by Tom Corcoran
Stinson leaned toward me so Cormier couldn’t hear him. “You’re easier to read than a stop sign. If I ever see you again and you still got that mouth, you’re going to wish you grew wings.”
“And here I was, about to throw you an attaboy,” I said. “You keep your boss on such a tight leash.”
As if addressing an audience of hundreds, the singer thanked us for listening. He invited us back for tomorrow’s happy hour, told us not to fear the tip jar.
When I was sure that Stinson and Cormier had left, I wandered back into the Beach Building annex. With the crazy laughter and an upbeat Supremes song echoing from the second floor, I had no problem finding the three drunk girls. I climbed a stairway, found them running between two rooms, one still in her panties, one buck naked, the other wearing a pair of boxer shorts.
The naked one saw me in the hall, put her hands up to cover her face and said, “Oh, I feel so violated.”
From inside a room one of the others shouted, “I’m next.”
I wanted no part of their party.
I checked their room numbers and split. My banged-up leg muscles forewarned that I would not enjoy getting out of bed in the morning.
16
In the Pier House parking lot, the Cayenne farthest from the door was gone. I wished I had read both license tags and not blown off my initial suspicions. I also wished I could quit thinking like a private eye and go have a quiet beer.
My cell phone rang as I started up Front Street. I pulled it from my pocket to inspect the little window, but I was too close to a loud saloon to hold a conversation. One block up Simonton I returned Beth Watkins’s call.
“The telegraph has you smacked by a car,” she said.
“I’m fine, no problem.”
“See, Alex, a cop thinks differently. It’s more like the victim is lucky but there’s still a problem because hit-and-run is a crime in Key West. It could have been a mistake and the driver panicked. Or it might have been intentional, assault with a deadly weapon, and the schmuck could try again. It sounds like you’re not at home right now, for instance.”
“Okay, you got me. I just turned around to look.”
“Can we meet somewhere for a drink? I need to pick your brain.”
“I feel like hiding in my cave,” I said.
“That’s understandable, given that I just goosed your fear factor.”
“I’ll meet you at my house in ten minutes.”
“Nine?” she said.
“Eleven.”
I detoured to the package store behind the Bull & Whistle, bought a cabernet sauvignon. I was a block from the store when I turned back to buy a second bottle. Call it contingency planning. Wishful thinking.
The island’s highest elevation, Solares Hill, is seventeen feet above sea level. My ride home, going away from the high point, felt uphill every inch of the way. Fleming Street’s bike lane was an obstacle course of drunken moped riders and drunker idiots trying to parallel park. Carrying wine added to my clumsiness, though tropical evening fragrances lightened my load, not including fabric softeners in the block between William and Margaret.
I tried to pre-plan my encounter with Beth Watkins, lovely cop that she was. And to figure out how to answer her first question, one that I should ask myself.
How in the hell did I flip over that car’s hood?
And her probable second question. What the hell’s going on?
I now knew that Copeland Cormier wanted me off the hunt. He had wanted to assure himself and Ricky Stinson of my silence and to ensure it with a hammer-slam threat. The silence was a given. I would never cross Sam Wheeler. But Cormier’s heavy crap had backfired, had ignited the idea that everything he had told me for the past two days was bullshit. Including the short speech about his alcoholic wife. The rare bulb popped on. Her proposition had been planned to rope me in, in some way, for some reason.
With you I would be a virgin.
I had confused them by declining her passionate come-on. Was she more to be pitied than scorned? Had Cormier’s speech about her sadness been a ruse to whitewash their treachery with a tale of affliction? Was she even his wife? Was he more a pimp than humanitarian?
Had he spoken with Sam, or thrown that in as part of his ruse?
I saw Beth Watkins hurrying up Fleming in the glow of the Eden House lobby lights, lightly tapping her hand against each of the six vertical columns out front. I stopped alongside of her, climbed off my bike. She said, “Handy man,” and patted the wine bag, then checked me for damage, squeezed my arm when she saw that I was okay. As we started down Dredgers Lane she bitched about having to park a block away on Grinnell.
