The Blue Religion

The Herald by Leslie Glass

The two deaths occurred sometime in the early morning, in the parking lot of the public boat ramp off Fruitville and Route 41, also known as the North Trail. The bodies were discovered by a homeless man who’d spent the night at the Goodwill facility on 10th Street a few blocks from the bay and who was prowling the waterfront in search of some peace and quiet. He saw blood on the driver’s-side window of a Ford truck and wandered over to investigate. He viewed the bodies from both sides of the vehicle and checked the doors before threading back through the traffic on the North Trail to the Chevron station on the other side, where he told the attendant to call the police. Then he took off.

ON WEDNESDAY, THE hump day of the week, Paradise Major Case detective Alfie Rose had not been expecting any excitement beyond his juvie mission, which got him up before he liked seeing the light of day. He’d gotten an early call from Roy Sultan, an officer responding to an attempted break-in who knew Rose was familiar with the would-be perpetrator involved. Bleary-eyed, Alfie hurried out to confront Jeff Burt, a tattooed kid he wanted to save from the system. That’s how he happened to be on Bee Ridge in the parking lot of Persnickety Cat, talking alternatives with a boy who could go either way. Drink and dope his way into a flying leap off the Skyway Bridge, or face up to the human fucking condition and get his ass back in school. It was seven a.m., and there was still time. Sometimes, Alfie saw himself through a camera’s eye and thought, This is my life. Unmarried cop, in a car with a kid who looked like something out of an eighties punk band, hoping to do a tiny bit of good for someone who needed a little extra help.

Alfie pulled into the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot and bought two glazed donuts and some coffee while Jeff remained silent. Then he set out the alternatives for Jeff in a matter-of-fact voice that was far calmer than he felt. No kid in free-fall really thinks he’s going to end up in a body bag, and Alfie wanted to get that across in a measured sort of way while eating something he knew might clog up his arteries and kill him down the road. He’d sung the same old tune to Jeff before to no good effect, so he felt a powerful sneeze of rage coming on at the early hour and at his inability to be truly useful. Just like his dog, Alfie registered his negative feelings through his nose. But it wasn’t just the kid and the morning that were bothering his sinuses.

It was spring in Paradise, and the air was filled with all kinds of shit. There weren’t supposed to be seasons in Florida, but seasonal changes occurred there nonetheless, Alfie had learned in his first year. Before the hurricane phase officially began, a mammoth rebirth of plants big and small started in March and dragged on right through June. Sometimes in the morning Alfie’s car, parked in a carport, would be green or yellow or red with pollen that had blown in during the night and covered everything like sandstorms in the desert. The stuff coming out of the trees could choke a horse.

Come on, speak to me. Alfie started drumming his fingers on his thigh. Jeff had to say something. That was the rule. He wouldn’t let the kid’s silent, guilty, hangdog, shoot-me-in-the-head expression end the discussion. Silence only signaled a postponement of the inevitable – another incident to follow. Shit, Alfie didn’t have all day. He resisted the urge to glance at his watch.

Never mind what Jeff had been planning for his morning, or how the fifteen-year-old had talked himself into the rightness of what he’d been doing – Alfie didn’t want him back in an orange suit, in front of a judge who wouldn’t be as understanding the third time in two months. It was hardly a major case, but he was taking the time. Also Alfie liked the boy’s clueless mom, Sharon.

Alfred Rose had been in the cops up north, then in the military. He’d seen war, and after he came home, he drifted to Florida for the weather and joined the Paradise PD, where until recently he’d been a detective in Vehicular Homicide. Six months ago, he’d pulled Jeff out of the car wreck that killed his dad. The two had been on their way to a father/son golf tournament out at Foxfire Country Club near I-75 when they’d been broadsided by a pool-cleaning truck driven by an illegal alien without a license.

The fatal car wreck was the kind of case Alfie had worked for the last three years, every single one a catastrophe. In the Burt family tragedy, the driver of the truck had been drunk at the time of the accident. Despite evidence to the contrary, the owner of the vehicle claimed it was stolen and he’d never seen the guy before. As for Jeff and his dad, the father/son golfing team had been a good one, and they’d been hoping to win that day. It was a real nasty case, and neither Jeff nor Sharon was doing well.

