by Tom Corcoran
“He never acted like the killing type.”
I thought back to Mariel. “No. Just foolish in the face of disaster.”
“Will you lie down next to me until I fall asleep?” Her eyes drooped.
I remembered her remark about still smelling like Eastern European body odor. “Why don’t I take a rain check, tuck you in, and lock the door behind me?”
“You promise? The rain check?”
Before I left Laura’s house I borrowed her phone. Bob Bernier thanked me for returning his call. “How’s your afternoon look?” he said. “Can you spare me a few minutes?”
“Anytime after three-thirty.”
“You up for a beer at Louie’s?”
“Sounds fine,” I said.
“Four?”
“I’ll be wearing a Bimini T-shirt.”
I looked in on Laura. Sound asleep on top of her bedspread. I had a feeling that the rain check might save my sanity sometime soon.
Back on the bike, I rode that section of Virginia Street east of Windsor Lane that remains so Cuban and original. I did not want to race traffic on Truman, so I turned at the stone fire station at Grinnell, zipped the stop sign next to ChiChi’s Bar, and cut around the cemetery. I put some effort into it, getting up speed, blowing through pools of vermilion petals under the poinciana trees on Frances. I quickly built a sweat and felt a few kinks and knots work themselves out of my back muscles. All this intrigue, plus Laura’s sexual radiance, had boosted the pressure inside of me. I wanted to uncork the ache without making any dumb mistakes, unwind without diluting what had turned into a sense of purpose. I would shed the superfluous details and focus on stopping the threat. I wanted to make sure that someone paid for all this damage and death.
I felt as if I had accomplished five percent of those things by the time I turned onto Dredgers Lane and coasted into the yard. I could blame some of the ache on exercise. I had burned off the morning beers.
Cigar odors wafted from the porch.
Avery Hatch in a tank top and a pair of shorts. A warm-weather ensemble similar to Laura Tate’s. Not the same effect.
17
Sheriff’s Detective Hatch delivered a massive belch. “Too much goddamn lunch,” he said. I refused to respond. His intrusion had tossed my mood. I rolled the bicycle around back, locked it to the tree, threw the tarp over it. A million things on my mind, Avery Hatch not on the list. The neighbor’s spaniel whined at the fence. I ruffled the hair on its head. It licked perspiration from my fingers. Unquestioning trust in the dog’s eyes.
A Slurpee cup teetered on the edge of the porch table, cigar ashes stuck around its rim. “You came here to talk about your gluttony, Avery, and you walked,” I said. “Your car’s not in the lane. You wanted to ambush me?”
He shook his head. “Kiwanis pancake brunch at the AARP. Five goddamn dollars, I wanted my money’s worth. I felt like walking off the maple syrup. My car’s around to that lot by White Street, by Southard.”
“Ah, but you’re sitting down. Why here?”
Hatch sat up straighter in the chair. The wicker creaked in complaint. “Ask questions, like before,” he said. “Why else? What do I do every fucking day of my life? I ever got time for social calls? I come here to pay my respects?”
“You want to know what the Cubans said, go ask your partner. Billy’d be happy to share his perspective.” I entered the porch but remained standing. He didn’t take the hint.
“What Cubans we talking about?”
“I hope the rest of your questions have more substance.”
Avery shot back: “Rutledge, y’ever know Sally Ann Guthery?”
Here we go, I thought. “A few years ago. Took her out a few times.”
“You didn’t mention that Thursday morning when I told you she was the victim on Stock Island. I think you already knew she was the victim.” Hatch looked impassive, as if he were reading a menu. I foresaw a one-man tough-guy, good-guy routine.
“I didn’t know until you told me,” I said.
“Where were you the night she was killed?”
“How the hell do I know? I don’t know what night it happened. Even if I knew, I don’t think I could come up with an answer.”
“You don’t know where you were?”
“The last couple of weeks I haven’t paid much attention to myself. I’ve been through a period of personal distress. I sure as hell haven’t kept a diary.”
“So I take it you don’t want to even attempt an alibi. I suppose you know Shelly Standish, too.” He’d begun to spit his words.
