The Quick Adios (Times Six) (12 page)

“You’ll need each other,” I said. “You lost a friend, too.”

“How is that?”

“Amanda.”

She held back for a few seconds. “How could you possibly know?”

I handed her the photo.

She studied it, considered it. I could tell by her face that the sight of it brought her immediate calm. “Thank God,” she said.

“It was stuck under a cabinet next to the bed I slept in. I thought it was something I had dropped, so I lifted it up and…”

She nodded. “I didn’t miss it for two or three days, then I couldn’t find it. Eileen never goes in there, but if she had found this… God, it would be dreadful.”

“That’s the possibility that crossed my mind. I planned to give it only to you. And no one else. Why was it in the guest quarters?”

“I sleep there some nights when Justin’s insomnia affects us both. Nights when I’ve had too much wine to drive home. There was a night when I wanted the picture with me.”

“You have your own place,” I said, more as a statement than a question.

“My pocket of calm. It’s a condo on Longboat Key. My boyfriend’s parents loved me more than he did. They had loads of money and were generous after he broke off our love affair.” She offered the photo back to me. “It was taken with my camera. The original is on my computer. Do you want to keep it?”

What the hell? Was she coming on, tempting me? Or handing me a clue to help solve a crime? Either way, hell hath no fury…

I accepted the picture, put it back in my camera bag.

“Is that all you wanted to say?” she asked.

“Please accept my sympathy.”

“I accept, thank you.” She started the car, drove from the Cell Phone Parking Lot to the Blue Zone departure gates, and stopped next to the curb.

“Thank you for the ride,” I said. “Take care of Mr. Beeson.”

Anya nodded sadly. “I have a big task ahead,” she said. “He really loved her.”

So much that he called her a loopy bitch.

Three sides to every story, minimum.

My reservation required me to change planes. It was too late to book direct. I’d spend more time in the Miami North Terminal than I would in either aircraft. But I would be inside my cottage before ten pm, cured of my impulsive desire to escape the island, at least for a while. And, while I carried my camera bag aboard, Justin Beeson was paying the rip-off baggage fees for my duffel and tripod. Assuming, of course, that he would honor my invoice.

On arrival in Miami I found nothing in my voicemail. Ominous, though I felt thankful. The phone had thrown me nothing but trouble for twenty-five hours. I elected not to call from the terminal but to wait for face-to-face chats to reassure Beth and find out how Marnie and the Aristocrats had fared. I had time to eat some half-decent grilled chicken, then found a small saloon selling large mojitos. My wait involved far more people-watching than drudgery. When I walked outside to the “regional carrier” gates, my phone buzzed twice. Two calls hadn’t made it through while I was inside. Both callers had left messages.

The first was a quote request from someone I had never met. Friend of a friend, or so he said. I was inclined to wipe the voicemail, then thought it best to hold off. It could turn out to be a decent job, and I hate to turn down moneymakers. The second message was from Detective Glenn Steffey in Manatee County. He gave his number and asked me to call when I got a chance. I decided to wait until I reached Key West so he couldn’t turn me around, boogie me back north for more questions I couldn’t answer. Especially with Anya’s beloved cold weather coming back in.

A diverse group of island-bound passengers milled about in dim lighting, waiting to board. I recognized only one as a Key West resident, a real estate broker I never had cared for. Several people smelled of fabric softener, and someone should have chomped an Altoid after smoking a jay. As usual in crowds that size, one man had a loud mouth. Within a minute of his arrival I knew his name was, “Robert Fonteneau, call me Bobby.”

“French name,” someone said. “Louisiana?”

“Canada, but I’m about as French as Bruce Lee,” he proclaimed. “I’m like a Cuban named O’Reilly.”

Or more like a teenager yell-talking in a mall. Don’t hear my words but be damn sure to notice me. Still, Fonteneau made a couple remarks that proved he had a good sense of humor. He stood about 5’-9” with a thick neck and medium build, and looked like he had combed his brown hair with the flat of his hand. He wore a heavy white sweatshirt under a Navy blue sport coat, pressed blue jeans and new Nikes. Sweat streamed down his face. It was a January evening in south Florida, but to him it had to be worse than summer. Another northerner giving the tropics a try.

