Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

13

When I made the last turn on the twisty drive leading to my place from Midnight Pass Road, I saw that neither Michael nor Paco was home. I also saw a dark Blazer parked at the side of the carport. Guidry was in it, sitting like a meditating Buddha with the windows rolled down.

I said, “Shit.”

I pulled into my slot, took the gun from the glove box and jammed it in my pocket, got out of the car, and opened the back to loop plastic grocery bags over my wrists. Guidry ambled around the corner like a tourist coming to watch the pagans do their worship rites to heathen gods. He had on a linen jacket the color of white asparagus, pale olive pants, and a darker olive knit shirt. He looked cool and unhurried. His bare toes in his expensive leather sandals looked clean and manicured. His gray eyes were calm and alert. I hated his guts.

He said, “Can I help you with those?”

I said, “I’ve got them.” I didn’t sound very gracious, but then I didn’t feel very gracious.

He followed me up my stairs and waited while I unlocked the French doors. I didn’t invite him in, but he came in anyway and took the one stool at my so-called breakfast bar, casting a speculative eye at my bare white walls. I tossed ice cream in the freezer and dumped fruit in a basket and finally looked directly at him.

He said, “Want to tell me how you got those bruises?”

“I fell.”

“Uh-hunh. Would that have been around four-thirty this morning? In the Sea Breeze parking lot?”

My face went hot and I felt my lower lip creep forward like a four-year-old’s.

He said, “We got a nine-one-one call this morning from a woman in the Sea Breeze who said she got up to go to the bathroom and saw a truck try to run a woman down in the parking lot. She said it looked like it rolled right over her. She watched the woman get up, and then she went back to bed and waited until daylight to report it. She said the truck was already gone and she didn’t want to bother anybody so early, but she thought we ought to know. She said the woman had a greyhound with her. If memory serves, you go running with a greyhound at the Sea Breeze every morning.”

I got a bottle of water from the refrigerator and opened it. Then I relented and got another one out and handed it to Guidry. While he unscrewed the cap on his, I stood on my side of the bar and took a long pull at mine. After he had chugged down half a bottle—he must have been hotter than he looked—I gave him a surly glare.

“Okay, somebody tried to run me down in the Sea Breeze parking lot this morning. They drove a pickup jacked up on huge tires, and the only reason I’m not dead is that I threw myself under it before it hit me.”

“You get plates? See the driver?”

“It was too dark. I didn’t have time. He went out on Midnight Pass Road toward the bridge.”

“Why didn’t you report it?”

“What for, Guidry? I didn’t know who it was, I didn’t have any proof, and it was probably halfway to Myakka City by the time I quit shaking.”

“You shook?”

“Damn right I shook.”

“First time I ever heard you admit you could be scared.”

“The point is, Guidry, the point is that Conrad Ferrelli’s killer thinks I can identify him, and somebody tried to kill me this morning.”

“Could be coincidence.”

“Yeah, like the moon and tides.”

“You have any idea who it could be?”

“I think it’s Denton Ferrelli. He’s a slimy guy. Everybody says he’s a jerk.”

“You want me to arrest Denton Ferrelli because he’s a jerk?”

“I just think you should look into him very carefully.”

Guidry got up from the stool and ambled into the living room area, looking around as if he were at an art gallery. “I expected you to live with a menagerie, but you don’t even have a goldfish.”

“My life works better without anybody depending on me.”

“Anybody?”

“Like a pet, I mean.”

“You don’t have any pictures on your walls either. No plants, not even a pot of ivy. You don’t seem the type to live like an ascetic.”

“What the hell does my apartment have to do with somebody trying to kill me?”

He shrugged. “I’m just trying to figure you out.”

“Somebody’s trying to kill me, Guidry. Figure that out.”

He turned and gave me a long look, his gray eyes momentarily softening before they grew analytical again.

“You know what I think?”

“No, Guidry, what do you think?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Dixie, I respect what you’ve been through, and I respect your feelings. But I think the time comes when grief becomes protective coloration to keep people away.”

Fury rose in my throat. “What do you know about it, Guidry? What do you know about losing somebody?”

