The Mango Opera (4 page)

“Maybe he got caught dishing his shit in Miami and they put him out to pasture,” I said. “Even though shitheads usually win in that town.”

Peggy Sue slid my empty plate to one side and caught me eye-to-eye. “I can tell this murder’s got you going.”

“How so?”

“You’re out of uniform. You’re always in shorts, T-shirt, sneaks, ball cap, and camera. The last ten years Alex Rutledge has looked like the universal goddamn tourist. The ultimate tacky camouflage. Today, no camera.”

“I used it too much this morning.”

She realized that she’d touched a nerve. “Sorry.”

“Not your problem.” I smiled. “But I wish I had a picture now. You’re the brightest star of the day.”

“Ooh,” she said. “One more remark like that and I’ll brighten your nighttime, too.” She pointed toward the screened window that faced the parking lot. “Too bad you two didn’t make bigger pigs of yourselves. Somebody slipped in and paid your tab.”

Thirty yards away Annie sat in the VW, her head tilted back against the headrest, her sunglasses reflecting the midday sun.

“I’m out of here, anyway,” said Sam. “I’ve got to hose out fish boxes.”

I slid off the barstool. “Me, I wish I could stay.”

4

“They asked all the wrong questions.” Annie’s right hand rested lightly in the crook of my left elbow. Her fingers pulsed with tension. I felt her shoulder push me along toward the water.

We’d left her Volkswagen in the parking lot and braved the shrill blare of country music from the Wildlife Bar & Grill to walk the litter-filled wharf toward Land’s End Marina. “They poured out this cobwebbed Joe Friday routine,” she said. “And whenever they popped a question that might get them somewhere, they settled for a lame answer. I mean all of them. First those two dorks from the county…”

“The cigar and the mustache.”

“… then the city detectives, Liska and a guy I’ve seen around but I didn’t get his name. Except they were nicer about it, because they knew me. But all any of them wanted were lame answers. They already knew what they wanted to hear.” She pulled a strand of hair from her eyelash. “I tried to fill in their favorite blanks. I wasn’t trying to be evasive, but it kind of worked that way. And that goddamned Avery Hatch called me Ellen two times. The first time he did it I corrected him. He said, ‘Oh yeah, Ellen’s the dead one.’ The second time he said, ‘My mistake.’ As if it could have been someone else’s. Like he’d raised his hand to acknowledge a basketball foul. How do those lazy shits justify their salaries?”

“They’re not paid to be protocol experts.”

“Put me up against them in a criminal defense. I’d chew their strategies into pieces and spit them back into their briefcases. They’d be dead meat.”

“You talk like you’ve got an idea who did it.”

“I don’t have the smallest clue. Alex, I never realized so many people lived aboard these boats.”

The live-aboards had chained bicycles and mopeds to the post-and-hawser safety rail at the head of the pier. The dozen or so Conch cruisers were flame-painted, polka-dotted, and sculpted with fish ornaments. One sun-bleached blue bike had a sticker on a wooden box behind its seat: “Don’t Re-Elect Anyone.”

Without the breeze that had swept the morning sky, the midday air felt thick and warm and damp. We stepped around obstacles on the dock: orange shore power lines, propane tanks, dinghies flopped turtle, pitch-stained hoses, yellow extension cords. Paraphernalia for the escape from civilization. The vagabond lifestyle suddenly appealed to me, though I knew all about the high turnover rate among dreamy-eyed mariners.

A gull flock lifted off the swaybacked tin roof of the Turtle Kraals work shed and swooped the waterfront toward Schooner’s Wharf. Annie’s eyes followed the birds. “On one hand,” she said, “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her. On the other, I have to say that it doesn’t surprise me.”

I questioned her remark.

“She’d played around when she was younger. Dated weird men over the years, to hear her stories. Heavy characters—the coke-spoon crowd, a few redneck losers. But nothing was stolen. And I don’t think a thief would get so evil about how he did it.”

“So, you think revenge or jealousy?”

“Well, it’s for certain that somebody was pissed at her. And it’s going to get confusing. The forensic examiners will come to the conclusion that she was probably raped. But I happen to know that she spent the early-evening hours screwing her tush off with someone she knew.”

“There’s a boyfriend?”

