nightmare
after that. She listed it as a short-term rental, and we never had a
real neighbor there again. They'd come and go, sometimes every week.
European tourists who partied in South Beach all night, then came back
to continue the party. Music would blast us right out of our beds at
four a.m. Sometimes two dozen people were living there, some—"
"—for only a weekend," Stan said. "That's illegal. The city doesn't
allow short-term rentals in a residential neighborhood. But she was a
widow—"
"—with a baby," Joan said. "Nobody wanted to turn her in. But her
tenants were speeding up and down our street where children play. It
wasn't their neighborhood. They didn't care."
"She put the place on the market back in 2000, after real estate
prices skyrocketed," Stan said. "We were relieved."
"We looked forward to real neighbors again," Joan said.
"But it got worse," Stan said. "She sold the place for a huge profit
to a contractor who builds those damn McMansions on spec. That should
be against the law. Look at that monstrosity." He pulled the drapes
back and stared in disgust across the street.
"Dwarfs everything around it. Completely out of scale and out of
place. Destroys the character of the neighborhood. More than seven
thousand square feet of house on a nine-thousand-square-foot lot! Eight
bedrooms, eight baths, plus maids' quarters. The next-door neighbors
feel like bugs under a microscope. All those tall windows looking down
at them in their traditional, typical one-story South Florida
twenty-two-hundred-square-foot house. The ceilings in that eyesore are
so high that—"
"—it must be like living in a post office," Joan said.
"They build lot line to lot line," Stan complained. "The politicians
sold us out to builders and developers whose sole purpose is to pave
over as much green space as possible."
"I cried when they cut down the shade trees," Joan said. "Two
magnificent live oaks, a kapok tree, and a baobob. You should have seen
their gorgeous canopies."
"Isn't there an ordinance against that?" Burch peered out at the
offending structure. "I thought they were protected."
"They are," Stan said. "You need a permit and a good reason to
remove them. We reported them to the tree police, you know, DERM, the
Department of Environmental Resource Management. They took action, but
the penalties are a joke. They bought after-the-fact permits and paid
small fines." He shrugged. "The penalties aren't stiff enough to be a
deterrent. The builders are too rich to care. They consider it the
price of doing business."
"Meanwhile Miami has fewer trees than ninety percent of American
cities," Stan said. "That's the reason it's so damn hot. All the
concrete and asphalt."
"They may regret cutting those trees down," Nazario said. "Santeria
worshipers believe that the kapok and baobobs house spirits who will
bring harm to those who destroy them."
"Hope so," Stan said. "That same builder's putting up another
concrete monster around the corner."
"Did you notice the color of this one?" Joan wrinkled her nose. "I
don't know if any of you detectives ever changed a diaper, but it's the
same color as baby poop. Who on earth would paint a house that shade?"
"People with more money than sense." Her husband let go of the
drape, which fell gracefully back into place.
"Who lives there now?" Stone asked.
"Good question," Stan said. "Latinos bought it two years ago, and to
tell you the truth, I couldn't even tell you their names or what they
look like. They drive in. They drive out. Their SUVs all have
dark-tinted windows. In a neighborhood where we all used to know each
other and all the kids, dogs, cats, and kissing cousins by first name."
"You ever hear from Terrell's widow?" Burch inquired.
Joan shook her head. "Natasha remarried, I think, a man who was in
business with her late husband. Terrell was a pharmacist, you know,
owned that big corner drugstore on Coral Way. The place had been there
forever, a landmark. They had the best
after that. She listed it as a short-term rental, and we never had a
real neighbor there again. They'd come and go, sometimes every week.
European tourists who partied in South Beach all night, then came back
to continue the party. Music would blast us right out of our beds at
four a.m. Sometimes two dozen people were living there, some—"
"—for only a weekend," Stan said. "That's illegal. The city doesn't
allow short-term rentals in a residential neighborhood. But she was a
widow—"
"—with a baby," Joan said. "Nobody wanted to turn her in. But her
tenants were speeding up and down our street where children play. It
wasn't their neighborhood. They didn't care."
"She put the place on the market back in 2000, after real estate
prices skyrocketed," Stan said. "We were relieved."
"We looked forward to real neighbors again," Joan said.
"But it got worse," Stan said. "She sold the place for a huge profit
to a contractor who builds those damn McMansions on spec. That should
be against the law. Look at that monstrosity." He pulled the drapes
back and stared in disgust across the street.
"Dwarfs everything around it. Completely out of scale and out of
place. Destroys the character of the neighborhood. More than seven
thousand square feet of house on a nine-thousand-square-foot lot! Eight
bedrooms, eight baths, plus maids' quarters. The next-door neighbors
feel like bugs under a microscope. All those tall windows looking down
at them in their traditional, typical one-story South Florida
twenty-two-hundred-square-foot house. The ceilings in that eyesore are
so high that—"
"—it must be like living in a post office," Joan said.
"They build lot line to lot line," Stan complained. "The politicians
sold us out to builders and developers whose sole purpose is to pave
over as much green space as possible."
"I cried when they cut down the shade trees," Joan said. "Two
magnificent live oaks, a kapok tree, and a baobob. You should have seen
their gorgeous canopies."
"Isn't there an ordinance against that?" Burch peered out at the
offending structure. "I thought they were protected."
"They are," Stan said. "You need a permit and a good reason to
remove them. We reported them to the tree police, you know, DERM, the
Department of Environmental Resource Management. They took action, but
the penalties are a joke. They bought after-the-fact permits and paid
small fines." He shrugged. "The penalties aren't stiff enough to be a
deterrent. The builders are too rich to care. They consider it the
price of doing business."
"Meanwhile Miami has fewer trees than ninety percent of American
cities," Stan said. "That's the reason it's so damn hot. All the
concrete and asphalt."
"They may regret cutting those trees down," Nazario said. "Santeria
worshipers believe that the kapok and baobobs house spirits who will
bring harm to those who destroy them."
"Hope so," Stan said. "That same builder's putting up another
concrete monster around the corner."
"Did you notice the color of this one?" Joan wrinkled her nose. "I
don't know if any of you detectives ever changed a diaper, but it's the
same color as baby poop. Who on earth would paint a house that shade?"
"People with more money than sense." Her husband let go of the
drape, which fell gracefully back into place.
"Who lives there now?" Stone asked.
"Good question," Stan said. "Latinos bought it two years ago, and to
tell you the truth, I couldn't even tell you their names or what they
look like. They drive in. They drive out. Their SUVs all have
dark-tinted windows. In a neighborhood where we all used to know each
other and all the kids, dogs, cats, and kissing cousins by first name."
"You ever hear from Terrell's widow?" Burch inquired.
Joan shook her head. "Natasha remarried, I think, a man who was in
business with her late husband. Terrell was a pharmacist, you know,
owned that big corner drugstore on Coral Way. The place had been there
forever, a landmark. They had the best
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