Skinny Dip - Страница 15

"That's right," Rolvaag said.

"Then listen up: My little sister did not get drunk and fall off that cruise ship," Corbett Wheeler declared, "no matter what her husband told you. And she didn't take a dive, either."

The connection was fuzzy, and Rolvaag heard his own voice reverberate when he spoke. "I understand this must be hard for you. Would you mind a few questions?"

"It was in the Boca newspaper. That's how I found out-a friend of Joey's called to tell me."

Rolvaag said, "We've been trying to get hold of you since Saturday. Your brother-in-law gave me a couple of phone numbers, but they were no good."

"Just like my brother-in-law," Corbett Wheeler said. "He is a fuck-wit and a reprobate."

"When's the last time you saw him?"

"Never met the man, or even spoke to him. But Joey's given me an earful-I wouldn't trust the guy alone with my bowling ball, that's what a horndog he is."

Rolvaag had heard similar opinions from Joey's friends, though none of them hinted that Charles Perrone was deeply involved with anybody but Charles Perrone.

"You're suggesting that Chaz had something to do with your sister's disappearance?"

"Bet the farm on it," said Corbett Wheeler.

"It's a long way from adultery to homicide."

"From what Joey told me, he's capable of anything."

Rolvaag heard sheep lowing in the background.

"Maybe we should talk in person," he suggested.

"Honestly, I don't travel much," said Mrs. Perrone's brother, "but I'd fly all night to see that little whorehopper strapped into the electric chair and lit up like Dodger Stadium."

"These days most of them opt for lethal injection."

"Are you telling me they get a choice?"

"I'm afraid so," Rolvaag told him. "What's that noise?"

"One of my ewes, trying to pop triplets."

"Can I call you back?"

"No, I'll call you," said Joey Perrone's brother, and the line went dead.

Fuckwit, reprobate, horndog, whorehopper-an impressive litany of contempt for Chaz Perrone. Rolvaag reported Corbett Wheeler's suspicions to Captain Gallo, who shrugged and said, "Hey, nobody wants to believe their little sister was a clumsy lush. Did he know about the DUI?"

"I didn't ask." Rolvaag could name plenty of friends who'd been busted for drunk driving, and not one had ever fallen off a cruise ship. "What if Wheeler's right about Perrone?"

"Then you'll figure it out, too, and make us all look like geniuses," said Gallo, "hopefully by Friday."

Rolvaag knew better than to mention the nail marks on the marijuana bale until the DNA testing was complete. The procedure wasn't inexpensive, and the captain would be miffed that Rolvaag had ordered it without his approval.

Gallo handed him the letter from the Edina police chief. Rolvaag folded it back into the envelope. "Is three weeks enough time?" he asked.

"Didn't you hear what I just said? Friday, Karl, and then we move on."

"I'm not talking about this case," said the detective. "I'm giving my notice. Is three weeks enough?"

Gallo sat back and grinned. "Yeah, whatever. I'll play along."

Chaz Perrone parked his Hummer on the levee, a half mile from the spillway. He kept the AC running and slurped coffee as he stared blankly across miles and miles of Everglades. A breeze fluffed the saw grass and combed ripples in the dark water. Coots tiptoed through the hyacinths and lilies, a young heron speared minnows in the shallows and a small bass went airborne to take a dragonfly. The place was thrumming with wildlife, and Chaz Perrone was miserable.

Nothing about nature awed, soothed or humbled him-not the solitude or the mythic vastness or the primordial ebb and flow. To Chaz, it was all hot, buggy, funky-smelling and treacherous. He would have been so much happier on the driving range at Eagle Trace.

Red Hammernut was the one who had insisted that Chaz stick to the program, in case Chaz's supervisors at the water-management district decided to check up on him. It was also Red who'd bought him the Humvee, after Chaz had griped for months that the dirt roads were tearing up the shocks on his midsize Chevy.

Chaz had chosen bright yellow for the Hummer on the theory that such an intrusive color would freak out any panthers that might be lurking in the sector of the Everglades to which he was assigned. Chaz was terrified of being ambushed by one of the big cats, despite the fact that no such attack on humans had ever been recorded. Furthermore, the animals were nearly extinct, perhaps only sixty or seventy remaining in the wild.

When a fellow biologist reminded Chaz that the odds of being mauled by a Florida panther were roughly the same as being struck by a meteorite, Chaz announced he was taking no chances. When informed that the cats were color-blind and would therefore be oblivious to the blinding hue of his Humvee, Chaz wasn't entirely disappointed. Girls seemed to go for the yellow.

