Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery

by Michael Haskins

  “Unlikely he found her,” he said, ignoring my opinion with a toothy-smile. “There’s no sign of a struggle, so I wouldn’t expect abduction.” I could hear the frustration in his voice. “He would’ve called us if he walked in and found her, but he called you multiple times instead. Is there a reason he wouldn’t call the police?”

  “I’ve had drinks with the guy, I’ve rented Jet Skis from him, I’m not married to him,” I said.

  “He gave you a discount on the rental?” It was a question that he didn’t care about the answer to.

  “He gives all locals a discount.” I sighed because Luis knew I wasn’t involved, he just wanted to make my life difficult. The Cuban twit is good at that. “What about the gun? Most people don’t run around with silencers.”

  “It could be his, or do you know it isn’t?” He was challenging me, not believing what I’d told him.

  “We never talked guns, so I don’t know if he even owns one.”

  “We’ll find out,” he said as Sherlock walked out with the gun and silencer in an evidence bag.

  “The magazine’s full, the gun hasn’t been fired,” he growled. “Not the murder weapon.”

  “What caliber was the murder weapon?” Luis looked up at Sherlock.

  “I’d only be guessing.”

  “Guess,” Luis said.

  “From the looks of the back of her head, I’d guess a forty-five,” he muttered. “The ME called and he’s stuck in traffic at the light on Big Pine. He’ll have a better guess when he gets here.”

  “Traffic,” Luis groaned. “He should drive in Miami. Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” Sherlock smiled. “This is an old silencer. Screws onto the barrel and the Beretta has had the serial numbers burnt off, with acid would be my guess,” he said stressing guess. “You don’t see many of these old Berettas anymore, everyone wants the fancy forty-fives. They’re a pair.”

  “A pro’s gun?” Luis stood up and stared at the evidence bag.

  “I’m done guessing,” Sherlock said as he turned to go back in the house. “We’re searching for the bullet, in case it’s intact, but I doubt it.”

  Chapter 3

  Detectives Donny Barroso and Alfredo Vargas arrived. They nodded as they walked into the house. Everyone knew better than to talk with me because Luis was around.

  Billy Wardlow returned about a half hour later.

  “Chief is bringing your phone,” he said and went in without stopping.

  I walked to the Jeep twice to have something to do. I found a weather-beaten copy of Dianne Emley’s “Cut to the Quick,” went back to the steps and picked up reading where I’d left off. I could hear muffled talk from inside and the medical examiner finally showed up around nine.

  “Traffic?” I said to the tired-looking Julian Diaz, the medical examiner, and Chris Fisco, his harried assistant.

  “Victim isn’t in a hurry,” Julian grunted as he went in.

  About fifteen minutes later Chris and Billy came out and took a gurney from the van. They returned after a few minutes rolling it with a closed body bag on top. The gurney’s legs folded-in at the stairs and they carried it the rest of the way. Even as dead weight, she wasn’t heavy.

  “You have a cause of death, Julie?” I asked as the ME walked out. He didn’t like to be called Julie.

  “You want me to guess, like that Cuban cabrón?” he snarled and meant Luis. “Head trauma due to hitting the wall,” he yelled with a cold laugh and drove off.

  “Billy.” I smiled as he climbed the steps. “What’s going on inside?”

  “Luis pissed Julian off,” he said so faintly only I could hear. “Chief said he’d be here in five.”

  Billy closed the door behind him.

  I read two more chapters of “Cut to the Quick” before Richard Dowley showed up.

  “Interesting messages,” he said, as he handed me my cell phone. “Why was he so frantic to get hold of you?” He stood next to me on the steps. “Well?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” I said. “Why’d you call him a nut?”

  “You’re kidding, right? You know this guy?”

  “Yeah, here and there, but he’s never seemed crazy. Maybe a little elusive. So why?”

  Richard looked toward the house. “I need to get inside. But listen, he sent me a dozen emails in the last two weeks telling me agents were out to kill him and he needed police protection.”

  “Agents?” I couldn’t recall seeing him in the past two weeks.

  “Yeah, I took it to mean CIA.”

  “Did you follow up?”

  “Sent a car down after the third or fourth email,” he said. “According to the officer’s report, Walsh ranted and raved about agents wanting to kill him now that they’d found him. But he wouldn’t say what agents or how he knew them or why they wanted him dead.”

  “What did the officer do?”

  “Assured him a car would patrol his neighborhood on a regular schedule.”

  “Did you have someone do it?”

  “Oh yeah, we even sent a car by the Simonton Street shop twice in the morning and afternoon. Guess what?” He gave me one of his you-won’t-believe-this smiles.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “His last email stated that he knew I was working against him with the agents,” he sighed and shook his head. “I pulled the cars off three days ago. Now he’s killed someone.”

  “You heard the last message,” I said quickly.

  “When he said ‘it’s not what it looks like?’”

  “Yeah, maybe we’re not seeing something.”

  “He’s run, so what does that say?”

  “He could be hiding, scared, not knowing who to trust,” I said.

  “He’s hiding from us, that’s for sure.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “We sent a car to his business,” he said. “The officer talked to the employees. Walsh showed up before seven, fueled a Jet Ski and left. He told one of the employees that ‘they’re after me, I need to run.’”

