I forced myself to keep talking. “People finding my body here might wonder why I came to No Name Key to play with snakes.”
“Find a stick. Get a strong one.”
Most of the thatch palm branches were too tough for me to break off, but I found a dead limb that had fallen from an Australian pine. I picked it up, but by the time I turned around, the snake had departed. Some of my panic left me although I don’t know why. Would I rather die from a snake bite or from drowning? Some choices!
“You lucked out that time,” Ace gave an evil chuckle. “But once I open the well hatch, you’re a goner.”
He shoved me ahead of him until we stepped onto the concrete slab. “Don’t think for a second that I’m going to make myself vulnerable by stooping to lift that cover. That’s your job, Ms. Moreno. Do it. Now. I want to see into that water and I know you do too. Could be anything down there. Water bugs. Recluse spiders. Even water snakes. Open it.”
I still had the stick in my hand, so I used it to shove the rotting cover aside.
For a few moments we both stood peering into the black water. Bricks lined the inside of the well and the water surface lay at least ten feet below us. Water bugs and spiders skittered about.
I could almost feel Ace’s hands on my back pushing me toward my death.
THIRTY-FOUR
I had only one shot at this ploy—and a renewed determination to live. In spite of my inner journey, my effort to forgive Jude, I’d almost let his aura force me again into the role of victim. No way. I corked thoughts of failure and zoomed into a win-win mode. Turning to face Ace, I looked up at him and held his gaze while I lifted my right foot and then slammed it against his instep. He yelped, jerked his injured foot up, and teetered off balance just long enough for me to shove him through the well opening.
Kerplunk! He hit the water and surfaced bellowing and splashing.
Stepping back from the well rim, a wave of relief flooded through me and I grabbed a deep breath. I heard nothing except his shouts, his spluttering that echoed against brick and rose from a safe distance.
“Bitch!” he screamed. “Bitch! You’ll pay for this. You’ll…”
Did he still have his gun? Do guns work if they’re wet? I peered cautiously into the well, my whole body shaking from excitement and fear. No gun. I did a double take when I saw him standing—with no gun. The water measured neck deep, and he stood wiping moisture from his face and eyes. A spider clung to his left ear lobe, but he didn’t seem to notice—yet.
I had expected to see him dog paddling to keep his head above the surface. In a way it relieved me to see him standing. I’d hate to be responsible for killing someone, drowning another person, even in self-defense. Once I reached help, I’d tell the police where to find Ace and let him try to talk himself out of a kidnapping charge along with two murder charges.
My hands stopped shaking, but my heart still pounded. It took me a few more moments to realize that I had Ace Grovello where I wanted him—at my mercy. I pulled my mini-tape recorder from my pocket and turned it on. Maybe I could top off this triumph by getting a taped confession for the police.
“Ace, what did you hope to gain by killing me? Didn’t you realize the authorities would find you out sooner or later?”
No response.
“Ace, how about telling me exactly what happened between you and Dyanne Darby.”
“You dumb bitch!” Ace spluttered and slapped at the spider that had begun crawling into his ear canal. “You think I don’t know you want to record a confession. Well, that’ll never happen. Not here. Not today. Never. Save your little tape machine for your patients’ complaints.”
“The law might go easier on you if you confessed to the Darby murder, if you confessed to threatening me and Maxine Jackson to keep us from investigating, if you confessed to kidnapping me from Beau Ashford’s yard. And what about Nicole Pierce? I’m betting you shot her.” I enjoyed taunting him. “They say confession’s good for the soul, Ace. How about it?”
I gasped when Ace disappeared. Maybe he’d suffered a seizure. Heart attack. Stroke. Maybe I had killed a man after all. But no. In the next instant his head broke the surface and he brandished the gun in his right hand. I backed off. Do guns work after they’ve been submerged? I backed off even farther.
“I’m leaving now, Ace. I’ m heading for help—Punt, the police, anyone. Want a last chance to confess?”
“You bitch.”
“I sympathize with your poverty of vocabulary, Ace.”
“Bitch!”
