by Tom Corcoran
“Double qualifier, Rutledge. Your tenth-grade English teacher would chop your grade.”
“Down the road to a better attitude?” I said.
“Shit. That’s not in my job description. Those sweaty carpenters, man, you should think about what they’ve got.”
I didn’t know what he meant.
“Quitting time,” he said. “You really want a ride?”
I told him no thanks. “I’ll leave the bags where they are. I’m out of here tomorrow. I’ve got a real job waiting.”
Before Hayes drove out of the lane, I knocked on his rear fender, got his attention.
“What now?” he said.
“Can you find out the name of a black woman who earned cash to clean Naomi Douglas’s house?”
“What am I supposed to do, go house to house?”
“I just thought…”
“Wrong.”
* * *
I opened another beer and called a friend with a guest condo at La Brisa. We had swapped favors for years. He would get pictures of his old boat, his new boat, his new pickup towing his even newer boat. Pictures of his kids for the Christmas card. Once, a shot of an ugly rental duplex he owned on Big Coppitt so he could list it with a broker. I would get all-day fishing trips and dinners on boats.
He remembered Monty, said the condo was open. “Tell him no pets, no smoking, no leftovers in the fridge. Leave a fifty for the maintenance man.”
Mission accomplished.
I carried my beer down the lane to warn Carmen Sosa that Monty and his wife would arrive in two days. I wanted to give her a rent check, too. I stored my ’66 Shelby Mustang in a garage behind her house. I’d be married to the woman if we had gotten our love life to work out. We’re better off as friends.
I found her repotting a rubber tree plant. I said, “I need Grand Cayman for more reasons than work.”
“You want to relax?”
“I need a hammock, a palm tree, a tall drink with fruit juices, rum and umbrellas. I want a topless vacationing sorority girl waving a frond fan, and a club sandwich arriving in four minutes. I want a Chi Omega from Ohio.”
“Your idea of paradise?”
“Have I missed anything?”
“You’re full of shit,” said Carmen.
“How can you, of all people, say such a thing?”
“I know you, Alex. I know you’re a closet multitasker who likes to use machines. Paradise for you is downloading your e-mail, making coffee and toast, duplicating a cassette, taking a shower, and talking on the phone, all at the same time. Your secret joy is having that solar trickle-charger, whatever it is, hooked to your car battery.”
I said, “Imagine how I get around clocks.”
“See?”
“Like you watching TV under a ceiling fan and using your vibrator?”
“You don’t know for sure that I do that. You look awful. What did you eat for lunch?”
“Hot air.”
“My daddy grilled a mutton snapper last night. I’ll make you a sandwich. You want potato salad?”
I said, “You’re always trying to save me from myself.”
“No different than raising a child. You want another beer? You want me to heat the fish before I put it on the bun?”
“No, thanks, yes, please. I can’t believe you haven’t found a husband yet. You are more woman than any one man deserves.”
Carmen looked at her reflection in the kitchen window. “You want to rephrase that, or do I make this sandwich the knuckle kind?”
* * *
I walked back to my house. A dark blue Mercedes sedan was parked out front. Cootie Ortega had made himself at home on my porch. He was stroked out on my lounge chair, jamming his hand into a Burger King bag. I checked out the Benz. I guessed it was a mid-Seventies model. I looked back at Cootie, hoping he had gone away while my eyes were diverted.
He said, “I fell in love by the fast-food window. She got a lucky daddy.”
“How does that compute?”
“A man got an ugly daughter, he better get rich so he can marry her off.”
Cootie logic.
“You never had kids?” I said.
“One daughter. She lives with her mother in Vero. Come to think, she’s no beauty.” He caught himself. “I guess I’m an exception to that rule.”
I tried to imagine him with a fat bankroll. I gathered that he had as much trouble picturing it as I had.
“What brings you by?” I said.
“Did you tell me you had NASCAR stuff for sale?”
“You brought up NASCAR collectibles, Ortega. I never said the word.”
“What’d you say? You said something. Old stock certificates?”
“Okay, okay, I’ve got a closetful of Barbie Doll outfits.”
