“Meet me at Harpoon’s in a half hour,” Alex said when I answered.
“Alex? What time is it?” I muttered, half awake.
“The time vampires go back into their coffins,” he laughed. “Bring some paper and pencils too. Half an hour, Mick.” He hung up.
I dressed hurriedly, again, and drove my old white Jeep to Harpoon Harry’s. At the early hour, I didn’t have a problem parking, but it irked me to put so many quarters into the meter.
Ron, the owner, smiled as I came in. Alex sat at a table in the back.
“Con leche, Ron,” I said as I passed and knew he’d make the Cuban café con leche I drink. It’s espresso with steamed milk and too much sugar. I am addicted to it.
Alex looked wide-awake and sipped regular coffee.
“You ain’t gonna believe this,” Alex said with a grin. “Did you bring the paper and pencils?”
I put the rolled up paper and two mechanical pencils on the table.
We ordered breakfast and while we waited Alex began drawing.
“Things are getting weird out there,” he said. The studs were still in his ear.
“How?” I sipped my con leche.
“The babes I told you about,” he looked up at me and smiled. “They wanted to suck my blood. I saw them sucking on a guy’s neck, a girl’s arm, and another girl’s neck, more than once.” He finished one sheet and began on another. “Also, get this, they were asking everyone onboard if they’d donate blood for The Master. Yeah, that’s what they called the old guy, The Master.”
“Donate blood?” I was waking up quickly. “How?”
“Just like in the doctor’s office, Mick.” He looked up. “You know, needle in the arm and a big tube to fill.”
“Did they have any takers?”
Our breakfast came and Alex moved his drawings aside and we ate.
“More than I thought they’d get,” he said with a mouthful of egg and toast. “If you give, you get to go below.”
“For what? What’s the attraction down below?”
“Hell if I know, I ain’t givin’ blood, even though the babes are hot,” he smiled and stuffed the remaining egg into his mouth. “I stay away from anything that involves a needle, especially if it’s used more than once.”
He slid the first sheet of paper to me, it was the floor plan of the yacht, and continued to work on a second sheet.
“There’s a go-fast boat on the starboard side.” He kept drawing and didn’t look up. “You can’t see it from land. The measurements on that are a guess, I paced off the lengths,” he said about the footage figures on the paper I held. “You ain’t gonna believe this,” he said again and handed the second drawing to me.
Alex had drawn a head shot of The Master, sardonic smile showing fangs, and he looked a lot like Hollywood’s image of Dracula.
• • •
I stood with Sheriff Pearlman and Key West Police Chief Richard Dowley at the railing on the deck of the Sunset Tiki Bar, sweating in the bright sun, and we had a good view of Christmas Tree Island and the yacht. They held copies of Alex’s two drawings.
The yacht was anchored far enough offshore to be in county waters, so the city police could do nothing. The sheriff didn’t have the manpower to patrol the waters surrounding the Florida Keys, he depended on the state marine patrol to do that and the Coast Guard.
They talked about the need for warrants and the evidence necessary to get a warrant. Richard could have the nightshift patrol the parking lot of the Simonton Pier to see who went there. Chances were good that someone would show up with an outstanding warrant, eventually, and then they would have a person to question about the yacht. Maybe even get enough for a warrant on suspicion of drug use or underage drinking. Maybe.
We talked about having Captain Fitton of the Coast Guard look in to the yacht’s history, see if it was certified, had a legal holding tank and safety equipment; the Coast Guard could board her to check on these things. We tossed around a lot of options.
The sheriff thanked me for what I had done and promised to keep me appraised on his investigation. I didn’t believe him, but he didn’t seem bothered by that. Richard knew me better than Sheriff Pearlman did. Richard turned for a second time as he and the sheriff left the Tiki Bar, and his puckered brow told me he was concerned. I should have been too.
As a journalist, I have rules to go by. Get the story right and present it honestly. The rule for getting the story is simple: anything goes. I don’t have the restrictions law enforcement does, but I don’t have their back up either, I was alone.
After breakfast with Alex, I had this nagging question about The Master’s Spanish accent. I read Tracy’s articles online that night and she speculated the disciple was Puerto Rican. In New York that made sense, but in South Florida, the accent would make him Cuban.
I had a hunch and old-time journalists did legwork because of their hunches. What I needed to find out wasn’t in recorded files, so it wouldn’t show up on Google.
As I left the Tiki Bar, I called a waterfront character I was acquainted with and offered to buy him a drink. He’d given me background material for stories before, but this time I was hoping for more.
• • •
Bob Pierce had to be in his late fifties. He was born and raised in the Keys and worked his way through college with the proceeds he made smuggling square grouper and powerboat racing. He stayed below the radar and that kept him out of jail, even when the Feds made the local Bubba Bust in the ‘80s for drug smuggling.
“They are the last remnants of old Key West,” Bob drawled as he looked at the shrimp boat fleet from the seawall of Safe Harbor on Stock Island.
“So I hear,” I agreed about the shrimp boats.
“The older I get the less I like change,” he sighed.
We were on our second bottle of beer and left the bar for the privacy of the seawall.
