Hemingway's Ghost (5 page)

They stopped talking when the planchette started moving again.

-MAX-

“Max?” Ernie said. “Poor Max.”

“Max was also his editor,” Bumby said, then spoke to the board. “You want to speak to Max?”

The planchette seemed confused, hovering back and forth between Yes and No.

“Did you speak to Madame Gertrude today?” Ernie said.

The planchette started a slow glide.

-YES-

Ernie sucked in his breath, then looked around the room. “Is anyone else with you?”

-YES-

“Who?”

No answer.

“Is it Max?”

-NO-

“Pauline?”

-NO-

“One of your sons?”

-NO-

“Lovers?”

-NO-

“Then who is it?”

The planchette dropped to the middle of the board, and all six eyes were riveted on the wedge as it moved with purpose from letter to letter.

-CANT SAY-

Bumby said, “Why not?”

-CANT-

“Who gives a damn about this crap,” Papa said, then leaned in. “Hey there, listen up. Who’s killing people around here?”

The planchette stopped moving.

“Did you hear me? I asked you a question. Who’s killing people?”

Still no answer, and Bumby said, “Is it someone in this room?”

-YES-

Bumby sat back, and Ernie grew pale. Papa sneered and said, “That’s great, you fellas really cracked this case. Hey Hemmie, I got a question for you. Is Bumby a bad writer?”

-YES-

“Is Ernie a washed-up drunk?”

-YES-

“Am I going to be rich and famous?”

-NO-

“Am I Santa Claus?”

-NO-

Papa gave the board a satisfied smirk. “Who am I then?”

-DEAD MAN-

Papa’s smirk faded.

Ernie’s eyes were wild, but he kept his finger on the planchette. Bumby said, “I know you’re confused up there, or wherever you are. But we really need your help. Do you have any advice for us?”

The planchette started moving quickly around the board.

-ALL WICKED THINGS WERE ONCE INNOCENT-

Bumby grimaced, then glanced at the others before he said, “We need advice on what’s happening here. What should we do?”

-A MAN CAN BE DESTROYED BUT NOT DEFEATED-

“This is worthless,” Papa said. “One of us is just quoting the Man from our subconscious.”

“Why’d you ask Madame Gertrude for help?” Bumby said.

The planchette quivered but didn’t move.

“Are you in danger?”

-YES-

“That’s ridiculous,” Papa said. “He’s
dead
. The old bugger probably thinks he’s at war, or about to be caught with his pants down.”

“Let us help you,” Bumby said. “Why’re you in danger? Who’re you afraid of?”

-NOT AFRAID OF ANY MAN-

“Don’t forget who you’re talking to,” Ernie said. “Hey, are you angry with us?”

-YES-

“For what?”

-NEED HELP-

Papa threw his hands up. “I can’t take this nonsense any more.”

Bumby said, “Are you saying we need help, or you do? Who’s the murderer? Is it one of us? Someone we know? Who needs help?”

The planchette began a furious dance across the board, the three gnarled hands looking absurd jerking back and forth above it. Bumby read the words aloud as they came.

-GET HIM AWAY CANT SEE THE LIGHT HELP ME PAULINE CANT LEAVE THE HOUSE HES TOO STRONG HE WONT-

A loud crack shattered the silence, and then the sound of broken glass somewhere on the property above them. Half a second later a deafening alarm went off.

Papa lurched to his feet. “That was a gunshot! Let’s get the hell outta here!”

Bumby scrambled to get the board and they ran up the stairs in a panic. By the time they reached the door the house alarm had shut off. They sprinted for the wall, and when they passed the caretaker’s house they saw Lester standing on his narrow iron balcony with a shotgun in his hand.

“Shit,” Papa said, but he had already seen them.

“Y’all okay?” Lester called out. He was a wiry little man with a wrinkled face and a bulbous nose, and bunches of short curly hairs sprouted on his arms and out from underneath his white tank top. He had on a pair of tattered work pants and his hair and clothes were disheveled, like he’d just crawled out of bed. “Someone just shot out a window. Damn Conch kids, I swear I’ll put a slug in their skinny asses when I catch ‘em.”

Papa had the pistol hidden behind his right leg, and he slipped it into the back of his pants. “Scared the shit out of us,” he said. “You sure it was kids?”

