My mind was whirling. Denton didn’t want to hold me while Gabe shot me with that dart gun because the dart might accidentally go into him instead of me. When he let me go, there would be a split second while he jumped out of the way. In that moment, I might be able to scoop my gun out of my pocket and shoot Gabe before he shot me. But I wasn’t ready yet. I couldn’t face that instant yet.
“Having your mother’s horse stomp her to death was clever too. Was your mother the first one, or were you already killing people before her?”
His arm tightened, squeezing my ribs so hard I could barely breathe. “Them and their goddamn animals. Always love for some four-legged beast. Not for me. Never any love for old Denton, not after sweet animal-sucking Conrad was born. Conrad’s little narrow head didn’t tear her up coming out. He didn’t have an ugly purple bruise on his face that never went away. Oh, he was easy to love. They should be grateful to me, I got them all together with their fucking animals. And now the dog-sitter will be joining them.”
A final piece of the puzzle fell into place. The reason Denton hated me was because I worked with animals. A mother who trained horses so well they thought with one mind had probably spent more time with them than she did with her little boy. Especially her first little boy, when the act with the horses was new and she was working hard to perfect it. Because I worked with animals, Denton had moved me to the place in his mind where a twisted coil of hatred toward his mother lay.
“What about your father? And Stevie? Why kill them?”
He made a bitter sound that was half laugh. “Conrad was the only one who mattered to him. Conrad and his stupid sissy clothes and his freak circus friends, his freak man-wife. All of them were freaks, and they didn’t care how they humiliated me. Never gave it one thought. I made millions with nothing but my brains, all Conrad ever did was give away the money somebody else made. Well, now they can all get together and dress up in their stupid clown outfits, forever and ever, amen.”
Self-pity from anybody is annoying. From a murderer, it’s downright disgusting.
Gabe must have thought so too, because he yelled, “Let her go, damn it!”
Denton’s arm muscles tensed in preparation for flinging them wide, and I braced myself to land on my feet.
28
I was almost surprised that fear didn’t buckle my knees when Denton took his arm away and let my feet touch the ground. He crossed the distance between me and the other men and stood beside Leo Brossi.
Little cold fingers climbed my spine, vertebra by vertebra. It was almost a sick joke: woman convinces cops to use her as a lure to catch a killer, woman goes off on her own with dead phone, woman gets killed after all.
He said, “Okay, Gabe, do it.”
Leo said, “Not so fast. I’m fucking that bitch first, and then I have some other things planned for her.”
Gabe frowned at him. “You didn’t say anything about that.”
Leo said, “What the hell’s the matter with you, boy? You probably fuck rattlesnakes. Denton, take the bitch in the house. I’m not doing her in the yard.”
Denton said, “Leo, don’t complicate things.”
“Look, the bitch hit me. She broke my nose. I’ve got a fuck coming, and I’m taking it.”
Gabe said, “Rape ain’t right. I don’t care how much of a cunt she is.”
It almost sounded as if Gabe might have a thread of decency somewhere in his beetle brain. I suddenly remembered the stuffed toy he’d brought the baby. The memory of it was a little ray of light. Denton Ferrelli had a sick twisted mind, and Leo Brossi was a career criminal, but Gabe was just a dumb kid living with snakes and alligators and thinking that killing things made him a man.
I said, “Leo will rape your baby girl if he gets a chance, Gabe.”
Leo said, “Goddamn it, Denton, get the woman in the house!”
Like a bull pricked by picadors, Gabe glowered at me and then at Leo. “Not in my house.”
Leo said, “I’m not asking your permission, boy.”
Gabe’s lower lip crept forward. “I ain’t your boy.”
Denton said, “That’s enough, both of you!”
I said, “Guess what, Gabe. Leo raped Priscilla before he gave her to you. The baby might even be his.”
A dark painful flush spread up Gabe’s neck. Denton laughed, and Gabe looked quickly at him.
