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

by Christopher Pinto

  Somehow Key West seemed more beautiful, more alive than it did the first time I drove in. Maybe because living through the storm gave me a different perspective on what life down here was like. Sure, there were crazy sheriffs, junky hookers and men like Hawthorn, but you had that everywhere. But only in the Florida Keys could you drive across the sky where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Gulf of Mexico. Only in the Keys could you snorkel a coral reef, dive for lobster, go deep sea fishing and have a drink where Ernest Hemmingway hangs out. Key West had been the richest city in the country, and the poorest city in the country. It was home to pirates and presidents and was full of history dating back long before the Europeans ever knew it existed. It may have had its ghosts and demons, but it sure had its share of coolness too.

  Apparently the Key West locals didn’t even bother to evacuate, because the town was in full swing. We pulled up to La Concha Hotel at around one-thirty. A boy took the car for us and we headed into the lobby. Melinda had pulled herself together, and was taking charge.

  She walked up to the front desk and announced, “I’m Melinda Hawthorn, owner of Tiki Island Resort. Our Hotel was damaged in the storm and we need three rooms for tonight.”

  “Damaged? Really?” the front desk girl asked with a southern accent full of amazement.

  “Yes, major flood and wind damage. Luckily we evacuated the guests. Do you have any rooms available?”

  “Oh, oh yes Miss Hawthorn, we have several available. Most of our guests evac’d when they heard the foul weather was a’comin’ too. All for nothin’, as y’all can see.”

  For the first time Melinda noticed that nothing else had been damaged. It was pretty clear to me, that storm was meant for Tiki Island, for Eliot Hawthorn in particular. Crazy, man.

  “Well it’s a good thing we evacuated our clients,” Melinda said a little snootier than the front desk chick deserved, “It’s in ruins. Small twister tore right across the Island. You…you Conchs got lucky.”

  “I suppose we did,” the girl said as she took three room keys off the rack. “Rooms 41, 42 and 43. All three are connecting.”

  “That’ll do fine,” Melinda said, “I don’t have any cash on me so I’m signing for these.”

  “That’s fine, Miss Hawthorn. Do you have any luggage?”

  “Didn’t have time to pack,” she replied somewhat dazedly. “Just raced out of there.”

  “I can have someone bring up some bedclothes if you’d like.”

  “Yes,” Melinda said, again on the verge of tears. “I’ll send for someone in an hour with sizes. Please have the porter bring up some ice and a set-up, and a couple of bottles of liquor…bourbon, vodka, mixers…the good stuff, none of that rotgut you give to the tourists,” she said with a wink.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “And a lunch menu, please.”

  “Right away ma’am. Call down if ya’ll need anything else.”

  Melinda took the keys, looked at me mournfully, and headed to the elevators. Jessica and I followed, and in a few minutes we were each taking nice hot showers in our own, air-conditioned rooms.

  +++

  Jackson motored the small boat to the rear of Tiki Island. Even from the shore he could see the place was in shambles. Felled palm trees, stripped docks, holes in the roof of the hotel…he found it hard to believe it could have gotten so damned messed up when the storm petered-out and did nothing but dump a few buckets of rain on the Keys. Then again, he knew the Island had a strange history…and as he thought about it more, it didn’t seem all that strange to him after all.

  He searched the whole Island, searched the Hotel’s lobby and bar. He found no one. Completely bare. “Riggins! Mr. Hawthorn! Anyone!” he cried out, but got only muffled echoes of gulls in return. He had never seen Tiki Island dark and deserted before. It kind of gave him the creeps. “Riggins!” Still nothing. “I don’t know what happened here,” he said half out-loud, “But Riggins, you better be around somewhere or I’m gonna throw your butt in jail for a good long time.”

  When he returned to Sugarloaf Key, he found the garage open and Melinda’s car gone.

  +++

  Lunch was fantastic. Grilled tuna caught that morning over fresh vegetables, a California salad and fruit. They really knew how to cook in the Keys.

