What's in a city budget?

Key West Police dogs get to train, too

By John L. Guerra

You always know you're dealing with a rookie reporter when he or she writes a budget story that numbs you with numbers. Many reporters groan when they have to do a budget story, and I don't blame them. Faced with pages and pages filled with rows and rows of numbers, reporters plunge into their work with the excitement reserved for eating a plate of liver and onions. Then the poor reader suffers through a budget story that doesn't excite.

So what do I do? I just pick the interesting stuff and list it.

If you don't live in Key West, take a look at what's in this tropical city's municipal budget and draw your own conclusions. The Key West City Commission approved the 2013-14 budget at its meeting last week.

For the Christmas Parade and tree-lighting ceremony this year, the city has set aside $2,000. For something called the "Holiday Party," $5,000.

For fireworks and other Fourth of July expenses: $5,000.

The city's Fleet Management Department expects to spend $546 in stamps and postage and $20,566 for the global positioning system it uses to track its pickup trucks, city cars and the Key West Cemetery vehicles. The department has set aside $1,800 for local towing of city vehicles should they break down.

The city dedicated $400 to a city employee to take city vehicles to and from the "mainland" for repair in the next fiscal year.

The police department, of course, has the most interesting stuff on its budget.

Police officers, detectives and support staff will receive $7.5 million in salaries and pay; overtime pay will be around $750,000. This does not include part-time work outside bars and stores and other similar work.

The police department will spend $3,612 for random drug testing for its officers and staff and $2,500 in veterinary services for its K9 units, aka police dogs.

To pay confidential informants and to buy drugs during undercover stings, the police department has set aside $20,000, or enough to buy 1,000 pieces of crack.

The police department has $1,500 to repair bicycles for its bike-mounted officers. For the repair of police motorcycles: $2,000.

For Taser repair and maintenance: $4,000 (they have to be reloaded after firing with these microscopic paper dots that identify which Taser was fired. They also can contain little chips that record when and where they were used).

I like this one because the police dogs get to practice, too: An Ulta Kimono Bite Suit for $1,500.

 

This is the puffy suit one sees in films of police dogs attacking humans as part of their training. The German shepherd's training, that is.

The police want to buy 10 Remington 870 shotguns for $3,250; two dozen bullet-proof vests for $14,880; and crime scene tape.

Police want to spend $1,000 for training officers in hostage negotiating and an undisclosed amount for "covert audio and video training."

The other powerful law enforcement agency in Key West, aka the Tree Commission, has put aside $5,000 to pay contractors to trim trees and $25,000 to replace trees that have died or been removed during construction, etc.

In Parks and Rec, there are surprising items on the budget:

A tennis pro, to the tune of $9,100; something called "sod consultation" for $8,000; and $50,000 for the Key West Wild Bird Center. Not sure what the bird center has to do with recreation, but that's OK. Keep funding it.

Of the city sports leagues, the one that gets the most money is Li'l Conch Baseball, which gets $19,400, followed by the controversial and rich Key West Junior Football League, which will get $18,000.  Girls Softball will get $10,800; the soccer league, $10,000 and hockey, $7,000. There is no ice rink in Key West. They play in a roofed floor rink near the high school.

So there you have it. You get a sense of what this city is about by its budget, but the budget doesn't measure the personalities and dedication of the wonderful people who work in Key West government. Their efforts show up in the great events, services and society they support. They make this island a great place to live.
They are part of what is known as the Human Budget, which is not measured in dollars. They are priceless.









　

President Obama, listening in on good Americans

Hope everyone will let me slide on not having any new blogs in recent weeks. I moved to a new apartment in Key West and don't have WiFi so I now go to the Wendy's on North Roosevelt and get a Frostie and write. Not what one thinks of when one imagines life in Key West.
But since I've been gone for a little bit, I am just going to run a few thoughts past you.
First, my novel, "Maddie's Gone" is getting good reviews and the little dog has begun to work her way into people's hearts: people who are considering killing their boyfriends, people who listen to shrimp captains spin lies, and people who try to steal dogs for ransom, that is.
One of the great things about writing a book is that you get to talk about yourself, which is my favorite subject.
See my TV interview where I discuss Maddie's plight here

Privacy on the half-shell

Since last I wrote this blog, we've learned that the National Security Agency, which was once barred from aiming its eaves-dropping electronics at American soil, has been using software that can capture and save vast buckets of voice, data, and video traffic from America's largest telecommunications networks.
We have heard this all before: That Americans who are doing the right thing have nothing to fear; that a warrant must be granted before contractors can open our email packets; and that there are wise people overseeing the sniffing programs.
Humans, as we know, are fallible, have bad days, have bad intentions, and screw up all the time. I do not trust any well-intentioned spying or data mining operation that seeks to find out what we're talking about to who.
I say the White House must notify any Americans, in writing, whose electronic traffic it has stopped and not found useful. In other words, if my email is being read and discarded as not criminal or dangerous, then the government must tell me. Just an idea; that way, innocent Americans know their information is being captured.
I found it odd that a week after Americans went crazy nuts over learning that privacy is not real, the CIA told Congress that it had foiled dozens and dozens of terrorist plots since starting the communications-mining program. The timing was meant to convince Americans that the program was necessary to stop attacks.
What about all the conversations between Boston and Chechnya? Didn't stop the Brothers Karama-bomb from killing and maiming. In fact, the FSB (once the KGB) and the FBI were in full conversation about the two brothers and they couldn't stop those two. So any arguments that reading and listening en masse to our digital traffic is necessary to halt terrorist attacks make no sense to me.

Key West predicts hurricane this year

Locals in Key West are nodding their heads as summer heats up.  There will be a storm this year. Why? Higher tempeatures than usual and a two-week rain field that stalled over Key West. The wind and the soggy skies continue to flow in from the southeast, the direction from which most storms come.
Also, there is a dust that coats car windshields and the surfaces of swimming pools in backyards. That's sand from the Sahara following the high-level wind currents that flow steadily from the coast of Africa westward.
It's time to get the gallon jugs of water; batteries, candles, hand-cranked radios and gas generators. Also, booze, cigarettes, and well, it's up to one's own needs.
There still is no shelter for Keys residents on the mainland. We used to drive to Florida International University in Miami and hang out in a large building there, but that is no longer available to Key Westers. The governor, who is a staunch, right-wing Republican, hasn't yet named a new mainland shelter for us liberals down here in the bottom of the Keys.
I hope someone is listening to his electronic traffic.

Talk to you all soon!
John Guerra

Dog Beach: The day I wasn't doing anything wrong

I was talking to a friend the other evening about close calls and I remembered a dog in Costa Rica that wanted to kill me.

In the early 90s, Sophie, my beautiful girlfriend at the time, and I were laying on the beach on the East Coast of the country, getting some sun.

There were no people on the beach, partly because there were giant tree trunks rolling in the surf. There had been an earthquake in the middle of the rainy season, so root systems in the rain forest relaxed their grip in the wet soil, causing trees to topple when the earth shook.

Trees along river banks toppled into swollen streams and flowed out into the ocean, where the action of the waves broke off their limbs and smoothed the trunks into 1-ton rolling pencils. And they rolled in the waves like baking pins, ready to crush any swimmer who got in the water.

So we stayed out of the water, laying on towels, looking up into the blue Central American sky.

I had my eyes closed, listening to the waves as she quietly read a paperback.

Then Sophie said something like, "Look at that dog running down the beach." Sophie is a mellow person; she states things without much fanfare.

I turned my head to the left and with my head inches off the sand (I was laying on my back) I spotted it. It was far down the beach, a little brown thing, heading our direction. There was a mist on the shoreline, so the effect was cinematic; a hero dog in flight on his way to save a drowning swimmer. All that was missing was a TV crew and background music. I kept my head off the sand and stared.

"Huh," I said.

"I think it's coming this way," Sophie said pleasantly.

That was certain. No owner, no one else around, just this juggernaut on four legs, barreling my way.

"I know they don't really have a rabies vaccination program here like they do in the states," said Sophie, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador.

"No kidding," I said, as the dog's intentions became a large question mark in my morning.

"Yeah, every now and then a rabid dog would walk into town where I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador and everyone would run into their homes," she said pleasantly. "It was really ..."

"In Costa Rica?" I asked, sitting up, trying to stifle a whisper of alarm budding in my chest.

"No, in Ecuador," she said. She also kept her eye on the dog as it rushed through the mist toward us.

"Huh," I said again, but I heard a laugh build in her voice.

"Here in Costa Rica, though, I bet it's the same as Ecuador as far as rabies. You know, they don't have veterinarians in every town, you know, this isn't the states," she said.

I got up and kneeled on my blanket. The dog was now 200 yards off; I would have to make a decision soon.

"Sophie, what do you think this dog's intentions are?"

There is something about the way Sophie laughs, a sound that describes both wonder and building excitement.

"I don't know, but I don't see a collar or a registration tag on that one, do you? If there was a registration tag on the collar, it would tell you if the dog has been vaccinated against rabies or not. Since the dog has no tags, you have a 50-50 chance."

"I am thinking it might be good to prepare to run," I said.

"I don't think the dog is interested in me," Sophie said, returning to her paperback. "You don't remember last night, do you?"

