The Quick Adios (Times Six) (27 page)

When Beth Watkins arrived, around nine-thirty, the wine bottle still held enough to quench her thirst. Right away I made her promise not to discuss Marsh. We sat on the porch and listened to traffic on Fleming, a thumping, distorted reggaeton tune on a passing car’s stereo, the John Prine CD at low volume inside the house.

“I think the absence of leads tires me more than having too many clues,” she said. “This vacuum of information is sucking me dry. Too many days have passed. Every day I worry that something I missed gets farther away.”

“Can we think for the next two hours that something will turn up?” I said.

“We can try,”said Beth. “You work on suspects and I’ll imagine that I’m watching a million-dollar lottery ticket float into my wallet.”

“An event that would prompt you to keep your job and buy a faster Ducati.”

“Me? A lightweight Panigale?” she said. “Moi?

The knock at the door was timid, as hesitant as the dimly lighted face outside the screen.

“Can I help you?” I said, knowing immediately who it was.

“Look, I know there’s shit flying all about me. But I didn’t kill Greg and I didn’t kill my client. That’s not how I do things. I’m not a model citizen, but I don’t ever do very bad things.”

I had thought that a woman named Ocilla Ramirez might have, at least, a hint of Hispanic in her facial features. Her lank hair mixed dark brown and bronze. Her face was gaunt, almost haunted.

I came back with a tentative, “Okay…”

“Not talking to you, mister. Don’t know who you are. I’m here to tell the lady cop a thing or two.”

Beth didn’t turn to look, didn’t move at all. “I’m listening.”

“Someone’s been watching me. I don’t know if it’s the county or the state. They even had phony cable guys on a utility pole in front of my house tapping my phone or putting a camera up there to watch my come-and-go, and my visitors. I know we got murders, but they are plum wasting time on me. If it’s any help to your case, I think Mr. Caldwell, he liked to blow Gregory.”

I recalled Dubbie’s words: “She’d do a snake with its lack of ears no problem.”

“Thank you for finding me,” said Beth. “Or following me, whichever.”

“Well, I just need a good night’s sleep,” said Ocilla. “Thought this might help us both. Be seeing you.”

We watched her silhouette as she walked back toward Fleming Street.

“That was weird,” I said.

“Worse,” said Beth. “It bugs me that I didn’t know I’d been followed. That fact scares me almost more than a gun.”

We put together enough snack food to call supper, then discussed methods of pleasure that would aggravate my fight injuries less than “doing it.” Two of the arrangements were well worth the pain. Lo and behold, the best pleasure came from the method we had tried to avoid.

Beth is hellacious fun to watch when she is on top.

I
woke to watch Beth put on her panties and bra. My eyes have seen the glories, the goosebumps, the elastic and adjustments. I wished her a safe day on the job, as I always do, and she reminded me that it was Saturday, so she didn’t have to work. She was going in to finish some paperwork, then quit by noon. When I climbed out of bed to make coffee, I found no filters, but I had time to walk to 5 Brothers for high octane cafe con leche and a sugar bomb guava pastry to fuel my day.

Anya Timber walked out of the grocery as I began to cross Southard Street, no surprise as I already knew her to be an early riser. My thought from ten yards away was that she must have spent money in a hair salon since visiting my porch. Her hair looked shorter, a little lighter. My second thought was that I didn’t want to get into another horny or spite-filled conversation.

I approached and offered a harmless, “How are things for you today?”

She looked at me oddly and said, “Pardon me?” with a southern accent.

I saw the subtle differences. The shoes more utilitarian than stylish. The muscle tone in her forearms and a lack of gold jewelry. A surprising sparkle in her eyes. This one, Sonya, had solid moves. Her athletic grace made her the more beautiful of the two.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve met your sister and I mistook you for the other twin.”

“It happens.” She turned away, walked toward Duval.

They were nearly identical, and each had a solid steel core. Fifty yards down the street Sonya climbed into the passenger side of the silver RAV4. I couldn’t see the driver but assumed it was Luke because the vehicle’s departure lacked the authority of Anya’s Boxster-inspired lead foot.

Toweling off next to the yard shower, I remembered. My motorcycle was not in its mini-garage. It was safe in the Aristocrats’s carport, and I would ask the pilot to drop me on Staples when we returned—if I hadn’t been slapped into the Manatee County jail for failing to register as an amateur sleuth.

