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

by Christopher Pinto

  Her joint was on the exact opposite of the hotel from mine, so her view was of the North, mainly of the next few Keys and the Gulf. Her living room was smaller than mine, and instead of a corner Tiki bar she had a set-up on a sideboard. But the décor was pure Polynesian. Tiki totems and masks covered the walls, which were laminated in thin strips of bamboo. The floor was bamboo too, with oriental rugs strategically placed among the rattan furniture. Instead of dark leather, her furniture was covered in bright tropical floral patterns with green leaves and a sky blue background. One wall was all lava rock, and featured a built-in waterfall that ended in a small pool near the floor. Fish, what kind I couldn’t tell you, swam in the pool.

  To the left was another room. It was more of a closet, filled with the thirty-five dresses she boasted about, plus evening gowns, skirts and bathing suits. She must have had ten pairs of shoes, a lot less then most New York women I knew. To the right was another door. This one had a key in the lock, and was locked. I tossed it over in my mind whether to go in, then figured what the hell, and unlocked the door.

  It opened on the strangest room I’d seen since I got to Florida, and that included the haunted room of Jessica’s mother...except the ghosts of this room were not ghosts at all, but photos.

  The room was covered from top to bottom with shelves, and the shelves were filled with old photos. Most of the photos on the left side of the room were of a young Eliot Hawthorn, and presumably his first wife, Vivian. There were enlarged photos of a giant white mansion with the name “Hawthorn” etched into the frames, and pictures of Eliot playing golf, Eliot on his boat, and Eliot in the garden always with Vivian by his side. The photos on the right were of Eliot with his second wife and stepdaughter, Melinda. The oldest was from 1936, and showed a very young Melinda playing croquet on an unknown lawn. The remainder showed the family through the years, ending in 1950. Melinda was twenty.

  An ornate desk at the far end of the room included blueprints for the Tiki Island Hotel, an old typewriter, and a journal. I flipped the journal over and was creeped out to the utmost. Page after page was written with the same thing, in an old man’s cursive: “I am not cursed, I am not cursed”. I turned to the last page, and in a different script, very scratchy it read, “Yes you are.” I closed it up quick and just tried to forget about it.

  Continuing around the room, the photos changed from family to the Islands. An overhead shot of Key West from 1922 hung above the desk. Photos of men building the Overseas Railway, plus framed tickets from the inaugural trip flanked the Key West photo. Further down, photos of the destruction of the 1935 Hurricane lined the wall, including pictures of the overturned train, the collapsed bridges, and the damage on Hawthorn Island. Melinda was right; the Island had been completely destroyed, leaving nothing but piles of sticks and ruined beaches in the hurricane’s path.

  I heard a slight noise and saw a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my right eye. I turned, expecting to see Melinda. No one was there. That was my cue to get scarce, and I locked the door behind me just the way I found it.

  It was already after twelve and my guts were rumbling for some chow, so I made my way back down to the restaurant. The hostess said that Melinda had left word for me to meet her on the second floor Tiki deck, which I didn’t even know existed. The hostess directed me to the deck, and I left.

  Hostess. I had to wonder if she was a hooker too. Suddenly I looked at every girl that worked there as a potential prostitute, from the flirty cocktail waitress on the Tiki Express to the bartenders to the Hula girls. Impossible, I knew. Just my beat-up mind playing tricks with me.

  I found the deck and boy was I surprised. I don’t know how I missed this one. This was much different than the rest of the hotel. For one thing it was very bright and lively. The deck flooring was made of polished teak, so shiny you could comb your hair in it. It was enclosed by giant glass windows, floor to ceiling, twenty-feet high and looking out in a sort of semi-circle over Sugarloaf Key and the Atlantic Ocean. The air conditioning was pumping so cool it felt like home. Giant waterfalls graced the sides of the rock-wall entrance, and the tables were all bamboo and rattan with matching chairs upholstered in bright floral prints. The aromas of charbroiled meats and fresh fruits mingled into a tango of culinary splendor. A steel guitar band softly played Hawaiian songs on a small stage and a single Hula girl swayed with the tunes. The Tiki Deck was really more Modern Art than Tiki...a kind of a Polynesian theme meets William F. Cody.