Sophie would ask that often in the morning back then. Blackouts used to piss her off. My blackouts, I mean. She wouldn't talk to me in the morning after a night of well, heavy socializing. Her favorite question to me in those days was, "You don't remember what you did last night, do you?" Sometimes there would be something for me to worry about. Often, though, she'd ask that question just to make me worry. I'd beg her to tell me what I'd done and she'd refuse, leaving me hanging until I learned what it was or learned that I'd behaved perfectly fine (for a blackout).

"What does this dog have to do with last night," I asked her with the pain-filled voice I used whenever we had this discussion.

"You don't remember?"

"No, Sophie! Or I'd know!"

The dog was close enough now to see the sand kicked up by his paws as he narrowed his body and picked up even more speed.

"OK, the dog's name is Bob Marley and you were teasing him. He belongs to the bartender at the Sunset Room and the dog was tied up outside on the front porch. You were growling at him and jumping at him and he was barking like a crazy animal. People told you to stop teasing him, but as usual, you didn't listen. You kept jumping at the dog and teasing him."

"Oh, no, don't tell me that. Tell me the truth!" I begged, having only seconds to decide.

"I don't lie," she said.

I bolted up the coastline when Bob Marley was less than 100 feet away from our blankets. I launched my run just in time. Sure enough, the dog raced right past Sophie, who was laughing harder than I'd ever heard her laugh. The dog was too fast; there was no hope. I ran into the waves and dove underwater. A log rolled right towards me but I swam under it. The dog entered the surf after me but backed off, snarling and yelping. If I tried to exit the water, the dog came into the surf, growling, showing his teeth, daring me to come onto the beach.

I had to keep my eyes on the rolling trees in the surf behind me so I wouldn't break my back. I looked over at Sophie, who had returned to her paperback. She had a smug smile on her face, an "I told you so" on the edge of her lips.

"Sophie please help me," I pleaded. "The dog doesn't hate you. It hates me. Can you call him over to you?"

"No way," she said. "I didn't do anything to that dog. You did. That's between you and him."

I was stuck in the water for a long time. The dog lay down in the sand, keeping his eye on me. If I came toward shore, he got up and charged into the surf.

They talk about the hair of the dog in the United States. The phrase came to mind more than once as I dodged tree trunks and tried to reason with the dog.

Obviously, at some point, the dog trotted off or I would still be in the surf instead of in the dog house, where Sophie kept me.
I remain grateful that I have not had a drink in many years; I have not had periods of memory loss since the day I stopped drinking.

-- John Guerra

The other woman: Unfaithful Jihadi

In the old days, the American housewife learned of her husband's affairs by spotting lipstick on his shirt collar as she did his laundry.
In the world of modern Jihadi housewives, female DNA on bomb parts serves the same role to alert the wife that the hubbie is mounting another female in addition to mounting terrorist attacks.
Too soon to laugh? Absolutely. I make this comparison not to get a laugh, but to add to the despicable portrait of the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, that's already been painted by authorities. From the cocky look on Tamerlan's face in his boxing photos; to the way he manipulated and beat his wife to make her conform to his brand of Islam; to his scholarship to one of America's top colleges; and the ease with which he moved around town as if he had no care in the world while looking forward to maiming and killing innocents--I find much to hate him for.
He's like the guy who turns the TV up all the way and screw you if you want it turned down. Or the guy who acts like he's a rapper when he's never been in the inner city black neighborhoods. Or just an amoral, lying, evil, murderous, punk who would ambush a young man who was in his first years as a law enforcement officer. And boast about it. The problem is no matter how brutally you enact revenge or justice on his ilk, it never matches the destruction, sadness, and horror he creates in other people's lives.
So, when we learned that another female may have helped him build the bomb parts (the FBI must first find out if the DNA belongs to a victim) I felt that cheating on his wife fit his pattern perfectly.

I am also going to write this, and I believe I'll get blowback: Tamerlan fits perfectly into the generation of kids his age who just don't understand boundaries, don't understand when they are impinging on the comfort of others, who leave doors open, the TV way up, are oblivious to manners, oblivious to society's small graces. They are gentle sociopaths--not necessarily violent. But much like Tamerlan, many of them just don't seem to care.
I am talking about kids who somehow were raised without compassion. They laugh when an elderly person slips on a sidewalk; they don't respond when you ask them a direct question; they look at you blankly when they're behind a service counter. It's as if they are observing the world from behind sound-proof booths. It's probably an effect brought about by having earphones on all the time, or texting, or what have you. We've all seen couples out on a date, right? They sit at the same table, each reading and texting from an IPhone or similar device but never talking to one another.
I swore I'd never write like Andy Rooney, but I guess I am doing just that.
"Conversation, ever wonder where that went? The art of getting to know one another through the exchanging of full sentences? How about trying to be humorous, or using irony effectively to get a point across?"
Tamerlan is of the age of unconnectedness. Yes, he boxed, but he's a sociopath, a killer, and he's an abuser. His personality and apartness didn't raise any alarm bells in his fellow students. He fit into that generation of the disconnected perfectly. Clearly I'm not saying we have a generation of Tamerlan's out there. But conversation, with anyone, might have kept him from so-called, "self-radicalizing." Like many in his generation, he didn't know how to converse, so he heard no common sense arguments voiced that could balance the deadly Islamic message found on YouTube and Jihadi sites.
I don't know, it's all so perplexing, isn't it? A young man of hate, once again, loosed upon the world in the middle of an attentive, active society. A loner? Not really. Married, with friends who also didn't know boundaries or give a shit about anyone else. He had a little brother, who also had friends who all hung out with the older brother.
What a hoot! That's Tamerlan on the TV. Text him! Bro! Can I have your stuff? Ha Ha Ha. Blew up some people! Dude They're gonna catch you! Ha Ha!

I don't know who to blame. The two brothers, of course. But something's different about these times. They say the center won't hold, to beat a tired and rotting phrase to death. But there just isn't any better way to say it, is there? People betray colleagues for no good reason; those with little training or experience are given weighty titles and everyone tries to use shortcuts that undermine tine-honored, professional standards.
Dedicated to your fellow man? LOL.
The invaluable value system that has held together our community, society and nation in past generations just seems to be flinging apart. LOL.

--John Guerra

Honor Student

Hello, everyone! Here is a short story from "Maddie's Gone", which is a novel based in Key West. The characters in the short stories (one between each chapter of Maddie) show up in Maddie's main story.
Maddie's Gone is available at http://www.amazon.com. It's also at http://www.absolutelyamazingebooks.com, the new online book publisher based in Key West.

Honor Student

4 p.m.

Thunder shattered the humid afternoon as the first raindrops in six weeks fell in the parched backyard.

Rose watched from the open kitchen window as the drops, heavy and swollen, pattered on the broad-leafed plants and launched puffs of dust from the hard ground.

