Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery

by Michael Haskins

  “This is bullshit.” Bob griped. “You wanna go first?”

  “Captain’s the last off the boat,” I joked. “You go first.”

  “You owe me,” he growled and moved forward. “I need to put my arms down to get off,” Bob said to the lawmen.

  “Carefully,” the voice bellowed, “and slow. No sudden moves.”

  “You watch too many movies, jack,” Bob said as he let himself down to the dock. “Who are you guys?”

  Two men rushed Bob, forced him to kneel, and then handcuffed him. He looked up at me with a squint-eyed sneer. They couldn’t have done it if Bob hadn’t allowed them. “Is there anyone else onboard?” the heavy voice snarled.

  “No.” I lowered myself to the dock and was forced to kneel and then handcuffed.

  “Any weapons onboard?”

  “A shotgun, in its case,” Bob answered before I could.

  “Why do you have a shotgun onboard?”

  “Because this is America and I’m allowed to,” Bob shot back angrily. “Who the hell are you guys?”

  “We’re asking the questions.”

  “Go to hell,” Bob barked as loud as the commands came, “because until I see a badge, I ain’t sayin’ another word.”

  “Luis,” I yelled, still on my knees. “This isn’t Cuba, what the hell are you doing?”

  I hoped the loud talk would wake a few of the live-aboard boaters who could be witnesses if I needed them later.

  Luis and the man bellowing the orders walked to the edge of the finger dock. With hand motions the man had his officers help us stand.

  “Luis, what the hell are you doing?” I said.

  “We’re looking for a killer,” he said. “And before you start with your usual bullshit, we recorded your channel-sixteen conversation with Walsh, so we know you met with him.”

  Two men boarded the Fenian Bastard.

  “You got a search warrant?” I shouted.

  “Probable cause,” the rough-voiced man said with a cold smile. “Go.” He ordered the two men.

  “If you’d asked nicely, you would’ve got my cooperation,” I said.

  “And what are we going to get now?” the man asked with a vulgar leer.

  “Nothing until I see something official,” I said and the man behind me pulled down so hard on my cuffs that it sent spasms of pain shooting into my shoulders.

  The boss man turned to Luis. “Take them to the station; we’ll see if they’ll cooperate there.” He turned and strutted toward the parking lot.

  “Luis,” I yelled as they rough-marched us along the pier. “I need to tie her off properly.” None of these clowns had tied the boat lines to the dock’s cleats properly.

  “In another life, Mick.” He pranced ahead of us.

  They put Bob and me in different cars and drove us to the police station. The night was giving way to an early, gray dawn and I couldn’t stifle a yawn. Two beers at four in the morning wasn’t an energy boost. I knew Luis would push this as much as he could because when Richard became involved rules would be followed. I hoped so, anyway, as a marshal pulled me from the car.

  My hands remained handcuffed behind me. A marshal forced me into a seat in the interrogation room. No one spoke. The marshals did their job with synchronized motion, as their training had taught them to. They left the room. Bright lights glared and closing my eyes didn’t help much. No two-way mirrors on the soundproofed wall for interrogation observation like on TV, but I knew there was a video camera and directional mic placed close to the ceiling. My concern was whether Luis turned them on or not.

  I didn’t wait long. Luis came into the room, followed by the bellowing-voiced marshal still wearing a windbreaker with U.S. Marshal stenciled in large letters across the back and small lettering and a badge image stenciled on the front, over where his heart would be if he had one.

  Luis smiled and looked at his wristwatch. He had to be estimating how long before Richard arrived.

  “I want an attorney,” I moaned. If the video was working I wanted my voice to sound strained.

  “You’re not under arrest, so why do you need an attorney?” the marshal said.

  “You’ve not identified yourselves, I am handcuffed, my shoulders hurt, it’s what, four or five in the morning?” I griped loudly for the hidden mic “If this ain’t an arrest, what is it?”