“You smell that?” I said. “We’re downwind from a rain squall.”
“They’re talking a tropical storm near Haiti, and I saw a bunch of lightning off Higgs Beach. I hate it when people I know get run down on purpose.”
“Ahh, you get used to it.”
“Don’t even joke,” she said. “We found the Taurus in front of Carmen’s house.”
“Jesus.”
She began to speak but stopped. We both saw the prowler skulking in my yard, peering in a window.
Beth motioned with her hand, palm upward, to ask if I recognized the man. I shook my head, and she placed both hands against my chest, silently told me to stay put. In the next several seconds I learned about the arsenal in her black belly pack. She slowly, quietly peeled open its top Velcro closure. Its face flopped down; even in dim light I saw “POLICE” in reflective letters facing outward. She reached down with both hands, came out with a mean pistol in one hand, a Mini Maglite in the other.
She took four steps into the yard, switched on the light. The flash illuminated the man’s upper body. “Police,” she said clearly. “Don’t move.”
Bob Catherman turned his head toward us, looking sheepish, a bit defiant.
“You know the man, Mr. Rutledge?” said Watkins.
“Yes,” I said. “He shouldn’t be a problem, but make sure he’s unarmed.”
“Look, lady, you want me to strip naked, I will,” said Catherman. “But I don’t have a weapon on me. I don’t even have fingernail clippers. Or a ballpoint pen.”
She barked: “Tell me your name, where you live and what’s going on here.”
“Bob Catherman, Cudjoe Key. I wanted to talk with Alex.”
“Through the window?” said Beth. “Were you going to open it?”
“Look,” he said, “I didn’t want to wake him if he was already in bed. I saw a light on, but I didn’t hear a TV or a stereo. At this hour, I didn’t want to be rude and bang on his door.”
“People knock on doors all the time, Mr. Catherman. It’s only 8:15.”
“Lady, in my business people leave their homes with me for months at a time, fully furnished, personal items all over the place. I don’t have to be a B&E boy.”
“Defensive are we?” she said.
“Sorry. I’m trying to sell you the idea that I’m trustworthy.”
“I get it. You’re not breaking in, you’re just looking in.”
Now looking haunted, as he had when he first tried to hire me, Catherman leaned to look around her, to appeal to me. “Alex, tell her I don’t like guys.”
“I don’t know that, Bob. You were married but people change.”
He turned to face Beth again. “Okay, point B, with the beaches we have in the Lower Keys, there’s no percentage in being a window peeper. Wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t know,” said Beth. “I’ll have to research the pathology.”
Shit. I was all for giving him a rough time and finding out why the hell he was lurking in the yard. But she was about to arrest the bastard. I didn’t want to interfere with her professional duties. I also didn’t want either of us to spend the evening at the cop shop. I sure didn’t want the wine to go unused.
“Mr. Catherman,” I said, “did you have some information for me?”
“More questions than anything else,�
�� he said.
I felt fat raindrops and picked up my Cannondale. “Let’s move inside.”
Beth opened the screen door, Catherman went in, and I carried my bike onto the porch. We’d been under my roof fewer than fifteen seconds when the sky let loose. After ten more seconds the downpour settled into a steady drizzle.
I didn’t invite them into the house. My porch furniture sat far enough away from the screening to keep us dry. I wanted Catherman to feel unwelcome, and the rain’s white noise plus the lack of visibility through the porch screens gave us an illusion of isolation. Or, in Catherman’s case, claustrophobia. He and I sat while Watkins remained standing, repacked her cop gear into her belly bag, but didn’t close it up.
“Rutledge, I know you wanted to work alone,” said Catherman, “but I was going stir-crazy in my house. My mind’s been whirling around like a ball at the end of a rope. I felt worse than useless. Maybe I made it worse. I had a cocktail or two around sunset.”
