Cora blinked rapidly a few times. “I guess you should have reported it, but it’s not exactly lying that you didn’t. You just didn’t tell what you knew.”
I drained my teacup and set it down. “There’s more. Before Lieutenant Guidry got there, I warned the iguana’s owner to get rid of a gun he was carrying. Then I heard him tell a couple of lies to Guidry and I didn’t tell Guidry they were lies. I didn’t tell Guidry about the woman, either.”
“What woman?”
“A strange woman stopped me this morning. She had a bulldog with the same name as the iguana, and I think she was watching me. The man had her picture on his bedside table. And he’s blue, by the way. I think he’s really sick.”
Cora blinked some more. “Dixie, do you take vitamins? You know, you’ve been under a lot of stress lately, what with killing that man and all, and you need to take care of yourself. Get more rest, take vitamins. You shouldn’t drink coffee either. I don’t drink coffee at all anymore, just tea. It’s better for you. They say green tea is healthiest, but I just drink it brown, and I’m pretty healthy.”
“I sound crazy, don’t I?”
“A little, but women go plumb loony when they’re in love.”
“I’m not in love, Cora.”
“Well, of course you are, sugar. You’re in love with that detective fella. Trouble is, you’ve forgotten how to do it.”
“Believe me, I remember how to do it.”
“Oh, I don’t mean the sex kind of doing it. You don’t ever forget that.”
She paused for a while and smiled at whatever image had flitted through her head. I took a big bite of chocolate bread and waited for her to return to this century.
“I’m talking about how you’re doing love,” she said. “You’ve gotta be strict with love, or it’ll just move in and take over your whole life. You have to give it a special room and make sure it stays there until you’re ready for it to come out. That’s what you’ve forgotten. Your problem is you’re hauling love’s butt around with you every place you go.”
I swallowed wrong, and Cora eyed me while I had a coughing fit.
She said, “Men don’t do that. You don’t see men dragging love around with them every minute, worrying does it need a drink of water, is it hungry, does it need a sweater. Men just let love fend for itself while they go off and work or play or fight or fool around. They don’t let love rule their lives like women do. You put love in its place, and you’ll stop lying to people.”
My cell phone rang and I leaped to snatch it from my purse. It was Guidry.
He said, “Dixie, we need to talk.”
“I know, that’s why I called you.”
Cora rolled her eyes at how snippy I sounded.
Guidry said, “I’ll be at your place in ten minutes.”
He hung up without giving me time to tell him I wasn’t at home. Well, okay, let him cool his heels while he waited for me.
I rushed the tea tray to the kitchen so Cora wouldn’t have to lug it in there, then scooted to hug her thin shoulders and kiss the top of her feathery head. “I have to go, Cora. Thanks for the bread.”
She said, “Don’t worry about that man being sad, Dixie. After all, his guard got shot. That would make anybody blue.”
“You’re right. I won’t think about it anymore.”
I left her sitting at the table pensively staring into her teacup. I knew she hadn’t understood a thing I’d said, but I actually felt a lot better.
During the summer months, I could easily drive from Cora’s condo to my apartment in ten minutes. But during the season, when Sarasota’s population triples, the streets became as congested as any large city, and half the drivers are of the opinion they are privileged people who should not be expected to obey traffic laws made for ordinary humans. You therefore have to be hyper-alert for expensive cars zooming out of driveways or running red lights, and if you get behind a blue-hair going fifteen miles an hour on Tamiami Trail, you have to resist the urge to gently tap her rear bumper to give her the idea to move along.
It took me a good thirty minutes to make the drive, and when I got home Guidry was nowhere in sight. Michael’s car was in the carport, but his kitchen door was closed and all the shades were drawn. As I unlocked the French doors, Guidry’s dark Blazer eased past the carport and parked in the open space next to Michael’s cypress deck. I paused, hoping Guidry didn’t guess that I’d raced home to meet him. He spotted me as he got out of his car, and then I started worrying that he might think I had been home all along and was so eager to see him that I’d come outside to wait for him.
