Octopus Alibi

by Tom Corcoran

  “He gives up, then fakes an assault?” I said.

  McKinney’s eyes were focused on a laminated menu. His mind was back on the roadside. “I’m thinking, this guy is scared shitless for a good reason. So the next thing, a Highway Patrol is the first unit on scene, like six minutes after first contact. I report the assault on me, the trooper runs the bust, and he’s got no choice but to hand him to Miami-Dade.”

  “Why’s he in a hospital?” said Liska.

  “Our newfangled rules. I told the highway trooper that I had to whack him upside the head. Mr. Wheeler complained of dizziness, staggered a little. He got a mandatory visit to the emergency room. I wanted to make him more available to you. Eliminate the jailhouse routine.”

  My turn to speak. “How do we keep Miami-Dade from giving him up to Broward?”

  Liska looked to the night sky. “Your friend Aghajanian. If we’ve got a civil rights complaint, the feds come in and freeze the works. You need to call in your tenth favor of the week.”

  Liska handed me his cellular.

  I walked to the parking lot and ran my options. I didn’t know the number in Monty’s guest condo at La Brisa, so I tried the friend who had loaned Monty the place but got an answering service. Time to call the person I trusted most. Carmen’s drowsy voice told me I’d owe a big payback for this one. I gave her Sam’s story, condensed, and asked her to ask Monty if he knew agents in Miami who could look into a possible abuse of police powers.

  “You want me to drive over to La Brisa now?” she said. “What if he’s not there?”

  “Leave him a note, ask him to call you.”

  “I should warn you,” said Carmen. “My after-dark mileage rate for your errands is measured in quantities of Chardonnay.”

  I thanked her, clicked off, then checked my voice mail. Nothing.

  I fought a mental picture of Teresa and Whit Randolph tapping glasses in Camille’s.

  My sandwich came to the table on a plate that read, COONAMESSETT INN, FALMOUTH, CAPE COD.

  Liska said, “I don’t know how you do it.” He chewed his fish, stared at Denison McKinney.

  “What’s that?” said the officer.

  “Swamp duty.”

  McKinney shrugged a shoulder, almost broke a grin. “I don’t know, the mosquitoes don’t bite me. I must be made of bug spray.”

  “Who do you talk to, the trees?”

  “You got a better deal?”

  Five minutes later, Liska handed me the tab. “Yours, bubba. You either got a brick or a wad of money in your pocket.” He turned to McKinney. “If you drop charges, Broward can grab him.”

  “I can’t drop. They don’t let us claim assault, then forget about it. Sets a bad precedent for perps who want to hurt us.”

  “What am I saying?” said Liska. “I know that. But you can fail to show for a prelim hearing.”

  “Right. And get a letter of notation in my file.”

  “Unless you were assigned to my county at the time of the hearing. And you informed me of the hearing date, but it was me who forgot to inform the court. Would I be wrong to guess that Sam offered a few fishing trips?”

  “A month’s worth,” said McKinney.

  “Perfect,” said Liska. “I need your expertise in…”

  “Bonefish poaching?”

  “Right, for thirty-one days, starting just before the hearing.”

  “Broward can still take him for arraignment, can’t they?”

  Liska shrugged. “That’s down the road. We’ll play the other side’s game. We’ll post bond, postpone, post whatever.”

  “If this will help…” McKinney worked a folded letter-sized page from his pocket. “I had a deputy friend in Broward fax me the arrest form.”

  * * *

  Liska and I walked to the car. “Your job, Rutledge, first thing tomorrow, is to get his ass a lawyer.”

  “Long drive into Miami, this time of night,” I said.

  “No lie,” said Liska. “We’re useless until seven A.M., anyway.”

  Twelve minutes later I bought two rooms at the Marriott, Key Largo. We live in the age of credit cards. Liska showed his badge so the clerk would take my cash and let me use the phone.

  Before we hit the elevator, Liska led me outside to a windy patio. “I don’t want to walk into a hornet’s nest tomorrow morning. I want every fucking detail in your pea brain right now, on the table.”