Boarding went smoothly except for a flight attendant’s demand that a musician’s guitar go to baggage. After a woman offered to give up her seat to the instrument, a crew member relented and placed the Martin case in a hang-up locker. The woman, it turned out, was assigned the aisle seat next to my window slot. I traded and gave her my view of Miami’s night lights. Aloft, I fell asleep, nailed down a solid thirty-minute nap.

Awakened, of course, by the voice of Fonteneau three or four rows behind me. He was bitching about Canadian weather, having to shovel a path to his car that morning to get to the airport on time. Then came the all-encompassing brag medley: “I got a friend who did this;” “My best friend did that;” “I got a friend who’ll let me use his…” I pitied the man’s seatmate until I realized it was the broker and I didn’t care. I could tell by his disinterested grunts that he wanted out of the conversation, wanted Robert Fonteneau to shut up. The Canadian finally took the hint, left the broker and the rest of the plane’s passengers to their own thoughts.

I remembered reading, in a Beat Generation novel, about a “rambling man” who kept a packed duffel behind his living room sofa. Always ready for the fast departure to anywhere else. When younger I believed that constant motion was a fine, romantic idea—right up to the year I hit Key West, saw the island, unpacked and grew roots. With most out-of-town trips, I felt hell-bent to get back to the island, back to my own home. This time I had mixed feelings. I was escaping my second crime scene in two days, neither of which had anything to do with me. They were like passing news items except that everyone around me was sucked into tornados of grief and investigation, guilt and regret. I’ve always believed it was bad luck to assign myself imaginary negative traits. I didn’t want to think I was a shit magnet, but I was sure as hell archiving shit at a record-setting rate.

After our landing in Key West, a flight attendant held up the Navy blue sport coat. “Mr. Fountain-ooh, please identify yourself.”

Oh, don’t get him started, I thought.

Bobby corrected her pronunciation with, “Fawn-tone-oh,” but kept quiet as our fellow passengers filed off to the tarmac. While we waited our turn to leave the plane, the broker told the visitor to have a great time in paradise.

“Actually, it’s a sad visit,” said Fonteneau. “A colleague of mine died here in town, died of a heart attack two days ago. I’m here to settle his affairs.”

Emerson Caldwell was that colleague, I thought, but offered no reaction. I left the plane just ahead of Fonteneau, and hurried to the Baggage area, hoping the chatty man would go straight to a taxi. I didn’t want to be his next victim. But that backfired when he and I were among the last people waiting for luggage. When my tripod box finally appeared, I walked outside and pointed at a taxi driver. He waved me toward his vehicle, then pointed at someone behind me.

“Sure,” said Robert Fonteneau. “La Concha Hotel, eh?” He turned to me, stuck out his hand and reintroduced himself as “Bobby.” Up close he had an unreadable face. He could have been a Little League coach or a Russian mob assassin. He had what Sam Wheeler called bi-polar eyes. That meant he could be a softy or get mean-angry without warning. But his smile looked genuine. He repeated what I had heard him tell the real estate man, the sad reason for his trip to the island.

“Can you recommend a good local attorney to handle this kind of situation, to get past all the red tape?”

“I can recommend restaurants and fishing guides,” I said, “but lawyers, I really don’t know. Pick one who’s been in town a long time. It may cost the estate a little more money, but the veterans know how the machine runs.”

“Every town has a machine,” said Fonteneau.

“And it takes years to learn how to navigate…”

“Well, it’s been years since I set foot on this island,” he said. “Is Captain Tony’s Saloon still in business? And the Green Parrot?”

“Tony sold the bar back in ‘89,” I said. “He died in 2008. And Jim Bean, the man who co-owned the Parrot, died in 2010. But the bars are still there, almost the same as always.”

“Good,” he said. “No matter what I have to do, to take care of my friend’s affairs and final wishes, I will spend tomorrow afternoon in Captain Tony’s and the next day at the Green Parrot. I’m in a mournful mood and booze will hurry me to my personal rock bottom.” His grin looked more evil than sly or sad. “Maybe it’ll take me to some young lady’s soft bottom, too.”

Full circle, and the cab delivered me back to the curb in front of the Eden House. Fonteneau wanted to shake hands again. I pretended to fumble with my camera bag and not see his outstretched fingers. I wished him luck and closed the cab door.

