Uncle Ziggy's W.C. Field's face came down to beam at me through the car window. I smiled in return and pushed open the door. He grabbed hold of the door and stepped back, shutting it behind me and then snatched hold of me like I was every Christmas and birthday package he'd ever wanted.
Ziggy wasn't a real uncle but an honorary one. He and my dad had served together in Vietnam and stayed tight. Sunday mornings when I was a kid my mother worked a brunch shift at the hotel in Jacaranda. Dad, when he was around, was supposed to look after me. His idea of babysitting was to cart me out to Uncle Ziggy's with him. While Dad and Uncle Ziggy drank beer and told lies, I explored the acres of junk in Uncle Ziggy's scrapyard. I built forts in odd corners, dragging in pieces of old carpeting and furniture to make them homey, and somewhere out there even today I'm sure there are still hollowed-out spaces with shag carpeting covering the dirt and rotting chairs sitting around tables made out of boxes.
On the Sunday mornings Marley was able to escape her strict mother's Sunday School fetish, she tagged along with us.
Marley and I played scary games of hide and seek in the junkyard, freaking ourselves out with what might be out there, from giant rats to dead bodies. One day, deep in the jungle of steel, I whispered a pretty credible story about Uncle Ziggy being a hit man for the Mob, about him bringing dead bodies back to his junkyard to hide amid the scrap until his victim's bodies were eaten by rats, destroying the evidence of his crime. I never totally convinced her it wasn't true and she refused to come back. And then there was the other thing that kind of scared her.
When Dad and Uncle Ziggy finished off a case of beer, it was my job to climb up among the debris and set out the empty bottles. They used them for target practice. Each bottle shattered was worth five bucks so they started shooting fast and wild, barely giving me time to clear out, yelling out how much money they'd made with each hit. Marley was convinced that one day they wouldn't wait for me to get out of the line of fire before they started trying to win a few bucks off each other and she didn't want to be around to see it happen. From what I knew of their past history it was a likely scenario. Those Sunday mornings in the junkyard probably led directly to her return to Jesus today.
Ziggy pushed me away from him to have a real good look at me. I did the same. He wore an acid-pitted tee-shirt, advertising a tarpon tournament that took place back in the early nineties. Wide yellow suspenders, marked like yardsticks, held up dirty jeans hanging below his corpulent belly. He looked older and fatter than when I'd last seen him, but his pale blue eyes still sparkled and said business as usual. “Where you been, Sweet Pea? I was startin' to think you don't love me no mo'.”
I shook my head, “You'll always be the big man in my life, Uncle Zig.” At six foot four and over three hundred pounds, this was definitely true. They just don't come any bigger than Uncle Ziggy.
He grabbed me in another bear hug, crushing the air out of me. He smelled surprisingly good, of spicy aftershave and gasoline. When he re leased me he got us some long-neck beers and we settled into wooden chairs and watched the antics of the peacock, made more bizarre by the background of neglect around the beautifully colored creature.
The peacock seemed to be fascinated by the little red car. “I always wondered why you have those stupid birds,” I said as I watched it strut around the car, as if saying, “I'm the only beautiful thing here .”
Uncle Ziggy gave a dry huff of a laugh. “In 'Nam I got leave, went to stay at this little hotel in Hanoi with a beautiful walled garden. They had one, a peacock.” He tipped up the bottle and poured about half of it down his throat. “Decided right then and there that someday I was going to have my own garden with a beautiful peacock in it.”
I looked around. The only green thing I could see was fungus growing on every surface. “Well, you definitely got the wall and the peacock.”
“Yeah, but how long am I going to be able to keep them?”
“The zoning police after you again?”
He nodded. “When I came back here from 'Nam thirty-five years ago, this was just wasteland. No one wanted it. Now every other week there's another damn council meeting about my yard. They built those big houses out back behind me and now those people keep complaining to council about my place.” His sausage-like fingers worried the label on the bottle. “Do you know those shit boxes are worth nearly four hundred thousand?”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Guess they've got enough money behind them to make my life hell for a long time. They got a lawyer and everything.”
“You should get a lawyer,” I told him. “I know a really great lawyer. Honest too, give him a call.” I wondered what Brian would make of Uncle Zig and smiled at the thought. Somehow I thought they might just hit it off.
Nature's mistake fluttered, gave a harsh cry and flew awkwardly up onto Clay's little red car, turning in a circle and presenting us with another show of its iridescent plumage ending in shocking teal blue eyes.
“Do you suppose he's trying toâ¦well, mate with it?”
“Naw,” said Uncle Ziggy. “He's jealous. Not used to competition, he's used to being the best thing around.” There wasn't much competition in sight.
“I always thought if I killed someone I'd dump the body out here.” I pointed with my beer at the scrap around us. “I still think it's a plan.”
“You ever kill anyone, I'll help you hide the body, ” said Uncle Ziggy with a broad wink.
Nice to know I still had friends in low places.
An hour later I left with a promise that in two days' time one of Uncle Ziggy's dump trucks would be parked out in the alley behind the Sunset, waiting to be filled with waste material.
