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

by Tom Corcoran

  Malcolm let his office speak louder than his attire. He was dutifully laid back in shapeless Levi’s, white Nike Airs, and an aqua-toned Columbia shirt. I knew he was in his late thirties, so I guessed that his hair was cut short to mask premature gray. “Key West Point of View,” a 40-minute Key West photo DVD, played on an HDTV monitor above Malcolm’s chair. The aquarium DVD I had seen in Justin Beeson’s home in Sarasota filled a smaller screen on the opposite wall.

  “I’ve seen that movie before, the fish,” I said. “Must be popular enough to warrant a sequel.”

  “This boat I need you to document, they could shoot a few DVDs right where it sank,” said Malcolm. “Because it went down so close to the reef, it was easy to get salvage rights. But it was a huge chore to refloat it. We brought it here to the yard, and I subcontracted the hull, the fittings, all the wiring and the interior finish and glass work.”

  “Why salvage rights?” I said. “Why didn’t the owner refloat her?”

  “The owner panicked and drowned. We raised it on his wife’s okay.”

  “How could a boater panic?” I said. “I mean, the requirements for safety gear. Who doesn’t have the sense to pull on a life vest?”

  Malcolm shook his head. “You’re right. Even children have that going. His three passengers kept calm and lashed together everything that floated to the surface. They made themselves a raft of trash. They even took turns sleeping on furniture cushions. One of the survivors said the owner’s last words were, ‘I can’t think of what to do next.’”

  “Then he used it like a car,” I said. “Turn the key and go. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t think through the possibilities ahead of time.”

  “Right you are. Like the leak he never discovered and the three bilge pumps that he ran off one instead of three separate breakers.”

  Not one to micro-manage, Malcolm sent me outside to work alone. He trusted me to pick the best combination of flash and sunlight to show the boat’s design and quality materials. He knew I would capture the important details of seaworthiness and safety. Malcolm was the type of client I enjoyed most, the kind I had hoped for in Justin Beeson four days earlier.

  Back outside, the southeast breeze was no warmer than my porch had been when I found Liska in his funk two hours earlier. The southeast wind carried a familiar scent. I wondered how many current Key West residents would know the smell and sound of diesel shrimpboat engines. The shrimpers, as a species, had been moved to Stock Island years ago so Key West could go into the marina business. The city could rent dock space by the foot and ambience by the week.

  Alone with my gear and static subjects, I felt an almost Zen removal from five days of confusion and tragedy. I was alone with light, shadows, my camera and the boat’s internal structure. I had brought my Mini-Mag flashlight and a white parabolic umbrella to bounce flash and to filter the odd ray of sunlight that might sneak below. Sounds from the nearby shipyard were muffled, and my Triumph was locked safely inside Malcolm’s tall, barb-topped fence. This insulation from the world, the fact of the boat owner’s death and my proximity to the boat’s keel took me again to the past.

  During my Navy days I had been sent to numerous single-day training schools. Two stood out in my mind. One was Buttercup; the other was the helo-dump.

  The USS Buttercup is a shore-based mock-up of critical spaces below sea level on a Navy ship. Sailors attend class then go “aboard” to be subjected to a “missile attack.” Buttercup’s operators pull levers and flip switches that mimic battle damage at sea. Bulkheads split and pipes spring leaks. Teams must use anything they can find to keep their ship from “sinking.” I remember scrambling underwater, trying not to swallow the brackish cocktail, patching hull splits with mattresses, plywood and loose timber. We all learned that, in a real situation, our lives depended on teamwork and timing and ingenuity. We had to be inventive. We learned quickly, and I can’t believe that any of us would forget it.

  In the “helo-dump,” also a shore-based contraption, two sailors are strapped into the “cockpit” of a helicopter that is dunked into a deep, cold pool then flipped upside down. The trick is to keep your cool, hold your breath, release your restraining belts, make sure your dunk partner is free, then get out of the sinking chopper and find the surface. You do it once with lights on, then again in near darkness. You know it’s an exercise, but it gets your attention. Even the strongest of us had to admit to moments of apprehension.

