Tango Key (9 page)

But it didn't matter.

It never did.

Whenever he hit after that—never very hard, never hard enough to leave bruises or marks that showed—she knew it meant he wanted her. She got used to it. She grew to like it.

She began to understand that she yielded a kind of power over him when she said, "Get the belt, Doug," or "Hurt me a little, honey." And sometimes, when he was doing it to her, things in her head got very mixed up and she thought about hurting him back. Hurting him bad. Hurting him bad enough to kill him.

His whistling has stopped. His footfalls are like a giant's. They stop in the doorway.

"Hi, babe. You got yourself into a kind of mess, didn't you."

And then he laughs.

T
he Pink Moose Tavern was set back in a holt of pines on the Tango Inlet. The second floor was an open, long shaded deck with ceilings fans and an S-shaped bar. During the season, when the snowbirds swelled the island's population to three or four times its usual size, you couldn't find a table after ten A.M. or even a stool at the bar. But this was June. The snowbirds had been gone since Easter, and Aline and Bernie had their pick of seats.

"If we weren't on duty, I could stand an ice-cold Corona," said Bernie, studying the menu as if she'd never seen it before, when in fact the menu hadn't changed in ten years. In the end Bernie ordered what she always did—a thick roast beef on rye. Aline stuck with her favorite as well—the pita bread special.

"You owe me, Al," said Bernie, lighting a cigarette. "I must've fielded a dozen calls after you left the office. I mean, Christ, even the New York Post called. A decapitation is big headlines. Gory stuff. I fully expect that by this afternoon the
National Enquirer
will have called. Also, I talked to Alan Cooper, and then later to his mother. She, her new husband, and Alan own the Green Turtle Inn in Marathon. According to her, Alan worked until two this morning at the restaurant.

"Mothers have been known to lie for their sons."

"True, true. Anyway, he'll be here in a couple of days for the memorial service and then the reading of the will."

"You believe his mother?"

"She gave me the names of a half-dozen people he waited on that night. I think we should check with them, too. You talk to Ted Cavello?"

Aline shook her head. She had dropped by the Cove Marina, but Cavello, she was told, was leading a charter fishing trip and wouldn't be back until late tonight or at dawn tomorrow morning. "I checked at the Hibiscus Inn, though, where he and Cooper had dinner. According to the maître d', they had the Early Bird Special and were both gone by five-thirty, six o'clock."

"And Ed Waite?"

"Home sick with the flu."

"How convenient."

Their iced teas arrived. Bernie sipped noisily at hers and said, "That's the noise my ex used to make every morning when he drank his coffee, Al."

"I know. You've told me that a dozen times."

"Have I?" She wrinkled her nose. "Well, hell. Did I ever tell you how he also had his coffee with a shot of Kahlua?"

"For breakfast? Gross."

"Yeah. But in all fairness to him, that was only toward the end." She sat forward now, chin resting in the palm of her hand. "Find me a nice, normal single guy, Al, and that'll wipe out any favors you owe me for the next twenty years."

"You can have Murphy."

"No offense, Al, but there's something a little off about Murphy. I love the man dearly, don't get me wrong, but cops are not normal."

"Male cops, you mean."

"Absolutely." She grinned. "I need a guy who's good in the sack." Up came her thumb. "Not hung up on his mother." The index finger popped up. "Not into kinky sex." Now her third and fourth fingers stood erect. "And he can't be anyone I'd get serious about, and he should be nice, normal, stable. Like that."

Aline laughed. "You don't want much."

"Yeah." She sat back, looking dejected. "If it weren't for the fact that I love living on Tango, that I love it enough to pull in only twenty grand a year as a cop, I'd go somewhere else where the ratio of men to women was more in our favor, you know? Do you realize that if you count the widows in the Cove, there are twice as many women on this island as men? Except during the season, and hell, no telling what diseases snowbirds carry."

