Bone Island Mambo (40 page)

Kaiser said, “There’s an innocent man. I could take him down right now. I could play the irony because he survived a war but not the island.”

“Mercer hated that man for parking there,” I said. “I heard the speech Monday morning.”

“I heard the speech fifty times,” said Kaiser. “How the wrong people are populating Key West But you’re right He pissed off Holloway. That’s a good reason not to shoot him. You’ve saved three lives in two minutes.”

He’d taken four in one week. I said, “What happened to your game plan? You’re getting sidetracked, talking about popping people. I thought you’d spent your craziness.”

“Right you are. I’m getting blabby.”

“Why Engram?”

“That horseshit project, that big wart on Caroline. I couldn’t burn it. The insurance money would bring it back even bigger. I had to make it a dead issue, an ugly reminder
that anything can fail in Key West. Butler Dunwoody is nothing but a future Mercer Holloway. I wanted to scare him right the hell off the island. Make his failure a lesson to anyone who thinks they can take this town by its balls and screw the little guys.”

“Killing him would do that?”

“I tried to bribe Engram into leaving town. I knew from the way they were operating he was important If he went away, it would skunk the works. The fool refused, threatened to tell asshole Dunwoody what I was doing.”

Dexter Hayes said, “Where are we now, Mr. Kaiser?”

“One more detail and I’m out of here,” said Kaiser. “I’m through using Suzanne. Like I’ve used the other daughter for all these years.”

Julie reacted: “How about it, Philip? Is my sister a good lay? Did she help you with your performance problem? I heard years ago she liked to get tied up. Is that still her thing? Is the whore worth the price?”

Kaiser’s voice dropped. “The price she’s about to pay? I’ll peel the duct tape off her mouth and stick the gun where I stuck something else two hours ago. To answer your question, my lovely wife, you’re more inventive in bed. You two, your positions and likes and dislikes, the way you get off, all your passion, all her hatred, no one would guess you were sisters.”

Julie looked at Dexter Hayes. Dexter looked away. Donovan stared at the floor, slowly shook his head.

Kaiser continued: “But none of that matters. The first time I had sex with you, I felt like a traitor.”

“Was that when you started your revenge?” said Julie. “The first time we had sex?”

“Long before that I had a plan with no shape, from the night my family moved out of El Mirador. That wasn’t just a setback. That was a high-wind, high-water hurricane in my life. Then I had to witness my old man’s affair with Seagram’s 7. And my mother plain gave up. But to answer your question, my plan didn’t take shape until Suzanne told me that your father was giving it all away. All of it including
El Mirador. Suzanne knew that Donovan didn’t care. I knew you’d never complain.”

Julie said, “The trusts were in place a month ago, Philip. When you killed my father, you made your loss of El Mirador a sure deal. All this killing got you nowhere.”

“No,” said Kaiser. “You’re wrong. It also killed some of the hatred inside me. Now I’m taking down your family like your father took down mine.”

I said, “Is that cop who shot his wife still in prison?”

Kaiser forced a laugh. “That guy quit his job, so it wasn’t like he was a cop shooting a civilian. His wife and the boyfriend refused to testify. The case got rolled into a minor firearm-in-public charge. A misdemeanor, eventually wiped from his record. Last I heard, he was a detective in St. Pete Beach.”

“You planning to skate that easy?”

“No. They’ll strap me into Sparky.”

“More like a chemical injection,” I said. “The whole process has lost its drama. Instead of a big power zap, it’s bedtime stories and warm milk.”

Kaiser said, “Whatever. Maybe Jemison Thorsby’ll get me first. He hated Bug. Now he hates me worse for taking him out. Wasn’t that pretty good, planting his corpse in Jim Farmer’s trunk? I’m proud of that special touch.”

“You missed your calling,” I said. “All these cable networks are looking for script writers. They’d have paid you so much in Hollywood, you’d have forgotten El Mirador.”

“First of all, I’ll never forget. Second, that remark you just made offended me greatly. Miss Suzanne, who, by the way, is not into rope but she’s into handcuffs, will have to pay for the insult.”

