Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

21

The cocky grin left Gabe’s face, and his little eyes darted right and left like a cornered rat.

“Listen, cunt—”

“Listen yourself, you muscle-bound Neanderthal. That’s the last time you’re calling me that.”

I moved the gun to sight his head. Priscilla screamed, the baby screamed, and Gabe Marks threw the stuffed toy at Priscilla and ran down the stairs. As scream echoes bounced around the silent room, a car door slammed downstairs and an engine roared out of the driveway.

Priscilla sobbed softly against the baby’s head. I backed up on wobbly legs and sat down on the bed. I laid the gun down beside me and put both hands on my thighs because there was a distinct possibility that I might fly apart, that my limbs might go shooting off like the thick fronds of the staghorn fern I’d shot. Adrenaline hit, and I began to shake.

A stern voice in my head said, Would you really have killed him?

The scary thing was that I didn’t know the answer. By some quirk of genetics, a particular coordination of eye, hand, timing, and instinctive skill, I am an excellent shot. At the Police Academy, I always won the top marksmanship awards. In any exercise with paper targets at a shooting range, I always laid all my bullets in the spots where I intended them to go: the middle of the forehead or the center of the heart. Everyone who has ever shot with me has been awed and amused by my skill with a gun. Awed because they can’t match it, and amused because I’m the least likely to ever actually kill anybody.

If there’s anything I’m sure of, it’s that we pay one way or another for everything we do, that every action brings a reaction. The way I see it, this means that killing somebody on purpose is bound to bring really bad things into your life. And yet I had almost blown a man away.

Not wholly because he was threatening Priscilla either, but because he’d called me a cunt.

It was another unpleasant discovery about myself.

Through the open door, we heard more footsteps coming up the stairs: light, quick steps. Pete appeared on the landing, taking in the demolished fern and the open door, his forehead creased with so much anxiety that his eyebrows were almost floating.

“I met Gabe’s truck leaving. Are you okay?”

For answer, Priscilla kept crying and I kept shaking.

Pete said, “I had to go inside the bank, so it took longer.” He looked around the room. “Where’s your luggage ?”

Priscilla sniffled and pointed to the black garbage sack. “I don’t have a suitcase.”

He stooped to pick it up, twirled it to make a neck, and tied it. “We’ll pick up something on the way.”

I said, “Where are you going?”

“I’m taking Priscilla and the baby to the airport, where they’re taking a flight to see a lady I met several years ago at the Mooseberger Clown Camp. She’s a hospice clown too, and she’s got a spare room where Priscilla and the baby can stay for a while.”

Priscilla said, “What about Josephine?”

He shook his head impatiently. “I’ll explain to Josephine. If you’ve got pay coming, I’ll send it to you. Now come on, let’s get the hell out of here before Gabe comes back.”

He seemed to notice the gun lying beside me for the first time. “Did you shoot at him?”

Priscilla and I exchanged a quick furtive glance. I didn’t want Pete to know I’d fired a shot past Gabe’s head. Only a nut would do something like that.

I grabbed the gun and shoved it in my pocket. “Pete, if I’d shot at him, he wouldn’t have been able to drive away.”

He let out a relieved breath and motioned me up. “Come on, come on, let’s go!”

We began to straggle out, Pete with the black garbage bag over his shoulder like a cheap Santa Claus and Priscilla close behind with the damp baby clasped to her meager bosom. At the door, she turned to scuttle back and scoop up the stuffed toy Gabe had thrown, then hurried out with a quick guilty look at me. I pulled the door closed and clumped down the stairs to the driveway, where Pete practically shoved Priscilla into a black Ford Taurus. He waved good-bye before he got in and started the engine. I waited until he backed out and then pulled out behind him.

At the end of the street, where it connected to Midnight Pass Road, we turned in opposite directions, Pete toward the Sarasota airport, me toward home to explain to Michael and Paco where I’d disappeared and why.

Like a bad conscience, my cell phone rang while I was rehearsing what I’d say. Expecting it to be Michael, I gulped and answered it without looking at the caller ID.

Guidry said, “Dixie, I’m on my way to the ME’s office to get the autopsy report on Stevie Ferrelli. I’d like you to go with me.”

“Why?”

“Because you knew her and I didn’t. Because you know things about the Ferrelli circus connection that I don’t. Because the photograph on her body may have an importance that you understand. And because you may hear something that will fit with some cockamamie thing you’ve heard from one of your pet owners that will be just the key I need. You seem to have an uncanny way of collecting vital information, so I want you there.”

“You want to say please?”

“Please. Ten minutes, Sarasota Memorial.”

He clicked off without saying good-bye. While I dialed Michael’s number, I muttered evil things about homicide detectives who use their authority to snag innocent civilians into helping them solve crimes, but to tell the truth I was flattered. Now my phone’s screen showed only one little battery, and it was all but jumping up and down and screaming that it needed charging. I sent the demanding little critter a silent promise that I would plug it in as soon as I got home.