From Uncle Ziggy's I went to Evans' garage “When can I have Jimmy's truck back?” I asked Danny Evans.
“It'll take a bit.” He eased his grease-stained baseball hat off his head, scratched and resettled it, “I can't get to painting it for a day or two.”
This meant a week or two in Danny's time. I was stuck with driving Clay's car. It may have been pretty, but it made me feel uncomfortably like a kept woman, driving a car I couldn't afford to buy.
I always tell myself that I don't care what people think. Sometimes I think I tell as many lies to myself as I do to others and that's rather a lot.
In Jacaranda I picked up some cardboard boxes at Defino's and got every suitcase I could find in Clay's apartment. Ruth Ann, my mother, had taken over my apartment when I moved in with Clay. She's the Ziggy of the clothing world. Even though she had loaded enough clothes in the back of her car for two ordinary women, I knew her closets would still be bulging.
The rain had ended but the wind still blew, sending huge waves crashing onto the shore. The county had graders out plowing the sand off the road and winging it back into dunes along the shoulders. In places the sand deposits were so deep they'd moved in dump trucks to take it away.
I drove north up the beach, before turning east to the small airport and my old apartment where Ruth Ann now lived. The Tropicana Apartments building is a two-story walkup built of concrete blocks and finished with a thin layer of pink plaster that doesn't quite hide the lines of the block beneath. Heaven only knew how it had managed to withstand the winds that thumped Jac over the years when stronger-looking buildings crumbled.
Inside, the apartment was hot with the closed-up musty smell of unlived-in space. I opened the sliding doors to the tiny second-floor balcony. The sound of planes taking off, small buzzing little planes that annoy you like swarms of gnats, filled the air as it did a tall times of the day and night. I looked around at the space I'd been so proud of, the bare concrete floors I'd painted gray with black, pink and green splotches. It no longer looked artistic and clever but worn and sad. Surprising how quickly I'd got used to living in the luxury of Clay's penthouse with oriental carpets and fine works of art.
The nasty pessimist who lived in my head chipped in with, “Better not get too comfortable there, kid, I have a feeling you're going to be back in the Tropicana Apartments real soon.”
I finished ramming Ruth Ann's stuff in the trunk of the Miata as Miguel and his family pulled into the parking lot. Upstairs, their excitement gave the cramped little space an importance and life it had never had before.
I left them exclaiming over everything. There was one more thing I had to tidy up and then I'd get on with my life.
The little turquoise and raspberry beach house where I'd last seen Gina looked just the same, still boarded up against the storm. Its cheerful colors still didn't keep fear from welling up inside of me. I huddled down in the seat, worrying the inside of my cheek, trying to persuade myself to get out of the car and to convince myself the last place the murderer would come to was here, but the worry voice in my head asked, “Don't murderers always return to the scene of the crime?” Was that true or another urban myth?
Either way, I needed to do this, needed to see if it was just a small rundown cottage and not a house of horrors to haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. I left my sanctuary hesitantly and slowly, locking the car and stuffing the keys deep in the pockets of my jeans. I wasn't going to be left without wheels again.
I climbed the front steps. Sand still lay in a deep drift on the porch. I took off my flip-flops and walked through the ankle-deep sand to the gulf side. This house had been built in the days before municipal regulations said how far back a house must be situated from the surf, so the little bungalow sat out in the swaying beach grasses fifty yards from high tide.
Gulls squawked and screamed and swooped in circles above a beach empty of people but covered in the bodies of fish and crustaceans flung on shore by the storm and then abandoned by the retreating waves to rot on the sand. The smell of their putrid decay filled my nostrils. On the sand blue herons and fat gulls were making a feast of the remains.
With a deep sigh I realized there were no insights or answers there for me: just the harsh reality of life feeding on death.
I headed for the Miata but stopped at the corner of the house. I heard something. Fear was no longer airy-fairy but real and concrete. A car had turned into the drive. And they would know I was there as soon as they saw my car.
I eased back along the house, looking over my shoulder, trying to decide which way to run. Most of these houses were still boarded up and wouldn't provide anyone to help me. Even the deep dunes that offered a hiding place wouldn't save me; my footprints would lead anyone who wanted to find me right to me. Hiding wasn't an option. Only outrunning danger would save me. I bent over and rolled up the legs of my jeans, wanting any advantage I could get, fighting against the terror, forcing myself to stay still and not break cover too soon. Panic had me breathing in small little puffs. Still, I wanted to see who else was drawn here. Melting into the clapboard, I peeked around the corner of the house. Palm trees partly obscured the vehicle. All I could see was the bottom half of a tan sedan. The door opened. The leg of a dune-colored suit emerged. The rest of the man followed.
I grinned. Detective Styles, the only man in South Florida who would wear such an ugly suit, walked into view. The suit material looked like it was chosen to blend in with the beach. His sandy-colored hair was only one tone different from the suit. He faced the house and straightened his tie. The tie looked like it was made out of the same material as the suit but with angled black stripes.
