Skinny Dip (4 page)

“And after you were married,” Rolvaag was saying, “what was the financial understanding between you and Mrs. Perrone?”

“Simple. Separate checkbooks, separate bank accounts,” Chaz said. “We split the bills down the middle.”

“I see.”

“How come you’re not writing this down?”

“Not necessary,” said the detective. “Do you have a lawyer, Mr. Perrone?”

“Do I need one?” Chaz asked.

Up until then, the conversation had gone exactly as he’d imagined it would. “I mean, is there something you’re not telling me? Did they find any evidence that points to, you know, a crime?”

“No, sir,” Rolvaag said. “Earlier I noticed you using the pay phone in the hotel lobby. I’m curious why you weren’t calling from your room—you know, for the privacy and all.”

“Well—”

“And then it occurred to me that you might be speaking with your lawyer,” the detective said, “because that’s the sort of thing some lawyers would do—have their clients phone from a pay booth.”

“Why?”

“Because that way the hotel won’t have any record of the outgoing call,” said Rolvaag. “Some of these guys, they see too many bad movies.”

Chaz said, “I don’t even know any lawyers.”

“All right.”

“I was calling our cleaning lady. I had to give her the alarm code to the house, since I won’t be there when she comes Monday. I forgot all about it until I was in the elevator on my way down to the bar.”

“Well, you’ve had a lot on your mind,” Rolvaag said.

“Her name is Ricca, you want to check it out.”

“Not necessary.”

“Ricca … now what the heck is her last name?” Chaz mumbled, as if to himself.

By now the two men were on the beach, trudging through the soft sand in the direction of the jetties. Chaz was satisfied with the way he’d covered himself on the phone call; the detective seemed totally suckered.

Abruptly Rolvaag stopped and placed a hand heavily on Chaz’s shoulder. “Look out there, Mr. Perrone.”

For a long chilling moment Chaz was afraid to raise his eyes. Obviously the stroll was not so casual—the detective had set him up in the crudest way. Chaz’s knees began to wobble as if they were coming unhinged.

But it turned out that Rolvaag wasn’t pointing at Joey’s bloated corpse in the surf, as Chaz had dreaded. He was pointing at the twinkling outline of a cruise liner off the coast. The ship’s prow was aimed out to sea.

“That’s the Sun Duchess” the detective said. “They kept her in port two extra hours to finish the search.”

Chaz took a slow breath and tried to conceal his giddy relief. “And there was no sign of my wife anywhere on board? Nothing?”

“Afraid not.”

“So she’s definitely in the water,” Chaz said.

“That would be a reasonable assumption.”

“Joey’s a swimmer—I mean, like, a champion swimmer. They can’t give up searching after only a day or two. They can’t..”

Rolvaag said, “I understand how you feel.”

“So what’m I supposed to do?” Chaz’s voice cracked convincingly, the result of many private rehearsals. “What the hell do I do now?”

They turned back toward the hotel, the detective saying, “Is there a clergyman you could call, Mr. Perrone? Someone close to the family?”

“Let me think,” Chaz said.

Inside he was laughing like a jackal.

Four

Mick Stranahan tied a white bucktail on his line and began casting from the dock, therapy that as a bonus would provide fresh snapper for dinner. It had been awhile since a woman had been on the island, and Stranahan wasn’t sure what ought to be done about Joey Perrone.

He had no reason to doubt her story, or to believe it. Certainly he had no good cause to get involved, as that surely would bring aggravation—more time on the mainland, for one thing, and to Stranahan every minute spent in a city was misery. The headaches he brought back were no more painful than a railroad spike in the crown of his skull.

These days he traveled to Miami only to restock provisions and to cash his disability check, a dubious annuity for shooting a corrupt judge who had shot him first while being arrested. Mick Stranahan was in no way disabled, but the State Attorney’s Office had needed a plausible reason to retire him at the doddering old age of thirty-nine. A gunshot wound was a better excuse than most.

