Murder at the Dolphin Inn

by C. S. Challinor

  “Connie Lamont?” Rex asked for the sake of confirmation.

  “Looks that way.” Diaz lifted her right hand, tipped in red nail polish, and examined it through the water. He straightened, extracted the dripping pole from the deep end, and turned to Walt. “Any idea what she’s doing in your pool?”

  “No, and Mr. Graves already asked.”

  “Well, now I’m asking.”

  I don’t know, and I don’t know her. Never saw her before.”

  Rex wondered about the woman’s family, who would be duly notified. Diaz had said she was from Ft. Lauderdale on vacation.

  “And did either of you see or hear anything?” Diaz, himself freshly shaved, took in Rex’s navy cotton flannel dressing gown wrapped over pale blue pajamas, a gleam of amused disbelief in his eyes.

  “I’m afraid not. Our room is that one up there.” Rex pointed to the end balcony on the right. “The French doors were open all night, but I was out like a light, slept like a log, and was up with the birds, to use all the clichés in the book. I stepped out on the balcony this morning to gauge the weather, and that’s when I spotted the body.”

  “And thought you were still dreaming,” Diaz said, adding a cliché.

  “I admit to rubbing my eyes and taking a second look. It was a shock. At first I thought it was Michelle Cuzzens because of the long hair.”

  “Lucky for you that you were out on the Atlantic on the first leg of your cruise when the first two murders went down, huh? And what about you, Mr. Dyer? Did you hear or see anything last night?” the detective asked routinely.

  “Nothing.”

  “And where were you?”

  “Asleep in my suite.”

  Rex flicked him a look. Walt had told him he went out at ten-thirty.

  “It’s got no windows,” the innkeeper blabbed. “Except for a small frosted glass one in the bathroom high up in the wall. Could it have been an accident? I heard of a case in the lower Keys where a drunk dude’s thingy got sucked into the pool filter.”

  “We’ll find out if this lady was drinking, if she could’ve fell in. I’d like to know what she was doing at the Dolphin Inn.”

  “You and me both,” Walt complained.

  “Did either of you touch anything?”

  “No,” Rex answered. “I got close enough to see if there was any hope of resuscitation, that’s all.”

  “You seen a drowned victim before?”

  “I have, but I think cause of death in this instance might’ve been strangulation.”

  “Uh-huh.” Diaz turned to Walt. “Why was the bolt not drawn on the gate to the alley? I walked right in on you guys.”

  “Pool man comes Wednesdays.” Walt used his fingernail to scrape at an invisible speck on his shirt button.

  Diaz sighed with resignation, no doubt thinking how much easier his job would be if everyone took proper safety precautions. “What time?”

  “Anywhere between six and eight in the morning. He leaves a card with a check list. He’s not been in yet.”

  “Or been in and left,” Diaz said. “How long he been working here?”

  “Coupla years. He does most of the pools on the street.”

  “I’ll need his name.” Diaz drew his small steno pad from his pants pocket.

  “Ricky’s Pool Service. I don’t see him much. He’s in and out in ten minutes, max.”

  “I need to ask you both to clear the area, but please don’t leave the premises.”

  Walt wandered back into the guest house.

  “Where’s the cavalry?” Rex asked, reluctant to follow and miss out on the action.

  “If you mean the cops, they’re probably at Wendy’s. I was on my way over when I got Walt’s call.” The detective scrutinized the body in the pool. “Another warning, I wonder?”

  Just then, a lanky, fair-haired man in plain clothes stepped onto the patio through the sliding glass doors of the guest lounge. Rex recognized him as the cop who had followed Connie Lamont in a cab. He acknowledged Captain Diaz with a brief nod and then winced at the sight of the body in the pool. He, like Diaz, was in his mid to late thirties, no rookie, but possibly not yet inured to the death of a vibrant young person.

  “Sergeant Pete Gallagher. Pete, this is Mr. Rex Graves, who takes an interest in solving murder cases.”

  “Awesome,” Pete said. “Does that mean I can take the day off?” He winked at Rex, but his face showed tension and strain.

  Two uniformed patrol officers joined them and greeted the detectives.

