by Tom Corcoran
I spread the blinds, looked outside. Barely sunup. “Five minutes,” I said.
He tactfully added, “If you can get a message to Ms. Barga quicker than I can, I’d appreciate that, too.”
25
I arrived at Holloway’s home ten minutes after Dexter Hayes’s call. Three minutes later the bus unloaded: two county commissioners, Mayor Steve Gomez and two other city commissioners, and a minister wanting to claim Mercer Holloway as a devoted, generous church member. A photographer from the Citizen and two reporters from the Miami Herald showed. Then, more quietly, Sheriff Fred “Chicken Neck” Liska, Detective Bobbi Lewis, and Lewis’s video assistant, in the same grunge clothes he’d worn the previous afternoon.
No family members in sight.
Ex-Sheriff Tucker, ace security expert, had discovered Mercer Holloway’s body. Tucker had slept in the house, on the second floor, and had wakened at daybreak. I’d seen Tommy Tucker when I arrived, sitting alone in a police van with the passenger-side door open, in wrinkled pants and a tank-top undershirt, sipping a Mountain Dew, staring at nothing. Tucker looked guilty as hell. Guilty of letting the worst happen on his watch.
Dexter told me not to approach the body. He wanted only general shots: the patio, the rear fence, the ladder on its side. The same ladder I’d used to scale the rear hedge fifteen hours earlier. Mercer was dressed in the clothing he’d worn at Mangoes, the trousers now soiled, his feet bare. Stains on the flagstone and the narrow, symbolic path of antique ballast stone. A vehicle tow-strap hung from a twelve-foot-high branch of gumbo limbo. The force of his drop, his dead weight, had stretched Mercer’s neck two or three inches. I looked close enough to see the half-shut eyes, his weird grimace, his tongue, his expression of massive regret.
I’d shot maybe eight pictures before Dexter hand-motioned me to put the camera away. I dropped it in my satchel, stood aside, my back to the foliage, as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigative team blew into the yard. Four in dark pants, black sneaks, CRIME SCENE pullovers, radio mikes snapped to their shoulders. Varsity wrestling in ninja jammies. Two of them, not eight feet from each other, conversed by walkie-talkie. Their commanding officer declared the patio “secured,” demanded that anyone not “authorized” vacate the premises. The modern military gives us these wizards. On our way out, we passed four more incoming: Medical Examiner Larry Riley, his chief investigator, and two assistants.
Outside, I watched Liska’s Lexus turn the corner of Elizabeth, roll northward. My best guess: breakfast at Harpoon Harry’s.
Dexter and I both knew the zinger, the one small detail. And Liska would know, too. Holloway had kicked the stepladder out from under himself to commit suicide. No one had stolen the ladder.
Hayes told me he’d reached Teresa’s cell phone, told her that he didn’t need her on scene, apologized for waking her early. He asked me to hang a minute, then huddled on the front lawn with Bobbi Lewis. I could tell they were pissed at the FDLE, but policies of all three agencies dictated seniority. In some city cases, the county sheriff will elect to command a scene. In a few murder cases the FDLE will do so. It was the manner of pick and choose—especially when headlines were at stake—that brought interagency conflict. The death of ex-Congressman Holloway guaranteed high-profile headlines.
When their discussion ended, Detective Lewis hurried away while Hayes strode toward me. “The man changed my life completely,” he said. “Now I’m politicked out of investigating his death.”
“Teresa and I ran into him last night,” I said. “We had a drink at Mangoes.”
“Tell me he was normal,” said the detective. “Please tell me that.”
“That was my impression. Defiant, pompous, talked our ears off.”
“Elderly white men in Florida commit suicide more often than teenagers. They feel that ‘vague loss of joy,’ and they go the hemlock route.”
“I’ve read about that,” I said. “It’s when they lose control, usually over their health.”
“What’d you talk about?”
“Changes on the island,” I said. “Power struggles.”
“Was he drunk?”
“No, just drinking.”
“His appearance?”
I said, “Kind of sloppy.”
“Did he mention his son?”
I nodded.
“Then he was depressed.”
“He didn’t bring up the subject. He mentioned him only because I asked about his relationships with family members.”
“Why a question like that?”
