“You think I’m innocent?”
She shrugged. “I’d like to think you’re innocent. You’re a cop.”
“There are lots of dirty cops out there, though. Being a cop doesn’t make me innocent.”
A soft smile crossed her face. “I don’t know. Maybe I just sensed something different in you. You seemed like one of the good guys.”
I pulled off my sunglasses and smiled at her. “I am one of the good guys.”
“We’ll see, won’t we.”
“Yeah.” I looked back at the car, where Al was waiting for me. “Hey, look. I gotta go. Mind if I call you if I run into any snags?”
“No, I’ll help how I can.”
I gave her a smile before starting across the street. Then I glanced back at her. “What’s your first name, Officer Cruz?”
“It’s Francesca. Francesca Cruz.”
“Francesca. Fitting.”
“Fitting? What does that mean?”
“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.” I lifted my hat to her and gave her a winning smile before I got in the backseat of the car. “We’ll talk soon, Officer Cruz.”
26
“Well, how’d it go?”
I felt Al’s eyes boring into me as we drove away. “Not so great. They don’t like American tourists. Especially ones that are cops.”
“I told you that, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you told me that. They’re gonna try and pin this on me. I can feel it.”
Al grimaced. “I won’t let ’em. You were with me the whole night.”
“You know, the only way I’m gonna be cleared of this is if I do my own investigation. I don’t think Sergeant Gibson could give a rat’s ass about finding out what Cami Vergado saw that night. I bet he hasn’t even asked Ozzy Messina for copies of the security tapes yet. He doesn’t want to prove that it wasn’t me.”
Al’s head bobbed. “Alright, then, so you’re gonna have to prove it yourself. You’re a cop. You know what to do.”
I shrugged and looked out the window. “I’m a patrol officer. I pull people over and give them speeding tickets and make ’em walk the line if I smell booze. I’m not a detective. I’ve never even tried to pretend that I wanted to be a detective.”
“A cop’s a cop, Drunk.”
I sighed. “That’s not true.”
“You graduated from the police academy, didn’t you? You’ve been getting a paycheck, haven’t you?”
I shrugged. “You just don’t get it, Al. I only became a cop because there came a point in my life where I needed to stop fucking around and get a real job. So I went to the academy. At thirty-two years old, I was the oldest motherfucker in my class. All the other fresh-faced cop wannabes there knew they wanted to be a cop since they’d been in diapers. I was only there because my buddy Mikey was a cop and he suggested it. I thought a badge, a gun, and some flashy lights didn’t sound all bad. Plus, cops seemed to have a sense of purpose, and according to my folks, that was something that was sorely lacking in my life.”
Al stared at me after my little speech before shaking his head. “I’m not entirely sure I heard everything you just mumbled. Why don’t people enunciate their words anymore? It’s a lost art, really.” He waved a hand. “You think you’re a terrible cop? What’s that got to do with the price of eggs in China? I mean, seriously! Who gives a hoot if you were the worst damn cop in the whole continental United States? If you’re accused of a murder, you defend yourself. You got hair on your balls don’tcha?”
I flinched. “You really wanna get a look at my balls, don’t you, Al?”
He threw up his arms. “For crying out loud, it’s a saying, you moron. You’re a man, ain’t ya?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Then be a man! Solve your own damn problems. These cops aren’t gonna coddle you, Drunk. They’re not gonna hold your hand. So what if your girl screwed around on you? So what if you’re on vacation? You think these cops care that you got two weeks off work and want to spend it trying to get laid? They don’t give a shit. You gotta man up and do what you have to do to clear your name.”
I sighed. Maybe Al was right. I’d been so busy licking my wounds and focusing on getting laid that I hadn’t been on the offense. I’d been playing defense, and barely. I was like a linebacker with a gimp. How’s a guy gonna sack a quarterback if he’s too busy covering his head so he doesn’t get hurt by the guy in front of him? If I was going to untangle myself from the situation I was in, I needed to think and act like the cop that I was.
