Skinny-dipping (25 page)

I followed Dave and Benny to the door. “Did you get your teeth fixed?”

“Yeah, looks great, huh? Delvon and me had some loose cash after—”

I cut my eyes to Benny.

“Ah, after our, er, last harvest,
apple
harvest.” Grin, grin at me. “Hey, sweetheart, I'll take good care of your boy here.”

As Dave and Benny drove off, Benny steady at the wheel, Bonita fingered the gold cross on the chain around her neck and moved her lips in prayer. “I should not have let him go, but he is so, so...
obsessed
.” Bonita stopped and looked at me as if obsessive behavior was contagious. “He is so intense about seeing a jaguarundi.”

The phone rang, and this time I answered it.

“I've called the police on that truck. You've got to move it, now.”

“Got that nursing-home application filled out yet?” I snapped, and hung up. Mrs. Covenant Nazi had reported me to the police a number of times before. Imagine how it improved my mood to come home after ten hours at the Smith, O'Leary, and Stanley whipping post to find that a member of the city police force had pulled up my okra plants after the Nazi next door told them I was growing marijuana. I still had a pending damages claim.

“He'll be all right,” I said to Bonita, and washed my hands and poured coffee for Bonita and me, then went back to the den where the floor was covered by perfectly organized piles of stuff we still had to do.

Well, okay, maybe I'm not the Mother Teresa of godmothers, but honest, I wouldn't have let Benny go if I'd had any idea that they would find a dead body and a suitcase of money in the outreaches of Myakka.

Acknowledgments

Indulge me, please, in first acknowledging and thanking these most fabulous members of my family: my husband, William Matturro, for believing and loving and listening and being my living dictionary and never once complaining when I quit my day job to write mysteries; my parents, John and Della Hamner, who have bestowed on me many gifts, including their lifelong examples of honesty, compassion, and hard work, and for banning television from my childhood home until I was addicted to books; my brother, William Hamner, for not letting go and for being, unfailingly, friend and fan; and Mike Lehner, who with no blood or marriage ties to make him part of my family simply became so through the force of enduring friendship.

In addition to the help and support of my family, in writing this book I was blessed to have the help of friends, fellow lawyers, the HarperCollins family, and even perfect strangers. I cannot thank each of you enough but will try once more.

Steven Babitsky, esquire and president of SEAK, Inc., and a man that as of this writing I still have not met face to face, provided a most gracious gift in enthusiastically awarding an excerpt of this book first prize in the SEAK National Legal Fiction Writing for Lawyers Contest. Not only was he one of the judges in that contest, but he became chief cheerleader for me during a low point when, by phone and e-mail, he strongly encouraged me to finish the book and offered his help to me in getting it published.

The SEAK prize proved to be my toe in the door with Carolyn Marino, my editor and a vice president at HarperCollins. Not only did Carolyn let me sneak in without an agent, she has edited, encouraged, brainstormed, and answered a hundred questions or more, all with gentle good graces and patience. Her time and talents made this book sharper, funnier, and immeasurably better. I offer sincerest thanks to both Carolyn and her able assistant, Jennifer Civiletto, who not only has her own way with words and an instinct about plots but also could and did answer every question within minutes.

It would be wholly remiss of me not to acknowledge and thank Gary Larsen, one of my former law partners and the funniest lawyer I've ever met, perhaps even the funniest person I've ever met, for the loan of his “Anything wrong with your mouth?” story. Thank you, Gary.

Martin Levin, lawyer and retired publisher and author of
Be Your Own Literary Agent,
shared his vast knowledge with me, both through his book and his words. I had the great pleasure of assisting him in revising his book and researching another, and the lessons learned during those months have proved invaluable. His book
Be Your Own Literary Agent,
his advice, and his friendship helped me navigate wholly new waters.

