by Tom Corcoran
New approach. What did I know about Amanda? She had a check mark tattooed where a tuft of hair once had grown. Beyond that, I had no idea where she was from, how she lived her life. But maybe my restricted viewpoint would help me find insight without post-judgment. From the moment that Anya stated that they were a sexual threesome, I wondered why Justin Beeson had bothered to get divorced. Unless the split was Amanda’s idea so she could also be with other partners. Perhaps it was her idea to leave Justin because it was her money that he was throwing away.
Who had the best motive to kill Amanda? Why was she murdered?
Justin, for the money. He could save on alimony and inflated child support, and inherit, as Eileen’s custodian, Amanda’s home. He could get back his beloved boat and sell Amanda’s shiny two-seater cars to buy himself that real Shelby GT-350 that Torres said he wanted.
Anya was free to marry Beeson, so she might already know that his cash was getting tight. If Beeson’s financial outlook improved, Anya’s would lift on the same tide. Maybe she had become tired of their ménage à trois. Perhaps the divorce had turned each of them against marriage.
If there was a pattern in there, it hadn’t burst through to me. I couldn’t force it, either. I put my thoughts elsewhere. I tried a different approach, a back-door look.
Who had the fewest reasons to kill Amanda?
I could start with Eileen. She would have no reason or capacity to kill her mother. Next, if he didn’t stand to inherit a thing, was Justin, who needed his sugar ex, his bankroll. Next was Anya if, indeed, she and Amanda had been close friends as she had claimed—if the love triangle was truly free of jealousy and hidden hatred.
One of the mechanics, or both perhaps, had a good deal going. An unsupervised job, work performance measured primarily by maintenance of status quo, and a dash of sport sex now and then with the boss’s ex-wife. Maybe the employees’ animosity came from conflicts in scheduling Amanda visits.
How many different, or how few, ways could Amanda enter the building? Who had the capability of entering with her or meeting her there? Had she come on her own only to be ambushed at the pass? Was she stalking one of the mechanics? Did she suspect that Luke and Anya were messing around behind everyone’s backs?
She had been bound and disrobed. Why was she put on display? Was Amanda having sex with someone in that cubicle? If she had been caught having sex, and her killer wanted revenge, he or she would have had to murder two people, so that idea wouldn’t work. Had the tableau been merely a diversion tactic?
Shift gears once again, my mind open wide. Two questions have been raised after the fact. Why did Luke and Anya come to Key West, or was Beeson in town, too? If Luke and Anya wanted to duck out of sight, there was always her condo on Longboat Key near Sarasota. Except for the possibility that Beeson had a key to the place.
I was getting almost scientific in my little wine-fueled inquiry. I could nail this down by building to a crescendo then…
I had forgotten to turn off my cell phone.
Detective Glenn Steffey. Was he monitoring my inner thoughts?
“How you doing down there in the lovely Florida Keys?”
“My parade is suffering intermittent rain,” I said.
“I might have continuing clouds for you, Mr. Rutledge. We’d like you to return to Sarasota for a crime scene reconstruction. Let me add that this is prior to your being summoned for a grand jury proceeding. It would be voluntary.”
“What a coincidence,” I said. “I’m going to be there anyway.”
“Why would that be?”
“Beeson’s flying me up in the morning to sit in his dugout. Some kind of sit-down with his attorney and the prosecutor.”
“I may sit in on that meeting,”said Steffey.
“What am I supposed to do?” I said. “Be on his side of the table while the county’s asking questions, and be on your side when he responds?”
“It’s informal at this point, Alex. You can sit next to him the whole time.”
“What do you need me for?”
“Something we can do later in the day,” he said. “Beeson’s narration of events hasn’t convinced our prosecutor of his innocence. Your photos suggest overacting rather than typical grief.”
Steffey’s phrasing reminded me of Beth Watkins’s witness at The Tideline. The woman who heard “normal” screams then decided that they came from children at play.
“Is there a reference book on typical grief?” I said.