  I heard a knock on the hull. It was not a torpedo.

  “You can quit work on this one,” said Malcolm. “I really could use photos of the pale blue hull at the end of this row.”

  I threw him a puzzling look. I would have been done in ten more minutes.

  “I just sold the damned boat,” he said. “The man inside the building paid my list price without even coming out here to inspect the damned thing. Please invoice me for this one as if you had finished up.”

  It took me less than an hour to finish photographing the pale blue Bertram.

  I checked my phone. I’d had a call from Wiley Fecko so I called him back.

  “We’ve been getting frantic messages from Marnie Dunwoody,” he said. “How is that, and what’s she talking about, writing a book?”

  “I gave her your numbers,” I said, “but this is the first I’ve heard of a book. Do what you want, but trust her. Anything else?”

  “We should have a sit-down meeting,” said Fecko.

  “I hope it’s because you found Ocilla Ramirez’s client list.”

  “Let’s give your porch a break,” said Fecko. “It’s your private place to relax but it’s suffered a rash of meetings.”

  “Rash?” I said.

  “It’s turning into Mallory Square,” he said. “Come over here and see our company campus.”

  “That sounds strange to me.”

  “Don’t worry. It doesn’t smell that way.”

  16.

  The co-owners of Southernmost Aristocratic Investigations were the last two men I expected to find living in the New Town section of the island. Especially so close to Bible hours and potluck dinners at Grace Lutheran Church. Wiley Fecko had given me their address on Staples, told me where to turn off Flagler. Fenced yards jammed with SUVs, vans and boats made it tough to find house numbers. I drove past it once, dodged a rain puddle at 11th Street, U-turned and found their place shaded by a huge sea grape tree.

  The telling clue was Dubbie Tanner’s old Chevy Caprice in the carport. The beast had been his primary residence for years, his downscale Caroline Street crib before the city put parking meters east of Margaret. The new home was concrete block and stucco with fresh siding, a new roof and storm-proof windows. Dubbie had spent his money wisely. Except for its height above sea level, this structure was where I wanted to be during a hurricane. Fecko saw me arrive and opened the front door. He wore a lavender Tri-Delt sweatshirt. I doubted that he was up-to-date with his sorority dues.

  I parked on the concrete walkway that ran to the porch, but Wiley motioned me around to the carport.

  “I was watching the radar,” he said. “A big green blob is heading our way.”

  After he helped me cover the Triumph with an old tarp, I carried in my camera bag. Two empty Dion’s chicken boxes sat on a table made out of an interior door slab. I couldn’t tell if it had been their noon meal or supper the night before.

  The only furniture in the main room was a quartet of plastic-webbed lawn chairs and a five-foot television. Three Monkey Tom driftwood paintings hung on the wall opposite the TV. Sliding glass doors in the rear wall led to a screened lanai that also held four cheap yard chairs and a makeshift table. On the upside, the prevailing odor inside their home was that of fresh latex paint.

  Dubbie pointed down a hallway. “Want to know what we have? My associate will escort you to our office.”

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  Their expressions went from gross innocence to dueling shame. Rain began to fall outside, quickly becomin
g torrential. It was the first time in five days that I had seen Tanner without a beer in his hand.

  “Why do I feel like I should be pissed off about something?”

  They stared at me wondering how I had guessed.

  “Come on,” I said. “You wanted this meeting and you wanted it here. Why?”

  “We might have fucked up,” said Tanner.

  “Why ‘might have?’” I said.

  “Consequences unknown at this moment.”

  The rain made it hard to hear. “Pardon me?” I said. “Might have… ?”

  “We won’t know for a while.”

  “Was it on the computer?” I said.

  “Not at all,” said Wiley. “It started with luck and what we thought was first-rate sleuthing.”

  “Your good intentions took you to… ?”

