Octopus Alibi (37 page)

“I don’t know where that came from,” I said. “But I just blasted Dex Hayes for not having an open mind.”

“Would you kill for big money?” she said.

“No, and neither would you. And I have to wonder about Artemio. For all these years he went after it through the courts, the legal process. He took it this far the right way. Would he risk screwing it now?”

“He might,” she said. “Where does an open mind come in?”

“You said this morning that Remigio Partners might have been formed using fake names, and the partners could’ve invested tainted cash. Maybe Borroto Brinas was the righteous side, and Remigio was the dark.”

Marnie gazed at the action beyond the crime-scene tape. Her expression showed defiance and pride in doing a fine job. “Am I getting closer to a good story, or farther away?”

“Your story is coming right to you.”

*   *   *

Trust the Green Parrot. My bike was right where I had left it. A crust of beer residue never hurt anyone. Before I unlocked it, I walked to Jeanna’s Deli, bought two bananas and a box of crackers, and asked for a damp napkin. I freed the Cannondale, wiped the seat clean, then coasted back down Whitehead to deliver food to Marnie.

“Sam called me back,” she said. “He’d contacted friends, told them what he wanted to find. One of the guides got right back to him. Marlow’s boat is docked at Oceanside.”

“Like I said, your story’s coming to you.”

“What happens now?” she said.

“I don’t know. He used his boat to get here, but he won’t use it to leave.”

*   *   *

Carmen heard me in the garage that I rented behind her house. Prepping my old Shelby Mustang for the road is a ten-minute process of wires, cables, switches, pressure checks, and airing out. I use it once or twice a month, and only for trips off the island.

“God, you look rough,” she said.

“I’ve had a disgusting week. You?”

“Do I have to apologize?” she said. “This year it’s been perfect.”

“A new gentleman friend?”

“No,” she said. “It’s my favorite week of the year, every year.”

“I’m listening.”

“My body is past its adjustments for Daylight Savings Time, so I’m not dinged out. Tourists are gone, so my town becomes my town again. The streets are calm, Publix isn’t a zoo, my plants know that summer’s coming, and mosquitoes are two weeks away. Everybody in town acts different, like they aren’t sure why, but they love this week, too. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy it. It’s pretty much a no-fuckin’-brainer.”

“Quaint.” I snapped the clips on my distributor cap.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know your thing with Teresa’s gone sour. I wish I could help.”

“Your mind is a steel trap. The name Remigio mean anything to you?”

“The trap’s a little rusty. I’ve seen that name, but I don’t know … How far back do I have to think?”

“You were a teenager,” I said.

“Like when I just started at the post office? My job then was sorting mail for the house-to-house carriers.”

“If any connection comes to mind…”

Carmen squeezed my arm. “I’ll let you know in person.”

The Shelby started on my second try, with six quick pumps on the gas pedal. It blew stinky smoke into Carmen’s yard, then ran fine. I backed out, locked up behind me.

As I reached the stop sign, it clicked. I backed up, shut it down, walked to my backyard. The neighbor’s springer spaniel yelped at me. I reached behind the pinewood shower enclosure. Sam had hung a Para-Companion, a small .45, on the hook. I checked out the safety, found seven rounds in its stubby magazine. I wrapped it in my ball cap, took a minute to swap secrets with the dog.

33

K
EY
W
EST IS PACKED
to the seawalls with people dodging their previous lives. It’s an okay place to hide from old lovers and the laws of other states, but the island gets dime-small when local cops are after you. Dexter Hayes would find Teresa quickly.

I hadn’t offered to join his search. She wasn’t in danger, or she’d have been shot alongside Randolph. She wasn’t in trouble, either. Hayes had made his “accomplice” remark for impact. All I could do was hope that her injuries were minor. A doctor would patch her up and detectives would browbeat her, to a point. The turmoil would be light duty, her solutions post-Rutledge, and they might let her keep her job. Wounds pull sympathy, and to people in law enforcement they signify paid dues.

There were two speed traps on Boca Chica. Seven maniacs were running fifteen over, tailgating, showing me they were slick, but they stabbed their brakes when they sighted the FHP Camaro. Two hundred yards along they were back to the gas pedals, lane hopping, inside passing. Then, a county cruiser on the shoulder. Another mass whoa, macho-merging for the Rockland Channel Bridge. The sun cooked the roof, forced heat to my
Gumbo Limbo
ball cap. Shelby Mustangs weren’t built with AC, but I didn’t live in South Florida for chilly winds. East of Shark Key, thin mist kicked off wave tops. An inshore chop darkened the grassy shallows and, to the south, sea and sky blended in cool pale gray.

