Killer in Control Read online

  “Kitt! At last! Thought you’d never get here.” Our eyes met on a level before we exchanged kisses, but I felt tenseness in her arms and shoulders when I snuggled into her warm embrace. At 45, Janell was 13 years older than I, but her fiery red hair was still as bright as mine. We both chose casual blow-and-go cuts that suited our lifestyles. Nobody would have any trouble believing we were sisters.

  Janell had gone off to college after our mother died. Dad had raised me, and now I saw Janell more as a fairy godmother than a sister. We broke apart only when Rex followed her from the house ready to give me an additional hug. He looked pale and tired and I tried not to stare at his shiny head, although Janell had assured me he was bald by choice.

  “Welcome! Welcome!” Rex exclaimed. “Glad you made it…safely.”

  “Come on inside,” Janell invited. “But first let’s get that new car off the street before the cops tow it—at the owner’s expense, of course. Rex hurried to unlock and open a white pine gate at the side of the yard. I slipped beneath my steering wheel and followed him to a carport in the tropical garden behind the home they called The Poinsettia.

  Chapter 2

  Dark vines snaked up skeleton-thin poles that supported the carport roof, and Rex directed me to a parking place on the concrete slab next to their Ford sedan. Their two bicycles propped on kickstands stood nearby. Space was at a premium on Key West, and Janell and Rex had made the most of their garden. Garden—that’s what the locals called their back yards.

  “You’ve made lots of changes since I was here.” I eyed the vine-covered guest house with picture windows that overlooked a postage stamp-size pool and patio. “Neat. Very neat.”

  “Rex finished building the B&B a few years ago, and we reclaimed the privacy of our house, bedding our guests out here, setting up their breakfast buffet beside the pool.

  “And I’m sure they love it—and their landlords. Going to show me the rooms—or is that inconvenient right now?” I shivered a bit in a sudden breeze and watched the dark shadows a cypress tree cast onto the pool.

  Janell took a step toward the B&B, but Rex reached for her hand and urged her toward the main house. “Showtime later, okay? One room’s vacant, and Hella Flusher, our permanent guest, watches a favorite TV program at this time every day. Wheel of Fortune.” Janell and I followed Rex’s lead toward the back door. I wondered if something was amiss in the B&B. Trouble keeping both rooms rented? Hella Flusher? Strange name. But Hella and I would have something in common. I was a big Wheel fan, too.

  Rex paused, turning toward my car. “Shall we take you suitcase inside now, Kitt?”

  I smiled, stepped back to unlock the trunk, and then picked up my books from the passenger seat while Rex retrieved my bag. “Nice wheels, Kitt. Very nice. We’ll expect a spin in your chariot later.”

  “Sure thing.” I grinned at his compliment. I worried about Janell fussing because I was living in hock up to my eyebrows because of that car. And if I lost my job? It was easy to read Janell’s mind. It was even easier to envy their comfortable life.

  He and Janell had known each other since elementary school days, discovered in high school they were soul mates, and had loved each other ever since. They’d earned college degrees at Iowa State, Janell’s in psychology, Rex’s in business administration. But when Rex inherited this picturesque home from his grand-parents who had inherited it from their parents, he and Janell moved to the Keys.

  In those years the house was a run-down fixer-upper. To generate some much-needed income while they worked on improving it, they opened a bed and breakfast upstairs, turning two unused bedrooms into rental units, and serving Janell’s sweet rolls along with coffee and fresh fruit in their dining room.

  I thought it strange that Rex hadn’t asked me more about the Prius, but he seemed distracted. Maybe he didn’t realize it was a gas/electric hybrid. Or maybe he viewed it as just another car to clog Key West’s narrow streets. I peered over my shoulder at a black cat slinking into a weathered shed. Sometimes Old Town locals painted only the fronts of their houses, leaving the sides, backs, and utility sheds unpainted and allowing them to weather to a gray-silver sheen.

  “What’s in the shed?”

