by Carl Hiaasen
“Call the pilot is what we do. Tell him we’re on the way.”
Neville’s friends on Andros said he was crazy not to take the money from the sale of his family’s property and build a fine new beach house on another stretch of seafront. They couldn’t understand his militant opposition to the future Curly Tail Lane Resort, which they gullibly believed would bring new jobs and a geyser of tourist dollars. Words didn’t flow easily from Neville and he struggled without success to explain his churned feelings, the gutting sense of loss. His three girlfriends sniped relentlessly on the subject of his stubborn foolishness, to the point that he began to miss the sulfurous company of Driggs.
The monkey had been sighted around Rocky Town in the Dragon Queen’s motley entourage of spurious half cousins and walleyed supplicants. Meanwhile the unwanted American, Christopher, showed no effects of major voodoo. Neville was distraught to see on his former homestead a tall pile of casuarina trees that had been felled in order to widen the beach; their scraggly dead roots looked like unclenched claws. Neville was halfway over the chain-link fence when Christopher’s hired goon burst from the trailer swinging a cricket mallet and snorting like a gored hog.
Neville hopped on his bicycle and rode off shaking a fist. He hurried to confront the Dragon Queen but his angry knock on her door went unanswered. Through an open window he spied on the table an empty rum bottle and a puddle of hardened yellow wax where a candle had melted. Mingled with a smell of cigars was the familiar funk of unwashed simian.
He aimed his bike toward the wharf and wound up at the conch shack cooling his palms around a bottle of Kalik. Like many native-born Bahamians, Neville wasn’t intractably aligned against progress, yet he was wary. Despite its nautical proximity to South Florida, Andros hadn’t been overrun like Bimini or Freeport because its long western coast was inconveniently shallow and short of natural harbors. The island’s vast middle interior was mostly boggy wilderness, a stifling outback. A slender Andros economy relied on vegetable farms, which fed most of the Bahamas, and on scattered coastal fishing settlements such as Rocky Town. One overabundant resource was fresh springwater; seven million gallons a day were shipped from Morgan’s Bluff to Nassau, a place that many Androsians were content to avoid.
In Neville’s view, the Curly Tail Lane extravaganza looked like another crooked Bay Street deal. That some people (his own half sister included) had been bought off was a certainty. The traditional outcome of such high-flying enterprises was, of course, bankruptcy. Christopher would be jacked up and jerked around until he ran out of patience and then money. Thereafter he would bitterly abandon the Bahamas and his half-built tourist trap, which would sit moldering in the heat until another foreign sucker came along. Green Beach was destined to be a perpetual construction site unless Neville could act swiftly to regain dominion.
A third beer was sweating on the bar before him when he spotted the Dragon Queen. Trailed by a handful of scrofulous attendants, she was motoring down the main road on a tricked-out wheelchair that gave the appearance of a mobile throne. Balanced on the steering yoke was Driggs, festively grinding his diaper against one of the rearview mirrors. He tolerated a batik head wrap that matched a flamingo-pink number worn in cool regality by the Dragon Queen. As they drew closer Neville could hear her singing low and froggishly. Her expression was governed by a style of wraparound shades once favored by the Haitian secret police.
“Madam! Stop!” Neville sprung off the bar stool and ran toward the approaching procession. “Madam, it’s me!”
The monkey barked once and the Dragon Queen’s ushers shifted themselves into a protective wedge around the still-rolling scooter. Neville was roughly turned away; there were filthy oaths and the threat of a stomping. Again he called out to the voodoo priestess, who dismissed his plea with a backhanded wave. The group proceeded past him along the path toward the conch hut, the Dragon Queen gliding ahead on rubber wheels.
Stunned, Neville crossed the street and sagged against a shaded coral wall. Momentarily a covered golf cart hummed into view, and out stepped the pinheaded security guard from Curly Tail Lane. He glanced at Neville long enough to scowl in recognition; then he strode directly to the palm-thatched restaurant, where the ragged assembly parted. Neville watched the goon kneel beside the electric dolly and plant a kiss on the Dragon Queen, a bobbing lip-lock that lasted long enough to draw saucy cheers. The stereo was engaged and soon the two of them were dancing to Jimmy Cliff. As the security guard pranced gaping and bear-like, the Dragon Queen used the joystick on her nimble chariot to spin fanciful circles around him. Throughout these maneuvers, Driggs—jouncing like a miniature stagecoach driver—cheeped in accompaniment.
