Again Sweeney waited. She looked away, through the hall to the front of the house. “It’s sordid,” she said. “I’m afraid of him because he thinks I’m a ‘good person.’ But I’m not. I wanted him, that’s all. We’d just met. I knew nothing about him, but so what?”
When she finally looked from the hall, Sweeney was again staring up at the recessed high hat lights. “Well,” he said, “what about the other man?”
“He killed his girlfriend, he killed a man who just happened to show up at the wrong time. He killed Marion Ross’s college classmate, her housekeeper—”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Sweeney said.
She stared at him. Flat-faced and done with crying, she now told the story as straight news—who, what, where, when, why. It was easier that way, being objective, impersonal. She left nothing out—how Jerry Lomak had thrown Heather Reese to her death, how Marion Ross had swung the rope with the sharp drag anchor and lodged it in his back. But Jerry Lomak had not been dead, and Brenda had decided he should be.
“I forced Charlie to go along,” she said. “The local sheriff interviewed us, and I made Charlie lie.”
Sweeney took a drink. He put the glass down and folded his hands. “Could this Lomak talk? Did he say anything?”
“That’s why it’s murder. He was still alive. He joked about it, he cursed Marion. He said he’d write a book in prison. I won a Pulitzer, and Marion’s a high-profile lawyer. I knew what he was saying could actually happen. Maybe he wasn’t even all that wounded. Either way, it’s murder. Second degree, but murder. Second degree gets you twelve to fifteen. With a first offender, you get time off for good behavior. Charlie or me is out in seven or eight years. That puts me at forty-one, him at sixty-three. But I wasn’t thinking anything like that. All I knew was, it would ruin our chances. That’s all I cared about.”
“Did this man ever talk to Charlie?”
“No.”
“What does Charlie think?”
“We never discuss it.”
Never, Brenda thought. Without words, they had both come to the same conclusion. Any mention of Kettle Falls would ruin the future.
“Your intestines are thirty or forty feet long,” Stuckey said.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Like flexible tubing, back and forth.” He looked at Rivera and back to the elevator door.
“You’re just afraid you won’t catch it,” Rivera said.
“It’s the back and forth, okay? All packed in there. What if it gets hung up?” Stuckey shook his head. “If that watch was aluminum or nickel? No way would I eat it,” he said. “That shit’s poison. All this Alzheimer’s? That’s aluminum, absolutely.”
“All right, Dennis.”
Stuckey the tonto, Rivera thought. The payaso. But Stuckey had come to Naples at the perfect time. Things happened for a reason, everything added up. “Bad patches” was what Kleinman called times like this. Times when nothing seemed to work. But that’s when you couldn’t blink. It’s like those birds that clean the crocodile’s teeth. When you see it, you think “Goodbye, birdie.” Not so, Jimmy. That bird is living off another animal but serving a purpose. The crocodile does all the hard work, but the bird takes care of the dental.
The doors opened, and they stepped out into Burlson’s reception room. All afternoon, Rivera had channeled his anger to map a plan. Dennis Stuckey would be his crocodile bird.
“Hold it a minute.” He waited for Stuckey to shuffle back. “We can’t have another Ivy. Not with Mrs. Fenton.”
“You told me no intervention.”
“That’s right. And now I’m telling you something different. If people see All Hands on Deck mentioned in another death notice, it could mean serious trouble.”
Stuckey was gazing up at the marble ceiling. “I’m going to sit in the room with her,” he said. “Me and Pinky. When she needs to pee, I’m there. When she wants some of that cheese in a can she eats, I take her with me. Joined at the hip, never out of my sight.”
“Good.”
He got out his keys, opened the door and followed Stuckey in. He watched him schlep down the hall in his sandals. Schlep was Yiddish, learned from a Jewish tourist when Rivera was bussing tables in Cozumel. The word sounded just like what Stuckey was doing now, how he lived. That’s how Burlson thinks of you, Rivera thought. You schlep for him, you shovel his shit, you fetch.
The dog was barking. Stuckey reached the end of the hall and knocked on the open door. “Well, here he is, Mrs. Fenton, here’s your friend, you remember Dennis—”
The nurse would leave in a minute or two. That morning, Burlson had called. I wrote it all up in a letter for my attorney, he said. Just the way you want it. I’ll give you a copy. I say James Rivera’s been like a son to me, like family. I want him to have something special. The boat’s yours, Jim. The lawyer will make sure of it, I’ll have everything notarized.
Sure he would. Rivera had told Burlson he would come tonight with a second All Hands attendant. That would free them to plan what to do about Mrs. Fenton. I’m sorry, young fella, Burlson said. But my back’s to the wall. You won’t regret this.
The nurse was saying goodbye, getting ready to leave. Rivera opened the door leading to the roof. He stepped in, closed it and listened in the dark. He still felt rage—except everything fit. The building’s security cameras had not yet been activated in the elevators or garage. And when Burlson’s deposit on the six condos was forfeited, that would explain why the old man had been depressed.
Now came the squeak of ripple-soled shoes. Seconds later, the foyer door opened and clicked
