Bone Island Mambo (13 page)

“Same name?”

“Same social, same date of birth. There’s probably a place for you down at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! They’ll mold a wax effigy of you in there. The way they design faces, it should look just like you right now. Stunned and empty-headed.”

“Sounds like an investigator’s problem, Dexter. I’m just the photographer, remember?”

“Right.” He did his knuckle thing on the upper lip. “It sure as hell connects the two murders. One last question.”

“I wish I believed that,” I said.

“A couple of minutes ago you used the word
copycat.
Any reason, your choice of words?”

Someone had matched Mercer Holloway’s line of thought.

“No, but I know what you mean. Are they your cases?”

“Used to be Liska’s.” A quick, almost imperceptible nod. “See you later.”

“Now I got one last question, Dexter.”

He turned.

“Actually, two,” I said. “You mentioned your mama. You said, ‘Bless her soul.’ I never heard that she passed away.”

He thought for a minute. “My mother is still alive and she is increasingly guided by divine voices. What’s the last question?”

“Like I said, I accept your apology. But I’m looking for a reason why you were such an asshole yesterday.”

“And now it’s your turn? Look. You weren’t the photographer. You were a suspect.”

As I’d thought. “Am I still a suspect?”

“Follow me here. I’m new on the job. I’m trying to step aside from my father’s shadow. I’m following Liska’s act at the city, which is tough. And I intend to be good. Yes, Rutledge, you’re still a suspect. Don’t feel special. Everyone’s a fucking suspect.”

Hayes walked toward his plain white four-door Chevy Lumina. My small yard looked barren without Heidi Norquist’s Jaguar convertible. The antique thermometer on the porch read seventy-four degrees. Hayes looked back as he eased into his car. His final glance made me flash to what Heidi had said about wind-chill factor. Hayes dialed a number before he put it in gear. He rolled out of the lane, slouched near the center of the front seat, the cell phone jammed to his ear.

Reporting on his progress? Linking me to Caroline Street?

I walked up the wood stairs to my porch and thumbed through the five photos in the manila envelope. The big White
APPLEBY-FLORIDA, INC., GENERAL CONTRACTOR
sign. Was that the name of Heidi’s corporation, or Butler’s? The other sign listed the muscle, the lawyers and the bankers. Small world. The security company name hadn’t rung a bell
when I’d taken the picture: TNT Security was Tommy Tucker’s operation.

A horn honked. “Hey, Rutledge.” Dexter Hayes had returned, backed his car down the lane. He beckoned me to his passenger-side window.

“What’s up?” I said.

“Your friend Marnie Dunwoody? She walked out of the
Citizen
building on Northside Drive. She found an oversized Ziploc bag on the floor of her Jeep. The plastic was fogged by freezable gel packs, but she made out the contents when she saw a human ear. You want to make a quick buck?”

“I don’t do portrait work.”

Hayes turned human for an instant: “I don’t blame you. This is right up Cootie Ortega’s alley.” He put it in drive and chirped the tires.

No question now. Butler Dunwoody was drawing the crap, and anyone who got close to him or his project was fair game for one form or another of terrorism and violence. Time for a simple solution. Fly to Atlanta, take Sam and Marnie and Teresa, check into a cheap motel for a week or two.

I returned to the porch, dropped the packet of photos I’d been perusing. I called Sam to ask about Marnie, how she was taking the shock of finding the severed head.

No answer. The perfect time not to leave a message.

Back on the porch, imagining Mamie’s reaction, I mindlessly shuffled the photos. My hands were sweating. Maybe that was why the last two pictures in the stack had stuck together. I peeled them apart. I’d forgotten about the one on the bottom. It was the shot I’d taken without sighting or focusing as the shorter thug had moved toward me, just before the dude behind him had snapped open his carpet cutter. The blur was exactly as I’d imagined it. Parts of Shorty’s chin and shoulder, overexposed, mottled. Sparkles off his necklaces, his gold hoop earring. By some stroke of fate, the focus was perfect in the background. At the right edge of the frame, the torso of the taller one, from his waist
to eye level. The hand with the carpet cutter was not in the shot. The man’s skinny belly showed under his shirt hem, and . . .

. . . a purplish-red, oval-shaped birthmark ran from under his shirt collar to a point behind his right ear. The carpet cutter’s birthmark.