He climbed out of the driver's seat and was promptly engulfed by mosquitoes. Grunting and flailing, he struggled to insert himself into the heavy rubber waders that he'd purchased from a high-end hunting catalog. The commotion spooked a turtle off a rock, the splash causing Chaz to spin around and glare at the telltale rings on the surface. When he was seven, his mother had presented him with a baby dime-store terrapin, which he'd named Timmy and later flushed down the toilet in disapproval of its casual potty habits.

As he sloshed reluctantly into the marsh, Chaz wasn't worried about a turtle attack, as turtles had no teeth. What he dreaded were the alligators, brazen and plentiful. Not a single scientist had been devoured or even maimed by a gator while working in the Everglades, but Chaz believed it was only a matter of time. He would have carried a high-caliber rifle except that it was strictly forbidden, and he couldn't risk getting fired, demoted or transferred from the sampling sites. That would ruin everything, including his profitable association with Red Hammernut.

Consequently, Chaz's sole instrument of defense was a boron-shafted two-iron, which in his hands was far more efficient at scaring off aquatic reptiles than striking a golf ball. Chaz swung the club haphazardly and yowled like a hemorrhoidal bobcat as he hacked a soggy trail through the saw grass. Nature recoiled as he threshed the water, launching clumps of algae and splintered twigs and shredded lily pads. In the cumbersome waders Chaz clomped and teetered like the Frankenstein monster, but the desired effect was achieved: every living vertebrate within a hundred yards of the dike fled the scene.

Only the mosquitoes and horseflies lingered to harass Chaz Per-rone, and their impassive humming was all he heard when he finally reached the pond where the first monitoring station stood. Otherwise the swamp had gone mute and lifeless, which was how Chaz preferred it. He stood at the edge of the deeper water, catching his breath and waiting for the wavelets he'd made to subside.

Here Chaz was required to immerse up to his armpits, surrendering what little mobility he had. The stiff rubber leggings that protected him so reliably from the razor-sharp saw grass and lethal moccasin fangs were not designed for swimming, and would in fact fill up and drag him down like an anchor if Chaz wasn't careful.

So he waited for the water to calm, intently scanning the surface for ominous log-like snouts. In his nightmares this is where the gators always nailed him-in the pond-because he was exposed and helpless, a sitting duck. On more than one occasion Chaz had retreated in a blind froth from the monitoring station, certain he was being pursued by one or more of the flesh-eating saurians. Today the only specimen to be seen was a vividly banded newborn that would have fit easily in a shoe box. Chaz bravely stepped forward and whaled away with the two-iron, failing (as usual) to land a blow. As soon as the baby alligator was gone, Chaz made his move.

Wielding the golf club over his head, he skated his feet heavily across the muddy bottom. He was prepared to clobber anything that came to the surface, no matter how small or harmless, but nothing rose to challenge him. Along the way, he diligently paused to uproot several fresh sprouts of cattails, a small act of tidiness that Chaz believed was crucial to his future wealth and comfort.

It took only three minutes to remove a water sample from the monitoring station. Chaz made it look good, even though he was fairly certain that nobody from the district was within thirty miles of the site. Red Hammernut said they sometimes sent up helicopters to spy on the biologists in the field, but privately Chaz was doubtful. He acted out the charade of sample collecting only because it was Red's wish, and Red was the last person on earth Chaz wanted to cross.

Following his freshly cut path, he crashed and howled his way back to the levee without incident. After placing the quart-size container upright in the back of the Hummer, he kicked and wriggled out of his waders, which stunk of sweat and ripe muck. He grabbed a mango-flavored Gatorade from the cooler and sat on the bumper, the two iron propped within lunging distance. With a dirty shirtsleeve Chaz mopped the perspiration from his brow, thinking: What a steaming shithole this is! To think that the taxpayers of America are spending 8 billion bucks to save it.

Suckers, Chaz thought. If they only knew.

With the binoculars he checked in both directions along the rutted embankment. No other vehicles were visible. He squinted up at the sky and saw the omnipresent buzzards, circling clockwise, but no choppers or planes.

Satisfied, Charles Regis Perrone finished off the Gatorade and lobbed the bottle into the saw grass. Then he unscrewed the lid from the sample jar and poured the tea-colored water into the dirt at his feet.