He ignored that one. “We noticed that Justin’s attorney has his own doubts as well. The phrase he used with me was, ‘The idea of working out a deal is premature,’ which suggests that it could mature in the future.”
“Do you have plans to induce this maturation?” I said.
“Our thinking is that he may have orchestrated the body’s discovery, with or without Tharpe’s knowledge. The red flag in the timeline was Luke’s finding Amanda within moments of your entering the building. It could be perfectly legit, but it feels too scripted. We want to use your photos as a guide while he walks us through his story one more time. And we want you to verify the scene as we go.”
“Why my pictures?” I said. “Why not take him back to that cubicle at 23 Beeson? Set it up with a mannequin.”
“We’re afraid they might claim emotional prejudice or some such legalistic horse crap. We like solid evidence like the parcel you found last night in your photograph.”
“That object that looked like a rucksack?”
“Right,” said Steffey. “We found it twenty yards south of where you described. It’s a real teaser. Amanda’s skirt wrapped around her underwear, two canisters of spray insulation, a pair of cotton work gloves and an empty Carta Blanca beer bottle. You must have been on a ladder or something. Standing on the road, we never would have found it, but one of our guys volunteered to ride on top of the crime scene van. We’re lucky we got to it when we did. Two wild dogs were dragging it away. We’ve found no prints or other clues so far, but we sent the bottle off for DNA analysis. Thank you.”
“Kill the dogs?” I said.
“No, we bleeped them with the siren. Any other questions?”
“I just wrote down about forty of them.”
“Read them to me,” said Steffey.
“You serious?”
“If one out of forty goes somewhere I haven’t been, it might be Clue One,” he said. “How about your top four?”
“Did Anya Timber have her own key pass to the building?”
“Got me,” he said. “I’ll have to find that out.”
“Has the coroner determined cause of death and is there a toxicology report?”
“Both confidential,” said Steffey. “That’s two questions.”
I used silence to fight back.
He relented. “The alcohol, cocaine and valium did not contribute to her death. She was strangled during or after having sexual intercourse.”
“Then dressed up to look like she had choked on that orange goop.”
“I would tend to agree with that,” he said.
“Did the surveillance video show Amanda coming inside the building?”
“Nope.”
“Did you see either of Beeson’s mechanics bringing his personal vehicle into the garage area for, say, an oil change or new spark plugs?”
“That’s good, Alex,” said Steffey. “In fact, they both did. The day before you got to town.”
“What does Torres drive?”
“An old Camry sedan. And, yes, we’ve already executed a warrant. Its trunk is clean. We’re waiting to execute on Tharpe’s PT Cruiser. We need to find it first.”
“Tharpe drives a fancy Ram truck,” I said. “I saw him driving it the day he found Amanda.”
“We’ll check with the DMV again,” he said.
Steffey sounded full of good intentions. I didn’t want to slam him with the fact that his father may have tainted the murder case regarding Beeson’s first wife. But I wanted to plant a seed so the fact of that d
eath might enter into this case.
“It’s a long shot,” I said, “but has Beeson ever had an employee involved in violent crime, a perp or a victim? Or someone with a criminal past who may have held a grudge against the man or his business?”
“Another fine one,” said Steffey. “I’ve lost count, but throw a couple more at me.”
“How many real estate sales people had access to the building?”
“Sales people? It’s for sale?” A moment of quiet. “Oh, shit. Thank you.”
“Why does Beeson have such an elaborate security system for a building that’s just a shell?”
“I asked essentially the same question, Rutledge. His explanation was that bums and winos live in the woods around there, off the Interstate. Hobos and bail jumpers from up north. Which is true. One of our deputies found a local man hiding from his family, back in that hammock. Beeson said that when they were putting up the place, they caught them sleeping in construction huts and inside the building. He told me it was worth the price if it kept one vagrant from sleeping in his grandmother’s classic Ford.”
“I don’t buy it,” I said. “Nobody needs that much gear to fight off trespassers.”
