Vampire Slayer Murdered in Key West - Mick Murphy Short Stories (3 page)

“What you’d wanted all along.”

“Yeah.” He was not excited about being right.

“I’d leave the money in the bank,” I told him. “I wouldn’t try hiding it.”

“I was easy on you.” He laughed and looked at the bankbook again. “I’ve never been to the Cayman Islands.”

“A good starting point for visiting the Caribbean and Central America.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“You know where I’ll be, or at least how to reach me.”

“Yeah,” he said and blew cigar smoke into the air.

“You can fly to Havana from the Caymans.”

“I guess I can do just about anything I want, can’t I?” He finally smiled. “Thanks.”

“What are friends for?”

“How about for buying dinner?”

“The least you can do.” I laughed. “I’ll meet you at El Siboney around eight.”

“Thanks, doesn’t seem like enough …”

“Get the hell out of here,” I told him. “I have to clean up and make some calls.”

“Eight,” he said as he climbed off the boat. “Thanks for the cigar,” he called out as he put the bankbook in his pocket. He had more spring in his step as he walked along the floating dock.

# # #

Footnote

I wrote “Finding Picasso” after moving to Key West. I still had a bit of Los Angeles hidden in me and, of course, Boston. I was able to get bits and pieces of all three locales into the story.

I actually used to visit the Modern Art Museum on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, and during a display of Picasso’s work thought about how a thief could steal one. Murder and theft is a mystery writer’s lively hood, so who could blame me. I doubt it could really happen, other than in my imagination.

If you’ve read my books, you might remember Joseph Bolter and Dick Walsh from one or two of them. In most of my writings, I slip in names of relatives and friends for my own amusement.

No one wanted “Finding Picasso” until Shirrel Rhoades read a copy and bought it for
The Saturday Evening Post
. So, finally, the first Mick Murphy story was published.

T
ony Whyte’s once sparking blue eyes were lifeless and stared into oblivion; his frozen expression suggested no fear or pain, not even surprise and his Key West tan had turned ashen. Both hands clutched an old sword blade that had been forced through his chest and impaled him to the boat chair where he died. A small pirate flag hung from its handle.

A puddle of congealed blood sloshed like Jell-O under the chair as the luxurious 50-foot trawler rocked in its slip. The teak-paneled main cabin appeared neat, only Tony looked out of place, while the sweet stickiness of blood, mixed with the sourness of death fouled the cabin’s air.

I searched for a pulse in his neck, but knew I wouldn’t find one. Tony was as cold as granite from a Quincy quarry and almost as hard.

Classical music played from the trawler’s satellite radio. I looked at the radio’s screen and
Bach, cello suite no. 6 in D major by Pablo Casals
scrolled across it. The music was counterpoint to the cacophony of sounds coming from the Key West Old Town marina outside Schooner Wharf Bar; a mixture of bar patrons’ happiness, captains barking orders to crews, tourists shrieking excitement, boat engines revving and traffic.

I walked outside to breathe the salty air. Too many people had seen me on the boat, so I couldn’t walk away. Not that I wanted to. Tony was a guy I had worked with years ago on a newspaper in Puerto Rico. We had taken different roads in life, but two months ago, our paths crossed again in Key West, Florida, my home.

Tony had been sober four years and was writing again. He was happy and talked freely of his alcoholism, of waking confused and scared from his blackouts, and how long it had taken him to hit bottom. His journalism career crashed and burned, while mine flourished. Slowly and sober, Tony had been writing his way back, one day at a time.

I looked inside the cabin and thought again about how neat it was. Tony had been a barfly, a scraper who knew how to survive, but this time he hadn’t. He knew who killed him, but hadn’t seen it coming.

I sat in a deck chair and felt the morning sun on my face. Clouds moved across the pale sky and the air smelled of saltwater, humidity and seaweed. Tarpon broke the surface, their splashing echoed around the marina. It smelled a lot better than inside. Lines, holding boats in place, moaned from stress and birds cried in protest, as the first reef bound catamarans, filled with tourists waiting to sunburn, left for a day of snorkeling.

The sounds of life vibrated from the marina and harbor walk, while the silence of murder sat quietly in the boat’s cabin.

