“I see why you love it out here,” Garcia said.
Luis Córdova smiled. “Some days it’s like a painting.”
“Where do you think he went?”
“Mick? He might be dead. Guy that size could probably take him. Dump the body off the house.”
Garcia gnawed skeptically at the end of the cigar. “It’s possible. Or he could’ve got away. Don’t forget he had that pump gun.”
“His skiff’s sunk,” Luis Córdova noted. “Somebody blasted a hole in the bottom.”
“Weird,” said Al Garcia. “But I had to guess, I’d say he probably wasn’t around when all this happened. I’d say he got off the house.”
“Maybe.”
“Whatever happened out here, it was between Tatum and the doctor. Maybe it was money, maybe it was something to do with surgery. Christ, you notice that guy’s arm?”
“His face, too,” said Luis Córdova. “What you’re saying makes sense. Just looking at him, he’s not the type to file a lawsuit.”
“But doing it with a hammer, that’s cold.” Garcia puffed his cheeks as if to whistle. “On the other hand, your victim ain’t exactly Marcus Welby … whatever. It all fits.”
That was the main thing.
A small boat, a sleek yellow outboard, came speeding across the bonefish flats. It was headed south on a line toward Soldier Key. Garcia watched the boat intently, walked around the house to keep it in view.
“Don’t worry, I know him,” said Luis Córdova. “He’s a fishing guide.”
“Wonder why he’s out here alone.”
“Maybe his clients didn’t show. That happens when it blows hard—these rubes’ll chicken out at the dock. Meanwhile it turns into a nice day.”
Just south of Stiltsville, the yellow skiff angled off the flats and stopped in a deep blue channel. The guide took out a rod and casted a bait over the side. Then he sat down to wait.
“See?” said Luis Córdova. “He’s just snapper fishing.”
Garcia was squinting against the sun. “Luis, you see something else out there?”
“Whereabouts?”
The detective pointed. “I’d say a quarter mile. Something in the water, between us and that island.”
Luis Córdova raised one hand to block the glare. With the other hand he adjusted his sunglasses. “Yeah, now I see it,” he said. “Swimming on top. Looks like a big turtle.”
“Yeah?”
“Grandpa loggerhead. Or maybe it’s a porpoise. You want me to get the binoculars?”
“No, that’s okay.” Garcia turned around and leaned his back against the wooden rail. He was grinning broadly, the stogie bobbing under his mustache. “I’ve never seen a porpoise before, except for the Seaquarium.”
“Well, there’s still a few wild ones out here,” Luis Córdova said. “If that’s what it was.”
“That’s what it was,” said Al Garcia. “I’m sure of it.”
He tapped the ashes off the cigar and watched them swirl and scatter in the sea breeze. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go see if Wilt’s learned any new words.”
Epilogue
BLONDELL WAYNE TATUM, also known as Chemo, pleaded guilty in Dade Circuit Court to the murders of Dr. Rudy Graveline and Chloe Simpkins Stranahan. He later was extradited to Pennsylvania, where he confessed to the unsolved slaying of Dr. Gunther MacLeish, a semiretired dermatologist and pioneer in the use of electrolysis to remove unwanted facial hair. Because of his physical handicap, and because of favorable testimony from sympathetic Amish elders, Tatum received a relatively lenient sentence of three seventeen-year terms, to be served concurrently. He is now a trusty in charge of the winter vegetable garden at the Union Correctional Institution at Raiford, Florida.
MAGGIE ORESTES GONZALEZ pleaded no contest to one count of obstruction for lying to investigators after Victoria Barletta’s death. She received a six-month suspended sentence, but was ordered to serve one hundred hours of community service as a volunteer nurse at the Dade County Stockade, where she was taken hostage and killed during a food-related riot.
HEATHER CHAPPELL continued to appear in numerous television shows, including Matlock, L.A. Law and Murder, She Wrote. Barely five months after Dr. Rudy Graveline’s death, Heather quietly entered an exclusive West Hollywood surgical clinic and underwent a breast augmentation, a blepharoplasty, a rhinoplasty, a complete rhytidectomy, a chin implant, and suction lipectomies of the thighs, abdomen, and buttocks. Soon afterward, Heather’s movie career was revived when she was offered—and accepted—the role of Triana, a Klingon prostitute, in Star Trek VII: The Betrayal of Spock.