Murder at the Dolphin Inn

by C. S. Challinor

  It was possible Michelle saw Ryan as her knight in shining armor and been persuaded to commit the crime in pursuit of financial gain. And yet she was not the only person in the family with a motive. According to Diane, Taffy had told lies about her daughter’s ex to get him limited visitation with the children, which put her daughter in a bind, since Diane now had Justin and Kylie full-time. Not that Mrs. Dyer had shown her only grandchildren much affection, by all accounts. She had resented their taking up space at the bed-and-breakfast. Obviously, not much love had been lost between mother and daughter.

  Spiteful by nature, it seemed, Taffy had fired the popular and diligent Raphael. She had refused him severance pay and had threatened to report him to Immigration Services if he made trouble. That had been Walt’s version of the facts. It could be a problem finding the ex-employee, however; akin to finding the proverbial needle in a six square-mile radius comprising twenty-five thousand full-time residents—a haystack swollen by over two million visitors each year. These statistics Rex had read somewhere and retained.

  Approaching the corner of Angela Street, he spotted a black-and-white cat with a stiff gait skirting the sidewalk. In spite of its lightening- flash departure at their first encounter, he recognized it as being the same animal he had seen in the alley. Its markings closely resembled a tuxedo, snowy dress shirt and spats, giving the feline a dignified aspect, as of an elderly member of a gentleman’s club.

  “Hello, old fellow,” Rex called softly.

  It paused briefly, lifting its grizzled muzzle to gaze with one eye in his direction before slinking off into the grounds of the city cemetery, where it disappeared between the black railings into the undergrowth fringing the tombs and headstones. The graveyard lay two blocks from the Dolphin Inn, quite a trek for an aged cat-about-town, Rex reflected.

  Would the Dyers find their final resting place in this tranquil spot? Could their spirits ever find peace while the killer or killers went free? Taffy and Merle had not won rave reviews from the people Rex had spoken to, and yet he felt he would not find rest either until their murders were solved.

  ~SIXTEEN~

  All the way east on Truman and almost hidden away to his right on North Roosevelt Boulevard, Rex finally found the Key West Police Station, a modern facility whose generous parking was sprinkled with blue-on-white patrol cars. A circular two-story atrium housing a tiled fountain led to the entrance. A notice encased in glass directed Rex to the appropriate floor.

  At the information window leaned a Hells Angel wearing a red-check cotton bandanna and holding a terrified youth by the scruff of the neck at the end of an arm sleeved with tattoos. His other hand gripped a soft leather bag with a profusion of buckles and straps.

  “He snatched this purse,” the biker explained to the desk sergeant, a heavyset man with dark patches under the arms of his short black sleeves.

  “So we collared him.” This from another biker who stood off to the side, and whose round helmet and rotund frame reminded Rex of Sergeant Shultz from Hogan’s Heroes.

  “Your name, sir?” the cop asked the first biker.

  “Twisted Angel.”

  “And yours?”

  “Rollin’ Roy.”

  “Domicile?”

  “Houseboat Row. It’s his crib.” Rollin’ Roy jerked his helmet at his friend.

  “Houseboat got a number?”

  Rollin’ Roy gave a description of a psychedelic houseboat and provided its location relative to the other floating homes, adding that the cop could not fail to miss it.

  The desk sergeant gave a heartfelt sigh. “You expect me to write all that down?”

  “The boat’s called ‘Tangerine Dream,’ ” Twisted Angel said. “Don’t recall a number. You gonna book this douchebag?” The tall biker handed over the silvery sheened purse in evidence. “He was fleeing the scene.”

  The hangdog youth, his mouth marred by ulcerating sores, wore a drugged expression and dared not move a muscle and risk antagonizing his formidable captor.

  The sergeant thanked the bikers for their community service and waved over an officer. He then turned to Rex. “Can I help you?”

  “I’ve come to see Captain Diaz of the Criminal Investigations Bureau.”

  “You got an appointment?”

  “Not specifically, but I think I may be able to help in the Dolphin Inn murders.”

  The sergeant raised black caterpillar eyebrows and cast a glance over his respectable clothes. For Key West, Rex felt almost overdressed. “One minute,” the cop said, reaching for his desk phone.

