Daiquiri Dock Murder (2 page)

Chapter 2

(Sunday Morning)

Footsteps. Stealthy footsteps padding closer, retreating, then padding closer again. Stalking footsteps. I tried to cry out for help, but my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth as if glued there. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t speak. With great effort I managed to swallow. Footsteps. Someone walked nearby. Where was I? I turned my head from side to side, trying to shake a memory to a place in my mind where I could think about it. At last, the medicinal smell that permeated the room along with the hardness of the mattress under me told me I lay in a hospital. I peered through slitted eyelids in case someone stood watching me. Crazy idea. Why would anyone be watching? When I saw nobody in the room, I opened my eyes.

I tested my extremities. Feet. Toes. Hands. Fingers. Everything worked. My head felt like someone stood playing
The Anvil Chorus
on a glockenspiel near my brain, but I managed to push myself to a sitting position. Where were my clothes? A hospital gown barely covered me. I felt the lanyard Kane had braided for me around my neck. At least I hadn’t lost that.

I reached for a glass of water on a bedside table, sucked great gulps through a straw, and began to think about my situation. I saw no bloodstains. Why the hospital? Did headaches require hospitalization? I couldn’t feel any other injuries. Mother. Cherie. Had something happened to them in Colorado? Then snips of memory wafted in and out of my muddled head.

Diego! Dead! Why? How? When? Reporter-like queries floated in my mind, but I found no answers. My head whirled and I felt icy cold when a nurse opened the door and entered the room. Smiling lips. Friendly blue eyes. I imagined MISS EFFICIENCY typed on her badge.

“And how are we feeling this morning?” she chirped.

I didn’t know how she felt, but I felt rotten. Before I could reply I heard Kane’s voice in the hallway outside my room.

“Rafa Blue,” he said. “Rafa Blue. That’s her name. I know she’s in there. I need to talk to her. I have to talk to her! Tell her Kane’s here.”

“You have a friend named Kane?” Miss Efficiency asked me, smiling.

“My boyfriend. May he come in? Please?” I tried to scoot from the bed, but she shook her head at me and stepped closer, pushing gently against my shoulders as she eased me farther back onto the mattress and against the wafer-thin pillow.

“No company yet, Rafa. I need to take your vitals and make out a chart for you. Then the doctor will want to see you. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. I want to go home, please. Kane will drive me. I’m sure he’s come to get me. Our friend, Diego Casterano died last night. A terrible accident. I need to talk to Kane.”

The nurse smiled but said nothing more to me while she placed the blood pressure cuff around my upper arm and began squeezing the bulb. I squelched my questions while she recorded figures on a chart, checked my temp with a gadget she stuck into my ear, and then took my pulse.

Grim scenes from last night replayed through my mind. What had happened to Diego? He’d grown up in Cuba with the sea for a back yard. He knew how to handle himself around water. Why had he been swimming during last night’s storm? I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to blot out the image of his dark hair tangled in the anchor line—and his eyes. I knew I’d never forget those unseeing eyes. And how had his hair become caught in that anchor line? Had there been a problem with someone’s boat? A problem Diego felt he needed to deal with during a storm?

Someone banged on the door.

“Rafa?” Kane’s voice wore hammer and tongs—a hammer eager to pound his way to my bedside, tongs ready to yank me from the hospital. “Rafa Blue? Rafa, are you in there?”

“Yes.” I drew a breath to say more, but the nurse hushed me and strode to the door.

“Sir, I have orders that Miss Blue is to speak to nobody until the doctor sees her—and after that, the police. If you can’t sit and wait quietly, I’ll call Security to escort you from the building.”

“Yes, your highness.” Kane’s voice dripped sarcasm, but if the nurse noticed, she ignored it. I heard a chair scrape against tile and guessed Kane conformed to her orders. Miss Efficiency left the room, closing the door behind her. I half expected, half hoped, Kane would come barging in, ignoring her orders. But he didn’t.

