I threw everything on the front seat of the Caddy and drove back to my Chevy. The trunk of the Bel Air was nice; it had a new, clean rug and fancy cardboard inserts hiding the fenders and back seat. I carefully removed the cardboard and hid the box between it and the seat, and locked the car up. Then I left the Caddy there, along with another ten-spot with the old man, and drove the Chevy back to the Hotel.
It was pretty late now, around ten. I grabbed the envelopes and headed up to our room, not really sure what I was going to do next. It occurred to me I could just set fire to the whole bunch, take the Chevy and leave. Jackson wouldn’t bother coming after me as he didn’t have a damned thing on me. Melinda would be up to her tits in trouble with the Island, and Jessica would just go back to her old life, working at the brothel. Status quo. I wondered if the cathouse was still open for business. I wondered who might have slunk in as head pimp. As I got off the elevator, I wondered why I cared.
Really, I didn’t. Not a damned bit.
+++
I wish I could tell you this story had a happy ending. I wish I could say I took a leave of absence, as well as a leave of my senses and shacked up in a life of sin with two hot dolls on a tropical island for a few years. Looking back, sometimes I wish I had done just that, but it wouldn’t have stuck. I was a cop to the core, a hardened, twisted being with a moral code that teetered somewhere between good and just plain evil. Either way, my future was laid out ahead of me, and it didn’t include any palm trees.
Melinda was in the room when I opened the door. She was on the phone, so I parked it in the big chair and threw my hat on the bed. She smiled and ended her conversation.
“I was wondering if you hijacked my Cadillac and drove back to New York,” she said, leaning over with a kiss.
“Not yet. I don’t have to be back to work until Monday.”
“If you go back to that job,” she said with a wink.
“Where’s Jessica?” I asked.
“She went back to her apartment to pick up a few things. Said she’ll be back later tonight.”
I sighed, and said, “Pull up a seat dollface. We gotta talk.”
She sat on the edge of the bed, a worried look taking over her face. She looked tired all of a sudden, absolutely exhausted. “Something the matter?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know who killed Bachman.” I stood up and threw a manila envelope on the bed next to her. Her eyes followed it as it landed in slow motion, taking what seemed like days to finally hit the mattress.
“What’s that?” she asked innocently.
“Photos. Tapes. Film. Found it all in Bachman’s safe. Turns out he has a joint here on Key West. That where the safe is, the safe that matches the combo I found on Tiki Island. There’s about twenty envelopes like that, each put together for a specific purpose.”
“A purpose? What on earth…”
“Blackmail, baby. Plain and simple. Blackmail and extortion. All the little dirty little things that people do, but don’t want anyone to know about are documented in that safe. There are sixteen millimeter films of deputies nailing hookers in a special bed he had set up in the company warehouse. Tapes of Sheriff Jackson giving the OK to narcotics and bootleg liquor coming over the docks from Cuba. Photos of politicians going upstairs at that brothel on the other end of town. Photos…of your father, Eliot Hawthorn, doing things I won’t say out loud, things we both saw the night those…entities, came for him. Photos taken by Roberts, back when he was just a deputy working for your old man. Bachman got a hold of all of it, and he was using it to run Tiki Island his own way. And he was murdered for it.”
I leaned against the wall and lit a Camel. The smoke trailed up to the ceiling fan and out the window. The night was hot and sticky and all I wanted to do was get this over with and get the hell out, out of this state, out this climate, out of this insanity.
Melinda’s eyes started to turn glassy. “So…who do you think…did it?”
I frowned in surprise. “Isn’t is obvious?” I asked, and took a long draw on the cigarette. “All the evidence points to one person, and one person only.”
“Eliot.”
“That’s right. Eliot. As frail as he seemed, he had enough juice running through him to smash Bachman’s windpipe with his walking stick while Bachman slept, then pressed down on it with his weight until the life ran out of him. It would have been an easy job, even for an old man like Hawthorn. And he had a damned good motive, too. He knew he was dying, or would die soon. He knew Bachman had the goods on him, and would use that against you to take over the Resort once he was gone. Hawthorn couldn’t let that happen. He needed to protect you. And he needed someone to protect you once he was gone. With Bachman out of the way, and me on the scene, he could rest easy. That’s why he killed Bachman. That’s why he pushed you into getting with me.”
“He didn’t have to push me,” she said weakly.
“And you knew he was right. That’s why you played along. That’s why you tried to get me to stay, even going as far as getting Jessica to play along too.”
“No, William, it’s not like that,” she continued. “Eliot never pushed me toward you. And I never asked Jessica to come on to you. That…we both just fell for you, on our own. You can see that, can’t you?”
“But you did know that Eliot killed Bachman, didn’t you, Melinda.” The tears, real ones, came flowing.
“I did.”
“Tell me.”
“He…Eliot told me, days ago. I couldn’t tell you. I just couldn’t! He knew they were coming for him…the wraiths…they’d been coming to him for years, taunting, warning, but for some reason they grew more powerful in the last few weeks. He knew he would be taken. And he wanted my future to be free of any of the wrongdoing he did. That’s why he killed Rutger. He knew the police would eventually figure out it was him, but by then it would be too late. He would be gone, and that would be the end of it.”
