Блейз Клемент - Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

He said, “Aside from the fact that a murder investigation is going on and you’re not part of it, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I don’t have to get your permission to talk to people, Guidry.”

“So what did you find out? Can Denton Ferrelli stop the retirement home from being built?”

I wondered if that was the question Guidry had planned to ask Ethan Crane himself. Maybe he had a point. Maybe I had interfered in a murder investigation. The possibility that I had made my voice a bit defensive.

“It doesn’t sound like he can. Angelo Ferrelli set up some trust funds that are all under the control of a company that serves as trustee. Conrad was CEO of the trustee company. Denton heads a trust that improves communities, and he brokered a deal that bought a big piece of real estate. The plan was to dock a casino boat there, but Conrad squashed the deal. He took the property for a circus retirement home, and when it’s built all the various trusts will funnel some of their funds into it. Denton is pissed about it, but there’s not much he can do to stop it.”

“So he doesn’t stand to gain from Conrad’s death?”

“Evidently not.”

“You sound disappointed.”

I shrugged. “Everybody who knows Denton Ferrelli says he’s a thoroughly hateful person. He resented Conrad. He hated the way he dressed. He hated his involvement with the circus.”

“Hatred’s a pretty strong motivation for murder.”

“But he’s hated him all his life. Why kill him now, if he’s not going to benefit from it?”

Guidry’s straw made a rude sound at the bottom of his paper cup, and he put the cup down with an annoyed frown.

“You didn’t have any reason except curiosity for wanting to find out about Denton Ferrelli?”

The memory of the voice on my answering machine coiled in my head. I didn’t want to sound like a damsel in distress, but playing tight-lipped martyr could get me knocked off by some psychotic killer.

“A man left a message on my answering machine this afternoon. Just two words: You’re next .”

“You thought it was Denton Ferrelli?”

“I don’t know who it was.”

He tilted his head toward the slim leather handbag I’d laid on the edge of the table.

“You carrying?”

“Yes.”

“Got a CCW?”

I rolled my eyes and gave him an are-you-kidding? look. Up north, especially in landlocked states, it’s illegal to carry a concealed handgun. In swamp-ridden Florida, it’s damn near mandatory. The state’s official stance is, Hey, man, we’re sticking out down here like the country’s hind tit, surrounded by oceans and alligators and Commie Cubans, threatened by hurricanes and tidal waves and foreign tourists, and we by God need to be able to shoot something. Over eight million of us consequently have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, otherwise known as a CCW. That’s why so many retired geezers in Florida wear belly packs over their shorts and knit shirts—they’re carrying semiautomatics. It’s a miracle more of them don’t blow their nuts off.

Guidry sat for a moment twisting his tall paper cup on the table, his face pensive as if trying to make a decision. He snapped the cup down on the table and looked up at me, his eyes clear and direct.

“Dixie, this is strictly confidential, but I want you to be careful. This murder has psychopath written all over it.”

I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat and stared at him. There’s a fine distinction between a sociopath and a psychopath, and homicide detectives are careful about it. Sociopaths kill for the hell of it, just because they can. Murder is a cool clinical activity for them. Because they don’t see their victims as fellow human beings, there’s nothing personal about it. But when a psychopath kills, it’s personal. Psychopaths kill with a passionate hatred born of irrational fury over real or imagined injustices. Like a venomous brain cancer that consumes reason, psychopathic hatred gains intensity once it’s unleashed, spilling over to include anybody in the way. When they’ve killed once, psychopaths not only feel personally vindicated, they want to kill again.

I said, “Why do you think that? The lipsticked grin?”

“When we removed Conrad Ferrelli’s body, we found a dead kitten under him. The coroner thinks it suffocated under Conrad. But before Conrad fell on it, the kitten’s legs had been broken.”

My stomach quivered. “I don’t understand.”

“My guess is that somebody broke the kitten’s legs and left it in the bushes for Conrad to hear crying. Conrad is on the street, hears the kitten, goes in to see what it is, and the killer gets him while he’s bending over looking at it. If I’m right, it wasn’t the murder that gave the killer satisfaction, it was seeing Conrad’s pain when he found that poor damned kitten.”

I felt swimmy-headed. The thought of somebody doing something so cruel to a kitten was almost more than I could take.

Guidry said, “Most killers get rid of somebody they think needs to die, and that’s the end of it. Psychopaths aren’t like that. They get their jollies from the way their victims die, not because they’re dead. Whoever killed Conrad Ferrelli wanted that hurt kitten to be the last thing he saw.”

“Conrad always drove Reggie to the beach to run, so I don’t know why the killer thought he would be on the street. Or why he was on the street, for that matter. And how could the killer be sure Conrad would hear the kitten and come looking for it?”

“I don’t know. That’s the hole in my theory. I’m just saying it was somebody with a particularly twisted mind who killed Conrad Ferrelli, so I want you to be especially careful.”

My pulse was pounding at the base of my throat. I thought of the feeling I’d had when I came home that afternoon that somebody had been in my apartment. But it had probably been my imagination. It had probably been fear making me paranoid. No sense mentioning it to Guidry and having him think I was a hysterical nut case.

He said, “Don’t go out and try to solve this. It’s too dangerous. Lay low, keep your protection handy, and let me handle it.”

The conversation was over. We both stood up, and he gave my legs in the tall sandals another sweeping glance.

“I’ll see you, Dixie.”

He left me under the thatched roof and walked across the street to disappear inside Ethan Crane’s building. I hoped Ethan wouldn’t be asleep when Guidry got there.

9

Stray rain clouds had moved in while Guidry and I talked, and on the drive home a few sprinkles plopped on the Bronco’s windshield. In the carport, I took the .38 out of my purse and scanned the locks on the storage closets. I wanted to make sure nobody had opened one and was in there ready to pop out at me. I was tense as a lizard under a cat’s paw. Passing clouds gave the air a curious transparency, so that everything seemed covered by yellow Saran Wrap.

Upstairs, I kicked off my high heels, climbed into shorts and a T, and scooted out to make my afternoon runs. Nobody tried to kill me, and nobody jumped out at me in any of the houses.

At Mame’s I found her in Judge Powell’s study, lying on the Persian rug rung in front of a red leather sofa. She had an expression in her eyes that made me uneasy. Animals always know when their lives are drawing to an end, and when they do their eyes get a curiously sad and patient look.

I sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled her into my lap. She sighed and curled herself between my legs with her head on my knee. I thought she probably missed the Powells, so I made my voice as low as possible, hoping I sounded like the Judge.

I sang, “You can put the blame on Mame, boys, put the blame on Mame.”