While I waited, I went to the bedroom and pulled my bed from the wall. I opened the drawer built into my bed and looked at the guns nestled in their specially built niches. I no longer have the SigSauers issued by the Sheriff’s Department because they had to be returned when Todd was killed and I was put on indefinite leave. But I have Todd’s old backup guns and my own. I took my favorite, a Smith & Wesson .38, from its niche. I dropped five rounds into the cylinder and another five in a Speed Loader to put in my pocket. My hands were trembling, a peculiarity I noted from what seemed a far distance, as if I were watching somebody’s hands on a movie screen.
The doorbell rang, and I marched to the front door to peer through a slit in the hurricane shutters. I wasn’t taking any chances. I was cool. Deputy Jesse Morgan stood on the other side of the door, his diamond stud glinting in the afternoon sunlight. His face was as impassive as ever.
I raised the shutters and opened the French door. I said, “Deputy Morgan, we have to stop meeting like this.”
Then I burst into convulsive sobs. I don’t know which of us was more surprised.
31
Deputy Morgan said, “Miz Hemingway?”
I erased the air with the flat of my hand, denying what I was doing even as I did it.
Snuffling like a kid, I said, “I don’t know why I’m crying, I’m not hurt.”
“You reported an intruder?”
“His name is Frederick Vaught. He’s a suspect in the Laura Halston murder. He was stalking her. He used to be a nurse, but he lost his license for abusing elderly patients. He may have killed some of them.”
While I leaked tears, Morgan pulled out his notepad and wrote the name. “You’ve had contact with him before?”
“He was waiting outside the Sea Breeze when I ran with a dog this morning. He told me to quit asking questions about him.”
“You’d been asking questions about him?”
“I overheard him talking to a patient at the Bayfront nursing unit, and I asked who he was. Lieutenant Guidry knows all about it.”
Morgan took in the information about Guidry and nodded.
“And this guy, Vaught, he came in your house?”
I snuffled some more and pointed toward the door into the bedroom, where my bed was still pulled away from the wall.
“I was running out, and he just stepped into the doorway.”
“He threaten you?”
“He said it would behoove me to eschew any thoughts of escape, because he had taken every precaution to complete the task for which he came.”
Morgan looked up from his notepad.
I said, “He talks like that. Like a dictionary. That’s how I knew it was him.”
“You didn’t recognize him?”
“He was wearing a ski mask. Also gloves.”
My voice quivered when I said the part about gloves. Laura’s killer had worn gloves.
“But you didn’t see his face.”
“Trust me, that man was Frederick Vaught.”
Morgan studied me for a moment. “How’d you get rid of him?”
“I pretended to believe he was pulling a prank, that it was a big joke that somebody named Richard had put him up to. I said Richard would be here any minute, and that Richard was a good friend of my brother’s.”
“And he believed that?”
“I guess he did, he ran out.”
For some reason the tears came back then, and I stood there for a minute and bawled like an idiot while Morgan looked extremely uncomfortable.
When I could speak, I said, “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
In about three strides, Morgan walked over to my breakfast bar where a roll of paper towels stood. Tearing off a towel, he came back and handed it to me.
“Sure you do. That was a close call. If you hadn’t played it right, no telling what would have happened. That was a smart thing you did.”
Shakily, I mopped my face and blew my nose. “Thanks.”
“Are you going to be home for a while?”
“No, I have rounds to make. My pets. Dogs, cats, you know.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay, I’ll put out an alert about Vaught and I’ll contact Lieutenant Guidry. I imagine he’ll want to talk to you about it.”
“I imagine he will.”
“These calls you’re going to make, are all the houses empty? I mean, except for the pets? No people?”
I knew what he was getting at. If Vaught was determined to get me, he could follow me and surprise me inside a pet’s house.
I said, “I’ve got my thirty-eight now. Until Vaught is picked up, I’m carrying it with me.”
He nodded and closed his notepad. “I’ll just wait until you leave.”
I knew what that meant too. Vaught could be lurking nearby waiting for me to come out.
Together, Morgan and I went down my stairs to the carport, and Morgan waited until I was in the Bronco. I drove out first, with Morgan following me. In my rearview mirror, I could see him talking on his phone.
For the rest of the afternoon, I was hyperalert for Frederick Vaught. At every pet’s house, I locked the door behind me when I went in and I was extra cautious when I left. Even in ordinary circumstances pet sitters have to be vigilant for creeps hiding in the bushes, but in this case I had even more reason to take care, and I knew who the creep was.
Even on edge and watching for Vaught to pop up in front of me in his freaky monster getup, I was still acutely aware that breakfast had been a long time ago. Maybe fear makes me hungry, but I kept thinking about what I could eat for dinner without having to go to a lot of effort to get it. Michael was on duty at the firehouse, so he couldn’t feed me, and I had no idea what Paco was doing.
By the time I was playing with the last cat on my schedule, I was having visions of platters of food set in front of me. The food on the platters was indistinct, but there was a lot of it and I knew it would be delicious. That’s the good thing about visions, you don’t have to be specific about the details.
I was just telling the last cat goodbye when my cell phone rang.
It was Michael, with a curious sound to his voice. “Are you near a TV?”
“I’m at a cat’s house.”
“Turn on the TV quick, Channel Eight.”
He sounded so urgent that I obediently went to the TV set, punched it on, and found the channel. With the phone at my ear, I looked at a close-up of a young news reporter holding a microphone close to her ruby-red lips. 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 gushing that viewers were seeing a once-in-a-lifetime event.
The camera pulled back to show another person standing beside her, and I made the kind of sound you make when somebody punches you in the stomach. The other person was Frederick Vaught, but without his ski mask and gloves.
On the phone, Michael said, “That guy claims he killed the woman you knew.”
I couldn’t answer. All I could do was breathe.
On-screen, the reporter was trying her best not to sound too perky, given that it was a murder she was talking about, but it was a stretch for her.
Shoving the microphone into Vaught’s face, she said, “Without going into any detail about the manner in which you killed Ms. Halston, would you repeat the main point of what you’ve told me?”
Vaught stared directly into the camera and spoke in a deliberate monotone. “I had a romantic relationship with Laura Halston, and we had a lover’s quarrel. In a moment of passion, I stabbed her. I feel incalculable remorse for what I’ve done, and I therefore make a full confession in a vain attempt to expiate my crime.”
There was a disturbance off camera, with sounds of raised voices. The camera swung to a uniformed deputy with about thirty pounds of guns and radios and flashlights dripping from his belt. He seemed to be seriously contemplating a crime of his own.