Murder Key (2 page)

             
“You saved my life, buddy,” I said, patting him on the back.

             
“Your turn to buy,” he said.

             
And he ordered us two more drinks.

Murder Key

TWO

             
Susie had picked up the phone as soon as the shooter dropped his gun. As we were settling down, she announced that she had called 911, and the cops were on their way.

             
“Don’t touch that gun, people,” she said. “The CSI’s will want to see it. This is a crime scene.”

             
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the Longboat Key Police Department didn’t have Crime Scene Investigators. We could hear the sirens in the distance, and they quickly grew louder, drowning out the din of voices as Tiny’s customers told each other what they’d seen.

             
My adrenalin rush was subsiding, and I was beginning to shiver all over. I couldn’t seem to stop. I
sat,
drinking my beer in small quick swallows, trying to stop my hands from shaking
and hoping I wouldn’t throw up. The front door opened and a uniformed police officer rushed in.

             
Susie pointed to the gun on the floor near my bar stool, and the cop told everyone to calm down. He added t
hat more police were on the way
and they would have to take statements from each one of the customers.

             
The patrolman told Susie to shut down the bar. “No more drinking,” he said, “until we get to the bottom of this.”

             
He was new to the force, and none of us knew him. It was obvious that he didn’t know this crowd either, not if he thought he could stop them from drinking just because they had wi
t
nessed an attempted murder.

             
The young officer took a small notebook from his shirt pocket. “Who can tell me what happened?” he said.

             
A cacophony of voices rose from the crowd. Everyone was talking at once. The cop was nervous, didn’t seem to know what to do. He was looking around the room, his eyes darting from one speaker to the next. They probably didn’t teach this kind of thing at the police academy.

             
“Everybody calm down,” said Dotty Johansen, talking over the buzz of excited voices. She stood, took a big swig of her vodka, and said, “Young man, why don’t you ask Matt Royal? He’s the one the guy was trying to kill.”

             
“Which one is Matt Royal?” he asked.

             
I raised my trembling hand.

             
He turned to me, “Why was he trying to kill you, Mr. Royal?”

             
“I don’t know,” I
said. “I never saw him before
in my life. I don’t think I have any blood enemies, and as far as I know, I haven’t pissed anybody off lately.”

             
The cop stood there, dumbfounded. He didn’t know what the next question should
be. I was feeling sorry for him,
and
was
about to make some inane comment, when Chief Bill Lester walked
through
the door.

             
The rookie snapped to attention. The chief was about five- feet-eight, with a head full of black
hair and a small well-trimmed
mustache. He was wearing a golf shirt over a pair of chinos, his small belly beginning to push at the shirt, a sign of too much desk and not enough exercise. He came over to me and put his arm across my shoulder.

             
“You all right, Counselor?” he asked.

             
“Yeah, thanks to Logan.”

             
“What happened?”

             
I told him the whole thing, leaving nothing out. I couldn’t imagine why anyone w
ould want to shoot me, and I’d
have thought it a case of mistaken identity if the guy hadn’t asked me if I were Matt Royal.

             
Turning to Logan, Bill asked, “Where’d you learn that kung fu crap?”

             
“Ah, that’s just bar fighting 101, Bill. A full bottle of
hooch
can do a lot of damage. You think I could get another
scotch
? Matt’s buying.”

             
“Sure,” Bill said. Several Manatee County Sheriff’s deputies had come into Tiny’s while we talked. They helped the Longboat police as needed. Lester had probably called them in to help take statements while the crowd was reasonably sober. He would’ve known before he reached Tiny’s that there’d be a crowd on a Friday night. The chief was a regular himself and
he
knew most of  the people in the bar.

             
Bill asked the crowd to calm down, and then told them he would appreciate it if each of them would giv
e a statement to the deputies.
There was a murmur of agreement, and the deputies began to move about the bar, talking to the witnesses.

             
Bill turned to me. “You feel like talking now?”

             
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s get this down before I start to forget things.”

             
We moved to a table in the corner where it was reasonably quiet. “What can you tell me about this, Counselor?”

             
I gave him the facts, as best as I could remember them.

             
“What were your impressions?” Bill asked.

             
“Impressions? I was scared to death.”

             
“I can imagine. But there must have been some thoughts going through your head.”

             
“I was hoping I wouldn’t crap my pants when the bullet hit me.”

             
“Okay, but think. Try to let your mind just flow around the memory. Is there anything else you saw, or thought you saw, or sensed?”

             
“The shooter was wearing latex gloves. I don’t think that registered until now. But he was wearing surgical gloves.”

             
“Anything else?”

             
“I don’t think so,” I said.

             
“What about the motorcycle, the rider, the tag number, anything?”

