Castle Cay (16 page)

“Good morning, Joe.”

He had the thermal coffee pot in one hand and
three mugs in the other.

“Morning, Merlin. The weather’s calmed down;
it’s a nice day! David suggested that we have our breakfast out by
the pool.”

She saw that David was already there, placing
things on the table.

“Well, this looks good!” she said, stepping
outside. There was fresh fruit and juice, sliced ham and
muffins.

“Help yourself,” he said.

Joe poured each of them a cup of coffee.

“What a great spot this is, David. Are one of
those yours?” he said smiling, indicating the two huge yachts at
anchor across the canal.

“I
wish
,” said David. “That’s ours,
over there on the right,” he said pointing to a cigarette boat
covered with canvas and secured to a lift.
Boyz Boat, Key
West
was painted on the rear. “I’m glad it’s up out of the
water; it’s pretty rough out there.”

Julie had noticed that the yachts were
rocking quite a bit.

“What’s up with ‘Carlo’? Anyone see the
forecast?” she asked.

“It’s stalled over Haiti and Jamaica,” said
Joe. “They’re getting inundated. They expect it to strengthen as it
moves west.”

“I hope it stays south of Cuba,” said David.
He held up his leg with the ankle cuff. “I’m not allowed to
e-vac-uate,”
he said, drawing out the word.

They all laughed.

Julie was glad to see David’s droll,
theatrical personality back in place. Perhaps it was a good time to
ask him a question. “David, I was wondering…how did you meet
Rolly?”

“I think we actually met at the
Sandpiper
.
Yes, it was at the gallery, when he was here on a
vacation. He’s one of Susan’s artists now. Marc knew him from
Boston. They went to the same art school up there,” he said.

From Boston…does he know Avram?

“Speaking of that,” said David, “would you
like to see the studio, Joe?”

“Sure,” said Joe, setting down his
coffee.

The phone rang just as they walked back
inside and David picked it up.

“Hi! Yes, I’m fine…Oh, yes. I’d forgotten all
about it, what with everything… Can I call you this afternoon? My
attorney is coming over this morning. Okay, good…talk to you later.
Bye.”

“That was Susan,” said David, as he led the
way upstairs. “I completely forgot about Marc’s New York show. She
needs some more paintings. I’ll have to let her come over today or
tomorrow. She needs time for framing and shipping.”

“They’re still going ahead with the show?”
said Julie.

“Oh, yes. There’s a contract with Herzog
Gallery in New York.”

“What a view!” said Joe, stepping up into the
loft.

“Yes, it is beautiful…
outside
,” said
David. “I don’t have to tell you that the cleaning lady doesn’t set
foot up here.
I’m
even forbidden to touch anything.”
Sighing, he said, “Well, not
now
, I guess.

“Come on over here,” he said, walking toward
the finished canvases on the rack. “Here’s some more of Marc’s
work.”

Joe began to go flip through, admiring them
one at a time. There were some that Julie hadn’t seen, too. It was
easy to recognize Marc’s style…the riotous colors, the bold brush
strokes. There was a consistency, whether it was Key West
storefronts and tourists, fishing boats or sunsets. At the end of
the stack were two paintings that were clearly different from the
rest. They were somber, done in shades of gray, from silver to
black with deepening blues. Palms bent under dark clouds, and waves
lashed the shore. Each had NFS - Not For Sale - on top of the
canvas frame.

“Are these Marc’s?” asked Joe.

“Yes,” said Julie. “It’s Castle Cay. He did
them right after his mother died. That was Marc’s last visit there,
I believe,” said Julie, pulling out the painting. “Yes. See here,
under his signature? 1993.”

“They’re beautiful, haunting,” said Joe,
looking at Julie.

Does he know about Dan?

“Uh, let’s go downstairs and finish our
breakfast,” said David.

Julie returned the painting to the stack.
They followed David out the rear studio door to an open deck, which
partially covered the master suite below. Descending the outside
stairs to the pool patio, Julie noticed that the breeze had picked
up and clouds were scudding by.

“Joe, maybe we should go to the Sandpiper
Gallery today.”

