Brigands Key Read online

  Grant shifted. “He was wedged into a niche. Pinned there by the current.”

  “Floating freely or resting on the floor?”

  “Resting on the floor.”

  “Bodies sink when they’re new and float when they putrefy. The gases produced by bacteria render them buoyant. There’s a primary flotation between twenty-four and seventy-two hours of death. Once the initial gases are dispelled, the body sinks until it bloats and rises again. John Doe here isn’t bloated. Not even a little. He doesn’t stink. There’s no breakdown of the lips or eyelids, which should go quickly.

  “Here’s my quandary. If this gentleman has been dead long enough for enzymes to completely dissolve lungs, stomach, intestines, and brain, he should also be in an advanced state of bacterial putrefaction.”

  Sanborn leaned back, his eyes fixed on John Doe. “So why isn’t he?”

  “Now comes the good part.” Hammond opened a refrigerator and withdrew a small tray of microscope slides. He switched on the light of the binocular microscope and placed a slide under the scope, looked into the eyepieces, twisted the focus knob, and stepped back. “This slide is muscle tissue from the lower abdomen. Be my guest.”

  Sanborn peered into the microscope. After a moment, he said, “I don’t see anything.”

  “Exactly. The tissue should be crawling with bacteria. Instead, they’re absent.”

  “All the slides are like this?”

  Hammond nodded. “The body, gentlemen, is completely sterile.”

  Sanborn was quiet for a moment, studying the cadaver.

  Hammond made a nervous, clipped laugh. “Starting to sink in, isn’t it? Time of death is unknowable. This guy’s free of bacteria, like he was pickled in alcohol or formaldehyde. Like Lenin. Only he wasn’t. Preservative chemicals are absent.” Hammond shook his head. “I’ll put it all in my report because I have to, and I’ll pray that no one outside Brigands Key ever gets wind of this. Why? Because I’ll be a laughing-stock, an incompetent sawbones out in the sticks who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.” Hammond leaned forward and his voice dropped. “Because what I’m telling you is, simply put, impossible.”

  * * *

  ON the EDGE, with Charley Eff

  Greetings, Blog-People!

  The Old Man takes one look this morning. ‘The hell are you going?’ he bellows. The Old Man has a limited but effective vocabulary.

  “Work,” says I.

  “That drunk ever going to pay you?” At this point, Mom pops in and pops right back out. She’s a superhero when the Old Man hits the bottle before breakfast. Her super power is her ability to disappear into thin air. Which is not a lot of use to me.

  “I get paid in a week or so,” I lied. I got paid yesterday and cashed it and stuffed it in my underwear drawer.

  “I want to see the check before you cash it.”

  “But, Father, Roscoe pays in cash,” I lied. “Minimum wage.” (That much was true.) “Keeps his books lean and clean.” Such bullshit. No way am I letting the Old Man see my check. “Forty hours a week,” I lied. It’s more like fifty. The Old Man would drink up every penny I make. I can’t scrape enough nickels together to get me into college, but maybe I’ll get enough to buy that beat-up old Chrysler the mayor’s trying to unload. Then I’m gone for good.

  When I was twelve, I had a paper route for the Brigands Key birdcage liner. I made twenty bucks that first week. The Old Man drank eighteen of it then beat the hell out of me. I quit the route that day. The Old Man found out and beat me again.

  I gotta get off this freaking island.

  Roscoe’s okay. A moron, but okay.

  The Old Man is a little guy. A shrimp, really. By the time I was fourteen, I was bigger than him. He stopped hitting when he had to swing up at me. Coward! He wanted to, ’cause I was bigger AND smarter than him. He felt cheated when he lost the edge in size.

  Anyway...

  Big News in Hooterville sur la Mer! Dead guy was found out in the ocean. No one knows who he was or how he got there. There’s this professor dude in town who found the body. Professor Dude seems normal, but living here you grow a skewed idea of normalcy. Inbred bunch of island ’necks. They’re already whispering about Professor Dude. Poor guy doesn’t know what kind of snake pit he stumbled into. More later...

