Once Bitten

ONCE BITTEN

by Sara Reinke

Published by Bloodhorse Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Sara Reinke

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

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CHAPTER ONE

John Harker thinks he’s gotten away with murdering my brother, a tearful Adelaida López Famosa told Miami FOX-affiliate WSVN from the Dade County Courthouse stairs. Beneath this on the screen, a bright blue banner declared Breaking News, while beneath that, the headline read: Grand Jury Won’t Indict Killer Cop.

He lied on the stand, cried Adelaida. The camera moved in, almost on cue, as she burst into the sort of loud, strained sobs that won daytime Emmy Awards for news broadcasts. He’s a liar and a murderer and I hate him!

To the camera, she screamed: I hope you rot in hell, John Harker!

John clicked the pause button on the YouTube screen, freezing the recorded image. Adelaida López Famosa’s mouth hung open, her mascara-tinged tears paralyzed and gleaming on her cheeks. The dateline on the footage was from three years ago.

That would make her kid, what? he wondered. Three years old now? Almost four?

Because the only time he’d ever seen Adelaida López Famosa outside of the courthouse, she’d been clutching a swaddled infant to her chest. She’d been screaming then, too, only her cries had been frightened, not spiteful and furious. She hadn’t been yelling at John, but rather for someone. For her brother, Mateo.

John?

Startled, he looked up to find his secretary perched in the doorway to his office. Oh, uh. Fumbling with his mouse, he closed the internet browser window. Hey, Sandy. You’re here.

Yup, she replied. Just like yesterday and the day before. Same bat time, same bat channel. I’m funny that way.

No, I mean you’re early. He wondered if she’d notice that he was wearing the same clothes as the day before. Probably not. Sandy was one of the most laid-back women he’d ever met. Which, in addition to her nice tits and nearly perfect ass, was one of the primary reasons he liked her so much.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, she’d tell him.

Her last paycheck had bounced. He’d written it out knowing it would, and had felt lousy because of this. That had been last Friday. Today was Wednesday. Apparently, this, too, constituted small, because Sandy had yet to sweat over it. At least, not to him. Not yet.

Yeah, well, you know what they say. Sandy dropped him a wink then turned, sashaying back into the foyer. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and…

All of that bullshit, he muttered out of her earshot. Early to bed and early to rise also made a man early at the office, especially when said man never technically left said office the day before anyway.

He’d spent the night in his boxer shorts on the vinyl-upholstered sofa in his office because he hadn’t wanted to wrinkle his dress shirt or slacks. They were the only ones he had. For the moment, anyway. Might have to make them last.

He supposed Adelaida López Famosa would have called this justice.

Having received three past-due notices on his slip rental at the marina—the last of which had FINAL NOTICE stamped across the top in big red letters—he hadn’t been completely surprised when he’d been unable to get through the security gate leading down to the boat docks the day before. Even so, it had taken him a try or two of impotently punching in the four-digit security code that apparently no longer worked before he realized what was going on.

Son of a bitch, he’d muttered, because he could look beyond the reinforced chain link and see his boat, a 1967 Pearson Triton yawl called the Quagmire, at berth in and among clustered sloops and sailing yachts. He lived aboard the Quagmire, thus everything he owned, from his toothbrush to clean underpants, was crammed somewhere inside its twenty-eight foot hull.

I’ll call the marina first thing in the morning, he’d thought. Tell them something, that I’ll hock my car, anything to settle up the tab.

But now, in the light of day, with a good few hours of sleep beneath his belt, he felt confident things wouldn’t need to go to such extremes. The boat and his car, a 1967 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible, were both paid off, bought to commemorate the year he’d been born.

They’re the only things you love, his ex-wife Bevi had told him once.

Ouch, he’d said dryly. That hurt.

To which she’d replied, Nothing short of a silver bullet would hurt you, John.

Pushing his chair back from his desk and standing, he glanced into a mirror on the far wall. Would Sandy know? Would there be something different in his face, a great big neon sign plastered to his forehead proclaiming: I spent last night on the couch in my office because I got evicted from my sailboat?

There was nothing apparent or tell-tale he could see, and nothing she could either, because when he ducked out of his office to enter the reception area beyond, she said nothing of his appearance. No differently than any other morning, two paper Venti-sized cups of coffee with white plastic lids sat on top of her desk. Equally no different, Sandy stood with her back to him, facing a large map of the continental United States that had overtaken the far wall of the office.

Small-framed and petite, blond-haired and blue-eyed, she was pretty in a Sandra Dee/Sandy Duncan/girl-next-door sort of way. Which was why he called her Sandy, even though her name, as she still sometimes bothered to remind him, was Maureen.

