by Paul Levine
SOLOMON'S LAWS
3. Beware of a sheriff who forgets to load his gun but remembers the words to "Margaritaville."
Seven
COLUMBO OF THE KEYS
The sheriff waved and headed their way.
"Let me handle him," Steve said.
Victoria bristled. "There you go again."
"Trust me, Vic. I've known Rask a long time. Hey, Willis, how's the speed-trap business?"
"Hey, Stevie!" Rask shouted back. "Still chasing ambulances?"
If it hadn't been for his uniform, Steve thought, Willis Rask could be mistaken for another forty-fiveyear-old Conch who spent too much time in the sun with too many chilled beverages. He was overweight and had a brush mustache and long sideburns. He wore his graying hair tied back in a ponytail. His shirttail flopped out of his pants, and his Oakley sunglasses, on a chain of tiny seashells, were surely nonregulation. In one buttoned shirt pocket, the round shape of a metal container was visible under the fabric. Unless he'd switched to Altoids, Rask still indulged in chewing tobacco. His sunburned face was usually fixed in a quizzical half smile. The sheriff did not give the overall impression of a spit-and-polish lawman. Spit, maybe. But not polish.
Steve knew the sheriff's story better than most. As a young man, Rask ran a charter fishing boat, back when the main catch in the Keys was "square grouper," large bales of marijuana. Rask off-loaded from mother ships, and got busted on his third run. His lawyer was that silver-tongued windy-spinner, Herbert T. Solomon, Esq., who provided free counsel on the condition that Rask would go to college and stay straight. Herbert did that a lot in the old days. He taught young Steve that a lawyer owed a debt to all of society, not just to paying clients. Steve followed his father's lead, which might explain why he drove a thirty-year-old car and had an office in a second-rate modeling agency with a window overlooking a Dumpster.
Though he couldn't have been older than ten at the time, Steve could still remember his father's closing argument in Rask's trial. Wearing a seersucker suit with suspenders, Herbert glided around the courtroom like a ballroom dancer, smooth-talking the jury, earnestly declaring that his client had performed a public service, not a criminal act. Young, naive Willis Rask had fished that soggy pot out of the Florida Straits to protect the birds and the boats.
"Those bales of devil weed were a hazard to navigation," Herbert proclaimed with a straight face. "Thankfully, Willis was drawn to the area by a flock of terns that hovered overhead, feasting on the seeds. Willis saved untold boats from being sunk and birds from becoming ill. Without this young hero's quick thinking, there'd have been no tern left unstoned."
That made the jurors smile, and they came back in twenty minutes with a not guilty verdict. Willis danced down the stairs, kissed the kapok tree on the courthouse lawn, then hugged his lawyer. He kept his promise, finishing college at Rollins, upstate in Winter Park, then law school at Stetson over in DeLand.
A dozen years later, Rask came up with a novel platform when he ran for sheriff of what locals called the "Conch Republic." He'd clear drunk drivers off the narrow roads and jail husbands who beat their wives. But he wouldn't arrest anyone for possession of small amounts of marijuana. The limited resources available to law enforcement were too precious to waste on victimless crimes. In the permissive Keys—where Jimmy Buffet's "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw" was an unofficial anthem—it was a brilliant tactic. Rask won in a landslide. Some voters lit up a joint on the way out of the voting booth.
"Glad I caught you." Rask met them at the shoreline. "Yo, Bobby."
"Safety's off on your Glock," Bobby said.
Rask pulled the gun from his holster and checked the lever. "Jeez, you're right. How'd you see that?"
"Bobby notices stuff," Steve said.
"And there's no clip in it," Bobby added.
"No wonder it's so light today." Rask hefted the gun, then turned to Victoria. "And you must be Stevie's partner."
"Victoria Lord," she said.
"My deputies told me Stevie had hooked up with a real looker." Rask winked at her. "And they weren't lying."
"Red light, Sheriff," Victoria said. "That's inappropriate."
Her tone reminded Steve of his fourth-grade teacher, a woman who'd slap his knuckles with a ruler whenever he acted up.
"Whoa, sorry," Rask said. "Got your hands full with this one, huh, Stevie?"
"She keeps her safety off, too, Willis."
"They're fighting, Sheriff," Bobby added.
