Conch Shell Murder

by Dorothy Francis

  “She seemed almost eager to talk with us,” Katie said as they drove the short distance to South Roosevelt Boulevard and Angie’s houseboat.

  “That doesn’t surprise me, nor should it surprise you. I paved the way.”

  At the seawall, pelicans and gulls perched on gray pilings, and the chilling wind carried a fetid odor of brine weed and dead fish. Katie followed Beck to the tired-looking boat whose cabin mimicked a Swiss chalet.

  “Bubba told me about this, and I doubted him.” In spite of the dank cold and the smell of death, Katie managed to smile at the houseboat with its green paint peeling like sunburnt skin, its steeply pitched roof, and its pseudo-balcony. The blooming geraniums on the balcony offered the only fresh touch to the scene. “Some place.”

  Beck nodded. “It seems at odds with the sea as well as with its neighbors.”

  Katie eyed the adjacent crafts, which were a weathered gray and which looked as if a large wave could send them gurgling to the silty bottom. Clearly, Angie Garcia had a mind and an imagination of her own.

  As Katie stepped from the seawall onto the red carpeted gangplank leading to the houseboat’s deck, Angie opened the cabin door. By habit, Katie tried to pinpoint Angie’s age, but like many Cuban women, she wore agelessness like a shield and it served her well. Slim but well rounded, she held herself with the proud air of a flamenco dancer as she tightened the sash on her red silk robe, and Katie wondered if Angie knew she looked like the cliché most men associated with Cuban women.

  “Buenas dias, ladies.”

  “Buenas dias.” Katie unconsciously imitated Angie’s musical Spanish as she and Beck crossed the small deck and stepped inside Angie’s tiny living room where a picture of Christ and a gold-painted crucifix hung on the wall above a couch. A plaster model of the Virgin Mary stood on a coffee table, and the aroma of freshly baked bread filled the cabin.

  “Please sit down.” Angie scooted brown rattan chairs across the planked floor, placing them nearer the coffee table, and once Katie and Beck were seated, she sat on the couch across from them. The lulling motion of the boat lessened the jarring effect of Swiss chalet and Cuban decor.

  “You’ve come to discuss the murder.”

  Katie liked Angie’s directness. “Yes. I understand that you and Po Chitting are…companions.”

  “Yes. We are long-time friends and lovers. But I did not murder Alexa Chitting.”

  “Katie is making no accusations, Angie.” Beck leaned forward, smiling, but Angie ignored her.

  “Had murder been my goal, it would not have taken me so many years to bring it about.” Her nostrils flared and her dark eyes narrowed to slits.

  “Did you hate Alexa Chitting?”

  “No.”

  “What was your relationship to her?”

  “Relationship? Hah! We had no relationship.”

  “How did you feel toward her?”

  “I felt sorry for her.”

  “Sorry? Why?”

  “Because I possessed the love of her gentle, kind man and she had nada. Zip. I don’t believe Po Chitting is capable of hate, but if he had been, he would have hated Alexa.”

  “I see.”

  “No, I don’t think you see at all.” Angie leaned forward, her eyes flashing, her hoop earrings swaying, the three gold bangles on her right arm jangling.

  “Angie! Angie!” Beck rose and sat beside Angie on the couch, patting her hand. “Katie’s trying to help you. Calm down.”

  “It is no time for calmness. People say my Po’s a sinner because he spend many sweet nights here with me. Peasants! Sometimes infidelity to the marriage vows is more self-preservation than sin. Alexa is the murderer. Alexa killed his spirit. I revived it.”

  “Miss Garcia, where were you on the night Alexa Chitting was murdered?”

  “You do suspect me, then?”

  “I merely ask a routine question. Where were you?”

  “That is most easy to answer. On Monday nights I work as a cocktail waitress at Rico’s on Stock Island. That is where I spent Monday night a week ago.”

  “And you have people who will vouch for this?”

  “Rico himself. Mondays are slow. I am his only waitress on that night. If I had left, he would have missed me. It never happened. Ask Rico. Ask his customers. For you I will get names. A petition I will circulate.”

