by Tom Corcoran
He rolled his eyes, whispered, “Fuck you,” slipped me my wad of hundreds, and turned his attention to Beth. “So what magazines have you been in?”
“None, I hope,” she said.
“You’re not a fashion model?”
“You were right, Alex,” she said. “I like this guy.”
Frank patted my shoulder. “See, Alex? I’m not so bad. They all like me, like that one last night. She and I got very drunk so we quit after the first try. She got dressed and went home at two then called me at ten to apologize. Talk about your perfect date. I might call her again. Plus I’ll put her in my book.”
“Doing some writing, Frank?” I said.
“I’m a thinker, I know that about myself,” said Polan. “I’ve been thinking about starting my autobiography. I’ve lived an interesting existence, and I think it’s time. I’ll call it Snowball to Hell.”
“How does Hell relate to your life?” she said.
“I’m not sure yet. But you have to agree, it’s a catchy title. When I’m drinking, I’m prolific and I make a lot of sense. I figure the meaning will come to me while I’m writing the book.”
“May I use your bathroom, Frank?” I said.
He screwed an odd expression onto his face. “Can I tell you something first?”
“About the bathroom?”
“No, I’ve heard you’re an expert. But let me say, I always knew you took pictures, but I never knew you were so good.”
“How did you find out, Frank? I hope you didn’t take someone’s word for it.”
“I was walking around Key West a week ago, you know, killing time and I like to walk. Sometimes I walk three or four hours in a row, so I went into this little art gallery on the south end of Duval. That’s not a weird or faggy thing for me to do, is it? Go into an art gallery?”
“I don’t think it is, Frank. In recent years I’ve seen numerous heterosexuals in art galleries.”
“So I’m in this gallery and really liking the pictures on the wall. I asked the fellow working there if he knew the artist. He tells me they’re photos by Alex Rutledge, so I told him you were a great friend of mine and I bought one of them. Right there and then I paid him cash. Maybe you’ll make a few bucks, put some gas in your motorcycle. Then I found the perfect place to hang it.”
“You’re making me feel good, Frank.”
“But don’t take this wrong, because I really like the photo. And it’s black and white so it matches the tile in the master bath.”
“Wonderful, Frank. My art found a place in your home.”
“So you’re not upset, it’s in the bathroom?”
“Well, I should tell you, the bathroom is a very humid place, Frank. The damp air could damage the mat and the photograph.”
“Well, I can live with that. If it gets fucked up, I’ll just buy another one because I can afford a few more. I’ll take the chance that the price doesn’t go up, and either way you’ll make more money. Am I talking to the soul of the artist here?”
“Loud and clear, Frank. As only you can.”
I returned to the living room to find Polan washing dishes and Beth studying the framed reproductions of classic paintings on his walls. “Frank, what kind of fish do you catch off your dock?” she said.
“I don’t fish,” he said. “Not off the dock, not off the boats. It’s far too messy. When I want fish I go to the store. Better yet, I go to a restaurant. I can afford to eat out, so why catch fish?”
She watched him finish the dishes. “You’re a man who thinks things through to their completion, I can tell. If you don’t mind my asking, why two boats?”
“Luxury and sport. The one with the forward cabin is for overnights or supper parties, if the girl wants to cook. The other one will do fifty-five knots and it draws only eight inches, perfect for the backcountry.”
“Frank, we’ve got to go,” I said. “I’m glad to see that you’re eating healthy food, treating your body well. You’ll live longer.”
Polan shrugged. “I don’t know about that. It’s not like they splice ninety days into your fiftieth year. I want to see proof that the time I add to my life doesn’t come smack at the end. I don’t want four extra hours of twilight on my dying day. I’ll be too feeble to think back between drools and appreciate this broccoli.”
21
Northbound traffic had picked up after the noon hour. We tagged along like freight cars hitched to a long train until we turned into the Boondocks Grille parking lot on Ramrod, taking care to keep our tires vertical through gravel patches. Beth found us a car-width spot next to a pickup that bore the bumper sticker: WOMEN WANT ME, FISH FEAR ME.
