We finished breakfast without another word of Bachman’s murder, ghosts, Eliot or the destruction of Tiki Island. Afterwards they turned on the tube, getting nothing but soaps, and I took a long, hot shower and shaved. I climbed into the new clothes Melinda had sent up, and for the first time since leaving the Island I realized I didn’t have my hardware. The .45 was still in my room on the third floor, and my .38 was probably in the Safe Room. It felt strange.
“I’m taking the car, kid,” I said to Melinda as she entered the shower. “Probably be back before it gets dark.”
“That’s fine,” she replied as she let the robe slip to the floor. “Everything I need to do, I can do on the phone…from bed.” She winked, and I had a feeling it was going to be another crazy night.
As I said goodbye to Jessica she said, “Do you want some company, along for the ride?”
“Not today, dollface. I’ve got to do this my own way…alone, as usual. Catch you later,” I added, tipped my new hat and left with a wink.
+++
I called Jackson from the payphone in the lobby. He had already sent a boat to Tiki Island to search for us, and found nothing. Not even Hawthorn’s body. I told him what happened…that Hawthorn went bat-assed crazy during the storm and ran out to the beach, causing the wind to come into the building causing so much damage. I said we tried to follow him but the hurricane carried him into the surf before I could get anywhere near him. I told Jackson we found the body on the beach the next morning, as we did, and told him where to find it. Then I said I needed to see him in person, but not until early evening. He agreed, and with the top down on the Caddy, I motored North toward Islamorada.
The sun was hot, hotter than I ever expecting it could be in November. The temperature reached the high eighties by mid-afternoon, and the cloudless sky seemed to intensify the tropic sun. It felt good, but it just seemed wrong…November should be cold, snowy, rainy, cloudy. Dark. Sinister, in a way. Not bright and sunny and warm as hell. Driving around in a convertible the day after Halloween just didn’t seem real.
I motored the car all the way up to Islamorada. You’d never know a ’cane came through here that damn-near destroyed Tiki Island. Not a palm tree out of place. Not a roof without a shingle. It’s as if the storm was meant for the Island alone.
I believed it was.
No one else would.
It was close to three when I stopped the car on the side of the road. I wasn’t sure what I was doing there. I wasn’t even sure how I knew where to find it, but there it was in front of me…the memorial, the monument erected over the mass grave of over three hundred souls who lost their lives in the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1935. It was a large limestone marker, a tribute to the men and women who never had a chance as the late-running evac train was washed off the tracks by a tidal wave. My heart felt heavy then, as if I knew these people personally. In my heart, I knew I had at least seen a few of them, the night they exacted their revenge on Eliot Hawthorn.
I walked up to the monument, mindful that I was standing over the graves of the storm’s victims, and read the plaque, weathered but legible:
“DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE CIVILIANS AND WAR VETERANS WHOSE LIVES WERE LOST IN THE HURRICANE OF SEPTEMBER SECOND, 1935.”
It seemed so…simple. Just a single sentence. Twenty-one words. That was all that was left of over three hundred lives, three hundred living, breathing, working, playing people who were cut down by the rage of the sea and force of the winds. It had been over twenty years since that storm, and this is all there was to remember it, remember the people.
Over twenty years, and still nothing in the United States had come even close to its power.
Well, not counting Tuesday night’s storm, confined to a small, sandy island off the coast of Sugarloaf Key.
I read the plaque again, and then did something I hadn’t done in a very long time. I hung my head, and said a prayer. I quietly asked God to grant these people peace, if he already hadn’t. I don’t know exactly why I did that. It just seemed that someone, anyone, should. I prayed for their peace, and I made a little vow that I would somehow, someday make sure their story was told, so the world would never forget.
When I turned to go back to the car, I got a shock that to this day still sends shivers down my spine. I wasn’t alone.