I was cruising when I passed Baby’s Coffee at Bay Point. There was no way to drive and be along for the ride at the same time. For once, it was my game. I had a passenger, though. Naomi sat close, urged me to explore, told me that most things I did were right. She began to fade, but gave me a stingy smile and said I was going in the right direction.

A real estate sign on Sugarloaf yanked me back. I pictured a similar sign, soon to be on Grinnell. I hated the thought that Bramblett would sell, and Naomi’s home would go to strangers. But who was Ernest Bramblett if not a stranger? I wouldn’t be his drinking pal if he stuck around.

*   *   *

Bobbi Lewis had bemoaned the fact that Sam couldn’t take her fishing. On Wednesday she’d said, “Maybe I can find a place up the Keys to veg a few days.” On Thursday, speaking of Frank Polan, with his mesh pith helmet and a cell phone clipped to his bathing suit, I’d said, “It’s a lifestyle we all should hope for.” Lewis had said, “Maybe I could check into his hotel.” Cristina Alcroft, the gift shop owner, had described Lewis’s Friday attire. “Like she intended to spend the rest of the day out boating.”

Spanish Main is a straight one-mile shot from the Overseas Highway to the Straits of Florida. To the east is Kemp Channel, its constant changing colors. Across the land spit, fat and shallow as a hubcap, is Cudjoe Bay. Polan’s home on stilts faced northwest. His sunset views had to be worth a fortune. Under his house, I found a two-seat paddle pontoon, an electric bicycle, a new F-150 pickup, a Mercedes C-Class coupe, and an outdoor shower. Call it Club Polan: a dozen palm trees, kayaks on the boat ramp, a wooden dock, a jet ski on a floating mini-dock, a catamaran on twin slings.

No Celica. If Bobbi Lewis was there, she had caught a ride.

I wedged Sam’s Para-Companion into my belt, covered it with my shirt. On the second-level veranda, I stood ready, knocked on a sliding glass door. No one answered. I opened the door a crack and called inside. No response.

Out on Cudjoe Bay two sailboards ran crossing patterns. By the suits, one male, one female. By their moves, expert windsurfers. A flat-decked pontoon boat was anchored midbay. One of the boards stopped alongside it, and the woman tilted a beverage. I saw her in a new perspective, a new depth.

I went back to my car, stashed the pistol under the passenger seat, then snooped the outside shower. A blue mesh carryall hung from a teak post. Cute soaps, pink disposable razors, hair elastics. Bobbi Lewis on vacation.

Back on the high porch, the hammock looked perfect, but I would shut my eyes and go out like a light. I plopped my butt on a plastic chair, gave my brain a break, watched water sports. After ten minutes I got nosy in an Igloo cooler. Frank would’ve offered the beer, anyway. I could pay him back with a six-pack.

*   *   *

“You found the missing deputy, Rutledge. You win the prize. You get to trade jobs.” She looked great, dripping wet, a blush of sun on her face.

“I’m leaning more toward basket weaving.” I stood on the dock, watched them off-load the pontoon boat. Polan, as advertised, in his Speedo, rubber Birkenstocks, and pith helmet. Finally Lewis took a breather. She came over to beg a sip from my beer.

“You’re sharp on the sailboard,” I said.

“You’ve got nice legs.”

“Where the hell did that come from?”

“Many years ago, I was an instructor,” she said. “Off the deck at Louie’s, when the restaurant was closed those couple of years.”

“I probably have pictures of you.”

“I’ll buy them all.” She laughed to herself, gazed across the water.

“Good day off?”

“Rutledge, I was ready to start my vacation on Tuesday. Way too ready, two days too early. I got drunk at the Turtle Kraals. Someone gave me a ride home, I don’t even know who. I woke up Wednesday at ten, fully clothed, thank goodness, and got a cab to my car. I shouldn’t have waited to call the office.”

“Still slurring your speech?”

“I could barely hold down dry toast and Clamato.”

“Punishment?”

“You.” She stared, bored holes to the back of my skull. “I got sent to the airport, detailed to follow up your Naomi suspicions.”

I had thought she’d been pensive. She’d been queasy.

“You had a broken heart and a hangover?”

She bit her lip and looked back at the pontoon boat. “You make it sound too majestic. I was too hung over that day to feel any emotion. But yes, the broken heart has eaten up my last seventy-two hours.”

