Hawk Channel Chase (31 page)

Beth ended her chat and rode over to join me. She had already pulled off her helmet. Damp ringlets of blonde hair hung over her forehead and ears. The sweet smell of feminine perspiration added to her beauty. She unzipped the top of her riding suit, wore a sweat-damp KWPD T-shirt underneath.

“How romantic,” she said. “This is where we first met.”

More of it came back to me. I was on my motorcycle that time, too. A Carolina Skiff had rested on a trailer under the house. Bobbi Lewis was the officer in charge of the crime scene, and she had allowed Watkins, then a rookie Key West detective, to observe the county’s crime scene procedures. Beth had admired my Triumph and had asked, already knowing, if it was a 1970 T-120R model.

Beth said, “Bobbi Lewis introduced us.”

I winced. “Can we celebrate our first date instead of this crime scene?”

“You’re good,” she said. “If you had come up with anything but those words, you were in the deep.”

“Want to leave?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “After I look around.”

Closer to the water, the place didn’t look like most of the unoccupied homes in the Keys. The feds, or whoever they were, had cleaned up. The patch of grass had been raked, the patio swept. One section of concrete near the seawall was bleached to pure white. The place was as neat as a rich man’s desk.

“What do you think happened?” she said.

I reminded myself that Beth had dated Cliff Brock. “Processed, documented and vacuumed,” I said. “No one would do this for a robbery or a stolen boat.”

“Empty house,” she said. “Nothing to steal.”

I couldn’t look at her face. “That’s all we’re going to learn.”
 

“I agree,” she said, “but I can’t believe they clamped down a murder scene. It’s way too much like a spy novel.”

“Where did you go boating with Cliff Brock?”

“Actually, we only went once, on a weekend. We went to some remote island called Marvin.”

“What kind of boat did he own?”

“Brand name?” she said. “I don’t know motorboats. It was like the smaller guide boats in the Bight. Flat on top, big motor.”

“Where did he keep it?”

“On a trailer he towed with a black Ford pickup. He launched it off a ramp by the Sugarloaf Lodge.”

Shit, I thought. The sunken skiff really had existed. It had been Cliff Brock’s boat with Sam Wheeler’s registration numbers stuck to its hull. It was no stretch to guess that Cliff and Sally had been killed on the skiff, then their bodies moved to Bay Point.

“Want to leave?” I said.

She zipped up her leather top. “Oh, yes, now I do.”

Why had it been so important for the two bodies to be found? Had someone wanted to learn how law enforcement might react, put the security machine into action? Lay the groundwork for the next step, whatever that might be? Why did it have to begin with Cliff and Sally?

What if they succeeded? What if they now knew what they were out to learn? And how, from false hull numbers to forced hiding, did the whole mess come snaking back around to Sam?

The man across the road was still cutting his lawn. I placed my helmet on the Triumph and walked over to speak with him. It took me a second to recognize the drunk from Louie’s. The man who had pestered Sheriff Liska at Louie’s Backyard about the roadblock and cops with pizzas and Pepsis on the hoods of their squad cars.

“Hard labor,” I said.

“A few people here in ritzy Monroe still work in their own yard.” He used his forearm to wipe sweat from his brow. He left behind a smear of tan dirt and grass confetti. “Also, I’m sweating out a three-day bender.” He pointed back to where Beth stood with her Ducati. “Same house where some poor rich bastard hung himself two years ago.”

“Were there any helicopters?” I said.

“What do you mean, this week?” He shook his head. “I got it all second-hand, but there was no talk of that.”

“An ambulance?”

“Not that either.”

“Can I ask who told you about it?” I said.

He jacked his thumb toward the house just north of us. “Dude next door. Boy hid behind his mini-blinds and watched the damnedest parade. He left yesterday for Wyoming to go hunting for a week, and don’t ask your next question. He don’t have one. If I answer my cell phone while I’m talking to him, he gets offended like I cut the cheese and he walks away.”

“Where to next?” said Beth.

I told her about Sally’s job at Colding’s, along with Mikey Bokamp, Honey Weiss and Alyssa. I explained why we had to be careful about socializing with the women if the boss was around.

“Who is this Colding?”

“A sleazeball,” I said. “He cons the girls into his back office so he can ogle their bare titties. They put up with it for fear of their jobs.”

She clenched her fist. “My kind of guy. After we fry the bigger fish, I’ll hook his ass.”

“They’ll all lose their jobs,” I said.

“They’ll own the grocery.”

The two roads that connect Bay Point to the Overseas Highway straddle the land triangle occupied by Baby’s Coffee. Just north of that triangle, at the end of a gated, unnamed stretch of gravel, is a broad field of antennae and triple-story white buildings. Years ago I heard it was a Navy Communication Station. I have never met anyone who works there, don’t know anyone who has been down that one-lane road. Based on acreage, it’s a huge government presence, and it’s been there for decades. It became a piece of scenery that I quit noticing. Hell, I had passed it two days ago without a second thought.

If that was the Mansion, its presence and size could be the reason for all the hush-hush, and the source of all the mysterious, unmarked vehicles.

It was on a damn long gravel road.

I knew that Cecil Colding bullied staff he thought to be socializing, so I played customer, went straight for the grocery’s candy bar rack. Beth Watkins studied the bananas on an end cap display. The place smelled of garlic and the Clorox used to disinfect floor mats and cooked coffee. I saw only Mikey Bokamp and Honey Weiss on the job and no other shoppers. Honey, behind the deli counter, wore a dark red T-shirt with the Sugar Daddy logo. I got the joke. Again unzipping, Beth wandered farther away, pretended to peruse the granola bars.

