by Tom Corcoran
“Are you through?”
“Sam has me worried.” She rapped her knuckles against her forehead. “I need to report slippage.”
“Let’s go dig.”
* * *
The woman who governed the new morgue’s reception desk acted as if we were the building’s first visitors of the day. Larry Riley agreed to see us.
He met us in a hallway, and looked surprised to see me there. He smiled but didn’t offer to shake hands. Fine with me. Riley was a string bean, maybe five-eleven, no more than 170. I had seen him only once without the ponytail he’d worn for years, but couldn’t get used to the sight, or that he showed tinges of gray. He sipped from an old ceramic mug. He wanted to stay in the hall, perhaps to keep our meeting short. I was thrilled not to be ushered into a chilled meat locker.
“I’m doing a double this afternoon,” he said. “We had a scuba death by the Western Sambos.” He considered his next words, then said, “You’re the third amateur detective I’ve talked to today. One works for the city.”
Marnie flicked a glance my way, lifted an eyebrow. The fact snapped into place. Dexter Hayes had run lax procedures at a murder scene three months earlier, had angered Larry Riley. Marnie had told me that Dexter had better watch his step. She knew that Riley’s parents lived next door to Chief Salesberry, and Riley had the chief’s ear. Dexter’s career probably had faltered back then. If he felt unloved in city hall, it was because he was unloved in city hall.
“If I read you right,” I said, “that city detective sees a shame where I see a crime. But if he came to see you, he might be picking up momentum.”
“Is this your new calling?” said Riley. “Mayor Steve Gomez a friend?”
“Barely knew the man.”
“Don’t you get a lot of shit when you freelance like this?”
“It’s easier to wash off than my conscience. What happened to the open mind of the research scientist?”
He said, “What do you know about that?”
“Squat.”
“Why don’t you take a cram course? I’ve got a brochure on my desk, this place in St. Louis gives a medicolegal class six or seven times a year. Hotels, meals, airfare, tuition, you’re talking maybe twelve hundred bucks. Invest in your own future, my friend.”
Riley wanted to draw me into his profession. He wanted to inspire the bright eyes of a recruit, get me excited about details that stoked his drive. Past years of on-the-job training had taught me that I couldn’t detach myself from the real grit. Some people have that power, but repulsive evidence stuck to my senses like dog shit stuck to a sneaker. My wish to solve crimes that got too close to my world fought a constant battle with my aversion to gore, to decay and the dark realm of human action. I wanted to work on a “need to know” basis. If I took any courses, they would stress the memory-erasure techniques that Goodnight Irene Jones had mastered.
My attitude would not please the people who paid my part-time salaries. Tough rats, bubbas. I’m doing favors for friends. I would photograph babies and weddings before I got deeper into blood and crunch.
“Can I ask some general questions?” I said.
Marnie’s cell phone buzzed. She glanced to check the caller’s name and looked up at me. Her eyes told me it was Sam Wheeler. She excused herself and hurried outside. Riley and I watched her leave the hallway.
Riley said, “Liska’s asked me not to talk.”
“Just to me?”
He nodded. “Just to you. He said you dreamed up some clues, but you were all bait and no fish.”
“I didn’t know the sheriff had gag power in your department.”
“We cooperate on a lot of things.”
“Bullshit. You don’t answer to anyone but the people who work for you. They run you around like a frat pledge.”
He inhaled, held his breath.
“The reporter’s gone,” I said.
“You’ve got ninety seconds.”
I said, “Any broken toes?”
“Nope.”
“Or lacerated toes?”
“Nope.”
“Did anyone find the stick he used to depress the trigger?”
He shook his head. “He didn’t use … you son of a bitch.”
“Does this win me another ninety seconds?”
“Thirty.”
“Can you calculate angle of impact, the angle that Gomez held his shotgun?”
“Too much damage,” he said.
“Find any scalp or pieces of the skull? Can you be sure the only damage came from the shotgun?”
Dr. Riley stared at me.
“Can you confirm time of death, to match the man’s schedule all day?”
His jaw moved forward a fraction of an inch.