“Now you’re guessing, Avery.” I walked inside and continued talking as I went to the refrigerator. “You heard from Lester Forsythe that I asked about the Balbuena and Guthery evidence photos. Shelly Standish, you’re just guessing. Maybe that’s what you do every day of your life. You guess.”
“What’d you learn from the photographs?”
I returned to the porch and chugged from the OJ carton. “Somebody knows how to bend correct knots. Knots that don’t slip, and similar knots in each case. You noticed them yourself, didn’t you? You know enough about knots.”
Avery’s pause was long enough to convince me that he hadn’t noticed the knots in the photos. But he decided to fake it. “Gimme some goddamned news,” he said. “Did you forget that we live on a fucking island? Thirty-five thousand year-round residents right here at sea level. Elevation zero. Adventures in Paradise. Nautical Wheelers. Everybody and his brother knows knots. You think that’s a clue, you got a long way to go. Where were you last Tuesday night when Julia Balbuena was dropped at Bahia Honda and Ellen Albury was offed in her living room?”
“See, everything’s been sort of hyper since Wednesday, so that one I know for sure. But let’s play with this fact, Hatch. I dated Shelly Standish, too, a few years ago. One way or another, I’m linked to every one of these crimes.”
“So why shouldn’t I arrest your ass? I think you’ve been screwing with the evidence.”
“Look at yourself, Avery. In my goddamn chair, suffocating the plants with your two-and-a-half-buck hand-rolled cigar, insinuating that I might be a suspect in three murders. Where’s your common sense? I’m a photographer. I got no chips on my shoulder except you’re getting close to being one. I get drunk, I don’t hurt people, I fall asleep. Do they pay you for this crap?”
He waved his hand to interrupt. I wouldn’t let him.
“You’ve cranked your intuition around to the idea that I might murder a few friends and leave a broad trail to my own doorstep. It’ll read good in the newspaper, won’t it? ‘Crime Wave Suspect in Custody.’ So I freeze in fear. I scamper out and hire a three-piece lawyer. But Avery, it’s a waste of pissant paperwork. You know I’m not your bad boy. If all you want to do is a shit job, take a hike. I’ve got important things to do around here. I’ve got to clean the crumbs out of my toaster. Three days of dishes in the sink. Pour pennies out of the Drambuie bottle and stuff them into rolls of fifty each. Scribble my account number on each roll.”
“No need to be a wiseass, Rutledge.”
“I’ve got to run a load of throw rugs through the washer and dryer. I need to refold my underwear and dust the windowsills. Use the carpenter’s level to make sure all my framed artwork is hanging straight. Come to think of it, I’ve got to check the air pressure in my bike tires.” I took another slug from the OJ carton. I didn’t offer to share.
Hatch kept quiet.
“Okay, Avery, now that I’ve got your attention, I’ll turn this sideways and ask my own question. I’ll tell you in advance that I asked this of several people in the last day or so. Why did you pretend not to know Julia Balbuena?”
He went for the calming effect of breathing through his nostrils. “What do you mean, pretend?”
“Why didn’t you identify the body? Tell me that.”
Hatch’s hand went for a cigar in the pocket, except there was no pocket. His eyes roved around at the three-foot level. They fixed on a small monstera
plant in a weather-beaten Star Wars wastebasket.
“I’m a good detective. I told you that once, Rutledge. I’m good.”
“I’ve heard other people say that, too. I’m glad you agree.”
“I knew from 1980 that you had the hots for Kemp’s girlfriend. Ray told me about it. She wanted to be friendly after the three of you got back from Mariel. She kept wanting to invite you for dinner or meet you for drinks. He had to convince her that you were a pest, and you wouldn’t settle for friendship. You’d get possessive and grabby like you’d been when she dumped you for him.
“Ray Kemp asked you to go to Mariel because he figured you were over it, but afterward he had you pegged. He knew you were going for the goods. He told me about it, and I never forgot. Why the fuck do you think I had you come all the way from Key West when Lester was on the scene at Bahia Honda? You think I bought that bullhockey about you being expensive but good?”