He didn’t seem put off by the fact that I didn’t smile or wave or speak to him, just looked solemnly at me while he strolled across the ground to the stairs. The nip in the air had put extra color in his cheeks, and I couldn’t help noticing that his usual golden tan was now more of a peachy color. I love that color. I could eat that color. It’s warm and lush and makes me think of hot summer nights and homemade ice cream. But Guidry’s gray eyes weren’t warm at all. In fact, they were about as icy as the frigid slurry that firms homemade ice cream.
When he got to the top of the stairs, he said, “We have to talk.”
He took my arm and sort of tugged me, not manhandling me, but not like I had a choice either. My heart did a crazy tango and my nipples turned to hot rubies, but at the same time I was afraid I might break out in hives or throw up. Cora was right. Men don’t do that kind of crap.
Guidry pushed the French doors open, giving me a look as he stepped inside my apartment that made my jaws lock. I knew as surely as I knew the surf would roll on the beach every day that Guidry had feelings toward me too.
He said, “You have any coffee?”
Oh, that was good. Making coffee would give me a chance to do something with my hands. Guidry and I could sit and drink coffee and ease into a conversation about what had happened this morning.
I scurried to the kitchen and sloshed water in the coffeemaker, put in the little paper cone thing, filled it with coffee, and pushed the button. While it gurgled and spat, I got out mugs, but no cream or sugar because I remembered that Guidry drank it black, same as I do. When I turned around with my finger threaded through the mug handles, I met his calm eyes.
He said, “Dixie, the man who reported the guard’s murder was there to deliver the Herald-Tribune. He says that when he turned into the driveway, he met a woman on a bicycle coming out. He describes her as about thirty years old, pretty, blond ponytail. Says her bike was black, with a roomy basket for carrying stuff.”
Carefully, I settled the mugs on the bar and moved them so their handles pointed in the same direction. I pulled out the drawer under the bar and got out a stack of paper napkins. My mind flitted to the idea of cookies. We should have cookies with our coffee, it would be nicer.
“Dixie? Is there anything you want to tell me?”
I stepped back to the coffeemaker and watched the dark liquid rising in the glass bottom, climbing toward the four-cup line. When it reached the line, the machine burped and hiccuped a couple of times and a few more drops fell into the black lake. I waited a few seconds to give it time to squeeze out its all, and then lifted the pot and carried it to the bar. As careful as a prayer, I poured two mugs of coffee and took the pot back to its home base.
Then I turned around and folded my arms across my chest and met Guidry’s gaze.
“Guidry, the guard was dead when I saw him. It wouldn’t have changed anything if I’d called. Two or three minutes’ difference, that’s all.”
“I’m not concerned about the timing, Dixie.”
“Okay, I should have called. I know that. But I didn’t want to get involved in another murder. You understand that, don’t you? When the truck drove in, I knew the driver would report it, so I left.”
“The guard’s name was Ramón Gutierrez. Twenty-nine years old, no criminal record. Married, two kids. Killed by a single bullet to the left temple, probably a thirty-eight caliber.�
��
I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. “Why are you telling me this?”
“A witness saw you leaving the murder scene.”
This time when my heart tripped it wasn’t because I was close to Guidry. It was because I suddenly got the full import of why he was there.
“For God’s sake, Guidry, I didn’t kill him!”
His hand on his coffee mug was steady as he looked at me. “The call from the Herald-Tribune guy came in at six-fifteen. The Medical Examiner estimates the guard was shot no more than three or four hours before.”
“You can’t be serious about this! You know I didn’t kill that man.”
For the first time, I saw a glint of anger in Guidry’s eyes. “What the hell were you thinking? Didn’t you expect the deliveryman to tell us you were there? Why didn’t you tell me? Why let me find it out this way?”
An undercurrent of some emotion I couldn’t identify rang through his disappointment, some old hurt or resentment that didn’t have anything to do with me or the current situation. We all carry such a bundle of old experiences, it’s a wonder we’re ever fully in the present.
