by John Clement
I sighed and shook my head slowly. I told myself if there was anyone who could figure it out, it was Detective McKenzie. And then my eyes landed on the little basket at the end of the counter where we keep the mail. Inside was a single envelope, unopened. It had been there for weeks—an invitation to a wedding. Namely, Guidry’s wedding.
Detective Jean Pierre Guidry … If you don’t recognize that name it doesn’t matter, because he’s gone now. But to make a long story short—Guidry was the first person who managed to make his way into my heart after it had been dead for so long, after I lost Todd and Christy. Until Guidry, I’d built a thick wall around myself, wrapped in razor ribbon and thorny vines and concrete as thick and impenetrable as the shell of coconut, safely protected from every man, woman, and child. Somehow, Guidry managed to slide through all that like a sharp knife through butter.
He’d been the lead homicide detective for the Sarasota sheriff’s department before Samantha McKenzie took over. He was smooth and bronzed, with laugh lines that fanned out from the corner of his kind eyes, a beaky nose, and dark hair cut short, with hints of silver showing at his temples. He taught me that I could feel again, that the heart’s table always has room for one more, and that even though Todd and Christy were gone, I owed it to myself and to their memory to keep on living, no matter the consequences.
Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially given how bumpy the road of life is. We hadn’t been together long when a job offer came in from New Orleans, his hometown. The police department there was looking for a lead detective. It was a good opportunity, and his entire family was there. He would’ve been crazy to turn it down, so I didn’t blame him one bit for accepting. I even considered moving there with him … but I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave Siesta Key and all my memories behind. I grew up here. It’s my home.
So, that was that.
I could probably blather on for hours about what Guidry means … or meant to me … but I won’t. The last I’d heard from him, he’d called to tell me he was engaged, which was of course confirmed by that wedding invitation. And, by the way, I’m fully aware it sounds like I’m still pining away for him, but I’m not. Truly.
It’s just … complicated.
I opened the refrigerator and peered inside. Behind the orange juice carton was a six-pack of Coronas, and for a split second I considered popping one open, thinking it might clear my mind, but instead I splashed a little more orange juice in my glass and threw open the french doors to the balcony.
Outside, the air was warm and heavy. I welcomed the sensation of it pouring over my body like molten wax. The birds were in full chorus now, the dark sky having morphed into a field of cotton-candy blue, and perched on top of the Bronco was a small brown squirrel, surrounded by empty shells and munching away on an acorn.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
Michael was beaming up at me from the deck, dressed in jogging shorts and a tank top, standing next to the big teak table our grandfather built. Laid across it was an off-white tablecloth with an embroidered border of blue cornflowers. In the center were two big bowls: one with fresh mango, pineapple, grapes, blackberries, and kiwi, and the other with heaps of crispy fried bacon.
I nearly burst into tears.
“Oh my God.” I took the steps down two at a time like a kid on Christmas morning. “You have no idea how happy I am you’re home.”
He said, “Oh, please. Don’t bullshit me. You’re just happy there’s bacon.”
He turned and started laying forks and knives down on the table as I gave him a bear hug from behind. “Okay, that may be true, but I’m equally happy you’re home.”
He squeezed my hand. “You and me both.”
Michael inherited the same blond hair and fair skin I did, but he’s built like a … well, like a fireman. He’s basically a beefier, hairier version of me, with blue eyes, broad shoulders, and biceps as big around as my thighs. I’ve heard more than one woman call him a hunk, but to me he’s just my goofy older brother.
Like our father before us, he works the 24/48 shift at the firehouse, meaning he works two days straight and then has one day off. Most days he cooks for the crew, which can often be as many as a dozen men and women, but Michael loves it. He’s always been a provider … for as long as I can remember.
I said, “You’re up early.”
He stretched. “Yeah, I woke up thinking about work yesterday, which totally sucked. I couldn’t go back to sleep so I thought I’d go for a jog, but then Paco started making breakfast so I took a shower instead. I didn’t think I’d see you until tonight.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, you were out pretty late. Paco and I were up reading when you got home last night.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I guess it was kind of late.”
“But what’s Ethan’s car doing here?” He glanced over at the carport. “I thought I heard his car leave right after you got home.”
I said, “Oh,” and then racked my brain for an explanation.
The night before, when I’d pulled in with Deputy Morgan following in his squad car, I had breathed a huge sigh of relief the moment my headlights lit up the carport. Michael’s truck was on the left in its usual spot, Paco’s Harley was parked next to it, and Ethan’s Jeep was right next to my spot.
Of course, I’m always happy when the boys are home, but this was different. It meant I had a whole stableful of big strong men to protect me. Not that I needed it, but I knew if Deputy Morgan thought I’d be spending the night alone, he’d try to convince me to check into a hotel or stay with friends, at least until we figured out why my name had been on that card.
Luckily, he waited just long enough to make sure I got Gigi safely up the stairs and inside, and then he turned around and drove back down the lane toward the main road.
I said, “Oh. That was nobody.”
“Nobody?”
“Yeah, or a tourist. They saw me turn in and followed me up to the house. I think they thought it was an access road to the beach or something.”
