The Mango Opera (9 page)

“Uncle Sam didn’t make that one up.”

“He doesn’t know it’s going on. Kind of a palace revolution. You through with the phone?”

“You need it, go ahead.”

“You going to warn Annie that she might be in danger?”

“I guess I should do that first.”

“What about me? You and I were lovers.”

“You feel left out?”

“I want to know should I buy that pistol before noon.”

“We did it once. I never told a soul. You already said you were too wasted to remember what went on. A true compliment, I might add.”

“I remember you got the rubber twisted and you had to open a new one. Your flag slid down the mast, but we fixed that. Anyway, we did it twice.”

“That hand job in the hot tub? You wouldn’t even take off the top of your bathing suit.”

“My mother could have walked into that yard at any moment.”

“Your Catholic guilt just eats you up. At two
A.M.
your mother’s going to come around your house on skinny-dip patrol?”

“I still rate a warning about this serial killer who’s attacking your old girlfriends.”

“Ellen Albury received threats from convicts who felt that their prison time was the result of poor representation. We talked last night about how Julia Balbuena’s family is involved in a Cuban turf war. The guy who tried to abduct Shelly Standish sounds too loose to pull off the murders. I don’t know anything at all about Sally Ann getting killed.”

“You’re repeating what Aghajanian just told you. Warn me. Please.”

“Don’t run into any walls while you’re looking over your shoulder.”

“Sometimes I hate you.”

“I love you always. Please be careful. Just in case.”

“Thank you.”

I knew Carmen’s habit of squinting and squaring her face. If her eyes are cold as steel, it’s time to clear out. A sparkle means mischief.

“We need a contingency plan, Alex. We need a list of every girl you’ve slept with, so we can do a mass mailing. Call it a blanket warning. If you can’t afford the postage, I can float you a loan.”

I spotted the sparkle. “You’re a laugh a minute.”

“Can I ask something personal, seriously? Why so many girlfriends?”

I had to think about that for a moment. “It took a long time to find Annie. Sometimes they bugged out on me. Different reasons. Two or three times it clicked, but then it would shut off a few months or a year later. It wasn’t like the same problem over and over again. Either I wasn’t their dream date or they weren’t mine.”

Carmen tasted her coffee and scowled. “Annie’s your dream date?”

“Was. Closest thing since before I went in the Navy. Now probably not.”

“Let me suggest that you warn her in person. Sort of a woman’s move, not so much that you want her back, but you might have to drum up a list.”

“Monty told me not to dwell on it.”

“And you told him that it wasn’t going to stop bothering you. You want me to help you solve the murders, so you can stop sweating?”

“The police are out there working on it. You’re not dependable, anyway. You’ve turned into a raving gun fanatic.”

“I know you too well. If you see any connection, you have two choices. Give the police your list of possible victims, or chase down the murderer yourself. You’ll pick choice B.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Somebody crossed it already. Twice yesterday.”

*   *   *

The row of restored buildings in the 500 block of Whitehead offers a fancy address to two tide insurance companies, two law offices, a real estate broker, a licensed private investigator, and a quickie marriage chapel. The wood shutters and railings are bright, the signboards subdued. The gingerbread is close to authentic. The sidewalks are in better repair than in other sections of the downtown historical area. Pinder, Curry & Sawyer sits mid-block, fifty yards from the main portico of the hundred-year-old red brick Monroe County Courthouse. I lucked into a metered space for the Kawasaki my second time around the block.

Lucette, the young Pinder, Curry receptionist, wore a yellow Walkman headset and a thousand bucks’ worth of gold jewelry. As I entered she regarded me as if she might follow a dust mote.

“Here to see Ann Minnette.” I hung my helmet on the gaudy umbrella stand in the corner behind the door.

“What? Like I think you’re here to see Benjamin Pinder? Every time you come in the door you’re not here to see Annie? You hear that her roommate’s like dead? And Annie’s tied up right now.”

Alarms went off in my brain. “Who’s she with?” I started for Annie’s office door.

Lucette reached up. “Wait, dude. She’s with Mr. Pinder.”

I had already flung open the door. It banged against a springy-sounding doorstop. Pinder and Annie were huddled over her broad desk, surveying a computer printout. Both jumped.

