Hemingway's Ghost (3 page)

Bumby was surprised that Sergeant Cohn had recognized him.

“Of course not,” Papa said. “I mean, yeah I’d love to win that, but five thou is hardly worth killing someone over.”

“What you meant to say, I’m sure, was that no contest, no amount of money, is worth killing anyone over.”

“Sure, yeah, of course,” Papa sat back in indignation. “I’m not so good with words sometimes.”

“You do realize you’re one of two Hemingways on the island with a criminal record, and the only regular Hemingway still alive who’s never placed in the money?”

“Don’t remind me,” Papa muttered. “But I ain’t killed no one.”

The Sergeant shifted his gaze to Bumby. “Congratulations on being the top Hemingway impersonator in the world.” He nodded in approval as he studied Bumby. “You’ve even got those knowing eyes, the strained look on your forehead, the creases next to the nose. A model of Hemingway perfection, and a writer to boot! You other two must be a little jealous.”

Bumby started to relax, and the Sergeant said, “Funny, though. I’ve been asking around, and it seems that on the night of the last murder you left the bar before these other two gents.”

Bumby opened his mouth to retort, but the Sergeant held up his hand. “You and I can chat another time, by ourselves, about your alibis and your prior with a knife.” Bumby’s face fell.

That was interesting; I didn’t know the old fartwad had it in him. He must have accidentally stabbed someone with his pen.

“Now let me ask you gents a question. I’m having a little trouble with a certain piece of evidence. The coroner tells me that with two of the victims, one of who was Champ, there was evidence of a struggle. Well, not so much a struggle, but more of a beating. It seems these two victims both had stomach bruising, as well as broken noses and bruised temples.” He looked at Ernie. “The coroner tells me that were he a betting man, he’d bet that someone with some boxing skill had a hand in at least these two murders.”

Ernie whispered, “It
is
him,” at the same time Papa’s mouth dropped and he turned to stare at Ernie.

“What was that?” the Sergeant said to Ernie.

“Nuttin’,” Ernie mumbled.

The Sergeant picked up a pen and started twirling it. “A funny statistic: do you realize that in the vast majority of murder raps, the victims are killed by someone they know?”

Ernie’s eyes narrowed. “Why’s everyone looking at me? Yeah I’m a fighter, so what. Champ was my best friend, so you can just kill that crazy thought right now.”

“I see. Your best friend who you beat up five years ago for sleeping with your now ex-wife?”

Ernie waved a hand, but his voice was weaker than before. “We settled that, and got past it. Bitch was sleepin’ with half the Hemingways, not just Champ, and Champ and me weren’t so close then anyway, you know?”

The Sergeant just smiled.

“Anyway, like you said, I was in the bar.”

“I wasn’t clear, and I apologize. According to the coroner, Champ’s time of death was approximately 4am, and
all of you
had already left Sloppy’s.”

“Hey,” Papa said. “We came in here for some answers and you’re here accusing us of killing our friend!”

“Ah, the passion of the wicked man falsely accused. There’s nothing quite like it. If, of course, that’s indeed the case here.”

“Whatever. I’m outta here,” Papa said, though his eyes flicked to the Sergeant for approval.

The Sergeant shooed them away. “Please, please, enjoy your day. I hope I answered your questions. Like I said, I’ll be stopping by to see you soon.”

They shuffled towards the door and the Sergeant said, “Oh, and gentlemen? You do good work here. I’m a huge fan, you know.
The
Old Man and The Sea’s
my personal favorite. That part when the sharks are circling is just genius, I tell you. There’s always a force in the universe more powerful than the last. Anyway,” he said, glancing at the mass of thunderclouds in the background, “stay dry.”

Papa kicked a bottle on the street outside the police station. “Pigs,” he said. “Who do they think they are, treating their elders like common criminals?”

“We sort of are common criminals,” Ernie said.

“Shut up. And anyway, Ern, what the hell is up with that? A boxer took out two of the victims?”

“So? Am I the only ex-boxer on the Keys or something?”

“You’re sure as hell the only Hemingway who’s an ex-boxer. And what prior, Bumby?”

Bumby’s face reddened. “You know me, I couldn’t hurt a fly. It was a long time ago, I was drunk and jealous. I caught an old girlfriend with someone from my writing group.”

