Skinny Dip (27 page)

Chaz Perrone’s yellow Hummer was hard to miss, even without the plume of dust trailing it down the levee. Stranahan handed Joey a pair of binoculars, through which she could see her husband’s windblown head protruding from the driver’s window and cocked toward the sky.

“He does not look overjoyed,” she reported, drawing a gleeful cackle from her brother.

Their pilot was on the radio, double-checking the flight paths and altitudes of the other helicopters. A Cessna from the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office broke in, a Sergeant Robinson inquiring about all the chopper activity. The pilot of the baby-blue Bell replied that they were rehearsing an aerial chase for the new James Bond movie, a glamorous lie that produced the desired effect: The police Cessna banked sharply and drifted away. Authorities in South Florida were famously accommodating to the film industry, and had been known to shut down major freeways so that a teenaged vampire drag-racing scene could be shot and re-shot without artistic compromise.

When Chaz finally parked the Hummer and waded into the water, Joey insisted on buzzing him. It was Corbett, however, who persuaded the pilot to put the aircraft into a hover directly above his brother-in-law’s hatless noggin. The helicopter stayed high enough that Chaz couldn’t have seen who was aboard, but he didn’t even try. It was amusing to watch him fumble with the water bottle while pretending not to notice the shadow of the chopper, or its earsplitting racket.

“That’s enough,” Joey called out, and the pilot pulled away.

They circled at a greater distance, alternating low sweeps with the other helicopters, until Chaz finished with the sample and sped off in the Humvee.

“What do you suppose he’s thinking?” Corbett asked.

“Unhappy thoughts,” Joey said.

Mick Stranahan laughed. “Wait until he sees the newspaper.”

Later, after returning to the island, they all went fishing in the Whaler. Stranahan caught several nice yellowtails, which he fried Cuban-style for dinner. Afterward Corbett lit a cigar and Joey modeled the silk Michael Kors skirt that she’d purchased at the Galleria. Mick uncorked a bottle of Australian cabernet. The three of them sat together on the seawall and watched the sun go down, Strom parking his black brick of a head on Joey’s lap.

“What should I say about you on Thursday?” Corbett asked. He was drafting his speech for the memorial service.

“You can say I was a kind and loving sister,” Joey said.

“Aw, come on. We can do better than that.”

Stranahan said, “Say she was a tiger. She never quit fighting.”

Corbett beamed. “I like that.”

“Say she was full of life and had a big heart.”

“No, a dumb heart,” Joey said.

“Not true.” Mick touching her arm.

“I’ll say you were idealistic,” Corbett said.

Joey frowned. “Which is just another word for naive.”

“Then say she had great legs,” Stranahan said.

“Well, why not?” Corbett chortled.

Joey covered her ears. “Stop it, both of you.”

Corbett hadn’t been able to line up a choir on short notice, so he’d settled for a trio of guitarists. “They do the folk Mass at the Catholic church in Lighthouse Point. The priest tells me they’re pretty good.”

Joey said, “What if Chaz doesn’t show up?”

Corbett tipped up his red-blond chin and blew a wreath of smoke. “Oh, he’ll be there. He knows how bad it would look if he didn’t.”

Stranahan agreed. “Right now he’s scared to death of making a wrong move. He’s got no choice but to play the grieving widower to the bitter end.”

“God, I wish I could be there,” Joey said.

Stranahan shot her a look. “Don’t even think about it. You promised.”

“But I could make myself up so that he’d never know it was me.” Her brother said, “Joey, this isn’t The Lucy Show. The man tried to murder you.”

She was silent for a while, sipping her wine and stroking Strom’s sleek neck. The sun dropped over the horizon and the sky over Biscayne Bay turned from gold to pink to purple. Joey wondered what her husband would wear to the service. Where he would sit. What he might say to her friends. Whether he would notice Rose in the first pew.

Of course be would notice Rose.

“Now, that was a first-class sunset,” Corbett said, flicking his cigar into the water. The hiss roused the Doberman. Corbett whistled and the dog clambered to its feet.

Stranahan got up, too. “Let’s go take another look at the video.”

Corbett remarked that it had turned out surprisingly well, for having been shot in a single take. “You two have a future in television.”

“Hey, I just thought of something.” Joey rose, smoothing her skirt. “What if Chaz wants to say something at the memorial service? What if the jerk decides he’s got to get up and make a speech?”

