Skinny Dip Read online

  “Let me check the first-aid station,” Yancy said.

  While she was gone, Rolvaag sat down on one of the other bales and blew his nose fiercely. He was afflicted with numerous crop and pollen allergies, and wet marijuana rated a code ten.

  The word Libertad! had been scratched on a wall of the cell, and the detective wondered who had done it and where the poor bastard had been deported. As much as Rolvaag disliked South Florida, it was useful to be reminded that there were infinitely worse places not so far away; places that made Hialeah look like the Emerald City of Oz.

  Petty Officer Yancy returned with the requested items. Using the tweezers, Rolvaag began meticulously exploring each of the finger grooves on the burlap sacking. It didn’t take long to dig out the clue he was hoping for.

  “Could you open the plastic bag?” he asked Yancy.

  “Yes, sir. What’d you find?”

  The detective held it up, pinched firmly in the beak of the tweezers, for her to see.

  “Is that the tip of a fingernail?” she asked.

  “It would appear so. A woman’s, I’m almost sure.”

  “So she was trying to rip open the bale—is that what happened?”

  “No.” Rolvaag dropped the nail fragment into the Baggie. “She was hanging on for dear life.”

  As Petty Officer Yancy studied the clawings in the fabric, Rolvaag thought he saw her shiver.

  “Sir, was this the woman . . . could these marks be from the woman we were trying to locate? The one missing off the cruise ship?”

  The detective said it was possible.

  “Weird,” Yancy said quietly. “Spooky weird.”

  “Yes, it is.” Rolvaag turned back to the soggy bale. “Let’s see if there’s more.”

  Seven

  The development was called West Boca Dunes Phase II.

  “Dunes?” said Mick Stranahan. “We’re fifteen miles from the beach.”

  “Chaz tried to buy into Phase I because it’s on a golf course,” Joey Perrone explained, “but they were sold out.”

  “Every house looks the same.”

  “Oh, they’re identical. All three hundred and seven units in our modern Florida subdivision,” Joey said in a mock sales-pitch voice, “except that some feature the master bedroom suite on the east side and some have it on the west. Also, you can get a pool.”

  Stranahan lowered the binoculars. “But you don’t have one.”

  Joey said, “Chaz hates to swim.”

  “Not you. That was your big college sport, right?”

  “Ancient history,” she said.

  “Still, it would have been nice for you. A swimming pool.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “How about another fig?” Stranahan asked.

  They’d stopped at an outdoor market in Pompano Beach and he had loaded up on fresh produce. Now the car smelled like two tons of Mediterranean fruit salad.

  Joey Perrone said, “It’s lucky you’ve got that island thing going for you, Mick, because this”—she patted the dashboard—“ain’t exactly a pussy magnet.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s a Chazism for a hot car.”

  Stranahan said, “The Cordoba is an automotive classic. You’ll be pleased to know that your butt is sitting on rich Corinthian leather.”

  “Maybe once upon a time.”

  For years Stranahan had kept the rusty car under a shady ficus tree near the Dinner Key marina, where he docked the skiff when visiting the mainland. Nothing on the Chrysler worked properly anymore except the enormous engine, which ran like a miracle.

  Joey said, “We sit here much longer, somebody will definitely call the police.”

  Mick Stranahan conceded that the Cordoba didn’t blend in with the late-model SUVs gleaming in the parallel driveways of West Boca Dunes Phase II. Joey told him to get busy while she found a place to hide the car.

  “I might need to break a window,” he said.

  “There’s a spare key in a bird feeder in the backyard.”

  “How about an alarm?”

  “Broken. See you in ten minutes.”

  Stranahan wore a short-sleeved work shirt from Florida Power & Light and a white hard hat. He went up to the front door and rang the bell. After a minute he circled to the rear of the house and pretended to examine the electric meter until he figured even the nosiest of Joey’s neighbors would have lost interest.

  The bird feeder was hung in the only tree in the Perrones’ yard, a scrawny black olive. The key was covered with grackle droppings, which Stranahan wiped on the grass. As soon as he entered the house, he scrubbed his hands and put on a pair of rubber kitchen gloves. He was waiting by the front door when Joey knocked.