  “That arrest form you got from McKinney? See if Broward’s complaining officer is Detective Odin Marlow.”

  “Shit,” said Liska, dumfounded. “Where’d you get him? There can’t be two of them.”

  “He’s part of what I’m about to tell.”

  “Marlow’s a born crook. The Key West Police Department fired his ass twenty years ago. He should’ve gone to Raiford instead of out the door.”

  Sam had said, “I think I’ll find something, with Marlow attached.”

  McKinney had said, “You size up other men. If you’re wrong, you die, so you get good at it.”

  Liska held the arrest report up to catch a beam of light. He shook his head. “I don’t see his name anywhere. I don’t see a detective on here.”

  I spun the long version for him, for the second time, with more detail. The ME’s dawn call, Lorie Wheeler’s ID papers held by the dead woman, and our lunch with Odin Marlow. I told him about Marlow’s suggesting a private detective and explained about the photo of Lorie, how Wally Loads had tipped Sam to Barry Marcantonio’s search for his sister. For the sake of Bobbi Lewis’s job security, I said nothing about her matching addresses to license numbers.

  Liska digested the story. “Here’s how I take it,” he said. “Not finding Marlow on the arrest form’s a bad sign. If it’s dirty deputies, it’s bigger than just one asshole. If it’s not, then Sam guessed wrong, and he ran from a legit traffic stop.”

  “You don’t think Sam can see a roust from a mile away?” I said.

  “You ever sit on a sea grape, and not know it? You’re the last one to find out you got a stain on your pants that looks like crap. Don’t answer that. I can see I’ve already stumped you. What I’m saying, they could’ve pulled him over because of a minor infraction, simple as that.”

  With a look of doubt and sympathy, I agreed.

  He said, “You’re in the bars every so often, right?”

  “Not like I used to be. You get past your thirties, the hangovers start to climb the Richter scale.”

  “You ever see Yvonne Gomez out there, chumming up to the boys? Or hanging close to one particular man?”

  “Nope,” I said. “But I promise you, I wasn’t paying attention.”

  * * *

  “I didn’t think you’d be the type for late-night drunken calls, Alex,” said Annie Minnette. “I also can’t picture you with a broken heart, or missing me in the slightest.”

  The clock on the bedside table said eleven-ten. “I’ve had two beers, total. I could drink eight more and still be sober.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “This isn’t about me, Annie. Sam needs a lawyer.”

  “There aren’t enough attorneys in Key West?”

  “Miami-Dade and Broward,” I said.

  “Both?”

  “For the moment,” I said. “Mostly Broward.”

  “Why would Sam be north of Marathon?”

  I gave her the ninety-second version, during which I heard a man’s voice on her end of the line. The voice stopped, shut up by a “mute” button or by her shushing a real human. I was proud of myself. I hadn’t stumbled, hadn’t reacted to the possibility that Annie had company. Why wouldn’t she?

  Annie and I had lived together on Dredgers Lane for three years. She had initiated our split, blaming the island atmosphere for her wish to leave. She had worked for Pinder Curry and Sawyer in Key West, and had moved north to start with a firm in Pompano Beach. Beyond that I knew only that she had bought a new car—a lunatic had destroyed her Beetle convertible before she left town—and a new house near Bo
ca Raton.

  “I’ll meet you at the corrections infirmary,” she said. “It’s called Ward D, which stands for either detention or disgusting. Better yet, we should meet outside the main entrance. Tell me what time.”

  “I don’t know. We’re in Key Largo.”

  “I’ve got to make one stop first thing tomorrow. I can’t be there until a few minutes after eight.”

  “It’ll be good to see you,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Let’s deal with that after we deal with Sam.”

  She got her money’s worth in law school.

  I called Sam’s house. Marnie was still awake. I told her where I was.

  “I’m worried to death, Alex. Bobbi Lewis called tonight. She said Sam’s in a jam. Why would she be calling me?”

  I gave her a shorter version of the short version I had given Annie. “It’s Dinner Party Sam, like you said, doing what he has to do.”

  “And I can’t change him, so I’ll never try. At least I’ve got you to talk to.”

