Free Octopus Alibi by Tom Corcoran Page A

time, I had figured. There’d always be another chance to catch up on chat, to show off new pictures, to have a quiet glass of green tea on her screened porch.
    Naomi Douglas had helped other artists besides me. She had been a visionary, a volunteer, and a person who smiled more than she frowned. The world needs more like that. As of right then, it was short one and I was minus one fine friend.
    I was inside shaving when the brass bell clanged. Marnie stood at the door, dressed for a day in the “home office”: running shorts, a tank top, a ball cap on backward. I waved her in, invited her to make more coffee, and finished getting dressed.
    “He left at seven-thirty, driving.”
    “Will the Bronco make it past Tavernier?”
    “I dropped him at the airport. He reserved a car.”
    “Here’s to dependable transportation,” I said. “I didn’t see you at the house last night. I was on the front porch with Sam for almost an hour.”
    “Here’s to Dinner Party Sam. I wasn’t home until midnight. I was out on the dark city streets, playing journalist detective, getting the lowdown on Yvonne Gomez.”
    “And?”
    “Steve Gomez was brokenhearted. A friend told him that Yvonne was screwing around. Her thing was to go to motels with tourists during city commission meetings. She would turn on the TV while they did their thing. As long as the mayor was right there in his official chair, in grainy black-and-white, he never could catch her. But secrets don’t last long on this island. I guess he confronted her. She told him she wanted out of the marriage. She wasn’t after money, either, because she had her own. She didn’t care what she got, as long as she got rid of him. She moved out and rented a cottage on Love Lane, of all places. She called it her Love Shack.”
    “Cold woman,” I said.
    “Broke his heart. It explains a lot. Of course, somebody might argue that this constant east wind drove him crazy.”
    “Why ‘Dinner Party Sam’?”
    “You know how he is. He’s always got to rise to the occasion, answer the call, do the right thing. His one big flaw, living out his macho self-image. We had a dinner party going last year for people I work with and their spouses or partners. Sam got a phone call. Captain Turk’s motor had died out by the Snipe Keys. It was a half hour before sunset, and we had eight guests sitting down to dinner. Sam didn’t think twice. He went to his boat, powered out to the Snipes, and towed Turk in. He got home, smelling of sweat and beer, just as our last guests left.”
    “It’s the rule of the sea…”
    “The rule of the house was that he did all the dishes. Anyway, back to last night, Sam went to bed early. This morning he woke me up before the sun came up. He was, let’s say, amorous and vigorous. So if I look like I’m walking bowlegged…”
    “You look like a woman on a mission of her own.”
    “As did your girlfriend yesterday afternoon. Sam said he pulled you out of dinner at Camille’s.”
    “She got home after the garbage trucks,” I said.
    “I guess we all learn things about our housemates.”
    “Why does my life have to be this rolling sine wave of information?” I said. “It’s good news, bad news, and I’m not begging for a boring straight line…”
    “She moves into your home, then doesn’t come home…”
    “Last week I watched Teresa do a wonderful thing. I didn’t know she spoke French, never heard her say a word of it. She knows French as well as we know English. We were in Fausto’s, in the checkout line. This woman barged to the front feigning bewilderment, excusing herself in French and pointing to the baby she held in her arm. I assumed a diaper emergency. Teresa said something in French and the woman butted back out and went to the rear of the line. Outside on the sidewalk I asked Teresa what she’d said. She’d told the lady that her child didn’t smell like caca, but the lady’s breath smelled like beer. She told her she’d call