The Riptide Ultra-Glide

by Tim Dorsey

  Coleman’s head sagged over his beer with the neck posture of a vulture. “You’re reading a newspaper again?”

  Serge turned a page. “Correct. Next question.”

  “But you read the newspaper on Tuesday.”

  Another page turned. “They have a new one each day.”

  Coleman belched. “Are you making that up?”

  “And I especially love reading papers in the Keys.” Serge spread out the metro section. “It’s the one place where most of the crime stories end with ‘the suspect tried to escape police in a dinghy.’ I always read the crime stuff first: Two perps culminated a burglary spree with thirty pounds of frozen chicken nuggets; woman seen burying a stolen purse on the beach; someone sitting on a bicycle attached to a car’s roof in a transportation rack—while the vehicle was going over the Seven Mile Bridge. They’re thinking alcohol might have been involved.”

  “I’ll have to remember that one.”

  Another page. “But this isn’t just entertainment. I’m working.”

  “Working.”

  “Learning new scams and lining up scores.” Serge tapped a spot in the paper. “Like this dude. Got some address list of thousands of upscale restaurants in Florida, then mailed letters and a fake dry-cleaning bill for eleven dollars and fifty-three cents, saying a waiter spilled a drink on his jacket. It was such a small amount that most simply paid to avoid the fuss. Guy made twenty grand in three weeks.”

  “Good scam,” said Coleman. “But you also mentioned scores.”

  “Roughly the same group of stories,” said Serge. “Except I follow the old adage ‘Shoot up, not down.’ If you take advantage of people in higher tax brackets, I salute. Exploit the little people, and you go on my list for a late-night visit.”

  “To tell them it was wrong?”

  “Might mention that in passing, but mainly I want money. My time’s not free.” Serge flipped a page to local bowling results. “Florida is the national scam capital, gorged with predators who target the weakest of the weak, especially old folks on fixed incomes. Newspapers are always reporting the arrests, but they’re white-collar criminals with good lawyers and almost always make bail, which leaves their social calendar open for me.”

  “What do they do?”

  “The list is endless,” said Serge. “Like this one guy who drove around retirement communities and knocked on doors, holding a clipboard and wearing a short-sleeve dress shirt with an ID clipped to his pocket, which looked official because it was laminated. When some eighty-year-old woman answered, he’d start talking fast about roof problems he’d spotted from the street, and how you never noticed structural damage from leaks until the whole house fell on your head—he’d actually seen it, helping paramedics close the ambulance doors. But even if it didn’t collapse right away, the code violations would add up faster than her Social Security checks. And just as she was about to stroke out, he’d walk her to a chair inside, fetch a glass of water and say that lucky for her, he knew a crew in the area who could be there that afternoon before the big storm rolled in. Then he came back with a ladder, stomped around the roof for a half hour and drove off with a check for twelve thousand dollars.”

  “That’s a good job,” said Coleman.

  “That’s horrible,” said Serge. “So when I read about his release from jail pending trial, it was an easy public records search to find his house. I figured it would only be neighborly to drop by to inspect his roof, which I thought was pretty magnanimous of me because it was two A.M. and he lived in a three-story mansion. And here’s the thing I’ve learned about night visits. The people always start out pissed off because you woke them at some ungodly hour. But once you get a stranger up on the roof of a three-story building after midnight, they’re suddenly your best friend: ‘I’ll do anything you ask.’ Some people are prone to mood swings. So I said, ‘But I haven’t fixed your roof yet.’ Didn’t matter; he opened his safe right up and gave me all these gold coins and jewelry and bearer bonds. I thanked him and said I’d be following his trial closely and might come back to discuss defense strategy. Turns out he pled guilty and made full restitution with interest.”

  “Awfully nice of him.”

  “That’s why I try not to judge.”

  Coleman nodded and looked around the inside of the bar. “Did they really shoot the movie Key Largo here like the sign says out front?”

  “I wish, but that’s for tourist consumption.” Serge sat back as a waiter placed an iced coffee in front of him. “They’d have you believe Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson hashed it out right here where we’re sitting so contentedly. But for the serious researcher, a depressing discovery that it was shot on a soundstage in Hollywood. Fact-checking cuts both ways.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “See those tourists in the doorway?”

  Coleman looked toward camera flashes. “Yeah, they seem happy. Kind of dazed, like starstruck.”

  “Because they don’t know the truth. They think they’re breathing Bogart’s air.” Serge’s bottom lip pooched out. “But it’s wrecked for me because I study history. I wish I could enjoy it the way they are . . .” He suddenly sat up straight. “And because I wish it, I will make it so . . . with the power of coffee!”

  “Uh-oh. Here comes Underdog’s Super Energy Pill.”

  Serge chugged his cup, placed his palms flat on the table and began vibrating with a sputtering noise.

  “What are you doing?” asked Coleman.

  “Rewinding the film in my brain. Looking for a loophole . . .” Serge pointed dramatically. “And there it is!”

  Coleman’s head swung around. “Where?”

