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“There’s only one reason I’m calling.”
    “You got told to call me.”
    “Not in so many words, Rutledge. Please say you’re too busy…”
    “I’m too busy…”
    “… to snap photos of a suicide victim.”
    “I’ve pledged my late afternoon to a special project.”
    “That piece-of-crap Mustang you got?”
    “It’s a Shelby.”
    “Once again I’m right?”
    “No. I’m redoing my Weber grill. They should use me in ads. Like people who drive cars for a half-million miles. This is an early-Eighties model.”
    “Lotta value in those relics,” said Hayes.
    “I paid to have the grate sandblasted. I bought heat-resistant paint for the outside of it.”
    “This guy took himself out with a shotgun on his canal bulkhead.”
    “What did he do?” I said. “Ricochet the shot off the sidewalk?”
    “He did a Hemingway, put the barrel in his mouth.”
    “So, it wasn’t a question of aim?”
    “There isn’t much left from the earlobes back. It’s all in the canal. He was facing the house. He blew brain salad into the mangroves.”
    “I’m photographing a void? Pictures won’t show a damn thing.”
    “I was hoping you’d say that. It reaffirms my opinion of your attitude.”
    “Anybody we know?” I said.
    “Mayor Steve Gomez.”
    “Oh, shit.”
    “That’s what a lot of people are saying,” said Hayes. “City Hall will echo with the sentiments come morning.”
    “What happened to the ‘Happiest Man in Politics’?”
    “Steve cashed it in.”
    “Cootie Ortega’s not an option?”
    “He’s grieving.”
    Cootie was the city’s full-time forensic photographer and lab man. Over the past ten years he’d built a reputation for screwing up but had kept his job thanks to the century-old Conch tradition of nepotism.
    “Is Cootie grieving over Uncle Steve, or his soon-to-go patronage gig?”
    “Let’s say fifty-fifty,” said Hayes. “He started to document the scene, went maybe ten minutes, but he lost it. Broke down and wept. I have to admit it looked like genuine anguish. Maybe the guy has human emotions. Took me by surprise.”
    Hayes went silent. I stayed silent.
    He blinked first: “Okay, I’ll beg. Just this once? Out of respect for Ortega’s mourning?’”
    “If it’s open-and-shut suicide, why pictures?”
    “Butt-covering one-oh-one. In case any little thing comes up—down the road, couple of months, couple of years. It’ll look like I followed procedures, went through the motions.”
    “I’ve had a long day. You’re sweet to call.”
    “That’s the kind of guy I am. Trouble is,” he said, “you turn me down, they’ll tell me to lose your number. You’ve come to the attention of my boss, the lieutenant, the bureau commander. He wants me to find someone more dependable.”
    “I’ve always liked the odd dollar or two. You sound like you’re on your cell.”
    “Like there’s a phone booth in the mayor’s yard?”
    “They’ll be able to tell by your phone records that we talked.”
    “You better come on over.”
    “What’s his wife’s name?” I said. “I met her once.”
    “Yvonne’s a wreck. Her boss at City Electric broke the news to her. She heaved her lunch into a computer. A four-grand puke. You probably don’t know they separated a year ago.”
    “News to me.”
    “Maybe it’s what brought this on. I hear he’s been into the bottle for a few months, hiding it like most alcoholics. But, yes, she’s in the house with a dozen Cuban relatives, sisters, cousins—including Cootie, who happens to be the only male relative—and two aunts. Sometimes I think it’s worse when people are divorced or split up. The ones left behind are thinking ‘What if’ and feeling guilty. Anyway, she’s audibly upset.”
    “Gotcha. Gomez wasn’t a Conch, was he?”
    “Nope. First time I met him was when I got back to town last September. You know the house?”
    “I think so. Two big sago palms, Riviera Drive?”
    “Forty-one twenty-four,” said Hayes.