Блейз Клемент - Raining Cat Sitters And Dogs

I yelled, “He’s got a gun, Michael!”

Michael didn’t even slow down.

The man looked up at me and then at Michael, and began making erasing motions with both hands. “Lady, you’ve got it all wrong.”

I was afraid he’d go for his gun, but Michael reached him before he had time.

The only other time I’d ever seen Michael that mad was when I was twelve and he was fourteen, and a nasty boy at school had jerked up my T-shirt and pinched one of my newly budding nipples. Michael had come at him so hard and fast that the kid’s nose was flattened and a front tooth was hanging by a bloody thread before I’d even got my shirt pulled back down.

The guy at the bottom of the stairs didn’t fare any better. Michael smashed his fist into the man’s gut, then hooked him with a thudding uppercut to the chin.

As much as I would have liked watching Michael beat the living snot out of him, I yelled, “Michael, stop!”

He grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it behind his back so viciously that I cringed at the pain I imagined in the man’s shoulder.

Michael gave me a grim smile. “Why?”

“Because Guidry is here.”

It was true. Guidry’s Blazer was rolling across the shell by the carport.

Without releasing the man, Michael waited for Guidry to park and get out of his car. Guidry wore the look of a man who cannot be surprised but is willing to be tested.

I skipped down some of the steps and jumped down the others, sort of a semivictorious hustle. I had somehow managed to magnetize a man who was probably the head of a gang of thieves and killers. My brother had the man in a death grip, and now Guidry could arrest him and thank me.

I said, “Guidry, this is the man I’ve been telling you about, the one who’s Jaz’s stepfather.”

Guidry gave the man a curt nod. “I’m Lieutenant Guidry, Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department.”

To me, he said, “What’s going on here?”

I said, “This man followed me home and threatened me. I kicked him down the stairs and Michael stopped him from escaping.”

The man said, “That’s not true. I didn’t threaten her. My stepdaughter is missing and I think this woman knows where she is. I’m just trying to find my stepdaughter.”

Guidry said, “Your stepdaughter would be the girl named Jaz?”

The man grimaced. “She calls herself that. It’s really Rosemary.”

Guidry said, “Whatever her name is, we have reason to believe she knows members of a gang wanted for murder.”

The man heaved a huge sigh and wiped his face with the hand Michael didn’t have a grip on, rubbing it as if he wanted to erase his own skin.

He said, “Christ, I hate this job.”

We all waited. I wondered if he was actually going to confess that he was the head of a gang that he sent out to sell drugs and rob people.

He said, “I’m a United States marshal, Lieutenant.”

My mouth fell open, but Guidry merely regarded him with dispassionate eyes. He said, “Show me some ID.”

Wincing a bit, the man reached into his breast pocket, drew out a slim wallet, and flipped it open to show his creds.

Guidry said, “Michael, let him go.”

Michael narrowed his eyes and looked at the man for a long moment before he loosened his hold. Rotating his sore shoulder under his navy polyester, the man arched his back as if his entire spine hurt.

Michael said, “You need me here?”

Guidry shook his head and Michael walked toward his kitchen door. He was flinging his punching hand from his wrist to get the blood circulating, but otherwise he looked as if he had more important things on his mind.

Guidry said, “What’s your connection to the girl?”

The marshal looked up at me as if he’d prefer not to speak in front of me, then made a what-the-hell shrug. “She was a witness to a drive-by killing in L.A. Right now she’s the only witness.”

Guidry said, “You’ve got her in the Witness Protection Program?”

“That’s correct.”

Guidry said, “I guess that explains why you’re paying an exorbitant rate to keep her at the Key Royale.”

“It’s the safest place we could find. Guards at the gate, lots of security on the premises. Room service, maid service, unlimited movies on big-screen TV. It wasn’t going to be forever, just until the trial next month.”

With a surly glance at me, he said, “She stayed there until this woman and her friend interfered. After that, I believe she has been sneaking away. With all the security there, I don’t know how she managed it, but I suspect she’s left more than once.”

Guidry said, “The manager at the Key Royale says they gave you a special off-season rate.”

The man and I both stared at Guidry. I was surprised he’d got the Key Royale people to give up a detail like that, and I suppose the marshal was surprised they’d talked at all.

The man rubbed his face again. “One kid is more trouble than an entire Mafia family. Kids don’t understand the danger they’re in, they don’t have any self-discipline, you have to watch them every minute or they’ll call their old friends and give away their location.”

I said, “Did Jaz call those boys who’re looking for her?”

His face sagged. “I didn’t know any boys were looking for her.”

I said, “Three boys came in a house where I was working. One of them was named Paulie. They asked for Jaz by name.”

Guidry said, “We got latents from that boy and identified him. Name was Paul Vanderson, one of the three charged with the drive-by killing in L.A.”

The marshal said, “She wouldn’t have called them. She’s scared to death of them.”

I said, “I think she gave somebody a description of the honeymoon cottage she was staying in at the Key Royale. The boys just went looking for a house that fit the description.”

The man scowled. “I gave her a phone so she could call me if she needed anything, but I took it away from her because she was making calls to L.A. She claimed she only called a girl from her school, but if she told where she was, the girl could have spread it around.”

I thought about going over and kicking him. I said, “What is it with you government people? Are you all dead from the neck up? You leave a girl that young alone, of course she’ll call a friend! And of course the friend will talk about it! What were you thinking?”

For the first time, he looked faintly ashamed. “Look, terrorism is the focus now, and we’re spread all over the place. We don’t have the personnel to babysit teenagers. In the beginning, we assigned a female marshal to her, and the two of them holed up in a hotel room in Kansas. But the trial date got changed, that marshal got reassigned, and we brought her here where she’d have more freedom. I know it’s not an ideal situation, but I checked on her twice a day. I brought her comic books and candy bars. I even took her to Target a couple of times for shampoo and stuff. It wasn’t like she was in jail.”

“Couldn’t you have put her with a family someplace?”

He met my angry glare with dull eyes. “Until the murder trial is over, putting her with a family would expose them to grave danger.”

I said, “What about Jaz’s parents? Why aren’t they with her?”

“Her mother split when she was a baby, father took off a few years later. She lived with a grandmother, but the old lady died a few months ago. She was in a foster home when she saw the shooting. Everybody on the street scattered, nobody will talk. She’s the only one we’ve got.”

His voice was gruff, but tension around his lips said he felt sadness along with his frustration and anger.

Guidry said, “How long has she been missing?”

“She wasn’t at the hotel when I went to check on her last night. I checked again this morning and nothing had changed.”