It must take a hell of a man to sense fear in a fish.
The restaurant is a huge tiki hut with a bricked patio at ground level and an elevated open-air bar and restaurant. To the mellow tones of “Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts, we climbed to the dining area, to six flat-screen TVs and that many women in red tank tops with “STAFF” printed on their backs. We approached one of the tall round tables surrounded by bar stools.
“This won’t work,” said Beth. “She won’t feel comfortable perched high on one of these.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve had a witness interrogation course, too.”
She looked puzzled then figured out that I was referring to Bobbi. “A couple of years ago, in California. But this is your gig. I was just thinking ahead. You’re doing all the talking today.”
The music segued into “The Weight” by The Band. We walked back down to ground level and chose a square green Formica table with four green plastic yard chairs. Next to us stood a rusted-out four-foot pedestal fan that breathed a dull whoop sound as it twirled. It still did its job. We sat back and ordered iced teas from an on-the-spot, red-shirted server, a woman in her mid-thirties.
We’d arrived four minutes late for our meeting with Alyssa. Not really enough time to piss her off to the point of splitting. Now, apparently, we were early arrivals by ten full minutes. I worried that the young woman might be a no-show.
“Shit,” said Beth “I just remembered that I’m scheduled to go next week to a county class for handling semi-automatics.” She paused. “Which brings me to that remark you made to Colding about a gun at your gut. That wasn’t conjecture?”
“You’re a newcomer, so you probably won’t be apprehended and prosecuted,” I said. “It’s illegal to use words like ‘conjecture’ in the Florida Keys.”
Her eyes bore a message into mine. Wrong time for humor.
I explained, condensed, about taking Turk’s boat to the middle of nowhere and drawing attention from heavies with motors, guns and computers.
“And that was it?” she said. “They held you at gunpoint and ran your names and numbers and went away? They didn’t come aboard the boat, give it a phony safety inspection?”
“I guess we were lucky,” I said.
“You couldn’t even get arrested?” She exhaled, shook her head, worried. “This is something way beyond your friend Sam’s midnight runs to Cuba.”
“You’re serious.”
“Worse. I’m worried.”
What had Sam told Turk? “If it all slams into high gear, it’ll be bigger than we can imagine.”
Our server brought large plastic cups of iced tea and departed. Beth tore two paper towels from the roll at the table’s center and wrapped our cups the way Cubans wrap their beer bottles, like wrapping a towel around your waist and tucking in the final corner to hold it. A simple theory, too seldom used: the wrap absorbs condensate that evaporates and cools the liquid inside.
I said, “Have you hit on any theories on what happened at Jerry Hammond’s house?”
“I forgot to tell you something, but thank you in advance.”
“My expert photography solved the crime?”
“More your judgment,” she said, “but those sock prints in the dust on the bathroom floor? The floor was covered in talcum and plain household dust, but the socks left behind a chalk
y substance that our scene team also found near Hammond’s body.”
“Laundry detergent?”
“No,” she said. “Pizza cheese and flour.”
“We’ve got scientists in the Keys who can tell the difference?”
“Pizza cheese is a processed cheese that mimics mozzarella. High-end pizzas use real mozzarella with maybe a blending of parmesan and romano. These days most shops use the processed variety that we found. We lucked into a quick confirmation from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. We’re working up a list of every employee in every Lower Keys pizza shop or Italian restaurant.”
“That’ll be a long list.”
“It’s a start,” said Beth. “We got a customer list from a food distributor out of Miami. Anyway, the sum of evidence, or lack of it, suggests that Hammond knew his killer. If we factor in strangulation by a cord from a hair dryer, an object usually stored in the bathroom, his murder may have been spontaneous, unplanned, and the dryer was a weapon of opportunity. If he and his killer knew each other, something changed quickly in the relationship and brought on the violence.”
“Sounds reasonable, except for lack of other evidence.”
