Nature Girl

Two

After nightfall Sammy Tigertail ditched the rented Chrysler in a canal along the Tamiami Trail. Then he hitchhiked to Naples and met his half brother Lee in the parking lot of an outlet mall.

“Come home. You’ll be safer on the reservation,” Lee said.

“No, this way is better for everyone. You bring the gear and the rifle?”

“Yep.”

“What about the guitar?”

Sammy Tigertail had only once set foot inside the tribe’s Hard Rock operation. The whole scene was gruesome, except for the rock-and-roll artifacts on display. Sammy Tigertail had zeroed in on a blond Gibson Super 400 that had once belonged to Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, his late father’s favorite band.

“It’s in the truck,” Lee said, “and you owe me big-time, brother. They didn’t want to give it up.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“But I got the big boss to make a call.”

“No shit?” Sammy Tigertail hadn’t known that Lee held any sway with the tribal chairman. “Let’s go,” he said.

His brother drove him to the Turner River, where together they dragged a small canoe from the bed of the pickup; not a native cypress dugout but a shiny blue aluminum model, manufactured at some factory in northern Michigan.

After they loaded in the gear, Lee said, “You see the Man coming, first thing to go overboard is the gun.”

“All depends,” said Sammy Tigertail.

They stood in a thickening darkness, silent but for the oscillating hum of insects.

Lee asked, “You didn’t kill that white man on purpose, did you?”

Sammy Tigertail took a heavy breath. “No, it wasn’t me.”

He told the story of the banded water snake, and Lee agreed that it was clearly a spirit at work. “What do you want me to do with your checks?” he asked.

Every month the tribe sent three thousand dollars to each Seminole, remittance from the gambling profits.

“Give it to Cindy.”

“Sammy, don’t be a fool-”

“Hey, it’s my goddamn money.”

“Okay,” Lee said. Cindy was Sammy Tigertail’s ex-girlfriend, and she had issues.

Lee put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and said good-bye. Sammy Tigertail got into the canoe and pushed it away from the bank.

“Hey, boy, since when do you play guitar?” Lee called out.

“I don’t.” Sammy Tigertail dipped the paddle and turned the bow downriver. “But I got all the time in the world to learn.”

“Sammy, wait. What do I tell Ma?”

“Tell her I’ll be back someday to play her a song.”

Eugenie Fonda had been briefly famous as a mistress in another relationship. In the summer of 1999 she had dallied with a man named Van Bonneville, a self-employed tree trimmer in Fernandina Beach. Soon after the affair had begun, a hurricane pushing thirteen feet of tidal surge struck the coast and smashed Van Bonneville’s house into toothpicks. He survived, but his wife was lost and presumed drowned.

Hurricanes being to tree cutters what Amway conventions are to hookers, Van Bonneville was an exceptionally busy fellow in the days following the tragedy. While neighbors were impressed by his stoicism, his in-laws were disturbed by what they considered an inadequate display of grief by the young widower.

Certain grisly suspicions were floated before the local police, but no one paid much attention until Mrs. Bonneville’s body was found in her Pontiac at the bottom of the St. Johns River. It was her husband’s contention that Mrs. Bonneville’s Bonneville had been swept away by the onrushing flood as she wheeled out of the driveway in a frantic quest for Marlboros. Doubt fell upon this story as soon as police divers revealed that Mrs. Bonneville had been snugly strapped into the driver’s seat. Well known among her friends was the fact that on principle Mrs. Bonneville never buckled her seat belt, even though it was required by state law; an ardent libertarian, she opposed government meddling in all matters of personal choice.

Another clue was her knockoff Seiko titanium, which, unlike the genuine item, was not even slightly water-resistant. The face of the wristwatch was frozen on a time and date that preceded by a full nine hours the hurricane’s landfall, suggesting that the Pontiac had gone into the river well in advance of the fierce weather, and that Mrs. Bonneville’s corpse had been strapped inside to keep her from surfacing prematurely.