  Twisted Angel, divested of his prey, approached Rex. Of comparable size, they stood eye to eye. The similarity ended there. The biker resembled a mature and weathered Jeff Bridges, graying blond hair windblown beneath the confines of the red-check bandanna. “You got something on the killer?” he asked, squinting through crystal gray eyes.

  Was the man threatening him? “What if I have?” Rex asked.

  Twisted Angel’s mouth relaxed into a grin amid the graying stubble. “Nothin’. Just that the son, Walt, did my niece a good turn. I hope he finds out who snuffed out his folks.”

  Rex’s mind leaped back to Michelle Cuzzens. “What is your niece’s name?”

  “Rihanna.”

  “I’m staying at his bed-and-breakfast. I have to admit, I never associated Walt with good deeds, per se.” At least, not in the moth department.

  “He gave Rihanna money when she needed it. And he’s helped the other girls out.”

  “What other girls?” Rex asked in further surprise.

  “Those working at the House of the Rising Sun. I got my niece outta there soon as I found out.”

  “The House of the—”

  The desk sergeant interrupted with, “The captain will see you.” Meanwhile, Twisted Angel’s stunted friend grabbed the biker’s muscle-bound arm and told him they had to get rolling.

  “See you around,” Twisted Angel said as they left.

  The words gave Rex pause, but only briefly, directed as he was through a swing door leading into a corridor. Another door opened onto a dozen populated desks ringing with phones and supporting incandescent computer screens. Walls displayed magnified street maps, whiteboards and notice boards. The air was redolent of fried food, Old Spice aftershave, perspiration, and printer ink. Sealed windows preserved the odors along with the air conditioning.

  At the end of the hall, he found the captain in a glass-walled office, seated behind a desk with his back to a view of the parking lot.

  Desk phone to his ear, Diaz pointed Rex to a chair. “You gotta be kidding,” he was saying into the receiver. “Well, get another tail on her. Ask around. Bars, stores, cafés. Somebody got to remember a broad with a bod like a forties pin-up. Find out who she was seeing. Don’t seem natural a gorgeous brunette was in Key West by herself.”

  Clean-shaven in a starched white shirt, the detective dropped the handset into the cradle. A welcoming breeze spiraled down from a propeller fan whirring above their heads. A portrait photo of the detective, his wife, and two elementary school-age children took pride of place on a credenza.

  “What you got, Mr. Graves?” he asked, clasping his hands together on the cluttered desk, his fingers tipped with short, square nails and adorned by a gold wedding band. “Manage to shake anything loose?”

  “I’ve spoken with everyone staying at the Dolphin Inn. I understand there was a guest, a Mr. Bill Reid, who left suddenly.”

  “We finally tracked him down and cleared him. He said he left the night of the murders because he couldn’t take another day of Taffy Dyer butting into his business. He checked into the Hampton Inn. First he knew about what happened was when he read the paper.”

  “You believe him?”

  Diaz twiddled a yellow pencil between his fingers. “We ran a background check, spoke with some of his associates. He’s here from Toronto on legitimate business. He didn’t come forward because he didn’t want to get mixed up in the murders, and claims he
was packed and out of the bed-and-breakfast by nine on Saturday night.”

  “The woman you were discussing on the phone just now... I saw someone fitting her description yesterday evening.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tall brunette, red silk scarf. She took off on Duval in a pink taxi with a flamingo on the roof.”

  “Flamingo Cabs. My sergeant was following her.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Connie Lamont, thirty-six. And anything I tell you is in strictest confidence, okay?”

  Rex nodded solemnly.

  “I checked you out, Mr. Graves. And I’m talking to you because you solved the student case up in Jacksonville, which the cops seemed unwilling to pursue.”

  Rex felt most gratified to hear this. “I’ll help in any way I can. And I’m the soul of discretion. So, what else can you tell me about Connie Lamont, detective?”

  “She works for an insurance company in Fort Lauderdale. Their human resources department told us she took two weeks’ vacation time. We picked her up on Truman and interviewed her, but she refused to say why she was in town and where she was staying. Told us to mind our own business and that she’d sue the police department for harassment if we didn’t keep off her case. Real nasty mouth on her.”

