Bone Island Mambo (35 page)

He smiled, shook his head. “Dex turned down a promotion to come here. You believe that? Crazy man. It’s like his whole career’s on standby.”

“He told me he wanted the wife and kids off the Gold Coast,” I said. “All the crime and traffic.”

“Oh, horseshit. He owned a damn mansion in Parkland. Tall wall around the subdivision, you pay dues, every house has the same lawn service. With the promotion, those kids could’ve gone to private school. They could go months without seeing Federal Highway, the riffraff of Delray or Pompano.”

“I’ve never met his wife.”

“I think that deal’s around the corner, too. When he married her she was down-to-earth. Natalie grew up wealthy—her dad founded the third-largest black-owned company in the state. They’re metal fabricators. They make mailboxes, toasters, computer cases, garage doors, rack systems, you name it. Natalie didn’t act rich, at first Maybe the kids changed her. She turned into Ms. Yuppie Suburbia. She made Dexter sell a two-year-old Explorer and buy a new Ford Expedition because it was easier to get the kids’ bikes in it. I mean, the new vehicle minus the trade-in whacked him for eighteen thou. If you add up the extra minute or two it might take to deal with bikes, every time she carried them for the life of the car, that trade-up was worth about five thousand bucks an hour.”

Teresa said, “Next time he offers to buy lunch, I’m accepting.”

P.T.’s sound system played “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.”

“So he got homesick and came down here?” I said.

Farmer sneered, gave it a one-shoulder shrug. “How many people our age get homesick?”

Sam Wheeler was homesick for a town that didn’t exist anymore.

“Screwed me up, too,” added Farmer. “Good partner. He’d cover my ass in a tight The toad I got now, scores are top of the class, no demerits, no write-ups. The book says he’s a wizard. I wouldn’t trust him to put coins in the meter.”

I suddenly wondered about his trust in Hayes. My thoughts spun to a wild tangent. Why this sudden outpouring of info about Dexter? Farmer had jumped from a total reluctance to criticize the man to a total indictment of his moving to Key West. I never trust a changing story.

What else was flaky? Dexter had turned his back on the good life and a promotion. He’d moved to Key West for a tougher job. Had he been drawn by a desire to be close to Julie Kaiser? Was he capable of murder, for revenge or ambition or any other reason? Had Jim Farmer been driving the Maxima? Had Dexter sent him after me, to chase me up the highway at ninety miles an hour? Were they over-the-top cops with a sick agenda? Or was Jim Farmer piecing off the blame on Dexter? Setting him up for a fall?

Was I building a new pyramid of paranoia?

We became more aware of the sharp clatter of colliding pool balls, the constant drone of bar conversation. The bar had filled as mid-afternoon became Happy Hour. Eight or ten construction laborers crowded the bar, let off steam. One wore a T-shirt that said
SOUTH FLORIDA VIAGRA TESTING TEAM
.

Teresa said, “Been to Key West before?”

Farmer nodded. “Used to come down a bunch. Not anymore. College buddy of mine was here, I’d come down, go
fishing, party in the bars. I talked him into quitting his job selling cars, following his dream. He became a city cop. One time I was down, I tried to hire on with the county. Had a chat with the sheriff and bagged the idea. What a dipshit”

“Tommy Tucker?” I said.

“That’s the one. Any job—hell, private security—any damned thing’d be better than working for that doofus.”

I asked his cop friend’s name.

“Officer Monty Aghajanian. Now he’s got himself into the FBI. He moved to New Jersey. This is my first time back since he left.”

“I know him well.” And I respected Monty’s judgment, trusted him.

“Give him a call sometime. He’s a lonely boy up there. Understand die wife’s okay with it, but he’s praying for a reassignment”

I would call Monty within the next thirty minutes. For the moment, my opinion of Jim Farmer had shot upward. I wasn’t sure about the man, but Monty’s words would make up my mind.

A server offered us another round. I’d had enough beer. Teresa needed to get back to her office before five o’clock. Farmer wanted to skate around Old Town. I thanked him for his time.

Teresa and I stood outside, watched more afternoon drinkers stream into the restaurant “Your eyes told me,” she said. “Your mind was going a million miles an hour.”

I said, “Please say you talked him into this.”

“Dexter had to leave the office in a hurry. He sort of abandoned Farmer in the coffee room. I explained myself, and told him I’d been in the car that his Maxima chased. He was very sympathetic. I asked him if he’d talk to you. Were you thinking that he set this up? As a distraction or something?”