In the end, her husband’s fate was sealed by the Duval County medical examiner, who retrieved from a blunt indentation on Mrs. Bonneville’s scalp several sticky ligneous flakes that were later identified as bark particles from a sawed-off mahogany branch. The branch segment measured three feet long and seven inches in circumference on the day it was confiscated from the bed of Van Bonneville’s obsidian-flecked Ford F-150 pickup.

The “Hurricane Homicide” trial was broadcast live on Court TV and later featured during prime time on Dateline. Prosecutors depicted Van Bonneville as a philandering shitweasel who had conspired to do away with his loving wife and blame it on the storm. The motives were laid out as greed (a $75,000 life-insurance policy) and lust, Van Bonneville having acquired a new girlfriend who then went by the name of Jean Leigh Hill. Tall and smoky-eyed, her long languorous walk to the witness stand was the undisputed highlight of the trial.

Eugenie testified that she’d taken up with Van Bonneville believing he was a widower, having fallen for his claim that his wife had perished in a freak tanning booth mishap. It wasn’t until three days after the hurricane that Eugenie had spotted a newspaper story about the missing Mrs. Bonneville. The enlightening article included several quotes from her “tearful and apprehensive husband.” Immediately Eugenie located the one and only love letter that Van Bonneville had scrawled to her, and marched to the police station.

Scandalous headlines were followed by the obligatory book deal. Soon a ghostwriter arrived from New York to help Ms. Hill organize her recollections of the romance, although there wasn’t much to recollect. Eugenie had known Van Bonneville all of eleven days before the crime. They’d gone on one lousy date, to play putt-putt golf, and afterward they’d had putt-putt sex in the cab of his pickup. That it was enough to leave Van Bonneville smitten and dreamy-eyed had been mildly depressing to Eugenie.

Initially she’d been drawn to his rugged looks, particularly his knuckles, which were intriguingly striped with scars. Eugenie had occasionally been a sucker for marred, rough men, but on that first and only night with Van Bonneville she would discover that his wounds were the results of frequent tree-trimming miscues, and that he was as clumsy at foreplay as he was with a pruning saw.

Fortunately for her publisher, Eugenie had a fertile imagination. The manuscript that she and the ghostwriter produced was thin but sufficiently tawdry in content to become an instant bestseller. For seven weeks Storm Ghoul ran neck and neck on the New York Times non-fiction list with a collection of Ann Coulter’s most venomous Al Gore columns. So torrid was Eugenie’s account of Van Bonneville’s sexual talents that he got swamped with marriage proposals from complete strangers. From Death Row he sent Eugenie a thank-you note and a Polaroid photograph of his hands.

Her share of the book advance was half a million dollars, a cheering sum. Eugenie’s new boyfriend, a stockbroker who’d seen her on Oprah and contacted her Web site, advised her to invest the windfall in a red-hot Texas outfit called Enron, the shares of which he was pleased to acquire for her at a discount fee. Within twenty-four months Eugenie was dead broke, alone again and working the phone bank at Relentless. By that time a barrage of anti-bimbo invectives had caused her to shut down the Web site and adopt the name of Fonda, a demented aunt having declared herself a third cousin to Peter and Jane.

Eugenie was still not entirely sure why she’d seduced Boyd Shreave, a charmless and dyspeptic presence in the adjacent cubicle. Perhaps it was because he had shown so little interest that she felt the tug of a sexual challenge. Or perhaps she’d sensed something in his glazed indifference that hinted at a secret wild side, a raw and reckless private life.

Yet, so far, Boyd Shreave had failed to deliver a single surprise. He was a man without mystery and, except for an odd stippling on his pubic region, also without scars. On the upside, he was decent-looking enough and fairly dependable in the sack. He kept assuring her that he was angling for a divorce, a blatant lie with which Eugenie gamely played along. Boyd’s wife had inherited a small chain of pizza joints, the profits from which provided the Shreaves with a comfortable existence in spite of Boyd’s serial failures as a salesman. It would have been idiotic for him to run out on his wife, much less snuff her in the manner of Van Bonneville, a fact in which Eugenie Fonda took comfort. She had no desire to reprise her role as the paramour of a murderer.