“I got it from Teresa that the deputies are looking for you. She mentioned Internal Affairs.”

Lewis shrugged and shook her head. “I’m a good cop, Rutledge. I did my years in a road cruiser, stood up to idiots. No black marks. I got promoted, stayed clean. I write the best scene summaries in the department. My case rate is always top-three. All I’ve ever wanted to do was keep doing what I did. I would do it for free, if I didn’t have a mortgage. Now all this, but it’s out of my control. In the end, they’re going to fuck with me or they’re not.”

“Someone shot Randolph ninety minutes ago. In his car, on Whitehead.”

“They’re going to fuck with me less,” she said.

“First they have to find out that you couldn’t have done it.” I pointed at the magenta skin on her chest. “That sunburn is your best alibi.”

“You want to see the merchandise, just ask. They’re nipples and boobs, like a hundred million other women in the lower forty-eight. I’ll peel down and we can have it settled.”

“I would’ve thought you’d be more relaxed, after all that exercise.”

“I needed this, so I got it while I could. I knew they’d suspect me sooner or later. You didn’t answer my question.”

“If you’re aching to show off, I won’t look away. Or we could take a rain check, maybe ramp down the tension.”

“Good idea.” Lewis smiled a moment, then went back to being serious. “Wednesday night, you were leaving Naomi’s?”

Polan called down from his open porch. “Can I offer you two a nice Pinot Grigio?”

We said yes, to get rid of him.

“Stay on those concrete circles,” he said. “Don’t walk on the pea rock.”

We said okay. He disappeared again.

I said, “Wednesday night?”

“I brought in two friends,” said Lewis. “They work for Larry Riley. We found evidence of cleaned-up blood in the hallway.”

“You kept it a secret?”

She twisted my arm to read my watch. “I can phone Tampa for results in twenty minutes. My bet says the blood matches Gomez.”

“He was killed in her house, and she was killed to eliminate a witness?”

“Too easy. I have it the other way around. She called him for some kind of help. He was injured when he got there. She died first. He may have died there or somewhere else.”

“Do you even have to call Tampa?” I said.

She shook her head. “You think Randolph killed them?”

“I had him for it until Monty told us about that grifter profile. That bit about their victims always being other con artists.”

She walked to the shower, peeled down her bikini bottom. She turned, dared me to comment, then unhooked her top and hung it on a hook. She swung the door shut and latched it.

“Great,” said Polan. He stood next to me, holding two plastic wineglasses. He looked stricken. He knew the show hadn’t been for him. His deal was growing wings. “I wasn’t really attracted to her in the first place.”

I asked if I could use his phone.

“You like my bay view?”

“Pretty as a Hawaiian shirt.”

“The phone’s upstairs. Don’t walk in my kitchen with wet shoes.”

I called Sam’s home and dock. No answer, twice.

I dialed Marnie’s cell phone. She said, “No one’s found Odin Marlow, but they’re looking for a dune buggy stolen from Oceanside. A mate from one of the yachts left his keys on the floor mat.”

I thanked her and dialed my answering service. Two messages.

Ernest Bramblett said, “Please call.” He gave me Naomi’s number, one of the few I had memorized. No hurry there.

Carmen Sosa: “That name, Remigio? My daddy says it rings a bell, and my mother might know. She went to Winn-Dixie for rice pudding and frozen arroz con pollo. Can you believe frozen? She’ll be home soon, so call me back.”

Bobbi Lewis came upstairs in shorts and a baggy T, toweling her hair.

“You want to go into town?” I said. “Resume your vacation tomorrow?”

“What makes you think there’s anything I need to do?”

“My clues from eight directions at once.”

She said, “You’re going to explain, right?”

I strung the tale of Marlow’s history on the Key West police force, his Borroto Brinas security job, his job in Broward, and his false-identity scam. “Sam pegged the scam, and we ran smack into an FDLE sting. Marlow got spooked on Friday, so the sting deflated. But that day’s
Herald
tipped him to the link between Borroto Brinas and the mayor’s murder. Marlow got a new agenda. Now he’s a fugitive and his boat’s parked at Oceanside.”

“You lost me on the agenda,” she said.

“A corporation called Remigio Partners invested dirty money in Borroto Brinas and wound up with forty-four percent of the Key West condo project. If the principals used dirty money, why not dirty tactics, like murder? It’s my guess that Marlow knew about Remigio when he was here in Key West.”