The Quick Adios (Times Six) (26 page)

“Let’s go back to the part about respect,” I said.

“I didn’t act like myself. What the fuck was I doing? I don’t whup on people.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “If it would help convince you, I’d say it a hundred times.”

“No thank you,” I said. “We came here to talk about Teresa.”

Marsh inhaled, puffed his cheeks, blew out air. “Look, I want you to know, a few months ago, one Sunday morning over coffee, Teresa and I were talking about high points in our lives. And regrets. She said that she was the bad guy in your relationship. She told me her biggest regret was the way she ended things with you.”

I shook my head, bewildered that she would discuss me with her lover.

“She never told me about the guy she left you for, Alex. The one who died.”

“The old college boyfriend?” I said. “He was a hustler and a blowhard. I think she was entranced by the situation’s nostalgia more than him.”

“Variation on the old Keys saying, ‘Arrive on vacation, leave on probation?’”

“Like that, but worse,” I said. “His case was, ‘Arrive on the island with money to burn, leave the Keys in a custom urn.’”

Marsh laughed but I wasn’t convinced that I’d humored him. And hearing myself say “urn” didn’t do much for my mood, either.

“She didn’t tell me your name, by the way,” he said. “I figured that out for myself. I also, pretty much, figured out how she had misbehaved.”

“So, you…”

“Yes, like you said yesterday. I found her stash of diaries, including the one from when she was with you. I was stupid to pry into her past. But, at the time I did it, she was Miss Attitude, and I was worried that she was having a fling behind my back.”

Oh, what a perfect time to shut up. I sneaked a glance at Sam. He was holding his drink with one hand, picking his teeth with a business card, staring at a convection oven behind the bar. Marsh was sweating. If I mentioned it, he would blame it on the post-rain humidity. I didn’t mention it. I wanted him to keep sweating.

“Fling?” I finally said.

“Yep, she spent an afternoon with some tourist, but it was history, over and done. I guess I picked up delayed signals. I wouldn’t have stayed with her if I’d thought she was still… If I knew for certain.”

“Ask her about it?”

He shook his head. “I was afraid of her answer. There were days and nights when I told myself that I hadn’t been this happy or contented in my life. I was also afraid what she’d say if she knew I had scoped the diaries. She had days when she was no walk on the beach.”

“We all have those days,” I said.

“Did she have any quirks, habits that bothered you?” said Marsh. “Anything that got under your skin?”

Tread lightly, I thought. “One thing she did, no other girlfriends have done it. Whenever I was reading a good novel, she would get this message in her brain that told her when I’d hit the last two pages. She would interrupt and ruin the ending. I can’t tell you how many times it happened, like ugly telepathy. Maybe a half dozen paragraphs to go, and there she was, asking if I’d taken out the garbage or turned off the yard light. I would have to force myself not to toss books in the trash can right there and then. But other than that…”

“By the way,” said Marsh, “when I was telling her my biggest regrets—at least biggest since I arrived in the Keys—she warned me that you and Carmen Sosa are close friends.”

“That we are. Neighbors and friends.”

“Carmen and I had drinks and dinner one night, years ago, before I started work with the city, and I acted like an ass.”

“Maybe you should tell her someday that you’re sorry for that.”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t want to see my face.”

“You tried and she blew you off?”

“No, I screwed up that one solid. She’s like the girls from junior high who think you’re an asshole for the rest of your life.”

Marsh signaled Tim and ordered another Amstel and another Coke.

Key West is a small island, and you hear almost every siren in town. You know which street they’re on and have a general idea where they’ve stopped. I hadn’t heard one all day long.

“Puros Reynoso,” said Marsh. He pointed to a cigar vendor display among the bottles behind the bar. “They’re excellent, from the Dominican Republic. A friend of mine said they used to roll those between the thighs of virgins.”

“That’s been an urban legend for 150 years,” I said.

“Well, I can’t smoke in uniform.”

“That’s right, you’re a cop, Marsh, a professional,” I said. “Have you worked up any theories? Made a list of who might have killed Teresa?”

“One and only guess,” he said. “Wrong place, wrong time.”

“Nothing more scientific?”