  Man, what a joint.

  Melinda spotted me from a window-side booth and waved me over. I walked up to the table and leaned in to kiss her cheek. She turned so I planted one on her lips.

  “Good morning,” I said cheerfully.

  “Good afternoon,” she said and waved for me to sit down. Her eyes were big and bright, her smile real. “Did you have a nice time last night?” she asked rather coyly.

  “One of the best of my life.”

  “Only one of? I must be slipping,” she said, and took a sip of her cocktail.

  “It probably was the best. I’ll let you know when I wake up from this dream,” I said with a wink.

  “I’ve ordered lunch for us. Another surprise I think you’ll like.”

  “Wait, how did you know I was coming?”

  “Oh, I have my ways,” she giggled. “Honestly, Deena called me from the Hukilau room.”

  “Ah, yes of course, the hostess.”

  “That’s right.” The food arrived quickly, along with an orange concoction as a drink.

  “I think you’ll like this, William. Filet mignon tips sautéed with Maui onions and green peppers over a toasted fresh hardroll, topped with a special blend of cheeses and spicy peppers.”

  I looked at my plate. “A cheesesteak! You got me a cheesesteak!”

  “A Tiki Island special cheesesteak, of course!”

  “Fantastic!” Was this girl a keeper or what? “What’s in the glass?”

  “An excellent lunch cocktail, not as potent as a Mai Tai. It’s orange juice, pineapple juice, dark rum, coconut milk and a dash of bitters. Try it, it’s heavenly.”

  I took a sip. She was right, it was good stuff and not too strong. “This is great. What do you call it?”

  She laughed. “A Melinda Lindy,” she said with a giant smile. “The bartender named it after me. He created it especially for my eighteenth birthday.”

  Well I’ll be damned.

  “Well, here’s to the Melinda Lindy, to you, to me, to Tiki Island and a great weekend.” We clinked glasses and dove into the chow. The cheesesteak was the best I had in a long time, so good we hardly spoke during the meal. The silence wasn’t awkward at all, but fantastic.

  I almost lit up a smoke after I finished, then remembered Melinda didn’t dig coffin nails. No big deal. But it would have been nice to have a prop when I started laying on the trip about last night. The Melinda Lindy just didn’t cut it.

  “So, sweetheart, about last night.” I waited for her to say something. She didn’t. She just looked at me with those big, happy eyes. “I uh…” There I went again, Mr. Smoothy.

  “Didn’t you have fun?” She asked, slightly hurt.

  “No, I mean yes, of course I did, it was…” I took a breath and quit the nervous schoolboy routine. “It was fantastic, start to finish. I’m just not sure where to go from here,” I said as lightly as possible.

  “Oh, not a problem. I’ve already reserved the ballroom for next month. That should be enough time for you to get a guest list together.”

  “Guest list?”

  “Oh course. Don’t worry, Eliot will arrange for your friends and family to come down and stay for free. Then of course we’ll take care of the catering. But I don’t know what religion you are, so you should decide on a priest or minister…or rabbi?”

  She threw me. “Priest? Rabbi? What are you talking about?”

  “Well, of the wedding, of course. I mean, you do realize that in Hawaiian culture once you sleep with a woman, you’r
e practically married.”

  “Married! Married? Melinda, come on, I can’t make a decision like that over breakfast!”

  “Lunch.”

  “What…whatever!” She started to laugh and I realized she was giving me the business. “Oh, very funny doll, very funny. Give a guy a heart attack why don’t ya.”

  “I’m sorry William, I couldn’t resist. You just seemed so…nervous.”

  “Yeah, I get like that around beautiful, crazy women. And what’s with the ‘William’ bit all of a sudden?”

  “Everyone calls you Bill. I want to be different. Don’t you like it?”

  “I don’t mind it. Just seems a little strange to my ears.”

  “If you don’t like it, I’ll stop, William.”

  “No sweat. Now listen, seriously, about last night.”

