Tango Key (8 page)

"Thanks, Ferret."

He held up his long index finger. "Don't thank me yet. Meet Kincaid first. Then you may decide not to speak to me again."

Aline took the long way to Acacia Drive, so she could cruise past old man Jones's spavined boatyard, where Murphy and Dobbs had taken his Scarab. She didn't intend to stop. She was just curious, she was . . . spying.

Yeah. Well, Spying, okay, she was spying. But Murphy's life in the boatyard, where he worked part-time and spent probably twenty hours or more a week, was a mystery to her. She wanted to know what went on here where the air always smelled of brine and grease, and the ground was strewn with old masts, spare parts, and broken-down engines. It was a place where he lost himself, a thoroughly male bastion where she ceased to exist. The last time she'd dropped by here, she'd interrupted a drunken poker game on the dock where Murphy, Dobbs, old man Jones, and a couple of fishermen were placing bets that would've put jai alai out of business in a matter of hours. As the only woman in the group and the interloper, she hadn't been particularly welcome, and she hadn't been back since.

Aline slowed as she approached the entrance. She spotted Murphy's bright red Scirocco parked next to Dobbs' Firebird with its fat, oversized tires. Just beyond the cars lay the rubble of the boatyard, and beyond that the pier, and then the glistening blue waters of the Atlantic. She saw three figures at the end of the pier. She was too far away to identify them until one of them squatted and disappeared over the edge of the pier. It was Murphy. And a moment later his sleek black Scarab tore away from the pier and flew out across the azure waters like some sort of earthbound comet. She watched until the boat shrank to a tiny black dot against the horizon, and wondered if that was what death would be like, a quick shrinking, a star blinking out.

Then she sped past the entrance, disturbed by something too deep to name.

A
cacia Drive, which was a mile and a half from Hurricane, where Aline lived, was lined with the trees it was named after. They seemed to burst from the sides of the road, their gnarled branches so thick with orange blossoms that they formed a nearly perfect canopy overhead. The flowers were cloned in her windshield; they littered the umbras the trees cast, thicker than bloodstains.

She found Kincaid's place easily enough; the white 9000 Turbo Saab was parked out front. Expensive little number, she thought. It meant that Kincaid was heavily in debt or doing great as a private eye or working five jobs or all of the above. The house, like her own, was built on stilts, with a wraparound porch. There was a carport underneath. But that was where the similarities ended. The front windows were darkly tinted and so clean they caught the reflection of the Norwegian pines that bordered the driveway. Along the upper part of the house were four ocular-shaped windows, their glass winking in the light—

She climbed the steps and rang the bell. "It's unlocked," said a voice from the intercom.

Aline opened the door, went down a short hall, and stepped into a room swimming in light. There was no one in it. "Hello. Mr. Kincaid?"

"Be out in a second."

She stood there, waiting, entranced by the room. The entire back wall was glass and faced a wide deck. Beyond it, pines, banyans, ficus trees, and the blue of the sea glimmered through the branches. The room was decorated mostly in wicker, but not just ordinary wicker. This was the old Key West stuff, sturdy as the trees from which it had been built.

There was a small mahogany table with legs that had been carved to look like a lion's paws; two large Oriental vases that stood like sentries on either side of a potted plant as tall as a small tree; and a display cabinet against the far wall crowded with books on one side and an assortment of statues and figurines on the other.

A quick perusal of the books told her that almost all of them were travel-related. The objects on the other side of the case ranged from curios you'd pick up in Third World markets to museum pieces of brass, copper, silver. When she turned around, she saw the travel posters on the ceiling, and laughed. There were dozens of them, arranged every which way. An upside down Eiffel Tower danced cheek to cheek with the Copacabana; the Golden Gate Bridge curved into the Mojave Desert; a mosque in Istanbul toppled into the beaches of Tahiti. An eccentric, this Kincaid.

When she turned again, a man stood in the doorway across the room, leaning against the jamb, hands lost in the pockets of his khaki shorts. He was tall, at least three inches over six feet, with lapis eyes and curly sandy hair. He was lean and badly in need of a shave. He wasn't handsome, but there was a roguish quality about him that appealed to her. Although he looked familiar, she couldn't place his face.

He stabbed a thumb upward, at the Australian poster. "You know how long it takes to fly from San Francisco to Australia, with an hour layover in Hawaii?"

She laughed. "No."

"Seventeen hours." He crossed the room with long, sure strides. "Okay, try this one. What's the flight time between Miami and Santiago, Chile?"

She thought about it. "Ten hours?"

"Hey, not bad. It's eleven. Have a seat." He settled on the wicker couch; she claimed the chair across from him. "You're Aline Scott, right?"

"Have we met before or something?"

"Years ago, you used to wait on me occasionally in Whitman's. I haven't seen you around there, though, for at least three years."

"After the store started turning a profit, I decided it was time to get another job. My manager, Mark Finley, is running the place now."

"Ah," sighed Kincaid. "Life on Tango. We're all crazy to live here, you know. Where else does a loaf of bread cost two fifty? Where else do you pay for water by the ounce?" He shook his head. "So what's your second job?"

"I'm a cop."

The humor bled out of his face. "Oh."

"Ferret's a friend of mine, and he suggested I talk to you," she added quickly.

"Oh?" He looked more interested now. "How do you know Ferret?"

Cagey, this one.

"How does anyone know Ferret. He's my bookie." Kincaid roared with laughter. "God, I love it. I suppose this has to do with the Cooper murder."

"Ferret seemed to think you know something about the case."

He plucked off the top of a brass, ovoid-shaped container that was on the coffee table. He dipped his ursine hand into it and brought out some sunflower seeds. "Help yourself." He passed her the container.

