But it wasn’t Bonnie calling.
“My name is Eve Stripling. Are you Detective Yancy?”
“Actually, it’s Inspector Yancy.” As in roach inspector.
“Sheriff Summers gave me your number.”
She sounded fairly young. The accent was flat, midwestern.
Yancy said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Stripling.”
“Yes, it’s awful, just awful. Where’s the best place to meet up?”
Before Evan Shook’s bulldozers razed the lot next door, Yancy went outside almost every evening to watch the white-tailed Key deer nibble on the hammock scrub and red mangroves. They were fantastically small and delicate-looking; even a buck was no bigger than a golden retriever. Only a few hundred of the deer remained, roaming a handful of islands. Big Pine and No Name Key had the most, but the animals were hapless when it came to avoiding cars, especially at night. Every year the Citizen published a gloomy scorecard of roadkills as the species teetered toward extinction. Not everyone shared Yancy’s fondness for his four-legged neighbors; signs urging motorists to watch out for the critters were sometimes found spray-painted as rifle sights.
Ninety-two hundred acres had been patched together as a refuge for the remaining deer. Being unable to read, they frequently meandered beyond its boundaries. Some had become recklessly tame, mooching handouts from tourists and losing all fear of humans. Yancy never fed the small herd that appeared at dusk on the land beside his own. He didn’t snap pictures, or whistle, or make up cute names for the fawns. He just sat there sipping rum and watching the deer do their thing.
Now they were gone, and Evan Shook’s spec house was fucking up the sunset.
Yancy trudged inside and transferred the severed arm from his freezer to the Igloo cooler. He then toted the cooler to his personal 1993 Subaru—the roomy Crown Vic having been reassigned to a working detective—and drove to the Winn-Dixie supermarket. There he purchased two large bags of ice to make sure the limb belonging to Eve Stripling’s late husband didn’t thaw during her drive back home, wherever that might be.
She arrived at the store a half hour late driving a generic Malibu. To Yancy it looked like a rental. He was leaning against the front fender of his car, sporting a red baseball cap so she could locate him in the parking lot.
“This feels like a dope deal,” she said with a nervous smile. “You are Inspector Yancy, right?”
“And you must be Mrs. Stripling.”
“Eve is fine.” She was in her mid-thirties, slightly on the heavy side. The outfit was gold-strapped sandals, tight white jeans and a long-sleeved blue cotton top. Her auburn hair was tied back and her pale nose was freckled. All this Yancy could see by the light of the grocery store.
“Guess I should have a look,” she said.
“You sure about that?”
“It’s all I got, all that’s left of my sweet Nicky.”
Yancy set the cooler on the warm hood of the Malibu and removed the lid. Fortunately, the parking lot wasn’t crowded. He untaped the bubble wrapping to expose the arm.
The upraised middle finger was the first thing to greet Eve Stripling.
“Who’s the comedian?” She was clutching her elbows to her midsection, as if trying to stop herself from spinning into orbit.
“That’s how they found it,” Yancy told her. “Weird, I know.”
She managed a brittle laugh. “Maybe it was Nicky flipping off the sharks.”
“Is that his wedding band?”
“I’m pretty sure.” She held her breath and leaned close to examine the stiffened purple hand. “You got a flashlight?”
Yancy had one in the Subaru. The batteries were weak but he shook it until the bulb lit up.
Eve Stripling gave a heavy nod. “That’s his ring. It’s most definitely him.”
She didn’t comment on the etiolated band of skin where her husband’s watch had been, which surprised Yancy. Earlier he’d received a phone call from comely Dr. Campesino in Miami. Apparently the pathologist wasn’t completely put off by Yancy’s incompetent flirting, for in her spare time she’d digitally enlarged her photograph of the rectangular outline on the wrist of the phantom limb. In that way she was able through online resources to identify the missing watch as a limited-edition Wyler Genève Tourbillon, distinguishable by a unique clasped crown shield and also for its suggested retail price of $145,000. Yancy had assumed that the loss of such an expensive timepiece would catch the notice of a widow, even in the throes of grief. But Eve Stripling said nothing, so Yancy left the subject untouched.
A radish-eyed old geezer in hiking boots walked by, pushing a grocery cart. He saw the two of them looking into the cooler and piped, “You catch some fish?”
“Lobsters,” Yancy said.
“How much you want for ’em?”
“Not for sale.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
Yancy took out the dead arm and waved it at the old man, who shuffled off quickly. Eve Stripling wore an expression of suppressed dismay. After repacking the limb, Yancy placed the cooler in the trunk of the Chevy.
He said, “What was Nick’s line of work?”
Now on a first-name basis with the victim.
“Oh, he’s retired.”
Just like Johnny Mendez, Yancy thought, although Nick Stripling probably hadn’t made his fortune looting a Crime Stoppers account.
“Did they ever find his boat?”
“Just some cushions and spare gas cans,” Eve Stripling said. “Also a deflated life raft—they said it must’ve got popped by fish hooks.”
“Was there a fuel slick?”
“Yeah, five miles off the Sombrero Lighthouse. His body floated south, obviously.”
“Anybody else on board?”
“No, just Nicky. He was on his way to Cay Sal to catch up with some friends.”
A mosquito was feasting in a dimple on Eve Stripling’s chin. Under more casual circumstances Yancy would have reached over and flicked it away. Instead he said, “The bugs are out of control tonight. Let’s sit in the car.”
“I should really be going.”
“This won’t take much longer.”
“But the sheriff promised—”
“Just a couple more questions. All routine.” That’s what detectives did, they asked questions. Yancy meant to stay in practice.
He opened the door for Eve Stripling, then went around and got in the passenger side. The new smell confirmed it was a rental.
“How far’s your drive?” he asked.
“Miami Beach.”
A short hop not to bring your own wheels, Yancy thought, but he let it go. She’d probably rented the Chevy because she was afraid her husband’s dead arm would stink up the Jaguar. “Was Nick a good swimmer?”
“So-so. He loved that damn fishing boat, though.”
“How old was he?”
“Forty-six. We’ve got a condo on Duck Key,” Eve Stripling said, “but I was in Paris when it happened.”
“When did you learn he was missing?”
“The France trip was a present from Nicky. I wasn’t worried when I didn’t hear from him because he hardly ever calls from the islands. The cell service over there is suck-o. He was supposed to get home the Sunday after I did. When he didn’t show up, I just figured the fishing must be super good and he’d decided to stay. Why aren’t you writing any of this down?”
“Like I said, it’s just routine.”
“So, anyway, Wednesday comes and still no Nicky. That’s when I started calling around and the Coast Guard told me what they found. They said it was super rough that weekend and his boat probably swamped.”
“That happens.”
“He called it Summer’s Eve,” she said fondly, “after me.”
Also the name of a douche, thought Yancy. But, hey, it’s the thought that counts.
“Are we done?” she asked.
“Almost.” From a breast pocket he took the Release of Property form that Burton had given him. Eve Stripling switched on the dome light so she could read it.