  Melinda was finally coming around, starting to deal with the unbelievable tragedy that had happened only a few hours before. Jessica was also starting to lighten up as the realization that she was finally free of her Mother’s hauntings began to settle in. The case of booze the management sent up on the house was certainly helping us all along, I might add.

  Eventually, Melinda started talking about what happened.

  Honestly, I didn’t want to hear it.

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” Melinda said as she stared down at her third Bourbon and Coke. “But somehow, I knew this was coming. I mean, he warned me so many times, and I’d seen the signs…But it’s just so…unreal, surreal, it’s as if it was only a dream.”

  “A nightmare,” Jessica added over her fourth Vodka Collins. “A nightmare that’s over, Lin.” I’d never heard Jessica call Melinda ‘Lin’ before.

  “Yeah, over,” I said over my fourth Scotch rocks. “I’m so sorry Melinda, for your loss, kid. But as you said, Eliot knew…this was a long time comin’.”

  “Those things he did…what they showed us…I never knew.”

  I cut her off. “Forget all that. It’s moot. That’s not the Eliot you knew, dollface. That’s not the Eliot you…fell in love with (it was hard to get that out), it was a different person, one who changed. People can change.”

  “You really believe that?” Jessica asked.

  “I have to. Otherwise everything I do is for nothing.” I poured Jessica another Vodka Collins and Melinda another Wild Turkey and Coke.

  “So if he changed, William,” Melinda began, “Then why did he…why did he deserve…that?” She was starting to falter again, and I thought Jessica might start in so I cut her off fast. “Try not to think about that now, kid. Think about the future. About rebuilding the Island.”

  “Ha!” she laughed groggily. “Maybe. Maybe not. Takes time, money.”

  “You have plenty of money.”

  “Not really. Not liquid. The insurance company could take weeks or even months to settle a claim. And it will take months to get the Island back in shape for guests, and by then the season will have ended. That’s a big hit to take.”

  “Can’t you do something to speed up the insurance?”

  “Sure, there’s things you can do...lawyers, politicians. But not enough, never enough. They’ll weasel out of paying most of it through some loophole. I’ll have my lawyers on it, but their fee will eat up half the award.”

  Jessica asked, “So you’re just giving up? Gonna shut the Island down?”

  Melinda sighed and took a long drink. “No, I suppose not. We’ll rebuild, and it will be splendorous once again!” she said lyrically as she toasted the air with her glass. The booze was affecting her, strongly. “As long as I have my friend, my best friend Jessica beside me, and my love, my William there to help. With you, I will have the courage to rebuild. With you!” She yelled that last part and nearly slid off the chair. Jessica laughed. I did not.

  +++

  The afternoon was spent mostly the same way, drinking, laughing, dozing, eating, drinking some more. At six, a delivery came with fresh clothes, and we changed out of the bathrobes and into some khakis for me and light dresses for the girls. A floral-print shirt, slightly tight, and a pair of boat shoes finished me off. We decided to go down to Duval Street for some air and more booze.

  The evening found us at Sloppy Joe’s. The bar was only a short walk from the hotel, so I didn’t mind getting hammered. A band played rip-offs of Elvis tunes and everything Bill Haley ever did, but did it pretty well so it wasn’t half bad. At least I don’t think it was. After the fourth double Scotch, I didn’t seem to care much.

  Melinda and Jessica w
ere pretty sullen at first, but the music and the booze soon lightened them up, and before the sun went down they were the life of the party, dancing, drinking, blowing kisses. It wasn’t until Jessica started to do a strip-tease on top of the bar that things started to get a little out of hand, and the manager very nicely asked us to take a powder. I wasn’t in a fightin’ mood, so I let it go, and the three of us stumbled lightly out of the bar.

  “Food!” Jessica said much louder than it seemed. “Need some vittles, kids!” She was without doubt the farthest gone of our little trio, being held up in the middle by me and Melinda.

  “How about that cart over there, they have sausage and peppers,” I said, steering in the direction of the street cart. “I could go for some sausage.”