“I don’t know about it, Dixie. I probably never will, because I don’t think I have it in me to care so much about somebody that I would feel the kind of loss you feel. But you do. You know what it’s like to love that much. You’ve done it, so you know you can do it again. But as long as you hide behind grief, you’ll never have to. You can stay safely outside it, live in a sterile cave, wrap yourself in pain every night instead of a man’s arms.”

My eyelids stung, and I wanted to leave him speechless while I made an indignant exit. But it’s hard to leave in high dudgeon when it’s your own apartment. Besides, I had a sneaking suspicion he was right.

Guidry said, “Relax. I’ve said all I’m going to say about it. It’s just something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

Once again, Guidry had left me feeling out of control. I hate that. Not that I want to be the one always in control. I just hate it when I’m not.

I said, “You’ve never said how Conrad died.”

“Correct.”

“I need to know. If the same person wants me dead, I need to know how he killed Conrad.”

“What makes you so sure it was a man?”

“Come on, Guidry.”

He walked back to the breakfast bar and leaned his elbows on it. For the first time since I’d known him, a river of emotions flowed over his face.

“He died of a massive injection of succinylcholine chloride shot into his right buttock. It’s a neuromuscular paralysant. It paralyzes the lungs, so lung surgeons use it while they have a patient on a ventilator.”

The words trickled through my brain like ice water. “And without a ventilator?”

“Suffocation. Heart failure. Death.”

I said, “How long?” and was surprised to hear that I was whispering.

He swallowed. “The drug gets to the diaphragm within seconds of injection. Death is within five minutes, give or take.”

I thought of Conrad, lying on the ground unable to breathe.

“Was he unconscious?”

“He was fully conscious until he died. It’s a particularly sadistic way to kill a person.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“It took the ME awhile to be sure. They had to run tissue spectrographs. They found enough of the drug in his tissues to kill an elephant, and I mean that literally. Until it was declared too inhumane, it’s what they used in Africa to cull elephant herds. They flew over in helicopters and shot the elephants with dart guns.”

“Did the ME give you a time of death?”

“She can’t be sure, Dixie, you know that. But judging from lividity and rigor, she thinks Ferrelli hadn’t been dead more than a couple of hours when you found him. That puts his murder no earlier than four-thirty. That fits with what Stevie Ferrelli says, that Conrad usually left about six to run with the dog on the beach.”

“Where was Denton Ferrelli then?”

“He and his wife both say he left their home on Longboat Key about six o’clock. He drove to the Longboat Key Moorings where he docks his speedboat. He took the boat out for a spin around the bay, something he does every morning, and docked at about six forty-five. He walked over to the harborside golf course at the Longboat Key Golf Club, where he met three other men. They waited for the greenskeepers to finish up and teed off shortly after seven o’clock.”

I slitted my eyes like a hound on a fresh scent. “Who are these three other men?”

“Leo Brossi was one.”

“Aha!”

“Yeah, maybe. But the other two are okay, at least so far as we know. State Senator Wayne Black and a banker named Quenton Dyer.”

I had a feeling I’d heard that name before, but I couldn’t remember where.

I said, “They could be lying.”

“Over a dozen people saw them.”

“Denton could be lying about when he left home. He could have got up early, driven to Siesta Key and killed Conrad, and still been on time for his golf game. It wouldn’t have taken long to cover the body with that loose mulch. And Denton’s that cold, he could do it and not break a sweat.”

“You saw Conrad Ferrelli’s car a little after six. Even if Denton and his wife are lying about the time he left home, Denton Ferrelli couldn’t have been driving the car you saw.”

“What about Brossi?”

He shook his head. “Brossi would kill his own grandmother for a buck, but Ferrelli’s murder was driven by an overwhelming rage. The lipstick on the mouth, the dead kitten. That’s motivated by hatred and revenge, not money.”

I suddenly heard Cora’s voice: That fellow Dyer had to shoot an elephant one time. It went crazy or something, and he shot it with a gun that had drugs in it.

“You said the drug was shot into Conrad? Shot how?”

“The ME found a needle puncture.”

“Guidry, that man, Quenton Dyer, the one who played golf with Denton, the one you said was a lawyer—”

Guidry was nodding like one of those duck things that bob over a glass of water.

“Yes?”

“His father was with the Ringling Circus. He worked with elephants, and one time he had to kill one with a big shot of drugs. He did it with a gun.”