  “Tools and fishing gear,” Rex said, “and I let Phud, our yard man, use part of it for his gardening equipment and plant containers. We used to keep our boat in it, but since we built the B&B I need more space here. I have to keep our boat at the marina. We’ll show it to you tomorrow.”

  Phud? I almost laughed as I tried to imagine the sort of person who would answer to such a name.

  “Let’s go on inside.” In her bossy-big-sister way, Janell urged me ahead of her, blocking the entry to their open-air patio café that Rex had attached to the side of the house. A swinging door separated the café from their kitchen. Through a diamond-shaped window in the swinging door I glimpsed a small snack bar, a dance floor, and a slightly raised platform holding a trap drum set. I wanted to see more of this new addition, but Janell didn’t offer a tour.

  “Rex usually makes supper, but tonight I have a pot of conch chowder simmering on the stove.” Janell followed me inside. “I knew you’d probably be hungry when you arrived. This way, it’ll only be moments before ‘soup’s on’.”

  The spicy fragrance of the chowder filled the kitchen—bay leaf, tomato, onion. I inhaled the heady smell and my mouth watered. I could imagine the taste. Janell had set three trays on the countertop.

  “Thought we’d carry our chowder outside to the café and dine under the stars,” she said. “We’re closed for business tonight, so the place is all ours.”

  “Great idea,” I agreed, wondering why they were closed for business. I hoped my arrival hadn’t caused a change in their plans.

  Janell and Rex had decorated the inside of the house until it looked like a page from Southern Living. In the combination living room and dining room, I admired the pine wainscoting. It reached from floor to waist high, forming the bottom half of the walls. A plate rail, holding antique plates and mugs that Rex’s great-grandfather had salvaged from reef wrecks separated the wainscoting from the painted ecru-toned walls above.

  I felt the sagging centers of the old stair treads when we climbed to the second floor where Janell led me into one of three bedrooms—the hibiscus room. The lavender, red, and pink-flowered wallpaper made me feel as if I were in the center of a tropical bouquet.

  “Take your time unpacking, Kitt. No hurry. When you’re finished, come on downstairs and join us for chowder.”

  Her voice said ‘take your time’, but her BBS inflection said ‘hurry.’ I hoped my visit wasn’t inconveniencing them in some way. I had invited myself here and they’d agreed to my visit, but maybe their generosity came from pity and sympathy for my precarious position in Iowa.

  Plastic hangars clicked together when I hung shorts, slacks, and shirts in the pine-scented closet. I dumped underwear into a dresser drawer fragrant with the scent of lavender before I set my cosmetic bag beside the sink in the bathroom. I took only a moment to wash up before I shoved my suitcase into the closet and hurried downstairs.

  The minute I stepped into the kitchen, Janell began dipping the chowder into bisque-colored bowls that contrasted with the tropical print placemats already on the trays. Rex dropped ice cubes into glasses and filed them with iced tea, adding a slice of lemon to each glass.

  “Follow me outside,” Rex invited.

  Rex speaks quietly, but when he talks, people pay attention. I followed his directions, and we sat at one of the guest tables in the empty café. Lighted torches flickered from sand-filled ollas placed around the perimeter of the dance floor lending a party-like atmosphere to our meal.

  Rex’d been like an anchor in the family since Dad died, the firm steadying weight that held us in place. Although Janell had made the chowder, Rex wore a red chef’s apron. It didn’t hide his twill cargo slacks with their zip-off lower legs and zippered back pockets, but it protected his hand-print shirt. He sli
ced a loaf of the crusty Cuban bread he’d already brought outside, buttered it, and passed it to each of us before he took a piece for himself before we began eating.

  I couldn’t help wondering if his bald head, now gleaming in torchlight, was his idea of a current men’s hairstyle, or if he was on some powerful chemo and they were withholding the bad news from me until later. So far nobody had mentioned Rex’s head or my PD suspension and I didn’t bring the subjects up now. Instead, I looked into the calmness of the star-studded sky and enjoyed Janell’s chowder.

  I remembered the quick way night fell in the Keys once the sun set. A soft twilight had settled around us and I felt as if we might be the last three people on earth. We took our time savoring the chowder—a Key West specialty, and we all enjoyed an extra piece of bread slathered with garlic butter.

