Pier Pressure

by Dorothy Francis

  I wanted to escape.

  “It’s been a long day.” Beau stepped forward, shaking his head and placing his hand on Hubble’s arm. “May we put this meeting off until another time—or is it a command performance?”

  “The other beneficiaries are waiting at my office.” Hubble eased away from Beau’s touch. “They’ve been waiting for some time. I strongly suggest you accompany us to join the others.”

  “Fine,” Beau said. “I’ll drive Reverend Sotto home, then Jass and I’ll come to your office immediately. Punt, please bring Keely and Nikko and join us.”

  And that’s what we did. Punt drove to Simonton Street where the Hubble offices occupied a small home converted by the Hubble family for business use—a practice common in Key West where property values had skyrocketed in the past few years. Both the house and its roof glowed sky blue in the late afternoon sunshine, but once we passed through the doorway we stepped onto somber gray carpeting that matched the walls, an upholstered couch, and a multitude of steel file cabinets.

  Nikko and Otto and Shandy Koffan sat beside Beau and Jass, who had managed to arrive ahead of us. Harley Hubble motioned Detective Curry, Punt, and me to the remaining chairs. Moose lay at Nikko’s side. At the sight of the dog, Otto reached for Shandy’s hand and she eased her chair toward him in a protective way. I wondered why Otto feared Moose so much. Did he think Moose might detect drugs on his person? Maybe Otto didn’t know that Nikko and Moose had retired from locating missing people, not missing drugs.

  “A few of you may be familiar with some of the bequests listed in Margaux Ashford’s will, but this reading of the will’s highlights should serve to underline your previous knowledge.” Harley Hubble cleared his throat and read in a sonorous voice. I watched Detective Curry as he studied each of us. I wondered what he expected to see. Did he think something in our expressions, our reactions, would pinpoint one of us as Margaux’s killer?

  The reading lasted only a few minutes and it relieved me to note that Harley Hubble hadn’t required Jude’s secretarial services. Punt and I drove Nikko home, Nikko who had been bequeathed only a book contract and a few thousand dollars, then Punt and I joined Jass at Ashford Mansion to discuss other aspects of the will, although my mind already buzzed on overload. It relieved me to learn that Beau had returned to the Hubble office to sign some additional papers.

  “You heard it,” Jass said, offering us seats on her couch and then joining us in an easy chair. “Margaux’s will leaves Punt and me each one million dollars. In the eyes of the police that amount would give us strong motive for murder. The will also leaves Dad the bulk of her estate, which gives him an even stronger motive, but…”

  “But now we know just how much Margaux’s ex comes into the inheritance picture, too,” Punt said, interrupting. “And the plot thickens.” Jass brought us tumblers of iced tea. “Otto Koffan wanted more from Margaux than his elbow-patched sport coat and custody of their CD collection of jazz greats.”

  I almost choked on my tea. “I can’t believe she left her ex a chunk of her estate. No way would I have left Jude anything but bad wishes, even if I’d had an estate—which I hadn’t.”

  “You heard what Harley H. had to say,” Jass said. “Margaux was under court order to divvy with Otto. I’m guessing the divorce judge didn’t like the way Margaux dumped Otto.”

  “Probably jealous of Margaux’s lifestyle here in the Keys,” Punt said.

  “During the thirty years of their marriage, Otto had worked as Margaux’s secretary and business manager,” Jass said. “Dad had already told us that and also that after Margaux’s marriage to him, he took over her business matters.”

  “I’m guessing that the judge ruled that because of Otto’s being left in meager circumstances, Margaux had to take care of him financially,” Punt said.

  “You mean Margaux had to pay alimony?” I asked. “I didn’t hear that lawyer say anything about alimony, and if that’s true, I don’t see why Otto’s inheritance would make him a suspect. Wouldn’t he have wanted Margaux to live forever—to keep those alimony payments dropping into his mailbox along with his Social Security checks?”

  “Dad told me that pride kept Otto from accepting alimony,” Jass said, “so the judge placed a stipulation on the divorce. You heard what Hubble said. If Margaux married, she had to provide Otto a home to live in while she remained alive, a home of equal value to her own. And she had to agree that upon her death, Otto would inherit ten million bucks.”

