Bad Monkey

Eleven

Yancy remembered exactly when he decided to become a police officer: It was the day of his grandmother’s funeral. A gang of burglars who specialized in scouting obituaries had looted his Nanna’s apartment while she was being buried. Yancy’s family was sickened when they walked in on the mess, which included gratuitous defecation not uncommon in such break-ins. His mother’s knees buckled and she dropped to the floor, sobbing. His father made her stay by the door while he and Yancy searched to make sure the thieves were gone. Stolen were his grandmother’s television set, her wedding ring, some heirloom jewelry worth maybe two grand, and an oxygen tank that had been left by her bed.

The Homestead cops snapped some photos and told the family not to expect any miracles. Watching his mother cry while his father cleaned up the intruders’ shit, Yancy experienced an overpowering anger. That such a small, shabby crime could cause so much heartache was a revelation, and he thought of how often it happened every day. The jam-packed conditions in Florida prisons seemed proof that the majority of felons eventually fucked up and got busted. Yancy imagined it would be profoundly satisfying to participate in that process, although later he’d look back on his thinking as naïve.

Still, until his third or fourth year as a detective, he continued to fantasize about capturing the assholes who’d trashed his grandmother’s place on the day of her funeral. In his daydreams the burglars wildly resisted arrest and were always dealt an agonizing lesson, their windowprying fingertips crushed to pulp by a squad-car door or the butt of a pump gun.

In real life those apprehended by Yancy usually surrendered without resistance, aware that their period of confinement would be brief and only nominally tuned to their actual sentence. Savvy thieves understood that the court system went easy on the unarmed and that violence was for fools. Yancy had occasionally tackled or Tazed a fleeing suspect, but never had he been forced to fight off an attack. Although he’d punched his way out of a couple of bars, he held no special skills in self-defense or the martial arts, having quit karate classes at age twelve because they’d cut too onerously into his fishing time.

It didn’t really matter, because the cyclist caught him completely by surprise.

As Yancy was placing the trash can by the road, he heard the swish of air through spokes and he turned to look. A stretch mask obscured the face of the approaching rider but the orange poncho shone even in the deepening dusk. The bike knocked Yancy to the ground, and when he looked up, the stranger was standing over him. The last image to register was a downward-swinging arm with a bulky, ornate wristwatch.

Later, as a throbbing consciousness returned, Yancy surmised that he’d been struck with an old-fashioned sap or possibly a sock filled with coins. The blow landed on the opposite side from the bruise he’d incurred at Eve Stripling’s house, leaving his head with conforming knots, like raw antler nubs.

Now the man in the poncho was dragging Yancy by the collar through the lot next door, past Evan Shook’s spec house. Yancy’s rear end was afire with pain, the friction against the ground having shredded Rosa Campesino’s delicate web of sutures. The far side of Evan Shook’s property fronted a canal, and Yancy sensed what was coming next. His limbs hung uselessly, however, and failed to respond to urgent brain commands. He half-shut his eyes and pretended to be coldcocked.

The masked stranger was grunting and huffing by the time he reached the canal. Awkwardly he tried to heave Yancy headlong, but Yancy’s toes snagged on a ridge of coral rock, leaving him half in and half out of the water. Swearing, the attacker kicked at the soles of Yancy’s feet until Yancy slid like a comatose otter down the bank.

He knew that the man who was trying to kill him—the same man who’d murdered Charles Phinney and probably Gomez O’Peele—would be unable to see him swimming in the murky canal if he went deep enough. His arms and legs didn’t awaken for several harrowing seconds, and his lungs were searing by the time he began to make progress. Fortunately the waterway was narrow and the opposite shore was fringed densely with mangrove trees. Skinny as he was, Yancy managed to slither into the embroidery of roots and poke his head up for air. He was no more conspicuous than a floating coconut or an orphaned lobster buoy.

The burly figure in the poncho stood on the other bank, staring hard in search of bubbles and scanning the length of the canal to make sure that the victim of his beating hadn’t surfaced. Yancy clung to the barnacled mangroves and braced his knees, trying not to create ripples. His bruised skull clanged, and hot pulses of nausea raised the annoying prospect of a concussion. Mosquitoes swarmed his ears and eyes, but he couldn’t slap them away for fear of causing a telltale splash. Eventually his attacker turned and hurried off.

Five minutes was as long as Yancy could tolerate the insects. Gingerly he extricated himself from the roots, dog-paddled across the canal and crawled out. The thick night air seemed almost as heavy as the salt water. Approaching his house, Yancy saw a light go on in the living room, revealing through a front window the masked killer in the poncho. He was handling Yancy’s shotgun, checking to see if it was loaded, which of course it was.