I leaned back and looked triumphantly at him.

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Cora Mathers told me. You remember Cora? Marilee Doerring’s grandmother? When she lived in Bradenton, one of her neighbors was a man named Dyer. He worked for Ringling, doing something with the elephants, feeding them or training them, I don’t know what. He had a son named Quenton. It has to be the same man.”

“You think—”

“That must be how he and Denton Ferrelli met. They were both circus kids. And if Dyer’s father knew how to use drugs to kill elephants … .”

Guidry appeared to be chewing on the inside of his cheek, the first sign of uncertainty I’d ever seen in him.

“Quenton Dyer is an investment banker. He sits on the boards of half a dozen important businesses.”

“So?”

He sighed. “Okay. It does seem like more than coincidence. But the fact remains that both men were seen at the Longboat Key Golf Club at seven o’clock that morning, not too long after you saw Conrad’s car driving away.”

I slumped over the bar. If Denton Ferrelli wasn’t the killer, I didn’t know where else to look. And if I didn’t know who to be afraid of, the killer had a better chance at me.

Guidry reached out and ran the back of his fingers over my bruised cheek with a surprisingly gentle touch.

“Are you going to be here alone tonight?”

My heart did a little blip, a girlie kind of jump like women get when they’ve had a welcome proposition. I felt like slapping my own chest. I nodded, but I frowned too so he wouldn’t think I’d reacted the way I’d reacted.

He got up and headed for the front door. Then he turned and gave me a hesitant look.

“Look, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I don’t want you to take this lightly either. It’s not a good idea for you to be here by yourself if a psychopathic killer has taken an interest in you.”

“I have a thirty-eight in my pocket. I have metal hurricane shutters that cover the French doors.”

He nodded toward the window over the kitchen sink. “Somebody could come through that window. You also have a bathroom window. I checked while I waited for you.”

“It would take a two-story ladder to get in those windows.”

“Or a one-story ladder set in a pickup raised on giant tires. A pickup is a convenient place to carry a ladder.”

“Guidry, I can’t live scared. I’ll keep my gun ready. I’ll keep the windows locked. I’ll be careful.”

“When will your brother be home?”

“He should be home any time now. He was on a twenty-four-hour shift that ended this morning at eight o’clock.”

“What about Paco?”

I let his slip of the tongue pass without saying “Ha!” Guidry and Paco kept up a pretense of not knowing each other, but I’d known all along they did. Guidry was homicide and Paco was undercover, but those guys all know one another.

I said, “I don’t know when Paco will be home.” I wasn’t going to divulge any information about Paco’s schedule, not even to another cop. If Guidry wanted to know when Paco would be home, he could ask Paco.

His gray eyes studied me for a moment, and then he nodded as if he’d answered his own unspoken question.

He said, “Okay. Call me if you learn anything.” He left without looking back.

I went to the French doors and locked them and lowered the hurricane shutters, leaving their accordion edges pointed outward so light could enter through the slits on the folds. It made my apartment seem like a treehouse with sunlight filtering through leafy branches. In the bedroom, an air-conditioning unit occupied a cut-out space high on the wall. Next to the ceiling were two horizontal panes of glass, four feet wide and four inches tall. They were for light, not ventilation. Nobody bigger than a lizard could squeeze through them.

I went in the bathroom and studied the jalousied glass window. To come through it, a person would have to remove the strips of glass from the frame one by one. If I was home, I was pretty sure I would hear that. I went back to the kitchen and ate a banana and looked at the window over the sink. Guidry was right. Somebody with a ladder could come through that window, and they wouldn’t make a lot of noise doing it. I needed an alarm in that window.

Grabbing the keys to Michael’s house, I went back to the French doors, opened them, and raised the hurricane shutters. With one hand in my pocket gripping the stock of my .38 and the other hand gripping Michael’s door key, I scurried across the cypress deck to his back door. I felt like one of the little anole lizards that race around in the hot sun. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my throat had turned red and ballooned out. I let myself in the kitchen door and locked it behind me, then hurried for the stairway that led to the attic. There were zillions of our grandparents’ things stored in Michael’s attic. I was bound to find something I could use as an alarm.