Neville was stricken breathless from anguish. What a wretched mistake he’d made! The whore-witch Dragon Queen had taken him for both his money and his monkey.
Now she was screwing the white devil’s hired man.
Sonny Summers said: “Let me tell you about my day.”
“Wish I could make it better.”
“Maybe you can, Andrew.”
Yancy noticed some additions to the sheriff’s desktop display: a photo of his wife wearing a snorkel and hoisting a distressed lobster, a brass toothpick holder from the chamber of commerce, and a small chintzy replica of the Pilar, Hemingway’s fishing boat.
“Remember … you know … that little solid you did for me?”
“Babysitting the dead guy’s left arm,” Yancy said.
“Right. It was my understanding you delivered it to the widow.”
“Absolutely.”
“Who gave it a decent Christian burial.”
“Yes, I can personally attest.”
Sonny Summers slid forward. “So, this morning, I get a call from Dr. Rawlings, who says the ME’s office in Miami needs the DNA swab he took off the arm.”
That request would have come from Dr. Rosa Campesino, doing her job.
With false innocence Yancy said, “Maybe they found another body part from the same corpse.”
“Exactly what I was thinking. Hoping for, to be honest. But then later Rawlings calls back and says guess what. You won’t believe this, Andrew. They’ve got the actual arm in Miami. The freaking arm! From the Misty!”
Yancy of course had ID’d it himself at the Miami-Dade morgue. The distinctive watch stripe was still visible on Nick Stripling’s mummifying wrist, although the embalmer had decorously retracted the middle finger. The county police were still trying to figure out how the severed limb of a drowned fisherman had ended up in the possession of two career felons, their stoved selves now occupying adjacent autopsy tables. Yancy had theorized to Rosa that Caitlin Cox had blabbed to her stepmother about the incriminating hatchet and the bone fragments he’d removed from the condo. Fearing a homicide investigation, Eve had recruited two random nitwits to dig up her husband’s arm so there would be nothing for a coroner to exhume and examine.
Meanwhile, Rosa had to be careful what she told detectives. She might get fired if it became known that she was surreptitiously assisting a rookie restaurant inspector on an out-of-county murder case.
“Andrew, what the hell?” Sonny Summers threw up his hands.
“Give me back my old job and I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Christ, why would I want to get to the bottom of it? I just need it to go away.”
The sheriff had come to the office in a pressed blue blazer with the requisite American flag lapel pin. He appeared to have put on a few soft pounds.
“We were dealing with a routine accident, right? Guy goes fishing, flips his boat, the sharks show up, whatever … and then his arm gets snagged by a tourist. See, I don’t understand how we got from there to here.”
“Because it wasn’t an accident, Sonny.”
“You’re still pissed about getting canned. Is that what this is all about? Stirring the shit pot?”
Again Yancy thought of Rosa, who was definitely in the line of bureaucratic fire. Now she had real work to do, a
case number and everything. Still, she hadn’t urged him to retreat or even move to the shadows. A true champ, Yancy thought.
To the sheriff he said: “You’re the one who wanted the guy’s arm to go up the road in the first place. Now you got your wish, so what’s the problem?”
“Channel 7, Andrew.”
“You’re killing me.”
“They’ll get a whiff of this. Don’t think they won’t.”
“Who cares?” Yancy asked. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“And the fucking Herald will be all over it, too. My wife, she wants me to run for state attorney general year after next. She’s already looking at private schools in Tallahassee.”
Yancy found himself improbably touched by the sheriff’s grandiose fantasy.
“Don’t you get it?” Sonny Summers said. “Everything bad’s gonna come out now. Weeks ago, when that goddamn arm first showed up, I told the media that Miami had taken over the investigation. That’s what Rawlings put in his report, except it wasn’t true. The thing was in your—”
“Freezer.”
“—personal custody. And you’re not even a cop anymore.”