“So what, you
stabbed
them?”

“Of course not. I just waved the knife around and threatened them, someone called 911 and I was locked up for a week. Not a big deal. Writers are a jealous lot,” he muttered.

“Let’s go see Madame Gertrude,” Papa said.

Bumby and Ernie both looked at him in approval, and Bumby said, “Now that’s the smartest thing I’ve heard all day.

They left Papa’s golf cart at his gritty studio apartment that was two blocks on the wrong side of Truman Avenue. Even doctors and attorneys found Key West horribly expensive. Old Town has a long list of millionaires waiting for the old timers to die so they can buy up their wretched conch houses for two million dollars.

The three of them looked like bearded penguins as they waddled down Simonton. They cut over to Duval on Southard, then headed north a few blocks until they saw the garish little shop wedged between a Zagat-rated steakhouse and a strip club. The sign read “Readings by Madame Gertrude,” and plastic stars and zodiac symbols adorned a painted black door. There were no windows.

A bell dinged as they stepped inside, just as the first quarter-sized drops of rain started to fall. The room was small and square, and a gray-haired woman dressed head to toe in green and blue silks stepped into the room from behind a curtain. Her pale, pinched face smiled back at three of her most regular customers, the tip of her snub nose upturned in a permanent sniff.

There were already three chairs in place, further evidence of Madame Gertrude’s psychic genius, as none of them had ever seen more than one chair present, and they hadn’t announced their arrival.

Madame Gertrude always stood as she laid the cards, but she was so short that she was almost eye to eye with Papa when he sat. Because of her voluminous clothing, it was impossible to tell that Madame Gertrude was missing an arm, until she deftly shuffled and spread the Tarot Cards with her remaining hand.

She said, in a grating fake Slavic accent, “Vhat brings my favorite Hemmies to see me all at vonce today?”

“We need you, Madame,” Bumby said. He had not been superstitious until Madame Gertrude had stopped him on the street and told him that a death in his family was imminent, six hours before his cat was hit by a car. Too many other people on the island had reported similar occurrences for Bumby to dismiss Madame Gertrude as a fraud. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the murders,” he said, and her face clouded, “and we need some answers. We tried the police and they treated us like we were guilty.”

“And maybe one of us is,” Papa said grimly. “If that comes out today, then so be it.”

I had to admit, Papa did a good job proclaiming his innocence.

The room quieted, and Madame Gertrude’s hand hovered over the first card until all three were leaning forward in a cloud of incense. “You know,” she said, and they jumped, “I vas here last time there vas double murder on the island. Forty years ago. Did police tell you?”

Papa smirked. “They failed to mention that.”

“That’s because it involved the dark arts. Two bodies vere found hanging upside down on wooden cross in old two-story church on Petronia. You know the one?”

They all nodded.

“The pentagram vas carved on their chest, the blood drained from their bodies. I believe the paper say they had suspect, though no one vas arrested. They covered it up, and it remains our island’s darkest secret.”

“Do you know who did it?” Ernie said in a near-whisper.

“A black magician, a warlock. I sense his presence then, vhen he vas just beginning. I sense it then, I sense it over the years, I
sense it now
.”

Papa gave a disbelieving frown. “No offense, Madame, but what does that have to do with us?”

Bumby said, “Do you think today’s murders are connected in some way?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I vill consult bauble.” She swept up the cards, and her arm disappeared into the silk sleeve, reappearing with a glass ball filled with an opaque, foggy substance.

Her face grew graver and graver as she peered into the bauble. Ernie gripped the edge of the table. “What do you see?”

She hesitated, cocking her head as if not wanting to look fully into the glass. “He’s still here,” she said quietly. “On the island. I don’t know if it is same murderer, but he’s still here somevhere.”

“My God,” Ernie said. “Shouldn’t we go to the police?”

Papa smacked him on the chest with the back of his hand. Bumby said to Madame Gertrude, “There’s something we need to ask you. It’s why we came.”

“Yes?”

Bumby folded and unfolded his hands while his tongue moved back and forth across his teeth. “We need to know if Hemingway’s ghost is on the island.”

“We think he might be the murderer,” Ernie said.

Bumby rolled his eyes. “We absolutely do not.”

