by Carl Hiaasen
Four
Yancy received his first bribe offer at a tin-roofed seafood joint on Stock Island called Stoney’s Crab Palace, where he had documented seventeen serious health violations, including mouse droppings, rat droppings, chicken droppings, a tick nursery, open vats of decomposing shrimp, lobsters dating back to the first Bush presidency and, on a tray of baked oysters, a soggy condom.
The owner’s name was Brennan. He was slicing plantains when Yancy delivered the feared verdict: “I’ve got to shut you down.”
“A hundred bucks says you won’t.”
“Jesus, is that blood on your knife?”
“Okay, two hundred bucks,” said Brennan.
“Why aren’t you wearing gloves?” Yancy asked.
Brennan continued slicing. “Nilsson never gave me no trouble. He ate here all the time.”
“And died of hepatitis.”
“He ate for free. That was our deal. Six years, never once did he step foot in my kitchen. Nilsson was a good man.”
“Nilsson was a lazy fuckwhistle,” Yancy said. “I’m writing you up.”
Working for the Division of Hotels and Restaurants was the worst job he’d ever had. His appetite had disappeared the first morning, and in three weeks he’d lost eleven pounds. It was traumatizing to see how many ways food could be defiled. His first sighting of maggots put him off rice pudding forever. The opening of lobster season brought no joy because Yancy couldn’t bring himself to order from a menu a crustacean of unknown provenance; all he thought about, day and night, was salmonella.
The only reason Brennan wasn’t arrested for attempted bribery was that Yancy didn’t want to wait around for a deputy to show up. He couldn’t clear out of Stoney’s fast enough. For lunch he drove home and boiled a potato.
Rogelio Burton stopped by. He looked Yancy up and down and said, “God, what do you weigh?”
“I’m down to a buck sixty.”
“And you’re, what, six foot two? That ain’t healthy, bro.”
Yancy picked up a fork and went to work on the potato. “You want half?”
Burton pulled up a stool at the kitchen counter. “The reason I came, Sonny sent me. What’d you ever do with that … you know … arm?”
“I made it into a weathervane. It’s on top of my roof.”
“Andrew, this is for real.”
“I’ve still got the damn thing.”
“Good. That’s what I figured.”
“How is that good? I’m breaking about a half dozen laws.”
Burton said, “A woman came in the other day to report her husband missing in a boating accident. He fits the general description.”
“Took her long enough.”
“She was in Europe for a month. Her old man was heading to the Bahamas to meet some buddies on a fishing trip. The Coast Guard found debris from his Contender a few miles off Marathon. A friend of the widow’s had caught the story on Channel 7 about the Misty snagging a body part. Anyway, you see the problem.”
Yancy did see the problem. He had a human arm in his freezer that shouldn’t be there. “So, take it back to Dr. Rawlings,” he said. “He can swab for DNA and close the case, or not.”
“Way ahead of you. Rawlings saved a tissue sample from the day it got caught. Definitely the same dude. The wife brought in some shavings from her husband’s nose-hair trimmer—Rawlings said it’s a ninety-nine percent match.”
“So what’s the hitch?”
Burton took a beer from the refrigerator. “She wants the fucking arm, Andrew. She wants a church service and a formal burial, the whole show.”
“And that she shall have.” With a screwdriver Yancy began chiseling the limb from the freezer, where it was wedged among a pile of Stouffer’s dinners. He placed the frosty appendage on the countertop in front of Burton and said, “All yours, amigo.”
The detective used an elbow to push it away. “Rawlings won’t take it back because the paperwork says it’s at the coroner’s in Miami. Now you get the picture? The widow went up there and, of course, they had no body pieces that belonged to her husband.”
Yancy heard a door slam and looked outside. A van from Animal Control had parked in front of the half-finished house next door.
“The sheriff was highly pissed with you,” Burton went on, “till I explained what happened, how the ME up there wouldn’t take the case. I told him there was a chance you kept the arm.”
“Lucky I did,” Yancy said.
“For safekeeping.”
“No, Rog, for taxidermy practice.”
“Let me call him.” Burton finished off his beer and went out the front door to phone Sonny Summers.
Yancy returned the severed member to its chamber among the frozen entrées. Whenever he’d thought about getting rid of it, the cop in him had said no, what if there’d been a murder, not an accident? Or what if it was a drowned Cuban rafter, and somebody’s brother or sister in Hialeah was waiting for word? Now that the mystery was solved, Yancy was glad he hadn’t followed Burton’s advice and discarded it. An arm wasn’t much for a wife to bury, but anything was better than an empty casket.
