“Then you found the body?”
“That’s right. I moved it into that shed so it wouldn’t turn to mush in the sun. Then we went down to Key West.”
Jackson finished his bourbon and lit another cigarette, the last in his pack. “You’all know, a more reasonable explanation would be that you murdered him so that Melinda would inherit all his wealth, taking you along for the ride.”
“Sure,” I said, staring straight into his eyes. “But getting the place to look like it was hit by a force-three hurricane would have been a real bitcher.”
A smile started to form on Jackson’s lips. He didn’t believe I killed Hawthorn anymore than I did. “Well, Detective Riggins, what about Melinda? She’s also a prime suspect. Killed the old man off for his money. Hell, she may have even killed Bachman to get him out of the way.”
I laughed hard. “You’re killin’ me, Sheriff! Next you’ll be saying Jessica did it to get revenge for her mother.”
“I know all about Miss Jessica’s mother, Riggins. I done known for many years that Hawthorn murdered her.”
“What?” That threw me. “How? Why didn’t you do something about it?”
“Do something? Like what? Arrest him for a twenty-year-old murder without any evidence? No, Riggins. I knew because Roberts told me in a drunken stupor one night–”
Apparently Roberts had a very big mouth when he was hitting the bottle, I thought to myself.
“–But there wasn’t a damned thing I was ever able to do about it.”
“Well old man, you didn’t have to. Jessica’s mother did it herself.”
“How’s that?”
“She was leading the pack that dragged Hawthorn into the sea. One seriously enraged ghost, if you can believe it.”
Jackson ordered a shot of Jack and knocked it back. “I can believe it, Mr. Riggins.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh, yessir. You see, I been down to Miss Jessica’s house down in Key West. I seen the things she seen. Have you?”
I’d almost forgotten about Jessica’s place. “Yeah, I have. Freaky place.”
“To say the least.”
“So that’s why you believe me?”
“That’s why,” he said, taking his last puff on his last cigarette. “I believe the ghosts of Tiki Island have done cleaned house.”
I finished my second cocktail and refused a third. “That still leaves Bachman,” I said, getting up to leave. He got up too.
“That it does. Any ideas?”
“A few. I’ll know for sure by tomorrow, latest. What will you do about Hawthorn?”
“Official cause of death was drowning. Official report will read he ran out into the storm, a little dazed and crazy. You tried to bring him in but the wind took him. Can your lady friends corroborate?”
“I’m sure they will.”
“Good, ‘cuz they ain’t no one but you, me and them girls that’s ever gonna believe the truth.”
“I’m hip,” I said to myself as we left the bar.
+++
There are times in a man’s life when he’s got all his ducks in a row, when he knows exactly what’s around every corner and is in total control of his surroundings. The last two weeks were not anything like that for lil’ ole me. But that was about to change.
I motored the Cadillac fast down The Overseas Highway, high-tailing it south back to Sugarloaf Key. There were some men on the dock, and several boats were in transit moving back and forth between the Key and Tiki Island. I managed to catch a boat that was leaving the dock, and with a fin convinced the workers to let me ride over.
It was a strange ride. From the dock the Island looked fine, beautiful, peaceful, but once we landed on a makeshift dock that listed dangerously to one side, I once again saw the destruction, the chaos, made even more morbid in the eerie twilight.
Dozens…maybe hundreds of men and women were there, cleaning, organizing, upending fallen palms, making repairs to the roof. Melinda hadn’t wasted any time. She couldn’t afford to.
I made my way through droves of workers, carefully stepping around broken glass and chunks of nail-pierced wood until I made it inside the building. They had the generators going and the electricity was working pretty well, considering the place had been under water two nights ago. Giant fans blew air everywhere, attempting to dry the watersoaked carpets, furniture and walls. Already all the sand and seaweed had been removed from the lobby. Even the front doors, although busted and cockeyed, were re-hung.
The elevator was working so I headed straight for the third floor. I didn’t have my key, so I had to bust the door in. I didn’t think it made much of a difference at this point. I found I’d been lucky…the storm shutters held, and my room had been spared the onslaught of the storm. I snapped on the lights and got to work packing my stuff.