“I hate to bother you, but when did you borrow Ellen Albury’s bicycle?”

“Pardon me?” Annie’s bewildered expression bordered on fear.

Benjamin Pinder also was shaken by my entrance. His pinched face spread to horror and his arms began to rise in self-protection. “I’ve got a call to make before ten.” He was out the door before he said the word “before.”

Annie struck an all-biz pose. “Let’s not get into this right now, Alex. I owe you an explanation. I wouldn’t blame you if you threw me out of your house. But I can’t deal with this now.”

“I don’t want to get into anything except one question. All I need is a one-sentence answer. When did you borrow Ellen Albury’s bicycle?”

“About nine o’clock the night she was killed.”

“Where was your car?”

“This is question number two.” That attorney tone of voice.

“Where was your car?”

“In front of the house on Olivia.”

“All night long?”

She nodded.

“Okay, look. I don’t want to argue, and I’m not here to evict you. It’s your house as long as you need to be there. But something is going on. You might be in danger.”

“Please, Alex.”

“You ever hear me mention Sally Ann Guthery?”

“Yes. And I know. She was killed in that trailer court last weekend. The detectives asked me if I knew her. I didn’t know her from Madonna. The fact that you dated her years ago means nothing.”

“How about Shelly Standish? She was attacked yesterday.”

“You’ve talked about her, too. I can see where this is leading. Was she hurt?”

“She outsmarted a thug. Is my imagination trampling my common sense?”

“Alex, I don’t want to live in fear. I don’t worry that a germ has my name on it. I keep a positive attitude. I eat bacon. I sometimes swallow tap water when I rinse after brushing. You’re making too much of this.”

I wasn’t convinced.

“We’re in shock from yesterday,” she said. “My mind has been off in every direction. Maybe your imagination could send mine a postcard when it takes a minute to cool off.” She began to straighten her papers. “I’ve got the funeral tomorrow, and then I can start putting this behind me, a little at a time. Can we go to dinner tonight and put our minds somewhere else?”

I nodded yes. “Please tell Benjy Pinder I’m sorry for my rudeness.”

“Benjy forgives you. Trust me on that.”

*   *   *

I’d thought I might grab a take-out sandwich at the Pier House Market and go home for a couple hours’ work. Instead, I headed the motorcycle down Whitehead. Joe Cocker wailed from the jukebox at the Green Parrot. Two old black men on bikes rode slowly through Bahama Village. A tourist family posed next to the historically null cupola that had marked the Southernmost Point for twenty years. I turned east along the Atlantic side, then around to Louie’s Back Yard, where I parked it. I’ve often turned to boat rides to work out mental knots. My own personal flavor of hydrotherapy. When a boat is not available, a walk works wonders.

The bowlful of bad news and crazy coincidence in my head did not mesh with Annie’s on-again, off-again flakiness. She’d said that she’d fought the idea that she loved me. Fought like a maniac, I supposed, frolicking with Michael Anselmo. The fact that I’d spent twenty nights in smoky saloons before last night’s reunion added to the confusion. Now she refused to acknowledge even the remote chance of danger.

Perhaps she was right: I had overreacted. Not necessarily foolishly, but too protectively. Hell, I was not her father. Maybe I needed to back off.

I cut through the boat rental area at the Casa Marina, drank a quick rum and OJ at the cabana bar, and kept walking. The positive ratio of bicycles to rental cars at Higgs Beach announced the fade of the winter tourist season. As did the percentage of topless women among the hip-to-hip sunbathers.

By the time I had reached White Street Pier, I had chilled out and begun to juggle my priorities. I had filled the mental blackboard with imperatives. I hadn’t intended to become a sleuth, and I probably would stink at it. But I saw no other choice.

I spit in the ocean for luck and headed back.

9

Chicken Neck Liska sat behind his desk in a high-backed swivel-and-tilt chair, staring out at the city parking garage and breathing through his nose. We’d said our hellos. From the questionable comfort of a government-gray steel-and-vinyl chair, I observed his contemplation. I sensed that the wait was part of his message. He wanted me to know that he was perfecting his phrasing. Out on Simonton a car with a loud bass amplifier passed slowly. Metallic threads in Liska’s vintage Nik-Nik shirt caught yellow-green flashes from the fluorescent lights. His face had been shaved imperfectly and his eyes drooped like a turtle’s. I wondered if his occupation had aged him beyond his time.

