Vampire Slayer Murdered in Key West - Mick Murphy Short Stories (13 page)

• • •

I should have called Richard or Sheriff Pearlman, but I didn’t. I went back to
Fenian Bastard
, Googled the hospital and printed out pages of information on it, including a list of its medical staff. Focusing on the medical staff was a long shot, but so was going to see Bob, and I was parlaying my hunches. In the big city you would’ve called the small hospital a clinic, but not in the Everglades.

Padre Thomas found me eating a fish sandwich for dinner at Schooner Wharf Bar. I was alone in the bar’s mezzanine poolroom going over the information about the hospital, when he walked in.

“Time is running out, Mick,” he said as greeting.

“Time for what, Padre?”

“To stop the evil.” He sat down and lit a cigarette. “To beat the devil.”

“It’s a slow process,” I said and shook the paperwork at him. “But it is moving forward.”

“Are those Tracy’s notes?” He exhaled smoke through his nose.

“No,” I said. “How would I get Tracy’s notes?”

“I thought you went to her house.”

His words surprised me. “You know where she stayed?”

“Yes.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “I contacted her when she first arrived.”

The day was full of surprises and all of them good.

“How . . .” I didn’t finish because his look told me I knew how, even if I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t like to admit belief in his angels, but sometimes there was no other explanation. “Is it in Old Town?”

“A couple of blocks down by the cemetery.” He lit another cigarette.

“She was watching the cemetery?” I left money for my dinner under the ashtray.

“No,” he groaned. “She wasn’t interested in the dead, she cared about the living. You don’t believe in vampires, do you?”

We walked to my Jeep. “I believe in everything, Padre,” I said. “Sometimes, even your angels.”

• • •

Tracy’s rental house was on Angela Street, across from the Key West Cemetery, as Padre Thomas said. It was an old two-bedroom, one bath, cigar cottage like so many others on the island that were constructed by ship builders for cigar factory rollers at the turn of the twentieth-century. Some have withstood the tropical sun, hurricanes and termites for more than one-hundred years.

I used a credit card to slip the front door lock. Most people in the neighborhood didn’t bother with modern door locks.

The living room furniture looked as old as the house. The second bedroom was Tracy’s office and thick wooden planks served as her desk. Her laptop was still on and the screensaver flashed a selection of photos, some of Tracy smiling without a stake in her chest, and others of children that must have been her nieces and nephews.

“What are we looking for?” Padre Thomas asked from the doorway.

I sat at the table and hit the shift button. The screen came to life but I was disappointed because it held only a few file folders. I opened the folder that was labeled vampire, but it was her series from New York.

“We’ve gotta find her USB storage disk.” I looked around the table, other than reference books it was clean.

“Would she have had it with her? In a purse?” Padre Thomas stayed in the doorway.

“I don’t know, but she’d have a backup or two,” I said because I always kept backups, especially when I was away from home. “Somewhere in the house. If she was being cautious, she hid it.”

The only thing in the office closet was an opened carton of computer paper.

The bedroom was as sparse as the living room. An unmade bed, a small nightstand and bureau. I went through everything as thoroughly as I could but found no disk. Padre Thomas searched the tiny kitchen and I heard him moving pots and pans around.

I found nothing under the sofa pillows in the living room. A stack of paperback books, a few magazines, and a beer can cigarette lighter were on the coffee table. I checked each book, thinking she might have hollowed out one and hid items in it. I was wrong.

Padre Thomas picked up the lighter and snapped it continuously to light his cigarette. It didn’t ignite.

“Who keeps a lighter that doesn’t work,” he grumbled and shook it. “It must need lighter fluid.” He opened it. “It’s dry,” he said. “No wonder it won’t light.”

He lit his cigarette with a match.

I took the lighter, pulled the stuffing out of the bottom, and found her small USB storage disk hidden inside. “Got it,” I said and almost laughed.

“What do you think is on it?” Padre Thomas asked and stubbed out his cigarette.

“Let’s find out.” We went to her office and used the laptop.