Behind me a group had gathered. Dozens, maybe hundreds of people, quietly standing behind me. Through them I could see the car, the road, the palm trees. I could see because they were transparent, transparent because they were phantoms, the same dripping, black, wet, morbid, smoky wraiths that had come to drag Hawthorn away for their revenge. Hundreds of them, seaweed dangling from their black cloak-like bodies, sea creatures crawling over and through them. They were all…staring, without eyes, staring at me, hovering, silent. Then, as if with one collective mind, they shed the black cloaks, shed the seaweed and crabs and rotted flesh and other horrors and revealed the bright, glowing souls of their former selves, souls of real people, not morbid, hideous corpses but images of living men and women, smiling in the afternoon sun. Many looked to the sky, others kept looking at me with renewed eyes that seemed alive and joyous.
I stood amazed, not daring to move. A full five seconds ticked by, seeming like an hour. Finally, one spirit moved forward, and hovered to me.
It was Jessica’s Mother, I somehow knew.
She looked into my eyes. I saw her soul.
“Thank you,” she said softly, “Take care of my girl.” And as I watched, dumbfounded, the host of entities began to rise, dissipating as they left this plane of existence forever, rising higher into the great, blue sky until they were gone.
+++
It took me about twenty minutes of just sitting in the front seat of the Caddy before I stopped shaking. I guess these ‘entities’ didn’t really get under my skin before, because for one thing I just sort of made believe everything was an alcohol-induced dream, and for another, they…whatever they were…never really aimed their attention at me. It was always Jessica, or Hawthorn, or even Melinda. But not me. This time was different, and it spooked the hell out of me.
I pulled myself together and headed over to the now-familiar bait and tackle shop owned by Captain Reams. The storm hadn’t touched the place. Its slate-gray weathered boards still clung to piling beams with rusty nails, the walls held together more with rusted tin advertising signs than anything else. A barrel filled with useless fishing poles guarded the door. The only thing that was missing was his boat, which I regarded as a sign he hadn’t come back from the north just yet.
In any case I decided to see if he or anyone was in. I was prepared to wait an hour or so if needed, so I lit a smoke and rapped on the old door. From inside I heard a stirring, and what sounded like someone sobbing, quietly.
“Captain Reams? You in there? It’s Riggins, from the City.”
No answer. Just more sobbing. I tried the door…it was unlocked, so I slowly opened it. It creaked and moaned, but it opened. “Reams?”
“Who’s there?” Reams yelled from a darkened corner. I heard the click of a pistol’s hammer being cocked and threw myself to one side. “Take it easy Reams, it’s Riggins. The detective.”
“Riggins,” he said mournfully, his voice choked with wetness. “Don’t come in, son.”
“Reams, what’s wrong? You need help?” I didn’t move. Through the little bit of light coming in through the door, I could see the heap of a man leaning against his spool table, the silhouette of an antique gun in his hand, pointed at the wall about ten feet from where I stood. There were two bottles of rum on the table, one empty and laying askew, the other sitting with his ancient hand wrapped around it. “Put that thing down, Captain, it’s me, Riggins.”
“Riggins,” he said again more tiredly. He took a long pull from the bottle. “What you want here, boy?”
“Hawthorn is dead. Tiki Island was destroyed in the storm.”
“Not the least bit surprised,” he said, and took another gulp
of rum. “How about the girl?”
“Jessica?”
“No, the other one…Hawthorn’s girl?”
“She’s fine. They’re both fine.”
“Huh,” he said, and finally put the gun down. “Take a seat by the door, Riggins. Don’t come no closer to me.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked, taking a folding chair and sitting in the light of the doorway.
“I…It’s time for me to atone for my sins, Riggins. They’ve made that very clear, I’d imagine.”
“They?” I asked, knowing damned-well what he was talking about. “You mean…” I couldn’t come out and say it.
“The dead, son. The floating dead, up from their watery graves to exact vengeance on those who fouled them. They dragged Hawthorn into the sea, didn’t they?”
“Yes. We found him on the beach in the morning.”
“They took my boat,” he said sadly, “I never made it past Largo. A giant wave, as God is my witness shaped like a giant hand came down and smashed her to bits. I floated ashore on a piece of the transom. But they weren’t finished with me.”
