Gumbo Limbo (7 page)
A moment of hope, and sanity.
I folded the Publix bag and wedged my set of prints and the negatives into my back pocket. I never gave up negs. The county and city both had histories of damage and loss. The original “no recourse” scenario: no one ever took the blame.
I turned to walk back. Chicken Neck Liska had gone. I hadn’t
heard his car leave. Teresa and Marnie stood under the AMBULANCE canopy. Teresa wore a dark silk blouse and a straight white knee-length skirt. She held a felt-tip pen crosswise in her mouth as she looked for something in her purse. She glanced up to see me walking toward her and did something with her tongue to angle the pen differently. It stuck straight out, pointed directly at me. She slowly pursed her lips, removed the pen, and began to write herself a note.
heard his car leave. Teresa and Marnie stood under the AMBULANCE canopy. Teresa wore a dark silk blouse and a straight white knee-length skirt. She held a felt-tip pen crosswise in her mouth as she looked for something in her purse. She glanced up to see me walking toward her and did something with her tongue to angle the pen differently. It stuck straight out, pointed directly at me. She slowly pursed her lips, removed the pen, and began to write herself a note.
Marnie held a legal pad and a small tape recorder. She looked disheveled, rough around the edges. “Detective Liska had to leave. Understand you know the wounded woman.”
Marnie had witnessed my nightmare earlier in the year, the violent deaths of my friends.
“I met the woman last night.”
Teresa Barga winced. Too late, I understood why. By the time she’d left the message on the machine, saying she wanted company, I’d already found company.
“Anything about her you’d want to share with me and my readers?”
Yes. If Abby Womack had been a target, someone must have followed her from my house. “Can we leave the readers out of this? I was not a witness. I have no idea why it happened.”
“It’s just that I’m on the clock, and there’s this incident. My asshole boss is going to want something besides a blank page. Does it have something to do with what you told Sam and me last night?”
I looked directly at Teresa. A hundred questions in her eyes. I looked back at Marnie. She’d put herself close to blowing a confidence. I’d never seen her this far out of tune.
“What I told you and Sam last night was … that I wanted to buy two new cameras. How could that have anything to do with a wounded woman?”
Marnie caught the wave. “Yeah. You shoot pictures, not people.”
Good answer. I looked back at Teresa. A thousand questions in her eyes.
I
spent thirty-five cents to drop a dime just inside the emergency room door. Someone had scratched HELP! in the painted surface of the pay phone. The place smelled of something other than cleanliness. When I fumbled for coins, the pocket jingle prompted the shirtless ace of spades to turn his head. Focusfixed. The leer of a hungry wolf. One drooping eyelid, Pavlovian spittle slo-mo down the chin. I noted that the TURD tattoo on his arm had once read TORO. I assumed that fellow inmates had customized the lettering. Ballpoint pens and shank punctures. I hoped that his treatment wasn’t being delayed until his insurance claim cleared.
spent thirty-five cents to drop a dime just inside the emergency room door. Someone had scratched HELP! in the painted surface of the pay phone. The place smelled of something other than cleanliness. When I fumbled for coins, the pocket jingle prompted the shirtless ace of spades to turn his head. Focusfixed. The leer of a hungry wolf. One drooping eyelid, Pavlovian spittle slo-mo down the chin. I noted that the TURD tattoo on his arm had once read TORO. I assumed that fellow inmates had customized the lettering. Ballpoint pens and shank punctures. I hoped that his treatment wasn’t being delayed until his insurance claim cleared.
One message at the house: Claire Cahill, looking for “any news, even bad.” Resignation in her words—with a few rays of sunlight, wisps of hope, under the cloud cover. A friend in need of a friend. Once more I envisioned myself stumbling over wording, cursing the fact that I couldn’t talk to her in person. I decided, for the moment, not to pass along bad news.
