Skinny Dip - Страница 13

"Money is an issue in every marriage, Joey. Ask any divorce lawyer." Stranahan lobbed a glistening fish skeleton into the basin. It sank slowly in a wisp of crimson.

"Are Chaz's parents rich?" he asked.

"His dad was the greenskeeper at a country club in Panama City,"

Joey said. "He got sick from all the pesticides and went insane is what Chaz told me. Woke up one day and decided he was Gen. William Westmoreland. Drove down to the docks and attacked a shrimp boat with a Ping putter and a bunker rake. The captain and the crew were Vietnamese immigrants-"

"Whoa. Chaz told you this?"

Joey nodded. "He saved the newspaper clippings. Bottom line, his father's institutionalized. His mother works at Target and she's remarried to a retired fighter pilot from England."

"So where did Chaz's 'nest egg' come from?" Stranahan had finished cleaning the fillets and was hosing off the table. "Is he a big spender?"

"Not usually," Joey said. "But, like, three months ago he went out and bought a brand-new Hummer Hi. Not financed, bought. Bright yellow, too. Said he needed a four-wheel drive for his fieldwork out in the swamps."

Stranahan chuckled. "Beautiful."

"When I asked how much it cost, he kind of snapped," Joey recalled. "And I wasn't nagging. I was just curious about what he spent. The same way he's curious when I come home with a new dress or a pair of shoes. But this time he told me to mind my own goddamn business. Called me a nosy bitch."

"What'd you do?"

"I told him if he ever spoke to me like that again, I'd reach down his throat and pull out his testicles one at a time," Joey said. "I've got a temper, okay?"

Stranahan promised to keep that in mind.

"So that night we're lying in bed," Joey said, "and Chaz says he's sorry for blowing a gasket. This while he's trying to climb on top of me. Tells me he won a big settlement from being in a car accident."

"When?"

"Long time ago, before we met. He got T-boned by some drunk Kiwanian up in Tampa and seriously screwed up his back. Said he was on crutches for, like, six months."

"And you're married almost two whole years before he mentions this traumatic, life-altering event," Stranahan mused.

"Maybe he thought… I don't know." Joey shook her head. "Maybe he was embarrassed because he got the money from a lawsuit."

"I'm sure. Probably wanted you to think he'd won a Nobel Prize, or maybe a MacArthur grant."

She was feeling more foolish than ever. "In other words-"

"Assume everything your husband ever told you was bullshit," Stranahan said. "How much would you guess that new Hummer cost?"

"Nearly sixty grand, with all the bells and whistles. I checked on the Internet."

They heard a yelp and turned around. Strom was floundering miserably in the basin under a swirl of teasing seabirds. Stranahan calmly jumped in the water and gathered the big dog in his arms. Joey hurried to fetch a towel.

Later, while the fish was frying, Stranahan opened a bottle of wine.

"Don't worry," he told Joey. "It's from California, not France."

"So this isn't one of your smooth bachelor moves?"

"Give me a little credit."

"But isn't that Neil Young we're listening to?"

"With Buffalo Springfield, that's right. You're pretty darn sharp for a youngster." Stranahan filled her wineglass. "How about tomorrow we get off this rock?"

"Good idea. Wait'll you see that Hummer," Joey said.

"What I'd really like to see," said Stranahan, "is anyone on a state salary who can pay cash for a sixty-thousand-dollar set of wheels."

The petty officer's name was Yancy.

"Here's what I was talking about," she said.

The four bales were laid out in a row on the floor of an empty holding cell. The sodden weed gave off a strong sickly-sweet smell.

Yancy was pointing at the third bale. Karl Rolvaag crouched to get a closer look.

"Weird, huh?" the petty officer said.

The wrapping was damaged in two places. Rolvaag carefully probed at the puckered fabric with the capped tip of a ballpoint pen. Each area was characterized by a series of slender longitudinal furrows, several of which were deep enough to have punctured the burlap.

"Can I ask a favor?" The detective motioned Yancy forward.

The petty officer did as she was asked. Rolvaag lifted her left hand and placed it over one of the divots in the bale. Then he took her right hand and covered the other. The alignment was nearly perfect, each of Yancy's fingers matching a rumpled groove in the cloth.

"How about that," Rolvaag said.

Yancy went rigid. "Sir, it wasn't me. You have my word," she said. "This is what it looked like when we found it."

"Relax," the detective said. "I believe you."

