Murder on Tiki Island: A Noir Paranormal Mystery In The Florida Keys (Detective Bill Riggins Mysteries)

by Christopher Pinto

  “After you.”

  He turned and headed for the door, Melinda on his arm. As she turned I could swear she gave me a dirty look, a sideways glance, daggers for eyes and all that jazz, as if I were to blame for the skeleton, Hawthorn’s health, the weather, everything. Maybe I was seeing things.

  The Sheriff followed Hawthorn and Jessica and I came up the rear. Hawthorn made his way through the large carved doors, down the steps and out to the right towards the garden. When we got to the gravesite, Hawthorn stopped and looked straight in. Again, silence.

  He stood at the edge for nearly a minute, not uttering a sound, as if he were mourning someone he knew. I felt it, so did Jessica, so did Melinda. The Sheriff must have too; he removed his hat and bowed his head. Then softly, almost a whisper, Hawthorn spoke.

  “This woman,” he said shakily, “died in the storm that took my first wife from me. She was a victim of that terrible blow, just as Vivian was, just as many of my friends from the Keys and workers I knew. In fact, as Vivian’s body was never found, this could very well be…her.”

  He faltered; Melinda steadied him. Tears welled up in his bright eyes, turning them to smoke.

  “And there are others here, at least three men, one of which might be my best friend Gregor who was also lost in that horrible hurricane. These four -” His voice broke, and Melinda held him closer. “These four souls have been left here, unmarked for more than 20 years. It’s time they are laid to rest properly. Sheriff, you’re certain there is no way of knowing who these people are?”

  “No, sir. There were too many lost in the storm. Could be any of hundreds of people.”

  “Then let us have a minister from Sugarloaf come to the Island and give them a proper send off. Then we’ll cover this poor woman over, and I’ll have a monument erected on the site so that no one will forget they are here, victims of the storm that changed everything for so many of us. Agreed?”

  Melinda smiled at Hawthorn. Sheriff Jackson said, “Fine idea, sir. I’ll arrange for the minister.”

  Hawthorn turned to me just then. “Any objections, Mr…eh, Bill?”

  “No, not at all. I think that’s a fine plan,” I said, not really sure why he was asking me.

  “Then it is settled. Sheriff, please arrange for the minister to say his piece tonight at sundown. I’ll have the crew ready to cover the grave just after.”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  Hawthorn looked back down at the grave, this time squinting and leaning in just a little. He turned to me and said, “Young man, I’m certainly no authority on the human skeletal system, but it seems to me that skull isn’t intact. Is that so?”

  “Yes, she seems to have been…well I suppose during the storm, her body must have, eh, been…” I tried not to say knocked around like a cork in barrel. I didn’t want to upset the old man anymore than he was. After all, like he said, that damned well may have been his old lady down there. “The waves were strong, Eliot, and there were a lot of coral rocks and such that she may have come in contact with.”

  “In contact with?”

  The Sheriff came to the rescue. He laid it out flat. “What he’s saying Mr. Hawthorn is that the body was probably forced up against a reef, or maybe the foundation of the house. A crushing blow came across her face at some point, no doubt after she had already died.”

  Just what I was trying not to say.

  “Her face was crushed?” Hawthorn said, his tone and his body trembling.

  “I’m afraid so,” Sheriff Jackson said. Hawthorn stumbled again. This time I had to help Melinda to keep him from falling into the grave. We steadied him, and without further emotion he said, “Take me back upstairs Melinda. I’ve heard too much.” They left, leaving the three of us at the gravesite.

  “Well, that’s that,” Jackson said. “Thanks for your help, Bill. Saved me a lot of leg work.”

  “No problem Sheriff. I got to drive around the Keys and meet some interesting characters.”

  “You mean like Lem?”

  “Ah, no. In fact I’d like to forget about him.”

  “Well, I don’t think you need to worry too much about him. Like I said, he gives you any trouble, you just let me know.”

  “If he gives me any trouble he’ll be looking down the business end of snub-nosed .38,” I said, winking.