Tracy had been the ultimate note taker. All pages were dated. Some were no more than a thought, while others were a page or two. Names, dates, contact information, the wherefore and the whys of the information. The most helpful were her personal thoughts on the information or who gave it to her. I was impressed.

I had the link she was looking for, the hospital. She had gone undercover to find out who pulled
The Master’s
strings. She wanted to know what he did with the body parts, who they went to and why. She considered it was a cannibalistic ritual, but had her doubts.

“Padre, what do you think of all this?” I asked when I closed down the laptop and put the disk in my pocket.

“She was closing in on the Devil, Mick,” he hissed and lit a cigarette. “He killed her.”

“It’s more than one man, Padre, it’s a whole group of them,” I said and stood. “I don’t think it’s cannibalism, there’s no money in that.”

“That leaves what?” he asked as we left the house.

“There’s money to be made in supplying body parts, if you can find a donor that is a good match to the recipient.” It wasn’t my idea Tracy had considered it too.

• • •

I took Padre Thomas home.

On the boat, I went through the files on Tracy’s disk again and printed out a few that interested me, piqued my interest. I lit a cigar and went out on deck to read them. I reread them after my cigar was gone, but my conclusion remained the same. It was a lot of guesswork on my part, on Tracy’s too, but reading between the lines of what she’d written, adding my own hunches to her’s, it was bad no matter how I looked at it.

Her conclusions were logical, even if unproved. The cops would say there wasn’t enough evidence for a warrant. No warrant, no search. I didn’t need a warrant, I needed a way onto the yacht so I could turn speculation into fact.

“What are you doing up at the witching hour?” Alex asked from the dock.

I hadn’t been paying attention to anything going on around me. “Trying to make sense out of someone’s note,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“I was downtown listening to Clint Bullard. I walked, so it took a while,” he said explaining the late hour. “Anything happening on the other thing?”

“Not officially,” I told him. “But I’m working on something.”

“Need help?” There was a slight hint of excitement in his question.

He came onboard. I told him about my need to get onto the yacht and asked if he could think of a way. I told him I needed to get below, unseen.

“There’s an aft hatch to the engine room,” he said. “There has to be an entrance from the engine room to the lower section, wouldn’t you think?”

“Yeah,” I mused. “There has to be more than one way in and out.”

“The hatch is behind storage lockers,” he said. “I noticed it when I was pacing off the deck. I didn’t see a lock on it, but I wasn’t really looking for one. It could be locked from below.”

“How well is it lit and what goes on out there?”

“Most of the light comes from the salon windows, but there is an anchor light,” he said. “I don’t think they encourage anyone to be outside.”

“That’s a good thing,” I smiled.

A white light at the aft section of any anchored boat is a maritime safety requirement and without one authorities can board and ticket you. The yacht was in compliance.

• • •

My boarding plan was simple. The difficult part would begin when I got on deck. Alex was excited about helping, but I didn’t share that excitement though I needed him in place in case things went wrong. A late-night call to my friend Burt found him downtown and willing to help with the skiff.

Alex took the shuttle boat at Simonton Pier and knew to signal when it was safe for me to board.

It went like clockwork. At one-thirty, the sky was cloudy and the Gulf side of the yacht was dark. Alex signaled, a wave of his arms, and Burt dropped me off. I brought my Glock, a small laser flashlight and a pry bar for the engine room hatch. I dressed all in black, T-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes and watch cap that I pulled over my red hair. I quietly climbed the ladder from the yacht’s tethered go-fast to the deck.

Alex smoked a cigarette on the aft deck and I heard him talking loudly to someone. I hugged the salon’s outside wall and waited for Alex and his friend to go inside. I crawled to the storage lockers and sat on the deck next to the engine room hatch. The anchor light shined from a short pole and gave enough illumination for me to work. The hatch was locked from inside, just like the hatches on
Fenian Bastard
. Music escaped the salon and thankfully it was punk rock so it was more noise than comfortable listening music. Prying the hatch loose was easy because of its age, but it did make a loud popping sound as the two screw locks below gave way. Of course, at that hour the sound carried.