Still, if Alfie hadn’t had a promotion, his connection to the family would have ended there. A few months later, however, Alfie was promoted to the Major Case Squad, and Jeff started crossing his path as a juvie, breaking into shops, looking for cash to buy dope. He sported Goth tattoos and dyed black hair, and didn’t look as if he had enough to eat. Alcohol and dope were one thing, but Goth didn’t go down well in Paradise. The grieving Sharon didn’t get the role of parenting a kid on a suicide ride, and Alfie knew he was going to have to talk to her about wising up and getting some help. Court-ordered rehab was what he had in mind.

When Jeff refused to say much more than the fact that he was sorry, Alfie broke down again, gave the boy his strongest “Come to Jesus” talk, then drove him to Riverview High School and watched him melt – as much as a Goth at Riverview could melt – into a crowd of pretty preppy-looking kids. Jeff entered what Alfie thought was the right building and didn’t look back, so Alfie hoped he might stay. It didn’t change his mind about the six-month program, though. His box squawked, and he answered.

“What you got, Matilda?” he said.

She told him, and he turned north on Tuttle. All the Major Case detectives in the department, including his partner, a tough female former New York cop named Betty Mudd, happened to be at a law-enforcement conference in Vegas. So he caught the call. His expression tightened as he considered the complications that were sure to come with this one. Murder was not exactly a welcome tourist in Paradise.

At 7:38, after season, it was only a six-minute drive up the Trail to the public boat ramp. By the time Alfie got there, three units had already secured the area and a coast guard chopper circled above, as if someone might be making an escape by sea. No civilian cars were sitting in the parking lot, but Patrick Pride of the Herald Tribune was parked as close as he could get. As soon as Alfie got out of his car, Pat rushed over to block his progress.

“Alfie, old buddy, what’s the story?” If he got one step closer, he’d be treading on the detective’s snakeskin cowboy boots.

All the annoyance that had been building up since before dawn finally exploded out of Alfie. He sneezed loudly. Patrick Pride wasn’t his buddy, and nobody else in the department was Pride’s buddy either. The young man was in his first newspaper job – maybe first job ever, and he was a real dickhead when it came to getting his stories straight. This guy wasn’t about the facts, and the pisser was that nobody at the paper cared about his tactics. The crime beat at the Herald was the lowest rung of the ladder, from which the most inexperienced newcomers started the climb. Alfie only just refrained from elbowing the youngster in the chest. “You’re the reporter, you tell me,” he said as he pushed past him.

“Looks like a murder-suicide.” Undaunted by the reception, Pat trotted along beside him.

“Don’t make it up as you go along like last time, buddy,” Alfie warned him, trying to make an impression. “It matters.”

“He did her and then himself. You want to tell me who they are?” Patrick Pride wasn’t a good match for his name. He was short and soft in the belly, didn’t look as if he had to shave more than once a week. His shirt hung out, and he wasn’t wearing socks. He didn’t smell as if he’d bathed too recently either. He was twenty-one, maybe, just old enough to buy a drink.

“Come on,” he wheedled, a wart that wouldn’t go away. His notebook was out, and already a page was full of scribbles.

Alfie glanced at it, then over at the officers guarding the scene. He could see blood on the truck window but not the mess that was inside. Crime Scene hadn’t arrived yet, and it looked as if no one had disturbed the bodies by searching for IDs. “Beat it,” he said, “and don’t speculate.”

“Come on,” Pat protested.

“I mean it. Don’t make any more trouble with your fictions,” Alfie said.

“I don’t write fiction.” He spit the word out with contempt. “Just do my job, same as you.”

“Yeah.” Alfie sneezed again. “Someday I’ll show you how,” he said, and left him there, writing something. Later, Alfie thought he should have grabbed that notebook and given Pat a real verbal kick in the ass. But it seemed he wasn’t that good at lecturing on Wednesdays. In any case, his eyes had already focused on that bloody window, and he wasn’t thinking about anything else.

