by Tom Corcoran
“First off, Naomi’s brother,” said Monty. “I found an old ag assault charge on Ernest Bramblett, from South Dakota. He caught a guy humping his wife in the back room of a Sherwin-Williams store. This was in ’eighty-four. He put Sir Stud in critical condition. Standard stuff, no big deal. Even in the Midwest they’ve got crimes of passion. I searched another database. In the past four months he’s made credit card purchases in Bedford, Texas. It’s upscale suburbia, between Dallas and Fort Worth. The credit card’s billing address is a post office box. A cell phone account is billed to the same box. He doesn’t show a permanent address or utility bills, but that’s not unusual. Bramblett could be living with a woman or other friends.”
Liska glanced at the phone clipped to his belt. He must have had it set for silent buzz. He checked caller ID, pressed a button, ignored it.
“What sort of stuff does Bramblett buy?” I said.
“Groceries, gasoline, everyday bullshit. Forget about it. He’s legit. Here’s the odd news. When I talked to you, Alex, I wrote notes, which I mixed up. You gave me two names, right? That slick who’s chasing your lady? I wrote his name above Bramblett’s. The next day, I meant to find Bramblett, but I plugged in the wrong guy.”
“Meaning Whitney Randolph?”
“You bet, and talk about a file crammed with data. The National Crime Info Center must have upgraded their computer storage to accommodate him. I thought to myself, I can’t afford a house in Old Town, but this dirtbag Randolph’s going to inherit one. It took me a few minutes to figure that his age didn’t match being the brother of a woman in her sixties. I’d crossed the names, but Randolph looked like too much fun to ignore.
“I found histories under four aliases, two of them now ‘deceased.’ Your boy was a child prodigy, a con man, a jack of all trades, and a one-man gypsy band. He’s a legend in the world of scams and ripoffs. A summary from the West Coast called him the Tiger Woods of grift. Whatever you think you know about him, throw it away. Including his name.”
Aghajanian paused. He looked to the other officers for a reaction.
No one said a thing, but my mind raced. Why had Randolph stuck a Post-it note next to Yvonne Gomez’s name in the phone book?
“Keep going,” said Liska, but an odd look wrinkled his face. He checked his cell phone, which must have vibrated again. “Go ahead without me.” He went outside, found a shady spot, this time took the call.
“One of the old beefs was up in Miami,” said Monty. “I saw an old friend’s name on the read-out and gave him a call. He said they ran him out of town five years ago. The kid started as a bellhop in a couple of different hotels. Ripping off rooms was minor. His big deal was hooking up with older women, especially married ones looking for strange. He’d take a roll in the sack, then slide out in the wee hours, and a piece of jewelry or a watch would go with him. Married women can’t exactly report that kind of theft. After the detectives put out the word in hotels, he got jobs in nursing homes. He was ripping off uppers, downers, and mood pills from the fuzzy brains. They ran him off the Gold Coast, told him that their creep quota was filled. The twit pled poverty, hit up my friend for bus fare to Atlanta.”
“Out of your friend’s pocket?” I said.
Monty looked at me, eyebrows raised. “There isn’t a force in the country that doesn’t have a slush fund, Alex. Confiscated cash, for the most part. We cops know that. Randolph knew that. One more little scam.”
“If we tried it in Monroe County,” said Lewis, “we’d drain the budget to bedrock.”
Monty slid off the table. “Can I start my vacation now?”
“You can sure as hell go inside and get a beer,” I said.
Monty left the door open while he went to the kitchen.
“This puts a new scope on two of our investigations,” said Bobbi Lewis.
“One of mine, as well.” Dex Hayes called after Monty. “It’s developing into mail fraud, so it could become yours.”
Lewis handed me her empty soft drink can. “You recycle?”
“I always obey the law,” I said.
“I don’t know if you saw,” said Lewis to me. “Randolph got his picture in the paper, laughing it up with the mayor.”
“I saw.”
“You see the man in the background?”
I nodded. “Our old friend Frank Polan, from Cudjoe Key. The guy whose house you might confuse with a Club Med.”
