Chapter 3
Since I work nights, my normal routine is to sleep until noon and then do boat chores for a couple of hours. The night I found out about Nick, I was awake most of the night and up before seven. I dressed in my usual shorts and t-shirt, put on a pot of coffee, and stepped out into the cockpit. There was a chill in the air, but the sky was cloudless. The wind had died and the water was as still as the Detroit river after a week-long cold snap.
When I began to shiver I moved down below. Slipping on a sweatshirt, I poured my first cup of coffee, and headed back outside. I sat sipping coffee, listening to the quiet, and thinking about Nick until the calm was shattered by first one boater, and then another, starting their dinghy motors and heading to shore. I returned a wave from a couple on the next sailboat over, and then stood and went below to refill my cup and grab my computer.
I don’t get TV reception on the boat; or rather I get three Spanish speaking stations and a local one that plays the same old movies and 1940’s era serials over and over. But thanks to my cell phone provider I have a card for my computer that gives me broadband speed Internet access.
I read a couple of newspapers online and then went to my e-mail account. The only message I had was from my mother. It was short and to the point, and infuriated the hell out of me. Wes, hon. I really do need your help on this one. I don’t have anyone free to handle this. I’ve attached a copy of the file in case you change your mind. I’ll call and let you know when I’m arriving in Key West.
I couldn’t count the number of times I’d made it clear to her I was through with the business. I knew what she was doing. She’d once told me I was a good detective because I had the curiosity of a six-hundred pound cat. Well curiosity be damned, I thought, just before shutting down the computer without opening the attachment.
I didn’t want to go down and identify Nick’s body. Instead, I spent the next several hours doing boat chores. I hooked up a hose to the wash down pump and sprayed off some bird droppings. Once the deck dried, I taped, sanded and varnished a section of handrail that was beginning to weather under the harsh tropical sunlight.
When I finished, I put on my swimsuit, dove off the bow, and did thirty laps around the perimeter of the boat before taking a quick shower. Of course it’s the only kind of shower you can take when your tanks only hold sixty gallons and you have to haul water from shore in five gallon cans.
It was eleven by the time I sat back down at the computer. I played a couple of games of solitaire, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept going over in my mind what had happened to Nick, and I wondered if his death had anything to do with the case he was working on. Finally, after getting up several times and wandering out to the cockpit and back again, I gave in and downloaded the file my mother had sent me. There were actually two files, one document file and one picture file. I opened the document file first.
There wasn’t a whole lot there. The client’s name was Frank Szymanski. He hired the firm to find an ex-girlfriend. He claimed they had an argument, she ran off, and he was heartbroken. Her name was Gail Bernard and she was a stripper who used the stage name ‘Destiny’. He also provided the information indicating she was originally from Key West, and had gone to school at Michigan State University. According to the client, he met the girl at a party in Detroit and fell in love.
The file listed Szymanski’s address in Grosse Pointe and his cell phone number. Nick had placed a note in the file referring to him as ‘that Frankie Szymanski.’
It wasn’t much to go on, so I went hunting on the Internet. Under Destiny I found reference to a comic book character, several nightclubs, and even a church, but no stripper. Under Gail Bernard, I hit the jackpot.
The articles in the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press were four years old. Both stories stated that as a freshman Bernard had been expelled from Michigan State University for running an escort service out of her dorm room. The cops found out about her enterprise when one of her girls, a fellow student, filed a complaint against a school football player. The courts went easy on the girl and Gail was given two years probation.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Frank had been one of her customers and maybe read a little too much into what would have been a business transaction. Maybe the girl had even led him on a little in hopes of having a few extra bills tucked into her g-string.
Any thought of Frank Szymanski being a victim ended when I Googled his name. What I discovered was enough to have me reach for my bottle of Tums. It appeared our client was the same Frankie Szymanski who had started his career as a hit man for the mob. The same Frankie Szymanski once linked to the nineteen seventy-five disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. The same Frankie Szymanski who had been brought up on racketeering charges in nineteen eighty-five.
Damn, I thought. If my mother was serious about handling this case by herself I was going to have to step in. She was right, it had been a long time since she’d been in the field and I didn’t want to lose her too.
I was swearing under my breath by the time I opened the picture file. The blonde looking up at me wore stylish glasses, loose fitting beige shorts, and a white top that showed just a hint of skin. It took me a couple of minutes, but then I realized that I knew the girl, or more precisely, I knew her boyfriend. She’d changed the color of her hair from blonde to red and had her breasts enlarged, but I was pretty sure it was Billy Bodine’s girlfriend. I wondered if this was why Nick was planning to stop by and see me the night he was killed.
Billy was a Jimmy Buffet wannabe who played a fair guitar, and sang weekend nights at Dirty Alvin’s. Destiny usually came in on Friday nights, and a six-foot tall red-headed Amazon was someone I wasn’t going to forget, even if she had a boyfriend. She usually hung around until close, and then she would leave with Billy.
I e-mailed my mother to tell her that I knew when and where the girl could be found. I told her I’d give her the information when she arrived, and added that I was going to leave the boat within the hour and would be meeting with Davies to identify Nick’s body.