I dialed Dr. Larry Riley, Monroe County’s medical examiner. I couldn’t call Larry a confidant, but he understood my quasi-official nosiness. We shared similar views regarding good guys and bad guys. He’d completed his prelim autopsy of Omar “Joe Blow” Boudreau. He didn’t have time to discuss it and wasn’t sure he wanted to. We agreed to meet for lunch the next day.
One more call: to Sam Wheeler’s answering machine. I said, “If you get this call before cocktail hour, let’s try again for beers at Louie’s. The plot fattens.”
I quit the phone and stepped wide around El Turd to approach the glass-enclosed duty nurse. Into the maw: two hundred pounds of bad bureaucratic hassle. Her face locked into the frown of a born combatant. A tiny name tag atop the bosom expanse: LADENE SUMTER. I knew she wanted to wait at least sixty seconds before acknowledging me. She got bored and broke down after a half minute.
“Help ya?” More challenge than offer.
“I wanted to check on the shooting victim’s condition.”
My concern launched a fresh pissoff. “You family?”
“Nope.”
Scowling: “Roommate?”
“No.” I pulled out my wallet.
“I can’t give out—”
I showed her my city ID card.
More pissed, now. I’d dealt Ms. Sumter the worst fate, loss of power. I felt no compulsion to tell her that, in spite of my ID, the law didn’t allow her to divulge any information at all. She thumbed a stack of file pockets. “You know her identity?”
These folks would beat you to death with jargon.
I fought back: “Don’t even know her domicile.”
What had I just said? It made sense that Abby hadn’t carried identification on her bike ride, but I couldn’t recall a wallet or purse at Louie’s or in the cab. For that matter, I couldn’t recall her having a cellular telephone. No purse, no phone, and, the previous evening, no mention of her hotel.
For now, though, in the hospital, better she remain anonymous. No reason to make it easier for her attacker to locate her and finish the job.
Ladene Sumter’s slow, deliberate manner said I’d have to suffer stupidity or hostility, whichever she felt best suited the
moment. She located the file. “Condition ‘fair’ is all it says.”
moment. She located the file. “Condition ‘fair’ is all it says.”
“Thank you, ma‘am.” I ran for my life.
Marnie and Teresa still stood outside under the canopy. I hoped Marnie wouldn’t push me again to reveal Abby’s name. She didn’t ask, perhaps more concerned about going home for a nap than collecting details for the
Citizen.
She mumbled something about Liska brown-nosing the press for the duration of his upcoming election campaign, promising to tell her every little thing he learned. She bid good-bye, then almost stepped in front of a slowly moving Monroe County patrol car. She glared at the deputy, blaming him for her misstep, and hurried to her Jeep.
Citizen.
She mumbled something about Liska brown-nosing the press for the duration of his upcoming election campaign, promising to tell her every little thing he learned. She bid good-bye, then almost stepped in front of a slowly moving Monroe County patrol car. She glared at the deputy, blaming him for her misstep, and hurried to her Jeep.
The uniformed officer, a ten-year man named Sweet, parked in an official spot next to the canopy. He recognized me and asked if I knew anyone who might want to buy four Canon lenses and a hundred-dollar tripod. I didn’t. He’d been assigned to guard Trauma Room 7.
“The city pass jurisdiction?” I said.
“No way we’d take it. They got their messes, we got ours. Course, heavy ones, sure as shit, the sheriff’ll put his claim on the sucker, get the job done right. This one, the hospital’s in the county. Any deal on the premises is ours. Short-term preventive, all that happy malarkey. We keep this place clean. The investigation still belongs to the disco fruit.”
The campaign was under way with a vengeance. With job preservation foremost, deputies rarely chanced favoring their bosses’ opponents. Deputy Sweet sauntered into the hospital, a rolled-up copy of
Southern Boating
in his rear pocket. Little something to pass the hours of tight surveillance.
Southern Boating
in his rear pocket. Little something to pass the hours of tight surveillance.