"Quiet," Steve said, then turned to Rask. "Thought I might see you yesterday at the hospital."
"Just got back into town," Rask said. "Jimmy had a concert in Orlando."
"I'm jealous, you old parrothead."
Rask grinned and sang a few lines of "A Pirate Looks at Forty," all about making money smuggling grass but pissing it away just as fast.
Steve laughed. "You are a pirate, Willis, but if you're looking at forty, it's in the rearview mirror."
"Are you here on official business, Sheriff?" Victoria's tone erased both men's smiles and cut off the notion of singing any more tunes.
"You don't like Jimmy Buffett?" Rask made it sound like a crime.
"She likes Freddy Chopin," Bobby said.
The sheriff let out a low whistle. "Can you drink to his stuff?"
"I recommend it," Steve advised.
"Go ahead, Steve. Make fun," she said. "I'm sure you think those slacker songs are better than a piano étude."
"Ooh," the sheriff said, "sounds like somebody needs a 'License to Chill.' "
Steve gave Rask the thumbs-up, extra points for working a parrothead song title into his repartee. "So, Willis, when's the last time you and Jimmy went fishing?"
"Couple weeks. Chased some wild-ass tarpon off Key Largo."
"You know Jimmy Buffett?" Victoria asked. Her skeptical schoolmarm tone again.
Both men chuckled, and Steve said: "That song, 'A Pirate Looks at Forty.' It's all about Willis."
"Really?" She smiled so sweetly, Steve knew she didn't believe a word of it.
"Steve knows Jimmy, too," the sheriff said.
Victoria cocked her head. "Funny he never mentioned it."
"Not a big deal. We fish a little, drink a little. Why? You never met Chopin?"
In the distance, they heard the whine of turboprop engines. Four hundred feet above the water, the flying boat shone silver in the morning sun.
"Sheriff, we have to be going," Victoria said briskly. "So if you have any business . . ."
"Couple of questions, is all."
"Careful, Vic," Steve said. "You're dealing with Columbo of the Keys."
"I'll bet," she said.
"One of Solomon's Laws: Beware of a sheriff who forgets to load his gun but remembers the words to 'Margaritaville.' "
"Willis Rask," Bobby said, biting his lip and concentrating while he dug up an anagram. "IS RAW SKILL."
"Got that right, Bobby," the sheriff said. "Stevie, we been looking into that fellow who got stuck with the spear. Ben Stubbs."
"You're doing actual police work?" Steve said. "Tarpon must not be running."
"Stubbs was staying at the Pier House." Rask pulled a battered notebook from a shirt pocket, flipped a page. "He bought three charts—all of the eastern Gulf—at Charlie Simmons' store two days ago.
Stopped at the Oceanographic Institution, used his federal ID to get access, spent some time in their library and computer files. Pulled up some topographic maps of the ocean floor a few miles west of Boca Chica. Two nights in a row, he ate dinner at Cienfuegos. Snapper with a mango salsa." Rask looked up from his notebook. "You two know any of this?"
"No," Victoria said.
"All of it," Steve said. "Except the mango salsa."
"Uncle Steve's lying," Bobby said.
"I know," Rask said. "Your uncle lies, even when the truth's a better story." He flipped another page in his notebook. "After dinner, Stubbs had two beers at the Hog's Breath, then spent a couple hours at Fat M
ary's over on Whitehead."
"Fat Mary's?" Victoria said.
"Strip joint," Steve said. He added hastily, "Or so I'm told."
Rask returned the notebook to his pocket. "That reminds me, Stevie. Fat Mary says howdy. Anyway, I was just wondering what Stubbs was doing on your client's boat."
"Fishing," Steve said.
"Research," Victoria said.
"They don't know," Bobby said.
"I see," Rask said. "Will Mr. Griffin give us a statement?"
"No," Victoria said.
"Yes," Steve said. "Later."
"How 'bout a polygraph?" Rask asked.
"Under the right conditions," Steve said.
"Under no condition," Victoria said.
Rask scratched at a sideburn. "You two do this on purpose to throw off honest constables such as my
own self?"
"Yes," Steve said.
"No," Victoria said.
The whine of the Grumman's props grew louder. The plane was about to splash down offshore, its nose pointed toward the beach.
