by Tom Corcoran
“Apartment 302 in The Tideline,” I said. “Try to compile a diagram of condos to either side of that one and any others on the third floor. Check ownership, mortgages and liens, current and past tenants, property tax status and previous owners. See whether those names show up as owners of other condos in the building. Also, see if anyone from that group has been recently arrested for disturbing the peace, domestic violence, DUI, or narcotics possession.”
“Or manslaughter?” he said.
“Anything at all. Parking tickets. If you can manage it, I want names to go with the crimes.”
“Got it,” he said. “We already have this. The business that employed Greg Pulver is Acting Chief Execs, LLC. The sole owner is Ocilla Ramirez, and it’s located at 490 Crawford Street on Big Coppitt.”
“Great. Keep rolling with it. A client list would make our day.”
“I’m beating the bushes,” he said.
“Beat away, Dubbie,” I said. “Try to restrict it to one beer per research location.”
There I was again, behind the backdrop, half in the fog, playing two-bit snoop in the wake of horrible violence. Drawn into another tropical puzzle, and I had failed at least one and maybe two friends who expected better of me. The worst part was being reminded that my patch of paradise—sea breeze, sand and palm trees included—was no less evil than the rest of the nation. Bad as I felt, there were people in this country who walked among gray buildings and bare trees dodging sidewalk ice, slush and snow drifts, swearing they would give anything to be in my sandy, tar-stained Nikes.
Two ideas appealed to me. The fuel value of my Pepe’s breakfast had dropped to zero, so I needed a meal. I called Saluté at Higgs Beach and ordered a shrimp salad sandwich. Rick, the owner, said he would set me up at the bar. He assured me that there would be no yellow crime scene tape strung around the beer cooler.
After the hubbub had died down, I needed to connect Marnie Dunwoody with the Aristocrats. If I made them a team I could make myself scarce. That trio could chase her three-body-bag story up to Pulitzer level without me.
Or so I thought.
3.
A block from The Tideline I felt removed from evidence, solutions and rivalries. Distance is good but overrated. Four blocks farther along I hit a new roadblock.
Two wide-shouldered city cops at Atlantic and White ordered me to halt. They demanded my ID, registration and insurance chits, and wanted to know where I was coming from. Each had his right thumb hooked in his tactical utility belt, right next to his quick-action holster. I don’t begrudge their wariness, but the hostility gets old.
I pulled out my phone, pressed two buttons. B WATKINS popped into the window. I showed it to the officer nearest to me, then looked him in the eye. “I’ll dial and you talk, okay?”
He looked away, told me I could proceed. He made it sound like a favor that ran counter to his fine judgment. I wondered if he acted like a prick when he talked to his kids. To be fair, I had snapped at him too quickly, and Beth had enough problems. I didn’t want a testy exchange to come back on her as bad office politics.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound appreciative. “Guess that ugly business down the road got to me a bit.”
He stared at me, a tilt to his head, a sneer and no response.
I made sure to exceed the limit in the last two hundred yards to the restaurant.
The meal and cold Beck’s Light at Saluté restored my strength except I faced the liquor racks instead of the shoreline. My request, my fault. The TV flickered down by the door. The Weather Channel showed Kansas City snow drifts and Buffalo’s famous Vehicles on Ice Ballet. I perused inshore waves in the mirror just above the rum rack. An outside table with an ocean view might have tempered my thoughts on personal work ethic and lives ending ahead of schedule.
A voice I didn’t know stopped me from memorizing my beer bottle label.
“Alex, Mr. Rutledge, how you doing?”
A stocky man stood near the restaurant’s west exit. Bright daylight shone behind him. It hurt to look.
“Sorry, do I know you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Justin Beeson.” He approached to shake my hand. “We were introduced on New Year’s Eve. You and your beautiful detective friend. We talked about your classic Shelby and restoring old Ford Mustangs.”
I didn’t recall Mr. Beeson’s face, but something rang a bell. “You had a Nightmist Blue, sixty-seven fastback with a four-speed and a 390?”