The bodies were in the cab of a Ford truck, with the logo BLACKWOLF CONSTRUCTION on the doors. A man and a woman. Young, not more than thirty or so. A few years younger than Alfie. To the left of the parking lot was a boccie court, where Italians in white shorts and shirts played on Sunday. Straight on was the bay, where the sailboats from City Island held their races on Friday afternoons. People used the boat ramp for the sleek go-fast boats and for fishing runabouts. Except for the bloody truck and the police cars, it was deserted now. Nothing to the right except swamp and then low buildings and businesses, and then the wall of condos marching north up the Trail toward the airport. It was not brightly lit at night. He was thinking witnesses. Who might have seen something?

The officers stepped back as Alfie took his look. First thing he noticed was the pistol in the hand of the male deceased. What up north they called a “Saturday night special.” Nothing fancy, just something to get the job done. The bullet had not entered his head cleanly and had made a mess of his face, which had probably been good-looking enough in life. Alfie speculated that he might have been a novice shooter and hadn’t held the gun steady when it went off. He might have aimed at his heart, his neck, or the side of his head, and missed them all. Or else he’d tried to shoot in the air and missed that too. A saliva test would show if he’d ever put the barrel in his mouth. The doors were locked, and he’d been knocked back against his window, but maybe, somehow, he hadn’t done himself. Those were Alfie’s first thoughts.

In another life, up north, Alfie had seen an autopsy of an apparent suicide. Everyone thought the man had jumped off the terrace of his apartment until the ME found a bullet in his brain. The entry wound had been in his mouth, and he couldn’t have jumped after he was already dead, now could he? Alfie had learned back then never to assume. In any case, the bullet in this DOA’s face went where not even a suicidal person would want a bullet to go, and the man might even have lived a little while in agony, with the car doors locked and a dead girl no help beside him. There was plenty of blood to support that conjecture.

The dead woman, by contrast, was leaning against the passenger door with a clean hit from the driver’s side – bullet in the heart, probably. She seemed to have been taken by surprise. Her mouth gaped, as if she hadn’t expected the evening to end this way. Or the morning to begin this way, either one. She was a pretty blonde; what else could she be in Paradise? Alfie had to admit that it looked like a boyfriend/girlfriend thing after all. Homicide-suicide, just like Pat Pride had said. Open-and-shut case. All it needed was a few weeks of paperwork to clear the case. He tapped his boot tip to get on with it.

CSI came eventually, the chopper dipped away, and deconstruction of the scene began. It looked like what it looked like, and the girl’s name was Lydia Florence Dale. Lydia Dale’s driver’s license and twelve credit cards were in her purse by her feet. She was thirty-two. The male DOA had no ID on him, but they guessed he was the owner of the truck. Alfie wondered where the guy’s wallet was. Lost it? Left it on a motel bedside table? Someone lifted it at a bar? He ran a check of the license plate and came up with a name.

REED LUSTFIELD LIKED to leave home early, sometimes as early as five o’clock. His wife, Julie, wasn’t always out of bed when he left. What was the point? He was a good-looking guy, and she’d been proud of him when they married a decade ago. He’d built her this house, down in North Port, a tidy three/four bedroom because they’d expected to have a bunch of kids right away. But it didn’t happen. Turned out, she was okay in the reproduction department, but Reed had a problem. Handsome hulk as he was – as healthy as he looked – his sperm turned out to be sparse and lazy. It came as a shock. With the knowledge, he lost his sex drive. Ten years into the marriage, the two of them were still trying to figure out what to do with the devastating information. Julie knew that Reed would have been able to deal with a flaw in her much better than one in himself. He’d shut down. Now she was thirty-three and didn’t jump out of bed to fill his lunch bucket so often anymore.

Reed was busy building two mansions up in Panther Ridge, where the lots were three acres or more, and it took forty-five minutes to get there. He didn’t build houses like theirs anymore, homes where people could live comfortably. Now his houses were so large that it was a major commitment just to go down to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Half-mile walk through a maze of rooms and down a couple of flights of stairs. Each house was filled with brass hardware and marble bathrooms and granite kitchens and acres of travertine floors. They took forever to get done, and each project was a protracted migraine headache for Reed. Suffice it to say, he was gone a lot, managing an army of subs who couldn’t speak English.

