Beauty and the Beast

1

In Calusa, Florida, the beaches change with the seasons. What in May might have been a wide strand of pure white sand will by November become only a narrow strip of shell, seaweed, and twisted driftwood. The hurricane season here is dreaded as much for the damage it will do to the condominiums as for the havoc it might wreak upon the precious Gulf of Mexico shoreline.

There are five keys off Calusa’s mainland, but only three of them — Stone Crab, Sabal, and Whisper — run north-south, paralleling the mainland shore. Flamingo Key and Lucy’s Key are situated like massive stepping-stones across the bay, connecting the mainland first to Sabal and then to Stone Crab — which had suffered most during autumn’s violent storms, precisely because it had the least to lose. Stone Crab is the narrowest of Calusa’s keys, its once-splendid beaches eroded for decades by water and wind. In September, Stone Crab’s two-lane blacktop road had been completely inundated, the bay on one side and the gulf on the other joining over it to prevent passage by anything but a dinghy.

Sabal Beach suffered least — perhaps because there is a God, after all. It was on Sabal that the law-enforcement officers of the City of Calusa looked the other way when it came to so-called nude bathing. Well, not quite the other way. The women on Sabal were permitted to splash in the water or romp on the beach topless. But let one genital area, male or female, be exposed for the barest fraction of an instant, and suddenly a white police car with a blue City of Calusa seal on its side would magically appear on the beach’s access road, and a uniformed minion of the law would trudge solemnly across the sand, head ducked, eyes studying the terrain (but not the offending pubic patch) to make an immediate arrest while citing an ordinance that went all the way back to 1913, when the city was first incorporated.

My partner Frank is a transplanted New Yorker who stubbornly insists that the police interpretation of this particular ordinance is merely another indication of Calusa’s lack of true sophistication. Nudity is nudity, Frank maintains, be it partial or otherwise. Calusa would like to consider itself sophisticated enough to allow beachgoers to enjoy the sun au naturel, Frank says, but at the same time the city fathers feel they must appease all those puritanical citizens who migrated south from such unimaginably unenlightened places as Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Hence the compromise, according to my Big Apple partner Frank Summerville. I don’t think Frank even knows where Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois are. Somewhere up there. Somewhere to the left of New York. He knows, of course, that I myself am originally from Illinois — a native, in fact, of that incredibly unsophisticated and unbelievably dull small town called Chicago. Perhaps that is why I am gauche enough to appreciate the sight of naked breasts in the sunshine, and to thank God for small favors. Frank and I are both lawyers. So is Dale O’Brien.

Dale is a woman. That’s an understatement. She’s a woman with a scalpel-sharp mind that has reduced to whimpering incoherency the bravest of unfriendly witnesses in many a Calusa courthouse. Moreover, she’s an extraordinarily beautiful woman, five feet nine inches tall, with red hair (she prefers to call it auburn), glade-green eyes, and a fair skin that, contrary to old wives’ tales, stubbornly refuses to turn lobster red in the sun but instead tans graciously and gorgeously. I had known her since January, when we’d met professionally. Our relationship had survived the seasonal onslaught of the northern snowbirds, their departure early in May, the oppressive heat and humidity of Calusa’s summer months, and the torrential autumn rains that had all but washed away what remained of Stone Crab’s beaches, but had miraculously spared Sabal’s. We had spent last night together in my rented house on the mainland, had awakened at noon, and had gone to lunch together at a new restaurant called (prophetically, we both agreed) Custer’s Last Stand, doomed to close before the end of the month if the runny eggs Benedict were any measure of success. Now, in bright mid-November sunshine, we strolled along North Sabal, grateful for the capricious whims of hurricane Gloria, grateful too for a glorious Saturday that was somewhat unusual for this time of year.

Dale was wearing a green bikini a shade darker than her magnificent eyes, which were shielded from the sun now by oversized prescription glasses. I was wearing white cutoffs; I had no intention of going in the water even though the air temperature was still quite warm for November, sixty-two that morning (or seventeen Celsius, as the television forecaster had insisted on informing us) and the temperature of the gulf water was only two degrees higher than that. I had lived in Calusa long enough to begin thinking like one of the natives: autumn came on September 21, and only the snowbirds were crazy enough to go in the water after that.

“I’m a sissy, is what it is,” Dale said.

“No, you’re very brave,” I said.

“Matthew, please. If I had a single ounce of courage in my body, I’d take off my top.”

“It has nothing to do with courage,” I said.

“Then what? Never mind, don’t tell me. I’m going to do it.”

“So do it.”

“I will. Just give me a minute.”

“Take all the time you need.”

“A minute is all I need.”

“Okay, fine.”

“I’m really going to do it, Matthew.”

“I know you are.”

“You don’t believe me, but I am.”

“I believe you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do. Believe me, I believe you.”

“You’ll see.”

“Everyone’ll see.”

“Now you’re scaring me again.”

“Sorry,” I said.

