Octopus Alibi

by Tom Corcoran

  “Did he help out?”

  “Loads watched The Godfather once too often. He wanted to play hardnose.”

  “Let me guess. You broke him down by talking fish.”

  “How else?” said Sam. “I talked Florida Bay, Blackwater Sound, and the Content Keys. We talked baits, and old guides like Stu Apte and Lefty Kreh, Bob Montgomery and Page Brown. He said Montgomery’s in Miami these days, looking good but not fishing much. Anyway, we hashed out legends, then talked newer guides like Cardenas and Becker. After that, he got useful.”

  “And?”

  “He knew Lorie back then. He danced around the fact he probably had a fling with her. Not that I care, but get this: He recognized another girl in the pictures. He said this other girl’s brother was going around Lauderdale and Pompano about six weeks ago, looking for her. This brother, an Italian man from South Carolina, thought his sister might be dead.”

  “Had she been missing…”

  Sam said, “Seven years since her family had heard from her. Just so happened this guy stayed at the motel.”

  “Another coincidence. Did Loads lead you to him?”

  “Right out of a Ross Macdonald novel,” said Sam. “I had to slip him fifty for his help. Anyway, write this down. You ready?”

  “Shoot.”

  Sam gave me an address and phone number for Barry Marcantonio, in Beaufort, South Carolina.

  “Shit,” he said. “I almost forgot about last night. I went to that saloon Goodnight Irene told me about. The place was packed, but some guy named Lorenzo thought I was hot shit. He likes people from the Keys, so he bought all my drinks. I asked Irene a couple favors. She might call you to leave us a message. I’ll hit a few more bars today, then I’m off to Chokoloskee in the morning.”

  “You need to be watching your step,” I said.

  “I’m watching my ass. I’m all eyes.” He hung up.

  * * *

  I attacked dot-sized ants that had swarmed my kitchen counter. Life in the tropics, and my cave dwellers had come to call. I poured out the wine I had forgotten to cork, opened windows in the kitchen and living room, and turned on the ceiling fans. Carmen, my alternate conscience, had accused me of multitasking. Not true. I do a lot of things, one at a time, early.

  I still heard the shower running. If Teresa was trying to wash away sin, my water bill would bust me. Over the years, every time I had fallen asleep on the porch, I had ached for two days and blamed the lounge cushion, not the alcohol.

  I doubted that Dr. Lysak would reveal personal data on Naomi’s health, but I wanted to try. I dialed his office and told the receptionist I didn’t need an appointment. I wanted to chat, and not about my body. She recognized my name and loosened her officious tone. She said that the doctor was having his one-hour workout at the health club on White Street. He would be back to the office at twenty after eight. I checked the wall clock. If Lysak’s hour was seven to eight, I could catch him leaving the gym in fifteen minutes.

  I heard the shower go off. Somehow I knew Teresa’s hangover, the flames pouring from her eyeballs, would hurt me worse than her. I wanted to be on Fleming Street before she entered the house. I found a fresh T-shirt, pulled on shoes and shorts, and squashed a ball cap over my sleep hair. I grabbed Naomi’s Kodak Max and my sunglasses, took care not to slam the screen, unlocked my bike, and rolled.

  Carmen once told me I had selective communication skills. When I was pissed, my clam-up skills far exceeded my desire to be logical. When I told Carmen I didn’t have time to discuss it, she threw a conch shell at me.

  The streets were hectic with island locals going to work, mothers taking kids to school. Real life in the hotbed of tropical hedonism. What a concept. I’ve heard rumors that people even make loan payments and buy household cleaning products. Normal stuff, like up in America.

  Duffy Lee came to the door in sweatpants and a Key West Shellfish ball cap. I showed him the Max.

  “I’ve seen them,” he said. “You give it to a processor, you get back prints and negatives. The camera goes to the trash, like a Bic lighter. Fifteen years from now, we’ll own disposable cars.”

  “That’ll make the island more crowded.”

  “What’ll be different?” he said.

  I handed him money. “You say ‘processor’ like it won’t be you.”

