Skinny Dip (18 page)

“Then I owe him one,” Stranahan said. “Bless his lying, murderous, cheating, burnt cinder of a soul. Aren’t you getting hungry?”

“No!”

He pulled her close and held her there, Strom nuzzling the back of her neck. “Last night you were gloating, remember? Telling me how Chaz got stuck in neutral,” Stranahan said, “how his cannon had jammed, all because he smelled your perfume. You said it was priceless— that was your word. Priceless, knowing he was crippled by the thought of you.”

Joey had to smile. “It -was a moment. I heard him tell her that he couldn’t feel a thing. He was numb from the waist down.”

“Well, there you go,” Stranahan said. “That’s a hundred times better than a routine grudge fuck, even saucy Rose would agree. Now, if I don’t get some black coffee in my veins—”

“Mick, hold on.”

“Hush.” He held a finger to her lips. “Honestly, I don’t want an explanation of what happened last night. Allow me the middle-aged illusion that you were overcome by my stoic, virile charms.”

Joey slumped playfully against his shoulder. “Okay, cowboy, I give up.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Was that Chaz you were calling?”

“It was,” Stranahan said. “We’re on for midnight.”

“And what are we demanding, blackmailwise?”

“Good question. I was hoping for one of your famous lists,” he said. “Meanwhile, I expect Detective Rolvaag to visit our young widower soon. There’s been a surprising development in the investigation of your disappearance.”

“Do tell.”

“Shocking is the word for it,” Stranahan said. “Simply shocking.”

Karl Rolvaag turned the place upside down.

Two entire pythons, fourteen and a half linear feet of muscle, yet somehow they’d disappeared like fleas inside his puny apartment.

Incredible, Rolvaag thought. Where could they be?

The previous night he’d forgotten to latch the lid of the tank after refilling the water bowl. It had happened twice in the past, but his slug—

gish pets never noticed. Now it was springtime, when snakes become active, and the prowling pythons had taken advantage of his carelessness.

Rolvaag searched beneath the furniture, above the bookcases, behind and inside the major appliances—nothing. When he got to the bedroom, he experienced a ripple of apprehension, for he saw that he’d left a window open. Had the snakes escaped outdoors? The detective gazed seven stories down at the grid of shuffleboard courts that was the social and geographic hub of the Sawgrass Grove Condominium. Along a line of bedraggled hibiscus bushes, Nellie Shulman was walking her precious Petunia, a foul-tempered cur that appeared to be a cross between a chinchilla and a wolverine. Several of Mrs. Shulman’s neighbors were occupied by the same ritual, attached by dancing leashes to manic balls of fluff. From his vantage Rolvaag counted five dogs, all of them edibly sized for a python. The detective understood the urgency of finding his missing pets before they got hungry again.

First, though, he had to nail Charles Perrone.

On the way to work he called his source at the phone company, who without much grousing agreed to help. Time was running out, and Rolvaag needed to catch Perrone in a lie that couldn’t be discounted as a misread wristwatch or some other innocent mistake. Rolvaag’s man at the phone company promptly called back with numbers and names, only one of which was important to the detective.

Ricca Spillman opened the door as soon as he flashed his badge. She looked as if she’d spent the night in the trunk of a car.

“Are you all right?” Rolvaag asked.

“Soon as I make some coffee.”

Rolvaag noticed at least half a dozen empty beer bottles in the trash, and no sign of company. He said, “I’m investigating a missing-person case. I believe you know her—Joey Perrone.”

Ricca appeared to wobble. Rolvaag helped her navigate toward an armchair.

“I wasn’t even there,” she said.

“Where?”

“On that cruise.”

“I know you weren’t,” said Rolvaag, perplexed.

“Why are you here?” She laughed abjectly. “Somebody put my face on a milk carton, or what? Suddenly I’m Miss Popularity.”

The detective said that he’d watched Charles Perrone make a call from a pay phone in a Fort Lauderdale hotel. “It was Saturday evening, the day after Mrs. Perrone disappeared. The number that Mr. Perrone called was yours. When I asked him who he was talking to, he gave the name Ricca.”

She sagged. “What else did he say? No, wait, I want to call a lawyer.”