Yancy ducked into Evan Shook’s place and groped his way to what must have been a closet. The door had yet to be hung but still it was a refuge of sorts, a recessed cubby where he could hide and dry out. Maybe take a nap. The closet smelled like raw pine, and Yancy felt sawdust under his feet. His forearms and knees stung from where the barnacles had grated the skin. He touched his scalp and found a syrupy wetness. There arose an urge to strip out of his sopping clothes, and the effort exhausted him.

As he drifted away, a familiar tune entered his woozy head. It was a rocking John Hiatt number, “Master of Disaster.”

· · ·

Evan Shook insisted on meeting the Turbles at the Key West airport and he personally escorted them to Big Pine. The couple rode together in the second seat of the Suburban so they could snuggle. With the loss of the skittish Norwegians still fresh, Evan Shook would have donned a topcoat and chauffeur’s cap if he’d thought it would help sell his godforsaken spec house.

Ken Turble, who preferred to be called Kenny, had made such a killing in the commodities markets that he remained revoltingly wealthy after losing two-thirds of his fortune in a divorce. His new wife, Tanya, was eleven years younger than the youngest Turble offspring. Kenny proudly shared this information with Evan Shook early in the car ride. As a way of backfilling, Tanya yipped, “I got a business degree from Kaplan.”

By Mile Marker 7, it was clear to Evan Shook that the marriage was doomed. Behind him the Turbles were cooing and murmuring so insipidly that they couldn’t possibly have anything in common. Still, Evan Shook was pleased to see the crusty old coot derailed by lust; obviously he’d buy anything for his nubile bride, including a half-finished vacation chalet in the Florida Keys. A friend in the advertising business once told Evan Shook that Viagra was the only thing keeping Tiffany’s and Porsche afloat, and Evan Shook thought the same might hold true for high-end real estate. A glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that Tanya Turble was now giving her husband a peppy hand job, which could only serve to prime him for Evan Shook’s sales pitch.

“Eyes on the road,” Kenny Turble warbled rapturously.

“Yes, sir,” said Evan Shook.

Tanya inquired if there was a Kleenex in the vehicle. Evan Shook reached back and presented his handkerchief, which happened to be monogrammed. “Keep it,” he said.

She laughed. “Duh.”

“I think you’re gonna fall in love with this house.”

“We saw a gem on Marco Island. Right, baby?”

Kenny Turble said, “Gorgeous place. Except I don’t golf.”

“Honestly, I can’t see you two on Marco,” Evan Shook commented. “The average age is, like, eighty-four. Don’t get me wrong—my mother lives there and she’s happy as a clam—but you don’t strike me as the bridge club–and–shuffleboard type.”

“Or golf,” said Kenny.

His wife rolled down the window and let fly the sticky handkerchief. “They had a cool gym in town,” she said.

“Do you enjoy fishing? We’ve got some incredible offshore action—tuna, mahi, even blue marlin.”

“Kenny loves that stuff. Me, I just like to lay out.”

“Sun we’ve got,” Evan Shook said. “Three hundred and twenty-five days a year.” It was a statistic he’d invented for the occasion; for all he knew, it might have been accurate. However, the line about his mom living on Marco Island was bullshit; she had a town house in Scottsdale.

“We almost there?” Tanya asked.

“Hey, check out the deer,” Evan Shook said as they passed a doe and two fawns.

“Oh, sweet. And they’re so little!”

Ken Turble grunted. “When’s the season open?”

“November through January,” Evan Shook replied, another lie. You could go to prison for shooting a Key deer, but he didn’t want to queer the deal by telling that to Kenny, obviously an avid hunter.

Nothing seemed amiss when they got to the property; no sign of creepy Andrew Yancy in the vicinity. Tanya Turble headed for the spec house while her husband quizzed Evan Shook about windstorm insurance and flood-elevation certificates. Kenny also wanted to know if he could put in a dock, and how deep the water stood at low tide. The two men strolled to the bank of the canal, where Evan Shook was disturbed to see a discarded liquor bottle, a spinning rod and a gamey pair of flip-flops.

“What’s the matter?” Ken Turble said.

“Let’s go inside so I can give you and your wife the grand tour.”

But the tour fizzled quickly. Upon entering the house they came upon a nude man sprawled on the floor of the future living room. He was face-up in a splayed, post-crucifixion pose. His head glistened with lumps, both knees showed fresh scabs and his outflung arms bore gashes and scrapes.

