The Mango Opera

by Tom Corcoran

  “No, but he must be an Einstein. An ’81 Buick on its last legs, held together by primer paint and duct tape. Carjacking doesn’t make sense when there’s only one road off the island.”

  “That murder on Stock Island the other day, I missed it in the news. Any suspects, witnesses?”

  Carmen went straight for the coffee. I covered the microphone end of the phone. “I’m out of cream. Why aren’t you at work?”

  “Split day,” she said.

  “You sound like you got the Hatch disease,” said Monty.

  I uncovered the phone. “I hope not. What do you mean?”

  “It’s either a conspiracy or a serial killer. Down here at the city we’re not buying the theory.”

  “Well, shit. It’s strange enough when Annie’s roommate and my ex-lover are killed on the same day. But I know Shelly and I knew Sally Ann. I mean, I dated both of them way back when. I slept in both of their beds. I didn’t offer those facts to Hatch, but this is getting too close to home.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes at my admission, as if I were tallying my macho conquests. She carried her espresso to the bamboo rocker and settled in.

  “You live in a small town, Rutledge,” said Monty. “You could drive yourself crazy thinking like that.”

  “How can I ignore it? Three direct hits and a near miss.”

  “Logic tells us you’re the prime suspect.”

  “Let’s rule me out for the moment and discuss the real possibilities.”

  “Okay, how many people would connect you with Julia? That was how many years ago, fifteen, twenty? Before you answer, figure how many people know about you and Shelly or you and Sally Ann. Bear in mind, this is Key West. Everybody’s too screwed up to remember that far back. Including, I hate to tell you, Shelly and Sally Ann. Second, there’s so much wild thing going on, who keeps track? Third, why would anyone pay that much attention to your love life? I mean, who cares?”

  Monty had a point. Take everyone who ever knew all three women and find who in that group might connect them to me. It came down to me. And maybe Annie, though I could not recall what I had told her during our truth sessions.

  “Monty, it’s not going to stop bothering me. Let’s say there’s a connection, direct or remote. What comes next?”

  “Where does Ellen Albury fit in? You barely knew her.”

  “Mistaken identity. You said it yourself. They could have been sisters. If the wrong person got killed, Annie’s in trouble right now.”

  “Remember Merle Williams, the chief when I was first hired?”

  “Yeah. How could I forget?”

  “His favorite saying was, ‘Stack up the ifs.’ If there’s a conspiracy or any connection. If there’s a serial killer lurking out there. If anyone knows about the connection to you. If Ellen was the wrong person. If he’s still in town and he’s going to strike again. Then, yes, you’re right, Annie’s in danger. In my judgment, to put it bluntly, five ifs don’t mean squat.”

  “That’s what I needed to hear.” I said it like I meant it, but I didn’t feel any easier. Just the “in-town” if was enough to worry about. “Thanks for putting up with my paranoia,” I said.

  “No problem, bubba.”

  “One more thing, Monty. Any idea what Chicken Neck wants?”

  “No. He’s got Milt Russell in his office right now. I heard them saying how the Public Defender’s office gets threats all the time. People they represented, cases they lost. The old routine, ‘When I get out of prison, I’ll get you for this…’ or ‘I know where you live…’ Could be they want to dig out all those files, check out those old threats one by one.”

  “Tell Chicken Neck I’ll come by after lunch.”

  “You get paranoid for any new reasons, bubba, you call me.”

  I hung up and sat on the sofa, opposite Carmen. She looked as content as a human could be, stroked out, shoes off, her Latin loveliness compressed into her five-four height. Though she would not escape the spread of middle age, she would always carry an erotic grace and an intelligent, playful spirit. She wanted more out of life, every day, than most of the women who had grown up in Key West. She knew that there was a larger world beyond Stock Island, outside the island social scene.

  “Aghajanian misses his job,” I said.

  “The guy who got screwed out of his badge?”

  I nodded. “And the guy behind the shafting is the one who’s been slipping Annie his hard bargain.”

  Carmen’s jaw dropped. Her eyes slitted in a grimace of disbelief. “She knows he’s the guy?”

