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

  “Was Greg Pulver part of the scam?”

  “He had become an informant. He wasn’t a cop but he was being compensated.”

  “That’s motive for murder on a silver platter,” I said.

  “Correct,” he said. “But we know that Ocilla hasn’t been near that condo in over a week. We have to question her, and she doesn’t know the strength of her own alibi.”

  “She didn’t go around looking for him?”

  He shook his head.

  “I assume she didn’t report him missing.”

  “Correct again. But she could gab her way out of that.”

  “You said two directions.”

  Liska studied the simple business card. “The Canadians were investigating the deceased condo owner for reasons as solid as our need to nail Ocilla. Some kind of fraud, and the FBI was cooperating.”

  I said, “It wasn’t that long ago that someone killed a Fed in the Keys.”

  Liska scowled. “Your assistance in that case had great value.”

  “You really like me,” I said.

  He stared at my chest, then let his eyes drift to the outside foliage.

  “Call me paranoiac,” I said, “but I always worry about kind words from those in authority.”

  “I know how it is with you, Rutledge,” he said. “You say one thing, you mean next to nothing. When you come through with something that makes no sense at all, we know who we’re dealing with.”

  “I make no sense?” I said. “You’ve got a snitch paired up with a scam artist in a maid service business. He gets killed in a condo that’s linked to another scam based in another country. I also know that you dish out abuse before you ask favors. What do you really want from me?”

  He turned to look me in the eye. “Between me and you?”

  “I can do that,” I said.

  “I’m a public official. I can’t ask Ms. Dunwoody to shut up about Ocilla Ramirez, but that’s what I need. Maybe you can back her away from that aspect of the story, if she hasn’t already filed for publication.”

  “Now you’re groping,” I said. “She’s a dedicated reporter. If either one of us tells her to back off, she’ll dig even deeper.”

  Liska looked pensive, tapped his fingertips on the tabletop.

  “Let’s say Marnie agrees to go along,” I said. “Isn’t Ocilla going to wonder, with a dead employee, why her name isn’t in the paper? Or worse, won’t her associates wonder the same thing?”

  “Now you’re getting warm,” he said.

  “And you are so damned cold, sheriff. You’re willing to risk her life so her bosses might show up and close your case?”

  “And one last thing,” he said. “I can’t order your Bumsnoops to quit whatever they’re doing. But please tell them to be more circumspect, if they know the word. If you stick with what you’re doing, stay clean. There will be no crossing of legal lines, no blanket forgiveness.”

  “Stick with it?” I said. “I have no desire to be anywhere near your case.”

  Liska looked at me, tried to smile. But it wasn’t last year’s smile or his even wider one from five years ago. This attempt at smiling carried pessimism and regret.

  He stood, picked up his watered-down concoction and his computer. He looked me in the eye, then cast his gaze to the floor. “I can’t fucking believe I’m saying this. Maybe I can explain later. There are things my people can’t do.” He stepped around me to leave the porch. “Please continue, Aristocrats and all. Give me a jingle every now and then.”

  The screen door shut, and I caught a whiff of rum.

  4.

  Defining “quality of life” is like describing “medium blue.” Each of us has certain requirements to get us rolling, facing ourselves in the mirror. One of mine is to never run out of beer, but guess what.

  I was about to pedal to Fausto’s when Marnie Dunwoody called.

  “Ask me how a marionette feels when its strings are yanked,” she said.

  “How…”

  “Jerked around, if you’ll pardon my stupid humor. They put us in a vacant rental condo. It smelled like a soap store and the walls had framed paintings of fish we don’t see in the Keys.”

  “It’s tropical ambiance for tourists who don’t know,” I said. “Probably a shelf in the kitchen full of plastic wine glasses. Why a condo, and who is us?”

  “There was a guy from Miami TV, one from local TV, both with video rigs. And a Newsweek guy in town on vacation. They wanted to isolate us.”

  “Newsweek?”

