by Tom Corcoran
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll say a name and watch your reaction.”
“I don’t think…”
“Cliff Brock.”
Beth sipped her wine. “Horndog bastard. I heard he had a thing for young ones, going out lately with girls half his age.”
“I’m afraid it was Sally Catherman.”
“Oh, shit.” She studied my eyes. “Past tense. Did he do something to her?”
“I don’t believe that’s the issue.”
Her facial expression went from worry to full shock. “Oh, my God. Is Sally the reason you asked about Bay Point? Did someone kill Sally and Cliff?”
“Only the feds know that answer,” I said.
Beth got a pensive look on her face, pursed her lips and pressed them to the side of the wine glass. She finally shook her head. “I don’t know anything. I was faking, working off rumor and what I read in the Citizen.”
She stood, walked a circle in the living room carrying her empty glass, then went to the kitchen, tapped her finger on the wine bottle. “May I?”
“Have at it. Weren’t we going to discuss Hammond? Did you show anyone those pictures in the brown envelope?”
“Quick and artful change of subject, Alex, but okay. It brings us right back to young ones.”
I clammed up, allowed her to think her way into her answer.
She returned to the living room, kicked off her shoes, sat across from me. “I spent the early evening showing those pictures in bars,” she said. “Hangouts for locals. The Parrot, Schooner Wharf, that place at Truman and Grinnell. I even went to the yacht club for a few minutes. You knew two of the men, and I got names for two others. The more I learned the less I saw any of them as suspects.”
“The tie-in to young ones?”
“They all had a taste for younger women. Not jailbait, but fresh out of high school, maybe in college. Women beyond twenty-two were over the hill. Based on the bar chatter I heard, they weren’t the irresistible studs they thought they were. They’d pick them up on Duval, then parade them around until the girls got fed up. Once in a while they got lucky, but a couple people suggested they were swapping porn instead of swapping dates. Three of the four are married.”
“Maybe Jerry Hammond strayed from their fold,” I said, “got into kiddie stuff. They all felt threatened.”
Beth shook her head. “With legal-age girls or legal porn, if that’s what they were into, they weren’t breaking laws that we enforce. I don’t see a threat there.”
“Okay,” I said, “if the others are married, how about blackmail? Or maybe they were making porn.”
“We didn’t find video equipment or duplicator machines in Hammond’s house. His gear, he was more of a low-level consumer, not a distributor.”
“Unless his killer cleaned the place out, took the exotic stuff and left enough components to deflect our focus. Why do you think Hammond had their pictures filed away?”
She thought, then shook her head. “Those pictures could point to a murderer, or mean nothing, or anything in between. We can talk about that tomorrow.”
“Shall we make our own little movie?”
“Soon, perhaps, with the lens cap in place.” She sat back in her chair, put her feet on my knees. “I feel like we’re on an island of calm with wreckage all around us. Thank you for being here right now.”
“Easy for me,” I said. “I’m here because it’s home. You’re welcome to stay.”
A sly grin. “I sure don’t want to drive and I’m not too damned excited about walking.”
“Would you like me to refill your glass?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Once you pass the age of thirty, getting drunk first is overrated. Maybe your friend can write a revisionist song. ‘Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Snuggle, Then Rip Off a Wild One at Dawn?’”
“Tough rhyme.”
“And too long to wait,” said Beth. “Is your girlfriend going to show up?”
“Ex-girlfriend, by her words and actions.”
“Burst in here with her gun blazing?”
“Her mouth, maybe, but not her gun.”
“Can I borrow a sleep T-shirt in case I get cold before you wake up? That way I can wear this top when I do the walk.”
I laughed. She knew the lingo. Key West residents call the early morning drag back home after an unplanned all-nighter the “Walk of Shame.”
We stood, embraced, and with a certain nervousness kissed lightly. The kiss went long and our anxiety vanished. Our hands touched new territory and a mutual comfort lifted the room temperature.
She finally backed away slightly. “Kissing is sometimes underrated, yes?”