It was shortly after ten when Jake Goldman
arrived. Julie opened the door to let him in. The wind gusting
through the open doors across the room slammed the front door shut
behind him. The two of them jumped, startled.

“Boy! That’s some wind,” said Jake. “I hope
Carlo isn’t turning our way.”

Julie rushed to close the French doors, while
David offered Jake some coffee. They all took a seat around the
dining room table.

“All right now,” said Jake, opening his
briefcase, “Julie and Joe, I want to know everything that you two
have discovered thus far that may possibly relate to this case.

“But first, David, I need to go over the
whole sequence of events with you, and I want the complete truth.
I’m going to take notes and also record this entire meeting. Of
course, anything you tell me is confidential and we can turn off
the recorder at any time, if you wish. Now, why don’t you start
with the dinner party you and Marc were hosting the night before he
died.”

This time David told the whole story,
including Rolly’s pretense of leaving with Susan and immediately
returning. David stressed that they’d all consumed a lot of wine,
and that both he and Rolly had slept soundly through the night.
They had awakened with headaches. It was around nine o’clock and
they had gotten up and started looking around for Marc. David said
that he went into Marc’s bedroom and found him, and that he’d
called out to Rolly to come in. According to David they were “both
totally shocked.”

Julie could tell that Jake Goldman was used
to clients lying to him; he didn’t seem fazed by David’s latest
account of the truth. But he did look puzzled.

“Why didn’t you both stay there and wait for
the police? Why did you cover for this man, Rolly, or Roland
Archer?” asked Jake, clarifying the name for the tape.

David explained about their affair being
secret, and about Rolly being on probation.

“David, do you realize that Rolly may have
lied to you, that he may be a killer?” asked Jake.

“I don’t believe that,” said David
flatly.

Jake quickly turned off the recorder. “We
need to go to the police station and revise your earlier
statement,” he said. “In essence, you didn’t precisely
lie.
They asked you when Rolly left and you told them. Your other guest,
Susan Dwyer corroborated that. They didn’t ask you if Rolly
returned.

“Additionally,
you did not discover the
body together
. You, alone, discovered it, just as you stated.
The fact is that you called Rolly in,
afterwards
. Of course,
you were embarrassed about his presence, but you’ve decided that,
at whatever cost to you, they need to have all the facts.

“Lying about sex is vastly more acceptable,
David, than lying about the facts of a murder. Now, tell me again,
did either of you touch anything before the police came?”

“No. I touched Marc to see if he was still
alive,” said David, tears filling his eyes, “even though I knew he
wasn’t. That’s all. We went into the kitchen and talked, and then
Rolly left and I called 911.”

“Did Rolly have a car?” asked Jake.

“Yes. An old Toyota Corolla,” said David. “I
don’t know what year. It’s beige, I think.”

“Could any of the neighbors have seen it?”
asked Jake.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” said David.

Then Jake turned to us.

“All right, Julie, Joe. What have you got for
me?” he asked.

“Marc was the owner of a private island,
Castle Cay,” said Julie. “He owned it in a trust fund, managed by
his brother, Avram Solomon, in Boston.”

She told him that, coincidentally, it was
currently in the process of being sold.

“For
forty million
,” added Joe.

“That is an interesting ‘coincidence’,” said
Jake. “And who gets the money now?” he asked.

“Eventually, Marc’s uncle,” said Julie. “But
the important thing - I think - is that David has
nothing
to
do with the island or its sale! As for him inheriting this house,
David was a joint owner, who put his
own
money into the
property. The taxes and insurance are high here, too, and David has
very little income. He was better off financially with Marc
alive
…particularly since the demand for Marc’s work was
taking off.”

Joe leaned forward.

“We have some suspicion about the dealings of
the brother, Avram Solomon, in Boston, Jake,” he said. “I went to
Castle Cay. It’s an outer island in the Abacos chain, in the
Bahamas, and it’s obvious it was used for drug trafficking in the
recent past…most likely while Avram Solomon was managing it, in the
trust.”

“But not now?”

“No. But, whenever it was, we think Marc
Solomon knew nothing about it.”

