When our father died, Michael was nine and I was seven. While I drew into a knot of miserable guilt, Michael had spent several months hitting or kicking things. His grades plunged and he went around with a ferocious scowl on his face. Our mother had been too stunned to deal with him, but our grandfather had finally come up with the perfect solution. He got a big football tackle bag and hung it from a tree limb in our backyard. Then he had a talk with Michael about anger. Basically, he told him that anger is a normal emotion and that hitting stuff is a normal action, but that hitting a tackle bag was a lot smarter than hitting walls. Then he gave Michael a pair of boxing gloves and let him be.
After a while, I got so used to hearing Michael thump that tackle bag that I took to hitting it myself, only I used a stick to whack at it. I even saw our mother slam her fist into it a few times. Now I wondered what would have happened to Michael’s fury if he hadn’t had that bag to hit. Maybe all that frustrated rage would have congealed and turned him into a criminal instead of a courageous fireman.
It was too much to think about. I went to the kitchen to put away my empty plate and wineglass, and dragged myself to bed. It was only eight-thirty, but my mind had gone blank. I couldn’t think anymore about what had happened.
I woke with a start, chasing remnants of a dream that escaped before my eyes were open. My bedside clock said it was quarter to four, time to get up and do my thing. I stretched and yawned, enjoying the rare feeling of being fully rested. Then I remembered why I’d gone to bed so early. Laura Halston had been murdered, and I had learned things about her that I wished I didn’t know.
I swung my feet to the floor and realized I’d slept in my clothes. I usually shower first thing when I get home at night, but last night I’d slept in my hairy clothes. Yuk. With the extra few minutes I had, I took a quick shower and shampooed my hair. Toweling my hair, I padded naked to my closet-office and pulled on underpants and shorts and a lightweight long-sleeved knit shirt. I even wore a bra. Pets don’t care if your boobs bounce or sag or swing or just lie there, but with all the stuff going on, I thought I might have to deal with men before the morning was over. Men are not as evolved as pets, they are easily distracted by loose bosoms.
I pulled my damp hair into a ponytail, used my remote to raise the hurricane shutters on my French doors, and went out to face the day. A couple of snowy egrets asleep on my porch railing watched me warily as I walked by, but it was too early for them, so they didn’t fly away. The sea air smelled of salt and life, the sky was that peculiar creamy pre-dawn color, and the sea glimmered silver white. Down on the beach, a few early gulls waded in the surf’s thin foam and searched for goodies. A pelican was asleep on the hood of my Bronco, and a great blue heron dozed on Michael’s car. They both took off with a loud thrumming when I got in the Bronco. Maybe they knew what the morning would bring.
25
Tom Hale’s condo was dark when I let myself in. Billy Elliot was waiting for me in the foyer and we kissed hello, with a lot of panting and tail wagging on his part. I snapped his leash on his collar, and we trotted out with our knees pumping like majorettes rehearsing for a parade.
The lobby downstairs was empty, with that gloomy feel that a place gets when it’s used to lots of traffic and finds itself deserted. Billy Elliot’s toenails made skittering sounds on the marble floor and his leash jingled merrily, sort of livening up the joint. We blew through the double doors and started our usual jog toward the big oval track made by the parked cars in the front lot. Just as we got to the end of the walk and stepped onto the asphalt, a whale-shouldered man stepped from behind a tall stand of cascading firecracker plants.
I jumped and gave a little whoop! that immediately changed to a friendly half-laugh, the way people do when they’ve been startled but they don’t want the startler to feel guilty about scaring them half to death. In the next instant, my heart clattered because the man didn’t look friendly at all. In fact, he looked menacing. He also looked like one of the mug shots Guidry had shown me—the one of Frederick Vaught, the elder-smothering nurse. If I’d had any doubts, they evaporated when he spoke.
“Dixie Hemingway, I presume. The ailurophile.”
I scrambled for the meaning of the word and, thanks to high school Latin, came up with cat lover. He had eyes like peeled grapes, and they were bulging down at me with glistening venom.
“Because of you, I have been questioned about a crime for which I haven’t a scintilla of involvement. You have besmirched my reputation, ruined my good name.”
His breath made low nose-whistles like the distant cooing of mourning doves.
With an effort, I found my voice. “You were involved. You were at Laura’s house. You were stalking her.”
His smile couldn’t have been any more condescending if he’d been giving lessons.
“Oh, the pretensions of those who provide services to others. You know nothing of Laura’s life or of my involvement with her. You’re a pet sitter. You were not her friend.”
My face went hot with anger and embarrassment. Somehow the man had an oily ability to make me feel small and insignificant.
“You were in Ms. Grayberg’s room at the nursing unit too. I just want to know why—”
“One of the indices of an inferior intellect is the obsession with the why of things.”
My back teeth made grinding movements, as if they had their own obsession of what they’d like to do to this condescending prick.
He said, “Your kind maintains the illusion that life is sacred, that the mere fact of having a breathing body with a beating heart somehow confers the right to continue one’s inane existence. That ridiculous worship of oxygenated flesh is an obsession to which I have never fallen prey.”
“So you killed Laura because you didn’t believe her life was important.”
“Why, Ms. Hemingway, you surprise me! You actually understood what I said. Nevertheless, I had nothing to do with Laura Halston’s murder, and if you continue to stalk me I shall have you arrested.”
“Stalk you?” As the words came out of my mouth, I knew he could make a good case for me stalking him. I had asked questions about him at Bayfront and at the nursing unit.
His gaze was diamond hard. “Please don’t make it necessary for me to speak to you again, Ms. Hemingway.”
With surprising agility for a man his size, he spun away from me and walked rapidly to a minivan that bore evidence of a multitude of minor scrapes and collisions. Either Guidry had been wrong about his driving ability or he’d been reduced to driving an old clunker formerly owned by a mother who did lots of stop-and-go driving.
I pulled Billy Elliot onto the asphalt track and followed him as he did his morning gallop, but my mind was on Frederick Vaught. Something wasn’t right about that man, something more than his obnoxious personality and his history of mistreating elderly patients. Whatever it was, it made my skin quiver.
After three mad laps around the track, Billy Elliot slowed to a pace that other dogs would consider a frenzied dash and allowed me to lead him back in the building. I was wheezing and wondering if it’s possible for lungs to collapse from running with a speed-obsessed greyhound. Billy was prancing and happily swishing his tail.
Upstairs, lights were on in the kitchen and I could hear a coffeemaker gurgling. I didn’t hang around, though. If I had, I might have told Tom about Frederick Vaught accosting me, and he might have felt guilty that he hadn’t been downstairs guarding me with big manly muscles. I gave Billy Elliot a quick hug and left him grinning to himself.