I said, “Did that bloodstain on the concrete match the amount Gomez would pump before his heart quit? Or did his blood get pumped into the canal?”
“You’re up to forty-five seconds, Alex.”
“You sound like you’re pissed, Doc. You worried about losing time out of your workday?”
He took a deep breath, then exhaled. “You just asked three questions I’d like to answer, but I can’t. You’ve cost me more than fifteen extra seconds.”
“One other small thing,” I said.
“No.”
“A woman named Naomi Douglas died Monday of old age, unattended.”
“No.”
“She and Gomez came from the same hometown. There’s a good chance they were lovers, in secret.”
“Oh, my.”
“She’s a cremation, on hold,” I said. “Who was the third amateur sleuth you talked to today?”
Riley shrugged. “Private eye from Gainesville, named Randy Whitney.”
“What did he want to know?”
“His questions weren’t as good as yours.”
“Was his license issued in Florida, or another state?”
“I don’t have time to do my job right. I sure as hell don’t have time to check shit like that.”
“Thank you for your help,” I said.
Riley smiled. “All in a day’s work. If the sheriff asks, this didn’t happen.”
* * *
I walked outside to find a dark sky, no breeze, and bugs.
Marnie sat in her Jeep, making notes on a legal pad. She looked defiant, dazed. “I didn’t answer in time,” she said. “He called from a pay phone. The son of a bitch left a message. He said, ‘I’m always there for you, honey. I’m just not there right now.’”
“Doesn’t sound like Sam.”
She said, “He hasn’t acted like Sam since that fucking call two days ago from Lauderdale, pardon my mouth. When Sam gets bold-headed, he doesn’t always think straight.”
Venus versus Mars.
I came to Sam’s defense. “When he goes into combat mode, he calculates all and misses nothing.”
“Nice of you to say so,” she said. “But don’t forget that detail I’m sure you noticed, too. He forgot his Bronco was at the airport.”
Good point. He also had left a gas station in Tavernier and driven south instead of north. I needed to keep a close eye on Sam Wheeler, as soon as I could find the chance.
Marnie said, “You’ll be happy to know, I fell out of love with my scoop. Steve’s gone forever, and Sam’s gone for crazy. Maybe I can go to work in a plant store. Grow peace lilies all day long, or work in a flower store and tie cute ribbons on cute bouquets for cute girls and housewives. I could be the Florida distributor for baby’s breath.”
She waited for me to say something. I was getting smarter with time.
She said, “Sam said he needed to talk to you. You’re the lucky guy. I’ll see you in the morning.”
* * *
I rode home in lighter traffic and wondered how my name would sound if I twisted it ass-backward. I’d rather be Alex Rutledge than Rut Alexander. Some names work better in that game. My mother and I once played it about the time I was in junior high. She had turned around Benny Goodman, called him
Goony Bedman, and laughed for an entire afternoon.
Randy Whitney, indeed.
13
I LOCKED MY TRIUMPH in its shed, looked for the neighbor’s spaniel. No canine company tonight. For all I knew, no human company either. I turned off the yard light, went inside to check messages.
Duffy Lee Hall, about the film he’d processed: “That cop picked up his prints. I had my hand out, he told me to invoice the city. He had a look on his face like, I might get paid someday, but he didn’t care. I hate mañana money. Rather get it now, like you cough it up. Come get these negs I kept for you. No hurry. They ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
I dialed Duffy Lee. He answered with a mouthful of food. “Cash on the barrelhead,” I said. “Run me off another set of prints, only the pix I took, okay?”
“S’pose you want ’em when the sun comes up,” he said.
I didn’t want to ask a favor, then push the man. “Nine?”
“Eight’ll be all right. I didn’t see a dead person in your shots. Something you want to explain?”
“The city works in strange ways,” I said.
“What’s that, a news flash?”
I laughed, polite, and hung up. The phone rang. How did it know?
I could barely hear Teresa on her cell. Her voice blended with noise and chatter, but I made out that she was in the Hog’s Breath Saloon. “I got your message,” she shouted, “but I got confused. Why are you here for another day?”
