A PAIR OF Monroe County sheriff’s deputies stood in the backyard of a modest ranch house on Big Pine Key. The landscaping was spare but neat. Crape myrtle, trumpet honeysuckle, jasmine. Chicken wire surrounded the flowers.
The deputies listened sympathetically as an eighty-year-old woman talked nonstop, pointing at knocked-over trash cans and garbage strewn across the lawn to where a clothesline had been snapped. She was wearing a nightgown and slippers in the afternoon. One of the deputies jotted down the high points in a notebook.
“He was big and hairy.” The woman got on her tiptoes and raised a hand high in the air. “At least seven feet tall.”
Gus wrote six feet, allowing for excitement.
The woman tapped the notebook. “I said seven.”
Gus smiled and made a correction.
“I could smell him clear across the yard. The worst odor.” She crinkled her nose, then held up a disposable camera. “Going to send these to the
Gus closed his notebook and smiled again. “We’ll get right on it, ma’am.”
The woman shuffled back toward her house. “Patronizing prick.”
The deputies headed up U.S. 1 in their white-and-green sheriff’s cruiser. Gus was driving. He kept shifting his weight. The seat had one of those wooden-bead seat covers.
“Is that thing helping your back?” asked Walter.
“Actually hurts more.”
“Why do you still use it?”
“I paid for it.”
Walter looked out the windshield at a tiny, white balloon flying high on a tether. It had tail fins. “Fat Albert’s up today.”
“So it is.” The anti-smuggling radar blimp was flying in a stout offshore wind above the federal installation on the north side of Cudjoe Key. Whenever it was up, there was much less boat traffic in the back country.
“Hey, Serpico. I want to ask—”
“Walter. You mind?”
“Sorry. Forgot,” said Walter. “Force of habit from listening to the other guys. Is the story true?”
“What story?”
“How you got the nickname.”
“Depends on how it was told.”
“It made fun of you.”
“Then I guess it’s true.”
“It’s a funny story.”
“Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“No, I got sidetracked. Gus…”
“Thank you.”
“I heard your ex-wife is dating the lieutenant.”
“She is.”
Walter looked across the front seat at his partner. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“No.”
Walter faced forward. “That’s what Sergeant Englewood said.”
“Said what?”
“It didn’t bother you.”
They drove over a bridge.
“It would bother me,” said Walter. “The lieutenant knowing all those embarrassing sex stories.”
Gus did a slow side-take at his partner.
“What?” said Walter. “You do know the stories she’s telling, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Oh, my God, they’re hilarious! Apparently she’s blabbing about everything. All your weird sexual quirks…” Walter started laughing. “There was this one time she was seriously pissed off at you, so that night she asked you to wear her bra to bed, said it would ‘get her motor running.’ Those were the exact words Deputy Valrico used. Except she was really just trying to humiliate you!”
Walter noticed his partner’s knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
“You did know she was just messing with you?”
Gus stared ahead.
“Gee, I’m really sorry.” Walter looked down at his lap. “This is kind of awkward now.”
“What other stories?”
“I’m not going to tell you. I feel bad.”
“Don’t,” said Gus. “It’s not your fault. It was a long, long time ago.”
“It really doesn’t bother you?”
“Not a bit.”
“Okay, there’s this other really great one. Remember the time she said there was something she’d always wanted to try in bed, but was too embarrassed and didn’t want you to laugh at her? And you told her you’d do anything for her? So she made you lie on your back while she peed on your face. Remember that? I guess you would — you were there. Anyway, it wasn’t to turn her on. She was just mad at you again.”
Gus took a deep breath. “How many people know? You said Englewood and Valrico. Is that how you heard?”
“No, they told Brevard and La Belle, and somehow it got around to the second shift before winding through the other substations until it reached the sheriff. I was at a barbecue at his house, and his wife had a little too much sangria, and she sees you out the window in the yard, standing alone eating a hot dog. And she just cracks up and blurts it all out.”
“Was anyone else there?”
“No. Yes, just a few guys.”
“A few?”
“A lot. It started with about ten, but the crowd really swelled when word got around what she was talking about. By the end of the story I think everyone at the barbecue was jammed in that room except you.”
“So that’s who knows? The whole department?”
“No. I also heard them talking about it in the ice cream parlor and at the marina and the video store. I think the guy who came to work on my cable mentioned something….”
“Walter—”
“I’d say pretty much the whole town. Can’t believe it doesn’t bother you. I’d be mortified, everywhere I go people looking at me picturing stuff…”
“Walter—”
“I’d quit my job and move away. Maybe change my name. Then I’d probably kill myself….”
“Walter!”
“What?… Oh, it does bother you. See, I knew it.”
