Bad Monkey (12 page)

“Last week I did a post on a man who had a clarinet up his colon,” she reported. “That’s not what killed him, by the way. It was a single gunshot to the head from a jealous lover. She played the oboe.”

“Shakespeare was born too soon.”

“So you lost your detective job and now you’re inspecting restaurants for rat poop and bacteria. Not exactly a lateral career move.”

Yancy said, “I’m righting the ship, even as we speak.”

The pasta and veal arrived. It was delicious, but he backed off after a couple of bites. Rosa asked for an update on the severed arm, and he told her what he’d found out. She was intrigued by the dead-sailfish scam.

“That’s a classic,” she said.

“I’m thinking the wife and her boyfriend killed Stripling, or had him killed.”

“Before or after they sunk the boat?”

“Doesn’t matter. They chop off one arm and take the expensive wristwatch, but they leave the platinum wedding band as part of the act, so that Eve can make a show of identifying it later. Then they put the arm in the shallows off some secluded beach so the bonnet sharks can gnaw on it, purely for appearance.”

“How’d she pick this Phinney character to smuggle that nasty thing onto a boat?” Rosa asked.

“You hang around the docks, it’s not hard to find somebody who’d sell their own mother’s kidney for three thousand bucks. Once that tourist on the
Misty
reeled in Stripling’s arm, Eve was golden.”

“Until Phinney started blabbing about the money.”

Yancy nodded. “That’s why he got shot. It wasn’t a robbery. Hell, he’d already blown through most of the dough.”

“You said the shooter was on a moped? That’s like Bogotá in the old days.”

“Mopeds are all over Key West. This one was a cash rental on a stolen driver’s license—somebody hired by Eve, I’m betting. Or possibly it was the boyfriend himself who pulled the trigger.”

“Whose name you don’t know.”

“Hey, I’m just getting started.”

Rosa said, “Eat your lunch, Andrew. It’s sinful to waste good food. I thought you said the widow’s love hunk was in the Bahamas.”

“That’s what I was told. It’s a quick flight to Florida.”

“There must be a record of that. He’d have to clear Customs.”

“Only if he’s an upright, law-abiding citizen,” Yancy said. “A seaplane could fly in low and land anyplace. It’s risky, but so is murder.”

Because of the poor condition of Stripling’s arm, determining the precise date and time of his death was impossible. The crime had probably occurred when Immigration records showed Eve to be in Nassau. However, with access to a floatplane and an outlaw pilot, she could have flown straight to the Keys, killed her husband, staged the boat accident and been back in the Bahamas by nightfall.

“Super bold,” Rosa said.

Yancy ordered a cup of coffee that was so strong it made his eyes water. For dessert Rosa had the tiramisu.

“So, you’re investigating this elaborate homicide in your leisure time? Off the reservation, as they say.” She was giving him an amused, sideways appraisal.

“I want my badge back, Rosa. If I can just nail down this case—”

“Are you kidding? It doesn’t work that way.”

“Maybe not in Miami, but Key West is small-time. I’m tight with the sheriff.”

“Oh, Andrew.”

He didn’t mention that he’d never before worked on an unsolved murder. During his time with the Miami police he’d been assigned to burglaries and the occasional armed robbery. In the Keys he’d been called to a total of three killings; all were domestic scenarios featuring on-scene confessions by impaired roommates.

“Now it’s your turn, Doctor,” Yancy said. “Tell me what led you to the cheery, life-affirming specialty of forensic pathology.”

“It was either that or trauma care. I prefer patients who hold still.”

“Plus you get to play cop, too.”

Rosa laughed. “Some days I do.”

She gave Yancy the short version of her biography: Born and raised in New Jersey; daughter of Cuban immigrants; undergrad at FSU, med school at the University of Miami; divorced, no kids, lived alone with a tank full of tropical fish. In the fall she would turn thirty-nine, and she planned to treat herself to a spa day at the Mandarin.

“Darkest secret?” Yancy asked.

Rosa thought for a moment. “Okay, this
is
dark. Once I made love on an autopsy table at the morgue.”

Yancy was overjoyed to picture the scene. “How do you top that?” he said.

“Late one night, me and this guy I was dating. Those rooms are really, really cold.”

“Your idea or his?”

“Mine,” Rosa admitted, blushing. “Mark—my friend—he got semi-freaked. I never saw him after that. He just stopped calling.”

