Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

8

I said, “I take care of Conrad Ferrelli’s dog. I suppose you know what happened to Conrad.”

His face sobered. “Oh, God, yes, I’m sick about it. Conrad was a great guy. It’s just inconceivable that somebody would—”

“I know about the retirement home Conrad was funding. Will those plans still go forward now that he’s dead?”

He frowned. “Why would you ask that?”

“People in the circus community think it won’t. They say Conrad’s brother will put a stop to it. Is that true?”

His voice got a frosty edge. “Ms. Hemingway, I don’t see what any of this has to do with pet-sitting.”

Although I hadn’t been invited, I sat down in one of the rump-sprung leather chairs facing his desk.

“I saw Conrad’s killer driving away in Conrad’s car. I thought it was Conrad, so I waved to him. I was only a few feet away, and he could see me clearly. This afternoon somebody left a message on my answering machine that said You’re next. I think the killer thinks I can identify him.”

“And you can’t?”

“All I actually saw was Conrad’s dog in the backseat.”

He gave me a look meaning So?

“Look, everybody says Denton Ferrelli hated the circus and everything connected to it. I think he might have killed Conrad to stop it.”

He sat down behind his desk. “That’s a serious accusation.”

“I’m not asking you to decide if he’s the killer, I’m just asking you to tell me how the Ferrelli money will be used for the circus home.”

He fiddled with a gold-capped pen for a moment and then laid it down decisively.

“Angelo Ferrelli set up several philanthropic trusts. Each is an independent nonprofit with its own charitable focus and its own fiduciary and organizational responsibilities. One makes grants to environmental causes, one to health initiatives, one to education and the arts, one to community enrichment. They’re all under the discretionary trusteeship of a trust company that Angelo headed until his death. Then Conrad took over.”

Being too mathematically challenged to balance a checkbook, most of what he said sailed over my head, but I thought I got the main idea.

I said, “Which one of the trusts is funding the circus retirement home?”

“Actually, none of them. Conrad formed a separate foundation for that. His idea was to have each of the trusts contribute to it as a part of its own philanthropic purpose. The trust devoted to health issues will provide money for the medical care of the residents, the education trust will provide funds for continuing-education classes, and so forth.”

“So what’s Denton’s role in the plan?”

“Denton is chairman of the board of the trust involved in community development. They fund building projects that improve a community’s economy and living standards. Their official statement of purpose is to provide jobs and create good communities.”

He seemed to stop himself from saying what its unofficial purpose was. He got up and went over to a wall of bookshelves where an undercounter refrigerator had been fitted.

“Would you like a cold drink? Water?”

“No, thanks.”

He leaned over and opened the door, giving me an opportunity to see the outline of a butt as toned and shapely as his shoulders. He popped the tab on a Diet Sprite and took a drink as he walked back to his desk.

“Denton’s board of directors is composed of bankers and financiers and politicians. Late last year, they brokered a deal between Sarasota County and some investment realtors for a large tract of gulfside land. The plan was to put a parking lot and dock for a casino boat there. They were going to build an administration building, a ticket office, the whole works. Denton even talked the state engineering department into agreeing to dredge a mooring for the boat. They claimed it would give jobs to a lot of people, plus bring in money people won on the casino boat. To sweeten the whole plan, some state senators and lobbyists in Denton’s pocket were pushing hard to get Indian land casinos declared illegal.”

He took another pull on the Sprite and gave me a half smile. “Like my people might actually get a break now and then.”

“You’re Indian?”

“One-quarter Seminole, just enough to make me pay attention to the fact that the state never recognized Indian nations or made treaties with them.”

I looked at his high cheekbones and square jawline. He was one fine-looking Seminole.

He said, “Anyway, when Conrad got wind of Denton’s casino-ship deal, he went ballistic. It was not only in direct opposition to about a hundred environmental standards of the trusteeship, it smelled in a lot of other ways as well. Casino boats are unlicensed, unregulated, unscrutinized. They operate in international waters where anything goes, including money laundering. Conrad used his power as head of the trusteeship company and put a stop to it. Instead, he directed that the acquired land be used as a site for the circus retirement home. In other words, he pissed on Denton’s parade.”

“And he made you head of the foundation to build the home.”

“Correct.”

“Who will run the discretionary trust now that Conrad’s gone?”

“His successor will be elected by the board. Most likely it will be his wife. She’s closely involved and highly capable.”

“So the circus home will go forward regardless of Conrad’s death.”

“I don’t see how Denton can stop it. He’s furious about it, but the way his father set the whole operation up is set in stone. My guess is he’s busy as a cat covering shit before the trusteeship looks too closely at the way he finagled the land deal.”

