‘Listen, Judge. You pretty sure you gonna rule these deaths as homicides?’
‘Of course, yes.’
‘Then that’s all you need to worry about, Your Honor. Anything beyond that, you‘re stepping on my toes. And my toes, they’re real tender. They get hurt real easy. And my feet hurt, I’m in a bad mood. We’re clear?’
‘Yes,’ Whit said. ‘I’m going in to Corpus, to meet with the ME and with Parker and his people around four. They have to sign custody of the old bones back to me. You want to go?’ He’d mention the tip then, let David squirm the whole thirty miles into Corpus. Better than listening to talk radio.
‘Sure. That’s fine. I got a suspect to go question this afternoon.’
‘You do? Who?’
‘Pick me up around three. We’ll head into Corpus.’ David winked, put on his Stetson, stepped out of Whit’s office, said a hearty hey to Edith Gregory, Whit’s secretary, then headed out down the courthouse hallway with a strut. ‘I’ll tell you about my suspect then if the mood hits me.’
‘Oh, you’re gonna be in the mood,’ said Whit.
Alex Black closed the door to his room at the Sandspot Motel and flicked on the light. With its freeze-your-ass air conditioner and an ongoing next-door groan-a-thon from a couple he dubbed the Honeymooners, this temporary home held few charms. He wanted to leave. He wanted to go to the storage unit and run his hands over the coins, feel the heft of the Devil’s Eye, say a silent fuck you to every archaeologist and bureaucrat who had ever crossed his path. Instead he sat down and called his father on his cell phone.
‘Bert Exton’s room, please.’ He waited for the hospice receptionist to connect him, endured bad muzak for a few moments.
‘H’lo?’ Tired, weak-sounding.
‘Dad. How’s today been?’ Alex said.
‘Only about a three. Yesterday was a nine. Felt great. You shoulda called yesterday.’
‘Well, soon as I finish up this dig, Dad, I’m coming to Miami. See you for a spell.’ And get your poor ass out of that death trap, and we’ll go to Costa Rica. Let you die peaceful under a beautiful sky. Maybe near some ruins. just for old times’ sake, Alex thought. ‘How’s that sound?’
‘That’d be great.’ Weak cough. ‘You liking Michigan?’
‘Sure.’ What Dad didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Dad thought he was on an Ojibwa artifacts dig. ‘Good place to spend the summer.’
‘Bureaucrats giving you hell?’ A little rally in Bert’s voice.
‘No, sir. No one’s giving me hell.’
‘That’s good. Proud of you, boy.’
What Dad didn’t know. ‘So tomorrow’s gonna be, what, at least a six? You keeping a good attitude?’
‘Screw optimism. Yeah. We’ll aim for a six. You get here, maybe you sneak me in a six-pack, okay?’
‘Sure, Dad.’ He’d sneak in freaking Moet for the old guy. Alex said his good-byes, hung up. He had buyers lined up for the coins – dealing strictly in cash, no questions asked. And he could find a buyer – probably a Colombian trader – for the Devil’s Eye, but a big emerald like that he’d have to move carefully. Even getting it appraised would draw unwanted attention. He could be in Miami in a week, any loose ends wrapped up.
Stoney was the one remaining problem.
He lay back down on the bed and began to imagine various deaths for Stoney Vaughn. Quick ones. You didn’t want to spend any extra time with Stoney if you could help it.
7
In the clear sunshine of the Gulf of Mexico, the blood and gore painted sparkles across the green waves. Filmy scales glistened like jewel dust. Torn shrimp pinwheeled down from the surface, pink and brown and white, a kaleidoscope of flesh. Slivers of fish guts bobbed, the light shifting their colors from red to green to gray as they sank beneath the water.
‘Beautiful,’ Claudia said.
‘Gross,’ Ben Vaughn said. ‘But I mean that in a real manly way.’
