The Quick Adios (Times Six) (Alex Rutledge Mystery Series) Read online

  The Quick Adiós (Times Six)

  An Alex Rutledge Novel

  Tom Corcoran

  Published by Dredgers Lane, LLC

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Author’s Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Dedication and Thank Yous

  Copyright

  1.

  I studied the painting on the restaurant wall. The reclining nude stared back at me with distrust. A red ribbon held back her long black hair, and two plates in the painting floated above the blue tablecloth next to her right arm. The larger plate held a key lime pie, minus one slice. That fat slice, topped with meringue and a lime wedge, filled the smaller plate. A mixed-breed husky with sad eyes stood guard at the woman’s left hand.

  Perhaps, I thought, she is finished with me and is sending me away. I couldn’t make out the red object she held and I wondered why she had no knife or fork.

  I would have given her anything from our table.

  Cathy, our server, came to the table and blocked my view. “Quit staring, Alex. Ready for your bill?”

  Sam Wheeler pulled two twenties from a flap pocket on his olive green fishing shirt. “Who was the yakker that brought us our coffee?” he said. “He was not up to Pepe’s standards.”

  Cathy held out her hand. “We just hired that kid.”

  “Where’s our friend?” said Sam. “Greg with the face bling who never talks?”

  “He, for two days running, is a no-show,” said Cathy. “Which is bullshit if you ask me and you didn’t. For the past… however many years, he’s been on time, willing to work extra. Now, the second week of tourist season… He could have phoned.”

  “We miss Greg.” Sam gave her his money. “Maybe he’s out jewelry shopping.”

  Sam was in a mood. His light-tackle client had waited until seven that morning to cancel. He waited on the dock until nine, hoping for a walk-up, but failed to salvage his day. He called me to suggest a late breakfast. I wasn’t hungry but accepted for the company. I had nothing else to do but pay bills and water my porch plants. And Sam offered to buy.

  The early crowd had left behind a stack of newspapers. We had studied them in silence while we waited for our food and as we ate. When Sam was having one of his introspective mornings, he usually was thinking his way out of a problem. Once in a while he was deep inside himself, wrestling snakes. Given his military service, and I knew that he had seen far worse than he had done, I understood the latter. His lovely housemate of the past few years, Key West Citizen reporter Marnie Dunwoody, once said that we knew each other so well we could finish each other’s sentences, but we damned well couldn’t start them. Or else we knew not to try.

  Sam and I have saved each other’s sanity over the years, and each other’s life as well, episodes we don’t discuss much. We had tried to schedule lunch once a week. Either of us would assure you that we met no fewer than thirty times a year. With Sam’s short-notice charters and my out-of-town photo work, it was closer to once a month, maybe less.

  It took a few minutes to get Sam’s change. Cathy had to wait her turn behind the confused newbie at the servers’ register. I tapped my finger on page 2 of the Citizen. “Fifty years ago this very day,” I said, “a twenty-two-year-old woman was arrested after she removed her clothes at the foot of Duval Street. A large crowd gathered before police arrived.”

  Sam finally grinned. “Why didn’t the cops arrest the fool who called in the damn complaint?” His smile faded as he flipped the page and tapped the day’s headline. “Did you see this lead article? It’s a lame-ass puff piece about a wannabe politician. Thank goodness the woman I love didn’t write it.”

  “Small island,” I said. “Reporters have to take what they can get.”

  Sam looked me in the eye. “That worries me, Alex. I mean, big-city newspapers are struggling. How much action can this town generate? Marnie’s great at what she does, but if she gets fed up, she might quit. On the other hand, they could run short of cash and show her the door.”

  “Then what?” I said.

  Sam has strong opinions and rarely shrugs. But he shrugged.

  Cathy reappeared with Sam’s change. I nudged her arm and pointed at the nude woman on the wall. “What the hell is that red thing in her hand?” I said.

  “I’ve heard a hundred different guesses,” said Cathy. “Everything from a personal massage device to a Bic lighter to a giant radish. Run with your imagination. Make it what you want it to be.”

  “You have to see it every day,” I said. “You make the choice.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Just so it’s not pepper spray.”

  A rich blue, cloudless sky and a warming January breeze awaited us on Caroline Street. Sam gazed toward the docks as if trying to decide what to do next. I began to unlock my bicycle, which was chained to a signpost. My phone, set to silence, vibrated in my pocket. I checked the incoming ID.

  “The cops are calling,” I said.

  “Give her my regards,” said Sam. “Tell her Marnie’s talking lasagna for Friday night.” He crossed the street toward his Bronco.

  Key West Police Detective Beth Watkins doesn’t like to mix personal matters with her career. She rarely calls during the workday, but she had attacked me three hours earlier, forced me to commit sinful kisses. I hoped that her call was an invitation to a rematch. It wasn’t even close.

  “It’s going to be a bad Monday and an ugly week,” she said. “Ten minutes ago we got a report of bodies in a condo, at The Tideline out on Bertha.”