  He winced, looked at the cash in his hand. “I can do it, but it’s not my style. If you ever tell anyone I’ve stooped this low, I’ll ruin your negatives for twelve straight months. Let me ask you something. You wanted prints from your negs, but you made a point of telling me not to print extras from the other rolls.”

  “Why would I want another guy’s snaps?”

  “You’re always curious about one thing or another.”

  “I’ll bite,” I said. “Why should I be this time?”

  “Two things. The minor thing, you didn’t see the corpse, right?”

  “They hauled him away right as I got there.”

  Duffy Lee pulled a five-by-seven from an envelope. He had zoomed into the negative so that only Gomez’s arm showed. “See the suntan line where his watch used to be? I checked an old video I kept after I taped a city commission meeting. Long story, why I taped it. Anyway, Mayor Gomez wore a beauty. I’m no expert, but it looked like an old Rolex. You think he took it off before he dusted himself? Who found him?”

  The answer took a moment. “The neighbor,” I said.

  “Will he keep it or pawn it?” said Duffy Lee.

  “I say keep.”

  Duffy Lee shook his head. “Pawn.”

  “Ten bucks says keep.”

  “Covered. Now, my other concern, but let me say this first. I always take time with prints. I go for perfection in the darkroom. It’s the old-fashioned way I learned all this. I worry about contrast, shadows, and highlights. I never paid attention to content until you started shooting this crime shit. Everything took too long to begin with. Now it’s twice as long. I might have to start charging you double.” He pulled out another print. I could tell by the grain and contrast that he’d had to compensate for overexposure. The view was from above and behind the body. Gomez had fallen on his side. It was an ugly sight.

  I said, “Mush, and a bloody shirt.”

  He slid the picture back in the envelope, and handed it to me. “Tell me how the shirt got bloody. The blast blew everything away from him, and he fell instantly to that position.”

  All I could say was, “Damn. You’re right.”

  * * *

  White Street smelled of Cuban coffee and Laundromat soap. The Conch Train moved so slowly, I passed it without pedaling hard. Two art gallery owners swept sidewalks near their entrances. The moped rush hour was underway. Puffy clouds drifted eastward.

  I caught up with Dr. Lysak as he left the gym, walked toward his Nissan Xterra, keys in hand. His T-shirt dripped sweat, and he still breathed heavily from his workout. He had fine-tuned his body language, his defense and quick getaway for people who approached him for off-the-clock health advice. He recognized my face—probably didn’t recall meeting me—and tugged on the towel around his neck, as if for security. His frost warmed as he studied my Cannondale. It loosened more when I told him I was a friend of the late Naomi Douglas.

  “Wonderful woman.” He smoothed out his towel. “Not a strong woman, but her death surprised me.”

  “She named me her executor. Aside from drawing up a will, I don’t think she saw the end this soon.”

  Lysak waggled his head to one side. “I don’t know about that. You must know that the woman had cancer twice.”

  “Yes,” I lied. “But only that much. She wasn’t the type to admit to pain. I wouldn’t have known if it had come back.”

  “It was still in remission,” he said. “Thank goodness. She told me she hated painkillers more than disease. They made her feel like she was living her life in a fog. Another thing you may not know, and it does no harm now. It amazes me, every time I think about it. She drank. She hit roc
k bottom in her mid-forties. She took the pledge, then somehow defined her problem as hard liquor. She let herself have two glasses of wine per day. Alcoholics just plain can’t do that. No matter how smart or strong they think they are. She broke the rule, and she smoked until after she turned fifty.”

  “She quit when the cancer hit?” I said.

  “Yep. But there were all those years of self-inflicted damage. Are we not supposed to be surprised when her body quits?”

  “You have no opinion as to what took her down?”

  Lysak resorted to a reserved, pensive expression. The look doctors add to their repertoire in med school. “What we call ‘old age’ usually means a combination of weaknesses,” he said. “With Mrs. Douglas, it probably was multiple organ failure. In physician slang, the ‘domino effect’ of physiology. Given all I know, I’d play hell to pinpoint a specific cause.”

  “Does it make sense to think that a body strong enough to quit smoking and curtail drinking, strong enough to whip the Big C twice, was not a body that simply gives up during a bad dream?”