  “I could go for some sausage,” she shot back with a mischievous smile, “Some New Yorfssssausage!” she slurred. “How’s ‘bout you, Lyn?”

  Melinda, sort of moving in slow motion, answered, “Sure.”

  Without propagating the innuendo I managed to get us to the food cart, and ordered up a couple of sandwiches. I was too stoned to see the little numbers on my dough, so I handed the guy a bill and asked if it would cover it. He said yeah, and gave us the heroes. I think I slipped him a twenty. My fault for getting sloshed.

  We walked and ate, as hard as it was, passing the different bars on the way back to La Concha. Hot west-coast jazz simmered out of a double-decker joint on the corner. I stopped for a minute and listened…it felt like home for a minute, and I realized through my ethylene haze how much I missed home, how much I missed the city. That dirty, soot-soaked, rat-infested island I called home.

  The girls weren’t digging the tenor sax the way I was, and pulled me away. Further up the block we passed a place that was jumpin’ with Irish folk music. A bunch of people inside were doing a jig from the old country, giant mugs of beer in hand. A couple of doors down a Cuban band played a meringue for some tanned dancers in white suits and red dresses. For certain, you could find any kind of entertainment you wanted in this town.

  We pulled up to the hotel at a quarter past nine. The bellman was nice enough (for a buck) to help us find the right rooms. The girls insisted it was too early to turn in, so we all wound up in Melinda’s suite, the largest of the rooms.

  “Put on the radio, Lyn,” Jessica said as she poured us each another round of Jack Daniels. “Find something slow and easy.” Melinda found a station playing standards. Sinatra’s voice filled the room, softly.

  I lifted my glass. “Well ladies, here’s to one hell of a vacation,” I said, and they toasted without a word.

  “It ain’t over yet, Billy,” Jessica said with a drunken southern lilt.

  “No, but it’s almost. I’m leaving tomorrow. I have to get back home.”

  “Why?” Melinda said, seeming genuinely surprised, and hurt. “You can stay here. You’ll have everything you’ll ever need, ever want right here.” She moved closer to me, very close. Right next to me.

  “I’m still a cop, kid,” was all I could think to say under the influence of the booze. “My place is in the city.”

  “Your place,” Jessica said as she moved in very close too, “is here, with us.”

  This was weird.

  The two dames were so close to me, to each other, that I couldn’t focus on them. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, Melinda to my right, Jessica to my left. They were both leaning in, their faces almost touching mine, almost touching each other’s.

  “I…This ain’t real, it’s just a…a surreal dream, a crazy vacation that went all wacky. None of it is real. It couldn’t possibly be,” I said, trying to convince myself more than them. Melinda touched a finger to my cheek, and gently turned my face towards hers.

  “This is real,” she said seductively, her eyes soft, her lips open just slightly. She leaned in and kissed me, the fire rising once again, the passion we’d felt returning full force. I felt her hand run up my back as she pulled me in a little closer, kissing harder. All the torment, all the sorrow and death was forgotten in the fog of liquor and adrenaline.

  Her lips finally pulled away from mine. My head swam; I sat there like a goofy kid who had just had his first kiss. Then I felt another warm hand on my face, turning me the other way. It was Jessica, more radiant and vivacious than she had been in what seemed like forever. Her eyes were open wide, a bad-girl smile graced her lips. Before I realized what was happening, she leaned in and kissed me too, with as much fire and heat as Melinda, maybe more, certainly more than she had ever kissed me with before on this insane trip.

  I was caught up in the moment. My mind was gone, but as she kissed harder I realized that Melinda was still there next to me. I released her, slowly, expecting to find Melinda in tears, or enraged. I found neither. She was smiling, a thin, almost evil smile that both confused and aroused me.

  “You…you’re ok with this?” was all I could say, the innocent idiot too dumb to realize what was happening.

  Melinda didn’t answer. She leaned over close to my face again, and just as I thought she was about to kiss me, her lips brushed by mine, slowly, and met Jessica’s in a passionate lock that rivaled our own.

