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

by Christopher Pinto

  It was nights like this that turned the sweet, young girl into a vacant shell of a woman filled with alcohol and despair. It was nights like this that first made Jessica turn to pills when the alcohol didn’t work, and finally heroin when the pills lost their effect.

  Tonight she had nothing but a fifth of booze and the sliver of hope that Bill Riggins would change his mind, that he would love her the way she wanted, needed to be loved, be her knight in shining armor and save her from the hideous fate that either the monsters from the sea or the monster in the hypodermic needle had intended for her.

  The loudest crack of thunder yet crashed against the room and sent rivets of pain through Jessica’s head. She held her hands to her ears. She should have shielded her eyes.

  The visions began.

  The wind ripped the wall away from her room, exposing her to the rain and the wind and the night. Lit by the bolts of energy from the sky, she could clearly see the beachhead before her, and the churning of the Gulf as the monsoon spun its mischief. Even though the shoreline was hundreds of yards from her eyes Jessica could see it as if it were right in her room with her; every wave, every line of foam, every bit of flotsam was as clear as the bed next to her. She tried to look away but as always could not. She was locked in her gaze as only can happen in a nightmare.

  She gazed on.

  Something appeared in the water, just off the shoreline.

  From one end of the beach to the other, as far as she could see, figures started forming and walking out of the raging surf and onto the beach. Black, hideous zombies, they were the walking dead rising from their watery graves, coming ashore for one purpose only: Jessica.

  She stumbled and fell against the bureau. The bottle of Bourbon fell to the floor with a thud but didn’t shatter. She grabbed it, popped the cork and took a long shot straight from the bottle.

  The apparitions moved forward.

  She screamed. She took another long pull and screamed again.

  The apparitions grew larger, closer. She could hear them faintly call her name through the wind and rain.

  She struggled to get up against the wind. Now standing, she looked on to the retched sight before her. Thirty or more phantoms seemed to float up from the beach and into her room. They were there with her now, in the dark, lit only by the glow of the clock radio. Another crack of thunder and lightning, and she saw them clearly.

  Black and green bloated faces stared at her. Crabs crawled over the bodies and feasted. In the center was Jessica’s mother, her arms stretched out in a pleading gesture. Jessica knocked back another long jolt from the bottle. It didn’t do a thing.

  Finally, desperately she screamed. “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!”

  “Hawthorn,” her mother’s ghost groaned.

  “I don’t have him!” Jessica screamed as loud as should could, and threw the bottle straight at the apparition.

  The bottle smashed against the wall, just missing the window by a few inches. Glass and liquor flew everywhere, and Jessica melted against her bed, weeping, heaving.

  The vision was over, the apparitions gone, for the moment.

  +++

  It was nearly seven before Melinda finally had all the Resort’s storm preparations under control. Normally these things would have been done hours before the storm arrived, but with Bachman’s murder and the Sheriff complicating things, she was lucky to get the last of the storm shutters up before the winds made it impossible.

  Now the first-floor windows were covered, the small boats were all pulled up on the beach and tied to the building’s foundation, the outdoor furniture stored in the sheds and the big boats triple-tied in the loading harbor at the back of the Island. All guests were brought indoors and given battery-operated flashlights and oil-burning lamps in the event of an electrical blackout. Men were stationed at every exit to make sure no curiosity seekers tried to go outside in the gale. To make everyone relax, she ordered the bars, restaurants and room service to offer free well drinks and chips through nine p.m.

  She’d been through many storms on the Island, tropical storms and hurricanes, but never in those years had she gotten used to them. On the outside she was a pillar of strength, but on the inside she shook with terror like a delicate autumn leaf, remembering Eliot’s account of September, 1935.

  A storm as bad as the Great Atlantic Hurricane hadn’t occurred since.

  To her, that just meant it was a matter of time.

  Storms meant a lot more to Eliot. In the years following the Great Atlantic Hurricane he had simply laughed at storms, saying that if he could live through 1935 he could live through anything. But that cocky young boasting gave way to guarded concern and eventually drop-dead fear as he reached his sixtieth year. And with this being the worst storm of the year so far, and so late in the season, Eliot found himself more frightened than he had been in a very, very long time.

  It wasn’t the rain or the wind or the lightning that frightened him.

  It was what came in with the tide.

  For Eliot Hawthorn, storm-drenched nights meant one thing: The ghosts of his past would come visiting soon, and in record numbers.

  He tried to calm himself with brandy and sleeping pills, but tonight they seemed to have little effect. He paced the candlelit study, mumbling inaudible speeches to the Tiki statues and fish carvings. With every jump of the candle a new shadow leapt, and with it Eliot froze with fear until he realized his fears were, for the present, unfounded.

  More brandy.

  Another pill.

