by Carl Hiaasen
“I want to try this again,” he told Skink.
“Maybe someday, after the dirty work is over. You want to hear my theory?”
“Sure.” Decker had been waiting all damn night.
Skink said: “Robert Clinch found out about the cheating. He knew who and he knew how. I think he was after the proof when they caught him on the bog.”
“Who caught him? Dickie Lockhart?”
Skink said, “Dickie wasn’t in the other boat I saw. He’s not that stupid.”
“But he sent somebody to kill Bobby Clinch.”
“I’m not sure of that, Miami. Maybe it was a trap, or maybe Clinch just turned up in the worst place at the worst time.”
“What was Bobby looking for?” Decker asked.
Skink made three swipes of the oars before answering. “A fish,” he said. “A particular fish.”
That was Skink’s theory, or what he intended to share of it. Twice Decker asked Skink what he meant, what particular fish, but Skink never replied. He rowed mechanically. The only sounds on the lake were his husky breaths and the rhythmic squeak of the rusty oarlocks. Slowly the details of the southern shoreline, including the crooked silhouette of the cabin, came into Decker’s view. The trip was almost over.
Decker asked, “You come out here every night?”
“Only when I’m in the mood for fish dinner,” Skink replied.
“And you always use that big purple worm?”
“Nope,” Skink said, beaching the boat with a final stroke, “what I usually use is a twelve-gauge.”
When R. J. Decker got back to the motel, he found a note from the night manager on the door. The note said Ott Pickney had called, but it didn’t say why.
Decker already had the key in the lock when he heard a car pull in and park. He glanced over his shoulder, half-expecting to see Ott’s perky Toyota flatbed.
What he saw instead was a tangerine Corvette.
6
Decker had a poor memory for names. Terrific eye for faces, but no name recollection whatsoever.
“It was a spring-fashion shoot,” Lanie Gault prodded. “You acted like you’d rather be in Salvador.”
“I think I remember now,” Decker said. “On Sanibel Beach, right?”
Lanie nodded. She sat on the edge of the bed, looking relaxed. Strange motel room, strange man, but still relaxed. Decker was not nearly so comfortable.
“Must have been five, six years ago,” he said. Trying to be professional, trying not to look at her legs.
“You’ve put on some weight,” Lanie said. “It’s good weight, though, don’t worry.”
Decker turned on the television, looking for Letterman. He stopped flipping channels when he found one of those dreadful syndicated game shows. He sat down heavily and pretended to watch the tube.
“Do I look any different?” Lanie asked. She didn’t say it as if she were begging a compliment.
“You look great,” Decker said, turning from the TV.
“Believe it or not, I think I’ve still got the swimsuit I wore for the pictures.”
On this detail Decker’s memory was clear. Yellow one-piece thong, the kind that required some touch-up shaving.
Lanie said, “You screwed one of the other models, didn’t you?”
Decker sighed.
“She was talking about it on the drive back to Boca.”
“I hope she was kind,” Decker said. Diane was her name. A very nice lady. Hadn’t seemed like the magpie type, but here you had it. He’d kept a phone number, except now she was married to a large Puerto Rican police captain. Her number was filed under S, for suicide.
Lanie Gault kicked her sandals off and sat cross-legged on the bedspread. She wore a fruity-colored sleeveless top and white shorts. Her arms and legs, even the tops of her feet, were a golden tan. So were her neck and chest, the part Decker could see. He wondered about the rest, wondered if it was worth a try. Bad timing, he decided.
“Can we turn that shit down, please?” Lanie said. On the television a young couple from Napa had just won an Oldsmobile Cutlass, and the audience was going nuts.
Decker twisted down the volume.
She said, “Look, I’m sorry about this morning. I’d had a couple martinis to get me going.”
“Don’t blame you,” Decker said.
“I must have sounded like a coldhearted whore, which I’m not.”
Decker went along with it. “It was a tough funeral,” he said, “especially with the wife there.”
“You said it.”
“Before you tell me about Bobby,” Decker said, “I’d like to know how you knew about me. About why I was here.” He guessed it was her brother but he wanted to make sure.