Another thunderclap–buh-room!--and the sky opened up, bringing torrents of cool rain. The thirsty ornamental plants and fruit trees Rose’s grandfather had planted in this backyard a lifetime ago--mango, key lime, star fruit and avocado trees—dipped and swayed under the wind-blown sheets of rain. The young woman breathed deeply, letting the freshened air fill her lungs.
Rose flinched as an arc light above the house filled the room and a lightning bolt slammed just beyond the back fence. Thunder exploded in the trees, rattling windows in their wooden frames.
The storm mirrored the young woman's mood.
"Ritchie … Ritchie … you idiot," she whispered under the rain’s roar.
Rose is a senior honor student at Key West High School. She’s been dating Ritchie since the two were juniors. She’s beautiful like so many young Conch women, lovely with the rare, olive beauty of a Latin movie starlet. She is slim, with elegant arms and small hands that never move far from her sides, even when she’s excited. Her wide, brown eyes are framed by long dark hair, a genetic gift from her Cuban and Bahamian ancestors. Her smile is practiced in delightful reaction to other people’s good news while her voice is designed for soothing troubled friends.
Rose and her 14-year-old sister, Anna Maria—who is a younger version of Rose, though less graceful and far less composed—have a sense of humor tempered by a difficult family life.
Like other children born to Conch families, they live within a protective and lively family circle. Attentive grandparents, conspiratorial and fun-loving aunts, hard-working uncles and a small legion of cousins—all form a world in which the two sisters can safely go about their daily lives.
As for Rose, she is trusting of most young men her age and can love with a maturity beyond her years.
But Rose is no fool.
"Yep, this time you’ve gone too far, Ritchie," she muttered as the breeze lifted the gauze curtains over the sink.
The scent of spices—bay leaf, oregano, cilantro, cumin, chili and curry powders—ride the cool air from the window. Wooden spoons, ladles, spatulas, icing whips and other utensils poke from the top of a jar next to the stove. The small kitchen is where the heart beats in this family.
Misshapen sea turtles Rose made for her aunt when she was in kindergarten stare out from the windowsill. An aging watercolor of a farmer’s market in 1930s Havana is on the wall behind the kitchen table. As the thunder withdrew across the island, Rose prepared for a visit from Ritchie, due anytime. She lit a burner under the teapot. As she rehearsed her conversation with Ritchie, she put out lemons, sugar and milk.
Rose is convinced Ritchie has been trying to sleep with Anna Maria, barely 15. A child! In a few minutes, Rose will see Ritchie and bring an end to this whole charade. Then a new thunder--Anna Maria--hit the front porch and bounded through the front door, gasping for breath. The screen door banged after her.
"Ohmygosh, Rosa! Did you see that lightning? I knew it was going to rain any second when I was at the store so I started running so fast but I couldn’t outrun the rain! Look at me! I’m wet as shit!" Beaming from beneath a tangle of untidy shoulder-length hair, Anna Maria flicked her arms and hands about, as if shaking off the rain.
"Anna!" Rose gasped, trying not to laugh. "Watch your nasty mouth! You are such a sewer mouth!"
"I know, Rosie, sorry," she pretended to pout. "Rosie, hand me a towel, please?"
Rose snatched the dish towel off the oven door and flung it, hitting her little sister in the face. Rose wore a brave smile as she watched Anna towel her hair and arms.
"How are you big sister?" the little sister asked, not really caring about the answer.
"You know you could get hit by lightning playing out there?" Rose scolded. "But please do me a favor, OK? Go and change your clothes in your room and stay in there? Ritchie is coming over and he and I need to talk."
Anna Maria dropped the towel, kicked off her shoes in the middle of the living room and ran down the hall without picking them up.
"Darn it, Anna! Don’t make me pick up after you!"
As she held Anna’s shoes, Rose noticed they were wet, but not soaking wet as they should be if her little sister had run all that way through the rain. The corner store was three blocks away, plenty of time for her to be completely soaked.
"More proof somebody’s lying," Rose said, worried that she may be too late to stop Ritchie.
Rose’s job is to protect her little sister. When her mother was dying, she made Rose promise to watch out for the child. Her aunts never stop reminding Rose of that duty.
Anna Maria, in spite of her attempts to act like an adult, is much too trusting of what people, especially Ritchie, tell her. Rose knew that little girls grew up too fast in this tourist town of bars, adult bookstores and strip clubs. Keeping children carefree and safe from adult truths wasn’t easy. Last year, 16 girls at Key West High School attended class pregnant and completed their studies from home while nursing and diapering their newborns.
Rose and Anna Maria should be what the experts call "at-risk" teens. Their father, a handsome and cheerful Navy officer, drank heavily every day. From a town in upstate New York, he had been stationed in Key West for a short time when he met their mother. The two had fallen in love and married.
The officer loved his daughters deeply, calling them his "princesses of paradise." Rose remembered him running around the backyard with her on his shoulders; how he kissed her cheek as she slept when he came home from work some nights.
But as their father’s drinking increased, he began to lose his memory, Rose’s aunt explained to Rose when she was older. His memory got so bad he’d forget what time dinner was and more importantly, where his wife and two daughters lived. A few times he even forgot he was married, running about town for days with women who were not his wife.
Each time he came to and returned home, he had been sick with grief, especially after coming off a long, drunken spree--one famously lasted 18 days.
To fight back, mother would call him unmanly, a coward, too weak to care for his family. Mother once accused him of being a "maricon," slang for "gay." That was just a tame sample from her verbal arsenal. He’d yell back, but the war had already been lost.
He’d be wracked with sobs as he knelt before his little girls, trying to explain to their little angelic faces that they hadn’t done anything wrong, that he loved them deeply. Rose knew without a doubt that he had loved them. He just forgot where he lived sometimes.
But the Navy officer couldn’t stop drinking, so Rose’s uncle Virgilio and a couple of his buddies stepped up at the request of mother to teach the wayward Navy man a lesson with their fists.
Lesson learned: Father fled the house, Key West, even Florida, never to return. He had been told not to call or even write his daughters, but Rose hoped one day he would come back to visit. She never hated him but loved him and forgave him everything.
Not too many years after that, mother had become very sick, spending several days a week in Miami at Jackson Memorial Hospital undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Then one day there was just Rose, Anna Maria and Aunt Helen. Though they had a dozen other aunts and uncles, Helen, their Tia, had been the one to feed, clothe and care for them, providing a clean home empty of chaos and fear.
Aunt Helen was now in Miami at Calder Race Track with some of her buddies at this moment. Her vivacious aunt trusted Rose, so as she played the ponies and hit the malls in Dade this week, it was Rose’s job to watch Anna until her aunt returned in a few days.
Rose heard a tentative knock at the screen door. She saw Ritchie peering at her through the screen door. Her heart skipped—not out of love for the blue-eyed, athletic young man—but for the impossible act she was about to perform. Ritchie knocked a second time, but timidly…the sign of a guilty man?
"Hey there Rosie. Mind if I come in?" Ritchie asked as the rain angled under the porch roof, pelting him.
Rose didn't budge. She usually ran to the front door with a big hug in greeting, so Ritchie waited.
Someone had to give in, so Ritchie opened the door, stepped into the house and politely pulled off his shoes. He placed them neatly against the wall inside the front door.
Rose watched him from the kitchen and didn’t offer him the towel.
Ritchie walked into the kitchen and leaned over to kiss her cheek, but Rose pulled away. She stepped over to the kitchen sink and resumed her place there.
"So you are upset at me," Ritchie said. "You didn’t sound happy when you said you wanted to talk."
Rose turned toward him.
"I called you over here because I need to get some things straight between us."
Ritchie sat at the small kitchen table. "What kind of things?"
He knows exactly what I’m going to ask him, Rose thought. The tea kettle began to whistle.
"You and I have been together since last year, when I was 17, when we were juniors ..."
"Who cares how long ago that was," Ritchie said too quickly. "I still love you with all my heart."
"…but we made it work," she continued. "My aunt didn’t like you, but I told her you were being a gentleman. You didn’t try to get in my pants or anything."
"I respected you. I didn’t want to rush things."
"I haven’t ever forgotten that," Rose said.
Rose put a spoon and tea cup in front of Ritchie. Tears formed in her eyes.
Ritchie thinks he knows where this is going. She was dumping him. For good.
"I don’t want us to break up …" Ritchie blurted.
"Shhhhhh," Rose said, looking into his eyes for the first time. "I just want to know, and you have to be honest with me. Are you trying to sleep with my little sister?"
At this, the precisely wrong moment, Anna walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. With her head inside the refrigerator door, Anna turned and looked at Ritchie with a sexually meaningful look. Ritchie snapped his head down and stared at his lap.
Rose saw the little exchange; her instincts and what she’s heard from her are true. Her boyfriend has been having an affair with Anna.
"Anna Maria! Ritchie and I are talking!" she yelled.
"Just a second, Rosie ... I have to get a soda, chill," Anna said, giving Ritchie with what the little girl imagined is a look of romantic longing. Ritchie still refused to look her direction.