  “Before I forget,” I said, “do you still have those addresses I gave you?”

  “I gave them to Sam when he called this afternoon.”

  “I need them, too.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you ready to write?”

  I copied them, then said, “Get some sleep. Things aren’t going to slow down.”

  “I won’t sleep. I worked my ass off on a piece, and the Citizen won’t let me run it. I mean, Mayor Steve Gomez died. At least ask the question…”

  “It’s only part of the story,” I said. “Find Teresa, warn her however you can. Randolph may be a key to Steve and Naomi. He may be their killer.”

  “Yvonne Gomez better watch out, too. I saw them walking down Front Street today.”

  “Together?”

  “Kind of, but more like he was bothering her and she wanted to escape.”

  “You need to look into him,” I said.

  “I need more than allegations to write a story.”

  “How about this? Randolph subscribes to a message service in Redmond, Washington. I think it’s a Seattle suburb. That’s where those Mallory Square dome developers were from, the ones who pitched the commission.”

  “The BFD people?”

  “You want to stir up some shit, see if you can get those people to admit knowing Randolph.”

  “It’s a tangled web, Alex.”

  “That’s how carpetbaggers baffle the locals. Tangle it up, hang it with dollar signs.”

  “I meant, of course, your imagination,” she said.

  “Wait and see,” I said. “Reality’s always more devious.”

  “I was getting to that. You and Sam bought into a partnership a long time ago.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “Did you?”

  “Like, in our grand investor days?” I said. “Throwing out dollars to see if they’d stick? Lighting our cigars with bad checks?”

  “Like a shopping center and condominium island near the top of Cow Key Channel? The Borroto Brinas Development Corporation?”

  That one hit home. “Was that the thing Sam heard about on the docks, that hot tip?”

  “Keep going.”

  “That thousand bucks that was going to make me a tycoon. I was going to buy a thirty-eight-foot sailboat and cruise to the Virgin Islands. Hell, I kissed that cash good-bye before I bought my house. I remember wishing I had it to add to my down payment.”

  “Could it have been two thousand dollars? And Sam, four grand, a total of six thousand?”

  Oh, crap. “Is this your Gomez research? The old land deal that’s coming before the commission?”

  “You got it. According to my source, Mayor Gomez held the swing vote. Or he controlled the anti-growth faction, however you want to phrase it.”

  “Was his vote going to make us rich?”

  “Gomez was against it,” she said. “You were going to lose the money you already kissed off.”

  “And now?”

  “It’ll pass without him there to focus opposition. Even the city attorney thinks that the permits and permissions are legal. He thinks that rejecting the proposal will lead to an endless, expensive court battle.”

  “Will our names be associated with it?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said.

  “Twenty-year reputations down the tubes?”

  “Unless you two can ride in on white horses and save the town from the dragon.”

  “Can you keep our names out of the paper until we get back?”

  “I’ll try.”

  23

  A TAP ON THE door, too early for housekeeping. I’d been half-awake for an hour, serenaded by water pipes. Why start your morning while it’s still yesterday? I cracked the door, feigned caution, but I knew.

  Liska pushed his way in, smelling of Listerine and Right Guard. He looked bald with wet hair. He jammed the Miami Herald at me, opened to the Florida Keys section.

  A sconce in the hallway lit the headline: GOMEZ MURDERED.

  The phone rang. I stumbled to answer it as Liska yanked the curtain cord. A painful reveille, and a dull, cloudy sky.

  Marnie, in tears. “I’m quitting this fucking job.”

  “I haven’t read it yet,” I said. “Did they link Gomez to Naomi?”

  “No.”

  “Then they can’t have the whole story. That part’s still yours.”

  “They wouldn’t have shit if somebody wasn’t spoon-feeding. I’m going to buy every copy on the island and throw them in my boss’s office.”

  Liska twirled his hand, urging me to hurry.

  I said, “Your boss wouldn’t feed a story to the competition.”

  “He wouldn’t let me run what I had.”

  Give her hope, I thought. “Follow up on what I said last night. It’s still your scoop, and you’ll get it right. Be careful.”

  “Being right isn’t as good as being first,” she said.