  “So, what do you think of my new look?”

  “I’m there,” Stranahan said.

  She wore a cropped brunette wig and a gray knee-length housedress, and she carried a worn Bible. All of it came from a thrift shop they’d found down the street from the produce mart.

  Stranahan motioned her inside and shut the door. Her shoulders stiffened and she stood in the foyer for several moments without saying a word.

  He took her by the elbow and said, “It’s all right.”

  “Is there anything I shouldn’t see?”

  “I haven’t taken the grand tour, but this was on the kitchen counter.”

  It was a section of the Sun-Sentinel that had been unfolded to an inside page.

  Joey read the headline aloud: “ ‘Coast Guard Calls Off Search for Missing Cruise Passenger.’ Oh my God, there I am! ‘Local Woman Feared Drowned.’ Do you believe this?”

  She dropped the Bible and seized the newspaper with both hands. “I knew it, Mick. He’s saying I got drunk and fell overboard!”

  “That’s not in the story.”

  “No, but it’s the obvious implication. ‘Perrone told police that he and his wife had shared several bottles of wine earlier in the evening. The couple had been celebrating their second wedding anniversary.’ The prick!”

  Joey crumpled the newspaper and slam-dunked it into the trash can. “I’m calling Rose,” she said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “My best friend. She’s in our book club.”

  Mick Stranahan waited in the living room, trying to figure out who had decorated the place. The sofa and two reading chairs were comfortable and smart-looking, probably Joey’s touch. Chaz’s contributions would be the plasma TV and the jet-black Natuzzi recliner. The tragic aquarium could go either way. Stranahan was struck by the absence of books and the abundance of golf magazines. No family photographs were on display, not even a wedding picture.

  Joey stalked into the room carrying a cold beer in each hand. She gave one bottle to Stranahan. “Rose almost had a seizure. She thought I was calling from the grave—speaking of which, what’s that awful smell?”

  “The aquarium, I’m afraid.”

  Joey groaned as she approached the tank. “That frigging idiot forgot to feed the fish!”

  They looked like shiny little holiday ornaments, bobbing in the clouded water. Joey turned away in angry disgust. Stranahan followed her through the house, room by room. Nothing more was said until they reached the master bath.

  “Oh, cute. My stuff’s gone.”

  “Everything?”

  “My toothpaste, makeup.” Joey tore through the drawers and cabinets. “All my lotions and creams, even the tampons. This is unbelievable.”

  She hurried to the bedroom and flung open the closet door and let out a cry. “My clothes, too!”

  Stranahan opened the top drawer of an antique bureau. “Undies,” he reported, perhaps too brightly. “These he saved.”

  “Asshole.” Joey slammed the closet door so violently that it came off the track.

  Stranahan said, “Personally, I advocate cunning and stealth over mass destruction.”

  He righted the door and set it back in place. Joey grabbed her bra and panties out of the bureau and sat down stiffly on the edge
of the bed. “I’m going to cry now, okay, and I don’t want to hear a word from you. Not one damn word.”

  “Crying is allowed. Go right ahead.”

  “And don’t you dare put your arms around me and stroke my hair and give me all that wise fatherly-brotherly bullshit. Not unless I tell you to.”

  “Fair enough,” Stranahan said.

  “This was my house, Mick. My life. And he’s just sweeping me out the door like I was dirt.”

  She closed her eyes and oddly found herself thinking of the night that Chaz had begged to tie her to the bedposts. He had chosen Alsatian scarves but had cinched the knots so tightly that her fingers and toes immediately went to sleep. It had been one of the rare times with Chaz that she’d had to fake it, but what made the night more memorable was that he’d passed out on top of her in a creepy sexual stupor. For nearly an hour he had lain there, snoring between her breasts and drooling like a Saint Bernard, yet remaining solidly erect inside her. Joey had felt as helpless as a butterfly pinned to a corkboard.

  Upon reflection she realized that the bizarre interlude had been a telling lesson about her husband: Conscious or unconscious, he was completely dick-driven.