Teresa Barga offered to spring for lunch. I suggested B.O.’s Fish Wagon, an open-air place on Caroline where the eats were always fresh. Her lunch, my breakfast. We walked side-by-side to her cop-blatant Taurus, and she used her cell phone to cancel another luncheon date. My guilty conscience played with my
head. Or else she actually made a point of not letting me walk behind her.
head. Or else she actually made a point of not letting me walk behind her.
We got into the car. “Liska’s abrupt departure,” I said. “Any …?”
“He’s been pissed all day. It started this morning at the office, a call came through for him. He said, ‘What a crock,’ about six times, hung up and said, ‘A fifry percent whack for hurry-up. Now they’re illegal. My printer’s working for the other side.’ Marnie just told me he was talking about election posters.” She started the car and drove out the Emergency Services access road. “The dirty tricks begin. I thought all that bullshit stopped in the seventies.”
I said, “If election zingers ever stopped, Monroe County would lose its flavor. You should know that if you grew up here.”
“What makes you think I grew up here?”
I should have wondered about her not having a Conch accent. “I heard you were related to Paulie Cottrell. If you didn’t grow up here, how do you know about the seventies?”
She tightened her jaw, began to breathe through her nose, firmed her eyes on the road ahead. I had crossed an unseen line. I envisioned her testing the “tilt” function of her patience, counting to ten. We rode North Roosevelt in silence, We passed the bus stop where Abby Womack had been shot. One six-foot clear plastic panel was missing. Someone had ripped down the yellow “police line” tape. Three people stood in the small shelter, out of the wind. The police department’s white Econoline Crime Scene Unit was parked across the street at the Pizza Hut. No officers in sight.
Teresa had had time to count to fifty.
“You didn’t finish telling me why Liska left the hospital.”
“He was talking with your friend Marnie, watching you chat with the man over by that ratty car. He was mad because the doctors had put what he called ‘an apothecary’ into the woman, put her into La-La Land before he could interview her. Then his
cell phone rang. He slid it out of his pocket like Mr. Cool palming a cash roll. Snapped it open like hotshots used to do with Zippos.”
cell phone rang. He slid it out of his pocket like Mr. Cool palming a cash roll. Snapped it open like hotshots used to do with Zippos.”
She’d spent time with American Movie Classics.
“Sometimes he carries it in his holster,” I said.
“Anyway, he said, ‘Oh, fuck,’ four times, snapped his phone shut, slammed his hand against his car roof—I mean, hard enough to warp it—and he drove away. Marnie made a call to the city. What that deputy just said about heavy cases? The sheriff claimed jurisdiction on the Boudreau investigation.”
Zack Cahill’s problems had ratcheted ten notches higher.
Teresa stared through the windshield, waited for the light near the Key West Yacht Club. She began to talk in a tone she hadn’t used when discussing police business. On the day she graduated from high school in Red Bank, New Jersey, her mother, Estelle Barga, had flown from Newark to Vegas to obtain a divorce from her natural father. Then Estelle had gone directly to Key West to indulge herself in sunshine and rum and Coca-Cola. She’d met Paulie Cottrell on the airplane down from Miami. Four months later, during a hurricane alert on a Saturday morning, Estelle and Paulie were married on the Casa Marina Beach.
“So you came for the wedding?”
“And I visited Mother four or five times after the wedding. I flew down for short trips. Then I applied to get on with the police department.”
She knew the town had a “fascinating history.” She had heard stories from Paulie Cottrell and his political friends with the weird nicknames. Names like Coochie and Little Dick and Water Pickle.
“So now you’ll be part of the town’s history.”
She winced, not sure whether to be happy about the idea.
The morning storm had blown over. Monotone clouds remained. Broken sidewalks, weathered buildings and cars,
chipped and faded business signs, rusted trash cans, all normally forgiven their tawdry appearance and called “funky” in bright sunlight under a cyan sky, were simply ugly in the blue-gray light. I fought to keep the weather from slam-dunking my frame of mind. I wanted my lunch date to go well.
chipped and faded business signs, rusted trash cans, all normally forgiven their tawdry appearance and called “funky” in bright sunlight under a cyan sky, were simply ugly in the blue-gray light. I fought to keep the weather from slam-dunking my frame of mind. I wanted my lunch date to go well.