  “Well, what did it mean to you?” she asked while buttering a cracker.

  “I can’t honestly answer that, not yet. I know I like you. I know I’ve wanted you from the minute I laid my lazy brown eyes on you. And I wanted you more than anything last night.”

  “Why last night? Why so suddenly?”

  “I think you know why,” I said looking her straight in the eye.

  “You found out about Jessica Rutledge, didn’t you,” she said sadly. “You found out what she is, and came to me because you needed to feel better about yourself.” The smile died away.

  “No, not like that. Yeah, I found out about her. But I also realized I was falling for two women at the same time. At first I thought you were the one. Then you flat out told me no.”

  “When did I do that?”

  “The first night we kissed. Your words were, ‘I can’t’.” She looked down at her hands.

  “Oh.”

  “So I backed off. Then Jessica came into the picture clearer and I thought she was the one. But I found out last night she’s not.”

  “Because of her profession?”

  “No believe it or not. Because she’s a heroin addict.”

  Melinda’s eyes grew wide with surprise, and she actually gasped. “I…I didn’t know.”

  “Few do. She hides it well. I came to you because my whole world got turned upside-down and I just wanted to see a friendly face. I had no intention of putting the moves on you, you have to believe me. It’s just whenever I’m around you I melt. I don’t know what it is. It’s like you’re everything I love in a woman and more. Much more.” I took her hands and held them in mine. The smile came back and I melted a little more. “I don’t know what’s next kid. I just know that last night and every time I’ve seen you has been fantastic, even now sitting here with you…there’s no place I’d rather be.”

  “And what about tomorrow?”

  I shook my head. “Not a clue. But if it’s with you, I know it will be tops.” She was silent but her smile seemed to say it all. It wasn’t a one-night fling for her either. There were sparks and we both knew it. “So what about you, kid? What’s your take on it all?”

  She didn’t answer right away. She took a sip of her cocktail with her eyes on mine, and I remembered that move from the other night. She was blunt. “It’s been wonderful, but I think come Friday you’ll check out of the hotel, and I’ll never see you again.”

  She was probably right.

  “Well it’s true that I’ve got a life in Manhattan just like you’ve got a life here in the Keys. You make people’s lives better, and so do I. Your life may be more glamorous but mine means something too. I’m good at what I do and I think I should stick with it. But then I look into your eyes and suddenly I want to forget it all and move to the tropics.”

  She laughed and her whole face lit up. “Well, William. We’ve got six days to see what happens. I think we should just play it by ear. What do you say?”

  “I never did learn how to read music,” I said, and leaned over and kissed her over the table.

  It never occurred to me to ask her why on Tuesday she said, “I can’t”, and last night she changed her tune so completely.

  +++

  She tried to cry herself to sleep. When that didn’t work, she downed two shots of cheap gin. It didn’t make her sleepy but it mixed with the Horse galloping through her veins and made her feel the full force of her fix. The room closed in around her and she had to get out.

  Throwing on a bathing suit and a sarong, she grabbed a blanket and headed out to her favorite spot. When she reached the beach she dropped the blanket and walked right up to the water’s edge.

  The shadow moved. It started far off and slowly floated on the surf up to the beach. Jessica stood her ground, stood firm in the wet sand while the cool water swirled around her ankles. The shadow came up to her, right in front of her.

  These were the only times she could stand it. These were the only times her mind could comprehend what was happening without driving her insane. Only with the aid of the juice could she face the apparition that had called on her so many times over the years.

  “What do you want?” she said to the black being. The face was puffy and oozing. The eyes were black holes with something festering inside. It answered something garbled and wet. She couldn’t understand.

  “What do you want?!” she screamed. The morbid thing opened its mouth and black mud and small crabs flowed out. Jessica was ready. She had seen it all before.

  “Wash your damned mouth out and tell me what you want, woman!” Jessica screamed to the apparition.

  The apparition shrieked, “HAWWWWWTHORN,” spitting muck and seaweed on Jessica. Jessica winced, choked, and the phantom dissolved into the ocean once more.

  Jessica swayed.

