The Quick Adios (Times Six) (11 page)

I shook my head. “My girlfriend’s a Key West detective. I’m a photographer. I’ve worked a few times with the Sheriff’s Office down there.”

“Fred Liska?” he said. “How’s Chicken Neck doing these days?”

“He’s worried about getting older. I didn’t know that his nickname had escaped the Keys.”

“A handle like Chicken Neck in this state?” said Steffey. “Bound to travel. I knew Fred when he was humping for the city, before he ran for sheriff. He’s a good man.”

I opened my camera bag. “You said the magic word, you win the prize.” I took the 8-gigabyte chip from my Nikon and handed it over. “Four or five shots on that card will interest you. The rest I’d like back.”

The detective held it in the palm of his hand, stared at it, stared back at me.

“Beeson’s first reaction to seeing her dead,” I said.

Steffey kept staring as if evaluating my character or deciding whether I knew in advance that Luke and Justin would find Amanda. He sat back, inhaled, dropped the data card into his shirt pocket and said, “Calm and collected.”

“Not always.”

“Would you have kept these pictures if I hadn’t spoken of Liska?”

“I would have given them to someone,” I said. “In a sense, they’re evidence. But I prefer to deal with people I can trust. For all I know, you’re Justin’s best friend and Luke’s cousin and Amanda’s lover.”

“But I passed your test?” he said.

I nodded. “Did Beeson explain his alarm system?”

Steffey nodded. “Yeah. We love the fact that it’s disabled in daylight hours. But we’ll review the past week’s tapes just the same.”

“Week?” I said. “What did he tell you, seven days?”

The detective raised his eyebrows.

“He told me they got erased every seventy-two hours,” I said. “I assumed he meant that the past three days are saved while the previous three are cleared, but I don’t know how those things work. I know for sure he said it was seventy-two hours. He also mentioned that the cameras and security system out back run around the clock. They don’t shut off for the real estate visitors.”

Steffey phoned back to his office. “We could use that forensic intern who knows how to copy video surveillance tapes,” he said. “If he hasn’t left early for his lunch at Applebee’s. Or… especially if he has.”

He ended his call, stared at me for a moment then said, “Why is there a Ziploc bag sticking out of your pants pocket? Your shorts, whatever. To hold and protect the drugs you’re out to score? Or are you already carrying certain products that might get you busted?”

“No. I carry it in case of rain. That baggie is just big enough to hold my phone, my wallet, my car keys and one point-and-shoot camera.”

The detective cold-eyed me again for ten seconds. “Shit,” he said. “Why didn’t I ever think of that?”

With that, he lost interest in me. Or so he appeared. He sniffed and cleared his throat, fiddled with the ballpoint pen, wiped non-existent sweat from his upper lip. After sitting still for no more than five seconds, he reached down to scratch his ankle, then stuck an index finger in one ear and fished around for wax balls.

Holding his disinterested expression a while longer, he said, “Let’s go back to when you woke up this morning.” He let that hang without asking me anything. It was an invitation for me to open up, spill all.

I finally said, “I’d like to do that. Rewind the reel.”

“You didn’t see Anya Timber leave.”

“I heard her car back out of the garage. She was probably parked within twenty feet of my warm, expensive pillow. But, no, I didn’t even open my eyes.”

“No offense, Mr. Rutledge,” said Steffey, “but are we likely to find evidence that she was near that poufy pillow?”

“No offense taken,” I said. “It sounds like splendid fun, and my honest answer is that I don’t know. One assumes clean sheets when offered a guest room, but she may have used the bed on some prior occasion. You certainly won’t find any evidence of my having partaken of Anya Timber’s splendid fun, if you get my drift.”

“You mean no come stains, drool, fashion lubricants or latex condom residue?”

“You guys love details,” I said.

“Chicken Neck didn’t tell you?” he said. “Details solve more cases than drift.”

U
nder the room’s green-tinted fluorescent lights, I felt somewhat trapped in the vinyl office chair that Detective Glenn Steffey had insisted I occupy. I turned off the light switch, let calming slivers of daylight ease their way through the blinds. All I needed was Norah Jones right there in the room, playing her electric piano, singing about raindrops. With the sounds of only a few subdued conversations outside the door, my mind let me think larger, see things less through a microscope and more from a distance.

