Free Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

not just because he was bored out of his skull on roach patrol. Yancy felt a cop-like responsibility to sort out the truth about Nick Stripling, whose severed arm had been the centerpiece of Yancy’s freezer during all those days when nobody had wanted it.
    Furthermore, Yancy perceived—even under the woozy sway of ganja—an opportunity for redemption in the event that Eve Stripling really had killed her husband and tried to make it look like a boat accident. If Yancy, riding solo, was able to nail the widow for homicide, what else could Sheriff Sonny Summers do but reinstate him to the force?
    That was Yancy’s last fanciful thought before floating to sleep on the kitchen counter, and awaking hours later to the sound of a scream.

Seven
    Woodrow and Ipolene Spillwright owned three houses. The first was a spacious plantation-style spread in their hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, where Woodrow had retired from an executive position with R. J. Reynolds. The second was a ranch-style home near Tempe, Arizona, where the arid climate was said to benefit those with pernicious lung disorders of the sort that afflicted Woodrow, a brainlessly faithful consumer of his employer’s tobacco products. The third Spillwright residence was a two-bedroom lakeside cottage in Maine, where the deer flies were so bloodthirsty that Ipolene (or “Ippy” as she was known in Raleigh social circles) would spool her pudgy bare ankles with Glad wrap before scuttling to the mailbox in the morning.
    In Ipolene Spillwright’s opinion, three houses were two too many for a couple pushing seventy. However, her husband had recently visited Florida with his country-club buddies and managed to land a seven-pound bonefish, a seemingly prosaic event that robbed him of all common sense. He’d returned to North Carolina and proclaimed his desire to purchase a winter home in the Keys, where he could hone his skills with a saltwater fly rod. Mrs. Spillwright told Woodrow that he’d lost his marbles but he refused to give up the quest. Their arguments were brief (for he quickly ran short of breath) yet animated. Finally, after Woodrow agreed to sell the Maine cottage and place the Arizona house in a rental pool, Ipolene said she would accompany him down to “Hemingway country” to look for a place on the water.
    Property in Key West was stupendously overpriced so Woodrowhad Googled his way up the island chain to a place called Big Pine, where someone was advertising a multistory spec home with “breathtaking sunset views.”
    Ipolene Spillwright said, “It’d better have an elevator, Woody, because you don’t have the strength for all those stairs. And what in heaven’s name are we going to do with seven thousand square feet?”
    Her husband entertained a vision of himself basking on a pearl-colored chaise, accepting a margarita from a smoky-eyed Latina housekeeper. He said, “Let’s go have a look, Ippy. What’s the harm?”
    When they emerged from the Miami airport, the first thing Ipolene Spillwright remarked upon was the gummy, sucking heat, which she predicted would kill them both before they made it to the Avis lot. Woodrow rented a white Cadillac coupe and pointed it south. He reminded Ippy that they wouldn’t be staying in Florida during the summer months and, besides, Raleigh was also a steaming armpit in August.
    It was a long drive to the Lower Keys, and the Spillwrights didn’t resume speaking until they crossed the Seven Mile Bridge, where Ipolene grudgingly remarked upon the view, a twinkling palette of indigo, turquoise and green stretching to all horizons. Woodrow Spillwright was practically levitating with joy.
    They went directly to Key West and checked into a bed-and-breakfast a few blocks off Duval Street. Although Woody was whipped, he gassed up on bottled oxygen and took Ipolene strolling through Old Town, an excursion that nearly ended disastrously when he ambled off a curb in front of a speeding ambulance. His wife pulled