Half an hour later, I was cobwebby and sweaty, but I’d found the perfect alarm to hang in my window, a rusty heart-shaped iron thing with two dozen little bells on it. It had once hung outside the kitchen door to let my grandmother know when somebody came or went. Just a touch caused all the bells to clatter with a racket loud enough to wake manatees a mile offshore.

I had also found an old trunk filled with clothes my mother had left behind. I opened the trunk and inhaled that odor peculiar to clothing that has lain dormant for a long time—a miasma of faint decay and near mold that seems to grow in the absence of a wearer. Everything inside was neatly folded. My mother hadn’t been the type to fold things haphazardly, even when she knew she’d never see them again. I pulled out a soft cotton cardigan, taupe with a thin horizontal stripe. It had been twenty-three years since she left, but I remembered that cardigan. Mother wore it with a linen skirt printed with gold sunflowers. Yes, there was the skirt, along with a linen dress in a similar print but with deeper tones. I’d never realized before how often my mother chose those colors, gold and rust and deep yellow. There was another cardigan in a pale beige, a loosely knit thing I didn’t remember.

I stacked everything on the floor and tried to remember the last time I’d seen my mother dressed in any of these clothes. Before she left us, she had started living in shapeless muumuus and terry scuffs. She would slide her feet across our sand-gritty floor, a cigarette dangling from one corner of her mouth, her blond hair unkempt and straggly. Not at all the pretty woman she’d been, but a woman dissolved by grief and anger over my father’s death. I felt a flash of recognition. I had been almost the same after Todd and Christy died, and for the same reason. Not just that they’d died, but the way they’d died. For the first time, I understood why my mother had left us. Loving people is too dangerous.

I put everything back in the trunk and closed it. Some day Michael and I would have to get rid of all the memories in the attic, but not today. Today I had to put up an alarm so a psychopathic killer couldn’t crawl in my kitchen window and murder me before I shot him. With the bell thing clattering with each painful step, I went back downstairs, out the back door, and across the deck to the stairs to my apartment. I detoured into the storage closet under the carport for some screw-in hooks that Michael or Paco had neatly stored in a glass jar on a shelf.

By the time I got upstairs and let myself in the French doors, my scraped knees were screaming. Groaning and cursing, I climbed on my kitchen counter and crouched in the sink to screw the hooks to the trim above the window. Then I hung the rusted bell thing on the hooks and climbed back down. It looked like shit, but nobody could come through that window without hitting the thing and setting off a noise like a herd of belled cows on the run.

Now that I had an alarm, I took a long warm shower because standing under hot water was the only time I didn’t hurt. I was afraid to nap outside in the hammock now, so I turned on the air conditioner in my bedroom and fell naked onto my bed. I woke so chilled and achy from the AC that I took another warm shower. At this rate, I might dissolve soon, like drowned soap.

I pulled on a terry-cloth robe and padded to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. While the water boiled, I tapped the iron bell thing over the sink and grimly listened to the wild clanking sound. Yep, that would wake me, no question about it. When the teakettle whistled, I poured boiling water over a drab tea bag. I drank it while I looked through the makeshift alarm at the treetops outside the window.

I thought about what Guidry had said, that I was using grief to keep the world away. I thought about my mother running away after my father died. I’d always thought she deserted Michael and me because she was too shallow to do the hard thing and raise us alone. I’d always thought I had more courage, more character, more depth. But maybe I didn’t. Maybe my prolonged mourning was really a revolving fear, a hamster wheel I ran on because I didn’t have the courage to move forward. My mother had run away physically. Maybe I had run away emotionally. The question was, What could I do about it? The answer was, I didn’t have the foggiest idea.

With that decided, I went down the hall to the closet and got dressed for my afternoon pet visits.

I carried my .38 by my side as I went downstairs to the Bronco. I could see a few rain-blue clouds out in the Gulf headed toward shore, but the sun was fiercely hot. A pelican dozed in the carport’s shade, along with a couple of great blue herons and an entire chorus of egrets. They all turned their heads to look at me with eyes dulled by afternoon heat, too listless even to flap a feather of alarm when I started the engine.

Michael and Paco were still gone.

My Bronco still had bird shit on it.

Somebody still wanted to kill me.