monday, one-seventeen P.M., following up your duct-tape request. I asked around and struck gold. Touch base with Dave Klein. He’s a Broward Crime Scene Unit forensic analyst, and he’s been working to get digital images admissible in federal courts. I hear he’s great with difficult evidence, bringing out details in Photoshop. If anyone can help you, it’s him. I worry about you, old pal. I thought you were going to keep your nose out of the fuzz biz for a while.”
Marnie: “I’m pissed at myself for backing off my Millican story. They pushed through his arraignment and he bonded out this afternoon. He told the feds that a man and a woman abducted him, but that’s not public, so hold it tight. Sam says he’s not drinking beer and not catching fish. Also, I followed your advice the other day. The last nonsuicide hanging in this county was in 1973.”
Teresa Barga, the city’s media liaison and the future ex–Mrs. Tim Rutledge: “I might have opened my mouth once too often. I mentioned your brother to our new detective, Beth Watkins. She got a very strange look on her face. Is there something I need to know about him? Call, if you want to.”
Liska came next: “The FDLE, the feds, and The Miami Herald wanted to swarm your butt for this new Millican fiasco. So as not to divulge personal info about my best detective, the fact she was in your bed at time of abduction, I vouched for your whereabouts. I told them you had no connection to the Big Gold Buttstar, as the Herald reporter called it to my face. For all this, you owe me.”
Duffy Lee Hall: “One more thing on those noose knots. To you and me and fifty regular observers, they were tied by two people, a righty and a lefty. But I blew them up a few hundred percent, and guess what. The tips of the ropes were burned so the polyester wouldn’t fray. The burn marks and melted curlicues are the same color and size. I want to blame it on technique rather than the composition of the rope.”
The last one from Carmen, I assumed from Sunday: “A problem with your tenant. The noise pissed off my father at two A.M. last night. Bunch of people in your front room, reggae music rocking the lane, a couple girls with shrill laughs. Hector didn’t want to confront the crowd or call cops because it’s your place. He sneaked across the street and into your yard, opened the breaker box, and threw the master power switch. The idiots looked outside, saw the lane was dark, and assumed it was a typical Key West electrical failure. They broke up the party and the neighbors got some sleep. You owe me two extra bottles of wine, because of the mess I know I’ll have to face.”
Carmen’s parents, Hector and Cecilia Ayusa, had lived across from my Dredgers Lane home since long before I arrived. A few years ago, Hector retired from City Electric, then sat on his porch for a while, fondling the cigars he no longer was allowed to smoke, staring at his overgrown yard. He’d become our private Neighborhood Watch, and he’d saved my house twice from intruders. I hadn’t thought Johnny Griffin would ever make trouble, and Hector was the last person I wanted to piss off. I made a mental note to fix the situation.
Age-dating or not, the Tiki Bar beers had left a stale taste in my mouth, so I opted for the most effective solution. I opened an Amstel Light, swallowed a pain pill, and put away half the bottle with my first sip. I needed solids, too. I found a chunk of cheddar cheese in the fridge and a box of Wheat Thins in a cupboard. The energy I gained from my first three bites of snack food cleared my head, reminded me to set priorities and pace myself.
I called 411. A digital voice gave me the Broward sheriff’s main number. I dialed, and another digital voice began to recite a list of options. I took a chance and hit zero. A human connected me to the forensic lab. Let’s hear it for us humans.
“Dave Klein, Crime Scene Unit. How can I help you?”
I told him my name, my location, and how I had gotten his name.
“So far, so good,” he said. “What do you have?”
I described the duct tape, told him why it was important.
“Can you e-mail me a high-resolution digital image?”
“I haven’t photographed it yet,” I said.
“Is it stabilized?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Treated to neutralize the adhesive,” he said.
“All I have is the piece of tape, boxed so it won’t stick to anything.”
“My only open slot is noon tomorrow,” he said. “I need to catch a two forty-five Atlanta flight, so the most I can give you is forty minutes. If that doesn’t work, we could wait till Thursday.”
“Tomorrow’s my best day,” I said.
He told me to ask for him at the Broward County Court’s main desk. He would pull a pass and escort me to his office. “I’ll be giving up my lunch hour,” he said, “so this will cost you. Tuna on whole wheat, no cheese, from Subway.”
I hung up, congratulated myself for getting that far, then told myself to chill. I wanted to hand Monroe County’s trash to a Broward scientist and ask for his help in my personal campaign to disprove my jailbird brother’s guilt. I was making it incredibly easy for Klein to shove me out his door and slam it on my vigilante ass.
I called Cape Air and waited for an airline clerk to check for space. I would have to drive if I couldn’t get a flight, but the clerk found me a seat on a 9:25 A.M. flight with a 10:20 arrival. The return would leave at 2:45, the same time Klein would be leaving for Atlanta.
I made one more call, to Marnie, but it was my turn to reach an answering service. I said, “The solid link in the hangings is the U.S. Navy. The second-most solid link is the fact that neither Kansas Jack Mason or Milton Navarre have histories, so it’s possible they’ve been living under fake names. You might try to find what you can about Bixby, the city’s new photographer. He helped solve two murders in college. My cynical side wonders if he isn’t one of those glory hounds who creates problems so he can be first on-scene. His connection to the Navy, I don’t know.”