  “Ten million big ones,” Punt said, laughing. “I’m putting Otto at the top of my suspect list.”

  “That lawyer talked so fast I can’t remember half of what he read,” I said. “I’m surprised that after Otto’s inheritance, there still remained money for Beau.”

  “For Beau,” Jass said. “And for you, too. Half a million for you. Don’t forget that.”

  “That I remember very clearly, but I don’t understand why Margaux would leave me anything.”

  “Because your reflexology treatments relieved her back pain,” Jass said. “That’s what Hubble said. How could you have missed that?”

  I sat speechless.

  “Couldn’t happen to a nicer person, Keely.”

  I was still sitting there when Jass stood and excused herself to run an errand in her greenhouse.

  “May I take you to dinner?” Punt asked.

  “Not tonight, Punt.” I pulled my hand away. “We need to talk about…we need to discuss…”

  “Discuss what?” Punt asked. “I’m ready to discuss a dinner menu.”

  “We need to think carefully about working together now that we know the exact stipulations of Margaux’s will. A killer’s at large and there’s a possibility that we may be able to identify that person before the police start in-depth questioning of suspects.”

  “So far the police have lurked in the background—observing, checking on the gun.” Punt reached for my hand again. “I think the in-depth questioning may start tomorrow, now that the memorial service and the reading of the will are behind us.”

  “I’d like to avoid that questioning, if possible.” I withdrew my hand from his a second time. “I agree that we need to work together, but I want to keep our togetherness on a platonic basis. Please understand that.”

  He reached for my hand a third time and I didn’t have the heart to withdraw it again.

  “You liked that kiss last night as much as I did, Keely. Admit it. Be real.”

  “I am being real. Yes, I enjoyed our kiss, but I’m not ready for a new relationship with any man right now. I may never be ready. I don’t want to hurt you—to hurt either of us, but our lifestyles are too far apart, our values too different.” I was out of breath from talking so fast.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe not. We’ll play it platonic—for a while at least. Bearing that in mind, may I take you to dinner tonight?”

  “It’s been a long day, Punt…maybe…”

  “Maybe we could eat on the patio at Two Friends and nose around a little more concerning Consuela’s alibi. There’s no time to waste.”

  “You’re right, of course, but this day has been almost beyond bearing.”

  “You’ll feel better—we’ll both feel better after a good meal. May I call for you around seven?”

  Eighteen

  AS USUAL PUNT arrived promptly and we walked to Two Friends through a soft moonlit night like the ones pictured on the Chamber of Commerce brochures. Punt held my hand but I drew it away. Platonic. I tried to etch that word in my mind. Walking felt good and I welcomed the sense of freedom and independence it gave me as I watched motorists vie for parking slots. The cruise ships had sailed from Mallory and many of the sunset-watching crowd had left the dock and taken refuge in restaurants and bars. Even Punt’s attempt at bribing a waiter for a table on the Two Friends patio failed. We perched on high stools at the bar beside an old man who looked like Father Time—if Father Time happened to be wearing jeans, a tank top, and a green straw hat decorated
with fishing lures.

  We both ordered shrimp steamed in beer and garden salads with special house dressing on the side. Luckily, Bernie worked the bar tonight, and Punt quickly turned the conversation to Consuela.

  “I told you all I know about her,” Bernie said. “She’s a noise-maker dressed like a sexy slut and I’ve convinced the boss I’ve earned a drink on the house whenever she leaves. Saturday night she wore a banana and a mango pinned in her hair.”

  “You talking about that Carmen Miranda type in here last Saturday night?” Father Time asked.

  I turned to him quickly. “Who’s Carmen Miranda?”

  He looked at me and grinned. “Oh to be young! You kids probably can’t remember Carmen Miranda. Singer. Actress. Wore slinky dresses and hats that looked like fruit baskets. Folks laughed, but they liked her.”

  “You saw someone in here Saturday night that looked like that?” Punt asked.

  “Right,” Father Time said. “Why, her picture’s right there on the wall behind the bandstand. Guess she’s some famous babe. She’s hanging there right beside President Clinton, George no-W. Bush, Marilyn Monroe.”

