Tango Key (36 page)

Then she'd driven up to the Cove, to Ivy Hill. She'd made a U-turn in front of Eve's house. The only car in the drive had been her yellow VW. Aline had headed south again, swung by Jones' boatyard, and had spotted Murphy's Scirocco and Dobbs' Firebird out in front of the boathouse. They had made the poker game, after all. Even if Dobbs had talked to Murphy, she doubted it would make any difference, because she didn't think that even Dobbs understood the depth of Murphy's obsession.

When she'd left the boatyard, she'd driven past Bernie's. If the lights had been on, she would've stopped and told her everything. But the windows had been blacker than tar, and although she knew Bernie was the one person in the world she could go to about anything, she'd been unable to do it.

She'd kept driving and had ended up in front of Kincaid's, where the lights were on. Before she'd even rung the bell, the door had opened and he'd smiled like he'd been expecting her.

She'd stayed three hours. She'd consumed two glasses of Nightmare Chaser which Kincaid had made and that tasted just like her mother's. Every few seconds, the story had been here, poised at the tip of her tongue like a diver at the lip of a cliff. But each time, she'd swallowed it back. Once, when Kincaid had gone into the kitchen for something, Aline had called the woman from county records again and gotten the information she'd requested. Then she and Kincaid had gone to bed. They had talked quietly in the dark, her hand resting lightly in his. She had dozed, and when she'd awakened, Kincaid was sound asleep, his body curled against hers like a spoon. She'd gotten up, dressed, and had driven home. She'd fallen into bed for two hours and hadn't slept a wink.

Two miles down the boardwalk, she steered the bike north, then west for three blocks, to the station. Only a skeleton crew would be on today—two officers and Roxie at the switchboard. Everyone else, herself included, was assigned to the boardwalk from four to whenever the festivities broke up.

At the back door, she hopped off her bike and wheeled it up the ramp and into the hall. She stashed it in the storage room and started upstairs to her office. A deathly quiet clung to the air. She didn't even hear a pealing phone. She went straight into the staff kitchen and made coffee, leaning over the pot as it perked, inhaling the aroma. She poured a mug and opened the fridge for the cream. She heard footfalls in the hail.

Aline glanced around and saw Murphy. He was just standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets, dark half-moons under his bloodshot eyes. His mustache seemed to droop. He wore khaki shorts and a shirt that was a carnival of color and deck shoes. In the long and awkward moment before either of them spoke, she realized Murphy had come in to pick up his things, clean out his desk, close up shop.

"Frederick's got you coming in before eight now or something?" he asked.

"I've got to cover the boardwalk. I'm not really due in until four." The absolute clarity of her voice, its
normalcy
, astonished her. She turned back to the refrigerator, added cream to her coffee, closed the door, and leaned into it, afraid her knees would buckle if she didn't. "Help yourself to some coffee."

"Thanks." He said it as though he'd been waiting for her to offer, and stepped into the room.

Aline moved from the fridge to the table and sat down. Yesterday's
Tango Tribune
was on the table, and she picked up a section of it, grateful to have something to do besides look at Murphy.
Say something to him
.

"Ready for the race?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

"Jack riding shotgun with you?" She was speaking to his back as he fixed a mug of coffee.

"Yeah."

"How many boats have entered this year?"

"About twenty." He shuffled over to the table and sat across from her. "Any leads on Waite's murder?"

"No. Except that I think his murder, the Colombian's, and Doug's are all connected."

"Because of the frog?"

"The frog is part of it, but I'm not so sure that the frog is why Cooper was killed," She paused, unable to pull her eyes away from his large hands, which were cupped tightly around the mug. She thought briefly of those hands against Eve's skin. Hands that might have decapitated Doug Cooper with a saw. "What're your plans, anyway? You going to stay on Tango or what?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Murphy, I'm sure if you talked to Frederick . . . apologized to him . . . I know he would at least give you a recommendation for another department." Why was she saying that if she really believed he'd murdered Cooper? Why?