“Last count, four or five. Each could have a motive, but the man she was with last night has a witness to his departure and his whereabouts the rest of the night. They didn’t ask me about that.”

“And he was with you the rest of the night,” I said.

“Not exactly. Not what you mean.”

She had a habit of double-jumping my thought patterns. “I’m glad you know what I mean, Annie,” I said. “My brain’s been on hold for almost three weeks, so I haven’t had a clue what’s on my mind.”

I earned a scowl and large portion of silence for that remark.

Smells of diesel fuel, paint, and exposed barnacles wafted over the pier. The metallic slap of shrouds against aluminum masts intruded on the peace. Over the years the weather had worked on the dock. Much of the two-by-six planking had warped and splintered. But all of the slips were claimed. Boats with names like
Psychic Ward, Orion’s Melt,
and
Adios M.F.

Safe-harbor suburbia.

At pier’s end we sat on someone’s fiberglass locker. Rubber boat fenders squeaked against the dock pilings. An antique biplane buzzed low over the Navy Pier. A man in a frayed Panama hat putted past in an inflatable Zodiac powered by a four-horse Yamaha.

“Let me ask this,” I said. “You arrived at my house with luggage. Who let you leave the site of a murder investigation with all your personal belongings?”

“Good. That’s the kind of question I wanted out of Billy and Avery.”

I waited for her answer.

She shrugged and looked downward. “I stashed it all in my car before I called 911. I figured they’d gift-wrap the house with yellow ‘Police Line’ tape and not let me take the clothes I wear to work. My practical side scares me sometimes. It’s always so cold-blooded. I didn’t scream when I found her. I made sure no one else was in the house, I threw up, and I knew for absolute certain that I couldn’t stop her from being dead. So I packed my stuff in the car and threw up again and called the police.” Annie turned back toward me. “Oh, shit. Some of my clothes are still in the trunk. They’re all going to smell like gasoline.”

We stood awhile, soaking up the midday warmth. Everything in my line of sight had been built since my arrival on the island, most of it in the past ten years. The Waterfront Market, the Hyatt, the Galleon resort, the new marina behind the breakwater. The superstructure of a cruise liner rose above the former Thompson-O’Neill shrimp processing plant—now a complex of sailmakers’ lofts. I had become resigned to the inevitability of change in Key West. I had ranted about it, though the Waterfront Market had proved to be a blessing. I hadn’t wanted my relationship with Annie to change, either, but I saw no way to retrieve it. I stood a foot away from her but felt as if she were gone. Like a dead person.

*   *   *

I’d felt lucky to have found her. She and Becky Till, central Florida natives and senior-year roommates in Tallahassee, arrived in Key West seven years ago, thirty hours after their senior-year final exams. They had rolled down the Seven Mile Bridge on the second wave of AIDS warnings, hitting town intent on turning eight years of higher education into two waitress jobs and as much safe sex as they could handle. Along with their bicycles and enough money to fund first and last months’ rent plus a damage deposit, they had brought six Hefty bags full of clothing that would mildew before Christmas.

“I remember telling Becky to kill me if she ever saw me riding one of those smelly mopeds,” Annie had once told me. “And Becky ordered me to cut off her face if I caught her in one of those booths selling time-share condos. She said she’d rather clean motel rooms. Better to spend all summer picking pubes out of drains. I remember asking her why we didn’t think about being motel maids before we spent our parents’ money on tuition.”

Their first night in town a drunk in the Full Moon Saloon informed them that he had been evicted from a cottage on Grinnell for nonpayment of rent. If the young women showed the landlord actual cash money in the morning, they could claim an A-plus house. It had a front porch, three ceiling fans, and a tub with legs shaped like claws grabbing baseballs. Plus a marijuana bush out back among the crotons and new jacarandas. He planned to sleep in his car until his ex-wife arrived a week later with enough dough for a suite in the Casa Marina. The young women got the place.

Becky lucked into a job at a croissant shop her first day on the hunt. It took Annie a week to land an evening shift in a Duval Street store full of Guatemalan blouses. Over the next few months they kept company with a long parade of male friends. They learned to ride sailboards, cook exotic shrimp-and-rice recipes, and navigate the Old Town back streets on their bikes. They picnicked and sunbathed nude at Woman Key. They learned island history. They danced until four in the morning in the gay discos. They also grew weary of the carnival, the lack of direction. Within eight months, Becky had met and become engaged to a computer programmer from Denver. She’d gone to live in Colorado. And Annie was back in Tallahassee working toward a law degree.

