Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery (8 page)

A few hours ago I would have given him the whole story, the tapes, too, and washed my hands of it, but I was having second thoughts. Assholes come in all shapes, colors and sizes, in all occupations, and the U.S. Marshals office was no different, but right then they seemed to have the asshole market cornered.

Something wasn’t right and I couldn’t stop from wondering what it was. Curiosity, editors have told me, is my opiate. These guys are feeding my habit.

“I asked him that.” I yawned more than I needed to. “That’s why I even bothered to go out and meet him. I was curious”

I stretched my legs and rolled my shoulders to remove the stiffness. As a working journalist, I often had to think on my feet during interviews and confrontations, and it was something I had become good at. It was paying dividends in the interrogation room and justified my life of half-truths and lies.

“It comes down to a simple answer and you aren’t gonna like it,” I said sitting up, stifling a full yawn. “And you aren’t gonna believe it.”

“Try me.”

“He trusts me.”

“Bullshit,” Luis screeched. “He’s lying.”

“Told you.” I expected Luis’ response.

“Why does he trust you?”

“When’s the last time you dealt with him?” I changed the subject so I could get a question or two in. “He’s paranoid and that drives his decision making.”

“I told you, he escaped our custody three years ago,” he said and rubbed his beard stubble. “He was a little paranoid then.”

“Yeah, well, we all know he wasn’t
in custody.
He was being protected.”

“Protective custody, if that sounds better to you,” he said without a change in his icy expression.

“Custody is the word that bothers me.” I stretched again and was unable to hide another yawn. “Look it, we could sit here for the next hour, maybe less, and dance around the table lying to each other and then Richard shows up and you’ll have to cut me loose, knowing nothing.” I grinned at Luis. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re up to and I’ll see what it is I know that can help.”

“We’re trying to capture an escapee,” he began in a tired voice.

“Bullshit,” I said. “I know about his willingness to testify against Whitey Bulger.

He gets immunity for his murders in exchange for testifying. How’s that so far?”

“He tell you that?”

“Yeah, he began to tell me his life story.”

“You stopped him?”

“Yeah, I stopped him.”

“Why?”

“He wanted me to write about his life in Boston. I told him no.”

“Again, why? It’s a scary tale? You know Boston and it would be a best seller.”

“He’s a fugitive. It would require at least a year of interviews and rewriting and research to do the story,” I said. “I would need access to him, sometimes daily, and that’s pretty much impossible if the guy’s on the lam.”

“And he decided he wanted his life story told after killing the woman?”

“I don’t have that answer. I don’t know why he wants the story told,” I lied. “He’s afraid of you, the marshals, and I wonder why, after being his protectors for so many years. What have you done to scare him? Did you make him paranoid?”

“Did he say why he called you?” He ignored my question.

“To keep it short, he said the woman came to kill him,” I said and yawned again. “But it confused him.”

“Confused him?” The marshal laughed. “He shouldn’t have been confused.”

“He was,” I said. “She spoke to him in a language he didn’t understand, about places he’d never been to, before she finally spoke English. He believed she had mistaken him for someone else.”

“Who?” He sat up and showed interest.

“No idea and he didn’t care. She didn’t believe him, but he thought she was having doubts about his identity and he took advantage of it. You know about all the hidden guns?”

He laughed. “Yeah, a little paranoid, like you said.”

“Well, he talked her into a glass of water, grabbed a gun from the cabinet and shot her. That’s his story,” I said. “Paranoia saved him. And he’s more than a little paranoid.”

“I don’t believe it,” Luis said.

“I don’t care,” I said. “That’s what I got out of him on the water. Self-defense, but he’s paranoid, so he ran. He called because he wanted me to write his life story. I don’t know why he didn’t call anyone else.”

“You’re not going to write the book? It would be a great opportunity.”

“Yeah, if I didn’t mind dealing with a psychotic fugitive, which I do.”

“It doesn’t sound like you,” Luis chirped in.

“I’ve covered revolutions and enough drug traffickers to last me a lifetime, Luis,” I said. “I did a magazine piece about the legislative session last year in Tallahassee and nothing since. I am not interested in cold-blooded killers.”