“Damn right he’s making a speech,” Corbett said. “I already left a message on his answering machine. Told him he’s getting five minutes in the pulpit to make you sound like the saint you were. Told him it better be good.”

Captain Gallo pointed at the jelly jars on Karl Rolvaag’s desk and said, “Those are the worst-looking urine specimens I ever saw.”

Rolvaag faked a chuckle, out of deference to rank. “It’s just water.”

“After passing through what—a diseased buffalo?”

“Water from the Everglades.” The detective had meant to conceal the jars inside his desk, in order to avoid precisely this conversation. Normally, Gallo took a much longer lunch hour, but evidently his bimbo du jour had stood him up.

He peered disgustedly at the hazy contents of the jars. “Christ, there’s bugs and crap floatin’ around in there.”

“You betcha,” Rolvaag said.

“Can I ask what the hell it’s doing out here?”

Unlike most of the other detectives, Rolvaag never felt comfortable lying to Captain Gallo’s face, even when it was the eminently sensible thing to do. This time he gave it a try.

“It’s for my snakes. There are too many chemicals in the water coming out of the tap,” Rolvaag said. “All that fluoride and chlorine, it’s not healthy for them.”

“And that shit *>?” Gallo asked incredulously. “You’re a head case, Karl, no offense. Who else do you know has pets that need swamp water and live rats?”

The detective shrugged. Telling Gallo the truth wouldn’t have accomplished anything. He would have scoffed at Rolvaag’s field trip as a waste of time, which it most definitely was not. Using Marta’s map, Rolvaag had located by automobile a sampling site adjacent to Hammernut Farms. There he had waded barefoot into the cattails and filled three mason jars with water the color of root beer, which he’d delivered to a professor friend at Florida Atlantic University. Rolvaag’s amateur samples had revealed illegal levels of suspended phosphorus at 317, 327 and 344 parts per billion, respectively. The figures contrasted dramatically with Dr. Charles Perrone’s suspiciously consistent findings of only 9 ppb in the runoff from the vegetable fields.

Rolvaag did not share his own test results—or his damning conclusions—with Perrone’s co-workers at the water district. While politely deflecting their questions, he’d gotten the distinct impression that none of them would be heartbroken to see Chaz dragged off in handcuffs. The detective had offered no details about his investigation, for it was possible that the scientist’s fraudulent water charts were unrelated to the death of his wife. If Joey Perrone’s last will and testament was authentic, Chaz might have killed her purely for the money. If the will was a forgery and Joey’s inheritance was not an incentive, Chaz might have killed her for any one of a dozen pedestrian reasons that drove spouses to homicide.

Explaining the phosphorus scam would have brought either a blank stare or a skeptical snort from Captain Gallo, who’d have instantly pointed out the difficulty of selling such an arcane motive to a homicide jury. Nonetheless, the fact that Charles Perrone was faking the Everglades data was a valuable piece of information for Karl Rolvaag. It put the strange blackmail scheme into a more ominous context, considering what was at stake for Samuel Johnson Hammernut. Disclosure of his illicit arrangement with the biologist would be devastating, financially and politically. The pollution violations would draw hefty government fines, and bribing a state employee was a felony punishable by a hitch in prison. Even if Red Hammernut managed to escape conviction, the publicity alone would forever stain the reputation of his company. Rolvaag believed that the crusty tycoon would do whatever was necessary to protect himself from the blackmailer and also from Chaz Perrone, whose loyalty would evaporate as soon as the cell door slammed behind him.

When Gallo asked how the case was going, Rolvaag said, “Not so great. I’m getting mixed opinions on Mrs. Perrone’s will. Her brother says it’s a fake. Unfortunately, so does one of my two handwriting experts.”

“Does that mean somebody’s trying to set hubby up for a fall?”

“Possibly. Chaz hasn’t got many admirers.”

Rolvaag sneezed convulsively. It was one of those days when the captain had put on his cologne with a fire hose.

“Too bad about the will,” Gallo said. “I thought we had our lucky break.”

“Me, too.”

“So you’re finally ready to bag it?” Gallo asked hopefully.

“Unless something breaks loose, I don’t know what else to do,” Rolvaag said. In truth he knew exactly what to do: sit back and watch.

“No sense banging my head against the wall,” he added.

“You gave it a helluva shot,” Gallo said.

“Oh well.”