Michael answered on the second ring. “Where are you, Dixie?”

“I’m sorry, Michael. I thought I’d be home before now. I had to run an errand and it took longer than I expected, you know how that is, and then Guidry called and wants to see me in ten minutes. I’m on my way to meet him at the hospital. So I’m safe. Okay?”

I’ve seen anorexics move food around on their plate like that, doing it fast and stirring one thing into another thing to cover the fact that they’re not really eating anything.

Michael made a little grunting sound that said he knew I was throwing words around to cover up what I had really been doing, but he couldn’t argue with the idea that I would be safe with Guidry. I promised I’d call him after the meeting, and continued over the north bridge toward the hospital on Tamiami Trail. I parked in the visitor’s lot and put the .38 in my glove box before I got out of the Bronco.

Guidry was waiting for me in the lobby, looking like an Italian tourist in a dark gray open-collared shirt, dark slacks, and an unstructured linen jacket the color of sea grass. Actually, he looked like an Italian gangster. A rich Italian gangster. For the millionth time, I wondered what his background was and why he was working as a homicide detective.

He nodded a greeting and touched the small of my back in a kind of unspoken take-charge gesture, man showing woman the way, man being the leader, woman trotting along as she is directed. I should have hated it, but I sort of liked the touch of his hand. Jesus, I was a mess.

In the Medical Examiner’s office, we sat for a few minutes in a sterile waiting room. I looked around and thought about the number of people who had sat in these plastic chairs waiting to identify a loved one. At least I had been spared that when Todd and Christy were killed. Todd’s lieutenant did it for me, and the ME’s report to me had been mercifully brief. Massive head injuries had killed Christie. A crushed chest had killed Todd. Death becomes outrageously impersonal when it has come by accident. Reports take on an objective distance that is absent when death has been deliberately inflicted.

Guidry pulled a copy of a photograph from his pocket and handed it to me.

“Do you know who this is?”

It was a slim dark-haired young man, late teens or early twenties. He wore tennis whites and had a tennis racket slung over his shoulder and a shy smile on his face. I studied the features closely, thinking it might be somebody I’d known in high school.

“He looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him. Who is it?”

“Nobody knows. That’s the picture that was on Stevie Ferrelli’s body.”

I looked at the photo again. Stevie’s killer must have shown it to her just before he killed her.

“He looks a little like Stevie. Maybe it was her brother.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. A brother who met with some tragedy that would hurt Stevie to remember.”

“Did you show it to Denton?”

“He didn’t know who it was. Or at least he claimed he didn’t. His wife didn’t know either.”

“What about Stevie’s relatives?”

“So far as we know, there aren’t any. She seems to have no background, no history. Denton Ferrelli says Conrad married her in Europe, but he doesn’t know where she came from.”

“She told me they were at Yale together.”

“She could still have come from Europe.”

“She didn’t have an accent.”

A shadow crossed his eyes. “A lot of foreigners speak fluent English.”

I couldn’t believe Denton Ferrelli wouldn’t know where his sister-in-law came from, but the Medical Examiner stepped to the door then and called us into her office, and Guidry put the photo back in his pocket. A tall Cuban-American woman, Dr. Corazon’s almond eyes were shaded with fatigue as she motioned us to chairs in front of her desk. She ran a slim hand over cropped silver hair as we got ourselves seated.

Without any preamble, she said, “Stevie Ferrelli started life as a male.”

Guidry leaned forward. “You mean she—”

“I mean she had sex-change surgery.”

I said, “But she was so feminine.”

Dr. Corazon gave me a look that dripped battery acid. “Probably why she didn’t like having a penis.”

Guidry shook his head slightly, like clearing his ears, and that seemed to annoy the doctor.

“Look, in the beginning there’s no difference between boy babies and girl babies. They have the same mound of cells that will become sex organs. If the embryo gets a supply of androgen, those cells will form a penis and testicles. If it doesn’t, the cells will form vagina and vulva. But it’s all the same tissue. If nature has made a mistake and sent androgen to an embryo that grows up to be a woman in every other sense, it’s a simple thing to rectify. Make an incision down the seam of the penis, take out the meatus, sew it back up and invert the empty casing into the peritoneal cavity to form a vagina. Attach the glans for a clitoris, snip out the testes, tuck the edges of the testicular sac under, and—voilà—you have vaginal lips. For all practical purposes, there’s no difference between a surgically corrected woman and one born that way.”

Guidry had tightly crossed his legs while she talked, and his forehead had a glassy sheen. His voice went up an octave too. “For all practical purposes?”

“For sexual intercourse, for sexual pleasure. Stevie Ferrelli couldn’t have children, but in every other way she was a woman.”

Guidry turned to me. “Did you know this?”

I shook my head. “I had no idea.”