I used my cell phone to call Richard Dowley, the chief of police. Had someone, or something from Tony’s alcohol-hazy past found him? Or, had a murderer with a pirate fetish surfaced in Paradise? Murder was almost unheard of in Key West. We were more than 100 miles from Miami and a million miles from its violence.

• • •

The Chief, dressed in creased blue slacks and a blue Polo shirt with a police logo on its breast, stood with a Styrofoam cup of
café con leche
, a mixture of strong Cuban coffee with hot milk and lots of sugar, sunglasses perched on his large nose, looking at Tony’s body.

Sherlock Corcoran, the crime scene investigator, and Detective Luis Morales, both wearing surgical gloves, looked cautiously around the room. They had turned the boat’s air conditioner to high, but the room still held the stench of violent death. Few knew Sherlock’s real first name, but the nickname came with his job.

Their casual attire conflicted with my cutoff jeans, sleeveless button-downed collared shirt, faded pre-World Series Boston Red Sox baseball cap and flip-flops. I had three good cigars in my pocket and wanted to light one, to help kill the foul air.

“Who was he?” the Chief sipped his
con leche
. “And how do you know him?”

“Tony Whyte,” I turned away and looked outside. “Whyte with a Y. Years ago we worked on the same paper in San Juan.”

“What’s he doing on Wizard’s boat?”

“He was helping Wizard and his two partners write their memoirs on discovering the Spanish treasure.” It was the truth, but not the whole truth.

When I mentioned the Spanish treasure, Sherlock and Luis stopped and stared at me. The three boat bums – Wizard, Lucky and Bubba – discovering millions in Spanish treasure in the ‘70s was a Key West legend with little, if any truth told with the story. When the new multi-millionaires were sober they had varying stories about the discovery and they told other versions when they were drunk, which was often. Their only consistency was their inconsistency.

“Wizard do this?” the Chief took a long swallow and finished his
con leche
.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Why?” He took a cigar from my pocked, sniffed it, and smiled.

“Wizard’s too frail and this guy is twice his size,”Luis said. “He didn’t do it. Whoever did it had enough strength to push the sword through a man’s ribs.”

The Chief looked at me and I nodded. Wizard was in his late 70s and had always been a beanpole. In his prime, he had difficulty with a scuba tank until he was in the water.

“Let’s talk to him anyway,” he said to Luis and handed the cigar back. “Have a car check the bars,” he looked at his watch. “There are only a few open this early.”

Luis went outside to tell the uniformed officers.

“Awfully neat for a murder,” Sherlock opened a cabinet and looked inside. “This the way you found it, Mick?”

“Exactly. I checked Tony for a pulse and then called the Chief.”

“You couldn’t tell he was dead?” Sherlock tried to hide a smile. “I’m going below.”

Sherlock walked the narrow steps to the lower section of the trawler.

“You want to tell me anything?” the Chief put his empty cup down. “If he’s writing the memoir, what are you doing here?”

“He was supposed get with Wizard at the Breakfast Club at Schooner Wharf. Tony said they had a few things to discuss and then he wanted to talk to me.” I turned back toward Tony and wondered what he wanted. “We were gonna meet at Schooner and go have breakfast, when he didn’t show up I walked down here and found him like this.”

“Maybe Wizard had help,” the Chief thought aloud.

“No fuss, no mess,” I looked around the neat cabin and wished I was outside.

“A patrol car is looking for him, Chief,” Luis walked in.

“Sherlock’s down below,” the Chief said and Luis went in search of him.

“What are you going to do now?”

“Go have breakfast at Harpoon Harry’s.”

“This doesn’t bother you?” He seemed surprised.

“Chief, I’ve covered drug wars, gang wars, revolutions, and riots in L.A., and I’ve learned to be grateful it ain’t my blood on the streets, and appreciate I’m still alive and capable of being hungry.”

“You’ll need to come to the station and give Luis a statement,” the Chief said as I headed toward the deck.

“You know the guy hates me.”

“Yeah, but I love you,” he smiled. “Come to the station when he calls.”

“Sure.” I walked outside, took a deep breath, and fought the urge to look at Tony one last time.