  “Made no sense to me,” said Marnie, “except he and his family were staying on the second floor at The Tideline. He saw the commotion and asked. He was barely going through the motions. In his head, he was still on the beach or in Sloppy Joe’s. He had the only other still camera, so your Canon saved my day, such as it was.”

  “Good of Beth to send a man after it.”

  “That was so weird,” she said. “I had been in the vacant suite for maybe twenty-five minutes, waiting for my chance. Then Beth came in and looked really shook up. Obviously, the crime scene was gruesome. To get her mind off it, I made small talk and told her I had spoken with you, and that you were bringing two cameras because mine had broken. She said, ‘Alex won’t be working with us after all.’ Her tone of voice was angry, as if you were being punished. Then she went onto the balcony and, right away, saw you in the crowd below.”

  “Did they let you view anything?” I said.

  “Only after a long wait to inform next-of-kin, except we didn’t get names. I kept my mouth shut about Greg.”

  “Names, plural?” It was my turn to shut up, while I was still wondering about the third body bag, if my mind hadn’t taken my eyes on a fantasy ride.

  “I thought you knew there were two bodies, not one, Alex. They let us stand in the hallway and peer into the apartment. An older guy they called the resident, in a white shirt and shorts, dressed for tennis, was slumped cold on the tile floor. They think he found the other one murdered, and the shock brought on a heart attack.”

  “Is Beth thinking one murder and one reaction?”

  “She didn’t say as much,” said Marnie, “but that was the gist. We didn’t get to see the second guy. They said he was sliced up in the master bath with a box cutter and a dagger, and dumped in the Jacuzzi. It was the Fourth of July back there with all the official camera flashes, but we couldn’t get near.”

  “Who was official?”

  “There were three of them. One guy from the city, one from the county, and a woman I didn’t recognize. No one mentioned why she was there.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “They showed you the dagger and the box knife.”

  “And staged a photo of a scene tech holding them next to a ruler.”

  “I was going to say that next,” I said. “At least you photographed something. I tried a few but I couldn’t get anything worth a shit.”

  “I noticed you didn’t shoot anything, Alex. Unless that cop erased your photos from the memory card.”

  “I didn’t use the camera I gave you,” I said. “I grabbed a few on my Nikon. I might have one or two building exteriors right here in my pocket.”

  “Can you email them to me?”

  “Give me about ten minutes. And keep my camera until yours is repaired. Is your article coming together?”

  “I’ve puffed it up in my notes,” she said. “Gruesome and sad. The inability of wealth to protect anyone from violence. I have everything but a headline, but you have a quick mind. Any brainstorms?”

  “FATAL HEART ATTACK BLAMED ON MURDER VICTIM.”

  “That could win prizes if it wasn’t funny.”

  “It would draw attention to your story,” I said.

  “God, those puppeteers were slimy.”

  I felt split loyalties in honoring Liska’s request not to tell Marnie about Ocilla. At the same time, I still was puzzled by the third body bag inside the county’s forensics van. Maybe I had over-employed my imagination. No one,
not Liska, Beth or Marnie had mentioned a third death. Maybe having an extra plastic cadaver pouch was a new standard procedure in case of a flawed bag.

  Bullshit. They could always go back out to the van.

  I went inside, absent-mindedly opened the fridge to zero beer. It reminded me to call Dubbie Tanner. I pressed buttons and he took the call before I’d put the phone to my ear.

  “From now on,” I said, “anything further on Ocilla’s background, do your research on a neutral computer.”

  “Like untraceable?” said Tanner.

  “Like that, precisely,” I said. “I’ll explain face-to-face.”

  “I should lose the word ‘like,’” he said.

  “You’re a businessman now.”

  “That I am,” he said. “Maybe you and I could write a book about inappropriate slang in professional settings. Publish it on the friggin’ Kindle.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Oh, there I go again.”

  I downloaded sixteen meaningless images to my laptop, copied them to a new folder, then compressed and sent the file to Marnie’s personal email address.

  In truth, I didn’t really want a beer. I wanted a nap but knew I’d never doze off with my mind churning. The rest of the afternoon offered me the FedEx packet from Justin Beeson and, hopefully, a short wait to hear from the Aristocrats. They knew what I needed.