  “That’ll be unnecessary, Miss Garcia. I’ll check with Rico, of course. Today, if possible. Did you see Po on that Monday night?”

  “I did not.”

  “He didn’t come here to this house on that Monday?”

  Angie hesitated, then her shoulders slumped. “Yes. Po came here that night, but for a few moments only. And I did not see him. You see, he hates my working at Rico’s. He feels it’s degrading, but I say that no honest work is degrading. Nevertheless, on Monday nights Po comes here and leaves a rosebud at my door to remind me that we might have spent the evening together. He has the heart and soul of a true romantic.”

  So Bubba had been right. He had seen Po here the Monday night of the murder. And Jib Persky? Did he know of Po’s Monday night habit? Had he been trying to protect Po by saying he hadn’t noticed him leave the bar that night? Po had left Captain Tony’s and returned unnoticed. Perhaps he’d had another mission, other than leaving a rosebud at Angie’s door.

  “But you insist on this Monday job?” Katie asked. “Yes. I need the money. I am an independent person and I pay my own bills.”

  Katie understood Beck’s admiration for Angie, but she continued her questions. “Tell me, has Alexa Chitting’s death changed your plans?”

  “What plans?”

  “Any plans. Perhaps plans concerning Po Chitting.” Angie turned to look at Beck. “You have told this inquisitive one of my…my pregnancy, yes?”

  “Yes, she has.” Katie answered for Beck. “But the information will go no farther. Do you and Po plan to marry?”

  “Po does not know of my condition.”

  “Why have you kept it from him?”

  “Still I am deciding what to do. I am in a bad situation. I have brought disgrace to myself and my family, but I want Po to feel no obligation to marry me.”

  “Po loves you, Angie,” Beck said. “I doubt that he would consider marriage an obligation.”

  “Who can say?” Angie twisted her scarlet sash. “Alexa Chitting’s death puts Po in a position to marry you,” Katie pointed out.

  “Miss Hassworth, are you suggesting that in this way I have intentionally…”

  “I’m suggesting nothing. I’m investigating a murder and both you and Po had strong motivations to remove Alexa from the scene.”

  “But we did not. We were both happy with the arrangement of our lives.”

  “But the fact remains that now you both might become even happier.”

  “You will please to leave my house.” Angie stood and pointed to the door. “Not you, Beck. You stay, but the detective, go. Out! Out!” When Katie was slow to rise, Angie picked up the statue of the Virgin, brandishing it in her right hand.

  “Thank you for talking with me, Miss Garcia.” Katie rose and ran, jogging down the gangplank and to her car, wondering if Angie could have wielded the conch shell. Had her hot temper flared in a confrontation with Alexa?

  In a few moments, Beck joined Katie.

  “Some lady,” Katie said. “Some temper.”

  “I apologize for her outburst. It’s her condition. Try to understand.”

  “I do understand.”

  “You will check on her alibi?”

  “Yes, of course. You may see Angie as a good girl gone astray, and you may be right. But she could also be an angry conniving woman after a share of the Chitting millions which she thinks should rightfully be hers.”

  “I don’t believe that. Not for one minute. Po would have supported her, had she expected that of a lover. She could have been sharing the Chitting fortune for years, but no. She chose to be her own person.”

  “Angie may work hard
for a living, for her independence, but that certainly doesn’t mean she’d be willing to support Po Chitting. That might have been in the offing, had Alexa’s new will been legalized, had Angie and Po’s relationship continued. Po would have found himself very short of rosebud funds?’

  Katie drove Beck to her car at the agency, then she headed across the Boca Chica Bridge to Stock Island. Rico’s Bar and Grill. She had driven only a short distance before she saw it on her right. She pulled to the front entrance and stopped, sitting for a few moments to organize her thoughts before she confronted Angie’s employer.

  TWENTY-ONE

  A red and white closed sign hung on the weathered pine door of Rico’s Bar, but when Katie pounded on the entry, she heard shuffling footsteps inside. She hunched her shoulders as the dank wind knifed her back.

  “Hold your horses. I’m coming.”

