by Tom Corcoran
“You’re the sailor,” he said. “What do we do next?”
“If it gets hairy, we throw a sea anchor, shorten sail, and play the waves to save the boat.”
“Sounds good,” he said.
“So, let’s go to Bimini. I can taste that rum in the Angler.”
He sneered. “Don’t worry about land. Worry about saving the boat from ugly waves. It’s going to feel like the storm’ll never end. The boat’s in okay shape. We’ll make land eventually. Too many people mess up boats trying to make a harbor.”
Sam was right. My inclination had been rookie-stupid. Sam viewed the dilemma with a focus on survival. We knew that Bimini should not be entered during a strong west wind, especially in someone else’s boat.
He added: “I’ll be okay.”
Then the storm turned mean.
Two months earlier I’d read Joshua Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World, the story of his 1895-1898 voyage aboard his sloop Spray. No crew, no radio, no modern equipment, navigating treacherous latitudes. Each time I thought waves would pound our Cheoy Lee to pieces or rip the rudder, or the wind would knock us down, split the mast, I put myself aboard Spray, in forty-foot waves for hours, then days. A man had survived worse, in tougher times, for weeks on end.
The waves began to show what Slocum had called white teeth. I allowed the craft to head up, luff into the wind, then took a final reef in the main. I thought at one point that bare poles would give us controllable headway. I threw a sea anchor, tried to approximate our planned course, but played the waves to save the boat. Fierce wind bellowed, the hull shivered and pounded into compound waves that I fought to keep ahead of midships. I envisioned cracks in the fiberglass, shorted-out bilge pumps, a snapped bow sprit. I knew that each shudder of the keel sent shock waves into Sam’s splintered anklebone. Sam had been correct about feeling that the storm never would end.
Sam called from below: “Problems?” It was reassuring to hear his voice.
Yes, I thought. The constant taste of sea water in my mouth. I had to shout over the wind roar: “No beer!”
Sam became mailman. He delivered gifts to the cockpit. He’d crack the cabin hatch, flip out items for comfort and safety. The first of several cans of beer rolled toward me, bounced around, fizzed on opening. Then candy bars. And, sure as hell, music on the exterior speakers. A new Little Feat album—without Lowell George—but hot.
Three times I heard the boat’s generator kick in. I couldn’t imagine why Sam needed it; radar wouldn’t tell us much with the seas tossing. Sam knew as well as I did that running an engine is dangerous when the boat’s heeling to one side. Oil flows to the sump’s low side and doesn’t circulate properly.
Three hours into the storm, the music was with me. I noticed that one CD had played again and again when I heard a Traveling Wilburys tune, “End of the Line,” for the third time. I hoped it was not prophetic. I assumed that Sam, somehow, had managed to fall asleep.
But the hatch opened again. Sam’s hand flipped out a spare harness. I knew what he thought. I needed to be double-harnessed to the helm. If a rogue wave struck, caused one harness to snap, I’d still be attached to the yacht rather than overboard with no one to know, no one to assist. Good thinking, with slight risk during the seconds I unhooked my primary harness so I could reach the extra one. I freed the pelican hook, abandoned my post for an instant.
Quick as the snap of an ankle, I was hit by water from the port quarter. My momentary glimpse registered a wave at least fifteen feet high. By the time I grabbed, I was sliding over the cabin roof, falling to starboard, salt-blind, scraping my belly on nonskid with the ocean pulling my legs.
No way Sam could know. No way to grab the whistle without losing my grip. I felt the boat head into the wind, heel farther, lee waves to my armpits. A big roller would knock me loose in a flash. I’d float in my life jacket, bob for hours in pitching seas while the ocean trashed the boat without a helm. Sam, helpless below, would have only a radio to save himself, only as long as the yacht held together. My hands fought slippery surfaces. Strength drained from my fingers. I tried to fashion a mental image of the cabin top—handholds, vents, porthole frames. The man-overboard kit, to be tossed in by someone who remained aboard—a short flagpole, a horseshoe float—lay two or three yards aft. If I could leg-lock a stanchion, somehow grab a winch—
As sudden as the rush of water that first tossed me, a breaking wave hit. A thousand hammers, a whack in the eye, a mouthful that never ended. I slipped, felt the water get colder, watched the sailboat’s stern disappear over a crest.