It was so good to see my old Colt .45 automatic again. I thought I’d lost her, thought some of the workers might have given the place the once-over and clipped it. But there she was, ole Suzie, right where I’d left her. I dragged that gun through the Korean war and all over New York City. I was pretty happy I didn’t lose her for good.
She felt good strapped there under my arm in that custom-made leather speed rig. I slipped the jacket on over it, and as usual, you’d never know I was sporting a piece. I buckled up the suitcase, slipped the lid on my head and said goodbye to Tiki Island.
Once back on Sugarloaf, I threw the bag in the trunk of the car and was ready to leave for Key West when my curiosity got the better of me. Melinda’s keys had one that fit the side door to the main building, so I decided to do a little snooping. Funny enough, with all the commotion down at the Island, there was no one in the warehouse. I flipped a switch and the whole place lit up, exposing some pretty generic and thoroughly uninteresting crates and boxes, mostly non-perishables, linens, glasses, mattresses and general kitchen supplies. The place was big but not so big that I couldn’t take it all in at single glance. Just dull boxes.
And a staircase.
A staircase leading to what appeared to be an office loft, taking up just one end of the warehouse, not very big. Something drew me towards it though, maybe cop instinct, maybe something else. Something just didn’t seem right. I took the stairs carefully, as they seemed kind of old, but they were solid. The office was locked, and none of Melinda’s keys worked which I found very strange. Looking around I found an open toolbox with a big screwdriver. I laughed at the odds and jimmied the door open.
Inside it was just an office, a metal desk with inventory reports and ledgers, a cheap lamp, a phone. A few old, wooden filing cabinets held more generic paperwork. The desk seemed pretty generic too; it didn’t seem to belong to any one person, it was more like a desk that was used by several managers on different shifts. I pulled the drawers and found nothing interesting. The only thing that gave the place any personality at all was a pin-up calendar showing October, 1956 with a very nicely done photo of Marilyn Monroe naked on red satin. I recognized the photo…it was the one she did a few years back, the one that made it into that Playboy nudie mag that was supposed to take the sleaze out of the sleaze industry. “Yeah, good luck with that, probably be out of business in another year,” I said out-loud. Once a vice cop, always a vice cop I guess.
I was about to call it a day when I noticed the closet door had a big padlock on it. Seemed a little odd, I thought, to padlock a closet. It was a big old iron job, probably from the turn of the century, pretty much un-pickable. But the door was light wood and my friend the screwdriver, along with a little friendly persuasion had it open in a few seconds.
Some closet, I thought.
I flipped on the light exposing the biggest surprise of the day…bigger than Roberts drowning in a dry cell, bigger than Tiki Island crawling with laborers so fast. This closet wasn’t a closet at all. It was a bachelor pad.
The place had Rutger Bachman written all over it. The Ultra-Modern furniture, including a leather couch, two Eames chairs and a king bed, al
ong with a stylish bar and a hi-fi were so close to his Tiki Island apartment that the two could have been interchangeable. The only difference was this was a single room, along with a bath, and this one was set up for entertaining, period. Black satin sheets, nudes painted on black velvet, and giant mirrors over, behind and in front of the bed gave that away. Bachman was a real swinger, all right. He probably took his pick of the hookers from the cathouse, and probably even scored a few lonely broads that came to the Island for some R and R. Sleaze.
I started poking around the room. Expensive liquor on the bar. Jazz and swing albums. Nothing corny, strictly legitimate swing and New York Jazz. He had good taste, that was certain. Beyond that, I wasn’t really sure if finding this place meant anything. So he had a sex pad off-Island. No big deal. Was it?
My brain was cranking overtime. Something wasn’t right, wasn’t ordinary. What was it? What was I seeing with my senses, but missing with my eyes? I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, imaging the whole room in my mind, letting my brain let me see what it wanted me to see. And I got it. When I opened my eyes, I looked at the door leading back to the office. I stepped through. Then I stepped back.
It was simple. The office was a few feet deeper than the bedroom.