  Eliot’s mind whirled. He steadied himself on the back of a chair and slowly found his way to the seat. The drugs were taking effect finally; finally he could drop his guard and get some sleep, hopefully sleep through this God-forsaken storm and awaken with a new dawn fresh and bright. He started to slip away…

  A harsh and sudden crash of thunder and a searing white light invaded the room and shook Eliot to his core. Only the slightest sound passed his quivering lips but if he had the strength to scream, he would have. For at the end of the room near the doorway leading to his bedroom stood a most hideous apparition, one he had seen only a few times before on the worst of stormy nights, a horrible mockery of a human devoid of soul or features that would lend any semblance to a living creature. It stood motionless, a muddy, bloated, black mass, hovering just a few inches from the floor. Swamp grass wrapped itself around the thing, dark green and black and rotten. The head was an oversized globe fitted for a monster, crawling with small crabs and sea serpents, eels and God know what else. Where the eyes should have been were two deep holes oozing with black muck and water.

  Eliot froze stiff where he stood. He could feel his heart thud violently in his chest. He closed his eyes trying to believe the apparition was nothing more than a hallucination brought on by the liquor and pills, but when he opened them the creature was even closer, even more disturbing than before. It moved toward him, grotesque arms outstretched in a horrifying reach. Eliot fell back into the chair, his arm trying to shield his eyes from the fate that grew nearer.

  “What do you want from me?!” he cried, and again, “What? I can’t do anything for you now!”

  All at once the phantom flew straight at Eliot so fast he hadn’t time to scream. It was on him now. He sat face to face with the loathsome entity, and just as he did before he looked at its bloated, blackened face and he recognized it, and with that realization he screamed, screamed louder than he ever had before.

  The phantom screamed too, a high, shrill, ear-piercing howl muffled by the gurgling of mud and slime as it flowed from the thing’s mouth.

  Eliot was mortified. Black mud and sand crabs dropped onto his lap as the thing tried to speak. It raised its wispy arms and began to wrap its hands around Eliot’s throat. Panic and fear ripped through his body as he clamored to get out of the chair and away from the entity. He kicked his way up from the cushion and fell across the side-table and onto the floor, taking a carved Tiki and a shattering glass ashtray with him.
He spun onto his back and looked up. The phantom was directly above him now, and seemed to be gathering strength, and form, becoming more…solid. With one last gasp Eliot screamed as loudly as he could…

  He heard the locks click and the door open, then a bright yellow light filled the room. The phantom was gone.

  Melinda screamed, “Eliot!” as she raced through the door. With the lights on she could see him sprawled on the floor surrounded by broken glass, shivering, staring into nowhere. “My God, Eliot, what happened? Are you hurt?”

  “Melinda, my precious darling,” he said breathlessly, “Oh Melinda yes, I’m fine now, I’m fine now.”

  Melinda helped him into the chair. She held him tightly while the tears flowed from her eyes. “Eliot, what happened? And where did all this mud and water come from?”

  +++

  Only the desk had been searched, the rest of the room was cluttered but orderly. Whoever had searched that desk was looking for something specific, and something that belonged to Rutger Bachman. This was his desk according to the black and white engraved metal sign screwed to the side, not his regular office desk by the lobby but a secondary desk used for convenience, one with blank copies of bills of lading, accident reports, stock forms, junk like that. There was an old, well-worn blotter, a twenty year old typewriter and a few pens and pencils in a white coffee cup. Strictly bare-bones, functional.

  The locked drawers had been jimmied open, then removed and turned over on the floor. The file drawer was open and the files mostly gone. A few empty folders remained, but not many. The rest had been turned to ashes in a metal trashcan by the loading door. The pile on the floor was small and held the usual desk stuff, pencils, pink eraser, sharpener, stationary, scissors, letter opener, a broken stapler, clips, a few dollars in change and a blotting pad.

  So someone broke in here, went through Bachman’s secondary desk and burned a bunch of files that should have added up to no more than a few receipts and reports. Why? What was the connection? Did his killer do this, or was it someone else who had something to hide, who didn’t want it found when Bachman turned up dead?

  Then I realized three things. First, if someone broke in here it meant they probably didn’t have a key. Second, they must have done it after Jackson’s boys finished their snooping. Third, they found what they were looking for because they finished the job right there at the desk. They didn’t take the whole place apart. I looked at my watch; it was just before seven. I decided to do a little snooping myself before reporting this to Jackson.

  Using a rag I lifted the desk blotter and flipped it over. I got lucky on the first shot. Numbers, like a date or a combination to a lock. 07-19-53. I wrote that down on a piece of paper and kept looking. I felt under the desk, all around. Nothing. I found a flashlight and got up under the desk, checking for more hidden type. Nothing. I pulled the file drawer…it wouldn’t come out. So I ripped it out. Bingo. Taped to the bottom of the drawer was a key, the type that opened padlocks or lockers, or small safes. I took the key and threw the drawer down with the rest of the junk.

  A key and some numbers. A safe? Maybe. But where?

  I wiped the prints off the flash and turned out he lights, taking the key and the paper with the numbers with me.

  A few minutes later I was in front of Bachman’s apartment. The crime scene tape was still up but the door was unlocked. I went in.

  Inside I searched everywhere for a safe. The walls, behind paintings, the floor, under furniture, under the bed, even in the bathroom. I even checked to see if the hi-fi was a dummy. Nothing. If he had a safe on Tiki Island, it wasn’t in his room.

