Блейз Клемент - Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

I was thinking how beautiful Stevie had been, and how she’d started life as a man. It put a different light on the project she and Conrad had financed to transform children born with disfiguring birth defects. Stevie had probably identified with the children and wanted them to have the same opportunities she’d had. I wondered how old she’d been when she had the surgery that allowed her to live as the person she truly was. It could not have been a decision her family supported, since she seemed to have cut all ties to them. Perhaps Conrad had been the one who made it possible for her. Of all the people in the world, Conrad would have understood how easily identities can be changed.

The waitress gave us coffee, and Guidry emptied two little containers of cream in his mug and leaned back and looked at me.

“With the Ferrelli house on the water like it is, anybody in a boat could have come down the Intracoastal Waterway and docked at one of the houses closed for the summer. It would be simple to slip through the trees to the Ferrelli house, kill Mrs. Ferrelli, and go back the way you came. With all the traffic on the water, nobody would notice another boat.”

“Reggie would have attacked anybody who came in.”

“My guess is that she got up and turned off the alarm, walked the dog, and then came home and got in the shower. There was no sign of struggle in the bathroom, no water splashed on the floor. The killer probably came in while she was in the shower and put the photo on the bed for her to see. We think she dried off, hung her towel up, and came out of the bathroom. She saw the photo and leaned over to see what it was, and he shot her with the drug.”

I said, “If he came in the house while she was walking Reggie, Reggie would have sensed him when they came home and gone to find him.”

“She wouldn’t have put the dog in the laundry room while she took a shower?”

“Why would she? Reggie was always either in the house or in the breezeway. She wouldn’t shut him up in the laundry room. Somebody else did that, and whoever it was knew the dog, or Reggie would have attacked him. Everything points to Denton Ferrelli again, Guidry.”

“You’re assuming that Denton Ferrelli is the only person in the world who knew their house and their dog. Did you know them well enough to make that assumption?”

I slumped back against the seat. He was right, of course. I had not been their close friend, I had just been their pet-sitter.

22

The photograph was of Stevie, before her surgery,” I said. “The person who killed her wanted to remind her of the unhappy young man she once was. Who else except Denton Ferrelli would know about the monkey’s broken legs and also know about Stevie’s past?”

Guidry said, “The fact that you and I don’t know of somebody else doesn’t mean there isn’t somebody else.”

I considered sticking my fork in his eye, but the waitress chose that moment to bring our food. My salad was nicely chilled, with plenty of gloppy Roquefort dressing. Guidry’s bacon was stretched out like thin brown slats, a little black on the tips the way I like it, with no icky white bubbles.

He cut a bite of omelet, looked up, and caught me eyeing his bacon. He put his fork down and used his fingers to transfer half the bacon to my plate.

I said, “Oh, I never eat bacon.”

“Menteuse.”

I felt a little gotcha! smirk because I’d caught him being Italian, but I was distracted by the fried fat odor that makes all my little pleasure receptors fall on their backs and writhe in ecstasy.

“What did you just call me?”

“Liar. You eat bacon all the time, you just don’t order it.”

I nibbled at a slice of bacon while I considered that in one day I’d been called a cunt and a liar. But on Guidry’s lips the word hadn’t come out as an assault the way Gabe’s had. It had been more like a silky caress.

Nevertheless, that’s what irritated me about Guidry—he kept saying things that were true. This was just the first time he’d done it in a foreign language.

“That’s an Italian word, right?”

“French.”

Aha! He was probably one of those Europeans he’d mentioned who speak English without an accent.

“Where did you come from, Guidry?”

He grinned as if he’d expected the question. “New Orleans. Born and bred.”

“You’re not Italian?”

“Actually, that’s one of the few things I’m not.”

“You have a first name?”

“I do, but most people call me Guidry.”

“Hunh.”

Before I could follow that line, he said, “I was with the New Orleans Police Department for several years. Decided I’d like a place with a little less excitement.”

I ate some more bacon. “So has Siesta Key been less exciting?”

“It was until I met a cantankerous pet-sitter. It’s been pretty exciting since then.”

My heart did a stupid little leap, and a slice of tomato fell off my fork back onto my salad plate. I wouldn’t have touched that sentence with a forty-foot pole.

I said, “I went to Mardi Gras once. I loved the jazz places.”

“You like jazz?”

“Just old bluesy jazz. I have this fantasy where I’m in a crowded nightclub and a famous jazz band is onstage. The leader of the band steps to the microphone and says, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the best jazz singer in the world is in the audience tonight.’ Then a big spotlight shines on me, and the audience gives me a standing ovation. I go up on the stage and sing like Billie Holiday or Peggy Lee, one of those. It just knocks everybody out.”

He was grinning. “I didn’t know you sang.”

“Can’t sing a lick. When Michael and I used to go to church with our grandparents, I’d throw the whole congregation off when we sang hymns.”

He laughed. “It’s a nice fantasy anyway.”

“You have a fantasy, Guidry?”

“Yeah, I’d like to live on an island, just white sand and palm trees and tropical birds, plenty of fish to eat, a thatched hut with sea breezes wafting through, a beloved woman with me.”

“Wafting?”

“You know, slowly blowing.”

“Isn’t that pretty much how you live?”

He took a bite of omelet and chewed it thoughtfully.

“My hut isn’t thatched, and sometimes the breeze doesn’t waft. Not to mention the lack of a woman.”

My heart did that jiggle-dance thing again, and I changed the subject.

I said, “I think the killer used darts, and I think I know who he is.”

“You’ve told me.”

“I’m not talking about Denton Ferrelli. His name is Gabe Marks. He drives a pickup raised up on tall tires, and he makes a living capturing poisonous snakes and alligators. He paralyzes the alligators with a drug that he shoots into them with a dart gun.”

“How do you know all this?”

“He’s Priscilla’s boyfriend. Priscilla works for Josephine Metzger making clown costumes. She lives in Pete Madeira’s garage apartment. Pete’s the—”

“The clown who told you about the monkey with the broken legs.”

I was surprised he remembered.

“Pete also told me that Leo Brossi owned some casino boats, and that Denton Ferrelli’s trust gave him the money to buy them. Pete thinks Brossi had a man killed who was giving his boats competition. That all ties in with what Ethan Crane said about Denton getting the land here to use for a casino boat dock. The land Conrad took for the circus retirement home.”

Guidry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know how you do it. People look up and see you coming, and some reflex action makes them start spilling everything they know. Christ, they should use you for national espionage.”