I knew Chris from up in North Carolina. Met him through his sister, a striking blond who worked as a pharmaceutical rep. She was a fine boat lady in her own right. She had finally burned out pushing drugs and decided to prescribe them. She was now in med school. I knew quite a few guys who would have loved to have her perform their physicals.
After Sunny, Chris was as good a friend as I had. I introduced him to sailing. We’d cruised the Chesapeake Bay and investigated the sounds and rivers of North and South Carolina more than once. Chris was perfect crew, knew when to talk and when to shut up. He was thin, wiry and fearless on the foredeck in a pitching sea.
Chris was also one of the best fix-it men I’d ever seen. He liked to call himself “the nautical MacGiver" after that old T.V. show. Anytime someone on the dock had a mechanical or electrical problem, Chris took it as a personal challenge to his self-imposed title. He used to work for nothing, but gradually the money his parents left him began to dry up. Slip rent, groceries, and his taste for young female tourists had run up the price. Still whenever someone asked how much he owed, Chris’s ready response was “Whatever you think it’s worth”. When he saw me coming, he cut off the hose and wiped his hands on his shorts.
“Hey Buddy. Beer?” he asked.
“No thanks, Chris. A little early for me. “
“That cop come to see you? Beamon.”
Chris always pumped with adrenaline, but today he seemed a little uneasy. He motioned me aboard. I knew there was a reason and he was determined to let me know what it was.
“That guy makes me nervous, T.K. Came aboard. Asked me a bunch of questions. Kind of like I knew something, maybe more than I was telling. He thinks I was the last one to see the kid alive. I mean before the murder. Hell, I was headed up to Captain Tony’s to check out the visiting wildlife. Saw Alexis in the parking lot of the Raw Bar. I was kidding her, doing the accents, making faces, the usual schtick. She was laughing, hugged me like she did all the time. Told me she was doing some modeling. I asked her about it, but she put one finger to her lips and shook her head. It was a big deal. I guess somebody saw us, told the cops. They said she was killed a few hours after that. Shit, T.K., I loved that kid, wouldn’t hurt her for anything. You know that.”
“Come on, Chris. That’s their routine. They put the same questions to a lot of people to see if they get the same answers. Nothing new.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen the cop shows, too. But he wanted to know things like had she been on the boat with me recently. Were we alone? Was it after dark? Did I like her? Shit like that. And the way he looked at me, like I was something slimy that had just crawled up on the beach. Jesus, she was a little girl, what eleven years old? I was crazy about her, but she was a baby. Not my style.”
“Chris, we were all crazy about her. You act like you think Beamon believes you’re some sort of child molester. Relax.”
I tried to make it sound like a joke, hoping to kid him out of his paranoia. He wasn’t laughing. He sat for several seconds staring at his hands while they twitched and twisted like two spastic birds. Suddenly he knew I was watching. He snatched a menthol cigarette, and lit it and took a long drag.
“Yeah, T.K.. You’re right. Routine. I told him everything I know. Routine, that’s all it is.”
He took another long drag and coughed. He tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace.
“Okay Compadre, I got to get back to my domestic duties. You never can tell when some lovely, young lass suffering serious deprivation might need my kind attention. Who knows? She may want to see my etchings later this evening.”
We both laughed and I headed toward the post office. The check was right on time, as usual. I counted myself luck that the university, in its infinite wisdom, had seen fit to let me go. In reality, I suppose they'd like to see me disappear completely.
Chapter 9
I went to the bank, then decided to drop in on Sunny. Her one bedroom was in an older home on Elizabeth St. just out of the business district. I checked my watch. She’d worked the night before, but she was usually up by noon. It was a little after one and I thought I might catch her before she bicycled over to South Beach for her afternoon swim.
I went around to the back and up the steps. She heard me before I had a chance to knock. She opened the door wearing a black silk kimono and motioned me inside. She kissed me on the cheek and walked back to her small kitchen. The counter was a heart patient’s nightmare. Four large eggs, a stick of whole butter, two fat links of Italian sausage, and a quart of whole milk. Diced onion, green peppers, sliced mushrooms and assorted spices were swimming in a skillet of steaming bacon grease.
