Skin Tight (52 page)

Stranahan lowered the gun and said, “Here, I think this belongs to you.”

He took something out of his jacket and held it up, so the gold and silver links caught the flush of the lantern lights. Chemo's knees went to rubber when he saw what it was.

The Swiss diving watch. The one he lost to the barracuda.

“Still ticking,” said Mick Stranahan.

AT
dawn the cold front arrived under a foggy purple brow, and the wind swung dramatically to the north. The waves off the Atlantic turned swollen and foamy, nudging the boat even farther from the shore of Cape Florida. The tide was still creeping out.

The women were weary of shouting and waving for help, but they tried once more when a red needlenose speedboat rounded the point of the island. The driver of the speedboat noticed the commotion and cautiously slowed to approach the other craft. A young woman in a lemon cotton pullover sat beside him.

She stood up and called out: “What's the matter?”

Christina Marks waved back. “Engine trouble! We need a tow to the marina.”

The driver, a young muscular Latin, edged the speedboat closer. He offered to come aboard and take a look at the motor.

“Don't bother,” said Christina. “The gas line is cut.”

“How'd that happen?” The young man couldn't imagine.

It was a strange scene so early on a cold morning: Three women alone on rough water. The one, a slender brunette, looked pissed off about something. The blonde in a sweatsuit was unsteady, maybe seasick. Then there was a Cuban woman, attractive except for an angry-looking bald patch on the crown of her head.

“You all right?” the young man asked.

The Cuban woman nodded brusquely. “How about giving us a lift?”

The young man in the speedboat turned to his companion and quietly said, “Tina, I don't know. Something's fucked up here.”

“We've got to help,” the young woman said. “I mean, we can't just leave them.”

“There'll be other boats.”

Christina Marks said, “At least can we borrow your radio? Something happened out there.” She motioned toward the distant stilt houses.

“What was it?” said Tina, alarmed.

Maggie Gonzalez, who had prison to consider, said firmly: “Nothing happened. She's drunk out of her mind.”

And Heather Chappell, who had her career to consider, said: “We were s'posed to meet some guys for a party. The boat broke down, that's all.”

Christina's eyes went from Heather to Maggie. She felt like crying, and then she felt like laughing. She was as helpless and amused as she could be. So much for sisterhood.

“I know how that goes,” Tina was saying, “with parties.”

Heather said, “Please, I don't feel so hot. We've been drifting for hours.” Her face looked familiar, but Tina wasn't sure.

The Cuban woman with the bald patch said, “Do you have an extra soda?”

“Sure,” said Tina. “Richie, throw them a rope.”

 

 

SERGEANT
Al García bent over the rail and got rid of his breakfast muffins.

“I thought you were a big fisherman,” needled Luis Córdova. “Who was it told me you won some fishing tournament.”

“That was different.” García wiped his mustache with the sleeve of the Windbreaker. “That was on a goddamn lake.”

The journey out to Stiltsville had been murderously rough. That was García's excuse for getting sick—the boat ride, not what they had found inside the house.

Luis Córdova chucked him on the arm. “Anyway, you feel better now.”

The detective nodded. He was still smoldering about the patrol boat, about how it had taken three hours to get a new pin for the prop. Three crucial hours, it turned out.

“Where's Wilt?” García asked.

“Inside. Pouting.”

The man known as Chemo was standing up, his right arm suspended over his head. Luis Córdova had handcuffed him to the overhead water pipes in the kitchen. As a security precaution, the Weed Whacker had been unstrapped from the stump of Chemo's left arm. Trailing black and red cables, the yard clipper lay on the kitchen bar.

Luis Córdova pointed at the monofilament coil on the rotor. “See that—human hair,” he said to Al García. “Long hair, too; a brunette. Probably a woman's.”

García turned to the killer. “Hey, Wilt, you a barber?”

“Fuck you.” Chemo blinked neutrally.

“He says that a lot,” said Luis Córdova. “It's one of his favorite things. All during the Miranda, he kept saying it.”