After passing the bar exam, Annie accepted a position near her parents’ home, with a company specializing in marine law. After six months in West Palm Beach and a brief, tumultuous affair with the firm’s youngest partner, she found herself needing more slack and less traffic.

When she left Key West to attend graduate school, Annie had given no thought to returning, short-term or long-term. After a few months working in West Palm she realized that the Island City offered what she needed: in her words, “a laid-back atmosphere and an honest chance to get ahead.” She quit her job and drove south. I met her at the deli counter of Juan Mayg’s the day after she hit town for her second go-round. The next day we ran into each other ordering sandwiches at La Bodega. She said, “Two restaurants in a row without ‘-ery’ at the end of their names.” I respect a sense of humor. I was in love before she finished the sentence.

*   *   *

“I need to get in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Embry.” Her expression held no emotion. Her frazzled hair and puffy face—normally signs of a long workday—told me that the events of the morning had caught up with her.

The names didn’t click with me.

“Ellen’s mother and stepfather. They live out on Staples. I guess the police broke the news to them. I haven’t talked to them yet.”

“Who was your alibi?”

“You’re bringing up our agreement to be honest.”

“Agreements are agreements.” I began to walk toward the parking lot. A crewman on a custom-hull thirty-six-foot charter boat snagged mooring lines off pilings as the boat backed to the dock. Someone tried to hand us brochures that touted a catamaran sunset cruise.

Annie walked close to me but stared straight ahead. “I suppose you’ve told me about every lover in your past. I mean, hell. You’re tall and handsome. You’re built to survive volleyball, deep-sea diving, a night of dancing. Around here, after ten
P.M.
, their skirts reach for the sky and their heels grow hinges and their knees go east and west. I can understand women being attracted to you, especially in this town. You’ve been open, in general, but I’ll bet there are women I don’t know about.”

She was right. There had been several who had grabbed my heart and held on like they’d meant it. “You’ve even met two or three,” I said. “Seen pictures of most of them.”

“But there’ve been omissions, correct?”

“Goddamn, you sound like a lawyer. You and your words. Look, I’ve been single all my life. If we figured one lover a year since I started making love with women, which is not necessarily true, you couldn’t count all of them on all your fingers and toes. What was I supposed to do? Submit a roster?”

“Let me keep last night to myself awhile, okay? That’s all I’m asking. I’m not real proud of myself right now.”

I couldn’t argue with a line like that.

“Did a lot of folks know you were sharing a place with Ellen?”

“It’s not like I went around announcing it. A few people asked why they’d seen my convertible parked on Olivia. That’s part of living in a small town. Can we be roommates again?”

“Until you can find another apartment?”

She rolled her eyes upward. “Uh-oh, he’s mad at me.”

“You don’t think there’s something that needs explaining?”

“It was something I had to do. I wanted space.”

“Did you find it?”

“Not yet. Not all I need, at least. I sit on the beach at lunchtime and that helps. I wouldn’t call it meditating. That sounds a little too alfalfa sprouts. I think it has something to do with restlessness and worrying about the future. And fighting the fact that I love you.”

Attempted sucker punch. I refused to respond.

We went back to the house so she could unload the rest of her clothing, and so I could retrieve my messages. Chicken Neck Liska wanted me to stop by his office at the police station before the end of the day. A man with a polished voice of concern had called from Annie’s office. A magazine in New York needed me to overnight the slides I had promised three days ago.

Annie washed her face, changed her blouse, and briefly inspected her plants. Then she drove away.

I unlocked my bicycle and ventured back out into Paradise.

5

Duffy Lee Hall, an old Full Moon Saloon drinking companion who processed film at a drugstore on Simonton, promised secrecy and hurry-up with the color roll that I’d held back from the police on Olivia Street. For the hundredth time we exchanged opinions on Cootie Ortega’s professional abilities, then Duffy Lee shooed me out of his darkroom.

With a certain amount of dread I headed for Liska’s office at City Hall.