An odd silence took over, even with spilling waves forcing me under the surface. I managed to pull the whistle out of my shirt. After wasteful seconds, I turned it upside down so that water would not fill it as I blew. Eddy currents pulled my legs. Each time I whistled I felt myself pitch forward. The harness felt tighter. My jeans weighed a hundred pounds, my shoes two hundred. How the hell, I wondered, does anyone get their money back if a life jacket doesn’t work? Why the hell do I hear “The End of the Line” like I was in a room next to a stereo system?
The yank twisted me completely around. I didn’t need to be force-fed more sea water. My shoulder struck something hard as a rock. My head bounced backward but I still couldn’t see a thing. Then I felt the hull, felt myself become heavier. Felt myself being hauled from the ocean.
Literally, hauled aboard.
Sam had heard me hit the cabin top. He’d untied himself, crawled outside to the cockpit, spotted the trailing strap of my safety harness. He’d known that he didn’t have strength or the leverage to hold me, to pull me back into the cockpit. He’d used the line that I’d used to tie him in place. He’d connected it to the harness strap, then managed to take two turns on the starboard mizzen winch. Then I’d gone in the drink. It had taken him four minutes to haul me aboard. It had seemed to me like five hours.
My life had been saved by my disabled teammate.
When the storm broke, after dark, the winds settled. We still had four hours of pitching seas. It would be a long night, tacking north-south, waiting for first light to approach Bimini Harbor.
I went below to help Sam into an aft bunk. But with calmer winds we could hear each other talk. He must have thanked me ten times that night. The man who’d saved my life was thanking me for my help.
“If I hear you say that once more,” I said, “you're going over the side. Along with the Traveling Wilburys.”
It wasn’t until we arrived at the Bimini dock that I learned why Sam had turned the generator on and off. He’d spent the storm’s peak hours directing the the Coast Guard to two disabled sailboats south of Gun Cay. He’d heard an SOS on a UHF frequency and knew that the Coasties were out of UHF range. He’d used his portable UHF, the boat’s longer-range VHF, and the boat’s radar to coordinate the rescues. One was an older couple, seasick in a sailboat without a mainsail or rudder, in danger of grounding near Cat Island. The other was an ocean tug with four men aboard. It had lost power just before the squall hit.
We arrived in Bimini to heroes’ welcomes. Ossie Brown, bless his soul, had monitored the UHF broadcast. After an island doctor had fitted Wheeler with a proper cast, Ossie sponsored a night’s drinking in the Angler bar. It ended after the second rum. I was told I fell asleep with my forehead on the bar rail. Ossie sponsored the next night, too. That one went until the following morning.
27
Marnie had stuffed the newspaper photocopies into a manila file pocket. Four years’ worth of unsolved cases. She hadn’t attempted order. I couldn’t fault her. She’d had a rough week and she’d come through with the favor.
I arranged the article pages by date, spread them across Teresa’s bed. The case coverage overlapped in chronology, so I sorted again by victim. Each of the six began with a front-page headline. Two of them stood out SEVERED HEAD FOUND and SUICIDE RULED OUT. I doubted that Marnie had written the first one. I read the second and mentally reran the chat that Teresa and I had
shared with Holloway twelve hours earlier. He’d begun by mentioning the world’s “universal death wish.” I wanted to think he’d meant the rest of the world. He also had said that his son’s death four years ago had ruined any happiness he might have found in the future.
I wanted to break my rale this once, put stock in simple coincidence. He was dead. I couldn’t change that. But I’d rather it was murder than despair.
A selfish notion, not wanting him to have suffered depression. But I also needed to think that I hadn’t missed a classic tip-off that someone was intent on suicide. The fact remained: I hadn’t made up my mind about the man. I knew one thing. For all his faults, Mercer Holloway had treasured the old Key West as I did. I knew two things, deep down. Someone had killed him.
I’d forgotten to turn on Teresa’s air. I hit the switch, took a Coke from the fridge, settled into a wicker chair, began to read.