“What…why you, Reams? What could you have possibly done?”
“Well,” the old man said, sounding tired, drunk, feeble. “I…I sometimes watched.”
A chill ran through my shaking bones as I knew exactly what he meant. “You watched…Hawthorn?”
He sobbed. “Ye..ess. I watched him, stood by as he had his way with those poor Cuban girls, then hacked them to bits. I helped him…remove…the parts, destroy the evidence. I just stood there, and watched.”
He choked, and drank down a good part of the bottle of rum. “I just fucking watched.”
The ringing started in my head again, that siren from some horror flick, the kind you’d hear just as something horrific was about to happen. That, on top of that queasy feeling I got in my gut when I knew something really bad was going down in real life, something so bad I’d have to use all my cop training and cop knowledge to get through.
“Reams…what did they do to you?” I asked, and immediately wished I hadn’t. He threw his chair back as he got up from the table, knocking empty booze bottles scattering across the floor.
As he stepped into the dull afternoon light he said, “They took my Goddamned eyes, Riggins! They took my eyes!” And the horrific sight the ringing and the queasiness forewarned me of came into full view, as Reams stood there, shivering; empty, lidless, bloody sockets where his eyes had once been, ochre red blotches marring his face and beard. “They…took…my…eyes,” he cried, but no tears fell.
I stumbled, nearly falling as I jumped from the chair. “Get out, Riggins, get out now while you can. Take your car and drive, drive north until you hit home and never come back to this God forsaken string of islands again, GO!”
“Calm down Reams, I’ll get you some help, I’ll bring back a doctor.”
He laughed a low, menacing chuckle as he receded back into the shadows. “Sure, son, you do that. You do that, Detective Riggins. Go on. Go now. I’ll be here, one way or another.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I had no intention of spending another minute in that damp, tomb-like place. I tripped over the chair on my way out and slammed the door shut hard.
When I got halfway to the Cadillac, I heard the single gunshot come from within the old shack, and I knew that was the end of Captain Reams.
Still shaking, I motored the Caddy up to the jailhouse. I needed to talk to someone sane, someone whom I could trust to not be covered in blood or seaweed or any other crazy-assed thing. When I pulled up to the jail, I found Jackson sitting on a bench outside, smoking a cigar. It was the most natural scene I’d seen in three days.
“Good afternoon, Sheriff,” I said cordially, hiding my anxiety like a pro. “Any damage from the storm?”
He looked at me the way lion looks at a slab of meat. “Just your place,” he said, and took a long puff on the cigar.
“You mean Tiki Island?”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“You been there? It got tore up pretty bad.”
He sat back and said, “Yep, I been there. Found Hawthorn’s body in a shed.”
“Like I told you on the phone, I put him in there,” I said. “Found him on the beach in the morning.”
“So I’ve heard. Ms. Melinda told me the same. Said he went for a walk and got caught in the wind.”
That wasn’t the story we were supposed to stick to, so I didn’t say a word. “What brings ya’ll up this way, Detective?” he asked, enjoying his smoke.
“Well, there’s still a little matter of a murder to solve. I’m due to go back to the City this weekend, but you’ve asked me to stick around until you’re satisfied it wasn’t me.”
“Satisfied?” he laughed, “Well, hell son, you’re not only implicated as a suspect in Bachman’s murder…but now we might add on Eliot Hawthorn’s on top of that! And maybe even a third.”
“What? Hawthorn? You know I had nothing to do with that!” I snapped, losing my cool. That took the cake. “He drowned in a gaddamned storm, how do you get off trying to make me the sap?”
“Oh, come off it Riggins. Ya’ll and I both know that man done hardly ever left his room, let alone takin’ long walks on the beach in the middle of a ’cane. I have a hard time believin’ that man wasn’t somehow dragged out and dumped in the sea!”
Son of a bitch, I thought, could he have known? “Maybe he was. But it wasn’t me,” I said. “I ain’t got no motive. No reason at all.”
