Cold Case Killer

by Dorothy Francis

  I held my breath, every muscle tense, until I saw the intruder. A Key deer had stepped into the underbrush, turned, and now stood looking at me with Bambi eyes. I relaxed, glad to see a deer instead of an iguana.

  “Hello there, Bambi.” I approached the deer, no taller than a Great Dane or a Boxer, and it didn’t run. Maybe it wasn’t as frightened as I’d first thought. Pulling a cracker from my pocketed cache, I held it toward the deer’s nose.

  “Bambi want a cracker?” The creature sniffed the cracker, then showed total lack of interest.

  The deer’s protective coloring made it hard to see against the growth surrounding it. Did deer attack intruders? This one seemed docile. It had no antlers, so an attack seemed unlikely. A doe. It acted unafraid and that told me it might be trying to hold my attention so I wouldn’t notice its fawn hiding nearby. I peered around, seeing no fawn.

  I walked closer to the doe, but it didn’t run until I reached to touch it, and I never did see a fawn anywhere. But in the next moment I discovered a raccoon, in fact I saw three raccoons—a mother and two babies. They sat a few feet to one side of me staring with eyes like polished chips of black coral. I hoped they were ready to retreat instead of attack. All three looked scrawny and their coats were scraggly as this thicket they called home. No wonder. What could they find to eat in such brushy country?

  Again, pulling a cracker from my pocket, I tossed it toward them and the mother pounced upon it. Then I tossed two more crackers, hoping each of her offspring would take one and go its way, leaving me to go mine, even though I had no idea of where my way might lead me. Raccoons always washed their food before eating, didn’t they? I’d read that somewhere. Ahh! A plan.

  “Let’s go, gang. Let’s wash those crackers.” I called to them and stamped my foot, hoping they’d take off toward water. There had to be fresh water around here somewhere. Punt said fresh water enticed the deer and alligators that hung out on Big Pine. There were sink holes that held rain water, and abandoned construction sites sometimes had gravel pits that filled with fresh water. Where there was water, there might also be boats and people. These raccoons could lead me to safety and maybe freedom.

  Then I rethought that plan. The raccoons might lead me to water, but any people who lived near that water might not be eager to meet an intruder with a wild tale like mine.

  Knowing it was too soon to expect Punt to be flying overhead looking for me, I took consolation in the hope that the Monroe County police might have begun a search. My best plan might be to follow Punt’s suggestion, to start looking for a small clearing where he or anyone else flying over could see me. So that’s what I did, stopping every few feet and looking behind me to make sure no iguanas or alligators were following.

  I walked a long distance, beating my way through the underbrush, before I found a clearing of any kind. I could only hope that none of the trees I’d brushed against were manchineel. So far my skin neither itched or burned. Instead of being on a knoll, the clearing lay in a slight hollow where I’d be hard to see. So far I hadn’t noticed anyone out looking.

  Fear, worry, and no sleep had left me exhausted and I sat on the ground to rest, planning to stand up and wave the towel the minute I heard a plane or helicopter overhead. I rested my head on my knees, forgetting about any bugs, rodents, or animals that might be near.

  “Mustn’t doze. Mustn’t doze.” I repeated the words like a mantra under my breath. I needed to sleep, yet I knew I had to keep alert if I expected to live, to be rescued.

  “Don’t doze. Keep alert.” I changed the mantra and tried to keep track of how many times I’d repeated it. I’d counted more or less to five hundred when I heard a car approaching. I stopped talking as if someone might hear me above the crunching of tires against the ground cover.

  I eased farther from the sound of the car, taking care not to send the brush around me swaying overhead and thus alert the driver to my location. Stopping, I peered between palm fronds as an ancient Lincoln passed only a few feet from my hiding place. In that moment I realized that humans could be the most dangerous animals of all.

