Skinny Dip

by Carl Hiaasen

Tool seemed impressed. “Yeah? What kind?”

  God help me, thought Chaz. The mutants are bonding.

  Rose said something that got a good laugh, and suddenly Chaz felt Corbett Wheeler’s meaty hands steering him out of the sacristy and up a small flight of stairs to the pulpit. Chaz was trembling as he adjusted the microphone and fished through the pockets of his suit in search of his notes. He was alarmed to realize that his penmanship, once precise and consistent, had degenerated to the sort of sinuous, pinprick scrawl associated with UFO correspondents and future workplace snipers.

  He raised his eyes to the gathering and immediately froze, for there was the blackmailer, three rows from the front, grinning like a hungry coyote. Chaz Perrone jerked his gaze to the other side of the church only to spy Karl Rolvaag, his chin impassively propped on his knuckles, as if watching a hockey game.

  Chaz’s throat turned to sawdust. When he tried to speak, he sounded like a busted violin. Joey’s brother delivered a glass of water but Chaz was afraid to drink it, fearing it might be spiked.

  Finally he licked his lips and began: “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to tell you about my wife, Joey, who I loved more than anything else in this world.”

  At that moment, Joey Perrone was reaching into the bird feeder to retrieve the spare key for the house she had once shared with her husband. She entered through the back door, disabled the alarm, hurried to the bathroom and vomited her breakfast.

  Get a grip, she told herself. For heaven’s sake, you’re not the first woman who ever married the wrong guy.

  Just because you happened to pick one of the wrongest guys who ever lived.

  The bed was unmade. Joey lay down and took slow, measured breaths. On the pillow she smelled Chaz’s shampoo, some mango-scented goop that he’d bought at that Ricca woman’s salon. Joey stared at the ceiling and wondered if Chaz had been lying right here when he’d made up his mind to kill her; plotting while she’d dozed beside him, clueless.

  She went to the living room and put on a Sheryl Crow CD that both of them had liked. The music made her feel better. She took a seat on the sofa, where Chaz had left his backpack unzipped in typical disarray. Inside, among wads of blank water charts and half-completed mileage vouchers, was a photocopy of the bogus will that Mick had sent to the detective. Chaz had underscored in red ink the paragraph that ostensibly bequeathed his wife’s entire fortune to him. In the margin he had drawn three dancing exclamation points. Joey flipped to the last page and eyed the signature, which Mick had traced off one of her credit card receipts. It was good enough to fool her husband, who would be greedily predisposed to embrace its authenticity.

  The ass.

  Imagining himself so irresistible and smooth, such a studly operator, that Joey—in some impulsive swoon—would have shredded their pre-nuptial agreement and decided to leave him everything. Knowing Chaz, he’d already conjured a theory to explain the stunning turn of events. He probably figured that Joey had planned to surprise him with the good news on that final night of the cruise, but she’d never gotten the chance. Then, after she was gone, Corbett had anonymously slipped the will to Rolvaag in order to stir suspicion about what had happened; to brand Chaz with a clear motive for murdering his sister.

  At least that’s how Chaz might put it together, Joey thought. The appeal of inheriting $13 million would bring its own sunny plausibility, regardless of the odds.

  Joey returned the document to the backpack, then turned off the CD player. When she approached the aquarium, the fish rose up in a manic glitter of anticipation. The man from the pet shop had re-stocked the decimated tank with neon gobies, a rainbow of wrasses, a butterfly fish, a queen angel, two clownfish and a yellow tang. Their life expectancy would be short under Chaz’s inattentive guardianship, but for now all the fish were frisky and bright. Joey sprinkled three pinches of flaked food into the water and watched the kaleidoscopic frenzy.

  The decorative centerpiece of the aquarium was a ceramic shipwreck, a schooner keeled bow-first in the gravel. Joey dug into her jeans and took out her platinum wedding band, bouncing it in the palm of one hand. She didn’t bother to re-read the engraving on the inner rim, which she knew by heart: “To Joey, the girl of my dreams. Love, CRP.” Joey closed her fist around the ring and, with the other hand, lifted the lid off the tank.

  “Try nightmares, schmucko,” she said. “Girl of your nightmares.”

