I said, “Do you think Bull killed Frazier and Marilee?”
“We’ll look into where Bull was Thursday night, but I doubt he’s our man. Not that Bull couldn’t be bought to do it, I just don’t think he did.”
“He’s the man who was at the Crab House Saturday night before I talked to Phillip, the one who chased me in the parking lot. This afternoon, he was watching me at the pavilion at Crescent Beach. He must have left about the same time I did, but I stopped by Marilee’s house and the Graysons’ on the way home, so he got here first. I think he was here yesterday, too. Somebody broke into my brother’s house and then into my apartment upstairs. They left sandy footprints, and whoever it was drove a car down the drive.”
“Any idea why he’s stalking you?”
“He could have seen me talking to Phillip, I guess. I thought he’d left, but he could have come back without me seeing him. If the woman Phillip saw knew he was watching her, and if Bull had anything to do with killing Frazier and Marilee, he may have followed Phillip to the Crab House, intending to kill him. Then he saw Phillip talking to me and guessed he was telling me about the woman, so he decided he had to kill me, too.”
“If he was going to kill you, why didn’t he kill Phillip?”
“Because Rufus sensed what was going on and barked. That scared him away. Do you know what kind of car he drives? Is it a black Miata?”
“Bull might drive a stolen Miata, but he doesn’t own a car.”
“He must have had a car that night, because he probably waited in the Crab House parking lot and followed Phillip when he left. Then he followed him again when his lover drove him to that spot and let him out of the car.”
Guidry rotated his water bottle on the table. “That’s where your theory breaks down, Dixie. Bull’s the type who would beat the kid up just because he’s gay. It may not have anything at all to do with the murders.”
“Then why was he after me?”
“You turned him down at the bar, and you chatted up a gay guy. In Bull’s world, that’s plenty of reason to hurt you.”
“Guidry, you know Sam Grayson? The man whose dog barked and scared Bull away when he was beating Phillip? The dog’s name is Rufus. Well, Sam put a piece of brass pipe at the curb before he left town last Thursday night for the trash people to pick up Friday morning. A little piece about two feet long. Tanisha saw it when she was walking to the bus stop, and she picked it up.”
“Tanisha?”
“The cook at the Village Diner. She’d been cooking for somebody on the Graysons’ street, and she saw the pipe and got it. She said a man drove in the Graysons’ driveway and took it away from her, sort of accusing her of stealing it. And he drove a black car that may have been a Miata.”
For a second, Guidry looked like he needed to put his head between his knees and take deep breaths.
“And you think…”
“Maybe that was Bull. Maybe he used the pipe to kill Frazier and Marilee.”
“He got inspired when he saw the pipe and decided to go kill somebody with it?”
“You have to admit it’s a strange coincidence.”
“Somebody had to have a damn good reason for killing Harrison Frazier and Marilee Doerring, and unless we turn up some compelling evidence, I don’t think Bull Banks had anything to gain by their deaths.”
“Somebody could have hired him.”
“Yeah, but who?”
“Shuga Reasnor said Gerald Coffey wouldn’t kill them himself, but that he might hire somebody.”
“That’s just gossip, Dixie.”
“Guidry, you didn’t just meet Paco for the first time today, did you?”
“Who?”
“Paco, the guy downstairs, the one who called your private line when he caught Bull Banks.”
“Is that his name? Nobody introduced us.”
The guileless look he gave me would have fooled the most confirmed cynic, but it didn’t fool me.
“Dixie, before you arrived at Marilee Doerring’s house and found Harrison Frazier, where had you been?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Why are you asking me that? Do you believe that crap Winnick is saying?”
“That’s irrelevant, Dixie. Where had you been?”
“I told you that before. I walked the Graysons’ dog about four-thirty, and then Billy Elliot, the greyhound at the Sea Breeze. After that, I went to a house to take care of a cat. Marilee’s was my second cat of the morning.”
My voice was tight and curt. I couldn’t believe Guidry was asking me for an alibi.
He said, “Any humans see you? Anybody who can verify that you were where you say you were?”
I could feel my jaws clenching and my hands making fists. If there’s anything I pride myself on, it’s honesty. Having my honesty questioned was like jabbing me with a sharp stick to see how much pain I could take.
“That’s the whole point of my work, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t be going to those houses if people were home. Tom Hale was home, but he was still in bed.”
“He lives where?”
“At the Sea Breeze, with Billy Elliot.”
“The greyhound.”
“Yeah.”
“Besides Tom Hale, nobody else saw you that morning?”
“I don’t know, Guidry, I guess somebody could have seen me, but I don’t know who.”
“Okay.”
I stared at him a moment, feeling a confused mixture of anger that he’d asked me for an alibi, and a rational understanding that he was just doing his job.
I said, “This has been really fun, Lieutenant, but I need to take a nap so I’ll be awake for my afternoon pet visits.”
He stood and handed me his empty water bottle. “Thanks for the refreshments.”
I watched him walk down my steps and then went inside and lowered the storm shutters against the glaring western sun. Amazingly, I was fairly calm. A year earlier, I might have curled up in a corner and sucked my thumb if in one ninety-six-hour period I’d found two murdered bodies, been accosted by a psycho in a parking lot, been vilified on radio by a radical hatemonger, stumbled on a kid I liked a lot who’d been badly beaten, and had a homicide detective question me as if I were a possible murder suspect. Now I was just pissed. A little jumpy, true, but mostly pissed.
It was true that I needed a nap, but first I went in my closet–office and checked my messages. One was from somebody named Ethan Crane, who claimed to be Marilee’s lawyer but was probably a reporter trying to trick me.
“I need to speak to you about Miss Doerring’s will,” he said. “Please call me as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. There was absolutely no reason why an attorney would need to talk to me about Marilee Doerring’s will, and reporters will stoop to anything to get an interview.
I went in the bedroom, kicked off my Keds, and fell on the bed, lying with my toes pointed toward the ceiling like a body in rigor mortis. I wanted to be in the hammock on the porch, but now I didn’t feel safe to sleep out there. Some creep like Bull Banks could sneak up the stairs and stand looking down at me sprawled out with my mouth open and drool running down my chin. A reporter could tiptoe upstairs and take photographs of me and run it with the caption “Is she a murderess being coddled by the Sheriff’s Department?”
I got up and looked up the name Ethan Crane in the phone book. There really was an attorney by that name. The phone number was the same, too, but that didn’t mean the call was legitimate.
I padded barefoot to the French doors and looked through the square glass panes. The sky was a clear and innocent blue. A young snowy egret stood one-legged on the porch railing, his yellow beak pointing upward and his raised foot invisible in his underfeathers. A soft breeze gently ruffled his fine feathers, and he seemed to be smiling. Why not? He didn’t have to worry about reporters or public opinion or homicidal thugs.