“I asked a bunch of questions. I wanted to mentally eliminate him as the source of this week’s nastiness.”
Dexter’s jaw tightened. “Did you succeed?”
Play this easy, I thought Go gently. “I couldn’t decide. But the hanging, there’s the similarity to the Toth case.”
“And the people in there are trampling the scene,” said Hayes. “I tried to explain the copycat theory. One guy laughed out loud.”
“I learned yesterday how he’d helped you with college.”
Hayes tried not to act surprised.
I said, “It’s rough to lose friends.” I realized as I said them that they were the exact words Teresa had expressed to Marnie on Sunday night. It’s hard to be original before the day begins.
Dexter looked down the street, toward Simonton, mentally took himself farther away. “I bit myself in the ass,” he said, “when I told you to buzz off with your clue.”
Bobbi Lewis had told him about the feather.
“It wasn’t as slick as I thought,” I said. “Doesn’t much prove anything.”
“They’re going to talk to Donovan Cosgrove in the next hour or so. You got any other ideas?”
“Detective Lewis tell you about Wiley Fecko?” I said.
“The weed sleeper? Yeah. I got to him before we cut him loose, ran some mug shots past him. He identified Bug Thorsby but not Robbie Carpona. Bug had a helper we don’t know about, when he dropped Freddy Tropici’s body on that sofa. Maybe one of his daddy’s wharf rats from up on Summerland.”
I said, ‘Tell me about Gram Holloway.”
Dexter shook his head. “The boy’s dead. I’m not going to walk on that grave.”
Liska, on Sunday, had mentioned “walking on graves.” Must have become a standard cop expression. We both were talking in echoes.
“How about I walk on it?” I said. “You just say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
Hayes started to walk away. “Sounds like out of a movie.”
I tried it anyway. “Was he a loser?”
“Yep.”
“Druggie?” I said.
“Yep.”
“Close to his family?”
“Enough to jingle the purse. Year or two before he died, the idiot declared bankruptcy.”
“Close to his sisters?”
“No,” he said. “He embarrassed them, and vice versa. They were yuppie, he was street. Julie once told me she got tired of waiting for him to grow up.”
“You ever go to law school?” I said.
He cocked an eye, silently questioned my having checked into his past. “I quit after eight months of that crap. Decided the weight I carried, my father’s reputation, was easier than facing an attorney in the mirror every morning. Know what I mean? I dropped out. I picked up enough undergraduate hours to certify myself for the police exam.”
“Put the arm on Carpona yet?”
“What’d the Treasure Salvors used to say? ‘Today’s the day.’”
“They said it for years,” I said.
Dexter stuck his little finger in his ear, wiggled it. “They found the gold.”
Chicken Neck Liska was in the last booth on Harpoon Harry’s east wall. He glanced up from his newspaper. “Another bacon and eggs down the toilet.”
“I can’t stay, thanks.” I sat opposite him. “What’s a typical murder count, per year, in the Lower Keys?”
“Two.” He lifted his coffee cup, sipped gingerl
y, as if it was boiling.
“The past four years, total?”
Liska overplayed the care with which he set down his cup. ‘Twelve.”
“The national rate on solved versus unsolved?”
He looked toward the kitchen door. “Six-, seven-to-one. Maybe better.”
“And . . .”
“Fifty-fifty. That answer your next question?” He finally faced me. “We got a flake doing life in an upstate jail, he wants to admit to two. That’ll help. Our stats on all other major crimes are lower than the national averages.”
I said, “You know things about the unsolveds that no one who’s not a cop knows, especially the press. Has the killer copied non-public details? Or could there be a bad cop somewhere?”
Sheriff Liska screwed up his face, looked at me oddly. I sensed the flicker of a distant lightbulb. He said, “Go the fuck away.”
“One more question. Any chance Jemison Thorsby’s a car thief?”
“You’re still hoping there’s a hot-vehicle ring on Stock Island.”
“Could be anywhere.”
“That’s right,” said Sheriff Liska. “Could be anytime, too. But not now. Go away.”
“Yep,” I said. “Gotta read some newspapers.”