I took a deep breath. “I never dreamed that circus clowns made so much money.”

“Angelo was a shrewd investor. He had an uncanny knack for selecting winning companies and becoming a major stockholder. He screened out ones he thought were bad for the environment or for people’s health, and it paid off. All told, the trusts he set up pay out something like fifty million a year in grants.”

“Do you know a man named Brossi?”

“Leo Brossi? Yeah.”

“He went to Conrad with a story about how his father was Angelo’s brother. He said his father had originated the Flutter-By act back in Italy when he and Angelo were boys, and he wanted some of the money Angelo had left.”

He shook his head. “Leo Brossi’s a con artist always one step ahead of a posse, but I can’t see him murdering anybody.”

“You have any idea who did?”

“Believe me, Dixie, if I did, I’d be the first one to tell the police. I liked Conrad a lot.”

I noticed he had switched to calling me Dixie instead of Ms. Hemingway. I stood up and held out my hand.

“Thanks for talking to me, Ethan.”

“Did it help?”

“Not really, but it was informative.”

“Maybe we could get together sometime and talk about something besides murder or trust funds.”

I turned so fast that I almost tripped over my own feet.

This time he couldn’t help but hear my heels clacking on the stairs. I sounded like a drummer beating a fast retreat. Ethan Crane probably thought I found him repulsive. He probably thought I was a rude, ungracious nut. If I hadn’t been so embarrassed, I would have gone back upstairs and explained that I was … what? An untouchable? A cloistered pseudo-nun made virginal again by widowhood? Or maybe truly an ungracious nut.

As I reached toward the downstairs door to push it open, somebody else pulled it from the other side. Guidry stood in the gaping doorway, one linen-sleeved arm holding the door to the side, his eyes taking in my short skirt and high heels, his face registering about a dozen different emotions.

“Dixie.” Flat-voiced, not letting any surprise slip through.

“Guidry.”

Still holding the door open, he stepped aside so I could go through on my stilty heels.

He said, “I think we’d better talk.”

He nodded toward an open-air café across the street. It wasn’t exactly an order he’d given me, but it wasn’t a social invitation either. Wordlessly, we waited for a break in traffic, and then walked over the steaming pavement to a sweaty, dispirited place where plastic tables crouched under a thatched roof and a scattering of wilted patrons were sucking cold drinks through clear straws. Ceiling fans whirred overhead to circulate hot air and scare away flies, and a few black seagulls strutted about picking up microscopic crumbs from the paved floor.

A mustached man’s head appeared in the window where orders were dispensed, and Guidry called, “We’d like a couple of iced teas.”

The head disappeared, and Guidry tapped his slim fingers on the plastic tabletop.

“You mind telling me why you were at Ethan Crane’s office?”

“I wanted to ask him some things.”

“I guess you have a key to his house, and he discusses all his cases with you while you take care of his furry friend.”

“Wrong on both counts, Guidry. I’ve never even met Ethan Crane’s furry friend.”

The mustached man came out carrying two tall paper cups with plastic lids. He plunked them on the table and pulled out two straws and a stack of paper napkins from his apron pocket.

“Anything else?”

Guidry put down a five-dollar bill and shook his head. “That’s all, thanks.”

I peeled the paper off my straw and jammed it in the X-spot on the plastic lid.

I said, “Conrad Ferrelli named Ethan Crane to head the foundation that’s going to build a home for retired circus professionals. The circus people I’ve talked to are afraid it won’t happen now that Conrad’s dead. They think Denton Ferrelli will put a stop to it. I wanted to know if he could, so I went to see Ethan Crane to find out.”

Guidry’s gray eyes looked at me over the top of his paper cup. He didn’t look natural with a plastic straw stuck in his lips. I doubted that he’d sucked through a lot of straws. Probably had a butler do that for him.

He said, “Aside from the fact that a murder investigation is going on and you’re not part of it, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I don’t have to get your permission to talk to people, Guidry.”

“So what did you find out? Can Denton Ferrelli stop the retirement home from being built?”

I wondered if that was the question Guidry had planned to ask Ethan Crane himself. Maybe he had a point. Maybe I had interfered in a murder investigation. The possibility that I had made my voice a bit defensive.

“It doesn’t sound like he can. Angelo Ferrelli set up some trust funds that are all under the control of a company that serves as trustee. Conrad was CEO of the trustee company. Denton heads a trust that improves communities, and he brokered a deal that bought a big piece of real estate. The plan was to dock a casino boat there, but Conrad squashed the deal. He took the property for a circus retirement home, and when it’s built all the various trusts will funnel some of their funds into it. Denton is pissed about it, but there’s not much he can do to stop it.”

