Eden Palms Murder Read online

  Warmly, Francine

  I shoved the note back into my purse then stepped outside to scan the parking lot one more time. No Francine. Why hadn’t she sent Zack to meet me if she couldn’t make it herself? But maybe her son had a date. Maybe he wasn’t at home. I wished I hadn’t reread the note. In spite of the warm evening, goose bumps prickled my arms. I felt a hidden threat behind every palm tree on the premises. Even the trade wind carried a scent of danger.

  One more try with the cell phone told me its battery had died. I pulled change from my pocket and tried the pay phone nearby. Again, the busy signal. I decided to wait no longer. But when I headed toward a pink taxi parked at the curbing, the trinket vendor I’d avoided earlier blocked my path. I swerved to the right, he stepped in front of me. I darted left, he darted too. I couldn’t get around him.

  TWO

  “Let me help you, Ma’am.”

  When the vendor reached for one of my bags, I recoiled from the sight of his grimy hand.

  “You can hardly manage two cases by yourself.” Ignoring my body language, he click-clacked my bag across the tiled floor and outside the door before he turned, thrusting his trinket tray in front of me again. “How about a small gift for a friend?”

  I felt trapped by this unshaven man, barefoot and shirtless and carrying a strong scent of garlic. He wore a faux diamond in his right earlobe and nothing else but tattered shorts and one shark’s tooth dangling from a black thong knotted at the back of his neck. My ire rose as he continued to give me the hard sell for his trinkets.

  “Rings, lady? Pendants? Scarves?”

  I glanced over my shoulder and then looked all around me. Where was airport security? Why wasn’t an attendant here to help with my bags? I glanced toward the yellow cab parked at the door. No point in trying to signal that driver for help. He leaned against his cab’s fender, absorbed in yakking with another driver.

  Before I could protest, Garlic Breath walked farther outside the terminal door and wheeled my suitcase toward a pink taxi. I followed him, pulling my other bag. When he stopped at the taxi door, I felt trapped into buying a trinket. Although unasked, he had provided a service I needed. I never could have pulled both bags unassisted.

  The elderly taxi driver, wearing a pink shirt that matched his cab, eyed my suitcases. “Ride, ma’am?”

  “Yes, please.” While he stowed my bags, the vendor stood between me and the taxi, waiting—waiting.

  “How about a conch shell?” He picked up a mollusk and held it toward me as if I couldn’t see it on his tray. “Or maybe a scarf? A bracelet?”

  “Is this man bothering you?” The cabbie stepped closer to me.

  “No,” I lied. “Please give me a sec to buy a small gift.” The vendor smirked at the cabbie when I chose a blue cotton square bearing the words “CONCH REPUBLIC.”

  “Special today;” the vendor said, with a look that bordered on a leer. “Two for the price of one.”

  “Maybe the lady doesn’t want another scarf.” The cabbie’s eyes flashed fire. Before he could say or do anything that might start a confrontation, I grabbed two scarves, thrust a ten-dollar bill at the vendor, and headed for the taxi door.

  “Where to, ma’am?” the driver asked.

  He helped me into the backseat then slammed the door so quickly it caught the corner of one scarf. When I opened the door to free it, the cotton square had a grease stain on a corner. I rubbed at the stain then felt the oily residue on my fingers. So what! Folding both scarves, grease stain to the inside, I jammed them into my purse and wiped my fingers on a tissue. Never in this world would I find a use for those scarves.

  “Where to, ma’ am?” the driver asked again.

  The vendor still stood at the open taxi window. I leaned forward and whispered the address, trying to shake the creepy feeling the guy might try to follow me.

  “That’s off Eaton Street, isn’t it?” the driver asked, without repeating the address.

  “Yes. The narrow lane opens onto a cul-de-sac, and there’s parking once you pull off Eaton.”

  The driver slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Drat! Are you in a hurry, lady?”

  “I’d like to get there as soon as possible, please. There’s a problem?”

  “A few minutes ago, I came from the other side of the island, ma’am. Lots of traffic backed up over there tonight blocking some of the streets. Maybe something spectacular happened at the sunset celebration.”