Al García walked over to Chemo and said, “You're aware that there's a dead doctor in the bedroom?”

“Fuck you.”

“See,” said Luis Córdova. “That's all he knows.”

“Well, at least he knows
something.
” García groped in his pocket and came out with a wrinkled handkerchief. He put the handkerchief to his face and returned to the scene in the bedroom. He came out a few minutes later and said, “That's very unpleasant.”

“Sure is,” agreed Luis Córdova.

“Mr. Tatum, since you're not talking, you might as well listen.” García arranged himself on one of the wicker barstools and stuck a cigar in his mouth. He didn't light it.

He said, “Here's what's happened. You and the doctor have a serious business disagreement. You lure the dumb bastard out here and try to torture some dough out of him. But somehow you screw it up—you kill him.”

Chemo reddened. “Horse shit,” he said.

Luis Córdova looked pleased. “Progress,” he said to García. “We're making progress.”

Chemo clenched his fist, causing the handcuff to rattle against the rusty pipe. He said, “You know damn well who it was.”

“Who?” García raised the palms of his hands. “Where is this mystery man?”

“Fuck you,” Chemo said.

“What I can't figure out,” said the detective, “is why you didn't take off. After all this mess, why'd you stay on the house? Hell,
chico,
all you had to do was jump.”

Chemo lowered his head. His cheeks felt hot and prickly; a sign of healing, he hoped.

“Maybe he can't swim,” suggested Luis Córdova.

“Maybe he's scared,” García said.

Chemo said nothing. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the soothing sounds of freedom: the wind and the waves and the gulls, and the ticking of his waterproof wristwatch.

 

 

AL
García waited until he was outside to light up the cigar. He turned a shoulder to the wind and cupped the match in his hand.

“I called for the chopper,” said Luis Córdova. “And a guy from the M.E.”

“Gives us what, maybe half an hour?”

“Maybe,” said the young marine patrolman. “We got time to check the other houses. Wilt's not going anywhere.”

García tried to blow a smoke ring, but the wind sucked it away. The cusp of the front had pushed through, and the sky over Biscayne Bay was clearing. The first sunlight broke out of the haze in slanted golden shafts that fastened to the water like quartz, lighting up the flats.

“I see why you love it out here,” García said.

Luis Córdova smiled. “Some days it's like a painting.”

“Where do you think he went?”

“Mick? He might be dead. Guy that size could probably take him. Dump the body off the house.”

García gnawed skeptically at the end of the cigar. “It's possible. Or he could've got away. Don't forget he had that pump gun.”

“His skiff's sunk,” Luis Córdova noted. “Somebody blasted a hole in the bottom.”

“Weird,” said Al García. “But I had to guess, I'd say he probably wasn't around when all this happened. I'd say he got off the house.”

“Maybe.”

“Whatever happened out here, it was between Tatum and the doctor. Maybe it was money, maybe it was something to do with surgery. Christ, you notice that guy's arm?”

“His face, too,” said Luis Córdova. “What you're saying makes sense. Just looking at him, he's not the type to file a lawsuit.”

“But doing it with a hammer, that's cold.” García puffed his cheeks as if to whistle. “On the other hand, your victim ain't exactly Marcus Welby . . . whatever. It all fits.”

That was the main thing.

A small boat, a sleek yellow outboard, came speeding across the bonefish flats. It was headed south on a line toward Soldier Key. García watched the boat intently, walked around the house to keep it in view.

“Don't worry, I know him,” said Luis Córdova. “He's a fishing guide.”

“Wonder why he's out here alone.”

“Maybe his clients didn't show. That happens when it blows hard—these rubes'll chicken out at the dock. Meanwhile it turns into a nice day.”

Just south of Stiltsville, the yellow skiff angled off the flats and stopped in a deep blue channel. The guide took out a rod and cast a bait over the side. Then he sat down to wait.

“See?” said Luis Córdova. “He's just snapper fishing.”

García was squinting against the sun. “Luis, you see something else out there?”