“Yeah, alright. I catch what you’re throwing, Al. I’ll get it together.”
“Good.”
We drove in silence for a while. Finally, Al looked at me again. “So, where we gonna start?”
“We?” I asked before taking the last flat swig of my Dr. Pepper.
“Yeah, we. Cops don’t work alone, do they? Don’t they have partners? All the good ones do anyway. Starsky and Hutch. Tango and Cash. Crockett and Tubbs. Cagney and Lacey.”
I nearly spat out my soda. “Cagney and Lacey? You know they’re women, right?”
Al held up a finger in front of his crazy smile. “Right, but they were partners.”
“Listen, Al. I like you, but I can’t be dragging an old-timer around this island while hunting for bad guys. They have guns, you know. You could wind up shot. And then what’s Evelyn supposed to do?”
He waved a hand. “Eh, she’s got Fern. She doesn’t need me.”
“Al, be serious. If I’m seriously going to find out who killed Jimmie, things could take a real bad turn if I’m not careful. I can’t risk you getting hurt.”
He thumped his chest with the pads of his fingers. “You wouldn’t be taking the risk. I’d be taking the risk.”
“Whatever, Al. I don’t know about partnering up. I tell you what—you get your wife’s permission, and I’ll think about letting you tag along.”
“Tag along? You think I want to go with you just to tag along?”
I curled my lip. “Well, what else would you call it?”
“I call it lending you my years of wisdom and experience.”
“I call it babysitting, Al.”
Al threw up his hands in disgust. “Fine, then don’t take me if you think you’d be babysitting.”
“Oh, now you’re just being petty.”
“Petty! You little asshole. You think just because I’m a few years older than you, I need babysitting? Just because my ears don’t turn up loud anymore and it takes me longer to pee than it used to doesn’t mean my brain isn’t working just like it did when I was your age.”
“I never said your brain wasn’t working.”
“Alright, then. What’s your problem?”
“Well, for starters, you said it. Your ears don’t turn up loud anymore. I have to yell at you for you to hear me. I can’t be yelling at you when we’re hiding from the bad guys.”
“Fine. I’ll put my hearing aids in. I hate the goddamned things, but if that’s your issue, I’ll do it.”
“And what if we get chased by guys with guns? You’re not especially spry anymore.”
“You think I can’t take a fall? Guys my age fall all the time. It’s what we’re known for.”
“Right, well, it’s the getting back up that’s the problem, now isn’t it?”
“Why do you think I need a partner? I fall, and you give me a hand to get back up.”
“Well, what’s in it for me?”
“You don’t know anybody on this island, but I got connections! I gotcha that sweet cottage, didn’t I? See, I know people!”
I shook my head. “I just don’t understand why you’d want to help me, Al. What’s in it for you?”
Al’s face took on a wistful look then as he looked at me sideways. “You think it’s fun to be retired?”
“Yeah! I do, as a matter of fact.”
“Well, I’ll tell you the truth. It’s fun for about a month.”
“Only a month?”
Al waved a crooked finge
r at me. “At first you sit around in the mornings. You know, because you can. You don’t have to rush off anywhere or do anything. But after you’ve worked your whole life, sitting gets old real fast.” He held out an arm and tapped a gnarled finger against his skin.
“I’ve got German blood flowing through these veins. Germans can’t just sit around. So you start doing the things you’ve neglected. You organize the garage and clean the gutters. You sharpen the blades on your lawn mower. You paint the shed. You trim the privets in the yard—you know, do the whole honey-do list.
“And then one day, you’re done with that. And so you try and find a hobby. Finding a hobby when you’re my age isn’t like finding a hobby at your age. I’m not gonna learn to play golf at this age. Yeah, I enjoy fishing, but I don’t wanna spend the rest of my life cleaning fish. You know? So then what happens is, you get bored.
“And so when your wife says, ‘Let’s move to an island in the Caribbeans,’ you go, ‘Alright, dear. Whatever you want.’ Because you can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t move to an island in the Caribbeans.
