The Quick Adios (Times Six) (Alex Rutledge Mystery Series)

by Tom Corcoran

  I remembered reading, in a Beat Generation novel, about a “rambling man” who kept a packed duffel behind his living room sofa. Always ready for the fast departure to anywhere else. When younger I believed that constant motion was a fine, romantic idea—right up to the year I hit Key West, saw the island, unpacked and grew roots. With most out-of-town trips, I felt hell-bent to get back to the island, back to my own home. This time I had mixed feelings. I was escaping my second crime scene in two days, neither of which had anything to do with me. They were like passing news items except that everyone around me was sucked into tornados of grief and investigation, guilt and regret. I’ve always believed it was bad luck to assign myself imaginary negative traits. I didn’t want to think I was a shit magnet, but I was sure as hell archiving shit at a record-setting rate.

  After our landing in Key West, a flight attendant held up the Navy blue sport coat. “Mr. Fountain-ooh, please identify yourself.”

  Oh, don’t get him started, I thought.

  Bobby corrected her pronunciation with, “Fawn-tone-oh,” but kept quiet as our fellow passengers filed off to the tarmac. While we waited our turn to leave the plane, the broker told the visitor to have a great time in paradise.

  “Actually, it’s a sad visit,” said Fonteneau. “A colleague of mine died here in town, died of a heart attack two days ago. I’m here to settle his affairs.”

  Emerson Caldwell was that colleague, I thought, but offered no reaction. I left the plane just ahead of Fonteneau, and hurried to the Baggage area, hoping the chatty man would go straight to a taxi. I didn’t want to be his next victim. But that backfired when he and I were among the last people waiting for luggage. When my tripod box finally appeared, I walked outside and pointed at a taxi driver. He waved me toward his vehicle, then pointed at someone behind me.

  “Sure,” said Robert Fonteneau. “La Concha Hotel, eh?” He turned to me, stuck out his hand and reintroduced himself as “Bobby.” Up close he had an unreadable face. He could have been a Little League coach or a Russian mob assassin. He had what Sam Wheeler called bi-polar eyes. That meant he could be a softy or get mean-angry without warning. But his smile looked genuine. He repeated what I had heard him tell the real estate man, the sad reason for his trip to the island.

  “Can you recommend a good local attorney to handle this kind of situation, to get past all the red tape?”

  “I can recommend restaurants and fishing guides,” I said, “but lawyers, I really don’t know. Pick one who’s been in town a long time. It may cost the estate a little more money, but the veterans know how the machine runs.”

  “Every town has a machine,” said Fonteneau.

  “And it takes years to learn how to navigate…”

  “Well, it’s been years since I set foot on this island,” he said. “Is Captain Tony’s Saloon still in business? And the Green Parrot?”

  “Tony sold the bar back in ‘89,” I said. “He died in 2008. And Jim Bean, the man who co-owned the Parrot, died in 2010. But the bars are still there, almost the same as always.”

  “Good,” he said. “No matter what I have to do, to take care of my friend’s affairs and final wishes, I will spend tomorrow afternoon in Captain Tony’s and the next day at the Green Parrot. I’m in a mournful mood and booze will hurry me to my personal rock bottom.” His grin looked more evil than sly or sad. “Maybe it’ll take me to some young lady’s soft bottom, too.”

  Full circle, and the cab delivered me back to the curb in front of the Eden House. Fonteneau wanted to shake hands again. I pretended to fumble with my camera bag and not see his outstretched fingers. I wished him luck and closed the cab door.

  It was great to return to tropical scents, the sea breeze, the muffled sounds of cars over on Eaton Street, the flickering of streetlights through the canopy of palm trees. Familiar old architecture of homes on Fleming, so different from anywhere else in Florida. I wondered how many times I had walked that patch of pavement, how often each year for all of the years I had lived in the lane. Even the pebbles under my shoes felt familiar.

  The last time I had come around the corner, less than thirty hours earlier, I was returning from Beeson’s home on Olivia Street. Hurrying back from the meeting where he had asked about the legal status of digital photos.

