Hawk Channel Chase (8 page)

“If you’re looking to recruit a seventh,” I said, “I doubt that my skills match the job requirements. Or that my commitment even comes close.”

“Is that wine okay, or would you rather have ‘Ocho’ on the rocks, Bacardi 8, like mine?”

“Very good wine. If anything, I’m a bit hungry… oh, shit.” I looked at my wrist. No watch, as usual. I pulled my cell phone out of the fisherman’s knife pocket on my hip. It told me I’d missed a call before 7:00, probably while I was talking with Marnie at Schooner Wharf. I had turned off the ringtone going into St. Paul’s chapel. I had forgotten to reset it.

I pressed a button, read the clock. “I have to be somewhere in eight minutes. It’s a ten-minute walk.”

Lisa Cormier looked at me like I was dumb as toast. “Half the time I use my cell, it’s to warn somebody I’m going to be late.”

“Your husband suggested I use it sparingly.”

“Yes,” she said. “If it wasn’t for his paranoia, he’d be fearless.”

I borrowed the bar’s phone and white pages directory. Michaels’ listing, with its clip-art palm tree, was easy to find in dim light. A woman answered.

“This is Alex Rutledge calling about a 7:30 reservation…”

“Sir, Ms. Lewis called about twenty minutes ago. She changed your reservation to seven o’clock tomorrow evening. She said, in case you didn’t get her message before you arrived, she apologizes. It couldn’t be helped.”

“Thank you. See you tomorrow.” I hung up the phone as the bartender placed two appetizer plates in front of us. They must have been ordered before I arrived. Lisa was baiting her trap with every conceivable treat. Next up, she’d hand me a motel room key, two condoms, and her panties.

“Why am I here?”
 

Lisa studied the rum in her glass, took a deep breath. “We haven’t been able to reach Sam since you and my husband spoke in the chapel. We want you, and we believe Sam would want you, to pursue this search for the man’s daughter. It may carry some relevance to our situation.”

“I’d become one more person to worry about. Or don’t I count?”

“We’re not asking you to volunteer your skills, Alex. You take the man’s money and give him a time limit. Three days ought to cover it, from our side of things. You do whatever you do, and we debrief once a day. By the third day, from our questions, you’ll have an idea what this is all about. It’s something we’re prepared to trust you with.”

“Are you throwing me to the wolves?” I said.

“Not the hungry ones. Treat it like you face each day. Be alert to danger. Keep an open mind, especially in daylight.”

 
She made it sound so easy. Bob Catherman’s cash. My tush hung on the line. Doctors with Deep Wallets reaping benefits I wasn’t allowed to know about.

On the other hand, I could always screech to a halt, hand back the money. I might even get the chance to verify the mess with Sam Wheeler, perhaps feel good about helping to extract him from his undefined jam. Benefit of the doubt pushed me toward the hunt, toward finding the girl. Without direct word from Sam, I didn’t like a bit of it.

“Please pay the bill and leave first,” I said.

“You’re with us?”

“I’ll give Catherman his three days unless…”

“Unless Sam tells you to stop.”

“Just for this moment, Lisa, get the fuck out of my brain.”

“If it wasn’t a mystery, it wouldn’t be life. That’s what my daddy used to say. Can you meet me tomorrow, like this, at 5:30 in Virgilio’s?”

“Sure,” I said. “But I mean it. Go away right now.”

She began to speak but stopped. For an instant I saw true hardness in her face. She may be traveling the Atlanta high road now, I thought, but she’s only one generation removed from Appalachian tough times.

She put four twenties under her drink napkin, sniffed a couple of times but still said nothing. She strode as opposed to sashayed to the exit, disappeared into the darkness of Caroline Street.

I dug Catherman’s business card out of my wallet and asked again to borrow the bar phone. I dialed his number and identified myself.

“Mr. Rutledge,” he said. “Where do we start?”

“With that bank envelope,” I said. “Then, for a day or two, maybe longer, the ‘we’ part of it goes away.”

“I’m supposed to sit and wait for the phone to ring?
 
No fucking way.”

“Do whatever you please, Mr. Catherman, but I won’t play tag-team. I go solo or I stay home.”

No response.

“It’s your call,” I said.

“Can you disabuse me of the thought that you’ve come aboard only for the money? I fear that you’ll go through the motions with no concern for results.”

“You came to me in the first place,” I said. “Where was your fear of my intentions this morning?”

“I’ve had all day to think about everything in my world.”

“I’ve built a photo career by giving my clients their money’s worth. This time the difference is my lack of experience. But you have your opinions on that.”

For some reason I suspected that his protracted silence was just for effect.

“I live on Cudjoe,” he finally said. “It’ll take me thirty-five, forty minutes to drive into town.”

“That won’t work for me,” I said. “Have any deputies called you back on your missing person report?”

“Nope, not a word. Like I said before, they didn’t really take a report.”

“Did you go to the substation on Cudjoe as well as the sheriff’s office on Stock Island?”

“Only the main office. That’s where I spoke with that unpleasant woman.”

“Can you meet me at 9:30 tomorrow inside the post office on Summerland?”

“I’ll have money with me,” he said.

“Bring me three grand. I’ll give you three days, then it ends. Also, bring me more pictures. I’d like to see a variety. And a copy of her car registration… Her class schedule, too, if you can find it.”

“How about four days for five grand?”
 
he said.

“No.”

I walked back to the bar. Lisa Cormier’s drink glass was gone. The bartender held a wine bottle just above my glass.

I shook my head. “My turn to drink rum, rocks.”

“Gotcha.”

“One other small detail,” I said. “I know you didn’t send those untouched appetizers back to the kitchen. My supper plans are down the tubes. There’s plenty for both of us, right?”

