So as a surprise, I wanted his boat to be shining when he came home after his shift.
My hair up in a bandanna, wearing stylish yellow kitchen gloves and holding a soapy mop bucket, I boarded his twenty-five-foot Stingray at around eleven that morning. It was a white cabin cruiser, squat and powerful, almost like a speed-but with two berths for sleeping and a small galley under the bow.
An enormous seagull cried from atop the mast of a small sailboat across our canal as I stood on the softly swaying deck. As a breeze came off the electric blue water, I suddenly felt a strange lifting sensation in my stomach, guilt mixed with pleasure, like a child playing hooky. My life consisted of pretty much nothing but playing hooky, didn’t it? I was loving every millisecond of it.
I smiled as I glanced at the CD in the boat’s topside boom box. It was by the seventies one-hit wonder Looking Glass. As silly as it was, the old jukebox staple about a sailor torn between the sea and his beloved bar wench, “Brandy,” was our wedding song.
I didn’t even know why. I guess because it was fun and goofy and yet deep down seriously romantic, just like Peter and me.
Looking at the powerboat’s sleek lines, I thought for the millionth time how much Peter impressed me. As funny and fun-loving as he was, he was an even harder worker. And because he came from meager circumstances in, of all places, the Bronx, New York, his accomplishments were nothing short of amazing.
Without the benefit of a college education, he’d managed to buy this boat, not to mention this beautiful house in paradise that he’d redone himself. All the while becoming hands down the most well respected, competent cop on the island since the moment he’d transferred down from the NYPD seven years before.
Peter was the real deal, the big-city go-to cop that all the other cops called when the shit hit the fan. Unlike my ex-boyfriend, Alex—who had proven himself to be nothing but a completely self-centered jock, faithless and irresponsible, unwilling to deal with anything his talent didn’t easily overcome—Peter was a traditional guy who actually sought out the hard stuff, took on every challenge the world had to offer, the more difficult the better, knowing it to be the thing that, in fact, made him a man.
There was no doubt that I loved my Saint Peter. I loved him as much as you can love someone who is not only your lover and friend but your hero. If he hadn’t existed, I would have had to invent him.
“Brandy,” the groovy seventies singer’s voice crooned as I hit the boom box’s Play button, “what a good wife you would be. But my life, my lover, my lady, is the sea.”
By noon, I had finished polishing and waxing everything topside and I headed belowdecks. It was hot even by Key West standards, and down in the cruiser’s dim, claustrophobic cabin, the warm, icky, hazy air stuck like Saran wrap on my sweat-drenched skin.
I was putting away some paper towels under one of the galley’s lower cabinets when I noticed something curious lashed with bungee cords to the underside of the sink.
It was a gray plastic box, hard and flat like one that a tool set might come in. I was surprised by how heavy it was as I grabbed its handle and slipped it out. I sat on the cabin steps, set it on my lap, and popped its clasps.
My entire body went slack with a sharp intake of breath as I stared down at what was inside it. I pulled off my bandanna and wiped the sweat out of my eyes.
I’d been expecting some sort of first aid kit, but sitting in the gray foam padding was a gun. It was matte black, greasy with oil, a little larger than a pistol. A nasty-looking hole-filled tube surrounded the barrel, and there were a few wraps of gray duct tape around its grip.
The words “Intratec Miami 9mm” were stamped in the metal in front of the trigger. In the foam beside it were two thin rectangular magazines, the reddish copper jackets of bullets winking at their brims.
Being the daughter of a cop, guns didn’t faze me. I actually used to duck-hunt with my dad, so I knew how to use the shotgun and two nine-millimeters Peter kept in the locked gun cabinet in our bedroom closet.
But wasn’t it a little strange to have a machine pistol on the boat? Wouldn’t a shotgun make more sense? Why hadn’t Peter told me about it?
I tightly closed the lid of the box and put it back where I found it before heading back into the house.
Inside, I was startled to find Peter by the kitchen sink in his police uniform home early.
“Peter?” I said.