It was great to return to tropical scents, the sea breeze, the muffled sounds of cars over on Eaton Street, the flickering of streetlights through the canopy of palm trees. Familiar old architecture of homes on Fleming, so different from anywhere else in Florida. I wondered how many times I had walked that patch of pavement, how often each year for all of the years I had lived in the lane. Even the pebbles under my shoes felt familiar.

The last time I had come around the corner, less than thirty hours earlier, I was returning from Beeson’s home on Olivia Street. Hurrying back from the meeting where he had asked about the legal status of digital photos.

“What about crime cases that go to court?”

Why had he used the word “crime” instead of “civil?”

He had followed that by using the words “judge” and “juries.”

Had I been blinded by his style, his approach, his money or his woman?

The first thing I noticed in the lane was the Mercedes SUV with Illinois plates owned by the Neighbor I Didn’t Know. He had bought the house a year earlier. He came for six weeks in winter and three weeks in summer and never said hello or waved. In October two workmen had placed paving bricks over a patch of marl in front of his house. Now he had a precise, perfect spot for his Benz. That was all I knew about him, except that he always dressed like he was still in Chicago.

I surely didn’t know why a committee awaited me. I didn’t even notice their cars until I had to walk between them to reach my house. I opened the screen door and found Dubbie Tanner standing on the porch. Sheriff Liska, Beth, Marnie and my close friend and neighbor, Carmen Sosa, sat staring as if shocked to see me appear at my own home.

“Everyone has Liska’s eyes,” I said. “What’s with all the long faces?”

Liska smiled, shook his head. “We weren’t exactly expecting you back tonight.”

I looked at Beth. She cast her gaze at the porch decking for an instant then raised her eyes to me. We were locked eye-to-eye but I could feel everyone else’s gaze upon me. Could feel their eyes sorting my expression, reading my doubt.

“What?” I said.

Beth’s eyes held pure sadness. She bit her upper lip between her teeth, released it and said, “As a group we have failed your friendship.”

Far too quickly I said, “Who’s dead?”

Her shoulders sank and told me that my guess was correct.

“At The Tideline condo, another person. Someone we all knew, but you…”

“Oh, shit,” I said, dreading her news. “Please just say.”

Beth shuddered and barely whispered, “Teresa Barga.”

M
y eyes had caught it, with help from a telephoto lens.

The third body bag at The Tideline crime scene.

Teresa Barga had ended our short-term relationship several years ago. For eight months we had spent almost every night together at her Shipyard townhouse or in my cottage, depending on our moods and schedules. I probably had loved her. She had not closed out our affair gracefully. Her head was turned when an old college boyfriend showed up in town. He was a scam artist and a loser. Worse, not long after recapturing her heart, he was murdered by a woman he had been blackmailing.

After that mess Teresa and I kept our distance until a complication no one could have foreseen. Tim Rutledge, my younger brother, hit town in a swirl of typical Keys misbehavior. In the first week of his drunken visit, he met and charmed Teresa in a restaurant over breakfast. I viewed their intense, short-term romance with certain opinions regarding their motivations. Events forced me into acceptance before the couple’s inevitable split and Tim’s departure for the mainland.

Since then Teresa and I had run into each other only three times, odd for a small island, and especially since she was still the KWPD’s Public Information Officer. Our meetings had been short and cordial. I was happy to discover that my bitterness over our breakup had vanished. I wished her well each time and I had meant it. And, for some reason, I remembered each encounter.

Everyone on the porch stared at me. Carmen, Beth, Marnie, Liska and Tanner. I could tell by their faces that Teresa’s death had been violent. I had been given the story’s ending but no grisly details. Oddly, I felt little grief at first. Dozens of images and ideas swirled in my brain, including the fact that the bad news could have been worse. The death of Carmen Sosa’s daughter, Maria, or my brother, Tim. Or any close and loyal friend on the island. Of course, there is no way to prioritize tragedy. Just as there is no standard form of grief.

I was unsure how to respond, had no words adequate to the loss. I offered only secondhand gossip: “I heard last summer that she was living in New Town with some city cop.”

“Officer Darrin Marsh,” said Beth. “On the force for six years. They moved from Fogarty Street to The Tideline last fall. They lived fifty feet down the hall from the murder condo. Her body was found in Emerson Caldwell’s kitchen.”