  “You dive for the conch?” I asked.

  “You know better than that.” Rex laughed. “They’re still an endangered species—at least in Key West waters. I bought it at the Waterfront Market. I think they ship it in from the Bahamas.”

  “The chowder’s delicious, Janell,” I said as she brought out a tureen and we lingered over second helpings. “You’ll have to share your recipe and teach me how to make it, so I can help out with a few meals while I’m visiting. I’m not here on vacation, you know. I’m here to consider a new direction for my life if my suspension is permanent.”

  “Don’t worry about helping us. We have plenty of plans for you.”

  “And what might they be?” I leaned forward. “Tell all.”

  Janell and Rex exchanged enigmatic glances before Janell stepped back inside and then returned with a tin of cookies. Her shoulders slumped after she opened the tin, set the cookies on the table, and joined us again. I braced myself for bad news and tried not to look at Rex’s head.

  “I hate to end our meal with bad news, but…”

  “What is it?” I laid my cookie down, awaiting her next words. Nobody moved during the long pause before Janell spoke.

  “Someone murdered one of our guests.”

  For a moment nobody spoke.

  “Who?” I broke the silence although I admit I felt a flood of relief when I realized Janell’s bad news didn’t involve Rex or an illness. “Who? When did it happen? Where? Right here at The Poinsettia? That the reason for the empty rental? The closed café? Details, please. Details.”

  “One question at a time, Kitt.” Janell gave a mirthless laugh “Abra Barrie. That’s the woman’s name.” Janell pursed her lips, looked down at her hands, and let Rex continue.

  “Last Thursday she arrived in Key West on business and had booked one of our rooms. She’d seen our B&B ad on the Internet.

  “A big Midwest corporation making wind turbines sent her here. They’re promoting their business and feeling out the Key West attitude concerning the use of off-shore wind machines to create a renewable source of energy.”

  “Wind turbines? As in windmills like Iowa farmers sometimes use to pump water for livestock?”

  “Yes,” Rex said, “only on a much more sophisticated level. Some of the commercial turbines are huge machines with blades longer than a football field—maybe longer than two or three football fields. But that’s beside the point right now. Abra Barrie flew here to speak at a City Commissioners meeting early Friday morning, and also to say a few words at a women’s club brunch later in the day. On Saturday, her schedule included a brief morning speech at the monthly meeting of the Power Boat Association and after that, she planned to take the afternoon off for a ride on the Conch Train and maybe enjoy more sightseeing during the weekend.”

  “She had more meetings scheduled for Monday that included an important presentation at the naval station,” Janell said.

  “And after that she planned to fly back to Nebraska.” Rex paused for a sip of tea.

  “We liked what we saw of her on Thursday night,” Janell said. “She ate at our snack bar, visited with us and the combo musicians, and retired early.”

  “As far as we know, she kept her Friday morning appointment,” Rex said. “I helped her get a taxi.”

  “But she never kept her Saturday appointments,” Janell said. “She failed to return here after her Friday brunch meeting. We don’t keep tabs on our guests. They’re free to come and go as they please, but Abra told me she’d like to hear the combo again on Friday night—said she played the piano. I had told her that Mama Gomez might let her sit in for a set and she seemed pleased and excited about that.”

  Rex broke in. “So when she didn’t show up here on Friday, as planned, I reported her absence to the police. They fluffed me off, said they’d keep an eye out for her, but that she’d probably just gone off somewhere on her own to do a little sightseeing. Chief Ramsey helps run the Power Boat meetings, and it wasn’t until Abra failed to appear for her Saturday morning speech for that group that he began to take my missing person report seriously.”

  “But the police never found her,” I said, knowing I had stated the obvious.

  “They found her body—late Saturday evening washed ashore, lying dead and mutilated on Smathers Beach.” Janell’s hand shook as she lifted her iced tea glass. “I knew when she failed to show up to hear the combo on Friday evening that something had happened to her. The Medical Examiner estimated the time of death as mid-afternoon on Friday. Here we were getting ready to open our patio café for the evening. I’d even mentioned to Mama G that Abra might want to sit in on piano for a few numbers. And all the time we were making plans for her, she was dead. Dead. It’s still like a bad dream. I can hardly believe it.”