Then he turned around, and I saw the scowl on his face. I covered my smile with my hand as I saw that his entire front, from chest to crotch, was covered in the residue of white, rank-smelling puke.
“Go ahead. Laugh it up,” he said with a wide grin. “Look what a nice drunken lady tourist gave me over by the La Concha hotel. Nice of her, wasn’t it? Smells like she had the clam chowder for lunch, don’t you think? Did I ever tell you how much I love being a Key West cop?”
I quickly decided that now probably wasn’t the most opportune time to have a sit-down about Peter’s choice of firearms. It was probably just a rah-rah-cop gung ho throwback to his bachelor days anyway. He probably used it to shoot beer cans with his buddies when they went fishing.
“Let me get a garbage bag,” I said as the puke stench hit me. “On second thought, I’ll get some lighter fluid and a match.” I laughed.
“What are you talking about, Jeanine? I thought you said I look hot in my uniform,” Peter said, mischief gleaming in his blue eyes.
I knew that look.
“Don’t you dare,” I screamed, running as he came quickly around the kitchen island with open arms, puke emanating from his shirt front.
“Come here, Brandy. Where are you going, Mermaid?” he said, laughing as he ran after me into the backyard. “Time to give your husband some sugar, baby doll. Stay right where you are. We need to hug this thing out.”
Chapter 16
ON THE EDGE of the manicured lawn, I sighed as a cello, flute, and violin trio played Pachelbel’s Canon in D with perfect, aching precision.
Work, work, work, I thought, filling another long-stemmed glass with two-hundred-dollar-a-bottle Krug brut champagne. The aristocratic wedding guests at the reception we were catering seemed every bit as elegant as the crystal as they laughed and hugged around billowing, white-draped tables arranged on the emerald grounds.
Even to a jaded veteran caterer like me, the wedding on the sprawling front lawn of the Hemingway Home was breathtaking. The famed Spanish colonial in the background had its hurricane shutters flung wide, as if Papa himself might come out at any moment onto the second-story veranda with a highball and offer the lucky couple a toast.
The bubbly that I dispensed in perfectly folded linen was ’92 Krug to be exact, the year the sleekly beautiful, dark-haired couple, a convertible bond arbitrager and an art dealer, both from New York, had met. Between refills, I watched them as they smiled, hand in hand, on the western fringe of the lush lawn, taking pictures to capture the Key West Lighthouse in the background.
One day I’d probably finish my English degree, I thought, as I sighed again. But until then, I had no problem chilling out here in wedding world, where it was forever Saturday afternoon, complete with classical music, popping corks, raised champagne flutes, eggshell and ivory, eternally blue skies.
Of course, I would have preferred to spend all day fishing with Peter, but he’d been working overtime on Saturdays for the last two solid months with a DEA task force. It was undercover work, which I knew was dangerous and I hated, but I also knew my husband. Peter was a hard-driving superstar cop, more than capable of taking care of himself and his buddies. It was the bad guys who needed to worry.
“Your wedding was better,” my boss and Peter’s coworker Elena Cardenas said, hip-butting me as she passed with a tray of sesame chicken.
“Yeah, right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Which part did you like more? When Peter faked throwing me off the bar’s dock or his drunken rendition of ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’?”
“Hard to decide,
” the full-figured blond Cuban said with a laugh. “At least he didn’t appear to have a pole up his keister like this groom. Anyway, Teo is up to his neck and running low on champagne at the bar. Could you run and grab another box of Krug out of the van?”
“Aye, aye, captain,” I said.
“And remember, watch out for the Jump Killer,” Elena called as I went toward the iron street gate.
The Jump Killer was on my mind and probably that of every young woman in South Florida that summer. An ongoing Channel 7 news story told about spooky abductions up in North Miami, missing prostitutes, an unsuccessful attack in which a man tied up a woman with parachute cord. The words serial killer were being used, though no bodies had been found. Gee, thanks for reminding me, Elena, I thought as I walked down the deserted street toward the van.