“One of these days he’ll be out of therapy.”

“I love my job, but I’m pretty sure it’s screwing with my head.”

“Tell me about it,” said Yancy. “I’ve dropped, like, fourteen pounds since they put me on roach patrol. I have these nauseating nightmares about filthy, putrid-smelling kitchens—bugs in the goddamn custard.”

Rosa frowned and pushed away the tiramisu. Yancy paid the check and walked her to her car, some sort of sensible sedan. “I meant to thank you again,” he said, “for figuring out the brand of Stripling’s missing watch. That was impressive.”

“Oh, I’m full of tricks.” She elbowed him playfully and got in her car. “That woman whose husband you molested—are you still involved with her? This is a test, by the way.”

“Bonnie has moved to Sarasota.”

“Answer the question.”

“No, that tawdry chapter of my life is closed. I’m in the process of rebooting.” Yancy smiled hopefully.

“Maybe some night I’ll come down and cook for you,” Rosa said. “I bet I can make you hungry.”

Then she drove off.

Midwest Mobile Medical Systems had been located in a bland office park in Doral, west of the Miami airport. The occupancy rate of the complex was only 20 percent and the few tenants no longer included Midwest Mobile, which had closed down upon the retirement of its young president, Nicholas Stripling. His daughter, Caitlin, had eagerly provided Yancy with the name and former whereabouts of the company.

The door lock was of inferior quality, surrendering to Yancy’s screwdriver on the first pry. Inside the suite were eight identical cubicles, stripped bare except for the desks, IKEA knockoffs that gave the place the appearance of a telemarketing boiler room. Stripling or his staff had hauled away the files, printers and computers and, judging by a trail of white confetti, even brought in shredders.

In one desk Yancy found a color brochure advertising the “Super Rollie,” a personal sit-down scooter that promised “the comfort and agility of a motorized wheelchair combined with the traction and durability of a world-class riding mower.” The Super Rollie Power Chair was available in three-wheel or four-wheel models that could cruise up to nine miles per hour. Options included a headlight, a touchpad sound system and a captain’s seat that swiveled 180 degrees. Prices ranged from eight hundred dollars for the basic package to four thousand for a candy-red chariot with a dashboard glucose meter. Medicare patients were assured that the vehicles could be obtained “with little or no cost to you.” The main requirements were a doctor’s prescription and federal form CMS-849, a Certificate of Medical Necessity for Seat Lift Mechanisms, which Midwest Mobile Medical would helpfully fill out on each customer’s behalf.

“Take a ride on our Super Rollie,” the brochure urged, “and recapture your independence!”

Yancy pictured himself careening down the Seven Mile Bridge aboard one of the zippy power chairs, Rosa Campesino riding on his lap.

A jowly security guard peeked in the doorway and said, “I thought you guys were done with this place.”

“One more pass,” said Yancy. Following his lunch with Rosa, he’d put on a necktie and a drab coat jacket to make himself appear more cop-like.

“You ever gonna arrest somebody?”

Yancy gave a thumbs-up. “Count on it, brother.”

He waited until the guard was gone before he resumed searching. Probably federal agents were the ones who’d been snooping there before. Unfortunately, Nicholas Stripling had died before they could indict him.

A crumpled paper that had escaped shredding by Stripling—or confiscation by the FBI—proved to be a handwritten note: “Nicky—Dr. O’Peele says he never got paid for last month. Wants you to call him.”

On his smartphone Yancy was able to access the website of the state health department, which revealed that only one medical doctor named O’Peele was licensed in Miami-Dade County. Also available online were records of the property appraiser’s office, which listed a Gomez O’Peele as the owner of a three-bedroom condominium in North Miami Beach. An hour later Yancy was standing in the lobby of a high-rise, buzzing the doctor’s unit number.

“Whoozair?” asked a groggy voice from the speaker box.

“Inspector Andrew Yancy.”

“Oh shit. What?” Then, after a pause: “Come on up.”

O’Peele was wearing a stale nappy bathrobe and one moleskin slipper when he answered the door. His eyeballs were bloodshot and his hair appeared to have been groomed with salad tongs. “Can I see some ID?” he said.

Yancy flashed his lame restaurant-inspector credentials, which drew a foggy squint from the doctor.

“Izzit morning already?” he asked.