  For some reason, cynical me took command. “Is one of them a young guy named Greg?”

  Beth responded, but a passing delivery truck muffled her words. Only her angry tone came through.

  “Whoa, pretty lady,” I said. “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “In that case, love of my life, I’ll ask you once again. How the fuck did you know his name?”

  I explained the conversation about Pepe’s missing waiter.

  “You blurted out a victim’s name as a joke?”

  “Nerves, Beth,” I said. “A call from you during business hours…”

  For the past few years any call from the Key West Police Department or Monroe County Sheriff’s Office meant a request that I shoot crime photos. I have earned my living for years in advertising and magazine photography, but freelance work is never a predictable source of income. The first few crime scene jobs boosted my finances, saved my ass at the bank. Later the gigs became dangerous or depressing or both. The ugliness was undermining my love of photography, so I tried to avoid the work. Plus, my tech background is non-existent. My work was always non-forensic “back-up” stuff. A few detectives had found my work useful in solving cases, but usually I had to keep clear of the trained on-scene pros who resented my presence.

  I said, “Please don’t beg me to…”

&
nbsp; “I’m asking, but I’m not begging,” said Beth. “The city needs your expertise before the sheriff’s office decides to pull this out from under us. Having you on hand might help me hold on to the case.”

  “You just made it impossible to refuse.”

  “Thank you, Alex. I just got here and I’m still outside the building, debriefing the first responders. But I’ve been warned, so I’ll warn you, too. We’ll have to postpone our dinner date.”

  “It’s not even noon. We can’t finish before sunset?”

  “Someone has been dead at least forty-eight hours, so we’ll both smell bad. Wear trousers and a shirt that you can toss in a Dumpster. The city will compensate you. I’ll burn my clothing, take three showers and sleep at my house.”

  “Who identified Greg?”

  “The first cop in the door knew him from Pepe’s.”

  “Are you sure he’s not another suicide in paradise?” I said.

  “No, it’s a murder, for certain, Alex. Please bring your big camera, the Nikon.” Beth half-covered her phone, spoke to someone, said, “Gotta go,” and hung up.

  I tapped Marnie Dunwoody’s quick-dial cue in my phone.

  She took the second ring: “I already know, but thanks for thinking of me.”

  “They’ve identified that fellow Greg who worked at Pepe’s.”

  “Shit,” she said. “That cute guy who rides the Captain Outrageous bicycle?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t know.”

  “Damn,” said Marnie. “He was a nice guy. He helped a friend of mine move into her apartment. He wouldn’t let her pay him, but I think she found a way. Have you been summoned?”

  “I couldn’t think fast enough to decline.”

  She laughed. “You, my friend, are a slave to the pudding.”

  I rode my bicycle up James Street against the wind, feeling dust in the air. In the winter months we tell visitors it’s not just sunburn, it’s also sandblast. Midway up the block a renovation crew in flannel shirts, shorts and work boots pounded nails and rocked out to Springsteen. In a couple of months someone would have a new home on the rock. People come and people go. Most moved to town to live their version of the dream life, but every departure was for a different reason. Marnie Dunwoody and Sam Wheeler, if they left Key West, would be searching for consistent income. I had known them for years, had counted on their friendship and advice. Their departure would leave a huge gap in my day-to-day life.

  I turned off Fleming, coasted down Dredgers Lane. I didn’t recognize the ratty bike near my porch door, didn’t see anyone outside the house, and I couldn’t see through my screens. I kept my eyes forward, kept rolling toward the lane’s end. I don’t like surprises, especially when they arrive on beater bicycles.

  Taking a moment to think, I checked my phone. I had missed a call and message from a local number that I didn’t know. As I hit the prompt for voicemail retrieval, another call popped up from the same number.

  I pressed the green button. “Who is this?”

  “The dude drinking on your side porch,” said Dubbie Tanner, a faux-bum and suds addict I had known for years.

  “Asshole,” I said. “I thought I had a burglar in my house.”

  “Not my style,” he said. “I watched you cleverly bypass your own yard. Could you turn around your costly bicycle and come open up? I only brought one beer, and it’s down to the last… oh, there it went.”

  Tanner, for years, had lived out of his car and bummed beers, sex and hot motel showers from tourist women. I was one of three people in town who knew about his handsome income from past business pursuits, surprisingly legitimate ones. Dubbie knew the bar scene as well as anyone and kept his ears and eyes open. He always had made sure that bartenders were tipped so that his welcome remained intact. In past years, he had helped me assist the police in solving several crimes, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to welcome him to my home.

  There were two of them. Dubbie Tanner, the taller by at least six inches, wore baggy once-black shorts and a sky blue tank top that broadcast Fairvilla in cursive script. With him was Wiley Fecko, a residentially challenged gentleman whom I hadn’t seen in years. I doubted he cared that his green plaid trousers failed to match his maroon plaid sports shirt, though the pants almost matched his Kermit-green, nubby-textured running shoes. We shook hands like old fraternity brothers. Instinct told me to go wash, but my hand came away feeling remarkably clean.