• • •

Padre Thomas Collins sat at one of Schooner Wharf’s empty thatched-roof patio tables drinking a
con leche
and eating an egg sandwich on Cuban bread. He wore dark cargo shorts, a faded blue dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, with an opened package of Camel cigarettes in the pocket, and sandals. He motioned me over and pointed to a second Styrofoam cup. I picked it up and was surprised to find it warm.

“For me?”

“I thought you might want it,” he looked up and smiled. “What do you think happened?”

Padre Thomas, as he liked to be called, grew up Irish Catholic outside of Boston. He became a missionary priest, had a parish church in Guatemala and about ten years ago walked away from his rectory. For the past eight years, he has been in Key West. Rumor is he lives on a stipend from the Church, but rumors run rampant around the island and rarely hold any grains of truth. His skin is tanned like leather from riding his bike, his only mode of transportation. He volunteers at a hospice and the Catholic soup kitchen, otherwise his time is his own.

I met Padre Thomas at Schooner Wharf a few months after he first arrived and everyone warned me that he was crazy, because he claimed to see and talk to angels. I believe he sees the angels, but I haven’t made up my mind on whether or not he’s crazy. He still considers himself a priest, but without a church.

“It’s not Wizard,” I sat down and took the lid off the
con leche
.

“I know,” he bit into his sandwich. “I think they’ll find him having breakfast at Harpoon’s.”

“Wizard?”

“Yes, I saw him outside there as I left.”

“The angels tell you anything about this?” I sipped from the Styrofoam cup.

He looked up with a devilish grin. “Someone is very concerned about the book.”

“Who?”

“Someone involved back then. Long before you or I ever thought we’d be in Key West.”

“Do you know who it is?”

Padre Thomas shook his head and took another bite of his sandwich. “I warned Wizard yesterday. He told me he had an idea for protecting everyone and was supposed to pass it on to Tony this morning. He wouldn’t tell me more, just not to worry.”

“Tony should’ve worried.” I sipped the warm
con leche
.

Padre Thomas put his sandwich down and lit a cigarette. “Wizard doesn’t even know.”

“How do you know?”

“He asked me if I had seen Tony.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him no.” He inhaled deeply. “Because I hadn’t.”

“Can you help the cops?” I finished the coffee.

“You know I can’t,” his grin returned. “At first they wouldn’t believe anything I told them and then, since I’d give them information only the killer should know, they’d think I did it.”

He had a point. In the past, his knowledge of things that happened in secret or dark places had gotten him in trouble. I was one of the few people he confided in, maybe because he knew I believed him about the angels, or at least wanted to.

My cell phone chirped. “Yeah.”

“Mick, it’s Tracy at the Hog’s Breath,” the words whispered hoarsely in my ear, like Lauren Bacall talked to Bogey in the movies. “One of those old treasure guys is here looking for you.”

“Wizard?” It was too early for the Hog’s bar to be open.

“No, the one they call Lucky.”

“Where is he?”

“Downstairs.” Tracy worked in the office on the second floor. “He left you something, but he’s sitting at the bar waiting.”

“Thanks, Tracy, I’ll be there in a little while.” I closed the cell phone.

“All three of those treasure hunters are in danger,” Padre Thomas crushed out the cigarette and bit into the last of his sandwich. “Be careful, Mick.”

“Tell me something I can use, Padre.”

“They’ve scared someone from back then,” he mumbled as he chewed. “Someone who’ll kill to keep a secret.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” I got up and rode my bike down the harbor walk toward the Hog’s Breath, having learned nothing from the Chief, but Padre Thomas explained it hadn’t been Tony’s past that caught up with him, it was someone else’s.

• • •

It smelled and felt like rain, the humidity getting thick, as clouds blowing in from the south began to hide the morning sun. Key West had been getting afternoon showers every day for almost a month and they brought a summer mugginess that reminded us we lived in the tropics as well as in the southernmost city in the Continental United States.

The Hog’s Breath Saloon is a short block from the waterfront, at Duval and Front streets, but large hotels block any scenic view of the water. When cruise ships are in port, their smokestacks rise above the hotels and are visible from the Hog’s outdoor patio bar. It’s a friendly place where the bartenders remember your name and what you drink after only a few visits and, because it’s outdoors, smoking is allowed. I routinely meet friends there for cigars.