We were walking close to the shoreline, the better to avoid dog shit; in Calusa, the ordinance against dogs on public beaches is somewhat less stringently enforced than the one against total nudity. Everywhere around us there were bounding, panting, untethered dogs: Labrador retrievers and German shepherds, dachshunds and poodles, huskies and goldens, Scotties and spitzes, bassets and beagles, Dobermans and Chihuahuas, mongrels of every persuasion — a veritable veterinarian registry of canine diversity. And everywhere around us, too, there were naked breasts: breasts shaped like apples and breasts shaped like pears, breasts the size of grapefruits and breasts the size of plums, breasts the color of eggplants and breasts the color of sweet young corn, breasts as firm as pomegranates and breasts as wrinkled as prunes, breasts with nipples like cocoa beans and breasts with nipples like cherries — a veritable vegetarian feast of mammillary proportions.

“If she can do it, I can do it,” Dale whispered.

She was referring to a woman who came splashing topless out of the water, wearing only bright red bikini panties that struggled valiantly to cover her truly enormous watermelon belly and wide cantaloupe buttocks. Her breasts (to abandon the greengrocer metaphor) were dun-colored dugs that hung halfway to her waist and flapped unabashedly in the sunshine. As she collapsed on a blanket some three feet from where the waves were nudging the shore, she clasped both prized possessions in her hands as though delighted she hadn’t lost them in the ocean.

“I’ll do it,” Dale said.

“So do it.”

“I will.”

She was actually reaching behind her to untie the straps of her bikini top, when something stopped her. I could not see her eyes, hidden as they were behind the dark lenses of the sunglasses, but she was unmistakably looking up the beach, her attention caught by something there, her hands still behind her back, her arms bent at the elbows, frozen, like the wings of an elegant water bird poised for imminent flight. I followed her hidden gaze and saw the most spectacularly beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.

I thought at first that she was entirely nude.

And then I realized that the triangular black patch below her waist was not a pubic echo of the long black hair that trailed to her shoulders but was instead the minuscule bottom half of a string bikini. She could not have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old, easily as tall as Dale, and so voluptuously curvaceous that by comparison Dale (a beautifully proportioned woman in her own right) seemed almost angular. On a beach populated with women displaying bodies tanned to various degrees of bronzed perfection, the woman who approached us appeared carved of alabaster, pale-white exquisite face framed by ebony cascades of hair, the flesh of her naked breasts almost translucent, lustrous in the hot rays of the sun, wide hips flaring above the restraining strings of the bikini patch, a shimmering mirage in black-and-white that came closer and closer, pale-gray eyes in that incredibly lovely face, the scent of mimosa as she passed and was gone.

“There oughta be a law,” Dale said.

The woman we’d seen on the beach came to my office on Monday morning at a quarter past ten. She was wearing tight-fitting blue jeans, a white T-shirt, sandals, and sunglasses. Her arms, where they showed below the short sleeves of the shirt, were covered with black-and-blue marks. The bridge of her delicate nose was plastered with adhesive tape. When she took off the glasses, I saw that both her eyes were discolored, one of them puffed almost entirely shut. Her lips were swollen and bruised. As she parted them to speak, I saw empty gaps where once there had been teeth.

“My name is Michelle Harper,” she said. “You must forgive me, please, my English.”

Her English was unmistakably tinged with a French accent, her voice low, rather huskier than one might have expected from a woman so young.

“You were recommend,” she said, “by Sally Owen.”

I nodded.

“You made for her a divorce,” she said.

“Yes, I remember.”

“She says to me you will know what to do.”

“What is it you want me to do?”

“I want to have arrest my husband.”

I pulled a lined yellow pad in front of me. I picked up a pencil.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“George Harper.”

“H-a-r-p-e-r?”

“Oui. Mais le ‘George,’ il est sans... pardon. The ‘George,’ it is without an s, he is américain.”

“George Harper.”

“Oui, exactement.”

“Why do you want him arrested?”

“For what he has do to me. Il a... he has broke my nose, he has knock from my mouth three teeth... dents? Teeth?”

“Yes, teeth. When did this happen, Mrs. Harper?”

“Last night. Regardez,” she said, and suddenly pulled her T-shirt up over her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The breasts I’d seen naked and unblemished on the beach Saturday were covered now with brutal black-and-blue marks. “He do this to me,” she said, and lowered the shirt.

“Did you call the police?”

“When he is leave, do you mean?”

“What time was that?”

“Two o’clock.”

“Two o’clock in the morning?”

“Oui. I did not call the police, I was afraid he would come back, I did not know what to do. So after I have my breakfast, I go to see Sally.”

“What time was that?”

“Nine o’clock. I don’t know what to do, vous comprenez? She says to me I must have a lawyer. She says George is gone, you know, so I do not have the proof... proof?”

“Yes, proof.”

“Oui, that he is the one who does this to me. She says I must first see a lawyer.”

“Well,” I said, “Sally may be a good beautician, but she’s not a very good lawyer. You should have called the police at once. But it’s not too late, don’t worry. I’m not a criminal lawyer, you understand...”

