Killer in Control Page 11

  “How can I help you ladies?” she asked.

  “We’re deeply concerned about Abra Barrie’s murder,” Janell said. “Ace made his statement to the police and the police have probably talked to you, too, but we’d like to hear what you have to say about last Friday afternoon.”

  “We feel that everyone working at The Poinsettia lives under a veil of suspicion,” I explained. “If you’re willing, maybe you can help us lift that veil.”

  Gloria sighed, then she smiled. “If you’ve talked to Ace, then you know my story. But I’ll review it again for you if you think it’ll do any good. I certainly hate the idea of a murderer being on the loose in Key West.”

  “We all do,” Janell said. “May we order you a drink?”

  “No, thank you. I’ve only a few minutes before I go back on duty.” She closed her eyes for a moment as if collecting her thoughts before she began talking again. “Ace and I had a picnic date for last Friday afternoon. He told me he’d arranged to use Rex’s boat, and we planned to go to a little-known islet he said he’d recently discovered. The sea around here is pockmarked with many uninhabited keys.

  “I met Ace at Rex’s boat slip and he’d brought a box lunch from Blue Heaven in Bahama Village, but Rex’s boat was missing. Rex didn’t answer his phone when Ace tried to call him, so Ace decided Rex must have needed his boat at the last minute. Ace rented a marina boat and we went on our picnic a little late, but not late enough to spoil our afternoon plans.”

  “How long did your picnic last?” I asked.

  “By the time we rented a boat it was one o’clock before we left Key West. We returned at dusk.”

  “Was Rex’s boat in its slip when you returned?” I asked.

  “We didn’t look. Rex’s slip is quite a distance from the rental concession and we were in a hurry. I needed to report for a late evening shift here at Pier House, and Rex had last-minute things to do before he took The Ace on a Friday night shrimp run. He planned to fish all night and return sometime on Saturday morning, sell his catch, and sleep until it was time to play with the combo on Saturday night. I wish now that we had checked on Rex’s boat when we came in from our picnic.”

  “Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty,” Janell said. “We thank you for taking time to talk with us. Do you happen to know anyone who went shrimping with Ace that night?”

  “I’ve only met a few of his workers, but Ace introduced me to Santiago Sanchez and said he was one of the crewmen who’d be going out with him that night. I don’t know exactly where he lives, but I think it’s here in Old Town—if you want to get in touch with him. I’ll vouch for Ace’s whereabouts on Friday afternoon—stand up in court and swear on the Bible, if that’s necessary.”

  “Won’t be necessary,” I said. “Ace hasn’t been accused of anything.”

  “Yet,” Janell whispered as Gloria walked away.

  Chapter 13

  “Nice girl,” I said as Janell and I left Pier House. “Ace has good taste in women.”

  “Agreed,” Janell said. “Think it would do any good to talk with Santiago Sanchez?”

  “Don’t know why it would. The ME said Abra Barrie died on Friday—mid-to-late afternoon. Ace was with Gloria at that time. Sanchez could only tell us about Ace’s nighttime activities.”

  “You think Gloria lied to us?”

  “No.” I sighed. “But let’s not take a chance. Let’s talk to Sanchez.”

  “Okay, Kitt. If a guy had murdered someone in the afternoon, he might still be a bit shook up over it that evening unless he has nerves of steel. He might be on edge for a long time. He might even want to talk about it. The cops may have overlooked talking with Sanchez. Our talking to him might point us in a new and different direction.”

  “You’re right. Let’s do it—if we can find the guy.”

  When we returned to the parking lot, the velvet rope was gone and the attendant was nowhere in sight.

  “Don’t see a tip jar around here anywhere.” I grinned at Janell, but before we claimed the car, we walked to a nearby pay phone. Locating Santiago Sanchez was as easy as finding his name in the phone book. I jotted it on a slip of paper and we walked back to Pier House for my car.