“Dennis called me,” Lanie said.
“Why?”
“Because he knows I’ve got a personal interest. Or maybe he’s just feeling guilty about Bobby and wants me to know he’s not giving up on it.”
Or maybe he wants you to try me out, Decker thought.
Lanie said, “I met Bobby Clinch at a bass tournament in Dallas two summers ago. I was doing outdoor layouts for the Neiman-Marcus catalog—beach togs, picnic wear, stuff like that. Dennis happened to be in town for this big tournament, so I drove out to the reservoir one afternoon, just to say hi. Must have been sixty boats, a hundred guys, and they all looked exactly the same. They dressed alike, walked alike, talked alike, chewed tobacco alike. All dragging fish to be weighed. Afterward they gathered around this tall chalkboard to see who was ahead in the points. Christ, I thought I’d died and gone to redneck hell.”
“Then Bobby came along.”
“Right,” Lanie said. “He said hello, introduced himself. It sounds corny, but I could tell he was different from the others.”
“Corny” was not the word for how it sounded. Decker listened politely anyway. He figured there was a love scene coming.
Lanie said, “That night, while the rest of the guys were playing poker and getting bombed, he took me out on the reservoir in his boat, just the two of us. I’ll never forget, it was a crescent moon, not a cloud anywhere.” She laughed gently and her eyes dropped. “We wound up making it out on the water. In the bow of Bobby’s boat was this fancy pedestal seat that spun around . . . and that’s what we did. Lucky we didn’t capsize.”
This girl, Decker thought, has a wondrous imagination.
“Bobby wasn’t one of these full-time tournament freaks,” Lanie said. “He had a good job laying cable for the phone company. He fished four, maybe five pro events a year, so he wasn’t a serious threat to anybody. He had no enemies, Decker. All the guys liked Bobby.”
“So what made him different?” Decker asked.
“He enjoyed himself more,” Lanie said. “He seemed so happy just to be out there . . . and those were the best nights for us, after he’d spent a day on the lake. Even if he hadn’t caught a thing, he’d be happy. Laughing, oh brother, he’d laugh at the whole damn ritual. Bobby loved fishing, that’s for sure, but at least he saw how crazy it looked from the outside. And that’s more than I can say for my brother.”
R. J. Decker got up and switched off the TV. This was the part he’d been waiting for.
“Did Dennis tell you exactly why he hired me?”
“No,” Lanie said, “but it can only be one thing. The cheating.”
As if it were no secret.
“Dennis knows Dickie Lockhart’s been rigging the tournaments,” she said. “It’s all he talks about. At first he actually tried to hire some killers. He said that’s what Hemingway would have done.”
“No, Hemingway would have done it himself.”
“About six months ago Dennis flew down two mob guys from Queens. Offered them eighty-five grand to bump off Dickie and grind the body into puppy chow. My brother didn’t know one of the creeps was working for the feds—Sal something-or-other. He blabbed the whole crazy story. Luckily no one at the FBI believed it, but for a while Dennis was scared out of his pants. At least it c
ured him of the urge to kill Dickie Lockhart. Now he says he’ll settle for an indictment.”
“So your brother’s next move,” R. J. Decker said, “was to hire me.”
Lanie shook her head. “Bobby.”
Decker had been hoping she wouldn’t say that.
“Dennis met Bobby on the pro circuit and they hit it off right away. They even fished together in a few of the buddy tournaments, and always finished in the loot. Dennis told Bobby his suspicions about Lockhart and offered him a ton of money to get the proof.”
“What could Bobby do that your brother couldn’t do himself?”
“Snoop,” Lanie said, “inconspicuously. Everybody knows Dennis has a hard-on for Dickie Lockhart. Dickie knows it too, and he’s damn careful with Dennis around. So my brother’s plan was to pull out of the next few tournaments—claim the family business as an excuse—and hope that Dickie got careless.”
“With Bobby Clinch watching every move.”
“Exactly.”
Decker asked, “How much money did Dennis offer him?”