Inside the house, in long sleeves and trousers for Sarasota’s cooler weather, I had twenty minutes to meet Rodney Sherwin for my ride to the airport.

My phone buzzed. The Caller ID announced:
TIM RUTLEDGE
.

“How’s life in Orlando?” I said.

“Count this as a fact,” he said. “She was cheating on her cop.”

“Is that your insight for the day?”

“For the whole week, Alex. I can’t get it off my mind. Given all the possibilities, all the crap every one of us gets into during our lives, it boils down to misbehavior. I’ll bet you my life savings it was the jealous boyfriend.”

“Life savings right now,” I said, “or when he’s convicted?”

“There you go brother, playing the future. It always paid off for you. Have a good one. It’s cold here, since you asked. I gotta go to work.”

I packed lightly and pocketed a point-and-shoot Canon before I walked to meet the pilot in front of the Eden House. For once I was able to break my travel routine and leave my heavy camera bag at home. Less to carry, but I paid the price. It was the first time in years that I traveled without that bag. For the next hour I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d left something back at the house.

Rodney drove a Kia sedan shaped like the weird love child of a budget BMW and a Focus four-door. Design aside, I couldn’t fault the legroom. I blamed myself for not preparing in advance for rolling again past The Tideline. The condo would be there for the rest of my life. I needed to put it behind me, chill its association with Teresa Barga’s demise. Seeing it, however, reminded me of Tim’s arm’s-length indictment of Darrin Marsh. Also that I had forgotten to follow up with Wiley and Dubbie regarding schematics for the building’s security system.

Ten minutes later Sherwin placed the card on his dashboard that allowed him to park inside the private flight facility’s chain link fence. Before we left his car, he said, “I know I look rough, but I’m fine. I say this because you’re trusting your life with me in the air, and my appearance is simply a laundry issue. My wife has been in Toledo this month tending to her dying daddy.”

“I wasn’t alarmed,” I said. “Key West is not a place where you judge threads.”

“Well, I also hope I smell more like Old Spice than a bar. I was in Captain Tony’s at 5:30 last night, all set to party late, when Beeson called me. I paid my tab, went home, ate a frozen dinner and slept well. This morning I found out that this shirt from yesterday was my only one that wasn’t clumped in the hamper. Ready to fly?”

Inside the aviation office, Sherwin signed a fuel chit and did the paperwork that pilots do. We walked fifty yards down the tarmac, and I stood aside while he circled the aircraft and reviewed his exterior pre-flight check list. As he went about his task, he recited a standard charter pilot intro, “Our King Air 90 runs a Rockwell Collins Proline 21 avionics package. Our twin turboprops pull a cruising speed around 260 miles-per-hour, a maximum speed of 311. Horsepower to spare.”

“I felt that power when you left Key West five days ago.”

“You bet,” he said. “This King Air will fly fine on just one engine.”

“Like a glider if both engines quit?”

“No, altitude and a calculated glide slope can bring you down easy, improve your odds. Like any airplane, sure, if you lose control speed, it drops like a piano. That’s unlikely to occur during my career, but I’ve trained for it, of course.”

“Why would it happen, bad fuel?” I said.

“No, that’s rare. More like not enough fuel, which would be pure pilot error.”

“Don’t gas gauges ever give false readings?”

“It’s possible,” he said, “but I keep a fuel log with pencil and paper, my own brain, my own hand. I trust me.”

“Best way to be.”

“You were pretty cool that last time you flew with me,” he said. “Guess you don’t mind small planes.”

“I learned to fly a Cessna 170 when I first got to Key West, long ago.”

“You’re a pilot?”

“Never licensed,” I said. “When I first arrived in town I was in the reserves, so I joined the Navy Flying Club. I logged about thirty-five hours, did my touch-and-goes here on runway nine back when there was no traffic at all. I flew my cross-country to Tamiami and Sebring. Hell, lessons were only twenty bucks an hour. My instructor flew for Air Sunshine, and moonlighted as an instructor.”

“After all that prep, why didn’t you get your ticket?”

“I was right next to broke. I couldn’t afford to go to Miami for the cram school. I couldn’t afford the motel, I couldn’t pay for the school. I sure as hell couldn’t rent a plane whenever I felt like it.”

“But that license is freedom.”

“I had nowhere to go, no reason to leave,” I said. “I already lived here. I moved to this island on purpose.”

