by Tom Corcoran
“Funny accent. Long vowels like, maybe, New England.”
“Did the Latina come in to look for him after he quit showing up for work?”
Cathy shook her head. “Nobody did.”
“Busy dude, Greg Pulver.”
“Always on time,” she said. “What a shame.”
My bicycle balancing act could have been a featured routine at Mallory Square’s Sunset Celebration. Fausto’s policy of no plastic bags added two degrees of difficulty. Beer, soft drinks, crushables in two bags. I wanted to make the light at Fleming and Simonton but didn’t quite.
A jogger on the sidewalk pumped her legs in place while she waited for the green. She looked fortyish and fit, wore a Nike exercise monitor on one arm, an orange iPod Nano on the other. Neon green wires ran to her translucent earbuds and she carried small barbells in each hand.
A kid in his late teens wearing shorts and no shirt coasted slowly by on a bike. He grabbed the woman’s left butt cheek, gave it a mean squeeze and began to turn south on Simonton. Without a word she whirled, wound up like a major-league pitcher and threw a strike. The barbell clocked the kid in his upper back. One of his feet slipped off its pedal. He slumped on the bike, ran over his foot, fell and skidded under a parked delivery van, whacking his head on its rear bumper. He tried to stand but slumped again, then threw up next to the curb.
The woman skipped in a circle and yelled, “I waited two weeks for that, you sick ass grabber. Now you will stop fucking with me!” She ran toward the injured young man, retrieved the tiny barbell, called him a dipshit, took a deep breath and jogged back toward Duval Street. Not a single bystander offered to help the punk until a woman who hadn’t seen what happened stopped her car, got out tapping hurriedly on her cell.
After stashing my groceries I checked for messages on the landline phone I keep for faxing quotes. The number is listed, so I get a few local calls. Four messages from friends who had read about Teresa and knew that she and I once had been a couple. Sympathies, wishing me well, “thinking” about me. One, behind the times, offered me strength in my time of loss. Said I was “young enough” to find someone else when the time was right. Down deep, I wondered about strength and why I felt compelled to avenge the death of a woman who had dumped my ass like a cold Conch fritter.
I called Dubbie Tanner’s cell and it went to voicemail. “Our mystery woman, Ms. Ocilla, may be a bar-hopper,” I said. “You might do just as well on the rum telegraph as your partner will online. In fact, why don’t you ask him to back off that library card trick for a day or two and save it for when you really might need it? Also, are we okay in regard to your fees and expenses? I threw around that cash yesterday, but I have no idea which of us is getting screwed.”
Five in the afternoon and it took my ripe T-shirt to remind me to shower. Time to make my daily visit to the one-month-old, all-weather loudspeakers. I put on the re-mastered edition of “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon,” set it to start with the four acoustic bonus tracks, vintage songs-in-progress and a lesson in songwriting. I already had shampoo in my hair when it cycled to that verse of “Kodachrome” that mentions all the girls Paul knew when he was single. Teresa jumped back into my thoughts, in the place where she and I had played games and made love in better days. Why did this memory clip keep looping? Was I going to be haunted by the ghost of a woman I had stopped loving years ago?
I toweled off and found a message from Beth Watkins on my cell. “I’m your local stinger, staked out with Pete Trainor. We’re waiting in an upscale home to bust the dude responsible for a mess of break-ins near the Casa Marina. Lieutenant Trainor baited the trap on Facebook. He posted as if he was the home’s owner and told the whole world he was in Ocean Reef for the day. I don’t know how long this might take, especially if it works. If you see me tonight, it will be a fine surprise to both of us.”
While shaving I failed to hear a call from Marnie Dunwoody. Her message said, “Wanted to thank you again. I just got a late boost to my story on The Tideline. I happened to take a call at my desk from a Toronto newspaper. They wanted a local statement regarding the Canadian Consulate’s request for an autopsy of Mr. Emerson Caldwell. The consul’s refusing to talk about it, but such requests are made only when there’s a high probability of foul play. So I got to refile my piece and double-dip on my flat fee and royalties. I owe you a shrimp remoulade, my great enabler.”