"Anything else, Sheriff?" Victoria asked.
Rask made a show of removing his Oakleys, breathing on the lenses, and wiping them on his shirttail. "Now that you mention it, I did forget something."
"I knew it," Steve said.
They waited a moment as Rask slipped the sunglasses back on. Offshore, the seaplane hit the water with a splat and continued toward the beach. On the fuselage was a blue logo of cascading waves and the name "Oceania."
"Stubbs left his luggage in his room at the Pier House. Had a briefcase with the usual. Laptop, government papers, antacid pills. Plus forty thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. Now, what do you suppose a civil servant was doing with all that money?"
"Tipping big at Fat Mary's?" Steve suggested.
The seaplane rolled onto the beach, the pilot waving at them through an open side window of the cockpit.
"We gotta go, Willis," Steve said, above the noise.
"Ah, almost forgot. One more thing. My dang memory . . ."
"C'mon, Willis," Steve said. "Give it up."
Rask shook his head, sadly, milking the moment. "That Stubbs fellow died this morning."
"Oh, shit."
"Yeah, Stevie. I figured you'd be broken up about it. And your guy Griffin? He's facing a murder charge."
Eight
DEAD AHEAD
The world was all blues and greens. The deep cerulean blue of the sky, the ever-changing turquoise of the water, the viridiscent greens of the endless string of wooded islands, fanning out like a string of emeralds in a balmy sea.
Only Bobby seemed to be enjoying the view through the seaplane's tinted windows. Steve was scribbling numbers on a pad, trying to figure how much they could charge for a murder trial, and Victoria was back on the cell phone with Hal Griffin.
"Forty thousand in cash?" Griffin said. "Where'd Stubbs get that kind of money, Princess?"
"I was hoping you'd know."
"Stubbs dying is bad. The money only makes it worse. Someone's gonna say I was bribing the bastard."
"To do what?" Thinking Uncle Grif's sympathy seemed to be reserved for himself.
"Not that Stubbs didn't hint around. Sees my house, says something about how he got into the wrong racket. Gets on the boat, same thing. 'You builders got more money than Croesus.' Jesus, Princess, this is just like with Nelson and me."
The mention of her father's name startled her. "What do you mean?"
"Those condo towers on the beach up in Broward. Some snitch claimed we were bribing zoning officers, but we weren't. A competitor of ours paid the son-of-abitch to make it up. It's one of the things that drove Nelson over the edge."
"What were the others, Uncle Grif?"
"Aw, jeez, Princess. I'm not a shrink, and it was a long time ago."
She heard a voice in the background on the line, then Griffin told her a doctor needed to examine him.
After the phone clicked off, Steve said: "Let me guess. Uncle Grif's conscience cried out and he confessed."
"Do me a favor, Steve. When we meet Junior, drop the sarcasm."
"Why? Won't he get it?"
The Grumman swooped low over the crystalline water, the engines a peaceful drone. No one had spoken for thirty minutes—meaning it had been half an hour since Victoria reminded Steve she was sitting first chair—when Bobby shouted: "Dolphins!"
They looked out the windows. Below them, two bottlenose dolphins leapt skyward, knifed back into the water, then leapt again. All in perfect unison.
"Yeah, your buddies," Steve enthused. Wondering if the dolphins were mates. Wondering, too, if the female complained, "Next time, I'll say when we jump." And was the male confused when she said she was tired of being treated like one of his groupers?
"They're beautiful," Victoria said.
"Tursiops truncatus," Bobby said.
The kid knew his dolphins. He'd studied them, telling Steve that fifty million years ago otters returned to the sea, where they developed into the silvery creatures who can swim at thirty knots and can be trained by the Navy to clear harbors of mines. For nearly a year, Bobby had been a regular at a dolphin sanctuary on Key Largo. That first day, he was afraid of the animals. Of course, then he feared people, too. The kid had all the symptoms of the abused child: nightmares, tantrums, eating disorders. But once he was in the water, the dolphins seemed to calm him, taking to him immediately, pinging him with their sonarlike sound waves, which Bobby said tickled him all over, then letting him hitch rides, or nudging him through the water with their snouts.