Julie suspected he was avoiding her for another reason too. He didn’t like the negativity of their situation. And sometimes she just thought his absence was due to Lydia, his so-called bookkeeper, more like soul mate. Julie had been feeling sick about her life for a couple of years and hadn’t decided yet what to do about it. Except for the “having her man in jail” part, she thought of herself as a country song. She was alone a lot while he was drinking beer and hanging out somewhere else. She guessed the rest of it.

Today, for some reason, she was up in the dark, pulling on her jeans and following Reed into the garage, where he’d gone without stopping for coffee in the kitchen.

“Reed?” She didn’t even know what her question was. Do you love me? Do you hate me? Should we get a divorce? Hey, say something. But it was almost too late to start asking the deep questions. She could see it in his face… when she saw his face. These days, he wasn’t doing much looking at her.

“Hey, baby,” he said without turning around.

When she saw what he was doing, she stopped short. Reed was loading his fishing gear into his truck. Two rods, the nets, and the bait cooler. The tackle box. Life jackets, again two. It made her think of Brokeback Mountain, a movie she’d hated. The word “gay” popped into her head, and she almost choked on it.

“You going fishing?” She didn’t get the question out. She stopped because Reed would think it was a stupid question. He didn’t like her stating the obvious. Like, they couldn’t have children, so how about making another plan? He didn’t like that at all.

She could see he was going fishing. But why and with whom? Confused, she looked back into the kitchen, where the clock on the microwave said it was 5:45 a.m. Last she knew, it was Wednesday. Was he getting the boat down from the boat high-rise it lived on and going out fishing in the middle of the week when there were all those headaches at Panther Ridge to deal with? She just couldn’t speak up and make the query. Funny thing about men: they could make a girl feel like doggy doo just for asking a simple question. Reed hadn’t told her last night he was going fishing. He didn’t tell her now when she was standing there, watching him load up the truck. He was a Republican, real secretive, and just didn’t like to tell.

“Have a nice day,” she said finally, and went back into the house.

“You too, babe,” he replied.

THE POLICE CHIEF showed up, and Alfie talked with him. He was a big, heavy guy with a gray crew cut who’d been in the department since the town was half its size. Chief Hogle had hired Alfie, and the two got along okay.

“Don’t let anything out until we inform the families,” Hogle warned in a soft voice. Comcast and the local ABC affliliate were only a few blocks away on 10th Street. There’d be coverage. Alfie nodded. He didn’t have to be told procedure.

“’Specially not that dickhead at the Herald – what’s his name?”

“Pride.”

“Yeah. Okay, you know what to do.” He got back in his car, his uniform already damp from the spring humidity, and headed in to headquarters.

Alfie left the scene soon after, before the bodies were bagged. The two criminologists already had a scenario in mind. No motive yet, of course, but it seemed clear enough to them that no third party could have contributed to the deaths of the two individuals in the truck. There was no mystery here, just a sad outcome of an encounter gone wrong. All they had to do was inform the families and figure out why.

By noon the Ford truck in question had been brought into a warehouse for examination, and Alfie was up in Bradenton doing what he liked least in the world to do. He was knocking on the door where Lydia Dale had lived, looking for a family member to notify about her death. No answer from inside, so he nosed around, asking information from the neighbors in the other units in the complex. Pretty much everyone was out at work at that time of day, but the two oldsters who lived in units kitty-corner to hers said she came from Ocala, worked early and came back late, a real nice girl. Kept to herself. No boyfriend that anyone knew. Her car was not in the space marked for her unit. Alfie figured she must have met him somewhere, maybe the place where his wallet disappeared. Eventually a janitor opened the door of Lydia’s unit for him.

Right about this time, Alfie missed his partner, Mudd, but would never in a million years admit it. He called her Muddy. Betty Mudd was older than he, quite a few pounds heavier too, and she might have been a man in drag for all he knew. The woman had balls. She came from New York, the city, and didn’t miss much. Alfie sneezed and hit the light, then scratched an eyebrow at the dead girl’s neat little pink unit. Doll-size chairs and sofa. Little round table outside what must optimistically have been called a kitchen. From her taste, the vic could have been fifteen.

