by Tom Corcoran
“You left Marnie alone?”
“Her brother’s there, with Heidi. He’s got some kind of .357 that’d turn a man into shredded wheat.”
“Thorsby can find us quicker than we can find him,” I said. “You won’t like this question. Do we hunker down and wait?”
“We play like we played at Jemison’s mobile-home museum. Lights out and radios. You sleep two hours. I’ll take the first watch.” Sam pulled a pistol and the Motorola UHF units from the duffel.
“You going to sit on my porch with night-vision goggles?’
“I’m going to sit on Hector’s porch with two more Heinekens. We’ll take turns wearing earphones and microphones.”
“I’ll call Hector and warn him.”
Sam said, “It’s taken care of.”
“Give me three minutes to rinse off salt?”
“Take two. You’re in a combat situation.”
I couldn’t wait to go prone and close my eyes. I used a flashlight to scout the yard. Palmetto bugs, but no invaders. I showered, drank a beer, brushed my teeth.
I remembered to check Julie Kaiser’s message: “Hello, Alex. It’s a little after eight. I wanted to check with you about the photos my father wanted done. I’m sure that my sister and Donovan and Philip will want to follow through with my father’s charitable trust. But the attorneys say that we’ll need valuations on the property even sooner, so they can start to settle his estate. The sooner we can transfer the property titles, the sooner the foundations can reap the benefits. I still would like you to do the photos. If you get home before ten-thirty, please call.” She left her number and closed by thanking me for being a friend.
Holloway had planned to give his real estate to charity. He hadn’t been blowing smoke when he’d talked about letting children fend for themselves, make their own fortunes. It was the sort of situation that generated murder motives as big as an ocean. Donovan Cosgrove must have disagreed with Mercer’s plan. If any of Mercer’s other heirs disagreed, we probably could identify a co-plotter. Or two. Or three.
In bed my brain spun like a boat propeller. After an hour of no sleep, I keyed the UHF radio. I offered to spell Sam on Hector’s porch.
His voice came through clearly: “No way. I’m good for sunrise.”
I tried not to toss and wake Teresa. Finally, around six, I put on shorts, shoes, and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and unlocked the bike. Chilly out there. I radioed Sam, told him it was time to pick up the photos from Duffy Lee Hall.
I rolled across Frances toward Hall’s home on Olivia. The last of the wee-hour bike cruisers were out and about Dreamers, loadies, and drunks ride mindlessly, fight insomnia, cure blahs, speculate about lovers back in their beds. They ignore stop signs, breathe vegetation instead of motor fumes, and burn off extra energy.
I tapped my fingernail on Duffy Lee’s front door. Thirty seconds later he stood there, still in his bathing trunks. He held a small paper sack. He looked beat. “One set for you.”
“I needed two, Duffy Lee.”
“A lady deputy came by an hour and half ago. Said she’d save you a trip to the county. I don’t mind waking up five times in one night.”
Bobbi Lewis. She’d called Liska, found out who processed my film.
“Thank you for all this. Do you bill wake-ups equal to film runs?”
“This time I do.” He slowly closed the door.
I rode home on back streets, better to dodge vehicles that might want to swoop out of the dark and flatten the bike. I found Carmen Sosa on Fleming, waving to her daughter as the school bus departed. She said, “Sam and my father were drinking coffee on my father’s porch. Did they sit up all night?”
“As far as I know, Sam did it alone. We’re worried about more visitors.”
“Hector’s a lonely man,” she said. “He loves company.”
“We need to buy your father a chrome badge.”
Carmen shook her head. “Or a black shirt that says MIRADOR. We could build him a tall platform, put him in the watchtower.”
Watchtower. The name slurred by Cilia, the barfing baby wino.
“What’s mirador?” I said. “Spanish for guard?”
“El mirador—like the old name of that motel, over to United Street What’s it called now, the Key Breeze Suites?”
“What’s mirador mean?”
“Sometimes ‘spectator.’ Usually, it’s what I said. ‘Watchtower.’”
“Do you recall who owned the El Mirador Motel when you were growing up?”