  I shrugged and nodded again. “What’s a split day?”

  “Five of us share shifts with Richie Mooney. He’s in a wheelchair and he can’t get the county van until seven-thirty. So he can’t load PO boxes in the mornings. I do it once a week. It gives me almost a whole day off, and I make up my lost hours on Saturday. Richie gets enough hours to be considered full time, for the benefits and all.”

  “Uncle Sam didn’t make that one up.”

  “He doesn’t know it’s going on. Kind of a palace revolution. You through with the phone?”

  “You need it, go ahead.”

  “You going to warn Annie that she might be in danger?”

  “I guess I should do that first.”

  “What about me? You and I were lovers.”

  “You feel left out?”

  “I want to know should I buy that pistol before noon.”

  “We did it once. I never told a soul. You already said you were too wasted to remember what went on. A true compliment, I might add.”

  “I remember you got the rubber twisted and you had to open a new one. Your flag slid down the mast, but we fixed that. Anyway, we did it twice.”

  “That hand job in the hot tub? You wouldn’t even take off the top of your bathing suit.”

  “My mother could have walked into that yard at any moment.”

  “Your Catholic guilt just eats you up. At two A.M. your mother’s going to come around your house on skinny-dip patrol?”

  “I still rate a warning about this serial killer who’s attacking your old girlfriends.”

  “Ellen Albury received threats from convicts who felt that their prison time was the result of poor representation. We talked last night about how Julia Balbuena’s family is involved in a Cuban turf war. The guy who tried to abduct Shelly Standish sounds too loose to pull off the murders. I don’t know anything at all about Sally Ann getting killed.”

  “You’re repeating what Aghajanian just told you. Warn me. Please.”

  “Don’t run into any walls while you’re looking over your shoulder.”

  “Sometimes I hate you.”

  “I love you always. Please be careful. Just in case.”

  “Thank you.”

  I knew Carmen’s habit of squinting and squaring her face. If her eyes are cold as steel, it’s time to clear out. A sparkle means mischief.

  “We need a contingency plan, Alex. We need a list of every girl you’ve slept with, so we can do a mass mailing. Call it a blanket warning. If you can’t afford the postage, I can float you a loan.”

  I spotted the sparkle. “You’re a laugh a minute.”

  “Can I ask something personal, seriously? Why so many girlfriends?”

  I had to think about that for a moment. “It took a long time to find Annie. Sometimes they bugged out on me. Different reasons. Two or three times it clicked, but then it would shut off a few months or a year later. It wasn’t like the same problem over and over again. Either I wasn’t their dream date or they weren’t mine.”

  Carmen tasted her coffee and scowled. “Annie’s your dream date?”

  “Was. Closest thing since before I went in the Navy. Now probably not.”

  “Let me suggest that you warn her in person. Sort of a woman’s move, not so much that you want her back, but you might have to drum up a list.”

  “Monty told me not to dwell on it.”

  “And you told him that it wasn’t goi
ng to stop bothering you. You want me to help you solve the murders, so you can stop sweating?”

  “The police are out there working on it. You’re not dependable, anyway. You’ve turned into a raving gun fanatic.”

  “I know you too well. If you see any connection, you have two choices. Give the police your list of possible victims, or chase down the murderer yourself. You’ll pick choice B.”

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  “Somebody crossed it already. Twice yesterday.”

  * * *

  The row of restored buildings in the 500 block of Whitehead offers a fancy address to two tide insurance companies, two law offices, a real estate broker, a licensed private investigator, and a quickie marriage chapel. The wood shutters and railings are bright, the signboards subdued. The gingerbread is close to authentic. The sidewalks are in better repair than in other sections of the downtown historical area. Pinder, Curry & Sawyer sits mid-block, fifty yards from the main portico of the hundred-year-old red brick Monroe County Courthouse. I lucked into a metered space for the Kawasaki my second time around the block.

  Lucette, the young Pinder, Curry receptionist, wore a yellow Walkman headset and a thousand bucks’ worth of gold jewelry. As I entered she regarded me as if she might follow a dust mote.