  Holy Hell! I thought to myself. What’s going on here? I don’t…I never…I mean, I’m a vice cop, for Christ’s sake. Stuff like this is supposed to disgust me.

  Somehow, it did not. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it just seemed natural in this unusual land under the palms. Either way, I let my mind go, and before I knew it the three of us were undressing each other, kissing, caressing, exploring. The two women laid me down on the bed, and did things to me that were both incredible and probably illegal. As Melinda kissed me, Jessica made her way down my body. Then Melinda joined her, and I felt things I never thought imaginable. My heart started racing and the booze went into overdrive, turning everything into an orgasmic blur. Minutes, hours, days went by…I don’t even know…and when we finally collapsed, completely worn out, it was a sure bet that everyone had a taste of everything.

  Breathless, Melinda said, “Are you sure you won’t stay?”

  I fell asleep cold before I could answer.

  +++

  “Coffee, toast, scrambled eggs, maybe some bacon, for three,” I whispered into the phone. “And a bottle of aspirin,” I added to the room service girl. “And be quiet about it.” I hung up the receiver as gently as possible, and laid back down on the bed. The wall clock told a grumpy story of one p.m.; a sliver of white light from under the window shade said it was a bright and sunny day, this Thursday, November the first of 1956.

  My head felt like it had been split open with a sledgehammer. I tried to remember how much I had to drink, and gave up after six doubles. The night was foggy, but I remembered everything.

  Man, did I remember everything.

  The girls were still asleep, passed out on the king-sized bed. I splashed some water on my face to wake up. When I looked in the mirror, a beat-up kid looked back at me. It was times like this that my own reflection would sort of spook me. Inside, I felt much older than the twenty-eight year old kid in the mirror. I felt at least thirty-five, maybe even forty at times. This morning I felt about fifty-six, born in nineteen hundred and boozin’ every day since. Yet although my countenance looked tired, it still looked young, healthy and strong. But tired. Very tired.

  When room service arrived I took a handful of aspirin and washed them down with a full cup of java. It was hot but tasted great, like only fancy hotel or restaurant coffee can, that special kind of coffee flavor that said, “yes, I am very expensive and exquisite, drink me, mere mortal.” That kind.

  At one thirty I woke up the girls. They fought me on it but I eventually won out.

  “Rise and shine, kids. We can’t spend our lives in bed.”

  “Why not?” Jessica whined. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  “The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day, and I’ve got a murder to solve.”

  “Murder?” Melinda asked, blinking the sleep off
.

  “That’s right.”

  I could see her fight off the tears. The booze had worn off. Reality was slipping back in.

  “William, no one will believe what happened to Eliot...we have to just say it was an accident, the storm…”

  “No sweetheart, not Eliot.” She and Jessica looked puzzled. Short memories. “You’re forgetting all about Bachman, ladies. I’m still on the hook for that guy.”

  “Oh, God,” Melinda said, “I…I’d forgotten, with everything that’s happened.”

  Jessica said, “Does anyone really think you killed him, Billy? I mean, why would you?”

  “No, probably not. But Jackson is the law, and he told me to stay put until things are cleared up. Out of respect, I won’t leave until the case is settled. At least not until my name is cleared.”

  Melinda pouted. “So then…you’re not staying? I thought we’d convinced you it would be a good thing for you to stay, last night,” She said timidly.

  I just shook my head. “Doll, I don’t have any idea what the hell I’m doing.” I looked at Jessica, who was sitting up, her blonde hair tossed, looking stunning as usual. I looked back at Melinda, the tanned, dark-haired Island girl who couldn’t lose an ounce of beauty even after crying her eyes out. “You…you’re both wonderful, incredible girls…and honestly, I don’t know what the future’s gonna bring for any of us. But either way, I’ve got to head home at some point. Even if I somehow get roped into living in sin with you two chicks here in the Keys.” I smiled as I said it, and got a little chuckle out of both of them. “One way or the other, I’ve got to clear some things up with Jackson. And Roberts. And my old pal, Captain Reams.”