“Vernon Kaiser,” she said. “Philip Kaiser’s father. The family lived in the suite above the office. That’s where Philip grew up. Then Mr. Holloway got ahold of it.”
“So Mercer bought it? Like a retirement package for Philip’s folks?”
She shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that After Mercer took over, Vernon worked at that radio station on Stock Island. I don’t think Holloway bought El Mirador. I heard that he loaned money to the Kaisers. He didn’t get paid back, so he foreclosed. Vernon worked radio to keep food on the table.”
“Mercer put his daughter’s in-laws out of business?”
Carmen shook her head. “It happened many years before the wedding.”
I asked Carmen to pay attention to traffic in the lane.
I blipped Sam on the radio. I told him to go home and sleep. Hector could watch out for our welfare. Sam said he’d be over in a few minutes. He’d bunk on my couch after Teresa went to work.
Inside, I smelled coffee and buttered toast. Teresa was starting her day in the shower.
I looked up Monty Aghajanian’s number. Monty had been a fine Key West cop. When the FBI accepted him for agent training, he’d gone for it. The FBI had posted him to Newark. Monty and his wife had bought a ranch-style home in Flemington, New Jersey, almost in Pennsylvania. He’d said that the commute was better than living a rat race close to Manhattan.
He knew it was me when he picked up. “Seven A.M., Alex. Real damn early. This better not be rock-and-roll trivia questions.”
“It’s murders out the ying-yang.”
“I heard that Mercer Holloway hung himself.”
I said, “I think someone killed him. There’ve been three others you don’t know about.”
“I’m glad my office is in quiet little Newark.”
“I met Jim Farmer yesterday.”
“I know,” said Monty. “He called me already. He wanted to know if you were legit. I told him you couldn’t be trusted around Barbancourt rum. Other than that, you were okay.”
“How about Farmer?”
“Anything he said, you can take to the bank.”
“You’re a clearing house for character. Remember Philip Kaiser?”
“Oh, boy, do I. We were on the force together, as long as he lasted. Talk about a guy in the wrong occupation.”
“Why was that?” I said.
“He wasn’t a great cop like some people aren’t good ice skaters. We’ve all got certain things we’re better at. He was a lousy police officer. I always thought he had a screw loose. He made mistakes. A couple of big ones.”
“You ever have any run-ins with Jemison Thorsby?”
“Why do you ask that?” said Monty.
“He’s moving stolen cars down here. I think it’s tied to the murders.”
“Jemison Thorsby was Philip Kaiser’s biggest mistake. And vice versa, to start with.”
“I’ve got to hear this.”
“Jemison Thorsby was drunk in the Half Shell one night The place was full of tourists. Officer Kaiser went in to chill him out. Thorsby sprung bad on him. Kaiser called in an ‘officer down.’ The watch supervisor raced in. Jemison went for Kaiser with a broken beer mug. They busted Thorsby for attempted murder of a police officer. It went to trial, with a public defender. Somehow, in his testimony, Kaiser screwed the pooch. Whatever he said opened the door for a lesser charge. Thorsby got convicted, but he went away for a much lighter pull.”
“Why would Kaiser have
messed up like that?” I said.
“Right then, nobody knew. Later, I heard rumors. Stolen motorcycles, fenced parts, a big conspiracy. It all fit. Thorsby would steal anything not nailed down. Kaiser, when he was a kid, was a champion off-road dirt biker. His folks would take him to mainland Florida. He’d compete all over the place. But he had to stop racing when his family’s finances went sour. His folks were always up and down, feast and famine. His dad was a bad boozer.”
I said, “Did Kaiser quit the force?”
“Chicken Neck Liska fired him after the freeze-up in court. Some cops didn’t agree with it. But that’s how it went down.”
“Was Kaiser bitter?”
“Stands to reason,” said Monty. “But he was a true small-town boy. He was smart enough never to mouth off.”
I said, “Does he still have friends on the force?”
“Oh, I’m sure there’s one or two. Maybe a couple more. I gotta go. I hear you’re seeing the lady who replaced me.”
“Yep, I am.”
