Locating and arresting the suspect turned out to be almost as fast and easy as identifying the victim had been.
“We should have known it was all too easy,” Paul Flanck says, bitterly. “I should have known it was all bound to get more complicated down the line.” But then, he’s an admitted cynic and pessimist. “Protective coloration” Robyn calls it. She claims that some cops need that kind of attitude to protect themselves from overwhelming disillusionment. When Paul hears that, he laughs and retorts, “Oh, come on, Robyn, I’m a realist, that’s all.”
He adds, “The world can always prove to me that it’s a better place than I think it is. In the meantime, I’ll just go ahead and continue to expect the worst of it.”
* * *
Robyn Anschutz remembers the exact pieces of the puzzle that came together with such amazing speed to point an arrow sharply at the Checker Crab Water Transit Company.
“We have a veteran chopper pilot, Broyle Crouse,” she explains. “And when Broyle heard which bridge we found the body at, he remembered the water taxi he’d seen there the previous night. He didn’t really think it was connected to the murder, but he called my partner anyway. They’re old buddies from way back. They like to fish and fly together.
“So, Crouse tells Paul about how he saw the number six Checker Crab right up next to the big Hatteras parked—docked—on the northeast side of the bridge and how he saw one person in it. He thought it was a guy, he said. So Paul puts that together with the footprint he found on the deck of the yacht and the cigarette ash. And then we had the unbelievable break of that 911 call from the old lady who saw a black-and-white checked boat right at the McCullens’ dock. And the other 911 call from the boatyard owner. Bing, bing, bam, everything came together all at once. It was the 911 operator who took it on herself to tell us.
“It was like everybody was upset about this little girl getting killed and how her little body was left like that to hang in public, and so everybody went on hyperalert and remembered the things they needed to.”
Detectives Anschutz and Flanck obtained a search warrant.
Water taxis are a lot of fun. Tourists love them, and they’re cheaper than cabs. Locals use them sparingly for special treats, like children’s birthday parties, and for out-of-town guests. In Bahia Beach, there are three licensed companies that putter along the water routes, competing for hotel and restaurant business, and carrying tourists to attractions such as Ocean World down in Lauderdale, or even to shopping malls.
It’s a wonderful ride, day or night.
During the day, tourists get a water’s eye view of the fascinating boat traffic that rides the Intracoastal, and they can ogle the backyards of the mansions that line the canals. At night, they get a glamorous tour with all the glittering lights reflected in the black water. As the mayor of Bahia Beach says, “If I had a dollar for every time a tourist took a ride in a water taxi and said, ‘Gee, I wish I lived here,’ I could afford to run for governor.”
At the time of Natty’s abduction and murder, Checker Crab was the smallest and least successful of the water taxi businesses in Bahia. The other two operated out of tidy, attractive docks right on the Intracoastal. But the detectives traced Checker up a swampy little backwater bay off the New River. They drove into its gravel parking lot no more than three hours after Natalie’s body was found at the bridge.
The developments in the case were moving very fast.
“What a dump,” was Paul’s verdict on the boatyard.
“Atmospheric,” said Robyn, with wry diplomacy.
They were going in alone, but there was backup close by. “We didn’t know if we’d turn up a suspect,” Paul explains. “But we were definitely after the boat.”
Surprisingly, considering how disreputable the boatyard looked, it seemed to have stayed out of trouble with the law. Its boats passed their mechanical inspections, the drivers didn’t accumulate water traffic citations, and it even paid its taxes on time. It didn’t get embroiled in local controversies, and it kept within the letter of the local zoning and occupational laws. To all appearances, it wasn’t a bad corporate citizen of the county, merely a messy one. Even as an eye-sore, it was pretty well hidden from general view, behind thick stands of mangrove, sea grape, and Spanish moss.
Detectives Flanck and Anschutz thought they understood the comparative tackiness of the company the minute they saw the owner. In Paul’s judgment, “He looked like a loser.”