  “Ocilla Ramirez,” said Wiley. “I rode my bike to the library this morning to spend time researching her background. They open the doors at 9:30, so I timed my ride to arrive a minute early. I was tooling down William Street and there she was, parallel parking her moss-green Honda Element, going to a client’s home.”

  “You’re sure it was a client?” I said.

  “She made three trips back to her car to carry in cleaning gear.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You were challenged by the deputies that watch her?”

  Wiley shook his head. “Didn’t happen. I rode my bike down that block twice. Then I sat on the porch of a closed-up home across the street and down a couple houses. Except for a mother with two kids headed for the library and typical traffic, there was no sign of humans—walking or in parked vehicles.”

  “Why do you think you screwed up?”

  Tanner picked up the story. “Ocilla never came out,” he said. “Wiley called me to come and help. My first task was to look for the surveillance deputies. I didn’t see anyone, and we thought, if they were hidden somewhere on the block, why weren’t they worried, too? If she had come back out, we would try to follow her to her next job and start to fill out that client list you want so bad. We took turns riding our bikes and walking on William Street, but she never appeared. Her Honda never moved.”

  “Maybe she saw one of you and outwaited you both,” I said. “Or fell asleep and is just now waking up?”

  “I rang the damn doorbell,” said Dubbie. “I was going to pretend I was trying to buy a sewing machine advertised in the paper. No one came to the door. I walked around back and knocked on the door. No answer, but I checked and it was unlocked. Let’s just say I found all of her cleaning gear and confirmed her absence. Then I saw the gate in the back yard fence. It opens to the yard behind that one, leads to a house on Elizabeth Street.”

  “The Honda Element?”

  “It was still parked on the street when we gave up and came home,” said Tanner. “Our problem is we don’t know whether she spotted Wiley and he scared her off, or she planned to split before she even went to work. I mean, the house had an escape hatch, that gate in the rear fence.”

  “You think she planned ahead, chose that William Street house on purpose?”

  “Logical,” said Dubbie. “It was pure luck that Wiley saw her, so she probably wanted to ditch the deputies.”

  “But they weren’t there,” I said.

  “Not in the two hours we were around,” said Fecko.

  Tired of standing, I sat in one of the living room chairs. “Go back to page one,” I said. “What inspired you to go to the library, to look into Ocilla’s background?”

  “Another touch of good luck,” said Tanner. “A friend of mine knows a woman named Janice who takes care of rich people’s homes. It’s the same kind of service that Ocilla’s little company, ACXX, provides, except that Janice has been on the island for thirty years and has a great reputation. It went from there.”

  “From there to where?”

  “She agreed to talk with me, but refused to name names. She admitted that ‘a few’ customers had hired her after firing Greg and Ocilla. They all fired ACXX because of ‘trust’ issues. Some of the words that Ocilla’s former clients used to describe her were con artist, hooker and old-fashioned grifter. One said that Ocilla tried to steer her toward an investment counselor. Turned out the guy had a shady past.”

  “Caldwell?”

  Dubbie shook his head. “I asked. Janice wouldn’t say, but she didn’t act like she recognized his name.”

  “Question?” said Wiley.

  “Fire away.”

  “You’ve wanted her ACXX client list from the first day of this mess. What are you thinking of doing with it, once we find it?”

  “I know where you’re going with this,” I said. “You want to break the news to me that Liska has the entire list because his men have been following Ocilla.”

  Once again I inspired silence in the room.

  “I’ve lived in town for a long time,” I said. “I thought that if I knew someone on the list, that person might open up to me more readily than to a cop. What I want is insight to why Pulver was killed. Knowing motive might help lead us to a murderer. Identifying his murderer might lead us to the person who killed Teresa Barga. That’s the crime I want to solve. Greg and Ocilla are my route markers.”

  “That answers my question,”said Wiley.

  “Good,” I said. “Now what else?”

  “More on Ocilla,” said Wiley. “Maybe this more than Janice inspired my trip to the library. I told you four days ago that Ocilla’s not a valid Hispanic first name.”

  “It’s a town in Georgia.”