I knew I’d have to talk with a doctor before I could leave the hospital, but the police? Why the police? I hadn’t considered talking to them. As a TV viewer addicted to crime shows, I should have guessed the local authorities would want to question me. But surely Diego’s death had been an accident. I refused to visualize the police hanging crime scene tape on a marina catwalk. An unexplained death usually called for crime scene tape until the police understood the cause of the death, until the medical examiner finished making his call, until photographers took all the pictures they needed. I couldn’t imagine Diego’s death as anything but accidental. Yet who knows what might have happened during or after the Fantasy Fest parade? Unless a person was in a celebratory mood, home offered the best place to hang out during the annual Halloween celebration.

A rap on the door announced the doctor’s visit. I took another sip of water and hoped I’d be able to answer his questions quickly and to his satisfaction. He ducked his head when he entered the room—a mannerism many tall people acquire to avoid bumps on the skull.

“I’m Dr. Mathis.” His voice, soft and low, projected a soothing quality that helped put me at ease. “Rafa Blue, right?”

“Right.”

Neither of us spoke again until he finished perusing my chart the nurse left for him.

“Blood pressure normal. No temperature. Breathing normal.” He laid the chart aside and smiled. “Are you experiencing any pain?”

“No,” I lied, hoping he couldn’t see my head throbbing, hoping he wouldn’t ask me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. “I feel fine and I’d like to go home, please.”

His smile broadened. “Under the circumstances, the nurse will bring some insurance papers for you to sign so you won’t have to stop at the main desk. Once the papers have been approved, you’ll be almost free to go.”

Almost? I squelched the word from my vocabulary. “Thank you, doctor.” Under the circumstances? What did that mean? What circumstances? I began to slide from the bed before he left the room, closing the door behind himself. I took cautious steps toward a tiny closet, then stopped. Where were my clothes? Instinctively I pulled the hospital gown closer around my rear end. Who found me nude at the marina? How could I leave this hospital with no clothes? Jumpsuit? Slicker? Where were they? Before I could push the call button to summon the nurse, she entered the room.

“Will you please read and sign these forms? We’ll need your insurance numbers, too.”

My heart sank. More delay. “My insurance cards are in my billfold and I left my billfold in my jumpsuit. I’ve no idea where it is now. At the bottom of the sea, maybe.”

Kane stepped into the room unannounced. “I have her billfold. I have fresh clothes for her.” At first the nurse seemed startled, perhaps by his height, his shaggy blonde hair, his black tank top and jeans. She took a step back as if expecting an attack, and Kane, seizing on her hesitation, hurried toward me. We exchanged a long kiss before Miss Efficiency intervened.

“I unlocked your suite for Threnody. Figured she’d be better at deciding what you needed than I would. She packed this stuff for me to bring to you.” Before the nurse escorted him from the room, Kane thrust a plastic bag toward me. I sighed in relief when I saw fresh clothes and billfold, a makeup kit, and a hairbrush.

I perched on the edge of the bed to sign the papers, provide the insurance numbers. When the nurse retreated, I applied a bit of lip gloss. After tugging the hairbrush through my shoulder-length hair, I considered having it styled again in a pixie cut. But now was no time to be worrying about hair. I barely finished pulling on my jeans and tee when the nurse tapped on the door again.

“Chief Ramsey and Detective Lyon are waiting to talk with you, Miss Blue. An informal questioning, they say. May I show them in?”

Informal? Hah! But at least she had asked my permission before she admitted them. I knew police officers geared their questions in ways they hoped would help them catch criminals. They could say anything they pleased, ask any questions they pleased. When spouting questions, they never swore on a Bible to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I pulled myself to my full five feet eleven inches. Sometimes my height gave me an advantage—perhaps even with police, if the charge in question amounted to no more than some minor offense. I stood beside the bed and waited.

Short, fat, and bald, Chief Ramsey reminded me of the Pillsbury Doughboy. Detective Lyon met my eyes on a level, and his mane of tawny colored hair might have belonged to the king of beasts. I’d met both men last year when burglars hit The Blue Mermaid
three times in one week. Surely these officers remembered me. But if they did, they didn’t let on.