“So the detective recognizes a body on the beach,” I said. “He doesn’t tell anyone who she is. But he remembers that Rutledge knew her half a lifetime ago. The detective thinks: That irrational freak. He’s always in trouble. Always five or ten miles over the limit. Who cares if he’s worked for the Department and the City for years? Who cares if he’s never had so much as a jaywalking citation? Wouldn’t it be great to set him up? Test the bugger to see if he perpetrated a few snuffs out and about the Lower Keys?”
He shrugged and gave a faint nod.
“Too far-fetched, Hatch. Julia Balbuena knew a thousand people in her lifetime. Maybe two thousand.”
Now his head nodded nonstop. “That’s how I do a good job. I fetch far. This time I fetched back six hours to where your girlfriend’s roomie is toast. And you’re rumbling around the murder venue like somebody official.”
“Which I am, from time to time.”
Hatch heaved himself out of the chair and shuffled toward the screen door. “Self-appointed, it appears. You a cop groupie, Rutledge?”
“I would be, but I can’t afford a scanner.”
“You think we don’t know about your odd jobs? You stole a sailboat three years ago.”
“Funny, Avery, the loss wasn’t reported. Maybe the captain in possession wasn’t the rightful owner. That was a favor for a friend. And I recall a Sarasota insurance investigator saying—in confidence, of course—that several deputies, your colleagues, were partners in a boat brokerage in Port Charlotte. They sold out after I recovered that yacht.”
Hatch started to say something, but changed his mind.
“Avery, you believe what you want, but Julia and Ray split up not long after the Boatlift. You didn’t see me beelining for Miami back then. Why would I want to kill her fifteen years later?”
He let the door slam on his way out. I stared up the lane as he waddled off toward Fleming.
* * *
A Cuban cadet in a blue uniform held the dripping AK-47. His poncho flapped against a pine sapling. His hands shook and one of his mismatched boots kept slipping in the mud. Only the weight of the weapon ensured his balance.
Mother of God, I thought. I am here for a quick down-and-back. Now I am eye-to-eye with where the bullets come out. I will sign the confession. I don’t want to die in my skivvies in the rain.
I went back to the anchor chain and the Danforth, concentrating on the chore at hand. I wanted the trainee not to feel threatened. I wanted the emergency of the moment, the mariner’s priority, to be more urgent than a sentry’s duty. Even to look again at the boy would challenge him. I did not wish to put my life under the trigger finger of this teenager. He acts brave as he confronts the Yankee invaders, I thought, but he’s shivering and he’s new at this. My legacy is seven thousand slides with no copyright stamps. I will make him wait to shoot me until I have finished tying these knots.
One more problem. If the wind shifted, as it should after an abrupt front, it would push Barracuda farther onto the beach and trap her in bottom ooze. We would need to free the boat. Untying knots wouldn’t do the job fast enough.
I worked to separate the Danforth from the heavy rope. Two soldiers holding AK-47s joined the young one. To maintain a shield of confusion, I made my task more complicated. I freed the anchor chain, tethered the rope to a broader tree, then turned bowlines around an adjacent trunk. Without facing the soldiers, I hefted the anchor and chain and retreated to the boat.
Through the slit of a cabin window I spotted Ray holding my camera to his eye. Christ, I thought. Taking snapshots of me, of my impending death in my Jockey shorts and this soggy windbreaker, on my film. With kiddie-cadets in the background. Let’s all get shot now. Get it developed and charge my account.
“Give me a knife,” I shouted toward the rear of the boat. “In case I have to cut this line in a hurry.”
Ray lowered the camera and pushed open a top-hinged window. “If you say so, commando. It’s your beachhead.”
That’s it, I thought. It’s my boat now. Until I get off—if I make it back on—I will make the decisions that count. This captain is shit for brains and a child to boot. I moved back through the muck, charading for the soldiers, using hand signals to indicate caution. The rain let up. Ray came to the bow holding the blade end of a carving knife.
“Toss it near the bushes, over there.” Somehow I mustered a calm tone. “Don’t hit the Cub Scouts.”
The knife landed flat. Without looking at the cadets, I walked four steps and jabbed the blade deep into the dirt next to the tree trunk. I turned to the soldiers, made a cutting motion over the rope, pointed to the knife, and made a pushing motion toward Barracuda. Even Castro’s conscripted grunts could understand that I had taken action for safety rather than aggression.