“I’ll ask him again and phrase it differently,”said Steffey. “When you get here, where are you staying?”
“Beeson said I’d be back in Key West by sundown.”
“We can arrange a motel,” said Steffey.
“He probably booked the pilot for a one-day round-trip,” I said.
“I’ll look into the pilot’s fee and a second room. I can’t guarantee you much more than two pillows, free shampoo and twelve channels.”
“I’ve slept aboard sailboats in raging storms and called it Paradise.”
“Call me when you get in.”
18.
The tropical patio at Blackfin Bistro stirred up a lot of ideas. The fish sandwich restored my faith in the wonders of nature. The empty bird cages were spooky but quiet. That’s what helped. And the second glass of wine. Before leaving my private think tank, I called Sam Wheeler at his home on Elizabeth Street.
“Captain Wheeler’s office,” said Marnie. “May I tell him who’s calling?”
“Both of you at home at four in the afternoon,” I said. “Would I be out of line to suspect an enhanced nap?”
“What makes you think that, pervert?” she said coyly.
“He would have answered if you were working, and you wouldn’t have answered if you two weren’t taking a dance break. Don’t worry, I’m not your boss.”
“Sam!” she said only a few inches from the phone. “A man on the line wants to know about our sex life.”
Muffled by distance: “Tell him the photos are on the World Wide Web.”
“How was your walk along the beach?” I said.
“Which one?” said Marnie.
“Five days ago, after the mess at The Tideline. You were going to leave your iPod at home.”
“It helped, but not much. I’ve taken two walks since then. Here’s Sam.”
Sam agreed to dress like a European tourist and have a frothy piña colada around four-forty at the Southernmost Hotel Pineapple Bar. My short-term care insurance.
I stepped off the patio, and entered the restaurant to pay my bill. I could barely see in the reduced light. While I waited for my change, I looked at a few of the late-day customers and glanced quickly at a couple in a far corner engaged in an intense conversation. I didn’t want to snap my head back around and draw their attention, but what was Beth Watkins doing here? Why was she sharing a bottle of wine with E. Carlton Gamble, the attorney I had seen a day and a half ago with Robert Fonteneau? What was so important about their meeting that she hadn’t seen me walk inside from the back patio?
Slowly, not wanting to appear combative, I turned again to regard the two of them. The relief I felt almost buckled my knees. My memory of the photograph shown to me by Tanner and Fecko saved me from approaching the table, causing a scene when my silence was the only alternative. The woman with Gamble was Mrs. Christi Caldwell, a grieving widow just in from Canada.
Outside on Duval I called both Wiley Fecko and Chicken Neck Liska. I reached voicemail in each case, and informed them of our visitor. I also asked Fecko to find out if Gamble had represented Emerson Caldwell during his financial troubles in the late 1990s.
I reached the Pineapple Bar early, wove my way between several square columns decorated with pineapple sculptures, and grabbed two web-backed barstools at the east end. I heard several languages spoken by people in the adjacent pool. A woman lounged in the shallow end reading a paperback titled Kald Mig Prinsesse, which I took to be Swedish or Danish. I ordered an Amstel from a genial bartender who told me his name was “Tim, the surly bartender.” He asked where I was from. I told him I lived on the island.
Tim looked bewildered. “Don’t see much of your kind in here,” he said. “Except for my girlfriend, you’re my first local this year.” He ducked away to make blender drinks for a German couple.
Like aquarium DVDs, the tourist scene at the Southernmost Hotel pool is a world away from anything we Key Westers might experience. Or else we experience it in the company of other locals, and the tourists are stuck with other tourists. When I travel, anywhere in the Caribbean or the States, I prefer to blend in with residents, eat their foods, stay in small hotels, walk their streets.
Still, it was the middle of January. The children couldn’t romp in a backyard pool in Omaha. Their parents couldn’t sip blender drinks barefoot in snow or listen to Bob Marley in an outdoor tiki bar when it was fourteen below. Each visitor looked happy and fulfilled, and I reminded myself that we all choose our own approach to time away. These people were getting their money’s worth.