“After I’m rescued I’m coming back here with the police. Don’t disappoint me. Don’t go away. You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
I left the well site and the house with Ace still shouting about a female canine, and I followed our footsteps back to his car. I looked to each side, ready to run in case an iguana or a raccoon might be lurking nearby. Hey! The car! Maybe I could drive away from this horrid place.
I yanked the car door open and slid under the steering wheel. Wishful thinking. No key hung in the ignition. Key West living has taught us locals never to leave car keys lying around—especially never in an ignition. So much for my escape-by-car idea.
I left the Lincoln. Stepping behind it, I began following the trail it had made through the thicket. Ace’s two arrivals and one departure had left flattened scrub brush. Walking over the trail required less energy than making a fresh path, and surely Ace’s route would lead to a road. All the time I walked, I kept looking for a clearing where I might stand and be seen by searchers flying overhead. But I saw none.
A lumpy black snake slithered across my path. I looked carefully at its tail. No rattlers. Maybe its inner lumps marked breakfast rats. I didn’t panic. Maybe I was beyond panic. I wondered what lay beyond panic. Craziness? I hoped I wasn’t cracking up. When someone found me, I wanted to be able to tell them a straight story about what had happened to me. I didn’t want to jabber like an idiot. I wanted to be able to lead the police to that well and to Ace.
I counted to a hundred to make sure I could make my mind obey. Then I said the alphabet forward and backward. Backward alphabets are hard to say, but I think I got it right. Those exercises kept me from thinking about Ace. But only for a while. Once I thought about him again, my mind whirled. There was a possibility he could escape from the well. Maybe he could find toe holds, hand holds, in the crevices between the bricks and climb out. Or maybe he could press his back against the wall, stretch his feet forward far enough to brace himself against the opposite wall and wiggle his body up, over, and out. I realized I should have pulled the well cover back into place and weighted it down with something—a rock, something from the house, anything heavy. Too late for that now.
The hum of a motor overhead shook me from my morbid thoughts about Ace and the possibility of his escape. I scanned the sky until I saw the helicopter.
“Here! Here!” I shouted, knowing the pilot couldn’t hear me above the noise of his motor. But shouting, the sound of my voice, offered release. “Here! Here!” I’d lost the towel I’d taken from the house when Ace appeared.
I jumped up and down and waved my arms, but the pilot didn’t see me. The helicopter flew on past. Was that pilot blind? Couldn’t he see the smashed-down trail the car had left? I stood still, hoping to hear the motor again, hoping to see the pilot return. No. That didn’t happen. Not then. But after a few more moments, I heard the motor again. This time I hoisted a fallen palm frond and waved it above my head until I thought my arms might break from its weight.
I dropped the branch when I saw the helicopter turn and begin flying low over the area. Again, I jumped and waved, and this time I could see Punt’s face at a window. He waved back, but the copter turned away again. No safe place to land, I guessed. Too many trees. Too much scrub brush. I dropped down, deflated, defeated.
Then the copter turned again and flew in lower. I saw something falling from it. A long rope. A harness. Punt and the pilot planned to haul me up.
>
I couldn’t cope.
I didn’t have the strength to hang on to a rope or slip into a harness.
I’d fall.
But in spite of my negative thoughts, I jumped up and leaped to grab the rope when the copter flew low. I couldn’t work my body into the harness, but I managed to hold on to the rope.
I thought of the vendors at Smathers who sold parasailing rides to tourists. I remembered pictures of marines parachuting into Iraq. I had no parachute. I hung dangling from the end of a rope that I might lose my grip on at any moment. But I managed to cling to it until I felt Punt and a helper tugging me up, up, up.
At last Punt, lying flat and leaning over the edge of the copter doorway, managed to get his hands under my arms and tug me to safety.
“Are you okay?” Punt shouted into my ear as I lay there on my stomach panting and speechless.
I could only nod. It took lots of inner fortitude to hold back tears of panic and exhaustion mixed with relief and joy and to give a weak smile of thanks to the copter pilot and Punt’s helper. Motor noise made talking impossible, so we didn’t try for conversation until we touched down near a kayak and boat rental business at the fishing camp between No Name and Big Pine.
