Bad Monkey

It had happened only a few minutes after she rolled her husband off the stern into night waters churned by sharks, the fatal splash witnessed by a local fisherman and his pet monkey. The makeshift ramp used to launch the scooter chair was discarded by puzzled authorities, who had no inkling of its purpose. It had been found on board the impaled Contender along with Eve, whose brains were splashed all over the interior windshield.

Neville couldn’t picture the man he knew as Christopher going overboard without a fight, even having only one arm and a severely injured spine. Yancy surmised that Eve had incapacitated her husband with painkillers before wheeling him onto the boat. The sharks she’d chummed had finished the job, interrupted momentarily when Neville motored up on the scene and made his daring grab.

As they prepared to set out for Satan’s Fist, Yancy remarked that Driggs looked like an honest-to-God movie star.

Neville craned forward. “Same ting as if I found it at de bottom of de sea.”

“Absolutely. The maritime law of salvage.”

Stripling’s wrist was fatter than the monkey’s neck, so with a jeweler’s screwdriver Neville had removed several links from the watch-band. Now the Genève Tourbillon fit Driggs splendidly as a collar.

Yancy said, “Nobody’ll try to steal it, that’s for sure.”

“No, he fuck ’im up bod.”

“It’s a gorgeous watch, Mr. Stafford. This will do wonders for his self-esteem.”

“Yah, mon. He hoppy fella.”

The monkey did seem uncharacteristically mellow, as if his demons were lulled by the inner ticking of the rose-gold timepiece. He plucked leisurely at his nicotine patch as he eyed the marooned Rollie, its tires licked by the tide.

Neville said, “I dint tell a soul wot hoppen out here loss night.”

“And why should you?” Yancy shrugged. “It’s over. Everyone’s dead.”

“Yah, dot’s right.”

“I assume there was nothing left of the bastard.”

Neville scratched the silvery stubble on his jaw. He looked uneasy.

“Don’t tell me,” Yancy said.

The fisherman flipped open the Styrofoam cooler. “Here’s wot de shocks dint eat.”

“Oh Christmas! Of course!”

It was Nick Stripling’s other arm.

Thirty-one

The sheriff, not wishing to be seen with Andrew Yancy, insisted on an off-site meeting. They agreed that Yancy’s house was the safest place.

“Is this any way to treat an international crime buster?” Yancy said.

Sonny Summers squeezed out a chuckle. “Walk me through this mess, okay?”

They sat in the cheap lounge chairs on the backyard deck. The sheriff was known to sweat like a warthog so Yancy had preemptively chosen a shady spot.

“The man who murdered Charles Phinney is dead. Would you like the official version first?”

Sonny Summers said, “Oh, why not.”

“Nicholas Stripling and his wife perished two nights ago in a boating accident off the coast of Andros Island. Foolish Americans, sporting around in unfamiliar shallows.”

“Okay. What really happened?”

Yancy popped a beer and delivered a nearly complete account.

“Oh, fuckeroo,” the sheriff said, and grabbed a bottle for himself.

“There’s a karmic symmetry you’ve got to appreciate. Not quite Shakespearean, but close.”

“Were you on Andros when this happened? Did you—what’s the word—contribute to these events in some way?”

“No, Sonny. I was here on Big Pine.”

“Well, thank God for that.”

Yancy set up his pitch. “If Stripling hadn’t drowned he’d be going to prison. Nobody in the States knew where he was until I told them. Nobody had a clue he was alive.”

The sheriff rolled the chilled beer bottle between his palms and stared at the scorched patch of land where Yancy’s sex criminal ex-lover had torched his neighbor’s extravagant spec house.

“Sonny, are you even listening? I flew to the islands on my own dime and found this shitweasel. He almost blew my head off pointblank, you understand? I risked my freaking life to solve this case.”

“You want your badge back. I get it.”

The muddy response reminded Yancy that he was talking to a politician. “But there’s a big ‘however,’ right? I can smell it.”

“However,” said Sonny Summers, “the situation isn’t that simple. Yes, you did some first-rate police work. Ballsy, man. Scary ballsy. But what you just told me, man, I can’t put that in a press release.”

“No kidding. Who said anything about a damn press release?”

“Oh, I’ll need a good one,” said the sheriff, “the day I rehire you. See, you’re what the media calls a controversial figure. And now Bonnie Witt’s plastered all over the Citizen again, just when I thought this shit was fading away.”

“Meaning Mallory Square.”

“Everything, all of it,” the sheriff said in a beleaguered tone. “Consorting with a fugitive, whatever.”

“Like I knew? Come on, Sonny.”

“Some people are saying this arson was all your fault. Just bar talk, but still. They say you put Bonnie up to it because that house”—Sonny Summers nodded grimly toward the burned lot—“was screwing up your precious sunsets.”

“Absurd.”