“Did I see your Cayenne parked at the Pier House an hour ago?” I said.
He looked genuinely puzzled. “No. I just drove into town.”
Beth said, “Have you been driving intoxicated, Mr. Catherman?” She leaned toward him. “Endangering our citizens on the streets of Key West?”
He didn’t flinch. “If you mean blowing a bad breathalyzer, I doubt it. I ate some chips and dip before I got in the car.”
She stared at him then let it go. He didn’t appear drunk, and I suspected that his mention of “work” had piqued her curiosity.
Catherman stared at Watkins, then gave a what-the-hell shrug and turned to me. “I guess I’m looking for a progress report. What have we learned about Sally? Any news at all, official or otherwise?”
Hot damn, I thought. If Beth hadn’t been curious, she was now. “Nothing of substance,” I said. “A couple of interviews set up for tomorrow. What’s been going on with you since we last spoke?”
“You know they found her car, right?”
I nodded.
“They came and took my fingerprints so they could eliminate mine from the prints they found in her car. It wasn’t that nasty detective, but her name came up. The technician said they had to get the images to Lewis as quickly as possible. I was worried that someone considered me a criminal suspect, but the techs told me that was a foolish notion.”
“Mr. Catherman,” said Beth. “Would you mind if we compared your prints to the ones found in that Taurus?”
“Taurus, like a Ford?”
She stared him down.
“It was a Mazda Miata,” he said. “Where does a Taurus come in?”
It was a smart move on her part, a good try. But he was honestly baffled, and I couldn’t see logic in his wanting to hurt or kill me. It was also a bad move because it stopped my momentum. Not that I was in a hurry. I was enjoying the constant patter on the porch roof, the thick humidity and gust-driven crescendos, the fresh smell of wet leaves in the darkness. And the fact that Beth was there. Aside from my total concentration, the only thing missing was an open wine bottle and one less person.
Sensing the power balance on the porch, Catherman shifted his attention to Beth Watkins. “My daughter’s gone missing. It’s been almost three days, Officer…”
“Detective.”
“Sorry, Detective. What are the stats? Maybe you know the numbers, you know, the odds of finding her.”
“Where did she live, Mr. Catherman?”
“In the guest room under my house on Cudjoe. A legal enclosure, I might add.”
“You reported her disappearance to the sheriff?”
He sneered. “Like getting a busy signal fifty times in a row.”
“He had a tough time generating concern,” I said. “They finally took a report. Then they found her Miata abandoned at Mangrove Mama’s.”
“How have you been following up?” she said.
Catherman looked away. “Same damn woman at the sheriff’s office.”
Beth raised one eyebrow, gave me a glance. I nodded once.
“I know that stats exist on some categories of missing persons,” she said. “I never memorized them.”
“I can’t tell you how much I miss her,” he said. “I don’t know where I’ll get the courage to tell her mother about this.”
Beth said, “Maybe her mother knows where she is.”
“Sally wouldn’t go this long without calling me.”
I tried to imagine the ex-wife, their existence in Clearwater where he had been fired from a printing plant. The divorce had been recent, or so he’d said, so that ruled out child support for Sally. I wondered if he still paid alimony, and whether the tough real estate business was providing him a decent living.
“What was that SUV you were driving?” I said. “A Porsche?”
“I owe a lot of money on that ride. I have to mind my pennies.”
“You saved a bundle by opting out of the kangaroo guard,” I said. “Still, you got those oval-shaped dual exhausts. Those are sexy.”
“A seminar instructor in Orlando told everyone in the class to buy expensive cars. He told us to go out on limb because home buyers like to impress wealthy people with their money. You stand a better chance of getting a listing and making a sale if you look successful. Hell, I might have to give that back. I could be sporting around in a Honda Civic by Thanksgiving.”
“Your offer to buy my house,” I said, “are you on salary?”