“No shit?”
I said, “Just kidding.”
“You didn’t collect when you were a kid?”
“Pine beetles, Action comics, Pez dispensers, lead pennies, baseball cards, and 45 RPM records. I think a few AMT model cars, too.”
He munched a wad of fries. “I’ll take everything but the bugs.”
“My younger brother sold all my stuff when I was in the Navy. He used the loot to buy a Camaro that he totaled in eight days.”
“So you don’t have anything you want to sell me? Old Newsweek or Time magazines, from like 1997? Make us both a few bucks.”
“Cootie, am I your new best friend because I bought the camera gear? I’ve got a lot of stuff going on right now.”
“Okay, okay, Rutledge. I’m sorry, man. I’ve been out of my tree since my cousin’s husband, you know…”
“Shot himself, Cootie?”
My words threw Ortega into an instant funk. His face drooped, his eyes clouded, and he actually pushed the chow bag away from himself. Even for Cootie, I felt sorry. I wanted to dig through my boxes of attic crap, come up with a treasure for the sad man to hawk. I knew I had one or two worthless stocks, reminders of bad moves. One company called Reliance Insurance. It tanked badly. I had a book of autographs that my aunt had given me after my older cousin was killed in a wreck. Maybe even my lunch box from junior high. It had been baggage when I saved it. I had no use for it now.
On the other hand, helping Cootie would be like feeding a starved dog. He’d be my friend forever, have me up a tree for years, barking at me for scraps.
“I’m sorry I gave you the impression that I had swap-shop booty,” I said. “In this house, if I don’t touch it inside of a year, it goes into my trash.”
Cootie launched himself to his feet, the most energetic move I’d seen him make in ages. He barged through the screen door. The spring on the door whined, the door slapped back into place. He turned to face me. “I don’t mess with swap shit, Rutledge. You should keep it in your head that some people take nostalgia serious as hell.”
“I get it,” I said. “People play futures in the past?”
“You don’t need to make fun, bubba.”
Cootie moped away like an unfed dog. I had forgotten to ask about the Mercedes. He turned, gave me one more dejected look before he pulled out of the lane.
His face looked like Bobbi Lewis’s when she had left Naomi’s house.
12
I OPENED MY THIRD beer in an hour, tilted it back, stared off my porch at fluttering shadows in the empty lane. The beer went down cold and easy. I had told Randolph that I wasn’t into daytime drinking, but I’d hedged the truth. I dislike socializing with booze braggarts, and I’d had a plane to catch anyway. If I had told him I like beer best when the sun is up, I might inspire a new slosh pal who would stick around and still be here when I returned.
I rationalized this third cold one. I was in my house, but my brain was in Grand Cayman.
I remembered to reconfirm my reservation for the next day at noon. I waited for the agent, a thousand keystrokes, and wondered if I had a job to fly to. Despite what I had said to Carmen, I needed money more than escape. You can’t rationalize six-pac
ks and mortgage payments. Or build a career by sitting on the beach. Job or not, I had an aisle seat.
The phone rang as I hung up. Marnie said, “Heard from Sam?”
“No, not since this morning. But it’s not time for him to call.”
“He asked me for background on a cop up there. I haven’t had a chance to do it. Who did you tell about the Akron tie-in?”
“Liska,” I said. “He made his token gesture, he sent Bobbi Lewis. I struck out with her, or I should say she waffled. I took her to Naomi’s house, she looked at the walls for ten minutes, then boogied. But we confirmed with a neighbor that Mayor Steve Gomez visited Naomi on a regular basis. They were maybe doing nooners.”
I knew the instant I said it that I’d made a mistake. I listened to silence for a half minute. My brain came back from Grand Cayman. “Those weren’t the neighbor’s exact words.”
“So that was your golden-tongued paraphrase?”
I had learned my lesson with Bobbi Lewis. I kept my mouth shut tight.
Marnie said, “Love affairs can be beautiful, Alex, for the people having them. Especially if you don’t call them nooners. Tomorrow at ten-thirty, First Congregational, William Street. Will you escort me to Steve’s funeral?”