I said, “They think you’re funny, Gabe. They think it’s funny to use your woman, your baby, anything they want. And when they’re through with you, they’ll think it’s funny when they kill you.”
“Shut up, cunt. Ain’t nobody killing me.”
“They’ll have to. You know too much. You think they’re going to let you go around knowing what you know?”
Gabe was dumb, but he wasn’t so dumb he didn’t know I could be telling the truth. His brow furrowed and he cut his eyes toward Leo and Denton.
Leo said, “Kid, she’s fucking with your mind. Now shut up and do as you’re told. I want the woman in the house.”
Denton said, “Leo, let it go.”
Over him, Gabe said, “What the hell you mean, do as I’m told?”
Gabe’s face looked like a four-year-old’s about to cry or throw a tantrum, and his hand holding the dart gun looked twitchy. He swung angrily toward Denton.
“You was there both times, and if you think I won’t tell the cops you was, you better think again.”
Denton scowled at him. “Gabe, this isn’t the time—”
Reggie slammed himself against the door of the shed with such determined force that it cracked and rattled against the wooden latch. The men all shot a quick look toward the shed, and my hand began to inch toward my shorts pocket where my .38 was making a hard statement on my thigh. As if the words were wrenched from him, Gabe pulled himself taller and sputtered, “Mr. Brossi, is what she said true? Did you rape Priscilla?”
Leo Brossi grinned and made a lewd jerking motion with his pelvis, looking in his shiny silk like a banty rooster posturing under a bull.
“Wasn’t rape, boy. She liked it. Probably never had nothing but boys before.”
Denton said, “Leo, that’s enough!”
Stung, a small man between two large men, Leo pivoted toward Denton to make himself feel bigger.
“Speak for yourself, Denton. You have your plans, I have mine.”
Behind him, Gabe made a strangled sound and whipped the dart gun up to point it at Leo Brossi. Brossi made a quick instinctive movement to the back of his waist, and in the next instant a shimmering knife blade sliced through the air and pierced the side of Gabe’s neck.
For a second, time seemed to freeze. Gabe remained standing for what seemed an eternity, staring at Leo with incredulous shock, his face traced by inarticulate runnels of private agony. The geyser of dark blood arching from his neck seemed to move in imperceptible increments. My hand seemed to take eons to creep into my shorts pocket and come out with my .38.
At the same time, Denton shouted “Fool!” and ran to stand behind Gabe and chop his fist down on Gabe’s thick forearm holding the gun still pointed toward Leo Brossi.
Perhaps it was the blow that caused Gabe’s trigger finger to squeeze instinctively, or perhaps Gabe’s final movement was deliberate. The dart left the gun with a sharp phifftt and caught Leo square in the shoulder. Leo’s other hand swung toward the point of impact as if to pull the dart out, but the drug was faster than his hand. His eyelids fluttered, his face quivered, and he crumpled to the ground and lay motionless, only the horror in his eyes evidence that he was conscious.
Only then did Gabe fall into the pool of his own blood, his sturdy young legs in their tight denim already flaccid in death.
I held my gun extended with both hands, waiting for the moment when I had a clear target. Inside the shed, Reggie was hysterical, banging himself against the shed door so hard it seemed as if the door must surely split from the impact.
As Gabe fell, Denton crouched low and scrambled through the river
of blood to grab Gabe’s backup dart gun from its leather holster. I gripped my gun and sighted his head, my finger ready on the trigger.
Denton’s fear was palpable. Things hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. A lifetime of bullying people weaker than himself hadn’t prepared him for the moment when one of his thugs lay bleeding out on the sandy ground, another was turning blue from asphyxiation, and a woman he’d planned to feed to the alligators had him in her gunsight.
The shed door slammed open with a loud crack, and Reggie charged out in snarling fury, graceful flanks smoothly churning, wide chest heaving, no confusion in his mind anymore about whether it was right to attack a man who had been welcome in his master’s home. Even muzzled, he was a ferocious sight.
