Tourist Season (12 page)

“It's fine. Jenna, why is there a coffin in your living room?”

“I know, I know. I hate it, too. Skip says it makes a good cocktail table. He bought it at the flea market. He keeps his newspaper clippings inside there.”

“That's a bit odd, don't you think?” Keyes said.

“At the very least he should get it refinished.”

Keyes ate faster. This was more traumatic than he had feared. Meeting in her house—the place she shared with Wiley—had not been Keyes's idea. Jenna had insisted. She had wanted to be here, she said, in case Skip called.

If Jenna seemed genuinely worried about her lover's whereabouts, Keyes was not. His heart was with the Ernesto Cabal case—what was left of it—and tracking Skip Wiley was just a sporting way to pass some time, pay some bills ... and see Jenna again.

Keyes had a simple theory about Wiley's disappearance. He figured Skip had orchestrated the whole thing to gouge a fatter salary out of the Miami
Sun
. Wiley's usual strategy, when he wanted more money, was to arrange for friends at the Washington
Post
and the New York
Times
to call up with phony or wildly inflated job offers. Then he'd charge into Cab Mulcahy's office and threaten to defect. Mulcahy quit falling for the Fantastic Job Offer ruse about two years ago, so Keyes figured Wiley was merely trying out a new scheme.

Keyes also now realized that the idea of publishing a Ricky Bloodworth column might have backfired, and that Wiley was holed up somewhere, howling with glee over Mulcahy's torment. Keyes now believed—though he dared not tell Mulcahy—that Wiley might wait weeks before emerging. He might wait until his readers began rioting.

And Keyes also believed that Jenna might be in on it.

“Did you love me, Brian?”

“Yes.” He started to gag. He hoped it was just a fish bone going down the wrong way. Jenna came around the table and patted him on the back.

“Deep breaths,” she said soothingly. “Don't eat so fast.”

“Why,” Keyes rasped, “did you ask me that question?”

“Skip says you were madly in love with me.”

“I told you that myself,” Keyes said, “about thirty thousand times.”

“I remember, Brian.”

God, there's the smile.

“How about now?” Jenna asked. “Still feel the same way?”

Oh no, you don't. Keyes shifted into a tough-guy mode. “This is business, Jenna. Let's talk about Skip. Where do you think he could be?”

“I don't know.”

“Oh really.”

“Brian! This isn't funny. I think he's in trouble. I think somebody's got him.”

“Why?”

“Because he's a good target,” Jenna said. She started clearing the table. “You sit still, I'll do this. Let's see, you take your coffee black... ”

“Cream and sugar,” Keyes said painfully. “But I think I'll wait.”

“Okay. As I was saying, Skip's a very well-known person, a genuine celebrity. That makes him a perfect target for kidnappers. Look at Patty Hearst.”

“Or Frank Sinatra, Jr.,” Keyes said.

“Exactly.”

“You ever read
The Ransom of Red Chief?”

“Sure,” Jenna said. “What are you getting at?”

“Nothing.”

Every so often Keyes's attention was drawn to the coffin, which dominated Jenna's otherwise-cozy living room. The coffin was plain and vanilla-colored, made of smooth Dade County pine. A pauper's coffin. Jenna had done a valiant job of trying to disguise it as normal furniture. She had placed cocktail coasters neatly on each corner of the lid, and in the center she had stationed a blue Ming vase with fresh-cut sunflowers. For more camouflage she had added a thick stack of magazines, with
Town and Country
on top. Despite all this, there was no mistaking the coffin for anything else. Keyes wondered morbidly if he ought to peek inside, just to make sure Wiley wasn't there.

“There's been no ransom demand, has there?” he asked Jenna.

“Not yet. Let's sit on the couch.” Jenna put a James Taylor album on the stereo and went into the bedroom. When she came out, her hair was down and she was barefoot.

“If Skip wasn't kidnapped,” she said, “then maybe Cab's right. Maybe he just went crazy and wandered off.” She curled up on the couch. “I wish I had a fireplace.”

“It's seventy-four degrees outside,” Keyes said.

“What happened to my young romantic?”