“Long story,” I said. “How about dinner?”
“I’m having a drink with my friends.”
My friends? We have separate toothbrushes and separate friends?
I said, “I was thinking about dinner.”
“With who, Jennifer?”
I heard laughter in the background. Maybe Jennifer was a friend, one of the laughers. Maybe Teresa was on her third or fourth drink, not worried about making sense. I said, “You’ve lost me.”
“That message on your machine. Jennifer … She wanted you at her luau in Grand Cayman.”
Maybe she was on her fifth drink.
“Teresa, I’ve never met or spoken to Jennifer. We’ve never been on the same continent together. Trust me, Jennifer is the least of our worries.”
“Come and have a drink?”
I wanted to tell her that her pal Whit Randolph was being nosy about Steve Gomez’s death. So nosy and sneaky that he had given an alias to Larry Riley. I couldn’t do it on the phone.
“What section are you in?”
“Downstairs, back by the T-shirt shop, under the ceiling fans.”
* * *
I rode the Cannondale to the Hog’s Breath on Front and thanked myself for spending ninety-nine clams on a lock. The bike shop clerk had smirked as he rang the sale, told me space-age materials warranted the price tag. I figured titanium, Kevlar, granules of bulletproof glass. The lock weighed more than my bike. For all I knew, they added Elmer’s Glue, fire coral, duct tape, and the coating they put on Stealth aircraft. I locked the frame to the sidewalk bike rack, then used a separate chain to link my wheels together. It takes longer to protect your property than it does to chug four beers. Makes a great argument for a screened porch, bulk purchases, and staying home.
The kid checking IDs made sure I didn’t have a drink in my hand. Sure as hell didn’t ask me to verify my age. A folk duo on stage near the entrance sang “Southern Cross,” the old Crosby, Stills, and Nash song that Buffett had added to his concerts. The patio was jammed. Happy hour was in full force. The best time of day to be handsome, pretty, or clever. I thought of a great line in a James Salter story: “Unknown brilliant faces jammed at the bar.”
I found the group, six women and Whit Randolph. He sat next to Teresa and was first to notice me. He grabbed a dripping bottle of cold Fumé Blanc, waved it above the table full of drinks. “Rutledge, my man. Would you care for a breezy somewhat delicate white?”
Teresa’s eyes lit up. She thought his words were clever.
“Lovely and charming,” I said. “I’ll wash it down with gold tequila.”
Randolph took me seriously, flagged a server, then pointed to a chair between two women I didn’t know. Teresa fumbled her way through first-name introductions, almost spilling glasses, mixing up the names. Then she reached toward an ashtray, picked up a lit cigarette. I’d never seen her smoke before.
Whit sat back, pleased with himself. I looked at him with new eyes. I saw a transparent man, a man who looked hungry, not handsome. I sensed a mismatch of country club clothes and a pool hall face. He’d been buying drinks for a tableful of women, not unlike someone throwing bread crumbs to seagulls, winning them over to human ways rather than their natural direction. The hungry fat cat surrounded by birds.
The server wore matching silver rings in his eyebrow, his ear, his nose, and the side of his lower lip. He carefully placed a napkin, a salt shaker, lime wedges, and two triple shots of tequila in front of me. He held to ceremony amid the craziness, asked if I needed anything else.
Randolph scowled as the young man left. He leaned across the table and said, “How do you deal with all these fags?”
“Gays live here, too,” I said. “They’re the neighbors.”
“They’ve overrun the place. How do you stand it?”
I shook my head. “It’s not something we have to stand.”
Disbelief: “You don’t see it as a problem?”
I coaxed Randolph to lean closer, so I could keep my voice down. “When I got to town,” I said, “it was redneck. Fishermen, the military, conservative Cubans. Cops made life difficult if you wore bell-bottom pants.”
“No shit,” said Randolph. His eyes had glazed. I could tell I was failing to mesmerize the table. The women had gone to another topic of talk.
