Octopus Alibi

by Tom Corcoran

  I now understood why Chicken Neck Liska was in a hurry to get back to his office. The dead mayor was a major media splash while a prize prisoner, another headline-maker, was chilling in his Stock Island high-security motel. His circus needed a ringmaster.

  Teresa, in tears: “Whitney is under arrest, and I hope you had nothing to do with that. I have to move back into my condo so no one will break in and rip him off while he’s in jail. I told Carmen to keep an eye on your house. Did you cancel Grand Cayman? Dexter thought you went up the Keys with the sheriff. If you want to, you can call me at my old number. I want you to.”

  Duffy Lee Hall: “Our man Dexter Hayes came to the house five minutes ago. He knocked like a storm trooper, almost pushed the door in. He wanted your Gomez negatives. I told him, if I even had them, I couldn’t give them away. He threatened a search warrant, told me he’d have my water shut off and my business license revoked. He threatened to bust me for obstruction of justice. I told him he was obstructing my porch, and he could fucking well get a warrant. My whole neg file just went to my neighbor’s cigar humidor.”

  Monty answered the first ring. Even on vacation, his FBI habits never rested. He asked what kind of phone I was on. I told him the pay unit didn’t have a logo. He explained that he didn’t want me on a cordless or cell unit. He didn’t want to chat on an electronic party line.

  “So we’re cleared to talk, now?” I said.

  “Yep. I came inside to take a break. I’m on the wall phone up here,” he said. “Where are you right now?”

  I told him where I was and that I hadn’t seen Sam.

  “I called a man in Kendall. He’s agreed to help your buddy on the QT. But he said he wouldn’t do anything unless you backed off, so stay away.”

  “Okay,” I said, without much hesitation. If the FBI could pull a trick for Sam, I wasn’t going to spoil it. I couldn’t get into the hospital, anyway.

  “What else?” said Monty.

  “Marnie Dunwoody left me a message. The county grabbed Randolph, whatever his name really is.”

  “I heard,” said Monty. “I think they screwed up royally. If they had taken time to find an open out-of-state warrant, they could’ve sat on him for days while he fought extradition. The county would’ve had time to solidify the murder details. They were in too big a hurry. On the penny-bet charge they put on his ass, a small-time, white-collar snooze, he can bond out tonight. What’s with this Bobbi Lewis, anyway?”

  “You didn’t deal with her in the old days?” I said.

  “Damn, you make it sound prehistoric. It was only a year ago. No, I never dealt with her.”

  “She’s the best Liska’s got, for my money. But she dropped the ball this time. Liska pulled her from dealing with Gomez. Between you and me, she had a fling with the victim a couple years go.”

  “Tell me how she dropped the ball.”

  “Look, I don’t have your training,” I said. “I was on her elbow some of the time. To me, she was hot-cold, hot-cold. Does that make sense?”

  “Can you tell me specifics?”

  “She went to Naomi’s house, all torqued up, ready to be a prime snoop. Then she stood around absorbing vibrations, taking telepathic statements from the furniture, or ghosts, for all I knew. Then she beat feet, like the place was poison. She said she’d be in touch.”

  “Keep going.”

  “That was Wednesday afternoon. That night, nine o’clock, I was back at Naomi’s, into her computer, looking for a way to find her brother. He’s heir to her house and the money.”

  “What’s it to you?” said Monty.

  “Naomi named me her executor.”

  “You forgot to tell me that detail. What happened that night?”

  “She came to the door and wanted in. I figured, nothing to lose, so I vacated. That was the last I heard of it. She never told me what she found, if anything. She didn’t say a thing. I asked Liska if she’d filed a report, and he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

  “Where are you going to be?” said Monty.

  “Liska had me drop him at the airport. He ordered me to drive his wheels back to the rock, posthaste. There will be no scratches, bugs, or ancillary damage.”

  “Best news all day,” said Monty. “You owe me many beers. Remember my message from that other guy. Capital letters: back off.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Take it easy, Alex.”

  No way.

  I dreaded the drive down the Keys. It was Friday noon, and tourists were filling the funnel. U.S. 1 was a slender spout, an insistent rush complicated by pickups towing huge powerboats, sluggish motor homes, unpassable packs of motorcycles, idiotic stop-and-go.