  “And now we know that that’s her home state. Playing the source of her first name, I found the web site Georgia Felon Search and paid their fifteen buck fee.”

  “Instantly traceable,” I said. “You put it on a credit card.”

  “Except the cops get that info for free,” said Wiley, “so they’re unlikely to come across my transaction. Or even think to look for it. Anyway, you can search by known aliases. Her real name is Ameebah Dobbins, also known as BeBe.”

  “Ameebah?” I said.

  Wiley spelled the name for me. “There are people making babies in this nation who don’t know about dictionaries.”

  “But, Ameebah?”

  “Her mother probably heard the word in class the day before she dropped out of school.”

  “BeBe had a real felony?”

  “Ameebah boogied out of south Georgia in 1999 after serving almost five years for first degree cruelty to a child.”

  “What form of abuse?” I said.

  “Malicious and excessive mental and physical pain. Beating, biting, starving and isolation. Ameebah claimed she did it to make her daughter more tough.”

  “Where is that poor child today?” I said.

  “No surprise, on Facebook, with no hometown listed,” said Wiley. “I found a note posted by Angel Baby Dobbins that said, ‘If you ever see my unnatural mother, who now calls herself Ocilla, kick her in the pee hole for me. Tell her it’s a love tap from her little Angel.’”

  “And that’s it?” I said.

  “Yep, it is. No links to Ocilla, so she must not worship on the social network.”

  “Links to and from Angel Baby’s friends, nothing?”

  “Zip. End of story,” said Fecko. “Or all we know so far.”

  Dubbie raised his hand so I could call on him.

  “Two other things that Wiley discovered,” he said. “Your new customer Beeson? His late ex-wife owned the building you photographed.”

  That explained Beeson’s skimpy knowledge about the real estate broker’s selling strategies.

  “What else?”

  “The late Amanda was his second wife.”

  “Damn, that was never mentioned,” I said. “How long ago was his first?”

  “Twenty-one years ago this month his first wife was murdered, but he was not a suspect. He was in Costa Rica when she was killed. One of the investigating cops, a veteran Bradenton detective, got his ass in a sling because of a
wisecrack he made to a reporter. He said that she might have brought some side action to the house while her old man was out of the country. The reporter printed it, and the cop was forced into retirement.”

  I was inside the home of two former street people, learning background facts late in the game. I felt an odd vertigo, a disorientation. I felt like I needed a blackboard or a huge dry-erase white board to diagram the week’s events. An old college friend used to say at crowded parties, “You can’t tell the players without a seating chart.” Out of all the confusing pairings and break-ups and hookups, I needed one that was three-dimensional. My brain was failing to sort and keep track.

  “This is a lot to absorb,” I said.

  Wiley patted himself once, solidly, on the shoulder. “All in a day’s work.”

  “This twenty-one-year-old murder, did you find an old news item on the web?”

  “I printed it out,” said Wiley. “It’s back in the office.”

  Dubbie pointed. “Last door on the left.”

  Their office was a geek’s dream. A large iMac, two new laptops, two external hard drives and a Canon scanner-printer occupied a sheet of plywood. Their “desk” was laid across a pair of short file cabinets. A cheap, assemble-yourself bookcase was filled with Keys-related reference books, old phone directories and software boxes. Their office chairs probably cost more than the rest of the furniture in the house. A large cork bulletin board held a scattering of Office Max receipts and three-by-five cards covered with cryptic notes. Most surprising was the five-foot tall safe.

  I knocked on its door. “Weaponry?”

  “Wardrobe, for now,” said Tanner. He turned the massive handle and eased open the safe. Inside was a collection of shirts and trousers that a Salvation Army collection center would quietly stuff under the table and send off to the Dumpster. The clothing was clean, however, and wrinkled but hung on hangers. “We’ll adjust our storage should we acquire some firepower.”

  Above the computers was an Internet printout of four scruffy-looking gentlemen “Wanted” by the sheriff’s office.

  “We get around in this town,” said Dubbie. “We see all kinds. We also see more clearly than citizens who don’t take the time to look at faces.”