To Eugenie, Boyd Shreave was not a love interest so much as a timely distraction. Their relationship was the natural backwash of being stuck together in the most boring, brain-numbing job on the planet.

On the night Shreave had so loudly berated the customer on the phone, he arrived at Eugenie’s apartment carrying a six-pack of Corona, to which he clung even as he hugged her. “I got canned,” he announced.

“Oh no.” Eugenie, who in her heels stood four inches taller than Boyd, kissed his forehead. “Don’t tell me they were taping you!”

Shreave nodded bitterly. “Miguel and Shantilla called me in and played back the whole goddamn call. Then they sent some Mexican ape from Security to clean out my desk and hustle me out of the building.”

“What happened to probation?” Eugenie asked. “I thought they aren’t supposed to fire you the first time you lose it.”

“They will if they catch you tellin’ somebody to go screw themselves.”

“Jesus, Boyd, screw isn’t so bad. You hear it on TV all the time. If it was fuck, I could understand you gettin’ axed, but not screw.”

Shreave uncapped a beer and settled in on the couch. “Apparently skank is a no-no, too.”

Eugenie seated herself beside him. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Oh well. It sure felt good to say it at the time.”

“Have you told Lily?”

“Not yet,” Shreave muttered. Lily was his wife. “She’ll be pissed, but what else is new. It was a shit job, anyway,” he said. “No offense.”

Eugenie was wondering how best to inform Boyd that she wasn’t devoted to the idea of continuing their affair now that he was no longer employed at Relentless and they couldn’t pass horny notes to each other. It exhausted her to think about carrying on with him by telephone.

“The only good thing about that goddamn place,” he was saying, “was meeting you.”

Swell, thought Eugenie. “Boyd, that’s so sweet.”

Shreave began unbuttoning her blouse. “You wanna take a shower?” he asked. “I’ll be the Handsome Drifter and you can be the Hula-Hula Queen.”

“Sure, baby.” She didn’t have the heart to give him the bad news. Maybe tomorrow, she thought.

Honey Santana’s brother was busy on a story, but he promised to try to help. While waiting, Honey robotically kept dialing the 800 number. She was well aware that telemarketing companies deliberately rigged their outgoing phone banks to thwart incoming calls, yet she continued to punch the buttons. She felt more powerless than usual against this latest compulsion.

“It’s driving me up the wall, this guy was so awful,” she said to her brother when he finally got through. “And, the thing is, he had such a nice voice.”

“Yeah, so did Ted Bundy,” said Richard Santana. “Sis, what are you going to do with the name if I give it to you? Be honest.”

Richard Santana was a reporter in upstate New York. Among the many Internet databases available to his newspaper was a nifty reverse telephone directory. It had taken about six seconds to trace the 800 line for his sister.

“All I want to do is file a complaint,” she lied.

“With whom? The FTC?”

“Right, the FTC. So, you got the name?”

Richard Santana was aware that Honey sometimes reacted to ordinary situations in extreme ways. Having been burned before, he was now wary of all her inquiries. This time, however, he felt confident that the information he was providing could result in nothing worse than an angry letter, since the offending company was in Texas and his sister was far away in Florida.

“I’ll E-mail you what I’ve got,” he told her.

“You’re a champ, Richard.”

Honey Santana didn’t inform her brother that she could no longer retrieve her E-mails without her son’s permission. Fry had locked her off the computer the day after she’d fired off ninety-seven messages to the White House complaining about the president’s support for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The E-mails had been sent within a four-hour span, and their increasingly hostile tone had attracted the notice of the U.S. Secret Service. Two young agents had driven over from Miami to interview Honey at the trailer park, and they’d departed believing, quite mistakenly, that she was too flighty to present a credible threat to anyone.

She hurried into Fry’s bedroom, flipped on the light and began to shake him gently. “You asleep, sweetie?”

“Not anymore.”