“Or that he and Hayes set it up. Did anyone identify the bullets I found in Mercer’s hallway wall?”

“I heard someone say they were nine-millimeter slugs.”

“They could have come from your stolen pistol?”

She said, “I want this all to stop.”

“Sam and I are going to visit Thorsby this evening. By boat.”

Teresa looked more upset than pissed. “You are not a cop. Take care.”

I went straight to Carmen’s house. I wanted something with a waterproof lining. I asked to borrow her daughter Maria’s rainy-day backpack. Carmen had just arrived home from work. She invited me in. “You can get your jollies, watch me change into my comfort clothing.”

“My threshold for jollies is extremely high today,” I said. “Maybe if you got naked and danced the dirty boogie to an old Fats Domino record . . .”

She gave me a look. “Shame about Holloway.” She peeled off her Postal Service blouse, pulled on an old Miami Dolphins jersey. “I bet his daughters are devastated.”

“You think Dexter Hayes would move his family down here if he wanted to be closer to Julie Kaiser?”

Carmen narrowed her eyes. She led me to her kitchen, offered me iced tea, poured two glasses. She finally shook her head. “It was too long ago. We fantasize about high school sweethearts, we all do it. But we’re past thirty. Reality makes the rules. That romance was half their lives ago. There’ve been too many changes since then. There are too many obstacles today.”

We took our tea to the front room. She heard something and said, “Here comes the male.” Her boyfriend pulled up in a Dodge Ram pickup—the man in the
VIAGRA TESTING TEAM
T-shirt The group in P.T.’s must have been Butler Dunwoody’s crew. She introduced me to Nick. No last name.

“Rough place you’re working,” I said.

“Working until today,” said Nick. “We got pulled off early.”

“Any idea what’s going down?”

“Nope. I mean, hey. Nothing weird ever happened until that Donovan character started hangin’ around. Before that
some other guy was around, checking on things, taking Polaroids. His brother-in-law, I guess. Then the first guy stopped comin’ by, and it was this Donovan and the next thing you know Dick Engram’s dead. The next thing, Donovan gets arrested. Now we got a stop-work order from the boss.”

“Any idea when you’ll start back?”

“Dunwoody told us, ‘Tomorrow or never.’ ”

Maria had left her backpack at school. Carmen gave me a belly-pack with a plastic lining. I went home, called Monty Aghajanian at the FBI’s Newark office. Voice mail. Goddamned voice mail. I asked him to call me back anytime. If he didn’t get me tonight, or get the message tonight, early morning was okay. I popped a beer—as if I needed another—and began to sort items I’d need for my boat ride, my onshore excursion. I sat on the bed to think about everything that had happened in twenty-four hours.

At eight-thirty the phone woke me.

Sam said, “Pick you up in ten.”

I brushed my teeth, put on Levi’s and a black long-sleeved shirt Sam had suggested I wear a black ball cap. I’d never worn dark hats under the tropical sun. The only one I owned read
PARROT HEADS IN PARADISE
. A freebie from Lou, a bartender in Margaritaville. I found an old pair of black high-top sneakers in the closet then folded in a fresh Ziploc bag.

Marnie and Sam roUed into the lane nine minutes later. She’d borrowed a boxy old Buick Century. Sam looked dressed to kill. Black pants, black shirt, a black knit watch cap, ankle-high nylon brogans, a knife strapped to his calf.

We drove out North Roosevelt I’d forgotten to call Monty Aghajanian. Marnie had her cell phone, but I hadn’t brought Monty’s number with me.

When the county jail came in sight Sam said, “The more I think about it no matter who else is involved, Donovan Cosgrove is weird. I say he did in Richard Engram.”

Marnie argued the other way: “Donovan Cosgrove doesn’t have enough beans in his jeans to pull it off. His
bitchy wife, die’s another story. If a girl could have brass balls, they’d hear clanging in Cuba.”

They waited for my opinion. I finally said, “I’ve added up all the evidence and I’ve narrowed it down to nine possible suspects.”

Sam asked Marnie to pull into Sugarloaf Key Resort’s parking area. He pulled two black Motorola transceivers from his duffel. Palm-sized UHF units. “Captain Turk and I use these in the backcountry. We share information, but not with the world. Once in a while an angler will ask me to drop him on a mangrove spit He’ll want me to get lost, let him fish in peace. I’ll go behind another island, chill out until he calls.”

Sam matched the transmission channels, plugged in tiny earpieces and remote condenser mikes. He pointed out the microphone key and squelch control. Showed me how to set it for voice-activated transmission.