I took the Wheat Thins and cheese to the porch to stare at the canal, to count ripples in the water. I caught myself humming “The Boys Are Back in Town” and forming a mental picture of Tim knocking back Michelobs in Mac and Joe’s during the several hours prior to Milton Navarre’s death.
That evening I drove to Mangrove Mama’s for a supper on the patio. Crusted snapper, carrots, and cauliflower. Anne, a lovely server with a British accent, asked me how long I had lived in the Keys.
I told her, then asked how she knew that I lived here.
“In summer months, only locals eat out here on the patio,” she said. “All these visitors save their money to come to the tropics. Then they insist on air-conditioning. I don’t get it.”
My only worry, as I drove from the restaurant to Little Torch, was that I would draw Wendell Glavin from his lair and have to endure motorhead talk and tropical philosophy. His house was dark, but the eerie silhouette of his wet suit spooked me for a moment.
Three too many hangings had brainwashed me.
I watched the sun rise fat and red. It was just me, my Cuban coffee, and the waking world until howling doves and barking dogs broke the peaceful ambience. The brochures never mention bugs and noise. I went inside to shower and dress for the big city.
My wardrobe had taken a hit in the move to Little Torch. All my Levi’s were dirty and one pair of khakis wrinkled. I figured bureaucrats would take to wrinkles better than to fish
ing shorts. Tropical logic told me that an ironed button-down would still their judgment if I wore loafers instead of my deck shoes. It took me ten minutes to find a matched pair of socks.
The box with the duct tape went into my canvas attaché, along with some business cards and a paperback I had bought for porch reading. Its title was Black and Blue, like the old Rolling Stones album. I had yet to see page 1, but I hoped for the best.
I started the car, saw Wendell Glavin in my rearview loading his boat for a day on the water. I wanted to back out and go before he crossed the road to quack nonsense and ogle the Shelby. But I skunked myself by forgetting my cell phone. When I returned to ground level, Wendell was hovering.
“You must have a king-hell starter motor on that monster,” he said. “It cranks up almost before you turn the key.”
“One time it did, Wendell. I got in one night and looked at the ignition switch. Damn thing came to life, put itself in gear, and drove me home.”
He was quick on the uptake: “From which bar?”
“The Full Moon Saloon.”
“Oh, right there on United.” He gazed across the canal. “That place was before my time, but I heard about it. Look, get a message to Al, the next time you talk to him. I seen a bunch of wild iguanas in the neighborhood. They’ll eat every plant on the island. All these shrubs, he paid through the ying-yang, he may want to think about a fence.”
“I’ll let him know. You going diving today?”
“The Adolphus Busch wreck,” he said. “I been doing that lately.”
“Why the wet suit, Wendell? Isn’t the water temperature like bathwater this time of year?”
“It’s warm at Looe Key, but the Busch is deep and cold. Shit, I felt a raindrop.”
“So much for your trip,” I said.
“Hell you say, bubba. It doesn’t rain underwater. Even if this was big enough to build up seas, the waves don’t mess with you sixty feet down. For kayak boys like Al Manning, it’s a different story. It’s dangerous on the surface.”
It came on us fast, a strong one-clouder. An east wind rose and blew the wet almost sideways.
“This can’t last,” said Wendell. “I’ll stand under here, wait it out.”
“I gotta go.” I slammed the car door.
Wendell had been right about it not lasting. South of Ramrod Key I found a dry highway and blue sky. Traffic was light—gravel trucks, pickups, rented convertibles, and motor homes. As I drove across Sugarloaf Key, the bastard rang. I hate to talk while driving, not for safety’s sake as much as not being able to hear inside the Shelby. The window showed 973—Newark. I took the call.
Monty Aghajanian, my FBI pal, could hear the car’s engine. “You going somewhere? I wanted to follow up, see if you called Dave Klein.”
“I’ll be in Lauderdale by noon. Thanks for the tip.”
“Driving your hot rod?” he said.
“Only to the airport. I’m flying a puddle-jump.”
“The grapevine has it that our man on the island had to bust a deputy on a civil rights squabble. You know anything?”
“His name is Millican,” I said. “He’s a detective in touch with his inner thug. As it happened, I found myself on the receiving end of his bad mood.”
“No shit. It was you?”
“I’m afraid the newspaper will print details of bruises on my testicles.”
“What will you do about it?” said Monty.
“Make the county buy me a hot tub and a boat slip at Ocean Reef.”
“When it boils down, don’t press the criminal case, Alex. The boys will get into your life more than you ever imagined.”
“A nightmare, right?” I said.
“You want my advice, suck it in and tough it out. Settle quick, small, and quiet. Don’t talk to the media.”
“Consider it taken,” I said. “Can I play off your sympathy?”
“I’m granting only partial favors these days. We have a history of your mangy dogs biting my lovely ass.”
“This won’t require an NCIC search. It’s more a gossip request.”
“No promises,” he said. “Give me a name and town.”
“Our new city detective, Beth Watkins, last employed in Marin County.”