“By the way, Karl, I got your paperwork on the resignation. I tore it up and threw it in the trash.”

Rolvaag said, “That’s all right. I made copies.”

“Would you knock it off already?”

“I’m quitting, Captain. Seriously.”

“For Edina, Minnesota? Leaving Florida?”

“Honestly, I can’t wait.”

Another dog, a toy poodle, had gone missing at Sawgrass Grove. Rolvaag had never heard of binge feeding by pythons, but he couldn’t discount the possibility. Something seemed to be preying on his neighbors’ pets, and his missing snakes were prime suspects. The detective planned to mail an anonymous check for one thousand dollars to each of the grieving couples, an act that would clear not only his conscience but also his bank account.

“You’ve got a bright future here,” Gallo said.

Rolvaag tried not to appear amused.

“The man himself has taken notice of your good work,” Gallo added in a confidential tone. The man being the sheriff.

“I thought he was ticked off about me interviewing Hammernut,” Rolvaag said.

“Hell, no, Karl. He was just covering his ass is all. He’s a big fan, trust me.”

The detective did not for a moment suppose that the sheriff was a “fan,” and he could barely summon the energy to act flattered.

Gallo said, “For Christ’s sake, what have I gotta do to change your mind? And don’t say ‘Indict Charles Perrone.’ “

Rolvaag smiled. “Don’t worry.”

The detective had accepted the fact that Perrone would never be charged with murdering his wife, even though he had most certainly pushed her off the cruise ship. What had saved Rolvaag from abject discouragement were the jars of cloudy liquid on his desk; swamp water salted with the harshest man-made fertilizers. That Chaz Perrone would betray a place as hallowed as the Everglades for money was proof of his congenital dishonesty, rancid morals and general worthlessness. Yet while the discovery of the biologist’s sleazy crime had confirmed Rolvaag’s suspicions about the so-called scientist, it was more ironic than revelatory.

Because Charles Regis Perrone was doomed.

The detective had never been more sure of anything. After sifting every wisp of information that he’d gathered, Rolvaag realized that he needn’t waste another minute trying to send Chaz Perrone to Death Row.

The man was already a goner. Toast.

He was arrogant and impulsive, and Samuel Johnson Hammernut was going to make him disappear. Even had Rolvaag wished to intercede, he would only be delaying the inevitable.

Chaz Perrone was, as his brother-in-law had observed, a hopeless fuckwit. If for a moment he feared that his fakery of the pollution data would be exposed, Perrone would immediately roll over and rat on Red Hammernut, meanwhile casting himself in the least felonious light. And who would foresee this scenario sooner or more clearly than the man who’d recruited the young biologist precisely for his craven-ness and casual mendacity? Red Hammernut could smell a butt fuck coming a mile away, and he’d never stand still for it.

Karl Rolvaag could now leave South Florida with a measure of peace, if not satisfaction. Chaz Perrone would never be prosecuted for killing his wife, but he would be punished.

All that remained to nag at the detective was a solitary loose end, something that had turned up on a routine inquiry to American Express. In the twelve days since Joey Perrone went overboard, somebody had used her credit card to rent a Chevrolet Suburban, and also to purchase women’s shoes, makeup, designer sunglasses and numerous articles of fine clothing, including a two-piece Burberry swimsuit. Rolvaag didn’t believe that Chaz Perrone was reckless enough (or tasteful enough) to embark on such a shopping spree, though it was possible that one of his female acquaintances had found and pocketed Joey’s gold AmEx while visiting Chaz’s house.

“I can’t believe you’re actually boxing up all your shit,” Gallo was complaining, his knuckles planted on Rolvaag’s desk. “I can’t fucking believe you’re going through with this.”

The detective smiled apologetically. “I miss the snow,” he said.

One more visit to West Boca Dunes Phase II. Then he could start loading the U-Haul.

Twenty-five

Charles Perrone said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Red says different.” Tool leaned against the refrigerator, gnawing a stick of beef jerky and sucking at a jumbo Mountain Dew.

“I don’t care what Red says!”

Rolled in Chaz’s right hand was the Sun-Sentinel, which he brandished like a lead pipe. A notice on the obituary page said that Joey’s brother was holding a memorial service at St. Conan’s on Thursday morning, and that Joey’s friends and loved ones were invited to “come share their memories and celebrate her effervescent life spirit.”