It worked out almost exactly to one unsolved every eight months. The last one had been less than a year ago. Melvin Hale, trussed up, dressed up, decorated with sex toys. Jimmy Boyle, headless, the head found apart from the body. Mike Waters, garroted, found in his car. Quentin Toth, the hanging “suicide.” The two that hadn’t been mimicked were Faye Pratt, a woman shot in the head, and Sherman Lurie, stabbed in his outdoor shower.
I decided to shower at Teresa’s before I left.
Forty minutes’ reading had convinced me that I didn’t have enough information. I wished I’d read the police files instead of settling for Dexter Hayes’s synopses. I wish I knew what Liska knew. Without true scene descriptions, I couldn’t tell if any factors were common to the unsolved murders and the attempts to duplicate them. I stopped reading, then asked myself what I could learn if I had every detail available.
Two things. Did the killer of the four recent victims have inside info about the earlier murders? And could anyone predict the circumstances of potential murders from the two yet to be copied? If the killer wanted a clean sweep, death by knife and death by bullet waited for two unlucky souls.
Liska was holding out. Did he have good reason to distance himself? Or had he become a true politician?
I looked up and dialed Dexter Hayes at the city. It wasn’t a direct line. The first voice prompt offered a choice of three detectives. I pressed the “3” and wondered about Dexter’s level in the hierarchy. Clicks and a short delay revealed auto forwarding.
Dexter’s voice: “You aren’t in the office?”
I said, “She’s at the office.”
It took him two beats. His cell phone’s caller ID had lied to him. He said, “What now?” A droning background noise. Was Hayes in a machine shop?
“I’d like to read the old case files.”
No response. The droning fluttered and echoed.
“The ones I was going to see on Wednesday morning.”
“You’ve quit photography, right? You want to be a cop?”
“I’m just being selfish, Detective. People are getting popped right and left. I’d like the next one not to be me.”
“No can do.”
I said, “By policy or jealousy?”
He clicked off.
“Thanks, asshole,” I said to the dead line. So much for budgeting time to research. Dexter knew something, or was hiding something.
If I had to guess, I’d say Dexter had been on an airplane. But the carriers prohibit cell-phone use.
Before I left her condo, I called Teresa’s office. She answered: ‘Teresa Barga’s desk. How can I help you?”
“Wrap your legs around me like a circle ‘round the sun—”
“Yes, I am,” she interrupted. “I’ll be in this meeting for a while. Let me get back to you later this afternoon.”
“Can I borrow your point-and-shoot camera?”
“Sure,” she said. “For a few days could we call it something else?”
I rode past a woman on Whitehead kicking a bus-stop signpost, venting her anger at a tardy driver. Key West went on with its day-to-day existence, oblivious to crimes it couldn’t see firsthand. Near the courthouse, I passed through an invisible cloud of fresh Cuban bread odors. Down beyond Eaton a woman sat near the sidewalk on a tripod chair, her large canvas on an easel, painting foliage and old architecture. A man carried a single-sprocket bicycle rear wheel down Eaton. Farther up, nearer Duval, an old bum and a frail-looking young girl huddled in the doorway of a vacant storefront. Proof that Key West attracts your higher-class wino: they were sharing a bottle of Clos du Bois Merlot. Fausto’s would have to write down another 750-milliliter heist. The girl had jet-black hair and skin so white it was almost blue. Blue lips, probably stained by wine. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. How had Marnie described that girl on Sunday night, “very Goth”?
I didn’t check them out for long. I looked away—the guilt of the sober—before the juicers spotted me staring.
“Yo, Rutledge?”
I recognized Wiley Fecko’s high-pitched tone immediately. I turned. He wasn’t getting up. But he didn’t look drunk. I assumed he didn’t want to lose his premium seat.
“Mr. Fecko,” I said.
“Been meanin’ to swing by your pad, grab my stuff.”
“It’s safe in my shed. No inconvenience,” I said.
“This lady here, Cilia, she knows all about this shit going down.” Fecko’s speech clear, articulated to conceal an old pro’s drunkenness.
I looked at her again. Purple fingernail polish, a little silver circle looped in one eyebrow. Marnie had said, “Retro-punk,” and “She looked dead as the man on the floor.” Cilia fit the mold, but she was one of thousands.