“So now you’re here. You can only play cards so often. You can only drink so much coffee or so many whiskey sours or soak up so much sun. You need other things to keep your mind young. So, I figure, helping you figure out who’s trying to kill you might give me something to do for a week or two. And if it gets me killed in the process, eh, I’ve lived my life. I’m at peace.”
I stared at Al. I’d never looked at a retired person and thought, Poor you, you don’t have to go to work anymore. I always assumed they were looking at me, thinking, Poor you, you schmuck, you still have to go to work for the next thirty years. I sighed, tired of arguing. “Fine, Al. You can be my partner. Alright?”
“Alright.”
We sat quietly for a minute. I pictured Mrs. Al swatting me in the back of the head with a newspaper for letting her husband go with me to hunt bad guys. “But I’m not taking you anywhere until Mrs. Al gives her approval and you put in your hearing aids. Got it?”
He looked up at me and nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”
“Alright, so do we have a deal?” I held a hand out to him.
He took it, giving it a solid squeeze, and then smiled at me like a man who’d just traded his life savings in for a Ferrari. “Deal.”
27
Back at the resort, Al and I stopped at the front counter. The woman who had checked me in two days prior was working again today.
“Good morning, Mariposa,” began Al. “We want to speak with Cami Vergado.”
The woman smiled. “Good morning, Mr. Becker. I’m sorry, but Cami isn’t here right now.”
I leaned forward on the counter and gave the woman a winning smile. Part of good detective work was establishing rapport. Al seemed proficient in that arena already. If I was going to get anywhere with the staff at the resort, I knew I needed to do the same. “When’s the next time that she works?”
Mariposa’s dark eyes swiveled from me to Al. He gave her a little wink, causing her to smile. “She was supposed to work today.”
“She didn’t show up?” asked Al.
Mariposa shook her head.
“Is that unusual for her?” I asked. “Not to show up for work?”
The woman shrugged. “I couldn’t say. Can I have someone else help you with something, sir?”
I grimaced. “No, I just really need to speak with Cami. Did she come in yesterday?”
“No, sir. I don’t believe she did.”
“Mariposa, may we please speak with Ozzy Messina?” asked Al.
“Mr. Messina is out to lunch right now. Would you like me to have him call you when he gets back to the resort?”
Al nodded and then, with a glance at me, he pointed at Mariposa. “Give her your number, Drunk.”
I wrote it down and handed it to her. “Thank you, Mariposa, we really appreciate your help.”
I thought I saw a glimmer of a smile, but I couldn’t be sure that I’d softened her up. I made a mental to note to keep working on it.
Al scratched the white patch of hair behind his ear. “Now what?”
“Now you’re going to go have a talk with your wife and put your hearing aids in. I’m going to go back to my room. I need to make a call.”
* * *
While we’d been gone, someone had covered my cottage’s broken windowpane with a piece of plywood. The broken glass had been swept up, but the rest of the apartment was still trashed. Apparently maid service hadn’t made it that far down the block yet.
I spent a few minutes tidying up. I put all the cushions back on my sofa and righted a lamp that had been tipped over, straightening the shade. I put the kitchen drawers back on their sliders and dumped an armful of silverware and other random kitchen paraphernalia into the sink. I even found a broom in a small closet and swept up the remnants of Vic’s wife’s vase, dropping the shattered blue-and-white pieces into the garbage can.
Then I sat down on the sofa and put my feet up on the coffee table. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed. The person on the other end picked up on the third ring.
“Schwarzkopf here.”
“Mikey, buddy, it’s T-Bone.”
“T-Bone! Where the hell are you? You got a lot of people worried about you.”
“Worried about me? Why the fuck are people worried about me?”
“Because you haven’t returned anyone’s calls. I went by the hotel on Monday, but you’d split already. I’ve been by your place three times since then, but you’re never there. Your girl is freaking the hell out. She won’t stop calling the station.”
“She’s not my girl anymore, Mikey. We’re over.”