“Make sure she doesn’t get wacky. You wouldn’t think there’d be a lot of pressure in a small town. But I’m here to tell you, I’ll take this FBI job any day over the old one.”
“Thanks for your help, Monty.”
The pieces were coming together.
Philip Kaiser’s parents had been forced to sell the El Mirador Motel to Mercer Holloway. Holloway had renamed it Key Breeze Suites.
Chicken Neck Liska had fired Kaiser.
In each case—the forced sale and the firing, maybe the renaming, too—Kaiser still could hold a grudge.
Someone was copying Liska’s unsolved murder cases. The ex-cop Kaiser had access through friends to unsolved case files, to details the public didn’t know. Through old friends, the ex-cop also could have access to the FDLE computers. Enough access to generate two Richard Engrams. And Kaiser the construction liaison had access to Dunwoody’s site, where the real Richard Engram’s body had been dropped.
The jealous Kaiser probably viewed Dexter Hayes as the main threat to his marriage. A man wearing an EL MIRADOR polo shirt had paid Cilla the punk to accuse Dexter Hayes of infidelity and corruption.
The name El Mirador had been changed at least fifteen years ago. Not many people still would own an EL MIRADOR shirt. Maybe Kaiser thought he’d inherit his folks’ old motel. The place where he grew up. Maybe he thought that by thwarting Holloway’s charitable plans, he wouldn’t lose out. He’d get the old home place.
If Jemison Thorsby had called Kaiser after my Tuesday visit, Kaiser the off-road champ could have rolled out of town on his dirt bike, passed me on the highway, and followed me to Fecko’s camp.
Why wonder? Kaiser had burned my Kawasaki.
The least of his offenses.
I wondered if Donovan Cosgrove and Philip Kaiser, the brothers-in-law, were partners in crime, in murder. Julie’s message led me to think that she approved of the charitable trust. Suzanne was anyone’s guess.
Jemison Thorsby must have found the key in the trunk of Teresa’s car. He must have sent the knife thrower after me. I had to believe that he’d also called Kaiser.
Sam and I needed to watch for Jemison Thorsby and his wharf rats. We needed to watch and listen carefully for a dirt bike. Or any other move that Philip Kaiser might make.
31
“In a trance?” Teresa stood at the porch door. Fresh from the shower, towel-wrapped. The day’s first sunlight sifted through die screening.
I stared at her from the sofa. “Philip Kaiser is a bad guy.”
She stepped into the living room, leaned against the wall, ready to listen.
“Do I call Dex Hayes?” I said. ‘Try to convince him a maniac is on the loose? Or is he going to shoot me down one more time?”
“Did Kaiser kill Mercer?”
“Probably.”
“And the other three?”
“He, or Jemison Thorsby, or his band of gypsies, or Donovan Cosgrove. It’s a package deal. It’s all tied together. They’ve been killing each other, too.”
I explained Carmen’s translation, the call to Monty. Everything I’d mulled for the past few minutes. The connections.
I stood as Teresa came to me. She put her arms around my waist Pressed her hand into the base of my spine. She said, “Maybe it’ll stop soon.”
I pulled on her shoulders, held her tighter. “If it had ended yesterday, we could go in the other room.”
“You’ve lost a lot of sleep.”
“That wasn’t on my list.”
She kissed me. We held each other. A moment of peace, too short
“You should call Dexter,” she said. “His home number’s logged in my cell phone.”
She tightened her hug for an instant, then went to dress for work.
A drowsy woman told me that Dexter had left a half hour ago. “Can I have him return your call if he checks in?”
His wife was a champ, businesslike while still asleep. She did not offer Dex’s cell phone number. I told her my name, told her that I’d try his office. I hung up, checked Teresa’s digital directory, keyed Dexter’s cell number. It shunted me to voice mail. I turned off the phone. Just as well. If I pitched my story face-to-face, Dexter couldn’t hang up on me.
A car stopped out front. Marnie Dunwoody, in the borrowed Buick with squeaky brakes. She walked to the porch and checked me out “If you don’t mind my saying so, you look like forty cubic yards of trash.”
Sam had walked across the lane. He stopped behind her. “Alex learned that look from me. It draws cheap sympathy from expensive women.”