"Thanks." She took a few. "I'm sorry to be so vague about this, but Ferret wasn't very specific. Thing is, his leads usually pan out."

"Yeah. You might say he's Tango's information broker." Kincaid cracked a seed between his teeth, split the pod, dropped it into an ashtray. "Look, no offense, but I've made it a policy over the years to have as little to do with cops as possible."

Nothing like bluntness before lunch to curb the appetite.

She decided she didn't like Kincaid's attitude. Not one goddamn bit. ''Does that
 
mean you don't know anything or that you do but you're not saying?"

He smiled; it made the blue in his eyes dance. "That depends."

"On what?"

"On how willing you are to pass on certain information in return for other information."

She started to tell him to go pound sand, but the center of her chest went tight. It was like heartburn, except it had nothing to do with what she'd eaten and everything to do with why she was here. It had been a long time since she'd felt a hunch so strongly. "I guess that would depend," she replied, playing his stupid game.

Another smile, another sunflower seed, then he got right into the spirit of things. "On what?"

"On what information you have."

He laughed. "Okay. How about this. Before Eve Cooper married Doug, she was having an affair with his son, Alan." Aline sat forward a little. "How do you know that?"

"Never mind how I know for the moment. It's a fact. Your turn."

"Ed Waite and Ted Cavello are two of the suspects."

He nodded. "Not surprising. Why?"

She told him what she knew about Cooper's association with the two men. He listened quietly, concentrating on the tiny pile of sunflower seeds in his hand. "Your turn," she said when she was finished.

He rubbed his unshaven chin. "Question."

"Only if I get one."

He smiled. "Okay, one question apiece, how's that?"

"Equitable. Go ahead. What's your question?"

"What was his widow's alibi?"

"That she watched TV all night."

"TV. A safe enough answer when you're inheriting the bulk of the estate."

"Tell me something I don't know, Mr. Kincaid."

"The estate is worth about six million."

"You're sure?"

"Is that your question?"

"No, that isn't my question." This game irritated her now. "I'd appreciate it if you'd just tell me what you know."

"What I know, Ms. Scott, is that Cooper had a collection of pre-Columbian gold artifacts worth a great deal of money. Supposedly from his digs. Without them and counting his property, his boat, the cars, and so on, he was probably worth two or three million tops because he spent his money as fast as he earned it."

Gold artifacts: there hadn't been any in the safe in Cooper's den. "Where are they?"

"In a safe-deposit box."

"How do you know so much about this case?"

"I was hired by someone connected to it."

"Who?''

His smile this time was small, secretive, and oh so seductive, a smile that said,
Sorry. I don't play by those rules.
"That's like asking a priest about someone's confession, Ms. Scott."

She stood. "Then I guess you'll be working in a vacuum, Mr. Kincaid. Thanks for your time."

She got as far as the end of the living room before he said, "You know Claudia Bernelli?"

"Sure. Why?"

His gaze was so direct it made her uncomfortable. He cracked another sunflower seed. "Tell her hello for me."

"Tell her yourself," Aline replied, and left.

July 5. 6:15 P.M.

E
ve feels him now, hears him just outside, a whisper of wind along the side of the house. His eyes probe through the dirty window, and the crown of her head burns where his eyes touch. Her insides shrivel.

He raps sharply on the glass with his knuckles, a rap that says,
Hi, babe, I'm home.
She whimpers. She squirms. Everything in her body goes haywire at once, blood rushing into her cheeks, gut tightening like a fist, and suddenly her bladder lets loose and the wetness seeps through her skirt, warm and sticky, and then down the inside of her thigh, and she begins to weep.

He's gonna hurt me hurt hurt me please don't hurt me oh please no . . .

Now she hears a door creaking somewhere in the house and the unhurried shuffle of his shoes. Her heart slams against her ribs and she squeezes her eyes shut, waiting. He's in the kitchen. Paper bags rustle. He is setting things on the counter. In a minute, he will stroll into the room. He will stand there, looking down at her, hands in his pockets. He will smile. She will feel it, that smile, she will feel the way it leaps from his face into the heat like something living.

Don't let him hurt me

He takes his sweet time. He's playing with her. He is showing her who's boss just in case she's forgotten it these past hours. Yeah. Sure. Like she can forget. Like she will ever forget.

Please don't let him . . .

He is sweeping. She hears the bristles of the broom brush across the kitchen floor. Now he is whistling. The song . . . what is the song? She knows the tune, she does. It's a tune Doug used to play on the piano. She can see him sitting at the piano, his fingers dancing over the keys for two, maybe three bars, then he says, "What's the name of this song, honey?"

And if she didn't get it right, Doug's face reddened with anger and his fingers pounded out the bars of another song and he shouted, "I don't suppose you know this one, either, do you?"

It would go on like that for thirty minutes, an hour, however long she could stand it, one song after another, Doug pounding harder and harder at the piano, his shouts louder, her head aching with confusion. Sometimes it ended with Doug calling her stupid. Other times it ended with Eve in tears, sobbing that she didn't know anything about this kind of music, about classical music, it put her to sleep, and he would laugh and laugh or he would rage and slap her around.

The first time he hit her, she threatened to leave him and didn't speak to him for three days, didn't speak to him until he nearly cried for forgiveness. The second time, she kicked him in the balls and got away from him and drove into Tango to a motel. But she didn't have any money with her, no credit cards, no checkbook. She called Alan in Marathon, but he wasn't home. Alan would've helped her. Alan had loved her.

Alan would've come to her even if it had meant confronting Doug. There was no one else to call; everyone she knew on Tango Key was someone she had met because of Doug. The few women she knew in the Cove tolerated her only because Doug had more money than their husbands did. In the end she called Doug herself, and he drove down into Tango, and for the first time in weeks they had made love like it mattered.