On a legal note, let me acknowledge that the type of brain-damaged baby case that Lilly defends in this novel would more than likely be outside of the tort system under Florida's current law. In an attempt to curb the costs of liability insurance and create a no-fault system for catastrophic birth-related neurological injuries, that state adopted the Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Plan, Chapter 766, Florida Statutes, in which an administrative law judge determines such claims rather than a jury.

Perhaps the hardest job of the friends and spouse of any writer is that of telling the writer that something in a manuscript doesn't work. And that job fell repeatedly to Bill, my husband, and Mike Lehner, my friend. Both men had to convince me that about ten thousand words of the first draft of
Skinny-dipping
were utter garbage and had to go. For that unsparing honesty, I thank you both.

And on that note, let me end where I began: with my family. My husband, Bill, and my father, John, proved repetitively to be talented sounding boards and editors. Their logical minds, their command of grammar, and their awesome vocabularies kept me from many a stumble. My mother, Della Johnson Hamner, proved to have the ablest ear for dialect and language, and thus, taught me early in my writing to reach for exactly the right word. My brother, Lieutenant William Hamner of the Selma, Alabama, police department, served earnestly as my technical adviser and helped me rewrite my police officer's dialogue to realistically reflect the speech patterns of that honorable profession. There was no detail too small, no question too obscure, and no forensics query too weird for my brother to answer for me.

Books by Claire Matturro

W
ILDCAT
W
INE
S
KINNY-DIPPING

AN OCEAN OF PRAISE FOR
CLAIRE MATTURRO'S SKINNY-DIPPING

“
Skinny-dipping
is breezy and funny, with a heroine who's a magnet for trouble. Dive in!”
Lisa Scottoline, author of
Killer Smile

“Claire Matturro is a brand new writer poised to become one of the stars of this brand new era. Her attorney, Lilly Cleary, blends cynical amorality with a fetish for organic foods that perfectly reflects today's political and cultural values. I loved the fresh, original voice and am already looking forward to her next adventure.
Margaret Maron, author of
Last Lessons of Summer

“Timely, irreverent, and loads of fun,
Skinny-dipping
kept me chuckling and turning the pages until the very end.”
James Grippando, author of
Last to Die

“A bright, brassy, sexy heroine enters the lists of legal fiction with a joyful noise... Funny, sharp, savvy, both as to the courtroom and the human condition... This new kid on Grisham's block is one to watch.”
Kirkus Reviews

“We Florida writers don't need this kind of competition—and I'll be standing in line for her next one.”
Tim Dorsey, author of
Cadillac Beach

“Witty, intelligent novel of suspense... It's chick lit meets Perry Mason in this lively novel full of quirky characters and a dash of romance... Lilly's voice is irrepressible...but it's not just the smart narrative and good dialogue— Matturro, a former appellate attorney, has the legal stuff down pat.”
Publishers Weekly

“A Florida-based former attorney, Matturro has a wicked sense of comedic timing. I don't know what they put in the water down there, but she's got to be drinking from the same well as Carl Hiaasen...a great time.”
Boston Globe

“In
Skinny-dipping
, Claire Matturro takes the legal thriller firmly in hand and invigorates it with an irreverent but always on-target mix of humor, suspense and characters so real you'll swear you see these people every day... [She] combines in her debut the kind of off-the-wall humor that Janet Evanovich does so well, adds a sophisticated twist to the wit and then layers in an insider's jaundiced view of the law akin to Lisa Scottoline's novels... may prove to be among the best debuts of 2004.”
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

“A frothy confection that moves at the speed of sound, much like the main character.”
Detroit Free Press

“Lilly Cleary is an endearingly neurotic, tofu-eating sleuth who will remind readers of the stories of Janet Evanovich.”
Rocky Mountain News

Copyright

Copyright © 2004 by Claire Hammer Matturro
Excerpt from
Wildcat Wine
copyright © 2005 by Claire Hammer Matturro
ISBN: 0-06-056706-6

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EPub Edition © October 2011 ISBN: 9780062133588

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