The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [150]
He seemed to have fallen into a funk. Finally he stretched with a long sigh. “I wish I could arrest you. I’ve had a lousy couple of days and you’ve got a lousy attitude.” He moved nearer to her, tan even in moonlight, and slowly held up his arms in surrender. “I can’t arrest you. Thanks to you they fired me.”
“The Miami police fired you?” She saw him registering her unmistakable surprise.
He pointed at her Navy cap. “Yeah, I know. In the Armed Forces, you probably put people up against a wall and shoot them. But usually at MPD, they fire them.” He rubbed his bare foot in the grass. “Well, they shoot them sometimes but usually they just fire them.”
“I’m sorry,” Annie told him. “But I don’t see how you’re getting fired is ‘thanks to’ me.”
He rubbed the other foot. “You’re Jack Peregrine’s daughter. Jack Peregrine turned out to be a puddle of quicksand and I stepped in it up to my neck.”
His beer bottle tipped and Annie quickly reached out and righted it. His hand closed over hers and they both looked at their joined hands. Then she pulled away to ask, “Should I go to your former partner then? The police didn’t seem interested.”
Daniel opened his arms to the sky. “Yeah, well, they’re interested. They’re so interested your dad’s not going to jail. He’s as free as Oliver North. The Feds,” he explained, “shut down the whole investigation. Like that!” His fingers snapped loudly three times. “Maybe more like this…” He snapped again, softly.
“You’re telling me the case is closed? There’re no charges against my dad?”
Elaborately he nodded. “Not by MPD. They’re out. I’m definitely out. I knew your old man had friends but frankly I thought they were more the Rafael Rook variety. Let’s go get some food.”
Annie didn’t move. “If there are no charges against him, why shouldn’t I keep the Queen of the Sea?”
“You probably should.” He shrugged. “Meanwhile, you want to hear about my day? Lousy. Yesterday wasn’t so good either. Yesterday I’m standing in the street watching you and Rook speed off, after I receive some very bad personal news at Golden Days from my ex-wife—”
“What’s your ex-wife doing at Golden Days?”
“She runs the place; big mistake since she never liked old people. Melissa Skippings.”
Entirely taken aback, Annie laughed. “Wait a minute.” She reached for his beer bottle and without thinking, drank from it. “Wait a minute! Your wife, your ex-wife, is the HMO administrator of Golden Days? Melissa is M. R. Skippings? She’s platinum blonde and has long legs?”
His mouth twisted wryly. “The legs are really hers.”
Annie handed back the beer. “I’m sorry, that woman’s a bitch.”
“You’re sorry?” Dan rubbed at his face with both hands. “So I’m there to see Melissa and I spot you and Rook. I’m watching you flee the scene, by the way at excessive speed, then out of nowhere, I’m grabbed and flung in a high-tech van where some seriously edgy agents of our government behave like they’re auditioning for a Tom Cruise thriller.”
Annie interrupted. “I thought those were your friends in that van.”
“Friends? They’re Feds. They grill me about your dad, they take me over to Second Avenue, drag me in the back way and they’re at me all night. Then comes morning, my chief—otherwise known as the Vapor—tells me the case is closed and when I argue that decision, he tells me to back up before I step off a cliff without a health fund. I tell him, ‘Fire me, you chickenshit dickhead!’ So he did. At 5 p.m., I get handed a box of everything that used to be in my desk, including my dirty gym shorts. Then he shoves a piece of paper at me to sign about how it’s a mutual decision.”
She thought about this. “Bottom line is, my dad’s no longer being investigated by MPD? He’s not going back to jail?”
Hart scowled at her. “Will you stop rubbing it in? He should go to jail. He owes three years minimum. And that’s just in Florida. Even cutting deals like salami, I would have said he’d get fifteen. It’s bullshit the way they shut this thing down.”
“All I care