"How are you, Ritchie?" Anna tried again.
"OK, I guess," he said, still staring at his lap. "Why don’t you go to your room? Rose and I need privacy."
She smiled at Ritchie as she closed the fridge door, then skipped down the hall to her room. Ritchie cursed under his breath. He was red-faced as he studied his hands.
Rose exploded.
"Did you give my little sister a ride on your way over here!?"
"I saw her walking in the rain so I gave her a ride," he lied. "She was on her way here from the store when I saw her."
"That’s why her clothes are so dry, even though she told me she ran all the way home through the rain?" He must have dropped her off a half-block down the street. Rose wanted to punch and kick this boy she’d trusted with her body, her love, but she didn’t.
The water on the stove began to boil, a weak whistle building in the kettle's throat.
Rose is not just angry but frightened, too. There’s no telling how long Ritchie and Anna Maria had been alone in Ritchie’s house today—or in his car, or wherever they were doing what she feared they'd been doing. She imagined the worst, picturing Ritchie and Anna ...
She shivered at the thought. Rose yanked the tea canister from the cupboard and slammed it on the table in front of Ritchie. He jumped in his chair.
"Why did you have her act like she had been running home in the rain instead of just telling me the truth? She wasn’t outside in the rain!You didn’t pick her up at the store, either, she has no packages. She didn’t buy anything.You dropped her off up the street and then you waited in your car long enough to make it seem like you had driven here alone."
Ritchie sat silently, embarrassment heating his scalp.
"Elizabeth Spago said she saw you and my little sister getting real hot and heavy at the movies two nights ago.You like minor children, Ritchie?"
He gaped up at Rose: "What are you talking about? She’s your little sister! We were just talking! Elizabeth is just starting her normal shit!"
"Just now, you were with Anna Maria before you came over here, right?"
"I gave her a ride because it was raining!"
"No! I mean you were with her at your house Ritchie! I am not stupid. You have been messing around with my little sister. Are you two doing what you do with me?"
Anna Maria burst into the kitchen again. "I am not a baby!" she shouted at Rose.
Ritchie stood up to leave.
Rose whipped around: "Sit the hell down!" then: "Annie! We are talking! Go back to your room!"
"He just kissed me a couple of times and held me when we were watching TV! That’s all he did! He loves me! You’re just jealous!"
Ritchie died a thousand deaths. He froze in a crouch above the chair, stuck between sitting and fleeing the house.
"Girl, you’re crazy!" Ritchie yelled at Anna. "I never kissed you or touched you! You’re making this up to hurt your sister!"
Their exchange left Rose speechless; her mouth hung open in disbelief. Then she laughed, a hearty, woman's laugh, laughing, laughing at the insanity of it all. She also felt relief that she was doing the right thing. Ritchie was history.
Looking out the window again, she saw that the sky was still dark, but the rain was slowing. She sighed, letting her anger dissipate.
"Anna," she said calmly, "please go back in your room. Everything’s OK.You haven’t done anything wrong."
Anna wanted to say something more, but thought better of it. She retreated down the hall to her room. Ritchie settled back into his chair with his arms on the table. Rose stood behind Ritchie's chair as she put a tea bag into his cup.
Rose turned off the screaming kettle and brought it over to the table.
"I believe you, Ritchie," she lied. "It’s just that I hate it when you don’t tell me the truth, OK? And I have to watch out for Anna, that’s all there is to it."
He leaned back to give her room to pour. He knew silence was the right play here.
Swirling hot water engulfed the tea bag and rising steam caressed Ritchie’s nose and eyes.
She stepped to the other side of the table and filled her teacup. She returned the kettle to the stove. Rose realized she wasn't sad about what she was doing. Not in the least.
Ritchie sipped in silence, adding sugar and lemon. He stirred his tea, unable to look at Rose.
Rose let the silence ride as they sat together in the small kitchen. She will ask Anna Maria exactly what Ritchie has been up to, but now wasn't the time.Today was for mourning. She took a long look at Ritchie and said to herself, "Goodbye, Ritchie. You won’t be coming around here any more."
Ritchie’s cell phone rang.
"Yo! What up?" "No shit? I’ll be right there."
There’s that gangsta talk he does, which Rosa never liked. Ritchie and she get top grades at the high school, but she doesn't employ slang with their friends.
Ritchie closed his cell phone, took a long sip of his tea, and dashed to the font door.
"That was Bobby, Rose. He’s OK, but his car ran off the road," he said as he put on his shoes. "He needs me to pick him up."
Rose was relieved; she didn’t want him falling apart in her mother’s house. She didn’t want Anna to see him destroyed. She wanted Anna far, far away from Ritchie when things turned ugly. This saved her from asking Ritchie to leave.
"OK, Ritchie," she said, not getting up from the table. "Call me later, OK? We need to talk some more. We aren’t done here."
"I know, I am so sorry all this stuff is being said. It’s not true, you know I wouldn’t hurt you …" He ran out the front door and was gone.
Rose dumped the cups in the sink and after scrubbing the basin, let hot water run a long time. She threw the cups, spoons, napkins, and sugar bowl into the trash, and took it out to the curb.
11 p.m. Two men stood before the body of a young man laid out on a stainless steel autopsy table at the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s office. The man on the left, Key West Police Detective Ron Pabon and his friend on the right, the Keys medical examiner, were getting their first good look at the body, which an M.E. assistant had just delivered through the loading dock.
The deceased young man’s face was blistered and his lips swollen like one of those party balloons clowns twist into Dachshunds. The skin was flaking off the upper arms and chest of the man in reddish, paper-thin strips. The eyelids also were swollen nearly closed and skin was flaking off his forehead.
"Good looking kid," Detective Pabon joked.
"How can you tell?" the M.E. asked, turning away from the victim to look at the homicide cop. The doctor was older, with gray hair and thick eyeglasses that enlarged his grey eyes five times normal size. Those giant eyes flapping at him through the glasses’ coke bottle lenses gave the detective the creeps.
"Because you can’t take your eyes off him," the detective said.
The M.E. didn’t laugh. "What do you know about what happened to this kid?"
Pabon cleared his throat and pulled a small notebook from his suit jacket.
"Got a call from some guys, some friends of his who were hanging out on a residential street near White Street Pier," he said.
Pabon’s cell phone rang. He looked at the number displayed on its screen, and ignored the call before continuing.
"One of them had wrecked his car by running into and over a stop sign. They were trying to find a way to back it off the sign, which was bent beneath the oil pan. The victim pulled up in his car, got out, already complaining that his eyes and mouth were burning. Then he starts complaining of stomach pains. He vomited and screamed that his insides are burning. His pals said he was dancing around like he was on fire, scratching at his face and chest. Then he went blind, running into things, screaming that he couldn’t see. He fell into the street and went into convulsions. He did the death kicks, right there on United Street. A young kid like this, he just fell apart and died minutes after joining his friends."
"Any of the kids at the scene on drugs or drinking? Was the driver of the car that hit the sign impaired?" the M.E. asked.
"There was no indication that they had been taking anything or drinking," the detective said. "I interviewed each of them with that in mind. I smelled no alcohol on them and their pupils moved normally, even though they were scared to death of what they'd just seen happen to their friend. One of them said he grew up with the dead boy. Same age."
As the M.E. pushed down on the young man's fingernail beds, Pabon continued.
"Dispatch got a call of a sick person and when the EMTs got there, the boy was down; they got no pulse. They tried CPR, which I don't want to think about, and then I got the call. They said they smelled some possible chemicals on the kid, which is how they think his skin got like this. And his lips and skin … well you can see, doc, he got into something. The EMTs said it looked like some kind of chemical poisoning. Even his scalp is scaling off. Unless it’s the worst bee sting reaction the planet has ever seen, I figure exposure to something. I agree with the ambulance guys, that this kid got hit with chemicals. That’s why I want you to tell me as soon as you figure something out. If it's chemicals, we have to find the source so no one else gets hurt."
"Anyone else there complain about feeling sick, itchy, any of this kid’s complaints?"
"Nope," Pabon said. "They were all fine. Like I said, I took my time talking to them to make sure. They hadn’t been exposed to anything he might have been exposed to. But I told them to call a doctor and then me if they started feeling ill."
The M.E. nodded as the detective spoke.
"It looks consistent with a chemical attack, to tell you the truth," the M.E. said. "I was an Army medic and we studied all this stuff. First Gulf War and all that; we saw pictures of what sarin, anthrax, mustard gas, and those other nasty weapons can do to soldiers. Sick stuff. Blistering agents create results look just like this kid. I'll do an autopsy tonight, make some phone calls in the morning. It wouldn't hurt to contact Centers for Disease Control or Homeland Security in Miami. They’d want to know about this."
The M.E. paused for a moment, then said:
"First I’m going to back away from this kid and put on some protective gloves, a rubber smock, eye protection, the works. He’s like a seed pod ready to explode."
"I thought you already had your goggles on," Pabon laughed.
"Screw you, detective," the M.E. said, his eyes growing in giant irritation behind his thick lenses. "I'll talk to you in the morning."