  The Marshal nodded and Luis sighed and freed me from the handcuffs. I put my hands on the table and rubbed my wrists for the camera.

  “I’m a U.S. Marshal and we have procedures to follow when approaching an escapee,” he recited coldly. His chiseled features reminded me of granite from the Quincy quarry of my youth. Short gray hair added to his cold look. Maybe his pallor did, too. Or, maybe it was the room’s lighting. His pale blue eyes looked like diluted pools of water and it made me wonder if he had a shallow soul or maybe no soul at all. Maybe I was too tired to see otherwise. Maybe I was hallucinating. I needed sleep.

  “You have to understand that, with your background,” he said. “We had reason to believe you were harboring a fugitive and acted accordingly.”

  I forced a laugh. “You’re bullshitting me, right?” I yelled. “Walsh isn’t a fugitive.”

  “That’s not his name,” the marshal said, holding the hard smile. “He escaped from custody almost three years ago and I’m going to catch him, with or without your help.”

  “How does someone escape from witness protection?” I sat back, stretched my legs, and yawned.

  The marshal shot Luis a quick frown and then turned his attention back to me.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” he said with some of his bravado gone, “and you’ll answer them. You understand?”

  “I understand I’m gonna get up and leave.” I tried to rub the weariness from my eyes. “I’ll get Bob on my way out, unless you’ve arrested him, too.”

  “We let him go in the parking lot,” the marshal said and matched my grin.

  That caught me off guard. Why did they want me and not Bob? We were both on the boat, we both met Walsh, or so they thought. Now I was curious and, as my mother warned me, curiosity killed the cat and she should’ve added maybe a journalist or two.

  Chapter 15

  Luis looked at his wristwatch and nodded toward the marshal, whose expression was cold and unreadable, but Luis was lit up like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. He enjoyed my predicament. He kept checking the time because everything had limitations and when Richard came this would be over and Luis held responsible for his actions. He’d be back in the fold.

  “Since the man you know as Walsh was not with you, we assume he wanted to see you for a reason other than a boat ride,” the marshal said, as if he were recalling rehearsed words. “What is your relationship with him? I know what you’ve told the Key West PD.” He held up his hands to keep me from answering. “I want the truth. Why were you the only person he called after he murdered the woman?” He emphasized murdered. “That’s why you’re here and your friend isn’t. He has nothing we want. You on the other hand, seem to be a glitch in our equation. So, tell me, why you?”

  A few hours ago I would have given him the whole story, the tapes, too, and washed my hands of it, but I was having second thoughts. Assholes come in all shapes, colors and sizes, in all occupations, and the U.S. Marshals office was no different, but right then they seemed to have the asshole market cornered.

  Something wasn’t right and I couldn’t stop from wondering what it was. Curiosity, editors have told me, is my opiate. These guys are feeding my habit.

  “I asked him that.” I yawned more than I needed to. “That’s why I even bothered to go out and meet him. I was curious”

  I stretched my legs and rolled my shoulders to remove the stiffness. As a working journalist, I often had to think on my feet during interviews and confrontations, and it was something I had become good at. It was paying dividends in the interrogation room and justified my life of half-truths and lies.

  “It comes down to a
simple answer and you aren’t gonna like it,” I said sitting up, stifling a full yawn. “And you aren’t gonna believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  “He trusts me.”

  “Bullshit,” Luis screeched. “He’s lying.”

  “Told you.” I expected Luis’ response.

  “Why does he trust you?”

  “When’s the last time you dealt with him?” I changed the subject so I could get a question or two in. “He’s paranoid and that drives his decision making.”

  “I told you, he escaped our custody three years ago,” he said and rubbed his beard stubble. “He was a little paranoid then.”

  “Yeah, well, we all know he wasn’t in custody. He was being protected.”

  “Protective custody, if that sounds better to you,” he said without a change in his icy expression.

