Блейз Клемент - Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

It’s true. I can be standing in line at the supermarket or the bank or the post office and people will inevitably start telling me the most intimate details of their lives. It’s as if they’ve been waiting for me to show up so they can unload all their secrets. I don’t know why that happens. I don’t invite it. I don’t even want to know other people’s secrets. It’s just something I’m stuck with, like skin that burns easily.

I said, “Gabe Marks does some kind of work for Leo Brossi. That’s where Priscilla met him, at the call center Brossi owns.”

“All-Call.”

Once again, I was surprised.

Guidry saw it on my face and lowered his eyebrows. “You’re not the only one getting information, Dixie.”

“They’re all connected, Guidry—Denton Ferrelli, Leo Brossi, Gabe Marks.”

“Leo Brossi and Denton Ferrelli are an odd combination. Denton Ferrelli is a champagne criminal, smooth, college-educated, well-connected. His contacts are lobbyists and politicians and mob bosses. He’s kept his hands clean, always had somebody else do his dirty work. Leo Brossi came up through the streets, served time for pimping, drug dealing, extortion.”

“He’s the one who does Denton’s dirty work?”

“More like Denton is the silent partner, so Leo takes the hit. He’s the one indicted, the one fined, the one with a record. It adds to his gangster charisma, and Denton undoubtedly greases his palm liberally to keep him quiet. With Denton’s political connections, he’s able to keep Leo’s fines and sentences to a minimum, so it’s a good deal for both of them.”

My fork was suddenly too heavy to hold. “I think it’s pretty clear what happened. Conrad pulled the plug on Denton’s casino boat, and he was getting ready to look deeper into Denton’s other schemes, so Denton got Brossi’s snake-catching boy Gabe to kill him. He used one of the darts he uses to capture alligators. Then they had to kill Stevie, because she was going to take Conrad’s place heading the trusts. And Gabe’s trying to kill me because he thinks I saw him driving Conrad’s car.”

I hadn’t really known all that until I’d started saying it, and then it had all come together. What I didn’t say was that Gabe now had another reason for wanting to kill me. I had humiliated him in front of Priscilla, and Gabe wasn’t the kind of man to let humiliation go unpunished, especially humiliation from a woman. Inside my flesh, my bones suddenly felt thin and brittle. I reached for my coffee cup, but my hand was shaking so much that I changed my mind and put it in my lap.

Guidry’s eyes were bleak. I knew what he was thinking. Denton Ferrelli had important business and political friends ready to vouch for his character and his whereabouts when Conrad and Stevie were killed. Furthermore, not a scintilla of evidence had come to light that put Denton Ferrelli or Gabe Marks at either murder scene. Everything that pointed to Denton as the one who had planned the murders, if not the one who had done the actual killing, was based on conjecture, not on actual evidence. The only person who could implicate him would be Gabe Marks, and there wasn’t a chance in hell he would do that because it would put him in the electric chair. Without hard evidence, neither Denton Ferrelli nor Gabe Marks would ever be indicted.

Guidry said, “I know you’re not going to like hearing this, but would you consider leaving town for a while?”

“I’m not running away, Guidry. Gabe may kill me, but he won’t make me run away.”

He didn’t look surprised.

Now that I’d laid out the reasons why Gabe Marks was probably going to kill me, I went speechless. Guidry didn’t say anything else either. He slipped a hand inside his jacket, pulled out a slim wallet, and laid bills on the table. I gathered myself to stand up, but he leaned across the table toward me.

“About the newspaper photograph in your floor safe.”

The old sick feeling of shame and fury began to roil in my stomach.

Guidry said, “Forensics didn’t get any prints from it.”

“I didn’t think they would.”

“You know what your problem is, Dixie?”

“Plenty of people have told me what my problem is, Guidry. Spare me your opinion.”

“You never got to finish the howl. You had a good one going, and they stopped it. They had to, seeing you probably would have done serious damage to that fool reporter if they hadn’t grabbed you. But that stopped the howl coming up from your guts. It’s still down there, and you need to finish it. You won’t be well until you do.”

Nobody had used the word well about me before, as if I weren’t well now, as if I were sick. I looked up at Guidry and checked the expression in his eyes, looking for the slightest sign of ridicule. His gray eyes were clear and direct. Not pitying, not condescending, not even sympathetic. Maybe not even kind. Just direct. Guidry said what he thought, and he thought I needed to finish the howl that had been stopped three years ago.

I didn’t answer him, and he didn’t seem to expect me to. Wordlessly, we walked across the street to the hospital parking lot and got into our respective cars.

Afternoon rain clouds had rolled in while we were in the restaurant, putting everything into shadow and stirring up a breeze that fluttered palm fronds and bougainvillea branches. Thunder growled in the distance and thin traces of lightning flitted in outlying purple clouds. We were in for a storm for sure.

Before he drove away, Guidry gave me a wave that looked a bit like a soldier’s salute. I started the engine and sat for a moment letting the AC cool the car. It was early for my afternoon rounds, but if I hurried I might get them over before the thunderstorm hit. Besides Mame, I had three other dogs on my list. I could get away with a short run with two of them, but the third was Billy Elliot, and Billy would be a quivering mass of nerves if he didn’t get his usual long race. I pulled into a side street that would take me back to the key and Billy Elliot. Sometimes you have to put aside the possibility that somebody will kill you and just get on with life.

I called Michael while I was in the elevator in Tom Hale’s building and explained where I was and what I was doing. I promised I’d cut all my visits short and get home early. He didn’t lecture me, just promised he’d have dinner waiting. Grateful for not having to hear his worry, I didn’t tell him I’d just eaten a late lunch.

Billy Elliot and I ran like banshees in the parking lot, both of us looking up now and then at the encroaching dark clouds. Back in his apartment, I handed him off to Tom and scooted out without taking time for chitchat. My two other dogs were nervous about the thunder and willing to make their runs just long enough to squat and do their business and then head back home. I didn’t plan on walking Mame at all, so I made quick stops at the cats’ and birds’ houses. They were all slightly on edge with the instinctive knowledge that animals have when the earth is about to let rip with a quake or a big storm. I gave them fresh water and food and a little conversation and then went to Secret Cove.

I found Mame in Judge Powell’s study, lying morosely with her nose on her front paws. I carried her outside to use the bathroom and invited her to play fetch on the lanai, but she wasn’t interested. In the kitchen, most of the kibble I’d put out for her that morning was still in her bowl. I took a Jubilee Wafer into the study and held it in the palm of my hand so she could take it in her mouth. Mame loved Jubilee Wafers the way I love bacon. She gave me a patient look and took it, but she didn’t chew it, and I had the distinct impression that she was waiting for me to leave so she could spit it out.