Suzanne, an accessory, was as guilty of murder as Kaiser. Perhaps she’d even helped with the slayings. But this was not the time to be judge or jury. I said, “Why is Suzanne less innocent than the motel owners, Kaiser? Or the Vietnam veteran? She didn’t choose her father.”

After a few seconds Kaiser said, “You’re right again, Rutledge. So I’ll make you folks a deal. You and Dexter
Hayes can decide who it’ll be, but I want one of you to walk out the front door right now. If that happens, I won’t hurt her. And no dawdling around. You’ve got thirty seconds to show a face. Dexter, if it’s you, you can even carry your little pistol.”

“What,
High Noon
?” said Hayes. He looked me in the eye. “Maybe I will.”

“Good comparison,” said Kaiser.

Tucker shook his head. He whispered, “When that front door got shot, I thought about it later.” He wiggled his MP-5, pointed his free hand at the clip. “I heard a burp, not a pop.”

Someone on Kaiser’s team—or Jemison Thorsby’s—owned a semiautomatic weapon. No reason why Kaiser couldn’t be holding it right now. Dexter and I stared at each other. I felt no compulsion to trade my life for Suzanne Cosgrove’s. I was sure that, deep down, Hayes shared my misgivings.

Julie whispered, “Oh, God, no!” She stood, pointed out the window.

None of us had seen Donovan Cosgrove leave the room. He’d already gone out the front door. Through slits in the blinds we watched him stomp across the porch, start down the steps into the yard.

I checked the Infiniti. The driver’s-side power window descended. Kaiser stuck a pistol out the window.

Tommy Tucker ripped away the blinds, hip-aimed his automatic rifle. He was too slow. As he triggered a burst, a bullet shattered the upper window. Tucker went flat on his back. I heard Dexter Hayes bolt toward Julie Kaiser, heard him knock her to the floor.

I watched Cosgrove walk slowly, like a slow-motion movie, toward Philip Kaiser’s gun. Kaiser slowly swung his aim toward his brother-in-law. No hurry, no rush. The slow aim. Donovan would die within seconds. I picked up the MP-5, edged closer to the busted window.

Suddenly a rear door of the red van swung open. I heard three gun shots. The Infiniti windshield cracked into a
dense web, small chunks held together by safety laminate. The Infiniti’s driver’s-side door opened. Philip Kaiser fell out to his knees, bleeding from both shoulders. He looked up. Donovan Cosgrove was gone. He looked at the house, swiveled his wrist, squeezed a shot in my direction. A porch column exploded six feet in front of me. I was a deer in Philip Kaiser’s headlights. I lifted the MP-5, fitted it to my shoulder.

So much happened in the next five seconds, I didn’t register a fraction of it. The first thing I saw was the long spear that entered Philip Kaiser’s back, pinned him to the inside of the car door. I glimpsed a motorcycle behind the Infiniti, a blur of acceleration, the quicker blur of the van rear door farthest from me as it swung outward. The motorcyclist struck the red door. First with his front wheel, then with his head. No helmet.

Sam Wheeler, pistol in hand, leaped from the van, hurried to Kaiser, swatted the weapon from his hand. I wondered if it was the gun Kaiser had stolen from Teresa Barga’s apartment. I watched Sam Wheeler tuck his own pistol under his shirt and walk east on Southard Street.

A moment later Dexter stood next to me. No longer on the floor, shielding Julie.

“It’s over,” I said. “I think Jemison Thorsby just shot Kaiser and wrecked his motorcycle. That looks like him in the middle of the street.”

Dexter radioed a quick message, then hurried to ex-Sheriff Tommy Tucker. Tucker was on his back, stunned, eyes open. His Kevlar vest had saved him. He probably had broken ribs. The hired security man had come through, loyal to his deceased friend and employer. I smelled alcohol on his breath.

I said, “It’s over. How you doing, hero?”