“Polan filed a complaint three days ago,” said Lewis. “He claimed he was being set up for an investment scam. He said he wasn’t born last night. He’d been around the block a few times, and knew a Ponzi scheme a mile away. He paddled his kayak up a canal to the Freeman Substation at Mile Marker 21. He caused quite a stir up there. He walked in wearing a Speedo, a silk tank top, rubber shoes, and a mesh pith helmet. He was smeared with sunblock, and had earphones around his neck, and a cell phone clipped to his bathing suit. I guess he stays connected while he communes with nature.”
“It’s a lifestyle we all should hope for,” I said.
“Now that you mention it…” Lewis smiled and shook her head. “Maybe I should check into his hotel. Anyway, Polan gave us Randolph’s name, license number, phone number, and a sheet of typewriter paper. It was covered with handwritten six-figure numbers and percentages.”
“That was Randolph’s prospectus?” I said.
“What’s a hundred grand among millionaires?” said Lewis. “Polan must be quite the gentleman. He asked us not to tie him into anything by name. He said that bad publicity might ruin his chances to meet women.”
“Was his complaint the reason ‘No Jokes’ Bohner was following Randolph on Monday night?”
Bobbi Lewis raised her eyebrows. “Not bad, Rutledge. I’ll have to inform Billy that his techniques have slipped.”
“The slip happened years ago, when the county hired him.”
“His report included your name,” she said. “You’re in the computer for the ATM problem, and now you’re a ‘known associate.’”
Dexter Hayes coughed softly.
I ignored him. “Teresa’s the associate. I’m another scam victim.”
Both Aghajanian and Liska rejoined us on the porch. The sheriff had a look on his face. He was full of fresh information.
“You’ll like this, Monty,” said Bobbi Lewis. “We ID’d two calls on Naomi’s message service. The second was from a pay phone, and the caller also phoned his own message service in Redmond, Washington. Sure as hell, Whitney Randolph.”
“That’s all interesting,” Dexter Hayes said to Lewis. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it. Any chance you might tell the city about the ATM problem, too?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Sorry to offend you. Maybe you can tell us about mail fraud.”
Admonished, Hayes searched his thoughts for a comeback. I didn’t want him to kiss up by linking me to Randolph’s condo. I broke the news to Lewis myself.
“You paid him a visit, and that surprises me?” she said. “We’ve already got you as a KA and a coconspirator.”
“A few things in his condo matched up to his targeting wealthy people for check washing and investment scams,” I said. “He even had Post-it notes in the phone book.”
“But why in the first place did you go there?” said Liska. “Or do you have a badge you haven’t shown us?”
“He set me up for that ATM bullshit. As a cop, you’ve got a legal view. But I’m a civilian. I take it personally. I wanted to discuss it with him. Also, my neighbor saw him creeping the lane while I was at the funeral.”
“Anything else?” said Lewis. Her eyes told me she already knew.
“He put a full court press on my live-in domestic partner, whatever you want to call her. I think the son of a bitch is laying pipe in my backyard.”
No one wished to respond to my admission of being two-timed. Lewis looked ashamed for having brought it up.
“I went for another reason, too,” I said. “The ME told me that Randolph had been asking ques
tions about Gomez’s autopsy. Riley said that a ‘Randy Whitney’ queried him…”
“One of his dead aliases,” said Monty.
“Which I figured out quickly. I wanted to know why he’d used a fake name, maybe get his reaction to a photograph.” For the second time in an hour I took out the envelope. This time I didn’t show the Kodak Max print. Lewis would zing me for absconding with evidence. Or ruining evidence, because my fingerprints had obscured any others on the Max. I pulled out the bloody-shirt image. “After my chat with Randolph, I decided not to show him this.”
Lewis and Hayes stepped closer, looked over my shoulder.
Hayes said, “Messy, and a shit print. I hope you didn’t shoot that one, Mister Pro.”
