Карл Хайасен - Squeeze Me

And, as Crosby expected, Palm Beach wasn’t a hotbed of felony activity. The day-to-day challenge was trying to deal with a pampered, demanding, half-paranoid citizenry. It took a while for Crosby to adjust, but he advanced up the ranks due to an innate politeness, whiteness, and lack of a redneck accent. Since becoming chief, he’d also been well-served by an uncommon immunity to condescension.

He’d given up all forms of tobacco after his pal Nuckley died, though these days he kept a bong hidden in his office for the occasional crisis. It was the best way to unwind from absurd stress in an absurd town. Once the mystery of Katherine Fitzsimmons’s disappearance was solved, the chief planned to celebrate with the blinds drawn.

“Jerry! Come over here!” From the driving range, Fay Alex Riptoad was signaling with what appeared to be a lofted iron.

Crosby began the uncomfortable walk, drawing the usual stares from other club members. The Breakers employed its own agile though low-key security team, and calling uniformed officers to the property was discouraged except when incidents became unmanageable. Delivering an update on a Missing Persons investigation didn’t qualify as an emergency, but Fay Alex set her own rules. As the chief approached, she shooed away the golf pro, whose relief was manifest in each departing stride.

“Give me the latest. Let’s hear it,” demanded Fay Alex, her sun-spotted claws planted imperiously on the grip end of what was now identifiable as a Callaway nine-iron, its shiny blade embedded in the spongy grass.

The chief said, “We collated all the videos from security cameras in the neighborhood. There’s no sign of Mrs. Fitzsimmons, or anyone resembling her, walking the streets during the critical time frame.”

“And what about the koi pond at Lipid House?”

“We’ve done two dives, Mrs. Riptoad. No remains have been recovered.”

“Suppose we call that good news, shall we? Kiki Pew’s boys are a wreck. The grandchildren, as well.” Fay Alex unplugged the nine-iron from the emerald turf and placed it in her golf bag. “And what about the Missing Persons alert? Any new tips?”

The police chief thought: Why couldn’t we do this on the phone? Standing among the candy-hued golfers, he felt like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl.

“Mrs. Riptoad,” he said.

“What is it, Jerry?”

“Do you know how many people Mrs. Fitzsimmons’s age go missing in Florida? They get disoriented. Light-headed. Confused. They wander off. Or just get in their cars and start driving. Sometimes they even go to an airport, buy a random ticket and board a plane.”

“Your point being?”

“Each time that happens,” Crosby explained, “worried relatives notify the authorities, who send out a bulletin like ours, which gets some media attention for a short while. Then, a few days later, another missing-senior alert is issued for someone new…”

Fay Alex made no effort to hide her disdain. “Surely they’ve got a ranking system. You’re telling me what—that some senile retired shoe salesman who stumbles away from a retirement home could knock someone as important as Kiki Pew off the top of the list?”

“We’ve had no leads that could be considered credible.”

Fay Alex, crossing her damp matchstick arms, said, “Ah, then you did receive some tips!”

“Just one.”

“I haven’t got all day, Jerry.”

Which was horseshit, he knew. Fay Alex had all day, every day.

He said, “Some tourist in Macau claimed to have had his palm read by a woman who looked like Mrs. Fitzsimmons. She spoke fluent Portuguese and wore an opal stud in her left nostril. The tourist had been smoking opium, by the way—”

“Enough, for Christ’s sake. Eeeeee-nough.” Fay Alex laser-drilled the chief over the rims of her oversized shades. “In other words, you’ve got nothing. Zilch-o.”

“It appears she never stepped off the grounds of Lipid House,” he said.

“Come on. You still think she got trashed and fell in the pond?”

“I didn’t say that. Our job is to eliminate the obvious scenarios, and there’s no evidence she ever left the party. No video, no eyewitnesses.”

“Not a party, not a party,” Fay Alex groused. “A charity ball.”

“My advice to the family is post a reward. That always reboots media interest, and it might shake loose some helpful information.”

“Information such as what? My God, you’re not actually suggesting there was oh, what…do you people call it?”

“Foul play,” the chief said.

“Foul play, yes. Here on the island? Get serious.”

Jerry Crosby didn’t live on the island. He lived miles away on the mainland, in a western municipality that grandly called itself Royal Palm Beach.

No beach, of course, and all the royal palm trees got there on a truck. Yet the chief really liked the town—lovely parks, excellent schools. Last July 4th, there were post-pandemic fireworks, a Skynyrd tribute band and a bass fishing derby.

“What kind of reward do you suggest?” Fay Alex Riptoad asked.

Crosby said the larger, the better.

“How large? Fifty thousand? A hundred?”

“That should be plenty.”

“Fine, Jerry. I’ll speak to the boys.” Fay Alex unfolded her arms and peeled off the lime golf glove. “You think Kiki Pew’s dead, don’t you?”

“With each passing day, it seems more likely. I hope I’m wrong.”

“The Potussies are having lunch today at Casa Bellicosa. I’ll not mention your fears about foul play. Possible foul play.”

“There’s no point,” the chief agreed. “Not yet.”

—

Most days, Angie Armstrong liked her job. She chose to believe she was extending the life expectancy of every creature that she relocated from a traffic-clogged suburb to a safe, quiet place. She was aware that some of her transportees—raccoons, in particular, which adapted ingeniously to life among humans—didn’t appreciate being moved to a habitat where there were no garbage cans to pillage.

Angie felt that all wildlife was better off in the true wild, or the nearest thing to wild that still existed in a state with twenty-two million humans. She felt childishly hopeful every time she opened a travel kennel and watched her relieved captive scamper into the scrub, out of sight. Angie would usually stay for a while, shutting her eyes, listening closely until all she could hear was sweet pure silence; then she’d get in her truck and drive back to the city.

No removal calls had come in all morning, leaving Angie time to sit around wondering why anyone would go to the trouble of stealing a headless reptile from her storage freezer. Pruitt had been her prime suspect in the apartment break-in—until the warehouse job happened. Appraised together, the two crimes pointed to a more complicated motive than the vengeance fantasy that was driving the ex-poacher.

Angie assumed that her laptop and checkbook entries had led the apartment burglar to the storage unit. Maybe the creep was looking for dope or valuables, but the fact remained that he’d swiped the dead python—and he couldn’t have done it alone.

While she was fixing breakfast, Angie’s attention was drawn to a breaking story on the local TV news: The family of a missing elderly woman was offering $100,000 for information leading to her whereabouts.

It was a strikingly large sum, so Angie wasn’t surprised to learn that the lost woman was a winter resident of Palm Beach. Her name was Katherine Pew Fitzsimmons, age seventy-two.

Such disappearances weren’t uncommon in South Florida, though few families could afford to post six-figure rewards. Angie assumed that Mrs. Fitzsimmons, like many of the elderly who went missing, struggled with Alzheimer’s or some other dementia. Perhaps her family had asked the authorities not to publicize that. An accompanying photograph showed the woman wearing a droopy Santa hat and posing in front of a Christmas tree.