Alfie snapped on thin gloves, took a breath, and sneezed again before digging in. He was looking for names of next of kin, photos, date book, meds: pretty much the story of the dead woman’s life, and he went at it slowly. He found a phone book with the names he was looking for, pay stubs that showed she’d worked for Blackwolf. There were also photos of her and a bunch of smiling people in Blackwolf T-shirts at what looked like a Rotary bowling tournament. Alfie was debating about getting on the road and driving up to Ocala to talk to Lydia’s mom when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

The chief screamed in his ear, “Where the hell are you, Rose?”

“Up in Bradenton. At Lydia Dale’s house.”

“Well, get the hell back here.”

“What’s up?”

“That fucking Pride went down to North Port to get a story from Lustfield’s wife. She’s hysterical on the phone.”

“I’m there,” Alfie said, bagging the Rotary photographs and the phone book.

JULIE DIDN’T KNOW what the man was up to. He was kind of a geeky-looking guy, photographing the outside of her home as if for House & Garden. Ha-ha. Or as if he were from Homes & Land, and her place were about to go on the market. Briefly, she considered the possibility. Who knew what Reed might be up to? Maybe one of those new houses in Panther Ridge was for her. No chance of that – they were worth millions. She watched the guy with the camera for a moment, readying herself to go out there and burst his bubble. The place was not for sale. People did the weirdest things. His being out there with the camera reminded her of the time, a few years back, when a sniper appeared outside her weaving room. She’d seen him through the sliders that led to the patio and pool area, and did a double take as she was setting up her loom for gossamer scarves. The man, wearing fatigues and army boots, appeared to be dancing with an AK-47 right near the lake and the dock. He spun that rifle around and then stopped, raising the barrel up at her, in the house. Back then, the Lustfields’ was the first finished building in the subdivision, so there weren’t any neighbors to rally for help. Julie had watched him for a moment, strangely calm. She knew he couldn’t see her behind the sun blind she’d bought for the window to keep the deadly UVs out but let the light in. She’d stood there just long enough to know he was a mental case – just another Florida Cracker with a gun, living in a world all his own. She’d called the police, and when the entire department arrived in four squad cars and got out with their guns drawn, her sniper indignantly explained he was after the bobcat that ate his “daawg.” They set him right, telling him he couldn’t kill a bobcat even if it ate his mother.

Julie wasn’t afraid of Crackers, so she went outside. “You’re on private property,” she told the geek with the camera.

“What are you going to do about it?” he challenged.

Huh? Her jaw dropped at the rude tone of voice, and he snapped a picture. That made her really mad. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, waving her hand at the camera.

He took another picture.

“Hey, cut that out.” She started to go after him. He took that angry picture too.

“Did you know about your husband and Lydia Dale?” he asked, camera in her face.

Huh? Flash. She blinked.

“They were having an affair, but she wanted to end it, so he shot her.”

“What!” A shriek came out of Julie’s mouth before she even knew she was making a sound. What, Reed shot Lydia? “What?” Her heart was pounding. She could hardly breathe, the words hit her so hard. Reed? Shot Lydia?

“Who are you?” she screamed. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m Pat Pride. I tracked your address from the license plate on the truck at the scene of the crime. Sorry to startle you. I just wanted your reaction for the Herald,” he said as if this were an everyday thing for him. “Do you have any comment?”

“Comment? You want me to comment?” She took a step, and her ankle twisted. She fell to her knees, speechless at the request for a comment. This was worse than the sniper, worse than the silence all these months. She gasped for air, and the reporter just stood there. What the freaking Jesus is this? Julie had been around a long time, had heard a lot of stories about girls and boys and the fights they got in. But she’d never heard anything like this. Reed shot Lydia? No way. He wouldn’t have. She didn’t know she was sitting on the ground, tears flowing and shaking her head. Reed loved Lydia more than anyone in the world.

“Hey, I’m sorry. Want a cup of coffee? I didn’t mean to shock you.”

This brought Julie back. Everything inside her that had gone limp started tightening up again. He didn’t want to startle her? She was back on her feet, going for him. “You’re with the who?”

“The Herald.”

“How do you know this?” she demanded.

“I heard it on the police radio. I went out there to the scene, boat ramp in Paradise.” He backed away as her face screwed up with puzzlement.

“Paradise?”