I have to admit it smelled awfully good, but I resisted the temptation. Probably added five years to my life. When I haven’t eaten Sunny’s cooking for a few days, I forget that Reduced Fat and Low-Cal are not in her culinary lexicon. I poured myself a cup of black coffee and sat down to wait. The omelet covered an entire dinner plate. She placed a lily white napkin daintily on her lap and lifted her fork delicately. Then she went at it like the Mongol hordes galloping across Asia. In minutes her plate shined like a new Rolls Royce. Sunny popped a handful of vitamins in her mouth and washed it down with a huge glass of orange juice. She took the napkin in her fingertips, dabbed at her lips like a duchess, and looked across the table with eyes out of a Boticelli canvas.
“What’ll it be, Cowboy?” she growled and the real conversation began.
She told me Frank had been to see her, too. Then she ran down a list of the interviewees. She’d been listening to the bar chatter at the Parrot the night before. Fritz, Sal, Captain Harry, Cy Watts, Louis Moulet and nearly all of the regulars at Land’s End. I wondered about Malachi Strait, but I just listened.
“I tell you, Cap. The voodoo talk is strong. Several people claim to have seen the body. Probably just booze talking. Blood, the wound, the powder, it all makes great bar gossip. Interesting that nobody wants to talk about Marcuse Durant. If I do hear his name, it is quiet and respectful. I think they’re just damned afraid of him. Some of the locals sure don’t like Beamon, but they all agreed that he was a bulldog when it came to a tough case. And he’s their bulldog.”
I had heard all I wanted and decided to change the subject. There was still nothing I could do. She understood.
“You want to go to the beach with me, go for a swim?”
That kind of therapy sounded like a good idea and my ten-speed was already around back from a few days before. Maybe it would clear my mind.
The tourists covered South Beach like ants at a picnic, but we found a spot and spread a couple of towels on the sand. Sunny threw her beach bag aside and sprinted toward the whitecaps like a registered filly. She reached the water’s edge in an instant and dove headlong into the frothing waves. She’s a much better swimmer than me, a study in grace and power. Soon her long strokes pulled her through the swells until I could barely make out her lithe form cutting the water.
I watched the sweating bodies reclining on the white sand and listened to the sounds of the sea birds. The smell of cocoanut oil was thick. A thin, brown man maybe late twenties stood waist deep in the water. He cradled his daughter in his arms. She was probably two, pink two-piece and a matching bonnet. He talked into her ear. She smiled, pointing and giggling, as the spray leaped out at them and glistened in her silky hair. I felt like a fool, my eyes welling up, but I squeezed them shut. I just wanted the child to grow, to laugh, to go on living.
I surrendered to the sun, letting it bake me gently from the inside out. Soon it was working. The breathing things were forcing the dead ones out of my mind. I didn’t think about Alexis the rest of the day. At least until I saw Billy.
Chapter 10
He caught me on the dock.
“You and me talk, Mister T.K. ‘Bout my baby. My Alexis.”
“Sure, Billy. Come on down to the boat.”
My guts were churning. I didn’t know what he wanted, he was a friend of Sal
’s and she was a friend of mine. I’d listen. His dark face was taut and lined with the agony and confusion I knew he felt over his murdered child. He slumped down in the cockpit. I went below and got a couple of cans of Ice House. He popped the top, rotated the can slowly in his scarred brown hands, then took a long swig.
“She come to me last night. I see her like in a dream. She want to tell me something. She move her mouth, but no words come, no sound. She weeping. She been here, hasn’t she?”
His eyes plumbed mine, hoping, pleading for something to salve the gaping wound where his heart had been. I couldn’t watch his pain any longer. I looked away. searching for words I knew he had already heard a dozen different times in a dozen different ways.
“You got to help, Mister T.K.”
He said it like he wasn’t leaving me a choice.
