Hawk Channel Chase (5 page)

“You left a message?” he said.

Liska nodded and made a “shh” sign, his finger to his lip. The three men departed through the inside dining room.

I borrowed the bar’s phone, called Marnie, and got her voice mail. I let her know that the non-event on Sugarloaf was the real thing, an official non-event.

I hung up and stared at the dregs of my drink.

Someone tapped my shoulder. Twice, lightly.

3

“If I bought two Bacardi 8 mojitos, which is more than I need, would you drink my second one?” A sugar voice, shoulder length honey blonde hair, five-eight, in a pale gray woman’s executive suit, jacket, slacks, white silk blouse. On closer look, small earrings, a small platinum Rolex on her thin left wrist, a single silver bracelet on the lightly tanned right arm. Difficult to miss: the elegant diamond wedding ring. She placed a large paisley patterned tote on the bar and eased into a teak curved-back bar stool.

“I’ll drink both if you say the word,” I said. “What are we celebrating?”

She caught the bartender’s attention with two raised fingers and pointed at my empty glass. “We like the fact that I finally tracked down Alex Rutledge, the well-known magazine and advertising photographer. We like the weather and we love this restaurant and we have nothing to do until whatever time is suppertime.”

“I worry about the possibility that you’re an attorney or a judge.”

“Neither.” She leaned forward and began to remove her jacket. Always the gentleman, I stuck out my arm to assist. I hadn’t seen her unbutton the blouse, but when she lifted her elbows two garments came off. I was left holding laundry and she was wearing an expensive-looking and immodest bathing suit top. I caught the momentary crescent of aureole as the suit top’s hem hung on a nipple.

She stuck out her hand. “Lisa Cormier. Atlanta and points south.”

I left that one alone.

Our server, the lovely, mischievous Miranda, stood ready to confirm the drink order. In her eyes-front frozen expression I detected a trace of astonishment at the disrobing and a good-natured reproach for my having glimpsed private skin.

Lisa Cormier looked down at her breast, said, “Shocking,” and adjusted her garment. She looked back to Miranda. “You must love working here.”

“Most of the time. Did you say two mojitos?”

“I did.” Lisa turned to me, said, “Bacardi 8, right?” then peered southward to the pastel blue-green water. “God, I love this place. I live most of the year on the cloudy side of a baby foothill that’s damp and cold except when it’s incredibly hot and dusty. That’s when I ache for the beach. I ache from my neck to my knees.”

Somewhere in the distance, over toward Simonton, a siren wailed then quit.

“You just arrived in town?” I said.

“Two weeks ago. And please don’t think I’ve been stalking you. I asked the woman inside at the podium if you ever came in here. She pointed you out.”

“The fact that I liked Bacardi 8, that was just a good guess?”

“Key West is a small town,” she said. “We have mutual friends, and I happen to prefer that flavor, too.”

I was ten yards from the ocean with a sunny wide-angle view of twelve-mile horizon. But I felt more claustrophobic than I might in a dark, cold cellar. As if the next things on the menu were batting eyelashes and a pistol in my ribs.

Miranda placed our drinks on square cardboard coasters. She gave me a grin far too wide, then moved away to chat up a tourist.

Lisa raised her glass to propose a toast. I hefted mine, drank it in one slam and said, “Gotta go. Thanks for the kind words.”

“Maybe I’ve muddied the waters,” said Lisa Cormier. “I was coming around to a job offer. My husband needs advertising photography. Will you stay for another minute, let me make a call here?”

I looked at Miranda, wished I had taken a few minutes for food then realized I hadn’t paid for my first mojito. While I settled my tab, Lisa made her call. All I caught was, “Hi, Honey,” and muffled conversation.

Then she handed me the phone.

“Mr. Rutledge, I’m Copeland Cormier. Can you meet me in the lobby of the La Concha Hotel in, say, twenty-five minutes?”

“Is this about location work, product shots or stock from my files?” I said.

“It’s location, local, a minimum of three days.”