Maybe the same ear Marnie had seen through the fogged Ziploc bag.

Some people are born in love with cars. Some people don’t know motors from meat hooks. Teresa’s enthusiasm peaked when she bought a Shimano motor scooter that matched her blue Pontiac Grand Am. She couldn’t understand why I owned a shabby beater.

I’ve always believed that an eye-catcher attracts two things. Thieves and cops. In town I use my bike and my motorcycle. I remove the car from its padlocked garage only for trips off the island, and only when the motorcycle won’t do. Teresa regarded my high-performance Shelby GT-350H as I hoped others would: an ugly ‘66 Mustang fastback with sun-bleached primer paint, warped bumpers, perforated upholstery, no hubcaps. It took a vacant road session on Middle Torch Key one clear October morning—high-speed corner-cutting, acceleration, deceleration, and braking—and an explanation of the Shelby’s value, the reason for my “collectible” insurance, to win her appreciation for my fox in dog’s clothing.

I needed to escape two days’ weirdness on the rock, blow carbon out of the Shelby’s valves. I hoped that distance from the island might help me sort events I’d assumed were unrelated. Events I now knew to be unexplainably linked. Blanking out questions that lacked immediate answers, I spent an hour with the Shelby, draining and refilling
coolant, and checking levels at the dipstick, battery cells, and master cylinder. Then I drove six blocks to the Chevron on White Street—one of the last free-air pumps in Florida—to top off the pressure in my blackwalls.

A navy-blue Ford Expedition pulled to a gas pump fifteen feet from the air and water station. Connecticut plates. A bumper sticker:
AL GORE INVENTED THE INTERNET, MY WIFE INVENTED MONEY
. A burly, red-bearded tourist climbed out, told me he’d give me three thousand dollars for my old Mustang. He looked ready to whip out his wallet on the spot. I thanked him, declined his kind offer, not letting on that three grand represented a fraction of the car’s value.

“How about thirty thousand?” he said.

He knew. We shared a laugh. He asked about the engine’s originality, and hoped I still had, stored away somewhere, the special Magnum wheels and scooped factory hood.

He said, “Good idea, that paint.”

Teresa usually worked late, claimed her efficiency tripled when the office emptied after five
P.M.
I dialed her direct line at five-twenty. She picked up.

I said, “You’ve heard about Marnie?”

“I’ve heard.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“For thirty seconds. She took it okay at first, but then it got to her. She’s ticked off because she got attitude from the police officers. Same shit she told us about. Like it wouldn’t have happened if her brother hadn’t come to town. She’s home, sleeping.”

“You want paybacks for cooking last night? Dinner at Mangrove’s?”

“I’ve had an awful day. Not as bad as Mamie’s. You’re offering to drive?”

“Gassed up and ready,” I said.

“Give me time to go home and change. Can you wait forty minutes?”

“This night’s for you. Take forty-five.”

“I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“I’ve got a lot to think about. But I want to wait until morning.”

We couldn’t have picked a better night to drive Highway 1. No bumper jumpers on Stock Island. No road racers past Boca Chica Naval Air Station, no turtles on Big Coppitt. The day’s wind had laid down. Cotton-ball clouds glowed, the moon only two days from full. Conversation could not compete with wind noise through the car windows. Teresa looked content, though I knew she had questions. I faced two dilemmas. I’d told her that the mugging had been a minor event. With my discovery that the headless victim had been my attacker, my white he bloomed into blatant deception. The other problem was, if I revealed the connection, she’d be on the spot. I knew her morals. She’d feel obligated to inform her colleagues at the city.

Somewhere around Bay Point, she reached across the center hump and patted my leg. That, in itself, said a thousand words.

Mangrove Mama’s is a funky spot on the bay side, fifty feet west of mile marker 20 at the top of Sugarloaf. I turned left into the parking area, noting a slight pull in the left front brake. I stopped next to a glassed-in phone booth under a lamppost, a narrow cone of light to fend off break-ins and attract bugs. In daylight my car did both on its own. I clicked my key chain button, the only technology stroke on the Shelby. The V-8’s mechanical fuel pump had crapped out weeks ago. I’d installed an electric pump, rerouted the gas line to the carburetor, and attached a remote-activated cutoff switch to the new electrical pump. If a thief hot-wired the ignition, the engine would turn over. Fuel-starved, it never would start. Peace of mind.

