Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery Read Online Free Page A

matter how wild Luis’ accusations were, Richard, as chief of police, supported him. Maybe Luis’ attitude was wearing thin throughout the whole department. Maybe.
    “This doesn’t distance him,” Luis said, shaking the papers in his hand. “It draws him in closer.”
    “It raises questions, I’ll give you that, but it doesn’t explain his calling us,” Richard said quietly. He sat next to me. “Why not dump the body? Take it out on a Jet Ski while it’s dark and plop her in the water. Why get the police involved? Hell, Murphy has a dinghy that could handle the dumping.”
    “So he walks?”
    “Murphy?”
    “Yeah, Murphy,” Luis grumbled.
    “Yeah,” Richard said with a groan, “after he answers a few more questions.” He stared up at Luis. “Give him the papers, then sit down and explain them to him.”
    Luis dropped the papers on the desk. They scattered along the top. I waited a beat before collecting them.
    “What’s here?” I looked toward Richard.
    “Dick Walsh is three years old,” Luis said and sat across from me. “He has no history before that.”
    I looked at the first sheet that showed a copy of his Florida driver’s license listing his Key West address. Other pages had credit information on him and his bank accounts. He had a few bucks in the bank, but he wasn’t wealthy. No parking tickets, no arrests, no criminal activity whatsoever.
    “Maybe credit reports only go back three years.”
    “It’s not a credit report, its NCIC and FCIC,” Luis grunted. “It’s a law enforcement report and it should go back forever.”
    He had run the information through the National and Florida Crime Information Center computers for a criminal history on Dick Walsh. He had almost no history, criminal or otherwise.
    “Go on,” Richard ordered.
    “Less than an hour after I ran the background check, the U.S. Marshal’s Service called,” Luis said reluctantly and stopped.
    I looked at Richard and he smiled like a parent refereeing between bickering siblings.
    “The whole thing,” Richard said.
    Luis didn’t like it, but knew he had no choice. “Your buddy Walsh is in the federal witness protection program. All I could get out of the reporting deputy marshal was that Walsh has been missing for three years and they are on their way here from Miami.”
    “Missing?” I was confused. How do you go missing from federal witness protection?
    “They’ve had him for almost thirteen years and then one day he wasn’t there,” Luis recited what he had been told.
    “They looked for him and presumed he’d been murdered.”
    “Why was he in the program?”
    “They wouldn’t say, but I was told that they took him from Boston,” he looked accusingly at me. “You’re from Boston, Walsh is from Boston, you’re both Irish…”
    “Hold on, Luis,” I protested. “Walsh can’t be his real name. Witness protection gives you a new identity, so he could be Italian or Polish for that matter.”
    “You didn’t know him in Boston?”
    “Do you know everyone from Cuba?”
    “That’s not an answer.”
    “It’s the only one you’re getting.” I stood up. “Can I go?”
    “The marshals are going to want to talk to you,” Richard stood. “You’ll come back.” It wasn’t a question.
    “They’ll want to talk with you first, see your reports and the crime scene,” I said. “Check the photo ID and make sure you’re talking about the right guy.”
    “What’s your point?” Richard sighed.
    “They’re going to be busy with you, so when they want to talk to me, call,” I said. “I am not going to wait around here for them. When they’re ready to talk, I’ll come in.”
    “They may want to take care of as much as possible tonight.”
    “Call me, like I said, and we’ll see if I am in any condition to be interviewed.” I touched my hand to my forehead, like a salute, and left. Billy hadn’t heard my name mentioned. Now that was curious.
    I was outside before I remembered my Jeep was