The next day
10 a.m. Pabon drew the sleeping woman close to him. His wife’s rhythmic breathing was beautiful and it drew him back toward sleep.
His cell phone chirped, ending that idea. His wife stirred and mumbled, "Answer the phone, detective."
"Yes ma'am," Pabon said gently. "Hello Doc .... what, right now? OK, give me an hour."
After a cup of Cuban coffee and a hot shower, Pabon put on clean slacks, a pressed shirt and a suit jacket and drove from Key West to Marathon to visit the medical examiner. It was another beautiful morning.
This time, the M.E. and Pabon wore splash guards over their faces, as well as rubber gloves and aprons as they stood before the young man on the autopsy table. The young man hadn’t moved an eyelash overnight.
"I hope you are a man with an open mind," the M.E. said. "At first I couldn’t believe it, either.
"Believe what?" Pabon asked.
"I have a couple of choices for you, detective, but I’m going to give you the most likely scenario. I haven’t sewn him back up because I wanted you to see this."
Pabon was fighting nausea at the back of his throat. There’s a chemical smell in the air but it’s not formaldehyde, which he has smelled before. The boy's intestines are a jellied mass; his esophagus is peeling; and blood flecks his lungs and other organs.
"Is it something we have to alert the feds to?" Pabon asked, his bile rising. By law, local law enforcement agencies must immediately report any suspected deaths from sarin, anthrax, mustard gas or other weaponized chemical to the Florida Health Department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and the FBI, which was part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
"I am not sure in this case," the M.E. said. "From what I understand, what we're dealing with occurs naturally. The substance that baked this boy’s insides is a local product."
"What are we talking about here?" Pabon asked, irritated at the M.E.'s inability to get to the point. Something that could do this to an otherwise healthy young man’s stomach and organs should not be available to the public. He wanted to find it and get it under control.
"It took me a while to track this thing down this morning," the M.E. said. "I made some calls to internists, poison specialists and gastro-enterologists in Miami and Tallahassee. They all pointed to possible poisoning by a chemical weapons agent. What I described to them over the phone wasn’t something they could pinpoint beyond that. I e-mailed photographs to the CDC and also described the smell over the phone to one of their experts. I also express mailed the CDC tissue samples, but that’s going to take some time to get results."
"How long will it take?" Pabon snapped. "Get to the point, doc. You told me this was something produced locally. Is it something off the Navy base?"
"Could take a month," the M.E. said, ignoring Pabon’s impatience. "But I think we already know what it is. The best train of thought comes from academics, right here in the neighborhood. When I called the University of Miami, a toxicologist at Jackson Memorial suggested I call a botanist."
"Come on, a botanist? Look at this man’s insides, doc! You’re saying a plant or a flower did this?"
"Ever hear of horse madness, detective? I don’t expect the term to mean anything to you because most modern doctors don’t come across it. Few detectives have heard of it, either. It didn’t mean anything to me, either," the M.E. said.
"What do you mean, 'modern doctors?'"
"The term horse madness was coined in the 1600s by an English medical specialist who was familiarizing himself with the plant life of the New World tropics. He was along for the ride with other early Spanish and English settlers who came ashore in the Caribbean Basin. He’s the one who came up with the term "horse madness."
Pabon relented. "Explain this to me, doc."
The M.E. reached behind him and picked up a thick volume laying on the instrument table behind him. "Listen to this, detective, and learn," the M.E. said. "This comes from a tropical plant encyclopedia. I got it from a local botanist who dropped it by this morning."
He opened the book and read.
"When the Spanish, French and Dutch began to explore and settle the Caribbean Islands and South America, the new arrivals hacked down trees and burned jungle to clear land for their settlements," the M.E. read. "A ship’s doctor noticed that the smoke from certain trees caused extreme respiratory distress, and that the smoke also burned the eyes, nose and throats of slaves and settlers. Smoke in the eyes caused blindness for up to six months in some unlucky settlers who tried burning out forest to make a homestead. Chopping down the trees wasn’t much better, because the sap and bark caused skin irritation, boils, blisters and caused the skin to even peel off un-exposed arms, legs and other areas. Even sitting under these trees during a rain can cause blisters and skin burns. Birds that rest in the trees also can be poisoned in heavy rains and fall to the ground mortally poisoned."
"What! So a plant killed our victim?"
"A tree, actually, or its fruit, leaves or bark, if I’m correct. Its scientific name is Hippomane mancinell, the hippo part refers to horse. It’s called Manchinell and it grows right here in the Keys; but it’s found almost solely in Big Pine Key. It grows in the environment between the mangroves and the hardwoods."
"That’s horrible, doc.So this kid must have been walking around the mangroves and brushed up against this tree? I asked his friends where he’d been that day, they said they thought he’d been at his girlfriend’s earlier but his buddies never mentioned that he’d been in the woods."
"He probably wasn’t exposed to this nasty plant in the wild, detective. Here, take a closer look at his throat. You see how his esophagus is destroyed?"
The esophagus was ulcerated, actually melted, and the stomach lining had sloughed off. The digestive tract was corroded from the chin to the small intestine. Pabon shook his head in amazement.
The M.E. continued:
"I called Dr. Stephen Hodges, the botanist at the Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden and he faxed me a description of what the leaves and fruit of this plant can do to a victim when eaten," the M.E. said. "Guava in this description means jelly made from its fruit or sap, what have you," the M.E. said. He put the book down and pulled a fax from a pocket on his protective smock.
"If eaten, the poisonous guava leads to the dissolution of the mucus membranes from the back of the tongue down, accompanied with massive internal hemorrhaging … sloughing of the gastric mucosa evident. Abdominal pain, vomiting and bleeding of the digestive tract is usual.
The plant contains carcinogens, is water-soluble and contains toxins that Caribbean Indians used to tip their spears for hunting. Animals would drop dead soon after being hit with their arrows.""I still can’t believe this stuff grows around here," Pabon said.
"The tree is actually a self-contained chemical weapons factory designed to protect its leaves, bark and roots from any insects, pests or birds that deign to feed off its fruit, or apparently, rest on it or under it," the M.E. said. "That’s how the tree defends itself in the tropics where insects are lively year round. There’s no frost to kill the burrowing and feeding insects, so the tree came up with its own killing system over the ages. And the result in humans, anyway, is the odorous and tragic situation we see here before us," the M.E. said. "Live and learn. Or die and teach, as this man has done for us."
Pabon was thunderstruck.
"They should teach this stuff in school so people don’t make the mistake this poor kid made," the detective said. "I’ve never heard of this tree before. And it's all around us?"
"Not all around us, but there are patches here and there on Big Pine Key. Most residential areas in the Keys are free of it, thank God. But I think you’re missing my point."
"What point is that, doc?"
"Since we have no indication that he went for a hike in Big Pine or anywhere else, how did he get this poisonous plant inside of him?"
Pabon pointed a finger in the M.E.’s face, and with mock anger, said, "I was thinking the same thing, and since I’m the detective here, I really think you should have let me say that before you did. But I’m going to let that one pass."
"Right," the M.E. smiled. "Someone crushed up the leaves or bark of the plant and fed it to him in a nice red pasta sauce or in a drink."
Pabon pulled his small notebook from inside his jacket and flipped through its pages.
"That is an exceptionally brutal thing to do to a person, don’t you think, doc?" Pabon said. "That takes an extremely sick individual and someone with very little love for his fellow human beings, I’d say. It also sounds like the poison hits fast so the kid must have ingested it not too long before he pulled up to his friend's little car crash. It's time to talk to whoever saw him last. If his friends are correct, it was his girlfriend."
Pabon slapped his friend on the shoulder and walked through the swinging doors to the loading dock and his car, leaving the M.E. with his silent teacher.