“And it happens too seldom,” I said. “Like learning to play the oboe, you can’t practice too much.”
“Why did I think you were a bassoon man? You don’t, by any chance have…”
I knew her next word. “I might even have two.”
“I hate them,” she said. “They feel like sausage wrappers and smell like inner tubes. Actually, I was going to ask if you had a bottle of water to put next to the bed. I hate to wake up thirsty at four am.”
She disrobed as if I wasn’t there or had seen it all a million times. I sat on the end of the bed and watched. Stunned by her lovely figure, I tried to comment but couldn’t cough up a word.
“Force of habit,” she said. “For the moment, think of it as a nude beach. Inspect every square inch, but don’t assume knowledge or possession.”
“You’ve been saving that speech for a while.”
“Far too long. Do I pull down your pants or do you?”
“I’ve always believed in teamwork.”
“Perfect. Please kiss my nipples while I do your belt.”
“How about I do both?”
I tasted the perspiration under her breasts and touched the wonderful muscles on the insides of her thighs. Kissed her abdomen and moved my hand to find soft shallow curls, fragile skin and dampness.
“Keep doing that.”
“This?”
“Yes, for like the next thirty-six hours. But I should warn you. I might start to sound like women’s pro tennis.”
A minute later she lay beside me, a moment after that pulled me in. Our first loving wasn’t frantic but our pacing gave way to need, to pushing and squeezes and quiet words and floating and catching our breath. I stayed inside her, not wanting to leave, and began again to move.
“Let me turn over.”
I pushed upward with both arms.
“Damn,” she said. “My leg is caught in the sheet.”
“No hurry.”
“Maybe not for you.”
And the second time, more rhythmic, more sensuous, took us to exhaustion, a tangle of sweat and caresses, and more touching to make sure we were real, not imaginary, not illusions. We lay awake for a long time.
“Give me a hot snuggle before you pass out,” said Beth. “Are we still riding our motorcycles tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“Remind me in the morning that people who worry about little things, like zoning citations, are often afraid of background checks, large black marks in their past.”
“Like illegal immigrants who refuse to jaywalk?”
“Like convicted felons who never let their license tags expire.”
A minute later she shifted her head on the pillow. “He said he didn’t know where he’d get the courage to tell her mother. Does he already know she’s dead?”
I had been asking myself the same question and didn’t have an answer. I was too tired to speculate so I kept silent.
“How did you manage a back flip over that car’s hood and fender?”
That was her last question.
I feigned sleep for the next five hours.
At 5:15 the house phone rang. I had a feeling it was Sam Wheeler, which meant one kind of news at that hour. I reached to check the incoming number and felt Beth sit up and roll out. She walked toward the bathroom, her bottom in dim li
ght worth the million I had kissed goodbye in refusing to sell my house.
I didn’t recognize the caller ID but answered anyway.
Captain Turk said, “Dress yourself for yachting, mate. The bus for dawn recon leaves in two minutes. Bring photo ID.”
“Dark clothing?” I said.
“Don’t bother. White boat.”
“Where are you?”
“On your porch, watching the scenery.”
If that was the case, he had a clear view of my bedroom door and a wonderful view of Beth Watkins wearing only a T-shirt.
“Don’t let her know you’re there, please.” I hung up.
I looked up.
Beth stood at the bedroom door. “Was that who I think it was?”
“Please get in bed so I can explain.”
“I’ll stay right here, thanks.”
“I was trying to protect your modesty. There’s a man on the porch staring at your lovely bare buns.”
“I’m not falling for it,” said Beth. “If he’s really there, he won’t see any more in the next ten seconds than he saw in the last ten. I want a straight answer. Was that Bobbi Lewis?”
“The call came from the porch,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll look. Only because I want to go back to sleep.”
She turned her head, saw Turk averting his eyes.
“Shit.” She walked into the room and lay down next to me. I felt her body heat, smooth legs against my skin. She put her lips against my ear. “Does this mean you have to go away and not be here?”
