Vampire Slayer Murdered in Key West - Mick Murphy Short Stories

by Michael Haskins

  “This is always open?”

  “Fire laws,” Pierce smirked. “The only doors locked around here are the fire doors that lead outside from each floor, and they can be opened by pushing the panic bar.”

  “When you were running upstairs you didn’t see anyone in this room?”

  “No one.”

  I walked back up the stairs slowly; I turned a couple of times and looked down, and then continued up to the landing. They all followed me.

  “What are you thinking, Murphy?” Bolter asked, when he reached the landing.

  “I think the thief came down this stairway, and that leaves only two ways for him to go,” I said. “Has the basement been checked?”

  “My men are still checking the second and third basement levels,” Pierce said. “There are a lot of rooms below.”

  “Has your security office been searched?”

  “No!” he said quickly. “It was manned all through this. No one could come in carrying the painting without being noticed.”

  “Unless they were involved.” I said. “Maybe the whole security department was involved.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Pierce yelled back. “These men are mostly retired cops, and they’re here twenty-four hours a day, and if they wanted to steal they could get a hell of a lot more than one Picasso.”

  “I’m just thinking out loud,” I said, my hands raised in surrender. “Nothing’s impossible.”

  I walked down the stairs and opened the door to the lobby again. I could see the bookstore and a sign that read “office” that hung over Walsh’s door by the store.

  “You were at the bookstore when the alarm went off, right?” I asked Walsh pointing toward the store.

  “Yes and my office and the store have been searched.”

  “What are you doing?” Pierce stayed back in the darkness. “Is he taking over the investigation?” he demanded from Bolter.

  “No,” Bolter answered calmly. “I’ve found over the years of knowing Mick that his mind works differently than most people’s. His imagination sometimes sees things the rest of us miss.”

  “And his imagination is doing what for us?”

  Bolter shrugged and looked at me. “You have anything for us, Mick?”

  “Nothing Bob hasn’t said,” I grinned. “I agree with him. The painting is still in the museum. He hasn’t said it, but I think he knows it’s still here because someone working here stole it.”

  “So far it’s not brain surgery,” Pierce said smugly. “I’ll find the painting and, if it’s an inside job, I will find the thief. But you feel free to wait with Dick and Howard, just in case a ransom call comes. Let me take care of the museum search.”

  “Which brings up another question,” I said. “How are the thieves going to know I am here?”

  “There’ll be an ad in the L.A. Times tomorrow mentioning you’re here to discuss your experiences with art theft and recovery,” Bolter explained. “If the thieves are looking at a ransom, the point will be clear to them.”

  “Or they may already have another plan worked out,” Pierce said, “that doesn’t include us.”

  “Fact is, art theft is on the rise around the world,” Bolter said. “Most of it’s for private collectors, but statistically it’s a group crime. Look at what happened in Norway. Broad daylight and thieves walked out with Munch’s “The Scream” and “Madonna,” ninety million dollars’ worth of art stolen in a few minutes. In May, another Picasso had been stolen from a restoration studio in Paris. The thieves are usually paid a fee, and often have no idea of the value of what they are stealing.”

  “Not in this case!” Pierce said quickly.

  “I agree,” Bolter said. “This is not your ordinary art theft. It could be a disgruntled employee, someone in a lot of debt, maybe to gamblers. Or it could be someone looking to make a killing with one quick heist … like in the movies.” He couldn’t stifle a laugh.

  “So why this guy?” Pierce questioned my involvement again. “The museum’s insurance people are all over this, we’re on top of it. So why some guy from Florida?”

  “He’s here at my request, the museum’s carrier has okayed it, as has Dick,” Bolter answered. “We’re not trying to step on your toes, and we’re out of here in a little while.”

  “Yeah,” Pierce replied, “I’m going to check on the search,” he said and walked through the door that led to the lower levels.

  “We’ve been considering replacing Bob,” Walsh said after a few moments of awkward silence. “He wants to bring the museum up to modern security levels and this is his chance. I don’t always disagree with his ideas, but I also have to deal with the board and budgets.”