Once I let my mother know what I’d found out she would have no reason to drag me further into her case. Of course I still had to put up with her visit, and I had no doubt she was going to hassle me about coming back to work for the agency. It was in her nature and I figured I might as well accept it, but I didn’t have to like it.
I needed some time off to deal with my mother and with my grief. I called the bar and explained my situation to Tanya. I accepted her condolences and when she suggested I take the week off, I thanked her and told her I’d stop by that evening. What I didn’t tell her was that I wanted her to introduce me to Destiny. Finally, I changed my clothes and washed down a ham sandwich with another cup of coffee before climbing into my dinghy and heading into shore.
***
Even by Key West standards, the two men standing at the end of the dinghy dock looked out of place. It wasn’t the floppy straw hats, or their extraordinary height, or the matching faces on twin skeletal frames. No, it was the array of identical prison tattoos running up and down their skinny white arms and legs.
My first thought was that they were going to get one hell of a sunburn if they didn’t watch themselves. My second thought was they were looking for someone, and I figured by the way they watched me pull in, I was that someone. By the time I locked my dinghy to the dock, they had made their way over to me.
“You Wes Darling?” the one on my left asked.
The other brother snickered and asked, “What the fuck kind a name is that for a detective?”
“I’m not a detective,” I said. I stood and they moved in unison to block me from stepping onto the dock. “Now you want to move aside and let me up onto the dock?”
“You look like the picture your mother sent us,” the first man said. “She said you could tell us where we can find Destiny.”
I groaned inwardly. “She sent you a picture?” I asked, but I knew the answer before he said it.
“She tol
d our boss, Frankie, that you knew where Destiny was. Frankie sent us to see you.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and showed me the print.
It was a copy of the promotional picture I had taken when my mother made me vice-president of the agency. She could have sent it, or it could have been copied from the business section of the Detroit Free Press, where it once ran with an article on the firm. One thing was for sure though, it was my picture. “Yup,” I said. “It looks like me so I must be Wes Darling. Now who the hell are you?”
“I’m Bob,” the man holding the picture said. “And this is my brother, Willie. Like I said, we work for Frankie. We just want to know where we can find the broad, and you can go about your business.”
“I don’t know you,” I said. “And I don’t know that you work for the person who hired us. Tell you what-I’ll fill my mother in and she can tell your boss.”
“We could make you tell us,” Willie smiled as if the idea appealed to him, then he added, “Or we could just kill you.”
“You could try,” I said. While we stood there talking, three dinghies had come and gone. There was also a small sailboat gliding back and forth along the canal that had passed us twice not thirty feet from the dock. I nodded toward the sailboat. “Of course there would be a lot of witnesses.”
Bob followed my gaze, and then said, “Go ahead and call her. We’ll wait.”
I shook my head. “Not with you guys standing over me. You guys leave-I call my mother.”
“This is bullshit.” Willie turned to his brother. “Give me five minutes with this clown, and he’ll tell us anything we want to know.”
“Shut up, Willie.” Bob stooped down and we were looking at each other, eye to eye. “I got a feeling there ain’t so many people around here at night. If you’re playing games with us, we’ll be back. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand,” I said. Up close I could smell his cologne, something fruity I didn’t recognize. When he stood back up, the collar of his shirt spread open and I caught a glimpse of a teardrop tattoo he had stenciled just below the neckline. Unfortunately, the tattoo added a little weight to the threat. In many prisons, a teardrop warned the other inmates the wearer had killed a man.
I watched the two men meander back along the dock and noticed Willie walked with a slight stoop and was bow-legged. It wasn’t much, but it might help me identify them should the need ever arise. I waited until they were out of sight, and then sat back down in the boat. It looked like I was going to have to call my mother before I headed off to see Davies.
Detective Davies was standing in front of the police station smoking a cigarette when I walked up. From the back, she was damn good-looking; too bad we had to talk face-to-face. She seemed lost in thought and didn’t notice me until I stepped in front of her. She lifted her eyes, blew smoke in my face, and gave me an unfriendly look. It took me by surprise; I thought we had been on reasonably good terms when she walked out the previous evening.
“I was just getting ready to send out an all points for you. I thought maybe you weren’t going to show up.”
“Well here I am.”
“Ain’t I lucky.” Davies took a final drag from her cigarette, flicked the butt into the street and turned away from me. “Come on in.”
I hadn’t realized how hot it was outside until the cool interior air of the station hit me. I followed Davies past the duty officer, through a door and down a hall. She opened the door to a small room and invited me in with a toss of her head.
There was a table, several chairs, and not much else. She waited until I took a seat, then said, “I’ve got to get my notes and I’ll be right back.”
When she walked out I sat looking at the back of the door and thinking that Detective Davies was never going to win the most congenial cop award. I expected her to keep me waiting just for the hell of it, but she was back in less than two minutes.
She walked in carrying a file folder and two bottles of water. After placing the file on the table, she took the seat across from me and held out one of the waters. “I thought you might be thirsty.”