“That’s what detectives are for, that science. If I got in their way, I’d never hear the end of it. One of them could write me up for obstructing. Screw my job, maybe end my career, no reflection on your lady friend.”

“It sounds like a reflection. Are you saying she’s vindictive? Maybe she would appreciate your insight.”

“All of us, we have our jobs to do,” said Marsh. “If we do them well, we don’t step on each other’s toes.”

I wasn’t so sure of that. If I was in love with a murder victim I wouldn’t fucking care. I would tromp on toes, obstruct my ass off, force action, find what other officers couldn’t find or refused to find. Hell, I had pushed Teresa out of my life a while ago, but I was adamant about solving her murder. Why was Marsh complacent?

Why was there no hair on his arms? I didn’t want to know.

“You have training in this stuff,” I said. “On the job or did you go to school?”

I knew the answer. But I didn’t want to tip him to the idea that Beth had dug up his background info.

“College major, not that I’ll brag my GPA. Then I had to take a few courses at the college here to get my Florida certification. That was when I paid the bills working construction, installing electrical equipment, re-wiring old office buildings.”

“You were with Teresa how many minutes before she died?”

“Hard to tell,” said Marsh. “Probably less than twenty minutes.”

“And the most sensible concept is that she walked into a crime-in-progress. The perp was still inside and she became a liability.”

He nodded. “Just like on television. She walked into a neighbor’s condo. The only possible reason was because the door was open. She saw Caldwell on the floor, she went in to help him.”

I wondered if Marsh was smoke-screening, trying to funnel an alibi through me to the investigators that counted. The people who could make him an accomplice or the sole perpetrator. But I didn’t know him well enough to separate truth from his lies. I had had a busy day and he’d had several days to write his own script. Also, he could be innocent as hell and still building a CYA wall around himself.

I quit the silence: “Wouldn’t she come and get you first, before she went into the condo?”

“I think her first reaction was compassion,” he said. “She saw a man slumped on the floor, or watched him fall, and had no way to know that a man had been shot in another room. She went in to help Caldwell and, somehow, saw the murderer. Or she tried to dial 911 and the murderer grabbed her from behind before she could speak. He killed her and left quicker than he wanted to, left the door wide open.”

“A man shot?” I said.

“Fuck, I thought you knew,” he said. “I found him and saw the head wound, but the detectives told me to stay quiet about it. They put out the false fact that Pulver had been cut to shreds. It was a way to filter out fake confessions.”

“I’ll be damned,” I said, playing dumb. “I will have to speak to my girlfriend about that. Did either of you know Greg Pulver or Emerson Caldwell?”

He shook his head. “I sure didn’t. I never heard Teresa mention them.”

“Ever heard of Ocilla Ramirez?”

“After the shit went down,” he said. “Never heard her name before this week.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Are you worried?”

Marsh twisted his head to face me. “Why would I be?”

“Come out of the fog, Darrin,” I said. “You discovered three bodies when you were off duty. I hear there’s the issue of your missing gun. You went to college for this shit. You could be anything from a grieving boyfriend to a bad apple to a true suspect to a cop-abuse civil rights mudbath.”

“What about you, Rutledge? She’s not your first ex-girlfriend to be found dead, to be murdered.”

Success, Darrin, I thought. You landed a mental gut punch I didn’t see coming. Teresa must have told him about Julia Balbuena, not that I was ever considered a suspect.

“That was the first time I ever worked for the county,” I said, “for Sheriff Tucker, the weasel. When Fred Liska was still a city detective.”

“It must have been after he got tangled up with Caldwell.”

Red flag. Play stupid. “Liska and Caldwell?” I said. “Tangled?”

“They were partners in a Ponzi scheme fifteen years ago,” said Marsh.

“Bullshit,” I said. “Liska was the lead detective in Key West. When would he have time to rip people off?”

“This isn’t new scuttlebutt from the city, Rutledge. It’s bounced around the police department since I started there. Probably for a few years before that. I’m surprised you never heard. Whatever went down, it went backward for Liska. Caldwell ripped him off for his life savings, and no one got arrested. All Liska could do was eat shit. Now he’s hanging in the wind because he could be a suspect for revenge motive.”

