Bone Island Mambo (43 page)

The pilot made his seat-backs-and-tray-tables speech. Sam poked me with his elbow. “Before I hung up, I asked Marnie to fetch us at the airport.”

“Your Bronco’s at the airport.”

“Yep, it is. Somehow that fact departed my mind while I was talking. So we won’t tell her it’s there, and hope maybe she won’t see it. I can’t have her worrying about me. She gets neurotic.”

“What’s happened to your memory?” I said.

“I keep forgetting to take my ginkgo biloba.”

“Can I ask the main distraction?”

“No cop would go to all that trouble to talk about immigrants. No big city detective would ask me if he could plant a phony squib in the
Sun-Sentinel.
Also, not many
cops can afford a boat big enough for a Yamaha 225. Unless he inherited that, too.”

“Why lunch?” I said. “He thinks you know the dead woman?”

Sam shrugged.

“He suspects you of something? Doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s his cop job coming through. He thinks, ‘Arrest them all, let the courts sort it out.’ ”

Had I heard a Vietnam echo in that phrase? “Arrest for what?” I said.

“He’ll find something.”

“What’s that look in your eye?”

“I’m thinking I’ll find something, too. With Odin Marlow attached.”