Stranahan hadn’t wanted to give up his job, but it had been discreetly explained that for political reasons the state attorney could not keep on staff an investigator (even a productive one) who had killed a duly elected judge (even a crooked one). So Stranahan had accepted the ludicrous buyout and purchased himself an old wooden stilt house in Biscayne Bay, where he had lived mostly unmolested for years until Hurricane Andrew smashed the place to splinters.

That night Stranahan had been staying in Coconut Grove with his sister, whose useless husband was too busy whoring it up at a lawyers’ convention in Boston to fly home and install the shutters. Two days later, in a smotheringly hot calm, Stranahan had launched his skiff and made his way through the floating debris back to Stiltsville. There he had found, where his home once stood, eight bare pilings. He’d circled them once and then pointed the boat south.

Eventually he had stopped at an island that was more of a coral knob, scarcely broad enough for the modest L-shaped house that occupied it. The concrete structure had weathered the hurricane admirably, though the tidal surge had punched out the windows and swept away the contents of both floors, including the caretaker. Mick Stranahan had been pleased to accept the job.

The owner was a well-reviewed Mexican novelist whose complex personal life sometimes impelled him to seek haven in foreign jurisdictions. In eight years he’d come to the island only four times, never staying more than a few days. During the last visit Stranahan had noticed in the writer’s face a mealy pallor and etched haggardness. When Stranahan asked if he was ill, the man laughed and offered to arm-wrestle for a million pesos.

Nonetheless, Stranahan foresaw a day when a ranger’s boat would arrive with a notice saying that the old writer had died and that the island was being sold to the National Park Service. In the meantime, it was Stranahan’s intention to remain in the concrete house until he was officially evicted.

His only permanent companion was a Doberman pinscher that had been slung ashore during a tropical storm two Octobers ago. Stranahan assumed that the half-drowned animal had toppled off somebody’s boat, but no one came looking. The dog proved to be as dumb and stubborn as a mud fence, so Stranahan had named him Strom. Ultimately he managed to master the two tasks for which Dobermans are genetically programmed—barking and frothing—and might have made a passable watchdog if it weren’t for his poor vision and clumsiness. Stranahan often kept Strom tethered to a coconut palm; otherwise the knucklehead was apt to go skidding off the seawall at the mere glimpse of a passing boat.

Stranahan glanced sympathetically at the dog, which was dozing in a patch of shade under the palm tree. Three fat mangrove snappers flapped noisily in the bucket, but the Doberman didn’t stir. He showed a commendable lack of interest in most of Stranahan’s endeavors, including fishing and the occasional romance. Female visitors were greeted with a perfunctory sniff and then largely ignored. It was as if Strom knew they were destined to be short-timers, and thus saw no point in bonding.

The dog’s opinion notwithstanding, Mick Stranahan didn’t consider himself an eccentric or a hermit, even though at age fifty-three he lived alone on an island at the edge of the Atlantic with no landline, satellite dish or personal computer. It was sadly true, however, that the women who came to stay rarely lasted more than a few months, until the unrelenting peace and tranquillity drove them over the edge. Stranahan was sorry to let them go but it was kinder than marrying them, which had been a habit when he’d lived on the mainland.

Without knowing anything about Joey Perrone, Stranahan was impressed by her strength and composure. Many swimmers would have been either catatonic or yammering incoherently after a blind night at sea, but Joey was perfectly cogent and sharp. Stranahan was inclined to give her some downtime, as she had requested. He knew what it was like to survive a murder attempt, if that’s what really had happened to her.

Part of him instinctively wanted to know more, to ask nosy questions and dig around like in the old days. A wiser inner voice told him to drop it—Mrs. Perrone and her marital crisis would be departing soon, and then the cops could sort out her story.

After all, I’m retired, Stranahan reminded himself as he unhooked another fish.

Retired.

After all these years, it still sounded absurd.

“What were you doing out there, anyway?” Joey asked.

“Out where?”

“The ocean. In that little boat of yours.”