“And that could make it the exact opposite, you’re right,” she said. “It could have been well-planned, including the use of the hair dryer cord, and either way the killer had time to remove evidence traces, as well as steal the computer items you noticed.”
My mind went into high gear for crime analysis. “Or a third choice,” I said. “Maybe he arrived home and surprised someone in the house.”
“Roll with that,” said Beth.
“Okay, maybe someone wanted to steal the whole computer but had to kill him and get out of there fast. Took what they could. Or someone knew that he had porn photos on his hard drive…”
“…and the gay element isn’t completely out of the question…”
Someone nearby, our server, said, “Hey, babe.”
Alyssa patted her forearm and said, “Lookin’ good.”
The women gave each other the foxy eye and approached the table. Alyssa went straight to Beth Watkins. “Thanks for checking on us before you left, to make sure we were okay. The sick puppy was majorly steamed. As Honey, our supervisor, says, he went to stew in his cauldron.”
Beth turned her hands palm-up and shrugged. Nothing to it.
Alyssa’s coral-toned top read ONE DAY I WILL MAKE IT ALL UP TO YOU. Her pastel green shorts hung low, almost to Panama. She had to have spilled something from every aisle in the market on her white sneaks. She sat next to me, touched my arm. “I’m not hungry at all,” She held her touch and said, “That’s just my first lie.”
“Then let’s order our food and start talking,” I said. “I want the whole fib symphony.”
Alyssa looked up at the server. “I’ll do Mountain Dew and twenty mild teriyaki wings, please.” She pointed at Beth. “You should get the Tuna Tempura. Just order the appetizer with two cups of honey soy sauce.”
Beth did a repeat of her palm-upward shrug. I ordered a fresh fish sandwich with potato salad. The server gave us an I-like-locals smile, took back the menus and departed.
I finally picked up on the most significant change in Alyssa, the removal of her tongue ornament. Was the stud only a part of her work uniform or had she removed it to speak with us? No matter. Her words came through clear as hell.
From that point on we mined unexpected gold. People-watching as a matter of habit, sipping our drinks, the three of us in the shade occasionally wiping sweat from our brows with paper towels. The constant rushing sound of highway traffic to one side, easy oldies off a satellite from inside the restaurant. The unplugged version of “Layla,” obscure songs by John David Souther and Marshall Chapman, a country-tinged Mac McAnally song. All of it okay except for a syrupy John Denver tune. Beth rolled her eyes at that one, too, a gesture that boded well for our relationship.
Nervous, Alyssa fiddled with the catsup and condiment jars in a table-center plastic bin. “I feel like a ropey donkey today,” she said. “That stupid job can be a ball-buster and this morning was a shit storm.”
Beth and I kept our mouths shut.
“So you don’t want to hear about that,” she said. “You need to know about Sally, and this discussion stays at this table, or at least anonymous, right?”
“Sure,” I said. “Were the two of you friends?”
“She was a twit. I wasn’t down with her bubbly act. You don’t know how bad I wanted to pour Tabasco down her ass crack, light that little twat on fire.”
“Down her coin slot?” I said.
Alyssa looked startled, surprised that I knew the slang. “She was such a tight-ass sometimes,” she said, “I don’t think a coin could slip through.”
“So you two didn’t get along?”
She raised her gaze upward as if beseeching the heavens to relieve her of a sour memory. “We monkeyed around.”
“The two of you?” I said. This was not at all what Mikey had described.
“No fucking way, just the two of us. She invited me on a boat ride, like a double date, two boats, and I had to promise not to blab. It turned out to be a few Jello-shots, skinny dipping, getting it on, watching each other do it. Sunburn, for sure.”
“How long ago?” I said.
“I don’t know, a month?”
“Was she with her boyfriend?”
Alyssa nodded. “That guy she dated from the Mansion, Clifford. My guy was named Constant Johnson. He really couldn’t decide which name he wanted to tell me, but whatever. He paid for the beer and he didn’t try to be a bone-star.”
“Did he work at the Mansion, too?” I said.
“Yep. He was actually a fun jump except he sneaked way too many peeks at Sally on top of Clifford. Like I was having sex, but he was watching TV.”
