It was a good ten degrees cooler by the surf, and the muffled sounds of the small waves running ashore were actually soothing to Jessica, a hell of a lot more soothing than the sounds of electricity and drinking and muffled sex back at her flat. She closed her eyes. The breeze gently brushed her body, her face. The waves purred. Her mind slowed down, and she finally began to drift.
Faded images of the man she met at the resort slowly floated over her mind. In her half-sleep, memories of sleeping with him became dreams, realistic dreams that carried her back to the bamboo suite at Tiki Island, dreams of him softly caressing her body as she slid over him, taking him, giving him everything she had. She smiled in her half-sleep, and was happy for a few precious minutes.
Then something went wrong. The dream changed; the man was gone, the sea had become wild. Giant waves crashed over the shore, ripping sand and coral away as they receded. The wind howled through her head like a hurricane, scrambling her brain and ripping through her eyes. A tidal wave loomed up in front of her, and as she gaped in horror at the twenty-foot wall of black water she tried to scream. Nothing came out. The wave crashed down on her with a hideous roar…
Jessica bolted straight up on her towel. The ocean was calm as ever, the night humid but cool. The first essence of sunlight began to glow in the east. In front of her stood a woman, tall, thin. She was in the surf, but the waves didn’t splash around her ankles. Jessica strained in the dim light to see the woman more clearly, but the more she concentrated, the less focused the woman became. Then she began to move towards Jessica, walking out of the surf and onto the shore. Her feet made no impressions in the wet sand.
As she grew closer, Jessica realized she could see the surf beyond the woman…behind her…through her. Her eyes opened wide with terror as the transparent apparition came ever closer, revealing a swollen, bloated face devoid of eyes; black sockets dripped with salt water and seaweed, small crabs crawled out of the open mouth down the neck. It stretched out its arms in a sad soul-wrenching manner and reached for Jessica.
Jessica screamed.
The apparition dispersed, leaving her alone on the shore.
Shaking with fright, Jessica ran back to her apartment, forgetting the towel.
This wasn’t the first time she’d seen this apparition. She’d seen it before, years ago, months ago, weeks ago, then again days ago in her room. She ran to Tiki Island to get away from it and still saw it there, looming over the bed after Jessica awoke from her night with Bill Riggins. Now it was before her, in front of her doorway.
It was following her.
“Leave me alone, please!” she screamed and the image disappeared.
Once inside the apartment, she did the only thing she knew how to do to make the visions go away.
+++
It was only a little after ten-thirty when I nodded goodbye to Melinda through the glass elevator. Sure it was a long day, but I wasn’t ready to hit the sack just yet. After all, I was on vacation, skeleton or not.
I decided to try Jessica’s room. I didn’t have the number so I made my way over to the front desk and rang the bell. The man behind the carved-wood counter looked like he might have carved it himself.
“Can you tell me the room number of Miss Jessica Rutledge?” I asked, lighting up a smoke.
The man nodded and flipped through a small card catalog, pulled out a card and said, “I am sorry, suh, but Mees Rutledge checked out thees morning.”
“I see.” I said, “Thanks just the same,” and walked out into the night.
To my right were the gardens with the bones. I’d had enough of that for one day, so I ventured left. I was a little disappointed that Jessica had taken off without even saying a word, but I tried not to mull over it. This was a resort. Things like that happened at resorts. No big deal.
I followed the path around to the south side of the Island. Tiki torches lit up the beach and the little cabana bar. I ordered a Mai Tai and continued down to the beach. About halfway down a ring of people were enjoying some acoustic guitar and islandy singing. I kept going. A little farther down two hula girls and an old Hawaiian man were telling stories of Tiki magic and Island lore to a group of people sitting around on split logs. I stopped for a minute and watched. I caught something about the Goddess Kapu, something about Pele and a volcano. After a few minutes, I kept walking.