  “Is she a suspect?” Rex asked, curious about the coincidence that Ms. Lamont came from Ryan’s home town.

  “She was seen by a neighbor in the vicinity of the B and B around the time of the murders. He thought she might be a pro that time of night or dressed up as one, and was able to give a detailed description. Now, unless there’s something else, Mr. Graves? If I don’t wrap this double homicide up, like yesterday, the county boys will be all over us city cops like skeeters on snowbirds.”

  “Sounds like a turf war,” Rex prodded, sensing this was a point of contention with the detective, and anxious to keep the conversation going to find out more about the case.

  “You may have noticed my ethnicity,” Diaz said. “My family sailed over from Cuba when the cigar-rolling business was booming in Key West. We been here for generations, though most of my family has since moved to Tampa. I’m a regular Conch.”

  “I take it that’s jargon for a Key West local. I envy you. I like the relaxed feel of this place.”

  “It used to be more exotic. Now it’s as touristy as a spritzed down margarita. Thing is, I can’t imagine being someplace else.”

  “You seem very young for a man in your position,” Rex flattered him in all sincerity.

  “Lucked out. Got promoted for busting a local drug cartel smuggling marijuana out of South America. It put a lot of noses out of joint, both inside and out of law enforcement.” Diaz gave a wry grimace, as Rex laughed at his play on words. “I’d sure like to nail this double homicide,” the detective concluded.

  “Have you pursued the inheritance lead? Michelle stands to come into a considerable amount of money. Motive, means, opportunity...”

  “Yeah, all of the above,” Diaz agreed. “Had her and her boyfriend come in earlier today. Interviewed them separately, and their alibis appear to hold up. Thing is, anyone off the street could have taken the Dyers’ key off of them and dumped their bodies in the kitchen. Same with the household items used to suffocate and tie them up. The rope and plastic bags could’ve come from under the sink, or just about anywhere.”

  “The same rope was used to secure Walt Dyer’s orchids to stakes in the flower bed.”

  “You noticed.”

  “What did the autopsy report reveal beyond cause of death?” Rex asked.

  “A high level of alcohol in both victims, which isn’t surprising at Fantasy Fest. And Taffy Dyer was an alcoholic. The state of her liver proves it.”

  “A lot easier to subdue them if they were intoxicated, especially if they were threatened with a weapon. I don’t suppose one was found?”

  “We should be so lucky. Probably Merle Dyer was suffocated first, since he posed the greater physical threat—as far as an unfit guy in his sixties can pose any kind of threat. Kinda deaf too, from what I heard. But that could’ve been a convenient case of selective hearing, to tune his wife out. Merle still had his wallet on him, not that there was much cash, and Taffy all her jewelry.”

  “Did the Dyers always dress up for Fantasy Fest?” Rex inquired.

  “Apparently. Walt said his mother had a thing for clowns.”

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead in a clown’s costume,” Rex said with a sardonic smile. “Seems like a very cruel joke on someone’s part. Methodical killing, but with all the appearance of malice.”

  Diaz shot him a keen look. “You got any ideas who?”

  “Someone who knew the Dyers well and held a deep-seated resentment. Did Michelle Cuzzens mention the dead cats on the doorstep?”

  “Yeah, we did find a dead one in the trash. Oleander poisoning. Walt Dyer denies knowledge of how they got there.”

  Rex sat back in his chair. “Less than one leaf of nerium oleander would be required to kill a cat.” The elongated dark green leaves were highly toxic. In fact, ingestion of any part of the plant could cause gastrointestinal and cardiac effects in humans and animals, he recalled, consulting his encyclopedic memory.

  “We found crushed leaves in the metal trash can Walt Dyer uses for compost. He grows oleander in his yard.”

  “I know, but it’s a pretty prolific plant in Florida, isn’t it? I’ve seen it in medians on interstates.” An evergreen shrub in the dogbane family, the star-shaped flowers in white, red, pink, salmon and yellow formed attractive screening. “I startled a cat in the rubbish the other night. A black-and-white creature with one eye.”

