Skinny Dip - Страница 59

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"Who's there?" Chaz asked, squirming.

The door closed.

"Rose?"

Joey said, "Relax, Romeo, you're not getting any tonight."

"Lemme up."

"It's still only me, Chaz. Your dearly departed wife."

"Can't be."

"But I'm not deceased."

"Are, too."

Joey dug an elbow into his back. "Does that feel real?"

"Bad dream," he groaned.

"Wanna bet?"

"Pinch me in the nuts again. Go ahead, see if I care."

Joey said, "What went wrong with you, Chaz?"

His shoulders hitched. "People change, it's nobody's fault," he said. "Lemme sleep, please?"

"No sir, not yet."

"If you were real, Joey, you would've already killed me by now." Then he sighed heavily and went slack beneath her.

She shook him by the collar, then she pressed so close that her lips brushed the fuzz on his earlobes. "Chaz!" she said sharply. "Chaz, you listen. I'm telling the cops everything. And it won't just be my word against yours-they'll have the new will, the videotape, all the Everglades stuff. Your friend Red, he's toast, too. Wake up, Romeo, it's over. Attempted murder, fraud, bribery. Even if you beat the rap, you'll be broke and out of work and owing lawyers for the rest of your miserable life. Ruined, Chaz."

From her husband, not a peep. He had passed out.

Joey climbed off and called for Mick. Together they jostled and prodded Chaz, but they were unable to rouse him.

She said, "Now what do we do? The asshole thinks he's hallucinating. He thinks I'm not real."

"You're not," Stranahan said fondly.

"I'm serious, Mick. Obviously he was bombed when he got here, then Rose doped him into oblivion."

"Gosh. I sure hope he doesn't get a boo-boo on the way home. Drive himself into a canal, or fall asleep on the train tracks."

"Oh no you don't."

"Hey, stuff like that happens. You read about it all the time."

Joey stared at the reprehensible heap of snoring, drool-flecked flesh to which she was wed, and she felt only hollowness and exhaustion. How strange that she no longer wanted to punch him or choke him or kill him, or even just scream at him. All her rage and indignation was dried up, leaving only an aftertaste of disgust.

"You all right?" Stranahan asked.

"Peachy. I married a total piece of shit."

"It's not hard to do. You want to whale on the bastard, now's your chance."

Joey shook her head. "Honestly, Mick, I don't care what happens to him anymore."

"Well, I do," Stranahan said, grabbing Charles Regis Perrone by the ankles.

Twenty-eight

Nellie Shulman cornered him in the elevator. Her housecoat smelled of mothballs and tuna fish.

"Why didn't you tell me you're moving out? What's with all the sneaking around?"

Karl Rolvaag said, "I'm taking a job up north."

"And renting your place out to Gypsies, no doubt. Deviates and loners like yourself."

"I'll be selling the condo, Nellie."

She clacked her yellow dentures. "To another snake freak, right? Some psycho with spitting cobras, maybe."

"Whoever can afford to buy it. That's the law."

The elevator door opened and the detective bolted, Nellie scuttling after him.

"Aren't you the smug one?" she said. "Just because they found Rumsfeld, you think you can dance out of here with a clean conscience."

Rumsfeld was the miniature poodle that had gone AWOL, the third pet missing from Sawgrass Grove. The detective was secretly happy to learn that the incontinent little hair ball had not been devoured by one of his wayfaring pythons.

"They found him behind the Albertsons'," Mrs. Shulman reported somberly, "sleeping in a liquor box. Some bum was feeding him soda crackers."

"What about Pinchot and whatsit, that Siamese?" Rolvaag asked. Poised at his front door, he groped through his pockets for the keys. Mrs. Shulman seemed committed to a full-blown confrontation.

She said, "Don't play innocent with me. Her name was Pandora and you know damn well what happened-you sacrificed her to those vicious reptiles of yours! Same with poor old Pinchot. And my precious Petunia is probably next on the menu!"

"Those are serious accusations you're making, Nellie, with no proof whatsoever."

Mrs. Shulman grew defensive. "It's not just me, everybody around here's talking about it. 'Why else would a grown man keep anacondas?' they say. 'What's the matter with him?' "

Rolvaag said, "They're pythons, not anacondas. And they don't eat house cats or Pomeranians." He hoped his lack of conviction wasn't apparent to the acting vice president of the Sawgrass Grove Condominium Association.

