Блейз Клемент - Raining Cat Sitters And Dogs

My cell rang as I was getting in the Bronco. With no preamble, Guidry said, “Where are you?”

I gave him Reba’s address, and he said, “Stay put. I’m in the area.”

Three minutes later, his Blazer pulled up at the curb. Except for a certain pink tinge to his eyes that said he’d also missed some sleep, he looked as calm and collected as always. Natural linen jacket, pale blue open-collared shirt, dark blue slacks, woven leather sandals, no socks. Guidry’s clothes are always wrinkled just enough to say they’re made of fine fabrics woven by indigenous artisans, and he wears them with the casual ease of one who’s never known the touch of chemically created threads.

Conscious of being sweaty, cat hairy, and damp from parrot bathwater, I waited while he pulled a sheet of mug shots from a manila envelope.

He said, “You recognize any of these guys?”

They were all young men, all with various looks of sulky rebellion. Three of them looked like the guys who’d come in Reba’s house looking for Jaz.

I touched their faces. “I can’t swear to it, but I think they’re the ones who came in on me.”

“Okay.” He put the pics back in the envelope.

I said, “Well?”

“One of them is the guy whose prints were on the jar. An eighteen-year-old from L.A. named Paul Vanderson. He and the other two have records going back several years. They’re out on bail right now, charged with killing a sixteen-year-old in a drive-by shooting in L.A. The fingerprint people were able to match Vanderson’s latents to some that were in the house where the homicide occurred here in Sarasota. With that confirmation, they compared latents in the house to the other two names, and they matched too. Good job getting the prints, Dixie.”

I preened a little bit. If I’d had any, I would have pulled some feathers through my beak.

I said, “So what do you do now?”

“We look for them. When we find them, the LAPD will want them first. Their drive-by shooting trial is next month. If they’re convicted of that, they’ll spend the rest of their lives in prison. If they’re not, they’ll still have to stand trial for the homicide here.”

Thinking how close I’d been to human beings capable of such mindless violence made my temperature drop.

Guidry said, “The girl is the first link to them, so that’s where I’ll start. You said the woman’s house where the girl is working is around here?”

“Next street over. I’m going there now.”

“I’ll follow you.”

I got back in the Bronco and moved toward Hetty’s house, acutely aware that Guidry was behind me. I wondered what he thought about seeing me, or if he was thinking of me at all. Probably wasn’t, since he was there as a homicide detective investigating a murder, not because he wanted to see me. I felt like an idiot for even wondering about it, but that didn’t make me stop.

Being somewhat involved with a man was like being in a foreign place, an alien world in which I didn’t speak the language or know the local customs. With Todd, everything had been gradual and easy, moving from friendship to lovers to marriage in an easy arc that felt familiar and right on every level. But that had been before I knew how love can grow so that losing it is an amputation, how forever after you have the phantom other still attached. I had let my anguish go, but I would never be a fully individual self again. Todd would always be a part of me, like my DNA.

Nevertheless, I remained exquisitely conscious of Guidry’s eyes on me, and I was absolutely certain that his feelings about me were as conflicted as mine were about him. He’d had a wife once who’d betrayed him. Perhaps it was difficult for him to trust again. He had a comfortable life as an uncommitted man. Perhaps he wanted to keep it that way.

At Hetty’s driveway, I pulled into it and turned off the motor. Before I got out of the car I ordered myself to put every thought about Guidry out of my mind. We were here to keep Hetty safe and to get information about Jaz, not for me to trip over some maybe romance that was no more substantial than a moonbeam. With my mind firmly made up, I slid out of the Bronco to join Guidry.

9

Carrying the manila envelope with the mug shots in it, Guidry looked at Hetty’s house with the quizzical expression of one who couldn’t decide if he was seeing sweet sentimentality or sly irony. I rang the doorbell on the magenta-painted door, and watched Guidry tilt his head to look up where pale pink walls of the sheltered enclosure met a dark shade of burnt orange at the ceiling. The overhead light had a globular shade as starkly white as the low iron Victorian bench beside the door. The bench held a golden yellow basket from which red impatiens spilled. Hetty dresses in cool neutrals, but since she’s an exceptionally brave and confident woman, she surrounds herself with color.

I heard faint footsteps that stopped for a few seconds before Hetty answered the door, and I knew she had taken those seconds to look out the peephole. I was glad she was taking precautions. After my experience at Reba’s house, I thought it was smart to be extra careful. She opened the door with Ben close beside her feet. Ben tried to wriggle through the opening and she knelt to hold him in place.

I said, “Hetty, is Jaz here?”

With both hands firmly holding Ben, she looked at Guidry with a suspicious glint in her eye. “Why?”

Guidry pulled out his wallet and politely exhibited his creds. “Lieutenant Guidry, ma’am, with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department. We’re investigating a murder and there’s a possible link between some of the suspects and a girl calling herself Jaz. Dixie told me she might be working for you. If she’s here, I’d like to ask her some questions.”

Hetty said, “A murder? You think Jaz had something to do with a murder?”

“I think she might know people who had something to do with a murder. She’s not in any trouble.”

I felt like hollering, “Don’t believe him! He’s a homicide detective! He’ll tell you any lie that works. If Jaz is in a gang that killed a man while they robbed him, she’s in big trouble.”

On the other hand, I didn’t want Hetty to be mixed up with a girl who might be in a gang of thieves and killers, so I kept quiet.

Guidry said, “Is the girl here, Ms. Soames?”

She cut her eyes at me when he said her name, because obviously I was the one who’d given it to him. But then good sense made her give a resigned sigh, and she rose to a stooped position with one hand on Ben’s collar and gestured us inside.

“I have coffee in the kitchen.” She led the way through her toffee-colored living room, then the dining room with its pale lavender walls, chalk-white trim, low-hanging wire chandelier for real candles, and its vibrations of laughter and smart conversation.

Every time I walked through that room, I vowed if I ever had another house, it would have a dining room just like Hetty’s. Not that I had plans for another house. My spartan apartment suited me just fine. Just if I ever did. Like if my apartment got too little for some reason. Not that I thought it would, but still.

Hetty’s big square kitchen showed more of her cavalier approach to color. Cherry red walls, yellow cabinets, and white countertops. A round, pedestaled table painted glossy purple, with black mule-eared chairs grouped around it. A kindergarten kid with a fresh box of crayons might have used those colors, but probably not with the same sophisticated effect.

Winston sat in one of the black chairs. Jaz sat in another, with an empty plate and a glass of milk in front of her. The plate had yellow vestiges of scrambled eggs on it.

When she saw me, the girl seemed to freeze. When she saw Guidry, she rose from her chair halfway between flight and indecision.