1 p.m. Rose lay on her back on the sofa, a tissue in the hand that covered her face. A box of tissues sat on the coffee table next to her. Her eyes were swollen from crying. She had slept little the night before, what with cousins and close friends calling or dropping by at all hours. She was wiped out emotionally and physically exhausted. She was in the world between waking and sleeping.
Anna Maria was in her bedroom, fast asleep after a night of crying. Aunt Helen had called earlier that morning from Miami. Upon hearing the news about Ritchie, she told Rose she would drive and be home by evening.
Rose opened her eyes to the solid knock at the front door, but didn’t move to answer it. She couldn’t take another visitor.
The knock came again, this time much stronger. Rose sighed and put her feet on the floor without rising. As the third knock, a near pounding, filled the house, she heard an authoritative voice on the other side of the door.
"Hello? Anyone home?" the voice boomed. "This is Key West Detective something something …"
She jumped to her feet. She had expected this and thought she had prepared herself. But she now realized there had been no way to prepare for this visit. Taking a deep breath, she walked across the living room and pulled the door open just far enough to peer through it.
Looking out at Pabon from a slice of open door was a beautiful young woman with black hair and deep-brown eyes, eyes swollen from hours of crying. As Rose stared at him, Pabon saw she was wearing fuzzy slippers and a Key West Conchs sweatshirt over a pair of blue jeans. She had a wadded tissue in her hand, but held her head high as she greeted him.
"May I help you?" the young woman asked.
"Miss Lopez? I’m Detective Pabon. May I talk with you?"
"Sure, uh, come in." She opened the door wide, stepped aside and motioned for him to sit in an easy chair near the couch.
"I appreciate you seeing me, especially at a time like this," Pabon said gently as he sat. "I just need to ask you about Ritchie. I understand you and he were close."
"Actually, Ritchie is ... was my boyfriend," she said, sitting on the couch. She tucked her legs under her and let her head fall back on the top cushion. She sniffled and dabbed her eyes.
"This is extremely painful for you," Pabon began, "but I have to go over some things and we can close this case. How much have you heard about how Ritchie … about what happened to him?"
With her head back, staring at the ceiling, Rose answered.
"I got a call from my girlfriends as soon as they heard about it," she said. "They said he was talking to his friends, laughing and stuff and then just started screaming in crazy pain…" Her voice hitched as she stifled a sob. "They said they were calling his name but he wasn’t responding, like he was out of his mind in pain. They said he was foaming at the mouth." Rose sobbed again for the detective.
"Did Ritchie take any drugs, you know, smoke pot, take pills, or …"
"No!" Rose said. "He was an athlete and the football players at school have random urine tests and he could be suspended from playing if they caught him. He drank beer and sometimes mixed drinks, but he never took drugs. Is that what you think happened?"
Pabon ignored the question.
"Does he have a hobby or outdoor activity that might take him into the mangroves?"
"He loves to fish, but he fishes from a boat, detective. This is a strange line of questioning. Can you tell me what you think happened?"
Pabon told Rose what he'd learned from the M.E., that a poisonous plant, a plant that grows in the Keys, could have killed her boyfriend.
"Rose, we think Ritchie somehow ingested something, accidental or otherwise, from that tree. It poisoned him."
Rose’s face blanched. Pabon noticed that her body shook.
"I don't mean to be so graphic but we must be straightforward here," Pabon said. "Yesterday, when he came by to see you, was he eating anything? Did he say if he'd eaten lunch or, you say it's impossible, but did he say anything to you that would indicate he had smoked some plant substance? How about helping someone clear land … has he helped anyone chop down a tree, or clear a yard? We need to know how he got this stuff inside of him."
"He is the kind of guy to help his friends with their yards, helps them paint, that kind of stuff," Rose said. "But I don’t think he’s done anything like that recently for anyone. We were together most of the time."
"I understand he was here with you when he got the phone call to help his friends. I understand he got a phone call from one of his friends while he was here, at your house."
"That’s right, he was here," Rose said, measuring her words. "But only for a minute. He ran out of here pretty fast and I don’t blame him." Rose began to cry again.
"What do you mean, you don’t blame him?"
"We were arguing about something. It wasn’t important, but you know how it is when you’re dating someone. A little argument, that’s all."
Leaning forward to get Rose’s attention, Pabon asked evenly, "I want you to think very carefully before you answer this question, Rose. Did you serve him anything to eat or drink while he was here?" He stared at her, watching her face for clues that she was lying. Rose looked back at him with steady, but weepy, eyes.
"No, nothing, detective. I asked him if he wanted a soda, but he was in a hurry."
Annie has been listening from the hallway, her eyes wide. The tea! Rosie was serving Ritchie tea just before he left yesterday. Just before he died! Could it be that Rose killed Ritchie? The idea was absurd, crazy, but why else would she lie? Anna Maria went to Rose’s bedroom to check something. She found what she was looking for and snuck back up the hall near the living room.
For the 14-year-old, the decision was clear. Rose couldn't go to jail. They were supposed to protect each other; their mother had taught them that. Sisters were more important than boys. Anna listened as Pabon's questions grew more direct.
"You two were arguing? About what?" the detective asked.
"He’d been going behind my back with a girlfriend of mine," Rose lied again. "We had an agreement that we weren’t going to be with other people, and he broke that agreement. Not new in human history."
Pabon nodded thoughtfully. "I have to ask this again. When he was here, did you give him anything to eat or drink? Did he have a soda or a beer in his hand when he came over?"
Rose waited several beats before answering. She knew she would be asked this question. If she admitted serving Ritchie the tea, it was game over. She was going to jail. She had thrown away the cups and washed out the sink, but it wouldn't take much for detectives to find traces of the tea in the trap below the sink. Pabon continued to stare at Rose, waiting as she considered her answer. Rose remained silent, hesitating too long.
Anna burst from the hall and into the living room.
"Nope, he didn’t eat or drink nothing while he was here, officer," Anna blurted to Pabon. "I was here the whole time he was here and he didn’t stick around long enough to have anything. He and Rosie just talked for a few minutes and then he left."
Pabon watched the older sister’s reaction to the little girl's words. Rose kept her eyes on Pabon, fighting a terrible urge to look away.
"Is that right, Rose? You were the last to see him in good health but minutes later he was dead from poisoning?" Pabon snapped. "Does that sound about right to you?"
Rose's heart was pounding. On the outside, she was trying to look calm. Inside, she was teetering on the edge of hysterics. Pabon was leaning far too close to her, like a wolf ready to leap on a rabbit.
"I have no idea what happened to him, detective," Rose finally said after a few moments. "I loved him. Now he's gone and my heart is broken."
With that, Rose began to cry again. This time she wasn’t acting. She was scared. Florida used the electric chair for crimes like this, honor student or no honor student.
Pabon leaned back and looked at length at the two sisters, measuring them. The cogs moved in Pabon's head.They didn’t act like killers, but something was out of whack in this little house.
He also had to consider that Ritchie maybe took something in his car after he left this house. Maybe he thought it would get him high, and he didn’t know what it was.
After all, kids smoke and drank all kinds of stuff these days to get high. Licking the backs of toads for God’s sake. They smoked salvia, an ornamental garden plant related to mint and sold at Home Depot. It has killed some kids, too. At least that’s what the latest U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency missive to local law enforcement agencies said. Lately kids had been smoking spice, a lab-manufactured form of THC they could buy at little corner stores around Key West. Then there was the phenomenon of bath salts, another street chemical high blamed for causing a man whacked out on the substance to eat the face of a homeless man in Miami. Until the M.E. got the lab results from the specimens he sent out for testing, the Big Pine plant was only one possibility as to how Ritchie had died.
At the moment, Pabon knew he had no evidence that these girls had anything to do with Ritchie's death. How would they know about the plant when it took the M.E. several phone calls to experts to learn about it? A half-dozen unlikely steps would have had to occur for this young lady to get the poisonous tree in her hands and get it into the victim. But something was going on here. Their answers didn't sound natural, Pabon reasoned. If necessary, Pabon can return to this house and search it after the M.E. definitely IDs the poison. At that time the detective can pull the trap under the kitchen and bathroom sinks and close the case. Easy enough thing to get a warrant.
"I tell you what, Rose," Pabon said as he stood. "I’m going to leave my card with you and I want you to call me if you need or hear anything."
"Of course!" Rose said a little too quickly.
Pabon stared at her for two beats before continuing. "I am sorry about your boyfriend. Who knows what he got into. If you hear anything or have any other thoughts on what might have happened, please let me know."
"Yes, of course," Rose said through tears of relief. "Thank you, detective."
After Pabon drove off, Rose collapsed onto the couch and let the air rush out of her lungs. She made room for her little sister, who sat down and put her big sister's head in her lap. Rose didn't say anything for a long time. Anna, also lost in deep thought, stroked her sister’s hair.
"I love you big sis," Anna finally said.
"Why did you tell him that?"
"What?"
"Why did you tell the detective that I didn’t give Ritchie anything to eat or drink? I gave him some hot tea. You were in the kitchen."
"I told the detective that because there’s no reason for you to get into trouble if you didn’t do anything to hurt him."
"Of course I didn’t hurt him," Rose said. "I have no idea what happened to him."
"You and I both know you killed him, but blood is thicker than water, Rose."
Rose gasped. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"It all came to me when he was asking you questions," her little sister said, still stroking Rose’s hair. "I was listening in the hallway. I remembered that I saw your textbook, the one you’re using in AP history; on your desk in your room."
"When were you in my room?"
"I borrowed your belt yesterday. The textbook was open to the section on the Indians. There's an artist’s depiction of Indians making a broth and serving it to their enemies. Their enemies were also tied to trees in the book. I put two and two together when I heard the detective describe what happened to Ritchie. Everyone was saying he was like in convulsions, twisting on the ground, grabbing at his stomach, and foaming at the mouth. Then when you were talking to the detective I went back to your room and saw the picture again. I thought about it and your tea is what killed him, there’s no doubt about it."
Rose cringed at her stupidity. All the detective had to do was go in her room and see the text book. Then it would have been over: "Miss Lopez, you are under arrest. Will you please turn around?"
She pushed the thought away. She changed the subject.
"I didn’t give you permission to borrow my belt, Anna.You have your own clothes!"
They both were lost in deep thought.
Anna broke the silence.
"We have had to depend on each other for so long since Dad got kicked out of the family and mother died," Anna said. "We’ve had to fend for ourselves since we were really, young. You mean so much to me, even if we do fight over things, like clothes and guys. You’re my best friend, even if you try to tell me what to do all the time."
"If you concentrated on boys your own age, not older ones who I happen to be dating, we’d be fine," Rose laughed. "You look silly and childish when you chase after these older guys. I’ve told you that before."
"I won’t tell anyone what happened," Anna promised. "I can’t stand the idea of losing my older sister. We’ve been watching out for each other too long."
"You know what, Anna?" Rose said. "You can have my belt. It looks better on you anyway."
　
　
　