The waitress set their lunches in front of them. "A guy named Ryan Kincaid says to tell you hello," Aline said.

Bernie had just bitten into her roast beef on rye and now she coughed and nearly choked. She wiped at her mouth with a napkin. "Kincaid? Where the hell did you run into Kincaid? I thought he was off on one of his trips."

"It's a long story." Aline had never told Bernie about her bookie friend Ferret, which was ludicrous, really, since Bernie knew virtually everything else about her. "Someone involved in the Cooper case hired him."

"Jesus. I should've known. Stay away from him, Al. He's trouble. Big trouble."

"He's got a certain appeal."

"He also goes through women like Kleenex."

She attacked her roast beef sandwich with a vengeance, and Aline smelled a story she hadn't heard. "How well do you know him, anyway?"

"We worked on a robbery case together awhile back. He wasn't straight with his information."

"That's it?"

Bernie peered at her over the rim of her sunglasses; her mouth cockled. A spot of mustard bloomed in a corner of her mouth like a sunflower. "I don't tell you everything, Al."

"You had a thing with this guy?"

"Oh, God." She sat back. "I wouldn't call it an affair, exactly."

"You have mustard right here." Aline pointed at her own mouth and Bernie wiped at the corresponding spot on her face. "You did, huh, you slept with this guy."

She shrugged and slid her fingertip around the edge of her glass. "We went out a couple of times. For beers. We came here in fact. All we did was argue. He's very pigheaded. We never saw eye to eye on anything, unless we were both blasted, and then he was fun. So one night we'd been drinking and ended up down at the beach skinny-dipping and stuff."

"I can't believe you never told me this. How long did you see him?"

"Al, it wasn't like we dated or anything." Exasperated now, she stabbed out the cigarette that had been burning in the ashtray. "Couple beers, one romp in the hay, and that was it."

"Why?"

"Because he's not nice, normal, or stable. Because his track record sucks—two ex-wives, one an economics professor and the other a pediatrician, and no telling how many other women hanging around backstage. Because I've had sex like that maybe four times in my life. Because I knew I'd be in deep shit with the man if I slept with him again, you know, falling hard and blind, and then waiting around for the phone to ring. No thanks. Who needs it?"

Well, well, Aline thought. "Have you passed on information to him since your little whatever?"

"No way. Not after he screwed me on that robbery case."

"What kind of private eye is he?"

Bernie sighed. "God, I hate to say it, Al. But he's good. Really good. The best I've ever run across. He picks up things, you know? It's like he plucks details outa the air or something. Makes you sick. But he only does that part of the year. The rest of the year, he travels. Nepal. Thailand. Hong Kong. Europe. Last I knew, he'd been to over a hundred countries. I'd heard he was supposed to be heading to South America. Chile." She shrugged. "Irresistible. Christ."

"How's he afford it?"

She shrugged. "He does real well as a private eye. Real well."

"Then whoever hired him must have money."

"You don't even look at Kincaid unless you have bucks."

Aline changed the subject. "Want to drive into town with me?"

"Can't. The chief got back. He put me on shit patrol up in the Cove. Cooper's murder has made some of the rich folks real nervous. I'm supposed to cruise up there from three to eleven, and then Dobbs takes over, eleven to seven. Who're you going to see?"

"Doug Cooper's mistress."

F
rom the outside, Safari Travels didn't look like much. It was just your typical travel agency with colorful posters in the window. But it was at the corner of Banyan Boulevard and Canal Street, a prime piece of real estate because of its central location. But then, the entire island was prime real estate, Aline thought, and shuddered to think what she would've paid for her place at today's prices.

No wonder a loaf of bread here cost two-fifty.

It occurred to her that Lucy Meadows might be at home grieving, but in that case, she would simply ask for the woman's home address. The best time to get answers from people was when they were at their most vulnerable—a rather callous approach she didn't care for, but a fact nonetheless. But when she introduced herself as Detective Scott to the receptionist and explained that she wanted to speak to Ms. Meadows, the woman said, "Just go on back through the hall, Detective. She's in her office."