  Ace Grovello! Not Slone. Not Gus. Ace Grovello sat behind the wheel of that Lincoln. There was no doubt in my mind that he’d come back to kill me and bury my body where it might never be discovered. How I wished someone would fly over right now and see him, capture him, hold him for questioning. Questioning for what? Trespassing? Officials probably had never enacted laws against driving off the beaten path on No Name Key. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I stood on No Name. Police might be searching on No Name while I stood hiding out in some dangerous spot I’d never heard of.

  Ace Grovello. My mouth and throat grew so dry I could hardly swallow. And to think that a few days ago I had massaged the toes of this man who was trying to kill me! To think that Punt and I had sat in his tropical courtyard and talked to him as if he were a rational human being! I wondered what Consuela would think if she knew what I had discovered about Ace. Surely he was the man who had murdered Dyanne Darby. Had he also shot Nicole Pierce? My mind balked at the thought of being near a sociopath who could murder and then hide his deed while another took the rap. How could he have let Randy rot in jail for over twenty years while he owned and managed a successful business, associated with friends, slept with the likes of Consuela?

  I sat down, determined that Ace Grovello would never find me in this thicket. He’d look in the house, maybe even in the outhouse, but all he would see would be the broken window. The iguana wouldn’t talk, nor the deer, nor the raccoons. I heard the car stop, the door slam. Then nothing. I willed steel into my spine. I’d let the wild creatures scare me and now Ace Grovello frightened me, too. Fear was an upfront choice, but I mustered courage and refused to panic.

  A silence fell around me like no silence I’d ever experienced. Where had Ace gone? After a while I stood, knowing I needed to be quiet yet be on my feet, alert and ready to run, if necessary. Ace outweighed me by many pounds, but I remembered his flabby belly and thought I might be able to outrun him if I had to. Maybe I could even follow the trail of flattened thicket that the car had knocked down. That was a plan. Maybe I should have mentioned that to Punt, but surely he’d think of it. And so would the police. But they’d also know that such a plan would make it easier for Ace to find me and perhaps find me before they did. If I followed the trail Ace’s car had made, it might lead back to a main road of some sort. But what then? No point in trying to plan too far ahead. I’d have outsmarted myself if I ended up on a road where Ace could pick me up again. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. I repeated this new mantra and it helped clear my mind.

  I began planning how to move more deeply into the thicket and away from Ace and the house. That’s when I heard a great thrashing through the thicket and Ace called my name.

  “Give up, Keely. Give up or I’ll shoot.”

  I ran and two shots rang out. One zinged past my head and I heard another shot hit a tree. My heart pounded and my chest felt as if it had been freeze-wrapped in hot iron. I kept running. I’d rather die from a bullet than from whatever else Ace might plan for me. Two more shots rang out. I kept running.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The shooting stopped. Had he run out of bullets? Or did he think someone else might come to investigate the sound of the shots? I stopped running, knowing any noise I made would clue him to my whereabouts. But any sound he made would clue me to his location, so I guess that made us even on the sound-and-clue scale if not on the gun-and-bullet scale. I wondered if he could hear my gasping breaths knot in my throat.

  Ace’s next crashing through the thicket again took me by surprise. He came at me from the left rather than from behind where I’d been expecting to see him. When I tried to run again, I caught my foot in a root and fell. Terror squelched my breathing, and panic spread like a boiling liquid coating my stomach. I didn’t try to get up. But I didn’t need to. In the next second, Ace jerked me to my feet. I almost fell against him, I felt so panicked and helpless, bu
t I jerked as far from him as I could when I felt his gun barrel prodding my ribs.

  “So you managed to escape from the house, you bitch. I should have used more tape.”

  He twisted my arm until I sank to my knees in pain. Again, he jerked me to my feet. I felt like a doomed puppet on a short string—Ace Grovello’s string. What if he broke my arm?

  “I should have offed you last night, given you no chance to get away.”

  “So why didn’t you?” I spoke through lips I could barely move as I sensed a need to keep him talking, although I couldn’t imagine what good talking would do other than to delay my demise. I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming in pain when he tightened his grip on my arm.

