MIAMI ICED

by Susan Sussman

  Someone left a Miami Herald folded next to the phone. The obit with Deke’s photo smiles up at me. With court cancelled, I have plenty of time to make it to the funeral. As I hurry to my car I wonder if Caprice and her mom know about Deke’s death? If they don’t read the paper how would they know?

  --Do I tell them or do I don’t?

  -Caprice and Deke had a special relationship.

  -Who are you to bring one more sad thing into their lives?

  I debate whether or not to call them as I drive onto I-95.

  -Caprice always stopped to see Deke when she visited Brandy and Mel, baked him cookies, fussed at him about his health. Deke bragged about Caprice as if she were one of his own.

  -She’s about to lose one father to prison. Deke’s death might be too much to bear just now.

  -Wouldn’t she and her mother want to know, to call Deke’s family, send a condolence card, order a fish platter?

  -At this moment, his death is the least of the Galdino women’s worries.

  In my rearview mirror I catch flashes of lightning ripping through a slate gray sky. A storm’s blowing up from the Keys and seems bent on chasing me up to Palm Beach.

  --Do I tell them or do I don’t?

  -They’ll find out Deke died, eventually.

  The car ahead on my left flashes its directional and pulls in front of me at a reasonable speed, keeping a safe distance. The driver is wearing her seat belt and has both hands on the wheel. A sticker on the rear bumper reads:

  Honk if you love Jesus.

  Text while driving if you’d like to meet him

  Not all omens are foreboding. This is a sign, pure and simple -- a glimmer of order in the chaos. The Fates have decided for me.

  I punch the hands-free car phone Michael installed that I never use. “Front desk,” I say, slow and loud. The gizmo dials.

  “Security,” says an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

  “Hi. This is Laura Marks.”

  “Who?”

  “Laura Marks. Apartment 1550.”

  “We don’t give out resident’s numbers.”

  “No. I am Laura Marks.” There’s a pause as she works this out. “I’m calling because I need to contact a woman who’s staying in our building. Caprice Galdino.” I spell it out.

  “Let me check.” She does. “We don’t have anyone here by that name.”

  “She’s visiting an owner.”

  “Who’s the owner?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “What’s the apartment number?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Would Valet know?”

  “She doesn’t have a car.” The clouds blowing up from the south gain force, closing in on me. “Someone in the office might know,” I say.

  “I’ll connect you.” There are a series of clicks before the line goes dead.

  I begin again. “Call home,” I say. Bitsy picks up. “Do me a favor?”

  “Are you out in this storm?” she asks.

  “Not yet. It’s on my tail. I’m on my way to Deke’s funeral.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Can you go to the building office and see if they know which apartment a Caprice Galdino is staying in?”

  “That girl from the trial?”

  “Yes. She was a friend of the harbormaster and she might not have heard Deke died.”

  “When I find out, I’ll make a copy of the obit and slip it under her door.

  “That would be great.”

  28

  I can’t stay here -- squished next to Quincy in the last pew, a couple of hundred mourners crowding in, Deke’s children sobbing, their grief pushing air from the room.

  I can’t -- memories of Michael’s funeral flaring.

  Can’t stay – my tinnitus screaming like a jet.

  Stay here -- heart jitterbugging crazy-wild.

  I can’t stay here – I get up, swimming against the stream of mourners, following the wood-paneled hallway around a corner. My rubber legs give way as I sink onto a bench. The world spins.

  Quincy follows on my heels. “Bend forward,” he says, pressing a cool hand against the back of my neck, pushing my head down between my knees. “Breathe. Slow. Deep. That’s my girl.”

  The whirligig world slowly stops spinning. The deafening ear-ringing recedes. Maybe I won’t vomit.

  “Better?”

  “Mmm-humm.”

  “Give it a minute.” We stay like this -- me folded in half, Quincy holding me still – in the easy silence of old friends.

  Back down the hall, someone thumps a live microphone. “Everyone, please take a seat and we’ll get started.”