“It’s always them kids. They get us about twice a year. Y’all might want to get over that fence before the deputy gets here. Soon as that bell sounds they’re on their way, don’t matter if I call ‘em or not. House rules, s’pose they got to tell the insurance men they checked it out.”

He didn’t need to tell them twice. The Hemingways were over the fence and running down the street as fast as their tired, stubby legs would carry them.

No one pursued them, and Ernie spoke the last words of the night, just before they reached Duval.

“The letter’s all yours, fellas. I’m gettin’ the hell off this sandbox.”

Bumby and Papa saw it on the morning news. They were back at the Croissant Palace, stuffing their fat faces with banana Nutella croissants, licking their fat impostor fingers with their fat bovine tongues.

Both of them stopped chewing when the proprietor turned up the news on the patio television. An old Ford pickup had run right off Seven Mile Bridge the night before, plunging to the water below and landing on top of a shallow reef. The driver was ruled dead on impact and identified as Ernie Pickens, and due to paint scrapes on the side of the pickup, investigators suspected that another vehicle had struck the pickup and caused it to flip over the short concrete barrier. A tagline on the bottom of the screen read
Another Hemingway Impersonator Found Dead
. The photo of the Ford went off the screen and a panel of experts appeared and started talking about the damage to the coral reef.

Papa set down his croissant with trembling fingers, and Bumby couldn’t stop swallowing. They looked at each other with suspicious eyes.

“Shit,” Papa said.

“Damn,” said Bumby.

They took Papa’s golf cart over to Fort Zachary where the water mirrored the pale blue of the morning sky. The tiny waves lapped against the rocks while they sat in the shade of the pines. When the sun rose higher and stole their shade, they rose, two old men weary not just of murder but of life, weary of eking out an existence as living specters of a man long dead, weary of every single tight-fisted sunburned tourist who laughed and pointed and tossed a goddamn dollar in their tip jar.

I pitied them.

They hunched over a soundless meal at Blue Heaven until Sergeant Cohn walked over to their table and asked if he could sit down.

Papa wiped the burger juice from his mouth. “It’s a free country. You might as well drink with us before you arrest us.”

The Sergeant took off his hat, pulled up a chair and rubbed at his chin before he spoke. “I’m not here to arrest either of you.”

“You seemed pretty set about it last time.”

He gave a slow nod. “I’ll admit you’re both on my short list. And I know you’ve been breaking into the Hemingway place.”

Papa started to retort, and Sergeant Cohn held up a hand. “I’m not in the trespass business. I’m in the murder business.”

Papa sat back, sullen. Bumby said, “Then why’re you here?”

“I wanted to run a little something by you. How well do you know Lester Scott?”

Bumby shrugged. “Just casually, from stopping by the house so much.”

“Don’t really know him at all,” Papa said. “Why?”

The Sergeant ordered a coffee with cream, then looked from one to the other. “There was a call at the Hemingway house last night.”

Papa did a very poor job of trying to look innocent.

“I took it myself, considering the circumstances. When I got there Lester told me some kids had shot out a window in back of the house. Sure enough, one of the back windows was busted. What I found curious, though, was the angle of the impact hole. From my reckoning, which is pretty damn good, the best place to fire that shot would’ve been from Lester’s balcony. I suppose some kid could’ve climbed up there and done it, but why? On the other hand, why would Lester do it, unless he was shooting at someone? Also, I never found the slug, and I doubt some kid would’ve had the time or sense to retrieve it.” He shook his head. “Any way you two could help me sort this out? It’s quite a puzzle. Oh, and my deepest condolences for your friend.”

Papa grunted. “You ask Lester?”

“Of course. He claims he’s as confused as I am, and was asleep when it happened, so he doesn’t really know.” He put his hands up. “Except for the strange evidence, I’ve got no reason to suspect otherwise, so I didn’t bring him in. He’s never caused trouble before.” He put his hands on the table and leaned in. “You gentlemen wouldn’t know why Lester might have any reason to cause trouble, would you?”

“Sure we do,” Papa said.

Sergeant Cohn leaned back. “Oh?”

A chicken ran by their table, tiny crooked feet crunching into the sand. All three followed it with their eyes.

