huffed at her. She stepped back and saluted as the animal grumpily walked into the woods. In a perfect world, it would never again catch the scent of a Pop-Tart.
For a while Angie cruised slowly along the back roads of the reservation, hoping to see a panther or a bear. She didn’t get home until seven-thirty. Joel was sitting in her TV chair watching a PBS special about calving glaciers.
“I thought this was your dad’s weekend,” said Angie.
“He asked me to skip his turn.”
“Ah. The equestrian must be visiting.”
“Actually, they’re living together now,” Joel said.
“Well, well.”
“And she can’t ride for a while. She got thrown and cracked her pelvis.”
“Ouch. What’s your old man going to do for fun? Or should I say who?”
“She’s getting around pretty good. You want a drink, Mom?”
Joel fixed her the usual, a tall gin-and-tonic. He showed up every other weekend, as if there was court-ordered custody sharing. He and Angie joked about it. She felt good that her grown ex-stepson still cared enough to hang out with her. A while had passed since Joel’s father, Dustin, had divorced her. It had happened when Angie still worked for the state.
The kid had been a senior at FSU when she left for prison, fourteen months at Gadsden Correctional. On Angie’s orders, Joel didn’t visit. Soon after graduating, he moved back south and began alternating weekends between his dad’s place in West Palm and Angie’s apartment in Lake Worth. Sometimes he brought along a girlfriend, and sometimes the girlfriend showed promise.
“Tell me some stories,” he said to Angie.
“Well, let’s see. I had a fragrant morning in Margate, your basic dead opossum-under-a-porch. Next call was two feral cats behind the funeral home in Coral Springs, then a raccoon at a townhouse in West Boca.”
“Dumpster coon?”
“Break-in artist. Big sucker, too.”
Joel, who’d majored in business, had helped Angie Armstrong set up her critter-removal company, Discreet Captures. He’d even ordered magnetized signs for her truck, though Angie removed them because people kept flagging her down to ask if she was one of those TV bounty hunters.
Joel said, “Let’s grab dinner.”
“I need to clean up first.”
He pinched his nose and said, “Take all the time you need.”
When Angie stepped out of the shower, her phone was ringing. The caller ID showed the 561 area code. A man on the other end identified himself as “Tripp Teabull, with two P’s.” He said he managed the Lipid estate in Palm Beach.
Angie asked, “Did Mr. Lipid die and leave me some money?”
“Not that kind of estate. It’s a private compound on the island.”
“So you would be the caretaker.”
“Manager,” Teabull said tautly. “We need you out here right away.”
“It’s late, sir, and I have a dinner date,” Angie said. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
“What we’ve got is a nightmare.”
“No offense, but everyone who calls me says that.”
“Does everyone who calls offer you a fee of two thousand dollars?”
Angie stepped back into her dirty khakis.
“The address, please,” she said.
* * *
—
She drove up the driveway of Lipid House and pulled into the valet line. Moments later a brawny, brick-headed fellow in a pale tuxedo approached her truck and asked to see her invitation.
“I have none, sir.”
“You must be at the wrong place. This is the Stars-and-SARS event.” The man wore an ear bud, and a peanut microphone clipped to his lapel. He said, “Please turn this vehicle around and leave.”
Angie said she’d been summoned by the manager of the estate. “He made it sound like an emergency,” she added.
Brick Head relayed this information to his lapel and awaited instructions. Dutifully he stayed beside the pickup as Angie inched forward in the valet line. Ahead of them, couples were emerging with varying degrees of fragility from limousines, hired sedans and private luxury cars. Angie noted an absence of SUVs, which are impossible to exit gracefully in formal wear. All the women wore long gowns; evidently the men had been ordered not to deviate from tuxes.
Finally Brick Head tapped on Angie’s windshield and said, “Mr. Teabull wants you at the service gate right away. You’ll definitely need to turn around.”
But Angie was too far along for that; in her rearview glowed a train of headlights stretching all the way to the road. Brick Head attempted to create a gap in the line, but the hunched white-haired driver of the Jaguar glued to Angie’s bumper refused to yield, defiantly rolling up his window when the security man approached.
The procession moved slowly toward the portico, where an elaborate ice