A marine biologist at the facility told Steve that dolphins somehow sense when children are ill. Something to do with their echolocation abilities. Dolphins emit ultrasound frequencies, like an MRI scan in a medical facility, he said. If you put four healthy children in the water and one suffering from Down's syndrome or leukemia or autism or cerebral palsy, a dolphin will approach the ill child.
Hanging out with Bobby alongside the penned-off canal in Key Largo, listening to the dolphins chirp and creak, Steve learned all the stories about their strange powers. There was JoJo, the docile female dolphin who one day inexplicably butted a girl in the rib cage. The bruise was so severe, the girl was treated at the hospital, where an X-ray revealed a tumor in her abdomen. Doctors dismissed the idea that JoJo had intentionally communicated her knowledge of the girl's condition, but the dolphin experts at the facility disagreed.
Though he didn't want to get all New Agey about it, Steve figured there just might be something to the healing and rescue powers of the dolphins.
Once in the water with the sleek animals, Bobby had quickly loosened up. He played with them, returned their affection, splashed them when they slapped the water to douse him. He had his favorite, Bucky, a speedy male with a pink-striped belly. Bobby would stroke Bucky's fluke and imitate his high-pitched squeaks and creaks. He told Steve he understood the dolphin's language. Bucky would say when he was tired or bored or hungry—and specifically whether he preferred smelt or herring for lunch. Bobby said Bucky understood him, too, and Steve wondered whether a relationship with a fifty-million-year-old species called "Tursiops truncatus" might be easier than one with a modern woman.
Now the seaplane skimmed over the Gulf, temporarily cooling the simmering dispute between Steve and Victoria. The water color kept changing, from turquoise to emerald to muddy brown to muted rust, depending on the depth and the grasses and coral below. He watched the shadow of the plane as it crossed miniature islands, some little more than marshy savannahs and woody hammocks poking out of the sea.
Steve was still thinking about what Sheriff Rask had told them. Ben Stubbs died without regaining full consciousness. There'd be no "Griffin shot me" statements. Once the Grand Jury handed up the indictment, it would be a purely circumstantial case. Steve still wondered about Stubbs raising two fingers in the ICU. Had he meant there'd been two attackers? Or was he giving the old "peace" sign? Or maybe just waving good-by
e?
Even before Griffin was officially charged, there were things to be done. Jury selection didn't begin in the courthouse. It started in the news media and spread to the taverns and beauty parlors and coffee shops. Steve was already planning a statement for his client.
"Harold Griffin, noted builder and philanthropist, deeply regrets the unfortunate accident at sea that claimed the life of a dedicated public servant."
Steve hadn't a clue if Griffin was a philanthropist, but it sounded better than "a rich dude who builds mammoth resorts in environmentally sensitive ecosystems."
"Just a few more minutes, folks," the pilot said over the speaker. He was a man in his forties with wispy blond hair and a sunburned face. Wearing chino safari shorts and a navy blue shirt with epaulets, he spoke with a British accent, telling them his name was Clive Fowles. Pronouncing it "Foals." He had invited Bobby to sit copilot in what he called his "magic flying boat," but the boy, always shy with strangers, turned him down. Then he'd offered to take them all diving on the reef if their stay allowed it.
"Anything you need, just ring up Captain Clive," Fowles told them as they settled into their seats. "Mr. G told me to take good care of you."
"Mr. G, Senior, or Mr. G, Junior?" Steve asked.
"Only one Mr. G," Fowles said. "That's the boss."
Now, as they neared Paradise Key, Steve glanced at Victoria. She was staring out at the sea, quietly smiling to herself.
"Excited about seeing the hottest boy at Pinecrest?" Steve asked.
"Do you remember the first girl you kissed?"
"Sarah Gropowitz. Beach Middle School."
"You ever think of her?"
"Only when I send a check to the ACLU. She runs the Equal Rights for Lesbians Committee."
Victoria turned to look at him.
"But my kissing her didn't make her that way," Steve defended himself.
"Would you at least concede the possibility of cause and effect?"
"Sharks!" Bobby shouted.
Sure enough, maybe a dozen sharks were cruising the shallow water, the plane's shadow darting over them. Well, why not? They were flying over Shark Channel just off Upper Matecumbe Key. Suddenly two sharks leapt out of the water.