We got the boat tied up in a slip next to Betty’s. Betty herself was out until sundown, according to a note tacked to the piling. So I tied off the Sligo fore, aft, and spring lines.
Nicky hunched over on the dock while I scrubbed down the boat. His color was a little better, but he still looked like a half-dead water rat. He tried to help at first, but he kept staring off into space and running his shoes full of water so I sat him down until the boat was clean, secure and buttoned up.
By the time we got to the sheriff’s station Nicky was almost normal. He surrendered his pistol meekly. We were told to keep ourselves available for questioning and we promised we would. The cops were polite; other towns can get away with judging somebody’s importance and political clout by what they wear. Key West cannot. In a town where cut-offs, T-shirts, and thongs are formal wear, anybody might be somebody.
So they stayed polite up until we were about to leave. That is, until I thought we were about to leave. Nicky had other ideas.
“Do they know anything yet?” he asked the Sergeant quietly.
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Mr.—” the Sergeant glanced down at the forms on his desk. “Mr. Cameron.”
“But do they have any idea, you know. About the, uh—the body?”
Cops aren’t hard-asses twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes that’s a mistake. The Sergeant, seeing a meek, tiny local merchant, had a softhearted moment. “Mr. Cameron, the Coast Guard thinks this was a Haitian national. These people put to sea in things I wouldn’t let my kids use in a wading pool. It’s a sure bet his boat swamped and he drowned. Happens all the time.”
“So you’ll let us know, eh Sergeant?” Nicky asked as I was half-turned to go.
“Let you know what, sir?” the Sergeant asked, already amused.
“What happens. How it comes out. What you discover.” Nicky poured his words into the increasing silence. There is nothing as quiet as a police sergeant’s poker face.
“Discover about what, Mr. Cameron?”
Nicky leaned in, as though increasing his volume and intensity might drag the Sergeant out of his apathy. “You remember? There was a dead body? We found it. Man was dead.” He said it in that flat Australian way nobody else seems able to copy.
The sergeant, a guy I knew very slightly, looked at me and raised an eyebrow.
“Australian idealist,” I said. “Believes in truth and justice. Thinks you have a big red ‘S’ on the front of your shirt.”
He turned back to Nicky with a tolerant, very small, smile. “There won’t be much of an investigation, sir. There’s a problem with jurisdiction. And this is really not that big a deal.”
“It bloody well is to the dead guy.”
The cop took a deep breath. I could almost see him counting to ten. It would have been funny under other circumstance. “Let me give you a word of advice, Mr. Cameron.”
“I’d be de-bloody-lighted to hear it.”
“Forget about this.”
Nicky’s mouth hung open. He blinked. He looked at me, then back at the sergeant. “Do what?”
“Forget about it. Put it out of your mind. Pretend it never happened.”
Nicky took a step back. Then he started to get taller. I don’t know how he does it. The sergeant’s eyes got wide as he watched.
“Aw, yeah, mate, that’s bloody lovely. How’s about we ask the dead guy to pretend it never happened while we’re at it, eh? I reckon that’ll take care of the whole bloody damn shootin’ match, eh? You lot’d like that. Go home and have a few cold ones and fergit it all, eh?”
“Nicky,” I said, trying to slow him down. It didn’t work.
“That’d be fan-fuckin’-tastic, wouldn’t it, mate? Just fer-fuckin’-get the whole fuckin’ thing. He’s not dead! Because it never happened! That’ll bring a nice stiff smile to his face, eh?”
The sergeant’s face was starting to gain just a little bit of expression. It wasn’t a smile.
“Nicky,” I said, trying now to edge him out the door.
“Mr. Cameron,” the sergeant said, leaning forward as if to make sure he really was taller than Nicky. “This is a police matter and the police will handle it.”
“Like they handle everything else?” Nicky demanded.