Rolvaag pulled up another chair. “You don’t need a lawyer, Miss Spillman. I just want to ask a few questions about Mr. Perrone’s relationship with his wife. Your personal impressions and observations.”

“Observations?”

“You know—did they seem happy? Did they argue a lot?”

Ricca eyed him sullenly. “Mr. Perrone and I didn’t spend a whole lotta time talking about Mrs. Perrone.”

“But did you notice anything… any unusual signs of tension when the two of them were together?”

“I was never with the two of them together” Ricca said sharply. “I was only with Chaz.”

“Joey wasn’t ever home when you were there?”

Ricca seemed genuinely insulted. “I don’t know what Chaz told you, but I’m not into threesomes, okay? Not my scene.”

The detective frowned. “I’m very sorry. I believe Mr. Perrone might’ve misrepresented the nature of your association.”

“You’re damn right he did.”

“He said you were their cleaning lady.”

“Come again?” Ricca sat forward.

“That night in the hotel lobby, he told me he was calling to give you the alarm code so you could get in to do the house.”

“The cleaning lady.” Ricca’s voice was like wet gravel.

Rolvaag flipped through the back pages of his notebook. “Here it is—Mr. Perrone said you were the cleaning lady and I could check it out myself. He said your first name was Ricca, but he couldn’t remember your last name.”

Ricca swallowed hard, working her jaw.

“So I got it off the toll records from the phone company,” the detective said.

Ricca rose, rubbing her eyes with a wrinkled pajama sleeve. “Listen, I gotta get ready for work.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” Rolvaag asked.

“Yeah. I don’t do houses, I do hair,” she said. “And Chaz’s burglar alarm was broke, so the code didn’t matter anyway. You can check it out.”

Not exactly a smoking gun, Rolvaag thought, but it’s better than nothing.

Back at the office, he rushed to tell Captain Gallo everything that Ricca Spillman had said. Gallo shrugged.

“So, Perrone lied.”

“Again,” Rolvaag said.

“So, he had a secret squeeze. Doesn’t make him a killer,” the captain said. “Of course he lied about the phone call. What’d you expect him to say—’Yes, Officer, I was just chatting with my girlfriend. She was all broken up to hear about my wife falling overboard and drowning on our anniversary cruise.’ Come on, Karl. Sometimes a lie isn’t a clue to anything. It’s just a reflex.”

On that subject, Rolvaag could not dispute Gallo’s insight. The detective pleaded for a few more days to lean on Ricca. “She’s highly pissed off at Perrone. She might give us something useful.”

Gallo shook his head. “If she’s not wearin’ a diamond engagement ring from your prime suspect, I ain’t interested. We need a motive, Karl. Something more reliable than the word of a sulking bimbo— unless she was in on it, too.”

“Not likely,” Rolvaag said.

A courier appeared with a plain cardboard envelope zippered in plastic. Gallo automatically reached for it, but the courier said it was addressed to Rolvaag. Surprised, the detective opened the envelope and removed a legal-size document.

Gallo cracked, “What’s that, a paternity suit?”

Rolvaag was so engrossed in the contents that he wasn’t listening.

“What?” Gallo pressed. “And don’t tell me it’s another job offer.”

The detective continued reading, turning the pages. “I’ll be damned,” he murmured to himself.

Gallo exhaled impatiently. “Karl, don’t make me pull rank. What the hell is it?”

Rolvaag glanced up with bemusement. “The last will and testament of Joey Perrone,” he said, “leaving thirteen million dollars to her loving, devoted husband.”

Seventeen

A tow truck dragging a rust-pocked Cordoba nearly clipped Karl Rolvaag’s unmarked sedan as he turned into West Boca Dunes Phase II. The detective noticed the battered old car on the hook, figuring that kids from across the tracks must have stolen the thing and ditched it in Charles Perrone’s neighborhood. Nobody who lived there would be caught dead driving a heap like that.

Rolvaag parked next to Perrone’s yellow Humvee, its leering chrome grille speckled with bug splats. Parked crookedly in the swale was a second car, a spotless new Grand Marquis. The bar-code sticker on a side window pegged it as a rental. Rolvaag touched the hood, which was cold. He heard someone hammering behind the house and walked around to the backyard, where a man he recognized as Earl Edward O’Toole was pounding a white wooden cross into the lawn.

