I wasn’t grinning. I was thinking about Frederick Vaught. I thought about him for the rest of the morning, trying to define what it was that made him so repulsive. I was at a rabbit’s house vacuuming up pellets of bunny poop when I realized what it was.
His hands were too clean! With their long thin fingers, his hands looked as if they’d been boiled until all the color had leached out. His fingernails were too pale too, and too well-defined, like an alien’s tentacles with little suckers on their tips. Ugh! The thought of being touched by those long bloodless fingers made my spine run cold.
It was near nine o’clock when I cleaned the last litter box of the morning, and I was seriously considering raiding client refrigerators. The tomato pie I’d had for dinner had been too little and too early, and I needed food. But first I popped in the Kitty Haven for a quick hello to Leo.
Marge brought him from his private room and knelt with me to gentle him on the floor. He didn’t exactly seem overjoyed to see me, but he did rub his cheek against my hand to mark it with his scent.
Marge said, “He’s such a sweetheart. What’s going to happen to him?”
I didn’t want to tell her that Laura’s sister didn’t want him. It made him seem like a reject, and I knew there were lots of people who’d love to have him. Besides, it seemed rude to say it in front of Leo.
Instead, I said, “The owner’s sister is in town. She’s at the Ritz. It will all work out okay.”
Marge may have heard the evasiveness in my voice because she didn’t ask anything else. I spent a little more time petting Leo and then kissed the top of his head.
I murmured, “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re with somebody as sweet as you are.”
When I left the Kitty Haven, I was torn between rushing to walk Mazie and then having breakfast, or eating first and then going to see Mazie. When I’d had that decision the day before, I’d ended up practically crawling from weakness by the time I got food. I knew Pete would have already fed Mazie and taken her outside to potty. He had probably brushed her too, because he and Mazie had come to enjoy him doing that. The only reason for me to go there was to run with her. I decided I would break my own rule and take time for breakfast before I went to Fish Hawk Lagoon, with no harm done.
Besides, I dreaded seeing Mazie’s sad face. I dreaded seeing Pete’s sad face too.
Before I went in the diner, I called Pete to tell him I’d be a little late. He sounded dispirited.
“I don’t think the drops are helping, Dixie. I don’t think they’re helping at all.”
I ended the call feeling as down as Pete sounded. Mazie’s depression was like an anvil sitting on all of us.
At the Village Diner, Tanisha waved at me as I headed toward the ladies’ room. I ducked into a stall and from the next door cubicle heard a woman with a voice like an ax splitting wood.
She said, “I was married to a man who couldn’t get it up unless you twisted his nipples. He would have liked it if I’d attached snapping turtles to them. He left me for a woman who was a snapping turtle, so I guess they’re happy together.”
Another woman laughed, and they both flushed and went to the sinks. When I joined them, they went silent and we avoided one another’s eyes in the mirror. I washed my hands, checked to make sure I didn’t have cat hair on my shoulders, and left them to continue their observations about love. I swear, if men knew half the things women say about them, they’d probably give up romance altogether.
Judy had already poured a mug of coffee for me, and by the time I was ready for a refill she brought my breakfast.
She said, “You okay?”
I thought, I’m not okay at all. A three-year-old child has just had brain surgery, and I don’t know if it was successful. His seizure-assistance dog is in deep depression, and I can’t make her happier. A woman I liked a lot has been murdered and her face was mutilated, and the killer is still out there. The truth is I’m scared for myself and for you and for every other woman.
I said, “I’m fine.”
She heard the dryness in my voice and did a double-take. But before she could say anything, Guidry slid into the seat opposite me.
He said, “I’ll have what she’s having, with a side of bacon, extra crisp.”
Judy said, “I’d better bring you a double. Dixie steals bacon, especially if it’s crisp.”
She gave me a quick look that said You’re gonna tell me all about this meeting when he leaves and swished away to get him a coffee mug, leaving us looking bare-eyed at each other.
I said, “Guidry, do you have a first name?”
I hadn’t planned to say that, it just popped out, like an embarrassing belly button.
His eyes narrowed a bit, as if I’d asked him something too personal. “Most people just call me Guidry.”
“Your mother called you Guidry?”
His eyes softened. “My mother calls me Jean-Pierre.”
He pronounced the first name Zhahn, like an American drunk saying John, but when you hook that sound to Pierre, I knew he wasn’t speaking like an American.
“So you’re French, right?”
“Have you taken up journalism?”
“Why are you so secretive? Got skeletons in your family closet?”
Oh, God, why did I say that?
He gave me a long look, then firmed his jaw. “My father’s a lawyer in New Orleans, heads a big law firm there.”
“What about your mother?”
He smiled. “She’s always bringing home strangers who need help, feeding them, finding jobs for them, getting them whatever they need to get back on their feet. Used to drive my father nuts, but since Katrina he’s been doing the same thing, giving his time to people who need legal help.”
Okay, so now I knew why he had a rich man’s aura. It was because he had grown up in a rich man’s house, with rich parents who had big hearts.
I said, “Did your father want you to be a lawyer too?”
He grinned. “Oh, yeah. And for a while I was. Went to law school, worked in his firm, tried to like it. But after a while we both knew I’d be a much better cop than I’d ever be a lawyer.”
There it was again, that reminder that he was a cop, along with the uncomfortable comparison with lawyers. In spite of myself, I thought of Ethan Crane. Why couldn’t my perverse body yearn to be close to an attorney instead of a cop?
Guidry said, “Dixie?”
I must have been staring over his shoulder for a while, seeing ghosts, remembering that cops get killed and leave you.
I said, “Do you know what piqueurism is?”
“Why?”
“I talked to Reba Chandler last night. She’s a psychology professor at New College. She mentioned the word. It seemed like something that fits with a scalpel stabbing.”
I buttered my biscuit and took a bite. Normal people probably wouldn’t have been able to eat while they talked about a woman being stabbed to death, but anybody who’s been trained in law enforcement has learned to disconnect their stomachs from their hearts.
Guidry reached across the table and took a round of fried potato from my plate.
Ignoring my question, he said, “We talked to Gorgon. He owns the dealership where Laura Halston bought her Jaguar. He says she paid a hundred thousand plus change—in cash. You have any idea where she got that kind of money?”
“She said she drove her Mercedes from Dallas and sold it in Arkansas.”
“Yeah, but that was a lie, since she didn’t live in Dallas and didn’t have a Mercedes.”
“What about Gorgon?”
“On the night Laura Halston was killed, Gorgon was with a woman in Naples. She backs up his story.”
Judy bustled back with Guidry’s plates—one with his eggs and fries, another with a double rasher of crisp bacon. She looked as if she wanted to say something but then seemed to think better of it and left us.