"No. He made his decision. I've made mine."

She set her mug down. The inside of her mouth had gone dryer than sand. "So you have decided what to do."

"I've got a few plans, yeah. But nothing solid yet."

He lied well, she thought sadly, and wondered if it was a talent he'd always possessed or if it was something Eve had taught him. "Nothing solid?" Funny, she thought. The woman from county records had told her Murphy had sold
his place for eighty grand. She blurted it, immediately wished she hadn't, then waited for him to deny it. When he said nothing, she asked, "When're the new tenants moving in?" He sat very still, so still she couldn't have said with any certainty that he was even breathing. His eyes flickered from the mug to her face. "Mid-July." He paused. "Eve and I are getting married. That's why I sold the house."

Married: the word struck her like a spear. It was a moment before she could speak, and even when she did, her voice wasn't her own. "How nice."

Murphy looked like he wanted to leap up and flee. But he didn't. "I wanted to tell you, to talk to you about it, Al, to explain what's happened, but I knew that would probably hurt you worse."

"Hurt me worse." She almost choked on the words. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen now, spilling over the sink, shoots of light brushing the edge of the table, licking at the side of her face. A huge and terrible pressure balled in her chest. "Murphy, don't do it." She whispered the words. "Don't. Please."

"I knew I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you, Al, to—"

"I'm not talking about you marrying Eve, for Christ's sakes." She shouted it. "I'm talking about the two of you splitting. The supplies at the farmhouse, the refurbishing you're doing on her sloop . . . She's still a murder suspect, Murphy."

"How . . . what the fuck, Al. You've been tailing my ass, haven't you? Jesus. I can't believe it. I bought the old Pleskin place. Go check the county records if you don't believe me. Eve and I are going to live there as soon as things are settled. We've been taking stuff up there little by little and are going to start fixing the place up. In a couple of days the electricity will be connected, and then I'll move in there."

He was lying. He had to be lying. What about the nautical charts? The routes that had been so carefully laid out? What about the secret bank account? And the boat being overhauled? "Then tell me if I'm wrong about this, Murphy. You've known Eve since at least February, haven't you? That's why things with us went haywire, right?"

He was standing now, rubbing his jaw, shaking his head, his flummoxed expression like a child's, a cross between anger and a sense of betrayal. "I can't believe you tailed me."

"Answer me!" she screamed. "Tell me I'm wrong about how long you've known her."

Murphy jammed his hands in his pockets and looked at her like he'd never seen her before. She wanted to throw something at him, hurt him. "Since December," he said quietly. "I've known her since December."

The words seeped into her like a noxious gas.
All those months
. . . "Why didn't you tell me? You could've told me. You could've at least been honest about it, Murphy."

"I didn't know how to tell you." More softly: "I loved you. I know you don't believe that, especially now, but I did, Allie. I still do. But . . ."

"But it's not what you feel for Eve," she finished, her voice threatening to break.

"No." He whispered it, as if it hurt and shamed him. "And once Cooper was killed, I couldn't. I . . . knew what you'd think. You think it now, don't you, Al. That's what you're thinking right this second. That I killed Cooper. Or that Eve and I killed him."

"Yes."

He didn't sit down in the chair, he crumpled into it, as though his bones were suddenly too brittle to hold him upright. He covered his face with his hands. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and distant, as lubricious as moss, a voice in a dream.

"I stopped her for speeding one day in December. Out on the Old Post Road. She was coked up. She was hysterical because she and Cooper had just had an argument. I calmed her down and we drove over to the beach and started talking and . . . and things went from there. In January, she filed for divorce from Cooper, but I wasn't ready to deal with that yet. I urged her to drop it. She did. Cooper was away a lot, and that's when we saw each other. And when he was in town, that was usually when I saw you."

He stopped. His chocolate eyes brimmed with emotion. Against the template of memory, Aline heard him saying,
There's no one else, Al. There's hasn't been anyone else since Monica was killed.
How could she believe anything he said?