  I shook my head and laughed a little, mostly out of frustration. “I don’t know, Richard, I got the phone calls and I came here, found this mess and called you. That’s all I know. I hate to think he killed that woman but then I don’t like to think anyone’s capable of murder. I know better, but in Key West, it isn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Why didn’t you come when he first called?” He looked toward the house, again.

  I told him about silencing my phone.

  “Luis talk to you yet?” He was being the serious cop because he knew how Luis and I felt about each other.

  “A little,” I said with a cynical grin. “He asked me to wait and I am waiting, but, damn, I could use a con leche.”

  “Me too.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Let me see what’s going on inside.”

  “Julie’s taken the body,” I said.

  “Lucky me,” he grumbled as he walked away.

  The porch door opened and Sherlock stood there.

  “You aren’t going to believe what we found, Chief,” Sherlock griped. “The guy is paranoid.”

  Richard turned to me, shook his head without smiling “Stay here, Murphy,” he said and closed the door behind him.

  I thought of the times Dick Walsh and I talked at a bar, maybe the Green Parrot, or a half dozen others along Duval Street, or along the waterfront, sharing hot wings or conch fritters and I never heard anything from him that would make me think he was paranoid. But in the big picture, I didn’t really know him that well. I laughed to myself when I thought, just because he’s paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t after him.

  Chapter 4

  The sun was up and heat waves shimmered off the street’s old blacktop, while I sat on Walsh’s front porch shaded in the shadows of the gumbo-limbo tree. Richard Dowley had been inside for more than a half hour so I kept reading “Cut to the Quick.” I wished someone inside would cut to the quick, so I could get on with my day.

  Julio A
vael stopped his cruiser in the middle of the street and got out carrying a tray of café con leches. I stood up to greet him and put the paperback book in my back pocket.

  “Tell me one of them is mine,” I pleaded.

  “Three sugars, right?” He handed me one to-go cup marked with three check marks. “Thank the Chief, not me.”

  “Perfect,” I said and took the warm cup.

  Julio went inside. I sat on the steps, sipped the hot nectar, and sighed with pleasure as I inhaled the strong aroma.

  “Happy now?” Richard said from the doorway.

  “Better, not happy.” I sipped from the cup. “Happy is going to the marina or to Harpoon Harry’s for a late breakfast.”

  “We still have a few more questions before you can leave.” Richard walked out holding his coffee.

  He was being polite by saying we, because it had to be Luis who had the questions.

  “I’ve told you all I know,” I said and sipped my drink.

  “Yeah, well, things have turned strange.”

  “What could be stranger than finding the woman’s body?”

  “Come on in and see if you can help explain what we found.”

  Everyone was standing around the small dining room/office drinking their con leches and talking quietly. Evidence bags cluttered the table. Sherlock looked hard at me. He liked me somewhat more than Luis did, which counted for little. Luis, Sherlock, Richard, and I remained in the room, the others left without a word.

  “Why’d Walsh think someone wanted to kill him?” Luis asked curtly.

  “The first I heard about it was from the Chief,” I snapped curtly and looked at Richard “A few minutes ago.”

  “We ran his phone records and the only calls he made last night were to you,” Luis barked and then took a deep breath. “Why would he call only you after he killed the woman?” He stressed only you and the pretense of courtesy Richard expected was gone.

  “Do you have evidence he killed her?” I was irritated with Luis’ superior attitude and almost spilled some con leche.

  “Look around, who else would you consider? He’s running, so he’s the main suspect,” Luis lectured.

  “Can you name him as the killer?” I turned to Sherlock and hoped that he was as annoyed with Luis as I was and would throw a little support in my direction.

  “Can’t say anything about a suspect until I get everything back to the lab,” Sherlock muttered. “But I can tell you whoever lives here is paranoid about being killed. I don’t need the lab for that.”

  I looked toward Richard. “What am I missing?”

  “You know this guy and you don’t think he’s paranoid?” Luis challenged me, again. “Come on, be honest with us.”

  “Right now the only one paranoid here is me and no one is making me feel otherwise,” I shouted. “What the hell do you want from me? I’ve told you what I know and why I’m here.”

  “We’re trying to figure out who Walsh is, Mick, and you’re the only guy that knows him,” Luis countered with sarcasm of his own.

  “Bullshit! His employees know him better than I do and there are probably a few bartenders who know him better, too.”

  Luis smiled as if he’d won the Boston Marathon. “Yeah, but he didn’t call an employee or a bartender. Did he? So, it all comes back to why did he call you?”

  “Paranoid? You keep saying that. How do you know he’s paranoid?” I quieted down, but anger still drove my words as I took a sip from my cup.

  Sherlock stood away from the table of evidence bags and Luis pointed. I walked over and looked at the collection of bags. Ten bags and each one held a thirty-eight caliber snub-nosed revolver. They waited for me to speak.

  “What do you want me to say?” I turned to Richard.

  “There was one in the sofa, one in a kitchen drawer, one hidden under a stack of papers in here,” Richard said slowly for my benefit. “One in the bathroom.”