  I don’t know why the funky deals all show up before 10 am. Offers too good to be true, requests from law enforcement, assignments of a “special nature” guaranteed to go downhill on the work site or when it’s time to be paid. They always arrive as morning calls. In a perfect world I would listen to client requests only between noon and four. I needed pay-on-time, straight-ahead, surprise-free enjoyable gigs. The delivery of Beeson’s package fell into the realm of ideal, non-funky timing.

  Beeson had come off as a decent type, too. Nothing he said in our short chat at Saluté had flipped a caution light. If anything, his opener flashed green: his schedule was flexible, his manners respectful. He had researched my work ethic and sounded ready to honor my fees fairly. He had style but he wasn’t consumed by it. He was a Beemer type in a Buick. His friend Anya was stunning but not flashy.

  They were, by Key West standards, normal.

  I pulled the manila envelope from the FedEx packet, opened it with a steak knife, then skipped the one-page cover letter to examine the elegant report folder. On first look, first-class design. I had to wonder why Beeson would need more pictures. The folder’s front photo was a late-day shot of a two-story building with a glorious cloud-bloomed sunset reflected in its entrance and west-facing windows. Under the image, in gold leaf: 23 - BEESON WAY - SARASOTA - USA.

  The package made it clear why the man needed multiple brochures. His modular building had been designed so partitions and office-sized cubes could be shifted to adjust to businesses of varying size. Ideally, it would lease to a growing company that could re-shape spaces to match its changing needs. A separate set of pages, distinct in their poor layout and font usage and their horrible photo quality, called it an Office Space Condominium. That suggested to me that the first idea hadn’t sold. A third group of pages, laid out in sketch form, looked more like a real estate presentation. That meant the second idea had bombed as well.

  Bingo.

  Beeson needed new photos for a new approach. He wanted out. He was putting his building on the market, bad timing be damned. Which meant that he needed to get out.

  Which made him, in today’s business climate, normal.

  The cover letter was short, to the point. The company that produced the first promo packet had closed after the death of a principal. Beeson knew that the second brochure was awful and believed that “fresh eyes” would help his situation. He had heard my name before New Year’s Eve, from both a woman he met at a Mote Marine fundraiser and a Duval Street gift shop owner. Our introduction at the party had been coincidence.

  He proposed a mid-day flight out of Key West, an early evening for scouting the location, the next two days shooting exteriors in the early morning and early evening hours, and interior set-ups from ten until four each day. He would pay half my total day rate in advance, provide “upscale” accommodations, a meal allowance, a vehicle and advance cash for “incidentals.” He would make crews available during workday hours to move partitions and cubicles in order to demonstrate the building’s interior flexibility.

  The final paragraph was a condensed, glossed-over company history.

  The package was straightforward and professional and offered what I wished of all jobs: transportation, work, delivery and pay. I called Justin Beeson. We agreed to meet at 2:00. He gave me his house number on Olivia.

  I have owned the antique thermometer on the porch for twenty-five years. Its red glycol fluid has spent most of its life at the top of the scale, giving me endless reasons never to leave the Keys. A young friend once stared at it and said, “Oh, analog, cool.”

  It read 73 degrees. A bit high for January, just when I needed it. Given the lack of parking on Olivia Street for the past twenty years, I decided to walk the few blocks to Beeson’s place.

  The house west of Beeson’s was a modestly restored shotgun with chain link fencing and less-elaborate plantings. The one to the east had two white, solid doors and four windows facing the street, three of which held A/C units. Beeson’s home, an “eyebrow” style Classic Revival, dominated the north side of Olivia between Simonton and Windsor Lane. It was the showcase of the block. Three royal palms stood in his small front yard behind a four-foot, vanilla-colored picket fence. A Conch-style cottage took up the far northeast corner of the property. Two vehicles filled the short red-brick single-lane driveway, a silver RAV4 closer to the sidewalk and, in front of it, the classic Buick under a sturdy wood frame carport.

