Hawk Channel Chase Read online

  HAWK

  CHANNEL

  CHASE

  TOM CORCORAN

  Dredgers Lane, LLC

  Lakeland, Florida

  HAWK CHANNEL CHASE. Copyright 2010 by Tom Corcoran. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner including electronic information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher except for pertinent, brief quotations embodied in a critical article or review. Originally published in hardcover by The Ketch & Yawl Press in 2009. Published in trade Paperback by Dredgers Lane, LLC, in 2010.

  Kindle Edition ISBN-13: 978-0-9844566-7-3

  Dredgers Lane, LLC

  PO Box 5828

  Lakeland FL 33807

  Cover photograph © 2009 Tom Corcoran

  For my son, Sebastian H. Corcoran

  For assistance, support, wisdom and time,

  I offer my heartfelt thanks to:

  Richard Badolato, Les and Dona Bernier, Pat Boyer, John and Laurel Boisonault, Franette Vaughn, Bill Bramblett, Eric Christensen, Marty Corcoran, Nathan Eden, Carolyn Ferguson, Dinah George, Jim Harrison, Nancy Harris, Lorian Hemingway, Sandie Herron, Matt Lockwood, Chris Robinson, Carolyn and Jim Inglis, Jerry and Elsie Metcalf, Doyle Smith, Marshall Smith, David Standish, June Vail, and Katie Wagner.

  1

  The man at my screen door looked like a former pro halfback. He was about forty, had iron-hard eyes, a deep tan, dark hair, a square jaw and huge arms. On an island where bright tropical-print shirts are as common as sunglasses, his stood out as garish. There wasn’t a drop of sweat on his face, and I suspected that his haircut had cost more than his shoes.

  I had begun the day drinking coffee, listening to a Townes Van Zandt album and cleaning dust from the high sides of my ceiling fan blades. A pure South Florida kill time task that promised to be the most thrill-packed half-hour of my week. The man didn’t look like a vinyl siding salesman or religion peddler. I decided to give him a minute of ear time.

  He launched his spiel without revealing his identity or confirming mine.

  “Mr. Rutledge, straight to the point. I’m here to offer you one-point-one for your house. You’ll have six weeks to vacate.”

  He wanted to make me a homeless millionaire.

  Dumb ass me, I said, “Let me think about it.”

  His eyes filled with pity. “You heard the part about the money?”

  I nodded and understood that puzzlement, not pity, had formed his expression. He had expected a fatter reaction to his big bucks offer. I was too stunned to give up a reaction, much less a celebration.

  “Do you want to step inside?” I said.

  “I’m fine out here.”

  “How am I so blessed that my place is a target?”

  He shrugged a whatever. “You’re the lucky dog for location.”

  “Like every other house in Key West?”

  He turned and feigned a judgment scan of the lane. “That about gets it. It’s your palm trees and flora, your fishing shorts and rum drink lifestyle. It’s the Caribbean and you can drive to it.” He smirked and jammed his right knuckles into his flat left hand. “That’s a great slogan. I just made it up.”

  “Some people on this island see all that as negative.”

  He slid his eyes back to mine. “How would that be?”

  “We feel like victims of geography.”

  He exhaled a half-laugh through his teeth. “Every one of you came here for geography. You and your neighbors were tourists to start with, right? And, take my word, that post-sale trip to the bank is a great high. If you could let me know inside of seventy-two hours, my cell number’s at the upper right…” He pulled a card from his shirt pocket, poked it through a slit in the door’s screening. “We need to fix this slim little hole before the skeeters find it and carry you off.”

  “Great advice,” I said, but he’d started to walk. Except for the card he hadn’t offered his name, and where would etiquette fit in? It was all about the money.

  I watched him scope his surroundings, alert for business prospects or immediate threats. I amended my first impression. He probably wasn’t an ex-football player. With his quirky yardbird mannerisms, he moved more like a former prison handball champion. He turned right on Fleming. A moment later I heard two vehicle doors slam. I watched a dark green Yukon accelerate toward White Street. Tinted windows, of course, so I couldn’t see the rest of the team.

