It was unusually hot and humid for March and Moody was sweating as soon as he stepped out of the cruiser. One of the pleasures of being a detective was that he was allowed to wear plainclothes on the job, but the special light fabrics he wore could evaporate only so much of a body’s moisture. Bad enough to be doomed to a physique like the Graf Zeppelin’s but why did the Good Lord have to add to the tribulations of the plump by making them sweat three times as much as everyone else?
He knew he was luckier than some. Beer gut aside, he didn’t look obese, just big. He’d been told that if he gave up beer he could lose the gut. But giving up beer would’ve meant giving up a large chunk of whatever it was that comprised Vernon Moody. Shoot, he’d even miss being the butt of familiar jokes around the station. Besides which, it would mean an end to his fishing. A man could sooner fish without tackle than without beer.
He controlled his irritation while he waited for the tube system’s web to process his police ID. From a security standpoint it was far from perfect—anyone could still land a boat on one of the perfect, groomed key beaches. But it kept the small-time thieves from having easy access to the respected, wealthy ones.
He stepped up into the air-conditioned tube car gratefully, punched in the address, and settled back in the padded seat as the maglide accelerated over the intracoastal waterway. As it neared Steel Key it began to slow, shunting onto an alley lane, to finally deposit him outside one of the contemporary mansions that faced the sea. Since none of the artificial keys was more than two lots wide, builders had the choice of facing the Gulf or the mainland. Of course “lot” was a relative term when speaking of property on the artificial islets.
The tube shunt and a quaint, meandering walkway ran down the center of the key. There was also a paved, lightly banked road for the use of those who might want to bicycle or powerskate. No motorized vehicles allowed, lest they disturb the tranquillity of those who had paid immense sums to leave such noises behind on the mainland.
Gonna be a hot summer, he thought to himself as he stepped clear of the maglide car and headed for the gate opposite, resenting even brief exposure to the climate of Central Florida.
Though cars were absent, there was no dearth of activity. Scavengers from the Coroner’s office were working the vine-scribed walls and flower beds. One was intently scrutinizing the trunk of a transplanted coconut palm which grew hard by the opaque blue-green glass barrier that surrounded the Kettrick compound. They were looking for heel marks, or indications of forced entry. Likely was a forced entry, he mused. Usually was, when murder was involved, though you could never be certain. Perhaps the killer had arrived by parachute or hanglider, or had scubaed onto the beach. Or burrowed through the soil like a gopher.
They must be pretty sure it was homicide, though, or they wouldn’t have called him in.
The patrolman on duty at the gate recognized him and let him through. He found himself walking through an immaculately maintained tropical garden, following a crushed coral path toward the house. An airborne mist-maker drifted past on its appointed rounds, moistening a dense clump of bright purple orchids and pungent bougainvillea. Moody was unimpressed. Downtown Tampa stank of the tropics. The unique, self-propelled aerial spray was present only because of the existence of expensive, private desalinization facilities.
As he walked he studied the scroll-up on his pocket spinner. It was standard department issue, gunmetal-gray with a four-inch-square screen, the controls well-worn and slick with skin oil. There was plenty of background on Kettrick, and Moody hadn’t been given enough time to peruse all of it back at the office. So far, the most interesting piece of information to come up on the screen was the fact that Kettrick’s son-in-law played for the Bucs. The team was cool and dry in the Northwest this week, getting ready to play the Portland Axe. The instrument informed him that Kettrick’s daughter was with her husband. No doubt she’d already been notified of her father’s demise.
There was nothing in the hastily compiled domestic dossier to suggest that this might be a family affair, something for which Moody was grateful. He was a big Bucs fan and they were short of good defensive linemen as it was.
Though the web was full of info on Kettrick, it had little to say about the killing beyond an estimated time of death. The coroner team was still plaiting. Moody knew that in the not too distant past cops had been forced to wait hours, even days for updated information. That was back before police weavers had learned how to build good webs, before the advent of pocket spinners able to access them. Wonderful devices. Not only could they keep your information up to the minute, but if you got bored with the daily grind you could surreptitiously switch over to a network or ESPN.
The house was full of professionals, a few of whom recognized Moody and paused in their endeavors long enough to acknowledge his presence with a glance or grunt. Their number was a reflection of the dead man’s importance, not the department’s desire for thoroughness. Off to his right several were orbiting a crying woman. Moody angled in their direction.
There was something about very rich people which enabled them to bawl like the Flood without disrupting their poise. Mrs. Leona Kettrick was having a composed breakdown, mopping regularly at her eyes with an absorbent yet exquisitely crafted handkerchief. She was in her mid to late forties, well-dressed, handsome rather than pretty. No doubt she was more attractive when she wasn’t crying. She had the look of someone who’d been teetering on the verge of collapse for too many hours and was keeping herself going on dignity and pills.
Moody stood quietly, able to see over everyone’s head, letting Berkowitz ask the questions. The other detective was much better at interviews of this type than his colleague. Asking no questions of his own while sorting substance from sobs, Moody determined that Mrs. Kettrick had been participating in some social function at Jekyll Island up on the south Georgia coast and had returned only this morning to discover her husband’s body, whereupon she had immediately called the police.
From the tone of Berkowitz’s questions Moody surmised that at this point she was no more than a secondary suspect as far as the department was concerned. If that supposition turned out upon further investigation to be wrong and she was in some way responsible for what had happened, then she was doing a superb job of feigning grief. She was having a difficult time controlling herself long enough to supply coherent answers to the detective’s queries. In his nearly twenty years of police work Moody had actually run across a few marrieds who’d stayed in love with their original partners. Hers might be no more than a good performance. He hoped not.
The two techs from the Coroner’s office didn’t have to make room for Moody. He made his own room. Big as he was, it was easy for him to nudge his way into the circle surrounding the distraught widow. It allowed him to study her close up, take note of the details. Moody was very good with details. It was a hallmark of his work.
He noted them mentally for later inclusion in a formal file: expensive faux jewelry, designer travel-wear, no overt evidence of pharmacutie use, telltale signs of collagen injections at the neck and forehead. She must have been a very attractive young woman and she was fighting middle age with all the tenacity of a last-place team making a goal-line stand against the Superbowl bound. Why was it, he wondered not for the first time, that it was the genetically blessed who chose to employ cosmetic surgery so extensively? Having been recognized as beautiful in their youth, perhaps they felt its loss more keenly than those who had never been subject to the admiring stares of the herd.