I glanced at Lisa Cormier. She stared at the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar, slowly sipped her mojito through its straw.

“Are you with a magazine, Mr. Cormier?” I said.

“Can I explain everything when we’re face-to-face? I assure you, Mr. Rutledge, I have no intention of wasting your time.”

I handed the phone back to Lisa and said, “Okay.”

She conveyed my assent to her husband, spoke another fifteen seconds then flipped the thing shut. “It’ll be fun to work with you,” she said, pushing her hair behind the ear closest to me. “I’ve learned that most locals know who you are, but very few know you well.”

With no coins in my pocket for high-rent meters, I parked my Triumph near the library on Fleming, walked past the Key West Island Book Store and entered the La Concha through its Duval Street entrance. My soles squeaked as I weaved through a forest of potted date palms. I found refuge in the elevated sitting room adjacent to the lobby. Under twelve vertically rotating fan paddles on a long horizontal post, I studied a massive mahogany bookcase, now a Hemingway shrine. An Underwood manual typewriter, a bust, a modest book collection. Even the room’s leather sofas and chairs, the tables’ steamer trunk motif, and the tufted ottoman had a rustic author-in-Kenya feel. I thought I heard the distant trumpeting of an elephant. Then I heard it again. It was a cruise ship’s whistle summoning the flock for departure.

The La Concha had seen more downs than ups since its mid-1920s debut. Several times in the late seventies I visited a friend who spun records from WKWF’s third-floor studios, the only part of the hotel open at that time except for a rooftop lunchroom and saloon. On those evenings when I smuggled clandestine beers and a stack of my own record albums through the threadbare lobby to the studio, the seedy, half-asleep desk clerk advised me to use the unswept stairs rather than the balky elevator.

The elegance these days amazed me. Marble flooring, tasteful art, sturdy furniture, unbleached cotton, black leather, oversized pillows in mock-carpetbag fabric, and all those palm trees. There was no piped-in music. I heard only the motor whine of the huge ceiling fan, muffled voices from the registration desk, and distant murmurs from the restaurant nearer the sidewalk.

Copeland Cormier entered through the driveway portico. There was an obvious age spread, but he matched his wife in style.

He was distance-runner slender, maybe six-one, one-eighty max. He wore the ultimate in light-tackle fashion. Sage green Beach Crocs, a ventilated long sleeve flyweight shirt, matching sage pants with knee-level side pockets and a couple days’ worth of chin stubble and cheek sunburn. Stylish sunglasses hung from his neck on a woven leather cord. He carried a khaki long-brim Columbia nylon hat (which dangled a “hat saver” leash) and a faded Crips-blue Bass Pro bandanna. I assumed that he would ask me to shoot action photos on a guide skiff. That was more appealing than my fear as I had left Louie’s, that the Cormiers wanted kink shots of themselves in a four-bills-a-night hotel suite.

He spotted me, took the short stairs to the sitting room in two steps and stuck out his arm. We shook hands without exchanging names. He looked around for a bellman. “Can I order you a coffee or a drink?”

“I’m fine for now,” I said, wishing for coffee or water. “Let’s talk business.”

“You’re a good friend of Sam Wheeler, the fishing guide.”

A light bulb went on along with alarm bells. Was Marnie right? Was Lisa Cormier the new attraction for Sam?

“Is that a question?” I said.

“Oh, no, Mr. Rutledge. An absolute statement of fact.”

He paused so that I could respond. I waited for him to continue.

“I’ve known Sam for almost twenty years,” he said. “Ours was a captain-client deal that turned into friendship and trust. Sam has told me about your friendship and a bit of your history. He mentioned, in particular, a little misadventure you two shared in Miami several years ago…”

Again a stranger knew too much. I was ten seconds away from bolting.

“Is that so?” I said.

“Indeed. Your saving the life of a city detective impressed me. I laughed for days thinking about Sam sending the FDLE’s satellite tracking device northward on a tractor-trailer.”

The “fisherman” was angling outside of my comfort zone. “This isn’t about a photo gig,” I said. “What other tidbits have you stockpiled?”