  “What about crime cases that go to court?”

  Why had he used the word “crime” instead of “civil?”

  He had followed that by using the words “judge” and “juries.”

  Had I been blinded by his style, his approach, his money or his woman?

  The first thing I noticed in the lane was the Mercedes SUV with Illinois plates owned by the Neighbor I Didn’t Know. He had bought the house a year earlier. He came for six weeks in winter and three weeks in summer and never said hello or waved. In October two workmen had placed paving bricks over a patch of marl in front of his house. Now he had a precise, perfect spot for his Benz. That was all I knew about him, except that he always dressed like he was still in Chicago.

  I surely didn’t know why a committee awaited me. I didn’t even notice their cars until I had to walk between them to reach my house. I opened the screen door and found Dubbie Tanner standing on the porch. Sheriff Liska, Beth, Marnie and my close friend and neighbor, Carmen Sosa, sat staring as if shocked to see me appear at my own home.

  “Everyone has Liska’s eyes,” I said. “What’s with all the long faces?”

  Liska smiled, shook his head. “We weren’t exactly expecting you back tonight.”

  I looked at Beth. She cast her gaze at the porch decking for an instant then raised her eyes to me. We were locked eye-to-eye but I could feel everyone else’s gaze upon me. Could feel their eyes sorting my expression, reading my doubt.

  “What?” I said.

  Beth’s eyes held pure sadness. She bit her upper lip between her teeth, released it and said, “As a group we have failed your friendship.”

  Far too quickly I said, “Who’s dead?”

  Her shoulders sank and told me that my guess was correct.

  “At The Tideline condo, another person. Someone we all knew, but you…”

  “Oh, shit,” I said, dreading her news. “Please just say.”

  Beth shuddered and barely whispered, “Teresa Barga.”

  9.

  My eyes had caught it, with help from a telephoto lens.

  The third body bag at The Tideline crime scene.

  Teresa Barga had ended our short-term relationship several years ago. For eight months we had spent almost every night together at her Shipyard townhouse or in my cottage, depending on our moods and schedules. I probably had loved her. She had not closed out our affair gracefully. Her head was turned when an old college boyfriend showed up in town. He was a scam artist and a loser. Worse, not long after recapturing her heart, he was murdered by a woman he had been blackmailing.

  After that mess Teresa and I kept our distance until a complication no one could have foreseen. Tim Rutledge, my younger brother, hit town in a swirl of typical Keys misbehavior. In the first week of his drunken visit, he met and charmed Teresa in a restaurant over breakfast. I viewed their intense, short-term romance with certain opinions regarding their motivations. Events forced me into acceptance before the couple’s inevitable split and Tim’s departure for the mainland.

  Since then Teresa and I had run into each other only three times, odd for a small island, and especially since she was still the KWPD’s Public Information Officer. Our meetings had been short and cordial. I was happy to discover that my bitterness over our breakup had vanished. I wished her well each time and I had meant it. And, for some reason, I remembered each encounter.

  Everyone on the porch stared at me. Carmen, Beth, Marnie, Liska and Tanner. I could tell by their faces that Teresa’s death had been violent. I had been given the story’s ending but no grisly details. Oddly, I felt little grief at first. Dozens of images and ideas swirled in my brain, including the fact that the bad news could have been wor
se. The death of Carmen Sosa’s daughter, Maria, or my brother, Tim. Or any close and loyal friend on the island. Of course, there is no way to prioritize tragedy. Just as there is no standard form of grief.

  I was unsure how to respond, had no words adequate to the loss. I offered only secondhand gossip: “I heard last summer that she was living in New Town with some city cop.”

  “Officer Darrin Marsh,” said Beth. “On the force for six years. They moved from Fogarty Street to The Tideline last fall. They lived fifty feet down the hall from the murder condo. Her body was found in Emerson Caldwell’s kitchen.”

  I thought I had escaped the mess, washed my hands of everything, left it to Beth and Marnie and the Aristocrats. Now, for sure, I was sucked back in.