  Peace Out,

  Charley Eff

  * * *

  Grant rolled over on the marble slab that the motel staff claimed was a mattress and looked at the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock. Two a.m. Thursday already. Wednesday was wasted and it was looking like that would be the norm. He sat up, kicked off the bed covers, stretched.

  He pulled on a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt and slipped out of the room, barefoot. Probably stupid to go out barefoot but what the hell. He thought best in strange towns on late-night walks in bare feet.

  He headed down the quiet dark street and reached the dock and followed it to its end. He looked over his boat, toying with the idea of boarding, but decided against antagonizing Sanborn further. He took a seat, dangling his feet over the water, and stared at the dazzling stars overhead. The thunderclouds had blown away, leaving a clear black sky, best appreciated in towns on the edge of a sea. A midsummer night’s dream. He spotted the constellation Perseus and leaned back to watch.

  John Doe haunted him.

  He’d seen his share of the drowned, having pulled a number of them from underground rivers across Florida. John Doe was different somehow.

  A meteor streaked across the blackness, a white thread stretching and disappearing in less than a second. Summer’s annual Perseid shower was in its waning days but patience should reward him with more meteors every few minutes.

  Soft waves lapped against the piers below, and a cool salty breeze drifted in off the Gulf, calming him. Weariness settled in. His eyelids drooped and his head nodded.

  There was a flash of blue light in the darkness.

  He snapped back to wakefulness and looked about. Must be a patrol car prowling, flashing lights at drunks like himself.

  Nothing. The streets were as deserted as before.

  He looked up at the sky. A pale blue glow hung there, fading, fading. Gone.

  He blinked, rubbed his eyes. Was it really there? He wasn’t sure what he’d seen, or dreamed. The sky was black and starlit once more. The stardust of the Perseids continued to rain.

  He’d heard of the fabled “flash of green” over the water. He didn’t believe in it. Old sea-dog stories dealt mostly nonsense. Mostly. He’d never heard of a flash of blue.

  He got to his feet and headed back toward his room.

  Chapter Five

  Charley sat on the gunwale of Electric Ladyland, balancing himself, trying to imagine a suitably manly pose in case a girl from school happened by. He glanced at his watch. Roscoe was fifteen minutes late. That had to be a record. Roscoe’s super power was punctuality. Everybody needed a super power, although nearly all were worthless in the scheme of things.

  Sixteen minutes. The fish weren’t going to wait, as Roscoe pointed out every morning. Funny thing, though. The fish always waited and Roscoe always caught them.

  Roscoe late. It just didn’t happen. Charley wished he had a cell phone. All the kids had one. Maybe he’d blow his next paycheck on one, a good one with video and cool apps. But that would decimate his college fund.

  Eighteen minutes. Charley heard that college students had an unwritten pact with professors: If the instructor was just fifteen minutes late, class was canceled, absences excused. It sounded like bullshit, it was so alien to life in Brigands Key.

  Twenty-one minutes, but Charley didn’t move. The last thing Roscoe would want to hear was that the college boy had blown off an honest day’s work because some tweedy eggheads let kids skip class without repercussion.

  The last of the Brigands Key fishing fleet, Frank Salazar’s Mustang Sally, heaved off and moved out into the channel, the throaty rumble of the engines shaking the water’s surface, blue sm
oke coughing from the exhaust. Frank waved. “Roscoe sleeping one off, Charley?”

  Mustang Sally rounded the tip of the island, throttled up, and rolled out to the open sea. Electric Ladyland was the last commercial boat moored. Another first.

  Twenty-seven minutes. Roscoe wasn’t coming. Drunk, like Salazar said.

  Roscoe could drink anyone under the table (another super power), but his code required abstinence during the work week.

  Charley walked to the foot of the dock and looked down the street in both directions. Maybe Roscoe was at Merrill’s Bait and Tackle, picking up something or other. Roscoe hated Merrill, but Merrill’s was the only game in town. Charley crossed the street and entered. Merrill scowled and stopped what he was doing and watched like a hawk. Anyone under fifty was out to steal from him. Charley asked, “Mr. Merrill, has Mr. Nobles been in this morning?”

  Merrill swept the air with his hand. “You see him here?”