I rode the bike down Margaret. The sun a gentle pastel, fresh sounds of birds, an odd absence of power tools. Morning people on foot, on bicycles. Everyone not jogging looked to be running errands, going to jobs. Morning people in Key West are different than night people. Or even noon people.
It wasn’t really Hayes who looked bad, I thought, with all the unsolved murders being copied. Dexter was a newcomer focused on adapting to the department, the city. He’s had no time to spend on old cases. It was Liska who’d left behind unfinished business. A reasonable man might suspect that the murderer had multiple purposes. In copying unsolved cases, someone was trying to drag Liska’s reputation in the dirt. And Liska didn’t care?
At the house, a message from Heidi Norquist: “Could you call me back, please, Alex? I want to see if you have information I don’t have.”
I hoped to hell I did.
I called Sam’s dock. A man at the weather bureau, Marnie, and I were the only people who knew the number. Sam picked up.
“Can I bum a ride up the Keys?”
“My client’s on the boat. I’m out of here,” he said. “I’ll leave the Bronco keys under the floor mat. What’s wrong with the Shelby?”
“It’s perfect. I’m talking your boat, to Summerland, after dark. We need to know what Jemison Thorsby’s doing. The deputies aren’t interested.”
He waited a moment. “Why is it up to you?”
“I’m stringing beads of knowledge. Bug attacks me where a murder victim is later found. Bug’s body’s in a car that chases me. The second victim’s head shows up in Marine’s Jeep. I visit Jemison on Tuesday, and an hour later my motorcycle’s a cinder. Heidi’s car is stolen. Teresa’s car is stolen. On Sunday I saw Jemison driving a forklift on Stock Island, following a stolen car. All this overlap in names and victims, I want to finish the puzzle.”
“Knowledge is good,” said Sam. “This angler’s a full-day ride, but he’ll jump enough fish to quit early. We can go anytime.”
“Trailer?”
“Pain in the butt. The time it’d take to put a hitch on Mamie’s Jeep, I’d be halfway there. Lemme think.” The line went silent for a few seconds. “Stay by the phone,” he said. “Call you back in two minutes.”
I knew him well. I didn’t even go to the kitchen for a glass of OJ.
The phone rang ninety seconds later. “I’ll drop off my client at three,” said Sam. “Then I’ll load gear and take the backcountry to the east side of Cudjoe. Johnny Baker’s on Blue Gill Lane. I’ll stash the boat in his canal, Marnie’ll pick me up. They’ve still got her Jeep in impound. She borrowed a car from a woman she works with. We’ll go back tonight, start from there. You want us both to go ashore?”
“No. You’re already risking your boat. I can slip onto the beach, check out the dock, check out those sheds.”
“Once we leave Thorsby’s, we can’t go back to Baker’s. We might lead bad people to his house. We can weave our way through the bottom end of Kemp Channel, run back here full-tilt Ninefoot Shoal to Pelican Shoal is no more than a half hour.”
The phone rang. Please, don’t let it be Heidi.
I gave it the morning gruff: “Rutledge.”
I recognized Teresa; she inhaled before she said, “Hi.” The exasperation in her voice expressed a dozen emotions. Twelve shades of frustration.
“You okay?”
“I’m okay,” she said. A quivering voice. “We were the last people to see him alive.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “But don’t repeat that at work.”
“Salesberry wants me at the county. They’ve arrested Donovan Cosgrove. He wants me to watch the sheriff’s media rep in action.”
“Arrest? Or just in for questions?”
“He threatened to kill one of Mercer’s tenants a couple of months back. Weird timing, but they arrested him for it forty minutes ago.”
“Perfect timing, but it’s weird policy,” I said.
“What’re you going to do?” said Teresa.
“Get out of here, away from distractions. Go read some old newspaper clippings. Maybe hide in the library.”
What had I said? My house, my terms, and the rough parts lump by lump. Great macho, but I hadn’t considered my evil telephone.
“Use my condo,” said Teresa. “I’ve got the line forwarding to my cell.”
“You are my dream woman.”
“Alex, you laugh when you dream.”
I rode my bike down Southard, thought about my trust in Sam Wheeler. He’d always clammed up when people on the docks or in bars began to spin tales of Southeast Asia. I knew he’d been in combat, been awarded a medal for action that required courage beyond imagination. He’d explained it once, without detail. He’d said that bravery resulted from planning and reflexes. And clear focus when the brain is overloaded.
