Vampire Slayer Murdered in Key West - Mick Murphy Short Stories

by Michael Haskins

  “How well is it lit and what goes on out there?”

  “Most of the light comes from the salon windows, but there is an anchor light,” he said. “I don’t think they encourage anyone to be outside.”

  “That’s a good thing,” I smiled.

  A white light at the aft section of any anchored boat is a maritime safety requirement and without one authorities can board and ticket you. The yacht was in compliance.

  • • •

  My boarding plan was simple. The difficult part would begin when I got on deck. Alex was excited about helping, but I didn’t share that excitement though I needed him in place in case things went wrong. A late-night call to my friend Burt found him downtown and willing to help with the skiff.

  Alex took the shuttle boat at Simonton Pier and knew to signal when it was safe for me to board.

  It went like clockwork. At one-thirty, the sky was cloudy and the Gulf side of the yacht was dark. Alex signaled, a wave of his arms, and Burt dropped me off. I brought my Glock, a small laser flashlight and a pry bar for the engine room hatch. I dressed all in black, T-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes and watch cap that I pulled over my red hair. I quietly climbed the ladder from the yacht’s tethered go-fast to the deck.

  Alex smoked a cigarette on the aft deck and I heard him talking loudly to someone. I hugged the salon’s outside wall and waited for Alex and his friend to go inside. I crawled to the storage lockers and sat on the deck next to the engine room hatch. The anchor light shined from a short pole and gave enough illumination for me to work. The hatch was locked from inside, just like the hatches on Fenian Bastard. Music escaped the salon and thankfully it was punk rock so it was more noise than comfortable listening music. Prying the hatch loose was easy because of its age, but it did make a loud popping sound as the two screw locks below gave way. Of course, at that hour the sound carried.

  I waited to see if anyone would investigate the noise. They didn’t. I raised the hatch, dropped the pry bar overboard and climbed below. I needed the flashlight to find my way through the dark engine room. A door led to the yacht’s bright, carpeted hallway and staterooms.

  There were two doors on either side of the hallway and one at the end. Noise of people gathered in the salon and the recorded music could be heard by the stairway to the salon but it was muted.

  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for but knew I’d recognize it when I found it. Searching for the unknown is like that. There wouldn’t be a problem getting a search warrant once I delivered the proof. Of course, I didn’t know the proof of what. Tracy had suspicions and so did I. We came up with our suspicions from two different directions; she had what I was missing and I had what she needed, so something was here.

  I tried the door closest to the engine room, on the right. It was a small stateroom with double berths. I tried the door across the hall. It was dark inside. I searched the wall for a switch and turned the lights on.

  And found all the evidence the police would need.

  In the middle of the large room, there was a gurney with an unconscious young man covered to his shoulders by a sheet. I pulled my Glock and closed the door. This had been two staterooms but they were guttered to make one large hospital-styled room, with metal storage cabinets, ceiling lights, IV stands and portable trays. The kid was hooked up to a heart monitor that quietly beeped and an IV. At least he was still alive.

  He looked like he was sleeping, but I guessed it was IV induced. His blood pressure was 120 over 80 and his heart rate was 65. I thought the numbers were good and removed the IV needle. He didn’t yelp when the tape pulled at the hair on his arm. The heart monitor caused a problem because an alarm would be set off if the heartbeat stopped. If someone, somewhere was monitoring it, things would go to hell very quickly. I left it alone for the time being.

  The thought made me nervous and I searched the ceiling and walls for possible security cameras, but found none.

  I slapped his face. He didn’t wake or show he even felt it. His black clothing lay neatly folded on a chair. There was no wallet in his pants. A few dollars and some change was all. I turned on the bathroom light and shut off the overhead light so the glow wouldn’t show under the door.

  When Richard answered my call, I knew I’d awakened him. It was after two A.M. and he was home sleeping. I told him where I was and what I had. He was angry and then he was concerned because he couldn’t send city cops. He hung up after assuring me he was calling Sheriff Pearlman and Capt. Fitton at the Coast Guard right away.

  I cracked the door and checked the hallway. Nothing. I went back and slapped the boy again, twice. He didn’t even flinch. I couldn’t carry him up through the hatch and overboard. He was too big. I could hide him in the engine room and that would keep him away from The Master and his two goons, briefly.

  The center door to the bow area was locked. The other door was unlocked and the room was dark. Light from the hallway illuminated a stateroom with a single bed, a TV and small stereo. The main suite, I guessed and closed the door.

