by Tom Corcoran
Bobbi Lewis stepped onto the porch, checked out Little Howie Tucker, ducked back inside, and said to me, “I did not see that. Do me a favor? Ask Liska, nicely, to get his ass in here fast? His phoners did their homework. It came through my switchboard first. A seaplane found the sailboat. I got me a situation.”
I did the favor, then apologized to Sam Wheeler for bringing the circus to his doorstep.
“You didn’t do it,” he said. “I did. It’s part of Marnie’s work. I haven’t seen her open a wine bottle in days. I’m happy to trade sanctity for sobriety. I’m assuming things will slow down soon.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
27
Sheriff’s Detective Bobbi Lewis insisted that Zack Cahill accompany her to Cudjoe Key. “I need to know more, what led to this bloodbath.” A polite way to keep her ex-prime suspect and new prize clue close by. Lewis pocketed the photo of Richard Abbott. Ignoring my injuries, my discomfort, she asked me to follow, to bring cameras. She asked Chicken Neck Liska to join her.
Liska took a last drag, extended his arm, finger-flicked his cigarette for distance. He blew smoke to the side. “Not my jurisdiction.”
Lewis stood close. “I’m up for job review, two weeks after the next sheriff takes office. I haven’t had a raise in two years. Come see me in action.”
A deputy with confidence.
Liska bitched about having to write “a fucking library of reports,” but told Lewis he’d be along, after he’d dispatched Little Howie Tucker in a city squad car.
Bobbi Lewis had called it a “situation.” Since the Mariel Boatlift, in Cuba, in 1980, I had documented results of crimes rather than crap in progress, or bullets mid-air. That had been fine. I wasn’t a devotee of danger for the sake of blood pressure. The cameras, however, would be my pass to witness the next episode of the dog-days nightmare. With any luck, the final episode.
Eager to jump the story, Marnie Dunwoody offered me a ride to the scene. Sam and Claire would remain in Key West. I overheard their whispered debate in the yard, the best place to celebrate her success in separating Zack from suspicion of Omar’s s murder. I guessed Sam also wanted a few beers without having to worry that his drinking might inspire a renewal of Marnie’s excess.
Teresa Barga came off the porch, went for the gate. A nod her only effort to say good-bye.
I asked, “Did Sammy have any way to protect herself?”
Teresa jutted her chin with focused defiance. “I don’t know.” She dropped her gaze to the ground. “It may be too late, now, anyway.” Her eyes came back to me: “Do you think I slept with you like a spy, under false pretenses?”
“You slept with me like a lover. I don’t want to see it any other way. Am I being naive?”
“No.” She paused. “But you’re right. We don’t know each other very well.”
“The last six days, I’ve had you on my mind for a month.”
“That’s sweet of you. Would you like to hear my side of it?”
“Yes. I’d also like to hug you, but the pain …”
“Please call when you find out what’s happened.” I caught the flicker of smile that I’d seen the day I met her. But her posture went to dejection as she walked toward the city’s ramshackle Taurus.
Wheeler boosted me into Marnie’s Jeep, helped me attach the shoulder harness. Hooked up only to obey the law; better a fatal accident than to suffer strap restraint in a fender bender. As we drove to get my camera bag from Dredgers Lane, we passed the El Patio Motel on Washington. Scotty Auguie and Fortay were entering the registration office. Scotty still knew the proper way off the beaten path.
Cecilia Ayusa was trimming bougainvillea, in her own world, except for the racket from Fleming Street. Hector stood guard at the north boundary of his property, surveying the relative seclusion of the lane. We waved as Marnie eased to a stop. I’d already told her how to access my camera stash. As she pulled the Jeep’s parking brake, Hector cued me to check the porch side of my house. I asked Marnie to pull the vehicle ten feet farther.
Dubbie Tanner saw us first, started toward us, pushing his bicycle, struggling to keep it vertical. Then came Tazzy Gucci, a small travel duffel in hand. Tazzy’s eyes asked me to get rid of the drunk as quickly as possible.
Tanner took over: “You played me straight, man, I pay you back straight as shit.”
I reminded myself that Tanner’s annual royalties probably doubled my best year’s income. I stared at him.
“The doctor that patched your gunshot dude? He scoped the car.”
“You’re not going to say a white Mustang convertible.”