The nothing man had arrived. It wasn't that he was an ugly man, far from it; it was just that there was no place for your eyes to settle. His clothes were a monotone and all of his features were even, so your eyes just slipped on by him. Five minutes after meeting him, you might forget what he looked like. And if you met him again next week, he'd have to introduce himself all over again. Vanilla pudding. But don't let that fool you, it was just a disguise. Detective Styles was as sharp as they came and totally different from Sergeant Kerr.
I put on my flip-flops and went to meet him. “I'm so pleased to see that you haven't given into our substandard dress code.”
“Someone has to set an example.” He climbed the stairs towards me, his eyes, sort of green like peeled grapes, crinkling at the corners.
He folded his hands in front of him and gave me a slight nod of his head. We were glad to see each other, but it would never be said. There was something about Detective Styles that would make any expression of emotion an indecent liberty.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, getting right down to business â no “How's your mama? How's your life?”
“I had to see it again.” I glanced at the house behind me. “I've been having nightmares about this place and wanted to see it again to make it just a normal beach house.”
“So, did it work?”
“Maybe not. It's silly, there's nothing frightening here, but still it gives me the creeps.” “Time will help.”
“That's what everyone keeps saying â well that, and forget about it. Easier said than done.” I looked back to Styles. “You read my statement?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know Gina shouldn't be dead.”
“I agree,” he said. “She should have left Cypress.”
I studied his bland exterior. “Gina's death wasn't an accident, was it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You wouldn't be here if it were.”
His face furrowed like he had a sudden pain. At last he said, “There were no wood particles imbedded in her head. The wound indicates it was made with a smooth object like an iron bar. She was hit twice.”
“Murder.” After a moment I told him, “Her death is connected to this house.” He frowned. “Tell me why.”
“Well,” I hesitated, looking for a place to start. “I guess because she came back here when everyone else was running for cover. For some reason she wanted to come back to this place and she didn't want to come alone. That's pretty clear. That's why she came into the Sunset, to ask me to come with her. Only she didn't ask me. Instead she shanghaied me. I keep asking myself why, what did she want from me? Protection, help, or moral support, I don't know which, but it didn't do her any good, did it? I wasn't any help at all.”
An ibis settled on the railing at the north end of the porch, saw us and gave a startled squawk before it flew away, its long legs trailing behind.
Styles watched it disappear. “You should be angry at what she did to you, not feeling sorry for her.” “Yeah, maybe. I just never seem to react the way others do.” He smiled. “I've noticed that.”
No way I wanted to go over that ground again. Instead I asked, “Did you know Gina's sister was murdered?”
His thin lips, the same shade as his colorless cheeks, stretched into a hard thin line. “No!” I had his attention.
I hoisted my behind up on the weather-beaten railing, hoping I wouldn't get slivers. When you live alone they'd be a problemâ¦damn hard to pick out.
I told him what little I knew of Sam's story. “Gina believed the murderer was on Cypress Island.”
“Do you think she was running away when she left you here â panicking and leaving you behind?” I shook my head. “I don't believe it. Do you?”
“At this point I'm just checking all possibilities.”
“Cautious as always.” His lips twitched.
“I've been thinking,” I said. The twitch grew broader. “Maybe she was supposed to meet Sam's murderer here and didn't want to come alone.”
He canted his head to the side. “Possible.”
“There's one thing that worries me about that. Where was his car? How did he get here?”
His forehead wrinkled. I could see he was interested in spite of himself. He considered it and finally said, “Maybe he was already here. Maybe she came back to pick him up.”
I shivered. “He could have killed me as well. That thought is keeping me awake at night.” “Well, it's over. Trust me, he's long gone.” No point in arguing. “Do you think Gina's death has anything to do with the murder of that tourist?” I asked. “What was her name anyway?” “Lehre, Bunny Lehre.”
“Figures.” I jumped to my feet and brushed the sand off my butt.
“What?”
“The name Bunny. I have a theory. The more money, the dumber the name. Who would call their kid that? So what about this Bunny Lehre?”
“The details were all in the paper.”
“Which are?”
“She was a rich woman in her forties, here on holiday, and a temporary member of the Bath and Tennis Club. She'd had some plastic surgery and was recovering. She was strangled with the sash from her bathrobe. Now you know everything.”
“Except who killed her. And the answer is?”
“Early days for an answer.”
I could have screamed in frustration. “You are one impossible man to get information out of.”
“My job is to gather information not give it out.”
“Oh shit in a basket.”
He laughed aloud and started for the door.
“You're going into the house, aren't you?” I said, darting sideways around him, blocking the door. “Can I come in?” “You have no place in a police investigation.” I'm good at ignoring anything I don't want to hear. “I'd really like to see the inside.” I backed up tight against the door with my hands braced on the frame.
He frowned down on me. “This is a police inquiry.”
“And I'm helping you with your inquiries.”
“I don't think so.” He reached out a hand to move me aside.
“I'll tell you one more secret if you let me come in with you.”