             
“The driver had on dark clothes and a black helmet. One of those that covered his head completely. It had a tinted visor, and I couldn’t see his face through it. There was mud on the license plate. It was a Florida plate, but I couldn’t read the nu
m
bers.”

             
“Anything els
e strike you about the driver?”

             
I thought for a minute, concentrating on the few second glimpse I’d had of the driver. “He was small,” I said. “Maybe he was a teenager. His jacket seemed too large.
”

             
“Could it have been a woman?”

             
I hadn’t thought about that. I nodded. “I suppose it could’ve been,” I said.

             
“What kind of bike?”

             
“I don’t know. It wasn’t a Harley. Wh
at do they call those others?
Crotch rockets?”

             
“Yeah. Harley drivers are a lot more sensible than those kids on the rockets. Could you tell the make?”

             
“No. Sorry.”

             
“No problem, Matt. You’ve done better than most.”

             
“I think I need to get home, Bill. I’m beat, and I can’t seem to stop shaking.”

             
“Do you want me to get Doc Britt to look in on you?”

             
“No, I’ll be okay. I just need to settle down some.”

             
“Okay. I’ll put an officer at your condo tonight. We’ll talk more about this in the morning.”

             
“Thanks, Bill. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

             
The chief and I agreed to meet at the Blue Dolphin for breakfast the next morning
.
Logan insiste
d on driving me home.
I’d retrieve my car the next day.

Murder Key

THREE

             
Logan walked to the door of my condo with me. “Want me to come in?” he asked.

             
“No, thanks. I’m fine. I’m still a little shaky, but I’ll get over it.’

             
“Okay. Call me if you need anything.” 

             
I couldn’t sit still. I roamed my condo, drinking a beer, trying to talk myself out of this odd state I’d been in since the shooter pointed his pistol at me. I looked out the window and saw the Longboat Key patrol car in the parking lot. I could just make out the figure of a cop behind the steering wheel. I knew another officer was outside my door. They’d be there all night, because the chief told them to, and because they were my friends. We islanders take care of each other.

             
I was not happy with myself. I had crafted a self-image that ran to the macho, and I was feeling a lot like a wuss tonight. I’m not sure what a wuss is, but I think it’s the opposite of macho.

             
I had been to war, killed some people, got shot up, survived and lived a pretty good life. A few months before, I thought my life was over when three men
tried to kill me on Egmont Key.
I killed two of them, took some injuries to my own priceless hide, and never looked back. I was glad they were dead, and not me. It seemed like a good trade off, and I didn’t suffer the remorse that I’ve always heard good cops feel when they have to shoot some scumbag.

             
But now I was scared. I didn’t like that feeling. Where had my old macho self gone? Perhaps it was just the result of that instant when I knew with absolute certainty that I was about to die. In every other time I’d faced death, I’d been moving, in action, trying to save my skin. At Tiny’s, I was frozen in place, unable to
react
. I’d waited for death for what seemed like a long time, although it was only a moment. It scared the hell out of me. That was an emotion I hadn’t felt in years.

             
I knew I was going to have to get over this. Whoever tried to kill me was not likely to give up. I had no idea who wanted me dead, or why. But I figured if I was to survive, I’d have to find out who and why and put a stop to it.

             
I owned a thirty-eight caliber snub-nosed revolver, the same kind of handgun that had almost killed me a few hours earlier. I hadn’t fired it in years. I took it out of the safe in my closet and spent an hour cleaning it. I clamped the holster to my belt and practiced drawing and dry firing the gun. I felt a little bit like Tom Mix, the old movie cowboy, but I was getting the hang of it. Old habits return quickly, and I’d once kept a weapon close at all times.

             
Several years before, the Florida legislature had passed a law that allowed any citizen who took a one-day course and passed a perfunctory test on the use and safety of firearms, to be issued a concealed weapons permit. I had one. I thought it was time I took advantage of it.

             
The phone rang. I answered.

             
“Mr. Royal?
This is Ken Brown at the
Herald Tribune
.” I hung up. It rang again. I ignored it.

             
I knew some of the islanders would be worried when they heard about Tiny’s, and they’d be calling. I’d let the answering machine pick up, and I’d call my friends back later. The press could go to hell.

             
I lay down on the bed with my revolver on the bedside table. The front door was dead-bolted and the sliding glass doors to my balcony overlooking Sarasota Bay were secured with steel rods in the slide-ways. I felt relatively safe as I drifted off to sleep.

             
The dreams came that night, murky with dread and remorse. I hadn’t had them in a long time, but I knew the men knocking on my psychic door during that long night. I woke with the dawn, glad the specters were gone, but knowing they’d be
back
and that I could do nothing about it, except drink myself into a stupor. I didn’t want to start that again.