Octopus Alibi (18 page)

“Bad habit of mine.”

He opened the driver’s side door. “You mind if I call the funeral home?”

“Just those words tell me you’re as brave as any cop in town, doctor. Her cremation’s been delayed. You have carte blanche.”

“Does the county medical examiner know your feelings?”

“He complained about a busy schedule.”

“Tell me about it.” He tossed his towel onto the far seat.

I rode away to give him room to back out.

*   *   *

Duffy Lee Hall’s station wagon was gone, but he had hung a Publix bag on his front door. Inside it I found a packet of prints, a hand-written invoice, and the split-open disposable camera.

Funny guy. His invoice said, “For services rendered. U Owe Me.”

Someone near Frances and Angela had Iron Butterfly cranked to top volume. On another day, thump rock before nine
A.M.
would have pissed me off. I had reached the point where nothing fazed me. I was beyond blaming fatigue and last night’s wine. I had become the problem, and had slipped into moral mud. I had rapped Bobbi Lewis for taking days off, while I hurried my errands so I could catch a plane.

Marnie Dunwoody’s Jeep was in front of my house. She was in the living room, dressed for the funeral, studying a newspaper on my coffee table. She didn’t look up when I came in.

I said, “Your right rear tire looks low.”

“Sam told me it had a slow leak. He said it needed to get plugged. I told him I did, too, but he left town.” She looked up at me, tried to crack a smile, and burst into tears.

I gave her a minute, then said, “Everything okay with you two?”

“If there’s a problem, it’s mine. I knew what I was getting into, and I never got jealous of the time he spent fishing. It’s this new stuff I don’t like. I worry like a sonofabitch.”

More tears.

Marnie had been priming herself for the service. She had been reading a spread in the
Citizen
’s Paradise section, a tribute to the Steve Gomez years. She had worked herself up. No words would comfort her.

I told her I needed to take a shower.

“Take your time.” Tears dripped onto her cheek. “We’ve got an hour to spare. I went buggy at my house, and I guess I did here, too. I don’t usually weep for an audience.”

“Have at it,” I said. “I’ll be ready in twenty.”

16

I
PRAYED IN THE
shower, asked that the minister not open Steve Gomez’s funeral to speeches about the deceased. We each grieve in ways that suit us, but a menacing few want the rest of us to validate their sadness. They think that talking longer means they’re more sincere. They chat themselves to a dither, forget the gist, run their thought trains off the track. By the time they stop, half the church wants them in the casket, too. Not only would I miss my noon flight, but after ten minutes of blabber I might go for a throat.

After I shaved and dressed, Marnie wanted to show me the Gomez pages in the
Citizen
. She had helped pick the photos and editorial slugs. I wasn’t interested, but leaned to look, to help lift her funk. I had seen most of the pictures when the newspaper first printed them. I recognized one of Gomez speaking in a school classroom, one when he posed with the Prime Minister of the Bahamas. I had never seen the group wedding shot, when he stood with six couples on White Street Pier.

In one shot new to me, he spoke to a crowd from behind a tall lectern. From the crowd’s point of view, the mayor wore a coat, dress shirt, and tie. The camera angle showed us that he also wore shorts and sneakers. In another, Gomez was on Mangia, Mangia’s patio with two men and a woman. Wine bottles and glasses filled the table. I took a closer look. The three other people were former Key West mayors. All four were smiling, pointing steak knives at the camera. Captain Tony smirked. He wasn’t holding a steak knife. Someone in the kitchen must have slipped him a ten-inch filleting blade.

Marnie tapped her fingernail. “Our island at its best. One photo is worth a thousand campaigns.”

The classic was taken after a city hall employee griped about a dirty rest room. Gomez agreed that the cleaning job was inadequate. He wrote a mayoral order to have it “redone.” Sure as hell, his note was misinterpreted. Ten thousand dollars later, he was asked to inspect the remodeled rest room. He turned a fiasco into a fiesta by announcing a “civic upgrade.” He invited the media and, grinning, snipped a bow on the toilet seat lid. His ribbon cutting made national news.

I sat in my rocker. “What have you learned about our fine city?”