"You asked us to report anything unusual that we saw or found," she said. "Anything out of the ordinary is what you said."

"Yes, and this is very helpful. I can't thank you enough."

"We're glad to be of assistance, sir."

"And whereabouts was this one found?"

"Angelfish Creek," Yancy said.

"No kidding? That's a long haul." It meant that Joey Perrone had gone in the water long before her husband said she did.

"I need two small favors," Rolvaag told Yancy. "You ordinarily burn the grass you confiscate, isn't that right?"

"Yes, sir, we turn all contraband over to the federal task force. They incinerate it," the petty officer said.

"This bale here? Tell them not to," Rolvaag said. "Mark it as evidence and put it in a safe place."

"Evidence. Yes, sir."

"Also, have you got a pair of tweezers and a Baggie?"

"Let me check the first-aid station," Yancy said.

While she was gone, Rolvaag sat down on one of the other bales and blew his nose fiercely. He was afflicted with numerous crop and pollen allergies, and wet marijuana rated a code ten.

The word Libertad! had been scratched on a wall of the cell, and the detective wondered who had done it and where the poor bastard had been deported. As much as Rolvaag disliked South Florida, it was useful to be reminded that there were infinitely worse places not so far away; places that made Hialeah look like the Emerald City of Oz.

Petty Officer Yancy returned with the requested items. Using the tweezers, Rolvaag began meticulously exploring each of the finger grooves on the burlap sacking. It didn't take long to dig out the clue he was hoping for.

"Could you open the plastic bag?" he asked Yancy.

"Yes, sir. What'd you find?"

The detective held it up, pinched firmly in the beak of the tweezers, for her to see.

"Is that the tip of a fingernail?" she asked.

"It would appear so. A woman's, I'm almost sure."

"So she was trying to rip open the bale-is that what happened?"

"No." Rolvaag dropped the nail fragment into the Baggie. "She was hanging on for dear life."

As Petty Officer Yancy studied the clawings in the fabric, Rolvaag thought he saw her shiver.

"Sir, was this the woman… could these marks be from the woman we were trying to locate? The one missing off the cruise ship?"

The detective said it was possible.

"Weird," Yancy said quietly. "Spooky weird."

"Yes, it is." Rolvaag turned back to the soggy bale. "Let's see if there's more."

Seven

The development was called West Boca Dunes Phase II.

"Dunes?" said Mick Stranahan. "We're fifteen miles from the beach."

"Chaz tried to buy into Phase I because it's on a golf course," Joey Perrone explained, "but they were sold out."

"Every house looks the same."

"Oh, they're identical. All three hundred and seven units in our modern Florida subdivision," Joey said in a mock sales-pitch voice, "except that some feature the master bedroom suite on the east side and some have it on the west. Also, you can get a pool."

Stranahan lowered the binoculars. "But you don't have one."

Joey said, "Chaz hates to swim."

"Not you. That was your big college sport, right?"

"Ancient history," she said.

"Still, it would have been nice for you. A swimming pool."

"Yeah, well."

"How about another fig?" Stranahan asked.

They'd stopped at an outdoor market in Pompano Beach and he had loaded up on fresh produce. Now the car smelled like two tons of Mediterranean fruit salad.

Joey Perrone said, "It's lucky you've got that island thing going for you, Mick, because this"-she patted the dashboard-"ain't exactly a pussy magnet."

"Excuse me?"

"That's a Chazism for a hot car."

Stranahan said, "The Cordoba is an automotive classic. You'll be pleased to know that your butt is sitting on rich Corinthian leather." "Maybe once upon a time."

For years Stranahan had kept the rusty car under a shady ficus tree near the Dinner Key marina, where he docked the skiff when visiting the mainland. Nothing on the Chrysler worked properly anymore except the enormous engine, which ran like a miracle.

Joey said, "We sit here much longer, somebody will definitely call the police."

Mick Stranahan conceded that the Cordoba didn't blend in with the late-model SUVs gleaming in the parallel driveways of West Boca Dunes Phase II. Joey told him to get busy while she found a place to hide the car.

"I might need to break a window," he said. "There's a spare key in a bird feeder in the backyard." "How about an alarm?" "Broken. See you in ten minutes."

Stranahan wore a short-sleeved work shirt from Florida Power amp; Light and a white hard hat. He went up to the front door and rang the bell. After a minute he circled to the rear of the house and pretended to examine the electric meter until he figured even the nosiest of Joey's neighbors would have lost interest.