  It didn’t matter what they looked like. He and his colleagues were errand boys for someone with cash flow as strong as the Gulf Stream. The business card for Worthwhile Investments, LLC, showed a string of capital-letter designations after Bob Catherman’s name. They told of seminars and continuing education with no guarantee that anyone but Bob might benefit. They offered no promise that the man might be less mercenary in future visits. I knew that he would be around again, like the dust on my slowly turning fan blades.

  I had returned to Key West the previous night after three days on Bimini. I needed to write a job summary and invoice for my photography, product shots of a hot sauce sold out of Pineland, Florida. The gig could’ve been done on Pine Island, so I assumed the whole exercise was an excuse for the company owner, a retired light tackle guide, to write off a Bahamas trip. I didn’t complain. Who could bitch about fresh fish at every meal, including breakfast, boating the Yellow Bank, or a couple evenings spent bouncing between Big John’s, the End of the World Saloon, and the Big Game Club? All while collecting a pay check.

  I knew I’d return to Key West at a late hour, so I left messages for Bobbi Lewis, my confidant and lover, on her cell voice mail and at her home on Big Coppitt. She had called back before I was home to bemoan overwork, to beg off meeting my arrival, to promise quality time, soon. It was my turn again. I tried her direct line at the sheriff’s office.

  She picked up. “I’ve had less than eight hours’ sleep in three days, so tonight might not be…”

  “Sleep here, Detective,” I said.

  “We’d want a week’s worth of something else, darling. I catch myself making small mistakes. I have to rest before they get big and I hurt someone.”

  “I will sit here awaiting your call,” I said.

  “Thank you, Alex. Try to keep your hand out of your shorts. Or does that sound greedy on my part?”

  I spent the afternoon running lightweight errands, catching a sundown beer at Schooner Wharf, running into some friends from St. Augustine and joining them for a light supper at Blue Heaven. I let a backlog of Bahamas fatigue guide me to my pillow well before midnight.

  The next morning around nine the handball halfback knocked again on my door. A glance through the screening told me it wasn’t a pressurized follow-up on his offer to buy my cottage. Bob Catherman had aged ten years, had lost his tropical flair and much of his bulk. This was a lost soul, new to the territory, and he was about to share baggage. He didn’t speak, barely made eye contact, but entered when I opened the screen door.

  “Coffee’s gone,” I said. “I can make a new pot.”

  He sat on a cushioned chair, focused downward as if inspecting the porch floor for splinters. “That might help,” he said. “Maybe the caffeine will work backward and put me to sleep.”

  I opened the small window between the side porch and kitchen and went to brew a pot of Bustelo. “If you want to talk,” I said, “I can hear you in here.”

  “It’ll wait,” he said. “I’ve been talking to walls for eighteen hours. Right now I need eyes and ears.”

  I kept quiet while I poured water and scooped dry grounds. A strong flash of “Why me?” blitzed my thoughts.

  “You wouldn’t have a cold one?” he said. “Like an appetizer for the coffee?”

  I had two bottles
left from a six-pack bought before Bimini. I popped them and returned to the porch. In contrast to Catherman’s dismal appearance, the morning sun, muted by screen mesh, lighted the bougainvillea and reminded me why I hadn’t jumped at the man’s cash offer a day earlier. Still, I wasn’t sure why I had opened the second beer, or felt compelled to drink with this forlorn man only two hours after sun-up.

  Some kind of gut reaction.

  I carried his to the porch. He grasped the bottle as if its contents might save his life, but he didn’t tilt it back. He rested it on his knee and watched a damp ring form on the press line of his khakis. Then he shifted his gaze downward, used his free hand to rub his eyes and appeared to be organizing his thoughts, perhaps choosing his words. On closer look I decided that his shoes probably cost more than his haircut. I listened to a neighbor’s air conditioning compressor kick on. Music from fifteen yards away told me that a rude guest over at the Eden House had downloaded a chorus of “Kokomo” for a max-volume ringtone. Breaking rules of the hotel and mankind. Aruba, Jamaica, my ass. A perfect reason to proscribe the death penalty for selected misdemeanors.