  I figured to grab the kid’s clothes and carry him fireman style to the engine room, hide him there in the dark and sneak on deck to wait for the Coast Guard. I went into the room and turned on the lights.

  “And who are you?”

  The Master, or Dracula, or whomever he was he was supposed to be, stood next to the gurney and startled me. Tall, thin, dressed totally in black and when he spoke I saw his fangs. Unbelievable.

  The Glock was in my hand. I did it automatically, without thinking. I had him. I looked around for something to tie him up with.

  “You’re here to save him?” He pointed to the unconscious boy and laughed quietly. It was not a funny laugh.

  “Move away from the boy.” I pointed the gun at him, but he didn’t seem to notice or care, if he did. “Now.”

  He backed up two steps and smiled, his play-actor fangs glittering in his mouth.

  “How do you expect to get him out?” he said harshly. “My men upstairs will stop you. All those fools upstairs will help them, you cannot escape.”

  “The three of us can stay here and wait for the Coast Guard.” I locked the door. “Then I don’t have to do anything but turn you over.”

  “They are coming?”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve called.”

  “That’s too bad,” he grinned and stared with hard eyes toward me. “Now so many will die, including the boy and you.”

  “Just stay still and no one has to die,” I said, thinking I was in charge because I had the gun.

  “Do you think you can kill me?” He laughed contemptuously. “Take this body, it can’t serve me any longer.” He walked around the gurney. “Smell that?”

  “I don’t smell anything. Stay still,” I warned him. “I will shoot.”

  “No doubt.” He smirked. “You and the others will burn to death.”

  He kept coming. I shot past him as a warning, but he kept coming.

  “You’ll need to shoot better than that,” he snorted and showed his fangs.

  I shot him in the heart twice. He smiled.

  “I will see you soon,” he said clearly and then fell to the floor, dead.

  I opened the door to see if anyone was coming and I smelled the smoke and heard the panic cries from the salon. I pulled the heart monitor wrap off kid’s arm, lifted him over my shoulder and rushed upstairs, the Glock in my hand. If the goons were there I would shoot them too. Kids were coming down the stairs and I forced some of them back with the gun.

  “They’ve locked us in, Mick,” Alex said as he headed toward the stairway. “I figured you were below.” His voice wasn’t panicked. “Burt out there?”

  “Yeah and the Coast Guard’s on its way,” I told him. The kid was getting heavy. “Where are his people?”

  “Don’t know,” he said as young men and women trampled over each other and banged on the glass doors looking for escape. “Figure they did this?”

  I grabbed a kid, about six foot and stopped him. �
�Look for a fire extinguisher,” I yelled.

  He pushed away and went to the door. Flames jumped on the aft deck and smoke began to come into the salon from the bow section.

  “Take him,” I said to Alex and gave him the unconscious boy.

  Alex carried him as I did. I pushed my way to the doors, shot at the glass and it shattered offering an escape from the salon. Heat forced its way in and pushed us back.

  “Get out,” I yelled and shot into the air. “Overboard, quickly.” I pushed people through the opening.

  Flames swiftly spread along the deck as the kids ran. Alex came up and looked at the flames that almost engulfed the whole aft.

  “Burt’s gotta be out there, run and jump,” I told him.

  “When you do,” he said.

  “Save him.” I slapped the kid on Alex’s shoulder. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Alex looked at me and I could see his doubt, but he pulled the sheet over the kid’s head and ran toward the right side of the boat and through the flames. I willed the deck to hold him and looked back inside.

  Smoke filled the salon and I heard frightened kids crying for help, but couldn’t see them. Heat came in with a boiling force that kept the thick smoke building up inside. I was on my knees listening to those calling out. My eyes watered and it was difficult to breathe. Reluctantly, I crawled away from the smoky salon and toward the flames, knowing the safety of water was close.

  The yacht was no longer the gates to hell, it was hell.

  My whole body was heated to where I wanted to cry out and tear away my clothing. I stood in the last small spot on the deck that wasn’t burning and found myself surrounded by an inferno. Flames rushed across the top deck and the bridge was nothing but a sparkling blaze. The storage lockers were an unseen hazard in front of me, hidden behind the dancing flames. I had either side to run to but in the crackling sound of the flames, I heard sections of deck collapse inward too. I took short breaths because there was no air to draw from, only burning heat. I couldn’t wait, I ran left through the fire, the way I’d come in, and stumbled over the side rail and new I’d singed my beard as I tumbled into the water trying not to hear the cries from the salon.

