Bone Island Mambo: An Alex Rutledge Mystery

by Tom Corcoran

  She had a solid one-hour nap ahead of her.

  Mornings tend to cool temperatures in winter months. Cold air in the outdoor shower, while invigorating, inspires quickness. It had been weeks since I’d enjoyed midday comfort in the rain locker. It made me wish I’d replaced the exterior stereo speakers that long ago had rotted. I could stand Miles Davis under the mango tree, or something more lively—Buena Vista Social Club, or Mac Rebennack’s New Orleans-style whorehouse piano. The early-afternoon sunlight gave elegant tones to limbs and fronds, shadow angles and reflections I seldom saw. The constant breeze kept it in motion. As minutes passed, the haze faded. Just as I suspected: a personal problem.

  This was my second shower since taking pictures on Stock Island—I’d done a major hose-down after dining with Teresa and Marnie, but hadn’t felt as though I’d fully washed the filth. This time did the trick. I was thankful to have the mess twenty hours behind me. I’ve always said that I couldn’t have been a schoolteacher, a restaurateur, or a police officer. The stress on good days would eat me. No telling how I’d cope with the bad, but this was a fine sample. Years ago I had gravitated to my laid-back tropical lifestyle, my no-boss, no-bureaucrats job with mental survival in mind . . .

  I kicked open the stall door so damp air could escape, toweled off, dried my hair, stepped into my flip-flops. I swung open the rear-porch door. Heidi sat there, facing away, perched so close to a chair edge I feared her petite ass would go floorward in an instant. No padding to cushion the drop. She tickled her upper lip with a bottle of Jolt Cola. I wrapped the towel before she swiveled and nodded hello.

  Blue jeans, barefoot, the belly-pack. Red-tinted skin from yesterday’s jog. Her first words were to ask to use the bathroom. She trailed a cloud of high-ticket scent as she walked through the living room. She faked having to get her bearings to find the John door, scoped out my furnishings, the wall decorations, the books. She left the bathroom door open. I realized she’d gone in there to brush her teeth.

  I went to the bedroom and pulled on shorts. I envisioned Butt Dunwoody and Teresa Barga simultaneously arriving, ringing the bell. Odd fear gripped me; I considered a plausible explanation for Heidi’s presence. Why do I dread social strife more than an attack by teenaged hoods?

  Heidi began talking before she was through spitting out toothpaste, half-shouting so her voice would carry: “I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking . . .” She exited the bathroom, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, then tucking her toothbrush into her belly-pack. “. . . the way you looked at me when you came down there to photograph Mr. Engram’s body . . .”

  “The way I looked at you?”

  “He doesn’t recall his reaction,” she said to the wall. Then, to me, “Yes.”

  We faced each other in my living room, ten feet apart, a slowly rotating ceiling fan between us. “Enlighten me.”

  “When you were taking pictures, when I skated by and asked you to stop. Didn’t you think I was unpleasant?”

  Get her out of here. “Yes, you were unpleasant.”

  “Oh, good, he’s normal. Did you wonder why?”

  “Assholes are everywhere.”

  “You don’t know . . . Oh, fuck it. I can’t control your opinion. Never mind.” She began to pace the floor. “After Butler found Mr. Engram, the detective, the bossy black man, made everyone wait until the photographer arrived. You showed up. I didn’t know you worked for the police. You stared at me as if you knew, or you thought you . . . because I told you to go away from the construction . . . Do you think I knew Mr. Engram was in there dead?”

  “Crossed my mind.”

  She stopped pacing, threw her arms up. “He thinks I knew.”

  I said, “Something else crossed my mind.”

  She stared at a framed Tom Szuter drawing on the west wall. “What?”

  “That maybe you wondered why I was hanging around. That maybe you asked someone to hurry me away.”

  She inhaled deeply. “I may look like a stereotype, Mr. Rutledge. Butler Dunwoody, my partner, doesn’t help my image. He likes people to think that I exist only for his pleasure. No other reason. But here’s the deal. I’m not just a receptacle for his unit. I know murderers don’t hang around victims taking snapshots. Even the weird ones in movies take only one picture, then get the hell out. Come to think of it, Butler’s more my possession than I am his.”