After thanking the copter pilot and helper, Punt and I waved them goodbye and watched them lift off and head toward Miami.
“Oh, Punt! You’ve saved my life!” I didn’t ask him how I could thank him. “There’s an abandoned house hidden in the thicket on No Name. And Ace’s trapped there in a well behind the house.”
“Drowned?”
“No. Wet and very much alive and angry. And he has a gun—a loaded gun. He had it in his hand when he hit the water. Then he dropped it, but he ducked under the surface and came back up with it. Will a wet gun work?”
“That depends.”
The arrival of a police car interrupted Punt’s explanation of what the workings of a wet gun might depend upon.
“How’d they get here so fast?”
“I called them from Miami and then called them again from the copter when we spotted you. Also called your Gram to tell her you’re alive. I knew she’d be frantic when she found you missing last night. Also asked her to call Maxine.”
Two officers stepped from the police car—Jeff and Hillie. Jeff’s face had flushed to match his red hair. He reminded me of a coiled spring straining for release. Hillie ran his hand over his balding head, looking as laid back as Sunday morning. I wondered how those two managed to work together without driving each other crazy.
Jeff invited us into their car where we sat for a few minutes while I gave a synopsis of my kidnapping and lockdown in the abandoned house. I had barely finished my story when a gray Ford approached and parked alongside us. Again wearing his Hog’s Breath Saloon T-shirt, Randy sat hunched behind the wheel with Maxine in the passenger seat and Gram seated behind them. I gasped and reached for Punt’s hand.
“How’d Randy know where to find us? The shrimping job didn’t work out?” I whispered the questions as if to verbalize them might be a bad omen. Randy slipped a plug of Skoal into his mouth and as he began chewing, the scar on his cheek blazed red.
THIRTY-FIVE
When I started to leave the police car and rush to Gram, Hillie shook his head.
“Stay where you are.”
Punt put his arm around my shoulders, gently restraining me. I settled for smiling at Gram and blowing her a kiss.
“What’s Randy doing here?” I perched on the edge of the seat. “How did he find us so quickly?” The officers were busy talking and arguing with Randy, giving Punt and me a chance to exchange a few more words.
“Your grandmother reported your disappearance to the police late yesterday afternoon, and this morning Maxine caught the missing-person news on her police scanner. She drove by for Celia and then she picked Randy up at the shrimp docks because he called to tell her the Midnight Moon was docking early. They had a full load, and Shrimp Snerl hired Randy for another run. More information from Maxine’s scanner led the three of them here.”
“I want to follow you to that well!” Randy shouted to Jeff. “I want to eyeball Ace Grovello. Eyeball to eyeball! I want to hear what he has to say for himself.”
“We want no trouble out there,” Jeff said. “None. Miss Moreno’s been through a harrowing experience. We want to assure her safety—and the safety of all of us.”
Randy chewed his tobacco for only a moment before he continued his argument. “I rotted in prison for Dyanne Darby’s murder for years while Ace Grovello lived high, building an I’m-On-Easy-Street business and a Mr. Nice Guy reputation. I’ve got a citizen’s right to see that scumbucket now. Right now.”
“Mr. Jackson,” Jeff said, “as of this moment, Ace Grovello has been neither charged nor convicted of a crime. In the eyes of the law he’s innocent until proven guilty. As policemen we are responsible for his safety—and for yours.”
Randy pounded the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “So what’re you going to do to him right now? What’re you going to say to him? You gonna lift him gently from the well and suggest that he have a nice day? Too bad he didn’t drown and save the taxpayers a bundle of trouble and money. Tell me what you’re going to do when you reach that well.”
“Calm down, Mr. Jackson. We’ll arrest Grovello, cuff him, read him his rights. We don’t need your help at this time. Maybe later if…”
“Please, officer,” Maxine broke into the conversation by opening the car door. She stepped from the Ford, revealing her tank top and blue and white polka dot bloomers, her red-and-white-striped stockings. “I’ll guarantee my Randy’s good behavior. Please let us go along with you. We’ll cause no problem. We’re friends of Keely Moreno. We want to see Ace Grovello in handcuffs. It’d purely set our corks a-bobbin’.”