“But he’s interested in you,” the marshal said, cracking a thin smile.

Chapter 16

T
he abrupt end of the interrogation surprised me. Richard wouldn’t be in until eight and it was a little before seven. I expected Luis to keep me as long as he could. The marshal thanked me for my cooperation and walked out, leaving Luis as surprised as I was. He never told me his name.

“This has been bullshit, Luis,” I said as we left the room.

“Not my call, Mick,” he mumbled, half from exhaustion and half lying. “My going along kept you from being transported to Miami, so you should be thanking me.”

“Thanking you for not letting me tie off my boat? Look it, Luis, we don’t like each other, but you’ve been a good cop and doing this wasn’t being a good cop. You wanted to see me squirm.”

“Think what you want,” he said and a scowl spread across his face like a hurt kid. “I did what I could. Believe it or not.”

“Who was the asshole? He have a name?” I waited at the elevator.

“Dudley Crabtree.” He grinned.

“You’re shittin’ me?”

“That’s his name.”

“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t introduce himself. He’s no Dudley Doright, is he?”

“He has a good rep, Mick. Don’t underestimate him because of his name.”

“I didn’t like him before I knew his name.” I held the elevator door open.

“Do you know where Walsh is, Mick?”

“I don’t,” I sighed because I wanted to tell the whole story, but didn’t. “He’s got something besides the Jet Ski, a boat somewhere. He could be anywhere. If I were him, I’d be in Havana and if he left after talking to me he’d be there now.”

“They’re tracking his phone, but he doesn’t have it turned on,” he said. “Or there’s no signal where he’s at. How far out does your cell work?”

“The reef is pushing it.” I didn’t tell him they were tracking the wrong phone.

“Would he head back this way?”

“Luis, I think he has a boat. Probably a small, fast one and that would allow him to go anywhere he wanted.”

“Do you believe his story that the woman was there to kill him?” Now he leaned against the elevator door so it wouldn’t close.

“Yeah, I do. And I believe he was confused by her, too.”

“He didn’t know what language she was speaking?”

“I believe that too. I think she mistook him for someone else.”

“A fatal mistake.”

“For her.”

“Crabtree wanted your boat left like that,” he said without looking at me, almost an apology. “He thought it would get you to answer his questions faster so you could get back and tie it off properly. It was his call.”

“You didn’t have to go along with him.” I punched the lobby button again.

“I did it to keep you from going to Miami.” He moved and let the elevator door go. It closed as he walked away.

I walked outside and the morning sky was a pale blue with few clouds. The sun was on the east side of the island so the air was cool by the water. I crossed North Roosevelt and headed to my slip.

Bob had tied off the
Fenian Bastard
correctly and that surprised me. He left a note attached to the closed hatch:
Wake me when it’s time for lunch
. I was no longer surprised.

The main salon was a little messy and my guess was that Bob had tried to straighten everything the marshals had tossed. It was a few minutes past seven when I fell onto the bow cabin’s bed. I didn’t bother undressing. I lay on the covers and wondered why I was bothered by Walsh’s story, the dead woman, and the marshals. Luis bothered me too, because if he was telling the truth I had misjudged him and I didn’t think that was possible.

Music from the salon woke me from a restless sleep. It was 10:45. Bob was sitting down reading the morning
Citizen.

“We can’t be in it,” I said and walked to the galley for some cold water.

“No,” he said turning the page. “But Walsh is.”

“They know about him?”

Bob laughed. “I guess one of his employees knows. Amanda because she’s written about his telling his employees, ‘
They are after me
.’ Kind of turning him into a Key West character, but she also reported he’d not been located.”

“That was quick.”

“Mostly speculation and filler about other Key West characters. No comment from the cops.”

“I need a shower and a
con leche
,” I said.

“I’m going to my marina and do the same. Should we meet at Schooner or Sandy’s?” He put the paper down and stood.

“I’ll walk to Sandy’s around noon and meet you,” I said. “Lunch at Schooner.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said and smiled. “This is more than it seems and I can’t figure it out.”

“Forget about him, let them catch the psycho,” he said and left.