  Two minutes passed before Catherman lifted his head and tried to say something. A moment of silent eye contact ended with, “You’re a photographer.”

  I was hoping for something more informative.

  I couldn’t think of a response that wasn’t redundant. Respectful of the man’s distress, I waited him out.

  He said, “You’ve built quite a reputation for yourself.”

  Another one requiring no answer, though it could have been a negative shot rather than positive. To move things along I said, “How so?”

  Catherman still hadn’t tilted back his beer. He leaned to one side and pulled from his trouser pocket a wrinkled bank envelope stuffed with currency. “I want you to take pictures of my daughter. She’s photogenic. You won’t have trouble making her look wonderful. This is a token retainer. You can bill me your regular day rate beyond this, and I’ll cover your expenses without question.”

  Like the brush of a frond, a stroke of apprehension painted goose bumps on my arms. I assumed the bills were hundreds; his “token” retainer looked fat enough to be three or four grand. He wasn’t shopping for a photo shoot. I knew my answer ahead of time but I couldn’t ignore the man’s pain, the agony of a stranger.

  Thankful that I had opened it, I took a slug from my bottle and said, “How long has she been missing?”

  A minute of silence informed me that my guess was dead on.

  “She’s only nineteen,” he said. “Her name is Sally.”

  Keep it rolling, I thought. “Is she here in the Keys? Does she go to school?”

  He nodded. “Full load at the community college. She works the checkout counter at Colding’s Grocery on Summerland, right where Monte’s Restaurant used to be. She’s been here since the start of summer. She lived all these years with my ex in Sarasota, but down here she’s started to bloom, to use her talent. Solares Hill just printed an article she wrote about snorkeling.”

  “Could she have met someone who…”

  “No way.” He looked away from me, stared beyond a column of ferns inside the porch to a place more distant than Dredgers Lane. “Every customer in the place, that grocery, every co-worker the past four months, has appreciated her smile, her openness. Even the idiot boss man treats her like a human while he bullies his other employees. But there’s no way, no chance in hell she would run off, even go out to dinner without calling me first. It’s not something I drilled into her mind or ordered her to do. It’s the way she is. God knows she didn’t get it from her asshole mother.”

  The coffee maker quit gurgling and barking. A Conch Train went south on Frances, its driver droning memorized patter about architecture.

  “She didn’t come home from work yesterday?”

  “Right. She made it to class, an eleven-o’clock that ended at ten after noon, but she never made it to work at two. She works two-to-eight or nine, depending on the day of the week. They said they called her cell a few times, then the home number. I found their message at home last night.”

  “She have her own car?”

  “The only orange Mazda Miata in the Keys. You can see it a mile away. But nobody’s seen it.”

  “How does my being a photographer bring you to me?”

  “That’s not the reputation I’m chasing.”

  I stared at him for a moment then put the money envelope on the porch table and went to the kitchen. “You still up for a cup?”

  “Black’s good,” he said. “Could I have another cold one to go with it?”

  “All out. You can finish mine, if you want. One sip missing.”

  He looked at the open bottle for a moment then extended his arm. I placed the beer in his grasp.

  After another couple of minutes, a ceremony of alternating slugs of coffee and sips of beer, he got down to it. “I heard you helped find a nut case who was killing ex-Navy dudes. I also heard you helped bust a sheriff who snuffed his mistress. You’ve got a rep of knowing how things work in the Keys and how to make things happen.”

  “Those last two things,” I said, “I’m no different than anyone else who’s been here a few years. I’ve adapted to my environment. You hear stuff, you see things happen, you understand more of it but never all of it. But law enforcement or private investigation are not my dream vocations. They’re down below my last choice. I got into a couple… umm…”

  “Situations?”

