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.
Next stop was the Venetian Pool, where he parked under a ficus tree and called Mendez’s house. “Say, how’s that bovine nut sack of yours holding up?”
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Detective Andrew Yancy from Monroe County. Good news, sir: I found Natasha.” The name was embossed on the animal’s collar. “She was wandering the alleys like a dazed hooker, poor thing. Lucky I came along.”
“Are you nuts!”
“Don’t deny that you love this critter more than your wife. What’s your cell number, Johnny Boy?”
Yancy took an iPhone snapshot of the Siamese licking salmon juice off his fingertips. He texted the photo to Mendez along with a note: “She doesn’t seem to miss you.”
Mendez called right back and said, “You’re a sick hump, Yancy.”
“And you are a larcenous fuckstick. However, I need a favor—and you should view this as an opportunity to become an authentic Crime Stopper, partial atonement for all that money you embezzled.”
“What kinda favor? I’m retired, you asshole.”
“Yeah,” Yancy said, “but I bet you can still get me a police badge.”
“What happened to yours? Ha, don’t tell me you got canned again.”
“I guess Natasha and I will be taking a road trip.”
“Jesus, you need a badge like right now? All I got is my old one.”
“That’ll do, Johnny Boy. Put it in your mailbox, go back inside and stay there until you hear me honk three times. That means Empress Natasha is home. Try something stupid, like calling the real cops, and you’ll never lay eyes on your darling inbred feline again.”
“You hurt her, you’re a dead man.”
Yancy, who was allergic to cat dander, sneezed volcanically. “I’d never do anything to harm Natasha, preening diva though she is. What I would do, Johnny, is throw away her collar and leave her with some kindly souls I know who’d find her a good home with a higher class of human companions than you and Mrs. Mendez. Now go put the fucking badge in the mailbox.”
“Christ, gimme some time to look for the damn thing.”
“Twenty minutes,” Yancy said. “I’ve got a plane to catch.”
Fifteen
Neville was in no condition for romance, so he tried to break up with all three of his girlfriends on the same afternoon. Each of them said he was stupid and crazy and no damn good—yet they wouldn’t throw him out. Neville suspected that the women still clung to hope that he’d change his mind about the mountain of money he was refusing to accept for his family’s land. They harbored dreams that he would warm to the role of rich boyfriend.
He went snapper fishing near the submarine base and caught enough for dinner, breakfast and lunch. A friend who worked at the Lizard Cay bonefish lodge, which was closed for the summer, opened the kitchen and let Neville fry up his catch. That night he slept on his boat anchored off Green Beach, where he got soaked by a squall. Shortly before dawn he guzzled two lukewarm Kaliks and a quart of water. Then he waded ashore and hid among the remaining casuarinas, where he slapped mosquitoes and waited for his bladder to fill.
Unbeknownst to Neville, the white man Christopher had responded to the first incident of diesel contamination by equipping his earthmoving machines with locking fuel caps. Therefore the tank of the Cat 450E backhoe that Neville hoped to disable with beery urine was sealed from intrusion, and the spout lid held fast under a vigorous bashing. Soon Neville’s bloated gut began to ache, so he climbed to the cab, unbuttoned his fly and let loose on the gauge cluster. In his heart he understood it was an impotent gesture, the sturdy backhoe plainly engineered for all-weather operation.
In a drained state he stepped to the ground, where he was jumped by the fetus-eared security guard, who wordlessly began to pummel him. The goon’s name was Egg, or so Neville had been told by a boy cleaning conchs on the waterfront. Egg outweighed Neville by fifty pounds and his sweat smelled like fermented lobster. The weapon was a short aluminum bat of the type used by offshore charter mates to subdue billfish and tuna that are dragged aboard green. Neville flopped around in the freshly turned dirt, shielding his head and moaning at every blow. The man called Egg lugged him to the beach and kicked him into the water and walked away laughing. Neville remained on all fours in the sandy shallows until he vomited. It took all his strength to swim out to the boat and pull himself over the gunwale.