“Sam also said that you’d suspect me of being, let’s say ‘unfriendly.’ He gave me a key fact that would confirm the confidential nature of our conversation so you and I can continue our talk.”

“That would be
your
talk.”

“Correct,” he said. “So here’s the deal maker. When Sam wants to leave an object at your home that he wants only you to find, a piece of equipment he might loan you, there’s a hiding place. He would place it on a hook between your house and your outdoor shower’s east wall. Behind the soap dish, hidden by overgrown crotons.”

I ran that one through my memory for a good minute. I couldn’t recall ever telling anyone about the pistol stash, even Carmen. Sam would never have had a reason to tell anyone, even Marnie. I squashed the thought that Marnie, had he ever told her, might spill our secret.

“He would hang it by its trigger guard,”
 
said Cormier.

“Got it,” I said.

He nodded. “Does that mean you trust me?”

“Why isn’t Sam here to introduce us? Is he in danger?”

“For the past day or two he’s had good reason to take precautions. Why don’t you hear me out, then decide for yourself?”

“I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

“Good.” He handed me a business card and gave me a moment to study it.

Dr. R. Copeland Cormier

Director of Surgery

Buckhead-Vargo Memorial Hospital

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

“Let’s stay right here.”

“This is a lot more public than you think.”

I glanced around, saw no one within earshot or who appeared to care about two men shooting the breeze in Hemingway’s sitting room. While I was certain that the hotel had video surveillance, I couldn’t imagine hidden microphones.

But I was there for Sam. I’d let Cormier call the first shots.

“Go out to Duval,” I said. “Go left, cross the street, and walk into St. Paul’s. Up front and to the left of the central sanctuary there’s an alcove with four pews and a communion rail. I’ll be there in four minutes.”

“Make it three, please,” said Cormier. “I’m a practical man, short on prayers.” He descended to the main lobby, put on his sunglasses and strode toward the Duval doors.

I gave him a minute so I could bid goodbye to Ernest’s ghost and approach the registration desk at the rear of the lobby. A smiling hotel management major with a brushed brass name tag asked if she could help me.

“I need to leave a short note for one of your guests, Eliza. I would appreciate the loan of a ballpoint pen and the outright gift of a piece of paper.”

“Certainly, sir.” The pen was at hand; it took her an embarrassing ten seconds to locate a blank sheet of hotel letterhead. “Would you rather use a house phone to leave voice mail?”

“I would rather leave the note. Can you make sure Dr. Cormier receives it?”

“Of course…” She turned to her computer monitor while I wrote: “Mary had a little lamb but Eliza had cute cheeks.” I folded the note, began to write Cormier’s name on the outside.

“How is he spelling his name?” said Eliza.

I told her my best guess.

“No one in the hotel has that… Not even close, starting with C.” She poked a few more keys. “Nothing in the Ks, either. Cormier?” She tried two or three alternate spellings then looked up and shook her head. Her face showed more frustration than I felt. I supposed from the start that he wasn’t a guest.

“Maybe he hasn’t checked in yet.” I wadded the note and stuck it in my pocket. “I’ll call back in a couple hours and leave that voice mail. Thanks for your help.”

A man on a tricycle towed a two-wheeled cart full of beach gear down Duval. A cooler, an umbrella, a chair, a portable stereo and a tarp. A leashed Dalmatian walked ahead, no doubt anxious to play in the ocean.

Someone and his dog had figured out the climate and locale.

I swear I know the formula. I just can’t make it happen.

The chapel, with a half dozen stained-glass windows swiveled open, smelled cleaner than the sidewalk and street. Its peace welcomed me until a straight-pipe Harley at the Eaton Street stoplight tarnished its sanctity. I took a moment to cut off my ringtone and drop five bucks into the donation box. Cormier, the only other person in the sanctuary, sat in the center pew of the military alcove. With his hat removed his hair looked darker than his facial stubble. I entered the pew and sat five feet away from him.