Turtle Moon (5 page)

When it is nearly midnight, Lucy knocks on Keith's door before she heads down to the laundry room. There's no answer, and, hoping he's asleep, Lucy grabs her wicker laundry basket and her detergent.

Because she's so late, the laundry room is emptier than usual on a Thursday night.

Karen Wright and Nina Rossi are already waiting for their clothes to dry. Karen has taken off her two gold rings, so they won't snag her baby's playsuits when she folds them, but Nina always wears her jewelry; she says it's the one thing she got out of her marriage, and she refuses to take off her gold necklaces and her charm bracelet, even when she goes into the pool. Lucy stuffs her dark wash into a machine, adds soap, then joins the other women on the plastic bench.

"You're going to be here all night," Nina Rossi tells her. "It's so humid nothing's drying."

"Lovely weather as usual," Lucy says.

"For turtles." Karen Wright grins as she fiddles with her portable intercom, which allows her to listen for her baby up on the eighth floor.

"Dead turtles," Nina adds as she unloads her dryer and begins to fold the massive amount of clothes her two girls go through every week. "I like your hair," she tells Lucy.

"Dee down at the Cut n' Curl," Karen guesses.

"Right?"

Karen's red hair is also cut short, although nowhere as short as Lucy's.

"Is it awful?" Lucy asks Karen after Nina has taken her laundry upstairs.

"Listen, they would have charged you fifty bucks to do something like that at Salvuki's," Karen said.

"Not to mention the tip and the conditioner they would have sold me."

"They used to talk me into mousse," Karen says.

"Like I need mousse.

When her baby begins to cry, Karen looks up, startled. Lucy understands exactly what a cry can do. It's a sound you never get used to, it can cut right through flesh and bone.

"Just once," Karen says as she hurries upstairs, "I wish she'd make it through an entire night."

Lucy herself didn't sleep through the night once during Keith's first five years. The disturbances came one after another: bad dreams, croup, chicken pox, fear of the dark. She can tell tonight will be a rough one for Karen. Through the intercom she can hear the baby continue her whimpering, but by the time Lucy carries her folded laundry down the basement hallway, Karen is headed back to the laundry room, her little girl in her arms.

"I give up," Karen tells Lucy as they pass each other.

Maybe it was simply impossible to sleep once you had children. You had to use that time to worry. You had to do it for the rest of your life.

It's almost one-thirty when Lucy gets back to the apartment, and across the hall from her bedroom she can see a line of light beneath Keith's door. Outside, the stars are turning red with heat. Although the windows are closed and the air conditioner is turned to high, Lucy can still hear the strangler figs as they drop from the trees, and maybe that's what keeps her son awake. It's a sound that reminds you that anything is possible, right outside your front door.

part two.

THE short circuit happened last night, some time between midnight and three, when the yellowfin in the bay turn the water the color of butter. At a quarter to four this morning there was an anonymous call to the station, which could have easily been a joke, since the caller sounded like a kid, except that when Richie Platt finally got himself over there and had the super unlock 8C, there was a dead woman on the kitchen floor. In her closed fist were four quarters that had turned as cold as ice.

By ten-thirty there were four police cruisers and two unmarked black Fords parked in the circular driveway, blocking all the handicapped spaces at 27 Long Boat Street. Some of the officers, grown men who have presided at the scenes of car accidents and three-alarm fires, were so shaken they took turns going out behind the building, where they smoked cigarettes and wondered why they'd ever wanted their jobs in the first place. There is supposed to be a complete blackout, with no news leaks whatsoever, but Paul Salley, whose father owns the Verity Sun Herald and the radio station and just about everything else in town, has positioned himself in the lobby and won't be budged. Paul has been waiting for a murder like this ever since he got his master's degree in journalism from the University of Miami. Some people might consider him lucky; he considers himself smart. He was tuned to the police band on his radio and heard too much activity for anything less than a major crime. Greedy for facts, he hasn't even phoned in to his editor or the obit page, since he's not about to be scooped.

"One thing about Paul," the chief of police, Walt Hannen, has said.

