Блейз Клемент - Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

“Denton wasn’t actually around when Conrad died.”

“You know that for a fact?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know anything for a fact, Pete.”

“Well, that’s good, honey. People who know things for a fact are among the stupidest people on the face of the earth. You keep not knowing, and you’ll be a lot smarter.”

Maybe it was because the hot mustard had gone to my head, but I understood what he meant.

Pete looked at my face. “I shouldn’t have told you that. It’s enough to make anybody sick. Let’s talk about something else. Like how you probably need an older man in your life.”

My mouth was so dry I had to take a long drink of iced tea before I could speak.

I said, “Pete, did Denton ever have anything to do with snakes?”

“Snakes? Not that I know of.”

I rotated my iced tea on the tabletop.

I said, “When I was at Josephine’s this morning, Priscilla said she knew somebody who drives a truck like the one that chased me. She wouldn’t tell me who it was, but you know, don’t you?”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and leaned back in the booth. “Priscilla’s a good girl, Dixie. She was on the street for a while, bad family, abuse, the whole nine yards. But she’s trying really hard, you know? She’s not but sixteen and she’s got that baby, and she’s a good little mother. I’ve helped her all I can, gave her a room over my garage, sent her to Josephine for a job, I don’t want to rock her boat.”

“Somebody put a rattlesnake in my apartment last night. Two of them, in fact. One was under my mattress. I slept on it.”

He flinched as if I’d stuck a knife in him. “Good God.”

“I’m sorry to put you in the middle, Pete, but there’s a deputy outside tailing me because my life is in danger. There are law-enforcement people at my apartment right now, going through it inch by inch, looking for other snakes or poisonous spiders or whatever. Somebody tried to run me down with a truck, and if Priscilla knows who it is, she’d damn well better tell me or she’s going to have to talk to the sheriff’s department.”

“Did you tell Priscilla about the snakes?”

“Just the truck.”

“I’ll talk to her, Dixie. I think she probably doesn’t understand how important it is. But any information needs to come from her, not from me.”

“I’ll wait a few hours, Pete, but that’s all.”

His mouth tightened into a grim line. “I’d like to make sure Priscilla is safe before she tells you anything. Your life may not be the only one in danger.”

I wadded my napkin and tossed it on top of my partially eaten sandwich.

“I have to go. Thanks for the Cuban.”

I leaned down and kissed his forehead before I left, causing his woolly eyebrows to waggle. Pete Madeira was a sweet man. Sexy too. I wondered if he would like to meet an older woman with lavender hair.

On the way out, I stopped and bought a Coke and a cold Cuban wrapped to go, and took it out to the guy tailing me. He was parked in the shade of a pin oak, but his car was a furnace and his face was red and covered with beads of sweat.

He tore off the wrapping and crammed half of it in his mouth. “Thanksh,” he said. “I was shtarving.”

I said, “You didn’t have to cook out here, you could have come inside. It’s not like I don’t know you’re following me.”

He swallowed, a visible lump going down his throat like a boa constrictor’s.

“Lieutenant Guidry would have my balls for lunch if I did that.”

“I’m going back to Secret Cove and the Ferrellis’ house. Just so you know.”

His mouth was full, so he waved his Cuban at me and nodded.

While I waited for the AC to cool the steering wheel enough to touch, I called Guidry.

This time he answered by snapping out a curt “Guidry here.”

I said, “I just talked to the clown I told you about. Pete Madeira.”

“You’ve been talking to a lot of people.”

“Pete said Denton broke a monkey’s legs, when he was ten and Conrad was five, and then showed it to Conrad. He said Conrad was never the same afterward.”

A beat went by, and Guidry’s voice suddenly became very military.

“Repeat, please.”

“Conrad had made friends with a spider monkey a clown used in his act. Denton broke its legs and laid it on the doorstep of the Ferrellis’ train car for Conrad to find. Then he laughed. Pete even thinks Denton may have had something to do with both his parents’ deaths. His mother died when somebody shot a dart into a horse she was working with, and all the horses went berserk and stomped her to death.”

“A dart?”

“He broke a monkey’s legs, Guidry, just like the kitten’s legs were broken. It’s connected. I know it’s connected.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

He clicked off as if he had someplace important to go. I wished it was to arrest Denton Ferrelli, but I knew he had to have something more concrete than the story of a child’s sadistic act.

I backed the Bronco out of the parking space and headed back toward Secret Cove. The Cuban sat heavy in my stomach, the pain in my ribs was worse, my scraped knees stung, my head was sweaty, and my right eyeball was scratchy. I needed a shower and a nap. I needed to charge my phone. But I was afraid if I went home I’d imagine snakes leaping out at me from every corner. I wasn’t even sure I could sleep there again. I told myself that Stevie might need me, but the truth was that I wasn’t ready to be alone with myself yet.

There were no cars at Stevie’s house and no signs of activity. When I got out of the Bronco, I heard Reggie’s muffled barking from somewhere inside. I rang the doorbell and waited. The barking continued, rapid and agitated. Not from the other side of the front door but from somewhere farther back. From the muffled sound, I thought he must be in a closed room.

I rang again and rapped on the door. “Stevie? It’s Dixie Hemingway.”

I waited some more. The barking became even more agitated. Reggie could apparently hear the doorbell and was responding to it.

I looked over my shoulder at the deputy in the driveway. The Cuban must have got to him, because he had slumped down in his seat, head resting on the headrest, chin tilted up and eyes closed. I left the front door and walked briskly around to the side of the house where a jalousied breezeway connected house and open carport. Conrad’s silver BMW had been impounded for forensics, but his Jeep Cherokee was inside, and so was Stevie’s Mercedes. From the sound of Reggie’s barking, I was pretty sure he was locked up in the laundry room between breezeway and kitchen.

I trudged back to the front door, looking toward the deputy as I went. His mouth had fallen open, and I could hear his snores. If Guidry caught him sleeping on the job like that, he’d cover him in honey and roll him in an ant bed, but I was sort of glad he was asleep. He wouldn’t see me use my door key to open the Ferrellis’ door.

Stevie hadn’t exactly hired me to take care of Reggie, but she had asked me to come by. Well, she hadn’t exactly asked me, but she’d said she appreciated it when I did. She was a woman stunned by grief. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She must have left the house with somebody and unintentionally left Reggie closed up in the laundry room. If I could call and ask her, I was certain she would tell me to go inside and rescue Reggie. She would tell me to make sure he’d been fed and that he had water and to take him for a walk if he needed to go to the bathroom.

I gave one last look at the deputy and got my key ring and code book from my backpack. I looked up the security code, selected the Ferrelli key, and unlocked the door. Inside, I started to punch in the security code on the keypad, but it wasn’t activated, so I hurried toward the source of Reggie’s barking. Through the living room and dining room, through the kitchen to the closed door to the laundry room. On the other side of the door, Reggie was having hysterics and clawing at the door.