  Chaz had settled in comfortably at the pulpit. Miraculously, the stiffness in his neck had vanished and the scabs on his face had stopped itching.

  “I’ve gone over this tragedy a thousand times in my mind,” he was saying, “and I can’t help but thinking it was my fault. If only I’d told Joey to wait for me that night, if only I hadn’t taken those few extra minutes in the cabin, we would’ve walked out on the deck of the ship together. She wouldn’t have been standing alone at the rail in that slippery rain—I would’ve been right beside her, and this tragic accident would never have happened.”

  Chaz knew the risks of recounting such bald fiction before an audience of potential witnesses—any decent defense lawyer would have counseled against it. But Chaz thought it was important to show Rolvaag that he was sticking to his original story. At the same time, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to feed speculation that Joey had been battling with inner demons so dreadful, she’d confided in no one, and that she might even have done herself in.

  “I’ve replayed the evening over and over again in my head,” Chaz said, “but there are always more questions than answers. How many of you have read a book called Madame Bovary?”

  As expected, all the members of Joey’s book group raised their hands. So did Karl Rolvaag and perhaps a dozen others in the church.

  Chaz said, “Joey was reading this novel on our cruise. Afterward I got curious and read it myself.” In truth, he’d pulled a two-paragraph synopsis from a Flaubert fan site on the Internet.

  “It’s about a young Frenchwoman who’s bored and unhappy with her life. She marries a man she hopes will bring her excitement and fulfillment . . . a doctor.” Chaz made his voice crack, so that even the dimmest bulbs in the audience could make the connection. “But it’s sad, because Madame Bovary still isn’t satisfied, so she sets off on all these escapades that bring her no lasting happiness. And at the end of the story, this poor confused woman winds up killing herself.”

  There was an uneasy hush in the church. Chaz pressed forward without pause.

  “After finishing the book, I admit I was pretty depressed. I couldn’t help wondering whether my Joey was unhappy, too. Whether she identified in some way with the restless wife in the story, and hid those feelings from me.” Chaz lowered his head and let his shoulders sag. When he looked up again, he saw that the blackmailer appeared to be dozing. Meanwhile, Rolvaag’s expression (or lack thereof) hadn’t changed.

  “But I’ve thought about it and thought about it,” Chaz went on, “and after speaking to so many of you who knew and loved my wonderful wife”—another outrageous lie; he hadn’t returned a single phone call—“I’m more certain than ever that she was a very happy person at heart. A positive person, as her brother said. A firecracker, as her dear friend Rose described her. A fighter and an optimist who loved life. That’s the Joey Perrone I knew. That’s the Joey Perrone I adored. And that’s the Joey Perrone . . .”

  At that instant Chaz was distracted from his peroration by a lone figure entering the church somewhat awkwardly on crutches.

  “I will mourn for . . .”

  A woman, Chaz observed, who was pegging purposefully up the center aisle.

  “. . . for the rest of my . . .”

  Some frizzy-haired klutz with a plaster cast on one leg, interrupting his big tearjerker finale. Who would be rude enough to pull such a stunt?

  “. . . my, uh . . . my . . .”

  Ricca.

  No way! Chaz thought. It’s not possible.

  “. . . my life,” he rasped, clutching the sides of the podium.


  The assembly noticed his unsteadiness, and a ripple of concerned murmuring broke out. He forced himself to look away as Ricca sat down beside the blackmailer, who politely took her crutches and stowed them under the pew.

  Fuck me.

  The breath emptied from Charles Regis Perrone in a stale sibilant rush. He reeled from the pulpit and staggered toward the sacristy, gulping like a doomed tuna. He made it as far as the doorway before his legs turned to noodles, Tool catching him on the way down. Chaz lowered his fluttering eyelids to the mellow harmony of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”—a smooth and savvy segue by the Act of Contritionists.

  Ricca whispered to Mick Stranahan: “You were right about that dickhead. He did kill his wife. He told me so.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Long story short—he dragged me out to the boonies and shot me. Can you believe it?”

  Stranahan said he could, easily. “What are you doing here?”

  “Freaking him out,” Ricca said. “It’s crazy but I wanted Chaz to see I was still alive. What can he do to me in a church?”