"You can spit on him and he thinks it's raining."

Nobody's giving Paul the facts or even the right time of day, although the truth is that aside from the body in the kitchen, not a thing is out of place in 8C. No one ransacked the dresser drawers or went through the closet, and there's over three thousand in cash packed inside a suitcase under the bed. As far as anyone can figure, the victim had a load of laundry going in the basement, came up with a folded load, still in a plastic laundry basket in the living room, and, while searching for change, surprised the thief, maybe even struggled with him, so that he panicked and fled before stealing anything of worth. But there's more to the crime than all this, and that's why Walt Hannen is waiting in the parking lot, smoking his third cigarette in under half an hour even though he gave up smoking last month. With Paul Salley bothering people in the lobby and so many single women in town, they can try their best to keep this murder quiet, but by tonight there's going to be a run on safety locks down at the hardware store.

A lot of people will be wanting answers, and it's all going to be on Walt Hannen's head.

Julian Cash finally pulls up, late as always, just as Walt takes out his fourth cigarette and lights it. The air is so heavy that the smoke doesn't even spiral upward, it just hangs there so that it's hard to see straight. When Walt hired Julian, after all the trouble he'd been in, people thought he was crazy, but Walt trusts him. Julian has a natural instinct for the way people work and an uncanny ability to connect with animals. Though nobody believes it, Walt has actually seen a redshouldered hawk respond to Julian's whistle, stop in midair, then swoop down to a patch of grass not fifty yards away. He's heard those merlins who nest in the cypress trees along Julian's driveway raise hell, like watchdogs, whenever a car turns in, headed for Julian's house.

Julian leaves his dog in the car and comes up beside Walt, then shades his eyes and studies Long Boat Street.

"Not anything you'd want to happen," Julian says.

"No," Walt Hannen agrees, figuring there's no point in griping to Julian about his being late.

Behind his back, people have talked about Julian since the day he was born. They say that as a baby he had the loudest and worst cry of any child ever born in the state of Florida, and although he usually speaks softly, like a man just waking from a deep sleep, Walt Hannen would not like to see him truly angry.

"I told you last year to take early retirement," Julian says.

"You should have been more convincing," Walt says dryly.

"Well, hell," Julian says. "Let's get this over with."

He lets Loretta out, and she circles around his legs, then sits beside him. She's pure black, aside from her face markings, and Walt Hannen doesn't move an inch until Julian has clipped on her leash.

"Jesus," Julian says when they get to the lobby and he sees Paul Salley. They've known each other since grade school, and even though they haven't said two words to each other in the past five years, Julian would still like to push Paul's face in. Rich kids don't go over well in Verity, even after they're all grown up.

"The vulture has landed," Walt Hannen says.

Before they can get into the elevator, Paul Salley approaches, although he slows down when he sees Loretta.

"Hey, Julian," he says, just as if he were one of the guys, when everyone knows he could never work another day in his life and still make out fine.

Julian looks up at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing he ever saw. Fact is, it's acoustical tile; no one on the floor beneath the murdered woman would have heard a sound.

"Just as friendly as always," Paul Salley says before turning to Walt.

"You know I'm going to find out everything sooner or later. So you could just tell me, and that would be that."

"With someone of your talents that would be kind of an insult, wouldn't it?" Walt Hannen says.

"Then don't ask me for any favors," Paul says.

"Have I ever?" Walt Hannen says mildly. "Someone ought to rip that police band radio out of his car," Walt adds when he and Julian get into the elevator.

"Late at night," Julian says. "When nobody's looking."

What they know about this murder is simple; it's what they don't know that's complicated. The reason for this is that Karen Wright seems not to have existed before October. Everything-her driver's license, her car insurance, her Winn Dixie check-cashing card-was based on false information. The previous address she gave to the super, in Short Hills, New Jersey, doesn't exist. Even the color of her hair isn't her own. All they know is that she was somewhere between the ages of twenty-five and thirty and that when she was discovered on her kitchen floor she'd been dead for at least four hours. That, and the fact that her little girl is missing. By the time Walt leads Julian into the apartment, the forensic team from Hartford Beach has nearly finished.