“No, but close. A red one.”
Murderers come to the Island City, they want to be on vacation, too.
“One other thing,” said Dubbie. “A skinny rope tattoo around his wrist.”
Oh, Jesus.
“Gotta go.” He made it onto his Conch cruiser on the second try, went the wrong way down Fleming. Dubbie, in his mind, had put a storybook end to his part in the drama.
Marnie said, “I heard he’s the long-lost son of Cigarette Willie.”
“I doubt it, but I like the idea.”
Tazzy Gucci set his bag on Marnie’s passenger-side front fender, eyeballed the scabs on my forehead and cheek. “Your ride to the airport the other day, your limo driver, Wicker, pulled into short-term, watched you get into a black car, perhaps not voluntarily. The black car lost him in traffic. I figured, when he called me, the shit had hit your fan.”
“That it did.”
“I also wondered if you were working for the other side.”
“I didn’t know there were sides until five days ago.”
“And you didn’t meet Angel in my office.”
His daughter, Muffin du Jour. “I only saw her picture.”
“I didn’t know it when we got there, but she never showed for work that day. You waited in my office, I called her mother, I called her friends. After you left I checked with an NOPD buddy. She flew to Miami Wednesday night, rented a car. So, I got this awful feeling …”
“You know where your son-in-law is?”
He stared at a palm tree, pursed his lips, shook his head.
“They found him facedown in a motel pool at lunchtime. I don’t know if somebody went for symbolism, but he’d been shot in the voice box.”
“Good.” He faced me again. “She rented a dark blue Chrysler four-door.”
Not a Mustang? “Good,” I said. “Maybe she won’t shoot anybody.”
“I hear it,” said Tazzy. “But I don’t get it.”
Driving up the Keys, Marnie said that the police had found a cocaine vial and crack-smoking paraphernalia in Ray Best’s pockets. Tazzy Gucci did not look any more surprised than we were. Like bulletins on Aspen ski conditions, no Florida crime report is complete without powder.
We crossed a bridge east of Big Coppitt. Tazzy Gucci said, “Either the ocean’s getting bigger, or I’m getting smaller.”
I said, “I’ll see your ocean, and raise you the longest week of my life.”
Heavy traffic rolled southbound. Palm Beach and Broward people who’d awakened to a boring, sunny Saturday, decided to make Mallory Square by sunset. Blame it on light wind and heat; the smells of traffic overwhelmed the normal stink of the drying tideline. We passed the Sugarloaf Airport turnoff. Four men swatted tennis balls on fenced-in courts. I wished I could duck back to the Bat Tower to camp in isolation.
Marnie’s cell phone rang. Her monosyllabic retorts indicated trouble. She moved closer to the steering wheel, as if that distance would place her nearer the action. I conjured three possibilities. The confrontation had ended, she’d missed the story. Or she’d lost the scoop because a competitor had got wind of it, arrived first. Or her boss had chosen that moment to treat her like a rookie again. From her tone, I expected her to toss the portable out of the vehicle. She didn’t say good-bye before she clicked off.
“Did we miss it up the road?” I said.
&nbs
p; “In Key West. A meter maid found a white Mustang convertible with its rear-quarter window blown out, bloodstains all over the map. The car had been rented to Ray Best. He got shot in the car, and his body got delivered to the motel. Abby Womack checked out at eight-fifteen this morning.”
Weird that Abby—or her brother—would have murdered Ray Best, then intentionally placed him where suspicion would turn her way.
“Anything else?”
“Abby Womack didn’t kill Ray Best. She chartered a sightseeing seaplane at nine-fifteen and spent two hours in the backcountry, on the Florida Bay side, taking pictures. The plane landed to refuel, and she went back out. This time out front. At ten after one, flying over American Shoal, she made a cell call, then ordered the plane to take her back. She left the seaplane base in a taxi. No one remembers which cab company. Most of the drivers have gone off day shift.”
“Who told you all that?”
“Your friend Teresa, the press liaison officer.”
Focusing on known players, either Richard Abbott had shot Best, or Angel had killed her husband, or … I wondered if Tazzy Gucci had arrived earlier than he’d claimed. I kept my eyes forward and said to him, “I told you about Abby Womack.”
“That you did. Our chat in my office.”