  “It’s long after sunset,” I pointed out. “Must be nearly nine o’clock.”

  “But sometimes the crowd lingers, watching the artists work or listening to the fortune-tellers charm their prey. Maybe the tightrope walker tumbled off his rope.”

  We turned right at the airport exit, easing onto South Roosevelt Boulevard. I peered through the rear window to make sure the vendor wasn’t following us. I breathed easier when I saw him offering his trinkets to a grandmotherly type with a child in tow.

  Keeping within the speed limit, the cabbie drove alongside Smathers Beach. The salty breeze brushed my cheeks, and I enjoyed watching the moon and starshine silver the sea. Nobody in their right mind risked swimming in the shark-infested waters at this time of night, but a couple sat on a bench in one of the tiki shelters, arms entwined while they shared a kiss.

  We drove on toward Higgs Beach then turned onto White Street heading toward Old Town and Eaton Street. A pole light glinted on the badge of a white-shirted motorcycle cop when he approached us before we crossed Fleming Street.

  “Please detour a few blocks around this area,” he said. “You might try taking a right here, go around a block and then head for Duval and Front Street before you approach Eaton again.”

  “What’s going on?” the cabbie asked.

  “Can’t say for sure,” the cop said. “But it’s hard to get onto Eaton Street right now. We’ve orders to ask drivers to vary their route.”

  We made a couple of right turns and then did the Duval crawl to Front Street. The clock at Saint Paul’s chimed nine times, but a few people from the sunset crowd still lingered near the dock.

  “Ma’am, I’m not sure I can get you where you want to go. Could you call someone to pick you up here? Sometimes folks who live on a congested street can get through when others can’t.”

  “Do you have a phone?” I asked. “Mine’s dead.”

  He lifted his cell from the seat beside him and I gave him Francine’s number.

  “Got a busy signal, ma’am.”

  “This delay’s making me crazy. Isn’t there some way you can get through?”

  “I can drive you around until Eaton opens up, or we can wait here near the dock. I gotta keep my meter running even if we’re parked. Company rules.”

  “Yeah, right.” I tried not to imagine the fare I’d be stuck with.

  The cabbie finally found a parking slot on Simonton Street. “Fare’s not as much when the motor’s just idling,” he assured me.

  Hating to waste this waiting time, I pulled the unwanted scarves from my purse and thrust one toward him. “What do you know about the Conch Republic? Is it a historic thing?”

  “Don’t seem historic to an old Conch like me,” he said. “The story goes back twenty-five years or so, but to a chick like you…” He hesitated. “You interested in history?”

  “Sure. I’m a blues singer and songwriter. Bailey Green.” I hoped he might recognize my name.

  “Suppose I should have heard of you, but I don’t do much listening except for the noon news. What kind of songs you write?”

  Hope died. “I sing mostly blues and some jazz. Greentree Blues. That’s the title of my CD. You can find it at stores here in Key West. A replicating facility keeps a stock of them on hand, and my friend, Francine Shipton, sees that local stores have a ready supply.”

  The cabbie didn’t reply. So much for word-of-mouth advertising tonight. “Tell me about the Conch Republic. I might be able to use the info in some lyrics sometime.”

 
He chuckled. “Well…that might work if you’re looking for humor. Back in 1982—before you were born, right?”

  I didn’t supply my age or tell him I’d been born in ’82. He waited a moment then continued his story.

  “In 1982, the United States Border Patrol set up a blockade on Highway One north of the Keys. It stopped everyone, including Keys citizens, from driving to or from the mainland. We were stuck here like barnacles on a boat hull—stuck here on ‘the rock.’ Forever? Nobody knew the answer.

  “Can’t recall the why of the blockade right now. Do remember it made us Conchs trapped in the islands feel like noncitizens of the US of A. Our mayor flew to Miami and raised one whopper of a fuss. News reporters and TV cameras caught him in action. He stamped his feet. He waved his arms. He shouted that the Florida Keys were seceding from the Union. Then and there.”

  “He had the authority to do that with no citizens’ vote or anything?”

  “Said he did. We Conchs were foaming-at-the-mouth mad. We never questioned his say-so.”

  “You mean he actually made the Keys an independent nation?”