“God, Billy. I’m so sorry. We all miss her. It’s horrible, but there’s nothing I can do. Detective Beamon is investigating. He’ll find out who did it. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Beamon good man. He smart, fair. But he won’t find her killer. He don’t know. He don’t believe. It’s voodoo. Her soul wandering, lost until justice come. She love you. She come to you. You the one to help.”
“I don’t know how, Billy.”
“I know you, Mister T.K. I read your book. You don’t fool me. You the Ghostcatcher. You get the woman who kill your friend. You don’t say, but she was witch. Spirits tell you things. Speak to you in words no one else can hear.”
Of course, he was talking about Death of the Spirit, the story of my friend Martin’s fall. Sure, I’d been there when they arrested the woman, but I’d been too late to prevent Martin’s murder, if that’s what you can call it. There were too many nights when sleep wouldn’t come. I’d listen to my steps creak on the weathered boards while I walked the docks torturing myself for being so stupid and helpless. Martin might be alive if I had been more perceptive, if I’d asked a few more questions, pushed a little harder. I didn’t. I was no detective, much less a Ghostcatcher. I tried to tell him that, but he wasn’t listening.
“Maybe you don’t want to help. Maybe you think it not your business. I miss my baby so much. All the nights Monique don’t stop crying. I give you money. I can pay. Alexis speak to you. I know. You tell me what she say. I fix the rest.”
I didn’t want to know what he meant by that.
“No, Billy. I don’t want your money. That’s not it. I’d like to help you, but I don’t think I can. I know it’s hard to be patient. Why don’t you give Beamon a few days? The guy is good. See what he comes up with.”
“Man can not be patient when his baby dead. When she cries from the grave. You strong man, Mister T.K. I understand. But you think on this thing. I try to wait, but I come back. Alexis call to you. Do not deny her cries. This thing for the Ghostcatcher. You him, no matter what you say. You tell me. I be back.”
Billy sat in silence for a moment. The blood throbbed at his temple and the veins in his thick forearms stood out like strands of cable. He looked at me one more time, black eyes pleading. Then without a word, he set down the half-empty beer can and left.
I watched his dusky form disappear down the dock and felt sick. I didn’t want him to come back. I didn’t want to get involved in this evil thing. The child was dead. There was nothing I could do. Still she haunted me. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was trying to communicate with me, even if it was just a dream.
I took a slug of my beer and stared off toward the anchored boats. Martin was gone. It was too late to help him. Maybe I was somehow responsible. But maybe there was something I could do this time. I didn’t know, but at least I could try. I had to know more. NO DECISIONS was a good place to start.
Chapter 11
The old Grampian smelled like a nicotine factory, but it always did. There were ashtrays full of Marlboro butts tucked into every corner among the tangle of his computer jungle. The empty Diet Coke cans stood like soldiers in disarray waiting for orders. Fritz sat hunched over the computer keyboard, his eyes glazed from hours focused on the flickering screen.
“What’s up, Cap?” He asked without turning around.
When I told him about Billy’s visit, he stopped and looked over at me. His eyes ached with sadness.
“Poor bastard,” he snarled, “damned shame, his sweet little darlin’. Some sonovabitch will rot in the pit of hell over that one. So you gonna help him?”
It sounded more like an accusation than anything else.
“I’m going to try, Fritz. I need some information about voodoo. Can you get me plugged in?”
“You came to the right place, Cap.”
With one big paw he cleared the screen and began fingering the keyboard. It sounded like a thousand crickets all trying to chirp at the same time. Soon lines of print began to fill the monitor.
“It’s the net, all the stuff you ever wanted to know and lots you didn’t. This is just an overview. Comes out of an anthology on myths and magic. Let’s see. Originated in West Africa. Traveled over to the Caribbean, the southern states, parts of South America where slave labor was used on large plantations. Baron Samedi, Lord of the Underworld. Calls up the dead. Spirits and god possess their worshippers. Want me to go on? No. I know you, Cap. You don’t want the short version. You got a minute, I’ll do a printout.”