Sam Wheeler looked to be basking in luxury. With his hands wrapped around the tall umbrella drink on the bar, he looked prayerful, lost in his own world a million miles away. I hoped he would be able to hear clearly from ten bar stools away.
If Darrin Marsh hadn’t been in uniform, I might not have recognized him. There hadn’t been time in the Tower Bar to consider his features, to react beyond blurs of clenched fists, flaming eyeballs, blood flowing from his nose. Here, with his bright white shirt and fresh military haircut, he didn’t look like the ripped barfly that had jumped me thirty hours earlier. He walked into the Pineapple Bar with that typical swagger they learn early to remind us that they’re wrapped in Kevlar and carrying gear they need to stop crime. This time I was ready for Marsh’s menacing glare, but it took him a few moments to look me in the eye. He asked Tim, the friendly surly bartender, for a Coke then eased his posture to look more relaxed and less official.
Perhaps his work shift had tamed the monster.
“Thanks for seeing me, Alex.”
“Lots to talk about,” I said.
“Where I come from, people didn’t open up much. We were taught not to discuss the awkward topics.”
“Which ones were those?”
“Sex, politics and religion,” he said. “My family added divorce, mental illness and bankruptcy.”
Not to mention police brutality, I thought.
Marsh looked away, checked out the people at the bar. Checked Sam and three tourist couples farther down. Sam looked to be memorizing objects behind the bar, the hot dog griller, popcorn maker, convection cooker and cash register. Marsh didn’t recognize Sam as a local.
“Of course, in this town,”Marsh added, “sex, politics and religion are primary points of discussion.”
“Where was it you grew up?”
“Binghamton, New York, the north side,” he said. “It wasn’t the rich part of town, so knuckles made a difference.”
“You got out alive.”
He looked bored by the idea but inhaled, puffed up his chest. “Lucky and big. By ninth grade even the seniors wouldn’t mess with me.”
“Cuba’s got a law you might like,” I said. “The cops there can charge a man with Social Dangerousness if he looks like
he might commit a crime. Emphasis on ‘might.’ Talking potential for bad behavior, that’s it. An offender gets an automatic two-year sentence. If this island had that law, every badge could be the town bully.”
Darrin shook his head, stared at his untouched soft drink. “Yesterday worries me, Rutledge, I’ll admit that,” he said. “I can count on one hand the rookie cops who weren’t thugs-in-training in high school or pushy jocks in college. But we find out fast. We tone it down or blow out of the job. Those who are meant to be cops learn rules and respect. We maintain an air of authority because we have to show that, sure. But in this city, at least, very few of us are power freaks after a couple years of police work.”
“Let’s go back to the part about respect,” I said.
“I didn’t act like myself. What the fuck was I doing? I don’t whup on people.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “If it would help convince you, I’d say it a hundred times.”
“No thank you,” I said. “We came here to talk about Teresa.”
Marsh inhaled, puffed his cheeks, blew out air. “Look, I want you to know, a few months ago, one Sunday morning over coffee, Teresa and I were talking about high points in our lives. And regrets. She said that she was the bad guy in your relationship. She told me her biggest regret was the way she ended things with you.”
I shook my head, bewildered that she would discuss me with her lover.
“She never told me about the guy she left you for, Alex. The one who died.”
“The old college boyfriend?” I said. “He was a hustler and a blowhard. I think she was entranced by the situation’s nostalgia more than him.”
“Variation on the old Keys saying, ‘Arrive on vacation, leave on probation?’”
“Like that, but worse,” I said. “His case was, ‘Arrive on the island with money to burn, leave the Keys in a custom urn.’”
Marsh laughed but I wasn’t convinced that I’d humored him. And hearing myself say “urn” didn’t do much for my mood, either.
“She didn’t tell me your name, by the way,” he said. “I figured that out for myself. I also, pretty much, figured out how she had misbehaved.”