“Just like that?”
She wiped the tears from her face and stood up. She came to me, putting her arms around my waist and pulling in close. “Just like that. It’s over. You’ve proven it. Now we can get on with our lives. Stay with me, William,” she said breathlessly, her lips seconds from mine.
Again, one last time, she almost had me convinced.
One last time.
“Open that envelope on the bed, kiddo.”
She drew back with a strange look. “I don’t need…”
“You do,” I said. “Take a look, for me.”
She slowly turned to the bed. The clock on the wall struck eleven. Outside, the sounds of happy people and cars lilted their way up to our window. Somewhere, people were happy. Not here. Melinda opened the envelope.
She took out the photos, her back to me. She shivered. She started going through the photos, slowly at first, then more quickly. Her whole body shook with her tears as she realized what they were.
“Hawthorn didn’t kill Bachman, Melinda.” The crying came harder now. She threw the photos on the floor and stomped on them.
“NO NO NO NO NO!” She screamed through her tears as she fell to her knees, tearing at the photos. “No, it can’t be,” she cried, now softer, “That bastard,” she said very quietly. She was surrounded by shredded photos now. Not photos of Hawthorn murdering young women. Not photos of prostitutes or drug dealers. Photos of Melinda, much younger. Photos of Melinda in a large, modern-style bed, taken from above and from the headboard. Photos of Melinda and Bachman, in bed together, with dates and times. Photos of Melinda at the brothel, arranging clients with women. Photos of Melinda directing prostitutes on Tiki Island, leading them to clients’ rooms, handing off narcotics. There was film of her having sex with Bachman and two other women, too, with audio of her discussing dope deals with Bachman and a pusher.
She still had her back to me as she knelt on the floor in a heap of tears.
“That’s why Bachman was able to get away with anything he wanted at Tiki Island. That’s why you never did anythin
g to stop him. And that’s why, when you knew you could rely on Roberts to take over the dirty side of the business, you knew you could get rid of Bachman. So you waited until the time was right, and murdered him, making it look like Hawthorn did it. You knew Hawthorn would be dead within days, and that he would be the obvious mark. But your plan could only succeed if you could seduce me too, get my head so full of mush I’d never think like a cop again. That might have worked on an ordinary cat. But not on this one, kid. You just don’t know me. You don’t know what kind of ground beef and pulverized guts I’m made of. You don’t know how I learned to kill without remorse fighting in Korea, learned to dispense justice on the streets of the city. You don’t know that I can detach myself from my work, my friends, even my women and be the cold, hard sonuvabitch I need to be to keep my streets just a little tiny bit safer. A man like that doesn’t change, Melinda. A man like that breathes and eats and drinks down the city with all the crime and grime and cancer and disease and spits it back out without caring one bit. That’s who I am Melinda, and that’s why I know you murdered Bachman.”
She didn’t say a word. She just wept, quietly. I poured myself a Bourbon from the setup and drank it down straight. I poured another and handed it to her. She took it, and sipped.
In a whispered hush she said, “That’s not the whole story, you know.”
“It never is,” I said back, quietly.
“He forced me into it, Rutger did. There was a time…when…I was very young, I thought I was in love with him. That’s what Eliot wanted, and I wanted to do anything Eliot wanted, even if it meant sleeping with another man. Eliot knew we could never be together, not in public. The scandal would have destroyed us, destroyed Tiki Island. So he wanted me to have a secure future. I wasn’t supposed to be part of the drugs, the prostitution. I knew about it but was supposed to be left out. Rutger pulled me in. He did it very sneakily, making deals in front of me, asking me to help with small favors. Eventually he told me I was all in. When I tried to resist, he told me about the photos, and the films he’d taken of us. He threatened to pass the photos and films out around the Keys, “leaked” accidently. I couldn’t chance it. I couldn’t stand it! So I did what I was told. It was only after I grew older that I had the strength to break away from him, but Eliot insisted on keeping him to run the Island. I knew he was right…I didn’t have the stomach for the dirty work.”
She got up and faced me. Her hair was a mess, a black, stringy mop matted to her cheeks with myriad tears. Her eyes were wide, but red.
“And you thought maybe I did?”
“No,” she said honestly. “You had it right, I was relying on Roberts to do that. He’s good at it.”
“Not anymore he isn’t.”
“He’ll be out of jail soon. You don’t know how Florida politics work.”
“I don’t care how Florida politics work. He’s stone-cold dead.”
Melinda gasped in shock. “What? How? When?”
“Wednesday night. He drowned to death in his cell.”
“Oh my God, Islamorada flooded?”
“Nope. His cell was dry. I suspect he had a few visitors.”
Melinda shook some more, and new tears formed. “My God, William. Why?”
“Because he helped your old man with those girls so long ago. I guess ghosts have a good memory.”
She suddenly grew cold, hard. “He deserved it. They all did. Even Eliot, he knew he deserved it for what he did. Roberts deserved to die a long time ago. You know it was him that turned Jessica onto the junk, don’t you.”
“I suspected.”