“Tell that to her. She thinks there’s hope, buddy.”
“Puh,” I breathed. “Trust me. There’s no hope for that one anymore. I’m already over it.”
“So where you at, then?”
“I went on the trip. You know, the honeymoon. I used the tickets we had.”
Mikey laughed on the other end. I could picture him leaning back in his squeaky detective’s chair and putting his feet up on his desk. “Get outta here! You went without her?”
“You think I’d bring her with me?” I shook my head. “No, man. I was hoping there’d be some chicks out here, but this place is all geriatrics and honeymooners.”
“No kidding?”
“It’s kinda crazy. Hey, listen. I’m in kind of a predicament down here. I was hoping maybe you could help me out.”
I proceeded to give Mikey the lowdown on the girl on the plane, Jimmie, Al, the guys who trashed my room, everything. When he was done laughing at the fact that a female had pulled a gun on me just as I’d thought I was going to score, I gave him her name. “Natasha Prince. She was on my flight out of Atlanta. She knows what’s going on here, Mikey. I need to find her.”
“Yeah, I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“Check the seat next to mine too, would ya? Find out what you can about Jimmie. The cops think his last name is Wallace, and he claimed to be from Australia. But you know, see what you can dig up on him, get his priors and whatnot. Alright?”
“Yeah. I’ll get right on it. So what’s your plan?”
I sighed and pulled my feet off the coffee table. Leaning forward, I let my head fall into my free hand. “I really don’t know, Mikey. This detective stuff is what you’re good at. Not me.”
Mikey’s calm, cool voice poured out of the receiver. “Listen, T-Bone. You got this. Alright? You’re a smart guy. You’ve got the brain. You’ve got the training. You just need to have a little faith in yourself. You know, it was cool when we were younger that everyone thought you were this easy-going, wiseass party guy. But you’re a grown-up now. Now your shit is on the line. Now’s the time to buck up. You know? Handle your business.”
Despite the fact that he couldn’t see it, I gave him a half-smile. “Yeah, buddy. I know. You sound like a guy I know down here. He’s blowing the same bullshit in my ear.”
/>
“It’s not bullshit, T. If someone’s telling you that down there, you listen to him. He sounds like a very wise man.”
I chuckled. “Yeah. He’s also a wiseass, but I hear ya.”
“Alright. Gimme some time on this and I’ll get back to you.”
“Okay.”
“Stay safe, my friend.”
“You too, buddy.”
I hung up and stared at my phone and wondered what Mikey would do next. I scrolled through my missed calls and recognized the area codes of almost every single call except one. I’d gotten it the night I’d flown in, sometime after I’d gotten off the plane. I quietly wondered if that had been Jimmie, calling me to go get that drink with him.
I stared down at the phone and debated calling the number back. Just to see if anyone answered. And then my phone rang. I nearly climbed out of my own skin.
I didn’t recognize the number. My heart pattered faster as I slid the little green phone to the side. “Hello?”
“Drunk? Hey, man, this is Ozzy Messina, up in resort security. I had a message you wanted to talk to me.”
“Oh, yeah, Ozzy. Thanks for calling me back. Al and I wanted to chat with you. You free?”
“Sure. I just got back from lunch. I’m available for the rest of the day.”
I nodded. “Alright. We’ll be up there shortly.”
* * *
I stopped over at Al’s cottage and knocked on the door. I’d thought Al might want to walk with me up to meet with Ozzy.
Mrs. Al answered the door. She was wearing her World’s Best Grandma visor with a matching pink tennis skirt and a white tank top. Even wearing athletic shoes and standing on the top step, she was still about a foot shorter than I was. “Good afternoon, Terrence.” Her voice was slightly less friendly than it had been the last time I’d seen her.
“Hey there, Mrs. Becker. I was wondering if Al could come out to play.” I said it with a smirk, hoping it would loosen her up a little.
“He’s already up at the resort. He said he’d be in the gym, lifting a few weights and working on his balance.”
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