  “So, if he finds the painting …”

  “It would give him a little more sway with the board,” Walsh said. “Maybe.

  But his ideas are expensive and, until yesterday, no one thought we really needed that kind of technology.”

  I walked away, leaving Bolter and Walsh, and worked my way up the dark stairway to the second floor, where it was quiet. A few people still walked around, but the search for the painting had moved to the lower levels.

  Two security officers eyed me, but kept their distance. I retraced my earlier walk from where the painting was stolen, to the bathroom, back to the hallway and the dim stairwell. I stood on the top platform landing until my eyes adjusted. I heard the elevator move. I held on to the old wooden balustrade as I walked down slowly, slapping at the newel posts, while looking over the side. From the second landing, half way down, I looked into the grayness and knew Pierce was right, there were no hiding places in the walls.

  I looked at the doors that led from the dim hall, turned and looked back at the door to the second floor hallway, and whistled to myself as I walked downstairs to find Bolter and Walsh. I wanted them with me when I produced the painting.

  • • •

  I found them in the bookstore and had them call Pierce to meet us.

  “Let me make sure I have this right,” I said after I told them I knew where the painting was. “I produce the stolen Picasso and receive a ten-percent fee.”

  “That’s the deal,” Bolter said first. “It’s insured for ten million dollars.”

  Even I could do the math on that!

  “That the deal with your carrier?” I asked Walsh.

  “Yes,” he said anxiously. “You have the painting?”

  “No,” I said quietly, “but I know where it is.”

  “You saying we missed something?” Pierce challenged as he joined us.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I told him. “You missed it, I found it.”

  “Where is it?” he taunted.

  “Follow me.” I led them to the stairwell. “I don’t know the thief’s identity, but I’m sure he’s an employee.”

  We stood around quietly until our eyes adjusted to the dimness.

  “It’s important we see in the darkness,” I explained. “The thief was able to get into the room and hide the painting because he had everything prepared.” I walked up the stairwell to the first landing; they followed me. “He was able to walk down the stairs, hide the painting, and continue on.”

  “To where?” Pierce asked.

  “Don’t know, and I don’t know why you didn’t run into him as you headed up the stairs,” I answered. “I don’t know who did it, or what he did after he hid the painting. But I know where he hid it.”

  “Where, for God’s sake?” Bolter moaned.

  I walked to the railing and turned to face them. I rested one hand on the railing and the other on the newel post.

  “Right here,” I told them and was glad they couldn’t see my smile.

  “Right where?” Walsh demanded.

  “Right here.” I struggled forcing the wooden cap off the newel. I let it fall over the side for dramatic effect as it hit the floor. I stuck my hand into the hollow post, pulled out the mailing tube, and handed it toward Bolter, but Walsh jumped in the way and took the tube.

>   He tried opening it as he walked down the stairs, but it was taped closed. Once out in the corridor, Pierce handed Walsh a small pocketknife. He cut the tape away and tossed the cap to the floor. His hand slowly went into the opening and came out quickly.

  “We should go to my office,” he said.

  We followed.

  • • •

  Hurricane season was long over and I was working on the Fenian Bastard, my 40-foot sloop, at the city marina. The winds were about ten knots and I wanted to be out sailing. The salt breeze blew from across the Florida Straits and filled the marina with a hint of tropical flora and slapped halyards against masts. I changed oil and filters and tightened the belts on the small Westerbek diesel engine that powered my sailboat. It was sweaty, dirty work, but necessary, so I was getting it out of the way. Thin clouds danced across the sky, teasing me.

  The afternoon sun beat down, some of it slipping under the cover that went from the canvas Bimini to the dodger, but most of the center cockpit was in shade as I sipped my first cold beer of the afternoon. The CD changer was playing a mixture of the Blues Travelers and Dave Matthews, and I was ready for a cigar when I saw him walking down the floating dock.