First clues first. If the Boxster had departed in the middle of the night, I would have heard its engine. If Anya had left the house between the moment I last saw her and the minute I heard her Porsche start that morning, she either had called a taxi or had access to another vehicle, or someone picked her up and brought her back later.

But then… bullshit. In the bigger picture that line of logic didn’t play. Amanda Beeson’s body had flexed, actually wiggled, when Justin yanked the lumpy orange mass from her mouth. I was no death expert, but from articles I had read, her body had already progressed to a late stage of rigor mortis, of diminishing rigidity. She had been dead at least twenty hours, so why was I trying to work Anya into complicity? The body probably had been in that cubicle when Beeson was writing me a check the night before. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

Where had Amanda Beeson been killed? Had she walked in the building’s front door during the hours of reduced security? If she had been in the tiny trunk of her SLK300 when Luke Tharpe moved it inside two days earlier, she had to have been flexible in order to fit. Either way, there would be no video record of her arrival. But her murderer had to be someone who knew how to dodge the security system.

Another detective showed Edwin Torres into the office. The collar of the dark brown work uniform hid his neck tattoo. He sat on the desk, let his legs dangle, then unbuttoned and removed his shirt to relax and adjust to the room’s stuffy air. The tee he wore read
MADE IN AMERICA WITH CUBAN PARTS
.

“Just get here?” I said.

“Hell no.” He rubbed his right thumb against the now-visible tattoo. “They sent a green-and-white to fetch me at work. My boss scoped the deputy and I felt my job go up in smoke. I’ve been out back saying, ‘I don’t know,’ to three of those officers for the past twenty minutes.”

“United Parcel?”

“I load trucks from 5 am to 2 pm. Then I moonlight here three evenings a week, for a couple hours, and at least six hours on Saturdays.”

“Those four cars need that much work?” I said.

“Oh, he’s got other cars in a storage building he rents. An ‘03 Mercury Marauder, an ‘86 Mustang SVO, a ‘94 Ford Lightning pickup, and a ‘68 Camaro.

“And his ex-wife has three cars?”

Torres shook his head. “She went by moods, whatever she felt like driving on any damn day. Used to be, she might show once a week to swap cars. With a few sunny days ahead, you know she loved that roadster. Then, I don’t know, maybe four, five months ago, she started calling for home delivery. Some days I would take her a clean one and bring the dirty one back. Some days Luke would make the run.”

“She live far away?” I said.

“Thirty-six minutes, round-trip.”

“Must be fun,” I said, “working on classic cars.”

“It keeps me sane,” he said. “One of these days I’ll have a street machine.”

“Which of Beeson’s cars would you own if you could?” I said.

“That fake Shelby, someday,” said Torres. “I mean now, right here…” He twirled his finger to indicate our surroundings. “These cars have a nicer home than I do.”

“It’s a well-done GT-350,” I said. “Too bad it’s a fake.”

“I’d stroke it, put a roller cam in it, make it scream. Mr. Beeson says he’ll buy a real one if he can sell this building. How about you?”

“I got lucky and bought a real one when normal people could afford them. It’s also a former Hertz rental car.”

“What color?” he said, his disbelief poorly hidden in his nonchalance.

“Black with gold stripes when it was new, but now it’s in primer. The guy who sold it to me installed a fresh T-10 four-speed.”

“A true Hertz car?” he said. “What’s your VIN code?”

“It’s 6S1900, delivered originally somewhere in Ohio.”

He still didn’t buy my story but he opted for diplomacy. “Hey, you’re the expert. Why primer?”

“The previous owner drove it all over the country, even on race tracks in regional events. It was pretty dinged up. I was having it painted to look original, and the shop went broke halfway through the job. I decided to keep it looking rough. I want people to think it’s an old beat-up Mustang instead of a treasure. I drive it all over the Keys and no one suspects that it’s worth stealing.”

“Did you ever find out the original Ford VIN code?”

“Got it years ago from SAAC, the Shelby club,” I said. “Where does your partner Luke work his day gig?”

“Some office,” said Torres. “He works high finance on a computer.” He paused then said, “He ain’t my partner, really. Really, he’s a butthole, a prime butthole. He thinks he’s a snappy mechanic, but I believe he’d cross-thread his own toothpaste.” He paused in thought then added, “That thirty-six-minute round-trip I mentioned? Some days it took Luke an hour longer than it should have.”

