Блейз Клемент - Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

My eyelids stung, and I wanted to leave him speechless while I made an indignant exit. But it’s hard to leave in high dudgeon when it’s your own apartment. Besides, I had a sneaking suspicion he was right.

Guidry said, “Relax. I’ve said all I’m going to say about it. It’s just something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

Once again, Guidry had left me feeling out of control. I hate that. Not that I want to be the one always in control. I just hate it when I’m not.

I said, “You’ve never said how Conrad died.”

“Correct.”

“I need to know. If the same person wants me dead, I need to know how he killed Conrad.”

“What makes you so sure it was a man?”

“Come on, Guidry.”

He walked back to the breakfast bar and leaned his elbows on it. For the first time since I’d known him, a river of emotions flowed over his face.

“He died of a massive injection of succinylcholine chloride shot into his right buttock. It’s a neuromuscular paralysant. It paralyzes the lungs, so lung surgeons use it while they have a patient on a ventilator.”

The words trickled through my brain like ice water. “And without a ventilator?”

“Suffocation. Heart failure. Death.”

I said, “How long?” and was surprised to hear that I was whispering.

He swallowed. “The drug gets to the diaphragm within seconds of injection. Death is within five minutes, give or take.”

I thought of Conrad, lying on the ground unable to breathe.

“Was he unconscious?”

“He was fully conscious until he died. It’s a particularly sadistic way to kill a person.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“It took the ME awhile to be sure. They had to run tissue spectrographs. They found enough of the drug in his tissues to kill an elephant, and I mean that literally. Until it was declared too inhumane, it’s what they used in Africa to cull elephant herds. They flew over in helicopters and shot the elephants with dart guns.”

“Did the ME give you a time of death?”

“She can’t be sure, Dixie, you know that. But judging from lividity and rigor, she thinks Ferrelli hadn’t been dead more than a couple of hours when you found him. That puts his murder no earlier than four-thirty. That fits with what Stevie Ferrelli says, that Conrad usually left about six to run with the dog on the beach.”

“Where was Denton Ferrelli then?”

“He and his wife both say he left their home on Longboat Key about six o’clock. He drove to the Longboat Key Moorings where he docks his speedboat. He took the boat out for a spin around the bay, something he does every morning, and docked at about six forty-five. He walked over to the harborside golf course at the Longboat Key Golf Club, where he met three other men. They waited for the greenskeepers to finish up and teed off shortly after seven o’clock.”

I slitted my eyes like a hound on a fresh scent. “Who are these three other men?”

“Leo Brossi was one.”

“Aha!”

“Yeah, maybe. But the other two are okay, at least so far as we know. State Senator Wayne Black and a banker named Quenton Dyer.”

I had a feeling I’d heard that name before, but I couldn’t remember where.

I said, “They could be lying.”

“Over a dozen people saw them.”

“Denton could be lying about when he left home. He could have got up early, driven to Siesta Key and killed Conrad, and still been on time for his golf game. It wouldn’t have taken long to cover the body with that loose mulch. And Denton’s that cold, he could do it and not break a sweat.”

“You saw Conrad Ferrelli’s car a little after six. Even if Denton and his wife are lying about the time he left home, Denton Ferrelli couldn’t have been driving the car you saw.”

“What about Brossi?”

He shook his head. “Brossi would kill his own grandmother for a buck, but Ferrelli’s murder was driven by an overwhelming rage. The lipstick on the mouth, the dead kitten. That’s motivated by hatred and revenge, not money.”

I suddenly heard Cora’s voice: That fellow Dyer had to shoot an elephant one time. It went crazy or something, and he shot it with a gun that had drugs in it.

“You said the drug was shot into Conrad? Shot how?”

“The ME found a needle puncture.”

“Guidry, that man, Quenton Dyer, the one who played golf with Denton, the one you said was a lawyer—”

Guidry was nodding like one of those duck things that bob over a glass of water.

“Yes?”

“His father was with the Ringling Circus. He worked with elephants, and one time he had to kill one with a big shot of drugs. He did it with a gun.”

I leaned back and looked triumphantly at him.

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Cora Mathers told me. You remember Cora? Marilee Doerring’s grandmother? When she lived in Bradenton, one of her neighbors was a man named Dyer. He worked for Ringling, doing something with the elephants, feeding them or training them, I don’t know what. He had a son named Quenton. It has to be the same man.”

“You think—”

“That must be how he and Denton Ferrelli met. They were both circus kids. And if Dyer’s father knew how to use drugs to kill elephants … .”

Guidry appeared to be chewing on the inside of his cheek, the first sign of uncertainty I’d ever seen in him.

“Quenton Dyer is an investment banker. He sits on the boards of half a dozen important businesses.”

“So?”

He sighed. “Okay. It does seem like more than coincidence. But the fact remains that both men were seen at the Longboat Key Golf Club at seven o’clock that morning, not too long after you saw Conrad’s car driving away.”

I slumped over the bar. If Denton Ferrelli wasn’t the killer, I didn’t know where else to look. And if I didn’t know who to be afraid of, the killer had a better chance at me.

Guidry reached out and ran the back of his fingers over my bruised cheek with a surprisingly gentle touch.

“Are you going to be here alone tonight?”

My heart did a little blip, a girlie kind of jump like women get when they’ve had a welcome proposition. I felt like slapping my own chest. I nodded, but I frowned too so he wouldn’t think I’d reacted the way I’d reacted.

He got up and headed for the front door. Then he turned and gave me a hesitant look.

“Look, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I don’t want you to take this lightly either. It’s not a good idea for you to be here by yourself if a psychopathic killer has taken an interest in you.”

“I have a thirty-eight in my pocket. I have metal hurricane shutters that cover the French doors.”

He nodded toward the window over the kitchen sink. “Somebody could come through that window. You also have a bathroom window. I checked while I waited for you.”

“It would take a two-story ladder to get in those windows.”

“Or a one-story ladder set in a pickup raised on giant tires. A pickup is a convenient place to carry a ladder.”

“Guidry, I can’t live scared. I’ll keep my gun ready. I’ll keep the windows locked. I’ll be careful.”

“When will your brother be home?”

“He should be home any time now. He was on a twenty-four-hour shift that ended this morning at eight o’clock.”

“What about Paco?”

I let his slip of the tongue pass without saying “Ha!” Guidry and Paco kept up a pretense of not knowing each other, but I’d known all along they did. Guidry was homicide and Paco was undercover, but those guys all know one another.

I said, “I don’t know when Paco will be home.” I wasn’t going to divulge any information about Paco’s schedule, not even to another cop. If Guidry wanted to know when Paco would be home, he could ask Paco.