I also wanted to sit in the open at B.O.’s Fish Wagon. If the sun came out, it might replenish my energy. Teresa argued it was too hot to eat outside in the first place. I offered to go to another restaurant, but she selected a table in the shade. My seat gave me a clear view of the Taurus parked next to the Red Doors Inn. I’d left the prints and negatives under the front seat and wanted to be sure they didn’t vanish. We shared a plastic-sleeved menu, picked at our damp clothing, played bump-knee, and ordered mahi-mahi sandwiches, aka dolphin. Restaurant owners, years ago, opted for the fish’s Hawaiian name so customers would think the dish more exotic and not accuse chefs of serving Flipper fillets. A Rolling Stones song on an invisible stereo lauded emotional rescue. Rock and roll again provided an accurate sound track for my life.
Teresa studied my face. “You’ve got the worry wrinkles of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old man. This lady you met last night almost took a bullet through her face. I hope her luck didn’t rub off on you.”
I couldn’t imagine how to explain Abby. “Nothing of hers rubbed off on me,” I said. “But there’s another problem.”
“I heard. A fingerprint on a murder weapon?”
“His worst previous offense was over-celebrating a Chicago Cubs doubleheader sweep. He wore a team ball cap to the arraignment hearing. The judge dismissed the charges.”
“When’s the last time a case got solved by one perfect print?”
“I have no idea.”
Teresa regarded me as the dumbest frog in the pond. “First off, they’re rarely perfect. But this print is too thin. It reeks of third-generation imagery. A copy of a copy of an actual print.”
“A setup.”
“Or a complicated cover to indicate a setup.”
“He’s not a murderer.”
She eased off. “I’m sure you’re right. I was extrapolating out to the worst possible case. Did Liska identify him as a genuine suspect?”
“He said a lot of people wanted to talk to Zack.”
“See?”
She wanted to win, so I clammed up. After a few moments of silence I said, “You called me last night.”
“I hate to drink alone.”
“Lonely becomes lonelier?”
She flipped her hair to one side of her face. Her eyes locked on mine as if she were about to accuse me of something. Then they softened. “Lonely has too much to drink and picks up strangers. A bad habit from college, at least in my first two years. I could do just as well playing Russian roulette with half the chambers loaded.”
“My being there would keep you from drinking too much?”
She smiled and weighed her response. “I don’t drink that much anymore. But you would keep me from knowing I’m lonely.”
“So you’d still be lonely, but I’d distract you. My being there wouldn’t change your basic problem.”
She looked surprised, then pensive. She put her hand on mine. “I didn’t mean that to sound like it did.”
The breeze rustled the thin dark hair on her forearm. Suddenly I felt less alone, too. I regarded her face. She looked away. “Well, I didn’t mean to come on so harsh. If Lonely needs a hand to hold …”
She stared at the table and didn’t answer. I looked around the restaurant. Our waitress rolled flatware into paper napkins. A total of six people sat at two other tables. A note on a huge chalkboard said, THE NEXT PERSON TO BITCH ABOUT THE
WEATHER BUYS A ROUND OF CHEER. I took a sip of my iced tea and called to the chef: “Nasty damn storm this morning, Buddy. I can’t wait for this shit to stop. How about you?”
WEATHER BUYS A ROUND OF CHEER. I took a sip of my iced tea and called to the chef: “Nasty damn storm this morning, Buddy. I can’t wait for this shit to stop. How about you?”
I got an Amstel Light, Teresa held with her tea, and the whole round cost me only eighteen dollars. I probably would get an extra-large portion, as well.
“Last night,” I said, “did you call once or twice?”
“Once. Why?”
“I had two calls. Yours and a hang-up.”
She waved her hand as if to shoo a bug. The bracelets on her arm rattled together. “I’m too old to play phone games.”
“I wasn’t accusing. Did you make it out to the bars?”
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