Evan Shook blurted, “Yancy, what the fuck!”

“Those dogs, man. You didn’t see ’em?”

Tanya Turble stood off to the side with slender arms folded. Her husband couldn’t help but observe that she was staring at the naked intruder’s crotch.

“Who the hell is this character?” Ken Turble demanded. “Is he on drugs or what?”

Yancy raised his head to cough. “They went berserk again. I was lucky to get away.”

Evan Shook was trembling as he hurriedly gathered Yancy’s damp clothes from the bottom of the closet and threw them at his feet.

“I live next door,” Yancy said, sitting up slowly.

Tanya said, “What kinda dogs?”

Kenny elbowed Evan Shook. “That’s his house right there? Oh great.”

“I was putting out the trash last night,” Yancy continued, “and the pack was on me so damn fast, I barely made it to the canal.” He rose and wriggled into his damp pants. “Soon as I got out of the water I ducked in here to hide.”

In the hope of boosting Yancy’s stock as a potential neighbor, Evan Shook informed Ken Turble that Yancy was a police officer. Who wouldn’t feel safer with a cop living on the block? A spark came to Tanya’s green eyes, which again her watchful husband detected.

“What kinda cop?” she asked.

“I’m not free to say.” Yancy steadied himself against a wall. “Sorry about all the blood,” he said to Evan Shook. “Your crew will be painting over it anyway, right? One of these days.”

“Did you go fishing on my property last night?”

Yancy sighed. “Jesus, do I look like I went fishing?” He turned to Tanya Turble. “Wild dogs on the island. They only come out at night.”

“You mean like werewolves.”

“No, darling,” said Kenny, stepping to his wife’s side, “just a bunch of stray mutts.”

Evan Shook spoke in toneless desolation. “I’ve never laid eyes on these animals. Not once.”

Young Tanya addressed Yancy. “Would they eat a collie?”

“Are you kidding? They’d eat a fucking Clydesdale.”

She pursed her lips. “Well, we could keep Barney locked up—that’s our dog.”

Ken Turble was wishing the cop would put on a shirt so that he might recapture his wife’s attention. “No, sweetie, Barney needs open space to run. We can’t leave him cooped indoors all day.”

Evan Shook asked, “Don’t you want to see the view upstairs?”

Kenny said no thanks. Tanya suggested they summon an ambulance for the injured police officer.

“No need,” said Yancy, toddling toward the door. “My girlfriend’s a doctor.”

It hurt so badly that he actually screamed in the shower. Rogelio Burton arrived with nine tubes of Neosporin, the entire inventory from the local Walgreens. While Yancy gooped his multiple lacerations he told Burton everything that had happened since Eve Stripling had come to claim her husband’s severed arm.

Burton said, “You need to clue the sheriff in right away.”

“Not until it’s a lock.”

“That’s insane, Andrew. You’re gonna get yourself killed and blow the case. How did this asshole find you? The guy who tried to drown you.”

“I have a guess,” Yancy said.

He surmised that Gomez O’Peele had a better memory for names than most junkies. The doctor had probably phoned Eve with a shakedown in mind soon after Yancy left the apartment. Told her he’d just been questioned by a cop—how much was it worth to her for him to keep his mouth shut about the Medicare scooter scam? Eve had told him to sit tight and she’d bring some money. Instead she sent Poncho Boy with his .357. Once he pried Yancy’s name out of O’Peele, he put a bullet in the poor slob’s noggin.

Tracking Yancy to his house would have been easy for Eve, who already knew he lived somewhere on Big Pine. An online check of property records would have produced the address. Google would have given her a flawless road map and, as a bonus, the news stories about Yancy’s recent departure from the sheriff’s office. From Eve’s point of view, a disgraced ex-cop wasn’t such a risky target for killing. After all, she and the boyfriend had made her husband’s murder look like an accident; why not the same fate for Yancy?

“Call Sonny,” Burton implored again.

“Sonny does not want to know about this.”

“You’re putting me in a helluva shitty position.”

“What position? You just stopped over for a beer. Big deal.” By now Yancy was shining from the ointment. He looked like an abused gummy bear.

“The widow’s boyfriend jacked my shotgun last night,” he informed Burton. “Oh, and here’s a clever touch: He left an empty booze bottle and one of my spinning rods down by the water, so everybody would think I got drunk and fell in, whatever.”

“Works for me.” Burton had begun to pace. “Phinney’s girlfriend is missing.”