  “Custody is the word that bothers me.” I stretched again and was unable to hide another yawn. “Look it, we could sit here for the next hour, maybe less, and dance around the table lying to each other and then Richard shows up and you’ll have to cut me loose, knowing nothing.” I grinned at Luis. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re up to and I’ll see what it is I know that can help.”

  “We’re trying to capture an escapee,” he began in a tired voice.

  “Bullshit,” I said. “I know about his willingness to testify against Whitey Bulger.

  He gets immunity for his murders in exchange for testifying. How’s that so far?”

  “He tell you that?”

  “Yeah, he began to tell me his life story.”

  “You stopped him?”

  “Yeah, I stopped him.”

  “Why?”

  “He wanted me to write about his life in Boston. I told him no.”

  “Again, why? It’s a scary tale? You know Boston and it would be a best seller.”

  “He’s a fugitive. It would require at least a year of interviews and rewriting and research to do the story,” I said. “I would need access to him, sometimes daily, and that’s pretty much impossible if the guy’s on the lam.”

  “And he decided he wanted his life story told after killing the woman?”

  “I don’t have that answer. I don’t know why he wants the story told,” I lied. “He’s afraid of you, the marshals, and I wonder why, after being his protectors for so many years. What have you done to scare him? Did you make him paranoid?”

  “Did he say why he called you?” He ignored my question.

  “To keep it short, he said the woman came to kill him,” I said and yawned again. “But it confused him.”

  “Confused him?” The marshal laughed. “He shouldn’t have been confused.”

  “He was,” I said. “She spoke to him in a language he didn’t understand, about places he’d never been to, before she finally spoke English. He believed she had mistaken him for someone else.”

  “Who?” He sat up and showed interest.

  “No idea and he didn’t care. She didn’t believe him, but he thought she was having doubts about his identity and he took advantage of it. You know about all the hidden guns?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, a little paranoid, like you said.”

  “Well, he talked her into a glass of water, grabbed a gun from the cabinet and shot her. That’s his story,” I said. “Paranoia saved him. And he’s more than a little paranoid.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Luis said.

  “I don’t care,” I said. “That’s what I got out of him on the water. Self-defense, but he’s paranoid, so he ran. He called because he wanted me to write his life story. I don’t know why he didn’t call anyone else.”

  “You’re not going to write the book? It would be a great opportunity.”

  “Yeah, if I didn’t mind dealing with a psychotic fugitive, which I do.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you,” Luis chirped in.

  “I’ve covered revolutions and enough drug traffickers to last me a lifetime, Luis,” I said. “I did a magazine piece about the legislative session last year in Tallahassee and nothing since. I am not interested in cold-blooded killers.”

  “But he’s interested in you,” the marshal said, cracking a thin smile.

  Chapter 16

  The abrupt end of the interrogation surprised me. Richard wouldn’t be in until eight and it was a little before seven. I expected Luis to keep me as long as he could. The marshal thanked me for my cooperation and walked out, leaving Luis as surprised as I was. He never told me his name.

  “This has been bullshit, Luis,” I said as we left the room.

  “Not my call, Mick,” he mumbled, half from exhaustion and half lying. “My going along kept you from being transported to Miami, so you should be thanking me.”

  “Thanking you for not letting me tie off my boat? Look it, Luis, we don’t like each other, but you’ve been a good cop and doing this wasn’t being a good cop. You wanted to see me squirm.”

  “Think what you want,” he said and a scowl spread across his face like a hurt kid. “I did what I could. Believe it or not.”

  “Who was the asshole? He have a name?” I waited at the elevator.

  “Dudley Crabtree.” He grinned.

  “You’re shittin’ me?”

  “That’s his name.”

  “Maybe that’s why he doesn’t introduce himself. He’s no Dudley Doright, is he?”

  “He has a good rep, Mick. Don’t underestimate him because of his name.”

  “I didn’t like him before I knew his name.” I held the elevator door open.