  “The guy’s an animal and I never saw it,” she said disconsolately. “A primitive with a Ph.D. And I was a fool for marrying him.”

  “Joey?” Stranahan was standing at the bedroom door, spinning his hard hat in his hands.

  “Yeah?”

  “If you’re going to cry, then cry. We need to be moving along.”

  “Give me five minutes alone.”

  “You got it,” Stranahan said.

  “Five minutes. Then come back and put your arms around me and tell me everything’s going to be okay. All that cornball crap.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, let’s give it a shot. But first, take off those ridiculous gloves.”

  Later they found the rest of her belongings crammed in three cardboard boxes, stacked in the garage next to her Toyota. As Joey began sorting through the depressing inventory, Stranahan warned her that Chaz might become suspicious if items disappeared.

  “And don’t even think about taking your car,” he added.

  Glumly she held up a pale orange handbag. “This is what I brought on the cruise.”

  Chaz had obviously overlooked her wallet, which contained $650 and an American Express card. “The plastic I’m keeping,” she informed Stranahan. “We’ll need it.”

  “The cash, too.”

  “Come here and dig in.” Joey pointed to one of the other boxes.

  “May I ask what we’re looking for?”

  “Something saucy,” she said. “Something to catch the eye of my worthless troglodyte husband.”

  Dawn brought a thunderstorm and the screeching of rats. Karl Rolvaag’s pythons had awakened hungry.

  For ten minutes the detective stood under a cold shower, a ritual meant to thicken his blood in preparation for the return to Minnesota. Rolvaag believed that living in South Florida had turned him into a weather wimp.

  Captain Gallo had told him to take the day off as comp time, but Rolvaag had nothing else to do but work. By the time he’d shaved and dressed, the snakes were finished and Mrs. Shulman was pounding on the door. She lived across the hall in unit 7-G and held the title of acting vice president for the Sawgrass Grove Condominium Association. Her current mission was to evict Karl Rolvaag from the premises.

  “Good morning, Nellie,” he said.

  “I heard it, that god-awful screaming again, you sick bastard!”

  “They’ve got to eat,” the detective said, “same as you and me.”

  “If you weren’t a cop, they’d throw you in jail for animal cruelty!” Mrs. Shulman, who weighed at least ninety pounds, acted as if she intended to punch Rolvaag in the chest. Her bony mottled fists were clenched and trembling.

  The detective said, “The condo association paid how much for rodent extermination last year—three or four grand, wasn’t it?”

  Mrs. Shulman sneered. “Don’t get snide with me.”

  “There’s nothing in the rules says I can’t keep reptiles.”

  “ ‘Dangerous pets,’ it’s right on page one nineteen.”

  “Your dog’s bitten four people,” Rolvaag pointed out. “My snakes haven’t hurt anybody.”

  “Disturbing the peace, then. Those helpless mice screaming and moaning while God’s breath is strangled out of them—it’s horrible. I had to double up on my Xanax, thanks to you.”

  “They’re big fat rats, Nellie, not Stuart Little. And, by the way, that poison your exterminator uses? It makes their little tummies explode.”

  Mrs. Shulman wailed, backpedaling.

  “Why don’t we leave this to the lawyers,” Rolvaag said.

  “You’re a sick, sick, sick bastard. No wonder you’re not married anymore.”

  “And no wonder your husband went deaf.”

  Somewhere in the parchment fissures of Mrs. Shulman’s face, her eyes narrowed. “You’ll be gone by July, smartass.”

  “Keep Petunia on her leash,” Rolvaag advised, “and you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  After a late breakfast he drove to the office and showed Captain Gallo the letter from the police chief in Minnesota.

  “Very humorous,” Gallo said. “Where the fuck is Edina?”

  “Twin Cities area.”

  “Didn’t they write a song about it? ‘Nothing could be finer than to be in your Edina in the morrr-ning!’ ”

  Rolvaag said, “I’m serious about taking the job.”

  “Cut it out.”

  “I want to live somewhere normal.”

  “And die of fucking boredom. Sure you do.” Gallo handed him a scrap of paper. “Guy name of Corbett Wheeler called. That’s his number.”

  “Mrs. Perrone’s brother.”