  “Oh God, what the hell have I done.”

  The deep morning breeze blew purple and black. It did nothing to calm her. She passed out on the beach, just near the water’s edge.

  Chapter Three

  Eliot Hawthorn was a disparaged man. His first wife Vivian was only twenty-nine when he lost her to the sea, and his second wife Marietta hadn’t yet reached her fortieth birthday when death came calling. His whole “new life” revolved around Marietta, Melinda and Tiki Island; when Marietta died, his spirit died with her. He lost all interest in running the Resort, and within a year of Marietta’s death…1951…he had completely stopped managing Tiki Island. If not for Melinda, Tiki Island would have folded. And Eliot Hawthorn would have folded with it.

  It was Melinda who took control in late 1950, only a few months after her mother passed away. Still in shock and grieving, Melinda took up the reins and brought Tiki Island Resort back from the brink of financial collapse by marketing heavily to vacationers from the North-East and once again using the war, this time Korea, to her advantage. Giving all active and retired servicemen free accommodations for three extra days when they paid for four was an idea that forever put Tiki Island on the map as a favorite vacation spot for anyone in the armed forces.

  But even in mourning Hawthorn knew he couldn’t allow Melinda – a young woman – to have total control of the Resort. There were just certain things that he didn’t want Melinda involved in – or even aware of when it came to entertaining important guests. Besides, in the eyes of the world, a five-star Resort like Tiki Island needed a five-star general at the helm. If Tiki Island were to remain on par with resort hotels in Miami, Atlantic City, San Francisco and Aspen, it simply couldn’t be run by a girl. In 1953, over Melinda’s protests, Hawthorn hired Rutger Bachman, a well-respected man in the hospitality trade to run the Resort.

  Now at age sixty, Hawthorn was a hermit, secluded and frail, tormented nearly to the point of madness. His past was destroying his present, and each day brought him closer to the complete insanity - over the demons of his past, which promised to bring on his demise. That he lasted all these years was a testament to Melinda; it was only she who kept him from putting the barrel of a revolver to his temple. Without Melinda, the first few years after Marietta’s death would have been unlivable. The nightmares, the visions, the constant torture would have been
too much for him to bear on his own. Even with the daily doses of prescription pills, even with the almost constant flow of fine brandy, it would just be too much to bear.

  So Hawthorn lived in his self-imposed pseudo-exile, up on the top floor of the world’s most luxurious and beautiful Polynesian-themed Resort overlooking the Florida Keys and the Gulf of Mexico, with the heavy drapes constantly pulled shut and his door locked with two deadbolts and a chain. He still had his hand in running the Hotel, though only through Melinda and Bachman, never directly with guests. Which is why it was so amazing, so extraordinary that he came out of hiding last Wednesday to address Sheriff Jackson and meet the nice young Detective that helped solve the mystery of the skeleton in the garden.

  Yes, extraordinary it was, but Hawthorn had his reasons. For one thing, any skeletons found on his Island required the most delicate of handling with the police. A lot happened on his Island in the past, and he didn’t need any of it returning to haunt him. He already had his fill of that.

  For another thing, he very much wanted to meet Detective Riggins of whom Melinda had spoken so excitedly about. Hawthorn knew he wasn’t getting any younger. In fact he didn’t expect to live much longer, and the idea of Melinda being alone without a man to take care of her (and help her take care of Tiki Island) made him both sad and distraught. He wanted Melinda to be secure before he passed on, and he was ready to do whatever needed to be done to ensure that. He imagined that in his physical state there wasn’t much he could do, but Hawthorn was wealthy, and he was prepared to sign over his considerable fortune to Melinda and the man who would make her happy.

  Melinda, on the other hand, had very little interest in marriage. She had her own ideas about her life and her future, and they didn’t necessarily include monogamy.

  At first Hawthorn had hoped that Melinda would take a liking to Bachman. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Bachman had proven himself to be a smarmy playboy, chasing cocktail waitresses and hula dancers until there were none left to chase. Then he started on the guests. No, Bachman simply wasn’t good enough for his daughter.