Stranahan dipped the fillets one by one in egg batter. “First of all, it wasn’t exactly the ocean,” he said. “It was only about a half mile off Elliott Key. And I was looking for tarpon.”

“In other words, what you’re telling me, I would’ve floated ashore anyway.”

“Yeah, one way or another.”

“So, technically, could we even call that a rescue?” she said. “Even though I was sort of digging the idea of being rescued.”

“Be careful of the stove,” said Stranahan.

Each slice of fish went first into a bowl of bread crumbs, then the frying pan. Joey heard the sizzle when the fillets landed in the hot oil; she counted eight and wondered if that would be enough for both of them. Never had she felt so famished.

“Tell me about yourself, Mick. I promise your darkest secrets are safe with me,” she said.

“How are you feeling? Your eyes better?”

“I won’t know until you take off this damn blindfold.”

“It’s not a blindfold,” he said, “and you can take it off whenever you want.”

He had cut a strip from a towel, soaked it in cool freshwater and aloe, then knotted it gently around Joey’s brow. An hour earlier, stubbornly trying to get around the house by herself, she’d tripped over a sack of dog food and nearly busted an ankle.

“I don’t even know your last name,” she said.

“Stranahan.”

“And exactly what do you do, Mr. S., besides plucking damsels from the deep blue sea?”

“Actually, it wasn’t so deep. Maybe twenty feet where I found you.”

“Okay, that’s enough. You’re determined to spoil this whole adventure for me,” Joey said. “It’s bad enough that I apparently owe my life to some Rastafarian pot smuggler. Now you tell me I was, like, five minutes from the beach at the time of my so-called rescue.”

“Would it help if I said I saw a fifteen-foot hammerhead in that very same place last week?”

“You’re kidding.”

Stranahan shook his head. “Seriously. It was eating a stingray for lunch.”

“No shit!”

“You want limes or tartar sauce?” he asked.

“Both.” Joey jumped slightly when he took his hand in hers.

“It’s okay,” he said, and led her outside to a picnic table on the wooden deck. She flinched at the sudden wash of sunlight, so he told her to leave her eyes covered. With no assistance she was able to find the food, wolfing down four pieces of snapper and two helpings of black beans and rice. Afterward Stranahan brought her a piece of Key lime pie and a cold beer.

“Best meal I ever had,” she declared, groping for another napkin.

“I’d say you’re going to be just fine.”

“What’s that sound—a helicopter?”

“Yep. Coast Guard,” Stranahan said, watching a distant orangish speck streak across the bay.

Joey said, “Wonder if they’re searching for me.”

“Could be.”

She shifted restlessly. “You want to go back inside?”

“Why?” said Stranahan.

“Is the sun going down? I can tell because it’s getting cooler. Is it pretty tonight—the sunset?”

“I’ve never seen a bad one.”

Joey said, “Tomorrow the towel comes off and I finally get to find out what you look like. I’m guessing a middle-aged Clint Eastwood.”

“Then you’re in for a major disappointment.”

“But you’re tall, right?” she said. “Late forties?”

“Early fifties.”

“Gray around the temples?”

“You want another beer?”

“Not just yet,” Joey said. “Give me your hands again.”

Stranahan laughed. “I don’t think so. They’re awful fishy.”

“You eat with your fingers! I like that.”

“My table manners aren’t what they used to be,” he said. “Comes from living alone, I guess.”

Joey said, “How many times have you been married? I know it’s incredibly rude to ask but, well, I’ve got a hunch.”

“Six,” Stranahan said. “Six times.” He stood up and began gathering the plates off the table.

“Jesus. I was going to guess three.”

“See, I’m full of surprises.”

“What happened?” Joey asked, but all she got in reply was the bang of the screen door. Moments later she heard a running tap and the clink of dishes in the sink. When Stranahan came back outside, she apologized.

“What for? “he said.

“Being so nosy. I figured you must be pissed, since you slammed that door.”

“Naw, the hinges are rusted to hell is all.” He placed a cool bottle in her hand. “But it’s true, six ex-wives is nothing to brag about.”