  “I thought maybe he popped in. He likes your store. He steals shiners when you’re taking a crap.” Charley slammed the door on his way out.

  He unlocked his bike and pedaled down Main to the south side of town, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Something was wrong with Roscoe. Probably the flu. Nah. Roscoe never got sick and if he did he’d be fine with the idea of getting everyone else sick, so long as he didn’t miss a day of work.

  Roscoe’s house on Lee Street was a weathered, peeling Victorian, one of the oldest in town, built by the Nobles clan in 1878. The family had prospered, and prospered even more during Prohibition until Roscoe’s great-grandfather was paid a visit by the FBI and went to prison. The family fell into ruin and lost the house, but Roscoe fulfilled a twenty-year-old promise to his father and purchased the Victorian. He was the last of the line and lived alone in his bachelor’s paradise.

  Roscoe the bachelor. Charley wondered about that. Roscoe talked as nasty as one could about his conquests of the opposite sex, yet Charley had never seen him with a woman. A few business associates, all men, all outsiders, came by periodically. And Roscoe’s weekends were typified by jaunts down to Tampa, to see “family.” Whatever. In Brigands Key, that kind of thing didn’t exist. Charley didn’t pry and Roscoe didn’t talk, and Charley was glad he wasn’t the only misfit in town.

  Charley leaned his bike against the front steps and climbed onto the broad, shady porch. The morning paper lay unopened. Roscoe’s Chevy pickup sat in the gravel driveway.

  Charley banged on the ancient, sagging door, making it rattle. “Roscoe, you here?” He tried the knob. Locked. He peered through the dirty front window but could see little, except that the room was hideous.

  Charley circled the house, calling Roscoe’s name. Still no answer. He returned to the front porch.

  No big deal. Simple explanation. Roscoe had a little business that needed attention in Ybor City and someone gave him a ride. Happened all the time. A guy needs a little release now and then. That’s what everyone claimed.

  Roscoe was fine. He’d be back tomorrow.

  Charley had a hard time convincing himself as he pedaled away.

  * * *

  Susan Walsh finished reading the Brigands Key Gazette online edition for the third time, closed her laptop, and squared it neatly on her desk. There are unfortunate wrinkles in every project, she told herself. People die every day.

  She cradled a cup of steaming coffee with both hands and turned to the vast window of Bay Tower. The afternoon sun was peaking through after a sudden storm. The sunset would be spectacular over Tampa Bay this evening.

  “People die every day,” she said quietly. Tampa labored through homicides, disappearances, unexplained deaths, and no one cared. Why get worked up over one death up in Brigands Key?

  She read the story once more.

  There was just one death. Probably a drowned, drunken fisherman. But in the sticks things like this riled people up. She didn’t need that, not now, not with the project at a critical point. Passions were running high over Bay View. She had City Council in her pocket but the good citizens were ready to string them all up.

  This could mushroom. Rumors would fly, accusations would be leveled, all because of timing. In five days the Council would vote and Bay View would be a done deal. The good news: Pierce hadn’t mentioned it and didn’t know about it. And what the boss didn’t know didn’t hurt him.

  She wanted to kick herself. Playing close to the vest was her talent and was supposed to be a good thing, but it hadn’t served her well lately. Yet instincts had gotten her this far in life without disaster. Without big ones, anyway.

  Susan turned back to her laptop and typed in a few commands, assigning an out-of-office reply to all incoming emails. She picked up the phone. “Beth, mark me out for the next couple of days. I’m driving up to Brigands Key first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll be there until the vote next Wednesday. The skids need a bit of greasing.”

  * * *

  Julie Denton stared at the computer monitor, scrolling through headlines on MSN. Nothing going on in the world that affected her little paradise, she thought, switching off the website. She leaned back wondering where that sentiment had come from. It’s all news, regardless of scale, regardless of location. She was a news junkie and the news had run her life.

  Everything was connected in some way. The price of grouper in Brigands Key, somehow, someway, affected the outcome of elections in Thailand, and vice versa.

