I moved to work a few close-ups. The victim’s malnourished
torso was not tanned except for the arms. Thighs and calves too thin ever to have exercised. A purple, oval-shaped birthmark, or half-birthmark, ran from the top of his right shoulder to the shredded neck skin now curled by drying blood and canine saliva. I went tight to document the half-inch opening in his chest. I shot the stab wound, its proximity to the heart. I got the abdominal scar that told of surgical inexpertise, the jagged lightning tattoo on the inside of his left arm, the odd, deflated scrotum—a testicle removed, perhaps at birth.
All details of a man who’d been alive yesterday.
Finally I finished. Four rolls, thirty-six each, the final roll redundant. I packed my camera bag, looked a final time at those waiting to do their own awful tasks. The sheriff had vanished while I worked. He wasn’t the only one spooked by Shrimp Road.
Fennerty motioned me back to his green-and-white.
We drove north, slower than before. A funky station wagon turned into the marina. Four open windows, four shrimpers’ arms hung out. The road had been empty. It now looked like downtown. Drunks staggered along the shoulders in white work boots. A new-looking Taurus approached, greaseball at the wheel. I turned to watch it pass and continue south. Two gaunt dudes coasted by on two-wheelers, high handlebars, matching black watch caps. One Fu Manchu, one goatee. We left behind a sea-level landfill, junked cars, cast-off property, debris destroyed by storms, consigned to the hot sun and corrosive sea air, bulldozed aside to let nature do its work.
Nature would be wise to give up on the place. Civilization had done so.
I said, “Plenty of bicycle riders out here.”
Fennerty finally made sense: “Not a valid driver’s license in the fleet.” He pondered the rearview, then added, “Parts of Stock Island, all by themselves, they’re enough to make good officers not want to be cops.” He lowered his voice, inhaled for self-important emphasis. “Present company included.”
A large, industrial forklift rolled by, its empty forks two feet off the pavement. Its driver a fisherman or marina employee with a work shirt the color of sour-green mud. A white oval above the right pocket, a name embroidered on it. The man waved. For an instant he looked familiar, but his waving hand blocked my clear view of his face. He’d been the first person on Stock Island to show friendliness.
I thought again about the Taurus that had passed. I knew better than to trust my memory or concentration at that point in the day. But I could’ve sworn there was no license tag on the sedan.
The house smelled like Antonia’s and La Trattoria combined.
My tired eyes registered a refreshing, knee-length, pale-peach sundress, white sneakers, and a backward Air Mango ball cap. For two dozen weeks I’d been in a trance. She could light my fire just brushing her teeth.
Teresa had condiments and bowls and dishes on every flat surface in my kitchen. She stopped her constant motion and looked straight at me. “I don’t know why that detective acted so cuckoo. He was in his own world all afternoon. I didn’t get free for another hour and a half. I would’ve cooked at the condo, but you’ve got these spices . . .”
She was rambling. I said, “I just had to . . .”
She put down the spatula. Caught her breath. “I know. Carmen told me Liska called. I talked to the county switchboard . . .”
“Ugly. Like Stephen King is scripting my life.” “They’re all ugly,” she said. “But two in one day?” “Yep. How long has Dexter Hayes worked for the city? I haven’t seen him in fifteen years.”
She went back to the stove. “He started the week before Liska went to the county.”
I inspected more closely. Italian sausage in a skillet, a pot of ratatouille, boiling water, ready for fettuccine. On
the counter, olive oil in a tin, a three-foot Cuban bread loaf, a saucer of crumbled goat cheese. Sauvignon Blanc in a pitcher of ice water.
“I thought I told you about this a couple months ago,” she said. “He was an undercover lieutenant up in Broward or Palm Beach County. He moved back down here. He and his wife bought a place in New Town. He’s got two kids at the Montessori school. His wife, Natalie, stays home. That’s about all I know. He gets along okay at the city. He sure was an asshole today.” She paused again, then said, “I wish we’d gone kayaking.”
Wiped out as I was, I still had the sense not to respond. I put my camera satchel on a chair, picked it up again, put it on the floor, then sat in the chair. ‘Tell me about Hayes.”