He nodded. “I saw them. They were both dead. Looks like he killed her and then shot himself. I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “Do you have any comment for me now?”

“Hell no, you son of a bitch.” She went into the house, slammed the door, and called Paradise Police.

ALFIE GOT DOWN to North Port a little more than an hour later. The picture of what had gone down the night before was still clear as mud. He had a lot of questions and no answers. All they knew was that Lydia hadn’t come home from work the night before; her mail from yesterday was still in the box. They had a BOLO out for her car and a name for the registered owner of the truck but no definite ID on the shooter. He rang the doorbell.

“Alfred Rose, Paradise Police,” Alfie said, showing his badge. “Can I come in?”

The door opened slowly. Julie Lustfield had soft pale hair down to her shoulders that should have been mousy but somehow wasn’t, stunned gray eyes, and jeans that showed off a good figure. No hint of a smile, but no fear either. “I’m Julie Lustfield. Is it him?” she said faintly.

“Mrs. Lustfield, when was the last time you talked to your husband?”

“He went fishing this morning,” she said.

“What time?”

“He left before six, about five forty-five.” Her serious eyes held that stunned look of people in denial. He can’t be dead, I just saw him a few hours ago. “I saw him load up the truck. Just tell me, is it him?”

“Does your husband have a gun?”

Her eyes skittered around. “Yes. Some rifles. I think there’s one in the truck.”

“How about handguns?”

She shook her head. “He just uses them for hunting.”

“What does he hunt?”

She shook her head again. “He got a coral snake once, right out here. For God’s sake, tell me. Is it him?”

“He didn’t have a wallet on him. And his face is pretty messed up. We’re still checking.” It sounded so lame that he couldn’t tell her for sure one way or the other.

They stood there in the doorway. Her eyes filled with tears. “That reporter said he killed Lydia and himself. I don’t think it’s possible.”

“You want to sit down and tell me about it?” Alfie said.

“They knew each other since birth,” she said disparagingly. “We only met in high school.”

“Uh-huh.” Alfie wasn’t sure what that had to do with it. “Were they seeing each other?”

“Well, sure, they saw each other every day. She was the bookkeeper. They were on the phone all the time.”

“I mean, did they have a personal relationship?”

“They had a very serious personal relationship.” Her lips twitched in a tiny smile.

“A physical relationship?”

“Yes. She was his sister. Well, stepsister, not blood. Reed wouldn’t kill anybody, but he certainly wouldn’t kill kin.”

“Oh,” Alfie said. Sometimes they can surprise you. Okay, the rifle had not been discovered in the truck, but maybe Reed had a handgun his wife didn’t know about.

“Mrs. Lustfield, do you know any reason why your husband might kill either his sister or himself?”

She shook her head, then her shoulders lifted just a little.

“What was that thought?” Alfie asked.

“I don’t know. He hasn’t exactly been confiding in me lately.”

“You’ve been having problems?”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘problems.’ He just hasn’t been here much. He came in late last night, left early this morning. I knew he and Lyd hung out a lot. But… lovers? They wouldn’t do that.” The words had a hollow ring.

Alfie sneezed. You never knew. He asked her for a photo of her husband. She got up suddenly and went into the other room. When she came back, she had a new expression on her face, his wallet in her hand, and a photo of him and her on a fishing boat. Alfie studied the likeness in the snapshot first. The man in the photo had the same blond hair, same sort of build as the dead man, but to Alfie the wallet seemed to clinch it.

“He leave his wallet home often?” Alfie asked.

Julie shook her head. “This is the first time.” Then she held out something else, her husband’s cell phone. Alfie’s intake of breath came at the same time her face cracked wide open. “He wouldn’t go out on the water without his cell.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Alfie frowned but not at what the husband did. Julie was the kind of heartbreaker he went for. No one could tell him why. He didn’t know. Similar to Sharon, Jeff’s mother. Both girls about his age, down on their emotional luck, with things getting worse and worse, and they hadn’t a clue how to dig out. Julie’s plight tugged at him so much, he felt a sneeze coming on. Husband was a cheat, but she loved him anyway. And shit, nobody wanted to lose a husband to a homicide-suicide. He flashed back to Pride coming here this morning to get her reaction. Held back the sneeze of rage at that cowardly act.