We were greeted inside by a young woman wearing a striking, form-fitting cocktail dress. I felt Teresa’s chill of disapproval. The pixie hostess looked seventeen, the face of an angel, the eyes of a harlot. Her black dress fit like skin. We followed her to a table. To placate my jealous
lover, I kept my eyes diverted. Teresa picked a chair facing the restaurant’s open patio. I faced the restaurant’s central area and greeters’ podium.

I said, “Policing my thoughts?”

No answer.

The restaurant’s stereo was perfect: “Love the One You’re With.”

“Trade seats?” I said.

Teresa studied her menu. “Four things,” she said. “Eye candy is rarely sweet. She’s cute but not beautiful. Somewhere, for some reason, somebody hates her guts. And your conscience is my best friend.”

“You possess a wondrous mind.”

“You will choose your entree quickly. I’m hungry. I could eat a tree.”

We ordered wine. After the server had returned, poured Cabernet, I told Teresa about Mercer Holloway’s employment offer.

She said, “That many properties?”

“Over the years he picked them up. People died, families left town, landlords screwed up their lives, went to prison for smuggling. He was no dunce. He looked into the future. He bought cheap, he paid his taxes.”

“I’ve heard Paulie talk about him. He’s cut a lot of corners, too.”

Teresa’s stepfather, Paul Cottrell, had been the city’s zoning inspector for most of the time I’d lived in Key West. He knew the history of every building on the island, rules bent, variances granted, the politics behind approvals.

“You’ve got a problem with Holloway’s offer?” said Teresa.

“I wonder if I’m whoring myself, or hosing my photography career. I’m helping a rampant capitalist hurry Key West to a point of being unlivable.”

“Malthus had an idea or two about that,” she said.

“I thought you majored in criminology.”

Teresa narrowed her eyes. “I’ve read the occasional book.”

“Malthus worried about population outrunning food supply,” I said. “I’m worried about humans overwhelming square footage.”

“It’s going to happen, one way or another. People’ve been trying to stop it for thirty years. Your taking pictures won’t make a difference. If his checks don’t bounce, do the work. At least you don’t have to travel. I can have you around more than usual.”

“There you go, being logical again.”

The hostess passed our table, ushering a couple to the outside patio. A song lyric popped to mind: “Half woman, half child, she drove him half wild.” I told myself not to look. I failed to heed my advice.

“She’s as ripe as an avocado in a rainstorm,” said Teresa. “If I had to make up her story, she’s in love with a jerk, he spends her earnings on dope and sports gambling. I’ll bet you fifty we come back in two months, she’ll have a new glow on her face and a pregnant belly out to here. A month later she’ll be gone. We’ll never see her again.”

The song also had said, “In the tropics, they come and they go.”

I said, “You never bet unless you’re sure to win.”

“It’s like that old lawyers’ rule.”

“Never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer.”

“You’re smart about some things, Alex, dense about others. If it averages out to eighty-twenty, you’re my dream date.”

We toasted to that. The server brought our main course, broiled grouper for Teresa, poached snapper for me. Sometimes I wonder about waiting all day to consume a costly meal that disappears from your plate in less than ten minutes. I took a bite, then wondered how I could live without it.

The server tried to sell after-dinner liqueurs, oversized desserts. We chose to drive home and attack the French vanilla in my freezer.

I paid the bill, told myself not to check Lolita as we departed. I made it.

Four steps outside the restaurant door, Teresa stopped. She grabbed my forearm. “What’s wrong with your car?”

The Shelby’s front wheels were angled oddly. I hurried to the driver’s side door. The lock had been forced. Strands of wiring hung loose below the dash. The thief had made a mess, but my fuel-shutoff “insurance” had paid off. I flashed to the burly tourist in the huge SUV. No way. Since the stock market surge of the Clinton years, Republican car thieves were few. It had been someone else. I was surprised that I hadn’t heard the engine cranking, trying to catch. I spent a minute looking around the parking area. No other cars looked damaged. Mine had been the only target. Perhaps it had been judged an easy target because of its age, its easy-access ignition, its lack of a locking steering column. Perhaps the target had been me, not the car.

Me and my paranoia.

By the glow of the lamppost, stripping insulation with my penknife, I restrung the color-coded wires. The motor cranked and ran fine. I backed the Shelby, then eased forward to the main road.