  When the door opened, she looked up at a gangling old man wearing a blue muscle shirt, chino cutoffs, and thongs. If he was aware of the fact that his body looked cadaverous, he didn’t let on. A plastic scrub brush floated in the bucket of gray-black water he carried in one gnarled hand and he ran his other hand over his balding head as he squinted at her from piercing blue eyes. He shook his head.

  “We ain’t open, miss. Too early. Come back around five this afternoon.”

  “I need to talk to Rico. Will he be here then?”

  “I’m Rico. Rico Lopez. If I owe you money, don’t come back at five. Wait till the first of the month. Go now. You’re letting in cold air.”

  She squelched a smile, wondering how many bill collectors were able to penetrate Rico’s air of imperturbability. She showed the man her identification. “I’m investigating the Chitting murder, Mr. Lopez.” She saw his eyes widen for a moment, then his face closed, mask-like.

  “Don’t know nothing about no murder. And don’t want to know nothing about no murder.” He started to close the door, but Katie took a peremptory step forward.

  “Wait. Let me ask just two questions. Do you remember the night of the murder? It happened a week ago last Monday—be two weeks this coming Monday.”

  “I remember. Got a friend who knows…the Chittings.”

  “Did Angie Garcia work here on the Monday night Alexa Chitting was murdered?”

  “Yes. She works here every Monday.”

  “She was here all night?”

  “That’s three questions. You said two.”

  “Was she here all night?”

  Rico started to close the door. “Yes. Angie came in a little before five and she didn’t leave until midnight.”

  “She took no breaks?”

  “She took twenty minutes to eat her supper. Then she took a fifteen-minute break around nine o’clock for a cup of coffee. But she never left the place.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “She’s my only waitress on Mondays and she was here all night.” Rico ran his hand over his chin. “Guess Pete Harris could vouch for Angie, too, if my word ain’t enough for you. He’s here when I open. He’s here when I close. Someday I’m going to start charging the bastard rent.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Lopez. You’ve been a help.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  He closed the door and she heard the lock snap in place as she turned to leave. Another name off her list. She was glad Angie’s alibi held up. The woman had enough problems.

  *

  For lunch, Katie ate grapes and a peach at her desk as she mulled over the remaining suspects, their possible motivations for murdering Alexa Chitting, their alibis. At the end of the afternoon she felt no closer to pinpointing the culprit than she had the day she accepted the case, and she mentioned that to Rex when he called for her for dinner.

  “Maybe tonight will open some new avenues for your investigation.” Rex stood on the veranda for a moment, slapping his car keys against his palm as if deep in thought, then he took her arm and they walked to his Corvette.

  “Why don’t we drive to East Martello and see the Parish show right now? We’ll beat some of the crowd and we can have a more relaxed dinner later.”

  “Good idea.” Katie settled herself more comfortably, turning slightly so she could see Rex easily. “Look at us, Rex. White slacks. Red shirts. White sandals. We look like a matched set.”

  “You make us sound like golf clubs.” He smiled down at her. “But I knew from the moment I first saw you that we had lots in common.”

  “What’s Tyler Parish like?” She leaned a bit toward him as he covered her hand with his.

  “I don’t know him well, but he has a reputation around town as a ladies’ man.”

  “The two of you must have a lot in common then?” She grinned at him. “Your way with the ladies is one of the first thing I heard about you, too.”

  “Untrue. Never listen to gossip. Now…you were asking about Parish. I consider him a serious artist in spite of his playboy ways and his Don Juan image. He turns out lots of work and it’s beginning to catch on with the critics as well as with the public.”

  “He’s evidently not self-supporting.”

  “Who knows? He could afford to be casual about money matters. Why should he worry about supporting himself when he had Alexa?”

  “Right. Why?”

  Rex pulled into a parking lot. “Here we are. You can meet him and make your own judgments.”

  As he helped her from the car, she paused, shivering a bit as she watched early-evening shadows play against the blood-red brick of the Martello Tower. “I suppose you know all about this place, its history, I mean?’

  “Are you humoring me? You know, the old ‘be interested in what he’s interested in’ routine?”