Soon I found myself at the back end of the Island. The beach was shorter here, only a few feet between the grass and the water. There were no Tiki torches here, only a few small incandescent lamps burning. They lit up a little road that wound back to the main building. This was the back of the house, the place where they brought in food, booze and other supplies. A small barge was docked at a wharf near the road, loaded with what appeared to be empty crates. ‘Hawthorn Enterprises’ was painted in big block letters on the side of the barge.
I kept moving, walking past the wharf and the road, hooking back along the beach to the north side of the resort.
This end of the beach was a little darker, and much less inhabited. The only light here came from the windows of the rooms in the north wing, the cheaper, smaller rooms added on long after the original building had been in business. The wing still looked like it belonged, still covered with rattan and Tiki masks and all, but it had a decidedly less expensive look about it. This is where the college kids and families stayed, just far enough away from the VIPs…like me. This was also where those same college kids were hiding out in the dark, apparently. At least three times I heard rustling and girlish giggling coming from behind a stack of palm plants and ferns. Crazy kids.
I passed the back of the Island and headed west along the north beach. The dark night was slowly being replaced by the yellow glow of Tiki torches once again. About half way up the beach I came across the outdoor bandstand where a quartet was playing Hawaiian songs led by a steel guitar. They really knew how to play it up at this place, I thought. A handful of people were slow-dancing to the music, while a few dozen more sat at bamboo tables and sipped drinks with lots of fruit and little umbrellas in them. At this point my Mai Tai was bye-bye, so I decided to order another. I sat at the bar and another pretty, Polynesian bartendress threw a bunch of crazy stuff together in a glass and slid it my way. Before I could take a sip, I had company.
“Mighty hot night, even for these parts,” came the voice of Sheriff Jackson from my right.
“Well hello Sheriff. Surprised to see you here so late.”
“Well, my business took so long to finish up I thought I’d just spend the night here, get a little rest before tomorrow. The wife don’t mind, she rather enjoys the peace and quiet of my not snorin’ in her ear, I imagine.” He laughed and I did too.
“Find out anything new about the body?” I asked, interested.
“Nothing, no. Won’t know a thing until the government man comes down from Tallahassee with the proper tools for forensics. I got my ideas, though.”
“Oh? Care to share them?”
“Well,” he said, and as he spoke he rolled a cigarette the old fashioned way, “Strictly off the books, I think she was a victim of a crime from way before this resort was built. I think she may have been murdered and buried in a shallow grave, then when those boys came in after the storm and added a few feet of topsoil to the Island, she got buried deeper.” He lit the cigarette with a match and took a long pull. “I think maybe she was a victim of one Mr. Hawthorn’s wild parties, back in his day.”
That was a new one. No one had said anything about Hawthorn having wild parties. Then again I’d heard most of his story from his stepdaughter. “What kind of wild parties, Sheriff?”
“Oh, the usual. Rich folk gatherin’ around the Island with lots of illegal booze back durin’ prohibition. They used to bring it right up from Cuba, cases of the stuff on their yachts. A few bucks paid-off the local law at the time and the liquor flowed freely. Hawthorn bought hooch by the boatload and stored it in his mansion, and gave it out like candy at his parties. From what I he
ar back in the Twenties they done a lot more than that, too…reefer, cocaine, opium, you name it. They’d get all high and have themselves a grand ole time, and more times than not it’d end up in a roomful of naked folks sinnin’ like there was no tomorrow.”
“Sounds fun,” I said jokingly. He didn’t laugh.
“Well sure, fun for the men. But after every one of those parties there were a half-dozen or so young girls who left a little older and wiser, if you catch my meaning. And a few of them didn’t have any good time at all. A few of them wound up in the hospital up in Islamorada.”
“That wild, huh?”
“Yessuh, that wild. At least two or three girls every season would wind up getting themselves impregnated, and Hawthorn would pay big to shut them up…either enough for them to move off and start a life somewhere new, or to…well, you know…”
“Terminate?” I said, softly. I could see this man was very uncomfortable talking about such things, and I wondered why he was sharing with me so freely. I blamed it on the booze.