She put on her business face—facts only, no emotions—while she tended to her cooking project. “My view, he was right about a few things and wrong about others. He said the body had been dressed elsewhere, then placed at Butler’s construction site. He said there were clues to be found, but someone careful enough to outfit the victim like that wouldn’t be leaving fingerprints. He said photographs wouldn’t help much. He said old-fashioned detective work, like Sherlock Holmes, would break this case.”
“What was he wrong about?”
“His attitude.”
“Maybe it’s a nervous thing. Maybe he laughs when he’s frustrated.”
“We were leaving, on the Caroline sidewalk, a young girl, all hysterical, claimed to be the dead man’s fiancée. Barely college age, probably less. Very Goth. What is it now, retro punk? She looked dead as the man on the floor.”
“How did Hayes take that?”
“It got better. She recognized Hayes, asked if he hadn’t been at her house two days ago, questioning Engram, the victim. Something about ripping off a Whitehead Street crack dealer.”
“Hayes acknowledge?”
“She said, ‘You told Richie, if I balled you, you’d forget
about shit bein’ stolen.’ So Hayes said, ‘For whose benefit is that, ma’am? The people standing here know I don’t work that way.’ He blew off the accusation.”
“Did he ask her how she knew the victim’s name?”
Teresa stopped what she was doing, stared at the wall, then shook her head. “No. And one other thing. Someone back inside, one of the coroner’s people, mentioned this murder was a lot like that one a couple of years ago, over on William or Elizabeth. A guy tied up, a dildo on the carpet. Hayes acted funny after the guy said it.”
“That one ever get solved?”
She shook her head. “Drove Liska nuts before he handed down his files.”
“Anyone from the
Citizen
show up, to cover for Marnie?”
“That twerp that looks like Jimmy Olsen with a ring in his eyebrow. He had a pocket digital camera. He actually tried to photograph the body. Hayes almost slapped his head off.”
“They teach those newshounds to be aggressive.” I took a beer from the refrigerator, then said, “Marnie knew the victim on Caroline. She said she’d dated him a few years ago. I got the impression he’d worked with her brother for quite a while.”
“She and Sam, what, less than a year?”
“Almost exactly a year.”
“It’s rough to lose friends,” said Teresa. She gave my arm a squeeze, just as Marnie had done when she’d said she’d known Engram “real well.”
A vehicle rolled slowly into the lane. After twenty years I knew my night sounds. This was small, a four-cylinder engine. It stopped not far away, but not precisely in front of my cottage. I leaned back in my chair, caught an angle through the porch screen. Single headlights, close together. I mentally pictured the black cockroach, Bug Thorsby’s low-slung pickup. It had been a Chevy S-10, powered by, as far as I knew, a four-cylinder engine. I’d been targeted,
for no known reason. I still could be a target If so, Bug had switched off his reverberating stereo.
I whispered,
“Teresa.”
She turned her head to face me.
“Switch off the stove. Take your purse to the bedroom. You hear any shit, call nine-one-one. Say ‘Home invasion. Help me,’ and hang up. Then call Carmen, ‘Memory number two.’ You got your pistol?”
Teresa moved quickly. She paused at the bedroom door, then nodded.
“To defend yourself,
only.
Got it?”
She stared. No answer. She closed the bedroom door.
I went to the screen door. No headlights. No sounds. Nothing in the lane. No noise from Fleming Street Not even the rhythmic tick of a cooling engine. I stepped back when I heard soft crunches approach. The closest thing I could use as a weapon was a four-foot length of driftwood. Probably split if I swung it too hard. I could hear my damned heart. I could feel the pulse in my forehead. I looked down. When had I untied my sneaker laces? So battle-ready. How many pairs of footsteps?
Did it matter, with them in darkness, me on the porch?
Then, as if out of fog, Marnie Dunwoody appeared in the faint glow of light from behind me. I felt adrenaline drain from my system. I drooped with relief. I hadn’t even considered that it might be Mamie’s Jeep. Her normal pace in the lane was full-tilt and full-halt Her time, driver’s seat to my screen door, averaged twelve seconds. She’d be knocking on the screen before her car door slammed shut. She was out of character.
Marnie peered through the screen, She jerked back, startled. We were eye-to-eye. She looked catatonic. Her eyes had no depth. “Sam went to bed.” Her voice was hoarse. “He worked on his porch all day. I can’t sleep.” The strain in her voice threw me. I wondered if Sam had had to endure a long rant. Maybe she’d gone to the end of White Street Pier and yelled at Hawk Channel for a while. Marnie didn’t have the presence of mind to reach for the doorknob. I
began to open the door, but it wouldn’t swing until she stepped back. Limp with relief, I finally got her onto the porch, directed into the living room.