“I’ve got a hunch about something and I thought maybe you’d be the guy to check with,” I said and swallowed beer.
Bob looked suspiciously at me and smiled, but said nothing.
I unfolded the portrait Alex had done and handed it to him. His smile grew.
“Dracula?” He almost laughed.
“Forget the fangs,” I finished my beer. “Look familiar?”
“Wouldn’t know him from Adam.” He handed me back the drawing. “Who is he?”
“That’s what I want to know.”
“You wearing a wire?” He trusted no one, it was a way of life for him.
“You know better.”
“That’s not a no.” He finished his beer and walked to the bar. He returned with two beers, our third so far. “Yes or no.” He held the beer out to me.
“No,” I said and took the bottle. “This is personal. Could lead to a story.”
“Let me tell you a story.” He took a long gulp from the bottle. “There’s this captain who brings in refugees from Cuba. First he did it because a girl he knew wanted her family here, then because someone offered him money for a relative and soon it was a lot of money for a lot of relatives.”
Bob leaned against a palm tree and drank. This was his story, so I let him tell it his way, but we both knew he was the captain.
“One day he was approached by someone who offered him a lot of money,” he smiled. “Notice how it always involves lots of money?”
“I noticed.”
“There was one rule, the captain could only bring back his people, no extra cargo. The money was good, so the captain said okay. He showed up at Marina Hemingway on a certain day, went to a certain bar . . .”
“And meet a certain somebody,” I cut him off. “We getting to the point?”
“If you’re in a hurry, Mick, you should’ve come yesterday and we’d be done by now,” he grinned. “Can I go on?”
I nodded.
“Anyway, since you’re buying I’ll cut to the chase,” he finished his beer. “The people were at the bar like he was told they would be, they met and
went to the marina with the captain, passed through security and were in Summerland Key a few hours later. You know how hard it is for a Cuban with a suitcase to get into Marina Hemingway, not to mention on a boat?”
“Impossible, I would’ve said.”
“Me too.” He walked to bar and came back with our fourth beer. “Anyway, at Summerland Key this captain is met by someone in a van, gets paid the second half of the fee and all is well with the world as he heads back to Key West.”
“A good story, but what does it have to do with him?” I shook the folded paper.
“This captain made the trip a few more times for the person and it was always the same. Then, one day, this person offers him the full-boat-load fee to pick up one passenger,” he leaned back against the palm tree again. “Lots of money for very little work.”
“And?”
“Well, if Dracula’s face was a little thinner with a mustache instead of fangs, that could be him in your drawing,” he said without losing his smile.
“How many years ago?”
“Two, maybe a little more.”
“What did the captain think of all this?”
“Now you want the whole story,” he laughed. “The captain is fluent in Spanish but the Cubans don’t know that, so they talk freely among themselves. Basically, the person has brought them over, paid their fees, and in return they’ve agreed to give him a kidney when he can match them as a donor. Gotta be a doctor.”
Hunches sometimes pay off, I thought to myself.
“Any recent trips?” I said.
“Not for a year.” He finished the beer. “Not for the doctor, anyway.”
“Does the captain know how to get in touch with the doctor?” I was excited because I just about had the bastard.
“No name,” he said. “But this captain has a pornographic memory.”
“Photographic,” I corrected him.
“No,” he grinned and tore the label off the bottle. “Pornographic, everything is dirty to him,” he laughed. “He took the plate number of the van, call it curiosity or self-preservation, because the person knew him, but the captain didn’t know squat about the person. Turns out the van is registered to a small hospital in the middle of the state.”
“You gonna make me beg?”
“No, I’m going to make you buy lunch.” He turned and walked toward the bar.
I got what I needed from Bob during lunch, which wasn’t another beer, the hospital’s name, address and phone number. I hadn’t felt this excited about a story in a long time. I could use Google to find out more, including the names of hospital staff. Somehow, somewhere the hospital was connected to the Gothic yacht, I knew it, I just had to find the connection.
• • •
I should have called Richard or Sheriff Pearlman, but I didn’t. I went back to Fenian Bastard, Googled the hospital and printed out pages of information on it, including a list of its medical staff. Focusing on the medical staff was a long shot, but so was going to see Bob, and I was parlaying my hunches. In the big city you would’ve called the small hospital a clinic, but not in the Everglades.
Padre Thomas found me eating a fish sandwich for dinner at Schooner Wharf Bar. I was alone in the bar’s mezzanine poolroom going over the information about the hospital, when he walked in.
“Time is running out, Mick,” he said as greeting.
“Time for what, Padre?”
“To stop the evil.” He sat down and lit a cigarette. “To beat the devil.”
“It’s a slow process,” I said and shook the paperwork at him. “But it is moving forward.”
“Are those Tracy’s notes?” He exhaled smoke through his nose.
“No,” I said. “How would I get Tracy’s notes?”
“I thought you went to her house.”
His words surprised me. “You know where she stayed?”
“Yes.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “I contacted her when she first arrived.”
The day was full of surprises and all of them good.
“How . . .” I didn’t finish because his look told me I knew how, even if I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t like to admit belief in his angels, but sometimes there was no other explanation. “Is it in Old Town?”