  “Here to see Ann Minnette.” I hung my helmet on the gaudy umbrella stand in the corner behind the door.

  “What? Like I think you’re here to see Benjamin Pinder? Every time you come in the door you’re not here to see Annie? You hear that her roommate’s like dead? And Annie’s tied up right now.”

  Alarms went off in my brain. “Who’s she with?” I started for Annie’s office door.

  Lucette reached up. “Wait, dude. She’s with Mr. Pinder.”

  I had already flung open the door. It banged against a springy-sounding doorstop. Pinder and Annie were huddled over her broad desk, surveying a computer printout. Both jumped.

  “I hate to bother you, but when did you borrow Ellen Albury’s bicycle?”

  “Pardon me?” Annie’s bewildered expression bordered on fear.

  Benjamin Pinder also was shaken by my entrance. His pinched face spread to horror and his arms began to rise in self-protection. “I’ve got a call to make before ten.” He was out the door before he said the word “before.”

  Annie struck an all-biz pose. “Let’s not get into this right now, Alex. I owe you an explanation. I wouldn’t blame you if you threw me out of your house. But I can’t deal with this now.”

  “I don’t want to get into anything except one question. All I need is a one-sentence answer. When did you borrow Ellen Albury’s bicycle?”

  “About nine o’clock the night she was killed.”

  “Where was your car?”

  “This is question number two.” That attorney tone of voice.

  “Where was your car?”

  “In front of the house on Olivia.”

  “All night long?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, look. I don’t want to argue, and I’m not here to evict you. It’s your house as long as you need to be there. But something is going on. You might be in danger.”

  “Please, Alex.”

  “You ever hear me mention Sally Ann Guthery?”

  “Yes. And I know. She was killed in that trailer court last weekend. The detectives asked me if I knew her. I didn’t know her from Madonna. The fact that you dated her years ago means nothing.”

  “How about Shelly Standish? She was attacked yesterday.”

  “You’ve talked about her, too. I can see where this is leading. Was she hurt?”

  “She outsmarted a thug. Is my imagination trampling my common sense?”

  “Alex, I don’t want to live in fear. I don’t worry that a germ has my name on it. I keep a positive attitude. I eat bacon. I sometimes swallow tap water when I rinse after brushing. You’re making too much of this.”

  I wasn’t convinced.

  “We’re in shock from yesterday,” she said. “My mind has been off in every direction. Maybe your imagination could send mine a postcard when it takes a minute to cool off.” She began to straighten her papers. “I’ve got the funeral tomorrow, and then I can start putting this behind me, a little at a time. Can we go to dinner tonight and put our minds somewhere else?”

  I nodded yes. “Please tell Benjy Pinder I’m sorry for my rudeness.”

  “Benjy forgives you. Trust me on that.”

  * * *

  I’d thought I might grab a take-out sandwich at the Pier House Market and go home for a couple hours’ work. Instead, I headed the motorcycle down Whitehead. Joe Cocker wailed from the jukebox at the Green Parrot. Two old black men on bikes rode slowly through Bahama Village. A tourist family posed next to the historically null cupola that had marked the Southernmost Point for twenty years. I turned east along the Atlantic side, then around to Louie’s Back Yard, where I parked it. I’ve often turned to boat rides to work out mental knots. My own personal flavor of hydrotherapy. When a boat is not available, a walk works wonders.

  The bowlful of bad news and crazy coincidence in my head did not mesh with Annie’s on-again, off-again flakiness. She’d said that she’d fought the idea that she loved me. Fought like a maniac, I supposed, frolicking with Michael Anselmo. The fact that I’d spent twenty nights in smoky saloons before last night’s reunion added to the confusion. Now she refused to acknowledge even the remote chance of danger.

  Perhaps she was right: I had overreacted. Not necessarily foolishly, but too protectively. Hell, I was not her father. Maybe I needed to back off.

  I cut through the boat rental area at the Casa Marina, drank a quick rum and OJ at the cabana bar, and kept walking. The positive ratio of bicycles to rental cars at Higgs Beach announced the fade of the winter tourist season. As did the percentage of topless women among the hip-to-hip sunbathers.