  “Well let’s hope it don’t come to that. If y’all kill Lem it’ll be a heap of paperwork I don’t need to be doin’.”

  “I’ll go easy on him,” I said, and shook his hand.

  “Goodbye, Detective. Thanks again for the help.” He turned to Jessica and tipped his hat. “And you stay out of trouble, young lady.” She smiled, he left.

  “What was that all about?” I asked. Maybe it was the cop in me, but Jackson hadn’t said two words to Jessica the whole time she was there. In fact, it was almost as if everyone had forgotten she was there, and she just melted into the background.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “I suppose he knows me from around town. After all I did grow up down here, ya know? And I wasn’t no angel when I was a kid.”

  “Well, you’re an angel now and that’s all that counts,” I said, and kissed her in the garden next to the skeleton.

  1950

  The war had been over for nearly four years. People were working again, buying again, importing, exporting. Money was flowing. Vacationers from up and down the Eastern Seaboard and even other parts of the world were booking rooms at the Resort faster than the maids could clean them. The Tiki theme on which Eliot and Marietta had built their Island was becoming more popular than ever. Music – records like Mele Kelikimaka by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters and Hawaiian War Chant by Tommy Dorsey had helped the movement along in the ’40s, and the new Island sounds from Hawaii that included Asian and Polynesian influences were helping things along. Then the musical South Pacific hit theaters, and everyone wanted to visit Tiki Island. Melinda, now twenty, was doing a splendid job as Entertainment Director and Publicist. Life was good, until that day in March that Eliot got the news: Marietta was dying; a rare and fatal disease was eating away at her from the inside out.

  For six months Eliot watched the second love of his life slowly die. For six months Melinda watched her mother slowly die. Then on a hot, wet day in September of 1950, almost fifteen years to the day Vivian Hawthorn was lost, Marietta Hawthorn’s life slipped away while sitting on the beach looking out at the Gulf, Eliot by her side. She was buried in the Hawthorn family plot in Homestead, in the grave that had been intended for Vivian.

  “We still have each other,” young Melinda said to Eliot, hugging him tightly as she cried.

  “Not quite the same, my dear,” he answered through his own tears, “Not quite the same.” He drew her in closer and held her tighter, and they wept together.

  1956

  Melinda and a bellhop helped Hawthorn back up to the suite at the top of the A-Frame, and laid him in his bed. She gave him a couple of nerve pills and a glass of brandy, which he took without any protest. Melinda left the room and he closed his eyes. Memories came flooding in, memories long suppressed, long buried on the back-roads of his mind. Waves. Rain. Lightning, thunder, dark purple clouds. Boats. Faces. Blood in the sand.

  Vivian’s face floated in front of him. He shot straight up and screamed.

  “What is it?!” Melinda yelled as she bolted back in from the other room.

  “Melinda! My god, it was Vivian, she was here, clear as day. I swear it!”

  “Oh, Eliot,” she said tearfully. She sat beside him and held him. “It was just your imagination. Vivian is not here.” She almost believed it herself.

  “I think she is. Look, past the mirror, tell me what you see.” He was shaking. Melinda looked.

  In the mirror at the far end of the room they could see their own reflections, the bed, the furniture, and something else. Something that didn’t belong.

  “Wait…what?” There was no denying this. There was a figure, pale and wispy, in the mi
rror. “I see it, Eliot. I don’t...I don’t know what it is.”

  “I think it’s her. Good God, Melinda, what if…”

  “Please don’t say it,” Melinda said shakily, holding him closer.

  “What if that’s Vivian down there, buried here, on Tiki Island!”

  “Please Eliot, please stop!”

  “Vivian? Is that you down there? Is that you in the mirror?”

  “Don’t!” Melinda screamed and covered her eyes, overcome by guilt and fear. “Eliot don’t invite the dead into our home!”

  “Vivian, if that is you, please leave us, there’s nothing we can do for you now!” He screamed.

  Suddenly the mirror broke; hundreds of shards of glass shattered across the room. Melinda screamed and flung herself down on the floor. Eliot dove flat on his back in the bed, but was still hit by flying glass. He managed to just miss getting a large piece of mirror in his throat.