  “Of course not.” She laughed. “I’m sincerely interested in this place—only to a mild degree, of course.”

  “I know some of its history, and I’ll stop at your first yawn. Both the East and West Martello Towers were built during the Civil War, and the men stationed here were supposed to assist the troops at Fort Taylor in repelling any coastal landing forces.”

  “But enemy forces never arrived, right?”

  “You’ve been reading up on the place.”

  “A good detective has to be prepared. I did do some reading.”

  “So you probably already know that neither tower was completed, and that cannons were never installed. Before the Art and Historical Society took over this tower about forty years ago, it had no roof. Now the roof’s complete and visitors can climb to the top for an overview of this island city and the surrounding area.”

  “I’d like to do that sometime.” She linked her arm through his as they approached the arched entryway and stepped inside the old fortification. The musty smell of damp masonry filled her nostrils and she wondered how paintings survived the dank atmosphere.

  “The gallery has rotating shows of contemporary and local art,” Rex said. “Artists consider it an honor to have their work hanging on these walls. The gallery also houses permanent collections of Stanley Papio weldings and Mario Sanchez wood carvings.”

  As Rex guided her into a room on their left, she tightened her grip on his arm. “Look.”

  Po Chitting and Mary Bethel stood in one corner with their backs to them. When they heard footsteps grate against cement, they turned.

  “Good evening,” Po said. “A nice exhibit.” He nodded toward the paintings. Mary stood at his side, silently looking up at him.

  “Parish is making a name for himself in the area,” Rex said, picking up two catalogs from a table that also held a guest register. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing a collection of his works.”

  “Do either of you paint?” Katie asked, wishing they could gracefully break away from these two.

  “No,” Mary said. “We write, don’t we, Po?”

  Po smiled. “Yes. We write.”

  Katie turned to sign the guest register, wondering if Mary knew about Po and his relationship. Could she see herself taking Alexa’s place in Po’s life?

 
“Nice seeing you,” Rex said to Po and Mary as he ended the awkward encounter by guiding Katie toward painting number one. “We’re going to view the collection in order.”

  Katie waited until Po and Mary were out of earshot before she spoke. “Why do you suppose they’re here together?”

  “No reason they shouldn’t be. They’re both into the arts. Maybe Po feels an obligation to Mary. She’s doing him a favor by keeping Alexa’s office open.”

  “That’s true.” Katie thought about Angie and wondered what she’d think of Po and Mary as a twosome. And why would Po be interested in Parish’s work? On the other hand, why wouldn’t he be interested? It was something to consider—tomorrow.

  She guessed that there were easily over fifty seascapes and sea-oriented paintings lining the walls of the room. All of the works were for sale and the price tags were impressive. Some paintings were framed and some were not, but Katie felt their mesmerizing effect. Tyler Parish knew the sea and knew it well; the power of his work permeated the room. When they had almost finished viewing the exhibit, she was studying the blended colors in a sunset scene when Rex touched her arm.

  “Katie, I’d like you to meet Tyler Parish.”

  She turned, ready to smile, but upon seeing the artist her whole body tensed. This was the man in the VW who repeatedly had driven past her office. This was the man she had seen leaving the artists’ loft as she entered. Why had he been spying on her? A wariness filled her as her mental picture of Tyler Parish shattered and she pigeonholed the dreamy, otherworld quality she usually associated with artists. This man looked like the kind who ate rare steak for breakfast. Fortyish. Medium height. Beefy shoulders and thighs matched square, ham-like hands. The smell of oil paints and turpentine clung to his faded jeans and muslin poncho. She imagined that the smell also clung to his scraggly red hair and full beard.

  “Mr. Parish.” Katie offered her hand and he shook it in a bone-crushing grip. “I’m pleased to meet you at last and I’m enjoying viewing your paintings.” Was that the right thing to say? Suddenly she felt inept as well as frightened.

  Parish jammed his hands into his pockets and looked at her from eyes the color of hemp rope. This crude-looking man had bedded the elegant Alexa? She tried to squelch her imagination as well as her wariness.