  “One-thirty in the morning, kangaroo time, he’s wide-awake,” Gallo said. “Wants to talk to someone ASAP. Says it’s important.”

  Rolvaag had been trying to locate Corbett Wheeler since Saturday afternoon. “I’ll call right now,” the detective said.

  “Make it collect.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Gallo shrugged. “That’s what the guy said—‘Be sure and call collect.’ ”

  Somewhere in the hills of New Zealand, Joey Perrone’s brother picked up on the first ring. Karl Rolvaag half-expected him to sound like the flaky Aussie who wrestles crocodiles on TV, but Corbett Wheeler hadn’t lost his flat American accent.

  “Are you the one in charge of the case?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” Rolvaag said.

  “Then listen up: My little sister did not get drunk and fall off that cruise ship,” Corbett Wheeler declared, “no matter what her husband told you. And she didn’t take a dive, either.”

  The connection was fuzzy, and Rolvaag heard his own voice reverberate when he spoke. “I understand this must be hard for you. Would you mind a few questions?”

  “It was in the Boca newspaper. That’s how I found out—a friend of Joey’s called to tell me.”

  Rolvaag said, “We’ve been trying to get hold of you since Saturday. Your brother-in-law gave me a couple of phone numbers, but they were no good.”

  “Just like my brother-in-law,” Corbett Wheeler said. “He is a fuckwit and a reprobate.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Never met the man, or even spoke to him. But Joey’s given me an earful—I wouldn’t trust the guy alone with my bowling ball, that’s what a horndog he is.”

  Rolvaag had heard similar opinions from Joey’s friends, though none of them hinted that Charles Perrone was deeply involved with anybody but Charles Perrone.

  “You’re suggesting that Chaz had something to do with your sister’s disappearance?”

  “Bet the farm on it,” said Corbett Wheeler.

  “It’s a long way from adultery to homicide.”

  “From what Joey told me, he’s capable
of anything.”

  Rolvaag heard sheep lowing in the background.

  “Maybe we should talk in person,” he suggested.

  “Honestly, I don’t travel much,” said Mrs. Perrone’s brother, “but I’d fly all night to see that little whorehopper strapped into the electric chair and lit up like Dodger Stadium.”

  “These days most of them opt for lethal injection.”

  “Are you telling me they get a choice?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Rolvaag told him. “What’s that noise?”

  “One of my ewes, trying to pop triplets.”

  “Can I call you back?”

  “No, I’ll call you,” said Joey Perrone’s brother, and the line went dead.

  Fuckwit, reprobate, horndog, whorehopper—an impressive litany of contempt for Chaz Perrone. Rolvaag reported Corbett Wheeler’s suspicions to Captain Gallo, who shrugged and said, “Hey, nobody wants to believe their little sister was a clumsy lush. Did he know about the DUI?”

  “I didn’t ask.” Rolvaag could name plenty of friends who’d been busted for drunk driving, and not one had ever fallen off a cruise ship. “What if Wheeler’s right about Perrone?”

  “Then you’ll figure it out, too, and make us all look like geniuses,” said Gallo, “hopefully by Friday.”

  Rolvaag knew better than to mention the nail marks on the marijuana bale until the DNA testing was complete. The procedure wasn’t inexpensive, and the captain would be miffed that Rolvaag had ordered it without his approval.

  Gallo handed him the letter from the Edina police chief. Rolvaag folded it back into the envelope. “Is three weeks enough time?” he asked.

  “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Friday, Karl, and then we move on.”

  “I’m not talking about this case,” said the detective. “I’m giving my notice. Is three weeks enough?”

  Gallo sat back and grinned. “Yeah, whatever. I’ll play along.”

  Chaz Perrone parked his Hummer on the levee, a half mile from the spillway. He kept the AC running and slurped coffee as he stared blankly across miles and miles of Everglades. A breeze fluffed the saw grass and combed ripples in the dark water. Coots tiptoed through the hyacinths and lilies, a young heron speared minnows in the shallows and a small bass went airborne to take a dragonfly. The place was thrumming with wildlife, and Chaz Perrone was miserable.