I was coming back up the faded sidewalk with the champagne when I spotted a man in the beat-up black Jeep across the street.
He reminded me of the tennis player Björn Borg, with long, dirty blond hair and wraparound sunglasses. He also sported a blond Jesus beard. I glanced at the windshield, and though his face was pointed away, I got the impression that as I approached he was watching me from behind the glasses. He took something out of the pocket of his cutoff denim shirt and started playing with it. It was a gold lighter, and he started clicking it in rhythm to the clink of champagne bottles as I walked past.
I swallowed, suddenly afraid. The guy was definitely creepy. As I picked up my pace and made it back to the gate, the Jeep roared to life and peeled out, its big tires screeching as it took the first corner.
What the hell had that been about? I thought, hurrying back toward the white tent.
Teo didn’t so much as grunt a thank-you when I dropped off the heavy case by his busy bar, which was par for his course. I couldn’t decide what I disliked more about the young, handsome Hispanic with frosted hair: the several occasions I spotted him coming out of a bathroom rubbing his runny nose or the way he constantly tried to look down my shirt. If he wasn’t Elena’s cousin, I would have complained. I was definitely losing my patience.
I found Elena with her business partner, Gary, the chef, in our staging tent. She smiled as she pulled a tray of puff pastries off the portable oven’s rack.
“Hey, you made it back,” she said, winking at Gary. “See any dangerous-looking parachutists?”
I actually was about to tell her about my evil Björn Borg sighting, but the way she said it, like I was a complete idiot, checked me. It would only lead to more teasing. I liked Elena, but sometimes her tough-chick sarcasm was a little hard to take. I decided to keep the creepy encounter to myself.
“Ha-ha. At least you have a gun,” I said. “Speaking of dangerous, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Elena. How dangerous is that DEA task force thing at work?”
“Are you kidding me?” Elena said, handing me an hors d’oeuvre–packed silver tray. “You have to be a stone-cold supercop like your husband to even think about doing undercover work. Besides, you mean how dangerous was that DEA task force thing. They rerouted the DEA agents back to Miami, like, two months ago. Fed funding dried up. Sucks, too. I did surveillance for them for almost two weeks. The overtime was kick-ass. Take those out now. The yuppie natives look like they’re getting restless.”
Over? For the last two months? I thought as I stumbled out onto the grass, the tray almost slipping from my hand.
Then where the hell had Peter been going on Saturdays only to come home at three in the morning? I wondered.
For the last two months.
Chapter 17
PETER BLINKED when he turned on the kitchen light and saw me sitting ramrod straight with my arms folded at the table at five thirty the next morning.
“Jeanine, you’re up,” he said.
Two months, I thought, noticing that he was showered. I didn’t know whether to scream or cry or hit him. I was ready for all three at once.
Why had Peter been lying through his teeth to me for over two months!?
“I’m up all right,” I said. “All night, in fact. I wanted to ask you a question. Um, I wonder how I can put this delicately. Where the FUCK have you been going every Saturday for the past two FUCKING months?”
Peter held up his hands, a completely floored expression on his face. “What in the name of God are you talking about? Where do you think I’ve been? Mexico? I’ve been at work.”
“Then why did Elena tell me that the DEA task force returned to Miami two months ago?”
“She what?” he said. He actually laughed. “It’s OK, Jeanine. Don’t shoot. I can explain. It’s simple. For a cop, your boss, Elena, is one hell of a caterer. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You didn’t tell her, did you? That I was still involved with the DEA?”
“No,” I said, confused. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Listen to me for a second, all right? The DEA only said they were going back to Miami. They have a confidential informant who said there’s a leak in the department. Some bad cop is leaking stuff to a suspected drug smuggling operation. That’s why the chief hand-selected me. It was stupid not to explain it to you. I should have told you. The important thing is not to tell Elena about it. Don’t tell anyone.”
“You think Elena might be a bad cop?” I said.
“Who the hell knows?” Peter said, shrugging as he took the orange juice out of the fridge. “Somebody in the department is. We can’t rule her out.”