“Fine.” Tucker tried to reach up, tried to scratch the back of his neck. He winced and lay still. Dexter opened his shirt and vest so he wouldn’t sweat to death before the wagon came with a stretcher and pain pills. Months from now
Tommy Tucker would stop hurting. I doubted that he’d ever feel fine.

Uniforms and city cop cars swarmed Southard Street Someone covered Kaiser’s body with a green sheet A minute later Dexter Hayes determined that Thorsby, indeed, had killed Philip Kaiser with a spear gun. Thorsby had died instantly when his head struck the red van’s rear door.

Dexter used a master key to free Suzanne Cosgrove from the ankle cuffs that held her to the Infiniti’s front seat track. Near-catatonic, she had aged twenty years. Philip Kaiser’s blood spattered her clothing. A detective in a plain black sedan took her away.

We waited on the porch for the EMTs. Tourists gathered, were herded by police officers to the far sidewalk, then to the nearest intersection. A silence took over, a surreal stillness in the trees and among the gawkers. A cluster of helium balloons—six of them—lifted above the street floated upward, angled by the shifting wind. An old James Taylor song came from a radio up the block.
Damn this traffic jam . . .

Teresa arrived on her motor scooter, parked it halfway up the block. She checked on us, then went to deal with reporters from the
Herald
and the TV stations and wire services. She said that Marnie already had the scoop, had picked up the scanner traffic, and had gone to the
Citizen
offices to file her story. I knew that Marnie had an inside story. I wondered how she’d word it

The EMTs came and went. The FDLE’s scene investigators showed up with their swagger and jargon. I sat around, watched the detectives seal the crime scene, then begin their work. Finally Dexter told me to go home. I had no argument for him.

“Your words. The problem’s over,” he said.

I tried to end it on a lighter moment: “All set for the Super Bowl?”

He shook his head. “Mercer’s funeral. Scheduled for kick-off time.”

I walked to the city garage, unlocked my bike. As I rode Simonton and Fleming I mentally reran the start of it all. If Suzanne had driven the Infiniti last Sunday morning, she had seen me with Julie, and seen my camera. I had to assume that she’d told Philip Kaiser and he’d called in the services of Bug Thorsby. They’d needed to remove me as a possible witness to the placement of Engram’s body.

Thinking that far into the nightmare wore me out. I pledged to learn more in days ahead. Get it straight in my mind as quickly as possible, then spend the rest of my life trying to forget it.

Back home I locked the bike, communed with the neighbor’s springer. Easy gig. Scratch the quivering nose, watch the eyes return unquestioning love. Somehow I found the strength to walk to the porch. City Electric had left a note on the door. I’d neglected to pay my intermittent power bill. Three days to make good, or they’d discontinue service.

If they shut off my power, how would I know the difference?

Keep reading for a compelling excerpt from
Tom Corcoran’s next Alex Rutledge mystery:

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The air inside the taxi could have fertilized a Glades County cane field. Stale curry and clove gum fought the driver’s body odor. A nicotine haze on the windows gave the sky, trees, and buildings around me a sickly mustard tint. I wished I was back in Key West, packing for my week-long photo job on Grand Cayman Island. I had been hired to shoot stills for a five-star resort’s promo package and web site. My southbound flight was forty-eight hours away, and I’d let too many pre-trip details slide.

My wish to be elsewhere passed quickly. Sam Wheeler had done me a lifetime of favors in the past few years, favors hard to pay back. This was a chance to chip away at my debt I needed to be right where I was, in a smelly taxi in a stamp-sized parking lot in Lauderdale. Sam, too, was doing what he had to do. In the room where Sam now stood, it was forty-five degrees colder than anywhere else in South Florida just before noon.

The cabbie acted unnerved by our nearness to the morgue. A GMC van departed, and he changed spots, from open sunlight to the sparse shade of a bottle-brush tree. He shifted into Park and flipped on a small orange radio he had duct-taped to the taxi’s dashboard. The box was tuned to a talk show, a meeting ground for people whose opinions outran their smarts. Someone had glued a religious icon to
the dash below the radio. I wanted to invoke its powers to make my day end better than it had begun. I doubted that I was tuned to its wavelength.