I didn’t know if Wiley was Fecko’s nickname or real name. It sure as hell fit.
I called Beth back, trusting that her phone was set to vibrate. She answered with a muffled, “Unh-huh.”
“I know you can’t talk, so I’ll be quick. Make a formal request for the autopsy. It’s got to happen. Trust me on this.”
“Umm, okay…” Her voice went quiet for a moment. “Action here,” she whispered. “Don’t call back to explain.”
I drank a beer and went to meditate.
My dream-free nap was cut short by the slap of metal against metal. Carmen Sosa doesn’t like the volume of my brass bell. She wraps her hand around the bell’s flare and rattles the clapper. It sounds like someone smacking two glass jelly jars against each other.
Bleary-eyed, scratching my belly, I stumbled to the porch.
She laughed at me. “You need to perk up. Drink a Red Bull.” She wore dark slacks and a pale blue top, on her way home from work at the post office.
“Blech,” I said. “ I’ve had only one of those, ever. It tasted like I was drinking a cheap brand of floral air freshener.”
“Be like me,” she said. “I killed a Fat Bastard last night.”
“Pardon me?”
“It’s a wine joke.”
“Got it,” I said. “It’s also an admission of loneliness.”
“Maybe. You don’t have an open red, do you?”
“I will make it happen,” I said.
Carmen Sosa has lived for years with her daughter, Maria Rolley, at the end of Dredgers Lane. Her father, Hector Ayusa, and her late mother, Cecilia, had lived across from my home since my arrival. After Cecilia died, Carmen swapped homes with her father to give Maria, a teenager, more space and to distance Hector from a houseful of sad memories. More than a former lover, Carmen is my closest friend, my inner strength and a font of humor. She holds my house keys, computer password, most of my secrets and the ability to read my mind. I keep my ‘66 Shelby GT-350H in the garage she rents to me. I have always thought of Maria as the daughter I had never had, though cranky moments in her teen years have forced me to retreat for safety’s sake. I love them both and depend on their friendship.
I returned to the porch and handed Carmen a glass of J. Lohr Cabernet.
“I apologize for waking you up,” she said. “You’ve had a rough couple of days.”
“You’re forgiven. Teresa’s death is awful, and my trip to Sarasota was gruesome.”
“Actually, now that I think about it,” she said, “I retract half of my apology. I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, but Teresa was an idiot. I hope they play ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ at her funeral.”
“Rough words,” I said.
“She fucked you over so badly, she deserved that boy she ended up with.”
“Ended up?”
“You know, in the sense that no one ever ‘goes out to eat’ at Denny’s. They ‘end up’ at Denny’s. He was, to my mind, a squeeze of last resort. He was the only place still open, and greasy as well.”
“You know Darrin Marsh?”
“Not in the Biblical sense,” she said, “but it was a near miss.”
“Do tell.”
“Not a proud moment, in fact scary. He kept showing up at the post office, sending small packages to people named Marsh, so I assumed they were gifts for family members. He’d crack jokes, tell me he liked my hair, my eyes. This was before he became a cop. He was an electrician. He worked four days a week for a company on Ramrod. One afternoon he asked if I would meet him at La Tratt for a margarita. I forget why, but he picked the right goddamn day. I
was so ready for a margarita, I could have chewed the glass.”
I raised my wine to her. “That’s the woman I know and love.”
“Except, after we split a dinner and left, he was so ready to get his hands on my big titties, he could barely kiss without drooling. If these charmers had been Cuban bread dough, the way he kneaded them, we could have made sandwiches for fifty people.”
“I recall that I have been guilty of the same crime,” I said.
“Alex, in case you don’t know, you possess a subtlety that is scarce in the modern male. You didn’t squeeze. Your hands felt like they were molding silk purses full of gold dust.”
“Why is this the first time I have heard this?”