  What waited? My deal with Teresa was history. My old investment in the Borroto Brinas Development Corporation would make me the butthole of environmental correctness. Calculating ahead, I was already late to Liska’s office. That promised another barrage of crap.

  Four days ago, to the minute, I was climbing out of a ratty taxi. I escaped a bad radio show, a rear seat that had witnessed sex, spilled drinks, and vomit. I had taken refuge in a storm culvert next to a bland morgue. Now I was in a squeaky-clean, climate-controlled luxury boat, free to exercise my choice of not listening to Chicken Neck’s pitiful CD collection. The primary change was that four days ago I knew more about the world around me.

  I formed a picture of Annie Minnette’s face, her cold expression as Liska and I walked away. Not exactly a painless reunion. She was back in her office by now, playing intramural brain tag with the partners and paralegals. I had no idea what she could do, if anything. I also had no confidence in Monty’s friend, his agreement to help Sam “on the QT.” For some reason, right then, I ran a mental movie of Sam’s father, leaving his nine-year-old daughter on a backwater roadside. That did it.

  I couldn’t leave Miami with Sam still a prisoner, falsified into limbo. Someone, likely Marlow, but perhaps others too, had wanted to stop Sam’s snooping. That meant that he was on to something, getting close to answers about dead women with bogus IDs. I needed to grab for threads, for facts that might take me to those answers and might tip me to the depth of Sam’s problems.

  I went back into El Cheapo and learned that my Spanish sucked. I tried to buy a Ft. Lauderdale street map. The clerk thought I wanted directions to Cartagena, Colombia. We had a wide gap to cross. The guy yelled, “Maria!” as if he was cussing. A dark-skinned, black-haired girl, a six-, maybe seven-year-old, popped her head from behind the counter. She let go a burst of tremolo Spanish then ducked back down. All I caught from her verbal burst was “Broward.” Thirty seconds later I had my map.

  Back in the car, I shuffled the dwindling ten grand and the notes in my pocket, found the addresses that Marnie had recited to me on the phone.

  My list of options. So much for backing off.

  25

  FIRST STOP, THE OTHER brother of a missing sister. At worst, he could understand Sam’s plight. At best, he might offer help in some form I couldn’t imagine.

  Miami traffic runs at two speeds. A full-stop jam can park you for hours. The map told me to take the Palmetto, but common sense argued a traffic snarl. I went back to 836, then north on 1-95, and lucked into a balls-to-the-wall phase at a steady seventy. I kept a watch for Odin’s green Cavalier while I clear-sailed to Griffin Road. No one out there but me and ten thousand maniacs, most of them in small Japanese cars that sounded like pissed-off large-winged mosquitoes.

  I was northbound, with no sun, a different approach. With my scattered frame of mind, I didn’t make the connection. After going west a half-mile on Griffin, I recognized the route our cab had taken on Monday. I was driving the path that Sam and I had taken to the Broward Medical Examiner’s Lab.

  I pulled over to check the map. Sure as hell, Barry Marcantonio’s odd-numbered address backed up to Southwest 31st Avenue. The only way I could reach his place was to drive past the lab. He had moved from South Carolina to a spot fifty yards from the morgue. Coinciden
ce went to hard fact. In his search for his sister, he was ten steps ahead of Sam, but they were hunting the same rat.

  The Lockwood Estates mobile home park was all speed bumps, hanging planters, and sprinkler heads. A few trailers had trellises, cute mailboxes, striped awnings. I saw no open doors, humans, or animals. Also, no Camry, license tag MJC-547.

  I parked in Barry’s short driveway, walked to his door. Fat raindrops hit my face and arms. The wind kicked and shrubs tossed, preludes to a squall. An ominous prelude to my inquiries.

  Under the trailer home’s corroded aluminum awning, two parched aloe plants sat on a cheap iron rack. His door had a dead bolt and a peephole. He had shut his miniblinds, installed antitheft clamps on his window frames. A fake-looking decal told me the trailer was under constant security watch.

  A man’s muffled voice came from nearby: “He ain’t home.”

