Squeeze Me - Carl Hiaasen Page 0,30

the Valentine’s Day before he died.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I saw them with my own eyes, Jerry. You think I’d forget what she was wearing that night?” Fay Alex had done a pop-in at the White Ibis Ball before dashing to another big-ticket gala, the annual benefit for Psoriatic Gingivitis.

“Be right back,” Crosby said. He moved to the other end of the room and called the medical examiner. The answer he received was the one he’d expected.

When he returned to the table where the late Mrs. Fitzsimmons lay agape, Fay Alex hadn’t backed away. “Please tell me,” she said, “that Kiki Pew’s jewels are safe and sound in the coroner’s vault.”

Crosby shook his head. “Nothing’s been removed from the body since it was found. There wasn’t any necklace or earrings.”

“So the killer stole them.”

“Looks that way, yes.”

“Isn’t that what you people call a ‘promising lead’?”

“It is,” the chief replied tightly. “Thank you, Mrs. Riptoad.”

“You’re welcome, Jerry. Now get the fuck on it.”

EIGHT

The most desirable sea mollusk on the planet is the queen conch, too scrumptious for its own good. Once abundant throughout the shallows and coral reefs of South Florida, the slow-growing snail was nearly wiped out by fritter-crazed divers in the 1970s. Domestic harvesting of the species was outlawed.

Today, the United States consumes eighty percent of all commercially sold conch. Most of it comes from the Bahamas and Caribbean islands, where the spiky, porcelain-lipped shells are plucked from the bottom one at a time by free divers. A small pick or screwdriver is used to punch a hole in the tip, severing the tissue connecting the animal’s tough, coiled body to its mobile lair. The flesh—a slimy, unappealing muscle—is then pulled from the shell and tenderized with a mallet. The noisy ritual may be witnessed by anyone fortunate enough to be visiting an island when a conch boat pulls up to the dock. Lucky tourists may be offered bags of the fresh cutlets, to be immersed in the nearest fryer or diced into a salad.

A queen conch that reaches five years in age might weigh several pounds. About one of every ten thousand Strombus gigas specimens produces a small colorful pearl, the gastric equivalent of a glamour kidney stone, though only a very small percent are gem quality. The calcareous masses are discovered by fishermen when the conch is removed from the water and dislodged from its shell. Many pearls have a pink hue; others are shades of yellow, brown or salmon. A precious few feature a striking flame-like pattern. Some of the pearls are oval, some are elongated. Perfectly round ones are absurdly rare.

Conch pearls appeared first in Edwardian jewelry and later in Art Nouveau pieces popular during the early twentieth century. Interest ebbed after World War I with the rise of Art Deco, and for a long time afterward the international market was negligible. If you were in the conch trade, the money was in the meat. The pearls were peddled locally as inexpensive souvenirs.

But in the late 1980s, commercial interest in the gems resurged and the prices began to rise. Conch divers from Bermuda to Belize became more attentive when extracting the otherwise homely mollusks. In 2012, Sotheby’s auctioned a 1920s-era enamel bracelet made with diamonds and conch pearls for $3.5 million. It wasn’t long before Cartier, Mikimoto and Tiffany began designing expensive conch-pearl pendants, earrings and rings. The shape, size and coloration of the pearls influence the price at dockside in Freeport, as well as in the shops of Manhattan. Exceptionally radiant specimens can fetch as much as $15,000 per carat.

None of these facts were known to Diego Beltrán. Nor was he aware that the bubblegum-colored ball that he’d picked up from the gravel between two railroad ties had been catapulted from the open trunk of a stolen Malibu jouncing across the tracks carrying a deceased, headless python.

Now Diego’s pearl was being rolled between the thumb and hairy forefinger of a middle-aged police detective, who asked, “Where’d you get this?”

Diego told him.

“Bullshit,” the detective said. “Where’s Keever Bracco?”

“Who?”

“Prince Paladin, your partner. I guess you want to play games.”

“Never heard of him,” said Diego. He pointed at the pearl. “What’s that got to do with this?”

“It’s from a stolen necklace, Mr. Beltrán. By the way, where’d you pawn the diamonds?”

“What diamonds?”

“The victim’s diamonds, you cocksucker.”

Diego was thunderstruck. “What victim?”

He and the detective sat facing each other across a bare table in a dreary taupe interview room that smelled liked Clorox and boiled urine. The night