  “Listen to yourself, Marnie.”

  “Bring Sam home,” she said.

  Out of my power, but I would try.

  I said, “I will,” and hung up.

  “Let’s hit the trail, Mr. Good Guy,” barked Liska. “I already checked us out. You owe me eight bucks for two toll calls.” He looked like he’d shaved four times. I could see the Sports section reflected on his chin.

  I headed for the bathroom. “Do I have time to shower?”

  “No. Forty minutes from now I want to be their first customer, bright and shiny. They think cops in the Keys all sleep till noon. I want to take them by surprise.”

  “This is your advanced course in police tactics?”

  “‘How to Hurry’ is my basic. ‘How to Wait’ is advanced. You should wet your hair before you comb it. By the way, how did the Citizen reporter know you were…? Never mind. I appreciate the irony. That’s what makes my job.”

  “How good for you,” I said. “I thrive on sarcasm, myself.”

  * * *

  We hit the Eighteen-Mile Stretch. Northbound traffic was frantic and fast. Bumper jumpers, sharks, clueless voyagers baffled by the world’s pace. I read the Herald while Liska dealt with commuting Key Largo residents and people trying to make midmorning flights out of Miami.

  “You’re reading some real Shinola,” said Liska. “Except for our dedicated medical examiner, it’s a thin piece. It’s based on a tip, speculation, and that quote from Larry Riley. Read that out loud, where he said about blood.”

  “‘Based on rigidity and lividity, the time of death is consistent with the time frame in which the body was found. Based on bloodstain volume, the location of death is in question.’”

  “I will have Dexter’s dick on a butcher’s block for this,” said Liska. “I know what he did. The schmuck mouthed off because I swiped his case.”

  “You’re sure it’s him?”

  “You get to the part about Gomez’s watch? Read that part to me.”

  “‘Police sources have confirmed that the owner of Lowry’
s Island Pawn, in compliance with city theft liaison laws, on Wednesday turned in a gold Rolex watch inscribed on the back, “for SWG with Love.” The pawn shop employee who loaned against the watch is being sought for questioning.’”

  I owed Duffy Lee Hall ten bucks.

  “That’s pure city info,” said Liska. “If it wasn’t Dexter, it was somebody five feet away from him. What did you tell Marnie Dunwoody last night?”

  “I suggested the Whit Randolph connection.”

  “Now she’ll get caught in a mess.”

  “I told her to be careful.”

  Liska waggled his head. “You forget she’s a woman?”

  “I’d love to quote you on that one,” I said. “How many years were you married?”

  Chicken Neck glared at the windshield.

  “Sorry, that’s personal,” I said. “Who’s your best detective?”

  “I pulled her off the Gomez case this morning.”

  “Jesus Christ. Lewis was the only one who gave a shit.”

  “That’s part of our problem,” said Liska. “We solve this, bust somebody, get it to trial, put her on the stand, and ka-blam. A decent defense attorney could blow our case to Cuba. Don’t ask me why. I’m not open to discuss it.”

  Bobbi Lewis’s secret romance was no secret.

  “Is she still on Naomi Douglas?” I said.

  “At this point, she’d be lucky to get crossing guard duty.”

  I kept my mouth shut. On the chance that my guess was not correct, and Lewis’s affair with Steve Gomez was not the problem, I didn’t want to reveal something else that could hurt her.

  We hit the top of the Keys, the billboards for auto dealerships, cellular phone services, Seminole airboat swamp rides. Vehicles around us paid no attention to 45 MPH signs coming into Florida City. I tried to read the newspaper, but couldn’t focus. I kept thinking ahead to my first face-to-face with Annie Minnette in a year, and the sad irony that I might split with another housemate in days ahead.

  When Annie and I had parted, we had assured each other that our three years together had been rich ones. She had taken to island life, to tropical plants and Cuban cooking. She had soaked up nautical atmosphere, the casual approach locals took to dress and dining. She had blended well with the attorneys, courts, and alliances of the Key West legal maze. Yet something behind her spark, her smile, caused turmoil in her mind. She never had shared that part of herself with me. Until she left me.