She waved off my question as if I had asked about her shoe size. “Anyway, we were parked on Whitehead at the time, so I told him I wasn’t comfortable with the neighborhood. I wanted to go home.”
“Did that become a problem?”
“No, he took me home for one last wrestling match. But first he had to show me his arsenal, show me I didn’t need to be afraid of the natives, as he called them.”
“A gun under the seat?” I said.
“No, it was in this compartment, like a console some cars have between bucket seats. Except this was on his headliner, between the sun visors. The thing was locked solid, but he twisted a key in the slot and out dropped a nasty-looking little gun. I was on the edge of a massive freak-out but he popped it right back in its hiding place and closed the compartment. Brought me back here to the lane, massaged the girls for a half-minute before I pretended I was sick and might puke in his truck. He didn’t even wait to make sure I got into the house okay. I had no problem turning him down the next six times he asked me out. He finally got a clue.”
“Well, that clue at least,” I said.
“To her credit,” said Carmen, “Teresa almost redeemed herself when she was nice to your brother. But that whole situation reeked of ulterior horseshit, too, so I don’t know…”
“I’ve been nice to you for years and these postal service shirts, I can’t even scope the cleavage. I can’t remember what you looked like upside-down.”
“Which is one view you never got anyway, best as I recall,” she said. “But if you need an ego boost, there have been nights in the past year when I wished I could have walked across the lane in my jammies and crawled into bed with you. Just to hug, be next to a warm body. Nights when I missed my mother, and nights when I would sit awake wondering if I’ll die of cancer, too. Plus, it was so much easier to be single when Maria was little.”
“Is she Miss Eagle-Eye?” I said.
“I can barely date, she puts me under so much scrutiny. She analyzes everything, sees every event on multiple levels. She knows what I expect of her in her friendships, and she, of course, expects the same of me. Which is why I will not have the second glass of wine you are about to pour for me. Oh, wait, just one more.”
Before I could add to her glass, Carmen changed her mind and went home to spend time with Maria.
Around seven o’clock my house phone rang. I didn’t recognize the Caller ID, but the 941 area code suggested that it might be Detective Glenn Steffey. But no, it was Edwin Torres, the mechanic from Beeson’s operation in Sarasota.
“You’re back in the Florida Keys,” he said.
“You just called me here, Edwin. What can I do for you?”
“Look, I need a favor. It would make life easier for me, if you ever come back this way, if you didn’t repeat what I said, you know, me bad-mouthing Luke. Of course you can tell me to go straight to hell.”
“I have no reason to repeat any part of our conversation,” I said.
“Well, you never know,” said Torres. “I thought I’d ask… I mean, I would really appreciate it.”
“You got it. Everything okay up there in your part of the world?”
“I guess,” he said. “Those cops kicked me loose after you left, and I ain’t heard from them anymore. My boss at UPS was cool with me missing hours, after he heard what happened. I was afraid I’d have to go back to work at Midas, replacing exhaust systems.”
“How’s Justin Beeson doing?”
“Fuck him,” said Torres. “He hasn’t called me like I hoped he would.”
“Why would you want that?” I said.
“Well… shit. Why else? To find out if I still work for him. Thanks for that favor. If I ever get to the Keys, I’d love a ride in your car.”
I didn’t recognize the vehicle that pulled into the lane and stopped in front of the house. Through the half-shut blinds I saw the illuminated car top pizza delivery sign.
Then I heard Beth’s voice: “My treat, I’ll get it.”
I pulled plates from the cupboard, set out trays.
She did the transaction and carried in two pizza flats. “I called the order while I was walking here. I had a feeling you wouldn’t want to go out.”
After we inhaled our first couple of slices, I asked about her B&E stakeout.
“We arrested a housewife from Sugarloaf, where the county also has a backlog of daytime break-ins. This babe was truly retro, trying to facilitate an old-fashioned diet pill habit. In fairness, I should give her credit for being clever. We caught her with twelve digital cameras, seven portable hard drives, a duffel full of iPods and iPhones and three laptops set up to create counterfeit prescription orders. She created bogus email accounts for a dozen doctors between here and Key Largo. As of five o’clock today, every drug store and grocery store pharmacy in the Keys will send follow-ups to doctors’ certified email addresses before dispensing drugs.”