I rubbed my hand along her hip. “I’m not sure what time I’ll be back. Do you know, by chance, where the Mansion is located?”
“Cliff never told me, so I didn’t ask.”
“I’ll lock the door behind me,” I said.
“Since we won’t need that second condom…” She hesitated. I felt her swallow.
“What?” I said.
“Do you have a vibrator?”
17
Turk sat on the porch, twirling his keys, broadcasting impatience. The last three things I grabbed were Polarized shades, a pocket-sized digital camera, and a Ziploc pre-packed for boat trips. The bag held bug repellent, a flat plastic whistle on a woven lanyard, sun block, a chromed bosun’s knife, a keeper string for my sunglasses, and two empty Ziplocs. The whistle’s distress signal was more effective than shouting, especially in darkness. It was loud at a pitch more easily heard over wave noise. It didn’t suck up your energy when survival was the point. The spare bags would hold my phone, camera and wallet if we got into a squall.
My usual yacht rides tended more to pleasure. The morning call declaring a picnic in the Marquesas, the late-day invitation to a sunset cruise. I had learned in the Navy that preparation pays off. If you don’t think ahead, the ocean will bite.
“Foul-weather jackets?” I said. “Bottled water?”
“You’re covered,” said Turk, “and you can piss in the ocean like a fish. Let’s go.”
“You want to surprise me with the reason for all this?”
“I can ninety-percent guarantee you surprise,” he said.
“What time did you talk to Sam?”
He rattled his keys on the table top. “We can talk in the truck.”
Hurrying off the porch, I looked down toward Carmen’s cottage. Had the driver of the Taurus turned into the lane not realizing it was a dead end, then ditched it? That could have happened with someone new in town, but it smelled too much like coincidence. The message was adamant. The stolen car had been left as a further threat to me. Or my friends. My activities of the past three days had angered someone with a mean streak. A type known to be persistent.
A follow-up thought: If the driver had been hired to run me down, should I be curious about the value of my death? I hoped it was worth more than the ratty car that flipped me, but I hadn’t been there to jack up the bidding.
Turk’s pickup was angled into the Eden House “Loading Only” zone, where I had stopped my bike to walk with Beth Watkins seven hours earlier. The hotel’s night clerk stood in the central doorway, eyeballing the truck, about to push the buttons of a portable phone. Turk approached him and extended two fingers that held a ten-dollar bill. The man pulled the bill to freedom, smiled broadly, dropped the phone into his shirt pocket.
I would wish that the next seven hours might go so quickly, so smoothly.
The pre-dawn air felt like every morning had for the past six months except cooler, probably in the mid-seventies. The squall of earlier had blown away leaving clear sky behind it. We said nothing until Turk had crossed Garrison Bight Bridge to the empty, neon-lighted boulevard out of town. Too early for the first delivery vans in from Miami. Not even a stray pink taxi or a city cruiser on patrol.
“We knew from Wonsetler that the boat was awash south of the Saddlebunch Keys,” said Turk. “I talked to a few other captains on the docks and got a couple of good clues. One said that Wonsetler mentioned Old Papy Road. Another said that he mentioned eight feet of water.”
“Why do we care?” I said. “The swamped boat was a hazard, you said yourself. It’s been towed to the beach. For all we know, it’s in Miami being refurbished by the brother-in-law of some Marine Patrol officer. It’ll be retitled and sold by year’s end.” I thought for a moment. “What’s open water going to teach us?”
“We’re going out there to be bait. We want to draw sharks.”
“What did Sam say?”
“I didn’t talk to Sam. This was Marnie’s idea, so I’ll let her explain. But, to put this in perspective, Sam warned me last week. If it all slams into high gear, whatever it is, it’ll be bigger than we can imagine.”
“Our dreams come true,” I said. “I hope Marnie’s on target, and our bait act doesn’t turn us into chum.”
“You brought photo ID, right?”
