Key Lime Blues (2 page)

Nick was the father figure in my life. He came to work for the agency when I was six years old. He once told me that was the day he fell in love. It took my mother a little longer, but by the time I was eight Nick had moved in with us.

My mother and Nick had a troubled relationship. When I was sixteen Nick moved out for good, but it didn’t end the relationship. He continued to work for the agency and he would often spend two or three nights at a time at our place. As far as I knew my mother never dated another man, although I suspected that when the relationship was in an off again phase, Nick went out other women.

It took me ten minutes to jog to the city marina dinghy docks. I was living aboard a thirty-six foot sailboat, which I had purchased when I moved to Key West. Rough Draft was moored in the Garrison Bight mooring field, a large permanent anchorage surrounded on three sides by land. It offers good protection from most Atlantic storms. Its only downfall is that a good northern wind strikes at least two or three days a month during the winter, tossing the boat around so badly I’m unable to sleep. That night the breeze was kicking up some whitecaps, an omen of things to come, I thought.

Slowing my pace when I turned into the parking lot, I walked past the over-flowing trash container to my van. After exchanging my running shoes for a pair of Crocs I headed across the lot, dreading the call I was about to make.

I stumbled down the ramp and along the dock to where my dinghy was locked, and sat on the pier with my feet resting in the seat of the boat. When I took out my phone I wanted to throw it as far out into the channel as I could, or better yet, fling it against the concrete break wall. Instead, I opened it, blocked my number, and called my mother.

Even though I knew she must be sleeping, she answered on the third ring. “Hello, mother,” I said, holding the phone away from my ear. My mother has a deep, raspy voice. It’s the product of smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, and years of living by the philosophy that the loudest voice wins any argument. When she’s angry or excited, she sounds like a man and she can swear like a sailor doused in rum.

“This is a surprise. Don’t tell me Nick knocked some sense into you and you’re ready to go back to work.”

I bit back a retort. It was obvious she knew Nick was in Key West, and just as obvious she didn’t know what had happened to him. I choked back a sob, took a deep breath, and because I couldn’t think of an easy way to put it, I said, “Nick’s dead, Mom.”

There was a moment’s silence, and I could almost see her sitting up in bed and reaching for her cigarettes. It was her way of handling stress, and had been for as long as I could remember. When she finally spoke her voice quivered. “Are you sure?”

“The cop I talked to, a woman by the name of Davies, had Nick’s driver’s license, but I haven’t seen the body. I’m supposed to stop in tomorrow and make the ID. Hopefully, they’ll have a little more information by then.”

There was another pause. “I can’t believe he’s gone, Wes.” I could hear her sobbing on the other end of the line and I almost broke down myself.

“You going to be all right?” I asked.

Her sobs died off as she reined in her feelings, and a moment later she was in control again, the mother I remembered. “I need you to do me a favor, Wes.”

“What?”

“I want you to wrap up the investigation Nick was working on.”

I cringed at her words. I wanted to be a good son, but I couldn’t risk being sucked back into that life, so I had to disappoint her—again. “It’s not going to happen, Mother,” I said. “I’m out of the business for good. I’m happy doing exactly what I’m doing.”

“You’re too damn old to run away, Wes. You can’t be a boat bum and a bartender for the rest of your life.”

I thought about what she said. Although the nightmares still troubled my dreams, they came less frequently since I’d moved to Key West. I wasn’t kidding when I’d told her I was happy playing the role of beach bum.

“At least I can’t kill anyone working behind a bar,” I said.

“You didn’t kill the girl, Wes. The F.B.I. screwed up, not you.”

“Mother, we’ve had this conversation a dozen times. Nothing you say is going to convince me to get back into the business.”

“Well, I don’t have anyone else I can send down there right now,” she said. “When you ran off it left me short-handed.”

“I gave you two months notice.”

“Right. Like I can hire a licensed operative in that short a time. Why do you think Nick was down there? He was too old to be in the field. If his death was a result of this case, you can blame yourself.”

“That’s a shitty thing to say, mother.” I knew she was upset, but her words still stung.

I thought I heard her crying again, but I didn’t know if the tears were real or if she was playing me; she was capable of it. I felt bad and I knew it was what she was aiming for. When she finally spoke she dug the dagger in a little deeper.

“I’m going to have to come down and claim Nick’s body. That’s going to take awhile, not to mention the hoops I’m going to have to jump through. There is no next of kin. Still, I guess I can find time to wrap up the case while I’m down there.”

She thought she had me, but I wasn’t biting. “Nick was working in the field because he liked it,” I reminded her. “And we both know that either Sam Jackson or Will Harris can fly down and take over the case. Stop laying a guilt trip on me.” I gave her my new e-mail address and added, “Let me know what flight you’ll be on and I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

“Don’t you think you should give me your phone number?”

I hesitated. I’d changed my number after seventeen days in a row of her calling and demanding that I grow up and get back home to the office. With a sigh I gave it to her and added, “This is not an invitation for you to harass me, mother.”

“I wouldn’t think of it.”

“Of course you would,” I said aloud after I hung up. “Of course you would.”

Chapter 3

Since I work nights, my normal routine is to sleep until noon and then do boat chores for a couple of hours. The night I found out about Nick, I was awake most of the night and up before seven. I dressed in my usual shorts and t-shirt, put on a pot of coffee, and stepped out into the cockpit. There was a chill in the air, but the sky was cloudless. The wind had died and the water was as still as the Detroit river after a week-long cold snap.

When I began to shiver I moved down below. Slipping on a sweatshirt, I poured my first cup of coffee, and headed back outside. I sat sipping coffee, listening to the quiet, and thinking about Nick until the calm was shattered by first one boater, and then another, starting their dinghy motors and heading to shore. I returned a wave from a couple on the next sailboat over, and then stood and went below to refill my cup and grab my computer.