“That’s weird.”
I shrugged, trying to change the subject. “It’s that time of year. Just yesterday morning a couple pulled up in a big SUV and walked all over the property.”
“Lost tourists?”
“That’s what I thought at first, but no. They were searching for property to build on. And they looked like they could practically afford to buy the whole island.”
Just then Paco emerged from the main house, balancing a platter of sand-dollar-size pancakes in one hand and a coffee carafe in the other. His hair was tousled and he was still in his pajamas: a white tank top and cotton pants printed all over with little cowboys. As he shuffled by, he gave me a kiss on the cheek.
He said, “Hi, sexy.”
Where Michael is fair and muscled, Paco is slim, dark, and handsome, with olive skin and a regal profile, not unlike a prince right out of the pages of The Arabian Nights. He’s an agent for Sarasota’s Special Investigative Bureau. He and Michael have been together so long—almost fifteen years now—that he feels like family.
Paco circled around Michael and put the pancakes and coffee down on the table.
Michael said, “Hey, don’t I get a kiss too?”
Paco rearranged the silverware on the table. “Nope.”
“Why?”
“You’re in trouble.”
“Huh? What did I do?”
He straightened up and leveled Michael with his dark brown eyes. “Well, who made breakfast?”
“Um. You.”
Paco nodded. “That’s right. And when I make breakfast, what are you supposed to do?”
“Um, take a shower?”
Paco rolled his eyes. “No. Guess again.”
Michael said, “Um, sit around and look handsome?”
“Very funny. You’re supposed to get the paper.”
Michael grimaced. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
I said, “I’ll get it.”
P
aco said, “No, you sit down. I’ll get it.” He rolled his eyes at Michael again and set off down the lane.
Michael loaded up a plate and handed it to me. “Must have been a good party last night. You look beat.”
“It wasn’t a party. One of my clients had a … a thing they had to go to, so they asked me to stay late is all.”
I drizzled a little syrup on my pancakes, conscious of Michael’s eyes on me. The older he gets, the more I see our father in him, which of course is sweet on the one hand and annoying as hell on the other, but I can’t exactly blame him. Our grandparents gave us the happiest and safest childhood anyone could ever hope for, but Michael has felt responsible for me ever since we were little kids. In all honesty, I’m grateful, but sometimes it makes me feel like a perennial teenager.
Michael said, “We had a big fire down on Turtle Bay. Some fool fell asleep on his boat with a kerosene lamp and kicked it over.”
I winced. I hate knowing the details of Michael’s job. Picturing him running around in a fire makes my stomach hurt.
“That’s terrible. Is he okay?”
“Yeah. Smoke inhalation, but he managed to make it to the dock before it got out of control, so he’s fine … can’t say the same thing for his boat, though. Or the two boats he was moored next to. One of them sank and the other looks like a big floating hunk of charcoal now.”
I shook my head. “Ugh. I can’t stand thinking about it. Let’s talk about something else.”
Paco came back up the driveway with the paper tucked under his arm and a distant look on his face. He sat down in silence opposite me and unfolded the paper.
Michael stifled a grin. “So, how was your walk?”
“Fine.” He turned the page without looking up. “The magnolia tree is blooming.”
Michael said, “Nice.”
“And it looks like we’ve got a family of rabbits living at the base of it.”
“Oh, that’s cool.”
Paco nodded. “Mm-hmm. I’ve got some carrot tops I might take down there after breakfast.” He turned the page again. “Oh, and there’s a sheriff’s deputy staked out at the top of the driveway.”
Michael’s jaw dropped open. “A what?”
“A sheriff’s deputy. Dixie, any idea what he’s doing there?”
He lowered the paper so I could see his eyes.
I said, “Huh?”
12
I always tell people I’ve never been across the Florida state line, but it’s a lie.
My mother took us on a surprise out-of-state trip when I was six years old and Michael was only eight. It was Christmas season, our father was working the overnight shift at the firehouse, and she had woken us up just as the sun was rising. Her face was flushed and there was a giggling exuberance about her that meant she’d already been drinking, either that or she’d been up all night and had never stopped. While she stuffed some of our clothes into a suitcase, she told us we were going on a “secret adventure,” which we both instinctively knew meant our dad didn’t know a thing about it.
The real adventure began about thirteen hours later, when she sobered up and found herself stranded on a train platform in a little town in Georgia, with two hungry, exhausted kids in tow and not a single quarter to call home. I remember rummaging through her purse because she couldn’t find her sunglasses, and I remember being afraid to ask why she needed them since the sun had long gone down. I finally found them in one of the interior pockets, hiding under a collection of little glass bottles and a crumpled receipt from Maas Brothers department store.
I can still see them. They were the big round kind with dark lenses—the ones you see on trendy models in vintage magazines from the sixties—with a tortoiseshell frame and two parallel rows of sparkling rhinestones arching across the top. As I handed them up to her, I noticed her eyes were bloodshot and glassy.
It was at that point that Michael took control. He marched over to a Salvation Army Santa that was standing just outside the ticket office and, with his eight-year-old face set in solemn, grave lines, said, “My little sister and I need help. Our mother is sick and we have to take her home.”
