“He have a name?”
“She didn’t say a name, but she said she’d met him at the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial. She went there with a sprained knee and he was there too.”
“Okay.”
“There’s another man, too. Thuggish guy named Gorgon. I don’t know much about him, but Maurice at the Lyon’s Mane said he was after Laura too.”
“Dixie, I don’t know what the hell you just said.”
“The Lyon’s Mane is a hair salon. It’s owned by Maurice and Ruby. Maurice does Laura’s hair. Did. Gorgon is one of their clients too. Gets his manicures there. According to Maurice, he was putting a lot of pressure on Laura.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to Maurice.”
“There’s something else. A man I’ve put in charge of the dog next door saw Laura leave her house this morning about five o’clock to go running.”
The line was silent for a moment, and I knew Guidry was deciphering what I’d meant about a man I’d put in charge of a dog. I wasn’t in a mood to spoon-feed him, so I let him figure it out for himself.
He rallied and said, “He’s sure about the time?”
“Not positive, but around that time. He gets up early, and he’d taken Mazie outside for a few minutes when he saw her.”
“Okay.” His voice was oddly flat.
I said, “Did you contact her family?”
“Her sister will be here as soon as she can. Probably tomorrow.”
“When is the autopsy scheduled?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“She was my friend.”
“Owens said you barely knew her.”
“That’s true, but she was still my friend.”
“Autopsy will be tomorrow morning.”
“Have you found her husband?”
“Dr. Reginald Halston, the surgeon? The one in Dallas?”
I didn’t like the way his tone had gone crispy.
“Yeah, that one.”
“We have somebody working on it.”
After I hung up, I crawled in bed and allowed myself to drift off to sleep. But even as my brain pulled the blinds to darken its rooms, I couldn’t ignore an internal blinking red light that said Guidry didn’t believe what I’d told him. When I woke up, the red light was still blinking, but I didn’t know exactly what Guidry didn’t believe or why he didn’t believe it.
It was almost time for my afternoon rounds, so I pulled my hair into a ponytail and put on fresh clothes. Then I clattered down the stairs and across the cypress deck to Michael’s back door. The gumbo and rice had disappeared, probably into freezer containers, and Michael had disappeared too. Damn. I had hoped he would give me something else to eat. It had been almost four hours since the little bowl of sweetened rice I’d had for breakfast, and it had long since been converted into energy. Now I needed a new source. Preferably one that didn’t require any effort on my part, because I was still drained from the morning’s shock.
I could have dived into Michael’s cavernous refrigerator and found something to eat, but that was almost sure to require heating something or slicing something or spreading mayo or mustard on something, all of which seemed as daunting as climbing Everest.
Ella Fitzgerald trotted into the kitchen and made a few musical firping and trilling sounds, but that didn’t fill my empty stomach or tell me where Michael was. I got a handful of cookies from the jar on the counter, gave Ella a pat on the head and promised her I would groom her when I came home that night, and trudged out to the Bronco. Tossing back cookies, I drove to Tom Hale’s condo.
From the living room where he was watching TV, Tom said, “Hey, Dixie. Have you heard about this?”
I went to stand beside his wheelchair and looked at the screen, where a young woman pointed at a spot that had been roped off with yellow crime-scene tape. Under the shot on the screen, a hyperventilating banner told us we were watching a special news bulletin. To prove it, the young woman was pertly announcing that a woman had been murdered in the house behind the tape. She sounded so thrilled you would have thought she was reporting a sale on Manolo Blahniks. Not that I’ve ever worn Manolo Blahniks, but sometimes when I’m waiting on line at Publix, I leaf through a Vogue, so I know what they are.
Tom said, “That happened over at Fish Hawk Lagoon.”
“I know, I was there when they found her body.”
Tom turned his wheelchair to look directly at me. “What is it with you? You have a magnet that attracts dead bodies?”
“I just happened to be next door when her cat ran out, and I went to see why he was out. I saw bloody paw prints from the front door and called nine-one-one.”
“They don’t say who she is.”
“They always wait until they’ve notified the family.”
I didn’t look at him when I said that. I’d told Michael her name, and I shouldn’t have.
“They didn’t say how she got killed either. You say there was blood the cat had stepped in?”
Billy Elliot whuffed from the foyer to let me know he had enjoyed listening to me and Tom as much as he could stand, so I used that as an excuse not to answer. Billy needs his daily runs the way hopeless addicts need their fixes. I got his leash from the foyer closet, snapped it on his collar, and let him pull me toward the front door. But inside, a shrill voice was shouting, She was stabbed to death! Her ex-husband used to carve his initials on her skin with scalpels, and now he’s killed her!
On the way to the elevator, my cell phone rang. Only a handful of people have my cell number, so when it rings I know it’s important. Billy Elliot looked over his shoulder when I answered, the expression on his face exactly the way I feel when I hear people answer their phones in public. Like, Excuse me, but do you have to do that now?