  I quietly stepped back into the hall and headed for his office on the first floor. It was after seven now, and the storm was really taking off. The lights flickered a few times and every time they did I could hear the entire lobby and dining room gasp, then explode with laughter. A bellhop caught me on the way down and told me they were serving free drinks in the lounge. I told him thanks, but I had more important things on my mind.

  The girl at the front desk let me back, but Bachman’s office door was locked. She said she didn’t have a key, that Jackson had taken it and locked the office himself. I thanked her and headed up to Melinda’s room. I was hoping she’d be finished for the day and resting, but somehow I didn’t think she would be. When I got to her room I knocked and waited. Nothing. I knocked again. I heard some muffled noises, and it occurred to me she’d probably be with Eliot so I went down the hall to his apartment and knocked there.

  Melinda opened the door.

  The scene was very different now. Eliot wasn’t in the parlor room and the overheads were on and shining bright. The rug was soaking wet and there were globs of mud on the floor and chair. Melinda was pale, too pale for a tan-skinned Hawaiian. Her eyes were wide and red. She looked at me but didn’t say a word.

  A knot started up in my stomach. My heart started pounding faster than it should have and I got that feeling a cop gets when he knows something’s bad and all hell’s about to come raining down on him. A clap of thunder struck directly overhead shaking the whole hotel just then, and that didn’t help matters in the least.

  “You Ok, kid?” I said to Melinda. She just stared at me, not blinking. It was eerie. I grabbed her by the arms and gave her a little shake. “Melinda? Answer me. What gives?”

  The shake did it. She came out of her strange trance and looked up at my eyes with hers.

  “Oh, William!” she cried, and grabbed hold of me tight. I put my arms around her and held her in the doorway while she wept.

  “What happened?” I asked quietly.

  She looked back up and said, “Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It’s too…too insane.”

  “Try me.”

  She pointed to the mud and the wet floor. “Eliot…had a visitor.” She emphasized ‘visitor’ as if it were Hitler coming to discuss train schedules.

  “Who?”

  She hesitated. “We don’t know for certain who. But we know what it was, William. It was…” She took a deep breath and continued very quietly. “It was one of them, one of the entities that have been torturing Eliot all these years. It…materialized.”

  She was right, that was pretty hard to swallow, even after the things I’d seen. “You mean, Eliot saw a ghost and he thinks it became real?”

  “No William. It was real. It was here, and it left proof.” She pointed to the mud and water. Suddenly an image of Jessica’s vision popped into my mind, the woman with the mud and water gurgling out of her mouth as she tried to speak. I shook it off. “You sure there wasn’t just an employee up here who got caught in the rain?”

  Melinda almost screamed with frustration. “No! Dammit, no employees. Eliot wouldn’t have let them in. He was in here alone until I came in about fifteen minutes ago. I heard him scream just as I was opening the door. I threw the light switch and saw him on the floor…William, there was something over him, hovering, something black and smoky, and it had...” She choked up a little, then went on. “It had its hands…if you could call them that…around his throat. But as soon as the light came on, it turned to me, then disappeared, dissolving into thin air!” She began to cry again, and I held her close once again. “It was dripping, William, dripping with water and Eliot said the mud came from its mouth and –”

  “Shhhh,” I said and stroked her hair. “Don’t think about it. I’m here now, no spooks can hurt you, or Eliot.” I was strong for her, but inside my guts were twisting.

  Because I believed her.

  I believed every word she said and that scared me more than any ghost ever could. “Where’s Eliot now?”

  “Sleeping. I gave him a sedative. He was hysterical, William, as you can imagine.”

  “Yeah,” I said, but I couldn’t, not really. “Listen, doll, are you all right? There’s something I need your help with, if you can leave Eliot alone.”

  “I…I don’t think he’s going to wake up for a while, even with this storm. What
is it you need?”

  “Do you know, did Bachman keep a safe somewhere? Maybe something private that was supposed to be a secret?”

  A crazy, loud knock rattled the apartment door before she could answer.

  +++

  The storm raged on, both outside and in Jessica’s head. She’d reached her breaking point. If she had her juice, she’d have shot up every cc to make the hurt go away, but she had none, and her liquor was soaking into the rug, and her nerves were shot and her mind burning with the visions that had tormented her to the point of insanity. Before now she could almost tolerate them, with the help of the monkey juice and the booze and the company of strangers. But not this time. This time they had gone too far, too damned far. Even after all she’d been through, her mother’s apparition in the old house, her possessed doll, the visits in the night, this was just too much for her to handle. A fuse blew out in her head, she could feel it, a little pain that shot down her spine and changed her forever. It was subtle, but it was there.

  She got to her feet and made her way into the bathroom. The light seemed dull as she pondered her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were weak, red. Her skin flushed. She washed her face and mechanically applied some makeup to look more presentable, then left her room.

  Jessica tried Riggins’ room first, but he wasn’t there. She asked for him at the front desk, the lounge, the dining room. No one knew where he was. Finally, sadly, she tried Melinda’s room. She was both disappointed yet at the same time relieved he wasn’t there. Then she thought of Hawthorn’s room, and walked toward it.