by Tom Corcoran
Hayes nodded, in thought. “I didn’t know it was Little Bug. You probably did the right thing. I used to know his scummy father. Every high school has a bully, every town its pet felon. The one-man crime wave finally got his.”
“It took twenty years for the system to send Jemison Thorsby away. He got out in less than four. I heard he earned fat money at Union Correctional lecturing inmates on witness intimidation.”
“Hell with that. My father was up there then. Thorsby got turned out and shanked at least twice. He’s got one scar I know from his collarbone to his belly button. I expect he came home with a chip on his shoulder the size of Sand Key.”
We still stood outside the porch, staring at trees as though they held our interest, kicking blades of grass. “Well, Jemison’s handed down the legacy,” I said. “Bug’s a good copycat, or else he found inspiration in his butthole buddies. Why are you back in Key West, Dexter? You trying to clear your family’s name?”
“Shit. Anybody ever gave a damn about my family left town, run away by property taxes.”
“They still know Big Dex Hayes’s reputation.”
“Nobody knows how it went. Hookers and gambling. The town tolerated it. The powers did every damn thing to keep him in business. Made my life hell, especially after the point when other kids and I were old enough to know what was going down. People’d see my old man’s three-inch bankroll, think I was growing up in some fairy tale. Wrong. But that’s the way it goes.”
I knew he was right. A generation ago, a law officer of Dexter’s rank could jeopardize his career by messing with Big Dex. These days basic corruption drew more attention, more attorneys, but less shame.
“Let me ask you this,” said Hayes. “You thinking of settling the score with Bug?”
“You’re leading up to something, Detective. I hope you’re almost there.”
“Go ahead and answer that question.”
“I’m not going to sink to his level, unless I’m forced to, but the old wheel comes around. Let’s say, if my timing is right, maybe I can help Bug win a ticket upstate, get his chance to meet some fraternity brothers in Starke.”
“I’ll bet you get that chance. You’re a hotshot. Word gets around. You’ve done a lot of work for us and the county the last few years, you maybe think you’ve earned your wings . . . made your bones?”
He was working his way back to Heidi. I said, “I’ve been there for the paycheck. Not recognition. If I’d wanted a career, I’d have gone to the academy. That’s not my deal.”
“I agree. I don’t know whether you’re a troublemaker or a lucky son of a bitch. You’re a picture taker. I don’t know if you pay your bills, change your underwear, bullshit your closest friends, or call your mother on holidays. And I don’t care. What concerns me directly is I know you’re not a child molester, you don’t beat up women, and you act like a grown-up during daylight hours. You’ve made your contributions. But you’re not a cop, you aren’t James Bond or Spenser for Hire. You’re not a detective. You’re not a sworn officer of the law.”
Hayes’s monologue was clever, designed to boost me up, knock me down, and put me in my place. But I had no designs on his job, no ambitions to be a crime stopper. I wanted the life I had enjoyed for many years to continue for another fifteen or twenty, without ugliness or tragedy. I said, “I’m with you on all the above, no argument.” Then I added, “I’m still guessing you’ve come back to settle some scores of your own. I may not be the only one to think that.”
“Maybe they’ll see it that way. I came here to get my wife and babies off the goddamned Gold Coast. You got fatal accidents once an hour up there. The schools are armed camps. The mobile homes they call classrooms, they look like armed trailer camps. More uniforms at junior high than at the malls. Ironic as hell, isn’t it? I came back to Key West for quality of life.”
“The ironic part is your being worried about safety, the job you do.”
“Look, Rutledge. If it ever comes down to court, testimony for me and the prosecutor to win conviction, I don’t want your so-called knowledge, that cute booklet in your bag, to get shoved down my throat. You want to work for me, you need to take courses. Do it on the Internet, however, but write it down, tell me what you’re taking. Keep me posted on your progress.”
“Fair enough.”
Hayes walked to a tall bush at the edge of my property, fluffed out the branches. “My mama, bless her soul, always used to say, ‘Croton bushes are like Conch kids. They’ll grow up fine, even if you don’t take care of ’em.’ ”
I said, “Didn’t work for Bug Thorsby.”