  “The word ‘partner’ has two meanings.”

  “Think of both.”

  I gestured to offer her a chair, then sat in my oversized bamboo rocker. “Where you from, originally?”

  “Wisconsin. Farm country, dairies. Boring with a capital B. That stands for Beer.” She began to sit but chose to keep pacing.

  “On Sunday you were listening to a Bonnie Raitt CD that was released about the time you were born. How did you—”

  “I had six older brothers and sisters. Same mom, four different fathers. Lots of influences around the house. I liked Bonnie’s sense of independence.”

  I said, “Fun time, growing up?”

  “I stayed busy. I dated older guys in high school. They all owned cars.”

  “Reasonable criterion.”

  “Even an ugly car is a warmer place for sex than a frozen hayfield.”

  “Sounds like paradise,” I said.

  “We did the best we could. I was basically trailer trash.”

  “And you broke free.”

  “Yes. I did it myself. I got straight-A grades, a partial scholarship to the University of Michigan, an off-campus job, a marketing management degree. I left school owing twenty-two thousand in student loans. But everyone told me I’d succeed in the business world. They told me I had savvy and ‘money hair,’ the color of hair you see in the wealthy parts of big cities.”

  My motorcycle helmet lay on a chair near the door. She patted it and said, “One of my old boyfriends had a Harley. He’d take me riding. Man, I loved that, but it broke down every time we rode. What kind is yours?”

  “Somebody paid off a debt, gave me an old Kawasaki 400.”

  She sneered. “Not all that classy.”

  “It wasn’t my choice. If someone builds a strip mall in Wisconsin, does anybody complain?”

  “People don’t have to drive so far for haircuts and beer and chip dip.”

  “You miss it?” I said.

  “Did you read the paper yesterday? The wind chill Friday was thirty-eight below. A truck stopped on a bridge and froze in place. They found people in their cars, stiff and blue.”

  “Key West covers less than six square miles.”

  She pushed her hair behind one ear. It fell loose immediately. “How long have you been here?”

  “Since 1975.”

  “What month?” she said. “That’s the year my best friend was born.”

  Slap me in the head with your youthfulness. “My point is, on an island this small, every change is big.”

  The hair thing again. “Didn’t I say I wasn’t fucking stupid?”

  The charm.

  She said, “The whole island suffered an electrical failure this morning. Isn’t it quiet when the pool pumps quit?”

  “Did you meet Butler in college?”

  “I met him three years ago. His partner hired me to run their office. A week later the partner sold his half of the company to Butler. They’d just developed an eighteen-home subdivision south of Jacksonville. I figured my job was out the door, too. Turned out, I became Butler’s top salesperson. I learned the game. I kicked ass. I was the best closer in St. John’s County.”

  “So you’re expert at getting to the point?”

  “I’m there. In the end, on my commissions and a couple investments, and after the development company got tangled up in two lawsuits, I made more money than Butler Dunwoody. That’s why I’m so interested in success in Key West.”

  “It was your downstroke?”

  “And it’s poorly leveraged. It’s a situation of win okay, lose big. Do you think I killed th
at man?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t know a single fact about it, except the man’s name and what we saw down there. I’ve got no reason to talk about any of it, and tomorrow’s another day.”

  “So you’re happy to shut down your brain and have no opinions at all?”

  “As far as the pictures I take, I try not to dwell on them. The police have their jobs to do. I did mine. I have my opinion about construction of instant shopping arcades in Old Town. But my opinion will not stop your project.”

  “Right you are.”

  “A lot of people have gone bust on this island. You should pay attention to everything. Don’t rent to anyone selling socks or long-sleeved shirts or ice scrapers. If you make a fortune, you should think about tearing down your building in ten years. Be the Queen of Altruism. Plant mangroves, or some other protected species.”

  “Donate the building to the Audubon Society?”

  “Sure. A deduction. Make enough money to retire early, allow somebody else to return the land to its original state. What a concept.”

  Matter-of-fact: “Yes, it is. I’ve enjoyed your company, Alex. I should come by more often. My boyfriend is surrounded by smarmy, suck-ass sycophants.”