  Punt and I both slipped off our bar stools to take a closer look at the pictures taped and thumbtacked to the wall. Father Time spoke true. A small glossy of Consuela and her dance partner vied for space with a larger glossy of Frank Sinatra. I hurried back to the bar.

  “Bernie, who’s the guy in the picture with Consuela?”

  “Don’t keep track of Consuela’s men friends,” Bernie said. “Too many of them. I’d lose count.”

  “May we borrow that picture?” I asked. “We’ll bring it back. Promise.”

  Bernie shrugged and shook his head. “Not my picture to lend.”

  Again Punt produced a twenty and this time Bernie grinned, nodded, and reached for the bill. I stepped onto the bandstand, removed the picture, and took it to our seats where we studied it carefully.

  “I don’t know her partner, Punt, do you?”

  “Never saw him before, but the shot’s small and blurred. Let’s take it to a copy shop at the mall. They can blow it up, enlarge it. Maybe I’ll recognize the guy.”

  We ate the rest of our meal in a hurry, picked up Punt’s car at my office, and drove to the mall on North Roosevelt. The copy shop smelled of new paper, ink, and fluids I couldn’t identify, and the clerk looked as if he had never hurried in his life.

  A toothpick dangled from the corner of his mouth and he combed his greasy hair with tobacco-stained fingers as he slouched forward to greet us. “How ya guys doin’ tonight?”

  “Fine,” Punt said. “We’d like to get an enlargement of this photo. Can you manage that while we wait?”

  “Sure thing, pal. What kind of paper youse want?”

  “The best kind for getting a clear shot of the guy in the pic,” Punt said.

  The clerk fumbled through several drawers, then he went to the file cabinets and fumbled through envelopes of paper. At last he made a decision and placed our original in the copy machine and his chosen reprint paper in its tray. Lights flashed as the machine pulsed to life, and in a few moments we held both the original and the enlargement.

  “That help you any?” the clerk asked, then without waiting for our reply, he added, “That’ll be two-fifty. Cash.”

  Punt paid and we took the enlarged photo to the car to study it again in private.

  “The likeness of Consuela’s clear enough,” I said, “and the guy’s a bit easier to identify. You ever seen him around?”

  “He looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite place him.”

  “So let’s take both pictures back to Two Friends. Maybe Bernie can identify him in this blow-up.”

  Bernie stood wiping the bar with a grimy rag when we arrived. The band had started setting up stands and lights. A short guy, pony-tailed and barefoot, blew a glissando on his sax while a stringbean of a drummer rat-a-tatted on his snare, eager to begin the first set. Someone had claimed our seats at the bar, but Bernie approached us, reaching for the original photo.

  “Recognize this guy?” Punt flashed the enlargement.

  Bernie squinted at the picture for a few seconds. “Don’t know him by name, but I think he’s a shrimper. You might ask around at the shrimp docks. Someone there might recognize him, know him by name.”

  “Let’s go.” Punt grabbed my hand. “It’s late, but someone may still be at the docks.”

  “Tonight? It’s a smelly place. We’ve had a long day. Let’s wait…”

  “No point in waiting, but if you don’t feel up to going now, I’ll drive you home and check out the docks by myself.”

  “You’re not going without me.”

  We drove to Land’s End Village where throngs of tourists crowded the streets, the tiny tourist-trap shops, the bars. At a parking lot where a crude sign on the gate said FULL, Punt called to the gatekeeper. “Hey, Slim. You owe me one.”

  Slim ambled toward us, drinking something from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper sack. “Full up, buddy.”

  “Find us a place. We’re in a hurry. Only be here a few minutes.”

  Slim shrugged and made no move to open the gate. “Full up, I tell you, but I know a spot that’s empty behind The Raw Bar. My pal just left it. Little slot, but you can wedge this car in it. Anybody give you lip, tell ’em to come talk to me.”