“You knew her brother. Richard Abbott didn’t die the day he left prison. My guess is, you’ll have a reunion, up the road here. We think he did Omar.”
My turn to look back at Tazzy Gucci. A sick look on his face. “Brother?”
He hadn’t killed Ray Best.
I asked Marnie where we were going.
“Past mile marker 23, near the end of a road running south. It’s a home invasion and boat-jacking, with two hostages.”
Cudjoe Bay opens south to Hawk Channel on the Atlantic side. Its waters demand careful navigation, even in shallow draft boats. Nautical charts have been less useful than local knowledge since Hurricane Georges rearranged nature, not to mention the Keys’ inhabitants, a while back. Blown Aweigh, if her builder had held true to Commodore Munroe’s hundred-year-old Presto design, could skate into shelter or beach itself without risk. But the ketch could not outrun anything with a motor. If Abby Womack and Richard Abbott had tracked down Sammy Burch, they’d have had little trouble making direct contact.
Spanish Main Drive, speed limit thirty. Streets to the east were fish: Snapper Lane, Sailfish Lane, Tarpon Lane, Wahoo Lane. To the west, pirates: Privateer, Gasparilla, Capt. Kidd Lane, Teach Lane, Drake Lane, Hawkins Lane. Deputies had put a roadblock near the south end of Spanish Main, at the John Avery Lane intersection. My amigo, Deputy Billy Bohner, waved at us to turn, to go back. The closer we got, the more adamant Bohner’s gyrations. Marnie stopped ten feet from the officer.
“You blind, lady, disobeyin’ a law officer?”
Marnie ignored him. She grabbed her cell phone and dialed. After a short pause: “Dunwoody, from the Citizen. Please patch me through to Detective Lewis. I’m with Alex Rutledge. She’ll take the call.”
Bohner whipped out his citation pad. “License and registration, ma‘am.”
Marnie ignored him. “At the roadblock,” she said.
Tazzy Gucci, hushed but intense, into my ear: “I don’t need this, Rutledge. I am fucking on parole, Rutledge. I can’t be here. Make her stop this bullshit.”
Bohner began to unsnap his holster.
Marnie turned her head. “I’d give anything in the world for you to pull your weapon, Officer. My readers would love to learn about the dedication and bravery of Tommy Tucker’s tough team, boldly defending a crime scene against a premeditated, vicious incursion of news-gathering personnel.”
The deputy’s epaulet radio barked, Bobbi Lewis’s voice: “This is the scene supervisor. Let ‘em in, Bohner, or I’ll come out and jam your flashlight sideways up your butt.”
Marnie said, matter-of-fact, “I understand they’re hiring at Home Depot in Marathon, Deputy Bohner. Course, damn the luck, they’ll want references.”
Bohner glared at Tazzy Gucci. “Who’s that clown?”
Tazzy, in a moment of bravery, said, “I’m a flashlight salesman.
Marnie popped the clutch. The tires chirped. Pain shot through my ribs and lower back. I hoped that Bohner mistook my grimace for glee.
Rounding the bend onto Calico Jack Circle, we found a huge boat storage compound surrounded by six-foot chain-link, then a jam of parked vehicles. Angled haphazardly across the road, a blue Chrysler four-door. The type of car rented by Angel Best.
Marnie’s phone rang as she pulled to the shoulder. She handed it to me.
“Alex, Claire, at your house. I came to change my blouse. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but your machine came on, and this weird message …”
“Play it back for me?”
It was Abby. Four lines: “This crazy woman’s going to shoot me. Tell Zack my brother made me do it. I didn’t mean for anybody to get hurt. Tell my mother I love her.”
I said, “Hang up and try a ‘Star-69,’ for the last number that called.”
“Sam already did that. Didn’t work.”
“Please stay there, in case she calls back. Give her this number.”
Chaos ruled what the heat of the day hadn’t conquered. Opposite a strip of upscale bay-side homes, the sheriff’s department SWAT team stood in the shade of a beefy, dark blue Ford Econoline van. Huge tires, foot-wide, inch-tall gun barrel ports, multiple antennae, blacked-out windows, ugly-duty steel bumpers. Six team members, in black jeans and T-shirts, hand-tooled cowboy boots and black berets, couldn’t decide if they were swashbucklers or ninja warriors. Their nighttime attire provided poor camouflage; Hawaiian luau shirts and grass skirts might have worked better.