By the way he compressed his lips and gave a slight shake of his head, it seemed he’d caught himself having feelings he regretted.
He said, “We have a new DA, Dixie—a woman with a lot of ambition and a lot of political connections. Here’s how she’s going to see it. You’re a former deputy with sharpshooting awards. Your work takes you in and out of empty houses, so you probably carry a weapon. You were hired to take care of Ken Kurtz’s iguana. You went to his house, but the guard wouldn’t let you in. Maybe you had words with him, maybe he insulted you. You’re emotionally stressed because of what happened back when you killed that guy, so you flipped out and shot him in the head. You came home, ditched the gun, and returned to the Kurtz house pretending it was the first time you’d been there.”
“I don’t carry a gun, and I didn’t shoot the guard. I didn’t even know that was the Kurtz house when I went to the guardhouse. I was trying to find a place to wait out the rain.”
I thought about Ken Kurtz saying I would never tell Guidry that Kurtz had lied to him, or that I had warned Kurtz to get rid of his gun before he talked to Guidry. Instinct, Kurtz had called it. Acting on instinct rather than intellect. Now my instinct told me I had disappointed a man I greatly admired and respected. Maybe I had completely blown any chance of getting closer to him.
The weird thing was that I was as disappointed in Guidry as he was in me. He should have known me well enough to know I was innocent. Not just innocent of killing the guard but innocent, period. Sure, I might keep quiet about a few tidbits of information I’d overheard, and I might not tell him that Kurtz carried a gun under his bathrobe, but I was one of the world’s good people, and I expected him to know it. If he didn’t, maybe he wasn’t the man I’d thought he was.
I said, “Do you want to take my thirty-eight for ballistics?”
He sighed. “Dixie, I don’t think you killed the guard. I just wish you’d told me, that’s all.”
“But you want my gun.”
“I’m sorry.”
So furious I could hardly breathe, I left him sitting at the bar and went into my bedroom where the side of my single bed was pushed against the wall. Yanking the end of the bed away to get at its far side, I pulled out a drawer built into its base. The Sarasota Sheriff’s Department issues 9-millimeter SigSauers to all personnel, but every deputy also has personal backup guns for which they are qualified. When a deputy retires or dies, his department-issued gun has to be turned in, so I no longer had either Todd’s or my own, but I had all our backups. Todd’s were a nine-millimeter Glock, his Colt .357, and his primary personal, a Smith & Wesson .40. My own were a Smith & Wesson .32 and a .38 that was my favorite. I kept them all in a specially built case in the drawer under my bed.
I lifted the .38 from its Styrofoam nesting place and laid it on the bed. I closed the case and slid the drawer back in. I pushed the bed back against the wall and stomped into the kitchen and put the gun on the bar in front of Guidry.
I said, “You’ll note that it’s clean and oiled. It hasn’t been fired.”
“I don’t want to press the point, Dixie, but the gun could have been cleaned and oiled since this morning.”
I slapped the counter and glared at him. “Guidry, this is nuts!”
“What was nuts was leaving the scene of a crime and pretending you didn’t know anything about it.”
I couldn’t argue about that. I said, “My grandmother always said that wisdom came from knowing that every decision we make carries a consequence. I made a bad decision.”
“That may be the understatement of the century.”
“Guidry, tell me the truth. Do you really think I could have killed that guard?”
“The truth? The truth is that I have a better chance of winning the lottery than I have of finding the shooter.”
The room seemed to grow dimmer for a second as it dawned on me that in the absence of an arrest of the real killer, I would look like a tasty suspect to a DA hungry to assure the public that all killers were speedily caught and executed.