“Are you sure about all of this, Peter?” I said, staring into his eyes. “I mean, are you really sure you’re sure?”
“Am I sure?” he said, laughing again as he stared right back. “Christ, Jeanine. Look at you. I thought cops were suspicious. You want to look at my pay stubs? Check our phone records. If you want, I’ll bring home a CSI kit so you can take prints.”
“It’s just…” I began and then started crying.
Peter stepped over and opened his palms.
“Hands,” he demanded.
I gave mine over.
“Look in my eyes,” he said. “There. Much better. Now, I have a question. Why do you think I married you?”
“You love me?” I said.
“Ya think?” he said. “Look, Jeanine. I never told you this before, but you weren’t the only one that night on the beach who was seriously thinking about calling it quits. I was sick of it. Being a cop, Key West, people, partying. I don’t know, being alive, everything. It all seemed so meaningless and stupid.” He smiled down at me.
“Then I rolled up and looked into your eyes, and I haven’t been inside a church since my Communion, Jeanine, but it felt holy, you know? Like God sent me an angel down from heaven. After I got to know you and realized how incredible we were together, I knew it was true.”
“Not an angel, a mermaid,” I said, sniffling.
“Exactly,” Peter said, wiping a tear off my nose. “You’re the first thing in a long time, maybe the only thing ever, that actually makes me want to get out of bed and floss my teeth and balance my checkbook. You understand? I’m not Alex. I’m not some asshole. I’d do anything. I’d die before hurting you. I’d burn this shit-heel, sunburned tourist trap to the ground, if you wanted me to. I’d—”
“Oh, Peter,” I said, crying as I kissed him. “I know. I’m sorry. My Saint Peter, my love,” I said, burying my face in his shoulder.
Chapter 18
ON FRIDAY NIGHT, exactly one week before our trip to Palm Beach, I was sitting on the couch, thinking about going to bed early. But at the last second, I decided to throw caution to the wind and put my flip-flops on and head out to the island’s only Blockbuster, half a mile away on North Roosevelt Boulevard.
Peter was pulling a double, directing traffic at some road construction on the Overseas Highway up in Big Pine Key, so I was flying solo. Being much more of a classic movie buff than he was, I decided I couldn’t waste the home-alone opportunity to indulge in a late-night Alfred Hitchcock double feature. I snagged The Birds and North b
y Northwest off the shelf.
I was a foot out the door when I hit the Unlock button on my car key fob and heard the faint bloop-bloop.
No, wait, I thought as I suddenly spotted my battered blue Vespa at the curb. What was I thinking? I’d taken the moped. Our new Toyota Supra was still with Peter at work.
I stopped and stared down at my car key fob, confused. Why had I heard the car beep, then?
I scanned the parking lot as I thumbed Unlock a second time. I turned to my left as the double bloop sounded out faintly again.
What the heck? It seemed to be coming from across the street.
I stepped past my Vespa to the edge of the sidewalk that rimmed the strip mall’s lot and hit the fob one last time.
In a parking lot directly across North Roosevelt Boulevard, a parked car’s lights went on and off with the familiar electronic bloop.
I stared across at it. It was sleek, black, brand-new. What the hell? I squinted at the Florida license plate. Yep, it was ours. It was our Supra.
But why was it there? I thought. Shouldn’t it be parked at police headquarters? Shouldn’t it be at Peter’s job?
Then I made the mistake of reading the lit sign on the building behind the car.
A sickening numbness sprouted in the pit of my stomach and began expanding upward, outward, filling my chest like a swallowed balloon.
BEST WESTERN, the sign said.
Chapter 19
CARS WENT BACK AND FORTH on North Roosevelt as I stood there, staring at the shiny black hood of Peter’s car sitting in the Best Western parking lot.
OK, I finally thought as my shock eased up slightly a long five minutes later.
Slowly now, I urged myself.
Think this through.
I tried. Nothing would come. It was fruitless. There wasn’t anything to think about. Even an idiot like me knew what finding your husband’s car in a motel parking lot meant.