  My phone buzzed. I hadn’t called the boat broker.

  “Malcolm, I…”

  “I know,” he said. “I drove past you on Fleming a few minutes ago, but I had a city truck on my ass, so I couldn’t stop.”

  “Today’s been…”

  “I figured,” he said. “I heard about the murder. My brother works for the county, and I know you get called in times of tragedy. Look, get back to me when you can. The work will wait for you.”

  I switched my phone to vibrate, unlatched Beeson’s fence gate and approached the veranda. A small brass knocker, engraved BEESON, adorned the sand-colored front door. With a cedar rocker, a mailbox made from a flower basket, two planters of blue lisianthus, and several conch shells on the decking, the porch was picturesque but simple. Keeping shells on the porch was a fine detail for a non-local. Old-time Conchs thought it bad luck to bring conch shells inside their homes.

  Beeson answered my knock wearing a gray sport shirt and Hawaiian print swim trunks. He smiled, shook hands, looked to his driveway, then asked if I’d had trouble finding a parking spot. I told him I had walked. He smiled again and nodded as if my willingness to exercise added one more point to his opinion of me. He led me through his house toward a backyard patio.

  “Please excuse the mess,” he said. “We take the word ‘vacation’ at face value.”

  Except for one Vogue on the floor, the place was cool and spotless. Everything inside the home beamed Keys elegance. Vertical tongue-and-groove wall planks of a width they don’t mill these days. The loft stairway was reclaimed oak, the banister and sculpted post coated in white satin enamel. The front room’s rattan furniture held tropical print cushions and pastel pillows. Hardcover books by a dozen or more Key West authors filled a white bookshelf. The art looked to be 1930s-era watercolors of Key West beach scenes, old sailboats and palm trees, in bamboo framing.

  I noted nothing related to automobile collecting.

  We passed through sturdy French doors to a screened enclosure with a full view of the yard. Subdued sunlight and shadows through twin arbors gave an illusion of a life-sized watercolor. The familiar sound of palm fronds rattling on tin shingles over the
alcove gave it the comfort touch.

  I couldn’t help saying, “Damn.”

  “Thank you, Alex,” said Beeson. “That was exactly the reaction I was after when I sketched out this quiet area. I say the same thing every time I walk out here.”

  “It proves you understand the island,” I said. “A lot of people take one ride a year in their motorboat and pat themselves on the back for living in the Keys.”

  He pointed me toward a pair of cushioned lounge chairs under a slowly moving overhead fan. Anya Timber and a dark-haired girl perhaps eleven or twelve years old stood toweling themselves on the far side of a lagoon at the end of the small pool. Both wore modest one-piece suits. They donned robes and crossed a short arched bridge to the main patio. Anya waved before they entered the house through a sliding glass door thirty feet away.

  Beeson watched his daughter slide shut the door. “Eileen is a dream, fortunately. Unlike her mother.”

  “Cute one,” I said.

  “Horribly shy, as perhaps you could tell,” he said. “And brilliant, as I heard you are behind a camera. You’ve had a look through the firm’s background and the work proposal?”

  “Hell of a building.”

  “It’s become a royal pain in the ass,” he said. “I usually have better luck investing on impulse. Now it’s my albatross, if you follow my meaning.”

  “I read the Coleridge poem in high school. Never again since then.”

  Anya’s voice came from the French door behind us: “Anything for you gentlemen?”

  Beeson smiled and looked across the pool at a palm tree. “It’s time for my early vodka and soda, dear. Please make it Grey Goose and… tell you what. I will take tonic today instead of soda. Do we have a lime?”

  “We have twelve,” she said.

  I turned to face her. “A glass of OJ would be fine, thanks.”

  She smiled and nodded. As she backed away from the door, her robe fell open. She had removed her wet bathing suit and chosen not to put on clothing.

  Beeson didn’t notice her partial nudity. “I don’t drink before seven when I’m in Sarasota,” he said. “I get a lot of work done in Key West, but we play by holiday rules down here.”