"I don't blame you for hating me," he said.

She blinked, and it hurt. She swallowed, and it hurt. She shifted in her chair, and that hurt, too. "I don't hate you, Murphy. I feel sorry for you. I think you've been suckered in so deeply you can't even see it. And all because Eve looks like Monica."

"I knew you wouldn't understand."

"I'll tell you what I understand, Murphy. Eve's a pro. She's manipulated you like a puppet. You got fired from your job because of her. You've alienated the people who've cared about you the most. You really think she's going to marry you? Set up housekeeping with you in that farmhouse, out in the middle of nowhere? You've been sucked into her game so badly you haven't even stopped to question what she meant when she said she had 'things to take care of.'"

He frowned. Comprehension flickered in his eyes. "What the hell 're you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the farmhouse, Murphy. About the night you two were carting bags in to the house. Think about it. What'd she say to you right before you two started screwing against the car? Huh? What'd she say?"

Color suffused his cheeks as he realized what else she had seen. "You had no goddamn right to—"

"Don't talk to me about rights," she snapped. "There are nautical charts on board Eve's sloop with three routes plotted out, each one with a departure date of July 6, five A. M., Murphy. The Caribbean, Australia, and Trinidad. So if you aren't planning on taking a trip, then, hey, guess what. It looks like Eve is, and she's not planning on asking you along, and she hasn't quite decided yet just what route she's going to take. That's why she's having you work on the boat, that's why—"

He leaped up so fast his chair toppled with a clatter. His face was moist and erubescent with rage. "That's horseshit. You're jealous. You're pissed off. You're hurt. I'm sorry for all that, Aline. But it doesn't give you the right to make up lies about Eve." Then he marched to the door, threw it open, and left.

She didn't know how long she sat there, listening to Murphy in his office, yanking open drawers and cleaning them out. But the sun streaming through the windows grew warmer against the side of her face, the pressure in her chest seemed to get worse before it got better, and several times a phone rang somewhere in the building. Roxie must've been downstairs, because the phone never rang very long.

After a while, the vacuum in her head began to fill, driving her to her feet. She walked down the hall to her office, passing Murphy's on the way, but he was gone. She called her county records contact and explained what she needed to know. The woman sounded annoyed—and with good reason, Aline thought, since today was a holiday – but said she would check and call Aline back in an hour. Next, she dialed the chief at home. His wife answered and said Frederick was outside but she would get him. Aline, waited. Her head ached. Her eyes burned. She kept seeing Murphy's face, the three routes, heard Eve crying,
Now, Murphy, now
.

"Allie?"

"Gene, are you going to be home for a while?"

"Sure. What's up?"

"I need to talk to you. Something's happened."

"Come on over."

As she hung up, she heard voices in the hall, then Bernie's laughter. She and Dobbs stopped at her door. "You guys busy?" Aline asked.

"Just picking up our paychecks downstairs," Dobbs said. "You'd think they could've issued them yesterday, but oh no, never a day early."

"What's wrong, Al?" Bernie asked.

"A lot. C'mon, let's ride over to the chief's and we'll talk about it there."

Bernie and Dobbs exchanged a glance. "See?" Bernie said. "I told you something was screwed up. You can feel it in the air."

Dobbs pulled a paperback out of his back pocket and held it up, turning it from one side to the other so both Aline and Bernie could see the title:
Welcome, Chaos
. "Is it this bad, Al?"

"Worse," she said.

3:
30 P.M. The sun quivered white and hot against the slope of cerulean sky. Aline stood at the boardwalk railing, sipping from a giant glass of iced tea, then lifted her binoculars. She focused on the pier in the distance where the twenty powerboats were preparing for the race. They would race in pairs from the pier to the end of the beach and then back, for a total distance of eight miles. The beach was already a wall of people that started at the water's edge and extended all the way back to the boardwalk. The railing for two miles on either side of Aline was jammed. Every seat outside the cafes and shops was taken.