  “Did you go to the cops?”

  “Not yet, but I will.”

  “Can I ask a favor? Could you wait a couple of days?”

  Ricca smiled. “So you really are blackmailing him.”

  “Oh, it’s better than that,” Stranahan said. “But in the meantime, you be careful. Chaz will insist on seeing you. He’s going to beg and cry and probably offer you a ton of dough to keep quiet.”

  “And then he’ll try to kill me again.”

  “Of course. But I’m going to give you a phone number. Be sure to call it before you go meet with him.”

  Stranahan scribbled the information on the back of a prayer card. Ricca didn’t recognize the name or the number, but she slipped the card into her purse. The guitar trio ended its song and the church fell silent. Corbett Wheeler returned to the pulpit.

  “This has been a most difficult day for all of us,” he said with a sideways glance toward the sacristy. “Speaking for myself, I still can’t really believe my sister is gone. It seems like just this morning that she was teasing me about my farmer shoes and my Aboriginal haircut.”

  Everybody chuckled, but only Stranahan got the inside joke. Joey had needled her brother mercilessly while he was dressing for the memorial.

  “Thank you all for coming today, and for sharing your memories. Joey would have been touched,” Corbett Wheeler said in conclusion. “I know that many of you wish to express your condolences to her husband, Chaz. He’ll be waiting to speak with you on your way out.”

  “Sweet,” said Ricca.

  “Easy does it,” Stranahan warned.

  No one was more stunned than Charles Perrone to hear, upon regaining consciousness, that he would be personally greeting the mourners outside St. Conan’s. He complained that he was too weak and distraught, but Joey’s brother took him by the arm and told him to buck up. Tool made no effort to intervene on Chaz’s behalf, having stopped to look at the photograph of the doctor’s dead wife on the altar. It was the first time Tool had seen a picture of Joey Perrone, and she reminded him of somebody.

  But who? Tool couldn’t recall. That was one of the drawbacks of the narcotic patches—they scrambled up your memory at times.

  He went outside and found a shady spot under a banyan tree. Lowering himself to the ground, he propped his head against the trunk. As he watched Chaz shake hands and give hugs on the steps of the church, Tool thought again about the photo of Mrs. Perrone on the altar. He wondered how a pretty, smart-looking girl could hook up with such a shitweasel. There was plainly no damn justice in the world.

  Tool was annoyed when a man ambled up and sat next to him.

  “Remember me?” the man asked.

  “Sure do.” It was the guy who’d slugged him in the throat that night at Chaz’s house. The blackmailer.

  Tool’s eyes narrowed. “Lucky we ain’t alone.”

  “I don’t blame you for being mad. I belted you pretty good.”

  “Jest wait’ll next time, boy.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” The blackmailer lowered his voice. “The money drop.”

  “The what?”

  “For the blackmail payoff.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Tool shifted uncomfortably. His rump was inopportunely aligned on the knob of a banyan root, which poked against the embedded bullet.

  The man said, “I’ve got a feeling Chaz is going to try something exceptionally stupid. That would be bad for him, and also for Mr. Hammernut.”

  “Don’t worry. He ain’t gone try nuthin’ long as I’m there.”

  “Glad to hear you say that.” The blackmailer pointed toward the doorway of the church. “You recognize those two people?”

  Tool squinted. “The one’s a cop.”

  “Right, that’s Detective Rolvaag. How about the dark-haired lady on crutches?”

  “Maybe.” Tool dug into his overalls to scratch at his crotch.

  The blackmailer said the woman’s name was Ricca Spillman. “Your boy Chaz tried to kill her the other night.”

  “No shit?” Tool said, though he knew it was true. He also knew that he should tell Red, because this was serious. The doctor had gone and shot a girl, who, instead of dying quietly, was now chatting it up with a cop. Tool got up and began kneading his buttocks. He could feel the old rifle slug chafing against his tailbone.

  The blackmailer stood up, too. He said, “I’d prefer to steer clear of Rolvaag for now, so I’ll be on my way.”

  Tool shrugged. He noticed that the woman on crutches was being approached by Mrs. Perrone’s brother, the sheep farmer. More bad news, thought Tool.

  The blackmailer said, “For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry about what happened last week at the house.”