I think right then, at that exact moment, Michael came to the realization that his childhood had ended, that when our father wasn’t around to make sure we were safe, he was in charge. It was also the moment I knew that I could always depend on him.
Today, there are a growing number of silver hairs sprinkled throughout his blond locks, and I’m sorry to report that I’m probably responsible for most if not all of them. He inherited our father’s quiet stoicism, but he also got a good dose of our mother’s nervous anxiety, so whenever there’s even the tiniest bit of trouble, he takes it hard. The entire time I was talking, he kept his face buried in his hands, propped up on the table with his elbows.
I recounted the whole sordid story, beginning with my arrival at Caroline’s house two days earlier, how Mr. Scotland had been on Caroline’s porch with his big suitcase, and how Charlie had raced through the house and scratched up the living room door trying to get to the front foyer. I told them how after I’d cleaned Gigi’s cage, we’d all gone out to the lanai and fallen asleep on one of the lounge chairs, and how the young man from next door had woken us up.
Paco’s disposition is calm and quiet, the opposite of Michael’s, so he’s better at keeping his cards close. Until then he’d sat quietly and listened, but now he interrupted me.
“He broke into the house?”
“No, no, no. Nothing like that. He works for the woman next door. She has a bird—a reticulated yellow something or other. I was supposed to meet with her after I stopped at Caroline’s but … that never happened.”
Paco said, “Wait a minute. Are we talking about who I think we’re talking about?”
Michael said, “Who?”
Paco’s eyes narrowed. “Elba Kramer?”
I nodded.
Michael said, “The Elba Kramer?”
“Yep. The very one. She lives next door.”
Paco said, “I thought so. She and her husband run a shop downtown—jewelry and perfume and stuff—and she always has her bird with her. She treats it like her own child.”
Michael frowned. “Since when are you hanging around in jewelry shops?”
Paco ignored him. “It seems like trouble follows that woman around like a shadow. Did you meet her yet?”
I shook my head solemnly. “No. I never got the chance.”
“Why?”
“Because when I opened Caroline’s front door, there was a woman lying on her back in the middle of the front hall.”
Paco frowned. “Huh?”
“Yeah. At first I thought it was a man. She had a suit and tie on, with a scarf over her face.”
“What was she doing there?”
“Nothing.” I paused for a moment. “She was dead.”
Paco’s fork fell to the table and Michael’s eyes widened with alarm.
I nodded solemnly. “I knew right away. And I could tell she’d been there for a while. She was stone cold.”
Michael said, “Wait. Are you sure?”
Paco glanced at Michael and then back at me.
I said, “Am I sure…?”
Michael shook his head. “Sorry. Stupid question.”
Paco laid his hand on Michael’s back and patted him softly. He said, “Okay, the important thing is Dixie’s fine, right?”
At that point, I could have told them how I went sneaking around outside Caroline’s house and nearly got blown away at close range by Deputy Morgan, but I was pretty sure that kind of detail might send Michael into a full-on freak-out. I said, “I’m fine. A little frazzled around the edges, but fine.”
Paco said, “Was she a friend of Caroline’s?”
“I don’t know. Caroline’s on a boat somewhere with her new boyfriend and she’s not answering her phone. But one thing I know for sure: she would have told me if anybody else was going to be in that house while she was away.”
“She said she’d be gone about a week and that she’d let me know.”
Michael said, “So … you have no idea who this girl is?”
I sighed. “After the police got there, the detective took me back inside the house to see if I could identify her. I recognized her right away. She works at the snack bar down at the pavilion on Siesta Beach. Her name is Sara.”
Paco closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “Yeah. I know her.”
Michael said, “Wait, the blond girl? The one with the pierced eyebrow?”
“That’s her. Sara Potts. Except she was wearing a wig. And she had a mustache and sideburns drawn on her face with a black makeup pencil.”
They both just stared at me, speechless. I could tell Michael was still searching my expression for something that might indicate I was making the whole thing up, but I just shook my head.
Paco said, “How was she killed?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure anybody does, or if they do they didn’t tell me. They’re probably waiting for the coroner’s report, but … there was blood on the floor around her.”
Paco sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “Wow.”
“I know.”
Michael’s voice was soft. “She was such a sweet girl. I mean, we just talked to her like a month ago.” He turned to Paco. “Remember? We saw her on the beach at the sand-sculpture contest. She was about to start grad school at Florida State. She was all excited about it.”
I laid my head down on the table with a sigh.
Michael was right, she was a sweet girl, and always ready with a smile for everybody. I couldn’t even count the number of times she’d waited on me at the snack bar, always more cheerful than any of the other kids that worked there, offering free soda refills and piling the french fry baskets to overflowing. Such trivial things, but they said a lot about the kind of person she was.
I looked up at Paco, noting how quiet he’d gotten, and felt a lump form at the base of my throat. Paco is smart … like, scary smart. He can usually read me like a book, and I could tell he was beginning to suspect I was leaving something out. Meanwhile, Michael looked like he was launching into full denial mode. I knew he was already hoping we’d change the subject.