  “I’m a first class thinker—an ace-in-the-hole planner,” Ace said. “That’s how I earned my nickname. Last night I didn’t have my long-range plans firmly in mind.”

  “You seem to have them well enough in mind today.”

  “Or course. You can depend on that. But last night you surprised me. I hadn’t expected to see you sneaking around Beau’s house. I’d gone there looking for Punt.”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. I’d gone there by request.”

  “Sneaking? By request? What does it matter? I’d known I needed to get you out of my life ever since I learned you and Maxine were talking about the Darby murder. Then when you and Punt came to my place asking for a DNA specimen, I knew I had to act quickly, to stop your prying before it went any farther. I had to make long-range plans, and I couldn’t afford to leave any clues.”

  “Clues that might link you to a second or third murder—or maybe to multiple murders?” I thought of Punt and Maxine and Randy. Would Ace risk more murders? An inner voice told me this man lacked a conscience and would risk anything to save his own skin.

  Ace released my arm then grabbed my hand and bent my thumb back until I whimpered in pain.

  “I needed time to make careful plans. Sometimes I think better with a few beers under my belt, so I stopped at No Name Pub. Always a mob scene there at night. Nobody’d notice seeing me, except the bartender. Nobody else’d recognize me or remember me.”

  I jerked my hand free, and although he grabbed my arm, he didn’t twist it. “So you planned my murder over a few beers.”

  “Too many beers. Too many chasers.” Ace winced and for the first time I realized he had a hangover. Maybe I could figure out a way to use his muddled head to my advantage.

  “A big guy like you let a few beers change your plans?” I massaged my thumb although I hated to let him know he’d hurt me.

  “I pulled off the road into a thicket and slept in the car until morning. But now I’ve thought this thing through. I know exactly what I’ve got to do. I’ll take care of you first and the others later. Like I said, I should have done you last night.”

  I didn’t ask what he planned. I knew. I didn’t have to find ways to keep him talking. He spoke sotto voce and in a monotone as if he were alone and speaking to himself. He pulled me along beside him as we tramped through the scrub.

  “Nobody’s likely to find your body any time soon. Or to connect me with your death. Even if anyone should find you, your body will be in such bad shape that no medical examiner will be able to determine the time of death.”

  Time of death. Time of death. The words screamed through my mind, drowning out the background sound of our crunching through the thicket. Only when his monotone stopped did I force myself to speak again.

  “Why did you kill Dyanne Darby? Why?”

  Ace looked at me and shook his head. “The dumb broad laughed at me. Laughed at me! Said she was going out with Randy Jackson. I asked why she’d want to date such a nobody when she could go out with me. She said they’d made the date weeks ago. Said I was a fool for thinking I could walk in at the last minute and find her waiting. I promised her dinner at the Rooftop Café and dancing afterward. She laughed again and that’s when I decided to teach her that broads don’t laugh at Ace Grovello. She’d laughed her last laugh. I felt justified. What kind of a man would let a broad talk to him like that! I was justified.”

  I could hardly believe it. This man had killed a woman for wounding his ego. “And Nicole Pierce? Did she laugh at you, too?”

  “She was threatening to recant her testimony about seeing Jackson leave Dyanne’s apartment. She was a loose cannon. I wasn’t about to let the police start looking for some other killer. I had to get rid of her. And now you make number three. Nobody’s going to come here looking for you.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” I said. “You’re just guessing. Important people in Key West know that Punt Ashford and I’ve been trying to find Dyanne Darby’s killer.”

  “So what. Trying and succeeding are two different things entirely.”

  “We’ve given colleagues our list of suspects and you’re high on that list. If I disappear, Punt Ashford will see that all the old-time Atocha divers rate the full attention of the police.”

  “I’m telling you that your body won’t be found for months.” Ace snorted. “Try to get that through your thick head. Your body may never be found where I plan to hide it. True, you may be listed as a missing person, but it’s hard for the courts to build a murder case when they have no dead body and no murder weapon.”