“The gays were already here,” I said. “They gave a lot of people their first jobs. They reminded a few important people that all newcomers aren’t bad. Some of them bailed people out after marijuana busts. Jamie Herlihy, the guy who wrote Midnight Cowboy, was always doing that. They blazed the trail, made this town available to my friends and me.” I turned, picked up a triple shot, and downed it. “Ask me again if I’m bothered by gays in Key West.”
“No,” he said. “I have a bitch of a time with people who’ve got opinions.”
I looked up. Teresa waved her cigarette as if scribbling in the air, telling me to chill out. Even in her piss goggles, she had to see shallow water.
I said, “It’s not my civic duty to educate dumb shits.”
Teresa excused me to Whit and her friends. “Sometimes Alex thinks he’s a policeman, social and otherwise.”
Randolph said, “Are you one now?”
No, I thought, or we’d be discussing Randy Whitney. “I’m drinking your tequila. Is Teresa giving you a good backstreets tour of the town?”
“She’s showing me what tourists don’t usually see. I’m really loving it.”
“What a guy.” I drank the other triple, got up to leave. Almost as second nature, I checked to make sure my wallet was still in my back pocket.
Teresa had a smirk on her lips, a wary touch of sadness in her eye. She didn’t say a word. She remained seated.
I caught our server at the drink station, gave him a ten toward the bill. Then I changed my mind. I told him to keep it as a tip, especially if the guy over there paid the tab.
Outside, a man with a huge pair of bolt cutters on his shoulder stared at the line of bikes in the sidewalk rack. For a moment I thought I’d arrived just in time to save the Cannondale, unless the man began to swing the cutters. Then I recognized Charlie Wood, a kayak guide around town for years.
“That red one yours?” Charlie was no bundle of emotion.
I said hello and told him it was.
“Good. You move your fancy ride, I get to mine easier.”
“Lost your keys, Charlie?”
He rolled his eyes, looked away. “I went on a toot, late January. I forgot where I left my bike. I forgot I’d bee
n in this bar, or even at this end of town. Hell, I couldn’t tell I was on this planet. Anyway, I saw my old cruiser here, the day before yesterday, coming back from lunch. My damned key wouldn’t work at all. Welcome to the tropics. The lock rusted shut.”
“Nobody looked at you funny, those big claws over your shoulder?”
“Hell. I walked past three cop cars. I could’ve been Paul Bunyan. I could have been carrying a chain saw the size of a semi. I could’ve had an AK-47 strapped to my back. They’re so thick with gymnasium muscles, they’re too stiff to get out of their cars. Or too busy trying to bust open containers and shoplifters.”
And they don’t care diddly about murder clues.
* * *
Two blocks from the Hog’s Breath, I saw Whit Randolph’s yellow BMW in a slot on Greene. The parking meter had expired. I stopped to have a look, to see if anything on the car, a decal or a license tag frame, would tell me where Randolph had come from, where he’d bought the road rocket. A citation was stuck under his windshield wiper. No biggie for a rich man. I noticed an odd smell about the car, but I couldn’t place it. Some kind of natural decay. I saw no decals, no hints beyond the generic Florida plate. The tag read SUNSHINE STATE rather than a county name.
I stair-stepped through Old Town so I could avoid busy streets. As I ran stop signs, avoided blind drivers, my brain sifted the past sixty hours. Odin Marlow, ace Broward detective; Goodnight Irene Jones; the news of Naomi; the call about Gomez; Whitney Randolph’s “new kid in town” aura; the link through Akron, Iowa; the postponed trip to Grand Cayman. One fact boomed to first in line. Behind all my pseudo-sleuthing and jealousies, I had forgotten about Ernest Bramblett. I needed to find Naomi’s brother, bring him to the Keys so he could inherit a home full of fine art, minus two matted and framed photos that someone had chucked into a garbage can.
That part baffled me, so I stuck with it. Would Naomi Douglas name me her executor, then toss my art photographs? If I began with the commonsense answer that she hadn’t thrown them out, I had a clue to the larger problem. Based on what I knew about access to her home, only two people could have done it. The framed photos had been trashed by the woman who cleaned the house or by the person who had murdered Naomi.