  Not so fake a decal.

  I turned, saw no one. I shouted, “What time does he get home?”

  The rain fell harder.

  “He ain’t home!”

  Brilliant.

  I hustled back to the Lexus, drove around to Southwest 31st. No sign of Marlow’s green Chevy, but he could be driving a county car or anything else. I counted the ass-ends of mobile homes until I found Barry’s. His west-facing rear window was the only one in the line of trailers not covered by reflective foil. Again, no surprise. He had lucked into a perfect home, with a clear view of the morgue’s service road.

  What had Goodnight Irene Jones said? “I saw what came through the back, the messes they offloaded.”

  I felt like a detective. I knew that two men were running parallel courses. But if his mission was to watch the morgue, where was Barry? Had he hit the same legal roadblock as Sam? Or illegal roadblock? On second thought, I felt like a failed detective. Every answer led me to more questions. The more I learned the less I knew.

  The rain hit harder, the windshield began to fog. The wipers came on automatically, as did the defroster. I was living in luxury.

  * * *

  Odin Marlow’s place in Pembroke Pines was in a group of six two-story buildings, six townhouses each, all in need of paint. They wrapped around a paved parking lot and a littered Dumpster plaza. No guard gate, no class, but no speed bumps. Casuarina trees and scrawny oleander failed to break the monotony. I counted seventeen parked vehicles, two with windows open to drizzling rain.

  I angled into the slot nearest Odin’s unit, but still had to walk sixty feet to a door with no awning. Like the trailer court a half hour earlier, no animals or people around. I almost pressed the bell, but caught myself. I had no idea what to say if someone opened the door. I could claim I was looking for Sam Wheeler, but why at a private residence instead of the sheriff’s department?

  Screw it, I thought. Play it as it falls.

  I punched the bell, waited a half minute, hit it again. Nothing. I was off the hook for a bullshit story, but doomed again to learning zip. I was already soaking wet. I decided to nose around.

  Odin’s screen-enclosed patio had no plants or furniture, but it screamed of potential. An exercise machine dripped rust onto faded outdoor carpet. A sliding glass door was wide open, as if Marlow dared anyone to violate his space, dared mildew to come in and take root.

  My first thought said to go in. The second suggested that someone had beaten me to it and may still be in there. Or someone besides Odin had left and forgotten to close up. I thought about getting Liska’s gun from the Lexus. I thought again. Felony plus weapon possession equals mandatory prison time. I palmed my handkerchief to mask fingerprints, and let myself onto the patio. If I got caught, sure as hell I would be accused of trying to steal his ritzy watch. Worse, they would find Sam’s bankroll in my pocket, and Marlow would claim it as his. I had never been fitted for an orange jumpsuit, but I guessed a size forty-four would do it. If I didn’t take a forty-five slug beforehand.

  Marlow’s pad was a study in contrast. His furniture was upscale, his filth downscale. He had a sixty-inch TV, a pocket-sized stereo, and loudspeakers you could camp in. The sofa, recliner, and easy chair were made of matching blond leather. A glass-and-chrome coffee table sat on a huge Persian rug on top of wall-to-wall gray berber. His primary decorations were spindly, iron figurines with that lopsided Picasso look. His pastimes got deluxe treatment. A magnificent glass-front case displayed Odin’s collection of beer can insulators. He had swiped them from every hangout in town. Two shelves down I found enough X-rated DVDs to satisfy a prison population for months. None of his fixtures matched the fundamental mess.

  I waded through stacks of junk mail and National Enquirers, evidence of blended whiskey and Diet Coke, crumpled take-out bags, boxes from pizza deliveries. Odin had left his dirty socks on a chair, skivvies on the kitchen counter. Worse was the garbage smell, stacks of plates caked with residue, and four full plastic bags that he hadn’t carried to the Dumpster.

  The bedroom carried on the theme. High-end, tasteful furniture, with his white bed sheets gone gray. They matched the carpeting. Two lamps, a pile of jackoff magazines, and a roll of paper towels were next to his bed.

  I put my handkerchief away. I wasn’t going to touch a thing.