  “Guns hidden in each room, more than one in some rooms. You get the point?” Luis asked.

  “Yeah, he believed someone was after him.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What do you know about it? Who was he afraid of?”

  “According to the Chief, he thought the Key West Police were in on whatever it was, other than that I haven’t a clue.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” Luis yelped.

  “Timeout,” Richard said and made a T with his hands as if we were at a sporting event. “We all got called out early on this and we need a break to think things through. Sherlock, are you done here?”

  “Yeah,” he yawned. “Close the place up, but it’s still a crime scene. What I have to send to the FDLE lab for testing I will, and I’ll do what I can with the rest.”

  The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is a state police agency and its lab and investigators often help smaller municipalities when crimes occur that require DNA or firearms testing, or a murder that requires lab work that the smaller cities can’t afford to operate.

  “Luis, you need to sit with the detectives and patrol officers and compare notes. You need to go over statements taken from Walsh’s employees and read the emails he sent me,” Richard said, showing he was in control. “Sherlock, you run the vic’s finger prints and let us know as soon as you get a hit.”

  “Sent a set of prints back with Julio.”

  “Okay, then, Mick is going with me,” Richard said and waited a moment for complaints, but none came. “Maybe he’ll remember something he doesn’t realize he knows.”

  “Two hours?” Luis asked, biting his lower lip. He ran his hands through his combed hair.

  “Everyone meet at the main conference room at,” Richard looked at his watch, “Twelve fifteen.”

  Sherlock began collecting the evidence bags as Richard led me outside.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Chapter 5

  Most mornings, Harpoon Harry’s is crowded with locals and tourists eating breakfast. Sunday mornings there are always people waiting outside for seating. The food is good, the prices reasonable and it’s one block from the city’s Historic Seaport. It was a hot, sunny morning, so being close to the seaport helped business.

  Richard drove and it was late morning so the restaurant wasn’t full. It was almost too late for breakfast and too early for lunch—that hour of in-between time, locals and tourists counting the minutes to when the bars opened.

  We sat at a booth in back and Ron Leonard, the owner, brought us large cups of café con leche. We ordered breakfast, ate hungrily when the food arrived, and savored our large Cuban coffees.

  “We’re missing something,” Richard said as he pushed his empty plate away and sipped his coffee. “There has to be a reason he called you and no one else.”

  “Richard, I’d like to know the answer to that, too,” I said and ate my last piece of toast. “I know Dick Walsh like I know a hundred other guys in town. Someone introduces us over beers, and after that we’re mostly polite to each other when our paths cross.”

  “There has to be more.” He frowned. “There’s something, maybe you aren’t even aware of it, but there’s some reason.”

  “I asked him about the cost of Jet Ski rentals when I had friends from Boston here.” I tried to remember the conversation. “He gave me a twenty percent locals discount, I thanked him, and I came back two days later and rented the skis for an hour. He wasn’t even there when we arrived.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, the next time I saw him I bought him a beer and he said it wasn’t necessary, but I paid for it anyway. Maybe he thinks I owe him more for the discount.”

  The frown stayed on Richard’s face as he shook his head. “What do you know about him? Did he ever talk about himself? His background?”

  “The most he ever talked about himself was when we first met.” I tried to remember the meeting. “He came from New Zealand—I don’t remember the year. Moved to Maine or New Hampshire, I’m n
ot sure, and he ended up here for the weather. Bought the house and the business. Idle chatter you make when meeting someone for the first time and I didn’t really care.”

  “Did he mention where the money came from?”

  “Nope,” I responded with a laugh. “You know that’s not a question you ask someone down here. People tell you what they want you to know and that’s all you get.”

  “Yeah and I know the reason.” He smiled. “Do you think it’s got anything to do with drugs? Smuggling of any kind?”

  “Topic never came up.”

  “But?”

  “No buts,” I said. “I wouldn’t know if the guy went to church or if he ate here. I’m as lost for the reason he called, as you are. If everyone I talked to when having a beer called me, I would have to shut my phone off. They buy, I buy, it’s bar etiquette not bonding.”

  “By now Luis has run him through the NCIC computer and has his history,” he mumbled with the last taste of his café con leche.

  “Then our questions should be answered, at least about who he is. What about the victim’s prints? Will they run them too?” I grabbed the bill and left money on the table. “My treat.”

  “Hell, I should’ve had the prime rib benedict.” He laughed. “He might have both IDs when we get back. If they’re in the system, it takes no time.”

  “Just keep Luis off my ass.”

  “As if that’s possible.”

  Chapter 6

  As soon as Richard and I arrived at police headquarters Luis grabbed him and they went into the Emergency Operations Center, leaving me alone in the second-floor hallway by the copy machines. I could see them through the window. Luis handed Richard sheets of paper, they sat across from each other, and Richard turned to the desk computer while Luis pointed in my direction. They were talking, maybe arguing, but I couldn’t hear them. Something was wrong.

  The EOC is set up as a command center for disasters, but has only been used during hurricanes. The city does disaster-training drills with the Coast Guard, sheriffs and other federal agencies and they coordinate the training at the EOC because it has all the electronics and modern technology required.