“Do you have a family member or a friend who can come and stay with you?” Alfie murmured.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” she said.

“You could confirm that by identifying the body. We need a family member.”

She shook her head. “He has brothers, a mother, people up in Bradenton. They can do it.”

Ah, problems with the in-laws. Alfie nodded, got those names, and told her he’d get back to her later.

The sneeze came on the way to the car. It was a big one and somehow brought on a whole bunch of new questions about the sister. Men kill their girlfriends, but they don’t often kill sisters they hang out with. Something about a sister – no matter how much you hate her, you don’t shoot her in the heart the way you want to. Alfie’s throat itched too. That itch reminded him that things aren’t always the way they seem. Jumping to conclusions was the one thing you should never do in police work.

It started with the sister and went to the gun. Julie said her husband didn’t keep a handgun, but there was a rifle in his truck. There was no rifle in the truck parked by the boat ramp. And no boat either. Where was the boat? Alfie drove to High and Dry, the marine storage where Julie said Lustfield kept his boat.

Pete Mulvey, an old geezer from another era, wearing a wife-beater and cutoffs, told him, “Yeah, Reed come by this mornin’ and took out the boat.”

“You saw him go out?”

“Oh, yeah. He was going south down to Naples to look at some property from the water.”

“Anybody with him?” Alfie asked.

“Some dude. I didn’t get a real good look at him. Seemed like a city feller.”

Alfie snorted. “City feller” had another meaning down here. He went back to the parking lot and slapped his forehead when he easily located a second Blackwolf truck. He called the chief.

“It’s Rose.”

“What you got?” Hogle said.

“Looks like Reed Lustfield’s on a fishing trip down to Naples today.”

“No shit.” Hogle grunted.

Got him. “The company has more than one truck.”

Silence on the other end.

If they had a few more people on the job, they could have figured that out a whole lot sooner. ’Course, they were working three towns out of their jurisdiction. “Lydia Dale is his sister,” Alfie added.

“Any way you can reach Lustfield?”

“He left his cell phone and wallet home, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Alfie called some of the numbers Julie had given him. Second call, he got a name for the Blackwolf foreman who usually drove the second Ford truck, the one with the license plate of the death truck in Paradise. Name Everett, another high school contact. Just before sunset, the coast guard located Lustfield’s Grady-White just down the coast at a marina in Punta Gorda, where Lustfield had stopped for gas and a grouper sandwich.

It had been a long day, but Alfie wanted to make things right with Julie before he headed north to Paradise, where it now looked like an old story dating from high school had played out in one final rejection. Lydia had said no to a deadly suitor for the very last time. This kind of thing should never have happened in Paradise, but a lot of things should never happen.

Alfie turned into the subdivision where Julie lived. He’d been too busy to call during the investigation. But now he wanted to apologize for what Pride had done – getting the shooter/suicide wrong and devastating her needlessly. For all he knew Lustfield wasn’t having an affair at all. All these things were in Alfie’s head. He wanted to be a good cop and erase that look of horror Julie Lustfield had when she found her husband’s wallet and cell phone – the suicide message that wasn’t.

And then, as he cruised closer to the house, he saw the lights on and heard the stereo blasting an eighties house-party song: “Dance to the Music.” Inside, Julie’s friends were doing just that. Alfie got out of the car, puzzled by the party scene clearly visible through the living room picture window. He started up the front walk, saw the chips and dip on the coffee table and the drinks flowing, and slowly realized that Julie had done what he’d told her to do. She’d called her friends to be with her in her time of mourning. It’s him, she’d said, but he’d read her wrong. She’d spoken with relief, not sorrow. He shook his head. Maybe in all these hours, no one had called to tell her different.

Alfie turned around and got back in his car, where he sat in the dark, drumming his fingers to the beat. Funny how the two men both left their wallets home on the same day. What was the meaning in that? When the song finally changed, he picked up his cell and placed the call. The phone inside the Lustfield house rang and rang. None of the revelers stopped to pick up. When voice mail finally beeped, Alfie left a message for Julie: Lustfield had been located alive on his Grady-White down by Punta Gorda and was on his way home. At least he could tell himself he warned her.