Блейз Клемент - Even Cat Sitters Get The Blues

He didn’t seem put off by the fact that I didn’t smile or wave or speak to him, just looked solemnly at me while he strolled across the ground to the stairs. The nip in the air had put extra color in his cheeks, and I couldn’t help noticing that his usual golden tan was now more of a peachy color. I love that color. I could eat that color. It’s warm and lush and makes me think of hot summer nights and homemade ice cream. But Guidry’s gray eyes weren’t warm at all. In fact, they were about as icy as the frigid slurry that firms homemade ice cream.

When he got to the top of the stairs, he said, “We have to talk.”

He took my arm and sort of tugged me, not manhandling me, but not like I had a choice either. My heart did a crazy tango and my nipples turned to hot rubies, but at the same time I was afraid I might break out in hives or throw up. Cora was right. Men don’t do that kind of crap.

Guidry pushed the French doors open, giving me a look as he stepped inside my apartment that made my jaws lock. I knew as surely as I knew the surf would roll on the beach every day that Guidry had feelings toward me too.

He said, “You have any coffee?”

Oh, that was good. Making coffee would give me a chance to do something with my hands. Guidry and I could sit and drink coffee and ease into a conversation about what had happened this morning.

I scurried to the kitchen and sloshed water in the coffeemaker, put in the little paper cone thing, filled it with coffee, and pushed the button. While it gurgled and spat, I got out mugs, but no cream or sugar because I remembered that Guidry drank it black, same as I do. When I turned around with my finger threaded through the mug handles, I met his calm eyes.

He said, “Dixie, the man who reported the guard’s murder was there to deliver the Herald-Tribune. He says that when he turned into the driveway, he met a woman on a bicycle coming out. He describes her as about thirty years old, pretty, blond ponytail. Says her bike was black, with a roomy basket for carrying stuff.”

Carefully, I settled the mugs on the bar and moved them so their handles pointed in the same direction. I pulled out the drawer under the bar and got out a stack of paper napkins. My mind flitted to the idea of cookies. We should have cookies with our coffee, it would be nicer.

“Dixie? Is there anything you want to tell me?”

I stepped back to the coffeemaker and watched the dark liquid rising in the glass bottom, climbing toward the four-cup line. When it reached the line, the machine burped and hiccuped a couple of times and a few more drops fell into the black lake. I waited a few seconds to give it time to squeeze out its all, and then lifted the pot and carried it to the bar. As careful as a prayer, I poured two mugs of coffee and took the pot back to its home base.

Then I turned around and folded my arms across my chest and met Guidry’s gaze.

“Guidry, the guard was dead when I saw him. It wouldn’t have changed anything if I’d called. Two or three minutes’ difference, that’s all.”

“I’m not concerned about the timing, Dixie.”

“Okay, I should have called. I know that. But I didn’t want to get involved in another murder. You understand that, don’t you? When the truck drove in, I knew the driver would report it, so I left.”

“The guard’s name was Ramón Gutierrez. Twenty-nine years old, no criminal record. Married, two kids. Killed by a single bullet to the left temple, probably a thirty-eight caliber.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. “Why are you telling me this?”

“A witness saw you leaving the murder scene.”

This time when my heart tripped it wasn’t because I was close to Guidry. It was because I suddenly got the full import of why he was there.

“For God’s sake, Guidry, I didn’t kill him!”

His hand on his coffee mug was steady as he looked at me. “The call from the Herald-Tribune guy came in at six-fifteen. The Medical Examiner estimates the guard was shot no more than three or four hours before.”

“You can’t be serious about this! You know I didn’t kill that man.”

For the first time, I saw a glint of anger in Guidry’s eyes. “What the hell were you thinking? Didn’t you expect the deliveryman to tell us you were there? Why didn’t you tell me? Why let me find it out this way?”

An undercurrent of some emotion I couldn’t identify rang through his disappointment, some old hurt or resentment that didn’t have anything to do with me or the current situation. We all carry such a bundle of old experiences, it’s a wonder we’re ever fully in the present.

By the way he compressed his lips and gave a slight shake of his head, it seemed he’d caught himself having feelings he regretted.

He said, “We have a new DA, Dixie—a woman with a lot of ambition and a lot of political connections. Here’s how she’s going to see it. You’re a former deputy with sharpshooting awards. Your work takes you in and out of empty houses, so you probably carry a weapon. You were hired to take care of Ken Kurtz’s iguana. You went to his house, but the guard wouldn’t let you in. Maybe you had words with him, maybe he insulted you. You’re emotionally stressed because of what happened back when you killed that guy, so you flipped out and shot him in the head. You came home, ditched the gun, and returned to the Kurtz house pretending it was the first time you’d been there.”

“I don’t carry a gun, and I didn’t shoot the guard. I didn’t even know that was the Kurtz house when I went to the guardhouse. I was trying to find a place to wait out the rain.”

I thought about Ken Kurtz saying I would never tell Guidry that Kurtz had lied to him, or that I had warned Kurtz to get rid of his gun before he talked to Guidry. Instinct, Kurtz had called it. Acting on instinct rather than intellect. Now my instinct told me I had disappointed a man I greatly admired and respected. Maybe I had completely blown any chance of getting closer to him.

The weird thing was that I was as disappointed in Guidry as he was in me. He should have known me well enough to know I was innocent. Not just innocent of killing the guard but innocent, period. Sure, I might keep quiet about a few tidbits of information I’d overheard, and I might not tell him that Kurtz carried a gun under his bathrobe, but I was one of the world’s good people, and I expected him to know it. If he didn’t, maybe he wasn’t the man I’d thought he was.

I said, “Do you want to take my thirty-eight for ballistics?”

He sighed. “Dixie, I don’t think you killed the guard. I just wish you’d told me, that’s all.”

“But you want my gun.”

“I’m sorry.”

So furious I could hardly breathe, I left him sitting at the bar and went into my bedroom where the side of my single bed was pushed against the wall. Yanking the end of the bed away to get at its far side, I pulled out a drawer built into its base. The Sarasota Sheriff’s Department issues 9-millimeter SigSauers to all personnel, but every deputy also has personal backup guns for which they are qualified. When a deputy retires or dies, his department-issued gun has to be turned in, so I no longer had either Todd’s or my own, but I had all our backups. Todd’s were a nine-millimeter Glock, his Colt .357, and his primary personal, a Smith and Wesson .40. My own were a Smith and Wesson .32 and a .38 that was my favorite. I kept them all in a specially built case in the drawer under my bed.

I lifted the .38 from its Styrofoam nesting place and laid it on the bed. I closed the case and slid the drawer back in. I pushed the bed back against the wall and stomped into the kitchen and put the gun on the bar in front of Guidry.