“Plenty. Bobby wasn’t greedy, but he wanted enough to be able to get out of his marriage. See, he wanted Clarisse to have the house, free and clear. He’d never just walk out on her and the kids.”
R. J. Decker wasn’t exactly moved to tears. Lanie’s story was mucky, and Decker was ready to say goodnight.
“Did your brother know about you and Bobby?” he asked.
“Sure he did. Dennis never said a word, but I’m sure he knew.” Lanie Gault put her hands under her chin. “I thought he might bring it up, after Bobby was killed. Just a note or a phone call—something to let on that he knew I was hurting. Not Dennis. The sonofabitch has Freon in his veins, I’m warning you. My brother wants to nail Dickie Lockhart and if you happen to die in the chase he won’t be sending a wreath to the funeral. Just another replacement. Like you.”
The possibility of being murdered over a dead fish did not appeal to R. J. Decker’s sense of adventure. He had photographed men who had died for less, and many who had died for more. Over the years he had adopted a carrion fly’s unglamorous view of death: it didn’t really matter how you got that way, it stunk just the same.
“You think Lockhart killed your boyfriend?” Decker asked Lanie.
“Who else would do it?”
“You’re sure it was no accident?”
“Positive,” Lanie said. “Bobby knew every log in that lake. He could’ve run it blindfolded.”
Decker was inclined to believe her. “Who owns Dickie’s TV show?” he asked.
“The Outdoor Christian Network. You heard of it?”
“TV Bible geysers,” Decker said.
Lanie straightened, as if working out a crick in her spine. “More than old-time religion,” she said. “OCN is quite the modern conglomerate. They’re into health insurance, unit trusts, oil futures, real-estate development . . .”
“I’ll check into it,” Decker promised. “I’m tired, Lanie. I’ve got a rotten drive tomorrow.”
She nodded, got up, and slipped into her sandals. She stood in front of the mirror and brushed through her hair in brisk, sure strokes.
“One more thing,” Decker said. “Out at the cemetery, how did you know which one was me? Sanibel was a long time ago.”
Lanie laughed. “You kidding?”
“Don’t tell me I stood out.”
“Yeah, you did,” she said, “but Dennis wired me a picture, in case I wasn’t sure.”
“A picture.”
Lanie reached in her purse. “Courtesy of the booking desk at the Dade County Jail.”
Decker recognized the old mug shots. Cute move, Dennis. Just a touch of the hot needle.
“I’ve seen friendlier smiles,” Lanie said, studying the police photos. “You still taking pictures, Decker?”
“Once in a while.”
“Maybe you could do me sometime. I’m dunking of going back into modeling.” Lanie put the purse under her arm and opened the door. “It’s been so long I’ve probably forgotten how to pose.”
You’re doing just fine, Decker thought. “Good night,” he said.
Decker had to go back to Miami to soup some film for an insurancefraud trial, set for the coming week. He figured he’d use the long drive to decide what to do about Dennis Gault and the fishing scam. His instincts about the cast of characters told him to drop the case—but what about the death of Bobby Clinch?
As he packed his suitcase Decker heard himself say: So what? He hated the way he sounded because he sounded like every lazy asshole cop or P.I. he’d ever met. Big cases, big problems. Go for the easy bucks, that would be the advice.
Yet Decker knew he couldn’t drop it now. Bobby Clinch got killed because he went snooping for a secret fish; such a remarkable crime couldn’t easily be ignored. The idea that somebody had become homicidal over a largemouth bass was perversely appealing to Decker, and it made him want very much to get a picture of the guys who did it.
First he needed to meet with Gault again, a distasteful prospect. He could do it this evening, back in Miami; it wouldn’t take long. From the motel room Decker called and made reservations for the following night on a seven-P.M. United flight to New Orleans. The Cajun Invitational Bass Classic was this week’s stop on the professional fishing tour, and a good place for Decker to get his first glimpse of Dickie Lockhart in action. He had seen the famous TV angler’s face on a billboard across from a bait shop on Route 222: “Dickie Lockhart Loves Happy Gland Fish Scent! So Do Lunker Bass!” Decker had been so intrigued by the billboard that he’d asked a man at the bait shop if the Happy Gland company made a formula for humans. The man at the bait shop dutifully checked behind the counter and said no.