  “No immediate sign of a purse or cell phone,” Diaz told them. “Secure the perimeter and check the planters and foliage back there, and the alley. Lemme know soon as you find any I.D.”

  More barricade tape to adorn the bed-and-breakfast, Rex anticipated, feeling sorry for Walt who had been trying so hard to keep things running as smoothly as possible since his parents’ death. “Let’s step inside out of the way of the technicians,” Diaz told Rex after exchanging a few words with the new arrivals.

  Helen, dressed, and with lipstick applied, met them in the guest lounge. Ryan charged in after her, hair sticking up in all directions, as though he had just risen from bed, which was probably the case.

  “Oh, man, this is insane,” he exclaimed. “Walt said there’s been a drowning?” He lunged at the glass slider, but Diaz held it shut.

  “You can’t go in there, son. Do you have any information that might help us?”

  “Who is it?”

  “We’ve yet to confirm. No one staying here. Where were you last night?”

  Ryan took a moment to recall. “We were in the hot tub—me and my girlfriend. This was around ten. Then we went up to our room to shower before hitting the bars.”

  “I saw Ryan and Michelle leave,” Rex confirmed. “Around eleven.”

  “We were out until about two,” Ryan told Diaz. “And went straight up to bed.”

  “Sergeant Gallagher will take statements from everyone momentarily. In the meantime, please reallocate to the dining room.” Diaz sent his sergeant to direct operations out front.

  A crime scene investigator in a white zipper overall popped her hooded head around the glass slider and informed Captain Diaz that the gold bracelet on the victim’s wrist bore an engraved name: Connie.

  No other identification had been found.

  ~TWENTY-TWO~

  “What is the connection between Connie Lamont and Merle and Taffy Dyer?” Rex asked the detective in the dining room, where Sergeant Pete Gallagher had corralled Walt and the guests.

  The Barbers sat apart from the students, calmly eating a cold breakfast. Rex wondered if the sergeant had arranged the separation on purpose while he questioned Walt at Rex’s usual table by the window. Michelle and Ryan nursed cans of soda. The girl’s face was nude of makeup, her dark hair as bed-tangled as Ryan’s.

  “Wish I knew what the connection was,” Diaz replied. “Like I said before, Ms. Lamont was uncooperative, to say the least. She was our best lead in the clown murders and now she’s dead.”

  “Perhaps that’s why.”

  Diaz shrugged his athletic shoulders. “She claimed she saw no one, but I didn’t believe her. She lied about being on the street, and yet a credible witness placed her there. Perhaps if she’d told us the truth, she wouldn’t be in the pool.”

  “Willie said he was standing across the street and saw a black-bearded man force the Dyers into the kitchen at knifepoint.”

  “Willie, the bum?” Detective Diaz looked highly skeptical, as Rex predicted he would be.

  “I was hoping to corroborate his story before I brought it to you.”

  “But Willie didn’t see Connie?”

  “Not that he mentioned to me. He might have come by way of Margaret Street, which leads direct to the cemetery. That’s where I found him.”

  “Why did your black-bearded guy wait three days to kill Connie and run the risk of her talking?”

  “Maybe she confronted him after the fact and tried to
blackmail him.”

  “This all hangs on Willie’s story.” Diaz rubbed his smooth chin. “We could be going off on the wrong tangent entirely.”

  “The button was from the sleeve of Willie’s coat.”

  “You sure? Stroke of luck you found it.”

  “I prefer to think of it as serendipity.”

  “I’ll need to see his coat—”

  “Here’s the pool guy,” Sergeant Gallagher announced to his superior, interrupting the conversation. “Richard Styles. He was cleaning the pool down the street.”

  He presented an emaciated individual who might have been buff in his prime, judging by the wasted muscles. Vestiges of chiseled good looks survived in his dissipated features beneath a mop of sun-bleached hair, streaked with gray. He wore a faded sleeveless T-shirt, long frayed khaki shorts, and rubber flip-flops. Rex noted, too, his large, work-roughened hands, tanned and weather-beaten like his face.

  “You do the Dyers’ pool?” Diaz asked the man.