“Still have it, Alex, garaged, climate-controlled and maintained in Sarasota. I would love to show it to you, give you a ride. Did you receive my proposal today?”
It took me a second. “The FedEx?”
“What did you think?”
I explained about leaving my house in a hurry.
“I apologize for presuming your schedule,” he said. “ I hate rudeness, and here I am…”
Justin Beeson looked about fifty, well dressed, like a tennis player who shopped Brooks Brothers. He was about five-ten and had thinning blond and silver-streaked hair, overdue for a trim but no issue in the Keys. Light khaki trousers, a blue oxford cloth shirt, tassel loafers, and the forearms of a carpenter.
“Can you give me a preview?” I said.
“Sure,” he said. “If you have a minute.”
“All afternoon, Mr. Beeson.”
“Justin, please,” he said. “This might sound glorified, but it’s an architectural job in Sarasota, two full days at the most, if the weather cooperates. My cover letter suggested we meet to discuss it at your convenience, though I expect to leave town…” He checked his watch, a slender Patek Philippe. “I’ll be leaving two days from now, almost to the minute.”
A striking brunette as tall as Beeson, perhaps fifteen years his junior, strode from the doorway to his side. A dark brown linen top, gold bracelets, gold earrings, and a gold Rolex accented her light tan. Beeson introduced her as Anya Timber. With a casual elegance Anya removed her sunglasses, nailed me with her baby blues and stuck out her hand to shake mine.
I said, “Should we move to a table and…”
Beeson shook his head. “We’ve got a mess of errands that can’t wait.”
Anya slid her hand under his elbow, gave him a subtle hip bump, an affectionate “hurry-up.”
“My cell number is in the letter,” he said. “We should be back to our house on Olivia in ninety minutes. Call today or tomorrow. Whatever’s convenient. I’ll leave it to you.”
After Beeson and I shook hands, they hooked arms and walked outside.
A minute later Rick, the owner, walked in from his parking area. “That fellow you were talking with has a nice…”
“Her name is Anya.”
Rick grinned. “I meant his car, Alex, but she’s fine, too.”
“Mustang?”
“No,” said Rick. “Not many people know the ‘99 Riviera. They look dated, but they’re supercharged and your friend has the Silver Arrow Edition. One of the last Rivieras ever built.”
“You’re into collectible cars, too?” I said.
“All of us rich guys like beautiful women and fancy automobiles.” He stuffed his hands into his trousers, pulled out his empty pockets and laughed.
I paid my bill, walked to the parking area and checked back with Dubbie Tanner. He wanted to meet me on the bench outside of 5 Brothers Grocery.
“What’s wrong with my cool, shaded porch?” I said.
“There’s a cop on the porch and his car’s out front,” said Tanner. “It’s your badge buddy, Sheriff Liska. He’s hunched over, working on his laptop. Probably poaching on your wireless network.”
“He never shows up without a plan,” I said. “He wants to fuck with my future.”
“Could it be tied to your past?” said Dubbie. “I’m a fine one to talk.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
The phone buzzed as I clicked it off. It was Malcolm Mason, the boat broker who had hired me a few days back. He had wanted photos of pre-owned pleasure c
raft in open water. Work on the ocean can be tough and unpredictable, especially in winter, so I suggested that he use the original manufacturers’ brochures to sell the glamour. To speak more effective nitty-gritty to buyers of used boats, I took drydock shots of intact hulls and framework free of corrosion. Malcolm wasn’t sure at first but he went along with my idea.
“Success on this end, Alex,” he said. “We sold two of the six where you took detail photos, so your approach was perfect. One buyer said it was the first time he had ever bought a boat based on pictures of the bilge.”
“That’s a relief,” I said.
“For all of us, Alex. We just grabbed two more boats from a foreclosure deal, and my sales rep is freshly inspired. Any chance you can shoot them today?”
The money would come in handy. “It’ll have to be after four o’clock,” I said. “But it gets dark early this time of year. No way we can do it tomorrow?”
“We bow to your expertise,” said Malcolm. “The sooner the better.”
