Vampire Slayer Murdered in Key West - Mick Murphy Short Stories (7 page)

“Wait a minute, Padre,” I moved closer. “You said a tree, what tree? Where?”

“I don’t know, somewhere close,” finally he let the table go, pulled a cigarette from the package, and lit it. “Close to the water,” he inhaled deeply, “close to your boat.”

“Padre, if I take this information to the cops they’re gonna come looking for you,” I said out of frustration. “And we both know they aren’t big believers in angels.”

“But you believe me, right?”

“I know you didn’t kill her, Padre, that’s all I know.”

“You can find the killer from what I’ve told you.”

“The police think she was hung from a mast and dumped in the water.”

“That’s not what happened,” he took another long drag on his cigarette.

“Well, Padre, a mast or tree, it means little to her, right now. I promised to check around the marina and see if anyone heard or saw anything strange,” I stood and pulled my bike from the next table. “Did the angels show you Bayveiw Park?”

“No, Mick, it was a lone tree in a yard,” he stubbed out the cigarette in a full ashtray. “You’re wasting your time at the marina.”

“I’ll see you tonight, Padre.” I peddled my bike toward Harpoon Harry’s, hoping to catch some of the marina locals having breakfast.

“I’d like that, Mick,” he lit another cigarette and walked toward the water.

• • •

Richard met me at
El Siboney
, our favorite Cuban restaurant, for lunch. We sat at the counter, to avoid the busy restaurant and spoke quietly.

“An autopsy report come in?” I drank my
café con leche
, a mixture of strong Cuban espresso, milk, and lots of sugar.

“Not an official one,” Richard sipped his glass of homemade sangria. “They found a little saltwater in her lungs.”

“She drowned?”

“No, her epiglottis relaxed when she died, so water was able to get into her lungs,” he played with the glass of spiced wine. “The way her head was angled allowed the water in, but it wasn’t enough to drown her.”

“Broken neck, then?”

“Unofficially for now, yeah. The medical examiner agrees with Sherlock,” he took a drink. “But she put up a fight, she had someone’s skin under her nails.”

“DNA?”

“Too early, this ain’t TV, Mick.”

“I know,” I sipped the
con leche
. “I’ve got nothing. I checked a lot of bight residents at Harpoon’s, even mooring field people.” I held back what Padre Thomas had told me. Richard didn’t like him, thought there was more to Thomas than a renegade priest.

“Well, the DEA is here and working with the FDLE,” he glanced at the menu. “Why do I read the menu, I always order the same thing.”

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is a state police agency that assists small community police forces. They have the labs and technology that are too expensive for small police department budgets.

“Colombian agents too?”

We ordered
arroz con pollo
, yellow rice cooked with pieces of chicken mixed in.

“Two Colombians,” he said as the waitress left. “The feds have taken over the investigation.”

“What about the Limey?”

“They don’t think he or any of the cartel are still here,” he took a sip of wine. “They assume the cartel caught on to her true identity, killed her here and went on their way.”

“Do you believe that?”

“It makes sense, Mick,” he looked straight ahead. “You kill someone in Key West and move on. They’re smugglers, not street sellers.”

Our food came, I ordered a Dos Eques beer to go with it and avoided explaining to Richard that he was wrong and Padre Thomas’ angels were probably right.

• • •

I lit the first cigar of the day and rode my bike back to Garrison Bight. The water was calm, so I took my dinghy to the mooring field, and when I found someone on board a vessel, I asked if they heard anything out of the ordinary around sunrise. Most wanted to know why and I told them about finding the body, but little else. No one heard anything. Sound travels on the open water and if she had put up a fight, especially a verbal one, someone would have heard it; I might have even heard it, but I hadn’t.

I met my friends Bob and Burt at PT’s for dinner and told them more than I should have, but they had already heard a rumor about the floater. I filled them in during the meal. The coconut telegraph carries an abundance of rumors, but most of them turnout to be just that, rumors. As the editor of the local rag says, never let facts get in the way of a titillating story.

After eating, we lit fresh cigars and walked to the Hog’s Breath. Bruce and Red were playing the mid shift gig, so we hung around, had a few beers and finished our cigars. Padre Thomas showed up, I bought him a beer, and Bob and Burt left. I waited around for the California band to play.

