On Plantation Key the highway narrowed again, and as the traffic merged to two lanes, Jim Tile thought he spotted the black Cherokee not far ahead. Quickly he turned off the blue lights. It had to be the same Jeep; the shiny mud flaps were as preposterous as Augustine had described them.
Four vehicles separated Jim Tile from the Jeep-three passenger cars, and a station wagon towing a fishing boat on a wobbly trailer. The boat was tall and beamy enough to make it hard for those in the Jeep to see the marked police car in the stacked traffic behind them. Already the rain was falling, fat drops popping sporadically on the hood of the Ford. The thickening sky promised a deluge.
The station wagon in front of Jim Tile began an untimely, though predictable, deceleration. Bad omens abounded: Michigan license plates suggested unfamiliarity with local landmarks; the driver and a female passenger were gesticulating heatedly, indicating a marital-type disagreement. Most distressing, from Jim Tile’s point of view: A third passenger clearly could be seen unfolding a road map as large as a tablecloth.
They’re lost, the trooper thought. Lost in the Florida Keys. Where there was only one way in and out. Amazing.
Now the map was being passed to the front seat, where the driver and his wife pawed at it competitively. The station wagon began snaking back and forth, followed somewhat indecisively by the boat trailer. Two McDonald’s bags flew from one of the car’s windows, exploding unwanted French fries and ketchup packets on the shoulder of the highway.
“Pigs,” Jim Tile said aloud. He scowled at the speedometer: thirty-two damn miles per hour. If he tried to pass, the guy in the Jeep might see him coming. The trooper boiled. As the rain fell harder, he went to his windshield wipers and headlights.
The sluggish station wagon stayed ahead of him for the entire length of Plantation Key, until its sole operative brake light began to flicker. The rig meandered to a dead stop.
Dispiritedly, Jim Tile put the patrol car in Park, thinking: This ain’t my day.
Ahead rose the Snake Creek drawbridge. The black Jeep and the three cars behind it easily crossed before the warning gates came down. The moron in the station wagon would have beaten it, too, had he ventured to touch the accelerator.
Now the trooper was stuck. The Jeep was on the other side of the waterway, out of sight. Jim Tile stepped from his car and slammed the door. With raindrops trickling off the brim of his Stetson, he approached the witless driver of the station wagon and asked for a license, registration and proof of insurance. In the eight minutes that passed before the Snake Creek bridge came down, the trooper managed to weigh the bewildered tourist with seven separate traffic citations, at least three of which would inconveniently require a personal appearance in court.
On the way to the Torres house, Fred Dove stopped to buy flowers and white wine. He wanted Edie Marsh to know he was proud of her performance as Neria, devoted wife of Tony.
When the insurance man pulled up to 15600 Calusa, he saw that the Jeep wasn’t in the driveway. His heart quickened at the possibility that Snapper was gone, leaving him alone with Edie. Not that she was fussy about privacy, but Fred Dove was. He couldn’t perform at full throttle, sexually, as long as a homicidal maniac was watching TV in an adjoining room. Snapper’s loud and truculent presence was deflating in all respects.
Nobody answered when the insurance man rapped on the wooden doorjamb. He stepped into the Torres house and called Edie’s name. The only reply came from the two miniature dachshunds, barking in the backyard; they sounded tired and hoarse.
The ugly Naugahyde recliner in the living room was unoccupied, and the television was off. Fred Dove was encouraged-no Snapper. Inside the house, the light was fading. When the insurance man flipped a lamp switch, nothing happened. The generator wasn’t running; out of gas, probably. He found Snapper’s flashlight and peeked in the rooms, hoping to spy Edie napping languorously on a mattress. She wasn’t.