  Odin had hung photos in cheap frames, his own little shrine. I couldn’t tell if his “ready” stance in jersey 48 was college or high school football. A more recent Odin posed on a yacht stern with a medium-sized tarpon. His fish looked too perfect, as if borrowed from someone’s den wall. In a slightly larger picture, Odin was surrounded by four blondes in bikinis. The women pretended to snuggle, but none looked like a friend. In early shots Odin was just another poser with a smile. In newer shots his scowl revealed hatred.

  He may have been big in Podunkville, but he was a scrambler on the tide line. Marlow had too much disposable income for a sheriff’s detective, even with an inheritance. He was drawn to high life, dragging his anchor through the dregs of a previous existence. Odd that a boy from Greenwich, Connecticut, had picked up his sense of style at the mall.

  I had been inside too long. I wasn’t even sure what I had wanted to find. When I finally noticed the safe in the bedroom corner, bolted to the floor, I knew I’d find nothing of interest.

  On my way out I bumped an end table, disturbed a stack of bills. Under the stack, the corner of a photograph. A picture of Marcantonio’s Camry.

  I stopped, paid more attention. That morning’s Miami Herald was spread across a stool. The Gomez murder case got minor coverage on page three of the South Broward section. But the piece was accompanied by a sidebar that hadn’t been in the Keys section. Its lead sentence said, “Could people doing business with Key West have harmed the mayor?” The piece listed eight pending commission decisions, including the three that Marnie had told me about on Tuesday. A circle was penciled around the mention of the Borroto Brinas Development Corporation’s resort proposal for bay waters adjacent to North Roosevelt Boulevard.

  Marnie would be brokenhearted. She had been scooped on the Gomez murder, then double-scooped on background.

  I speculated on Odin Marlow’s interest in old Keys developments. The project’s time frame matched his years in Key West. He wouldn’t have circled the Borroto Brinas mention if it hadn’t meant something to him. I gazed to the ceiling, searched for guidance. A beacon shone down. It wasn’t beaming me insights and truth. I looked closer at the eye above the sliding glass door. I gave the video lens a contrite wave.

  I should have guessed. He had cash for leather and sculptures, pretend opulence. Why wouldn’t he have it for technology?

  I made it to the car and scanned the parking area one last time. Nothing but get-by rides. Beyond those, obscured by a hedge, was a red Eldorado. A new Cadillac, as out of place as a cruise ship.

  The last good anomaly.

  I hadn’t learned a thing, and I’d gone backward in a hurry. Marlow knew my face, my name, and where to find me. He would probably be more bitter about my reactions to his detritus than my trespassing. />
  I drove back to Southwest 31st Avenue and took another pass at Barry Marcantonio’s. No car next to his trailer. A quarter-mile away, on the corner of Griffin Road, I found a phone on the front wall of a convenience store. I had one last chance and only one way to reach her. I called Cozy Cab for a pickup at the morgue. I asked them to send Goodnight Irene.

  I went in and got a PayDay, a Coke, a small bag of Fritos. Jazzy nutrition to make up for no breakfast or lunch. The rain had quit, so I went back out to wait. When Irene Jones drove by, I would follow, meet her in the medical examiner’s lot. I would ask about the Broward ME, see what she knew about Odin Marlow, maybe find myself at another dead end.

  I waited twenty minutes before the shit storm hit.

  A black Dodge Intrepid turned off Griffin and sped down Southwest 31st. It went about seventy-five yards, hit the brakes, then hit reverse. It backed until it reached the convenience store driveway, stopped, whipped into the lot, and drove straight for me. Its bumper stopped ten feet from my knees. I saw three men in the car.

  The front passenger got out, crouched behind his door, and pointed a pistol. All I could see was a crew cut and a gun muzzle.

  He bellowed, “Face down, fuckhead.”

  I dropped my Coke and took his suggestion. My clothes absorbed greasy water from the blacktop. I struggled to keep my face off the ground. The man was on me fast. He put a knee to my shoulders, cuffed my right wrist, yanked it to my spine.

  “The other arm nice, or you like pain?” he said.

  Another man thrust an ugly weapon at my nose. The muzzle’s black eye stared me down. I moved my left arm to the restraint.