  “If that’s a cold beer I hope you have more,” Bob Pierce called as he walked down the finger slip. “Permission to come aboard, Captain,” he saluted and climb aboard.

  I tossed him a cold, wet beer from the ice cooler and went below. I brought him a Cuban cigar. I clipped the end for him but lit mine first.

  “You rent your regular condo?” I asked.

  “No, I’m staying at the Pier House,” he said and puffed on the cigar. “I won’t be here too long, will I?”

  I took a small bankbook from my pocket and handed it to him. “I think you can do what you want.”

  A chartered boat rode by causing a small wake, and Bob held onto the rail, almost dropping his beer. He was not accustomed to being on the water.

  “What happened in L.A.?” I asked as he sat down.

  “Just what I thought.” He puffed on the cigar. “I was let go in less than a month, and they brought in a whole new outfit – with all the toys.”

  “What you’d wanted all along.”

  “Yeah.” He was not excited about being right.

  “I’d leave the money in the bank,” I told him. “I wouldn’t try hiding it.”

  “I was easy on you.” He laughed and looked at the bankbook again. “I’ve never been to the Cayman Islands.”

  “A good starting point for visiting the Caribbean and Central America.”

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  “You know where I’ll be, or at least how to reach me.”

  “Yeah,” he said and blew cigar smoke into the air.

  “You can fly to Havana from the Caymans.”

  “I guess I can do just about anything I want, can’t I?” He finally smiled. “Thanks.”

  “What are friends for?”

  “How about for buying dinner?”

  “The least you can do.” I laughed. “I’ll meet you at El Siboney around eight.”

  “Thanks, doesn’t seem like enough …”

  “Get the hell out of here,” I told him. “I have to clean up and make some calls.”

  “Eight,” he said as he climbed off the boat. “Thanks for the cigar,” he called out as he put the bankbook in his pocket. He had more spring in his step as he walked along the floating dock.

  # # #

  FINDING PICASSO

  Footnote

  I wrote “Finding Picasso” after moving to Key West. I still had a bit of Los Angeles hidden in me and, of course, Boston. I was able to get bits and pieces of all three locales into the story.

  I actually used to visit the Modern Art Museum on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, and during a display of Picasso’s work thought about how a thief could steal one. Murder and theft is a mystery writer’s lively hood, so who could blame me. I doubt it could really happen, other than in my imagination.

  If you’ve read my books, you might remember Joseph Bolter and Dick Walsh from one or two of them. In most of my writings, I slip in names of relatives and friends for my own amusement.

  No one wanted “Finding Picasso” until Shirrel Rhoades read a copy and bought it for The Saturday Evening Post. So, finally, the first Mick Murphy story was published.

  MURDER IN KEY WEST

  Tony Whyte’s once sparking blue eyes were lifeless and stared into oblivion; his frozen expression suggested no fear or pain, not even surprise and his Key West tan had turned ashen. Both hands clutched an old sword blade that had been forced through his chest and impaled him to the boat chair where he died. A small pirate flag hung from its handle.

  A puddle of congealed blood sloshed like Jell-O under the chair as the luxurious 50-foot trawler rocked in its slip. The teak-paneled main cabin appeared neat, only Tony looked out of place, while the sweet stickiness of blood, mixed with the sourness of death fouled the cabin’s air.

  I searched for a pulse in his neck, but knew I wouldn’t find one. Tony was as cold as granite from a Quincy quarry and almost as hard.

  Classical music played from the trawler’s satellite radio. I looked at the radio’s screen and Bach, cello suite no. 6 in D major by Pablo Casals scrolled across it. The music was counterpoint to the cacophony of sounds coming from the Key West Old Town marina outside Schooner Wharf Bar; a mixture of bar patrons’ happiness, captains barking orders to crews, tourists shrieking excitement, boat engines revving and traffic.

  I walked outside to breathe the salty air. Too many people had seen me on the boat, so I couldn’t walk away. Not that I wanted to. Tony was a guy I had worked with years ago on a newspaper in Puerto Rico. We had taken different roads in life, but two months ago, our paths crossed again in Key West, Florida, my home.

