“The Dry Tortugas National Park is home to two hundred twenty-nine species,” Edward informs me. “It’s my goal to see ’em all. So far, I’ve identified less than a third of that number.”
He wishes he could take me wild boar hunting at a hunting preserve he knows up near Lake Okeechobee, he says, but there isn’t time. I don’t know why there isn’t time, but I don’t want to either kill or be killed by a wild boar, so no problem with that.
And if there were more time, Edward says—making me wonder again what sort of deadline Edward has—he’d take me on a cruise to Cuba. He knows a number of clandestine spots where we could drop Pilar’s anchor, swim ashore, and “pick up some Cohibas, Havana Club rum, and mami chulas,” the latter of which, I assume, has something to do with female companionship. And there is more drinking, fine dining, and cigar smoking, with me sometimes sleeping in my room at the Casa Marina Resort, sometimes in a bunk aboard Pilar, and sometimes not at all.
Two nights ago, Edward surprised me by getting very drunk in a bar called The Golden Parrot. He always had more than a few drinks, but this night he seemed to be in a dark mood, and downed more than usual, not Daiquirís, but straight gin. He seemed to not know me, and began talking to himself, mostly unintelligibly. When the bartender refused to serve him any more drinks, Edward yelled something at him in what I think was Spanish, and tried to take a swing at him, across the bar. He missed and fell off his stool onto the floor, passed out.
“I’ll take him home,” I told the bartender, who just shrugged. I paid for our drinks and left a big tip. Being a bartender at The Golden Parrot on the Key West waterfront is quite a bit different from being the bartender at the Edina Country Club, whose name is Charlie, and who would have called the police.
I took Edward to his boat in a taxi. He staggered down the dock, my arm around his shoulders, and nearly fell onto the Pilar’s deck, catching himself on a railing. I tucked him into his bunk and left as he was already snoring.
The next morning, over café con leche and chicken and mushroom empanadas at the Cuban Coffee Queen on Margaret Street, Edward was in great spirits. He talked about hunting bighorn sheep in Idaho and where to get the best abalone “on the planet” (Sam’s Grill in San Francisco). He did not mention what happened at The Golden Parrot the previous night. I’d been wondering if Edward had a dark side, and now I knew that he did.
From time to time, we spot Slater Babcock around town. “Hhmm,” Edward says on the first sighting, when Slater is playing in a beach volleyball game. “Too bad you can’t see inside a man, to see what stuff he’s made of. Can’t tell that until you test him under pressure and see how he behaves.”
True enough. I’ve been tested under pressure and do not like the way I’ve behaved.
The following morning, I awaken in my hotel room, feeling like you are supposed to feel after a Conch Republic bacchanal. I shower, have orange juice and coffee in the hotel coffee shop, and decide to walk the three miles to the marina where Pilar is moored. The walk will help clear my head. I plan to tell Edward that I’ve decided to go to Slater Babcock’s house this morning and, finally, to make him tell me about Hope. Apparently, Edward’s subtle attempts to teach me what it means to be a real man have worked.
If Slater isn’t there, I’ll find him. I’ll have Langdon’s Derringer in my pocket. I’ll do whatever is necessary to get to the truth. Edward will want to accompany me, but I’ll decline, saying this is something I must do on my own. Surely, Edward will understand that. I could go right from the hotel to Slater’s house. But I want to see Edward first, just in case something happens and I’m unable to see my new friend and mentor one last time.
I FIND Edward standing on the dock beside Pilar, spraying the hull with a hose attached to a faucet.
“I want to talk to you about something,” I tell him.
“Sure, let’s go aboard and chat over coffee,” he says, and steps down onto the deck. I begin to follow him down the stairs leading to the galley when he says, “Wait here, I’ll be back in a sec.”
“It’s a perfect morning,” he says when he reappears with two mugs. “Let’s take a little cruise and you can tell me what’s on your mind.”
“I don’t have time for that,” I tell him. “I’ve decided to talk to Slater Babcock about Hope.”