Without any preamble, Guidry said, “Dixie, what’s the guy’s name who says he saw the Halston woman leaving her house this morning?”
“Pete Madeira.”
“Got a number for him?”
I gave him Pete’s cell number, and did not tell him that Pete was a sweet guy, so to be kind to him. Pete was fully capable of taking care of himself, and Guidry was never rude. Except to me, and then I wouldn’t exactly call him rude, more like confrontive. Personally, I hate confrontive, especially when it’s directed toward me.
This time, he thanked me politely and clicked off. The polite part should have comforted me, but somehow it made me suspicious. Why was he being so carefully polite? It was downright weird.
I said, “Damn!” and slammed the phone into my pocket just as the elevator door opened. A man with a cocker spaniel on a leash stepped out with a disapproving look at me. Billy Elliot looked up with an I told you so grin and trotted into the elevator ahead of me.
On the ride downstairs, I started thinking about Laura’s murder, and my heart began pounding as if it were happening right then. And to me. That’s the problem with imagining things. Your mind sees a picture of something that might have happened halfway across the world, and your body thinks it’s happening right that moment, and that it’s happening to you. I’ll bet half the people under gravestones gave themselves fatal heart attacks imagining awful things.
By the time we got to the downstairs lobby and went out the front door to the parking lot, I’d got myself under control. At that hour, we couldn’t run as freely as we do at four-thirty in the morning when we have the oval blacktop between parked cars all to ourselves. In the mornings, Billy Elliot zips around like he’s a young racer again while I lope along behind him trying not to pass out from exertion. Afternoons, we have to skirt the edge of the track while we watch for careless drivers, but it’s still a good hard run for both of us.
When we went back upstairs, Tom was at the kitchen table where he does accounting work. I unsnapped Billy Elliot’s leash, kissed him goodbye, and slipped out before Tom could ask me anything else about Laura Halston’s murder.
By the time I finished with all the other afternoon calls and went to walk Mazie, shadows were lengthening, the late sun was blotted out by treetops, and I had an empty-stomach headache. Guidry’s Blazer and several crime-scene cars were still at Laura’s house, but the ambulance was gone. That meant the medical examiner had come, examined Laura’s body, and zipped it into a plastic body bag for transfer to the morgue.
Inside Mazie’s house, Pete sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a face alternating between happiness and worry.
Mazie lay beside him, her dark eyes full of sadness.
I said, “Have you heard from Hal again?”
Pete nodded. “Jeffrey’s out of ICU, and all the neurological tests are good. Hal says they’ll probably move him to a regular room soon.”
I pulled out a chair and sat down. “Does that mean he won’t have any more seizures?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it does, but I didn’t ask. These things are always one step at a time, nobody can say anything for sure, and even if they do they don’t always know.”
Pete’s voice was full of bitter memories that I didn’t probe.
“Has Mazie eaten today?”
“A little bit, not much. She’s got so much heart, and it’s hurting.”
Mazie rolled her eyes up to look at us, but she didn’t lift her head.
I stood up and got her leash. “Okay, Mazie, it’s time for some exercise.”
She sighed, but got to her feet. Outside, we walked in the opposite direction from Laura’s house. I moved briskly to get Mazie’s blood moving, but I kept the walk short. Mazie was panting hard, a sure sign that she was overstressed. Service dogs need to be of service, that’s their entire focus in life. Take away the person to whom they give service, and they’ve lost their purpose. Every day that passed without Jeffrey to watch over would bring more stress to Mazie.
When we went back inside, I pulled out my cell phone and called Hal. He answered in the hushed tones of someone sitting vigil beside a sleeping child.
I said, “Hal, I know this is an interruption, but would you mind speaking to Mazie for a minute? She needs to hear your voice.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Hal’s voice, thick with suppressed emotion. “Of course, Dixie. Thank you.”
I squatted beside Mazie and held the phone to her ear. Her neck stiffened when she heard Hal’s voice, but she stayed very still and listened. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, just the faint sound of speech. In a minute or two, her tail moved in an almost wag, and her throat worked as if she wanted to make some kind of reply.
I brought the phone to my own ear and heard Hal say, “We love you, Mazie.”
I said, “I think Mazie will be happier now.”
“Of course she will. I should have thought of it myself.”
“Maybe it would be a good idea to tell Jeffrey you talked to her.”
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
We said quick goodbyes and I clicked my phone closed.
Pete said, “He should have put the phone to Jeffrey’s ear, let Jeffrey listen to Mazie. He needs to know that Mazie wants him to come home.”
He had an inspired look in his eyes. I didn’t want to spoil it by reminding him that Mazie didn’t talk.
I said, “She’ll probably eat better now. Next time Hal calls, let Mazie listen to him for a minute. When Jeffrey’s up to it, he can talk to her too.”
I left him and Mazie looking slightly happier than they’d been when I arrived. Driving away, I did not allow my head to turn toward Laura’s house. I could not bear another thought of her murder. There would be time enough for that tomorrow.