  The coldness returned. Lysak tugged his sweat towel with both hands. “What are you suggesting, Mr. Rutledge?”

  “A death too soon.”

  The chill went icy. Dr. Lysak clicked his remote, and the Xterra’s locks snapped open. “Do you suggest I had some part in her demise?”

  “The exact opposite, sir. I don’t think standard medicine, symptoms or cures, had a part in her death.”

  Lysak sniffed, focused his eyes on the sidewalk. “You think someone did her in?”

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t the various agencies have an opinion, here? The Key West Police, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement?”

  “The sheriff assigned a detective,” I said. “She starts a week’s vacation today. The city sees no crime at all.”

  “The FDLE?”

  “A case this small, they wait for cues from the locals.”

  “Are you getting carried away with your executor duties?”

  “Bad habit of mine.”

  He opened the driver’s side door. “You mind if I call the funeral home?”

  “Just those words tell me you’re as brave as any cop in town, doctor. Her cremation’s been delayed. You have carte blanche.”

  “Does the county medical examiner know your feelings?”

  “He complained about a busy schedule.”

  “Tell me about it.” He tossed his towel onto the far seat.

  I rode away to give him room to back out.

  * * *

  Duffy Lee Hall’s station wagon was gone, but he had hung a Publix bag on his front door. Inside it I found a packet of prints, a hand-written invoice, and the split-open disposable camera.

  Funny guy. His invoice said, “For services rendered. U Owe Me.”

  Someone near Frances and Angela had Iron Butterfly cranked to top volume. On another day, thump rock before nine A.M. would have pissed me off. I had reached the point where nothing fazed me. I was beyond blaming fatigue and last night’s wine. I had become the problem, and had slipped into moral mud. I had rapped Bobbi Lewis for taking days off, while I hurried my errands so I could catch a plane.

  Marnie Dunwoody’s Jeep was in front of my house. She was in the living room, dressed for the funeral, studying a newspaper on my coffee table. She didn’t look up when I came in.

  I said, “Your right rear tire looks low.”

  “Sam told me it had a slow leak. He said it needed to get plugged. I told him I did, too, but he left town.” She looked up at me, tried to crack a smile, and burst into tears.

  I gave her a minute, then said, “Everything okay with you two?”

  “If there’s a problem, it’s mine. I knew what I was getting into, and I never got jealous of the time he spent fishing. It’s this new stuff I don’t like. I worry like a sonofabitch.”

  More tears.

  Marnie had been priming herself for the service. She had been reading a spread in the Citizen’s Paradise section, a tribute to the Steve Gomez years. She had worked herself up. No words would comfort her.

  I told her I needed to take a shower.

  “Take your time.” Tears dripped onto her cheek. “We’ve got an hour to spare. I went buggy at my house, and I guess I did here, too. I don’t usually weep for an audience.”

  “Have at it,” I said. “I’ll be ready in twenty.”

  16

  I PRAYED IN THE shower, asked that the minister not open Steve Gomez’s funeral to speeches about the deceased. We each grieve in ways that suit us, but a menacing few want the rest of us to validate their sadness. They think that talking longer means they’re more sincere. They chat themselves to a dither, forget the gist, run their thought trains off the track. By the time they stop, half the church wants them in the casket, too. Not only would I miss my noon flight, but after ten minutes of blabber I might go for a throat.

  After I shaved and dressed, Marnie wanted to show me the Gomez pages in the Citizen. She had helped pick the photos and editorial slugs. I wasn’t interested, but leaned to look, to help lift her funk. I had seen most of the pictures when the newspaper first printed them. I recognized one of Gomez speaking in a school classroom, one when he posed with the Prime Minister of the Bahamas. I had never seen the group wedding shot, when he stood with six couples on White Street Pier.

  In one shot new to me, he spoke to a crowd from behind a tall lectern. From the crowd’s point of view, the mayor wore a coat, dress shirt, and tie. The camera angle showed us that he also wore shorts and sneakers. In another, Gomez was on Mangia, Mangia’s patio with two men and a woman. Wine bottles and glasses filled the table. I took a closer look. The three other people were former Key West mayors. All four were smiling, pointing steak knives at the camera. Captain Tony smirked. He wasn’t holding a steak knife. Someone in the kitchen must have slipped him a ten-inch filleting blade.