  Tool said, “We ain’t done with that yet.”

  “I figured not.”

  “Hey, where’s your girlfriend? The one that was down at Flamingo?”

  “Oh, she’s home cleaning the machine guns.”

  Tool wasn’t sure if the guy was joking. Then, out of the blue, it hit him—that’s who the picture on the altar looked like: the blackmailer’s girlfriend. It had been dark when he’d met her that night on the docks, but what he’d seen of her face strongly resembled the dead woman in the photograph. Hell, maybe they were kin. Maybe the blackmail was a revenge-type deal.

  “Mister, can I ast you somethin’?” Tool said.

  “Nope,” said the blackmailer, and then he was gone.

  In a way, Chaz Perrone was relieved to have Corbett Wheeler beside him in the receiving line, sharing the burden of cordiality. It was hard work being polite and commiserative, especially when faking it. Chaz could handle about twelve seconds of heartfelt sympathy from each mourner before passing them down the row like a sandbag. He concluded from their worried expressions that he must have looked like hell, what with the shakes and the damp upper lip and the festering mosquito bites. But all that was good for his act—the grieving husband, falling apart at the seams.

  Handshake and hug.

  Handshake and hug.

  Chaz Perrone struggled to maintain a passable mask of sorrow, but he felt his mouth twist into an ugly scowl when the blackmailer came down the line. The man pressed an envelope into Chaz’s hands, leaned close and said in that hokey Charlton Heston voice: “I hear helicopters, Chazzie.”

  Reflexively Chaz glanced up, but he saw only a small plane trailing a Budweiser banner, heading for the beach.

  “See you tomorrow night,” the blackmailer said, and strolled away.

  Chaz had no time to be flustered, for he’d caught sight of Ricca, conspicuously yakking with Rolvaag about God knows what. The detective appeared cordial and at ease, certainly not acting as if he’d just been informed of an attempted homicide at Loxahatchee. Still, it was all Chaz could do not to bolt like a jackrabbit.

  As he was snatched into the moist embrace of Mrs. Raguso, tearful
and vaguely redolent of mozzarella, Chaz was dismayed to hear Corbett Wheeler excuse himself from the receiving line. Pinned to Mrs. Raguso’s bosom, Chaz watched disconsolately over her shoulder as Joey’s brother sauntered over to Ricca and struck up a conversation.

  Unbelievable, Chaz thought. I am so fucked.

  Within moments Ricca began clomping toward him, Corbett Wheeler leading the way. Chaz extricated himself from Mrs. Raguso, though not in time to flee.

  “Your housekeeper,” said Joey’s brother, “would like a private word.”

  “Sure,” Chaz said, thinking: Housekeeper? Christ, she’s never going to let me forget that one.

  Corbett Wheeler assumed the primary consoling duties as Chaz stepped away from the line. Ricca stood off to the side, eyeing him about as warmly as a barracuda. The tripod effect of her crutches made a conciliatory hug unfeasible.

  In a half whisper he said, “We need to talk.”

  “Go blow yourself, Chaz.”

  “I was crazed that night. Completely out of my mind.”

  Ricca said, “Save it for the jury, you sorry prick.”

  “I apologize for cleaning out your apartment, too. And getting rid of your car,” Chaz said. “I panicked, honey. What can I say?”

  “You look like shit. Are those cankers all over your face?”

  “Mosquito bites. I’m coming down with the West Nile.”

  “Good. I hope your balls rot off,” Ricca said.

  “Look, you’ve got a right to be pissed. What I did was a horrible thing.”

  “Duh, yeah?”

  “But it wasn’t the real me. I was whacked-out,” Chaz insisted. “Seriously. What can I do to make things right?”

  “Besides dying a slow, miserable death?”

  “Shhhh. Please, honey, not so loud.”

  “Two hundred and fifty grand,” Ricca said flatly. “In cash.”

  “Really?” Chaz felt washed with relief. He’d always pegged her as a money-grubber. It was the cheeriest possible news.

  “Plus a new car. Mustang convertible,” she said. “You don’t come through, I’ll be going to visit my new best friend.” She cut her eyes toward Karl Rolvaag, now chatting with the white-haired priest.