  Now we’d reached Ace’s car and the house where I’d spent the night. I didn’t want to ask, but I couldn’t hold back the question. “And where is this special hiding place?”

  Ace had loosened his grip on my arm and for a moment I thought I might be able to jerk free and run. But run to where? He still had his gun. Could I wrest it free from his grip, demand the car keys, and drive myself away from here? For a few seconds my dream of escape blocked out the sound of his voice, but when he nudged me with the gun barrel, I heard his words clearly.

  “I’m going to drop you into the old well behind the house—an abandoned well. Folks around here have no organized-by-the-county water system. Oh, water’s piped down from Miami, but it goes to well-organized communities along Highway One—Largo, Marathon, Key West. Water’s never been piped to No Name Key. Families here depend on wells or cisterns.”

  “But that’s going to change. Monroe County owners of old wells, cisterns, and septic tanks will soon be ordered to fill them in, to make way for a new water and sewer system. A body in a well will be discovered.”

  “Dream on! The new septic system plan’s mousemilk—smoke and mirror politics. Oh, I suppose it might happen sometime in the next half century. Officials blew lots of hot air about ousting the live-aboards on houseboat row in Key West like they’d have them gone the next day.” Ace chuckled. “Took ’em over thirty years to legally force them to rent slips at Garrison Bight. And now they’re starting on the live-aboards around Boot Key Harbor. It’ll be years before No Name gets a sewer system.”

  I knew Ace was right. Even now there are a couple of houseboats still lashed to Key West’s city bulkhead. Changes never take place quickly in the Keys. Nothing happens fast. That’s the way people want it. That’s why they choose to live here. And that’s what Ace was depending on—that due to political delays, nobody would ever find my body.

  I watched a vulture drift on an updraft. “Punt Ashford will have the police on your trail very quickly if I turn up missing. You might even have to beg for police protection if Randy Jackson gets involved in searching for me. Randy’s an angry man—and you know why.”

  “Even if your body’s found and identified, and the time of death established, the bartender at No Name Pub will give me an alibi. The other barflies may not remember me, but the bartender will. He’ll remember me as the Big Tipper from Big Pine Key. That’s where I told him I lived. The No Name Pub’s gonna be one of my favorite places for the next few months. Now come with me.”

  Another nudge with the gun barrel assured Ace of my obedience. He shoved me along as he started around the side of the house. I wondered if iguanas frightened him. Maybe if that big iguana appeared suddenly…or maybe a deer woul
d jump into our path. Maybe a surprise would confuse him. But no iguana appeared. No raccoon family either. And no deer or alligator. I swallowed those faint hopes of delay. What chance would critters have against his gun!

  Before we reached the outhouse, Ace stopped and studied the ground as if memorizing it for future reference. Then he nudged me with his gun, pushed me forward.

  “There it is. The underbrush has grown up around the concrete square that marks the well opening. But it’s there as I remembered it.”

  In my mind, I had pictured a well as an upright structure of coral rock or brick with a roof protecting its opening from the elements. Where was the pump, or if no pump, where was the windlass and a bucket that could be winched to and from the water?

  Ace forced me closer to the concrete square. “There it is under that rotting wood.” He pointed at the well with his gun barrel.

  I gasped. Not only did I see the low-lying slab of concrete that marked the well, but I also saw the snake coiled on the well cover. Ace tossed a stick at the snake, but instead of uncoiling and easing away on snake business, the creature raised its head, and in undulating S shapes, it slithered toward us, rattlers rattling.

  “A timber rattler.” Ace backed off as he stated the obvious. “Poisonous as they come. Okay, Keely. Get a stick and prod our uninvited visitor aside. Once you’ve done that, we’ll open the well and see if it still holds water.”

  I hesitated, wondering if I could find a stick long enough to reach the snake without allowing it to reach me with its fangs. Did snakes jump? Or did they just scare a person to death by slithering?

  “Get a stick. Now. Or maybe I should push you closer to the rattler and let nature take its course. If you die from rattler venom, nobody can claim you were murdered.”