  Sanchez answered the door at an upstairs, much-in-need-of-paint apartment on Fleming Street a block or so from the library. His head barely reached my shoulder, and I wondered if he used a garlic-scented shampoo. Janell and I both backed off a step or two. What he lacked in height, he made up for in muscle. I could understand why Ace had hired him. He looked as if he could haul in a sixty-foot shrimp net without the aid of a winch. His shaggy hair touched the neckline of his red tank top and he peered at us from under shaggy eyebrows. He didn’t invite us inside. Finding him might have been easy, but getting him to talk to us was harder.

  “Mr. Sanchez?” Janell asked.

  “Whatcha want?”

  “We’d like to talk to you about your boss,” Janell said.

  “Which one? I work part time for several guys.”

  “The captain of The Ace,” I said. “That boss. You go shrimping with him last Friday night?”

  “Why ya wanta know? He in trouble?”

  “No trouble,” Janell said. “You heard about Abra Barrie, the murder victim who died last Friday?”

  “I heard.” Santiago waited.

  Janell and I out-waited him.

  “If you think Ace murdered her, you wrong. Friday night, he be out shrimping as usual. Got nothing on his mind but shrimp.”

  “You a mind-reader?” I asked.

  He gave me a scathing look. “You be here trying to get Ace in trouble. I can read it on your faces.”

  “Now you’re a face reader as well as a mind reader?” So what if he asked us to leave? We weren’t getting anywhere with him.

  “You two broads lookie here. I ain’t gonna let you try to pin no murder on Ace. My living depends on him and his shrimp boat. Mostly.”

  I wondered what else he did for a living, wondered who else would hire him. I didn’t ask.

  “Ace, he ain’t murdered nobody. Take my word for it.”

  “Did he seem upset on Friday night?” Janell asked.

  “He be calm as low tide on Friday night. And Sattidy morning. Sattidy morning, Ace sell his catch, pay me my wages, and head for some sleep.”

  “He went home?” I asked

  “Didn’t say nothin’ about home. Ace pay me and we head back to his slip at the dock where he let me out. Boat be his home. He always sleep there, eat there, live there. He think making da boat his home bring him good luck on the water. And that what he did on Sattidy morning. Sleep aboard de boat.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Sanchez,” Janell said. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “Didn’t intend to be no help at all. I tell Ace two broads came pounding on my door asking nosey-poke questions.” With that threat, he disappeared inside his apartment and slammed the door.

  I followed Janell down the steps and we headed toward The Poinsettia. “We didn’t learn much from that guy, Janell.”

  “We learned what I wanted to know—that Ace was calm, that he worked the job as planned, that he didn’t vary from his usual actions.”

  “You believe Ace’s off the hook?”

  “Yes. Don’t you? You’re the cop. Maybe you think we’ve learned something that might incriminate him?”

  “No. I think you’re right. You and Mr. Sanchez. So what do we do next? The morning’s melting away.”

  Janell checked her watch and nodded, but she waited to reply until we reached the carport and left the car. “Guess Phud’s alibi’s the easiest one to check out next. Let’s grab a bite to eat on the drive up to Marathon. His tale should be easy to check out. Said he spoke at a noon luncheon of the Garden Club. Maybe not so easy to check on what he did or might have done later in the afternoon.”

  “You think he could have joined the club ladies for lunch and given an erudite lecture, and then driven back to Key West where he murdered Abra Barrie
and dumped her body into the sea? He’d have had to have worked mighty fast.”

  “He said it was a noon luncheon, and most of the ladies in his audience had to return to work by one o’clock. He could have finished speaking by one or shortly after and driven the fifty miles back to Key West by two—if traffic was light. And if he used Rex’s boat, he would have had to ease it from its slip without anyone noticing him or questioning him.”

  I followed Janell to the kitchen. “Maybe we should talk to the people at the marina, asking if they saw anyone borrow and return Rex’s boat. Might have been tricky to return a blood-stained boat without attracting some attention.”

  “You’re right, there’re a lot of ifs and buts, yet it’s not too unusual for a fisherman to return with blood stains on his boat. Fish bleed, you know.”

  “I don’t know a fisherman’s routine around here, but wouldn’t most boat owners clean up a blood-spattered boat immediately after returning to dock?”