He hit a couple of keys and the cabin began to sound like a beehive. We went up into the cockpit to get away from the noise. Fritz can be tough, but it’s the quiet kind, the kind you don’t want to mess with. I once saw him lift a 200 pound drunk off of the dock and casually toss him in the water when the guy wouldn’t shut up after Fritz had asked politely a second time. Sometimes you forget he has a brain damned near as good as those computers he pays constant homage to. He had an opinion that I was sure I wanted to hear. He was just waiting for me to ask.
“What’s your read on all this, Fritz?”
“I tell you, Cap. This one ain’t simple. They got good coffee over at Turtle Kraals, the Raw Bar, Schooner’s Wharf, Captain Tony’s. I been drinking a lot, keeping my eyes peeled and my ears tuned in. There are quite a few practitioners of voodoo here in Key West. Haitians, mostly. Apparently some of Billy’s people are among them. I don’t know all the cops know, but the physical evidence points to a ritual murder. She wasn’t raped or molested or anything like that. I got that from one of the patrolmen that should have quit one beer earlier. He also told me they were having trouble making much out of the crime scene. No one else’s blood, hair samples. No signs of a struggle. There was a trace of generic sleep stuff in her body, probably Benedryl, but no serious drugs. Coming up with a list of suspects was no more than a crap shoot. That’s what I got right now, but there will be more as soon as some of the boys get a little lathered up. I’ll let you know.”
The buzzing stopped. Fritz crawled below and yanked several sheets of paper out of the printer tray. I thanked him and went back to KAMALA to read.
Chapter 12
The information from the anthology was concise, but fairly comprehensive. I looked it over twice to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Sunny was right about the loup-garou sucking the blood of children. Also the Tonton-Macoute. There were several powders and potions mentioned, mostly toxins from the puffer fish. They were supposed to have magical powers. That seemed to fit in with what Sal had told me about the body.
There was a lot of information about the “loa.” Believers called them “the invisibles.” Spirits of the dead who were thought to inhabit the bodies of the living. Invisibles are often sent by the souls of dead relatives who are displeased with the behavior of the living victim. Once they enter, they must be exorcised.
In one of the ceremonies, a chicken or some other fowl is sacrificed. Parts of it are placed in a bowl called a “govi” along with hair or nail clippings from the possessed. His soul or “gross bon ange” is then transferred to the govi. White sheets are used in the ritual. It is supposed to be a cleansing of s
ome sort. The victim comes out healthy and renewed. But Alexis didn’t.
It all seemed bizarre and repellent. But maybe someone thought Alexis was possessed. The invisibles had entered her body and had to be driven out. The ceremony began. Something went wrong. The child was killed. Maybe by accident or maybe some twisted practitioner believed she must die.
I needed more information of the local variety. Whip was a walking encyclopedia of everything that went down in the Keys. I knew he was playing at Schooner’s at nine with his backup band, The Wreckers. I might catch him on break and get a quick ten minutes on the voodoo scene. It was still early. I figured a short nap, a sandwich, and maybe grab him between the first and second sets. I hoped Miss Julianne would be there. She knew everything Whip knew and often a lot more. She could be damned near scary at times.
I heard his harmonica wailing like a banshee a block before I could even see the wooden arch of Schooner’s Wharf. Bob the bartender had a cold Ice House on the bar before I made it across the sand floor. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the cloud of smoke that hung over the tables. I walked over to the pool table where the makeshift stage was set up.
The crowd was small, but appreciative. Feet were tapping and a couple of bodies swayed on the tiny dance floor as an electric guitar burned the lead to Willie Dixon’s classic “Hootchie Coochie Man.” Whip’s leg was twitching like a demented rattler in unison with the pounding of the bass drum. The sweat ran from below his fedora. Now and then he’d dab at it with a snowy silk handkerchief he clutched in his left hand. The Wreckers were in a groove. He nodded to me and pointed to the back corner.
Miss Julianne sat nursing a tall glass of something that looked like liquid sunlight. An ankle length skirt was draped carelessly over her knee. Its diaphanous blue and a tied-dyed tank top looked like it belonged at a Grateful Dead concert. She waved when she saw me.