　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

North Korea, land of bad poetry

Story on Korea is below this installment of "Maddie's Gone"

 

Chapter 2

Maddie hears Julia’s voice 

After Jim drove off, Julia set off on foot in search of her missing dog.
As she called out for Maddie and peered into yards up and down Catherine Street, Julia quietly cursed Jim for leaving the front door unlatched. She never wanted to see him again. She’d met him at a nightspot last month and they had clicked at first, but his lack of self-awareness and drive had worn on her. He was dressed presentably and seemed intelligent, but he was just this side of sleezy. Julia didn’t like the way he absently stared at other women when they were out. Nor had he ever offered to pick up an entire dinner or bar tab. In fact, Julia had paid their way several times. She had broke it off a couple of weeks ago and now he had entered her house uninvited. While she was asleep!
The only person outside who might have seen Maddie running loose was a middle-aged neighbor named Carol, who was now sitting on her porch just a few houses away. Julia didn’t like Carol. The woman had created havoc in the neighborhood, playing one homeowner against the other. She had even accused Billy, a kind young man with a wonderful wife, of peering into the windows of her bedroom after dark. Everyone knew the accusations were false, but her malicious claims had caused pain in the couple’s marriage. Carol also had gotten drunk during a Saturday afternoon garden party and taken her shirt off before loudly propositioning another neighbor’s husband.
Julia braced herself as she walked up to Carol’s gate.
"Have you seen my dog, Carol? She got out sometime last night and I'm trying to find her."
"It’s not my problem," the woman answered, looking on Julia with disdain."You should have kept your door locked. Not only would you still have your dog, that guy would not have been able to get into your house, as I see it."
Julia didn’t have time for this. She turned and walked away, calling out for Maddie. Carol went into her house and slammed the front door.
Making her way down Catherine to Duval Street, Julia turned right toward downtown. Maddie loved people and activity and Julia knew a lot of people will be checking out the shops and hitting the bars and restaurants on the main tourist street. On this quiet end of Duval, however, with its art galleries and residential homes, she'd see locals walking their dogs. A fellow dog owner, she knew, would have noticed Maddie if she came this way.
Her instincts were correct. A man smoking a cigar with a bulldog at the end of a leash headed down the sidewalk toward her. As she petted his dog, She asked him if he’d seen a Jack Russell terrier running loose.
"Nope, afraid I haven’t," he said, concerned. "I remember her, though; I’ve seen you walking her. If I see her I’ll hold onto her for you. I know what it’s like when they run off. This one always tries, but so far I’ve been lucky."
She asked other people as she made her way downtown, but no one had seen her. They entered her cell phone number into their devices and promised to call if they ran across Maddie. Some pet owners do that instinctively. Other people, she knew, don’t always pay that much attention. She asked people eating and chatting away the late morning at outdoor tables. She leaned into restaurants, asking patrons and waiters if they’d seen her dog. No one had.
Oddly, she kept seeing other Jack Russell terriers, which temporarily raised her hopes. A dead ringer for Maddie lay napping at the feet of a diner as its owner drank a mimosa and chatted across a table. Julia’s heart leaped but she quickly realized it wasn’t her. She saw another Maddie look-alike on a second-story hotel balcony just off Duval Street. And yet another one being let in the front door of a house by its owner. A Jack Russell sped past her, a passenger in a basket mounted on the rear of a scooter.
"Does everyone own a Jack Russell terrier in this town?" Julia muttered to herself.
She stopped on the Duval Street sidewalk and turned. Behind a pet store window, three Jack Russell terrier puppies climbed over each other to get Julia's attention. She smiled and put her hand to the glass. The puppies went crazy, yapping and pawing at the glass. Julia felt like crying. Having Jim in her bed had spooked her more than she thought. Maddie getting out was just the icing on the cake to Jim's invasion of her bed.
Julia saw the worry in her reflection in the pet store window. She didn’t like what she saw. She forced a smile, saw that in the reflection, then laughed.
She’d find Maddie, she told herself. The universe is not aligned against me.
She reached the sidewalks of lower Duval Street, crowded with families and children, retired couples enjoying the afternoon, and cruise ship passengers holding shopping bags of T-shirts, hand-made sandals and other items. The bars were full of people listening to live music and chatting. She left the bars and crowd behind as she walked up Caroline Street, where the large homes of Key West’s founding families had stood for more than 160 years.
She took a moment to stop on the quiet, shaded sidewalk abutting the large, landscaped properties.
Julia loved the broad, wooden porch that wound around the most magnificent of the homes. A short, decorative wrought-iron gate at the sidewalk opened to a walkway that curved through spider lily, sea oxeye daisy, railroad vine, and other ground cover to the home’s wide front steps. She admired the tall front door with egrets etched into its glass under the tall, covered porch. Julia gazed upward to take in the heights of the grand house. Royal palms, straight as redwoods, rose to the uppermost eaves.There were dormer windows way up there, and inside those there must be tiny bedrooms with slanted ceilings.
What would it be like to spend just one night in one of those upper rooms--to awaken at sunrise and look out those uppermost windows before the rest of the island stirred? Or to look down to see clopping horses pulling carriages full of families to church at St. Paul's Episcopal Church?
It was in homes like this one where the Currys, the Whiteheads, Simontons, the Singletons, and other industrious families of 1800s Key West raised their families, and held their garden parties to entertain their rich and cultured friends from around America.
Julia wondered if they took their shirts off and propositioned each other’s spouses, too. She giggled, then caught herself. Clear the mind, she said to herself, time to return to the task at hand.
She walked on, searching the residential neighborhoods off Caroline, Eaton, and Margaret streets. She called out, walking into alleys between the lanes; she walked around entire blocks. This was serious. This was the first time Maddie had not stuck around the neighborhood after getting out. She’d got loose twice in the four years since Julia moved to Key West and bought the house on Catherine Street, but in the first instance, Maddie had been found in a nearby yard; the second time, she’d returned to the house on her own in a matter of minutes.
The afternoon had grown hotter. Under the blazing sun and blue sky, columns of towering, thunder heads marched west over the Gulf of Mexico.
In a sudden burst of fear and frustration Julia yelled louder than ever for her lost dog.
"Maaadeeee! Come here, babeeeee!" "Maaadeeee! Come here, babeeeee!" At a house up the street, a lawn mower roared to life.
Julia looked at her watch. It was getting late. There was only a little daylight left. She headed across the island toward home, walking down Simonton Street instead of Duval. She continued yelling for Maddie and asking everyone she saw if they'd seen her lost dog.
At about the same time Julia kicked Jim out of the house, Maddie had exhausted herself jumping for the top of the cistern. She now stood in the chin-deep water, her coat soaked and water dripping from her chin. Her curly hair was wiry now, turned stiff from the dirty water. She shivered inside her watery trap, whining with fear. Yelping and barking didn’t seem to do any good, either. There was no one around to hear her. She turned her head this way and that, hoping to see some way out of the miserable hole. There was only the brick surface of the cistern’s interior and the circle of blue sky and occasional clouds above. All she could do was watch the sky and hope Julia’s face would appear above her.
There were sounds that reached Maddie, though. Maddie’s ears perked up each time a car honked in the street beyond the house. She heard car radios as cars drove past the house. She also heard the cooing of ring-necked doves and saw a pair fly through the sky above her. She heard electronic voices nearby, too, though she didn't know what it was.
The sun made the air inside the cistern unbearably hot. During the hours the sun shone overhead, the air inside the cistern became hot and stifling. She grew weak from the heat as the long afternoon progressed. She had drunk the rancid water around her legs, but relief still avoided her. When the sun finally moved out of view, Maddie sought the relative coolness of the shade growing on one side of the cistern. She began a new series of high-pitched alarm barks to see if it would bring Julia, or anyone, to rescue her. And so the afternoon wore on toward evening. She’d bark and whine. Then try for the top. Always the water held her down. Then she'd stand, panting, looking above for rescue. She began to sense the possibility of death.
Then, when the afternoon was very old, and her exhaustion forced her eyes closed, she thought she heard something ...
It was faint, on the farthest edge of her hearing. Someone was yelling. It sounded like ...
There it was again! Maddie stood on her hind legs, placing her paws on the cistern wall. Looking up, she listened for the sound again.
"Maaadeeee! Baaabeee! It was Julia! Maddie exploded in joy, barking as loud as she could, leaping as high as she could. Wild with relief, she jumped and barked, jumped and howled, her bark rising higher in desperation.When she reached the apex of her leap, she’d bark, hoping the sound would carry far enough. Julia was coming!
"Maddie! Where are you babeeee!"Pulling together all her strength, Maddie leaped like a nuclear-powered spring; this time nearly reaching the top in spite of the water pulling at her legs.
A lawn mower started up in the yard next door. Maddie didn’t know what the source of that sound was, but the noise was too much to overcome.Try as she might, her barks fell short. But she kept at it for a long time, stopping occasionally to stare at the opening above, expecting to see Julia’s face appear at any moment.
She barked long after the lawn mower stopped making its noise, but Maddie never heard Julia’s call again.
The sun began to set.
Hungry, exhausted from spending the last of her energy, Maddie looked for a place to lie down and rest. There was no such place. She could only stand in the water and look up at the circular twilight so high above her head.
　
"Maddie's Gone" is available at http://www.absolutleyamazingebooks.com; amazon.com and Banesandnoble.com.



North Korea, the land of bad poetry

I think it's fair to say that we all are pretty much sick of North Korea.
Three fat, male relatives--none of whom know how to get a decent haircut--have destroyed the lives of everyone in that trashed country. One dies and another mental case steps in and the Korean Central News Agency, the ruling family's private press release organization, still can't get its syntax correct. Every damn year at this time, as the United States and South Korea hold military exercises, North Korea's stupendously idiotic leader starts bloviating, posturing, and whining. This year is no different, except this commie, the grandson of Kim Il Sung, son of Kim Jong-Il, gets his chance to reveal his leadership style by painting a picture of nuclear war against America.

So we get another disgusting display of fat-headed, arrogant, posturing as North Korea's children roam the countryside in packs, looking for fish heads and leaves to eat. If there is a hell, and there is, it's north of the DMZ. If it weren't for the innocents, the generations of families serving in prison and work camps, if it weren't for the impossibility of separating the bad people from the good people in a hydrogen bomb blast, I'd say, let's just go for it, "Yet Another-Fat North Korean Guy."

What prevents us from just taking the guy out like we did Saddam? The Korean people, who are in fact human shields protecting the buffoons who make up the leadership, are the ones I care about. We use unmanned aircraft to whack Al-Queda leadership as well as American citizens on the run (coming soon) so why not start using the silent and unseen aircraft to decapitate the North Korean leadership? When searching for bin Laden, Pentagon targeters used his height to determine whether a subject in its sights was the instigator of the 9-11 attacks. Why not go after Korea's leadership by launching Predator missiles on civilians with bad haircuts?

When we take over North Korea, I suggest we hold classes on poetry, especially on what to call poems once they are written. Please, dear reader, read please following artcle story on latest trend in Juche poetry for masses of the Central Committee for the Destruction of the Cowardly Western Disease Carriers.
Look at the following poem titles, courtesy of the Korean Central News Agency. Remember, these were written after regular workers in the countryside burst into emotional honoring of Beloved Leader, dropping their rakes and bursting forth in poetic thrusts.

Pyongyang, April 3 (KCNA) -- A stage of poems and songs were given by members of the Democratic Women's Union of Korea at the Hall of Women on Wednesday to mark the 20th anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il's election as chairman of the DPRK National Defence Commission.
Present there were Ro Song Sil, chairwoman of the Central Committee of the women's union, officials of relevant units and the women's union and union members in the city.
The performance began with poem "Two Decades of Victory and Glory". Put on the stage were such numbers as chorus "Glory to the General", serial songs "Our Satellite Lifted off to the Sky" and "At a Go", single reciting of poem "Eternal Sun of Songun Korea" and poem "Spring on Arms".
The performers praised the immortal feats Kim Jong Il performed by honorably defending the dignity and sovereignty of the nation under the uplifted banner of the great Songun and ushering in a new history of building a thriving nation on this land.
They also put on the stage quintets and choruses "Our Leader Beloved by People" and "Ardent Desire" which help look back on the fortune of being blessed with illustrious leaders generation after generation.
Put on the stage were chorus poem "Korean Women of Songun Make an Oath" and choruses "We Will Defend General Kim Jong Un at the Cost of Our Lives" and "Leader, Just Give Us Your Order".


　
　
　

Maddie's Gone, first chapter

Hello everyone: Here is the first chapter of Maddie's Gone, which is available on Amazon.com, Barnes&noble.com, etc.