Where’s Harlowe today? he asked, lifting one of the cups in hand. He didn’t have to ask which was his. She always bought them the exact same thing, the daily bold with a double shot, and hers was always the one with the smutch of pink lipstick on the rim.

On his way to San Antonio, she replied, plunking a push-pin with a bright red, globe-shaped cap into the map, in the vicinity of south-central Texas. Another pin, this one with a blue top, followed into the west coast. Then off to San Francisco.

Her boyfriend was a pilot for Delta Airlines. Between that and the fact that he lived in Miami, nearly a four-hour drive from Sandy’s home in the Sister Islands, part of the Florida Keys archipelago, they seldom interacted in person. Their relationship, at least to John’s observation, seemed to consist of an ongoing series of exchanged phone calls, emails and text messages, punctuated by the occasional dinner date. Whenever Harlowe was out on a job, she’d mark it on her map. It makes me feel closer to him, she’d once told John. Over the past three years, the printed U.S. terrain had become quite pock-marked with miniscule holes.

Here. Sandy presented him with a white paper sack. I stopped off for some scones, too. Figured you might be hungry.

He might have ordinarily scoffed. After all, women ate scones. Men ate biscuits. With fried meat on it. And eggs. And cheese. But he was hungry, and had none of the latter, so he opted for the former.

Thanks, he said, fully expecting her to add, And I had to dip into my IRA to pay for these, thank you very much, Mr. Cheap-Ass Shit Heel, because my last paycheck bounced.

But she didn’t. And that made him feel all the worse.

He sat at his desk, his cheeks stuffed with pastry, and nearly scalded his lips a half-dozen times sipping on his coffee. He considered this a sort of penance for the bounced check, and thus, kept doing it.

To compound his guilt, he kept glancing at the page button on his phone, which would ring out in intercom fashion to Sandy’s desk. At last he pushed it, and less than a second later, Sandy’s voice floated out of the speaker: You ready for another one? I bought four.

No, that’s okay, he replied.

Well, I’ll just wrap the rest up, leave them here on my desk if you change your mind.

Okay, he said, trying to sound nonchalant. Thanks. Hey, Sandy, has Dick Halloway called? He said he might be sending some work my way today.

After a quiet moment, Sandy replied, He said that yesterday, too.

I know.

And the day before.

I know.

And the day before that. And four times last week.

He settles a lot out of court, John said. Things come up, turns out he doesn’t need me. That’s the way it goes sometimes.

Yes, well, he’s an attorney. He still gets paid when he settles out of court. You don’t.

Ah, here it comes, he thought, bracing himself. Now she’ll bring up the check.

But she didn’t. Which made him feel like shit.

And thus, the day progressed. John spent most of it waiting for Dick Halloway to call. Halloway was one of those flashy lawyers plastered on every billboard, bumper sticker and TV commercial he could find between the Sister Islands and Miami, a smarmy, arrogant, opportunistic son of a bitch who lined his pockets with personal injury and worker’s compensation claims. Unfortunately, more often than not, he also happened to be John’s bread and butter.

As in, when Halloway doesn’t call, I don’t get any bread, never mind the butter, he thought glumly, staring at the silent phone, as the old adage that if watched, it wouldn’t ring, replayed in his mind.

***

John?

Sandy’s voice startled him awake. He hadn’t meant to doze off, hadn’t even realized that he had until he sat bolt upright in his chair, wide-eyed and blinking at her as she stood in his doorway.

Sandy. Hey. He’d drooled in his sleep. He could feel it now, damp on his cheek and chin, as well as see it, a small, glistening smear on his blotter.

Shit. He wiped his face with his hand, then used his elbow, the sleeve of his shirt, to dry the desk top.

Hey. Gracie and I are meeting up for lunch. You want to come? Her treat.

Sandy was the only person he knew who could get away with referring to her parents by their first names. If he’d ever addressed his own mother by her given name, Wilma, with the same casual ease, he imagined she’d flip him unceremoniously over her knee, yank his Dockers down and spank his bare ass.

Sandy’s parents had divorced only a few years earlier and her father, whom she called Colonel Joe or just Joe, was a retired Army officer living in Nevada. Her mother lived on the Sister Islands with her daughter. Gracie Dodd was an artist who specialized in painting seashells. Not landscapes or still-art studies in which shells were the primary focus, but painting on them. Shells of all shapes and sizes, from conchs to mollusks, Gracie would slap layer after multicolored layer of paint onto them, then add plastic gemstones or glitter or loose sequins for accents. Sandy had several examples on display atop her desk. To these, Gracie had glued feathers and plastic googly eyes, making the clam shells look like wacky pink, purple and cerulean birds out of an illustrated children’s storybook. Or a bad acid trip.

Apparently there was good money to be made in shell art. Gracie lived in a colossal Mediterranean mansion Sandy affectionately called the Pink Palace. John had often wondered if Gracie needed a boy toy. Half the time, he only thought this in joking.