  With the sad news aired, everyone but Beth left the porch. Dubbie Tanner went first, Carmen and Marnie offered hugs, Chicken Neck shook hands but couldn’t look me in the eye.

  I sat in the chair that he had vacated. “First, let me explain Sarasota.”

  “I know,” said Beth. “I got your message. I wasn’t sure how to answer it.”

  “Why this group, this mini-summit meeting?”

  “We expected you back, your message said tomorrow. We were deciding how to let you know by phone. We knew it would be in tomorrow’s Citizen.”

  “Did you draw straws to pick the bearer of bad tidings?”

  “Don’t be that way, Alex. I wasn’t sure how or when, but knew I would tell you. I wanted to include the others in my decision.”

  “I’ll have to call Tim.”

  “Has he made new friends up in Florida?” she said. “Did you meet anyone while you were there, someone who might stand by him if he needs reassurance?”

  “I met two of his pals and a women he’d been dating. I didn’t feel them out for emergency hand-holding. I don’t think he was going to meetings or anything like that.”

  In October my brother Tim had found a job in Orlando, which we both needed. I had paid his motel bills for several months until he got situated. Finally a searchlight company hired him to tow a beacon and generator rig all over central Florida. His assignments were sparse. There weren’t many grand openings in a tough economy, so his money was tight. Of all people, the perennial rambling boy had sounded lonely the few times we spoke on the phone. Just before Christmas I borrowed Beth’s new Audi A5, drove up from the Keys and stayed well north of the Disney-Universal mess. I survived a cheap motel and six restaurant meals. After Tim and I shared a farewell lunch at a Bonefish Grill, I drove back to Key West in crazed and urgent holiday traffic. I felt like sleeping for four days. To my surprise, he had mentioned Teresa Barga a half dozen times. Now I would have to ante up brotherly duty a second time.

  “Liska was here yesterday, full of one-liners and praise,” I said. “Did he come to tell me about Teresa?”

  “He assured me that he was an old pro at breaking bad news,” said Beth. “When he was face-to-face with you, right here on the porch, he couldn’t do it. He meant well. Both he and Marnie felt bad about not saying anything right away.”

  “It wouldn’t have changed what happened,” I said.

  “It would have changed one major factor,” she said. “I owe you an apology for taking away your fun yesterday.”

  “Excluding me from forensics?” I said. “You know me better than that. I would never view a crime scene as entertainment.”

  “I wasn’t saying that. I know that murder starts ugly and goes downhill.”

  “Where does fun fit?”

  “When a detective asks you to help out,” said Beth. “You get the power to say, ‘No.’ It’s flattering to be asked, and it’s strong to turn it down.”

  “Wrong and wrong, my lovely friend,” I said. “It’s a pain to be called and a relief to decline.”

  “What needs relieving?”

  “I hate being the outsider,” I said. “Every time I get dragged into a case, I’m surrounded by trained scene workers. Aside from you and Liska and one or two other detectives, I can see the looks in their eyes. I’m worse than a pain in the ass. I’m a civilian intruder who could molest evidence and undermine their reputations. I’m no better than a TV cop show fan living out his dreams.”

  Beth nodded, took a sip, then shook her head. “That’s not what law enforcement people say about you.”

  “Not to mention,” I said, “my presence confuses a situation that needs clarity, not turmoil. It makes mockery of their training. Even you have to sense that, right?”

  She looked at me and said nothing.

  “Who would take time to talk about me?” I said.

  “Believe me, out of the public eye, they talk about everyone and everything. A few resent that you don’t think like a cop. The majority say they like your approach. You have a way of clinging to a case.”

  I wasn’t sure how to react so I shut up.

  “They all respect your results,” said Beth. “A lot of veteran detectives would like to have your case closure rate.”

  “You weren’t around the first couple times Liska talked me into it,” I said. “I had reasons to cling, as you call it. There was someone close to me that drew me in and kept me on it. With this case, I’m a true bystander. I have no stake in the outcome.”

  “Amazing bullshit.”

  “Okay,” I admitted. “I’d like to bring down the bastard that killed Teresa.”