“You the owner?”
“Do I have to admit it?”
The man’s frank humor surprised them.
“You’re not under oath,” Paul joked, in response.
In Paul’s and Robyn’s view, the owner must at this point in the investigation be considered a possible suspect. He looked about sixty-five, and he was chubby, short, with a pot belly covered by a dirty white T-shirt over filthy blue jeans. He was balding, and his few strands of hair looked dark and greasy. Robyn found him unpleasant to look at. She flinched when she got a load of what he wore around his neck: a grimy silver chain with a small but real scorpion flattened between two glass circles that were held together by a silver rim. The man appeared not to have shaved in a couple of days, and his fingernails were long, broken, dirty. Still, he laughed good-humoredly at Paul’s response, and waved an arm to invite the detective into his office. Before sitting down in there, Paul reluctantly accepted the handshake the man offered, over his gray metal desk. The desk looked, Robyn thought, like it was adrift in an ocean of unfiled paperwork.
The owner didn’t offer his hand to the female cop, or look at her, or direct any of his comments toward Robyn. She was glad not to have to shake his grimy hand. It wasn’t the first time she was ever ignored; over time, she has learned to use it, instead of resent it. She says it gives her the opportunity to watch everything, every nuance.
“My name’s Donor Miller,” the man said, fiddling with the flattened scorpion in the medallion on his chest. “I confess, I own this place.”
Paul joked, “I don’t have to beat it out of you?”
“Hell, I’m not that ashamed of it.”
“Did you say Donor? Like blood—”
“Right.”
“I gotta ask.”
Mr. Miller sighed, and let go of his scorpion necklace. “I ought to wear a button. It’d say, ‘Both my folks were drunks. They lived off money they made donating blood.’ My name was a joke to them. I was, too, I guess. Joke’s on them, though, isn’t it? They’re dead. I’m not. What can I tell you, Detective? My license expired, or something?”
“You reported one of your boats stolen last night.”
The company owner looked surprised, but then he waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, hell, that’s why you’re here? That was nothing. I thought it was gone, but it was just in the wrong slip. When I went back later, I found it. I’m gonna ream out the dockhand who screwed up.”
“Are you sure it was there the whole time?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Could someone have taken it out?”
“For a joyride, like?”
Carefully, Paul nodded.
The owner shook his head. There was an old silver harmonica lying on his desk, and he picked it up and tapped one end of it into the palm of his other hand. “Nah. Wouldn’t have had a key, and I’ve fixed them so they ain’t easy to hot-wire. One of my stupid guys put it in the wrong slip, like I said.”
“Which boat was it, Mr. Miller?”
“Which—you mean, like what number do I call it by? Well, I only have six of them, and it was number six.”
“Would you show it to me?”
Robyn watched the owner blink. For the first time, he showed impatience. He put the harmonica down. “I told you, it was a mistake. Why you want to look at a boat that was never gone?”
“Got to put something in my report.”
Donor Miller laughed at that. “Red tape! It’s everywhere! Okay, come on, I’ll show you the damned boat. Hell, a report
on a boat that wasn’t stolen, ain’t that a bitch?”
“Sure is.” Paul, who has a soft spot for the “mouth organ,” asked, “You play that thing?”
“This?” Miller picked up the harmonica, then tossed it carelessly down again. “This is for amateurs. Blues players who only know four chords and a slide. I used to be a musician, but I don’t play anymore. Make a hell of a lot more money in boats.”
“I can believe that.”
The detectives followed the chubby marina owner out to the docks.
On the way to the slips, they learned more about Checker Crab, without knowing if any of it was useful.
“How many men you got working for you, Mr. Miller?”
“What’s today? Tuesday? Nobody’s quit today yet, so I guess I still got eleven, although working might not be the word I’d use to describe what they do.”
“Eleven full-time?”
