Hemingway's Ghost Read Free Page B

outskirts of society.
    The station was full of the usual drunks and deadbeats who stuffed the town like a rotten Thanksgiving turkey. They came to Key West in droves, those who couldn’t make it anywhere else and then pretended they were living it up in paradise, whooping and hollering down the packaged edginess of Duval and eking out a pathetic existence in the rat-infested dives and trailer parks outside Old Town.
    The Hemingways grimaced as the cops stopped working to watch them, wondering who ordered the practical joke. Papa strode to the front desk and slapped his beefy forearms down. “We need to speak to a detective.”
    The bald cop behind the desk looked up from his papers and pushed his glasses higher up on his Roman nose. “What’s that, pops?”
    “I said we need to talk to a detective.”
    “About what?”
    “About the
murders
.”
    The cop’s eyebrows rose and he picked up a phone. “Sarge, you’ve got some…people…in here say they want to talk about the murders.”
    The cop nodded at the phone, hung up and then led them down a hallway to a tiny glass-walled office overlooking the ocean. The plate on the door read “Sergeant Cohn.” The cop opened the door and they filed inside.
    Sergeant Cohn was an average-sized man with a round face and droopy eyes that gave him a hangdog look. He had sandy hair and sunspots on his forehead, and looked more like a dentist with a golfing habit than a cop.
    Papa seemed to gain courage from Sergeant Cohn’s bland appearance. “We want to know why more isn’t being done—”
    “Sit down,” Sergeant Cohn said.
    They sat.
    “I imagine you’re some of the most nervous people in town right now,” he said. His voice, though quiet, possessed an assumption of control that was far more intimidating than bluster. “We’re not going to discuss my job and how I’m doing it. All three of you were on my short list of people to see today, so I’m glad you came. Now, do any of you have anything to tell me about this investigation?”
    They remained silent, and he smiled a most non-dentist smile. “If you do, I suggest you tell me right now, because I
will
find out.”
    Papa wanted to blurt out that Bumby had no alibi, but he could hardly lead the Sergeant down that path.
    “Nah,” Papa said, with a poor attempt at humility. “We’re afraid we’re next on the list, and wanted to know if you knew anything we should know about.”
    Sergeant Cohn looked at them in turn, holding his gaze on each one until they looked away. “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the Hemingway look-alike contest at the end of this month? The one with the five thousand dollar prize?” He looked at Papa, and cocked his head towards Bumby. “The one I believe your friend here has won three years in a row?”
    Bumby was surprised that Sergeant Cohn had recognized him.
    “Of course not,” Papa said. “I mean, yeah I’d love to win that, but five thou is hardly worth killing someone over.”
    “What you meant to say, I’m sure, was that no contest, no amount of money, is worth killing anyone over.”
    “Sure, yeah, of course,” Papa sat back in indignation. “I’m not so good with words sometimes.”
    “You do realize you’re one of two Hemingways on the island with a criminal record, and the only regular Hemingway still alive who’s never placed in the money?”
    “Don’t remind me,” Papa muttered. “But I ain’t killed no one.”
    The Sergeant shifted his gaze to Bumby. “Congratulations on being the top Hemingway impersonator in the world.” He nodded in approval as he studied Bumby. “You’ve even got those knowing eyes, the strained look on your forehead, the creases next to the nose. A model of Hemingway perfection, and a writer to boot! You other two must be a little jealous.”
    Bumby started to relax, and the Sergeant said, “Funny, though. I’ve been asking around, and it seems that on the night of the last murder you left the bar before these