The band, Malibu, began playing at 10:30 p.m. and was not a surfer band, contrary to its name. They had a pretty good repertoire of classic rock hits, but I enjoyed their original music the most. It was a mixture of folk and rock and Coco Joe was the lead singer.

He wanted to see the Fenian Bastard, so Padre Thomas, Coco Joe, and I taxied to the marina at 2 a.m. The rest of the band went to Duval Street to explore the nightlife.

Street light reflection, from North Roosevelt Boulevard, streaked across the black water and highlighted the marina’s docks; a steady stream of traffic hummed along the four lanes. A full moon hung in the cloudless sky, surrounded by a protective army of stars, and a soft wind rippled the bight. I gave Coco Joe a tour down below, brought out three Mexican
Bohemia
beers, and we sat in the dim lit cockpit, facing the Gulf of Mexico.

“What are the lights out there?” Coco Joe pointed toward the cut where a few small windows radiated light.

“To the left is Navy housing,” I tasted the beer. “Over there,” I pointed right, “is Hilton Haven, where homes begin around a million.”

He whistled at the price. “So you got the same water view, but for a lot less dough. Way to go, dude.”

“I got the view, but they have the land.”

The homes on Hilton Haven have seawall docks. One home had a pontoon boat tied off to its seawall. A little further, a 40-foot fishing boat was tied off to a dark seawall.

Padre Thomas used his empty beer bottle for an ashtray.

“A girl was murdered over there less than twenty-four hours ago,” Padre Thomas’ tone was somber as he looked across to the homes on Hilton Haven. “They killed her somewhere over there.” He pointed into the dimness.

Coco Joe and I remained silent and finally Padre Thomas went below and brought us beers we didn’t need.

He lit another Camel and exhaled smoke into the breeze. Coco Joe didn’t smoke, what do you expect from a Southern California boy, but he didn’t complain about the cigarette or cigar. His first beer remained mostly full.

“Padre Thomas told me about his vision,” he sipped a little of the
Bohemia
and waited for my reply.

“You know about his angles?” I took a long swallow of my beer.

“I was in Guatemala when the visions first started. Do you believe him?”

“Do you?’

“I find it easier to explain what he knows from his visions, if I believe him.”

He stood and walked to the stern of the boat. “I want to be a skeptic,” he stared across the bight, “because it seems to be the politically correct thing to do,” he laughed. “I guess no one has looked on the back of their money recently.”

“He doesn’t see God, he sees angels.” I tossed my cigar butt into the bight.Padre Thomas had fallen asleep, while we talked, and a soft snore belched from his lips. I stuffed his burning cigarette into a beer bottle and walked to Coco Joe, who was laughing to himself.

“Look at him,” he pointed to Thomas. “If angels weren’t looking out for him, do you think he’d survive?”

“I don’t know why any of us survive.”

“Maybe we all have angels.”

“Maybe.”

Coco Joe stared across the bight, intent on seeing something, while Thomas continued to snore.

“I need your help,” he said, the California youthfulness gone from his voice. “I’ve read your jacket.”

With those few words, I was taken back to a life I thought I’d left behind; a life of trying to avoid my government’s intimidation as I traveled civil-war-torn Central America as a journalist. I turned and looked at him with his sun-bleached curly hair and peach skinned face. I didn’t answer.

A small outboard engine twittered from the other side of the cut. Street traffic was sporadic, but the sound of humming tires echoed off the night water.

“I worked with Gabriela,” he looked across to Hilton Haven. “Someone over there killed her and I want to take him down.”

“Who are you? Really?”

“You know who I am, what I am.” He spoke into the darkness.

“A spook.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

“Are you with …”

“No,” he cut me off. “I’m supposed to be here, she’s supposed to be here, and Cluny is here.”

“Cluny is the Limey.”

“Yes and I think he’s still here.”

“Why?”

“Are you going to help me?”

“Do what?”

“Whatever it takes,” the Californian idioms were gone.

“If I can help you find him, I will, but I’m not gonna take him down,” I turned to face him. “The DEA and Colombians are here looking for him, too.”