“We got four ex-boyfriends: two with domestic violence records and the other two not exactly first-class citizens.” Liska now focused on his mildewed mini-blinds. “Those are the ones in town or alive. We got the kiddie-diddling father, one Pepper Neice, fresh out of prison, released ten days ago, negative contact with his parole officer. Bastard’s vanished, but he could’ve dropped back in town.” Liska reached across the desk. Without looking, he slapped a stack of manila file pockets. “We got twenty-odd violence-prone indigent losers who claim their convictions were conspiracies between the Public Defender and the police department. We got a B and E punk who likes to hit the homes of single women after they’ve gone out for the evening. There’s a chance he’s the dirtbag who wound a Cablevision cord around a blue-haired lady’s neck to force a rape. We’re fucking lucky he didn’t kill that one. I’ll have the Olivia Street fingerprints cross-referenced by the NCIC database at four o’clock and a first draft of Riley’s ME report by five o’clock.” He turned to face me. “You can tell the public we are solving the hell out of this crime.”

“I don’t work for a newspaper.”

“I wonder who you work for.”

I just looked at him.

“To summarize, everyone on the island who is mobile, and not in jail or visually impaired, is a suspect, although there is trace evidence of heterosexual activity, which in this town narrows the field considerably. All we have to do is cull the innocent. The troops are praying for someone to step forward and confess. It ain’t likely.”

Liska clicked his head one notch sideways to check for my reaction. I didn’t move.

“You’re supposed to be on our side, Rutledge.” He hefted a glass jar full of dollar-sized Peppermint Patties and offered me one. I picked two. The obvious answer was that both the law-enforcement career and his recent divorce had taken their toll on his health.

“And you’re holding back evidence.”

I still had nothing to say. But my solid ground had begun to quiver.

He went back to gazing out the window. “I’m a fabulous detective. I didn’t get into an office on the north side of the building with my own phone and a door that shuts and a salary that lets me drive a Lexus by being dumb. I didn’t get here the old-fashioned way, by being related to somebody in power. I did it a new way. I walked the beat. I wore a dark wool uniform in the heat of the day right square in the tropics. I drove dumpy squad cars that smelled like mildew and axle grease and cat piss—sometimes ten, twelve hours a day—before the city’s budget allowed air-conditioning. I kissed more Cuban tushy than you ever saw. I pulled some shit, and I played the game. I took chances, I evened scores, I gave people a break now and then. I gave a lot of people breaks. Now I got this office, it means something. After all that practice, I notice things, I follow up.”

Chicken Neck’s phone rang. He ignored it for a moment. “We’ve worked together too long to bullshit each other. I don’t need to know today why you kept them. But why don’t you plan an explanation real soon. Bring me the color five-by-sevens.” He popped the receiver to his ear.

I stood to exit the office. Liska raised one arm to get my attention, then held his palm over the mouthpiece. “They pulled a match on the prints from Olivia, the front door and an ashtray. Pepper Neice. The missing father.”

“Jesus, her father?”

“What is it, ‘Friends and Family’? You never know, bubba. Hate, revenge, love, jealousy, and the weather. You tell me. I just type reports.” He waved me out and returned to his conversation.

I passed through a labyrinth of four or five open cubicles where detectives faced dim computer monitors or stared at their desk calendars. The whole place smelled like a locker room. Not your standard television sleuths. I took the concrete stairway and waved to Marge Sayre on my way out.

At the pharmacy Duffy Lee apologized for spilling the beans. “I owe Neck a lifetime of favors. He asked me, I had to tell him. I printed you an extra set of four-by-sixes. They’re in the bag with your negatives.”

I bummed a manila envelope, sealed Liska’s prints inside, then dropped them off with Marge Sayre. I took a roundabout route home and passed the house on Olivia that Annie had shared with Ellen Albury. Someone already had posted a
FOR RENT
sign on the porch. The traffic up Truman went slow-motion, single-file. Yesterday’s tourists, fleeing the carnival. When I reached the four-lane stretch where it became North Roosevelt, I twisted the throttle and shot toward the next intersection. Frustration.