“He don’t count. That family came here from Alabama. By the way, you’ll be proud to know you made history yesterday. My liaison at the county tells me AFIS kicked back a fingerprints hit, that headless man you photographed. The pisser is, I’ve got to coordinate on a joint investigation. But you made history. You photographed two dead Richard Engrams in one day.”
“Same name?”
“Same social, same date of birth. There’s probably a place for you down at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! They’ll mold a wax effigy of you in there. The way they design faces, it should look just like you right now. Stunned and empty-headed.”
“Sounds like an investigator’s problem, Dexter. I’m just the photographer, remember?”
“Right.” He did his knuckle thing on the upper lip. “It sure as hell connects the two murders. One last question.”
“I wish I believed that,” I said.
“A couple of minutes ago you used the word copycat. Any reason, your choice of words?”
Someone had matched Mercer Holloway’s line of thought.
“No, but I know what you mean. Are they your cases?”
“Used to be Liska’s.” A quick, almost imperceptible nod. “See you later.”
“Now I got one last question, Dexter.”
He turned.
“Actually, two,” I said. “You mentioned your mama. You said, ‘Bless her soul.’ I never heard that she passed away.”
He thought for a minute. “My mother is still alive and she is increasingly guided by divine voices. What’s the last question?”
“Like I said, I accept your apology. But I’m looking for a reason why you were such an asshole yesterday.”
“And now it’s your turn? Look. You weren’t the photographer. You were a suspect.”
As I’d thought. “Am I still a suspect?”
“Follow me here. I’m new on the job. I’m trying to step aside from my father’s shadow. I’m following Liska’s act at the city, which is tough. And I intend to be good. Yes, Rutledge, you’re still a suspect. Don’t feel special. Everyone’s a fucking suspect.”
Hayes walked toward his plain white four-door Chevy Lumina. My small yard looked barren without Heidi Norquist’s Jaguar convertible. The antique thermometer on the porch read seventy-four degrees. Hayes looked back as he eased into his car. His final glance made me flash to what Heidi had said about wind-chill factor. Hayes dialed a number before he put it in gear. He rolled out of the lane, slouched near the center of the front seat, the cell phone jammed to his ear.
Reporting on his progress? Linking me to Caroline Street?
I walked up the wood stairs to my porch and thumbed through the five photos in the manila envelope. The big White APPLEBY-FLORIDA, INC., GENERAL CONTRACTOR sign. Was that the name of Heidi’s corporation, or Butler’s? The other sign listed the muscle, the lawyers and the bankers. Small world. The security company name hadn’t rung a bell when I’d taken the picture: TNT Security was Tommy Tucker’s operation.
A horn honked. “Hey, Rutledge.” Dexter Hayes had returned, backed his car down the lane. He beckoned me to his passenger-side window.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Your friend Marnie Dunwoody? She walked out of the Citizen building on Northside Drive. She found an oversized Ziploc bag on the floor of her Jeep. The plastic was fogged by freezable gel packs, but she made out the c
ontents when she saw a human ear. You want to make a quick buck?”
“I don’t do portrait work.”
Hayes turned human for an instant: “I don’t blame you. This is right up Cootie Ortega’s alley.” He put it in drive and chirped the tires.
No question now. Butler Dunwoody was drawing the crap, and anyone who got close to him or his project was fair game for one form or another of terrorism and violence. Time for a simple solution. Fly to Atlanta, take Sam and Marnie and Teresa, check into a cheap motel for a week or two.
I returned to the porch, dropped the packet of photos I’d been perusing. I called Sam to ask about Marnie, how she was taking the shock of finding the severed head.
No answer. The perfect time not to leave a message.