The detective set down his briefcase and identified himself. He said, “Were you a friend of Mrs. Perrone’s?”

Earl Edward O’Toole seemed thrown by the question. He shook his head negatively and went on hammering.

“Is the cross for her?” Rolvaag asked.

Earl Edward O’Toole mumbled something indecipherable. Rolvaag stepped closer in order to read the hand-lettered inscription on the cross:

Randolph Claude Gunther Born 2-24-57

Returned to the Forgiving Arms of

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on 8-17-02

Please Don’t Drink and Drive!

“Friend of yours?” Rolvaag asked.

“My dog,” said Earl Edward O’Toole, avoiding eye contact.

“That’s quite a name for a dog. Randolph Claude Gunther.”

“We called him ‘Rex’ for short.”

“I never heard of one living forty-five years,” the detective remarked. “Parrots can. Tortoises, too. But I’m not so sure about dogs.”

Earl Edward O’Toole took another hard swing with the hammer. “Well, he come from good stock.”

“What’s that on your back?” Rolvaag said. “Those stickers.”

Earl Edward O’Toole hesitated. “Medicine,” he replied guardedly.

“For what?”

“I get seasick.”

The detective counted five patches and whistled.

Earl Edward O’Toole said, “I’m takin’ a sea cruise.”

“Yeah? Whereabouts?”

Again Earl Edward O’Toole paused. “Haiti,” he said after a moment. “Me and my ma.”

“That’s a fine idea. Take your mind off poor old Randolph.” Rolvaag was enjoying himself. Interludes with such entertaining freaks would be rare once he got back to Minnesota.

“Can I ask why you’re planting the cross here? I don’t see a grave.”

” ‘Cause he … he died in a plane crash,” Earl Edward O’Toole said, “and there wasn’t nuthin’ left to bury.”

“But it says ‘don’t drink and drive.’ “

“On account of the pilot was trashed at the time.”

“Ah. And these other crosses?” The detective pointed toward three more, stacked flat on the grass. “Who are they for, Earl?”

“Rex’s puppies. They was all on the same plane,” Earl Edward O’Toole answered peevishly. “How the hell’d you know my name anyway?”

“Nice chatting with you.” Rolvaag picked up his briefcase and headed toward the house, where Charles Regis Perrone was waiting cheerlessly at the back door.

The white crosses had been erected along Glades Road, west of the turnpike; four of them in a cluster, memorializing a terrible head-on. With numb resignation Chaz had watched Red Hammernut’s goon uprooting the crosses, until a car screeched to a halt on the shoulder of the highway. Two young men identifying themselves as brothers of the late Randolph Claude Gunther had leapt out of the car and angrily confronted Tool about stealing the markers. The men had brought fresh-cut sunflowers to hang on their brother’s cross, and a volume of Bible verses from which to read. With Tool ignoring their remonstra-tions, the men had begun preaching loudly at him, invoking Satan and other Biblical scoundrels. Tool had responded by heaving the two brothers into a roadside canal, shredding their book of verses and eating the flowers. Chaz had looked on with the shivers.

Tool had returned to the Hummer, carrying the four crosses on his shoulders, saying brightly, “I got a whole field of these suckers at home.”

“Hmmm,” Chaz had managed.

“They look real nice in the ground, plus you don’t gotta prune ‘em like you do trees and shrubs.”

“Excellent point,” Chaz had said, making a mental note to call Red Hammernut first thing in the morning to plead for a new bodyguard.

After they’d returned to Chaz’s house, Tool had borrowed a hammer and announced that he was planting the traffic crosses temporarily in the backyard. Chaz would have objected more strenuously if he’d known that Karl Rolvaag would be dropping by.

“How do you know Mr. O’Toole?” the detective asked at the door.

It was the first time Chaz had heard the thug’s actual name.

“He’s just a friend of a friend.”

“The friend being Samuel Johnson Hammernut?” Rolvaag said.

“Yes, well, actually he was an acquaintance of my wife’s. I barely know the guy.”

“Mr. O’Toole or Mr. Hammernut?”

“Neither of them,” Chaz said innocently.

The detective rubbed his chin. “That’s sort of strange.”

“What do you mean? ‘Strange’ how?” asked Chaz, on the verge of a blowup. The cop was toying with him, like a cat batting around a ball of yarn.