“Oui, but Sally says to me—”

“And in any event, this isn’t something that requires one, not for you, anyway. If what you tell me is true, your husband’s the one who’s going to need—”

“Oh, it is true, bien sûr.”

“I have no reason to doubt you.”

I was reaching to the bookcase behind me for the index to the four-volume Florida Statutes, known familiarly down here as the F.S. As Michelle watched, I thumbed through the pages, searching out first Assault and then Battery and then Spouse Abuse, jotting onto the lined yellow pad the related volumes and chapter numbers. I read to her first from Section 901.15.

“ ‘A peace officer may arrest a person without a warrant,’ ” I said, “ ‘when the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has committed a battery upon the person’s spouse and the officer finds evidence of bodily harm...’ ” I looked up. “We certainly have evidence of that. And at least a hundred witnesses can testify you didn’t look this way Saturday.”

“Pardon?” she said.

“On North Sabal.”

“Ah, oui,” she said.

“So we’ve got cause for arrest without warrant, and we’ll go to the police as soon as I see what...” I was thumbing back to Section 784.03, which defined Battery. I read the brief description silently, and then looked up and quoted it to her. “ ‘A person commits battery if he (a) Actually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of the other...’ ”

“Yes, he has do this.”

“ ‘Or (b) Intentionally causes bodily harm to an individual.’ ” I looked up again. “Battery’s a misdemeanor, let me see what he can get for that.”

“Get for that?”

“The punishment.”

“Ah, oui.”

I flipped the pages back to Section 775.082, which defined the punishment for a misdemeanor of the first degree. “Here it is,” I said. “Definite term of imprisonment not exceeding one year.”

“Only one year? For what he does to me?”

“Let’s see what we’ve got under Assault,” I said, and thumbed forward again to Section 784.011. I read it silently, and then quoted it to her. “ ‘An assault is an intentional, unlawful threat by word or act to do violence to the person of another—’ ”

“Yes, he has made this threaten.”

“ ‘Coupled with an apparent ability to do so—’ ”

“He is very strong, George.”

“ ‘And doing some act which creates a well-founded fear in such other person that such violence is imminent.’ ”

“He is a monstre,” she said. “Un monstre véritable.”

“In any case,” I said, “it’s only a second-degree misdemeanor. If he’s convicted on both charges, the assault would add only sixty days to his sentence.”

“And when he is out from the jail? When the year goes by? And the sixty days? He will kill me then, no?”

“Well... let’s get him arrested first, okay? And let’s make sure he can’t hurt you again after they set bail for him.”

“What is this, this bail?”

“After he’s charged, the judge can set him free until trial—”

“Free?”

“Yes, if he puts up the amount of money the court in its own discretion decides upon. As assurance that he’ll appear for trial. It’s called ‘bail.’ I’m sure you have this in France.”

“In France, we do not have these men who do these things,” she said.

I remembered that France was the land of the Marquis de Sade, but I was gracious enough not to mention it. “Come on,” I said, “we’ve got work to do.”

The police station in Calusa is known as the Public Safety Building. According to my partner Frank, this is another of the city’s attempts to lend respectability to everything under the sun. A euphemism, plain and simple. Frank insists that a spade should be called a spade, and that calling a police station a public safety building is like calling a garbage man a sanitation engineer.

In any case, that’s what it’s called, the Public Safety Building, the words lettered discreetly in white on the low wall outside. Less conspicuously lettered to the right of the brown metal entrance doors, and partially obscured by pittosporum bushes (as though to prove my partner’s theory) are the words POLICE DEPARTMENT. The building itself is constructed of varying shades of tan brick, its architecturally severe face broken only by narrow windows resembling rifle slits in an armory wall. This is not unusual for Calusa, where the summer months are torrid and large windows produce only heat and glare.

At the main desk, Michelle filed a complaint charging that her husband, George N. Harper, residing with her at 1124 Wingdale Way had on Sunday, November 15, at 11:45 P.M., committed upon her person assault and battery in the following manner: he broke her nose, he blackened both her eyes, he split her lip, he knocked three teeth from her mouth, and he bruised her arms, legs, and breasts. The officer who took the complaint told us that they would start looking for her husband at once, and would inform us if and when he was apprehended.

We left the police station ten minutes later, driving back to the office where Michelle had left her car — a Volkswagen Beetle of uncertain vintage — in the parking lot. Before she got out of my car, she said, “Merci, monsieur, vous êtes très gentil.” I assured her that everything would be all right, and that it would only be a matter of time before the police picked up her husband and held him to account for what he had done. When she asked me what would happen if they set him free on bail, I told her we would file a petition for an order restraining an abusive spouse, which could be granted when a divorce action was pending or if criminal charges had been filed. I promised I would call her the moment I had any word from the police and, in any event, early in the morning, if only to see how she was.

I never got a chance to call her.

Detective Morris Bloom called me first, at home, at seven o’clock on Tuesday morning, to say that a woman identified as Michelle Harper had been found dead on the Whisper Key beach, some thirty yards from the pavilion there. Her hands and legs had been bound with wire hangers, and she had apparently been burned to death.