  “You’re right. But whoever took Rex’s boat left it blood stained. That should have attracted some attention. We can check on that at the marina, but for this afternoon I think we should drive to Marathon and check out Phud’s alibi. It might save us from having to hunt down marina people—people who may or may not have seen something unusual that they’d want to talk to us about.”

  “Okay. I may be the cop, but you’re the one who knows Key West and the ways of the natives.”

  Janell headed toward the counter-top telephone. “I need to make a call to Mama G, then I’ll be ready to go.”

  Janell picked up the phone and clicked in a number and I grabbed the chance to walk to the B&B and tap on Hella’s door. Nobody answered and I thought she was out, then as I turned to leave, Hella opened her door.

  “Kitt? Sorry I was so long in answering, but I was sitting behind my portable sewing machine mending the hem of Rex’s work pants. Repairing hurricane damage is hard on clothes. Something I can help you with?”

  As if she couldn’t guess! “Hella, the glove. The glove! Could your clairvoyance tell you anything about it—about the person who wore it?” I looked around, but I didn’t see the glove in sight.

  “I spent some time last night with that glove, Kitt. Lots of time. Bad vibes.”

  “What did the bad vibes tell you? Something about the glove’s owner? Maybe something specific?”

  Hella went into her bedroom and returned with a plastic bag. She opened the neck of the bag and let me peer inside. I stepped back then looked into her face.

  “What are you telling me? That the glove is so contaminated you don’t want to touch it?”

  She closed the top of the bag and thrust it toward me. “Take it. You must return the glove either to its owner or to the place where you found it. It is bad to keep it in your possession.”

  “What did you see when you touched it?”

  “Evil. Evil that I want out of my house. Return the glove to the spot where you found it and have no further association with its owner. Never.”

  I took the bag. “I can’t hand the glove to Ace and tell him I lifted it from his boat. And I have no reason to return to his boat in order to leave it there. Hella! What am I going to do with this?”

  “Perhaps destroying it would be the best thing for everyone.”

  “Destroy another person’s property?”

  Hella shrugged. “I think an evil person wore this glove. I can see auras around people, but not around inanimate objects. Yet I feel that the person who wore this glove had an evil intent.”

  For a brief moment I forgot about the glove. “Hella, do you see a bad aura around anyone who works here at The Poinsettia?”

  “Auras tell me many things. Sometimes an aura of a certain color tells me a person is ill—or about to become ill. Other auras tell me the person is upbeat and happy.”

  “And sometimes a dark aura can tell you a person is evil, right?”

  “Sometimes that is true.”

  “Who have you seen around here with a dark aura, Hella? Tell me. Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “That’s right. No. I will not tell you because sometimes I read an aura incorrectly. It is like my clairvoyant visions. It is a come-and-go thing. In this instance I prefer to keep my thoughts to myself. Don’t want to cast suspicion onto an innocent person. Please take the glove out of my apartment.”

  I turned toward the door wondering why I had embroiled myself in this situation. Hella had psychic information she wouldn’t reveal to me and I was literally left holding the bag.

  “Thank you for trying to help, Hella. I appreciate your effort. And if you see into the unknown more clearly, you will let me know, won’t you?”

  “I’ll reveal anything that I feel is important to reveal.”

  Hella closed the door behind me and I heard the lock snap into place. Was she afraid I might try to come back inside without her permission? Or maybe she worried that I might open her door and thrust the bag back inside her apartment. The clicking of her door lock unnerved me. I wanted the glove out of my possession and I acted on the first thought that came to my mind.

  Hurrying to the pool, I pulled the glove from the plastic bag, wadded the bag and stuffed it into my pocket. I hesitated only a few seconds before I dropped the glove on the patio near the place where Ace had stood when he came to ask Rex’s help with the motor repair. Someone would find it. Maybe Ace—although I didn’t know how frequently he visited the poolside patio. I had seen him there only once.