  Beth walked around my chair, lifted my shirt, began to massage my upper back. One of her habits that I most enjoyed.

  “If Teresa lived down the hall,” I said, “how did she…”

  “She was strangled and her neck was snapped. The strangling killed her.”

  I fought to keep the picture from my mind. “I didn’t mean that,” I said. “Why was she in Caldwell’s condo? Was she having a fling with the late Greg Pulver?”

  My shoulders were tight as bridge cables. Beth’s thumbs were up to the task.

  “According to her boyfriend, Marsh, that wasn’t the case at all. He and Teresa had taken the day off. They were lounging around, having their coffee, deciding where to go for lunch. She went to drop garbage down the chute and to get something from her car. She may have found Caldwell’s door open, or heard a cry for help and looked in. She may have walked into a crime-in-progress.”

  “Shall I bet that she was found by Officer Marsh?”

  Beth eased up her massage. “Yes, but it’s not your job to speculate.”

  “Will you do me a favor and talk me through Darrin’s story?”

  “Okay,” she said, “but let me say first that her T-shirt, sweatpants and flip-flops fit the idea that she was having an easy morning. Enjoying coffee and the newspaper on her balcony.”

  “Let me guess. She didn’t return and Marsh went looking for her?”

  “After about twenty minutes he wondered, but he figured she was caught in a conversation with a neighbor. After forty minutes he called her cell phone, but it rang in their bedroom. So Darrin went looking, found Emerson Caldwell’s door wide open, saw the man on the floor, then found Teresa in the kitchen. He called 911 from Caldwell’s land line and backed out of the crime scene. He didn’t venture far enough into the apartment to find Greg Pulver in the master bath.”

  “Did Teresa or Marsh know Caldwell or his wife?”

  “He said they didn’t. They had seen the cleaning crew come and go, but never an occupant. They even discussed hiring the cleaners.”

  “Well,” I admitted, “it’s all logical. Except he put his fingerprints on the phone before he backed out to preserve the crime scene. He probably left his prints on the kitchen floor, too.”

  “He did,” said Beth. “And about six other places, too.”

  “There’s bound to be a civil rights question. Will the Feds see Marsh as a person of interest?”

  “They questioned him for three hours yesterday afternoon. They’ve got two agents watching him, not that they informed us of that fact. We know that he’s acting mopey but he’s going through his d
ay-to-day motions. One of them said he was a person of boredom. Naturally, they’re curious about that, too.”

  “Nothing like normalcy to set off a bureaucrat.”

  She quit rubbing my neck, walked around and sat opposite me, grim-faced. “One other thing,” she said. “His service pistol is missing, and he can’t account for it. He thinks it was stolen from his pickup in The Tideline parking lot.”

  “So… he’s a sloppy cop. How could that matter in this case? No one was shot.”

  “Greg Pulver was not carved up with sharp knives,” she said. “We decided to put out that story to thwart false confessions. The hollow-point bullet that took out Pulver entered his lower jaw and went upward. One of my sicker colleagues called it a brain smoothie.”

  “I hope someone had the presence of mind to search for Marsh’s weapon.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Beth. “One of the sheriff’s guys ordered a search of the condo grounds and adjacent properties. When he expanded it to halfway up Smathers Beach and back down to White Street Pier, I shut down the search.”

  “You countermanded him?”

  “He bought my logic. Darrin Marsh is a cop. He knows about evidence. He could have shot Pulver, driven less than two miles in any direction but south and dropped the bastard off a dock. No one would ever see it again. Looking around The Tideline is fine. It accounts for the panic of a murderer. But anything else assumes lack of cunning, becomes bogus by the infinite possibilities.”

  “But he didn’t have time to drive anywhere… Oh, okay,” I said. “He ditched the gun, came home and found Caldwell’s door open with the man dead on the floor.”

  “Except maybe Teresa found Caldwell first, then found Greg Pulver. When Marsh returned she may have been calling 911. So he hung it up, killed his girlfriend, then called 911 himself.”