Hawk Channel Chase (35 page)

Then I saw a glitch more odd than panic-inducing. My storage box lock was gone.

Except for overnight trips, I’ve never relocked the shed while out riding. I’ve never kept anything in there worth stealing. A Windex spray and a half-roll of paper towels to clean dust and dampness off the motorcycle’s seat. An antique electric weed trimmer with maybe two feet of monofilament left on its spool. A plastic watering can; a trowel for digging weeds; one of those squirter nozzles you screw onto the end of a garden hose. My habit has been to spin the tiny dials to conceal my combination then hang the lock on its hasp. Not once had I put it inside the box. I always found it where I’d left it.

I glanced around, didn’t see it in the grass. I hoisted the Triumph onto its stand and reached to swing open the shed door. I hadn’t cracked the door more than an inch when a latrine stink wafted upward. Dread grabbed me as if a huge person had enclosed my arms and chest in a bear hug. My eyes adjusted to reduced light, and I saw a woman’s bare knee and slim nude midsection. Fearing that I’d smudge prints, I lifted my fingers from the pull handle. In that moment, against logic, against the obvious, I wanted to know if the crime victim inside was still alive.

I looked around for something other than my fingers to open the shed door. For all I knew, even a twig could be crucial evidence. I pulled out my keys, used one to snag and move the door another couple of inches. My first reaction was relief. It wasn’t Beth, nor Marnie, Bobbi, Carmen or Maria. My second was the horror of strangulation and the awful knowledge that my four-day paranoia was justified.

I felt powerless and numb, as alone as I had ever felt this close to my home. I needed comfort, a reassurance that the island had not tilted, poured compassion into the sea. I would welcome the company of Jerry Hammond’s brown and white springer spaniel poking its nose, its eager, lonesome eyes through the fence. That was a small impossibility. The larger one would be to bring Lisa Cormier back to life.

I didn’t want to be the one.

Someone else could tell the man that his wife was dead.

What had Marv Fixler said about fixing me up with a blind date?

I pulled out my cell, punched in Beth’s number. It rang five times and went to voice mail. “This is urgent,” I said. “Call immediately or come to my house. Call me back before you come into the yard. This is no-shit police biz, right now.”

I pocketed the phone then stayed put, stuck in a forensic nightmare. I stared at the shower, the back of my house. I was afraid to walk around, foul up footprint evidence, compromise the scene. I felt like a man who had painted himself into the center of a target, put himself smack in the bull’s-eye. Or what was certain to become the center of a stadium.

My mind raced, confusion tried to take charge. When had Lisa Cormier propositioned me? I had photographed Hammond’s place yesterday, then taken Maria to get that DVD. So the “chance meeting” in front of the La Concha was two days ago. Had Lisa come to the house today to apologize or to see if I would reconsider my rejection? Had Copeland followed, become angered, killed her in the yard or on my porch? It wouldn’t make sense that he had killed her elsewhere and made a difficult special delivery. Too easy to be seen by neighbors, plus how could he have known that I had a shed for my motorcycle? It isn’t visible from the lane, so how could anyone but a friend know about it? Or someone who had been on my porch and had a clear view of the backyard. Hell, if I made a list, just from the past week…

I remained still, breathed deeply, listened to typical neighborhood noises. Car horns on Eaton, a moped accelerating on Fleming, the nervous Sheltie barking on Nassau Lane, the hum of air conditioners. Someone a block or two away had caught a steady rhythm popping a nail gun. With little breeze, murmurs from the poolside cocktail hour at the Eden House drifted over along with dinner-prep smells from Azur on Grinnell, the sauce for the restaurant’s osso buco.

Jesus, I thought. My stomach was growling while I analyzed gourmet scents. Meanwhile a woman with whom I’d shared drinks twice in four days lay dead at my feet. I hadn’t caused her death but felt guilty performing the tasks of the living, studying the world that Lisa never would hear or smell again.

