TOURIST SEASON by Carl Hiaasen

“He must have bled to death,” the redheaded cop surmised.

“Don’t think so,” Dr. Allen said.

“Bet he drowned,” said the other cop.

“No, sir,” said Dr. Allen, who was probing into the lungs by now. Dr. Allen wasn’t crazy about people gawking over his shoulder while he worked. It made him feel like he was performing onstage, a magician pulling little purple treasures out of a dark hole. He didn’t mind having medical students as observers because they were always so solemn during an autopsy. Cops were something else; one dumb joke after another. Dr. Allen had never figured out why cops get so silly in a morgue.

“What’s that greasy stuff all over his skin?” asked the redheaded detective.

“Essence of Stiff,” said the other cop.

“Smells like coconuts,” said the redhead. “I’m serious, Doc, take a whiff.”

“No, thank you,” Dr. Allen said curtly.

“I don’t smell anything,” said the assistant coroner, “except the deceased.”

“It’s coconut, definitely,” said the other cop, sniffing. “Maybe he drowned in pina colada.”

Nobody could have guessed what actually had killed Sparky Harper. It was supple and green and exactly five and one-quarter inches long. Dr. Allen found it lodged in the trachea. At first he thought it was a large chunk of food, but it wasn’t.

It was a toy rubber alligator. It had cost seventy-nine cents at a tourist shop along the Tamiami Trail. The price tag was still glued to its corrugated tail.

B. D. “Sparky” Harper, the president of the most powerful chamber of commerce in all Florida, had choked to death on a rubber alligator. Well, well, thought Dr. Allen as he dangled the prize for his proteges to see, here’s one for my slide show at next month’s convention.

News of B. D. Harper’s death appeared on the front page of the Miami Sun with a retouched photograph that made Harper look like a flatulent Gene Hackman. Details of the crime were meager, but this much was known:

Harper had last been seen on the night of November 30, driving away from Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant on South Miami Beach. He had told friends he was going to the Fontainebleau Hilton for drinks with some convention organizers from the International Elks.

Harper had not been wearing a Jimmy Buffett shirt and Bermuda shorts, but in fact had been dressed in a powder-blue double-knit suit purchased at J. C. Penney’s.

He had not appeared drunk.

He had not worn black wraparound sunglasses.

He had not been lugging a red Samsonite.

He had not displayed a toy rubber alligator all evening.

In the newspaper story a chief detective was quoted as saying, “This one’s a real whodunit,” which is what the detective was told to say whenever a reporter called.

In this instance the reporter was Ricky Bloodworth.

Bloodworth wore that pale, obsessive look of ambition so familiar to big-city newsrooms. He was short and bony, with curly black hair and a squirrel-like face frequently speckled with late-blooming acne. He was frenetic to a fault, dashing from phone to typewriter to copy desk in a blur—yet he was different from most of his colleagues. Ricky Bloodworth wanted to be much more than just a reporter; he wanted to be an authentic character. He tried, at various times, panama hats, silken vests, a black eyepatch, saddle shoes, a Vandyke—nobody ever noticed. He even experimented with Turkish cigarettes (thinking it debonair) and wound up on a respirator at Mercy Hospital. Even those who disliked Bloodworth, and they were many, felt sorry for him; the poor guy wanted a quirk in the worst way. But, stylistically, the best he could do was to drum pencils and suck down incredible amounts of 7-Up. It wasn’t much, but it made him feel like he was contributing something to the newsroom’s energy bank.

Ricky Bloodworth thought he’d done a respectable job on the first Sparky Harper story (given the deadlines), but now, on the morning of December 2, he was ready to roll. Harper’s ex-wives had to be found and interviewed, his coworkers had to be quizzed, and an array of semi-bereaved civic leaders stood ready to offer their thoughts on the heinous crime.

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