  Janell stepped from the kitchen at the same time I started toward the house. My mind was reeling with confused thoughts about Ace. Gloria Bishop and Santiago Sanchez had led us to believe that Ace had nothing to do with Abra Barrie’s murder. Yet Hella and her assessment of Ace’s glove had sent my thinking back to square one. How much weight could I give to a psychic’s words?

  I hoped Janell wouldn’t ask me where I’d been and what I’d been doing at the pool. And she didn’t. Any talk with Mama G seemed to lead to a controversy, and today’s discussion concerned the sandwich fillings to be used this evening.

  “As usual, Mama G wins,” Janell said with a laugh. “Tonight the sandwich fillings will be made from her secret recipe that calls for boiled shark fin broth to moisten tuna flakes, cilantro, and boiled eggs.”

  “Sounds yucky, but…”

  “My plan B is a crock full of tuna salad. But tourists usually enjoy tasting something more exotic and Key-sy. They may be totally disinterested in anything as common as tuna salad.”

  I drove the Prius and we headed toward Stock Island and then up Highway One. We’d gone only a short distance before we noticed a car following us, slowing when we slowed, speeding up when we did.

  “Make a left when we reach Coco’s Cantina,” Janell said. “It’s a low blue building a short ways ahead. Either we’ll lose our tail in the parking lot or we’ll find out who’s following us—who and why.”

  Chapter 14

  “It’s Phud,” I said when the tan Ford pulled into a parking slot near us at Coco’s. Phud left his car, adjusted his tam, and smoothed his silver-gray fringe of hair before he approached us. “Wonder what he wants. He could have called us on his cell phone instead of following us.”

  “What’s up, Phud?” Janell grinned at him. “I didn’t recognize your car. You made us nervous.”

  I looked away when Phud winked at me as if we shared some secret we were keeping from Janell.

  “My car’s in the shop for a tune-up. I’m driving a loaner.”

  “So why were you following us?” Janell asked.

  “Just wanted to see how a Prius performs on the road. Were you on gasoline or electric, Kitt?”

  “Electric. One works as well as the other.” Phud irritated me. And I’ll admit he frightened me, too. I don’t like his winks. I don’t like being followed. Maybe he has a dark aura visible only to Hella.

  “Kitt’ll take us all for a ride one day soon, Phud. That’s a promis
e. We haven’t the time for it today. Have to be back in time to get our work organized for this evening’s customers.”

  “Got time to let me treat you to a Coke?”

  “Not today, Phud,” Janell voice held a no-arguments-please tone. “Thanks for the offer. We’ll take you up on it some other time.”

  “Where you headed?” Phud asked.

  “Up toward Miami,” Janell said.

  “Oh. Well, have a good trip, ladies. You’ll have to hurry if you make it to Miami and back before evening.” Phud got into his car and pointed it toward Key West.

  “Now what do you suppose that was all about?” I asked when Janell pulled back onto the highway. I think he wanted something more than a demonstration of my car. And why did you tell him we were going to Miami?”

  “I said toward Miami. I think he was being nosey, but I think he’s really interested in the Prius, Kitt. Why don’t you take him for a short ride tomorrow? You know how men are about cars.”

  “We’ll see. I don’t like being followed.”

  We drove on, pausing only for the stop light on Big Pine. Any other time I’d have stopped to take a look at the fishing camp near Spanish Harbor Bridge, but not today. Traffic flowed smoothly across Seven Mile Bridge and I felt diminished by the vastness of the sea that surrounded us. A few whitecaps on the surface hadn’t deterred fishermen. Small crafts with outboard motors bobbed on the blue-green water close to the bridge, and farther away sailboats skimmed along in the wind. We passed the old abandoned bridge where hikers and bicycle riders headed toward Pigeon Key. At the end of Seven Mile, we entered Marathon.

  “Garden Club headquarters are at mile marker fifty, bayside,” Janell said. “Take a left. You’ll see the sign directing visitors to the building. It’s a beautiful place—a rain forest atmosphere. You can almost hear water dripping from the branches. It’s a fairly new spot, but I don’t find it as interesting as West Martello.”