“Thanks.” I opened the bottle, took a sip to be polite, and set it down in front of me. “So, do you know what happened to Nick?”
“First things first.” Davies opened the file, took out an eight-by-ten photo and slid it across the table to me. As I’d walked to the station I had tried to prepare myself for the worst. I hesitated, picked up the picture, and glanced at it. My stomach began to churn and my heart fluttered.
It was Nick all right. He was lying on his back with his eyes open, and there was a jagged hole near his left ear. This wasn’t the way I wanted to remember Nick. I couldn’t help but wonder if his death was connected to the case, and I swore if it turned out the two brothers who had confronted me at the dock had anything to do with his death, they’d pay for it.
“It’s him,” I said. I drew a deep breath, forced my eyes away from the photo, and stood. “My mother is coming down to Key West to handle everything. Will they release the body to her?”
“She’s not next of kin-right?”
“No,” I said. “But when I spoke with her last night she said Nick doesn’t have any living relatives.”
“We don’t have a morgue here in town; we have to use the hospital. They’re going to be anxious to have the body picked up as soon as possible. Since I’ve still got to call your mother, I’ll see what the situation is and we’ll go from there. In the meantime why don't you give me your phone number in case I have any further questions.”
“You have any suspects?” I asked.
“Not unless we include you,” she said.
I hoped she was joking, but I’d never known a cop to show much of a sense of humor when it came to murder.
Chapter 4
I arrived at Dirty Alvin’s around eleven. The place was filled to capacity, Billy was taking a break, and ‘Redneck Woman’ played on the Jukebox. Billy sat at the table next to the small stage, smoking and chatting with Destiny.
Joe Fleming was working behind the bar and it was all I could do to bite back a smile. Joe works construction during the week and helps out at the bar whenever he’s needed. At forty-three years old, he was movie star handsome and built like a boxer, with a muscular chest and large biceps. He was wearing a pair of too tight white jeans along with a flamboyant lime-green shirt he wore with the top three buttons undone to reveal his shaved chest. To top off his ensemble, he sported a lime-green baseball cap that read; don’t ask I’m gay.
I waited until Joe looked my way, held up a finger, and walked toward the bar while he pulled out a Miller Lite. I worked my way through the crowd, picked up the beer, and said, “Thanks for covering for me.”
“Sorry to hear about your friend.”
I nodded, turned to face the room, and leaned back against the bar. Tanya and Marissa were running around taking orders, but when Tanya looked up and saw me she excused herself and walked over.
Tanya’s skin was cocoa-colored, and her large green eyes worked to accentuate her mixed heritage. I found her attractive despite the fact I hated her short spiked hair. She wore a Dirty Alvin’s t-shirt tied off below her breasts, a pair of low-riding jean shorts, and I thought she was a hell of a lot hotter than the Amazon I’d just located for Frankie Szymanski.
The problem was, every time I made an effort to show a little interest Tanya backed away. I figured part of the problem was that her father died from cancer only two weeks before I came to work for her. She was still grieving. Beyond that I didn’t know much about her personal life. I’d learned through a conversation with Marissa that Tanya lived alone, and I never saw her out with a guy. Hell, for all I knew she could be gay, which might explain her aloofness toward me.
“How ya doing?” she asked.
“I’ll get by.”
“I didn’t think you’d stop by tonight. You said your mother was coming into town?”
“She’s not here yet.”
>
“So you stopped in why-because you’re lonely?”
“Actually,” I said, choosing my words with care. “I told my mother I’d wrap up the case my friend Nick was working on before he died.”
Tanya looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
“In my past life, before I came to work for you, I was a private investigator. I worked for my mother too, just like Nick did.”
“I still don’t understand what that has to do with your being here tonight.”
The jukebox went dead and I looked up to see Billy pick up his guitar and step up to the microphone. When he started to sing an off-key version of Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Come Monday’, I glanced over to where he’d been seated and said, “I stopped by to ask you about her.”
She followed my gaze and her voice turned cool when she said, “What’s Gail done now?”
“Far as I know she hasn’t done anything. I think it’s a case of unrequited love.”
Tanya let out a little snort. “I’ve watched a lot of guys fall in love with Gail, but I’ve never seen her return it. Tell your client he’s wasting his time. What are you supposed to do, bring her a proposal or something?”
I shook my head. “We were hired to find her and let the client know where she is.”
“Look-Gail’s had enough problems in her life. Why don’t you tell your client you couldn’t find her? She doesn’t need some lovesick guy chasing her all over the place.”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “Besides, she’s a stripper for Christ’s sake. She’s paid to have men chase after her.”
“She wasn’t always a stripper,” Tanya said. “She’s put up with a lot in her life, and I’m asking this as a favor. Gail and I were good friends at one time, almost like sisters.”
“I promised my mother I’d do this.”
“I never pegged you for a momma’s boy,” Tanya said, before she turned and walked away.
I wanted to run after her. I wanted to explain it was too late to do what she asked. Instead, I turned my attention to Destiny. She was now standing in front of the stage, swaying to the music and looking more like a college girl on vacation than a stripper.
Key Lime Blues Page 2