“You heard the Sergeant,” Ernie said. “It was a boxer. The Man’s tired of us pretending to be him.”

“No, Ern,” Papa said, “
you’re
the boxer.”

Madame Gertrude considered the issue. “That is interesting question. He vill be somewhere, although likely not here. Almost alvays suicide ghosts reside near place of death. Unfortunately, I cannot help vith that. To summon particular spirit I vould need personal effect, for example a piece of clothing. You need to have personal effect, or be at residence of spirit. Any psychic who claims othervise is lying.”

“Well that’s easy enough,” Papa said. “You can come with us to the Hemingway house tonight. If he’s not there, then we’ll know for sure.”

Madame Gertrude did not look pleased at the thought, and Bumby said, “There might be a better way.”

All eyes turned to him. He reached under his shirt and pulled out a necklace with a shriveled rabbit’s foot dangling on the end of it.

“What the hell’s that?” Papa said.

“It’s his.”

“Whose?
His
?”

“I bought it a decade ago, at an auction. He wore it when he went to the Spanish Civil War.”

“I’ll be damned,” Ernie said, reaching to touch it.

Bumby pulled it back. “It’s my good luck charm. Not that it’s helped me get published,” he muttered. He took it off and reverently handed it to Madame Gertrude. “But if it will help, you can use it.”

She looked doubtful. “If this is really his, it vill help.”

“It better be. It cost me my life savings.”

Papa guffawed.

“Vait,” she said.

She took the bauble and disappeared into the back room. They flinched when the lights went out, casting the room into total darkness. She returned with a single yellow candle and set it in a teacup in the middle of the table. The glow from the candle lit her lined face with soft flickers. She put the rabbit’s foot on the table, then covered it with her hand. “I must go into trance. The candle vill help light the vay for his spirit.”

Then she closed her eyes and grew very still. The three of them waited in uneasy silence, taken aback by the sudden seriousness of her demeanor. It was as if this was the first time they had seen the
real
Madame Gertrude.

They waited so long they thought she was asleep, and then her eyes slowly opened. “I have him,” she said softly.

Ernie’s eyes popped, and even Papa was unnerved. “You’re kidding,” Bumby said. When she didn’t reply he said, “Madame?”

“This is very strange. He’s close, I can sense him. His presence is on the island. But he’s not here with us, and I can barely hear him. I don’t know why he wouldn’t be able to come to me.”

“What’s that mean?” Ernie said.

“I don’t know, unless there’s some reason he’s tied to his location. Maybe the grief is too strong. Hold on—quiet. He’s trying to tell me something.”

They shut up. She had dropped the accent and poor grammar, and her obliviousness to her shtick lent an eerie credulity to her words. Even I was impressed.

Her face looked strained, and she was gripping the table with white knuckles. She was staring at Ernie, who was seated in the middle, although her stare went right through him. Suddenly her face collapsed, and she sat back.

“Well?” Papa said. “Did you reach him?”

She nodded once, her face taut. “Just for a moment. Then he was gone, as if he was being pulled away.”

“What’d he say?”

“I could only make out two words.” She looked around the room as if still searching for a presence, and her words issued from grim lips. “
Help me
.”

I didn’t like how this was going, not one damned bit.

Madame Gertrude had nothing else to say, and seemed disturbed by the whole encounter, which caused the three of them to file out of the room much more solemnly than they had entered.

The clouds had broken and the sun bored into them as they walked down Duval. Bumby squinted down the street. “Forgot my sunglasses,” he muttered.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Ernie said. “Is he toying with us?”

Papa balled his fists. “You need to get your head out of your ass. There’s a murderer on this island killing Hemingways, killing
us
, and you’re getting all worked up over some old bag who went through menopause during the Cold War.”

Ernie shook his finger. “Don’t act like you don’t believe she’s a real psychic. You go there as much as any of us.”

“That’s for fun, Ern. A diversion. This is
real
. Maybe she knows the killer, and is protecting him.”

Bumby stared at Papa. “Madame Gertrude? You seem to be going out of your way to ignore the evidence we do have.”

Papa held his sides and opened his mouth in mock laughter. “Evidence? Evidence? Exactly what evidence are you talking about, Bumblebutt?”