Bad Monkey

“We’ll speak again tomorrow,” said Sonny Summers.

Yancy said, “I’ll drive up there on one condition: You lift my suspension.”

“Not until after the trial. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“But it’s such bullshit, Sonny. I didn’t even hurt the guy.”

The sheriff said, “Talk to Bonnie. She’s the problem.”

Bonnie Witt, Yancy’s future former girlfriend, was prepared to testify that he’d assaulted her husband of fourteen years with a portable vacuum cleaner, specifically a tubular attachment designed for upholstery crevices. Clifford Witt had required some specialized medical care but he was more or less ambulatory within a week.

Sonny Summers said, “Of all the women you had to get involved with. Swear to God, Andrew. All the women on these islands.”

“Our love was like a streaking comet.” Yancy paused. “Her words, not mine.”

“Did you take a look at it? The …?”

“Arm? Yes, Burton insisted.”

“Any theories?”

“No,” said Yancy. “But it makes a dandy back-scratcher.”

“Call me on your way back from Miami. I want some happy news.”

Two

A clawing heat settles over the Keys by mid-July. The game fish swim to deeper waters, the pelicans laze in the mangroves and only the hardiest of tourists remain outdoors past the lunch hour. Yancy’s unmarked Ford was well air-conditioned but he still brought a box of Popsicles, which he positioned beside the disjoined limb in the cooler on the passenger side.

He was a pathologically impatient driver, and sucking on iced treats seemed to settle him. Bonnie had started Yancy on the Popsicle habit because she’d found it terrifying to ride with him on Highway 1. Mango was Yancy’s favorite flavor beside Bonnie herself. These were the sorts of sidecar thoughts with which he tormented himself.

The drive to downtown Miami usually took ninety minutes, but Yancy had stopped along Card Sound Road to purchase blue crabs, as there was still room in the cooler.

“Is this your idea of wit?” asked the assistant medical examiner, a serious brown-eyed woman whose name tag identified her as Dr. Rosa Campesino.

“Help yourself to a Popsicle,” Yancy told her. “However, the crabs are off-limits.”

He summarized Rawlings’s findings while Dr. Campesino removed the arm from the ice and carefully unwrapped it. She placed it on a bare autopsy table without commenting on the vertical middle digit.

“I suppose you’ve seen some winners,” Yancy said.

“And you brought this all the way from Key West because …?”

“The sheriff thought it might belong to one of your victims.”

Dr. Campesino said, “You could’ve e-mailed some photos and saved yourself a tank of gas.”

“Want to grab lunch?”

Finally, a smile. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said.

Yancy ate another Popsicle. Unless you happened to be deceased, there were worse places to hang out than a morgue in the summertime. The thermostat was turned down to about sixty-three degrees. Very pleasant.

Dr. Campesino returned with a printout of the county’s current inventory of body parts, listed by race, gender and approximate age—three partial torsos, two left legs, a pelvis, three ears, seven assorted toes and one bashed skull. None of the items belonged to a chunky, hirsute white male in his forties.

“I knew it,” said Yancy.

“Maybe next time.”

“Are you hungry?”

“My husband’s a sniper on the SWAT team.”

“Say no more.”

“Did you notice this?” Dr. Campesino pointed the eraser end of a pencil at a well-delineated band of pale flesh on the wrist of the darkened arm. “His watch is gone,” she said.

“It probably fell off the poor fucker while the shark was mangling him.”

Dr. Campesino gave a slight shake of her head. “Often in upper-arm amputations the victim’s wristwatch remains attached. Not so much in homicides. The bad guys either steal it to pawn, or they remove it to make the ID more difficult.”

Yancy was certain that Sheriff Sonny Summers wouldn’t want to hear the word homicide. “Then why wouldn’t they swipe the wedding ring, too?” he asked.

“You’re right. It looks expensive.”

“I’m betting platinum. The guy’s wife would be sure to recognize it.”

Dr. Campesino leaned closer to study the damaged stump of the limb.

“What now?” Yancy said.

“The end of the humerus is hacked up pretty bad.”

“Maybe he fell into the boat’s propeller.”

“That would be a different style of wound.”

Yancy said, “You’re killing me.”

From a tray of instruments the pathologist selected a pair of hemostats, with which she extracted a pointed tooth from one of several puncture holes in the upper biceps. She dropped the smallish gray fang into Yancy’s palm.

“I’m no shark expert,” said Dr. Campesino. “Some marine biologist could tell you what species this came from.”

Yancy pocketed the tooth. He asked how long the arm had been in the ocean.

“Five to seven days. Maybe longer.” The young pathologist took some photographs which she promised to upload in case another part of the same corpse turned up in her jurisdiction.

“Can’t you keep the damn thing here?” Yancy asked. “Honestly, it would save me all kinds of grief.”