  “Do you know where Walsh is, Mick?”

  “I don’t,” I sighed because I wanted to tell the whole story, but didn’t. “He’s got something besides the Jet Ski, a boat somewhere. He could be anywhere. If I were him, I’d be in Havana and if he left after talking to me he’d be there now.”

  “They’re tracking his phone, but he doesn’t have it turned on,” he said. “Or there’s no signal where he’s at. How far out does your cell work?”

  “The reef is pushing it.” I didn’t tell him they were tracking the wrong phone.

  “Would he head back this way?”

  “Luis, I think he has a boat. Probably a small, fast one and that would allow him to go anywhere he wanted.”

  “Do you believe his story that the woman was there to kill him?” Now he leaned against the elevator door so it wouldn’t close.

  “Yeah, I do. And I believe he was confused by her, too.”

  “He didn’t know what language she was speaking?”

  “I believe that too. I think she mistook him for someone else.”

  “A fatal mistake.”

  “For her.”

  “Crabtree wanted your boat left like that,” he said without looking at me, almost an apology. “He thought it would get you to answer his questions faster so you could get back and tie it off properly. It was his call.”

  “You didn’t have to go along with him.” I punched the lobby button again.

  “I did it to keep you from going to Miami.” He moved and let the elevator door go. It closed as he walked away.

  I walked outside and the morning sky was a pale blue with few clouds. The sun was on the east side of the island so the air was cool by the water. I crossed North Roosevelt and headed to my slip.

  Bob had tied off the Fenian Bastard correctly and that surprised me. He left a note attached to the closed hatch: Wake me when it’s time for lunch. I was no longer surprised.

  The main salon was a little messy and my guess was that Bob had tried to straighten everything the marshals had tossed. It was a few minutes past seven when I fell onto the bow cabin’s bed. I didn’t bother undressing. I lay on the covers and wondered why I was bothered by Walsh’s story, the dead woman, and the marshals. Luis bothered me too, because if he was telling the truth I had misjudged him and I didn’t think that was possible.

  Music from the salon woke me from a restless sleep. It was 10:45. Bob was sitting down reading the morn
ing Citizen.

  “We can’t be in it,” I said and walked to the galley for some cold water.

  “No,” he said turning the page. “But Walsh is.”

  “They know about him?”

  Bob laughed. “I guess one of his employees knows. Amanda because she’s written about his telling his employees, ‘They are after me.’ Kind of turning him into a Key West character, but she also reported he’d not been located.”

  “That was quick.”

  “Mostly speculation and filler about other Key West characters. No comment from the cops.”

  “I need a shower and a con leche,” I said.

  “I’m going to my marina and do the same. Should we meet at Schooner or Sandy’s?” He put the paper down and stood.

  “I’ll walk to Sandy’s around noon and meet you,” I said. “Lunch at Schooner.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said and smiled. “This is more than it seems and I can’t figure it out.”

  “Forget about him, let them catch the psycho,” he said and left.

  Easier said than done, especially when curiosity was a blessing and curse.

  Chapter 17

  Bob met me at Sandy’s, a small, twenty-four hour, hole-in-the-wall take-out sandwich shop that makes a mean café con leche. We ordered two large with four sugars each and drank quietly while Bob drove to Schooner Wharf. It had been a long night and I was still tired, even after a few hours sleep.

  Bob pulled into an open spot on Eaton Street and we walked the two blocks to the bar. The empty con leche cups went in the trash by a crowded B.O.’s Fish Wagon restaurant and we continued on William Street to the back entrance of Schooner.

  Everyone knows that September is peak hurricane season in the Keys, but the lunch crowd was sizeable as they sat around the sunny patio finishing their meals, not thinking about hurricanes, and ordering more drinks. Local drinkers filled the four-side bar, bullshitting, bragging to each other in the shade, and were not too concerned about lunch. Some peeked at the bar’s large TV, when the Weather Channel did its tropical update report.