Richie Platt, who is supposed to be in charge of the investigation, backs up against the wall like a scared rabbit when Julian brings Loretta inside.

"Don't let Paul Salley in here," Walt Hannen tells Richie. "Don't even talk to him."

"Nobody's talked to him in years," Richie says.

"Right?" he says to Julian.

"I know I haven't," Julian says. He's known Richie since grade school, too. It doesn't hurt to be civil to him; for all Julian knows, Richie may be the next in line when Walt Hannen retires.

"I don't think we're going to like anything we find," Walt says thickly.

From the halhvay, Julian can see a line of blood on the kitchen floor.

Loretta knows it's there; she's straining, so that Julian has to pull up on her leash and snap her metal collar. They walk through the living room, pausing only when Loretta stops to sniff the rug: then they head down the hallway, toward the bedrooms. When they get to the baby's room, Julian flips on the light, then closes the door behind him. The walls have recently been painted pink and there's a mobile of a moon and stars dangling above the crib. It's not Julian's job to consider who was killed or why. He doesn't even have to think about that. All he needs is the baby's pillow, which, in his hands, seems ridiculously small. The pillowcase is bordered with a row of blue bunnies, and for some reason this makes Julian feel sick. He crouches down, and when he clucks his tongue, Loretta approaches and sniffs at the edges of the pillow. There is the scent of milk and baby shampoo and the thin, chalky odor of powder. But beneath that there is more, the scent of one particular human being. It's as if the essence of a person seeps into a pillow during the night, the way pollen can be caught if you open your hand just beneath a flower.

"Atta girl," Julian tells the dog as she nudges the pillowcase. He takes the pillow with him when they leave, careful to hold it by the edge so he won't get his own scent all over it.

Someone has brought Walt Hannen a black coffee, which he's gulping down, in spite of the fact that it's burning his throat. He nods to Julian and they go out into the hallway together.

"I think we've got a sighting," Walt says. "Over by the Hole-in-One."

Walt looks up at Julian and sees absolutely no clue as to what he must be thinking. Not a flicker behind his dark eyes.

"Hey, Julian, if you don't want to go, I'll send Richie."

"I thought you wanted the dog on this," Julian says. "I thought that was the point."

"Well, yeah," Walt agrees. "It is."

"Look, I don't have a personal life," Julian assures him. "If that's what you're worried about."

"Great." Walt Hannen grins.

They go downstairs and head out to the parking lot, Walt on his way back to the station, where he'll try to put a lid on any information going out, Julian forcing himself to drive over to the Hole-in-One.

But Loretta doesn't cooperate.

When they walk past the ficus hedges she stops.

Her ears point straight up and there's a fluttery noise, low in her throat. Julian can feel the vibration move up the leash and into the palm of his hand. There it is, right in front of them, the patch of freshly turned earth.

They get two shovels from the super and call up for Richie Platt.

While they dig, Loretta is so agitated she has to be tied to the bike rack. As Richie bends down and lifts the box out of the sand, Walt Hannen takes out another cigarette and lights it and doesn't think twice about what it's doing to his respiratory system.

"Want to do the honors?" Richie asks Walt as he holds out the shoe box.

"No," Walt says. "I don't even want to be here."

Julian examines the shoe box, then lifts off the top. Beneath some crumpled newspaper lies the dead alligator.

"I don't like this one goddamned bit," Walt Hannen says.

Tossed on top of the alligator are two gold rings.

"Fuck," Walt says.

Julian hands the box over to Richie. He doesn't even want to start to think about what it means.

"You just keep your mouths shut about this," Walt Hannen says.

Since Julian doesn't talk much, Richie knows this is directed at him, and he nods.

I don't want Paul Salley to know anything," Walt tells them. "Fucking May," he adds, for in all probability he will gain twenty pounds before this business is through.

Julian Cash knows exactly what Walt means.

He was born on the third day of May. The worst day of the worst month.