  “You got it. At least that’s what he said.” The cabbie chuckled. “He began our rebellion by breaking a loaf of Cuban bread over the head of an onlooker wearing a U.S. Navy uniform.”

  “I’ve never read about a war between the Florida Keys and the United States. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “No. I’m talking for real. The mayor’s rebellion raised him from mayor of Key West to prime minister of a new nation. He named it the Conch Republic. Leastways that’s the story he told us Conchs—and the newspapers and the TV people.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “Cops hauled our new prime minister to a bigwig at the navy base there in Miami. And get this. He surrendered to Union Forces. That’s the pure truth. That’s what he did. Surrendered. Next thing, he demanded a billion dollars in foreign aid. Said it was for rebuilding our nation in the Keys.”

  “That sounds all too familiar.” I laughed in spite of the fact that I wanted his story to end, wanted to be able to get through to Eden Palms and Francine.

  “Well, he didn’t get no foreign aid from the US of A, but in time the blockade came down. Hah! Memories of those days linger to the present. In fact, a while back, an official of that old Conch Republic raised the Conch Republic flag on a piling of the Old Seven Mile Bridge. Created a real flap in the Citizen.”

  “What was that all about?” I hated to ask, reluctant to hear more of his information drop.

  “Florida has a wet foot-dry foot law as concerns Cubans trying to claim US of A citizenship. If refugees hit dry land, they can stay. If they’re picked up at sea, they’re returned home.”

  “Wonder who thought that up. Sounds crazy.”

  “A few refugees landed on an old bridge piling. Their feet were dry, but Florida officials sent them home, saying that section of the unused bridge was at sea.”

  “A debatable point, I’d say.”

  “Right. Conch Republic officials ruled that because the bridge piling was a part of the sea instead of a part of the US of A, they would claim it as a sovereign territory of the Conch Republic.”

  “Did they get by with that?”

  The cabbie shrugged. “No. Not legally. But we Key Westers are both Conchs and Americans and we’re proud to be both.”

  Before I could speak, he shifted gears and pulled into traffic once more.

  “I see cars moving up ahead. I’ll try again to get through to Eaton Street.”

  We had to wait at a few intersections, but we made it to the cul-de-sac that housed several turn-of-the-century estates. I gasped. I had no trouble spotting Eden Palms. Tonight the Victorian structure stood cordoned off by a blaze of light and crime scene tape. It looked like a glowing beacon in the dark of night.

  The wrongness of the scene shocked me, left me numb, breathless. An unexplained death at Eden Palms? I knew why cops strung yellow tape. Francine? Zack? Housekeeper? Groundsman? Not Francine. My friend. My mentor. Not Francine. My mind recoiled from that thought.

  “Looks like bad news.” The cabbie turned off his headlights as if he hoped no one would notice us. “Sure you want to get out here? I can try to back up and drop you somewhere else. Hotel, maybe?”

  “I haven’t many choices. Please pull up to the path leading to that cottage set back from the street.”

  Once he clicked the headlights back on and parked, we both alighted from the taxi. He opened the trunk and set my bags on the ground. “Want me to pull your cases to the cottage?”

  Before I could answer, Zack strode across the lawn toward us, spoke for me, and reached for his billfold. “I’ll take charge of the lady’s bags and the fare.”

  Thank God. At least Zack was alive, vertical, ambulatory. Thank heaven he was the kind of guy who was first to help out in any emergency. I started to ask about Francine, but an inner caution stopped me.

  “Thank you, Zack.” Handsome. Rangy. Silver hair that belied his youth. Tonight his face looked ashen, as if he might have suffered a blow to the stomach. Strangely, he gave no smile. No greeting. He was wearing his usual khaki slacks and handprint shirt, but his broad shoulders sagged. A chill feathered along the back of my neck when I thought of Francine’s note—of the crime scene tape. I shied away from the thought that Francine might be dead. I corked my questions and waited.

  THREE

  While Zack set my bags on the sidewalk, paid the driver, and walked alongside the cab for a ways, directing him to the easiest exit from the cul-de-sac, I stood in front of the cottage trying to get my bearings. Policemen moved like fire ants running everywhere, congregating on the steps, on the sidewalks, on both the upper and lower verandas of Eden Palms. The mansion looked as if someone inside had snapped on every light. Francine?

