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.”“The cleaning lady.” Ricca’s voice was like wet gravel.Rolvaag flipped through the back pages of his notebook.“Here it is—Mr.Perrone said you were the cleaning lady and I could check it out myself.He said your first name was Ricca, but he couldn’t remember your last name.”Ricca swallowed hard, working her jaw.“So I got it off the toll records from the phone company,” the detective said.Ricca rose, rubbing her eyes with a wrinkled pajama sleeve.“Listen, I gotta get ready for work.”“Is there anything else you can tell me?” Rolvaag asked.“Yeah.I don’t do houses, I do hair,” she said.“And Chaz’s burglar alarm was broke, so the code didn’t matter anyway.You can check it out.”Not exactly a smoking gun, Rolvaag thought, but it’s better than nothing.Back at the office, he rushed to tell Captain Gallo everything that Ricca Spillman had said.Gallo shrugged.“So, Perrone lied.”“Again,” Rolvaag said.“So, he had a secret squeeze.Doesn’t make him a killer,” the captain said.“Of course he lied about the phone call.What’d you expect him to say—‘Yes, Officer, I was just chatting with my girlfriend.She was all broken up to hear about my wife falling overboard and drowning on our anniversary cruise.’ Come on, Karl.Sometimes a lie isn’t a clue to anything.It’s just a reflex.”On that subject, Rolvaag could not dispute Gallo’s insight.The detective pleaded for a few more days to lean on Ricca.“She’s highly pissed off at Perrone.She might give us something useful.”Gallo shook his head.“If she’s not wearin’ a diamond engagement ring from your prime suspect, I ain’t interested.We need a motive, Karl.Something more reliable than the word of a sulking bimbo—unless she was in on it, too.”“Not likely,” Rolvaag said.A courier appeared with a plain cardboard envelope zippered in plastic.Gallo automatically reached for it, but the courier said it was addressed to Rolvaag.Surprised, the detective opened the envelope and removed a legal-size document.Gallo cracked, “What’s that, a paternity suit?”Rolvaag was so engrossed in the contents that he wasn’t listening.“What?” Gallo pressed.“And don’t tell me it’s another job offer.”The detective continued reading, turning the pages.“I’ll be damned,” he murmured to himself.Gallo exhaled impatiently.“Karl, don’t make me pull rank.What the hell is it?”Rolvaag glanced up with bemusement.“The last will and testament of Joey Perrone,” he said, “leaving thirteen million dollars to her loving, devoted husband.”SeventeenA tow truck dragging a rust-pocked Cordoba nearly clipped Karl Rolvaag’s unmarked sedan as he turned into West Boca Dunes Phase II.The detective noticed the battered old car on the hook, figuring that kids from across the tracks must have stolen the thing and ditched it in Charles Perrone’s neighborhood.Nobody who lived there would be caught dead driving a heap like that.Rolvaag parked next to Perrone’s yellow Humvee, its leering chrome grille speckled with bug splats.Parked crookedly in the swale was a second car, a spotless new Grand Marquis.The bar-code sticker on a side window pegged it as a rental.Rolvaag touched the hood, which was cold.He heard someone hammering behind the house and walked around to the backyard, where a man he recognized as Earl Edward O’Toole was pounding a white wooden cross into the lawn.The detective set down his briefcase and identified himself.He said, “Were you a friend of Mrs.Perrone’s?”Earl Edward O’Toole seemed thrown by the question.He shook his head negatively and went on hammering.“Is the cross for her?” Rolvaag asked.Earl Edward O’Toole mumbled something indecipherable.Rolvaag stepped closer in order to read the hand-lettered inscription on the cross:Randolph Claude GuntherBorn 2-24-57Returned to the Forgiving Arms ofOur Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on 8-17-02Please Don’t Drink and Drive!“Friend of yours?” Rolvaag asked.“My dog,” said Earl Edward O’Toole, avoiding eye contact.“That’s quite a name for a dog.Randolph Claude Gunther
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