I waded out toward the stern and hauled myself back aboard. I found Julia hunkered down on the afterdeck, her face a flood of tears. Ray Kemp sat in the cabin, proud of himself, patting my camera like a puppy.
* * *
I had packed the photos in an Army surplus ammo box, watertight and bug-proof. Two hundred slides from Mariel Bay. None had been published because another photographer, another survivor, got back to Florida first. He made the magazine’s deadline and I ate six rolls of Kodachrome. A welcome-home meal. A week later the Mariel Boatlift was old news. I’d never sorted or filed them.
I checked them one by one with a magnifying loupe. Some weren’t too bad. I’d been trying to show differences and disparities. Filthy old shrimpers and workboats had nested in groups of eight or ten around two or three main anchors. Alongside them were luxury yachts and beamy sailboats designed to beat SORC racing class rules. Hundreds of filthy, battered fiberglass outboards had gathered in clusters as well. Sprinkled about the bay, underway, were Donzis and Cigarettes and Scarabs. Rich and poor waited in the same line, like the urinal lines in the Orange Bowl. We waited for the corroded bureaucracy to act. A rare victory for Castro’s flawed system of all for all.
In one series of shots Ray mugged for the camera and displayed a finger count of our days in port. Long ago I had put this group in order, to show a mutual friend Ray’s state of mind during the ordeal. On a sunny morning with two fingers in the air he looked fresh in a clean T-shirt. By four fingers he appeared frazzled, brushing his teeth as he grinned for the photo. Eight fingers flashed on a gray morning as he embraced and pretended to smooch an upright mop.
On the ninth morning, well after sunup, his hair matted and nasty, Kemp clutched a liter bottle of Havana Club Rum. He’d begun the bender the previous evening at sunset. It had included a midnight swim in the bay full of turds, oil scum, and garbage. Ray came away lucky from that one. The Cuban marines patrolling all night in motorboats had promised to shoot anyone in the water. On the tenth day he’d reached around Julia’s waist and jammed his arms down into her shorts. Ten fingers extended outward from the bottom hem. She bore an expression of disgust. Even then I could see the beginning of the end of their relationship.
I finally found the sequence I wanted. The half-dozen Ray had shot
while I crawled through silt and mangrove roots trying to secure Barracuda to the shore trees. In the lee of the trees, the storm was a mere downpour. The Cuban soldiers who surrounded me looked malnourished. They appeared fearful, but willing to defend the homeland. There I was, carrying the anchor and chain back to the boat after I had removed them from the bowline. The Danforth anchor, with its dull, scratched aluminized finish. The big gash in its fluke where it had grabbed another anchor or a chunk of a wreck.
The duplicate Albury murder-scene prints from Duffy Lee were in a desk drawer. I didn’t have to check them, but I did to be certain. The surface texture was the same. The gouge across the fluke slashed at an identical angle. The Danforth was the same size. It was the same anchor.
That son of a bitch.
How had Ray learned about my friendships with these women? Why the women? Why not just me? Why now, after all these years?
At five minutes to three I walked across the lane and knocked on Cecilia Ayusa’s door. The puffy breeze fanned her wind chimes. The garlicky smell of boiled yuca drifted through the screens. Rhumba music, the kind that Carmen loved to play mornings after romantic encounters, played in a back room.
Cecilia came to the door wiping her hands on her apron. She pushed a few stray hairs off her forehead. Also one of Carmen’s habits. The women were like sisters, with Cecilia twenty pounds heavier and twenty years older. Always ready with a laugh, a bawdy remark, a brilliant smile, a sympathetic shoulder. I often accused her of spending her entire life in the kitchen. I had learned a few years ago that Cecilia was an expert diver. She’d grown up with three older brothers who were lobster-hunting legends. Two had moved to Tarpon Springs to become sponge divers. They had quit while still in their thirties, and retired back to Key West after the Boatlift dust had settled.
“You look like a dead person,” said Cecilia. “You need to eat and sleep and make love and get a sunburn even if you catch a cancer.”