I called Marnie Dunwoody’s cell.

“What now?” she said. “Sam’s waiting at the bargaining table?”

“No, that’s not it. Anytime from the next few minutes to, I don’t know, the next hour, I will call again and hang up. When that happens come straight to my house and be ready to work.”

“Reporter work?” she said. “What did you do, find a body in your bathtub?”

“You’re getting warm. But do not come here until I call, agreed?”

“Have you spoken to him today?” she said.

“No, I was…”

“Thanks for thinking of me.”

My phone beeped. A disconnect.

Knowing that late-day darkness might temper the view, I used one of my keys to snag and reopen the shed door. It wasn’t scary in there like movies with discordant cellos and tympani, soundtracks of terror and unreality, noir lighting. It was sad and final. No matter how she had lived her life, it sucked.

I nudged the door shut. I had learned nothing in gawking. I’d merely ratified my intolerance of senseless shit.

My phone finally buzzed. I answered Beth’s call.

“What’s up?” she said.

“A dead person in my motorcycle shed.”

“Did you call 911?”

“From a cell phone? How do I know they won’t answer in Arizona?”

“Technology has its ways,” she said. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Our scene techs might arrive first.”

“I hope they’re not the same ones who missed the pizza cheese at Hammond’s house.”

“You bet,” she warned. “It’s good to have top-notch personnel.”

“Why are you standing there, sir?”

A man crouching near the porch aimed a pistol at my neck. At his left hipbone a badge hung from his belt. My brain had been spinning for maybe ten minutes, speculating on hows and whys, and I hadn’t heard his approach. He looked ill at ease, unaccustomed to crouching and aiming, which made him especially dangerous. The last time a man had pointed a gun at me in my yard, I had come within a quarter-second of visiting my personal eternity. Thanks to a quick-thinking friend, the gunman had gone to visit his own.

“There’s a dead woman in this storage box,” I said. “I don’t know who put her in there, but I didn’t want to shuffle around and fuck up potential evidence. I called the city and spoke with Detective Watkins.”

He scanned the yard, left to right. “You think we’re going to check each blade of grass for DNA? Maybe pull forensic fibers off the backs of lizards?”

Why not, I thought. It might snare a murderer. But the rational Rutledge said, “I would never presume to know your job.”

He held the gun with only one hand. “Do you know the dead woman?”

“I know her name,” I said. “I wouldn’t call her a close friend. I also know her husband.”

“Where is he? How can we reach him?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Because I don’t fucking know.”

“Where did you buy the attitude, numbnuts, New York City?”

“No way,” I said. “I got it on loan from Lieutenant Julio Alonzo.”

The pistol quivered in his hand. “He’s my father-in-law.”

Oh, fuck, I thought. That’s how this guy got his job. He should already have run procedures second nature to any cop, ordered me face down with my fingers laced behind my neck, made sure I wasn’t armed. Instead he asked how I knew Alonzo. I figured the fellow would panic if I told him that Julio had come to my home two days earlier to question me about another murder. He might shoot me for drill, go for his hero merit badge and guarantee his job for twenty-two more years.

So I guessed and lied: “I think I met Julio playing softball about ten years ago. He was one hell of a competitor.”

“Too bad his knees gave out,” said the tech. “He flat loved the game.”

Good guess. The pistol barrel dropped an inch. It was pointed at my groin. I wanted it back up to my neck. Where the hell was Beth?

Her voice came from out front: “Alex?”

“Back here,” I shouted. “Back here talking sports.”

Beth assured the scene tech that he could put away his weapon. She asked his permission to approach the shed, then used her laminated ID card to pry open the door.

She lowered her voice: “Do you know her?”

“Lisa Cormier from Atlanta, the wife of Dr. Copeland Cormier, one of Sam’s fishing clients.”

“Sam knew her?”

“I believe so,” I said. “I’m not positive.”

“Go on.”

“That’s all I know.”