  Who taught her to talk, Spiro Agnew? “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Do you want me to come back after I get my hair done?”

  A nooner on a silver platter? Fool if I don’t, fool if I do. I said, “I’m sure that’s a bad idea.”

  “He’s got a sense of humor, but he’s a wimp?”

  I said, “I’ve been dating a fine woman for the past five months. I don’t want that to change.”

  “I didn’t think that mattered in this town.”

  “Let’s say my mother told me never to eat fish in a strange restaurant on a Monday.”

  “That’s actually funny. I like it better than your first answer. Anyway, my proposition was conjecture. You passed the test. You’re not like the other ones. I swear, ten thousand slimeballs in this town.”

  “I know.”

  She looked me in the eye. “You know what?”

  “The proposition, by your word, conjecture. By my word, horseshit.”

  “How so?”

  “Putting big money into a venture with few guarantees. You did it out of love. No other reason.”

  “You’re not so fucking dumb yourself.”

  My brass doorbell clanged. I walked to the porch. Anybody but a schoolteacher, a restaurateur, or . . .

  Dexter Hayes, Jr., at the screen, wearing Ray-Bans. A phone in one hand, a manila five-by-seven envelope in the other. A yellow button-down shirt, olive trousers, the Reeboks he wore twenty-four hours earlier. And an expression of curiosity.

  I said, “You just missed our analysis of your crime scene.”

  Hayes’s pager beeped at him. He ignored it. He wasn’t lost for words so much as waiting for someone else to fill silence.

  Heidi did it. “Gotta go,” she said. “Nice to see you, Mr. Hayes.” She came around me, hit the door handle, almost knocked the detective off the stoop.

  “Have a nice day,” I said, for the second time in two days.

  Hayes, still silent, moved backward so the young woman could leave. I stepped outside. Hayes extracted a photo from the envelope, turned, held it up so we could view it as we watched Heidi Norquist slip into her Jaguar.

  It was my photograph of Heidi skating away from me on Caroline Street. “Perfect likeness,” said Dexter Hayes.

  I said, “Damn near identical.”

  10

  Dexter Hayes, Jr., handed me a manila KWPD “Internal Use” packet. My exterior shots of Butler Dunwoody’s construction site.

  “You could’ve stuck these in the mail.”

  “What now,” he said. “I’m a delivery boy?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I ran a stop sign on my bicycle this morning.”

  He looked at me like I was fresh bird mess on his windshield.

  “Or did you come to apologize and offer me back my job?”

  He shook his head, checked out my porch, focused through the screens, eye-jumped plant to plant. “Even Ortega told me I was out of line yesterday. That fuckup’d have trouble noticing if somebody shit in his hat.”

  A detective sorry for unprofessional conduct? That would make him unlike any Key West cop I’d ever known. He’d come for a different reason. The photos placed me at a crime scene prior to a body’s discovery. The photo of Heidi, and Hayes’s timely arrival, connected me to Dunwoody’s girlfriend before and after the body’s discovery. I needed to watch my step.

  “I accept your apology,” I said. “I’d like an explanation.”

  “I can’t get into the specifics of a murder investigation.”

  I was being patronized. Or I was a suspect. I said, “Gotcha.”

  He stepped back. “That look, Rutledge. I’ve seen contempt before.”

  I didn’t doubt that. Racism aside, the man had grown up the son of Big Dex Hayes. Island attitudes—official and otherwise—regarding his father’s business pursuits had, with passing time, swung from amused tolerance to adamant reform. A “community leader” had been sent to jail. His son, Dexter Hayes, Jr., had taken crap I could never imagine.

  “Don’t misread me. I’m thinking a cop might not have done his job.”

  He bought a few seconds of time, rubbed his lip with his index finger knuckle. “How so?”

  “That viewing gallery when I came to take pictures. Butler Dunwoody found the body. That’s no reason for him or his girlfriend to be hanging around for scene analysis. Not to mention the newspaper reporter and the department liaison officer.”

  “Your girlfriend.”