  “Right,” I said, “and the only safe exit was to pinpoint the guilty. I don’t have special skills to flash in the marketplace.”

  “You think it was luck?”

  “Mr. Catherman, I’ve run good luck past my lifetime allotment, if there is such a thing. What I’ve done, it’s no more than picking up a kid who’s fallen off his bike. Or helping someone in the library who’s dropped a stack of books. There’s been no plan of attack, ever. No expertise or bravado, no grace under fire.”

  “You’re running yourself down.”

  “What, you've got a dossier on me?”

  “No, I was filling the air with words. But dealing with killers, you sure as hell were being more than charitable.”

  “I was finding the shortest road to survival,” I said. “When those episodes were behind me, all I wanted was to go back to taking pictures.”

  His expression went to a touch of anger then faded to mild disbelief. It was his turn to wait me out, so I took a break to gather the facts. For some reason I sensed that Catherman could drag me into a “situation” more complicated than he’d outlined. His cash wad was fatter than required for finding a runaway nineteen-year-old. His mercurial body language, from his aggressive salesman persona to his meek hurt daddy to the mixing of coffee and alcohol, threw me warning signals as well. I had to wonder how much drama or paranoia lay behind his obvious desperation and dread. Or how much peril.

  Then he chugged the whole beer.

  “Surely you’ve talked with the police, the deputies,” I said.

  He nodded. “Last night twice and again this morning. They reacted like I’d dropped in to complain about a crack in the sidewalk, most notably Detective Lewis. She acted like it was her tenth missing person of the week and she was damn tired of people losing each other.”

  I let that one ride without comment. I knew that most agencies didn’t consider a person “missing” until twenty-four hours had passed.

  “This was the last cold one?” said Catherman.

  I nodded.

  “A first-class bitch,” he said. “She asked if I had questioned her friends about enemies and possible foul play. I told her I thought that was her job. She said her job was to talk to fathers just discovering that their daughters had hormones too.”

  I offered a tempering, “Cops have their weird days.”

  “Right,” he said. “I have mine. But this county’s like a lot of others. They’ve got weird cops who mostly have bad days. I carried a snapshot of
Sally to give them and this Lewis didn’t even ask me for it.”

  I stared at him and said nothing. I knew that Bobbi was capable of the hardness Catherman described, but always for a reason. Perhaps she had scoped his offbeat mannerisms, decided to keep his anxiety level in perspective.

  “Right,” he said. “I need to concentrate on the real problem.”

  “Can I ask a question without having you pissed off at me, too?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Go for it.”

  “Does Sally have a girlfriend or two she might confide in? Close friends who know things a parent might never know, no matter how perfect their child?”

  His jaw clenched, his eyes went beady for an instant. Then he nodded. “She carpooled to school with a girl from Summerland Key until the girl dropped her morning class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her name’s Mikey Bokamp.”

  “What’s her opinion on Sally’s disappearance?”

  “I haven’t… Why don’t you ask her yourself? That can be your first step in putting together a portfolio. Here…” He tilted sideways, pulled out his wallet, extracted and handed me a small head-and-shoulders color photo.

  He’d been right about photogenic. Shoulder-length pale brown hair with streaks of yellow. Skin the tone of clean white sand and blue, low-mileage eyes. Sally radiated innocence, wholesomeness. She looked like an optimist, a natural cheerleader, a walking-around good mood.

  “With your expertise I guess you could shoot circles around that picture,” he said. “What are your specialties? Portraits or sunsets or what?”

  He was trying to butter me up, so I didn’t respond. I thought of that sequence of letters on his business card, his professional designations, whatever they were. His line of work, if he really held a bona fide real estate license, practically demanded that he train in negotiation, psychological puppetry, whatever their sugarcoated term might be. They turn into manipulators with all that “win-win” hokum. I’ve often believed that “win-win” could best be defined as two smiles and one screw.