  “You go,” I say.

  “I’m not leaving you like this.”

  “I’ll listen from out here. I’ll be fine.” The ceremony begins but Quincy doesn’t move. “He was your friend,” I say. “You need to go in. I promise I’ll be fine.”

  Quincy stands, elegant in a Cuban Guayabera, its white linen stark against his tan. “Look,” he says, “when we’re done here, a group of us are going out to bury Deke’s ashes at sea. Some owner at the marina donated the use of a yacht. There’s plenty of room if you’d like to come.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see.”

  The service begins and I stay out here, listening as one person after another tells a Deke story. There is laughter here, and tears. When the service shows no sign of ending any time soon, I gather my things and tiptoe out of the church. The storm that had chased me hung a hard left toward Naples, leaving Palm Beach hot and sunny. I’m still shaky, should take some settle-down time before facing the highway traffic home. The Tradewinds Marina is nearby. A little sea air should fix me right up.

  The marina looks even more deserted than usual with the handful of year‘rounders likely attending Deke’s funeral. A van pulls into the lot, its driver taking fishing equipment out of the back. I roam the dock, soothed by the elixir of salty sea air and ocean breeze. If only I could bottle this, ah, the fortune I’d make.

  The boat storage building looms in the distance. I haven’t been here since Parker brought me to his friend to replace my boat’s propeller. Where is Parker now? Still sniffing out the missing Lucas millions or duping some other unsuspecting widow? What a dope I was. I need to grow a shell, build a suspicious nature. This experience was a terrific start. I turn my back on the building and walk the other way.

  Even from a distance, the Dandy Brandy looks shipshape and yar. Gone are the carelessly strewn bikinis, beer bottles and bodacious brats. The faded For Sale sign has been replaced with a bright new one, the name of a boat brokerage company prominently displayed. Good-bye fun in the sun, hello bottom line. Reality bites.

  How can the Lucas children afford to pay Parker? Are they selling what’s left of their dead mother’s jewelry? Do they even have access to the jewelry or is it being held in evidence against the New Jersey fence or Joseph Galdino? And, if Galdino is convicted of murdering their mother, what chance will they have of ever recovering the stolen cash? Will they give up the search? At what point do clients tell a private investigator to stop looking? Or have they already sent Parker packing?

  A seventy-footer glides past, docking near the Harbormaster Office. I amble over as the crew – crisp and elegant in dress whites -- ties up and prepares to receive guests. Deke Hawkins’ Norse funeral awaits. The flag outside the Harbormaster Office hangs at half-staff. A sign on the door says “Closed” but I see lights inside and someone moving around. I peek through a window. A tidy man in a white polo shirt, beige chinos and a baseball cap is riffling through Deke’s desk.

  I test the front door. It’s unlocked. I bang it open. “What are you doing with Deke’s stuff?”

  The man jumps. “I…I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I was just…trying to…” gesturing over piles of papers. “I’m Howard Green,” pointing to the patch on his shirt, “Director of Marina Operations.”

&nbs
p; His shirt and cap bear the insignia of the Marina. Management didn’t waste any time. “You’re the new harbormaster?” I ask.

  “Me? Oh, no, no, no. I hire and supervise all the company’s harbormasters. And you are?”

  “Laura Marks,” I say. “I dock a boat at the Seaview.”

  He brightens. “Quincy’s a good, good man. I never get complaints.”

  “I just saw him at Deke’s funeral.”

  “I wanted to attend but the company needs this made ready. A harbor must have a harbormaster on site. Is the funeral over?”

  “Not yet.”

  “It’s so sad, so sad,” he says. Outside, the yacht’s crew rolls out a red carpet along the pier. “Everything seems ready,” he says. “I was hoping to have this all squared away before the mourners came.” He sighs at the enormity of Deke’s chaos. This is not a man used to cleaning other people’s messes. “Organizing wasn’t Deke’s strong suit.”