“A couple of blocks down by the cemetery.” He lit another cigarette.
“She was watching the cemetery?” I left money for my dinner under the ashtray.
“No,” he groaned. “She wasn’t interested in the dead, she cared about the living. You don’t believe in vampires, do you?”
We walked to my Jeep. “I believe in everything, Padre,” I said. “Sometimes, even your angels.”
• • •
Tracy’s rental house was on Angela Street, across from the Key West Cemetery, as Padre Thomas said. It was an old two-bedroom, one bath, cigar cottage like so many others on the island that were constructed by ship builders for cigar factory rollers at the turn of the twentieth-century. Some have withstood the tropical sun, hurricanes and termites for more than one-hundred years.
I used a credit card to slip the front door lock. Most people in the neighborhood didn’t bother with modern door locks.
The living room furniture looked as old as the house. The second bedroom was Tracy’s office and thick wooden planks served as her desk. Her laptop was still on and the screensaver flashed a selection of photos, some of Tracy smiling without a stake in her chest, and others of children that must have been her nieces and nephews.
“What are we looking for?” Padre Thomas asked from the doorway.
I sat at the table and hit the shift button. The screen came to life but I was disappointed because it held only a few file folders. I opened the folder that was labeled vampire, but it was her series from New York.
“We’ve gotta find her USB storage disk.” I looked around the table, other than reference books it was clean.
“Would she have had it with her? In a purse?” Padre Thomas stayed in the doorway.
“I don’t know, but she’d have a backup or two,” I said because I always kept backups, especially when I was away from home. “Somewhere in the house. If she was being cautious, she hid it.”
The only thing in the office closet was an opened carton of computer paper.
The bedroom was as sparse as the living room. An unmade bed, a small nightstand and bureau. I went through everything as thoroughly as I could but found no disk. Padre Thomas searched the tiny kitchen and I heard him moving pots and pans around.
I found nothing under the sofa pillows in the living room. A stack of paperback books, a few magazines, and a beer can cigarette lighter were on the coffee table. I checked each book, thinking she might have hollowed out one and hid items in it. I was wrong.
Padre Thomas picked up the lighter and snapped it continuously to light his cigarette. It didn’t ignite.
“Who keeps a lighter that doesn’t work,” he grumbled and shook it. “It must need lighter fluid.” He opened it. “It’s dry,” he said. “No wonder it won’t light.”
He lit his cigarette with a match.
I took the lighter, pulled the stuffing out of the bottom, and found her small USB storage disk hidden inside. “Got it,” I said and almost laughed.
“What do you think is on it?” Padre Thomas asked and stubbed out his cigarette.
“Let’s find out.” We went to her office and used the laptop.
Tracy had been the ultimate note taker. All pages were dated. Some were no more than a thought, while others were a page or two. Names, dates, contact information, the wherefore and the whys of the information. The most helpful were her personal thoughts on the information or who gave it to her. I was impressed.
I had the link she was looking for, the hospital. She had gone undercover to find out who pulled The Master’s strings. She wanted to know what he did with the body parts, who they went to and why. She considered it was a cannibalistic ritual, but had her doubts.
“Padre, what do you think of all
this?” I asked when I closed down the laptop and put the disk in my pocket.
“She was closing in on the Devil, Mick,” he hissed and lit a cigarette. “He killed her.”
“It’s more than one man, Padre, it’s a whole group of them,” I said and stood. “I don’t think it’s cannibalism, there’s no money in that.”
“That leaves what?” he asked as we left the house.
“There’s money to be made in supplying body parts, if you can find a donor that is a good match to the recipient.” It wasn’t my idea Tracy had considered it too.
• • •
I took Padre Thomas home.
On the boat, I went through the files on Tracy’s disk again and printed out a few that interested me, piqued my interest. I lit a cigar and went out on deck to read them. I reread them after my cigar was gone, but my conclusion remained the same. It was a lot of guesswork on my part, on Tracy’s too, but reading between the lines of what she’d written, adding my own hunches to her’s, it was bad no matter how I looked at it.
Her conclusions were logical, even if unproved. The cops would say there wasn’t enough evidence for a warrant. No warrant, no search. I didn’t need a warrant, I needed a way onto the yacht so I could turn speculation into fact.
“What are you doing up at the witching hour?” Alex asked from the dock.
I hadn’t been paying attention to anything going on around me. “Trying to make sense out of someone’s note,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“I was downtown listening to Clint Bullard. I walked, so it took a while,” he said explaining the late hour. “Anything happening on the other thing?”
“Not officially,” I told him. “But I’m working on something.”
“Need help?” There was a slight hint of excitement in his question.
He came onboard. I told him about my need to get onto the yacht and asked if he could think of a way. I told him I needed to get below, unseen.
“There’s an aft hatch to the engine room,” he said. “There has to be an entrance from the engine room to the lower section, wouldn’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I mused. “There has to be more than one way in and out.”
“The hatch is behind storage lockers,” he said. “I noticed it when I was pacing off the deck. I didn’t see a lock on it, but I wasn’t really looking for one. It could be locked from below.”
Vampire Slayer Murdered in Key West - Mick Murphy Short Stories Page 10