“They don’t think he’s here, I do.”

“And that’s because?”

“He always talked to Gabriela about Key West and how he liked it, his home away from home.” He paused and stared across the bight. “He wasn’t delivering drugs to Key West for sale.

The drugs came here by boat to be transported to Miami. It’s slower but a safer route.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“You see that fishing boat?” he pointed to the 40-foot boat tied off at the seawall. “I bet in the daylight you can see a flag pole in the back yard, and a tree too. And I’ll bet you the pole’s flying the Union Jack.”

All the homes at the end section of Hilton Haven are walled in, for privacy. But, he was right, I had seen the flag poll.

“I haven’t seen a flag on the pole.”

“Whoever lives there is a part-time resident, right?”

“Yeah, who likes to party after fishing,” I checked my watch it was almost 3 a.m.

He walked to his backpack and pulled out a large pair of binoculars. He looked toward the fishing boat, adjusting the binoculars.

“There are lights on in the house and people in the yard,” he kept staring across the bight to the seawall dock. “What time is it?”

“Three a.m. How can you see across there?”

“Night-vision goggles,” he handed them to me.

Twenty years ago, night-vision goggles were bulky; this pair wasn’t much larger than the binoculars I had on board. I looked across the bight and, as my eyes adjusted to the strangeness, I saw movement by the back gate and a dim light in one window.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” I scanned the seawall before giving the binoculars back.

“They’ve moved the drugs off the boat and I bet they’re loading a truck right now,” he stared through the binoculars toward the house.

“Let’s call …”

“No,” he almost yelled through clenched teeth. “I don’t want the Colombians to get him.”

“Why?”

“I don’t trust them,” he turned to me, the binoculars hung at his side. “She didn’t trust a lot of them and I don’t know which ones are here.”

“I don’t know what my
jacket
said about me,” I sipped my warm beer, “but I was
never
an operative. I didn’t take people down.”

In the darkness, his smile was brighter than it should have been.

“Yeah, you were listed as a fellow traveler with the guerrillas but,” he smiled again, “you had no problem turning in drug runners. Cluny is a drug runner and a murderer.”

“We don’t know how many are there or how well armed they are.”

“You still have your Glock?”

“Down below.”

“And I’ve got mine and we have surprise on our side.”

“The odds are on their side.”

“You wanna let ‘em get away?”

“No.”

“Then let’s do something. Damn it, you found her, you saw what he did.”

Staring into the night, I saw her again, as I turned her over in the water and realized how young she was. My insides trembled and I wondered why I felt this attachment to someone I had never known.

“Are people still in the yard?”

He looked through the binoculars and nodded.

“Listen to my idea.”

“Go ahead.”

“We dinghy over to the cut and get on the road. From there, we can see the truck pull out. We ID it, license plate, color, whatever and I call the chief of police, he’s a friend.”

“The Colombians still get them.”

“If Cluny’s smart, he isn’t going to travel with the drugs.”

“Good point.”

“There may only be the smugglers and Cluny and they’ll go with the vehicle.”

“Then we take Cluny down,” he said excitedly.

I wondered if take down meant kill, his excited tone made me think he did.

“Cluny wouldn’t be alone,” he said. “He’ll have one or two people with him.”

“It’s still better odds than going after them all.”

“Okay, we’ll do it your way.”

I got my Glock out of its hidey-hole below deck and took the three extra magazines I had. One clip was too many and three wasn’t going to be enough. Coco Joe waited on the dock, by my dinghy, his backpack already on board. I wondered what kind of arsenal he had.

We got on, without speaking, I started the engine, and we moved through the black water, past the cut and into the Gulf of Mexico. Off to our right a large condominium unit raised up and I steered toward its docks. A false dawn was beginning as we tied off.

“When we come out,” I whispered, “we’ll be about three houses up and can watch when the vehicle leaves.”

We quietly moved toward the road and sat behind some shrubs. At 4 a.m., a white Cadillac Escalade left Cluny’s gated property. It had tinted windows, so we couldn’t see how many were inside. I caught the Florida license plate number and called Chief Dowley. He wasn’t happy to hear from me.