“I need to get on the computer. Richard’s E-mailing the goods.”

“Mom, look at the clock.”

“It’s only eleven-fifteen-what’s the matter with you? When I was your age, I used to stay up until midnight writing love letters to Peter Frampton.” Honey felt Fry’s forehead. “Maybe you’re coming down with a bug.”

“Yeah, it’s called the Psycho Mom flu.”

Fry untangled himself from the sheets and stumbled over to his desk. He shielded the computer keyboard from his mother’s view as he tapped in the password. The screen illuminated with a beep, and Honey sat down intently. Fry aimed himself back toward the bed, but she snagged him by one ear and said, “Not so fast, buster.”

“Lemme go, Mom.”

“Just a minute. Lookie here.” Honey tapped the mouse to scroll down her brother’s message. “It’s RTR Limited, Fort Worth. That’s the name of this outfit.”

“So?”

“I need you to Google it for me.”

“Google yourself,” Fry said.

“No, kiddo, you got the touch.” Honey rose and motioned him into the chair. “I’m too wired to type, honest to God.”

Fry sat down and searched for RTR Limited, which came up as Relentless Telemarketing Resources, Relentless Wireless Outreach and Relentless, Inc. He surfed through the entries until he found a self-promotional Web site that listed an office-park address and a direct toll number.

“Bookmark that sucker!” Honey cried triumphantly.

“Okay, but that’s it.” Fry signed off and darkened the screen. “We’re done, Mom.”

“Come out and watch Letterman with me. Please?”

Fry said he was beat, and dived into bed. When Honey sat beside him, he rolled over and faced the wall.

“Talk to me,” she whispered.

“’Bout what?”

“School? Sports? Anything you want.”

Fry grunted wearily.

“Hey,” Honey said. “Did you see on the news about the wolves out West? They’re trying to take ’em off the endangered list so that we can wipe ’em out all over again. Does that make any sense?”

Her son didn’t answer. Honey turned out the light.

“Thanks,” Fry said.

“I didn’t forget my medicine, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Which was true in a way-she’d thrown the pills in the trash weeks earlier. “Certain things still set me off, no matter what,” she said. “But I’m getting better, you’ve gotta admit.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely gettin’ better.”

“Fry?”

“I’m serious,” he said.

“Other things I just can’t let slide. You understand? Starting with matters of basic civility.” Honey closed her eyes and listened to her son’s breathing. Tomorrow she would go find another job, and then after she came home she’d get on the phone and track down Mr. Boyd Eisenhower.

“He had such a nice voice, didn’t you think?”

“Who?” Fry asked.

“That man who tried to sell us a place on the Suwannee River,” Honey said. “I thought he had an exceptionally agreeable voice.”

“I thought he sounded like a total dick.”

“What are you saying, kiddo? That I’ve lost my marbles?”

“No, Mom, I’m saying good night.”

The private investigator’s name was Dealey, and his office was downtown near Sundance Square. Lily Shreave was fifteen minutes early, but Dealey’s assistant waved her in.

Dealey, who was on the phone, signaled that he’d be finished in a minute. Pinned under his left elbow was a large brown envelope on which “Subject Shreave” had been printed with a black Sharpie.

After the private investigator hung up, he asked Lily Shreave if she wanted coffee or a soda. She said, “No, I want to see the pictures.”

“It’s not necessary, you know. Take my word, we got him cold.”

“Is she in them?” Lily Shreave pointed at the envelope.

“The pictures? Yes, ma’am.”

“She pretty?”

Dealey eased back in his chair.

“You’re right, it shouldn’t matter,” Lily Shreave said. “What’s her name?”

“The one she’s using now is Eugenie Fonda. She works at Relentless with your husband,” Dealey said, “and she has an interesting back-story. You remember the ‘Hurricane Homicide’ case a few years ago? The guy who whacked his wife and tried to make it look like she drowned in a storm?”

“Down in Florida,” Lily Shreave said. “Sure, I remember.”

“She was the husband’s girlfriend,” Dealey said, “the one who wrote that book.”