  “Every Wen-ez-day,” he replied in a nasal drawl. Rex could detect cheap rum on his breath, even from where he stood a few feet away.

  “Were you here earlier today?”

  “Just got here. Started late on my route...”

  “And was getting ready to turn his van around soon as he saw the patrol cars,” Pete Gallagher supplied.

  “Did you get a statement?” Diaz asked his sergeant.

  “Yeah. Says he knows nuthin’.”

  “We may need to talk to you again later,” Diaz told the pool man, dismissing him. “Your typical rummie Conch,” he said as the individual limped from the room, followed by the sergeant. “No way Connie Lamont could’ve been overpowered by that guy. But I may want to take another look at him. He seems nervous.”

  “He’s been drinking and driving,” Rex suggested. And it wasn’t even mid-morning yet.

  Helen appeared with two mugs of coffee. “I remember from the Funky Parrot that you take yours black, Captain.”

  “Good memory!” Diaz took the mug from her hand. “This is very welcome, Helen. Thanks.”

  “Cream and sugar in yours,” she said to Rex with a pointed smile, handing him his.

  “I don’t have to chase criminals down the street.” He pointedly smiled at her in turn.

  “We won’t detain you longer than is necessary,” Diaz addressed the room. “Your cooperation is much appreciated.” He went to exchange a few words in private with Gallagher in the foyer.

  “Poor woman,” Helen said. “Strange her ending up in our pool.”

  “Horribly coincidental, you mean.”

  “Exactly. Please get to the bottom of this soon. I’m beginning to get the willies.”

  Diaz returned as Rex was helping himself to more coffee from the metal urn on the buffet table. The detective replenished his own mug.

  “Pete got out of Walt Dyer that he was out last night until midnight, so he lied about being tucked up in bed. There’s just something about that guy that doesn’t add up. By all accounts, he resented his domineering parents. Perhaps something happened to push him over the edge. Maybe he likes killing things. Like those moths.”

  “And the cats.”

  “He admitted to killing the cats?”

  Rex nodded gravely.

  “He could be our black-bearded guy. Or else the black beard stuff is a load of b.s. dreamed up by our local friendly bum to score a hot meal.”

  “How did you know about the hot meal?”

  “Pete followed you to the cemetery. We like to protect our tourists in Key West,” Diaz said with a wide, white grin. “Our economy depends on you guys.”

  “Most kind,” Rex said, a touch miffed that Captain Diaz had seen fit to keep tabs on him, and more so that he had not known he’d been followed. Clearly, he wasn’t as clever as Connie Lamont, who had cottoned on to her tail and jumped into a taxi. All the same, he couldn’t in all fairness hold the captain’s actions against him. For all Diaz knew, the Scotsman could be a loose cannon jeopardizing an important criminal investigation. He hoped to set the record straight. And soon.

  Diaz and Gallagher took Walt to a far corner of the room for further interviewing. Rex heard the chime of the front door, and Diane entered, flustered, and pale through her tan.

  “What’s with the new media circus outside?” she demanded. “What happened?” Then she saw her brother with the two detectives. “Are they gonna arrest him?” she asked Rex.

  “Not sure. Have you not heard about the latest death?”

  “I just got the kids off to school and snuck in before a reporter could... What do you mean by latest death?” The words died on Diane’s anemic lips. “Are you serious? Who?” she asked in dread, looking around the dining room as though doing a head count.

  “A woman. Not a guest at the Dolphin Inn.”

  “Who then? How?”

  “A visitor to Key West. Strangled, possibly, and left in the pool. Or else she drowned.”

  “Our pool?”

  “Diane, did you ever meet your ex-husband’s girlfriend?”

  “Tiffany? I never met her, exactly. I went to check her out one time at the sleazy club where she worked. Tiffany is her professional name, anyway, if that’s what you call it,” Diane said with distain.

  “What does she look like?”

  “Peroxide blonde, petite. That’s her in the pool?”

  “Apparently not. The victim doesn’t fit your description. Just thought I’d try to rule out all possibilities.” Including the far-fetched one where Diane lures her ex’s girlfriend to her death. “Captain Diaz will be able to tell you more.”