"Thanks."

The hall was thickly carpeted, which masked the sound of Aline's footsteps. She paused outside a door that was partially ajar. Inside, a woman with curly, honey-colored hair sat with her back to the door, talking on the phone.

". . . how should I know, Ed?" Lucy was saying.

Ed? Ed Waite?

"Look, the ticket I made up for him was Miami to Barranquilla on May 30, with a return on June 3. He said you'd pick him up in Barranquilla and the two of you would drive to Santa Marta and go on to the Lost City the next day. I assumed that's what happened, except that he got back a day early." She stopped. When she spoke again, a surfeit of emotion laced her voice. "And now he's dead, so why don't you go bug his goddamn wife and leave me alone." She slammed down the phone.

Two women—a wife and a mistress—who may have killed Cooper out of jealousy or for money. She made a mental note to ask Cooper's attorney, when she spoke to him, about any provisions he might have made in his will for Lucy Meadows.

Soft, pathetic cries inside the office slapped the air like tiny hands. Aline waited a moment, then knocked. "Come on in."

Lucy swiveled around as Aline entered the office. She really did look like the ex-model Ferret said she was. Besides her luxurious honey-hued hair, she had those classical features of an ageless beauty, a face that would photograph well. Pale blue eyes, a complexion so white, so flawless, it seemed translucent, the sort of skin maintained with mud baths and esoteric things like live lamb cell shots, Aline thought. But she didn't hold a candle to Eve. Aline suddenly doubted that there was a woman on Tango who was Eve's physical equal. Eve was the quintessence of all that was feminine. The perfect yin.
Like Monica
.

Murphy didn't stand a chance. He would capitulate to Eve with all the aplomb of Adam in Eden. It was as inevitable as the heat.

"Yes? May I help you?" asked an impatient Lucy.

Aline introduced herself. The moment Lucy heard the word,
Detective
, she reached for the pack of Marlboro Lights on her desk. "What can I do for you, Detective Scott?" She sat back, lighting her butt, trying her best to look phlegmatic, contained, and not doing a very good job of it.

"I think you know why I'm here. It's about Doug Cooper."

"What about him?"

My, aren't we friendly.
Aline got right to the point. "It's my understanding that you were Mr. Cooper's mistress. For about twelve, fourteen years."

Lucy's mouth curled around her cigarette. "I don't know where you heard that, Detective." The words issued forth in a cloud of smoke.

"Ms. Meadows, I don't have time for games. I'd like to know where you were yesterday between . . ." She hesitated.
Between what?
Christ, she didn't even have a time of death yet. ". . . between noon yesterday and ten last night." That seemed safe enough.

"I was here at work until six. Then I drove straight to class. I'm taking a class at the community college in Key West."

"What class?"

"Having to do with computers and the travel industry. Go ahead and check. I was there from six-thirty to eleven. I got home around eleven-thirty."

Aline asked her the name of the course, jotted it down, picked up the phone and verified the information right then. When she hung up, Lucy leaned forward.

"Listen, I'm not the lady you want to be talking to, Detective. Eve is the one who stood to gain the most from this. Eve. Not me. Eve. The only reason she married Doug was for his money."

"Oh, really? She told you that?"

She crushed her cigarette in an ashtray, raked her dark red nails through her hair. "Not personally, no. But Doug knew it. Doug told me, for God's sakes. But you think he cared?" She laughed—it was a sharp, hard sound. "No. Of course not. He had enough money so it didn't make any difference. He just wanted to . . . to create her. That's all. He created her. He took this stupid, gorgeous soda jerk and tried to make her into a cultured woman who all the hypocrites in the Cove would accept as their equal." She lit another cigarette, skewed her eyes against the smoke. "Do you even know what the hell I'm talking about, Detective Scott? Do you?"