“Yessuh. He paid a doctor to do it, illegally of course. But he got away with it because big money talks big, and Hawthorn liked to get his way.”
“What about his wife? What did she have to say about all this?”
“Ha! She was just as bad as he was. She was a showgirl in New York City when they met.”
“Well, those New York showgirls do usually have a wild streak,” I said. I knew from experience.
“In any case, tomorrow I’m gonna search through the old files for missin’ persons and things of that nature. Y’all are welcome to come and help, if you’d like.”
“Thanks for the invite Sheriff, but I’ve already got plans mapped out for tomorrow,” I said, then added, “You know, you sure are being nice to me. I thought southern lawmen didn’t like us Yankee boys much. I kind of expected you to say something like, ‘stay outta my way, Yankee’ or something like that. What gives?”
He laughed an honest, hearty laugh and finished his beer. Then he slapped me on the back and said, “I like you, Detective. You’re a straight shooter like me. Sure, some of us southerners have a bad reputation for distrusting outsiders. And ya’ll are gonna meet a lot of people like that here. But not me. I’m a Sheriff, and that makes me responsible for a lot of things around my county, from tippin’ drunks into the lockup to chasin’ down speeders to dealin’ with murderers and pirates. And if I can get some help from a big city boy who might know a thing or two more about investigating a murder than I’ve ever had to know, then I’d be a fool to turn him away, don’t you think?”
I took a long sip of the Mai Tai and said, “Well in that case Sheriff, anything I can do to help I’d be happy to, even though I’m on vacation. Except tomorrow. I’ve got an important thing I’ve got to do tomorrow.”
“Well thank you son, I’m sure I’ll be dialin’ ya up in the next few days. In the mean time y’all have yourself a great evening. I’m gonna retire now to my room.”
He left, and walked back toward the cheap rooms. I stayed and ordered another drink while the band played ‘Beyond the Blue Horizon” with an island flair.
+++
Two hours and four Mai Tai Cocktails later I stumbled up the beach toward the front of the resort. I tried to figure out how to maneuver around the garden so I wouldn’t come near the skeleton, but the twelve ounces of rum I’d consumed made that an impossibility. I found myself walking straight towards the grave.
A few people walked past me in both directions, foggy-looking through my rum-induced haze. Brother, I could drink anyone under the table with Scotch or Bourbon, but that rum really did a job on me.
Up ahead the grave loomed on my right. It was roped off, but if someone weren’t careful they could fall right in. As I got closer I moved to the left as far from it as I could.
Sitting on the bench next to the open grave was a young woman. She was in the shadows and I could hardly make out her silhouette, but she was there, leaning back and looking up the path away from me. As I approached she turned to face me. I nearly toppled over backwards. Her face was a hideous blur with black, eyeless sockets staring straight at me. I fell back against a palm tree and heard a voice say “You all right, mister?” The voice came from my left; I turned to see who it was – a young man, very large and muscular, probably a porter, I thought – and when I turned back to the girl she was gone.
“My eyes are ply..playin’ tricks,” I managed to say. “You work here?”
“Yes sir, I do. Can I help you in anyway?”
“Sure, if you don’t mind buddy, I think I’ve hadda…a few too many…of those My-thingies,” I couldn’t remember the name just then. “If you can help me back to my room there’s a fin in it for ya.”
“Of course Mr. Riggins,” he said, and put my arm over his shoulder. “Come now, we go back to your suite. Is your friend coming to?”
“What friend?” I said, verily confused.
“The young woman that was sitting on the bench…I thought you were talking to her.”
“You saw her too?”
“Why of course, she right over…Oh, I suppose she has left. Never you mind then, come, I help you.”
My head was spinning like a top. Maybe I wasn’t seeing things. I couldn’t tell.
“Say, bud, did you get a load of her looker?”
“What, sir?”
“Her face, did you see her...face?”
“Ah, no sir. It was very dark, I just saw her shadowy figure there on the bench, then she was gone.”
“Yeah, gone. Well…never mind, just throw me in my bed, k?”