Through the window Yancy noticed unusual activity at the empty construction site. A uniformed officer was dragging a heavy black garbage bag across the pavers toward the Animal Control van. The officer wore a white medical mask, protective goggles and blue rubber gloves that came up to his elbows.
Burton came back inside and said everything was cool. “Sonny’s telling the widow that you’re the ‘authorized custodian’ of unclaimed remains. He said just give her the thing.”
“That’s it?”
“And try to behave, Andrew. She just lost her hubby.”
“You ever eat at Stoney’s?”
“Man, I love that place. The widow’s name is Stripling—here, have her sign this.”
Burton produced a Release of Property form that had been conceived with more prosaic items in mind than a severed limb—wallets, car keys, jewelry, eyeglasses, articles of clothing. Somebody had already checked the box labeled “Other.”
“Does she keep a copy?” Yancy asked.
“Hell, no. In fact, once she’s gone, throw away the paper. It’s just for show.”
“Gotcha.”
Yancy said, “I get major brownie points for this, right? Sonny knows I saved his ass from a major lawsuit, not to mention some ugly press. Losing a dead man’s arm!”
“You gotta stay cool.”
“Tell him I want my desk back. Tell him I’m wasting away on roach patrol.”
“He hasn’t forgot about you,” Burton said.
“Randolph Nilsson fucking died from this job!”
“Eat lots of yogurt, Andrew. Find a flavor you like.”
His next stop after lunch was a Burger King. Compared to Stoney’s, the place was as immaculate as a surgical suite. Yancy saw one of the cooks sneeze into a Whopper but the manager made him throw it away, so Yancy didn’t write him up.
After a half-hearted inspection he sat down in a booth, where he aimed to kill the whole afternoon. With dull resolve he re-read the state’s lengthy checklist of critical code violations.
Did the restaurant obtain its food from an “approved” source? Was it cooked at the proper temperature? Stored at the proper temperature? Handled with minimum contact? Did the employees wash their hands after taking a dump? Were all the restrooms equipped with self-closing doors? Was there toilet paper? Did they wash the dishes in hot water? Did they properly clean and sanitize all food contact surfaces? Were there signs of rodents or insects? Unsafe electrical wiring? Uncapped toxic substances? Did the restaurant have a current state license, and was it prominently displayed?
The manager of the Burger King hovered fretfully. He brought Yancy a cup of coffee, which Yancy insisted on paying for.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Relax, sport,” Yancy said. “You passed with flying colors.”
“Yes!” The manager, who was all of twenty-f
ive, pumped a fist and spun a circle on one heel.
Yancy asked if he’d heard the sad news about Nilsson.
“Who?”
“The guy that had this job before me.”
The manager shrugged apologetically. “We never saw him, sir.”
“Of course not,” Yancy said.
“What happened?”
“He passed away. Mind if I hang out for a while?”
Yancy took out a Margaret Atwood paperback Bonnie had given him. It was highly entertaining, and every now and then he would come to a dog-eared page upon which Bonnie had scribbled comments in the margins:
So funny!
So true!
Why can’t I be like this?
Foolishly, Yancy dissected every marked passage in the hopes of finding clues to Bonnie’s innermost feelings. On some pages he’d spy a slanted notation, always in lavender ink, that referred to their own relationship, or to him by name.
Sounds like something A.Y. would say.
Pure Andrew!
Just like a certain man I know.
No matter what the context, Yancy was warmed to be in Bonnie’s thoughts, and also to know that she obviously wasn’t sharing the book with her husband. On a whim he dialed her cell phone and left a lustful message that he hoped would make her blush. She hadn’t spoken to him since that quickie in the 4Runner.
The manager brought a plate of fries, which Yancy accepted along with a refill on the coffee. By Keys standards it could hardly be considered a payoff. His phone thrummed and lit up, and so did his heart.
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.
“How long were you married?” Yancy asked.
“Seven years in February.” She turned her head to show him the diamond studs in her ears. They were substantial. “He bought me these for our anniversary.”
“Sweet. Do you have children?”
“Nicky has a grown daughter.” She signed the paper and handed it back to him. “This still doesn’t seem real,” she said in a raw, whispery voice.
“When’s the service?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