Denton jerked to his feet, swerved his eyes once toward Reggie, and aimed the dart gun at me.
I emptied my .38 into Denton’s cesspool heart.
29
At the memorial service for Conrad and Stevie, swirling dust motes shimmered like sequins above a large photograph of them at their wedding. In the photo, Stevie was radiant in a traditional bridal gown and veil; Conrad wore a splendid morning coat, a pleated white shirt, modestly patterned skorts, and his signature ear bobs. They looked so vital, so alive, that it was hard to believe they were dead.
Inside the chapel, an organist played softly while the audience sat in silence, still stunned at the ugly violence that had lived among them. Outside, the media slavered over a breaking scandal that involved some of Florida’s most prestigious politicians and businessmen. A grand jury had decided that Leo Brossi had killed and been killed by Gabe Marks, and that I had shot Denton Ferrelli in self-defense. Once again, my name had become front-page news. I had actually been turned into something of a heroine, which shows that people who write about killing don’t have a clue what it means to do it.
I sat with Josephine and her husband. Josephine kept an arm tight around my shoulders as if she were afraid I might bolt and run. I might have too, if I hadn’t known reporters would love to see it.
A moment of quiet fell, and then the organist swung into a loud rendition of “Stars and Stripes Forever,” the signal circus bands use to alert performers that a major disaster has struck. At the cue, a line of clowns wearing red noses and big silly shoes stepped through the side door and took seats in the front two rows. Pete followed them, also dressed in full clown, and stepped to the dais to deliver the eulogy. Now that Denton was no longer a threat to Conrad’s plan for a retirement home for circus performers, I knew there was joy mixed with Pete’s sadness.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Guidry a few rows back and across the aisle. Ethan Crane was almost directly behind him, and both of them were watching me. Their eyes held identical questions that I couldn’t decipher. Or maybe I just didn’t want to.
I can barely answer my own questions, how could I answer theirs?
Acknowledgments
As always, many thanks to The Thursday Group—Greg Jorgensen, Kate Holmes, Clark Lauren, and Janet McLaughlin—who heard a lot of this book as fastscribbled scenes written during our weekly Improv Writing Class. For their support, information, and friendship, I am blessed.
Thanks to Barry DeChant, aka the famous “Bonzo,” for letting me join one of his classes for future clowns, many of whom will work in hospices and children’s hospitals. The world is enriched by their wise humor and generosity of heart, as it is by clowns all over the country. For general crime-scene information, a big thank-you to Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department Crime Scene Technician Lora Garrett; to Dr. Reinhard W. Motte, Miami-Dade County Associate Medical Examiner; and to Homicide Detective Chris Ioreo of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department.
For this and every other book in the Dixie Hemingway Mystery Series, I have gratefully used information provided by numerous Web sites, newspapers, magazines, and books, most notably The New Natural Cat by Anitra Frazier with Norma Eckroate, and nature articles by Kat Wingert in the Siesta Key Observer.
And finally, many thanks to my dream team: Marcia Markland, the world’s best editor, and her assistant, Diana Szu; and to my agent, Annelise Robey, and her cohorts at the Jane Rotrosen Agency. In a time when many writers are wearing invisible black armbands for their dead faith in the publishing world, Marcia, Diana, and Annelise have been unfailingly loyal and supportive.
Also by Blaize Clement
Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter
Praise for Blaize Clement and DUPLICITY DOGGED THE DACHSHUND
“Don’t let the cutesy title fool you. This isn’t one of those lightweight, frothy ‘fun with animals’ stories … It’s tough, gritty, and edgy. One of the strongest points of Clement’s work is her knack for building suspense slowly but steadily, to the point where you have no idea what peril might be lurking just around the bend.”
—Sarasota Herald-Tribune
“Clement uses the animals in Dixie’s care … to enrich her plot, creating in the process an entertaining cozy, one of the few set in South Florida, land of noir.”