It took me a half-minute to extricate myself from the shoulder harness and bucket seat. Tazzy Gucci made no move to exit the Jeep. He stared at the blue Chrysler. Chopper rotors whoopwhapped upwind. Odd, but no radio chatter.
Detective Lewis walked toward me. I noticed for the first time a small burn scar under her right eye. Perhaps an ejected shell on the police firing range. “Bring cameras?”
“Like you said.”
She fixed her eyes on the shoreline. “I need establishing shots.”
“Like ‘before’ shots?”
“Just like that.”
“Who shoots the ‘afters’?”
“Just do this.”
“Where’s Liska?”
“He went through a window into a ground-level storage room. He can see what’s happening on the dock.” She held a small radio. “I’m talking to him.”
“Zack Cahill?”
“Sitting over …” She began to point to a cluster of sheriff’s cruisers. Zack not in sight. “Ah, shit. His guilt trip … He wanted to borrow a boat and barge into this mess like Batman.” She turned toward the water. “Come here.”
I checked the yard. Pea-rock landscaping, a half dozen newlooking palms, a three-vehicle carport, the red Mustang convertible snugged on the bumper of a silver Mercedes-Benz S500. Detective Lewis directed my attention toward a muscular man of medium height. “Civilian there, Mr. Frank Polan—and my fifty says it’s Polanski—he’s a one-man yacht club. He’s got a million boats, a shaved head, and a New York accent, and he’s pissed at the deputies for skid marks in his gravel. He’s out in that cute little Speedo suit, scrubbing bird shit off his dock with a square brush on a long stick. So Abbott, our Conch Train murder suspect, who Polan identified from your photograph, puts a pistol to Polan’s head.” She touched my arm. “Don’t go any farther. The perp gets the keys to a Mako, he doesn’t know engine tilt from angle of dangle. He gets the motor halfway down, starts it, bumps it into gear without dropping the dock lines. By this time a lady joins the perp, has her own pistol in Polan’s belly, and he could care less about his belly. He’s throwing a fit because they’re fucking up his gear. Very fussy man.”
A quick inventory under the carport: a pedal-pontoon boat, two Sea-Doo Bombardiers under canvas covers on
identical mini-trailers, an Aqua-Cat, a Windsurfer, a Necky Dorado kayak. A gallon jug of Zip Wax on a shelf in front of the Benz. The place clean enough to pass military inspection.
Lewis stuck her head around the side of the house. “You should’ve heard Polan tell this. The perp cuts the lines with a boot knife, does four doughnuts trying to find deep water. You with me so far?”
I popped my camera bag, began fishing for my long lens. “With you.”
“So the two with guns are talking to each other, a pair of short-range UHF deals, for these new frequencies. Just when he gets to where he’s not gouging bay bottom, the lady says, ‘That’s her, she came to us.’ The sailboat coasted right into the bay. The guy stopped the Mako, put it in reverse going about twenty-five knots. Almost sank the thing with stem wash. He let it drift, ran into the sailboat, and jumped aboard. Now the sailboat’s anchored twenty yards off. The Mako floated away, toward open water. That’s why Polan’s in a panic. Got us calling the Coast Guard. Doesn’t care who dies.”
“Richard Abbott has Samantha Burch, and Abby Womack’s got Frank the boat owner. How’d Polan get loose?”
“Another woman pops onto his dock, puts her pistol in Abby Womack’s ear, tells Polan to boogie, to call 911.”
“The other woman is Angel Best, the woman whose husband washed up in the Green Dolphin pool at noon.”
“Oh, shit. Cahill didn’t mention her. So now we got this double stand-off, this crossfire ballet of guns and radios and cell phones. Our scanner’s locked onto the pistol packers’ UHF freak. The lady with the gun is going to shoot Abby Womack unless Richard Abbott lets the young girl swim to shore. That’s where we’re at right now.”
“Angel and Samantha were childhood friends. What’s to photograph?”
“The dock, Angel holding Abby Womack hostage.”
“You didn’t bring me here to take one photograph. Your SWAT team has cameras galore, and video.”
“We need you and Mr. Cahill to help negotiate. Without him, it’s just you.”
I’d never laid eyes on Richard Abbott or Angel Best. “How about Angel’s father?”
“Tell me more.”