“She left town.”

“Man, could you please put on some clothes?”

“I’m too sticky,” Yancy said. “Hey, Rog, if I slipped you the tail numbers off a seaplane, could you find out who chartered it? I mean without sending up a goddamn flare. I’ll give you the name of the leasing company.”

Burton said, “I’ve got my job to think about, Andrew. A wife plus two kids that might want to get off the rock and go to college someday. Why do I want to get dragged into a mess like this? Look at your victims and tell me who gives a shit. Let’s see—there’s a low-life Medicare scammer, a dock rat and a crooked doctor with a dope habit. Before you come close to making a case, Stripling’s wife and the poncho dude will be long gone. Disappearing is no problem in the Bahamas, mon. You know how it goes.”

“I know that anybody can be found.”

“And who’s gonna pay for your hotels and plane tickets, Andrew? The health department? Are they doing extraditions now, too?” Burton raised his hands. “What’s the fucking point?”

“Catching a couple of murderers, that’s the point,” Yancy said. “Hell, it’s something to do in my spare time. The tarpon run is over.” He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around his waist. “Did I mention that Eve gave the dead husband’s fancy watch to her boyfriend? He was wearing it last night when he clocked me.”

Burton said, “What if Stripling was killed in Miami? You think the homicide guys up there will give you credit for solving the case? Never in a jillion years. Your name won’t even be in the reports, Andrew, unless you change it to C. Informant.”

“Do me a favor,” Yancy said. “Next time you come over, just bring chicken soup.”

“For Christ’s sake, I’ll check on the seaplane.”

After Burton was gone, Yancy realized he should have asked to borrow a gun. Eve would be scouring the Citizen’s website for news of Yancy’s tragic drowning. When she didn’t find the story, she’d probably send the boyfriend back to Big Pine to try again. Yancy called Rosa Campesino at the morgue to tell her about his action-packed evening, but the secretary said Rosa was in the middle of an autopsy. Next Yancy tried Caitlin Cox and left a message on her voice mail.

Hearing a knock, he peeked through a window and saw a sallow, thickset fellow who was dressed like a plainclothes cop, which he was.

“John Wesley Weiderman,” the man said after Yancy let him in. “Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Can I have a glass of ice water?”

“Did you fly into Miami International?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then hard liquor is in order.”

“Tap water’s fine, thanks.” John Wesley Weiderman opened a briefcase and took out a years-old mug shot of Plover Chase, a.k.a. Bonnie Witt. “Do you know this woman? Her husband said we might find her down here.”

Yancy sat down across from the investigator. “I haven’t seen her in a while. Can I assume she’s in trouble?” He was wondering why Clifford had ratted out his beloved Bonnie.

“Ms. Chase is a convicted sex offender. For years she’s been a fugitive.”

“Well, we did have an affair, a romance, a fling, whatever you call it back home. But in no manner did she victimize me, John—may I call you John? I was a willing participant. Recklessly enthusiastic, to be truthful. But I’m sure Dr. Witt filled you in. Here in the Keys she called herself Bonnie, not Plover. I’d never sleep with a woman named Plover.”

The investigator said, “What’s the matter with you?”

“In general? I don’t know where to start.” Yancy readjusted his towel, which kept slipping off his hips due to the medicinal sheen on his skin.

“Were you in a fight?”

“There’s a pack of mad dogs in the neighborhood, I’m sorry to say.”

“Those don’t look like dog bites.”

Yancy shed the towel, spun around and bent over to display the tooth wounds inflicted by the mixed-breed fiend that lived next door to Eve Stripling. The investigator from Oklahoma took a slight step back.

“And what happened to your head?”

“I took a tumble,” Yancy said, “while running for my life.” He refilled John Wesley Weiderman’s glass with water. “Are you folks really going to prosecute Bonnie after all this time? Hell, the bail bondsman’s probably dead from old age.”

“Dr. Witt said you used to be a detective.”

“Tell me something—when you spoke with Clifford, did you happen to notice any rope burns on his neck? Because he likes to choke himself while he whacks off. Not that I’m passing judgment, but it’s important for you to know that your complainant has oxygen-deprivation issues.”

John Wesley Weiderman said, “Hey, I’m just doing my job.”

Although Yancy had never been to Tulsa, he imagined any civil servant there would jump at the offer of a trip to Florida, even in the dead of summer. The investigator gave Yancy a business card, but not before asking point-blank if Plover-slash-Bonnie was the person who assaulted him.

“John, get serious.”