—Booklist
CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT SITTER
“A knockout read … For anyone who loves mysteries, animals, or just plain great writing.”
—Laurien Berenson, author of Chow Down
“Clement’s assured cozy debut introduces an appealing heroine.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Impressive … a sure keeper, with well-developed characters, seamless prose, and a winning plot … [a] commendable new series.”
—Mystery Lovers.com
“A first-rate debut.”
—Booklist
“Entertaining … Dixie is a complex, well-conceived character and the plot fast-moving and believable.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“At once a cozy mystery for animal lovers and a jarringly earthy hard-boiled whodunit about human corruption. Clement’s sleuth, Florida pet-sitter Dixie Hemingway, is an engaging combination of vulnerability and toughness, but the real heroine of the story is a gritty Abyssinian cat. A good read!”
—Susan Conant, author of Gaits of Heaven and the Holly Winter Dog Lover’s Mysteries
“Kick off your flip-flops, find a hammock, and settle in for a fun read. Clement’s Floridian heroine, Dixie Hemingway, spouts laugh-out-loud one-liners and words of wisdom in this intriguing whodunit filled with twists, turns, and some pretty captivating critters!”
—Cynthia Baxter, author of Right from the Gecko
“Funny, engaging, and true to life.”
—Lee Charles Kelly, author of ’Twas the Bite Before Christmas
“Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter has it all: a feisty heroine, lovable animals, and a solid whodunit. What more could you ask for?”
—Barbara Seranella, creator of the Munch Mancini crime novels
“A fantastic who-done-it … Fans of fast-paced clever mysteries will appreciate Dixie’s efforts to uncover the culprit before she either goes to jail or dies.”
—Harriet Klausner Reviews
“A new star in the ‘mysteries with animals’ firmament … this book stands out in the genre for its plotting, pacing, and well-formed characters, in addition to an enticing tropical locale.”
—The Kingston Observer
“A keeper, with its plucky protagonist, cats galore, and a nice sense of place.”
—Library Journal
There are tears in the very heart of things, And mortality touches the human mind.
—VIRGIL , THE AENEID
Keep reading for an excerpt from the next Dixie Hemingway novel the next novel
EVEN CAT SITTERS GET THE BLUES
Coming soon in hardcover from St. Martin’s Minotaur
1
Christmas was coming, and I had killed a man.
Either of those facts was enough to make me want to crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head for a long, long time.
Not to mention the fact that I was having feelings for two men, when I’d never expected or w
anted to love even one man again, ever.
Not to also mention the fact that I’d agreed to take care of an unknown, free-wheeling iguana today.
It was all too much for any one person, especially this person. I figured I had every right to put the brakes on my life and refuse to go on. To just stand up and yell, “Okay, time out! No more life for me for a while. I’ll get back to you when I’m ready.”
Instead, I crawled out of bed at four a.m., just like I do every friggin’ day, and gutted up to face whatever the day would bring. It’s a genetic curse, coming as I do from a long line of people who just keep on keeping on, even when anybody in their right mind would step aside for a while.
I’m Dixie Hemingway, no relation to you know who. I’m a pet-sitter on Siesta Key, which is a semi-tropical barrier island off Sarasota, Florida. Until almost four years ago, I was a deputy with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department. My husband was a deputy too. His name was Todd. We had a beautiful little girl. Her name was Christy. We were happy in the way of all young families, aware that bad things happened to other people, but blocking out how exquisitely tenuous life really is. That all changed in a heartbeat. Two heartbeats, actually—the last of Todd’s and Christy’s.
I’ve read somewhere that some excavators in Siberia found an intact wooly mammoth that had been entombed in ice for millennia. A butterfly was on the mammoth’s tongue. I think about that wooly mammoth a lot, because life’s like that. One second you can be blissfully standing in golden sunshine with butterflies flitting around you, and the next second, whap! The world goes dark and you’re totally alone and frozen.
Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund Page 23