  “I suppose the police have searched your place thoroughly looking for clues and leads.”

  “Right.” Rex scowled. “On Saturday night, they surrounded the place with crime scene tape even though her body wasn’t found here. Didn’t remove it until early this morning. Her parents flew in from Nebraska as soon as they heard the news. Even by flying, they couldn’t get here until yesterday afternoon. When the medical examiner and the police released her body, her parents made funeral arrangements.”

  “I felt so sorry for them,” Janell said. “Their only daughter. Their only child. Life’s unfair. A young woman simply here doing her job, enjoying Key West—and now she’s gone.”

  “Her room?” I asked.

  “Her parents packed up her things. She traveled light. Not much there. I offered to help, but they didn’t want my help. Don’t blame them.”

  Janell’s eyes began to tear and I broke in quickly. “So now the police are investigating her murder?”

  “Right.” Rex pounded the table, making the tea glasses jump. “Investigating, now that it’s too late. If they’d listened to me in the first place…”

  “Can’t blame you for feeling that way,” Janell said. “But Key West has so many attractions that might have caught her eye, pulled her off her planned course. I can understand police reluctance to begin an extensive search.”

  “And now we’re all under suspicion,” Rex said. “All of us. Not you, of course, since you just arrived, but the rest of us.”

  “You and Janell,” I said. “Who else?”

  “Hella in the other rental, the three combo musicians, Phud, the yard man. All of us. Good thing you didn’t arrive early, Kitt, or they’d be fingerprinting you, too. Once they get started they’re very thorough.”

  “They have any leads?”

  “None that they’re revealing,” Janell said. “But I heard the chief muttering about a serial killer. South Florida’s had several unexplained murders in the last few years. The police think there may be a serial killer on the loose.”

  “Hadn’t heard about that,” I said, “but lots of times big news in Florida doesn’t reach Iowa.”

  “And you’ll probably never read anything about those murders in The Citizen, either.” Janell sighed. “They keep the bad stuff in small type on the back pages if they bother to publish it at all. Don’t want to scare off the tourists.”

&n
bsp; “But news is news,” I said. “People need to know what’s going on in their community—or at least what the police think might be going on. They need any knowledge that will help them protect themselves. Where has this supposed serial killer struck?

  “Fort Meyers Beach.” Rex began ticking the cities off on his fingers. “Miami, of course. Ft. Lauderdale. Stewart. Orlando. At this point, they’re not sure the same guy committed all the murders. But some of the mutilations were similar enough to make them think serial killer.”

  Janell put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head to try to stop his words, but he continued.

  “Breasts sliced off. Pubic hair shaved. Ears and eyes mutilated. Oh, he was a real sport.”

  I shuddered. “You’re sure it was a he? Murder’s an equal opportunity employer. Could have been a woman.”

  “Not likely.” Rex stood and began pacing the wide expanse of café floor. “Not at all likely. I don’t think a woman would have had the strength.”

  “So if everyone connected with The Poinsettia is suspect, I want to meet those people. I want a good look at them. You plan to open the place to the public tomorrow tonight, right?”

  “Right,” Janell said. “Had to close tonight. Didn’t know when the police would give permission or when they’d remove the crime scene tape. Hella’s here tonight, of course, but you can meet her tomorrow.”

  “I’m surprised she hasn’t moved out,” Rex said. “We may have trouble keeping the inn rented for a while.”

  “It’s not as if the woman was murdered in her room,” I said.

  “No,” Janell agreed, “but there’s one more thing we haven’t told you yet.” Janell hesitated until Rex shrugged and nodded.

  “Go ahead. She has to hear it sometime.”

  Janell’s voice dropped so low I could hardly hear it.

  “A small item appeared on a back page of today’s paper. The police announced they’ve found blood stains on Rex’s boat.”