  So why was she disaffected by the events of the world this morning? Wednesday’s edition of the Gazette had been the biggest in years. She’d gotten phone calls from the Tampa Tribune and the Miami Herald. Today’s paper had some follow-up, a little background. John Doe had bumped the fishing forecast and that tropical depression down by Cuba right off the front page. Yet the bigger picture loomed out there, tantalizing and elusive. She should be out pounding the pavement, drawing out the story. Grant, Hammond, and Sanborn knew more than they were telling.

  Yet here she sat, a malaise gripping her. She’d felt it from the moment she’d awoken at five. Maybe she was entering middle age. That would stink.

  She closed the Internet and started a new document file. She’d found out a little about Grant’s checkered past and could use it to fill out page two. She began typing and stopped after one paragraph as sudden queasiness took hold. It passed, and she read back what she’d just written.

  Her prose style, when she was at the top of her game, came sharp, crisp, and insightful. Like Hemingway’s. Maybe not that good. But Hemingway whacked and whittled and crafted a line thirty or forty times if need be. She didn’t have that kind of time. And what she’d just written was far from her best.

  Her stomach twitched, butterflies, and she felt a flush come into her face. She touched her brow and felt the sweat there.

  Wonderful, just wonderful, she thought. Story of the year and she was getting a flu. Unacceptable. What would Hemingway do? Drink a fifth of whiskey and get back to work.

  Her stomach twitched again, gurgling. She rushed to the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet and found a bottle of Pepto. She checked the expiration date. Close enough. She opened the bottle.

  Before she could get a glass of water filled and the medicine into her mouth, her guts lurched. She dropped to her knees, leaned over the toilet, and the contents of her stomach blew up and out of her throat, the smell and taste burning her throat. Tears squeezed from her eyes. She heaved again and again until there was nothing left, and then she heaved some more.

  At last, the violent expulsions ceased. She rinsed her mouth out, splashed cold water on her face, and plodded to the scruffy leather sofa in the lobby and lay down, trembling. Digging for the truth would have to wait another couple of hours.

  Chapter Six

  Friday morning and for the second straight day, Charley sat on the dock waiting for Roscoe, this time with no belief that he actually would show. After a half-hour he gave up and cycled past Roscoe’s house. The newspaper hadn’t been picked up.


  He worked up his nerve and pedaled to the police department. Inside, a really old lady in her forties smiled like a cartoon when he entered. He stammered something about filing a missing persons report and she showed him to Chief Sanborn’s office.

  “Mister Sanborn,” he said, “I’m Charley Fawcett.”

  “I know who you are, Charley.”

  Charley blushed, surprised anybody knew him. Of course, cops didn’t really count. That was the one bunch you didn’t want to be popular with, his old man liked to say. He chased the thought from his mind and described his worries about Roscoe to Sanborn.

  “Charley, how long have you known Roscoe?” Sanborn asked.

  “I’ve seen him around my whole life.”

  “Not what I mean. How well do you know him?”

  Charley hesitated. “Real well, for a few weeks. Long as I’ve been working on his boat.”

  “You know Roscoe has two lives? One that’s all about fishing and working and cussing, and another that doesn’t include or concern Brigands Key?”

  “I kind of figured that out.”

  “Then you know Roscoe disappears for days at a time. I expect that’s what he’s done right now.”

  “It’s not like him to ditch work without a word. He’s the hardest-working man I’ve ever met.”

  Sanborn considered this for a moment. “Tell you what. I’ll check around a bit. You too, but be discreet. Word gets out about Roscoe’s second life and his first life here on the island comes to an end. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Charley nodded. “How’d you know about Roscoe?”

  “I know a lot of things Brigands Key would rather not think about.”

  Charley searched the Chief’s face for lies.

  Sanborn seemed to read his mind. “Don’t worry, son,” he said. “He’ll turn up.”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “You see him, you let me know, okay?”

  Charley gave a wary nod and left.

  He pedaled again past Roscoe’s house. He emptied the mailbox and hid the mail on the front porch behind a greasy box of boat motor parts, glancing first at some of the letters. One was a flier from some bar called Holiday Nights in Ybor City. A couple of dudes in top hats and tuxes grinned knowingly in the letterhead. Charley glanced about and tore the letter open. There was a big week-long bash going on at Holiday Nights, apparently.