  “That would be Willie’s cat, a regular Dumpster diver, that one. Willie’s a local bum. Wears a blue coat in all weather.”

  A blue coat, Rex registered. “If that’s his neck of the woods, he just might have seen something the night of the murders.”

  “I don’t know where we’d find him.” Diaz pensively rubbed his clean-shaven jaw. “Used to see him panhandling with his cat on Duval. Not recently though. The cat goes by Mac, or else Pirate or Nelson, on account of his missing an eye. He has several aliases.” The detective smiled and shook his head. “You gotta love this place.”

  “Is Willie approachable?”

  “You mean clean? Yeah, clean enough as transients go. Pretty scary looking, but harmless.”

  “I meant would he talk to me?”

  “Willie is more likely to converse with you. If you can locate him, he’s partial to hard candy, which might account for why he has no teeth. But, like I said, he might’ve moved on.”

  The desk phone blurted a beep. “Put her on.” Diaz proceeded to speak in dulcet Spanish, presumably to Rosa, nodding briefly and apologetically to Rex and making him understand the meeting was over.

  Rising from his chair, Rex stuck his hand up in a salute of thanks and farewell, and left, not in the least disappointed by his visit. Captain Diaz had been gracious and accommodating with his time. And had placed his trust in him. Rex only wished he himself had had more to offer, a situation he meant to rectify forthwith. He hoped the vagrant had not disappeared.

  ~SEVENTEEN~

  Once outside the police station, Rex walked a short distance before finding a convenience store, and thereafter took a cab back to the cemetery. He approached the spot where he had seen Willie’s cat disappear between the railings. According to his street map, supplied on behalf of The World Famous Conch Tour Train, the cemetery covered an area of four blocks in the center of town, hemmed in by Frances, Angela, and Olivia Street, and Windsor Lane, showing the main entrance on Angela. He had little hope of finding Willie here or anywhere else, but the gravesite beckoned with its stillness and spots of shade after the oppressive mid-morning heat.

  He followed a leafy lane running alongside the cemetery railings until he came to a pair of white pillars flanking an iron gate. A sign inside the entrance informed the public that the nineteen-acre graveyard dated from 1847 and comme
morated Americans and Cubans who had died for their homelands. Crossing the cemetery in the direction the old cat had taken, Rex passed palm groves, crowded tombstones, and religious statues. Family plots containing above-ground granite vaults enclosed by rusty iron grille-work followed in secluded succession. Urns and vases held flowers wilting in the sun or bouquets made of material grown discolored and dusty. Cracked asphalt paths and sandy trails led him deeper among bushy flowering trees and crumbling cement crypts overrun by green iguanas.

  At length, in a quiet and neglected corner, he came across a low monument in the shape of a table. Beside it lay a pile of flattened cardboard and sheets of corrugated iron. Willie’s feline friend sat on the carved stone surface judiciously licking a paw after a repast of tuna from a dented can. On the grass, a hardback book, battered and watermarked, and a brown paper bag twisted at the top, which Rex suspected concealed a bottle of spirits, confirmed human habitation.

  “Where’s your master?” he inquired softly of the cat, maintaining a few yards between them in order not to scare it off its perch on the slab.

  Paw held aloft in front of its grizzled muzzle, the cat suspended its ablutions and stared at him for a moment through its remaining green eye. Then, growing aware of a rhythmic scraping sound as of a shovel digging in earth, Rex went to investigate the source.

  The scene that met his gaze seconds later surprised him, in spite of Captain Diaz’s words that might have prepared him better. A man not much shorter than Rex leaned in repose against the trunk of a shade tree, the wooden handle of a shovel in the grip of massive knuckles. A squirrel-red bush of a beard, such as worn by soldiers in the Civil war, contrasted starkly with the blue of the brass-buttoned felt coat, which resembled a reject from a costume store. Even though the garment was of light material, Rex wondered at his wearing a coat in this weather. Eyes of deepest blue contemplated something far off, gradually swiveling around and focusing on Rex. For all Rex knew, this character was not entirely right in the head, or a can short of a six-pack, as Campbell would say.