Keyes smiled bashfully; God, she never let up. He fought to keep a proper tone to his voice. “Is there a possibility ... have you two been getting along?”

“Better than ever,” Jenna said. “We made love the afternoon he left. Twice!”

“Oh.”

“Right there, where you're sitting.”

“Sorry I asked.”

Keyes kept waiting for Jenna to say:
I know how hard it was for you to take this case.
But she never did, and gave no sign of comprehending his distress.

“You've got to find him, Brian. I don't want to get the police involved, and I
don't
want a lot of publicity. It could ruin his career.”

Or cinch it, Keyes mused. He asked, “Do you think he's gone insane?”

“I'm not sure I'd know the difference.” Jenna took off her earrings and laid them on the coffin. Elegantly she poured herself another glass of wine. Keyes sipped cautiously. The Chablis gave a dangerous urgency to his loneliness.

Jenna said, “Lately Skip's been wilder than usual. He wakes up ranting and goes to bed ranting. You know, the usual stuff: toxic waste, oil spills, the California condor, the Biscayne Aquifer. Armageddon in general. About a week ago a man came to the door selling time-shares in Key Largo, and Skip attacked him with a marlin gaff.”

Keyes asked, “Does he get incoherent?”

Jenna laughed softly. “Never. He's a very cogent person, even when he's violent. He always makes perfect sense.”

“Well, if he's been kidnapped—which I doubt—all we can do is wait for a ransom demand. But if he's off somewhere in a frenzy, we've got to find him before he really hurts someone. Jenna, I need some ideas. Where the hell could he be?”

“The wilderness,” she said wistfully, gazing at her imaginary fireplace. “That's where to start.”

“You mean the Everglades.”

“Where else? What other wilderness is there? The rest is all gone.”

Jenna was vice-secretary of the local Sierra Club, so Keyes knew it wouldn't take much to launch her off on a big speech. He had to be careful. “Jenna, the Everglades are three times bigger than Rhode Island,” he said. “I'll need a few more clues.”

“Oh, I don't know,” she said. The wine was almost gone. She went to the refrigerator and opened another bottle.

Remembering Jenna drunk, Keyes thought: This could be promising.

“I've got an idea,” Jenna said as she filled their glasses. “Here, hold this.” Quickly she cleared the top of the coffin, uprooting the vase, collecting the coasters, sweeping the magazines to the carpet. Then she unfastened the clasps and opened the lid. She'd been telling the truth: the coffin was full of newspaper clippings.

Jenna dropped to her knees, the wineglass poised in her left hand. Methodically she began to explore Skip Wiley's unusual personal library. “A few months back,” she said, “he did a column about a place near the dike.”

Keyes knelt next to her and joined the search. Concentration was impossible, Jenna looking the way she did, smelling so warm and familiar.

“He used to go fishing at this place,” she was saying, “when he was a boy. Not long ago he discovered that they'd built a huge development right there, next to the old dike on the edge of the Glades. A retirement community, they called it. Stocked with three thousand geezers from Jersey. Skip was livid.”

“I remember the column,” Keyes said. “‘Varicose Village.'”

“Right! That'd be a good place to start. Maybe he's camping out. Planning something big.”

“Oh boy,” Keyes said.

Somehow Jenna located the column amid the random litter of Wiley's coffin. She slid over to show it to Keyes and practically nestled in his lap. He was not certain if she was doing this out of pity, or just to tease. He wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. He also wanted to take her in his arms and make her forget all about Skip Wiley.

“The name of the place,” Jenna said, all wine-woozy, “is Otter Creek Village. Three miles off State Road 84, it says here. Near the old bombing range.”

“I can find it.”

“He grew up not far from there,” Jenna said. “And his family had a cabin out at Sawgrass.”

“Okay, I'll look around out there tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Brian,”Jenna said. She kissed him lightly on the lips and snuggled against his shoulder. Keyes slipped his right arm around her; it was a brotherly little hug, not a very good one. He wished he weren't so damn nervous. Still, he was thrilled to be there, alone with Jenna and no crazy Wiley, just old JT singing “Fire and Rain” on the stereo. Keyes loved the scent of Jenna's neck, and the sweet narcotic sound of her breathing. He could have stayed that way for hours, hopelessly consumed by her presence, clutching her like a bedtime doll. With Keyes, nothing had changed; as for Jenna, it was hard to tell.

