Squeeze Me - Carl Hiaasen Page 0,33
law-enforcement brethren.”
“Don’t. I’m serious.”
“Oh, stop worrying,” said Angie. “It’s not your case, remember?”
* * *
—
Uric used a burner phone to dial the hotline, in case the cops were tracing the calls. Nobody ever picked up, so Uric left several recorded messages saying he was ready to claim the $100,000 reward, since it was his tip that had led authorities to Mrs. Fitzsimmons’s body. At the end of each call Uric carefully recited his confidential code—the numerals and letters were still visible in Sharpie ink on his wrist because he hadn’t bathed since disposing of Prince Paladin.
Surely the old woman’s relatives intended to pay in cash; sending a check or wire transfer would require that the tipster provide an ID, defeating the whole point of an anonymous hotline. Uric figured that, once he connected with an actual human, he’d be given directions to the family’s bank. There he would simply show his wrist to a teller and collect his hundred grand.
He’d spent the night in the back of his van, the odor so foul that it kept him awake. He looked forward to buying something newer after collecting the Fitzsimmons reward. For now he was suffering at a Walmart, parked among the vehicles of other budget-conscious overnighters—mostly in RVs and pop-up campers. Although Uric still had some of the pawn money from the dead lady’s jewels, he chose not to waste it on a hotel room. Staying in the Walmart lot was free.
To kill time he wandered the aisles of the store, luridly appraising listless housewives while loading his shopping cart with pet diapers, hoverboard batteries, orchid-scented sun block, fluorescent cross-trainers, candied pomegranates and other useless crap. He abandoned the cart at the deli counter after ordering a pepperoni-and-meatball hoagie. Outside, in the parking lot, he watched a young couple nearly come to blows trying to squeeze a giant flat-screen television into their two-door Honda.
Uric popped a Coors Light and unfolded a stolen lawn chair next to his van. He pulled out the burner phone, dialed the hotline again and was pleased to hear a living person named Judith Asher answer. She sounded friendly, sharp and helpful. After Uric provided his call-in code, she confirmed that his other messages had been received and passed along to the police, as well as to the family of the late Mrs. Fitzsimmons.
Uric said, “Cool. So how long till I get paid?”
“I don’t have that information right now. You’ll have to keep checking in.”
“Here’s a better idea. Just call me as soon as the money’s ready.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible,” Judith Asher said. “To protect the privacy of our tipsters, we don’t file any phone numbers. You should try back on this line in a few days.”
Uric was irritated by her reply. “A few days? Why so long, Judith? Is there a problem?”
“I don’t have that information.”
“Are you fuckin’ serious? The cops wouldn’t never have found that old lady’s dead body weren’t for me. There wouldn’t be no big fancy funeral ’cause her kids wouldn’t have a damn thing to put in the coffin!”
“Sir, there’s no cause to use profanity. I wish I could help, but I’m just a volunteer. You really need to call back in a couple days—”
“Okay, okay. Whatever.” Uric took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Judith. Really I am. By the way, you’ve got, like, a perfect voice for this line of work. Can I ask, are you single? Because you sound single. Hello? Judith?”
At the moment Uric’s hotline hottie hung up on him, Palm Beach Police Chief Jerry Crosby was standing in the oak-paneled billiard room of Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons’s house, waiting for her sons to finish a monotonously unskilled game of eight-ball. Fay Alex Riptoad was present in her self-appointed role of family adviser, and she was engaged full-throttle.
“What did the tipster sound like on the phone?” she asked the chief.
“Late twenties, early thirties.”
“No, Jerry, I’m talking about his color. White or black?”
“He’s got a mild Southern accent.”
Fay Alex nodded. “So we can rule out the Hispanics. That helps.”
Crosby said no, his detectives couldn’t rule out anyone based on telephone recordings.
“The issue right now is what to do about the reward money, Mrs. Riptoad. Whoever this person is, it was his information that led us to Mrs. Fitzsimmons. All the other tips we got were garbage. Now, is he telling the truth about hearing it from the killer at a bar, or was he involved in the crime himself? That’s our concern.”
“Duh,” said Fay Alex.
Either