“Your name please?” Chief Ramsey asked.

“Rafa Blue.” I hoped they’d recognize my name as author of
Rafa’s Repartee
,
the biographical column I wrote for the
Citizen.
In addition to calling favorable attention to some of Key West’s talented underdogs, I wanted to make a name for myself as a writer. But no. These officers didn’t remember me. At least not today. If Chief Ramsey recognized my name, he didn’t let on.

“Address?”

“The Blue Mermaid Hotel on Whitehead. Penthouse Suite No. Three.”

“Your family lives there, too?”

“Yes.”

“Are they in residence at this time?”

“No.”

“Where are they?”

“My mother and sister are vacationing in Colorado.”

“Do you have an address and phone number where they can be reached?”

“The Hand Hotel, Fairplay, Colorado. I don’t have their phone number with me. It’s on a pad in my suite at The Blue Mermaid.”

“Do you plan to make the hotel your permanent residence?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“How long is permanent?” What did this man expect to find out from me?

“I’ve heard a rumor that you’re planning a new venture. Are you willing to share that with me?”

“No.” It is okay to say no to the police, isn’t it?

“Your new venture, Ma’am? A novel, perhaps?”

“No comment.” So he
did
recognize my name as a writer. Since graduating from Vassar, I had a burning desire to write a novel. I planned to use my newspaper experiences as the basis for a book. In fact I’d already made an outline for a novel. I hoped to begin on chapter one soon, but I couldn’t see that as an important bit of knowledge necessary to the police.

I wondered who tipped Ramsey off about my planning a new venture. I couldn’t remember talking about it to anyone except Kane, or maybe Threnody, one of my few close friends. Ramsey would probably laugh out loud if he knew Kane had given me a three-hundred page book with blank pages along with his instructions to fill those pages with a New York Times best seller.

I intended to say no more to Ramsey about my future career plans, and I wished he’d change the subject. Why tell either of these men I was sick of living in my sister’s shadow? If my book venture bombed, no one would be the wiser—if I kept my mouth shut about it now. Surely my writing career had no bearing on Diego’s death.

I wondered. Had either Ramsey or Lion ever embarked on a venture that failed?

“Did you know Diego Casterano?” Chief Ramsey asked.

Chapter 3

Ramsey’s last question startled me into silence. But I felt more than ready to change the subject.

“Yes, I knew Diego.”

“You were friends?”

“Yes, Diego and I were friends.”

“How close was your friendship?” Chief Ramsey cleared his throat and looked me in the eye—not easy with his head 5 or 6 inches below mine. Detective Lyon stared out the window.

I resented the chief’s insinuation. “I knew Diego as a family friend. My mother, my sister, and I—all three of us admired and respected Diego as did my father when he was living.”

“When the ambulance crew rescued you, your manner of garb indicated that you and Diego may have experienced a relationship closer than that of the rest of your family.”

For a moment I said nothing, not wanting to protest too much or too little. “Diego and I were nothing more than good friends. I admired him because I’m for the underdogs in society—talented people who have worked hard to be noticed, or perhaps who still have that work ahead of them. A Cuban refugee, Diego came to Key West with empty pockets. He worked up to a position as chief dock master at Brick Vexton’s marina. He won the regard of Keys’ citizens who elected him to a position on the board of Monroe County Commissioners. I’m proud to claim Diego as a close family friend. I looked forward to writing about him as the subject of one of my columns in the near future.”

I knew I’d said too much, yet I didn’t know what I’d withdraw, had I been given the chance.

“That was the total extent of your relationship? A family friend? An interesting subject for your newspaper column?”

“Right. I’m a history buff, and Diego’s story reaches beyond his life and into Cuban history. His son, Pablo, sometimes plays drums or string bass in the combo that performs in The Frangipani Room at The Blue Mermaid. Our family always enjoyed having Diego drop around after work to watch the action, to enjoy a sandwich and a drink, and to listen to the music.”