We looked over at the scene technician. Next to him stood Julio Alonzo in his lieutenant’s uniform, his eyes on me like grease on a T-shirt. We hadn’t heard Julio arrive.

Julio said, “How long has the body been in there, Detective?”

Beth held her answer long enough to show that she wasn’t buying the sexist demands of an underling. “My guess is less than four hours,
Lieutenant
.”

Julio backed down a notch but not completely. “Has Rutledge shared with us how he spent his day?”

I glanced at Beth. Her wary expression translated to a request. Please leave her out of it, if possible.

“I loafed around the house all morning, Lieutenant. About 11:30 I took my motorcycle out of this shed and rode up the Keys. I visited two friends, Mr. Bob Catherman then Mr. Frank Polan, both on Cudjoe. I had a late lunch at Boondocks and paid the bill about ninety minutes ago. I’ve got a credit card receipt in my wallet. It probably shows the date and time. Forty-five minutes ago I had a conversation with Deputy Chris Ericson, one of your old department colleagues, on Blimp Road on Cudjoe. After that I rode down Old Papy Road and the only person I saw was another deputy parked, I assumed, on a detail. If he can’t recall my motorcycle, he certainly can verify his presence at that remote spot. Then I drove straight back here and found the body.”

Alonzo looked at Beth Watkins. He shrugged, disappointed, and said, “We’ll have to check all that. Come out to my car, Rutledge. I’ve got a few more questions.”

“I need him right here for the time being, Julio,” said Beth. “Plus, alibis don’t come much tighter than that.”

Alonzo angled his face and talked to the ground. “I hear titanium alibis eight hours a day, Detective, all due respect.”

Beth Watkins stared at Julio until he walked away. She kept her gaze on the scene tech. He stepped back about ten feet.

“Who knew we were gone?” she said.

I’d already formed the answer, while waiting alone with the body. “Colding, Polan, Catherman and the three women in the grocery. Unless someone saw us ride out of the lane or you gave your name to the man mowing his lawn on Bay Point… but he doesn’t know my name. Other than that, no one.”

“You went inside to get a shirt before you rolled the Triumph out of this shed. Did you call anyone?”

I thought back six hours. “I called Duffy Lee Hall. I didn’t mention our ride up the Keys.”

Beth peered around my shoulder, asked the scene tech to give her two more minutes, then said, “Before more cops show up, tell me again what you did after I rode away from Blimp Road.”

I told her about Deputy Ericson’s accusation of my flaunting the speed limit, our exchange of words, and my trip to Old Papy Road, wanting to take a picture of the Mansion but being bluffed off by the deputy I didn’t know.

“Perfect,” she said. “And simple. Polan, that lunch receipt, and Ericson will make your alibi. Unless one of them mentions my name, we don’t have to connect the two of us, officially.”

“Give the case away,” I said. “Why risk blowing it? I can take the heat.”

“It’s not like you’re a suspect, Alex. Let’s see how it unfolds. But promise me you understand that keeping our ride confidential is a workplace tactic, that’s all. I don’t like my personal life juked around the office.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “And I promise not to blame you for having a murder dropped in my lap. My privacy’s sure to suffer for a while.”

Her eyes thanked me. “Now comes the difficult part. It’s hard enough to move dead people at night. How did anyone get her into your yard in broad daylight?”

“I’ve mentally worked every possibility.” I pointed to the hedge and fence.

Beth shook her head. “Hammond’s place is on Eaton Street, Alex. There’s no driveway. Only the front door and the gate alongside the house. Unless they carried her body down the sidewalk, she would have to ‘arrive alive,’ as your Florida license tags used to say.”

“Okay, let’s back up a bit,” I said. “Why was she put here except to screw with me?”

“Maybe she came alone and her killer found her here. Would she have any reason to come to your home?”

I said it too quickly: “Persistence.”

“We’re making progress,” said Beth, mock optimism in her voice. “She hit on you.”

“She asked once, two days ago.”