“I see your point,” said Sherwin. “But all knowledge is good, whether it’s riding a bike or mastering long division.”

“It was fun at the time,” I said. “These days I’d be better off with a road map than an air chart, but I remember the basic principles. Do you mind if I ask the name of Justin Beeson’s friend, the person who owns this plane?”

Sherwin looked baffled. “It’s owned by four plastic surgeons in Palm Beach. I doubt that he knows any of them. They lease mostly to people who write off their charters for business reasons.”

“Does Beeson fly with you often?”

Rodney made six or seven check marks on his clipboard then said, “Too often. Justin’s an odd bird.”

“Afraid to fly?”

“Petrified,” said Sherwin, “but even more afraid to admit it. I guess he thinks fear is unfashionable. I’ve always believed it’s what keeps me alive.”

Sherwin hauled down the left-side swingdown door. We felt a rush of warm air escape the closed-up cabin, sun-heated on a tropical January morning. Inside, he pointed at the right side bulkhead. “That cabinet holds bottled water and snacks, should you care for any. That emergency exit handle? It’s number one on Beeson’s list of forbidden mentions. The last time we flew I kept quiet, but the girl and the woman knew how to use it. No one wants to spook Mr. Beeson.”

He motioned me forward to the cockpit, asked me to take the right seat. Once he buckled in, he handed me a light headset with a mike on a skinny boom that looked like a knitting needle. “You’re welcome to wear this,” he said. “Your voice goes only to me. It’s not patched into broadcast.”

I positioned my headset, and Sherwin said: “You’ve done pre-flight before, Alex. Check me for accuracy?” He handed me a copy of his check sheet.

Hooked like a barracuda: “I’ll try.”

Fat damn chance.

The real dazzle began, and I tumbled through three harrowing minutes inside a fast, baffling video game with no control stick in my hand. The Cessna I had learned to fly was the equivalent of a Ford built in the 1930s. The King Air cockpit was a maze of high-tech gauges, buzzers, clashing chimes and multi-colored lights. Sherwin ran a new check list reciting aloud, “Left, right boost pumps, on. Master switch, on. Right engine start and ignition. Low idle.”

I heard whistling to starboard, the gradual increase in RPM.

“Starter off,” he said. “High idle. Right generator, on for a gen-assisted start. Low idle. Left engine start and ignition. Left starter off. High idle. Low idle, left. Inverter on. Avionics master on. Fuel transfer pumps on. Fuel crossfeed, auto. Fuel control, both on. Fuel vents, both on. With me so far?”

“Maybe the first third of that,” I said.

“We’re out of here soon. I saved our flight plan to my route list the last time we went to Sarasota.”

He flipped a switch and two dozen gauges and LED screens came to life. Lights flashed along the rim of the dash. He worked through another list, pressing buttons, double-checking. I heard the tower, but couldn’t tell when the controller was talking to other aircraft instead of us. Sherwin answered every fourth or fifth query.

When he asked for a weather report from KEYW, a speed-talker answered in five seconds: “Wind one-one-zero at seven, visibility more than ten, sky condition few at two thousand; temp two-zero, dew point one-seven; altimeter three-zero-one-six and steady.”

How did he remember all that? He requested departure and set his altimeter.

The tower said: “Zero-six-foxtrot-foxtrot, to Runway 9 and hold short.”

“Six-foxtrot to Runway 9 to hold short.” Sherwin powered the engines and we began to move forward, then swiveled left and started westward on the taxiway.

He reached the end, swiveled right and said, “Ready on 9.”

“Roger. Check for incoming, then clear.”

Sherwin rolled to face east, pushed on the King Air’s power and focused on the runway’s center line. I felt like I was sitting on a bar stool perched on the nose of a dragster. Halfway down the runway Rodney eased back on the yoke. All three wheels lifted at once. With a solid, deep hum, we were airborne. Moments later I heard the soft squeal of hydraulics raising the landing gear as we left the broad air field and went to the realm of big water and small land.

From the tower: “Six-foxtrot-foxtrot, turn zero-two-zero and climb to 4,000.” The voice gave him a frequency, instructed him to contact Miami Center and wished us a good flight.

“Thank you,” said Sherwin. He tuned his radio for Miami, called and was granted a cruising altitude of 10,000 feet. From that point to altitude he watched his gauges more than the road ahead. It wasn’t until we reached about 5,000 feet that I realized that the morning had been hazy back on the island.