“Take over that Island and all its riches.”
“Balls. I could have had that anyway. Melinda Hawthorn is practically writing up wedding invitations. Her old man was no trouble. He wanted us hitched up.”
“He wanted you hitched up,” Jackson said, “Because he knew he was checkin’ out soon. Otherwise he’d never have given up that little honey pot. No, he knew his time was a’tickin’, and so did you. Maybe you just made it easier for him, faster.”
I was steaming up like a lobster. “Up yours, clown. You know damned right well I didn’t kill anyone on this trip except those two goons Roberts sent after me. Hawthorn died for the gaddamned horrible fucking crimes he committed, a lot of them under your own crooked nose!”
Jackson jumped to his feet and went for his baton. I damned near went for my piece, until I remembered it was still on the Island.
“Boy, you remember ya’ll are talkin’ to the law here. This ain’t New York City, and I’d just as soon beat you upside the head with this here billy club as hear ya’ll talk to me like that!”
My heart was racing. My fists were clenched and I was ready to take a hit to the arm or shoulder with that big piece of oak to burry my fist in his gut. My body was planning the attack as my mind realized there was no reason for it. I backed up a step and put my hands forward, low. Jackson took his hand away from the billy.
“That’s more like it boy. Now answer me a few questions and maybe we’ll be all right. All right?”
“Yeah, shoot em.”
“Where were you last night?”
“Sloppy Joe’s til around one, I think, then back to La Concha.”
“You got witnesses?”
“Melinda, Jessica. Bartender at Joe’s. Bellhop at the hotel.”
“What about this morning?”
“Slept late, drove up here about two.”
“Where you stop at?”
“The Hurricane Monument. I wanted to see it.”
“Any place else?”
“Yeah. Captain Reams’ joint over on the Gulf side.”
“Reams?”
“Yeah. Roberts turned me on to him, he used to work for Hawthorn.”
“What did you see him for?”
“I dunno, I was in the area so I thought I’d stop in. He was drunk as a skunk. Said he lost his boat in the storm.”
“That all?”
“Pretty much, why?”
“He say anything about Roberts?”
> “No.”
“Nothin’ at all?”
I was getting annoyed. “No. I said no, didn’t I? What the hell?”
“I’ll tell you whut the hell, Riggins.” He stomped out the cigar in the sand and let out the last puff of smoke. “Roberts is dead as a doornail. Found him this morning, drowned to death, seawater in his lungs.”
“Drowned? How the hell did he get out?”
“He didn’t.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“We found him locked in the cage. He done drowned inside the cell, in seawater.” He paused to light a cigarette. Chain smoking, this afternoon. “He drowned inside the cell. But the cell was dry as a fuwkin’ bone.”
+++
Jackson and I took his patrol car a few miles north to a roadside tavern that looked more like something from the mountains of West Virginia than a bar in the touristy Florida Keys. The place wasn’t much more than a wooden shack held together by old license plates and fishnets, but the drinks were strong and the pretzels were free. We spent about an hour talking about Hawthorn, Tiki Island, Jessica, Melinda, and Roberts when he finally came out with the sixty-four dollar question.
“So tell me, Riggins. And shoot straight with me. What happened to Eliot Hawthorn?”
His demeanor was so frank, so serious, that I could only answer him with complete honesty, as ridiculous as it may have sounded. I regretted it the minute I said it, but I said it, and there it was.
I took a drink first, then sighed, then said flatly, “He was hauled off by a gang of very pissed-off phantoms that wanted revenge for their deaths.”
I expected a big laugh. Instead, Jackson said, “Did it happen durin’ that freak-assed storm?”
“You believe me?”
“I believe what you’re saying is a possible scenario.”
“It did. At the height of it. Probably around one a.m. Once he was gone, it was all over. The girls were hysterical so I gave them some Valium and we all slept it off until the next afternoon.”
Murder on Tiki Island: A Noir Paranormal Mystery In The Florida Keys (Detective Bill Riggins Mysteries) Page 49