“He
absolutely
didn’t!” said
David.

“And, Jake, Marc was planning a visit to
Castle Cay before signing on the dotted line,” said Julie. “It
seems that Avram Solomon, as trustee, now has the power to sign the
deal.”

“But he
doesn’t
get the money,” said
Jake.

“No,” said Julie.

“David, does your friend Rolly know Marc’s
brother, Avram?” asked Jake.

“I don’t think so.”

Julie felt compelled to speak up.

“Rolly is from Boston originally,
though.”

“Hm-m. Very interesting,” said Jake.
“Well…keep digging. You two are doing a good job. I’ll be looking
into this, too. Keep me informed, okay?”

They nodded.

“Well, David,” he said, snapping his
briefcase shut, “let’s go get this over with, shall we?”

•

Julie and Joe went with them to the police
station, where David revised his previous statement. An all points
bulletin was issued for Rolly Archer, who was - by that time -
nowhere to be found.

* * * * *

R
olly was as scared as a squirrel
halfway across a turnpike. He was out on the Gulf of Mexico in a
thirty-foot, fiberglass cabin cruiser named
Miranda
built in
the early eighties. The wind was howling and driving the rain
sideways, and the boat was dropping into twelve foot troughs. Rolly
was an avid diver and a skilled sailor who had been caught in bad
weather before, but he had never experienced
anything
like
this.

He laughed at his own stupidity, as the boat
lurched and slammed into the waves. How could he have expected
David to keep his presence a secret? He’d had no choice but to run.
There wouldn’t be any bail or probation this time. He would go to
prison!

Rolly figured that he would never get out of
Florida in his car, that his only hope of freedom would be Mexico.
But now, it looked like he might not make it across the Gulf. What
a fool he’d been. What a stupid fool!

He wrestled with the wheel, struggling to
stay on the southwestern course.

I shouldn’t have taken the money!

I shouldn’t have moved here!

No. That was bullshit.

No matter what, the Keys were the best part
of his life. Rolly remembered how difficult it was growing up in
Boston’s North End.

His father had taken off when he was four,
and he and his mother had ended up on welfare. She sank into a deep
depression, from which she never recovered.

•

Rolly remembered her sitting there,
mesmerized by the TV, in an apartment full of clutter. Paths wound
through piles of junk from one darkened room to another.

Once in a while, she spoke to him.

He would have left, but there was no place to
go.

His school life had been another kind of
hell, controlled by a macho Italian gang. To fit in and survive,
he’d learned to act as tough as the rest of them, but he lived in
constant fear of being exposed.

When he finally graduated, he had immediately
found a clerical job in a hospital and escaped to Brookline, far
away from the North End.

The Art Institute was nearby and he
registered for a course in oil painting. It had been necessary to
change his schedule and work nights, and it took every extra dollar
he had to pay for the twice-a-week classes.

That was where he met Marc Solomon, the rich
and talented instructor’s assistant and “star” student…who was
openly gay. Rolly hated his guts.

•

The violent squall on the Gulf seemed to come
out of nowhere, the sea suddenly rising up to an impossible height
before him.

I only I wanted to pay off the damn boat!
Maybe I paid for my coffin, too…

* * * * *

J
ulie and Joe parked the VW in Old
Town next to a cheery yellow and white house with gingerbread trim.
A sign read, “
Billie’s Bed ‘n Breakfast
”. David had told
them to park there, saying that Billie was a friend of theirs, that
she would recognize the car and wouldn’t mind.

They set off down Eaton Street, crossed
Simonton and turned left on Duval Street, heading for the Sandpiper
Gallery.

Old Town was bustling. It was a veritable
mélange of people, enjoying the warm, windy day…all colors, all
ages, gay and straight. Julie was reminded of Marc’s paintings,
which were colorful and diverse like the city itself.

Shop doors were flung wide, offering
everything from brightly designed resort-wear to Conch Republic
items, like sponges and giant shells. Rainbow flags whipped in the
wind. Sidewalk cafes and bars hummed with happy chatter, as some
sipped coffee while others clinked together their margaritas,
toasting the day.