Mikey sidled over from the pastries section. “I expect you’re here to talk with Alyssa, but she’s back there reviewing her time sheet, or whatever, with Uncle D.” She pointed at Beth. “Is that the one you had trouble with two nights ago?”

“No, she’s the one I had fun with last night,” I said.

“I thought you looked ready.” She looked at Honey then turned serious. “We would have heard if you found Sally, right? The boss hired a new girl who starts tomorrow. She’s some mama’s baby but she’s got the devil in her tush. And nipple rings, I think. Cecil took forty-five minutes to interview her.”

Alyssa exited the narrow door of Colding’s office, her face beet red. Flustered and ashamed, she looked downward and hurried to the register.

I tapped my fist on Mikey’s forearm. “Hang with me on this.”

“What a deal,” she said. “I can’t have your front, I got your back.”

“What’s her last name?”

“Navarro. Alyssa Navarro.”

I took my purchase to the register, making sure Mikey stayed close. We got an odd, disapproving look from Honey. Distracted, hugging herself, Alyssa didn’t recognize me at first.

“You still want a free lunch?” I said.

Alyssa shook her head. “Look, I just got warned. If he walks out and sees me having a ‘gab fest,’ I’ll get docked.”

“Right,” I said, “you’ve got all these customers to take care of.”

Alyssa checked the office door. “The clientele is last in our job priorities.”

“How about lunch at Boondocks?” I said.

A flicker of disappointment. “I have to work until three.”

Mikey said, “I get off work in twenty minutes, but I’ll cover you ’til three.”

“Cool,” said Alyssa. “I’ll ride my Vespa. See you in a half hour.”

Outside, Beth said, “How does she eat cereal with that barbell in her tongue?”

“I expect her meals are yogurt-specific. Might be a problem at Boondocks.”

“I say she gets tuna salad. I hope that thing doesn’t short out her electric toothbrush.”

Cecil Colding flung open the grocery’s front door. He barged toward us like a confused farm animal. “I told you not to come around pestering my help.”

“That you did, Cecil, baby,” I said. “I heard you loud and clear, so I came into your slopchute today only to buy this Payday bar. Here’s the receipt, Cecil, so get out of my face.”

“You fucking weasel,” he said. “You talk to me like that, I’ll shove that candy bar down your goddamn throat.” He lunged for the Payday.

I stepped back. “Whoa, big guy, that could hurt. This is worse than having an automatic weapon pointed at my gut in the middle of the night. I could even die.”

“I’ll leave that up to you,” he said. “Just don’t do it in my parking lot. It’s sure to fuck up business.”

“Don’t ever lose sight of that bottom line, Cecil.” I turned to Beth. “Which law did he just break?”

“Florida section seven-eight-four-point-oh-one-one,” she said. “Second degree misdemeanor assault with the intentional threat to do violence coupled with an apparent ability to do so, and doing some act which creates a fear that violence is imminent. But he can get only sixty days max.”

 
Colding eyeballed the silver leathers. “You travel with your attorney?” he said.

“She’s not a lawyer, but she’s a highly-credible witness.”

Beth jerked the stub of her banana up and down suggestively and waved her receipt.

He kept staring, approaching drool stage. “And you’re too pussy to slug it out?”

“Not at all,” I said. “It’s just that smacking you around would be a pain in the ass. It’s hot out here and I could break my hand. Why should I worry about the challenge of a schmuck?”

“Oh, poor boy, break your hand,” said Colding.

“And I’ve got stuff to do because I’m still curious about Sally Catherman. You didn’t ask how that was going.”

“She’s an ex-employee, that’s all I know.” Colding turned and charged toward the store entrance in a half-controlled stagger. He pounded the heel of his fist on the door’s aluminum frame then yanked open the door. I assumed that his act was mostly for show and didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to get physical with the three women inside, but I decided to hang close for a couple of minutes.

Beth grinned widely.

“You had a moment of triumph there?” I said.

“Not what you think,” she said. “That deli woman admired my riding leathers.”

“So did the bellowing butthole,” I said. “I expect it’s universal reaction.”

“You are the man with the golden tongue. Where to now?”

I wanted to retrieve my Catherman money from Frank Polan, but I didn’t want to implicate Beth. I envisioned a prosecuting attorney asking her, a year from now,
“When he counted out $4,000 in hundred dollar bills, Ms. Watkins, did you wonder about the source of all that cash?”

“Look,” I said, “I’ve got a couple errands to run that might bore the piss out of you. Maybe you could go to Boondocks, get a good table and hold it for us.”

“Alex, tune up your bullshit dispenser. This ride today is pure ‘out-of-the-way.’”

“One errand might get weird,” I said.

“Weird is that you don’t want me there. Just tell me her name ahead of time, okay? I’ll be cool. I just don’t want to be introduced and not know she was the cause of my broken heart.”

“I have to see a man about money,” I said.

“Have we got a conflict?” said Beth. “Say, between this money and a certain highly-credible witness?”

“Call it potential. With downside to said witness.”

She covered her ears with her hands. “Can the witness pledge blindness and a shaky memory?”

20

I called ahead to make sure Frank Polan was home.

“You coming by with a couple of lovelies?” he said.

I watched Beth climb aboard her Ducati. “Only one, but she’s very good looking.”
 

“Did I hear a truck?” he said. “You’re by the highway?”

“Ten minutes away,” I said.

“I’ll clean up the big boat.”

“We won’t have time, Frank. We’re moving fast today.”

“Just as well,” he said. “Waste of time if you only have the one, so I know why you’re coming by. I still have most of your cash.”

Colding had told me to stay out of his grocery store. To avoid a possible trespassing beef, I asked Beth to look inside, to ensure that Cecil wasn’t browbeating or physically beating his employees. She checked, backed away from the door and shrugged.