Bad Monkey

Simon Cox put an arm around his wife. “Okay, that’s the Xanax talking. Let’s go home, baby.”

Yancy offered to meet with them later in private. Caitlin said there was no point. “Don’t you see? She already got away with it!”

Her husband steered her away from the grave, Yancy following.

“What makes you think she killed him, Caitlin?”

“Oh, please.”

“Did your dad say something about Eve? Was he unhappy in the marriage?”

Caitlin pulled free of Simon and spun around. “How the hell would I know if he was happy or not? I haven’t talked to the sonofabitch in years.”

The captain of the Misty Momma IV was Keith Fitzpatrick, a fourth-generation Conch. His father had smuggled ganja from Jamaica, his grandfather had shipped rum from Havana and his great-grandfather had salvaged wrecked schooners that had been lured by deviously placed torches to the unforgiving reefs of Key West. Keith Fitzpatrick himself was a renowned fish hawk, booked years in advance, and therefore satisfied to abide the law. He made good money because he ran a thirty-eight-footer with only one mate.

Yancy met him for a beer at the Half Shell Raw Bar on the harbor. The motto of the place was “Eat It Raw!” Tourists went berserk for the T-shirts.

Fitzpatrick said, “Andrew, I heard Sonny canned your ass.”

“Temporarily.”

“That sucks.” Fitzpatrick’s face was boot brown except for a white goggle stripe from his sunglasses. His forearms were like glazed cudgels, his hands scarred and scaly.

“They got me doing restaurant inspections,” Yancy said.

“No way. You aren’t the one that shut down Stoney’s?”

“Listen, man, that kitchen—it was crawling with everything. So gross.”

“I love that place,” said Fitzpatrick.

Yancy placed the small gray shark tooth on the bar.

Fitzpatrick picked it up between a thumb and forefinger and turned it in the light. “Nuthin’ special,” he said.

“What kind is it?”

“Looks like a bonnethead. Maybe a baby lemon.”

“But not a bull shark or a tiger, right?”

Fitzpatrick shook his head and chuckled. “Not this little runt, no.”

“That’s what I think, too,” said Yancy.

Bonnetheads, the smallest species of hammerheads, averaged only about three feet in length. It was unlikely that any shark so small would be far offshore feeding on a human body, competing with the monsters.

“Where’d the tooth come from, Andrew?”

“That arm you snagged.”

“No shit?” Fitzpatrick examined it once more. “Don’t make sense, unless the dead guy’s boat sunk in the shallows. Which I heard he went down off Sombrero Light.”

“Let’s say he drowned in deep water and the body washed up on a flat.”

“What flat?”

“Let’s just say.”

“Still don’t explain how his whole arm got twisted off the way it did,” said Fitzpatrick. “I never seen a bonnethead could do that. You?”

“Nope. I don’t believe it’s possible.”

“So what is it you think happened? Tell me.”

“I’m not sure.”

“But Sonny’s keepin’ you on the case.”

Yancy gave a misleading wink. “Let’s not advertise it. Want another beer?” He ordered a couple more Budweisers.

Fitzpatrick asked if other body pieces had been found. “A leg or a head? Whatever.”

“Nothing but that arm.”

They were interrupted by a pushy fellow in a papaya polo shirt who recognized Fitzpatrick from a fishing website and wanted to go “load up” on mahi the next day. Fitzpatrick said he was booked until the Second Coming, but he provided the name of another charter captain.

When they were alone again, Fitzpatrick turned to Yancy and said, “How you doing on roach patrol? It’s got to be different.”

“Look at me.” Yancy flapped his shirt collar to display his new pencil neck. “Every time I walk into a joint, all I can think about is maybe some guy in the kitchen is greasing his ass with the pizza dough. Crazy shit like that, swear to God. I can barely stand the sight of food.”

“Come on, man, you gotta eat. Let’s get some conch fritters.”

“Go for it. I’m full.”

“Promise me you won’t shut this place down, too. I’m dead serious—you’d start a damn riot.”

Yancy said, “You knew Randolph Nilsson, right? The last guy who had my job.”

“Yeah, he was married to my second wife’s third cousin. Or maybe it was my third wife’s second cousin. Anyhow, I’m the one scattered his ashes out by the Mud Keys. He was only fifty-three at the end. But life ain’t fair, right?”

“No, Keith, it’s not.”

Two more bottles of beer appeared on the bar counter, along with a platter of raw oysters. Fitzpatrick turned to scout the room, which had filled with lobster people and locals. His gaze fixed on a rangy, black-haired kid sitting beside a hard-looking blonde at a corner table. The kid wore a tight T-shirt and a scraggly pubic goatee. In his mouth bobbed an unlit cigarette, and both arms were extravagantly tattooed in a Neptunian motif. He gave Fitzpatrick a smirking salute, and the captain nodded back.

“Who’s the Tommy Lee impersonator?” Yancy asked.

“He used to mate for me,” Fitzpatrick said, “till a couple weeks ago.”

“What boat is he on now?”

“The S.S. Jackoff.”

“Gotcha.”