  +++

  We hopped the afternoon boat back to Key West. They had a little buffet of tropical fruits, cheeses and crackers out. I took an orange. Jessica grabbed a banana.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had a real Florida orange before,” I said, digging in.

  “That’s not a Florida orange. That’s a California orange.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “They ship all the Florida oranges out of state. Use them for Orange Juice, mainly. They’re not as pretty or orangy looking as Cali oranges, so for looks they bring in the ones from the West coast. You’ve probably drank a ton of Florida orange juice up in New York City. But if you ever ate an orange up there, it was probably from Los Angeles. Makes sense, huh?”

  “Yeah, sense like drinking Scotch in Kentucky.” Jessica laughed. I liked in when she laughed. “Where do you want to go first, kiddo?”

  “My apartment, just to check on things. Then we can go to the sponge market.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “You really have your gun on you?”

  “Yeah, of course. Never go anywhere without one. Although I usually carry my Military-issue .45 automatic. But that sucker’s too heavy to lug around on my belt, especially in this heat. So the .38 it is.”

  “Is it powerful?”

  “Would you like to get shot with it?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Well there. Why do you ask, kid?”

  “Just wondering. Just…in case.”

  “In case what? You expect us to get rolled or something.”

  “No, nothing like that,” she said, and got that distant look in her eyes again. I hated the look, although I didn’t know why. “It’s just that pig Roberts.”

  “You’ve had trouble with him in the past, have you?”

  “Everyone has. Everyone who isn’t rich, or connected, or pays him to lay off, that is. Yeah, I had some trouble with him.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’d rather…I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind Bill. It’s kind of personal, catch my drift? No offense, but I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I understand,” I lied. “But listen, if he did anything to hurt you I’ll rip his head off, just say the word.”

  She smiled. “No, it was a long time ago. It’s just that I don’t trust him. I’ve never known him to give up on a fight, and what you told me about him laying off after that scuffle, that just doesn’t fit the S.O.B. We should be careful, Billy. He might play it cool for a while, but I’d bet he has his goons waiting to pounce us somewhere. And if he already knows you’re packing heat, they’ll be ready for it.”

  “Don’t worry sugar, I’m a fast draw and I always keep my wits about me. Besides, according to Jackson I’ve got half the navy looking out for us!”

  “I hope so,” she said, and looked out over the rail. That was the last we spoke until we got to town.

  Lunch at a small but nice place on the water. A little shopping up and down Duval. A few drinks, dinner at an upscale seafood joint on the docks. A few hours later we were very happily half lit, throwing back Bourbon shots at a little place on Duval simply known as Rick’s, a place sort of, but not quite, fashioned after Rick’s Cafe Americain in Casablanca. The air was cool and the chicks hot. All around us girls in shorts and halter or tube tops sat with guys wearing bowling shirts or Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts or rolled up jeans. Strictly casual here on Key West, not a sport coat in sight. Even though the bar was open-air, the air stunk with beer and smoke, and an occasional whiff of reefer.

  At around eleven o’clock, Jessica had the bright idea to take a walk on the beach.

  “What about the booze?” I asked with a sort of lilting slur.

  “I think, William,” she responded with an equally lilting slur, “I think that it will still be here when we get back.”

  “It’d better be,” I said as I slid off the barstool onto a very uneven floor. Oh sure, I ain’t gotta worry about goons, I keep my wits about me all time. That is except when I’m shooting whiskey with some kookie dame.

  Jessica led me by the hand through the front of the lounge and into the street. Once again music bombarded my ears from every direction. Rock-a-Billie, Country/Western, even some four-part harmony by a barbershop quartet spilled out of the myriad clubs into the street like a river of musical mixed drinks. As we walked it occurred to me that there still might be some danger of retribution by Chief Fatso, so I tried to clear my head as best as I could, and felt for the butt of the .38 on my belt.

  I did it just a second too late.