Before leaving Harney, Decker tried to call Ott Pickney at the newspaper. Sandy Kilpatrick, the birdlike editor, said Ott had gone out early to do some interviews. The note of concern in Kilpatrick’s voice suggested that pre-lunchtime enterprise was uncharacteristic behavior for Ott. Decker left a message to have Ott call him that night in Miami.
At that moment Ott Pickney was slurping down black coffee at Culver Rundell’s bait shop on the southern shore of Lake Jesup. Culver Rundell was behind the counter and his brother Ozzie was out back dipping shiners. Ott was trying to strike up a conversation about Bobby Clinch. Ott had set his reporter’s notebook on the counter twenty minutes earlier, and the pages were still blank.
“Sorry I’m not much help,” Culver Rundell said. “Bobby was a nice guy, a pretty good basser. That’s about all I can tell you. Also, he favored spinnerbaits.”
“Spinnerbaits.”
“Over plastic worms,” Culver Rundell explained.
Ott Pickney could not bring himself to transcribe this detail.
“I understand you were here when they brought in the body,” Ott said.
“I was. The Davidson boys found him. Daniel and Desi.”
“How awful,” Ott said.
“It was my truck that took him to the morgue.”
Ott said nothing about the autopsy. Dr. Pembroke was third on his list of interview subjects.
“I hated to miss the funeral,” Culver Rundell said, “but we had one hellacious busy morning.”
“The casket was made out of Bobby’s boat.”
“So I heard!” Culver said. “What a neat idea. I wisht I coulda seen it.”
Ott tapped his Bic pen on the counter and said amiably, “I was amazed how handsomely they did it.”
“What I heard,” said Culver Rundell, “is they got a regular oak coffin from Pearl Brothers, sanded off the finish, and paneled it with long strips from the hull of the boat. Cost another two grand, I know for a fact. The bass club is paying.”
Ott Pickney said, “And who would have done the work, the funeral home?”
“Naw, it was Larkin’s shop.”
Larkin was a carpenter. He had done all the benches at the Harney County Courthouse, and also the front doors on the new U.S. Post Office.
“Well, he did a damn fine job with the coffin,” Ott said. He left two one-dollar bills on the countertop, said good-bye, and drove immediately to Larkin’s shop. Ott hoped there would be something left to see, though he had no idea exactly what to look for.
The shop was more of an old A-frame barn with a fancy new electric garage door, the kind used on those big import-export warehouses in western Dade County. The door to the wood shop was up. Ott saw plenty of raw furniture but no carpenters. It turned out Larkin wasn’t there; it was a slow morning, so he’d gone fishing. Naturally.
A young black apprentice carpenter named Miller asked the reporter what he wanted.
“I’m doing a story about Bobby Clinch, the young man who died in that terrible boating accident at the Bog.”
“Yeah,” Miller said. His workshirt was soaked. Sawdust and curlicued pine shavings stuck to his coal-black arms. He looked as if he were in the middle of a project, and wanted to get back to it.
Pushing things, Ott Pickney said, “This shop did the custom work on the coffin, right?”
“Yeah,” Miller said, “the boat job.”
“It was really something,” Ott said. “How did you guys do that? You won’t mind if I take some notes—”
“Mr. Larkin did it all by himself,” Miller said. “I guess he knew the deceased.”
That last word rattled Ott. He glanced up from the notebook to catch the cutting look in Miller’s eye. The look said: Don’t patronize me, pal, I got better things to do.
“Blue metal-flake casket, man. Looked like a giant fucking cough drop.”
Ott cleared his throat. “I’m sure they meant well . . . I mean, it was supposed to be symbolic. Sort of a farewell gesture.”
“I’ll give you a farewell gesture—” Miller said, but then the phone rang in the far corner of the workshed. The apprentice hurried off, and Ott quietly poked through the shop. He wondered why he’d never gotten the hang of talking to black people, why they always looked at him as if he were a cockroach.