  Again, I thought of the note in my purse, and it, along with the crime scene tape warned me again that something terrible had happened. But maybe not to Francine. Maybe someone else had been in the mansion. Surely Zack would have told me immediately if his mother had died. I couldn’t bear the thought of more tragedy in my life. By focusing on the living scene around me, I tried to blot out thoughts of death.

  This area of Old Town boasted mansions built back in the 1800s when only a scattering of hardy souls lived on Key West and when land was both plentiful and cheap. In today’s real estate market, any of the four homes on this cul-de-sac would bring a million or two each. Or more. Property here seldom went on the market unless the owner died without heirs.

  Tonight, near neighbors and a few onlookers gathered in uneasy knots in the street or on the manicured lawns that surrounded the Shipton mansion and swimming pool. I recognized most of them from having met them when Mom and I had spent a week with Francine several years ago. I looked across the street to where Dr. Gravely, wearing his usual navy blue walking shorts, white silk shirt, and gold-trimmed yachting cap stood talking to Realtor Courtney Lusk outside his home. Above the slender columns supporting the upper wrap-around gallery of his Colonial/Victorian mansion, dim lights glowed from two arched turrets. The mansion housed his living quarters along with the private clinic he operated for wealthy patients, who preferred his surgical expertise to that of the surgeons at the local hospital.

  In the smidgen of time that I observed them, Courtney left Gravely standing alone as she strolled toward her home. The breeze caught her wrap-around sarong, revealing shapely legs, trim ankles, and the Prada sandals she made her trademark. Gossips said she inherited her property from her grandfather. I thought Courtney’s sultry appearance failed to fit in with the coral rock structure and its Spanish-colonial pillars. She climbed a few steps to her veranda and went inside. My gaze lingered on her home until I saw her on the mansion’s second-floor balcony, almost hidden beneath royal palms.

  Then a tall man wearing a black tank top, blue jeans, and flip-flops caught my attention. He skulked into the croton bushes at the side of Courtney’s home, and if she saw him
from her balcony, she never let on. The man had a familiar look about him, but in my brief sighting I couldn’t identify him as anyone I knew or as one of the area’s residents.

  No lights glared from Courtney’s or Dr. Gravely’s homes. And at the Tisdale residence, only a small glow shone from the dormer windows that were tucked like eyebrows under the overhanging roof. In front of this home, low lights reflected in the dark water of a decorative pond. I remembered a computer-controlled ecosystem where a few white, lemon yellow, and metallic orange-colored koi enjoyed a pampered life.

  I didn’t see Tucker Tisdale anywhere, but I cringed at my mental image. He carried a cloying smell about him and spoke in a falsetto voice. In addition to washed-out blue eyes and hair the color of boiled parsnips, the man tried to hide a skin problem by wearing wrist-length shirts and long pants. His rough epidermis peeled continually, as if he were recovering from severe sunburn. He reminded me of a molting alligator—only I doubt that alligators molt.

  The Tisdales owned an upscale funeral home and crematorium off Duval Street. Tonight, the thought of death and funerals made me shudder. His association with the dearly departed along with his personal appearance made him a neighbor I’d rather avoid—one I did avoid whenever I could.

  I jumped, startled, when Zack returned and touched my elbow, urging me toward the cottage where Mom and I had stayed on our previous visit. Without speaking, we each pulled a suitcase along the flagstone lane to the doorstep, and Zack reached inside the front screen to unlock the teakwood door and snap on a light. Once inside, he closed the screen, but left the door open to air out the cottage. I tossed my parka onto the rattan couch and turned, dreading what he might say.

  “Mother’s dead.”

  His stark words shocked me. I should have empathized with him. I should have embraced him and offered sympathy, but his eyes were glazed. His voice sounded distant, flat, emotionless, and his terse words pounded on my eardrums like stones. For a moment I felt dizzy, and I dropped onto the couch. Fighting for equilibrium, I buried my face in my hands. Moments passed before I could lift my head.