I ducked inside to call Bobbi Lewis. Another voice-mail message. I said, “Rutledge, one more time. No solid proof, but circumstance out the wazoo. We should think seriously about Philip Kaiser behind these murders. Along with Thorsby.”
Teresa exited the bedroom. Sam and Marnie overheard my message. Marnie looked at Teresa to confirm my words.
Teresa shrugged and nodded. “Alex put everything together. He talked to Monty about it.”
“You know,” said Marnie pensively, “at Holloway’s—what Wednesday?—after the bullet went through the door, Philip had this look . . .” She looked at Teresa. “You were standing there with me.”
“When he and Suzanne had their heads together?”
“Like lovers planning a nooner.”
“Right,” said Teresa. “They saw us and they moved apart.”
Marnie said, “Of course, brother- and sister-in-law, in this town . . . Pretty tame stuff.”
I said to Marnie, “Last night you thought that Donovan Cosgrove didn’t have the cojones to murder people. But his bitchy wife was another story.”
“I’ll stick to that opinion.”
We heard a shuffling in the lane. We all looked, then eased. Cecilia Ayusa, picking up fronds.
I kept two photos to show Dexter, gave Marnie the rest of the pictures for the Citizen. She drove away in the dusty Buick loaner.
Sam said, “Humor me.” He held a UHF radio, a microphone on a wire, and a safety pin.
“You going to be awake to monitor?”
“Just humor me. Put the radio in your pocket Pin this mike inside your shirt.”
Ten after seven, light traffic, no dust in the air. I promised myself, if the nightmare ever ended, I’d take the same ride, the same time of day, with no destination or deadline. I’d do it ten times in ten days. Personal paybacks.
I did a quick radio check with Sam. He came back immediately, “Clear as mud. Just make sure it’s on ‘voice-activated’ ”
Dexter Hayes stood in the Simonton Street parking garage. His rear end against his city Lumina, a phone to one ear, a finger in the other. His grim expression didn’t change as he watched me lock my Cannondale. I stood aside to let him finish his call. He clicked off a half minute later.
“What the fuck are you doing, calling my home?” he said. “First you sit down with Jim Farmer. Then you bother my wife.”
“I solved your mystery
.”
“Right. And I’m forever indebted.”
“Philip Kaiser,” I said. “You want details?”
Dexter checked his watch. “You get thirty seconds. Don’t worry about facts. Spin me a web of allegations and suppositions and conjecture and invention.”
I said, “Sometimes you talk like Mercer Holloway.”
“Bad start,” he said.
“You wouldn’t still be standing here if you didn’t already think Kaiser was weird.”
He considered his answer to that He opened his car door, unlocked the glove box, pulled out his weapon in its snap-top holster. He clipped his badge and holster to his belt “Julie just called, from Mercer Holloway’s house. She asked me to come by.” He pointed to the street “Let’s walk. I don’t want to go alone.”
“There’s no one in the station with officer backup training?”
“This isn’t city business. Julie hasn’t seen her husband for thirty hours. Her father’s dead. Kaiser never came home to console her. Donovan got out of the county lockup at dawn, went home, and caught his wife in bed with Kaiser. I think Julie wants comfort I’m not ready to offer.”
I said, “Why the weapon and badge?”
“An official approach cuts out the personal aspect”
We began the short hike to Holloway’s. I explained Thorsby’s operation, my call to Monty Aghajanian, the link between Jemison and Kaiser from the past the dirt bike rider who torched my Kawasaki. I let him know that Cilia had been paid to accuse him in public. Paid with cash and drugs.
“Someone once told me that most murders stem from jealousy, revenge, or money,” I said. “Liska fired him. A reason for revenge. You and Julie are still friends. Good reason for revenge, at least in Kaiser’s sick head. The copycat kills make you and Liska look bad. Especially Liska. It would have been easy for Kaiser, as an ex-cop, to gain access to the files and, maybe, the FDLE database. Why kill Mercer? I don’t know. Maybe inheritance. Probably inheritance. Why Engram at the construction site? I don’t know. But—”