No, thanks, he said, even though he was sure they’d be going to one of the nicer restaurants on the island, a place where swordfish, not chicken nuggets, was the house specialty.

You sure? Sandy asked and he nodded. Like burning his mouth on the hot coffee, skipping out on an expensive lunch was a sort of penance for cheating her out of a paycheck. Besides, he hoped to use his lunch hour to find a way past the marina security gate.

Okay. She flipped him a wave and turned, sauntering back into the foyer. No panty lines, he couldn’t help but appreciatively note.

***

Lucky for John, one of the only other people in the Coconut Grove Marina who lived aboard their vessel, as opposed to simply mooring it in between the occasional recreational pleasure cruise, was Ethel Merriwether. Ethel and her late husband, Cookie, had bought their boat, Cookie’s Cutter, an older model Catalina, brand new off the showroom. They’d retired aboard it and when Cookie had died, Ethel remained.

During his lunch break, John found Ethel standing outside of the locked marina gate. She’d told him once that she’d never owned a car, had never even learned to drive. Her husband had always taken care of that, and without him, she’d started doing her errands around the island by bicycle. Her Schwinn was a relic of a bygone era, all emerald green fenders and chrome fixtures, white-wall tires and a wicker basket on the front. She’d strap grocery bags and library books to the back of the bike. Her dog, a mangy little Yorkshire terrier named Nutsy, would ride in the basket.

Today, the bike had been parked and locked in its customary spot, beneath a sprig of tailored palm trees, the ubiquitous landscaping icon of southern Florida. Nutsy had tangled its leash around Ethel’s legs as she’d tried to lead it to the entry gate. Ethel, wearing a broad-brimmed sun hat and enormous plastic Jackie-O sunglasses, now wrestled to unwind the leash without falling over, and all while balancing a laden paper sack in her arm.

Here, Ethel. John slipped the groceries from her. You need a hand?

Oh, John, yes, please, she exclaimed. It’s so nice, she’d tell him sometimes. Having a policeman for a neighbor. I never have to worry, knowing you’re there. And then, because she was in all likelihood suffering from the onset of senile dementia, she’d smile at him in a childlike, somewhat puzzled sort of way and add, You’re a policeman, aren’t you? Didn’t you tell me that once?

To which he’d always reply with a gentle smile: I used to be, yes.

Ethel leaned down, gathering the Yorkie in her arms and dancing clumsily loose of the coiled leash. She’d had the dog for as long as John had known her. He and Nutsy had seen each other nearly every day at least once, if not more, and the damn thing still tried to eat him at every given opportunity.

Nutsy yapped at John, uttering shrill, throaty snarls as Ethel punched the new access code into the keypad beside the gate. She’d fished a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket before doing this. On it, she’d scrawled a series of four numbers, followed by an asterisk, in the warbling chicken-scratch of a palsy-ridden old woman.

Four, one, three, seven, star, he repeated as he watched, a nearly sing-song cadence, over and over. Four, one, three, seven, star.

Looks like you’ve got your hands full, he said aloud, even as in his mind, he chanted: Four, one, three, seven, star..

Oh, yes. Ethel laughed, smiling appreciatively as he held the gate open for her. Gilbert came by last night and gave that number to me. I couldn’t ever remember the last one, and here’s another to worry about. I don’t know why he doesn’t just give us keys.

Gilbert Manfried was the marina manager, the very same asshole who had sent John the overdue invoices, including the one with FINAL NOTICE seared across the top in red ink. As he and Ethel walked abreast of one another down the gangplank past the manager’s office, John hunched his shoulders and hid behind the shelter of Ethel’s grocery bag and the side swell of her enormous hat, hoping to steer clear of Gilbert’s view.

No, I mean with the dog, he said, reaching out to pet Nutsy. Nutsy, for his part, tried to sink its tiny, needle-like teeth down to the bone in John’s forefinger.

You stop that, Ethel snapped, giving the dog a little shake that did nothing whatsoever to discourage its animosity. I’m so sorry, John. Are you alright?

Fine. His voice lisped as he sucked on his now bleeding finger. Up to date on my tetanus shots, Ethel. Don’t worry.

Meanwhile, he shot spears from his eyes in Nutsy’s general direction, a sentiment the still-snarling Yorkie seemed to share. One of these days, he thought. My foot and your ass. They’re going to meet up close and personal.

John carried Ethel’s groceries aboard Cookie’s Cutter, then hurried down the dock to where the Quagmire was tied off. Ducking aboard, he slipped below deck, locking up behind him. Usually, he took his showers at the marina bathhouse, over by the manager’s office. Wanting to avoid Gilbert’s notice, he opted that day for Navy style aboard the Quagmire. Afterwards, he redressed in the main cabin and glanced out the windows above the starboard side berth benches.