  Tony had been sober four years and was writing again. He was happy and talked freely of his alcoholism, of waking confused and scared from his blackouts, and how long it had taken him to hit bottom. His journalism career crashed and burned, while mine flourished. Slowly and sober, Tony had been writing his way back, one day at a time.

  I looked inside the cabin and thought again about how neat it was. Tony had been a barfly, a scraper who knew how to survive, but this time he hadn’t. He knew who killed him, but hadn’t seen it coming.

  I sat in a deck chair and felt the morning sun on my face. Clouds moved across the pale sky and the air smelled of saltwater, humidity and seaweed. Tarpon broke the surface, their splashing echoed around the marina. It smelled a lot better than inside. Lines, holding boats in place, moaned from stress and birds cried in protest, as the first reef bound catamarans, filled with tourists waiting to sunburn, left for a day of snorkeling.

  The sounds of life vibrated from the marina and harbor walk, while the silence of murder sat quietly in the boat’s cabin.

  I used my cell phone to call Richard Dowley, the chief of police. Had someone, or something from Tony’s alcohol-hazy past found him? Or, had a murderer with a pirate fetish surfaced in Paradise? Murder was almost unheard of in Key West. We were more than 100 miles from Miami and a million miles from its violence.

  • • •

  The Chief, dressed in creased blue slacks and a blue Polo shirt with a police logo on its breast, stood with a Styrofoam cup of café con leche, a mixture of strong Cuban coffee with hot milk and lots of sugar, sunglasses perched on his large nose, looking at Tony’s body.

  Sherlock Corcoran, the crime scene investigator, and Detective Luis Morales, both wearing surgical gloves, looked cautiously around the room. They had turned the boat’s air conditioner to high, but the room still held the stench of violent death. Few knew Sherlock’s real first name, but the nickname came with his job.

  Their casual attire conflicted with my cutoff jeans, sleeveless button-downed collared shirt, faded pre-World Series Boston Red Sox baseball cap and flip-flops. I had three good cigars in my pocket and wanted to light one, to hel
p kill the foul air.

  “Who was he?” the Chief sipped his con leche. “And how do you know him?”

  “Tony Whyte,” I turned away and looked outside. “Whyte with a Y. Years ago we worked on the same paper in San Juan.”

  “What’s he doing on Wizard’s boat?”

  “He was helping Wizard and his two partners write their memoirs on discovering the Spanish treasure.” It was the truth, but not the whole truth.

  When I mentioned the Spanish treasure, Sherlock and Luis stopped and stared at me. The three boat bums – Wizard, Lucky and Bubba – discovering millions in Spanish treasure in the ‘70s was a Key West legend with little, if any truth told with the story. When the new multi-millionaires were sober they had varying stories about the discovery and they told other versions when they were drunk, which was often. Their only consistency was their inconsistency.

  “Wizard do this?” the Chief took a long swallow and finished his con leche.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Why?” He took a cigar from my pocked, sniffed it, and smiled.

  “Wizard’s too frail and this guy is twice his size,”Luis said. “He didn’t do it. Whoever did it had enough strength to push the sword through a man’s ribs.”

  The Chief looked at me and I nodded. Wizard was in his late 70s and had always been a beanpole. In his prime, he had difficulty with a scuba tank until he was in the water.

  “Let’s talk to him anyway,” he said to Luis and handed the cigar back. “Have a car check the bars,” he looked at his watch. “There are only a few open this early.”

  Luis went outside to tell the uniformed officers.

  “Awfully neat for a murder,” Sherlock opened a cabinet and looked inside. “This the way you found it, Mick?”

  “Exactly. I checked Tony for a pulse and then called the Chief.”

  “You couldn’t tell he was dead?” Sherlock tried to hide a smile. “I’m going below.”

  Sherlock walked the narrow steps to the lower section of the trawler.

  “You want to tell me anything?” the Chief put his empty cup down. “If he’s writing the memoir, what are you doing here?”