  We inched the car toward The Raw Bar, sometimes brushing against tourists walking in the street. The area behind the bar was black as the inside of a cat, but we found the empty slot and Punt eased the car into it. He raised the top although the weather was clear and warm, then he locked up, double-checking each door. As we walked toward the street, he kept glancing over his shoulder as if he’d like to slip the Karmann Ghia into his pocket and take it with us.

  “Now what?” I dropped the photo into my shoulder bag. “Looks like most of the boats are out tonight. Probably won’t come in until morning. So what else is new? You know that night-fishing drill.”

  Punt led the way to the dock. “There may be someone hanging around. A watchman, probably. These shrimpers all know each other.”

  Moonlight silvered the dock, making it look more attractive at night than it did in the daylight when the sun glinted on rust-encrusted hulls and silhouetted spindly riggings against the sky like bony fingers. The shrimp docks were my least favorite spot in Key West, yet they were one cut above the Turtle Kraals. A museum now stood at the Kraals, marking the place where butchers used to kill and clean green turtles for the entertainment of a bloodthirsty crowd. The whole area reeked of dead shrimp and decay.

  We walked onto the dock and saw some furtive movement at the far end. Cautiously we approached a person half-hidden by a weather-beaten shrimp shack.

  “Can we talk to you for a minute, buddy?” Punt called.

  “About what?” a deep voice asked.

  “We got a picture we’d like to show you. Need some identification. Hope you can help us out.”

  I pulled the photo from my shoulder bag, knowing nobody could identify anything in this gloomy spot. A barefoot man wearing a hooded sweatshirt approached us, eyeing us as warily as we eyed him. Punt took the photo from me and held it toward him.

  “We may need to step to a spot with more light,” Punt said.

  The stranger pulled out a flashlight from his sweatshirt and shone it onto the photo. Before we could say anything else, the man spoke. “Consuela. That’s who she be.” He chuckled. “Know her well.”

  “We know Consuela,” Punt said. “It’s the man we need to identify. Recognize him?”

  “No. Looks familiar. Can’t put a name to him, though.”

  The man snapped off his flashlight, handed the photo back to Punt, and slunk into the shadows.

  “So much for that one.” I slipped the picture back into my bag and we left the dock. I squelched the urge to keep looking over my shoulder. “Now what? That guy seems to be the only one around.”

  “Let’s step into this souvenir sho
p and talk to someone in there.” Punt led the way and I followed, approaching the nearest clerk and presenting the photo.

  “We’re trying to locate the man in this picture,” I said. “Would you happen to know him or have seen him around here?”

  The woman studied the photo until a customer vied for her attention. “Miss. Miss. Wait on me, please. I have a taxi outside with the meter running.”

  “Excuse me, please.” The clerk wrapped a pink conch shell, rang up the sale on her cash register. I wondered if the customer knew that conchs were a protected species in the Keys and that her souvenir probably came from the Bahamas. Maybe she didn’t care. Nor did I, but I came to full attention when the clerk gave us her attention again as she studied the photo.

  “The woman is Consuela somebody-or-other. Don’t know her last name.”

  “The man?” Punt pointed as if she might be unable to distinguish Consuela from a man. “He’s the one whose name we need.”

  At last the clerk shook her head. “Sorry, but I can’t help you. Have you asked at The Raw Bar? Someone there might recognize the guy.”

  We thanked her and left the shop. I eyed The Raw Bar, guessing that if I entered it, I’d be the only woman present. “Do we have to go in there tonight?”

  “Would you rather wait in the car? I can go in alone. Probably only take a minute or two.”

  I led the way toward the entrance. Once inside, Punt kept close to me as an eerie silence hushed the crowd. I felt unnerved by the scrutiny of dozens of eyes. A man sitting to my left continued slurping raw oysters. He salted each one, added a bit of pepper, then tipping his head back and chewing only slightly, he let the slimy morsel slip down his throat. My stomach churned and I looked away. A poster at the side of the cash register announced Hank Culpepper as the winner of that day’s oyster-eating contest, having consumed two dozen at one sitting at two o’clock that afternoon. I didn’t even want to think about what the prize might have been.

  Taking the photo from me, Punt strode to the man at the cash register. Had he worn a headband and a patch over his eye, he could have passed for Blackbeard. Punt thrust the picture toward him.