Tamarac Park is two miles east of Boca Chica Naval Air Station’s control tower and a quarter-mile west of the Geiger Key Pub and Grill. The subdivision borders Hawk Channel and most of its stilt homes back up to canals, with modest yachts alongside seawalls or boats on trailers in yards. A few mobile homes have yet to be replaced by houses. Manatees occasionally visit. Loud Navy jets often fly overhead in practice patterns. The last time I was there, ten years ago, was to photograph a vacant lot for a real estate brochure. I charged my half-day rate for thirty-six pictures of canalside dirt, marl and scrub grass. The broker was so pleased with my work that she added a ten-percent bonus to the invoice.
After we passed the Tamarac sign, Turk asked me to look for Mars Lane on the right. I cued him and he went left, then right, then into a driveway. Too confusing for me at that hour. The house was dark, but Marnie Dunwoody’s Jeep Wrangler was parked under the carport overhang. A flickering street lamp and low-intensity lamps from neighboring yards gave dim illumination.
“I brought the skiff out here before dark,” said Turk. “Place belongs to an old friend who hasn’t come back from his summer in Montana. I ran charters out of here five or six years ago when I was fighting the city for dock space at the Bight.”
Marnie sat upright when Turk knocked on her driver’s side door. Bleary-eyed, coughing herself awake, she said, “New Moon Tours at your service. We have black coffee and fat-filled pastries on the floorboard.”
Turk opened the passenger-side door and grabbed a Styrofoam cup. “Eat fast,” he said. “No food on the boat.”
She climbed out of her Jeep. “You’re welcome, fuckhead.”
Turk jangled his keys then started toward the canal, his feet crunching gravel. Over his shoulder: “That’s Captain Fuckhead to you, mate.”
Marnie laughed and turned to me. “That’s how I felt in the Circle K. Four city cops in there were staring, trying to figure why a news reporter was up at five a.m., looking my worst, and what did I know that they didn’t?”
She wore a photographer’s vest covered with flap-and-zipper pockets, and caught me staring at it. “A nautical reporter’s kit,” she said. Sh
e walked her hands from her hips to her shoulders, alternating right and left, to explain the pockets’ contents. “Portable GPS, digital tape recorder, pepper spray, granola bars, boob, boob, cell phone, digital camera.”
“Well-equipped.”
“Electronics, indeed,” she said. “Other than that, let’s get on the boat.”
“Can I ask the point of this excursion?”
“I know Sam better than anyone,” she said. “I know how he juggles facts and twists logic and still hits the truth. We don’t know who left that boat out there, but for a small skiff essentially underwater, it was found too soon. It was meant to be found with Sam’s hull numbers on it, and meant to be a message. It’s so off-the-wall, it sounds like something Sam would do. I think its location was part of the message.”
“So by going out there, we get a better grasp of the whole mess?”
“Or some idea how to help him,” said Marnie. “I’m paying for Turk’s gas and it’s risk-free. We troll around and maybe draw flies. Maybe I can be less like those cops in the Circle K, wondering what I know that they don’t. Because I don’t know screw-all, and there’s nothing else to do at this hour, and it’s all we’ve got.”
Nothing except for an alternate activity I would have enjoyed. But I was there to help Sam, and, with her determined face in the faint light, Marnie was right. Draw sharks… or flies.
Draw conclusions.
The concrete seawall stood five feet above the water. Turk’s Maverick, Flats Broke, hung on davit hooks, its propeller a foot above the placid canal water. He flipped a breaker then twisted levers on each davit. The winches turned slowly to lower the skiff, their steel cables popping as they untwisted and released tension.
Turk handed us the loose ends of dock lines cleated to the bow and stern. We stood in silence as the boat settled into the water. He shut off the davits, hunkered on the seawall and stepped down to the gunwale. It took him a minute to unhook the lift slings, clear the bilges and start the motor. Marnie and I pulled the davit arms back to the seawall, then she went aboard and I followed, bringing the dock lines with me. Turk flipped on his depth finder, a small compass, and a GPS unit and slipped it into gear. With his running lights dark he idled confidently out of Tamarac Park. I was glad he could do it. I couldn’t see shit.