“He’s not at his house, or at the bar,” Edward says.
I’m confused. “How do you know that?” I ask.
“Trust me, Jack. I know. Let’s put out into the straits and I’ll tell you all about it.”
As always, Edward is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, to quote Winston Churchill speaking about the Soviet Union’s national interest. But no sense in chasing after Slater if he’s not around. I help cast off the lines and follow Edward up to the bridge. He starts the engines and eases away from the dock.
When we’ve been cruising for about twenty minutes, Edward checks the depth finder, cuts the engines and pushes a button that lowers the bow anchors.
“Forty feet under the hull here,” he says. “A perfect spot.”
I follow him down from the bridge.
“Wait here,” he says, and goes into the main cabin. I hear a commotion, and then am shocked to see Slater Babcock come up the ladder from the galley, followed by Edward, who is holding a shotgun, the same one he used for skeet shooting. Slater’s hands are tied behind his back with nylon rope, and there is a strip of duct tape across his mouth. He is wearing a Ramones tee shirt, khaki shorts, and boat shoes, and he is clearly terrified.
Edward pushes Slater into one of the fighting chairs on the stern.
“All right, Jack,” he says. “You want to talk to Slater Babcock. He’s ready to listen. I woke him from a sound sleep at six A.M.”
He rips the duct tape off of Slater’s mouth, causing him to wince.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Slater shouts. “Who the hell are you people? You kidnapped me! You’re in a lot of trouble!”
“It appears to me that you are the one in trouble, Mr. Babcock,” Edward says.
“What did you do to her?” I ask him again, this time with considerably more leverage to force an answer I’ll accept. “You killed her, didn’t you, you slimy little son of a bitch!”
I’m trembling, light-headed, breathing rapidly. Maybe I’m having a heart attack.
Slater begins to stand but Edward pushes him back with the barrel of the shotgun. “Easy now,” Edward says. “Just sit there for a while, boy, and we’ll see where we go from here.”
“Look, Mr. Tanner, like I said, I really don’t know, I swear,” Slater says. “I liked her …”
“You’re lying!” I shout, all the months of anger and frustration coming out. “You worthless little fuck!”
I move toward him with clenched fists, but Edward steps in front of me.
“You know,” Edward says, “I don’t think that the kid is ready yet for an honest exchange of information.”
He points over the starboard bow.
“Cuba is twenty miles that way. The Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is at the southeastern end of the island. If we were having this conversation there, we might employ what our government calls enhanced interrogation techniques. But we are not there, so we’ll have to improvise.”
He levels the shotgun at Slater.
“Stand up.”
Slater doesn’t move. Edward jacks a shell into the shotgun’s breech.
“Wait!” Slater shouts, and stands. “I didn’t do anything to her. I told the police everything I know. I’m not lying.”
He looks at me. “Please, Mr. Tanner, you gotta believe me …”
“Untie his hands,” Edward tells me.
I step over to Slater, who turns around. I untie the rope and step back as Slater rubs his wrists.
“Good,” Edward says. “Now take off your tee shirt.”
“What?”
“The tee shirt. Take it off. I like the Ramones. Be a shame to ruin that shirt.”
Slat
er takes it off and drops it on the deck. I see that he’s wearing the shark’s tooth necklace he had on when I met him in his bar.
“Look at that,” Edward says. “Bad timing, you wearing that necklace.”
“Huh?” Slater says.
“Never mind. Open the top of that seat behind you,” he says to Slater. “It’s an ice chest.”
Slater does.
“Now reach in, take out some pieces of the meat and throw them overboard.”
Again, Slater does as he’s told, tossing bloody hunks of raw meat into the water.
“You know, Jack, I’ve caught some sharks on this spot,” Edward says. “Hammerheads, black tip reef sharks, tigers … Other than great whites, tigers are the most dangerous. Seem to have a real taste for human flesh.”
As the hunks of meat float on the surface, I watch for fins to appear. Slater watches, too.