I said, “Did you know Richard Engram?”
Nothing moved except her eyelids. They rose to open halfway. A hateful, evil leer, out of focus. The world was her enemy, and I represented humanity.
She said, “Fuck.”
I looked to Fecko for guidance. A side-tick of his head. A finger wiggled, hidden behind his knee. He was telling me to be patient. I stared at the top of her head. Brown roots under the black dye.
Cilia rolled her head to one side and slurred, “The motel guy was a totally fucked asshole, you hear what I’m sayin’?” A slight Spanish accent
Clear as mud. I ask about a murder victim, she expounds upon some imaginary beef. Strike one.
“Did a cop come on to you?” I said.
She pondered that one, then said to her right shoulder, “What cop would do me?” She turned her head the other direction, sneered at Wiley. “The Feck won’t even do me.”
Strike two.
Then she said, “I never saw that black cop before.”
Home run.
Bring it back to the playing field. I said, “Aren’t all motel guys assholes?” A meaningless question, out of context. Sometimes being off the wall induces loonies to talk straight.
Cilia reached for the Merlot in Fecko’s hand. A car’s tires screeched at the Duval-Eaton intersection. Fecko looked in that direction. Cilia ignored the noise, took a slug, half-raised her eyelids to check me again.
I waited.
“Asshole gave me fifty fuckin’ dollars to make that fuckin’ speech to the cop. Two twenties and a ten and five hits of Ecstasy.”
“Asshole got a name?”
She looked around the sidewalk, trying to decide if my question was worth an answer. Shook her head.
“Motel got a name?”
“Course. But I don’t know it. He had it on his shirt. His cute little preppy fuckin’ polo shirt.” She extended her arm, offered me the wine bottle. Shook it, insisting I remove it from her hand.
I took the Clos du Bois. Cilla leaned to her right, supported herself on both hands, and vomited on the sidewalk. Fecko scrambled to move the girl’s small, greasy backpack from the growing purple puddle. Cilia hocked and spat, then said, “Watchtower.” She spat again. “The fuckin’ Watchtower.”
Fecko and I swapped glances. I said, “That’s a motel name?”
She blew her nos
e onto the cement, flipped her fingers, freed them of snot. She said, “Fuera de aqui.” I understood its tone. I was ready to leave, anyway.
I’d never heard of the Watchtower, or anything similar. I asked Wiley to stick close to the young woman, and to introduce her to Dubbie Tanner.
“Tell you, brother,” said the Feck. “Dubbie knows her good.”
I’d already figured that.
I started toward home. Traffic on Duval waited for the light to change. Eight vehicles, all on two wheels. Three motorcyclists and three mopeds, their drivers enjoying the breeze without helmets. The helmet law had changed in June 2000. Two bicycle riders wore mandated head protection. What was wrong with this picture?
A new balloon-tire bicycle leaned against the front of my house. Butler Dunwoody sat on my side porch. A thirty-two-ounce bottle of malt liquor sat on the table. Marijuana smoke hung low in the yard.
Party time. Any time, any afternoon, everybody parties in Key West.
I rolled my Cannondale around back, snapped its Kryptonite lock to the stainless-cable I’d strung around my mango tree. I tossed the weather tarp over it. The neighbor’s springer spaniel whimpered through the fence, stuck its nose out for a forefinger scratch, five seconds of friendship. Its eyes more alive, more intelligent than the Goth girl’s. More alive than many downtown. The poor dog worried about the pot fog.
I stepped onto my porch, slung my helmet onto the porcelain-top table. “Problem, Butler?”
“I’m everybody’s bum. You’re everybody’s hero.” He tilted back the malt-liquor bottle. A half dozen drops leaked out the side of his mouth, dribbled down his shirt.
“Self-pity’s an ugly ride, Dunwoody. You look better in a red convertible.”
“My main backer is pulling out. The convertible’s on the block, along with my project, my home, my other vehicle, my ass, and my future. It’s all toast.”
“Why’s it so special, every damned day, to be on top of the world?”
“The rest of the world sucks,” he said. “Better to be above it all.”