Marnie leaned back and composed herself. “I checked recent filings and past agendas. Mainly, I asked clerks about upcoming proposals. I wanted to know where Steve’s vote might have made a difference. In current business, he was the hot seat for three things sure to split the votes. In each proposal, Steve was the wild card.”

“Any of them worth a murder?”

“Not to normal people,” she said. “But you know this island … One’s an old land deal that’s been bounced around for twenty-five years. I expect it’ll keep bouncing a few more. The other two have drawn the most debate. The BFD and the art museum.”

Locals had tagged a Mallory Square project “BFD,” for Big Fucking Dome. The idea was crazy, and Gomez had ridiculed it. Most locals were counting on his veto. Two commissioners had refused to “prejudge” the plan. Most of us had read their stand as a vote in favor. We suspected shady dealings.

I had attended the town meeting when a Seattle man had addressed the crowd. He had set up easels with blowups of antique photographs taken on the wharf. Opposite his history shuck were huge, elegant renderings of the proposed dome. Surrounding buildings were made to look large and distant, but Sunset Key and Christmas Tree Island were pulled close and resembled Tahiti.

“Don’t let bad weather kill your city’s potential,” he had bellowed. “Our all-weather dome will have multiscreen projection high on its west wall. Your tourists will see real sunsets on sunny days, filmed sunsets on rainy days. They will use our interactive kiosks to vote on the ten best sunsets of the past ten years. Your local craft vendors will never miss a day’s income. Who wouldn’t spend a couple bucks to see your performers, your first-rate folk artists, and not get wet? Tourists pay to see the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and the Golden Gate. Why shouldn’t Key West and all its citizens make a civic profit from nature?”

The crowd had booed for ten minutes. The commission agreed to delay action so the development group could gather last-minute impact data. The city attorney opined that data was irrelevant. Letters to the
Citizen
asked who was on the take. No one asked who, by name, had let such a bad idea come so close to approval. Marnie learned that a vote could come in the next two weeks. Gomez’s death, his lost vote, was a potential disaster.

The other issue was the approval of a Key West Art Museum. This one tweaked my mind. Naomi had chaired the planning group, had done much of the proposal prep work. I hadn’t spoken with her about it, but I had read articles in the paper, seen notes in the
Citizen
’s Voice section.

The group proposed that the city collect art that reflected its history and diversity. Three museum sites were offered, including a run-down ex–cigar maker’s shop and a brick Civil War–era munitions storage compound. A long list of grants and corporate supporters was offered. A thick book described older artists that might be collected: Granville Perkins, F. Townsend Morgan, photographers Frank Johnson, W. A. Johnson, and Henry J. Mitchell, the linocut artists, the Dudleys. The group stated that the city already had missed buying the early work of Vaughn Cochran, John Kiraly, A.D. Tinkham, Thom Szuter, Don Beeby, Suzy dePoo, Carolyn Fuller, and John Martini.

A great idea, but two commissioners didn’t get it. They wanted to put the money toward making tourists
really
happy. One dimwit had said, “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read that the county was turning Mt. Trashmore into a water sports park. I thought it was the greatest idea I had ever heard. To my dismay, I learned it was an April Fool’s joke. How did we miss turning the cemetery into the tourist attraction it deserves to be? Someone is running tours in there. We granted them a license to do it. That could have been our revenue, instead.”

The question boomed right to me. Why had Naomi died?

“I want to look into the art museum,” I said.

Marnie shook her head. “It’s not controversial. It’s nonprofit. Once the Arts Council offers a plan for location and parking, the museum will pass no matter who’s voting. And that old land deal, with the building moratoriums, nobody’s going near land deals, anyway.”

I knew the answer: “Which leaves?”

“I say his conscience ruled. He foresaw the Mallory Dome’s perpetual cash flow. Every dollar would leave this island. He was going to veto that dome, sure as hell.”

“How does that tie in to Naomi Douglas?”

“For all I know, it doesn’t. But it rings with everything I know about Steve Gomez.”

She had tossed me good argument.

I said, “I’ll buy in to your instinct, Ms. Reporter.”

“You are a wise man.”