“It’s a blowup from one of your man’s bad ones, Dexter. Duffy Lee Hall noticed something when he salvaged the overexposure. Look closely, since this is your case for now. You told me yourself that the shotgun blast blew everything away from the body. In your words, ‘He blew brain salad into the mangroves.’ Even Randolph, an hour ago, said, ‘bodies leak like crazy.’ This picture proves that the bloodstains don’t match the gunshot.”
Hayes studied the print, then managed to say, “Oh.”
Lewis said, “It’s my case now, thank you.”
“Agreed,” said Liska. “It’s the power structure at work, Detective Hayes. It’s my county-over-city prerogative. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, our state baby-sitters, can yank it from me just as quickly as I’m lifting it from you. But none of us needs to forget, if we’ve really got two murders, their connection is thinner than a silk thread. Whitney Randolph made a call to Naomi Douglas’s phone, he was in a picture with the mayor, then he got curious about the autopsy. Detective Lewis learned there was a friendship between the two deceased, and Rutledge noticed a common hometown. That’s all we have. The skinny thread runs through the man, but it’s not proof of squat. Our work has just started. Or the FDLE’s work, however it works out.”
“It may have been more than friendship, sheriff,” I said. “According to Mrs. Butler, the woman who cleaned Naomi’s house, Gomez may have been Naomi’s step- or foster son.”
I heard Lewis inhale deeply, an attempt to calm herself. I did not want to look. I wanted to give her private relief.
“That makes the thread fatter,” said Liska.
So would the Kodak Max photo of the Z-3 on Grinnell, but I held back.
“I talked to Naomi’s friend,” I said, “the woman who owns the gift shop in the six hundred block of Greene. She can’t get anyone at the city to return her calls. She said that Naomi told her Gomez thought ‘bad elements’ were behind that old development project out by the boulevard. The Salt Pond Condos, whatever they’re called.”
“Who’s to say bad elements aren’t behind the Mallory Dome?” said Hayes. “Isn’t that group from Seattle? Isn’t that the same area as Randolph’s answering service?”
“Randolph’s bubble is about to pop,” said Monty.
“It needs to pop now,” I said. I opened the door, walked inside. No signs that Teresa had packed her bags. I leaned back out. “Has anybody seen my roommate? She could be in over her head.”
“She could be in it with him, too,” said Lewis.
I locked eyes with her. I didn’t like hearing it, but she was right.
“Lemme make a call.” Hayes unclipped his phone and stepped outside.
Lewis said, “We’ll contact the airport and Highway Patrol. We’ll bluelight every yellow roadster in the Keys.”
“If Randolph thinks the fat’s in the fire,” I said, “that roadster’s parked by now.”
“Okay,” said Lewis. “We’ll call the car rental and air charter firms.”
“If he rented a car, it was days ago,” I said. “He parked it, kept it ready to go.”
Monty agreed. “He’s that good.”
“Shit,” said Lewis. “Does he know we’re getting close? That’s the big question. Maybe he thinks he’s skating free.”
“One last thing,” said Monty. “I’ve got a friend in the bureau’s profiling section, a guy I met in basic. He’s already up to speed on a lot of that stuff, personality studies, motivational analysis, and so on. You describe a crime, its details, its timing. Or better yet, a series of crimes. These guys come back and give you the whole ball of wax. They’ll tell you the perp’s shoe size and year of high school graduation. They’ll know ethnic background and number of siblings. They know if the perp ever saw his parents having sex. My buddy told me something that stuck in my head. He said, ‘It’s rare that grifters kill, and they keep it in the crowd. The vic is almost always another con artist.’”
Hayes came back to the porch. “Teresa didn’t go back to work after the funeral.” He looked at Lewis. “We’ve got city cars looking. I’m out of here.”
She shrugged, gave no response.
Dexter nodded and went for his car.
“Monty,” I said, “can you do me a favor?”
He made a sweeping gesture, talked out the side of his mouth, mocked a nasal New Jersey accent. “What did I just do?”
“I mean unofficial.”
“This new job of mine, I don’t know that word.”
“I need to reach Bramblett. I need to settle Naomi’s estate.”
“Hire a private eye in Fort Worth.”
