Bad Monkey

“Tiger shark,” her husband said matter-of-factly.

“Is that a wedding band on his hand? This is so sad.”

“Fish on!” the mate called. “Who’s up?”

James Mayberry steered his bride to the fighting chair and the mate fitted the rod into the gimbal. Although she was petite, Louisa Mayberry owned a strong upper body due to rigorous Bikram yoga classes that she took on Tuesday nights. Refusing assistance, she pumped in an eleven-pound blackfin tuna and whooped triumphantly as it flopped on the deck. Her husband had never seen her so excited.

“Here, take a picture!” she cried to the mate, and handed over her iPhone.

“Hold on,” James Mayberry said. “Get both of us together.”

Louisa watched him hustle to get ready. “Really, Jimmy? Really?”

Moments later the captain glanced down from the bridge and saw the mate snapping photographs of the newlyweds posed side by side at the transom. Their matching neon blue Oakley wraparounds were propped on their matching cap visors, and their fair Wisconsin noses practically glowed with sunblock.

Louisa Mayberry was gamely hoisting by the tail her sleek silvery tuna while James Mayberry wore the mate’s crusty gloves to grip his rancid catch, its middle finger aimed upward toward the puffy white clouds.

The captain dragged on a cigarette and turned back to the wheel. “Another fucking day in paradise,” he said.

The phone kept ringing but Yancy didn’t answer it. He was drinking rum, sitting in a plastic lawn chair. From next door came the offensive buzz of wood saws and the metallic pops of a nail gun. The absentee owner of the property was erecting an enormous spec house that had no spiritual place on Big Pine Key, and furthermore interfered with Yancy’s modest view of the sunset. It was Yancy’s fantasy to burn the place down as soon as the roof framing was finished.

He heard a car stop in his driveway but he didn’t rise from the chair. His visitor was a fellow detective, Rogelio Burton.

“Why don’t you pick up your phone?” Burton said.

“You believe that monstrosity? It’s like a goddamn mausoleum.”

Burton sat down beside him. “Sonny wants you to take a road trip.”

“Miami?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll pass.” Yancy glared at the construction site across the fence. “The house is forty-four feet high—I measured it myself. The county code’s only thirty-five.”

“It’s the Keys, man. The code is for suckers.”

“Deer used to come around all the time and feed on the twigs.”

Yancy offered his friend a drink. Burton declined.

He said, “Andrew, it’s not like you’ve got a choice. Do what Sonny wants.”

“But I’m suspended, remember?”

“Yeah, with pay. Is that Barbancourt?”

“My last bottle. Tell him anywhere but Miami, Rog.”

“You want me to ask if you can go to Cancún instead?” Burton sighed. “Look, it’s a day trip, up and back.”

“They always screw me on the mileage.”

Burton knew this wasn’t true. Yancy had issues with the Miami Police Department, from which he’d been fired in a previous era of his life.

“Chill out. You’re just going to the ME’s office.”

“The morgue? Nice.”

“Come out to the car,” said Burton.

Yancy set down his drink. “This ought to be special.”

The severed arm had been bubble-wrapped and packed on dry ice in a red Igloo cooler. To make it fit, the limb had been bent at the elbow.

“That’s all they found?”

“You know how it goes,” Burton said.

“John Doe or Juan Doe?”

“Rawlings says white male, mid-forties, heavyset, black hair.”

Dr. Lee Rawlings was the pathologist who served as the chief medical examiner for Monroe County. There were relatively few murders or accidental deaths in the Florida Keys, but Rawlings never complained. He filled his free time with golf, and was rumored to have whittled his handicap down to five strokes.

Yancy knew the sheriff was sending the arm to Miami because Miami was the floating-human-body-parts capital of America. Maybe they’d luck out and find a match, although Yancy thought it was unlikely.

“Traumatic amputation,” Burton said.

“Ya think?”

“Charter boat brought it in yesterday. We checked our missing persons, all three of them. Nobody fits the description.”

Yancy noticed the upraised finger on the end of the arm. “A sour farewell to the mortal realm?”

“Random rigor mortis is what Rawlings says. He took a picture anyway.”

“Of course he did.”

“Look, I’m late for my kid’s soccer game.”

“Absolutely.” Yancy put the lid on the cooler and carried it up to his porch.

Burton said, “Sure you want to leave it out here all night?”

“Who’s gonna jack an arm?”

“It’s evidence, man. I’m just sayin’.”

“Okay, fine.” The island was plagued by opportunistic raccoons.

Burton drove off and Yancy moved the cooler into the house. From a kitchen cupboard he retrieved the Barbancourt bottle and ambled to the deck and poured himself one more drink. Next door, the construction crew was gone. Yancy’s watch said five p.m. sharp.

For the first time all day he could hear seabirds in the sky.