“Because,” Papa said, “he’s a poor man living life for the benefit of rich folks. I’d be pissed off too. If I was caretaker, I’d have shot out the windows in that house a long time ago, and probably burned it down as well.”

“I’m not,” the Sergeant said quietly, “someone you want to jerk around.”

Papa, who on another day would have been cowed by the Sergeant’s quiet menace, said, “What’ve I got to lose by jerking you around? Maybe you’ll throw me in jail and save my life. Sergeant, I got
no idea
why old Lester might’ve shot out the window from his own back porch. If I did I’d tell you, believe me. Personally I think it was Jean-Paul. I think there’s something in that house he don’t want anyone else to have.”

Bumby had been listening to Papa and the Sergeant with thoughtful eyes. “I’m beginning to think that myself.”

“Jean-Paul’s no saint, but there’re one or two more things you might ought to know about Lester. His father was caretaker at the Hemingway place before he was, back when Hemingway himself was around. Back in ‘62, three days before the first anniversary of Hemingway’s death, a couple of drifters broke into the Hemingway house and helped themselves to a few things. You know what happened to those two drifters?”

Papa shrugged. “They went to jail?”

“They were murdered.”

Bumby flinched as the chicken ran back across the floor of the restaurant, this time stepping on his foot.

“Not just murdered, but butchered in some kind of ritual. They were both found strung upside down from a cross in the old church off Petronia.”

“Jesus,” Bumby muttered.

“Jesus is right. Worst unsolved murders in Key West history, though no one knows about it because they were homeless, and we kept it low profile. You want to take a stab at who one of the suspects was?”

Papa’s eyes met the detective’s, a look of disbelief on his face. “Lester?”

“Not Lester. His daddy. He had an airtight alibi, but the chief of police never liked him. Before he was caretaker he was a drifter, a bad poet and a day laborer, but then again so are half the people in Key West. He also hung out at the occult bookshop, the one that used to be down by the port, but again, so did half the crazies on the island.”

“So why was he a suspect, if he had an airtight alibi?”

“He was the last one seen with the two drifters, drinking with them at a watering hole down at the docks, and he was also seen skulking around the church on Petronia a few nights before it happened. His alibi for the murders checked out, and he said he was just out walking around the church. It’s a small island. The Hemingways themselves vouched for him, said Ernest had loved him, and that Lester Senior had always been devoted to the family. Some people said he was Hemingway’s biggest fan on the island, which is saying something. And one source,” Sergeant Cohn paused and looked at Bumby, “went on the record to say that Lester Senior was flat out in love with his boss. Said Lester Senior told him one night at the bar that he had to be with Ernest forever, and that he’d found a way to do it.”

Bumby turned away from the Sergeant’s stare. “What’d he mean by that?”

“Who knows. Old Lester died in ‘73, and his son took over at the house. Never had any trouble with him either, though he’s a bit slow, if you know what I mean.”

Sergeant Cohn took a last sip of coffee and stood. “Anyway, thought you might want to know.” His lips peeled back in a mock grin. “You two sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

Papa folded his arms and looked away, and Bumby studied his soup.

“You know, you two might want to think about going to the mainland for a while. And if I were you, I might leave during the daytime.”

The Sergeant tipped his hat and walked away.

I giggled as I watched them.

Bumby and Papa stared at the table after Sergeant Cohn left, then at each other.

“I’m still not convinced it ain’t you,” Papa said. “But I think it’s Jean-Paul more, and I think Sergeant Cohn’s covering for him. That’s what cops do for rich folk.”

“That was some strange stuff about Lester’s pop.”

“I don’t think old Lester’s got it in him, and what’s the motive? At least Ernie’s not around, God rest his soul, to talk about the Man’s ghost any more.”

“Poor Ern,” Bumby said. “He never hurt a soul.”

“He was a coward,” Papa said, because it made him feel better about his own cowardice, “but I suppose he was all right.” He looked to the side and shook his head. “Dammit, Ern,” he said softly.

“If you’re not the murderer, and I don’t think you are because
someone
fired that shot,” Bumby mused, “although I suppose you could be teaming up with someone. But if you’re not, then one of us is next, unless we leave or do something about it.”