  I set my purse on a counter. “I’ll give you a hand.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly. It’s hardly fitting for one of our owners to –“

  “It’s a Midwestern thing,” I say. “Everyone pitches in when there’s a death in the family.”

  His eyes go sadder. “There has been that.”

  “Where should I start?”

  “I’ll take care of the marina stuff,” he says, “if you could tidy the rest.”

  I find a couple of boxes in a back room and set them on the floor. Starting at one end of the office, I work my way around the room shelf by shelf.

  This is my kind of cleaning. Bitsy is better at the day-to-day jobs – dusting, vacuuming, straightening, the cleaning no one notices until it isn’t done. But give me the roll-up-your-sleeves kind of job: attacking a cluttered garage, plowing through the catchall basement, shoveling out children’s rooms when they fly the nest to seek fame and fortune. A couple of times I think I catch sight of someone peering in the window but when I look up they’re gone. Shadows maybe. Ghosts.

  I’m careful as I fill the box with Deke’s Marlins and Dolphins coffee mugs, family photos, near-empty bottle of Scotch, a half-bag of Tootsie Roll pops, vial of heart medicine. This will be hard for his family, going through his personal items. I still can’t bear to throw away Michael’s toothbrush. It hangs next to mine in the medicine cabinet, a sweet reminder the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.

  Half-an-hour later Green is still organizing Deke’s files so I grab a broom from the back room and start sweeping under the shelves, desk, between filing cabinets. Mixed in with the dust bunnies are crumpled paper cups, paper clips, pencils, a couple of Deke’s orange heart pills from that day he dropped the vial and the pills scattered on the floor.

  “No, no need for that,” says Green, unsettled seeing me broom-in-hand. “My crew will be here soon to give the place a good going over.”

  “Let me just get these,” I say, carefully picking the dusty pills from the pile and adding them to the prescription bottle lest some child or pet or errant gull gets hold of them.

  “There’s a bathroom in back where you can flush them.”

  “Broward takes prescription medicines for safe disposal,” I say. “I’ll save Deke’s family the trouble of getting rid of them.”

  Mourners begin pulling into the marina lot for the burial at sea. Out the window I see one of Deke’s children carrying the urn with his remains. This suddenly feels much too private a moment for me to share. Green closes the desk drawer, locks it and scans the room. The office looks sterile, devoid of personality. Deke Hawkins doesn’t live here any more. I set the boxes with his belongings in a corner for his family.

  “Nice meeting you,” I say.

  “Same here. Thanks for helping.” We shake hands. “Deke will be a hard act to follow,” he says.

  “That he will.”

  “Palm Beach boaters can be mighty…” he searches for the right word, “….fussy.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I’m thinking of transferring Quincy up here.”

  “Are you, now?”

  “Yes,” says Green. “He’s good with people. I think he’d do well with this crowd. What do you think?”

  “I think,” I say, in a voice sweet enough to make angels weep, “that if you make the slightest move to transfer Quincy away from the Seaview Marina, I will personally have you drawn, quartered and disemboweled.”

  He smiles as if he thinks I’m joking.

  29

  I’m making great time on the drive back from Palm Beach when traffic slows to a crawl near Boca. I punch the hands-free phone gizmo. “Call home,” I say. The phone barely rings before Bitsy picks up.

  “I’m ready!” she says.

  “Ready?”

  “Laura? Oh, I thought you were— Never mind. What’s up?”

  “I wondered if you brought Deke’s obituary to the Galdino apartment.”

  She groans. “I forgot all about it.” I hear our doorbell ring in the distance. “Um,” says Bitsy, “do you need me to do it right now?”

  “No. It can wait until I get home. I’m on my way.”

  “I won’t be here,” she says. The bell again, more insistent. “Don’t wait dinner. I may be late,” and she clicks off. A most peculiar Bitsy conversation. My sister is usually a compound sentence kind of gal.

  “Front desk,” I command the phone, praying that he-who-knows-all is on duty. The phone clicks and rings.

  “Security desk, this is Harry Wilson speaking.”