“So he doesn’t stand to gain from Conrad’s death?”

“Evidently not.”

“You sound disappointed.”

I shrugged. “Everybody who knows Denton Ferrelli says he’s a thoroughly hateful person. He resented Conrad. He hated the way he dressed. He hated his involvement with the circus.”

“Hatred’s a pretty strong motivation for murder.”

“But he’s hated him all his life. Why kill him now, if he’s not going to benefit from it?”

Guidry’s straw made a rude sound at the bottom of his paper cup, and he put the cup down with an annoyed frown.

“You didn’t have any reason except curiosity for wanting to find out about Denton Ferrelli?”

The memory of the voice on my answering machine coiled in my head. I didn’t want to sound like a damsel in distress, but playing tight-lipped martyr could get me knocked off by some psychotic killer.

“A man left a message on my answering machine this afternoon. Just two words: You’re next.”

“You thought it was Denton Ferrelli?”

“I don’t know who it was.”

He tilted his head toward the slim leather handbag I’d laid on the edge of the table.

“You carrying?”

“Yes.”

“Got a CCW?”

I rolled my eyes and gave him an are-you-kidding? look. Up north, especially in landlocked states, it’s illegal to carry a concealed handgun. In swamp-ridden Florida, it’s damn near mandatory. The state’s official stance is, Hey, man, we’re sticking out down here like the country’s hind tit, surrounded by oceans and alligators and Commie Cubans, threatened by hurricanes and tidal waves and foreign tourists, and we by God need to be able to shoot something. Over eight million of us consequently have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, otherwise known as a CCW. That’s why so many retired geezers in Florida wear belly packs over their shorts and knit shirts—they’re carrying semiautomatics. It’s a miracle more of them don’t blow their nuts off.

Guidry sat for a moment twisting his tall paper cup on the table, his face pensive as if trying to make a decision. He snapped the cup down on the table and looked up at me, his eyes clear and direct.

“Dixie, this is strictly confidential, but I want you to be careful. This murder has psychopath written all over it.”

I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat and stared at him. There’s a fine distinction between a sociopath and a psychopath, and homicide detectives are careful about it. Sociopaths kill for the hell of it, just because they can. Murder is a cool clinical activity for them. Because they don’t see their victims as fellow human beings, there’s nothing personal about it. But when a psychopath kills, it’s personal. Psychopaths kill with a passionate hatred born of irrational fury over real or imagined injustices. Like a venomous brain cancer that consumes reason, psychopathic hatred gains intensity once it’s unleashed, spilling over to include anybody in the way. When they’ve killed once, psychopaths not only feel personally vindicated, they want to kill again.

I said, “Why do you think that? The lipsticked grin?”

“When we removed Conrad Ferrelli’s body, we found a dead kitten under him. The coroner thinks it suffocated under Conrad. But before Conrad fell on it, the kitten’s legs had been broken.”

My stomach quivered. “I don’t understand.”

“My guess is that somebody broke the kitten’s legs and left it in the bushes for Conrad to hear crying. Conrad is on the street, hears the kitten, goes in to see what it is, and the killer gets him while he’s bending over looking at it. If I’m right, it wasn’t the murder that gave the killer satisfaction, it was seeing Conrad’s pain when he found that poor damned kitten.”

I felt swimmy-headed. The thought of somebody doing something so cruel to a kitten was almost more than I could take.

Guidry said, “Most killers get rid of somebody they think needs to die, and that’s the end of it. Psychopaths aren’t like that. They get their jollies from the way their victims die, not because they’re dead. Whoever killed Conrad Ferrelli wanted that hurt kitten to be the last thing he saw.”

“Conrad always drove Reggie to the beach to run, so I don’t know why the killer thought he would be on the street. Or why he was on the street, for that matter. And how could the killer be sure Conrad would hear the kitten and come looking for it?”

“I don’t know. That’s the hole in my theory. I’m just saying it was somebody with a particularly twisted mind who killed Conrad Ferrelli, so I want you to be especially careful.”

My pulse was pounding at the base of my throat. I thought of the feeling I’d had when I came home that afternoon that somebody had been in my apartment. But it had probably been my imagination. It had probably been fear making me paranoid. No sense mentioning it to Guidry and having him think I was a hysterical nut case.

He said, “Don’t go out and try to solve this. It’s too dangerous. Lay low, keep your protection handy, and let me handle it.”

The conversation was over. We both stood up, and he gave my legs in the tall sandals another sweeping glance.

“I’ll see you, Dixie.”

He left me under the thatched roof and walked across the street to disappear inside Ethan Crane’s building. I hoped Ethan wouldn’t be asleep when Guidry got there.