I looked at Bobbi Lewis. Twenty-four hours earlier, she had suggested that Bramblett might be dead or his sister’s killer. She looked back at me, thinking the same thought.
“Thanks, Monty,” I said. “The estate can pay to find him. It’ll come out of his pocket, not mine.”
The porch went to silence, predeparture shufflings. The meeting was over.
Liska said, “What’s your pal Sam Wheeler doing in Broward?”
“I’ll ask him when I see him.”
“Good. You do that,” said the sheriff. “You gonna know him in a hospital bed, in an orange jumpsuit?”
Shit. The call to Liska’s cell phone. “What did he do, give your name?”
“You got it. And I can’t recall fronting him any blue chips. You want to think again about his privacy?”
I explained Sam’s dawn call, our flight to Lauderdale, the failed ID of the found body. I added the Broward deputy, the private eye, Wally Loads in the motel, and the brother of the other dead woman.
“You and I are driving to the mainland,” said Liska. “I’ll need to keep a low profile, so we’ll take my personal car. Pack a ditty bag.”
“Everything I need is at the airport.”
He checked his watch. “Let’s go.”
I had spent four days in passenger seats. Decisions had been made for me, not by me. I had gone from wanting to leave the island to having every reason to stay. I had been in Sam’s Bronco, two Lauderdale taxis, Marnie’s Jeep, another taxi, Bobbi Lewis’s SUV, and Dexter Hayes’s city-issue Caprice. Now I faced a long ride in the Lexus.
Questions loomed. Why would Liska want to put himself into a Broward problem? What was his interest in Sam’s welfare? Did I need to stay to help find Teresa? A big problem, too. The last thing Sam might want around was one more lawman. A big fact carried the moment. I couldn’t learn a thing sitting on my ass in Key West.
With everything I had learned about Randolph, I was glad I lived in an old wood Conch house with fifty places to hide small objects. I was equally happy I hadn’t told Teresa about Sam Wheeler’s ten thousand dollars. I pocketed the money along with the notes I had scribbled when Sam had called from Broward.
Carmen Sosa stood in the lane. She read my face. She was good at that.
“Back tomorrow,” I said. “Keep an eye on the fort, will you?”
She scoped the people around me and gave me a hug. “I’ll do that, Alex. You keep an eye on yourself.”
One more issue faced me as I walked toward Liska’s Lexus.
I hadn’t fixed Marnie’s flat.
21
“THIS ISN’T THE WAY to the airport.”
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“We don’t have time.” Liska waited for a bicyclist, then turned left onto North Roosevelt. “You can buy pit wax at a rest stop. What else you need, a comb, a toothbrush? Put ’em on a credit card. Bill it to your buddy chained to the bed in Jackson Memorial.”
“I’m not going to fill your car with luggage, sheriff. I can pull some clean clothes and leave the duffel.”
“Idiots up in Florida already think I go to the office dressed like Jimmy Buffett. One attorney in St. Pete heard that my deputies had Hawaiian shirts like turnpike toll collectors. Every call I get from around the state, Orlando, Tallahassee, other sheriffs, they want to know about fishing. Like I ever get time to launch my boat. I got a twenty-one-foot shed queen gathering lizard shit and dust.” He waggled his hand between us. “You and me, dressed for a funeral, we never looked better in years. We’re not going to a fashion show. Quit your crap.”
“I especially like day-old shirts.”
“We can buy two up the road,” he said.
“My cameras are at the airport, too. They’ll be gone if I leave them too long. Georgette can’t watch my bags twenty-four hours a day.”
Liska relented. He parked in an up-front security zone. I was in and out in two minutes.
“You got time and money for a vacation?”
“A job in the Caymans. I canceled out.”
“Tell me another one. ‘Work’ and ‘island’ don’t compute.”
“You live on one.”
“I don’t care what they used to call it. You don’t drive to real islands. This fucking road makes it a peninsula. We live at the end.”
I was heading up U.S. 1 with an attitude in the driver’s seat and an air conditioner that would shame Alaska. I thanked my stars that he had given up Seventies-era colognes. Also his smoking habit, though the squeaking coffee stirrers drove me nuts.