Yancy brushed past him. “That’s an unusual name, Gomez O’Peele.”

“My mother’s Cuban. She divorced my dad and remarried a mick. Are you FBI?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.” Yancy delivered the line with a straight face. He would never have tried it on a sober person.

“How’d you find me?” O’Peele said. “Never mind. I know my rights.”

The condo was piled with dirty laundry and fuzzy pizza boxes. O’Peele shambled to the disordered kitchen, which showed evidence of an active cockroach colony. Yancy found himself scanning the floorboards for signs of movement. The doctor downed a shot of bourbon and announced he had no intention of doing prison time.

“Tell me what you think you know,” he said, “and I’ll tell you if you’re on the right track.”

“Fair enough,” Yancy said.

“But only if I get immunity.”

“That’s up to the prosecutors, not me.”

“Then you’d better go. My lawyer is mean as a timber wolf.”

Yancy took a safe-looking can of ginger ale from the refrigerator. He popped the tab, sat down at the kitchen table and waited patiently for Dr. O’Peele to start gabbing.

“My training is orthopedic surgery. I had a damn good practice in Atlanta—sports medicine mostly—but then there were some personal setbacks. Nothing that reflected on my work, but that medical board, what a bunch of coldhearted pricks! Finally I just said screw it and moved down here and connected with Nick.”

“You never set eyes on an actual patient for Midwest Mobile Medical, did you?”

“That’s true,” the doctor admitted hoarsely. “All I did was sign prescriptions and fill out the 849s. A nobody is what I was. A worker drone.”

Yancy said fraud was fraud. O’Peele looked wobbly. “I’ve got substance issues,” he confided. “This is not the arc I mapped out for my life. May I sit down?”

“Of course. Let’s hear more about Mr. Stripling.”

O’Peele shook his head so violently that his cheeks flapped. “Request denied!”

“Then at least clue me in on how the scam worked. Where did Nick get all those Medicare numbers?”

“He bought a list of, like, ten thousand names,” the doctor said. “Some clerk that worked at one of the hospitals. Mount Sinai or Baptist, I don’t remember which.”

As Yancy had suspected, Midwest Mobile Medical was a ghost-patient operation, billing comical sums to Medicare for electric power chairs, stair lifts, walkers and other durable home-care items that would never be delivered. The senior citizens whose IDs had been hijacked remained in the dark because the government checks were mailed directly to Midwest Mobile.

Such fraud was epidemic throughout South Florida and practically risk-free, thanks to Medicare’s stupendously idiotic policy of paying out claims before asking questions. By the time the FBI zeroed in on a brazen cheat such as Nicholas Stripling, he would have already shut down his operation, banked a few million and scurried on. Had he not been killed, he by now would have resurfaced with a new storefront and a new company logo, working the same easy swindle.

“How much did he pay you?” Yancy asked O’Peele.

“Hundred bucks for every Rollie prescription.”

“And you weren’t the only doctor signing them.”

O’Peele chuckled drily. “I was the only
live
one. The other docs, they’d been dead from old age since forever. Somehow Nicky got hold of their filing numbers. There were two girls in the office, they did all the forgeries.”

Yancy had mixed feelings about what he was learning from the strung-out physician. While pleased to confirm his suspicions about Stripling, he also understood that solving the murder of a despicable felon wasn’t good for as many brownie points as solving, say, the murder of a beloved Little League coach or a department-store Santa. Some people might even endorse the view that Eve Stripling had performed a service to humankind—or, at the very least, to the Medicare trust fund—by ridding the world of her larcenous spouse. A similar thought had occurred to Yancy, though he wasn’t inclined to walk away from the case. Eve belonged in prison, if not on death row. She’d murdered her man for the money.

O’Peele slugged down another shot. “How much do you people pay your informants these days?”

“Not my department,” Yancy said.

“A thousand dollars sounds ballpark. For all the inside stuff I just gave you? And I’ve got plenty more. We’re talking mother lode.”

When Yancy asked Gomez O’Peele how he’d heard about Stripling’s death, the doctor stammered and said he couldn’t recall. From a foul cranny of his robe he produced a bottle of white pills, three of which he placed under his blistered tongue.

“Sorry,” he said to Yancy.

“Yes, you are.”

“I used to be board-certified, Inspector. One time I got a paper published in the AMA journal.”

“Wild guess: It was a woman who lured you down this squalid path.”