“Do we wish they all could be California girls?”
“No way. I’m having a hard enough time.”
He was quiet a moment. “I’ll see what I can do. You may not hear back.”
The bastard beeped as the line went dead.
The Shelby surfed pavement undulations across the Saddlebunch Keys as south-side phone poles ticked by like passing time. In my youth I would have wanted that roadside clock to conform to Einstein’s theory: the faster you travel, the slower time goes. My two-bit corollary was the faster you live, the longer you live. It was proving less true as I aged.
Perhaps Tim was learning a similar lesson.
I ran a slalom to dodge rough pavement around the long bend of South Roosevelt. Joggers and skaters and walkers wove their paths like braid strands toward Smathers Beach, and shorebirds floated in slow motion above heat in the shallows. A man in dreadlocks on a smoking moped passed me. A small dog rode his handlebar.
I felt a twinge of doubt about flying north. Not that I have a conscience, but something whispered that I should live my life and no one else’s.
Forty minutes later, I was in the air.
Air terminals, with their lines, security, everyone staring at each other, tend to shut down my brain. Being aloft wakes it again, churns my thoughts, gives me perspective as well as relief. But my doubt returned. I worried that I had invested too much hope in the duct tape. Lopsided odds held that the price of my ticket plus seven hours would yield no clues. Professionals had deemed the tape useless. I was a rank amateur with no stake in the outcome, or none that I wished to share. Tim had a stake but no idea how to fight the fight.
In high school, when I heard about mischief or vandalism, cars shot with pellet guns, school bus seats slashed, empty beer cans dumped on a neighbor’s lawn, the story almost always found its resolution with the kid in the next bedroom. It worked out to one minor crime per semester. Practical jokes gone wrong, all the time. He was a crap magnet. Guilt ruled his body language. Blame stuck to him like wet leaves to a heel.
I recalled two open windows, a warm breeze, afternoon sunlight in my bedroom. The smell of a neighbor’s power lawn mower. I was seventeen, a senior in high school. I had just finished reading Somebody Up There Likes Me, an “as told to” autobiography of the boxer Rocky Graziano. Two things intrigued me as I stared at the photo—a movie still—on the paperback’s cover. I felt amazed that the man had survived a childhood so different from mine. His months in adult jails, his scramble to survive ugly streets. I wondered about the “as-told-to” process of writing the book, then pondered the idea of writing a book myself. It wouldn’t be the same kind. My life up to that point would put a reader to sleep. But fiction would be different. I could invent heroes and jerks, give them odd and dangerous jobs, make up friends and families for my characters. I wondered how I’d describe the mother of a hero or the father of a loser. I imagined having a champion for a sister, an asshole for a brother.
That’s when it struck me: I was, indeed, the brother of an asshole.
Before that day, I’d never dared to describe Tim, even to myself, by that term. So much made sense behind the definition, but much more alarmed me. For the first time I projected my brothers into the future. Raymond, the oldest, would find his boring way through life. I would strive to evade boredom, play it straight, enjoy my days as they came. But each time I tried to imagine Tim’s destiny I heard the solitary, echoing clank of a cell door. The same sound that had rung so often through the story of Rocky Graziano’s delinquent childhood.
I recalled walking down the hall, looking into Tim’s bedroom. He was off with friends, so the room was empty. He had only two decorations, both on the wall above his bed. One was an award certificate for a science project,
hung upside down with a small bird feather jammed between the frame and the glass. The other was a photo torn from a travel magazine, a serene beach with tall palms, white sand, calm water, and footprints at the tide line.
At the Broward County Courthouse on Southeast Sixth, I passed through the metal detector, gave the guard a responsible, patriotic “Good morning.”
A male receptionist called Dave Klein to escort me inside.
Six minutes later Dave checked my tan, my head wound, then my clothing. He didn’t miss a wrinkle. He took the sandwich bag and asked me for a business card.
I dug one out of my canvas attaché bag, handed it to him.
“You’re a civilian? I don’t believe that fact registered with me.”
“I work with the Key West PD and the Monroe County sheriff.”
“So do their floor sweepers. Tell me again, who gave you my name?”
I explained Monty, then pulled the candy box from my canvas carry-on. He opened it, sneered at the duct tape.
“You know you’ve lost chain of evidence, don’t you? This is dead info.”
“I figured as much. But I thought, if it can’t be admissible proof, it could give us a lead, a direction to look for clues the court might accept.”
“Well, that’s wonderful except it’s bullshit,” said Klein. “This is from outside Broward. I can’t even hold it in my hand without an okay from my supervisor. I need a Monroe case number so I can draw a new Broward tracking number. I need to know where it came from, date, time, all that, and who’s handled it. What the hell are you up to, anyway?”
“Just trying to stop crime.”
“Here’s how we do it. We collect enough valid evidence to convince a tough-minded prosecutor that he won’t waste time he’d rather spend at his kid’s Little League game. We make a legal arrest, with speeches, procedures, protocol, and tender care. We attempt to send bad guys to jail. It backfires too often. Sometimes it gets twisted by citizens who want to do the right thing. The thing for you to do, now, is go for the door. Take your piece of stickum with you.”