Catherman nodded. “Except I can’t keep my mind on work.” He stared at the rain-drenched screens, then at the table, the plastic bag that held two wine bottles. He looked like he could use a shot of rum, but he didn’t dare ask in front of Beth Watkins for fear of setting himself up for a DUI citation. “If we’re through talking,” he said, “I better get out of your hair, head back to Cudjoe. Could I use that plastic bag? You know, my wallet and watch and phone.”
I gave him the bag then flipped the lid of a two-by-four-foot teakwood box that I keep on my porch. I’d placed a half-dozen cheap umbrellas in there a year ago for situations like this. Grasping it like treasure, Catherman said, “Have you had any expenses we didn’t anticipate? You need a booster for that package I gave you?”
As if I could bribe my way to non-existent info, I thought. Or squander five grand in thirty-six hours. I shook my head. “We’re okay, Bob. I still owe you a day and a half.”
He turned to Beth Watkins. “Lots of female detectives around here. I’ve been dealing with one from the county three times too often. Very unpleasant. So I can personally thank you for being friendly, less on edge.”
“No problem,” she said. “We try to comfort our suspects every chance we get.”
Her remark blew past him. He stepped outside, popped the umbrella with his back to the wind and almost got dragged down to Fleming Street.
“That was odd,” I said.
“No shit,” said Beth. “I never sensed that he was feeling grief. With all that business jargon, I expected him to ask for a loss-prevention status report. Why would a man with a missing daughter worry about being cited for a ground-level apartment?”
“I’ve known the man for two and a half days. If I had to sum him up, I’d say his priorities are in the wind.”
“Did he drive his daughter away?” she said. “Is that why he acted so guilty?”
“The way he phrased his questions, it sounded like he was looking for what the authorities knew instead of what I’d learned. Maybe he keeps all of his emotions in a filing system and calls up what he thinks people expect. His personality demands that you follow the bouncing ball.”
“It took me a minute or two to figure why you kept us all on the porch,” said Beth. “You wanted to knock down his comfort factor. That was good.”
“Thanks.”
“But now he’s gone and it’s fucking hot out here. Could we take off our clothes or else go inside to the air conditioning?”
I hoisted the wine bottles. “I’m going to need a corkscrew.”
> “On second thought,” she said, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Or does that sound horny, too?”
I unlocked and she went first. I had left a lamp burning in the main room, saw no reason to turn on another, but I closed the front and side window blinds. Don’t want to give window peepers a reason to hang out. Beth took off her belly pack and went to use the bathroom while I uncorked one of the bottles.
When Beth returned to the living room, she stuffed her bra into the belly pack. “My least favorite part of the uniform,” she said.
I handed her a glass and tilted mine to toast. The glasses came together with a light chime.
“A-sharp,” she said. “The Restaurant Store, twenty-one, ninety-five each. Fine glasses make fine wine taste so much better.”
I asked how she had spent her evening after our visit to Duffy Lee Hall.
“We’ll get to that, Alex. Let’s stay with Catherman another minute or two.”
I knew full well where she was heading. “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”
“What was that all about, Sally Catherman and Bobbi Lewis and him paying you money?”
“Does your badge come off when the bra does?”
“Is that like, when I go off duty, what time do I get off?”
It was funny but I shook my head, refused to laugh.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Yes, this can be unofficial. I assume he wants you to find Sally. Why in the world did you take the job?”
“To help a friend. He might have a tangential involvement.”
“That can only be Sam Wheeler.”
“Have you ever heard of the Mansion?”
Beth said nothing.
“What’s that look on your face?”
“I went out with a guy three times back around March or April,” she said. “He works there. On our third date he got what he wanted. I did, too, I suppose, but I was sure as hell expecting more. I never heard from him again.”
“Can I ask his name?”
“This will sound like I’m dodging, but he asked me not to say his name and his workplace in the same conversation. In spite of his poor behavior, I still believe the part about national security.”