“Your Humvee—one of Mr. Hammernut’s companies purchased it for you,” Rolvaag said, “according to the records at the dealership.”

Oh shit, Chaz thought.

“You hardly know the man and he’s buying you a sixty-thousand-dollar sport-utility vehicle?” Rolvaag now actually scratching his head, just like that flaky Columbo character on television. Chaz was seething on the inside but he managed to look calm.

“Let me explain,” he said to the detective. “The Hummer was a birthday present from Joey. Red knew—Mr. Hammernut—he knew the salesman personally, so he got a really sweet deal. Joey paid him back later.”

“With a check, or a wire transfer? Actually, it doesn’t matter. Either way, the bank should have a record.”

Chaz Perrone shrugged. “I don’t know how she handled it. It was her money.”

Now they were sitting in the kitchen; Chaz with an untouched beer, the cop with his usual Sprite. During lulls in the conversation, sizzles and pops could be heard from a frying pan on the stove.

Chaz leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Can we please cut all this ridiculous bullshit? Just tell me how much you want.”

Rolvaag seemed genuinely baffled.

“Oh, come on,” Chaz said. “Save me that god-awful trip to Flamingo.” - “You’re losing me.”

Not wishing to spook the crooked detective, Chaz didn’t want to come right out with the word blackmail.

Rolvaag said, “You should be aware that I’ve already spoken to Mr. Hammernut in LaBelle. He described Mr. O’Toole as a former employee, not a friend. Said he hardly remembered him.”

Chaz sat back and crossed his arms. “Fine. We’ll play it your way.”

Like I’ve got a choice, he thought.

Glossy with perspiration, Tool lumbered into the kitchen to check on the entree. “Three more minutes,” he announced, and walked out.

“He’s staying here with you?” Rolvaag asked.

“Yeah. While his double-wide gets fumigated.”

“What’s with the highway crosses?”

“I’m not sure,” Chaz Perrone said, “but it might have something to do with him being a deranged, half-witted sociopath.”

“Right.”

“He claims to be carrying a bullet slug in the crack of his butt.”

“Everybody’s got problems,” Rolvaag said.

“Is there, like, a particular reason you’re here?” Chaz inquired. Besides the sheer sadistic joy you obviously get from busting my balls.

“Yes, of course,” said the detective.

“Then can we get to it, please? I’ve got a three-hour drive to the middle of nowhere, thanks to you.”

Rolvaag reached for his briefcase, but then Tool reappeared, briskly toweling his sweaty torso. With uncharacteristic buoyancy he asked if anybody was hungry.

“Because I could eat a bus,” he said, forking crispy hunks of alligator tail from the frying pan onto a platter.

Apparently, Rolvaag will be staying for supper, Chaz thought, and I’m helpless to stop it. He hoped that Tool had efficiently disposed of the illegal reptile carcass.

“I hope you like chicken,” Chaz said to the detective.

Tool let out a cackle. “We’re talkin’ major chicken. Serious fuckin’ swamp chicken.”

“Smells delicious,” Rolvaag said, “but no thanks. I’ve got a lasagna waiting at home.”

“And my stomach is acting up again,” Chaz chimed in, with barely masked relief. Gnawing on the deep-fried ass of a prehistoric lizard was not his notion of a gourmet experience. In fact, only imminent starvation could have induced him to consume anything from the sullied waters of Hammernut Farms.

“Then I’ll eat the whole fucker m’self,” Tool said eagerly.

So barbaric was the gustatory spectacle that Chaz Perrone and Karl Rolvaag retreated to the living room, the detective pausing to admire the restocked aquarium.

“Those little blue-striped fellows—are they wrasses?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Chaz thinking: Do I look like frigging Jacques Cousteau?

“You were about to ask me something,” he said, “before we got interrupted by Chef Cro-Magnon.”

Rolvaag sat on the sofa and opened the briefcase. Leafing through a file folder, he said, “Yes. I need a sample of your wife’s handwriting.”

“What the hell for?” Chaz knew it wasn’t a well-measured response, but the detective’s request had flustered him.

“For comparison purposes,” Rolvaag said.