No choice, now. “Okay.”
“What are you going to do about a memorial for Naomi?”
“I’ll let it wait a week,” I said.
“You might piss people off, going that long. I talked to Phil. Louie’s can do it in the morning, at nine on the deck, but you have to let them know by six-thirty tonight. You want me to make some calls?”
“I want to give people a chance to plan. It’ll be hard to say good-bye if we don’t know how she left.”
She said, “Sometimes you word things weirdly. Did Liska want to look into Gomez?”
“It’s a city deal, as far as he’s concerned,” I said. “And we sure as hell can’t go to the cops. They’re rock-solid, jammed up with opinion. Have you talked it around, heard any foul-play talk?”
“No and no,” she said. “If I talk it up, I lose my scoop. I’m doing what I said I would do. I’m researching the mayor. I found a few things we need to talk about.”
“Don’t forget the statistics,” I said. “Florida leads the nation in murder-suicides.”
Another mistake. The big silence.
I said, “Where will you be in an hour?”
“Standing next to you.”
“Meet me at the morgue.” I checked my watch. “Make it forty minutes.”
She said, “I can remember when forensic autopsies were done at funeral homes. Monroe was the last county in the state to get a damn morgue.”
“Wasn’t that last year?”
* * *
In February I’d hired a carpenter to build a shed. We sized it to keep my new motorcycle and a gas can out of the weather. The man anchored it to a thick concrete base, and I spent a bundle on treated lumber and siding. We sloped the roof so runoff went to the mango tree, and placed air vents under the overhang. I owed my classic machine that much. More permanence than I offered myself.
I unlocked the shed door and rolled out the Triumph. I wanted to catch Jack Spottswood walking home from work. Every day at four, you could set your watch by it. If you couldn’t get him on the phone, you could stop him on the sidewalk.
I rolled down Eaton. At three fifty-nine, I turned onto Bahama. Bingo.
He said, “Look what rode in on the wind and the tide.”
“What’s the chance of ordering an autopsy of Naomi Douglas?”
My question stopped him short. It actually pushed him backward. “You had that kind of day?”
“I’m serious.” I gave him the condensed version. “Naomi and Steve were from the same hometown in Iowa. They were friends who were never seen together in public. If you ask me, they were dancing the Bone Island mambo. They died on the same day. Am I the only person who thinks that’s strange?”
“Who are you?” he said. “Paul Revere? Running around the island yelling, ‘The bad boys are coming’? Are you on a mission?”
“Just following Naomi’s wishes.”
For once I had said the right thing. The skeptical look left his face. He moved in a half circle to get the sun out of his eyes. “Okay, Alex. I’ll tell you what you need to know. But leave me out of it.”
Jack gave me three names at the county. I knew Larry Riley, the medical examiner, but not the others. He told me how to play each in turn against the other two. If I worked the triangle, didn’t say too much, I might succeed. “Don’t do it tonight,” he added.
“Gomez was on top of things,” I said. “I assume he wrote a will.”
He thought for a sec. “A long time ago, after he married Yvonne.”
“She get it all?”
He shook his head. “Not something I can talk about.”
“After a death? I thought wills became public record.”
Jack bit his lower lip, then said, “She had family money, and the family made Gomez sign a pre-nup. It was the first one I ever saw. When he wrote his will he turned the tables, for what he was worth. Yvonne would get any house they owned plus proceeds from an insurance policy, so she could have fast cash. The rest went into a trust for some nieces and nephews, a college fund.”
“Does that will still stand?”
“He could’ve gone to another attorney, changed it anytime. I’d have no way to know.” Then he said, “Your lifestyle, you don’t have to heed many warnings, do you?”
I used my index finger as a squeegie, wiped sweat from my forehead. “I don’t own vehicles with seat belt chimes.”
Jack cracked a smile. He leaned back, cocked his head as if to regard me with better focus. “Remember, Alex,” he said, “a lot of crusaders have come and gone in this town.”
I heard it faintly in his voice. His emphasis on the word “gone.”