“Really? I read the first chapter in Cosmo.” Lily Shreave was puzzled. The woman had made the tree cutter out to be a stallion in the bedroom. So why on earth would she want Boyd?

“Let me see those pictures,” she said.

Dealey shrugged and handed her the envelope. “It’s the typical routine. Drinks after work, then back to her place. Or sometimes a late lunch before they punch in. Did I mention she was single?”

Lily Shreave held up the first photo. “Where was this one taken?” she asked.

“At a T.G.I. Friday’s off the 820. He ordered ribs and she got a salad.”

“And this one?”

“The doorway of Miss Fonda’s apartment,” Dealey said.

“She’s a real amazon, huh?”

“Six feet even, according to her driver’s license.”

“Age?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Same as me,” Lily Shreave remarked. “Weight?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Are those flowers in his hand?” Lily Shreave studied the grainy color print.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dealey said. “Daisies and baby’s breath.”

“God, he’s so lame.” Lily Shreave couldn’t remember the last time her husband had brought her a bouquet. They had been married five years and hadn’t slept together in five months.

“This is the first time he’s cheated on me,” she volunteered.

Dealey nodded. “You got your proof. My advice is take him to the cleaners.”

Lily Shreave laughed caustically. “What cleaners? The man can’t hardly pay for his own laundry. I want a speedy divorce, that’s all, and no trouble from him.”

“Then just show him the pictures,” Dealey said. “And save number six for last.”

Boyd Shreave’s wife thumbed through the stack until she found it. “Good grief,” she said, and felt her face redden.

“Deli over on Summit. Broad daylight,” said Dealey, who’d taken the photograph from a parked car. The camera was a digital Nikon with motor drive and a 400-mm telephoto.

“Is she actually blowing him?” Lily Shreave asked.

“That would be my expert opinion.”

“And what in the hell is he eating?”

“Turkey and salami on a French roll with pickles, shredded onions, no lettuce,” Dealey said.

“You can remember all that, but not her weight?” Lily Shreave smiled and fitted the stack of pictures back into the envelope. “I know what you’re up to, Mr. Dealey. You’re trying to spare my feelings. When I get stressed, I tend to put on a few pounds, sure, and lately I’ve been stressed. But don’t worry, I’ll get down to a size six again once I dump this jerk. So tell me-how much does she weigh?”

“A buck forty,” Dealey said.

“Oh, get real.”

“Exactly. People always lie on their driver’s license.”

“I mean, she’s six feet tall, so come on.”

“Like you said, Mrs. Shreave, it doesn’t really matter. Adultery is adultery.”

Boyd Shreave’s wife took out her checkbook. “Let me ask you something else about Miss Fonda. Do you think she put him up to it? I’m talking about the tree trimmer who murdered his wife. Is it possible this slut had something to do with it?”

Dealey said, “The cops tell me no. I already called down to Florida because I was wondering the same thing. They said she passed the polygraph with flying colors.”

Lily Shreave was somewhat relieved. Still, she made up her mind to move swiftly with the divorce, in case her husband got any nutball ideas.

“Copies of the pictures are locked in my safe box. They’re yours if you want ’em,” Dealey said. He’d already made a dozen prints of the sub shop blow job, which he considered to be a classic.

“I’m sorry things turned out this way,” he added.

“No, you’re not,” Lily Shreave said, “and, frankly, neither am I.”

She wrote out a check for fifteen hundred dollars. The private investigator put it in the top drawer and said, “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Shreave.”

“Whoa, you’re not done yet.”

Dealey was surprised. “You want me to keep tailing your husband? What for?”

“The oral stuff is okay, but I’d prefer to see documentation of actual intercourse.”

“They usually don’t give out receipts, Mrs. Shreave.”

She said, “You know what I mean. Pictures or video will do.”

Dealey tapped two fingers on the desk. “I don’t get it. You’ve got more than enough to bury him already.”

“The deeper the better,” said Lily Shreave, snapping shut her purse.