I saw movement outside, checked through the blinds. A smaller EMT vehicle had arrived. Three men were shifting a gray body bag from an ambulance stretcher onto a short platform inside the vehicle. Amanda had left the building.

Had I really just seen a gurney with whitewall tires?

Justin Beeson poked his head into the room, a grim expression on his face. With grief combined with his hangover, he appeared to have aged ten years in two hours. “The county people out here say they don’t need you anymore,” he said. “I’ve got to get Eileen out of school, spend some time with her. A lot of time, actually, for the rest of her life.”

Surprised to see him, I was stuck for words.

“Anya made reservations for you on a six o’clock,” he said. “She can take you to the Tampa airport in an hour or so. Please mail me an invoice for two days and your travel minus that check I wrote last night.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry about your…”

“And hold on to those pictures you shot this morning. We’ll sell this place another time.”

The door closed and he was gone.

Just as well. I wasn’t sure what I would have said next.

Edwin Torres shrugged. I pulled out my phone, called information, and got the number I needed. I had missed breakfast and wasn’t sure I would have time to eat before rushing off to the airport. I ordered four large pizzas and a dozen soft drinks for delivery. The law enforcement people would appreciate the food, now that the body was gone.

Two hours later, in Anya’s Porsche Boxster, I felt fifty grand richer for not owning the car. It wasn’t because it sat too low to clear cracks in the road, or smelled of skin lotion and perfume. Nor did I object to Oscar Peterson’s jazz piano. I simply didn’t fit in it. My head, legs and shoulders begged for acreage.

I was, for certain, fifteen hundred bucks to the good. I had asked Anya to use the drive-thru at Beeson’s bank so I could have “travel money” in my pocket. She knew, of course, that I wanted to make sure the check was good. I also wanted to cash it before Beeson had to spend all his money on lawyers. Given the circumstances, that amount was sufficient for my time and efforts. I would invoice him later for the cost of my air ticket and Key West cab.

Anya drove northward on I-75, at one point passing through a short, intense rainstorm without slowing down. “So much for our brief tease of warm weather,” she said. “January’s coming back to us. It’ll be cold tonight, but I like brisk air. My little secret.”

Among several others, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. I was comforted by her driving ability. On the surface streets she had timed lights to minimize braking, changed lanes often but carefully. On the Interstate she used the vehicle’s power but anticipated the moves of idiots around us. All rare skills in the general population.

“Sorry, Alex,” she said. “I walk around showing my bare ass last night and now I discuss the weather.”

“It’s okay,” I said, thinking ass plus other attributes. “It’s a tough time for small talk.”

We rode in silence for a while on I-75 then crossed the Sunshine Skyway. Two hundred feet above Tampa Bay, and I couldn’t enjoy the view because of the safety railings. Not that the misty seascape would cheer me up. I kept thinking about the morning’s events at 23 Beeson Way, trying to force one particular impression to the surface. It finally came to me. Edwin Torres was a car enthusiast while Luke Tharpe resented having to work on “rattletraps.” Did Torres hold any resentments?

I wondered if Edwin resented Luke’s extra-long trips to Amanda’s house.

A client who picked me up at the Tampa airport six months earlier told me about the free Cell Phone Waiting Lot. You can pull into the lot, sit in your car and wait for arriving passengers to call. You don’t have to drive in circles or fight for a space near the baggage claim. I had plenty of time to check in for my 5:55 flight, plus check and return some messages. I asked Anya to turn into the free lot and stop for a minute.

She shut off her motor, stared for a moment at a car similar to hers, then looked straight at me, almost daring me to break the silence.

“How long have you been with Justin?” I said.

“Two years, last week,” she said. “The woman you were with on New Year’s Eve, have you been with her a long time?”

“Less than a year.”

“Is she the reason I couldn’t seduce you last night?”

I said, “Yes,” and thought, even the beautiful ones want to be wanted. I let my answer settle for a moment then said, “You’re already Eileen’s trusted friend. Will this notch it up a bit?”

“That would be up to Justin,” said Anya. “I know she’ll look to me for comfort in the short run. Beyond that…”