Chaz rolled his eyes and snorted, an unfortunate reflex whenever he felt confronted by authority. It had caused him problems in college, as well.

“I don’t need much,” Rolvaag said. “A few lines in pen or pencil.”

Chaz stood up and said he’d see what he could find, which of course would be nothing. He had thrown away everything Joey had ever written to him—birthday cards, love letters, Post-its. The detective hovered while Chaz pretended to search.

“I put away most of her stuff,” he said, pawing through a bureau drawer in the bedroom.

“I remember. Where are those boxes?” Rolvaag asked.

“Storage.” Chaz thinking: Under about five thousand tons of raw garbage.

“Even just a signature would be fine,” Rolvaag said.

“Hang on. I’m still looking.”

“What about her checkbook?”

Chaz shook his head and dug into another drawer. He didn’t know where the detective was headed with the handwriting angle, but it couldn’t be good.

“Credit card receipts?” Rolvaag said.

“God only knows where she put them.”

“How about cooking recipes? Some people jot their favorite ones on index cards.”

“Joey was a fantastic girl, but not exactly queen of the kitchen.” Chaz trying to sound fondly reminiscent. “We ate out a lot,” he added with a forced chuckle.

Rolvaag suggested searching Joey’s car. “Maybe there’s an old grocery list crumpled on the floor somewhere.”

“Good idea,” said Chaz, knowing full well the futility of that exercise. Rolvaag poked around the garage while Chaz picked through the Camry, which smelled faintly of his wife’s killer perfume. Fearing another untimely erectile episode, Chaz breathed through his mouth in order to minimize his exposure.

Eventually he heard Rolvaag saying, “Well, thanks for taking a look.”

The cop was a damn good actor, Chaz had to admit. Not once had he slipped out of character. Chaz had been waiting for some subtle acknowledgment of the situation—a sidelong wink, the wry flicker of an eye. Yet Rolvaag had betrayed no awareness of the blackmail scheme while sustaining his front as a dogged and upright pursuer of clues. A less perceptive criminal might have discarded the theory that Rolvaag was the one shaking him down, but Chaz Perrone wasn’t swayed by the detective’s performance. The more Chaz thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that anybody had seen him push Joey off the Sun Duchess. Chaz remembered how careful he’d been to wait for the decks to empty first. He remembered standing alone at the rail afterward and hearing nothing but the rumble of the ship’s engines; no voices, no footsteps. The blackmailer had to be bluffing. Nobody could have witnessed the murder of Joey Perrone.

And now Karl Rolvaag, who’d plainly never believed Chaz’s account of that night, had decided in the absence of evidence to make him pay for the crime in another way.

As they returned to the living room, Chaz coyly asked, “Who’s your favorite movie star?”

“Let me think.” Rolvaag pressed his lips together. “Frances McDormand.”

“Who?”

“She was in Fargo.”

“No, I meant guy movie stars,” Chaz said.

“I don’t know. Jack Nicholson, I guess.”

“Not me. Charlton Heston is my favorite.” Chaz watched for the slightest flush of color in the detective’s face.

Rolvaag was saying, “Yes, he’s good, too. Ben-Hur was a classic.”

And that was it; not a blink of surprise, not a hint of a smile. Chaz Perrone was so aggravated that he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Anyone ever tell you that sometimes you sound like him?”

The detective seemed amused. “Like Charlton Heston—me? No, that’s a new one.”

What an iceberg, thought Chaz.

He said, “Sorry I couldn’t help with Joey’s handwriting. I can’t believe there wasn’t something of hers lying around the house.”

“No sweat. I’ll call the bank,” Rolvaag said. “They’ll have all her canceled checks on film.”

“Can I ask what this is about?”

“Sure.”

The detective removed a large envelope from his briefcase and handed it to Chaz Perrone, who couldn’t stop his fingers from trembling as he opened it. He skimmed the first paragraph and asked, “Where’d you get this?”

“Keep going,” Rolvaag advised, and strolled off to the kitchen.

By the time Chaz finished, his heart was hammering, his shirt was damp and his skull was ringing like a pinball machine. Before him lay a photocopy of an astounding document, “The Last Will and Testament of Joey Christina Perrone.” For Chaz it was the ultimate good news/ bad news joke.

The good news: Your dead wife left you 13 million bucks.