Overload I could claim. Focus, no chance.
26
A simple question, phrased as a statement in 1989.
“One of my clients, a doctor from Savannah, wants his sailboat delivered this week to Bimini,” Sam had said. “I’m a motorboat guy. Sailboats, bow and stern “I’m okay, but nothing in the middle. Like Noah in that Cosby routine, asking God, ‘What’s a cubit?’ I need a man of your talents. “
“When?”
“Thinking we could leave tomorrow morning. WX-2 says three-foot chop, light southeast winds through Wednesday. Possible storm formation in the Gulf, likely to move northeast. We motor out of Key West Harbor, four miles due south. Then we shut down the iron genny, cruise to the Bahamas. We’ve got a dock spot at Brown’s and a room at Bimini Big Game.”
“No Compleat Angler?”
“Full. We’ll drink with Ossie in the bar. We’ll play the ring-and-hook game, go back to Big Game, wake up to scrambled eggs and grilled snapper. Milk it for a couple days, fly home on Chalk’s.”
I packed two pairs of shorts, spare underwear, four T-shirts, one pair of jeans, and my foul-weather jacket. I brought the ditty bag I’d prepared for sailing transits: sunblock, extra shoelaces, a referee’s whistle, an eyeglass-repair kit for my shades, a “church key “-style can opener, single-edged razor blades, a corkscrew, two tubes of Turns, six stainless U-bolts in varying sizes, a rope weaver’s fid, a pair of needle-nose pliers, a packet of No-Doz, Visine, and floss. I’d strung the whistle on a thick strand of nylon. I wore it around my neck at sea. If I fell over the side, it’d be louder than my voice, take less energy than yelling for help.
The beamy, Luders-design Cheoy Lee 48 cutter ketch displaced fifteen tons. It probably had set its owner back the value of my house. We sailed from the Key West Redevelopment Agency Marina, the wharves of the old Sub Base with its huge bollards and pilings. Sam brought along his powerful portable
radio—for backup—and a plastic bag full of sunblock and aloe gel. He brought less clothing and good reading: Briarpatch, a new one by Ross Thomas, and The Neon Rain by an author named Burke. He let me take the departure helm.
“We’ll take a running fix, line of sight, and confirm that the stream’s pushing us,” he ‘d said. “Then we ‘11 steer zero-five-five for twenty hours. By then we pick up the South Bimini beacon and keep heading south of the RDF bearing. Gun Cay, south of Bimini, has a ten-second white flasher, twenty-three-mile visibility. Worst thing, we go too far north, find Great Isaac, have to beat back against the current to make the slot between North and South Bimini.”
The storm from the Gulf of Mexico did not go northeast. It swept across the Everglades and hit us two-thirds of the way across the Stream. We had seen it coming. We’d checked Miami weather radio, secured our topside gear, swapped out the genoa for a storm jib, and dropped the mizzen. We wolfed down sandwiches and a couple of Cokes. We attempted a LORAN reading, to pinpoint our location. The signal became weaker as we moved east. We wouldn’t be doing much navigation during the weather. We’d have to estimate our speed and, factoring wind, current, and maneuvers, our overall direction.
The sky became dull, dark at first, then ugly, though we stopped taking time to look. The wind picked up quickly, blew up to thirty-five or forty knots before the seas became rough. Storm-driven mist soaked us, worked inside our waterproof jackets. We were three hours out of Bimini. We had six hours of daylight ahead of us.
Sam went below to secure loose gear. I heard clatter, slamming cabinet doors. He shouted from below: “I’m not believing this.”
“Weather sneaks up all the time,” I called back “It happened to me on that Mariel trip nine years ago. Monster storm. We’ll do fine in this boat.”
“I don’t mean the weather,” he said. “I just broke my fucking ankle.”
I lashed the helm to hold a rough attempt at our course, went below to splint Sam’s lower leg. Two spatulas wrapped in dish towels, duct-taped to his ankle. He asked me to lash him into a berth adjacent to the radio and electrical control panels. He emphasized square knots, easily untied.