“Oh, hell, no, only me and my main boat mechanic are full-time.”
“So you’ve got, what, part-time drivers and part-time mechanics?”
“Yeah, I like it best if they can do their own repairs.”
“All men?”
“Couple women, they all come and go, a lot of kids, you know, college kids working their way. It’s a good job for them, it’s easy, they make tips, and they meet the girls.” He smirked. “Or the boys.”
“What hours do you run?”
“Six A.M. to midnight.”
“So it was around midnight you thought you had a boat missing?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you recall the exact time you saw it wasn’t in the right slip?”
That got him a sharp glance from the owner. “You gotta have that for your report, too?”
“You called into 911 at eleven-forty-five P.M.”
“Okay, so it was however long it took me to walk up from the dock to the phone, after getting real pissed off and standing around and cussing for a while.”
“How long, five minutes, ten minutes . . . between seeing the empty slip and calling 911?”
“Give or take.”
“Not like an hour, though.”
“No, nothing like that. What the hell difference does it make? Okay, say it was five minutes, maybe.”
“Don’t agree with me just to agree with me. Was it five minutes, or wasn’t it?”
“Hell, I don’t know! It’s not like I was timing it. Five minutes sounds right.”
“And what time did you see the boat was back?”
“It wasn’t back, I’m trying to tell you. It was here all the time.”
Robyn stepped forward for the first time. “Mr. Miller, your boat was seen at least twice last night, after midnight, on the water. Boat six. Checker Crab.”
“What?” The owner stared at Paul, as if he were the one who had spoken. “Goddammit! Who took my boat? Why are you running me around like this, all the time you knew the truth that it was really gone?”
Robyn held up the search warrant they’d brought with them.
“We’re investigating it in relation to a homicide.”
“A what?”
“A homicide.”
The detectives watched the man stare off toward the dock they were approaching. They saw three black-and-white checked boats, three empty slips, and ten other boats of sundry sizes in larger slips.
“Shit.” He reached for his medallion and held on to it. “One of my boats?”
“Who do those other boats belong to, Mr. Miller?”
“What? I rent out dock space to people.”
They walked up to the head of slip six.
“When you made those calls to 911, Mr. Miller,” Robyn asked him, “was there anybody else here at the time?”
“Have I got a witness, do you mean? Jesus. Do I need one? Hell, I had drivers coming and going. There might have been somebody here then. Jesus! Do I need a lawyer, or something?”
“Calm down,” Paul said, bluntly. “These are just questions we’ve got to ask. If you didn’t do anything, you’ve got nothing to worry about. We’re interested in the boat. This it?”
“Yeah.”
Robyn walked onto the wooden dock, while behind her, Paul asked the owner, “Has this boat been out since then?”
Miller shook his head, his volubility suddenly drying up. (“He looked scared to death,” Robyn would tell their supervisor. She didn’t enjoy frightening people, but it was almost unavoidable, since murder investigations scare both the guilty and the innocent.)
The open motorboat in the slip looked a mess, as if whoever had taken it out last had failed to clean up after himself, or herself. Looking down into it, Robyn saw a black tarp, a half-empty bag of grocery store popcorn, and several clear shoe prints.
And a child’s bracelet.
“Paul!”
The bracelet floated in about an inch of water on the bottom of the boat. It was a chain of little plastic hearts, each heart a different pastel shade of red, from deepest rose to palest pink. It was whole, not broken, as if its little owner had not been able to put it on her wrist by herself, and so had carried it with her, clutching it in her small hand.
Her partner and the marina owner walked over to look.
Robyn Anschutz felt a strange surge of conflicting emotions: exhilaration and a wave of sadness so strong she was afraid she might break down and cry, right there in broad daylight, standing between her partner and the tough old Checker Crab owner.
“What are you looking at?” Donor Miller asked them. “Listen, whatever happened, I didn’t have anything to do with it!”