  Marnie tapped her fingernail. “Our island at its best. One photo is worth a thousand campaigns.”

  The classic was taken after a city hall employee griped about a dirty rest room. Gomez agreed that the cleaning job was inadequate. He wrote a mayoral order to have it “redone.” Sure as hell, his note was misinterpreted. Ten thousand dollars later, he was asked to inspect the remodeled rest room. He turned a fiasco into a fiesta by announcing a “civic upgrade.” He invited the media and, grinning, snipped a bow on the toilet seat lid. His ribbon cutting made national news.

  I sat in my rocker. “What have you learned about our fine city?”

  Marnie leaned back and composed herself. “I checked recent filings and past agendas. Mainly, I asked clerks about upcoming proposals. I wanted to know where Steve’s vote might have made a difference. In current business, he was the hot seat for three things sure to split the votes. In each proposal, Steve was the wild card.”

  “Any of them worth a murder?”

  “Not to normal people,” she said. “But you know this island … One’s an old land deal that’s been bounced around for twenty-five years. I expect it’ll keep bouncing a few more. The other two have drawn the most debate. The BFD and the art museum.”

  Locals had tagged a Mallory Square project “BFD,” for Big Fucking Dome. The idea was crazy, and Gomez had ridiculed it. Most locals were counting on his veto. Two commissioners had refused to “prejudge” the plan. Most of us had read their stand as a vote in favor. We suspected shady dealings.

  I had attended the town meeting when a Seattle man had addressed the crowd. He had set up easels with blowups of antique photographs taken on the wharf. Opposite his history shuck were huge, elegant renderings of the proposed dome. Surrounding buildings were made to look large and distant, but Sunset Key and Christmas Tree Island were pulled close and resembled Tahiti.

  “Don’t let bad weather kill your city’s potential,” he had bellowed. “Our all-weather dome will have multiscreen projection high on its west wall. Your tourists will see real sunsets on sunny days, filmed sunse
ts on rainy days. They will use our interactive kiosks to vote on the ten best sunsets of the past ten years. Your local craft vendors will never miss a day’s income. Who wouldn’t spend a couple bucks to see your performers, your first-rate folk artists, and not get wet? Tourists pay to see the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and the Golden Gate. Why shouldn’t Key West and all its citizens make a civic profit from nature?”

  The crowd had booed for ten minutes. The commission agreed to delay action so the development group could gather last-minute impact data. The city attorney opined that data was irrelevant. Letters to the Citizen asked who was on the take. No one asked who, by name, had let such a bad idea come so close to approval. Marnie learned that a vote could come in the next two weeks. Gomez’s death, his lost vote, was a potential disaster.

  The other issue was the approval of a Key West Art Museum. This one tweaked my mind. Naomi had chaired the planning group, had done much of the proposal prep work. I hadn’t spoken with her about it, but I had read articles in the paper, seen notes in the Citizen’s Voice section.

  The group proposed that the city collect art that reflected its history and diversity. Three museum sites were offered, including a run-down ex–cigar maker’s shop and a brick Civil War–era munitions storage compound. A long list of grants and corporate supporters was offered. A thick book described older artists that might be collected: Granville Perkins, F. Townsend Morgan, photographers Frank Johnson, W. A. Johnson, and Henry J. Mitchell, the linocut artists, the Dudleys. The group stated that the city already had missed buying the early work of Vaughn Cochran, John Kiraly, A.D. Tinkham, Thom Szuter, Don Beeby, Suzy dePoo, Carolyn Fuller, and John Martini.

  A great idea, but two commissioners didn’t get it. They wanted to put the money toward making tourists really happy. One dimwit had said, “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read that the county was turning Mt. Trashmore into a water sports park. I thought it was the greatest idea I had ever heard. To my dismay, I learned it was an April Fool’s joke. How did we miss turning the cemetery into the tourist attraction it deserves to be? Someone is running tours in there. We granted them a license to do it. That could have been our revenue, instead.”