I parked in a scooter space on Grinnell around the corner from 5 Brothers, locked my helmet to its keeper, and walked around to the outside bench that faced Southard. Tanner handed me a café con leche in a short Styrofoam cup. He sipped from a tall can of beer stealth-wrapped in a brown bag.
“You summoned me,” I said.
With a smug look on his face, Tanner handed me a business card. I couldn’t fault his pride. Finding a card for the housekeeping company, Acting Chief Execs, was a splendid investigative coup. Only their first names, Ocilla and Greg, were printed above the phone number. The stylized letters ACXX formed their logo with a wiggly arrow drawn through them. The graphics of a fourth-grader. Their font choice made the lettering look like an obscure rating for a skin flick, not that I was an expert. It was the first card I had seen in years without a web site or email address. It gave no clue to the nature of their business.
“Greg was quite the horndog, I’m told,” said Tanner. “He played the snaggletooth twilight rodeo. Went by the slogan, ‘Ugly girls need loving, too.’”
“A dogcatcher?”
“One of the first to head home each night, never alone. People in the bars called him Dregs instead of Greg. If he ever said ‘boink,’ you knew it rhymed with ‘oink.’”
“Do we know that his business partner was not a love interest?” I said.
Dubbie shook his head and finished his beer at the same time, an admirable feat. “Not with certainty.” He chucked his empty can into the trash barrel, removed a fresh one from a plastic bag, placed it in his narrow brown bag and popped it.
“How about Greg’s background?” I said.
“We’re getting there.” He pulled out a three-by-five card covered with notes. “We have conflicts in timeline and two Gregs from the same area. One in Murphy, North Carolina, and one in Blue Ridge, Georgia, thirty miles apart. Both have varying birth dates and high school graduation dates. One’s been married twice, the other never. Wiley thinks it’s probably the same guy doing an identity dance.”
“Could they be cousins with the same name?” I said. “Let’s see if the given name on each is Greg or Gregory. And see if they have the same middle name.”
“We’ll get it nailed down.”
“How about Ocilla Ramirez?”
“She registered the name Acting Chief Execs with the state three years ago last month with that legal address on Big Coppitt. She has to re-register each year, and inform them of changes, but public records show it’s still at that address and still a sole proprietorship.”
“Two names on the card, Greg must have been her only employee.”
“Looks like it,” said Tanner. “People say he rides a bike to the bars and to work, so he must live in town. I’ll drive out to Big Coppitt this afternoon, bang on the door, see who’s home.”
“Ocilla’s background?” I said.?
“We’re diving in, approaching with caution.”
Monroe County Sheriff Fred “Chicken Neck” Liska sat at my porch table, a white porcelain-enamel relic that had stood up to weather for years. The liquid in the tall clear plastic cup next to his laptop could have been iced tea or dark rum and ginger ale with lemon slices. It was the middle of his working day. I hoped it was tea, but his face looked drawn, his eyes weary. Even his hair appeared tired and thin. He wore dark blue trousers and a floral polyester shirt reminiscent of his past affection for disco-era clothing, back when he was a hot-shot Key West city detective. No one complained when he began, upon being elected sheriff, to dress like a grown-up.
He closed his computer, stared through the screening. “You’ve been where?”
“We had a major crime in town, as you know” I said. “I was summoned to the scene then brusquely dismissed on arrival. My creative talents weren’t required. My legendary deductive talent was sent packing. I took myself to lunch next to a south-facing beach full of sunbathers and watersports devotees.”
“Ahh, Rutledge. You complain when we need you, and you grouse when you’re not asked. My best new reason to stop crime in the Keys is to stop your whining.”
His words carried an attempt at humor, but he drooped slightly, bothered by something or several things. He hadn’t shaved that morning, odd for Liska.
I stepped onto the porch, sat in a cushioned armchair. “What’s with the polyester train wreck?”
“Laundry issues,” he said. “All my presentable shirts are at the cleaners. Happens about once every six weeks, but on those days I try to stay in the office. I wore a sport coat at The Tideline but I still drew stares.”
“You don’t look all that good.”
“I feel like a slug,” he said. “Does that mean I’m sluggish?”