Easier said than done, especially when curiosity was a blessing and curse.

Chapter 17

B
ob met me at Sandy’s, a small, twenty-four hour, hole-in-the-wall take-out sandwich shop that makes a mean
café con leche
. We ordered two large with four sugars each and drank quietly while Bob drove to Schooner Wharf. It had been a long night and I was still tired, even after a few hours sleep.

Bob pulled into an open spot on Eaton Street and we walked the two blocks to the bar. The empty
con leche
cups went in the trash by a crowded B.O.’s Fish Wagon restaurant and we continued on William Street to the back entrance of Schooner.

Everyone knows that September is peak hurricane season in the Keys, but the lunch crowd was sizeable as they sat around the sunny patio finishing their meals, not thinking about hurricanes, and ordering more drinks. Local drinkers filled the four-side bar, bullshitting, bragging to each other in the shade, and were not too concerned about lunch. Some peeked at the bar’s large TV, when the Weather Channel did its tropical update report.

We sat at the bar next to the Professor, a scholarly gentleman and writer of books on the history and characters of the Florida Keys. He’s always working on his next book, but seemed to do most of his afternoon research from a barstool.

The Professor’s Ivy League outfit consisted of a Penn State T-shirt, a pair of faded jeans, sandals and his pipe. He was the only person I’d ever seen in Key West smoking a pipe. I am sure he had an Oxford dress shirt and tweed jacket with elbow patches at home. Tufts of unruly gray hair sprouted above his ears, along the side of his baldhead. Bushy eyebrows did their best to hide his dark-brown eyes and sometimes he had a few days’ beard growth, as if he intended to grow one; other times he was clean-shaven. I guess he had difficulty deciding about growing a beard. An open notebook sat on the bar, along with a bottle of beer and the unlit pipe. He was right out of central casting in Hollywood, but he fit Key West perfectly, anyway.

“Professor,” I said in way of a greeting and notice his beard stubble.

He pushed his glasses up from the tip of his nose, stopped reading his notes, and smiled. “Mick, how are you today?”

“Can’t complain,” I said with a smile. “And you?’

He took a swallow of beer and turned back to me. “I think I’m dead,” he said. “I think we all are.”

“I’ll get us cigars.” Bob shook his head, frowned, and walked away. He refused to suffer fools, real or imagined. “Order me a beer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, professor.” I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “You don’t look dead.”

“You should look in the mirror,” Joe Scott said from the next stool. “I think he’s on to something.” He turned to his whisky sour and forgot us.

“Let me explain.” The Professor turned to me. “I had a dream last night.” He reached for his pipe, and chuckled. “I was so concerned about the purpose of the dream when I left this morning I forgot my tobacco.”

I nodded and gulped beer to keep from smiling inappropriately.

“Let me explain,” he said again and pulled his notebook closer.

I nodded and smiled. He was always researching something and talking about it, but usually it had to do with little known facts or people involved in Keys history.

“When you die the first time…”

I had to interrupt. “You die more than once?”

“Yes,” he said and then went on as if this was a natural conversation. “This is a parallel world because the real Key West exists, we just exist next to it.”

“The dead?” I bit my cheek again.

“Yes. So I came here, not knowing I was dead.”

“And the rest of us?” I finished my beer and waved at Vicki.

“Just follow along and hold off judgment until I am done,” he said. “Can you do that?”

“I’ll try.” Normally, I would have found a way to beg off, but after Dick Walsh’s story of remorseless killings and Marshal Dudley Crabtree’s attitude, the Professor was a breath of fresh air—weird, but fresh.

“How do you know you are dead?” Not a smile, not a sigh, just a straightforward question.

I shook my head. He had me there. How would I know I was dead? I thought of Walsh saying the woman didn’t even know she was dead when he shot her.

“Have you ever talked to people who have had a heart attack or been in a serious accident?” He stared at me and when I didn’t answer, he went on. “They don’t remember it. It’s the brain protecting them from a frightening experience. So, you might think you’d remember the pain or the fear before death, but survivors prove that it’s not so. The same brain that protects us if we live through a tragedy transports us when we die, protecting us from the realization of something we fear.”