Chapter 1

Maddie finds her freedom, then loses it

Maddie pushed the screen door open with her paws.The young Jack Russell terrier had tested that door a hundred mornings but it never popped open—until now.
She stepped onto the front porch, lifted her nose and sampled the riot of smells in the moist air. It had rained all night and now it was tapering off in a drizzle.
The blue sky was pushing aside the rain clouds, allowing sun rays to start drying the streets and wet grass.
Maddie smelled aromas --bitter, sweet, earthy and rotting things, all mixed into a pot of grand adventure.
She hopped down the porch steps and sniffed around the tiny front yard until her nose bumped the bottom of the chain link fence. Maddie glanced back at the front door to make sure the man wasn't around, then launched herself like a spring. She sailed over the fence, using her rear paws to guide her down the other side. She took off at a trot down the sidewalk, her nose just a few centimeters above the pavement. Heading up her own street--Catherine Street--she picked up the smell of garlic, chicken, beef, and the robust scent of steaming coffee as she passed the Cuban restaurant less than a block from her home. She took a left at the corner and moved into new neighborhoods.
Winding through the small, tree-lined streets of Old Town Key West, Maddie found herself in unknown, but comfortable territory: tightly packed homes much like her own--small front yards, small concrete front porches and large, spreading trees with roots breaking through sidewalks. An alley ran the length of each block behind the homes, where families put out their trash and recycling bins. She passed early risers out for a stroll as she made her way through the streets. She'd stop for a moment to greet them before continuing on.
An hour after she left the house, she found herself sniffing along the base of a short wall that bordered the sidewalk. The wall was slightly taller than she was and marked the edge of a large front lawn. She picked up the strong scent of a cat, a large cat by the smell of it. She looked up and froze. Just above her on the wall, a fat, gray cat stared down on her, its eyes wide with surprise. Maddie backed up a few steps, tightened into a spring and leaped at the cat, which had already turned and fled toward its house. Hitting the top of the wall and the lawn, Maddie charged after the streak of feline and followed it as it dashed through a break in the lattice and under the porch. Maddie, her terrier instincts in working order, didn’t apply her brakes but shot right into the darkness under the house.
The cat, which had parked itself just inside the dark, struck out with a heavy, lightning-fast paw that struck Maddie’s face and sent her tumbling in the dirt beneath the porch. The dog quickly recovered her stance and again charged the cat, but the feline was already gone, having run the rest of the way under the house and into the bright sunlight of the back yard.
Emerging into the daylight, Maddie saw the cat sitting on a brick wall at the end of a garden path. The cat gave Maddie a bored look, a look that drives dogs crazy and Maddie was no exception. She growled, but caution postponed her charge. Something wasn’t right. Thirty paces away, her adversary doubled down on her boredom by yawning. Maddie scanned the backyard with her eyes. She saw no doghouse, no chain, nothing to indicate she was on property claimed by another dog. Nor was there any obstruction between her and the cat. Maddie and her adversary stared at each other across the gulf of lawn and garden, sizing each other like prize fighters before the bell. The cat’s tail flicked with growing irritation.
Maddie--no longer contain herself--charged. She bore down and when she reached the base of the wall, she leaped up at the cat, aiming for its midsection. The cat jumped out of the way and Maddie landed on the top of the wall, tried to brake, but she couldn't prevent the skid and slide over the other side. The world disappeared as she fell into a deep hole, landing on her stomach in water. The water wasn't deep, but her head went underwater for a moment until she could regain her footing.
Surprised and frightened, she leapt upward but the water, which came up to her chin, weighed her down. There was no hope of escape. The wall was much too tall. She bounded through the water along the wall looking for an exit point. She ran in circles, splashing inside the cistern, hoping to find a door, something through which to escape. High above her, the sky appeared as a large circle of blue with puffy white clouds floating by. Chin deep in the water, she had no dry place to stand. She was inside a brick cylinder, out of view of the world.
The cat’s face came into view, peering down from the heights.
Seeing the cat, Maddie exploded in a wet, barking frenzy, launching herself again and again at the cat over her head. She jumped and jumped, barking furiously. Exhausted, she stood panting, as water dripped from her bearded chin.
Evidently pleased with itself, the cat batted its tail twice and dropped from view. It walked slowly back to the house without a concern.
Maddie’s heart sank as fear rose from the water into her limbs. She whined, understanding that she was in a fix. She stood in dirty water inside a smooth, brick wall. High above her, the circle of sky now contained anvil clouds. As the morning progressed, the sun rose higher and its power grew stronger, warming the interior of the cistern. At noon, it was at its hottest, and the heat became uncomfortable. In early afternoon, the sun moved out of view, providing some relief.
Into the afternoon Maddie struggled to think of what to do. She barked for help but when no one appeared, she'd be reduced to whining. Tired of standing, she nevertheless could not lay down to rest; the water was too deep for that. So she barked some more, hoping for human help, then whine when no one came.
Then she thought of Julia. She would wait for Julia. She would come for her. She always had.
　
Julia Harvey awakened to loud and wretched snoring.Turning her head on the pillow, she discovered its source.
Her mouth opened in silent disbelief. It was Jim, the man she’d ordered out of her home two weeks ago. Now here he was, sounding like a pig in all his snorting fury. His mouth hung open, releasing rum vapors into the bedroom with each grating exhalation. He must have come in the house during the night and got into her bed as she slept. It didn’t matter that he was on top of the blankets and fully clothed. His presence was incredibly creepy.
Julia slowly slid out of bed slowly to keep from waking him. Better to let him sleep. It would give her some peace as she drank her coffee. Then she’d kick his ass.
Screw waiting.
"Get out of my bed, you idiot!" Julia screamed. "Who do you think you are, you creep! Get up!"
Jim’s snoring stopped and his eyes fluttered. He rolled away from Julia and went back to sleep.
"I said, get out of my bed!"
Slowly, ever so slowly, the tall young man stirred. Moaning, he sat on the side of the bed and put his feet on the floor. He put his head in his hands and rocked back and forth, moaning some more.
"What’s going on Julia?" Jim said in light greeting, his voice hoarse. He wiped the dried drool from his face and rubbed sleep dust from his eyes. He put his head in his hands and stared at the floor, waiting for his head to clear.
"What’s happening?"Julia cried out. "How dare you come into my home while I’m asleep and lay down in my bed? That’s breaking and entering, you creep! I told you not to come back here. I made myself clear when I kicked you out of here. Now I’m going to call the police."
"No, Julia! Don’t do that," Jim said, now fully awake and on his feet. "I’m sorry, I had nowhere else to go."
Julia has lived in Key West for four years and knew the answer to that excuse. This guy was bad news. She didn’t consider him evil, just a loser. She wasn't going to call the police, but still she’s no fool.
"That’s not my problem," she snapped. "I told you when I kicked you out of here that I don’t like you. I don’t want you near me. This is worse than stalking. I’m surprised Maddie didn’t ..."
She paused. Maddie should be in the bedroom right now. Jumping on the bed and waking her up. She looked at the clock on her side table. It was 10 a.m. She had slept longer than she wanted. Maybe Maddie was in the living room, avoiding Jim.
"Maddie, come here baby!" Julia called, heading from the bedroom to the living room. "Come here, sweetie!" Nothing. No bark in greeting; no toenails clicking on the hallway’s wooden floors, no jingling of her dog tags.
"Maddie?" She walked down the hallway toward the living room, stopping to peer into the bathroom in case she was drinking out of the toilet again; no Maddie. In the living room, she saw Maddie’s toys, including her favorite little rubber ball, but no Maddie.
Julia saw that the heavy front door was ajar. She pulled the wooden door inward and pushed on the outer screen door. It swung free. Un-latched. Dammit! She looked outside. Maddie wasn’t on the porch or in the front yard. Running down the steps in her pajamas, Julia went through the front gate and gazed hopefully up and down the nearly dry street.
She turned on Jim, who had emerged from the house to stand on the porch.
"You left the front door open when you stumbled into my house last night, didn’t you? You let Maddie get out! She’s gone.This is why I told you never to come around here.Whenever you come around, things go to hell."
Julia is so angry she begins to cry. She’s not weak; it’s just her way of relieving tension. Standing on the porch, looking so confused and dumb, Jim is at a loss for words. He wasn’t intentionally an ass, it’s just the way he is. She crossed her arms and looked up into the sky, calming herself.
"Look, Julia, I didn’t even think about Maddie getting out," Jim tried. "I came here because I miss you and I ... just miss you."
"It’s OK, it’s OK," Julia said, ignoring his entreaties. I have to go look for her. She’s got to be nearby somewhere. You have to leave. I am sorry you don’t have anywhere to go, but you have to go."
"I understand, I’m leaving. Thanks for letting me stay over, Julia."
"I didn’t ..." she stopped, trying to control her anger.
Jim walked up to Julia, started to give her a hug, but thought better of it when he saw the look in her face. He walked through the gate and got on his scooter. He drove off down the street.
Julia ran inside the house. In her bedroom, Julia pulled on her shorts, sat on the side of the bed and put on her tennis shoes. No time for socks. She pulled on her T-shirt, grabbed Maddie’s leash, and headed out the door and down the street. She must get her baby back. Jack Russell terriers can cover a lot of
ground and in Key West anything can happen to a pet, including getting hit by a car, getting mauled by other dogs ... Julia didn’t want to think about it.