When I was growing up, Sarasota was essentially lily white and essentially North American. Even Canadian snowbirds were considered foreigners. But as airfares from Europe got cheaper and European vacation spots more expensive, Florida became salted with temporary visitors from all over the world. Now criminal investigators have to think international. A serial rapist may follow an MO known to police in the Netherlands but not here. A burglar may leave a calling card familiar to French gendarmes but not to Sarasota law-enforcement officers. A tourist can commit a crime in Sarasota and be back home in Europe before the Forensics Department has had time to evaluate all their findings. Now when murders are committed, every homicide investigator has a secret fear that the perpetrator is halfway around the world laughing at him. The guard’s killer could be safely across the Atlantic while the DA focused on me.
I said, “Kurtz was carrying a gun when I got there this morning. He had it in a fanny holster under his bathrobe. Looked like a backup gun a law-enforcement officer might carry.”
“For Kurtz to kill that guard, somebody would have had to carry him out to the guardhouse.”
“He lied when he said nobody knew about the wine room. The nurse knew about it, because she’s the one who told me Ziggy was in there.”
Guidry waved his fingers back and forth to show how insignificant my blabbing was.
“Dixie, can you account for your time this morning? Did anybody see you during the hours before the guard was found dead?”
I swallowed against a lump in my throat. “There was a woman, Guidry. She was out walking a miniature bulldog and she stopped me this morning. There was something odd about her. She said her dog’s name was Ziggy, and she seemed relieved when I said I was going to see an iguana named Ziggy. She ran off and got in a car and drove away fast. The whole thing seemed phony somehow.”
“Dixie, that’s not—”
“Her picture was on the table beside Ken Kurtz’s bed. He denied it, but I’m positive it’s the same woman.”
“What do you mean, he denied it?”
I licked lips that had suddenly gone bone dry. “I asked him about her. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did.”
TEN
Guidry’s pupils contracted into little pinpoints, like a man about to jump up and ward off the devil. Half the people in Southwest Florida believe in a literal Satan, so for all I knew he might have caught the devil-believing bug, like catching chicken pox.
He said, “What’re you doing, running your own investigation?”
“It may be an investigation to you, but it’s my life! I’m the one who got tricked into going to that house. I’m the one the woman accosted. I’m the one somebody’s using, and I have a right to know who’s doing it and why.”
“I’ll agree that somebody tricked you into the house, but all
that other stuff is your imagination—the woman didn’t accost you, it doesn’t mean a thing that her dog has the same name as the iguana, and the odds of her being the same woman in Kurtz’s photograph are about a quadrillion-to-one.”
“The photo was on his table when we carried him into the bedroom, and then later it was gone. He hid it.
Why would he do that unless he didn’t want anybody to see it?”
“I can think of a million reasons why a man might not want people to see whose photo he keeps beside his bed. The point is that you’re there as a pet sitter, not as an investigator. If you see something you think is relevant, tell me about it, don’t go blundering around asking questions. Furthermore, don’t withhold information, any information, and don’t put groceries in a refrigerator that may be an important part of a homicide investigation.”
Uh-oh. I’d forgotten about putting Ziggy’s veggies in the refrigerator.
Guidry’s voice had got louder with each word, and by the time he ended his face had gone from an appetizing peachy color to a rather unhealthy rose.
In a little-bitty voice, I said, “Okay.” Under the circumstances, that seemed like the best thing to do.
Visibly, he got control of himself. “I don’t know what it is about you, but you always seem to pop up whenever something really weird is going on.”
“So you agree the whole Kurtz thing is weird.”
He slid my gun in his jacket pocket and headed toward my French doors. “I don’t see how it could get any weirder.”
He didn’t even say goodbye, just left me wishing he hadn’t said that it couldn’t get any weirder. Call me superstitious, but I think it’s a big mistake to challenge the universe to pull out all its weird possibilities. That’s like declaring what you will not do, will not accept, or will not believe, ever, so long as you live, amen. Like parents who say about their baby boy, “No son of mine will ever have a motorcycle,” are bound to look up one day and see him wearing a bug-eating grin with a biker chick glued to his road-calloused buns. You have to be careful about what you set into motion with what you say.
Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues Page 8