“Whereabouts?”

The detective pointed. “I'd say a quarter mile. Something in the water, between us and that island.”

Luis Córdova raised one hand to block the glare. With the other hand he adjusted his sunglasses. “Yeah, now I see it,” he said. “Swimming on top. Looks like a big turtle.”

“Yeah?”

“Grandpa loggerhead. Or maybe it's a porpoise. You want me to get the binoculars?”

“No, that's okay.” García turned around and leaned his back against the wooden rail. He was grinning broadly, the stogie bobbing under his mustache. “I've never seen a porpoise before, except for the Seaquarium.”

“Well, there's still a few wild ones out here,” Luis Córdova said. “If that's what it was.”

“That's what it was,” said Al García. “I'm sure of it.”

He tapped the ashes off the cigar and watched them swirl and scatter in the sea breeze. “Come on,” he said, “let's go see if Wilt's learned any new words.”

BLONDELL WAYNE TATUM, also known as Chemo, pleaded guilty in Dade Circuit Court to the murders of Dr. Rudy Graveline and Chloe Simpkins Stranahan. He later was extradited to Pennsylvania, where he confessed to the unsolved slaying of Dr. Gunther MacLeish, a semiretired dermatologist and pioneer in the use of electrolysis to remove unwanted facial hair. Because of his physical handicap, and because of favorable testimony from sympathetic Amish elders, Tatum received a relatively lenient sentence of three seventeen-year terms, to be served concurrently. He is now a trusty in charge of the winter vegetable garden at the Union Correctional Institution at Raiford, Florida.

 

MAGGIE ORESTES GONZALEZ pleaded no contest to one count of obstruction for lying to investigators after Victoria Barletta's death. She received a six-month suspended sentence, but was ordered to serve one hundred hours of community service as a volunteer nurse at the Dade County Stockade, where she was taken hostage and killed during a food-related riot.

 

HEATHER CHAPPELL continued to appear in numerous television shows, including
Matlock, L.A. Law
and
Murder, She Wrote.
Barely five months after Dr. Rudy Graveline's death, Heather quietly entered an exclusive West Hollywood surgical clinic and underwent a breast augmentation, a blepharoplasty, a rhinoplasty, a complete rhytidectomy, a chin implant, and suction lipectomies of the thighs, abdomen, and buttocks. Soon afterward, Heather's movie career was revived when she was offered—and accepted—the role of Triana, a Klingon prostitute, in
Star Trek VII: The Betrayal of Spock.

 

KIPPER GARTH never fully recovered from his
pelota
injuries and retired from the law. His lucrative personal-injury practice was purchased by a prominent Miami Beach firm, which sought—and received—permission to retain the use of Kipper Garth's name and likeness in all future advertising and promotion.

 

The Dade County Grand Jury refused to indict JOHN NORDSTROM for assaulting his lawyer. Nordstrom and his wife pursued their malpractice claim against the Whispering Palms Spa and Surgery Center and eventually settled out of court for $315,000, forty percent of which went straight to their new attorney.

 

MARIE NORDSTROM'S contractured breast implants were repaired in a simple out-patient procedure performed by Dr. George Ginger. The operation took only ninety minutes and was a complete success.

 

The seat held on the County Commission by ROBERT PEPSICAL was filled by his younger brother, Charlie. The zoning rights to the Old Cypress Towers project were eventually picked up by a group of wealthy South American investors. Ignoring protests from environmentalists and local homeowners, the developers paved over the ballpark and playground to construct a thirty-three-story luxury condominium tower, with a chic roof-top nightclub called Freddie's. Nine weeks after it opened, the entire building was seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration in a money-laundering probe that was code-named “Operation Piranha.”

 

The popular television show
In Your Face
was canceled after the disappearance and presumed death of its star, REYNALDO FLEMM. The program's executive producers soon announced that a $25,000 scholarship in Reynaldo's name would be awarded to the Columbia University School of Journalism, from which, ironically, he had been twice expelled.