"Know what I think, Nellie? I think you're disappointed that you won't get to evict me. I think you're bummed because I'm moving out on my own terms." At last he found his key and speared it into the lock.

Mrs. Shulman's arthritic talons clenched his arm. "Ha! I'm the only reason you're leaving town!"

The detective smiled suggestively. "You're going to miss me, aren't you?"

"Agghh!" Mrs. Shulman stumbled out of her slippers as she backed off.

Rolvaag quickly entered his apartment and shut the door. He logged on to the computer and clicked open the weather page for the Twin Cities. It was sixty-two degrees and brightly sunny in St. Paul; the glory of a midwestern spring. He wondered if his ex-wife had planted a garden, a hobby she'd abandoned in the suffocating heat of South Florida.

The detective took a can of pop from the refrigerator, sat down in the kitchen and emptied his briefcase. On top of the pile was the rental agreement for the green Chevrolet Suburban. Initially the manager of the car-rental agency had refused to fax it to the Sheriff's Office, but he'd changed his mind after Rolvaag offered to drive there personally and jump up on the counter and wave his gold badge for all the customers to see.

According to the contract, the Suburban had been rented on Joey Perrone's credit card three days after she went overboard from the Sun Duchess. Rolvaag placed the rental agreement side by side with a Xeroxed sheet of canceled checks provided by Mrs. Perrone's bank. The signature on the car contract and the signature on the old checks appeared strikingly similar. Next, the detective compared the handwriting on the car contract with that on the will delivered by Mrs. Per-rone's brother. Rolvaag studied the characteristics of the penmanship for a few minutes, then returned the documents to his briefcase. Telling Chaz Perrone would be a waste of time; the man was a goner, and there was nothing inside the law that Rolvaag could do to change that, even if he'd wanted to.

He phoned the Coast Guard station and tracked down Petty Officer Yancy. "You know that bale of Jamaican weed? The one we took the fingernails from?"

"Yes, sir. It's in the evidence warehouse," Yancy said, "as you requested."

"Tell them to go ahead and burn it. I won't be needing it after all."

"I'll fax you the paperwork, sir." Yancy paused. "Did they ever find that missing woman off the cruise ship?"

"Nope."

"That's too bad."

"Not necessarily," the detective said.

As soon as he hung up, he started packing for Minnesota.

Tool spent the night beside Maureen's bed at the convalescent home. She slept poorly, making small murmurs that could have been caused by bad dreams, or pain. Red Hammernut had called up angrily, ordering Tool to return to Chaz Perrone's house and keep an eye on the conniving little rodent. Tool had pretended the battery on the cell phone was dying and he couldn't make out what Red was saying.

No way was he leaving Maureen until she felt better.

He found the TV station that showed country-music videos, and that's how he passed the time. Some of the songs were depressing, if he listened too closely to the words, and other songs he couldn't relate to one bit. There seemed to be no end of stories about men who wouldn't stay put in one place, and the loving women they left behind. That's one good thing about farming, Tool thought-you've got a home and you know right where it is.

By daybreak his tailbone was so sore from the poacher's bullet that he had to get up and do some walking. "When he returned to the room, Maureen was awake. She looked up and gave a limp smile. The sun-

light slanting through the blinds made bright stripes across the bed, but Maureen's blue eyes, once star-like, seemed as dull and gray as lead. Tool noticed that she kept pressing the call button, so he asked what was wrong. She pointed at the IV bag, which was empty.

"I need a refill," she whispered.

"Where does it hurt?"

"They haven't given me a bath in three days. It's so annoying."

"Here." He took the call switch and mashed on it repeatedly with his thumb. They waited and waited, but nobody came.

Maureen said, "In the mornings they're short-staffed. Sometimes it takes a while."

"We'll see about that."

"Where are you going?"

Tool snatched the first person he found who was dressed like a nurse and hustled her into Maureen's room. The woman was startled and confused.

"Earl, that's Natacha," Maureen explained. "She works in the kitchen."

Tool did not release Natacha's arm. "Go fetch somebody to bring this lady some pain medicine. I mean right now."

"Natacha, I must apologize for my nephew. He worries too much about me," Maureen said.

Natacha nodded tenuously. Tool let go of her and she scooted for the door, Maureen calling after her, "That lentil soup was heavenly last night. I demand your recipe!"

Tool said, "Ain't they any damn doctors in this place?"