Thursday morning Claudia stood at the open back of Jupiter, a forty-eight-foot luxury craft, fishing rod in hand. She usually preferred fishing on the open deck of a boat, but Jupiter offered the cool shade of the cabin, a cushioned wicker chair, a glass of grapefruit juice at her elbow. She watched a heavy Gulf shrimper chug away from them, its wake now colored with the pool of chum Ben had poured overboard.
Ben hoisted himself up the ladder from the swim platform. He washed his hands of brownish film at the sink. ‘You ready to fish the buffet?’
Claudia smiled. ‘Am I ever.’
‘Sort of glad my brother didn’t tag along.’ Ben sat down next to her, relaxed, grinning. ‘I’m not sure what a third wheel is on a boat.’
‘Sweet of him to let us use the boat.’
‘Stoney’s too busy to play with his toys. I’m glad I’m not. Summer vacation.’ Ben leaned over and kissed her, easy. ‘That’s for luck.’
She cast her line into the spreading heart of gore, nailing its center. He cast after her, his line hitting the edges of the chum smear.
‘You don’t need any coaching.’
‘I just need someone to vouch for my unbelievable fish stories if I end up not catching a thing,’ she said.
‘We each caught a whale, right?’ Ben sipped at his soda.
Claudia watched sleek figures dart and turn beneath the bloody cloud. Within seconds a thick-bodied yellow-fin hit her line. She jerked once, setting the hook, and then let the monofilament line spin out as the yellowfin raced away, revving along for a hundred and fifty feet. The tug and play went on for ten minutes, and soon the strength at the other end of the line faded. Claudia reeled her prize in and carefully held the bullet-shaped yellowfin aloft for inspection.
‘A real beauty. You’re gonna outfish me, aren’t you?’
‘The day is young.’ Claudia eased the heavy yellowfin into the customized live well in the salon’s corner and cast her line out again.
But her luck didn’t hold. Her next cast caught a fight-filled bonito that tired after ten minutes. As Claudia reeled the bonito toward the boat a dark shape flashed beneath the faded slick of chum and her line went slack.
Ben pointed into the murk. ‘Shark. Grabbed your fish for lunch.’
Claudia watched a ten-foot silky rocket underneath the boat. Sharks. An odd tickle touched the base of her spine. ‘I hope he enjoys the lunch I caught him.’
‘Let’s find less crowded waters.’ Ben went up to the flying bridge and steered Jupiter away from the shrimpers’ wakes, moving far out past a weather buoy marking seventy-five miles from the Texas coast. They spent the next hour or so hooking king mackerel and ling.
Ben pulled up a big ling, inspected it, let it go. The fish hit the water and dove down into the hard blue dark. ‘Best catches I’ve had lately. That kiss worked.’
‘All mine do,’ she said. ‘So I got a question. Why’d you call me, Ben, after all these years?’
He cast his line again, let it settle. ‘You aren’t with David anymore.’
‘It’s funny. Now I actually never feel I was with him.’
‘You didn’t love him?’
‘I did. But not the way you’re supposed to.’
‘There’s a recipe?’
‘There’s a minimum requirement. He and I were comfortable together. But comfort wasn’t quite enough.’
‘Did you ever think of me when you were married?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A few times. But if you had shown up on my doorstep all you would have gotten was a friendly hug and a cup of coffee. I took my marriage seriously, Ben.’
‘I’m sure you did.’ Ben took her hand. ‘I never told you this, but you were my first, Claudia.’ He grinned. ‘I had to get you out in the middle of the Gulf to confess that. No danger of anyone overhearing.’
‘I suspected as much, if I remember.’
‘Couldn’t admit it to you. The guy can never be the virgin.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘Well, I forgive you, Ben.’
He leaned over, kissed her, soft and gentle but not tentative. Not the lips of the boy she had kissed at seventeen, not the boy she had given her own virginity to, but a man surer and wiser with his touch. He broke the kiss first, kissed her closed eyelids.