5

A voice ordered me to clean out the boat. I was awakened by the stench of fish left in the sun for days in an Igloo cooler. My pillow felt crusty and stank of booze drool. The odor was my breath; the pain behind my forehead the result of poor judgment or a crappy job of counting my drinks. The upside was that I wasn’t waking in someone’s hedge, wasn’t a guest of the city. I recall feeling odd relief when Bobbi Lewis had postponed our Last, my presumption, Dinner, and half-wishing that Lisa Cormier had slipped me a motel key instead of relaying her husband’s request that I deal with Catherman. I wasn’t sure I had the balance to stand and brush my teeth. I had no choice but to get out of bed. My bladder was calling the shots.

Twenty minutes later the coffee had done its trick. My hair was contained, the clothing was no longer yesterday’s. Small matter that my eyes needed flushing, my face could have used a sandblasting.

I thought seriously about returning to dreamland.

“Rutledge? Are you home?”

The voice of Beth Watkins, a Key West detective with maybe a year on the job, stood at the screen door. I’d be happier to see her smile than she’d be to view the wreckage of Rutledge. I began to ask why I hadn’t heard her Ducati motorcycle in the lane but shut up when I saw her glum expression. Lieutenant Julio Alonzo, in his stretched-out city uniform, lurked on the stoop. Julio had pegged his gaze on an indeterminate spot about six feet off the ground and halfway to the lane pavement.

She had that look on her face. Someone close to me was hurt or worse.

I opened the door, stood aside to let them enter. “Who died?”

“What makes you think anyone’s dead?” said Watkins.

“The gloom in your eye, for starters. The phrasing of your question confirms it.”

“One of your neighbors died.”

That category included Carmen, her daughter and her parents. I wasn’t about to trivialize by guessing, popping out names.

Watkins stared at me. Her skin was pasty, her hair more brown than yellow, as if she hadn’t been outdoors in weeks. She wore a white polo shirt embroidered with a city logo, pressed dark blue slacks and a fanny pack-type pouch on the front of her belt. Alonzo now stared at the back of her neck, his eyes the tone of the ocean’s surface on a chill, cloudy day.

“Well?” I said.

“You knew someone was dead?”

“What’s with the tone, Watkins? Are you here to inform me of a passing or to question me as a crime suspect?”

Watkins kept her eyes locked on mine. “Tell me about your friendship with Jerry Hammond.”

 
“That’s not a name I know,” I said. “Would you like some coffee?”

Alonzo moved sideways, a macho shuffle that let him block the doorway. What was I going to do, escape the prison of my own home?

Beth Watkins stared and said nothing.

“No one named Hammond has lived on Dredgers Lane as long as I’ve been here.”

“Mr. Hammond lived on Eaton Street.”

“Another world, Detective.”

“It’s the next street.” She pointed. “You hear that truck?”

I hadn’t noticed the truck’s rumbling exhaust until she mentioned it. Had I conditioned myself to ignore vehicles droning fifty yards away? “This lane hasn’t changed in years,” I said, “which is one reason I stay. Houses on Eaton get sold and remodeled and sold and bought again. It’s a flipper’s bazaar with vultures and temporaries and part-timers who hang just long enough to cut their dream deals. I have no reason to socialize with anyone over there.”

“Over there is your back fence.”

“My side fence. I never met my side fence neighbor. Only his dog.”

“That’s a bit strange, this close, you never met,” she said.

“His taste in music sucked. I was forced to share too many loud evenings with Barry Manilow. I took that as a sampling of the man’s personality.”

“You never introduced yourself? No fence talk about bush trimming, maybe borrowing a rake?”

“Never laid eyes on him.”

“Everyone in this town knew Jerry Hammond,” said Lieutenant Alonzo, his Conch accent a reminder of past years. His put-down phrasing alerted me, told me to ignore him, to keep my attention on Watkins.

“Is this Hammond a victim or a bad guy?”

She let down her guard. “Maybe both, you never know. Could be, the bad got him killed.”

“When?” I said.

“Nobody had seen him for two days,” said Watkins. “A friend of his called and we sent in an officer. The place was unlocked.”

“Last night or this morning?”

“A few hours ago,” she said. “It was daybreak by the time we got the prelim scene crew assembled.”

I imagined a traffic snarl on Eaton with detectives’ cars and forensic vans. But I couldn’t miss it: a fast-moving Harley suggested that the street was clear.

“Why does everyone know this man?” I said.

“He worked the post office for twelve years,” said Alonzo. “He retired last summer. Then he volunteered at that Bahama Village music school.”

“He worked with Carmen for twelve years?” I said. “She never mentioned him. He was her neighbor, too.”

Watkins angled her head to check the lane toward Carmen’s house. “We’ve heard that he and Ms. Sosa did not share mutual respect. No one ever got a reprimand, but there was a history of minimal cooperation.”

“Ah, strife. That can happen in the workplace,” I said.

Watkins nodded. “We need to hope it didn’t carry over to his dining room.”

“Don’t even think she could do it,” I said. “Carmen’s so anti-violence, she once tried to hire me to kick my own ass when I’d pissed her off.”

“She may be able to give us some ideas.”

“She’s a good judge of character.”

“You never even saw him, say, through the hedge?”

I shook my head. “I heard him or some frequent guest of his sing along with Barry, but I can’t recall hearing anyone talk over there, ever. It’s crazy, I admit it. Hammond was a total stranger who lived thirty yards from where I sleep and eat.”

Beth nodded. “He’s been in that house since the late nineties.”

“I knew the woman who bought it in the early nineties,” I said. “She bought it on a shoestring and paid it down with alimony. Spent five years fixing it to resell, and when she found a buyer I never saw her again.”

“This island, it changes downhill,” said Alonzo.

Watkins and I watched him try to scowl. His fleshy face refused to play. His expression remained the same.