“Where did all this happen?” I said.
“Some place called Picnic Island except it’s not an island. It’s a shallow spot, I guess by the end of Summerland. I’m not sure.”
“Do you remember what kind of boat it was?” I said. “Did it have a name?”
“I don’t know boat brands or how many feet, but he had the name Maverick on the side. I told him that was a cool name for a boat. Not like one of those cutesy names like Swizzle Stick or Wet Spot.”
“Did they mention the Mansion’s location?” I said. “Is it on the bay side, that fenced-in land opposite Baby’s Coffee?”
“No, it’s on the front side, on that stretch of Sugarloaf that goes to nowhere. You go down the road from the lodge and go right at the dead end, then go a long damn way. But oh, Jesus, they treated it like the biggest secret in the free world. Of course, I already knew where it was. Everybody at that end of Sugarloaf knows, but they all call it the Porcupine because of all those spooky antennas sticking out of it.”
“The Porcupine.”
“Right, it’s a manufactured house on stilts way down by the creek bridge. We all knew it had to be something. I mean, it’s on the ocean and they trimmed all the mangroves down by the water. That’s so illegal. You didn’t read about that in the paper. Nobody got popped, nobody caught a fine.”
“The people who work inside call it the Mansion and their neighbors call it the Porcupine?”
She stuck out her chin and gave a single nod.
Our food arrived. We were all so hungry, no one spoke until two-thirds of it was gone.
“Tell me about your boss,” said Beth. “How sick is he?”
“You really want to know? Today he had his usual look at ‘the girls.’” Alyssa cupped her smallish boobs to cue us to her meaning. “Then he wanted to finger me. How gross is that?”
“How did you react?” I said.
“I told him I was the only one allowed to do that. Plus, I got me a nasty daddy and I’m an ace at becoming the wallpaper.”
I suddenly had more respect for Alyssa’s wisdom and smarts, two different things, both substantial.
“The girls call him
Uncle Disgusting,” I said.
Alyssa leaned toward Beth and lowered her voice. “He gives a twenty-dollar bonus each week for a ten-second look at the ‘angel beard.’ He once gave Mikey fifty dollars to grow hers back. It took so long they both gave up on the deal.”
Beth stared ahead, unfocused. Her neutral expression, I could tell, masked a fundamental disgust. We were all finished eating. I gave the server a check-please wave.
“I need to get back to work,” said Alyssa. “Mikey covered for me, so I promised her a one-hour break. Was I any help? I can’t believe I told you about Sally boinking her hot fellow. She does have a cute ass, tight as it is.”
Good for her, I thought. She had used the present tense, “tight as it is,” instead of the past.
Back out in the parking lot Alyssa drove northward while Beth and I started the motorcycles and fed our helmet straps through their loops. A red Mini Cooper pulled up facing me, a lovely woman with silver hair at the wheel, the lawn-mowing guy from Bay Point hanging out the passenger side window.
“Lucky thing I saw you two standing out here,” he said. “Out of the blue my neighbor who saw it all calls from Wyoming. He thought he left his trickle hose running in his sago palms. He said a helicopter landed in the water that day and a dude got off and into a fast boat of some kind. The chopper took off, the boat brought the man to shore and the boat went away. That’s all I know. See you.”
The Mini Cooper scratched gravel on its departure.
Everyone in a tropical hurry.
“Where to?” I said to Beth. “It’s your turn to guide us onward.”
“You’re plum out of gumshoe errands?”
“I get three thirty-minute breaks every twenty-four hours.”
She wiggled the twist-grip throttle, barely revved the engine to three grand. She went full-bliss at the sound of it. “Well… there is one thing.”
22
Eight minutes south of the restaurant, on Cudjoe Key, Beth Watkins signaled a right turn onto Blimp Road. It’s a traffic-free straightaway just short of two miles in length, and it ends abruptly at Florida Bay. Hard pavement into choppy salt water. She led me a hundred yards northward and pulled her cycle to the shoulder.
