Free Vampire Slayer Murdered in Key West - Mick Murphy Short Stories by Michael Haskins

exploded loudly and with a blinding light that lit up a few windows. The window I tossed it through shattered.
    I don’t know how long I waited, I was no longer counting, but I pulled the pin in the second grenade and tossed it through another window and when it exploded it was twice as loud and all the windows in back shattered. A neighbor would be calling the police.
    Alarms went off inside and the backyard security lights came on. I ran to the tree for cover, almost tripping on the rope. The backdoor opened, smoke came out, followed by a man holding a rifle. He fired wildly into the yard. I fired back and hit the door. He closed it quickly and I heard the pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire out front.
    I was positioned in the back to force people out the front, so I stayed put, while the popping continued, with an intermittent sound of Coco Joe’s Glock firing. He must have tossed another flash-bang because I heard it explode and saw the light from the backyard. There was rapid fire from the Glock and then quiet.
    The quiet didn’t last long. The pop-pop-pop returned, and I could tell it was more than one weapon firing. In between the popping sound, I heard a motorcycle start and then the explosion of another grenade rocked the house and it was quiet, again. The air burnt with the smell of spent gunpowder.
    I heard the motorcycle, again, and knew it was speeding off. I ran along the side yard toward Coco Joe. When I passed the carport both motorcycles were gone. Out front, two men lay dead. There was no sign of Coco Joe. Smoke began to come out of the broken windows and I heard sirens. The front gate was open and I rushed out to my dinghy.
    • • •
    Richard Dowley stood with a cup of my good coffee in the cockpit of the Fenian Bastard. Padre Thomas was sleeping in the main cabin.
    “You wanna run that by me again?” He wanted to pace, but there wasn’t room.
    “Padre Thomas had a little too much to drink last night, so I was trying to walk him sober and saw these guys loading drugs into the Cadillac in the Lyons Club parking lot. Simple as that, and I called you.”
    “Then you heard all the commotion across the way earlier, right?” he sipped coffee and looked across the bight to the burnt out house.
    “It could’ve woke the dead,” I smiled and drank from my coffee mug. “What happened?”
    “Not sure,” he frowned. “Two dead outside, one dead inside. Sherlock said it looked like grenades, automatic and small arms fire. Lots of brass on the ground.”
    “Well, that would explain the explosions I heard.”
    “How many,” he refused to sit down.
    “Three, maybe four.”
    “He’ll corroborate your story?” Richard pointed down into the cabin.
    “I doubt it, I think he’s still drunk. He slept through the whole thing.”
    “I meant about the walk.”
    “If he remembers.”
    Richard finally sat down and I got him a fresh cup of coffee.
    “The guy who rents the house,” he pointed across the way, “took off in his small plane just about the time we got calls about the gunfire.”
    “He’s gotta land.”
    “Yeah, well, he flew below radar, but we think he went to Cuba.”
    “That’s illegal,” I said and then laughed.
    “It gets better.” He didn’t laugh.
    “How’s that possible?”
    “About fifteen minutes later, someone stole a small plane and went in the same direction, like they were following him.” He finished his coffee. “You don’t know anything about this, right?”
    “I know what I saw and what I heard, but you already know that.”
    “The sheriffs caught your drug smugglers and the DEA is coming for them, so this closes the case on the floater too,” he put his cup down and stood up.
    “I’m glad it worked out,” I stood and walked with him to the dock.
    “I didn’t say that, I said it closes the case. That’s what the Feds told me. I don’t like any of it, but I’m glad they’re gone. If you want lunch, give me a call about one.”
    He gave me a tired smile