The drama had proved that my promised revenge against Bug and his boys needed to include a defense plan. For some stupid reason, I’d felt content that Teresa and Carmen both owned pistols, probably kept them in their purses. But my best weapon, if I could get to it, was a kitchen knife. The last time I’d kept a gun in the house, a loaner from Sam Wheeler, someone else had shot it to save my life. The man who had fired the gun now was an FBI agent. A pistol was part of his daily attire.
The scare was proof, too, of the power of focus. With Marnie inside the house, my world decompressed; the noises of the neighborhood—crickets, distant traffic—resumed. An air conditioner or two, though the night had a chill to it. I even smelled Bounce as I came in from the porch. Someone in the lane doing laundry.
Teresa exited the bedroom without questioning that I’d been upset. She carried her purse, casually dropped it on a table near the door. She greeted Marnie, expressed sympathy, and calmly insisted that she join us for supper. She gave me a strange, puzzled look, almost a pissed-off look. Then she went to the kitchen and resumed dinner preparations. The light in my brain finally glowed. She’d asked Carmen why she’d been ordered into another room, told to have her gun and the phone ready. Carmen had walked outside, identified the vehicle in front of the house, and explained my problem with the thugs. I’d forgotten to mention the thugs to Teresa. Stupid error.
Now the purse pistol was close at hand. The next vehicle in the lane might not be “friendly.”
Smart woman.
Marnie fell into the chair I’d been in. “I’m up shit’s creek for leaving the murder scene. The slick from the
Herald
showed up. Someone from their staff called to warn me. They’re going to use my name in the piece.”
I said, “Because he’s your brother?”
“Because a body was found at a controversial construction site.”
“That’s your fault?”
“They will wonder in print if I’ve soft-pedaled in the past two months. They’ll wonder if I’ve omitted facts about the permit process that might have given warning about strife, an advance warning that someone could be murdered.”
“That’s stretching,” I said. “No one believes the murder happened at the site.”
With a lost look on her face, Marnie yawned. “Words are powerful. So are attitudes. That prick lieutenant kept looking at me. Like, none of it—the costumed body, the construction site—would be there if I hadn’t brought my brother to town. As if I had control of my brother.”
“Any way to fight back? You getting heat at the paper?” I said.
“They’ve been great. They haven’t diverted assignments. But I want to smooth my boss with a story about the Stock Island thing. The media were not invited to that one. I need your help.”
“I’ve got it memorized,” I said.
“Can it wait till afterward?” Teresa offered two dinner trays: food, silverware, paper napkins.
In deference to Mamie’s battle with alcohol during the past year, Teresa had put away the Sauvignon Blanc. She offered decaffeinated iced tea and Perrier water. We thought as we ate that Marnie might fall asleep in her chair. Before we’d finished, I too wanted to call it a night.
But Teresa’s wonderful food energized Marnie. “I can’t do it,” she said softly. “I can’t bear this cross again. I did it through high school and part of college. I got to this town first. My name’s on my byline every day. I’ve got a reputation for straight reporting. Now Butler’s fucking it up, damn his ass.”
I offered, “You don’t know that for sure.”
“People don’t want to talk anymore. Information used to come easy. I’m not getting good stories. That’s not it.
I’m getting good stories, but I can’t develop them. My work feels hollow.”
Teresa said, “Why did your brother come here in the first place?”
“He came to visit three or four years ago.” Marnie fiddled with the place mat. Rolled its corner, released it. Rolled it again. “His eyes lit up. He saw nothing but opportunity. He saw all these people doing business dressed in Bermuda shorts and T-shirts. He made the mistake every newcomer makes. He figured they were rubes. Didn’t give them credit for brains. Right away he started plotting his massive takeover.”
“Motivated by . . . ?”
“My brother sees himself as a great tycoon taking double steps up the marble stair to immortality.” Marnie kept placing her hand on top of her head, perhaps to hold it in place. “He once said he wanted to be so rich, he could have other people go to wine tastings for him.”
“He’s always had that nickname?” I said.