“But it wasn’t really wild dogs, was it?”

“What did she do to piss Clifford off? Or, should I say, who did she do?”

“Please call me if she shows up. To us, this isn’t a joke.”

Yancy began pawing through the open Neosporin containers on the table. “Man, the last thing I need in my life right now is a fucking staph infection.” He found a tube that wasn’t empty and said, “Would you excuse me for a minute?”

“Actually, I’ve got an appointment in Key West.” John Wesley Weiderman stood up. “Can you recommend a place for lunch? The guy at Hertz said Stoney’s was real good.”

Yancy smiled in resignation. “So I hear.”

Widowhood was a grind.

Eve Stripling thought she’d prepared herself, but there was much more paperwork than she’d expected. Also, the endless condolences—her friends, Nicky’s friends, random clergy, relatives she didn’t know existed. Except for Caitlin they all meant well, although Eve was ready to strangle the next person who brought her a damn casserole.

The problem was she had limited grieving experience to draw from. On numerous occasions she sensed crying was expected of her, yet the only way to make it happen was by remembering a pet turtle she’d owned when she was nine. Flash was the turtle’s name; he was the size of a silver dollar. One day he trundled out of the house and her mother backed over him with the Delta 88. Eve was bereft for a week. She accused her mom of squashing Flash on purpose, the so-called accident occurring soon after a tense family conversation about bacteria on pet-store reptiles. A burial was held under a lime tree in the backyard, Eve bearing the compressed remains of her companion upon a Teflon spatula.

Years later, at Nick’s funeral, all the time Eve stood sobbing by the coffin she was actually thinking of poor little Flash, whom her parents had coldly refused to replace. Every tear she shed that day was for her lost turtle, not for her husband.

Her most important task, besides mourning, was to persuade a Miami judge to declare Nicky dead. It should have been a routine order, the severed arm being more than ample evidence of his tragic demise. The hurdle was Nick’s daughter, who’d been spreading a vicious whisper that Eve had murdered him and chopped off his left arm to fit a bogus story about a boating accident.

Hiring a lawyer to threaten Caitlin Cox with a slander suit might have been sound strategy for an innocent widow, a woman with nothing to hide. For Eve Stripling, the wiser course was to reach out with a peace offering—or a piece offering, as it happened. From past experience she knew Caitlin’s hostility could be dissolved by a gush of money. At first Eve couldn’t bring herself to make the phone call, but soon it became clear there was no other choice. Her nightmare scenario was Caitlin showing up at the court hearing, telling the judge that her rotten stepmother had bumped off her beloved father.

Whom she hadn’t seen in years because she was a selfish, pouty, greedy—

Deep breath, Eve had said to herself before dialing Caitlin’s number.

Lunch is the way to go, someplace quiet where we can talk business, neither of us having to pretend we can stand the sight of the other.

Suck it up, Eve told herself, you’re the only one who can pull this off.

And she did.

They’d met at a small Brazilian restaurant in the Design District. Caitlin came right out and asked her if she’d killed Nick, or paid to have him killed. Eve swallowed hard, bowed her head and refocused her thoughts on Flash, her precious childhood buddy, stuck like a patty of brown chewing gum to the left rear tire of her mother’s Oldsmobile. It worked like magic—Eve quickly began to cry, blubbering that she’d loved Nick Stripling more than anyone, anything in the world. He was her world!

Caitlin was taken aback. “Then what about that boyfriend of yours in the Bahamas?”

At which point Eve could feel the color rush from her tear-streaked cheeks. Somehow she managed to keep it together, cooking up a story about an elderly uncle that seemed to temporarily appease Caitlin. Eve then steered the conversation to the less precarious topic of money, specifically the generous benefits of Nick’s life insurance policy, half of which he’d wanted his only daughter to have despite their heartbreaking estrangement.

In addition, Eve went on—Caitlin practically drooling in suspense—there was an offshore bank account that Nick Stripling had opened for the benefit of future grandchildren.

Caitlin, suddenly sentimental: “Simon and I are trying to get pregnant!”

So the deal got done. Eve ordered a bottle of white wine, which Caitlin depleted single-handedly before the food arrived.

“I didn’t kill your dad,” Eve said solemnly, reaching across to touch Caitlin’s hand. “He died when his boat sank, just like they said.”

“I know, shit, I know.” Caitlin had achieved that level of alcohol-induced volubility where no thought goes unspoken, no secret goes unshared.

And that had been when Eve Stripling learned her stepdaughter had been talking to Andrew Yancy.