I turned the page to another two-page spread. At upper left were reprints of Gomez’s letters to the paper. They had formed his platform for election, then his straight-talk, informal statements of city policy. I scanned one called
Protecting our Mental Environment
. He had written, “In 1983, when asked what had changed most on the island since his childhood, Ernest’s oldest son, Jack Hemingway, said that the island was greener, with more plants and trees. But old-timers tell me of another big change—the noise.” His letter had made suggestions for change, for noise laws. He had closed with the lines, “You think it’s loud now? How much louder would it be, if not for all the trees and shrubs that Jack Hemingway noticed?”

He had written about the homeless. “They may look like poop, but if they don’t have any on them, and don’t smell like urine, I can’t kick them off the sidewalks. We can’t arrest them any more than we can bust someone for wearing black socks with sandals. If they break our laws, that’s different. We will offer them lodging at city expense, after a fair trial, of course. It’s the price we pay for having a warm climate. We draw travelers from all over the world. We are a destination. We are Paradise with an open door. Hobos and street people? They are a cost of doing business.”

That letter showed his deep regard for both civil rights and private versus public good. It had earned him more flak than any other issue in recent years.

Gomez had left unfinished business, items that meant a lot to him. One more argument against suicide.

“Who runs the city now?” I said.

“The commission has two weeks to appoint a temporary mayor,” she said. “That person serves until they hold a special election. Only voters in the mayor’s district can vote.”

“So any issue where Gomez was swing vote is…”

“Up in the air,” said Marnie. “And we can’t see behind the scenes.”

I checked the photos on the next page. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I said, “What the fuck is this?”

Marnie looked at the page bottom, the two men with silly expressions. They waved bottles of Key West Lager.

“Maybe they’re promoting local beer,” she said. “I don’t recognize the guy next to Steve. The one in the background is that Polan dude.”

I tapped the face of the man next to Gomez. “This is Whit Randolph. He’s Teresa’s new buddy. I think you saw them lunching.”

“Ah, yes, I did,” she said. “Your interloper.”

“You use too sweet a word, my friend. He’s a fucknut.”

“He looks like one. Teresa’s attracted to this?”

“She claims they’re just old friends.”

“Can I ask why you like her?”

“Do you
not
like her?” I said.

“I didn’t say that. I just wondered what attracts you.”

“What am I supposed to say, her eyes?” I said. “She makes love like a madwoman? It’s not something I can spout off on short notice.”

“You’ve never told yourself why she’s special, why she’s the one who won your heart?”

“I’ve never needed to justify her to myself. I guess I rolled with it.”

“So you don’t have a ready list of attributes that turn you on? Like she got twelve check marks out of fifteen?”

“She excited me when I met her,” I said. “She lives her own life, helps to make my days more enjoyable. The one big fact is, she doesn’t wear me out. She’s not an energy drain. At least not until this week. Why do you ask?”

“Are you aware of the age difference?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“In what ways?”

“Two that I can think of. Women your age don’t like her, and half my record collection died before she was born. Who’s this Polan? I know the face, but…”

“Nice change of subject. Frank Polan was the guy from Cudjoe with the perfect yard on the bay.” Marnie caught herself, looked at me. “What am I saying? You were there.”

“That dock where the woman shot her brother last year? I forgot his name, but not his face.”

“I interviewed Mr. Polan later,” said Marnie. “He told me twenty times how happy he was that nobody had died on his dock. He said it was hard enough to scrub away bird shit, much less scrub blood. He’s a fussy man.”

“I leaned against his fancy car,” I said. “He was waxing smudges as we left.”

She looked at her watch. “Speaking of leaving, we need to go.”

I waved off her hurry. “We’ve got a half hour.”

“And I’m going to find a place to park? Alex, they’re burying the mayor. We’ll be lucky to find a seat in the church.”

“We’re walking?”

“Also, I’ve got a bad tire.”

17

M
ARNIE AND
I
STUCK
to the side of Fleming shaded by silver buttonwood and tall palms. Bougainvillea spilled over fences along the lumpy sidewalk, and yard gardens smelled of wet dirt and evaporating moisture. Except for bike riders and an idiot pack of mopeds, there was no traffic, but that was explained by the jam I saw at William Street, mourners in cars trying to get near the First Congregational. The clouds from earlier had blown away. The day had become one that every Keys resident dreams about. Steve Gomez was missing it.