  “Wish it was her. Wouldn’t that be something?” Diane’s pinched face took on a pensive look. “A drowning. That might work for my novel.”

  Rex surmised there would be no lack of material for Diane’s novel of vengeance. “I think we should probably deal with just the facts for now.”

  “Take him in,” he heard Captain Diaz say.

  Turning around, he saw the sergeant escort Walt toward the dining room door.

  “I didn’t do it!” Walt blubbered.

  “You taking him to the police station?” Diane demanded.

  “Just for further questioning. We’re not gonna cuff him. He confessed to poisoning the cats,” he told Rex as Walt left the bed-and-breakfast in Sergeant Gallagher’s custody.

  “What with?” Diane asked.

  “Oleander. It’s growing all over your yard.”

  “I never noticed. Why’d he do that? I’ve never known him do anything that cruel before.”

  First time for everything, Rex thought. Moths, cats—humans? Perhaps it showed an escalation.

  “He was sending your parents an anonymous message, trying to get them to take early retirement,” Diaz said.

  “They should’ve listened.”

  Diaz drew Rex aside. “Perhaps he’ll confess to the three murders under pressure. It’s all circumstantial at this point, but what else we got?” He cocked a thumb at the window. “Those vultures are circling for prey.”

  And Walt was being made the sacrificial lamb? Well, maybe the captain was right. Walt was the most likely suspect to-date in terms of means, motive, and opportunity.

  “Plus he couldn’t supply a good alibi for where he was last night,” Captain Diaz added. “First he says he’s in bed—same story as when his parents were murdered. But Ryan Ford and Michelle Cuzzens each stated in separate interviews that they heard him leave on his moped around ten-thirty. No one heard him come back. Then he says he can’t say where he was, like he’s protecting someone’s reputation, like he’s got a lady friend or boyfriend stashed somewhere. I’m thinking, married or underage? This dude is as kooky as those owls in the fireplace.”

  The charred iron birds stared out at them through amber orbs, watchful and eerie.

  “Walt’s reticence about what he was doing last night might have more to do with his actual whereabouts,” Rex said. “Try House of the Rising Sun.”
r />   “You kidding me?” Diaz wrote a note in the steno pad, punctuating it with an emphatic question mark. “You his father confessor or what?”

  “He says he used to work there and goes back to check on the girls from time to time. One of the girls’ uncles told me Walt advanced her some money. I asked Walt aboot it.”

  Diaz flipped shut his pad. “You sure get around, Rex.”

  “I was around your police station when the biker uncle struck up a conversation with me. He heard me tell the desk sergeant I was there about the Dyer case. He had brought in a bag snatcher.”

  “Big dude, tatted up the arms?”

  “Twisted Angel, I think he said his name was.”

  “That vigilante biker is Tom Halland, used to do stunts for TV and movies. Why couldn’t Walt Dyer just come out and say he was paying a social call to some pros instead of wasting police time? I’m thinking can he be such a complete whack-job as he appears...”

  “He was embarrassed you might get the wrong impression.”

  “He supposed right. It’s hard to get a good impression of the guy. He acts guilty about everything.” Diaz sighed and shook his head. “We’ll check out his alibi and see if Walt Dyer is the charitable guy he makes himself out to be.”

  ~TWENTY-THREE~

  An hour passed. Rex glanced over at the Barbers who were industriously scribbling away on writing pads, Dennis beardless aside from his goatee, and weak-chinned, the physical opposite of any villain he could dream up for his novels. But still a more likely Blackbeard than Chuck Shumaker. Helen sat in a third chair, reading one of the books on the floral tablecloth. At a more remote table, the two students thumbed their Smartphones in desultory fashion.

  “The M.E.’s opinion as to cause of death in this case is strangulation, like you said, and not drowning,” Diaz informed Rex. He sat down beside him at the bay window, where the Scotsman sat watching the media vans parked on the street. Outside the front gate, reporters and cameramen lay in wait for potential interviewees from the guest house. “Dêjà-vu all over again,” as Helen had put it so aptly.