There was a filing cabinet against the wall next to the door. I looked at the floor, and sure enough there were scuffmarks in a semi-circle, faint but there. I put my weight against the cabinet and shoved…and it moved fairly easy, exposing another door with another lock. Mr. Screwdriver did his thing, and I found myself in a small nook behind the bed, behind a two-way mirror. Damn! So that was Bachman’s gig! Behind the mirror was a thirty-five millimeter camera, a good one on a tripod, and a sixteen millimeter movie camera. The cameras were pointed at the bed. A small ladder led up to an area over the bed with another camera setup pointing down. Both cameras had a timing device that seemed to be set for thirty-second intervals. There was even a reel-to-reel tape machine with a microphone built into the end table next to the bed.
What a sweet setup. And with this little bit of unexpected information, all the pieces fell into place, and I knew finally, for certain, who killed Rutger Bachman.
All I needed was the proof.
+++
I put everything back as best I could and wiped the warehouse clean of prints before I left. Nothing was taken, so for all anyone would know a worker, or even Bachman could have lost the keys and busted into the place himself. I left in Melinda’s Cadillac, not even bothering to close the garage door. Then I remembered it closed itself. Ah, the rich.
An hour later I pulled up to my rented Chevrolet in its roost by the dock. The crazy old man was there, so I got the keys and loaded my bags into the trunk. I gave him a twenty and told him I was keeping the keys. He nodded and that was that.
I didn’t go back to the hotel right away. Those two sirens were in there, waiting to steal my soul and turn it into a hotel manager, and I wasn’t quite strong enough yet to resist that kind of temptation. So I parked the Caddy in front of Sloppy Joe’s and slipped inside.
My old pal Fernando was there, and greeted me like a life-long friend. “Aye, señor! Good to see you again so soon! You no longer look like you are on vacation, my friend.”
“A cop’s threads, buddy. Vacation is just about over.” I bought him a drink; he asked about the trip.
“So, señor, do you have any thing eenteristing to tell me? You find a Fantasma on the Island?”
“You wouldn’t believe me, buddy.”
“Aye, try me my friend.”
I ordered us a couple more drinks and started giving him the highlights. I told him about the storm, about Hawthorn predicting his own death. I told him Hawthorn thought he saw ghosts...and ran out into the storm to escape them, only to be washed away by the hurricane. I told him the girls saw some things too, but I never said I had any personal experiences. I was no dummy, after all.
“My friend, I think you leef a few things out, no?”
“I told you the good parts,” I said with a wink, then I went into cop mode. “I’ve told you my story. Now I need some info from you, buddy.”
“Of course, anything I can do for you.”
“Rutger Bachman,” I said, “He ran the cathouse on the other end of the Key. Know him?”
“Ah, I know of heem, but don’t know heem personally. Ladies of the evening are not, wha you say, my cup of tea, no? Why, señor?”
“He got himself murdered, and I’m on the case.”
“Aye, no! Tha’s terrible.”
“Yeah, bad scene all around. You know if he had a place on the Key?”
“No, no I do not, but de bartendah, he know,” he said and called the bartender. “Hey, Reg-ggee! Ven aquí!” He whispered to him, in Spanish, then sent him off. He wrote down an address on a napkin and handed it me. “Here, señor, a fair trade for the drinks. I thin you go now, no?”
“Yeah, I think I will. Thanks buddy.”
“You never tell me...did you see dee Fantasma?”
I just looked at him and smiled.
“Ah, ha ha,” he laughed, “You come say goodbye before you leef, no?”
“I will…tomorrow or Saturday, for sure.” I tipped my hat and left the bar, heading down Greene Street to Simonton.
Bachman had a two-story house with a nice little sun porch and a garden filled with palms and roses. It was very homey, and looked more like a place that had a woman’s touch than a bachelor pad…at least on the outside. Inside it was totally dark...no lights on at all. The front door was locked so I tried the back. It was locked too, but I found a key under the mat and let myself in.
A light switch on the wall flooded the room with a white glow. I was in the kitchen, a very modern, sleekly styled kitchen that didn’t fit the quaintness of the house’s exterior. A brand new Fridgidare, an electric oven, and one of those automatic dish-washing machines that I’d only seen in magazines, all turquoise blue and shining in the glow of the recessed light contrasted perfectly with the snow-white cabinets and countertops. The place reeked of dough. The spendable kind, not the cookie-making kind.