“Look over there,” Edward says, pointing toward the bow. Two fins are cutting the water’s surface. “Just dolphins, having a romp. They’re not man-eaters.”
I look at Edward.
“What exactly are we doing here?” I ask him. “I mean, where’s this going, Edward?”
“We’re writing an end to your story, Jack,” he tells me with a smile. “In fact, that’s what we’ve been doing ever since we met at Sloppy Joe’s.”
He looks at Slater, who has finished his chumming and is standing there with bloody hands, looking distraught, as if he’s just dug his own grave. Maybe he has.
“Okay, Mr. Babcock, now jump overboard,” Edward says to him. “But I’ll take that shark’s tooth necklace before you do. It’s a nice one.” He laughs. “Plenty more where that came from, as you’re about to find out.”
“What?” Slater exclaims. “You’re crazy! I’m not …”
Before he can finish, Edward fires a shell into the air above Slater’s head, causing us both to jump.
“I mean it, young man. I want you in the water while we continue our conversation.”
“No, I can’t,” Slater says, starting to cry. “I’m afraid … You’re making a big mistake …”
Edward points the shotgun directly at Slater’s chest, jacks in another shell, and says, “You’re going in the water, alive or dead. All the same to me.”
Slater is shaking and whimpering. I notice a wet stain spreading on the front of his khaki shorts. He’s urinated on himself. He falls to his knees, head down, as if waiting for execution by beheading.
Edward takes a step toward him and says, “Dead then.”
Slater looks at him, his face drained of color, terrified, eyes wide, as if he’s looking at a ghost.
Hemingway’s ghost.
“No, please …” he moans.
Edward’s finger moves onto the trigger …
“Wait!” I tell him. “I don’t want this.” I pause, and realize I’m crying too. “Hope wouldn’t want this …”
Edward lowers the shotgun and smiles.
“Okay, Jack, your call. Thing is, with enhanced interrogation techniques, the subjects either tell you the truth to get you to stop, or they lie and tell you what you want to hear to get you to stop. It takes a trained interrogator like they have at Gitmo over there to tell the difference. And even they aren’t sure a good deal of the time. I think our friend here would confess to anything just to stay in the boat, wouldn’t you, Mr. Babcock?”
Slater looks at us, apparently trying to decide what is the right answer.
“Yes,” he finally says, looking as if he’s about to faint. Then to me: “But I didn’t hurt Hope. I’d never do anything like that.”
“Let’s head for the barn,” Edward says. “Slater, go below and clean yourself up. Stay there until we reach port. Take a nice hot shower, and pour yourself a drink. You can borrow a pair of my shorts if you like, in the dresser in the stateroom. They’ll be too big, but at least they’re dry.”
As Edward operates the electric hoist to raise the anchor, some of the chunks of meat floating on the surface of the water begin to disappear as fish begin to take them. I notice fins circling the area, and I don’t think they’re dolphins.
On the way in, I sit silently in the chair on the bridge. Edward, at the helm, is smoking a cigar. When we reach the Key West channel markers, he says, “That’s what revenge looks like, Jack. I’ve had some experience with it. It can be pretty ugly, and usually, it’s unsatisfying. Contrary to what you might think, it doesn’t make you feel any better. If you’re a good man, it can add to your pain. I frankly don’t recommend it.”
Two dolphins are riding our bow waves.
“Look,” Edward says, pointing at them. “That’s good luck.”
He takes a long puff on the cigar and says, “If you told me this morning you were going home without trying to see Slater again, I wouldn’t have brought him up on deck. No telling exactly how that was going to go, so best to avoid the situation if possible.”
“Would you have actually fed him to the sharks?”
“That was entirely up to you, Jack. In all my stories, I always let the characters dictate what happens. Quite often, they surprise me by what they do.”
“So I’m just a character in one of your stories?”
“Not just a character. In this story, you are the main character. And I’ll say that you have exhibited considerable grace under pressure, which is one of the measures of a man.”