  “Inside my head. You’d have to watch the movie a hundred times, which luckily I have. There’s some stock background footage they shot on this island to supplement the Hollywood reels. I’m now watching the aerial sequence during the black-and-white opening credits. A bus is heading up the Overseas Highway, past unmistakable geographical contours of this coastline.” He waved a hand above the table. “Intrinsically speaking, this space was contained in celluloid frames of that 1948 classic. I have achieved bliss, Bogart’s air, Hindus, round things, ‘ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin.’ ”

  “Far out,” said Coleman. He downed his mug. “I just remembered. What do you think our friend’s doing back at Lake Surprise?”

  Serge drained his bottled water and stood up from his stool. “Time to head for parts north until the heat cools down after the police find him.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Coleman, gazing out the Caribbean Club’s back windows at the rippling bay, where droplets began plopping into mild waves.

  “Because it’s starting to rain,” Serge said with a smile. “Patience pays.”

  WISCONSIN

  Earlier that morning, Patrick McDougall had stood in the front of his classroom, strumming an acoustic guitar like normal.

  “ . . . Puff the Magic Dragon . . .”

  He couldn’t stop yawning. Another late house call with one of his students’ family.

  The principal stuck his head in the door. “Pat, can I talk to you a second?”

  “What is it?”

  “In the hall . . .”

  The principal looked terrible. “I feel terrible . . .” He gave Jack the news.

  Change of plans. It affected all the dutiful teachers who had been laid off but decided to soldier on until the end of the school year. They now had to clear out their desks immediately, to make way for the new teachers who had just been hired because of the severe teacher shortage due to spending cuts.

  At the other end of the hall, an assistant principal called Bar out of her classroom . . .

  The McDougalls reached the staff parking lot at the same time. Pat stuffed his guitar in the back of the Geo. The beginning of the drive home was silent.

  �
��What are we going to do?” asked Bar.

  “Get other jobs.”

  “You say that like it’s easy.”

  “We’re blessed.”

  They parked in a crust of dirty snow. Pat was his typically buoyant self, like Bar usually was. But she seemed different now. He’d never seen her so stressed. The solution was obvious.

  “You know what we need?” asked Pat. “To take a vacation.”

  “Okay, where do you want to go?”

  “Florida.”

  “Florida?” said Bar. “I thought you meant like a quick weekend trip to Milwaukee.”

  “I mean a real vacation. We went to Milwaukee last year.”

  “I had fun,” said Bar.

  “I’m not saying that.” Pat unlocked the front door and held it for his wife. “Just that we should really treat ourselves this time, a whole week, nice hotel, toes in the sand.”

  “Pat, I love the idea of getting away with you, but the timing couldn’t be worse.” Bar set her purse down. “We just walked in the door after losing both our jobs. And the heating bill’s late. What about money?”

  “Credit cards.”

  “I’d feel a lot more relaxed on vacation if we’d already secured our next jobs.” She extended an arm toward the tundra outside the living-room window. “And with this economy, who knows how long that’s going to take.”

  “That’s why layoffs are the best time to take vacations.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Bar. “Just hit the road like a hobo? That’s the responsibility level of a serial killer.”

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” said Pat. “We don’t take this vacation, and then we easily get new jobs, become all caught up in that, and before we know it, it’s another year and Milwaukee again. This is the perfect time to take that special trip we’ve always talked about. Spend some quality time together with no interruptions.”

  “Sounds expensive.”

  “We’ve been financially responsible our whole marriage.” Pat walked over to the computer. “We even spent our honeymoon in Sandusky—and I’m not saying I didn’t love it. It’s just that we should do something extra nice for ourselves for once.”

  Bar could tell it would make her husband happy. And frankly her, too. She slowly began nodding. “Okay, I’m in. Let’s do it.”

  “Now you’re talking.” Pat logged on to a travel Web site.

  Bar leaned over his shoulder. “What part of Florida are you thinking about?”

  Quick keystrokes. Photos of coconut palms. “I lived a few years near Fort Lauderdale. I remember it was beautiful, but you always take it for granted when you’re a child.”

  “You told me your family moved up here when you were six.”

  “How much could it have changed?”

  Bar pulled up a chair. They surfed the net together, talking a mile a minute, laughing and scrolling through chamber-of-commerce pitches. She was totally swayed. If it was this much fun just planning the vacation, imagine actually spending a week in paradise with Patrick.

  “Here we are.” Pat stopped on a page with pink and orange flowers. Mediterranean stucco, turquoise swimming pool. “This looks like a nice place.”

  “I can’t really tell from the photos,” said Bar. “They’re all taken at weird angles like they’re trying to hide something.”

  “The pictures looks great,” said Pat. “And check out the price.”

  “That seems way too low.” Bar narrowed here eyes. “There’s got to be a catch.”

  “There is,” said Pat. “Once the tourist season is over at the end of April, and the state starts heating up, most accommodations cut their rates. Sometimes in half.”

  “How hot?”

  “Upper eighties, nineties.”

  “Sounds too hot.”

  “Listen, the place is on U.S. 1. That’s right along the ocean.” Pat leaned and typed. “Walk out of our room and we’re splashing through the surf in ten seconds.”

  “I don’t see the ocean in the pictures. You’d think they’d show that.”