I got out of the car. Sam chattered the whole time Marnie drove him to the far end of the parking lot, U-turned, and came back. Every word came clearly through the pinkie-sized plug in my ear. Marnie drove another loop while I held the contact mike against my throat chattered on constant-key. She looped again while Sam and I exchanged four or five quick messages.

When she dropped us off at Johnny and Laurel Baker’s place, Marnie said, “Make it a success.”

Always the reporter.

I said, “If I find what I think I’ll find, you’ll get your exclusive.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’ve written too many dead-people stories this week. Why don’t you both come back aUver

Sam coiled his dock lines, stowed them under the center console. I held the wheel, motored the canal at idle speed behind the homes of Blue Gill Lane. Sam had covered his gauges with a fitted foul-weather cover. Small flaps with Velcro closures shielded the illuminated dials. The sky was clear, the January night air crisp, close to sixty, with low humidity.

We looked like overdressed dope scammers heading for an offload. I wondered what the hell I’d dealt us.

“We’ll go north,” Sam said, “hang by Little Knockem-down, wait a few. Then run south, find our markers with the spotlight”

I steered the dogleg toward Kemp Channel. “Why all that?”

“Someone sees us exit this canal and run to Summerland, they might come back to Johnny Baker. We’ll go north, shut her down, and wait. Then come back south, pretend we’re lost, shut her down again. See if anybody comes out to help. No Samaritans means no witnesses. We go in.”

“I go in. You’re in the boat.”

Sam looked into the water. “You said that before. You’re the boss.”

“Gimme a break. My learning curve has been bent for
years. I’ll need you to come ashore and save my ass if they glom on to me.”

He said: “Done.”

“How about Customs? How about Marine Patrol? A reasonable cop would take us for Commie infiltrators.”

“It’s too shallow to scuttle hardware,” said Sam. “We go to the backcountry and outrun them.”

“They’ll put a spotlight on your F-L numbers and trace the boat.”

Sam opened a mini-duffel that he’d carried from Marine’s Jeep. I heard tools rattle. He pulled out a roll of two-inch black gaffer’s tape, stripped a couple lengths, lay belly-down on the bow to cover his Florida registration numbers. He tore another piece, maybe three inches long, pasted it over my ball cap’s Parrot Head insignia. “So much for that bull’s-eye,” he said.

Sam took the wheel, exited the canal, steered around four or five shallow water stakes. Only someone who’d seen them in daylight could’ve navigated without running aground. He pointed us north to deeper water. We stopped three minutes later. Sam killed the motor, let us drift.

“I don’t get this far up the Keys much lately,” he said. “Marnie told me a speeder hit a key deer on Big Pine this week. But the table got turned.”

“How so?”

“Motorcycle, in excess of eighty in the special slowdown zone. The deer lived. Two broken legs. The bike rider went ass over teakettle. Hamburger on the highway. Killed instantly.”

Justice, in theory, for an animal.

Six cold-case murder victims never got theirs.

Sam pulled more gear from the duffel. A small-caliber rifle, a night scope, a net bag full of tubes and tiny jars—a jungle survival kit. He handed me a four-inch rubber-handled stainless skinning blade in a nylon sheath. And a three-inch lockback to stick in my pocket.

I looped the belly-pack over my right shoulder, under my left armpit. Sam dropped in the radio, extracted the ear
and microphone wires. He used dark adhesive tape to attach the ear wire to my neck, the mini-earphone inside my ear. He taped the remote mike to my Adam’s apple. “Now, in case you sweat and fuck up the adhesive . . .” He wrapped a short Velcro belt around my neck to hold the mike in place. He clipped the other radio to his belt, rigged his wires the same way. We stood apart, checked volume levels. With the voice-activated circuitry, we didn’t have to press buttons. “These are good for two miles,” he said.

Sam pulled one more piece of equipment from the duffel. A Walther PPK pistol. He snugged it into my belly-pack, said, “Safety on.” Wheeler had called himself a “qualified coconspirator.” He was more than qualified. He was an equipment freak. I was amazed at how little time it took law-abiding citizens to turn themselves into vigilante commandos.

Sam cranked the motor, popped us to a plane, sped to Kemp Channel Bridge. We slowed a hundred yards south of the overpass, raced our wake another ten yards. Sam adjusted his throttle to mimic a sputtering engine, then shut it down. We drifted, kept an eye on channel markers. Sam sang softly, Vietnam humor to squelch his nervousness: “The Magical Mystery Tour is coming to take you away . . .”