  By the time I had reached White Street Pier, I had chilled out and begun to juggle my priorities. I had filled the mental blackboard with imperatives. I hadn’t intended to become a sleuth, and I probably would stink at it. But I saw no other choice.

  I spit in the ocean for luck and headed back.

  9

  Chicken Neck Liska sat behind his desk in a high-backed swivel-and-tilt chair, staring out at the city parking garage and breathing through his nose. We’d said our hellos. From the questionable comfort of a government-gray steel-and-vinyl chair, I observed his contemplation. I sensed that the wait was part of his message. He wanted me to know that he was perfecting his phrasing. Out on Simonton a car with a loud bass amplifier passed slowly. Metallic threads in Liska’s vintage Nik-Nik shirt caught yellow-green flashes from the fluorescent lights. His face had been shaved imperfectly and his eyes drooped like a turtle’s. I wondered if his occupation had aged him beyond his time.

  “We got four ex-boyfriends: two with domestic violence records and the other two not exactly first-class citizens.” Liska now focused on his mildewed mini-blinds. “Those are the ones in town or alive. We got the kiddie-diddling father, one Pepper Neice, fresh out of prison, released ten days ago, negative contact with his parole officer. Bastard’s vanished, but he could’ve dropped back in town.” Liska reached across the desk. Without looking, he slapped a stack of manila file pockets. “We got twenty-odd violence-prone indigent losers who claim their convictions were conspiracies between the Public Defender and the police department. We got a B and E punk who likes to hit the homes of single women after they’ve gone out for the evening. There’s a chance he’s the dirtbag who wound a Cablevision cord around a blue-haired lady’s neck to force a rape. We’re fucking lucky he didn’t kill that one. I’ll have the Olivia Street fingerprints cross-referenced by the NCIC database at four o’clock and a first draft of Riley’s ME report by five o’clock.” He turned to face me. “You can tell the public we are solving the hell out of this crime.”

  “I don’t work for a newspaper.”

  “I w
onder who you work for.”

  I just looked at him.

  “To summarize, everyone on the island who is mobile, and not in jail or visually impaired, is a suspect, although there is trace evidence of heterosexual activity, which in this town narrows the field considerably. All we have to do is cull the innocent. The troops are praying for someone to step forward and confess. It ain’t likely.”

  Liska clicked his head one notch sideways to check for my reaction. I didn’t move.

  “You’re supposed to be on our side, Rutledge.” He hefted a glass jar full of dollar-sized Peppermint Patties and offered me one. I picked two. The obvious answer was that both the law-enforcement career and his recent divorce had taken their toll on his health.

  “And you’re holding back evidence.”

  I still had nothing to say. But my solid ground had begun to quiver.

  He went back to gazing out the window. “I’m a fabulous detective. I didn’t get into an office on the north side of the building with my own phone and a door that shuts and a salary that lets me drive a Lexus by being dumb. I didn’t get here the old-fashioned way, by being related to somebody in power. I did it a new way. I walked the beat. I wore a dark wool uniform in the heat of the day right square in the tropics. I drove dumpy squad cars that smelled like mildew and axle grease and cat piss—sometimes ten, twelve hours a day—before the city’s budget allowed air-conditioning. I kissed more Cuban tushy than you ever saw. I pulled some shit, and I played the game. I took chances, I evened scores, I gave people a break now and then. I gave a lot of people breaks. Now I got this office, it means something. After all that practice, I notice things, I follow up.”

  Chicken Neck’s phone rang. He ignored it for a moment. “We’ve worked together too long to bullshit each other. I don’t need to know today why you kept them. But why don’t you plan an explanation real soon. Bring me the color five-by-sevens.” He popped the receiver to his ear.

  I stood to exit the office. Liska raised one arm to get my attention, then held his palm over the mouthpiece. “They pulled a match on the prints from Olivia, the front door and an ashtray. Pepper Neice. The missing father.”

  “Jesus, her father?”