“That should pull down some respect from Chicken Neck’s boys.”
“Remains to be seen,” she said. “Did you call your brother?”
I told her it had gone okay, and repeated Tim’s question about whether Darrin Marsh might have killed Teresa. “Before I forget,” I said, “didn’t you say that the security cameras at The Tideline were out of order when Marsh found the bodies?”
I caught her with her mouth full. Her eyes opened wider and she nodded.
“Carmen told me this evening that Darrin Marsh was an electrician before he became a cop. Here comes the other shoe. She went out with him once and never again. He didn’t threaten her, but he had a handgun stashed in an overhead console in his truck.”
“Lieutenant Trainor and I talked about Darrin today. He called him a ‘piece of work’ and made it sound ominously close to ‘piece of shit.’ Said he’d had to work with him for six years. Then he said, ‘Six years too long.’”
We finally quit eating and sat quietly, not talking for at least five minutes. I had no idea where Beth’s thoughts had gone until she said, “I love it when my job goes well, like it did today. I love it less when it gets complicated and jumbled up, but I don’t really blame you as much as I sound like I do.”
“You weed your way through the complications, lovely lady,” I said, “you’ll be proud again on the far side of the mess. Every so often you take risks. Calculated risks, I hope. You do it with your smarts and instinct, the payoff’s even sweeter.”
“Are you up for an early night of it?” said Beth. “I have to slide out early for two meetings at the county.”
“Yes,” I said. “Next question?”
“Care to dance?”
I loved the idea. “Tango colchón? Rumba reclinada?”
“Call it what you like,” she said, “but we’re going to be barefoot.”
We took turns making footprints on the ceiling.
12.
Beth Watkins’s phone alarm chirped before dawn. She turned on a light in the bath to find her clothing in three different rooms. I watched as she dressed in near-darkness then whispered a few words about being careful out there, and she kissed my forehead. The next time I opened my eyes the walls glowed with sunlight dappled by crotons in easy motion outside the window. The bedroom smelled great. The rest of the house smelled of day-old pizza. I opened windows.
As I approached the restaurant, a silver BMW X3 wagon backed out of a space near the entrance. The driver was E. Carlton Gamble, an attorney whom I had met several times over the years. His passenger was Robert Fonteneau, Canadian estate rep and pro yakker. Fonteneau fixed his eyes on me, said something to Gamble and pointed. I wondered whether Fonteneau knew of Caldwell’s business history—or if he was part of it. At least he had taken my advice on finding an established lawyer.
To my surprise, Gamble pulled back into the parking slot, lowered the windows on both front doors and introduced me to Fonteneau.
“Bob says you shared a cab last evening,” said Gamble. “I appreciate the advice you gave him regarding representation.”
“And I thank you for your friendly welcome to the island,” said Fonteneau. “It was a positive way to begin a mournful duty.”
“That’s the way Alex is,” said Gamble. “Maybe that’s why he dates one of the most lovely women in Key West, city detective Beth Watkins.”
“I look forward to meeting her,” said Fonteneau, “and seeing you again soon.”
Even better than fruit and granola was the quiet restaurant’s solitude. My cell was muted. For the first time in three days, no one could find me. I lingered over coffee and a side-order croissant, and thought about how I might spend the fresh cash in my pocket and the additional money if Beeson honored my expense invoice. Maybe take Beth to the British Virgins for a week of nothing but sleep and air. I read the Citizen headline piece about the sting-arrest of a woman who was linked to a dozen breaking-and-entering complaints. She had been tagged “Scratchity Sue” by Stock Island neighbors who knew of her drug habit. Lieutenant Pete Trainor received credit for the bust, an obvious goodwill gesture on Beth Watkins’s part. I didn’t recognize the name of the KWPD’s “interim” spokesperson—Teresa Barga’s replacement.