The next room was a dining area with an Eames table and chairs, hardwood floors and a flagstone fireplace. Cubist paintings hung on the pure white walls. Beyond that was the living room, decked out in more Eames furniture (the real stuff, not the cheap Sears knock-offs) and a black rug. A corner bar held bottles of the most expensive imported booze. The largest console hi-fi-television combo I ever saw took up one whole wall. The screen on that tube must have been damned-near twenty-seven inches, if that’s even possible.
I helped myself to a glass of Chivas-Regal and sat in Bachman’s Eames chair as I looked around the room, thinking. A very expensive-looking electric starburst clock told a story of eight-thirty. The girls would be wondering when I was coming back for more of their charms. I tried not to think about it.
I finished the Scotch and got to work taking each room apart, very carefully, making sure to put everything back where I found it. I wasn’t worried about prints because I had snooping rights care of Sheriff Jackson. I went over the entire living room, dining room, kitchen, and first floor bath. Nothing. Not even a deck of cards where they shouldn’t have been. When I was satisfied, I moved up to the second floor.
I half expected to see a ghost up there. I don’t know why. I guess that was just the way things had gone on this trip. Instead I found that the entire second floor had been customized into a single bedroom, larger than my entire apartment in the city. The bed was one of those king-sized jobs with black satin sheets and a mirror overhead, Bachman’s M.O. There was another bar, and another big TV set. The hi-fi still had a Miles Davis album on it, collecting some dust.
I began my search.
And very quickly I found what I was looking for in the back of Bachman’s clothes closet, set into the wall. I took a tattered piece of paper from my pocket, read the numbers off as I dialed, slid in the key and opened Bachman’s safe.
Bingo.
+++
A half-hour flew by. I sat on the bed, dazed, surrounded by the contents of a dozen or so manila envelopes I got from the safe. Each was marked with a half-assed code. One with an “M”. One with an “H”. Another “Misc”. There was an “R”, a “J” and even an “SJ”. The envelopes held photos, photos of Melinda, Hawthorn, miscellaneous business men and women whom I didn’t recognize, Sheriff Roberts, Jessica, and Sheriff Jackson. There were photos of prostitutes, some alive, others hacked to death in Hawthorn’s Safe Room many years ago. There were eight and sixteen millimeter films, sex films from his hidden cameras. There was audio tape too, and although I didn’t see a tape machine handy to play them, I could pretty much guess what sounds were recorded on them.
Blackmail, extortion, protection…whatever the reason Bachman had all this stuff, in the end it didn’t help him one damned bit.
The safe held more, more cans of movies, more photos, a few ledgers and not surprisingly a few stacks of hundred dollar bills, non-sequential and well worn. Pocket money for a man like Bachman, dirty money made on the backs of teenage hookers, several of which probably never made it home after Hawthorn’s parties, and dope pushers, and hop heads, and thugs and God only knows who the hell else. It was dirty alright, dirty cash stained with innocent blood, and that was the dirtiest of all.
There was about twelve grand sitting there, not taking up much space. The temptation to pocket it flashed through my mind, but I quickly tossed that thought away. I knew if I left it here, it would eventually be found by the cops, and one of the crooked sons-of-bitches would just pocket it himself. I knew only one man who could rightfully claim any of this dough, and that was my pal Jerry, Bachman’s brother. So I looked around the house and found a box and some packing tape, put the money in the box along with a little note that said, “This money is from your brother. He wanted you to have it. If it stayed here it just would have gotten pinched, so take it. Just don’t tell no one.” I thought a minute, and decided to count out five one hundred dollar bills for myself. I was, after all, on a case now, and I had wracked up a few bills in the process. I would no doubt have to come back down in a few weeks to settle up in court on the two goons I iced back in Miami, too. So I took just enough to cover expenses. Then I signed the letter “–R”, sealed up the box and wrote Jerry’s bar address on it. Then I shut the safe, took up all the envelopes, wiped the place down for prints anyway and left.
Murder on Tiki Island: A Noir Paranormal Mystery In The Florida Keys (Detective Bill Riggins Mysteries) Page 50