I had to think about that for a moment. Liska’s twin statements from earlier days informed me that he wasn’t involved. “Please stick with it, Aristocrats and all.” Then later, “Do you want to put your private eye rookies at death’s door? Draw bad guys to your doorstep? Endanger your girlfriend?”

“I’m surprised that didn’t come out when he ran for office,” I said.

Marsh shook his head. “Before my time.”

“Did Teresa say anything about burial or cremation?”

By changing the subject I stalled his train of thought.

Marsh took another look around the bar. Fixed his gaze on Sam again, but didn’t flinch and turned back toward me. “She wanted her ashes spread around that Little Hamaca Park behind the airport,” he said. “She didn’t want a church service. I figure we can have a gathering at The Chart Room or, well, shit, she used to love PT’s, but that’s history. Kind of like she is, and there’s nothing we can do to bring her back.”

“With all her fellow city employees who’ll want to attend, a restaurant might be better than a bar,” I said. “A Sunday afternoon at one of the hotels. Make it easier for the non-drinkers to show their faces. And maybe we shouldn’t discuss Little Hamaca except between us. I don’t know if we’d need a permit or anything.”

“Good thought.” Marsh thrummed his fingers on the bar, signaling that his part of our chat was concluded.

“One last item.” I handed him the thumb drive that held the video record of our altercation.

He studied the plastic form without expression and finally guessed. “Pictures of Teresa?”

“It’s a full-color clip starring you.”

His lower lip drooped with his jaw, a perfect mouth-breather frozen moment.

“A friend in the Tower Bar gave it to me,” I said. “You’ll be only the third person to watch it.”

“Where you going with this, Rutledge?”

“There’s no reason for it to go viral,” I said. “Isn’t that the YouTube term?”

“Do you intend to blackmail me?”

“I’m not looking for cash, Officer Marsh. But you assaulted me, which was illegal. Am I supposed to run to higher ground? Can’t I do something illegal in retaliation?”

“What do you want?” he said.

“A simple guarantee. Fewer fists and knees and makeshift weapons.”

“Did you put some bad word on my ass, Rutledge? Is that why I’m being followed?”

“Don’t let grief cloud your perceptions, Darrin. If you’re being followed, it’s not the city or county, and it started before yesterday.”

He polished off his soft drink, surely from nervousness, turned to leave. “Fuck,” he said. “Now I get to mourn two things. My woman and the only job I’ve ever come close to liking.”

“Your call, Marsh.”

Sam gave him ten yards then followed him out toward United Street. Alone, I looked at the canopy over the bar, then the white posts with their mid-relief ceramic pineapple sculptures. I had concentrated so much on the conversation, I had almost forgotten where I was. The sun had disappeared and the air had gone chilly. A few chain-smoking diehards remained at the bar. They all wore jackets or sweaters. The German swimmers with their blue-striped towels had retreated to their rooms and left me a cold wind down from Hamburg. I was warmed only by the piped-in music, and a song I recognized called “Buoyancy.”

I walked out to United Street where Sam waited in his Bronco to drive me home. The wind had eased and the moon, not quite full, rose above the Santa Maria Suites on Simonton. I heard the strong, low horn of a departing cruise ship and I thought about my faith in the wonders of nature.

Back at the house a FedEx packet sat on the porch table.

A check from Beeson. The expense money he owed me, plus a $500 bonus. Why extra money? Another endless list of possibilities.

After two Amstels at the Pineapple Bar, I didn’t need another beer. I found the open bottle of J. Lohr Cabernet and took it to the porch to ponder my abrasive chat with Darrin Marsh. Unlike my brainstorm session at the bistro, no insights came to mind. I had given Darrin his soapbox, he talked himself up, made his plea, and I had shitcanned his apology with a QuickTime movie on a thumb drive.

A rare occasion to appreciate today’s most overused cliché: Whatever.

Rodney Sherwin called. I confirmed that I had talked with Beeson, and Sherwin said that he had promised to have me in Sarasota by ten-thirty. Could I meet him at the airport by eight-fifteen? Again not wanting to leave a vehicle in public parking, I asked for and was assured a ride.

“Are you in trouble up there, or something?”said Sherwin. “I got a call from a cop who wants me to hang out, bring you back the day after.”

“If they make it worth your while,” I said, “it’s your choice. Just don’t fly south without me.”