  From behind I felt a big meaty hand grab me by the throat. At the same time I saw an equally meaty hand grab Jessica around the mouth and an arm around her waist. Before I could move both my arms were locked behind me and I was being dragged backwards into an alley, narrow, dark, between two tall buildings and full of trash and crates, but no people. Muffled screams came from my left and in the dim light I could see Roberts behind Jessica, his fat hand clamped over her mouth, the other trying to hold her by the pants. I don’t think it was an accident that his hand slipped and cupped her square on her right breast, and that pissed me off royally. By that point I felt the punches come, fast and hard they hit me in the gut, then the face. The bastard rabbit-punched me in the kidney and that hurt the most; I doubled over and used it as an excuse to hit the ground. I hit it rolling, kicking off from the two mugs attacking me. I rolled twice and felt the warm liquid ooze flow from my mouth. I felt the stiffening of my right abdomen muscles as they tried to figure out just what the hell had rammed my ribs. And as I flipped I could see the whole picture: Roberts holding Jessica, and two goons about the size of a Buick poised and ready to start kicking me as soon as I stopped rolling. It was now or never, I knew. Either these guys were going to kill me or at least put me in the hospital. It was me or them and my mind was made up.

  I guess Roberts didn’t plan on me packing heat because when I came to my feet holding the .38 all I got back were blank stares of confusion. The two goons backed up with their hands up in front of them. I swung the gun towards Roberts and his hand slipped away from Jessica’s mouth just long enough for her to let out a blood-curdling scream. Then everything happened so fast it was like a dark blur.

  Roberts went for his gun. I was less than five feet away from him.

  “Don’t do it you lemon-headed sonuva bitch,” I yelled, loud enough for him to hear over all the traffic and music. He heard me but he didn’t stop; his service revolver was in his hand and coming up level. I didn’t give him a chance. My little snub-nose was junk at long distances, but at short range I could take the cap off a beer bottle. I let him have it, one shot right into his hand. He squealed and his gun clattered to the bricks. The goons just looked at each other, trying to decide whether to run.

  “Gat Dammit boy, you in a big fuckin’ heap a trouble now, you som’bitch. Assaulting a po-lice officer! Attempted murder! I’ll hang your as personally from the tallest tree, city boy.”

  “You will like hell,” I said and dragged Jessic
a away from his greasy, bloody hands.

  Then he said to the two mugs, “Well don’t jus’ stand there lookin’ stupid, get him!” The two goons didn’t budge. They were evidently smarter than he was.

  “Boy, you think you smart but you ain’t. I got a felony on you now. You ain’t gonna see the outside of cell block till yo’ sixtieth birthday.”

  It was just at that point that the US Navy came to the rescue. Four sailors and an officer heard the shot and came running into the alley. At least one of them knew Jessica.

  “Hey, what gives?” the officer said, then he saw the gun in my hand and the other on the floor. “Ginny, what you got yourself mixed up with now?” he asked Jessica.

  “Hello Larry. This is my friend, Detective Riggins from New York. This fat pig of an excuse for a police chief tried to have him hauled over.”

  “You watch your tongue you tramp,” Roberts got out, and in a quick step I backhanded him with my free hand.

  “And you watch yours, clown,” I said back. It sounded a lot tougher than it looks in print.

  “Hey, now wait a sec,” the officer said, “I heard about you through the grapevine. Heard old Lem here might try to cause you some trouble.”

  “Don’t call me Lem, boy. That’s Chief Roberts to you,”

  “Yeah sure Lem. These two Mack trucks the ones who hauled you over?” the officer asked me, and as I nodded yes I could see the four sailors tensing up. Apparently Sheriff Jackson had a hell of a lot of friends in the Navy, and that friendship was about to pay off.

  The officer spoke again. “Well Detective, I think this about does it. Old Lem here has been a thorn in this Key’s side for a long time. Seems to me he’s gone to far. Things will have to change.”

  “You have no authority over me, sailor boy. So you just back the hell up and be on your way before the five of you find yourselves in the lockup with a few new scars.”

  The four sailors laughed and officer grinned. “And who’s gonna do that Lem, you?”

  Roberts was boiling, his face a cooked lobster. He was finished and he didn’t even know it. “My two deputies will see to it,” he growled.