  “Took you long enough,” Burt yelled as he and Alex pulled me onto the skiff that was already overloaded with frightened kids.

  The fire department’s boat poured water on the smoldering yacht and other boats slowly cruised the surrounding water looking for survivors.

  • • •

  A few days letter I stood smoking a cigar on the boardwalk outside Schooner Wharf and looked toward Christmas Tree Island. The smoldering shell of the yacht had been towed to the Coast Guard base. Chief Richard Dowley and Padre Thomas were with me. Six kids had died in the salon and two drowned. Counting The Master, nine died because of the fire. Of course, The Master was dead before the fire.

  “No idea who he was,” Richard said slowly. “No return on the finger prints. But we got records off his computer. The FBI is investigating the Everglades clinic.”

  “What about the two goons and the babes?” I swallowed beer from the bottle I held and wondered if the sheriff would keep me in the loop, like he promised. “Did they start the fire and leave?”

  “We’re not sure, but the go-fast was gone when the fire department arrived,” he sighed. “We assume they got away in a boat because all the bodies have been identified, they were students. He didn’t start it because he was with you, then his people did. Why wouldn’t they wait for him?”

  “What’s on the computer?” I finished the beer and didn’t tell Richard The Master seemed to know I was going to kill him. It was too early in the day for the beer and cigar, but I enjoyed them anyway.

  “Nothing we could have used against him,” Richard laughed at the irony. “He had no reason to panic.”

  “What was on it?” I asked again. There had to be something if the FBI was interested in the clinic.

  “He was using the kid’s blood to check their compatibility for body part donations, filing away their blood types and other information for later,” Richard said. He held an empty coffee cup. “Nothing illegal about it. You can donate your kidney.”

  “It was more than that,” I said.

  “I believe you, but we can’t prove it, yet.”

  “What about the boy I found?”

  “He remembers nothing. He was upstairs with your babes and then he woke up naked in the water,” Richard grunted. “He’s gone home.”

  I finished my beer, Padre Thomas finished his and took our empties into the bar.

  “Mick, you saved lives,” Richard said without Thomas around. “We know it, you know it, even if the kids don’t. You did good.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled unhappily. “Wish I could see those files, compare them with Tracy’s notes.”

  “Coast Guard is leading the investigation, right now,” he said. “Fitton and

  Pearlman, you need to talk to them. They’ll want to talk to you soon enough to find out more about the shooting. Clear you.”

  He gave me his coffee cup, slapped me on the shoulder, and walked away.

  Padre Thomas handed me a cold beer. He looked concerned and I had thought he’d be glad this was over.

  “Why so glum, Padre?” The cold beer tasted too good for the hour. I dragged on the cigar.

  “The devil said he’d see you soon,” he answered me. “That scares me.”

  “I killed him, he won’t be seeing anyone this side of hell.”

  “You can’t kill the devil, Mick,” he said with a sour look. “He should just move on, be annoyed at you, and become someone else’s problem, but he said he’d see you soon.”

  “And you believe him?” I took another drag on the cigar, rolled the cold beer bottle in my hand, and didn’t want him to answer.

  ###

  VAMPIRE SLAYER

  MURDERED IN KEY WEST

  Footnote

  I finished the proof for “Free Range Institution” while visiting my daughters and, as I usually do after finishing a novel, I wanted to write a short story. Vampires were big on TV and with my daughters. As you know now, there are no vampires involved!

  I began this story at my daughter Seanan’s house in Suffern, NY, worked on it a little more at my daughter Chela’s house in Pompton Lakes, NJ and finished it at home in Key West.

  Originally, I wanted to write a novel around stolen body parts, but after talking with Dr. Bruce Boros and Dr. Jack Norris about the surgical procedure and they briefly explained some of the facts involved, I changed my mind. I didn’t have the time or the ability for the research necessary to do a believable novel.

  To my total surprise, Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, emailed me a few months back to say the Private Eye Writers of America had nominated the story for a Shamus Award. The story being nominated out of the hundreds of short stories eligible for the award was unexpected. The award went to another EQMM short story, but I am still honored to have been nominated and to realize that other writers think well of my work.

  The Author

  Michael Haskins lives in Key West, where he writes for Reuters News Service when called upon, as well as Key West arts and entertainment copy for The Weekly newspaper. He has published six books in his Mick Murphy series, four of them set in Key West. He is currently working on his seventh book and hopes to have it available in December 2012 or January 2013. He blames the uncertainty of the publican on the editor. The editor, it should be noted, blames it on the author.

 

 

 
e(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share