“At least none of them tried to murder you,” Joey said.

“One came pretty close.”

“Really? She go to jail?”

“Nope. Died.”

Joey’s breath seemed to catch in her throat. She took a long unsteady slug of beer.

Stranahan said, “Relax, honey. I didn’t kill her.”

“Who was she?”

“When I met her? A waitress, just like the rest of ‘em.”

Joey couldn’t help but giggle. “You married six waitresses?”

“Actually, it was five. The last one was a TV producer.”

“Oh, Mick—”

“And they were all fairly wonderful at the start. Whatever went wrong was usually my fault.”

“But what in the world were you thinking? I mean, honestly, by the time you got to number six—”

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking,” Stranahan said. “Love isn’t about thinking. You should know that.”

Joey Perrone leaned back and turned her draped face toward the fading light. “The sky out there, I bet it’s all pink and gold. God, I must look like a horror with this blindfold.”

“Is Chaz your first husband?”

“Second. The first one died.” She added quickly: “In an accident.”

“That sucks.”

“He was a stockbroker. Chaz is a biologist.”

Stranahan said, “The no-see-ums are chewing you up. Let’s go back inside.”

“Funny, the only time my eyes really hurt is when I cry,” she said. “If only I could stop.”

“Come on, take my hand.”

“No, I like it out here. The bugs don’t bother me.” Joey gave a defiant sniffle. “And, listen, it’s not that sonofabitch Chaz Perrone that I’m bawling about. I’m ninety-nine percent sure I didn’t even love him anymore.”

Stranahan said nothing. He was an expert on dying relationships, the grinding hollowness that sets in until someone makes a move.

“But what Chaz did out there,” she went on, pointing at the water, “it just hacks me off royally. You’ve got no idea.”

Yeah, I do, Stranahan thought. The question was hanging there, so he went ahead and asked: “Then what’s making you cry?”

“Oh, I suppose it’s realizing that my whole life adds up to this one moment and this one place and this one”—she swept an arm angrily— “stinking, lousy situation. No offense, Mick, but half-blind on an island with some stranger isn’t really where I expected to be at this point in time. This isn’t the shape I expected to find myself in at age thirty whatever.”

“Listen, you’re going to be okay.”

“Oh right. After my fucking husband, pardon my French, threw me fucking overboard on our fucking anniversary cruise! How exactly does a woman put something like that behind her, huh? How does one ‘get past’ that sort of personal setback?”

Stranahan said, “Seeing him hauled off in handcuffs might help the healing. Why don’t you let me call the police?”

Joey shook her head so vehemently that he thought the towel might fly off. “The trial, Mick, it’s going to be a nightmare—my word against his. He’ll probably say I got trashed and fell over the rail. That’s what he’s already told the Coast Guard, I’m sure. Four years ago I got a dumb DUI up in Daytona, which Chaz’s lawyers will dig up in two seconds flat. ‘Kindly get up on the witness stand, Mrs. Perrone, and tell the court how your tennis-pro boyfriend dumped you for a swimsuit model, so you drank a whole bottle of cabernet and parked your car in the middle of A1A and went to sleep—’ ” “Okay, calm down.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I? My word against his.” Stranahan allowed that things could get ugly in court. “It’s none of my business, Joey, but is there money involved? Would Chaz have gotten rich if you’d died?” “Nope.”

“Not even life insurance?”

“None that I know of,” Joey said. “Now you see why I’m so … I don’t know, dazed. Him trying to kill me doesn’t make sense. He wanted a divorce, all he had to do was say so.”

She asked Stranahan what he would do in her place. “Take off the wedding ring, for starters,” he said. Joey sheepishly tugged the platinum band off her finger and palmed it. “Then what?”

“I’d go straight to the cops,” Stranahan said, wondering what other options she might be contemplating. He decided not to ask, as a breeze kicked up and seemed to carry away Joey’s anger.

“You’re smiling. That’s good,” he said.