“Brian?”

“Yes, Jenna.”

“I'm getting sleepy.” She looked up from his chest. “I think I'd better go to bed.”

She uncurled like a cat, stretching the lavender leotard in a dozen breathtaking ways. She closed the coffin, yawned, and said, “Well.”

Keyes waited, clinging to hope.

But then she said: “It's time for you to go home and get some rest.”

“Good idea,” Keyes said with a brave smile.

He drove off in a pinprickly sweat—euphoric, suicidal, utterly confused. All over again, he thought. God help me.

Overnight the weather cooled, and a fresh north wind brought an early whisper of winter.

Brian Keyes awoke at dawn, surprised by the dry chill. He slipped into blue jeans, foraged for a sweater, and went outside to crank up the car. The old MG was a marvelous summertime sportster, but on cold mornings the engine balked. Keyes let it warm for a full ten minutes. He used the time as unwisely as possible, reliving the dinner with Jenna and devising romantic strategy.

From Miami he took the turnpike north to Road 84, a clamorous truck route that runs cross-state from Fort Lauderdale. Despite the gray gauze in the sky and the whipping wind, the highway was clogged with boxy Winnebagos, custom vans, and station wagons dragging metallic-purple bass boats—the usual weekend lemmings.

Over the years civilization doggedly had followed Road 84 toward the lip of the Everglades. Heading west, Keyes could chart the march of the chain saws and bulldozers. What once had been misty pastureland and pine barrens were now golden-age trailer parks; medieval cypress stands had been replaced by 7-Elevens and coin laundries. And spreading like a spore across the mottled landscape was every developer's wet dream, the condominium cluster.

Later as he walked along the dike, hands in his pockets, Keyes marveled at the contrast: to the western horizon, nothing but sawgrass and hammock and silent swamp; to the east, diesel cranes and cinderblock husks and high-rises. Not a hundred yards stood between the backhoes and the last of South Florida's wilderness. It had been a while since Keyes had driven this far west, and he was startled by what he saw. No wonder Skip Wiley had been so pissed off.

Keyes was nearly two miles from where he'd parked the car when he came to the Otter Creek condominium. He smiled, remembering Wiley's snide column. “Talk about false advertising. There's no creek, and there's damn sure no otters—no live ones, anyway.”

Otter Creek Village consisted of three cheerless buildings set end-to-end at mild angles. Each warren stood five stories high and was painted white with canary-yellow trim. Every apartment featured a tiny balcony that overlooked a notably unscenic parking lot. From the dike Keyes could see a solid acre of shuffleboard courts, crisp formations of aluminum lounge chairs, and a vast ulcer-shaped swimming pool. In the center of the complex, surrounded by a twenty-foot chain-link fence, was an asphalt tennis court with faded lines and no net. The entire recreation area was outfitted with striped table umbrellas, sprouting like festive mushrooms from the concrete.

But Otter Creek was quiet today. No one floundered in the pool, and the shuffleboard courts lay deserted; the cold weather had driven the retirees inside. Keyes finally spotted one old gentleman, bundled in fluorescent rain gear, walking a hyperactive terrier along the banks of a murky manmade canal. “Great fishing in your own backyard!” is what the Otter Creek brochure promised. Keyes didn't know much about fishing, but he had grave doubts about any creature that could procreate in such fetid water.

On the other side of the dike, in the Glades, the wind sent ripples through the dense sawgrass. Keyes broke out the binoculars and scanned the marsh. Somewhere out there, not far, stood the Wiley family cabin. Jenna had said you could find it with a good pair of field glasses, so Keyes had brought the Nikons.

Before long he spotted a row of snowy egrets, hunched along a tall fence; except it wasn't a fence, but a rooftop, an angular anomaly among the bush cattails and the scrub. Keyes trotted down the dike for a better look. The closer he got, the more the cabin showed above the swamp. The walls were made of plywood, the roof of corrugated tin. There was a crooked porch, a faded outhouse, and torn screens fluttering in the windows.