“Now, don’t get all worried.”
Keyes got up for a closer look. “Looks like a .38.”
“He got mad one night watching the TV news. The governor was talking about growth, how growth was so essential. The governor was saying how one thousand new people move to Florida every day. Skip’s opinion about that was considerably different than the governor’s. Skip didn’t think the governor should have been quite so happy.”
“Why did he shoot the wall?” Keyes asked.
“Because he couldn’t bring himself to shoot the TV—it’s a brand-new Trinitron,” Jenna said. “I forgot you don’t like spinach.”
“It’s fine. Jenna, why is there a coffin in your living room?”
“I know, I know. I hate it, too. Skip says it makes a good cocktail table. He bought it at the flea market. He keeps his newspaper clippings inside there.”
“That’s a bit odd, don’t you think?” Keyes said.
“At the very least he should get it refinished.”
Keyes ate faster. This was more traumatic than he had feared. Meeting in her house—the place she shared with Wiley—had not been Keyes’s idea. Jenna had insisted. She had wanted to be here, she said, in case Skip called.
If Jenna seemed genuinely worried about her lover’s whereabouts, Keyes was not. His heart was with the Ernesto Cabal case—what was left of it—and tracking Skip Wiley was just a sporting way to pass some time, pay some bills … and see Jenna again.
Keyes had a simple theory about Wiley’s disappearance. He figured Skip had orchestrated the whole thing to gouge a fatter salary out of the Miami Sun. Wiley’s usual strategy, when he wanted more money, was to arrange for friends at the Washington Post and the New York Times to call up with phony or wildly inflated job offers. Then he’d charge into Cab Mulcahy’s office and threaten to defect. Mulcahy quit falling for the Fantastic Job Offer ruse about two years ago, so Keyes figured Wiley was merely trying out a new scheme.
Keyes also now realized that the idea of publishing a Ricky Bloodworth column might have backfired, and that Wiley was holed up somewhere, howling with glee over Mulcahy’s torment. Keyes now believed—though he dared not tell Mulcahy—that Wiley might wait weeks before emerging. He might wait until his readers began rioting.
And Keyes also believed that Jenna might be in on it.
“Did you love me, Brian?”
“Yes.” He started to gag. He hoped it was just a fish bone going down the wrong way. Jenna came around the table and patted him on the back.
“Deep breaths,” she said soothingly. “Don’t eat so fast.”
“Why,” Keyes rasped, “did you ask me that question?”
“Skip says you were madly in love with me.”
“I told you that myself,” Keyes said, “about thirty thousand times.”
“I remember, Brian.”
God, there’s the smile.
“How about now?” Jenna asked. “Still feel the same way?”
Oh no, you don’t. Keyes shifted into a tough-guy mode. “This is business, Jenna. Let’s talk about Skip. Where do you think he could be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh really.”
“Brian! This isn’t funny. I think he’s in trouble. I think somebody’s got him.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a good target,” Jenna said. She started clearing the table. “You sit still, I’ll do this. Let’s see, you take your coffee black … “
“Cream and sugar,” Keyes said painfully. “But I think I’ll wait.”
“Okay. As I was saying, Skip’s a very well-known person, a genuine celebrity. That makes him a perfect target for kidnappers. Look at Patty Hearst.”
“Or Frank Sinatra, Jr.,” Keyes said.
“Exactly.”
“You ever read The Ransom of Red Chief?”
“Sure,” Jenna said. “What are you getting at?”
“Nothing.”
Every so often Keyes’s attention was drawn to the coffin, which dominated Jenna’s otherwise-cozy living room. The coffin was plain and vanilla-colored, made of smooth Dade County pine. A pauper’s coffin. Jenna had done a valiant job of trying to disguise it as normal furniture. She had placed cocktail coasters neatly on each corner of the lid, and in the center she had stationed a blue Ming vase with fresh-cut sunflowers. For more camouflage she had added a thick stack of magazines, with Town and Country on top. Despite all this, there was no mistaking the coffin for anything else. Keyes wondered morbidly if he ought to peek inside, just to make sure Wiley wasn’t there.