Back on the porch, imagining Mamie’s reaction, I mindlessly shuffled the photos. My hands were sweating. Maybe that was why the last two pictures in the stack had stuck together. I peeled them apart. I’d forgotten about the one on the bottom. It was the shot I’d taken without sighting or focusing as the shorter thug had moved toward me, just before the dude behind him had snapped open his carpet cutter. The blur was exactly as I’d imagined it. Parts of Shorty’s chin and shoulder, overexposed, mottled. Sparkles off his necklaces, his gold hoop earring. By some stroke of fate, the focus was perfect in the background. At the right edge of the frame, the torso of the taller one, from his waist to eye level. The hand with the carpet cutter was not in the shot. The man’s skinny belly showed under his shirt hem, and . . .
. . . a purplish-red, oval-shaped birthmark ran from under his shirt collar to a point behind his right ear. The carpet cutter’s birthmark.
Maybe the same ear Marnie had seen through the fogged Ziploc bag.
11
Some people are born in love with cars. Some people don’t know motors from meat hooks. Teresa’s enthusiasm peaked when she bought a Shimano motor scooter that matched her blue Pontiac Grand Am. She couldn’t understand why I owned a shabby beater.
I’ve always believed that an eye-catcher attracts two things. Thieves and cops. In town I use my bike and my motorcycle. I remove the car from its padlocked garage only for trips off the island, and only when the motorcycle won’t do. Teresa regarded my high-performance Shelby GT-350H as I hoped others would: an ugly ‘66 Mustang fastback with sun-bleached primer paint, warped bumpers, perforated upholstery, no hubcaps. It took a vacant road session on Middle Torch Key one clear October morning—high-speed corner-cutting, acceleration, deceleration, and braking—and an explanation of the Shelby’s value, the reason for my “collectible” insurance, to win her appreciation for my fox in dog’s clothing.
I needed to escape two days’ weirdness on the rock, blow carbon out of the Shelby’s valves. I hoped that distance from the island might help me sort events I’d assumed were unrelated. Events I now knew to be unexplainably linked. Blanking out questions that lacked immediate answers, I spent an hour with the Shelby, draining and refilling coolant, and checking levels at the dipstick, battery cells, and master cylinder. Then I drove six blocks to the Chevron on White Street—one of the last free-air pumps in Florida—to top off the pressure in my blackwalls.
A navy-blue Ford Expedition pulled to a gas pump fifteen feet from the air and water station. Connecticut plates. A bumper sticker: AL GORE INVENTED THE INTERNET, MY WIFE INVENTED MONEY. A burly, red-bearded tourist climbed out, told me he’d give me three thousand dollars for my old Mustang. He looked ready to whip out his wallet on the spot. I thanked him, declined his kind offer, not letting on that three grand represented a fraction of the car’s value.
“How about thirty thousand?” he said.
He knew. We shared a laugh. He asked about the engine’s originality, and hoped I still had, stored away somewhere, the special Magnum wheels and scooped factory hood.
He said, “Good idea, that paint.”
Teresa usually worked late, claimed her efficiency tripled when the office emptied after five P.M. I dialed her direct line at five-twenty. She picked up.
I said, “You’ve heard about Marnie?”
“I’ve heard.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“For thirty seconds. She took it okay at first, but then it got to her. She’s ticked off because she got attitude from the police officers. Same shit she told us about. Like it wouldn’t have happened if her brother hadn’t come to town. She’s home, sleeping.”
“You want paybacks for cooking last night? Dinner at Mangrove’s?”
“I’ve had an awful day. Not as bad as Mamie’s. You’re offering to drive?”
“Gassed up and ready,” I said.
“Give me time to go home and change. Can you wait forty minutes?”
“This night’s for you. Take forty-five.”
“I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.”
“I’ve got a lot to think about. But I want to wait until morning.”
We couldn’t have picked a better night to drive Highway 1. No bumper jumpers on Stock Island. No road racers past Boca Chica Naval Air Station, no turtles on Big Coppitt. The day’s wind had laid down. Cotton-ball clouds glowed, the moon only two days from full. Conversation could not compete with wind noise through the car windows. Teresa looked content, though I knew she had questions. I faced two dilemmas. I’d told her that the mugging had been a minor event. With my discovery that the headless victim had been my attacker, my white he bloomed into blatant deception. The other problem was, if I revealed the connection, she’d be on the spot. I knew her morals. She’d feel obligated to inform her colleagues at the city.