“Yes sir.”
+++
Somehow he managed to get me up to my room, and I either gave him a fiver or a fifty, still not sure which. I flopped down in the bed and in a few minutes I was zonked out like a little kid at midnight. Crazy dreams bugged me all night. Dreams where Princeton was digging a grave for a woman with a brick embedded in her face. Dreams of giant waves washing over the Island, pulling me out to see. In one dream was Jessica, the pretty blonde who gave me the grand treatment last night and disappeared.
I awoke around eight fifteen with the rum still swirling around in my head. The soft crash of small waves against the beach came up on the morning breeze and filled my room. It was Wednesday morning, and I had plans.
By ten I was on the boat back to Key West. The Island was great, but my curiosity had kicked in and I’d gone into detective mode. While Jackson was snooping through old files, I planned to spread some questions around town, get to know the locals a little and see what they had to say about Hawthorn and his sexy parties. I was also excited by the prospect of motoring around in that blue Chevy ragtop…and about finding a pretty blonde who lived at the southernmost point of the United States.
The Tiki Express docked. I got my keys from the same old man I gave them to, jumped in the Chevy, pushed the button to take down the electric top and was on my way.
If I learned anything about the Florida Keys it was that the locals did one of three activities: They fished, swam, or drank. At this hour of the morning it was a sure bet the people I were looking for would be in the bar. So I headed down Duval Street and parked in front of Sloppy Joe’s. Not surprisingly, I found my old friend Fernando sitting at the bar.
“Señor!” he shouted as I walked into the bar. “Ees only two days, the ghosts already chase you away?” he laughed, and patted the barstool next to him. He was wearing all white today, linen pants, baggy button-down shirt open at the collar down to his sternum. A bleach-white short-brimmed panama hat with a purple band sat above his tanned face.
“Not a ghost my friend, but an actual skeleton,” I said quietly so no one else would hear. Publicity like that, Tiki Island didn’t need. I palmed a twenty and shook Fernando’s hand. “Shhh,” I said leaning in, “Uno secreto.”
“Aye,” he said quietly. He took the bill without even looking at it. “For twenty anything ees a secret.”
I ordered a cup of j
ava. The bartender told me they had the grill going so I also ordered up a couple of eggs over easy and some toast. Just for the hell of it I offered to buy Fernando his breakfast too.
“Ah, thank you no, Señor. Ees no good with the rum this time of morning. I wait for the lunch, later. Now what ees this about the es-skeleton, huh?”
I gave him the quick rundown, leaving out the part about getting chummy with Melinda. Then I asked him about Hawthorn.
“Aye, Señor Hawthorn ees a very famous man around here. Even when I was a young boy in Cuba, I hear tales of his parties and wealth. He brought his yacht to Havana many times, and would pick up dee women…you know, the ladies of the night, to bring back. He would also pick up the rum and sometimes the cocaine or the opium. That man, he throw one hell of a party, no?”
“Sí,” I said, thinking that if I were a vice cop in 1935 I’d have run him in and made it stick. The drugs and booze weren’t so bad, if there were no kids around. But bringing in hookers from the slums of Cuba…
“You ever hear any stories about anyone getting killed, or disappearing from one of his parties?”
“Ah, no, I don’t think so. Many people hurt…they get too much drink in them, they fall off the boats, or off the balconies and crack a bone or something, but I don’t remember any keeled. Then again, Señor, I only live in the US for ten years. If you want to really know about him in the olden days, you must drive up to the Islamorada, and talk to the workers who built the roads. They were here when he had his parties, they were the ones who clean up dee Island after the Big Storm.”
“Islamorada, huh?”
“Sí, you go, and you find a little bar next to the dock on the Gulf side. The bar, she named ‘Coco’s’. You ask for Henri, he is the owner. Nice man. For twenty dollores, he even nicer.”
Murder on Tiki Island: A Noir Paranormal Mystery In The Florida Keys (Detective Bill Riggins Mysteries) Page 11