“Have you bothered to eat this week?” I said.
“Shit, I haven’t been able to face a full meal for a month.” He sat up, reopened his computer, double-clicked a file and touched a finger to the screen. “Every day for the past few months I’ve downed a fish oil pill, a multi-vitamin for mature people, a saw palmetto capsule, seven almonds, five walnuts, one-point-seven glasses of red wine, four ounces of broccoli, five ounces of asparagus, a sliced peach, and a banana.”
“Admirable, sheriff. You might live to a hundred.”
He moved his finger down the laptop screen. “I also consume a CoQ10 softgel pill, twelve ounces of cranberry juice, a cup of plain yogurt, an 81 milligram enteric aspirin, a half-ounce of dark chocolate that’s 85 percent cocoa, two cups of coffee, three black olives, a glass of calcium-fortified orange juice, two ounces of unsalted dry-roasted peanuts, and a bowl of oatmeal with rice milk and cinnamon.” He lifted his finger from his monitor and looked at me. “If I’m lucky and still hungry, some tuna with Miracle Whip on whole wheat. After all that, if someone offered me a slice of key lime pie, I’d puke on my blood pressure monitor.”
“Why the regimen?”
“It’s the result of a grotesque tactical error,” said Liska. “I showed the results of my last physical exam to my new woman friend.”
“You traded in last year’s model?”
He nodded. “She was the enthusiastic type,” he said. “I once told her how much I enjoyed taking part in her orgasms. She said, ‘That’s great, sheriff, but I do okay by myself.’”
“She would rather jack off than be with you?”
Liska stared out at the yard. “That’s an accurate summation. And, I might add, a king-hell drain on an aging man’s ego. At that point our deal was irrevocably broken. So right away I found a new one. Will I never learn?”
He hadn’t dropped in for a yak session about diet and girlfriends.
“Do we need to discuss today’s event?” I said.
He sipped his tea like it was precious cargo. “It was complicated before it went down. It’ll be ten times worse before it’s over. I hate political implications worse than I hate walnuts.”
“If Greg Pulver had out-of-state warrants, aren’t they history now?”
“Rutledge, you were the first
person outside of law enforcement who knew his identity. Now you know his life story?”
“You’ve spoken with Beth Watkins,” I said.
“I spoke with her before and after she asked you to leave The Tideline. When you were trying to help Ms. Dunwoody get a story for the Citizen.”
“I help you, I help other friends. I’m a walking democracy.”
“You bet,” he said, “and you get help, too. An acquaintance of yours is prowling the saloons, asking about a murder victim’s habits and personal life.”
He stopped and let that hang for a moment.
I shut up.
“Just so you know,” he said, “my office, like the city police, receives periodic reports from Tallahassee about the issuance of private eye licenses. We want to be aware of any freelancers working in our jurisdiction. We keep their photos and basic info on file. As of last week that folder includes Mr. Tanner and Mr. Fecko, though someone in my office has nicknamed them ‘The Bumsnoops,’ a tag infinitely more suitable than ‘The Aristocrats.’”
“I think their heads are in the right place,” I said. “They’re not stupid men.”
“Fine,” said Liska, “but let me explain the shit coming from two directions. One concerns Greg Pulver’s employer. The one he had in addition to Pepe’s.”
“Ocilla Ramirez?” I pulled the ACXX card from my shirt pocket, handed it over. “Tanner gave this to me fifteen minutes ago.”
He looked at me in disbelief. “Your Bumsnoops are quick. Why are they doing this?”
“Marnie figures she has an exclusive. She asked me to help expand her story.”
“That’s it?”
“The Aristocrats also asked for my help, to get their new business going.”
“You’re a great guy, Rutledge. A regular facilitator.”
“Why is that such a big deal, sheriff? What’s Ocilla’s link to politics?”
“We call her a tangential party to a scam,” he said. “This mess is about to ruin a major investigation. We were helping to build a case against the people who were handling her from a couple rungs up the ladder. Another agency has been funding our man-hours, whatever you want to call it. I need to salvage this project.”