“If Slater confessed, he just would’ve denied everything later,” I say. “You were pointing a shotgun at him …”
Edward reaches into the pocket of his canvas shorts and comes out with a micro tape recorder.
“I would have had it all on here. Sure, he could have claimed he confessed under duress, but it would’ve been fun to see him stand trial.”
“What happens now?” I ask as Edward slows to no-wake speed in the Key West harbor channel.
“Well, guilty or not, Slater Babcock goes on being Slater Babcock, you go home, do what you can to put your life back together, and I move on to the next port of call. It’s time.”
“But Slater will report us to the police.”
“I’ve thought about that,” Edward says, turning out of the channel toward the marina. “The thing is, I happen to know that his bartender is dealing drugs from right there in the Drunken Dolphin. Before I send Slater on his way, I’ll suggest that he forgets about this cruise, and I’ll forget that I know about the oxycodone you can get at his place without a prescription, as well as the coke and dexies and bennies, and the Rohypnol. Ever heard of that one? They call it the date rape drug. My info is that our Mr. Babcock regularly has his bartender slip it into the drinks of young girls, some of them underage. I think he’ll develop a case of amnesia about the events of this fine morning.” He looks over at me. “You should, too.”
“How do you know all that?” I ask.
Edward smiles.
“Oh, I’ve spent a lot of time in Key West. People tell me things, just like you did. As I said, I’m a good listener.”
21
The next morning, I’m in my room at the Casa Marina, just out of the shower, ready to drive back to Miami, when there’s a knock on the door. I open it and am surprised to see Pete Dye.
“Hi Jack,” he says. “Mind if I come in?” I have no idea how Pete found me and I don’t ask him about this, because it’s what he does.
FIVE HOURS later, Delta flight 2522 lifts off the runway at Miami International, bound for Minneapolis-Saint Paul International. I’m in seat 3A and Pete Dye is in 3C, no one between us.
Pete brought the stunning news that Hope’s killer is buried in a cemetery on the grounds of the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.
The day before his scheduled execution by lethal injection, Lyle Cutler, a fifty-five-year-old former guidance counselor at Central High School in Rapid City, told his minister that he’d accepted Jesus as his Savior and confessed to the murder of Annie Knox, a seventeen-year-old Central High student, for which he’d been convicte
d. He also admitted that he’d murdered four other girls over the past twelve years, including Hope Tanner. He said he wanted to tell the warden the same thing “so he won’t feel badly about giving me the needle, because I deserve to die for what I’ve done.”
Right about that. I wouldn’t feel badly about giving him the needle. He is truly a devil, and all that can be done about such genetic mutants is to catch and cage or kill them.
After an audience with the warden, Cutler, with his lawyer present, told representatives from the governor’s attorney general’s offices that he frequently visited admissions offices at Midwestern colleges and universities as part of his duties as a guidance counselor. He’d been doing this for twenty-two years. He said that, beginning eight years earlier, a voice in his head sometimes told him to randomly choose and murder girls “as a lesson to all schoolgirls to obey their parents, do their homework and not act like sluts or they’ll end up like the dead girls.”
It was later discovered that he’d been treated for schizophrenia most of his adult life, but he had not disclosed this to his employer. He’d never been married. He had a brother and two sisters but, when notified by the warden of his impending execution, they said that they did not wish to attend or to claim their brother’s body.
After Cutler confessed to the murders, Pete told me, the governor stayed his execution until he was able to lead police to the places he’d buried his victims other than Annie Knox, whose body had been found in a drainage ditch in a farm field outside Rapid City by a farmer training his dog to hunt.
Hope, who Cutler identified as “that Madison college girl,” was buried in a proverbial shallow grave under a live oak tree in a stand of woods about ten miles north of the campus. Cutler said that he was just driving around the campus neighborhood after having dinner following a visit to the university when he saw a pretty girl walking alone. On an impulse, he asked her if she wanted a ride. She didn’t, so he grabbed her.
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