Блейз Клемент - Cat Sitter On A Hot Tin Roof

I said, “Guidry, do you have a first name?”

I hadn’t planned to say that, it just popped out, like an embarrassing belly button.

His eyes narrowed a bit, as if I’d asked him something too personal. “Most people just call me Guidry.”

“Your mother called you Guidry?”

His eyes softened. “My mother calls me Jean-Pierre.”

He pronounced the first name Zhahn , like an American drunk saying John , but when you hook that sound to Pierre , I knew he wasn’t speaking like an American.

“So you’re French, right?”

“Have you taken up journalism?”

“Why are you so secretive? Got skeletons in your family closet?”

Oh, God, why did I say that?

He gave me a long look, then firmed his jaw. “My father’s a lawyer in New Orleans, heads a big law firm there.”

“What about your mother?”

He smiled. “She’s always bringing home strangers who need help, feeding them, finding jobs for them, getting them whatever they need to get back on their feet. Used to drive my father nuts, but since Katrina he’s been doing the same thing, giving his time to people who need legal help.”

Okay, so now I knew why he had a rich man’s aura. It was because he had grown up in a rich man’s house, with rich parents who had big hearts.

I said, “Did your father want you to be a lawyer too?”

He grinned. “Oh, yeah. And for a while I was. Went to law school, worked in his firm, tried to like it. But after a while we both knew I’d be a much better cop than I’d ever be a lawyer.”

There it was again, that reminder that he was a cop, along with the uncomfortable comparison with lawyers. In spite of myself, I thought of Ethan Crane. Why couldn’t my perverse body yearn to be close to an attorney instead of a cop?

Guidry said, “Dixie?”

I must have been staring over his shoulder for a while, seeing ghosts, remembering that cops get killed and leave you.

I said, “Do you know what piqueurism is?”

“Why?”

“I talked to Reba Chandler last night. She’s a psychology professor at New College. She mentioned the word. It seemed like something that fits with a scalpel stabbing.”

I buttered my biscuit and took a bite. Normal people probably wouldn’t have been able to eat while they talked about a woman being stabbed to death, but anybody who’s been trained in law enforcement has learned to disconnect their stomachs from their hearts.

Guidry reached across the table and took a round of fried potato from my plate.

Ignoring my question, he said, “We talked to Gorgon. He owns the dealership where Laura Halston bought her Jaguar. He says she paid a hundred thousand plus change—in cash. You have any idea where she got that kind of money?”

“She said she drove her Mercedes from Dallas and sold it in Arkansas.”

“Yeah, but that was a lie, since she didn’t live in Dallas and didn’t have a Mercedes.”

“What about Gorgon?”

“On the night Laura Halston was killed, Gorgon was with a woman in Naples. She backs up his story.”

Judy bustled back with Guidry’s plates—one with his eggs and fries, another with a double rasher of crisp bacon. She looked as if she wanted to say something but then seemed to think better of it and left us.

Like Pavlov’s dog salivating at the sound of a bell, I automatically raised my head at the fragrance of fried hog fat. I am convinced that heaven is a place where crisp bacon is served around the clock, anytime you want it, and that it won’t clog your arteries or go to your hips. I’ll bet angels sit around eating BLTs all day long. Probably with fries. Gives me something to look forward to.

Guidry gave me a sympathetic look and moved a couple rigid strips to my plate. I didn’t offer any protest. After the last few days I’d had, I damn well deserved bacon.

We ate silently for a while, me taking mincing bites of my bacon to make it last longer, and Guidry chomping down half a slice at a bite. I watched him chew. His lower lip had a teensy sheen of fat on it from the bacon. It occurred to me that I had never kissed a man who’d just taken a bite of bacon.

He said, “Tell me again how you came to overhear Martin Freuland threaten Laura Halston.”

The women in Guidry’s world probably never ate bacon. Probably didn’t eat any fat at all. Skinny anorexic bitches.

I said, “You know that little turtle I found?”

He shook his head, and it seemed to me that he wanted to roll his eyes.

“Well, I found this little box turtle, and I put her by a dock on Fish Hawk Lagoon. While I was there, Laura and that man came walking by on the jogging trail. I could see them through the hedge, but they didn’t see me. The man was telling her that he’d see to it that she paid for what she’d done. He said it was the worst thing she’d ever pulled. Then he said, ‘You owe me.’ She gave him the finger and walked off. He was furious. Got in his car and hauled off.”

He said, “You know what he was talking about?”

“At the time, I thought he was her husband and that he was talking about how she’d left him. Now that I know he was her boss, I have no idea. Her sister says she stole from him.”

Judy skidded to a stop just then and refilled our cups. She looked at the bacon crumbs on my plate, pressed her lips together to keep from saying anything, and went off to other customers.

Guidry said, “You talked to the sister?”

“She invited herself into the Richards’ house last night. She said some nasty things about Laura, what a liar she was, how she had always been a slut and always used men. She also said their father had an incestuous relationship with Laura from the time she was about nine years old. She claims Laura seduced him, which proves Celeste has the mind of a sewer rat. She also said somebody had told her that Laura was a narcissist. That’s really why I went to see Reba Chandler. I wasn’t sure what a narcissist was.”

His gray eyes studied me for a moment. “Are we still on for Saturday night?”

Surprised, I said, “Sure.”

“You get something different done to your hair?”

I touched it. “No.”

He grinned, as if he found me amusing. His fingertips beat a drumbeat on the table, and then he stood up and put money down. “See you later.”

I watched him go and tried to ignore the racket my pulse was making in my ears.

I could understand Guidry’s father wanting him to join his law firm, but Guidry was more cut out to investigate crime than handle legal affairs. Ethan Crane, on the other hand, was great at legal problems but would probably suck at being a homicide investigator. I wondered if Guidry’s father was more like Ethan than like Guidry. I wondered if Guidry’s father would like me, which was really stupid because I’d probably never even meet the man. I mean, why would I?

Judy was beside me almost before he’d got out the front door. “You and that hunky detective got something going?”

“He’s not hunky, and we don’t.”

“Honey, if he’s not hunky, I’m the Queen of Egypt. So what was he doing here?”

“Just wanted to ask me about a case he’s working on.”

“Runaway?”

“Maybe.”

“Poor kids, they don’t know what they’re getting into when they leave home.”

Judy walked away with her coffeepot, looking so sad that I wondered if she spoke from experience.

I slid out of the booth and headed for a post-coffee trip to the ladies’ room, where Tanisha was lathering her plump hands. I pulled out a brown paper towel from the dispenser.

“Great breakfast, Tanisha. Thanks.”

Tanisha said, “I noticed you was with a man this morning. Nice-looking too. ’Course, how a man looks and how a man acts is two different things.”