* * *
My three beers had trumped Carmen’s fish sandwich. The route to Stock Island, through rush hour, required expert skills, and I felt less capable as minutes ticked by. I wove through chaotic traffic, thought about Teresa, the fact that I hadn’t heard from her all afternoon. The road maniacs were locals. The tourists were in the bars or headed for sunset. These days the in-town workforce has to rent off-island, in the Lower Keys from Big Coppitt to Big Pine. My guess was that every member of that workforce got off at four and hit the road en masse. I didn’t have time to pull over, wait an hour for traffic to settle. Trying to figure out Teresa and the idiots around me, I rationalized again. I joined the club, drove like a maniac to survive. I kept thinking about my tumbling relationship.
Why do we hate boredom and dream of consistency?
Perhaps I’d become a bland dude. Maybe three days in my house had slapped her with the notion that I wasn’t the perfect man. Or else she’d been bothered by a no-name problem that Whit Randolph’s arrival had helped her define. If that was the case, I would take a hard fall. I had wanted this one to work.
But it wasn’t just Whit. Teresa had been pissed for weeks. Her mood had soured during a quiet supper at La Trattoria. We had been celebrating her six-month anniversary with the police department. We had talked about her work politics and the island’s politics. There’d been an edge in her voice. Her words sounded cynical, filled with the resignation of a woman trapped. I had tried to ease her pressures, from active encouragement to keeping my distance, showing concern, and minding my business. Nothing had worked. Now that I thought back, she might have begun then to be bored with both her job and me. She had chosen to bottle her discontent, let it further decay and ferment.
I wanted to be out of range when the cap blew.
I survived the fast food strip and got in line to turn up Route 1. Strange area of the island. Palm trees in the sidewalk have always amazed me, but I had seen them in a photo from 1937. They were there long before the liquor stores, car dealerships, motels, and groceries. I waited while the traffic light sequenced four times. A sticker
on the Acura ahead of me read, MY KID BEAT UP YOUR HONOR STUDENT. I sucked in smells of fried chicken, a few cubic yards of exhaust fumes and secondhand tobacco smoke. I absorbed head-banger vibes from multiple fuzzy woofers. All part of the tropical dream. I went left, crossed the bridge, and waited two lights to go north on College Road. I wallowed in more oily exhaust, more woof, and a low-tide beach-rot breeze from Cow Key Channel.
What had happened to my sleepy village at road’s end?
Finally, one thing went right. I saw two Jeeps in the morgue lot. Marnie’s tall Wrangler and Riley’s rattletrap, circa post–Korean War. Perfect that he was there. I hadn’t called ahead. I wanted to pitch my case face to face.
Larry Riley, Monroe County’s medical examiner, had driven the ’57 Jeep as long as I had known him. He checked for rust as habit, had repainted the military olive drab several times. He ran it for function over comfort, drove full-tilt around town, and fashion be damned. The Jeep had more style than fifty stereo-driven Acuras.
I had worked several crime scenes alongside Riley. We had the added link of Carmen Sosa as a mutual friend. Larry and Carmen had been high school lovers, but he had gone off to college and she had married a loser named Johnny Sosa. By the time Riley had finished med school, Carmen had ditched her first and second husbands and was the mother of Maria Rolley, now ten, going on fifteen. They had not renewed their old relationship, but both were single and there was always that chance.
I shut down the Triumph.
Marnie said, “Do I just stand there while you harass Doc Riley?”
“You were worried about losing your scoop.”
“You make my goal sound less than honorable.”
“I want to know what happened to these people,” I said. “I don’t want a double homicide to be ignored like a branch falling in the forest.”
“Are you a cop?”
“No, I take pictures.”
“Okay, and I’m a journalist. We’re both human. If a crime gets close to us, we’ll help solve it. But we can’t forget what we always do.”
“Sometimes I’d like to.”
“Cops want to know ‘who,’ so they can grab somebody,” she said. “They want to know ‘why,’ so they can prosecute. I do it in the same order, but the ‘who’ lets me launch a piece and the ‘why’ lets me dig into it, make it a real story. That’s how I tick.”