Somewhere around Bay Point, she reached across the center hump and patted my leg. That, in itself, said a thousand words.
Mangrove Mama’s is a funky spot on the bay side, fifty feet west of mile marker 20 at the top of Sugarloaf. I turned left into the parking area, noting a slight pull in the left front brake. I stopped next to a glassed-in phone booth under a lamppost, a narrow cone of light to fend off break-ins and attract bugs. In daylight my car did both on its own. I clicked my key chain button, the only technology stroke on the Shelby. The V-8’s mechanical fuel pump had crapped out weeks ago. I’d installed an electric pump, rerouted the gas line to the carburetor, and attached a remote-activated cutoff switch to the new electrical pump. If a thief hot-wired the ignition, the engine would turn over. Fuel-starved, it never would start. Peace of mind.
We were greeted inside by a young woman wearing a striking, form-fitting cocktail dress. I felt Teresa’s chill of disapproval. The pixie hostess looked seventeen, the face of an angel, the eyes of a harlot. Her black dress fit like skin. We followed her to a table. To placate my jealous lover, I kept my eyes diverted. Teresa picked a chair facing the restaurant’s open patio. I faced the restaurant’s central area and greeters’ podium.
I said, “Policing my thoughts?”
No answer.
The restaurant’s stereo was perfect: “Love the One You’re With.”
“Trade seats?” I said.
Teresa studied her menu. “Four things,” she said. “Eye candy is rarely sweet. She’s cute but not beautiful. Somewhere, for some reason, somebody hates her guts. And your conscience is my best friend.”
“You possess a wondrous mind.”
“You will choose your entree quickly. I’m hungry. I could eat a tree.”
We ordered wine. After the server had returned, poured Cabernet, I told Teresa about Mercer Holloway’s employment offer.
She said, “That many properties?”
“Over the years he picked them up. People died, families left town, landlords screwed up their lives, went to prison for smuggling. He was no dunce. He looked into the future. He bought cheap, he paid his taxes.”
“I’ve heard Paulie talk about him. He’s cut a lot of corners, too.”
Teresa’s stepfather, Paul Cottrell, had been the city’s zoning inspector for most of the time I’d lived in Key West. He knew the history of every building on the isl
and, rules bent, variances granted, the politics behind approvals.
“You’ve got a problem with Holloway’s offer?” said Teresa.
“I wonder if I’m whoring myself, or hosing my photography career. I’m helping a rampant capitalist hurry Key West to a point of being unlivable.”
“Malthus had an idea or two about that,” she said.
“I thought you majored in criminology.”
Teresa narrowed her eyes. “I’ve read the occasional book.”
“Malthus worried about population outrunning food supply,” I said. “I’m worried about humans overwhelming square footage.”
“It’s going to happen, one way or another. People’ve been trying to stop it for thirty years. Your taking pictures won’t make a difference. If his checks don’t bounce, do the work. At least you don’t have to travel. I can have you around more than usual.”
“There you go, being logical again.”
The hostess passed our table, ushering a couple to the outside patio. A song lyric popped to mind: “Half woman, half child, she drove him half wild.” I told myself not to look. I failed to heed my advice.
“She’s as ripe as an avocado in a rainstorm,” said Teresa. “If I had to make up her story, she’s in love with a jerk, he spends her earnings on dope and sports gambling. I’ll bet you fifty we come back in two months, she’ll have a new glow on her face and a pregnant belly out to here. A month later she’ll be gone. We’ll never see her again.”
The song also had said, “In the tropics, they come and they go.”
I said, “You never bet unless you’re sure to win.”
“It’s like that old lawyers’ rule.”
“Never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer.”
“You’re smart about some things, Alex, dense about others. If it averages out to eighty-twenty, you’re my dream date.”
We toasted to that. The server brought our main course, broiled grouper for Teresa, poached snapper for me. Sometimes I wonder about waiting all day to consume a costly meal that disappears from your plate in less than ten minutes. I took a bite, then wondered how I could live without it.
