Bad Monkey

Yancy kept well back from the mourners and remained standing. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he noticed he wasn’t alone; two other men were maintaining a practiced distance, and their suits were charcoal gray, not black. Law enforcement of some sort, Yancy guessed. They were sweaty, too. August in the city could wilt a soul.

A generic silver-haired preacher rose and said saintly things about Nick Stripling before the coffin was lowered. Eve Stripling stood up and thanked everyone for coming. She said she’d placed in Nick’s casket a childhood Bible and his favorite speargun. To Yancy it seemed a bold hobby—spearfishing—for a mediocre swimmer, as Mrs. Stripling had described her late spouse when she came to collect his left arm.

After the mourners broke into small groups and headed for their cars, Yancy approached the two cop types and said, “Friends of the deceased?”

No response except barracuda stares. Both of the men had brown hair, light eyebrows and cinder-block chins.

“You must be feds,” Yancy remarked.

“Don’t be an asshole,” said one.

“That’s bad luck, swearing in a cemetery. Like a Gypsy curse.”

The men turned to leave.

“Or maybe it’s blowing each other in a cemetery,” Yancy said. “I forget which.”

He found himself dodging Eve Stripling, although she probably wouldn’t have recognized him in a suit and a tie. While waiting for her limousine to depart, Yancy drifted off among the sun-bleached headstones. Almost immediately he came across some unlucky bastard who’d been born on Yancy’s very own birthday and now lay six feet under. Yancy’s respiration shallowed and his palms moistened and his skin felt like it was crawling with centipedes. He stumbled a few plots farther, dropped to one knee and upchucked on the final resting site of one Marlene Suzanne Moody, who by Yancy’s quick calculation had passed away at age ninety-nine and was now safe from indignity.

After wiping his cheeks and smoothing the wrinkles from his pants, Yancy made his way back to the funeral canopy. Only Caitlin Cox and her husband remained at the grave. They stood shoulder to shoulder, saying nothing.

Yancy walked up and offered his condolences.

“Were you a friend of Dad’s?” she asked.

“I’m Inspector Yancy, from the Keys. I was in charge of your father’s remains.”

He presented one of his old detective cards. He figured what the hell—his cell number hadn’t changed. Caitlin’s husband asked Yancy why he’d come to the burial.

“Sometimes, in these cases, the family has questions. I just wanted to be available.”

It was a smooth response, caring yet professional. Yancy had polished the wording while waiting for the funeral procession to arrive.

Caitlin put his card in her handbag. A pair of cemetery attendants hung back on the edge of the shade. They weren’t allowed to start shoveling the dirt over Nick Stripling’s coffin until all the mourners were gone.

His daughter said, “I do have a question, Inspector.” Yancy liked the Scotland Yard-ish ring of his new title. “I’ll do my best,” he said.

“We peeked at it in the funeral home—Dad’s arm.”

Jesus, Yancy thought. Don’t tell me they were too lazy to fix the finger.

“It happened during rigor mortis,” he said.

Caitlin Stripling Cox seemed puzzled. “What on earth are you talking about?”

Her husband spoke up. “She means the wedding ring. Tell him, sweetheart.”

“Eve switched it out,” she said.

“The one I saw on your father’s hand looked like platinum,” Yancy said.

“That’s right. And the one he’s wearing now is yellow gold. Fourteen karat, maybe.” The downgrade was reported with somber disdain.

“Is it possible Eve decided to keep the original ring for sentimental reasons?”

“Lots of stuff is possible.” Caitlin frowned down at the casket. Yancy hoped she wasn’t expecting him to pry open the lid and appraise the substitute wedding band.

“Why don’t you ask Eve about it?”

“Because she hates me and I hate her. She’s a vicious cunt, by the way.”

Caitlin’s husband said, “Sweetheart, please.” His shirt collar was soaked, and a crystal droplet of perspiration clung to one of his ear-lobes. Yancy didn’t stare.

“A vicious greedy lying cunt,” elaborated Stripling’s daughter.

“It’s a rough time for everyone,” Yancy said.

“Is that legal—taking his ring?”

“As his wife, she’s entitled.”

“She probably stole his goddamn watch, too!”

Caitlin Cox was in her early twenties. Yancy figured she must have been a baby when her old man was staging auto accidents to rip off insurance companies.

He said, “The watch was already gone when they found your father’s arm.”

“Are you still on the case, or what?”

“I was in charge of delivering the remains. Unless some new information turns up, there’s not much else to be done.”

Caitlin laughed acidly. “I told you so, Simon,” she muttered sideways to her husband. “Nobody wants to investigate.”

“Investigate what exactly?” Yancy asked.

“Eve killed him, Inspector. She murdered my father.”