  “Trust me.” Pat entered a credit-card number on the reservation page. “I used to live there.”

  “Why is it called the Casablanca Inn?”

  “They do that in Florida.” More typing. “The Sands, the Dunes, the Sahara, the Algiers. It’s a magnificent state in its own right, but some places think they also need an Arabian theme.”

  “Sounds more like a Vegas theme.”

  “Then there’s the Polynesian, the Tahitian, the Hawaiian Tropic. That’s the Pacific Ocean.”

  “I know.”

  Pat finished with their billing address, then moved his cursor over the “Submit Reservation” button. He turned to his wife and raised his eyebrows. “Your call. Say the word.”

  She smiled back. “Go for it!”

  Click.

  Chapter Nine

  THE NEXT MORNING

  Dawn broke through the mangroves on an incoming tide.

  The 911 call came from the cell phone of a fly fisherman working a shallow bank for snook.

  The Key Largo police came in cars and boats, unspooling crime-scene tape and an orange berm in the water. Others high-stepped through the mangroves, collecting potential evidence in garbage bags, but mainly it was old beer cans and a few bleached Styrofoam crab-trap floats that had gotten loose and tangled in the roots.

  The body was onshore, but only the feet and head were visible. Someone in a dress shirt leaned over the victim, taking photos of the undisturbed site. Then he gave a signal to the homicide guys that he had what he needed: disturb away.

  “All right,” said a lieutenant. “Start getting those things off him.”

  Investigators grunted as they strained to lift. No good way to get a grip; one slipped and sank a foot in the muck. Others in latex gloves snipped rope from mangrove roots, preserving the knots.

  The lieutenant glanced sideways at the medical examiner standing next to him. “You might be able to make breakfast after all. Pretty obvious what we’ve got here.”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Why do you always have to say that?” asked the lieutenant. “This time it’s more than clear: He was instantly crushed to death.”

  “No, he slowly suffocated.”

  “But look at all that weight. At least nine hundred pounds.” He pointed at the growing pile the investigators had formed near the waterline. “How can you possibly say this was slow?”

  The examiner looked up at the sky. “Because it rained last night.”

  “What’s rain got to do with it?”

  The examiner bent down and checked the capillaries in each eyeball. “He started with a maximum of forty pounds on him. Took several hours for it to reach nine hundred.”

  “Now I’m completely lost,” said the lieutenant.

  The examiner walked over to the pile and felt along a seam for a manufacturer’s label. “These aren’t regular sandbags. They’re a newly developed type for easy, lightweight storage and transport. Two pounds each, dry, filled with special chemically reactive crystals that swell to a cement-hard thirty-five pounds when exposed to water.” He looked at the sky again. “We’re dealing with one of the worst kinds of killer.”

  “What kind’s that?” asked the lieutenant.

  “Patient.”

  THREE HUNDRED MILES NORTH

  An hour before dawn, a mild, rhythmic thunder broke morning silence in the empty hills. The sound didn’t originate from a stationary source, but swept by with Doppler effect. Then it was quiet again. Ten minutes later, the same thunder. And ten minutes after that. Perfectly spaced.

  Eyelids fluttered open in a parked Durango.

  Catfish sat up and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Then he reached toward the passenger seat and poked a shoulder. “Gooch, wake u
p.”

  “Huh? What?”

  Still not quite back among the living. Another poke. “Okay, I’m awake. Stop it.” Gooch looked around the darkness. “What’s that sound?”

  Catfish pointed toward the other side of the wooden fence. The shape of a horse ran by, jockey standing high in the saddle.

  Catfish could see the question on his subordinate’s face. “It’s morning warm-ups.”

  Gooch straightened the rest of the way. “What time is it? Where are we?”

  “Six o’clock. Ocala.”

  Catfish started the Durango, drove fifty yards and turned up a private road. It went through a gate and under a giant wooden sign nailed up cockeyed on top of tall, crooked posts. An expensive sign company did that on purpose. It was from the bucolic section of its catalog. The sign’s logo had an interlocking D and G.

  Dry Gulch Farms.

  “Isn’t it kind of early to pay someone a visit?” asked Gooch.

  “Not here. We actually overslept.”

  Five lengthy barns stood scattered across distant pastures. Lights already on. Catfish drove toward the nearest. A horse passed the car.

  Gooch twisted all the way around in his seat. The farm went on in all directions beyond sight lines. “Look at the size of this spread! I didn’t know there were places like this outside Kentucky.”

  “Most people don’t,” said Catfish. “But Ocala has one of the largest horse industries in the country with close to a thousand Thoroughbred farms. The Triple Crown hasn’t been won for over thirty years, Affirmed in 1978, and he was raised right here in these hills.”

  “That’s very interesting, but I don’t know what it’s got to do with our problems.”

  “Watch and learn.”

  The Durango pulled up to the barn and parked just outside the open stable doors.

  A jockey trotted a horse inside, and Catfish followed.

  The horse was greeted by a lanky man in jeans and a plaid shirt who took the reins from the jockey. He patted the horse on the side. The jockey removed the saddle, and the other person grabbed a thick, coarse blanket off a cedar bench near a stall and threw it over the back of the mare.