“That you can fix,” Yancy said. “Just hand over my badge.”
“They’re gonna say I ditched a human body part and then lied about it. That’s tampering with evidence, obstruction, whatever. Now the whole damn mess looks like a cover-up.”
“Naw, it’s just a jurisdictional snafu. Blame it on me—no, wait, don’t.”
“Hang on.” Sonny Summers was jotting down the phrase “jurisdictional snafu.”
Yancy decided it was wiser to keep the sheriff on edge. He said, “You should be aware, however, that Stripling was murdered here in Monroe County, not in Miami.”
Sonny Summers looked up, blinking like a toad in a puddle of piss.
“Chopped to pieces at his condo on Duck Key,” Yancy reported heavily. “The guy was a thieving shitbird but, still, a dreadful end. I know exactly how the killing went down.”
“You do?”
“The wife and boyfriend did it. Hacked up Stripling’s body and sunk the boat.”
Sonny Summers bit his lower lip. “Where’s the rest of the corpse?”
“Who knows? Gone forever.”
“But, then, the arm she had the funeral for—how’d it get back to the Miami morgue?”
“Grave robbery gone bad.”
“Oh, fuckeroo.” The sheriff covered his ears.
Yancy mildly raised his voice: “I’m betting they hired some mopes to dig it up.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“Because,” Yancy said, “yours truly was hot on their tail. The widow Stripling and her man are running scared.”
Sonny Summers kicked back from the desk, the chair squealing under his fresh lard. “But you’re not in homicide, Andrew. You’re on roach patrol!”
“Once a cop, always a cop,” Yancy said fraternally.
Given the frequency with which body parts turned up in Miami, the discovery of another hacked-off arm usually didn’t draw much attention from local news outlets. However, most severed limbs were found in Dumpsters or roadside canals, not in Callaway golf bags. Such a colorful detail, if leaked to a reporter, would almost surely produce a headline. After that it would take only a bit of digging to learn that Nick Stripling had been a big-time Medicare fraudster. Next stop: Dateline NBC.
“I wasn’t the one who said it was a boat accident,” the sheriff protested. “That was the almighty U.S. Coast Guard!”
“Sonny, please let me finish this off. I’m so close.”
“No way.”
“Here’s your story: You had me working on the case from day one, okay? On special assignment. Why? Because you’re a lawman’s lawman. You always had private doubts, a gut feeling there was foul play. That’s what you tell the press after I bust Eve Stripling for first-degree murder—then you’ll look like a star.”
“Slow down, Andrew.”
“I’m the only one who can put it all together!”
Sonny Summers wouldn’t budge. “You can’t be anywhere near this case, or any case, because you’re not on the damn payroll anymore. You’re an ex-detective, and you got that way by violating a prominent dermatologist with a household appliance in the middle of the business district! It made all the papers, my friend.”
Yancy had one more card to play. “Remember that fishing mate who got shot? It’s a city case. Charles Phinney was his name.”
“Sure, I remember. The robbery near the raw bar.”
“Wrong.”
“Or was it the Turtle Kraals?”
“It wasn’t a robbery, Sonny. The kid was killed because he knew too much about the arm.”
“You’re giving me a cluster migraine.”
“Stripling’s widow set him up. Her boyfriend was the shooter.”
“Guess what? Let’s stop here.”
“That’s three murders,” Yancy said, “almost four. They tried to kill me, too.”
The sheriff lowered his lamentation to a rasp. “This is not a productive conversation.”
“Let me make it all better.”
“Take a vacation, Andrew. I’ll clear it with Lombardo.”
“But I don’t need a vacation. I need my job back.”
Yancy had to cool down so he bought a ticket on the Conch Train and took a slow tour through town. A pleasant couple sat down near him, confiding a fervid interest in the polydactyl cats that roamed the Hemingway House. One of the animals was reputed to have at least twenty-six toes, and for a glimpse the Whitlocks had traveled all the way from Ashtabula, Ohio. Yancy hopped off the train near the Mallory docks and strolled to the X-rated T-shirt shop, where he emphasized to Pestov the importance of Madeline’s well-being. He was able to make his point without the Glock, which he’d chosen not to wear to his meeting with Sheriff Summers, who was a chronic stickler and worrywart.