  “Right,” I said. “Teresa’s a spokesperson. She’s not a scene tech.”

  “I expect she studied site analysis at the University of Florida. That’d be a three-hundred-level course.”

  “And she probably aced it. I’m talking job description, not expertise.”

  “Each of which, in your case, is in question.”

  My job description had never been put in writing.

  I said, “You got your criminology degree?”

  “Same curriculum as Ms. Barga,” said Hayes. “A few years back.”

  “And plenty of in-your-face experience on the dangerous streets?”

  “That’s right. Up close and personal.”

  “And I don’t know shit about what I’m doing. Is that what you’re saying? Or was that just a bullshit act for the audience?”

  Hayes breathed deeply, swelled his chest, began to expel air through his pursed lips. Buying time. ‘Tell me about procedures, Rutledge.”

  “The Justice Department’s National Guidelines for Death Investigation! I’ve got a copy in my camera bag. I review it every ninety days. Scene entry and evaluation. Body documentation, jurisdiction, written docs—for medical history and scene exit. The recommended equipment list. I’ve checked out Polaroid’s Web site. I’ve read the forensic photo section of the Field Evidence Tech course outline from Cal State, Long Beach. I own way more than the minimum equipment. I maintain it for cleanliness, accuracy, and longevity. I’ve always got a supply of rubber gloves and shoe socks. I’ve also—”

  “I don’t act for any damned audience, Rutledge. In your vast experience of judging bullshit, how did you see that tableau at the scene? Or maybe I should ask, How did you sniff out the scene? Smell like shit?”

  It hadn’t smelled like that, which confirmed what we already knew—that the death had not happened there. “How did the murderer gain access to the construction site, Hayes? If there wasn’t full-time security, I’d have to guess the perimeter was locked.”

  “You bet,” he said. “That’s good thinking. You paid attention both times you were over there.”

  “What’s the good answer?”

  “The victim’s own keys. He was the foreman.”

  Hayes had worked this back around to my presence at the site, my presumed connection to Heidi. “Tel
l me about these photos.” He pointed at the envelope in my hand. “Do these connect you to a murder, or do we have a coincidence?”

  “I’ve been taking pictures for years. Keys people, buildings, cars, signs, boats, bikes. Should I be grateful you’re not holding a Miranda crib card?”

  Disbelief with a touch of disgust in Hayes’s eyes. I couldn’t blame him.

  “This beeper’ll page backup, if you feel slighted.”

  “Don’t ask me why,” I said. “I’ve saved them all. I’ve got shots of old city hall, when they renovated it. I’ve got Dorothy Raymer walking her German shepherd past the cupola when it was sitting in the middle of Ann Street I’ve got one of Love-22 on top of his red-white-and-blue bus at Mallory Square, at sunset, handing out twenty-two-dollar bills. The ones the feds hassled him about. There’s one from the mid-seventies, of Bobby Brown, the day he lost the election. He’s holding a phony newspaper with the headline ‘Wm. Freeman Charged with Impersonating Sheriff.’ I’ve got a portrait of Cigarette Willie, the old bum who used to sleep on the bench at Simonton and Eaton. The bench is gone, too. I’ve even got the Conch Train, on July 4, 1976, decorated for the Bicentennial. One of the first pictures I ever took on the island.”

  He scowled, unconvinced.

  I said, “Why does somebody climb a mountain? Why do race drivers try to go faster? People gamble. People kill. I press the camera button.”

  “Anyway,” he said, “your film came out fine. Ortega’s camera went south on us. All he got were half-frame photos.”

  “Not the camera’s fault. Would you like to know why?”

  He stared. I began to explain the camera’s inability to synchronize with shutter speeds above one-sixtieth of a second in some models, one-hundred-twenty-fifth in others.

  He waved me to a stop. “You didn’t tell me you got painted gang colors.”

  How the hell did Hayes know that?

  He read my mind. “I narrowed it down to a few arms, and twisted.”

  I didn’t believe that either. But no matter how Hayes had found out he was stacking up chips. “Let me ask you, Dexter. If you were a civilian who got accosted by Bug Thorsby, would you bother reporting it?”