I waited to see if anyone would investigate the noise. They didn’t. I raised the hatch, dropped the pry bar overboard and climbed below. I needed the flashlight to find my way through the dark engine room. A door led to the yacht’s bright, carpeted hallway and staterooms.

There were two doors on either side of the hallway and one at the end. Noise of people gathered in the salon and the recorded music could be heard by the stairway to the salon but it was muted.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for but knew I’d recognize it when I found it. Searching for the unknown is like that. There wouldn’t be a problem getting a search warrant once I delivered the proof. Of course, I didn’t know the proof of what. Tracy had suspicions and so did I. We came up with our suspicions from two different directions; she had what I was missing and I had what she needed, so something was here.

I tried the door closest to the engine room, on the right. It was a small stateroom with double berths. I tried the door across the hall. It was dark inside. I searched the wall for a switch and turned the lights on.

And found all the evidence the police would need.

In the middle of the large room, there was a gurney with an unconscious young man covered to his shoulders by a sheet. I pulled my Glock and closed the door. This had been two staterooms but they were guttered to make one large hospital-styled room, with metal storage cabinets, ceiling lights, IV stands and portable trays. The kid was hooked up to a heart monitor that quietly beeped and an IV. At least he was still alive.

He looked like he was sleeping, but I guessed it was IV induced. His blood pressure was 120 over 80 and his heart rate was 65. I thought the numbers were good and removed the IV needle. He didn’t yelp when the tape pulled at the hair on his arm. The heart monitor caused a problem because an alarm would be set off if the heartbeat stopped. If someone, somewhere was monitoring it, things would go to hell very quickly. I left it alone for the time being.

The thought made me nervous and I searched the ceiling and walls for possible security cameras, but found none.

I slapped his face. He didn’t wake or show he even felt it. His black clothing lay neatly folded on a chair. There was no wallet in his pants. A few dollars and some change was all. I turned on the bathroom light and shut off the overhead light so the glow wouldn’t show under the door.

When Richard answered my call, I knew I’d awakened him. It was after two A.M. and he was home sleeping. I told him where I was and what I had. He was angry and then he was concerned because he couldn’t send city cops. He hung up after assuring me he was calling Sheriff Pearlman and Capt. Fitton at the Coast Guard right away.

I cracked the door and checked the hallway. Nothing. I went back and slapped the boy again, twice. He didn’t even flinch. I couldn’t carry him up through the hatch and overboard. He was too big. I could hide him in the engine room and that would keep him away from
The Master
and his two goons, briefly.

The center door to the bow area was locked. The other door was unlocked and the room was dark. Light from the hallway illuminated a stateroom with a single bed, a TV and small stereo. The main suite, I guessed and closed the door.

I figured to grab the kid’s clothes and carry him fireman style to the engine room, hide him there in the dark and sneak on deck to wait for the Coast Guard. I went into the room and turned on the lights.

“And who are you?”

The Master
, or Dracula, or whomever he was he was supposed to be, stood next to the gurney and startled me. Tall, thin, dressed totally in black and when he spoke I saw his fangs. Unbelievable.

The Glock was in my hand. I did it automatically, without thinking. I had him. I looked around for something to tie him up with.

“You’re here to save him?” He pointed to the unconscious boy and laughed quietly. It was not a funny laugh.

“Move away from the boy.” I pointed the gun at him, but he didn’t seem to notice or care, if he did. “Now.”

He backed up two steps and smiled, his play-actor fangs glittering in his mouth.

“How do you expect to get him out?” he said harshly. “My men upstairs will stop you. All those fools upstairs will help them, you cannot escape.”

“The three of us can stay here and wait for the Coast Guard.” I locked the door. “Then I don’t have to do anything but turn you over.”

“They are coming?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve called.”

“That’s too bad,” he grinned and stared with hard eyes toward me. “Now so many will die, including the boy and you.”

“Just stay still and no one has to die,” I said, thinking I was in charge because I had the gun.