Paul Flanck’s feelings weren’t in the least conflicted when he saw the child’s bracelet. He stared at Donor Miller and thought, Ask who got killed, you self-absorbed son-of-a-bitch. Ask about the victim you asshole. As he would say later, “I cuss, but not out loud. It’s not professional. It may sound funny, but the fact that I restrain myself, I think it’s one of the things that separates me from them.”
The pair of detectives homed in fast and hard on the essentials of what they wanted to know.
“Who put this boat back in the slip last night, Donor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you try to cancel your 911 call?”
“Hell, I got my boat back. Listen, what’s this got to do with that homicide you said—”
“Who was the last person you knew of to take this boat out? Who’s got access to your keys? Does anybody have their own key to it?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute! I’m thinking I need to call my lawyer. I ain’t responsible if somebody’s done something stupid with one of my boats. It’s a goddamned bitch being a business owner these days. You can’t mind your own business without getting sued. What the hell’s my boat got to do with anything?”
“This boat was seen in the vicinity of where a child was killed.”
“Killed. What do you mean, like murdered? Like a child molester, some pervert? Or, like in a boat accident? Was it a boat accident? Somebody stole my boat and hit somebody with it, and somebody got killed? That ain’t my fault.”
He pointed at boat six.
“There ain’t a scratch on it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Cause I’m looking at it! You can see for yourselves!”
“Let’s go back to your office and check on who took the boat out yesterday.”
“Paul!”
While he was distracting the taxi owner with disturbing questions, Robyn was quietly nosing around. The men looked over, and saw her standing with her hands on her hips, staring down into a battered metal trash bin on the dock just inches from the bow of boat number six.
“Come here,” she said.
When the men were there to witness her actions, she slipped a ballpoint pen from her shirt pocket and used it to lift an object from the top of the trash in the bin. With a gesture that looked persnickety, she pulled out her own shirttail and used it to cover her free hand so that she could spread out the object
without contaminating it with her own fingerprints. She displayed it to the men’s view, as if it were hung on a clothesline.
It was a T-shirt, sodden, white, with the words CHECKER CRAB CO. in black letters. Opposite was a smear of reddish pink that looked like diluted blood. Above a pocket on the front were printed the letters RAY.
Detective Anschutz stared over the trash bin at the marina owner.
Quietly, she asked him, “Who’s Ray?”
The Little Mermaid
By Marie Lightfoot
CHAPTER FOUR
Ray is just this weird guy I give odd jobs to.”
That’s what Donor Miller told the detectives when they asked him about the owner of the T-shirt in the trash bin. “I don’t know anything about him, except he does what I tell him, as long as I keep it simple.”
Detectives Flanck and Anschutz smelled an unpleasant aroma down by the docks, but as native Floridians they weren’t alarmed. People from out of state might have recoiled, and exclaimed, “Who died here?” But as native Floridians, Paul and Robyn recognized the “fragrance” of a backwater bay. It was the smell of dead fish and of sulfur from the decaying layers of leaves that fell into the water from the branches of mangrove trees around the marina. This was, after all, part of the New River, a fascinating waterway that winds through scenery that is dramatic both by virtue of its content and its contrasts: From the parkways, bridges, and boat docks of downtown Fort Lauderdale, up the big branch into Bahia Beach, and back up the north channel to Lake Okeechobee, it’s a biologist’s dream, a boater’s fantasy.
“What’s his full name?”
“Raymond Raintree.”
“Where can we find him?”
“Hell, he’s always here.”
Robyn Anschutz and Paul Flanck exchanged glances.
“You mind if we look for him?”
The boat owner sank down on a dock rail, and put his face in his hands. “No,” he mumbled. “As if it makes any difference what I want. Shit. That little bastard. I’m probably the only person on this green earth who’s ever been decent to him, and this is how he repays me. Shit.”
Paul gazed at the man with loathing, and thought again, Ask about the victim. Just once. Pretend you care.