  Before they could reclaim their seats, I said, “Sorry to cut short this swell reunion, but I just got a call. I have to leave in three minutes.”

  I took Dubbie’s Natural Ice empty and waved it at Fecko.

  Wiley shook his head and showed me a Styrofoam cup. By the container’s size I guessed it was café con leche from 5 Brothers Grocery. “No thanks on brew,” he said in his bright tenor voice. “I’m currently, perhaps permanently, off the sauce.”

  Not sure how to react to that, I unlocked and went to fetch a cold one for Dubbie. I found the last Beck’s Light in the fridge and returned to the porch.

  “Your shirt smells like you just ate breakfast,” said Tanner.

  “Your yard smells like fruit blossoms,” said Wiley Fecko.

  I looked out, saw no blossoming trees, but had to agree about the scent. “You guys are all about details.”

  “It’s our calling, such details,” said Tanner. “Mister Fecko, here, is my new senior partner.”

  I checked out Wiley’s wino duds. “The word ‘senior’ works fine,” I said, “but am I supposed to match the word ‘calling’ to either of you?”

  “We’ve made a huge change in our lives,”said Dubbie. “We’re the co-managers of a limited liability corporation. Your own State of Florida has certified us to be private investigators.”

  “And now you two are on your way to a Chamber of Commerce meeting?”

  “We live inside our camouflage,” said Fecko, brushing his shirt front. “To the town’s population, we’re two more street persons in a town long known to harbor society’s fringe elements. We’re the scum that everyone ignores. They look right through us, deny our existence and hope we won’t get in their faces. Who would suspect us of doing surveillance and following people?”

  “Your corporation has a name?” I said.

  Fecko raised his coffee on high. “Southernmost Aristocratic Investigations.”

  “The Aristocrats,” said Tanner. “Gnarly but clean is our motto.”

  My cell phone buzzed. The window identified Marnie Dunwoody.

  I took the call. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Two things Alex, and I have to talk fast. Have we got a good connection?”

  “You sound fine to me.”

  “Okay,” said Marnie. “I’m standing right outside The Tideline at the north corner of Bertha and Atlantic. My camera’s lens is stuck open and the shutter won’t click. I need exterior pictures for this article but the newspaper’s regular salaried guys are doing photo ops at the Naval Air Station and a Tourist Development thing.”

  “You need to borrow one of my point-and-shoots?” I said.

  “Have you got an extra?”

  “I have my big Nikon and two pocket-sized Canons.”

  “I need to borrow one, yes,” she said, “but I need you to press the button on my behalf, too. I’ve got fifteen things to do, and they want me inside now. I promise not to bring your name into it. Get me some outside images and I’ll give my name for the photo credit.”

  “What’s the second thing?”

  “I talked to a building resident and got this far. Greg and a slightly older woman were caretakers for absentee owners. At least two condos in this building and more homes on the island. They showed up regularly, paid household bills, checked the air conditioning filter, whatever maintenance people do. I need the woman’s name and the name of their business. All that is shit I have to do and it’s not the second thing.”

  “I’m with you so far,” I said. “What’s the…”

  “They
haven’t told me squat, but this might be larger than they’re letting on. Beth has three city scene techs with her plus a county detective with an audio bud in one ear. They’re keeping a lid on what they’re divulging, and I have yet to see another reporter. If this story goes big, Alex, I need it. I can sell it to the online wire services and update my resumé.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You stay there and keep digging. I will see you in fifteen and give you a camera with a charged battery and an empty card. After I give it to you, ignore me. I’ll make you digital copies of everything I get, unless it’s classified as evidence. I think I can find someone to help you with the caretakers’ names and their business license, if there is one.”

  “Ka-ching,” whispered Tanner.

  Fecko victory-pumped his arm.

  “Hug,” said Marnie. “And a dinner before the weekend, Alex.”

  “First one’s free,” said Dubbie, before I shut off my phone.

  The two men looked rational and determined. It might work, I thought, with a certain wonder. I hoped it would not become regret.

  “You’ve got three hours max to deliver,” I said.

  “Our first deadline.” Fecko shook his coffee cup hoping for a last ounce. “I have to take this as a good sign.”

  “Unless it bites us in the ass,” said Dubbie. “If we go hunting background on a murder victim, won’t the cops come back on us?”

  Fecko smiled. “Don’t sweat that, partner. I’ve got skills in dealing with cops.”

  I explained Marnie’s dilemma, gave them our scant details and gave Tanner fifty bucks for “expenses.” They gave me their cell numbers, pledged themselves to secrecy and went away. With their concept and preparations, The Aristocrats stood a chance.

  I had an odd, illogical feeling that they would deliver. At least for a while.