  Thank goodness. “Hi, Harry, it’s Laura Marks. Could you tell me the name of the person the Galdino’s are staying with?”

  “Galdinos?”

  “Caprice and Maria Galdino?”

  There’s a brief pause. “I can’t say as I know those names,” he says.

  “Of course you---” I stop abruptly. Me and my big mouth. The name GALDINO has been splashed all over Florida’s TV stations, internet, radio and newspapers. But somehow Maria and Caprice Galdino have flown under the radar. They must be staying in my building under an alias, trying to keep a low profile.

  “They are a mother and daughter,” I say, “staying with someone on my side of the building.”

  “Ah, I believe you might mean Miss and Mrs. Brandy.” As in Brandy Lucas? “They were in apartment 2307.”

  “What do you mean ‘were’?”

  “They left a little while ago.”

  “They moved out?”

  “Yes. They gave me a beautiful box of cookies. Lovely people.”

  How could they leave now? Is Maria Galdino so sick she had to return to New Jersey before the trial ended? Is she too sick to wait to see what happens to her husband?

  “Mrs. Marks?”

  “Oh, yes Harry, sorry.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “A…a mutual friend passed away and I don’t think they know. I wanted to slip a copy of the obituary under their door.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” says Harry who takes all of life’s passages deeply to heart.

  “I suppose I can give the article to the people they were staying with,” I say, “ask them to pass it along.”

  “That might be a while. The owner is rarely here. In fact, I never have met Mr. Douglas.”

  Douglas? I practically stand up on my brakes to keep from crashing into the car in front of me. ‘Douglas’ was Joseph Galdino’s pseudonym of choice, the one the prosecution said he used when flying down to Florida to murder his sister-in-law. I shudder. “You never met this Mr. Douglas?” I ask.

  “No,” says Harry, “I never have had the pleasure. I understand he did come around a while back but I wasn’t on duty.” I’m squeezing the steering wheel tight enough to make juice. “Mrs. Marks?” Harry’s voice drifts in from a far distance. “Mrs. Marks?”

  I manage to choke out, “Thanks, Harry,” before hanging up.

  The Galdino women were staying in David Douglas’ apartment? Staying in David Douglas’ apartment mean
s the saintly Maria Galdino flat out lied on the stand when she said she didn’t know about her husband’s alias. It means Caprice knew, too.

  My car inches up over a low hill. Ahead, police cars and three emergency vehicles block the right lanes. Traffic stops and starts as gaping drivers squeeze through on the left. This snail’s pace gives me time to think.

  Why would Maria Galdino tell that lie? If she wanted to alibi her husband by denying she knew the name David Douglas, why not just say he was with her in New Jersey when her sister was murdered in Florida?

  “But you didn’t do that, did you?” I say aloud, a habit picked up from months of living alone. “You said he went fishing. And you said it in a way that made all of us in that courtroom think maybe he didn’t go fishing at all.”

  My turn to gape. Tendrils of smoke spiral lazily up from a mound of twisted metal. As I creep past, I see part of a mangled bumper against the meridian; a shredded tire resting forlorn on the shoulder. My gut feels as twisted as this wreck. If Maria Galdino didn’t lie to protect her husband, who was she protecting? Or, maybe it’s not a who but a what. Did she lie so no one would link her to the David Douglas name, so no one would connect her to the Douglas apartment?

  I drive over wet blotches darkening the pavement. Gas? Oil? Blood? Is the mangled mass one car, two cars, three? It’s impossible to tell the way everything’s scrunched together. Like poor Brandy scrunched into the freezer. The image hits full force. I feel sick.

  I’m still shaking when I stop at Harry’s desk. The ever elegant Mr. Wilson is wearing a gray pinstripe suit, pale coral shirt and silk tie. His smile calms me, gives me the sense all’s right in the world. An expensive box of cookies materializes from under his desk. “This is the gift from your friends,” he says, opening the box. I recognize the gold and silver label from an exclusive shop on Grand Cayman Island. “The apricot is delicious.”