Two slips up from his own lay the Cookie’s Cutter, and a half-dozen or so beyond that was a 57-foot-long white Bayliner called His Girl Friday, a sleek and streamlined yacht that cost more than John’s little sailboat, car and lifetime potential income combined. His dream boat.

He knew Ethel hated that Bayliner almost as much as he loved it because its towering flybridge all but blocked her view of the waterway and Gulf of Mexico beyond. But sometimes, like right now, he’d find himself simply mesmerized by the sight of it, this beautiful, majestic piece of modern seafaring machinery at rest on the flat blue plane of water.

He didn’t know who owned His Girl Friday. He’d asked Ethel about it once or twice, but all she’d only ever noticed was a girl in a bikini stretched out and sunning on the foredeck, something John was sorry he’d missed.

As he hopped over the side of the Quagmire to the dock again, he awarded one last, lingering look at His Girl Friday. A man could dream, or so John figured, and if he did, why not do it big?

His office was nestled near the waterfront on the westward prominence of the largest of the Sister Islands trio, Big Sister. This was the least-desirable area of the island, where the commercial shipping ports were located, not the posh cruise line harbors that graced the gilded South Shore or the nearby, more affluent Little Sister. Tourists seldom visited the west side of Big Sister because there were no museums here, no theaters, resorts or white-sand beaches. The shopping here was of the practical, residential variety, like grocery stores, convenience stores, pharmacies and movie rentals.

As for John, his office was located in the heart of a strip mall. His closest neighbors were a Vietnamese nail salon, a spray tanning studio, a cigarette outlet store and a cash-advance shop. Low-slung with a peach-colored stucco façade and imitation Spanish-style red tile roofing, the mall had more vacant storefronts than occupants. Mangy palm trees ran along the sidewalk parallel to the narrow colonnade fronting the shops. Most of the parking spaces in the weather-beaten lot were empty.

A woman stood outside of his office, her back to him as he pulled in at the curb. She had her hands up to frame her face against the glass as she tried to peer beyond the window into the narrow reception area.

Dick Halloway, the attorney, had told John he might be sending a client his way in the upcoming week, and all at once, John felt a giddy rush of excitement as he got out of his car.

Harker Private Investigations? he called, and the woman at the window turned to him. Are you looking for Harker Private Investigations?

I am, yes, she said, nodding. She carried a large crocheted beach purse tucked beneath her arm and shifted this enough to reach for him, offering her hand. My name is Ruth Weston.

Jonathan Harker, he said, accepting the shake. Please call me John.

He unlocked the office door and held it open wide, letting out a blast of air-conditioning as Ruth Weston walked past him. I hope you didn’t have any trouble finding this place.

Not at all. She glanced around uncertainly. Sandy was still out to lunch and Ruth’s gaze lingered on the pair of painted shells on her desk with their googly eyes and feather headdresses all askew.

I appreciate Dick sending you out, John said. Can I get you some coffee? A soda? When she shook her head, he continued. I don’t know if he explained how this works or not, but generally it doesn’t take very long.

In fact, he seldom had anything to do with the clients directly at all. Dick or his staff usually took care of all of the interpersonal song and dance and relayed instructions to him: do this, do that, search for this, research that.

Ruth Weston, at the moment as close to a potential cash cow as John had seen in weeks, looked at him, puzzled. I’m sorry?

You’re here for, what? Personal injury claim? Or maybe a divorce? Infidelity investigation?

She shook her head. I don’t…

I’m sorry. John smiled warmly, if only to disguise the face he was disappointed it wasn’t a divorce case. Cheating husbands had to pay big time if caught. Why don’t you come back into my office, have a seat? Dick hasn’t sent me any of your paperwork yet. I’m sorry for that, but I’m sure it’s on the way.

Ruth shook her head again. Who’s Dick?

John’s smile faltered, then faded. What?

I’m sorry. You keep mentioning someone named Dick. I don’t know who that is.

Dick Halloway, John said, his turn to be confused. Richard Halloway, attorney-at-law. Because she shook her head again, he said, He didn’t send you here?

No. Bill Eckerson did.

He was so at a loss, for a moment, that name, Bill Eckerson, simply bounced around inside of his head, meaningless but somehow familiar.

He’s a private investigator in Key West, Ruth said hesitantly, and all of the tumblers in the padlock of John’s mind fell obligingly into place. Now he knew who Bill Eckerson was.

The competition.

He told me I should try you, Ruth was saying. He gave me your name and number. I spoke with your secretary this morning.

As if on cue, the string of brass jingle bells Sandy had affixed to the door jangled loudly, as she came breezing through. "Well,