“She was never like that. She was a good-hearted soul. He did that to her. Now he’s dead. And I’m glad.” The tears were gone; an unfamiliar rage was taking their place. “And Bachman deserved to die a long time ago to, William. Believe what you want, arrest me if you want. He was an evil, conniving man with no conscience. If you knew how many young girls he corrupted, practically forced into selling themselves…”
“You never stopped it,” I said. She glared at me with a look I will never forget.
“Oh, I sure as hell did, William, I sure as hell did. Just not soon enough.” Melinda stood in front of me, shaking hard, her nerves raw and her sinew taught with anger, rage, disgust. She stabbed me with her eyes, never blinking, staring up at me through squinted, swollen lids. And as she did, two things happened.
First, I realized that she and I were not nearly as different as she had led me to believe. The sweet, bubbly, innocent girl that took me for a two-week spin had a dark, old soul, and a sense of right and wrong very much like mine. I saw that now. I saw who she really was, not a scared little girl, not just a young career woman trying to make her mark. She was also an avenging angel, a woman strong enough to know when enough was enough and take matters into her own hands. She was right; I didn’t know Florida politics, but I knew enough to be certain that Bachman (and Hawthorn) would have had every cop, judge and politician possible in their pockets. There’s no way Bachman would have been sent up on any charges, his little stash of photo albums would have seen to that. And Melinda knew it. She saw a chance to rid the world of one more piece of vermin, and took it.
But it was my job to uphold the law. Even though some of the things I did were outside the laws of our great country, everything I did, I did backed by a badge, and I did it in the best interest of the people. At least that’s what I told myself to get to sleep at night. While I pondered this, the second thing happened right in front of me, but behind Melinda.
A mist was forming. At first I thought it was a cigarette, but neither of us were smoking. Then I realized the mist was taking a shape. A human shape. Arms, a chest, a head, a face.
As Melinda stared at me, Hawthorn’s spirit rose behind her. It only took seconds, and I only looked past her for a second, but I clearly saw the old man’s face. He mouthed a single word.
“Please,” he said. Melinda didn’t see him. She turned to look at where I was looking and he was gone in an instant. But I knew what he meant.
“What is it, William?”
“Nothing, just thought I saw something. Still a little spooked from the other night, I guess.”
“I think that’s all over now,” she said. “It’s the living we have to worry about from now on.” She sat back down on the bed, picked up her Bourbon and finished it. “So, Detective Riggins, what now?”
What now, indeedy.
+++
Jessica didn’t go back to her apartment right away. At around nine she left the hotel and wandered down to the beach, back to the same place she had spent so many sleepless nights haunted by the phantom of her long-dead mother. She sat in the sand at the water’s edge, looking out over the glassy Gulf into the moonlight. She sat for minutes, then hours. She expected someone to come by. No one did.
At around two a.m. Jessica got up from the sand and walked back to her small apartment on the third floor of the rooming house on Duval. A slip of paper under the door reminded her that her rent was due, as it was already November First. She crumpled it up and threw it down the stairs. Once inside her little room, she opened the window, turned on the radio, and poured herself a shot of gin. She knocked it back, and for the first time in a very, very long time felt very, very lonely.
A few minutes later she walked down the mostly deserted street until she came upon her old house. She went inside, lighting a candle to see her way through. Up the steps she crept, wondering which apparition would greet her first. None did. She opened her old room’s door, only to find it empty. The doll was gone, the stroller gone. She paused, then opened the door to her mother’s old room. It was just a room, with a dilapidated bed and rotting mattress, but nothing more.
She almost went back to the hotel, but decided against it. She knew Bill had no intention of staying around the Keys. Even if he did, it was obvious he was in love with Melinda, she thought, and would eventually have nothing to do with herself. She hated goodbyes, and thought it best to just go h
ome. And so she did, and she poured herself another shot of gin, and then another, and when the memories still didn’t dissolve and the voices still didn’t cease and the loneliness still didn’t fade, she opened the drawer and took out the leatherette case which held her closest friend.
+++
Melinda and I made love one last time that night. It was different than any of the other times, maybe because we knew it would be our last, maybe because we finally knew who each other really was. It was tender yet rough, loving yet sadistic. We saw past the smeared mascara and bruises, past the facades we’d put up to impress each other and ourselves. I was a cold, hard, bastard of a cop. She was a calculating bitch with the acting skills of Bette Davis. It was all out in the open now, and we understood each other.
She seemed surprised when I told her that as far as I knew, to anyone who asked, Eliot Hawthorn murdered Rutger Bachman in cold blood, and probably intended on killing himself the night of the storm. I never told her about Hawthorn’s ghost, reaching back to our reality from the afterlife, still trying to protect the girl he loved in a twisted way as both a daughter and a lover. She didn’t need to know that. We burned what was left of the photos and film that had anything to do with her, and I gave her Bachman’s address and the combo to his safe. I also told her about the bachelor pad in her warehouse, along with the photography gimmicks he had set up. She never knew the cameras even existed.
Murder on Tiki Island: A Noir Paranormal Mystery In The Florida Keys (Detective Bill Riggins Mysteries) Page 51