Back at Big Pine, Yancy found his home reoccupied by Cody and Bonnie Witt, who now wished to be addressed by her pre-fugitive name of Plover. The summer rains had made a swamp of the couple’s camping adventure, and Cody was suffering from chiggers and an oral yeast infection. Yancy walked them next door and helped them erect their pup tent in the spacious master bedroom of Evan Shook’s unfinished spec house. Although the plumbing in the structure was connected, a semi-rustic experience was guaranteed by the raw plywood flooring, unscreened windows and lack of air-conditioning.
Rosa Campesino drove down after work and met Yancy at a Thai restaurant that he extolled as sanitary. Whenever he took her out, his appetite rebounded. Afterward they went to Duck Key, where the night watchman refused to open Stripling’s condo until Rosa weighed in with her Miami-Dade pathologist laminate, which was visually more impressive than Yancy’s restaurant-inspector ID.
It was clear that Eve Stripling had gutted the place in anticipation of a search warrant, confirming Yancy’s suspicion that Caitlin Cox had told her about his earlier visit. Rosa remained on the balcony while Yancy returned Stripling’s hair and bone chips to the shower drain; the hatchet he wiped down and wedged behind the water heater, making sure its wooden handle protruded far enough to be noticed by any half-competent CSI tech.
Earlier, over noodle soup, Rosa had reported three important forensic findings, two of which Yancy had been expecting: The Duck Key bone fragments had definitely come from Nick Stripling’s arm, and the odd notches on the stump of the humerus matched the blade bite of the hatchet.
“But here’s the best part,” Rosa said. “The hatchet isn’t what severed the victim’s limb.”
“Then what the hell did they use?”
“A surgical saw, Andrew.”
“No shit?” Instantly he thought of O’Peele, the dead orthopedist.
Rosa said, “After the amputation they whacked at the arm with the axe to obscure the saw marks.”
“And make it appear that a boat propeller did it.”
“The wounds really don’t
look much alike, but they wouldn’t know that. Same with those shark nibbles—they neglected to find the right species.”
“Amateur hour.”
“Yeah, but they nearly pulled it off,” Rosa said, “so to speak.”
“The sheriff’s wigging. How’re things in your shop?”
“So far, so good. From now on I’ll be sticking strictly to the science. Whatever else I might have heard about this case, it’s only hearsay. For instance, I have no official knowledge of the hair and bones we’re now illegally transporting.”
“What hair?” Yancy said. “What bones?”
After reinstating the crime scene at Duck Key, he drove back to Big Pine; Rosa followed in her own car. Wheeling up to his place, Yancy looked next door and saw through the top-floor windows the yellowish glow of a kerosene lantern that he’d loaned to Cody and Bonnie-slash-Plover. He had also coached them about what to say when Evan Shook showed up, and he regretted that he wouldn’t be there to observe the man’s reaction.
He led Rosa into his house and put on some jazz and poured two glasses of red wine. Then he told her about his forced furlough. “Sonny strongly recommends time away. He believes my relationship with Stripling’s arm is problematic, and he’d like me to be unavailable for potential interviews and depositions.”
“I bet I know where you’re going, Andrew.”
“Can’t you take some vacation days?”
“Ha, not right now. The death business is booming.”
Yancy pulled his travel duffel from a closet and tossed in some swim trunks, boxers and a stack of fishing shirts. He said, “Listen, I’ve been having this super-kinked-out fantasy, better than the autopsy slab. Promise not to freak.”
“Oh brother.”
“Me. You. King-sized bed at the Biltmore.”
“You are so warped. Cable porn?”
“And French chocolates on the pillow.”
“Here, let me help you pack.”
In the morning they enjoyed a room-service breakfast before Rosa left for the morgue. Yancy wrapped up a leftover slice of smoked salmon, checked out of the hotel and drove directly to the retirement residence of corrupt Miami police sergeant Johnny Mendez. Sunning on the front walk was the ex-officer’s rotund Siamese. Yancy displayed the fragrant morsel of fish and the cat trailed him to the Subaru.