Dr. Corazon said, “In terms of a homicide investigation, it has no bearing whatsoever. Stevie Ferrelli was the wife of Conrad Ferrelli. She died early in the morning, probably between five and six A.M. She died of respiratory failure the same way her husband did. There was no indication of sexual assault. It took less time to pinpoint the cause because we were ready for it this time. Somebody gave her a massive shot of succinylcholine, also known as suxamethonium chloride. Trade name Scoline.”

She turned to me and said, “You’ve probably heard of it as curare.”

I didn’t know why she thought I needed that explanation, but she was right. I’d heard of curare but not those other names.

She said, “We found the same needle puncture in her gluteus that her husband had. Spectrographic analysis found four hundred milligrams of the drug in her tissue. That’s exactly the same amount found in Conrad Ferrelli. To give you an idea of how much that is, the amount of Scoline used to temporarily paralyze lungs during surgical procedures is one milligram for every kilogram of body weight, somewhere around fifty milligrams. The amount of succinylcholine in either of the Ferrellis’ tissues would have paralyzed a thousand-pound animal.”

I said, “Why do you say animal? I mean, why animal instead of person?”

She nodded at me as if I were a student who had asked a smart question. “Because the drug in large amounts like that is sometimes used to restrain animals during transfer or medical treatment.”

“Like elephants?”

“Most veterinarians don’t use succinylcholine with elephants anymore because it’s so cruel. About the only time it’s used with animals now is for restraining crocodiles and alligators during capture.”

“Could it have been in a dart instead of a hypodermic needle?”

“Possibly. The puncture wound would be the same.”

Guidry said, “Is the drug sold in darts already loaded with certain amounts?”

The ME shrugged. “You’d have to ask a veterinarian that question, but it certainly could be, and it would be safer for the person using it. Not that it’s ever safe. Four hundred milligrams would temporarily paralyze a thousand-pound alligator, but if you accidentally stick yourself with that dart, you’re dead.”

Guidry spent a few more minutes getting forensic details of studies done, of liver inflammation as a sequela of the drug, but I didn’t pay attention. My mind was on the fact that I had just met a man who made his living capturing snakes and alligators. A man who used a dart gun loaded with a drug to paralyze the alligators he caught. A man who was out to kill me.

I knew when the conversation ended only because Guidry stood up. I rose to my feet as well.

Dr. Corazon gave me a curious glance, probably wondering why Guidry had brought me, and gave Guidry a manila envelope containing her report. We said our good-byes and went out to the parking lot. Both of us were silent. I didn’t know about Guidry, but the day’s accumulation of shocks was making me punchy.

He said, “You want to get something to eat?”

Now that he mentioned it, I realized I was hollow as a barrel.

We walked across the street to a place where hospital personnel can get breakfast all day and slid into a booth against the wall. A waitress was at our table almost before we were settled, standing with her order pad ready.

I ordered a chef’s salad; Guidry ordered an omelet with hash browns and bacon.

After we’d stipulated caffeinated coffee, not decaf, and gone through the routine of choosing salad dressings and crispness of bacon—oh, my gosh, do I love bacon, but I have to draw the fat line somewhere—we sat without speaking until the waitress brought our coffee.

I was thinking how beautiful Stevie had been, and how she’d started life as a man. It put a different light on the project she and Conrad had financed to transform children born with disfiguring birth defects. Stevie had probably identified with the children and wanted them to have the same opportunities she’d had. I wondered how old she’d been when she had the surgery that allowed her to live as the person she truly was. It could not have been a decision her family supported, since she seemed to have cut all ties to them. Perhaps Conrad had been the one who made it possible for her. Of all the people in the world, Conrad would have understood how easily identities can be changed.

The waitress gave us coffee, and Guidry emptied two little containers of cream in his mug and leaned back and looked at me.

“With the Ferrelli house on the water like it is, anybody in a boat could have come down the Intracoastal Waterway and docked at one of the houses closed for the summer. It would be simple to slip through the trees to the Ferrelli house, kill Mrs. Ferrelli, and go back the way you came. With all the traffic on the water, nobody would notice another boat.”

“Reggie would have attacked anybody who came in.”

“My guess is that she got up and turned off the alarm, walked the dog, and then came home and got in the shower. There was no sign of struggle in the bathroom, no water splashed on the floor. The killer probably came in while she was in the shower and put the photo on the bed for her to see. We think she dried off, hung her towel up, and came out of the bathroom. She saw the photo and leaned over to see what it was, and he shot her with the drug.”

I said, “If he came in the house while she was walking Reggie, Reggie would have sensed him when they came home and gone to find him.”

“She wouldn’t have put the dog in the laundry room while she took a shower?”

“Why would she? Reggie was always either in the house or in the breezeway. She wouldn’t shut him up in the laundry room. Somebody else did that, and whoever it was knew the dog, or Reggie would have attacked him. Everything points to Denton Ferrelli again, Guidry.”

“You’re assuming that Denton Ferrelli is the only person in the world who knew their house and their dog. Did you know them well enough to make that assumption?”

I slumped back against the seat. He was right, of course. I had not been their close friend, I had just been their pet-sitter.