Both officers smiled at Maxine’s earnest expression, her homespun language and appearance. “Mrs. Jackson,” Jeff said, “I guess seeing this guy cuffed and in custody might set our corks a-bobbin’, too. He’s certainly put Miss Moreno through a bad time. Follow us. But when we arrive at the abandoned house and well, you are to remain in your car. Is that clear?”
“Crystal clear, sir.” Maxine slid back inside the car beside Randy and Gram reached to pat her on the shoulder.
We entered the bridge to No Name Key where fishermen flung lines into the waves while pelicans perched on the bridge railing, watching and waiting for a tidbit. Once off the bridge, we followed the concrete road a short distance then turned onto a lane that led into the thicket and then disappeared into the growth of mangrove and thatch palm and weeds. Although by this time tire tracks leading to the old house were fairly easy to follow, stubble still thunked against the bottom of the police car. Jeff braked suddenly as a doe and two fawns ran in front of us. When we reached the house, the iguana eyed us from the front porch. The raccoon family had been peering into the well, but all three of them ran when we drew near.
Jeff stopped the car and he and Hillie got out and approached the well.
“Police!” Hillie shouted. “Grovello, are you able to respond?”
No response. Maybe he was dead. I wondered what Hillie had anticipated. Had the officers hoped to see Ace splash from his watery prison and walk toward them with his hands raised?
“Ace, we’ve come to take you to Key West.” While Jeff talked, Hillie eased to the well and peered over the rim. Then he backed off and shouted.
“Toss the gun to us, Grovello. Give us the gun and we’ll pull you from the well.”
“I surrender.”
Ace’s voice sounded hollow and hoarse, and I gasped when his gun appeared spinning in the air above the well. But instead of landing on the concrete slab, the gun dropped straight down and splashed into the water.
“Hold your hands above your head,” Hillie shouted. “Tread water. Keep your hands up.”
Hillie started easing away from the well opening, when suddenly Randy sprang from his car and dashed to the well. Before
anyone could stop him, he leaned over the opening and shot a brown stream of tobacco juice straight down.
“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!” Ace enlarged his vocabulary by three words.
I smiled. I knew from the continued stream of profanity that Randy’s aim had hit target. Randy tossed an insolent look at Hillie and Jeff, and then strolled toward Punt and me, smiling for the first time since I’d met him. He reached to shake Punt’s hand and then he turned to me.
“Thank you, Ms. Moreno.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Jackson.” I returned his smile. If Punt was surprised, he hid the fact well.
Randy then walked to his car, slid inside with Maxine and Gram and drove away. The officers made no effort to stop him. By that time backup cops had arrived to offer assistance and one of them drove Punt and me back to Punt’s apartment, thanked us for leading them to Ace, and requested that we not leave town.
Punt and I clung to each other for a long time, and I was still shaking as we relived my narrow escape. A long time passed before we could talk slowly and coherently. After we calmed down, Punt helped me take a much-needed shower then we talked some more. We assured ourselves that the law would deal with Ace, who had confessed to the murders of Dyanne Darby and Nicole Pierce, that Shrimp Snerl would hire Randy for more shrimp runs, and that the Fotopolus and Ashford Agency could go on to other business.
“Punt, I’ve something to tell you. I’ve thought about your request that I forgive Jude.” I paused, and when Punt said nothing, I continued. “I’ve forgiven him. It was the hardest thing I ever did. I put a positive spin on all his negatives. Jude gave me an appreciation of freedom. His abuse enabled me to call on and find strength I didn’t know I possessed. He supplied me with goals to work toward. I’m still relieved that he’s dead, but he gave me much to be thankful for. He forced me into a new and better life.”
“Thank you for that. I know it was hard for you.” Punt and I kissed more deeply than ever before.
Cold Case Killer Page 25