I got my easel set back up and found my paints, which were intact. I found my telephone answering machine under a pile of books and papers and plugged it back in. I cursed myself for not having thought of it sooner. It was possible I’d lost a job or two because a client had been unable to reach me. I also dug my handheld VHF out of the debris and turned it on to monitor channel sixteen. With that payment to Maddy, I’d pretty well cleaned out my checking account, Neal had cleaned out my reserves, and basically, I was broke. I wondered how Jeannie was making out with the salvage claim. I picked up the telephone receiver and dialed her number.
“I tried to call you last night, but there was no answer right up to midnight,” she said.
I brought her up to date on the break-in, Burns, the guys on the beach, and Maddy’s unforgiving stance.
“Jeannie, only one person on earth knew where I kept that money. I think he tried to make it look like a break-in and maybe got a little carried away, but I’m pretty sure Neal was the one who made this mess. It looks like he’s in trouble, and I’d like to think he’d help me out if things were reversed.”
“You said those muscleheads on the beach thought he was alive, too.”
“Yeah, and they seemed to think Neal would contact me.”
“These guys are playing a rough game. I just wish we knew what it was. No wonder you’re not answering your phone.”
“Actually, I spent last night on B.J.’s couch,” I said. I felt like I needed to talk to somebody about it. “I think I even messed up my friendship with him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I kissed him.”
“So?”
“Well, he’s B.J.! And this wasn’t just a hello-goodbye kiss. I mean, Jeannie, he works for me.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Jeannie, B.J. and I have always just been friends. Buddies. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
“Maybe you were just thinking about being lonely. How long has it been since you and Neal split up? Six months?”
“Closer to seven.” I didn’t let on that I knew the exact number of weeks, down to the day, since the last time I’d made love to a man. “I’m just not ready for another relationship, Jeannie. I like living alone. And B.J.—has he ever lasted more than a month or two with one woman? I don’t have any desire to join the ever-growing club of B.J.’s old girlfriends.”
Jeannie chuckled. “The lady doth protest too much. I don’t think you know what you want. And as for B.J., my guess is that he hasn’t met the right woman. Well, I’m afraid I don’t have any better news for you. I haven’t been able to find out who owns the Top Ten. I traced it as far as an offshore corporation in the Cayman Islands, but I can’t find out anything from those goddamned island bankers. That attorney you said visited you, though, what was his name again?”
“Hamilton Burns. A real blue-blood type.”
“Let me see what I can find out through him, and I’ll see if I can get them to sign a salvage form. Then we’ll present them with our settlement offer.”
“I need the money, Jeannie. As soon as possible.”
“Don’t worry about my end. You just watch your back, girl.”
“There’s one more slight little problem, Jeannie.”
“I get worried when you talk about slight problems.”
“Well, it’s just this cop, Collazo. I did say I would go give a statement yesterday, but with everything that happened, I didn’t have time.”
“So get your butt over there, girl.”
“I’ve got a job this morning, I can’t. And it’s a little more complicated. He said I should have my attorney present. He thinks I killed Neal and Patty.”
“What?”
“I know, it’s crazy, right?”
Jeannie didn’t say anything at first. I could almost hear her thinking. “Seychelle, listen to me. Whatever you do, don’t talk to the cops without me. As soon as you’re finished with that job, we’ll go over there together. Do you hear me?”
We said our goodbyes, and I got back to work. Soon the front room started to look habitable again. But the bedroom was another story. I didn’t own enough clothes as it was, so I couldn’t just throw all that stuff out. I sorted and folded and hung things back up in the closet. When I went to hang up my one and only long formal-type dress, I noticed something was missing. Normally, when I slid that dress—actually a bridesmaid gown I’d had to wear to the wedding of a fellow lifeguard—into the closet, I usually had to make sure I didn’t snag its lace on the valve on top of my scuba gear. But there was no tank in the closet, nor in the bedroom anywhere. I went out into the front room and looked all around again, thinking maybe I had somehow overlooked the gear out there. Nothing.
I was standing in the middle of the room in that sort of dreamy far-off space of deep contemplation when the phone rang. The noise startled me back to the here and now. I had to reach across three fat black trash bags in the kitchen to pick up the phone. I was beginning to think that maybe everybody should get their home ransacked periodically—it forced you to do a really good spring cleaning.
“Hello.”
“Miss Sullivan. Detective Collazo. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”
This guy sure was persistent. “Look, Detective, I’ll go in and make a statement as soon as I have the time.”
“Today. You will make the time.”
“I’m getting ready to do a job this morning, and—”
“But that is not the main reason I called this morning.”
“Okay. So?”
He paused. “You knew a young woman by the name of Elysia Daggett.”
I drew in my breath sharply and felt a prickly sensation creep up my spine. He had used the past tense. No.
“Yes,” I said. “I know her.”
“This morning, at approximately six-thirty A.M. . . .” I could hear the sound of paper rustling as he flipped through the pages of his notebook. When he began again, it was clear he was reading directly from his notes. “A Fort Lauderdale resident, riverfront home, raised an anchor used to prevent his boat from damaging itself against the dock. Lodged in the prongs of a—” I heard the rustling of paper as he turned a page in his notebook. “—Danforth-type anchor was the upper right arm of a nude body. Female. Body was partially wrapped in a blanket. Rope binding the ankles attached to a broken piece of cinder block.” He coughed, and I could hear the sound of him snapping the notebook closed. “We won’t know the exact cause of death until we get the M.E.’s report.”
No, no, no. I just kept chanting the same word over and over in my head. I was hearing what he was saying, but it wasn’t registering in my mind. The words were searing straight through to my guts.
“Miss Sullivan, are you still there?”
“Yes.” No, no, no.
“We ran the prints and made the ID. She had a record. The brick tied to her ankles was not heavy enough to prevent the body from moving in the current. We assume it was dumped somewhere upriver and the outgoing tide carried it down until she snagged on this anchor. We checked with her last known residence, a facility called Harbor House, and they gave us the name of her employer. I am here at the Bahia Cabana at this moment, and the manager tells us she left work with you yesterday.”
I couldn’t speak. My hands were shaking so, I could feel the phone vibrating against the side of my head.
“Miss Sullivan.”
She was so beautiful. The little sailor suit. The white heels that clicked so authoritatively on the tile floors. I could see her laughing, laughing at being alive, her auburn curls splayed out in the back of B.J.’s El Camino, kicking her bare feet in the air. Stop shaking, Seychelle. This isn’t so. It can’t be. Oh, child, Ely. No.