I don’t get TV reception on the boat; or rather I get three Spanish speaking stations and a local one that plays the same old movies and 1940’s era serials over and over. But thanks to my cell phone provider I have a card for my computer that gives me broadband speed Internet access.

I read a couple of newspapers online and then went to my e-mail account. The only message I had was from my mother. It was short and to the point, and infuriated the hell out of me. Wes, hon. I really do need your help on this one. I don’t have anyone free to handle this. I’ve attached a copy of the file in case you change your mind. I’ll call and let you know when I’m arriving in Key West.

I couldn’t count the number of times I’d made it clear to her I was through with the business. I knew what she was doing. She’d once told me I was a good detective because I had the curiosity of a six-hundred pound cat. Well curiosity be damned, I thought, just before shutting down the computer without opening the attachment.

I didn’t want to go down and identify Nick’s body. Instead, I spent the next several hours doing boat chores. I hooked up a hose to the wash down pump and sprayed off some bird droppings. Once the deck dried, I taped, sanded and varnished a section of handrail that was beginning to weather under the harsh tropical sunlight.

When I finished, I put on my swimsuit, dove off the bow, and did thirty laps around the perimeter of the boat before taking a quick shower. Of course it’s the only kind of shower you can take when your tanks only hold sixty gallons and you have to haul water from shore in five gallon cans.

It was eleven by the time I sat back down at the computer. I played a couple of games of solitaire, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept going over in my mind what had happened to Nick, and I wondered if his death had anything to do with the case he was working on. Finally, after getting up several times and wandering out to the cockpit and back again, I gave in and downloaded the file my mother had sent me. There were actually two files, one document file and one picture file. I opened the document file first.

There wasn’t a whole lot there. The client’s name was Frank Szymanski. He hired the firm to find an ex-girlfriend. He claimed they had an argument, she ran off, and he was heartbroken. Her name was Gail Bernard and she was a stripper who used the stage name ‘Destiny’. He also provided the information indicating she was originally from Key West, and had gone to school at Michigan State University. According to the client, he met the girl at a party in Detroit and fell in love.

The file listed Szymanski’s address in Grosse Pointe and his cell phone number. Nick had placed a note in the file referring to him as ‘that Frankie Szymanski.’

It wasn’t much to go on, so I went hunting on the Internet. Under Destiny I found reference to a comic book character, several nightclubs, and even a church, but no stripper. Under Gail Bernard, I hit the jackpot.

The articles in the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press were four years old. Both stories stated that as a freshman Bernard had been expelled from Michigan State University for running an escort service out of her dorm room. The cops found out about her enterprise when one of her girls, a fellow student, filed a complaint against a school football player. The courts went easy on the girl and Gail was given two years probation.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Frank had been one of her customers and maybe read a little too much into what would have been a business transaction. Maybe the girl had even led him on a little in hopes of having a few extra bills tucked into her g-string.

Any thought of Frank Szymanski being a victim ended when I
Googled
his name. What I discovered was enough to have me reach for my bottle of Tums. It appeared our client was the same Frankie Szymanski who had started his career as a hit man for the mob. The same Frankie Szymanski once linked to the nineteen seventy-five disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. The same Frankie Szymanski who had been brought up on racketeering charges in nineteen eighty-five.

Damn, I thought. If my mother was serious about handling this case by herself I was going to have to step in. She was right, it had been a long time since she’d been in the field and I didn’t want to lose her too.

I was swearing under my breath by the time I opened the picture file. The blonde looking up at me wore stylish glasses, loose fitting beige shorts, and a white top that showed just a hint of skin. It took me a couple of minutes, but then I realized that I knew the girl, or more precisely, I knew her boyfriend. She’d changed the color of her hair from blonde to red and had her breasts enlarged, but I was pretty sure it was Billy
Bodine’s
girlfriend. I wondered if this was why Nick was planning to stop by and see me the night he was killed.

Billy was a Jimmy Buffet wannabe who played a fair guitar, and sang weekend nights at Dirty Alvin’s. Destiny usually came in on Friday nights, and a six-foot tall red-headed Amazon was someone I wasn’t going to forget, even if she had a boyfriend. She usually hung around until close, and then she would leave with Billy.

I e-mailed my mother to tell her that I knew when and where the girl could be found. I told her I’d give her the information when she arrived, and added that I was going to leave the boat within the hour and would be meeting with Davies to identify Nick’s body.
 

Once I let my mother know what I’d found out she would have no reason to drag me further into her case. Of course I still had to put up with her visit, and I had no doubt she was going to hassle me about coming back to work for the agency. It was in her nature and I figured I might as well accept it, but I didn’t have to like it.

I needed some time off to deal with my mother and with my grief. I called the bar and explained my situation to Tanya. I accepted her condolences and when she suggested I take the week off, I thanked her and told her I’d stop by that evening. What I didn’t tell her was that I wanted her to introduce me to Destiny. Finally, I changed my clothes and washed down a ham sandwich with another cup of coffee before climbing into my dinghy and heading into shore.

***

Even by Key West standards, the two men standing at the end of the dinghy dock looked out of place. It wasn’t the floppy straw hats, or their extraordinary height, or the matching faces on twin skeletal frames. No, it was the array of identical prison tattoos running up and down their skinny white arms and legs.

My first thought was that they were going to get one hell of a sunburn if they didn’t watch themselves. My second thought was they were looking for someone, and I figured by the way they watched me pull in, I was that someone. By the time I locked my dinghy to the dock, they had made their way over to me.