“I’m not authorized to let anybody in, Miss Reasnor.”
“Oh, bullshit! Who’s going to authorize you? Cora? The police? I have a right to go in and get my personal property before they send in some estate liquidator to haul everything off.”
“I’d have to make a list of everything you took and you’d have to sign a statement saying you took it. Otherwise, I can’t let you in.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! What difference does it make to you? It’s not your house.”
It didn’t seem the time to tell her the house now belonged to a cat.
I said, “I’m responsible for it, though, at least for the time being.”
She stretched her mouth into a semblance of a smile. “Look, it’s worth a couple of hundred dollars to me to get my things now. What do you say?”
“I say you’d better leave.”
“What’s the problem? You said Marilee left my name to call in an emergency.”
“An emergency involving her cat, not something you left in her house.”
“I’ll call Cora. She’ll let me in.”
“If Cora gives me permission to let you in, that’s fine. I just can’t do it on my own.”
She turned away from the door and clumped past me on her high heels. “Of all the stupid, idiotic, ignorant…”
I waited until she was in her Jag before I ambled past her to the Bronco and pulled out, backing up by the curb to let her exit the driveway and drive off in front of me. She gave me a murderous glare as she spun out and away. We both knew that she would come back, but only she knew why.
I waited until she’d had time to get onto Midnight Pass Road before I pulled back into the driveway. Marilee’s yard was freshly edged and the walk and driveway blown clean. Even after death, yards get maintained and pools get cleaned on Siesta Key. The Winnicks’ house was blank-faced and silent. I imagined Olga Winnick inside grieving the loss of innocence—either her son’s or her own.
Shuga obviously hadn’t known that Marilee’s locks had been changed, and that was surprising. If she’d always had a key to Marilee’s house, why hadn’t Marilee given her a new key when she had her locks changed? And why hadn’t she known about the change? That’s the kind of things that women tell their friends, but Marilee hadn’t told Shuga. Maybe Shuga had been the reason she’d had them changed. Maybe it was Shuga she didn’t want coming in her house while she was gone. But why? And why now, after being friends for so long?
Whatever it was that Shuga had hoped to get was something very important to her, and it seemed strange that she hadn’t said what it was, the way one woman would tell another. “I loaned her my best shirt and I want it back.” Or “I took a bracelet off the last time I was here and forgot it.” Instead, she had looked pinched and grim when I told her she’d have to reveal what she took and sign a statement listing everything. Shuga didn’t want anybody to know what she was taking from Marilee’s house. I wondered if this was the first time she had come looking for it, or if she had been the person who’d ransacked Marilee’s bedroom and closet.
Phillip had said the woman he’d seen had dark hair, but in the dark Shuga’s hair might have looked dark. Maybe Shuga had entered through the lanai and killed Frazier and Marilee, searched for whatever it was she wanted, and then left in a black Miata driven by an accomplice. But who was the accomplice? And who took Marilee’s body to the woods? Marilee was small, but Shuga didn’t seem muscular enough to carry her body that far.
I finally got out of the car and used my key to go inside. I flipped the switch to bathe the foyer in muted light, and sniffed at the cherry-scented air. I made a tour of the house, ending up in the kitchen, where I stayed clear of the spot where Frazier’s body had lain. It was the first time I’d ever been the first person in a house after the crime-scene cleaners, and I found the experience more disquieting than finding the dead body. Crime-scene cleaners remove not only spilled blood and body fluids but every living microbe, which leaves a house strangely absent of life. I had never realized before how invisible agents in our homes are constantly throwing off subtle scents and energies that create the essence of our interiors. Without them, a house is as impersonal as a tray of surgical instruments.
I went to the garage, where Marilee’s Ferrari took up half the space. The other half held a plastic garbage can, empty red and blue recycle bins, a stepladder, some stacked paint cans, and a few folding chairs propped against the wall. I knew the investigating team had thoroughly checked the car, but I opened the passenger door anyway. The Ferrari had creamy leather seats, so soft you could have made underwear from them. I ran my hand inside the storage pocket and under the seat. I opened the glove box and took out the sole content, a thin leather folder which held registration and insurance information. Otherwise, there was nothing. No maps, no sunglasses, no boxes of Kleenex or breath mints or leftover napkins from a fast-food drive-through. Not even a CD in the CD holder.
I opened the trunk and shined my penlight inside. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a speck of dust in it. I hadn’t learned a thing except that Marilee had been an extremely tidy woman who’d kept her car as fastidiously neat and clean as she’d kept her house and person. The remote control for the garage door was clipped to the sun visor, and I slipped it into my pocket. Before I went back in the house, I positioned the recycle bins and garbage can against the garage wall, next to the folding chairs and stepladder.
Twenty-Nine
When I got home, I saw Michael’s car, but neither he nor Paco was outside, and their house was dark. It was close to nine o’clock and I’d been up seventeen hours. It seemed like a week since I’d eaten my turkey sandwich at the beach.
Forlornly, I went upstairs and cleaned up a bit, then went back down to go someplace for dinner. Paco called to me from the cypress deck, and I made a detour to where he was sitting in the waning light nursing a beer. He had removed his bushy beard and mop of unruly hair, and only a redness along his jawline betrayed the spirit gum that had held his beard firm. Nobody would dream this smooth-shaven guy with short-cropped hair and John Lennon eyeglasses was the same person as the scruffy beach bum he’d been at noon.
I went inside and got a beer and some cheese and crackers and joined him. We sat watching the light fading on the horizon while baby wavelets sucked at the shoreline.
Paco broke the silence. “Are you okay?”
I took a bite of cheese and chewed it morosely. I was way hungrier than cheese.
“I guess. I haven’t done anything too outrageous, so I guess I’m cool.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what? The thing at the beach or the thing here?”
“The thing at the beach didn’t happen. The thing here did.”
“How did you catch him? Did you know he was coming here?”
“I noticed him watching you at the beach, and I thought I recognized him. After the thing that didn’t happen was over, I got the Harley and left. Later, when I was driving home, he pulled out of a parking lot in front of me. I followed him, and when he turned into our drive, I went on past and then doubled back and walked down the lane. He had pulled his car into the trees, but he was an easy mark. He’s not the brightest bulb in the string, believe me. He was looking around trying to figure out where to hide when I rushed him.”
“If you hadn’t come home when you did—”
“Dumb luck.”
“I don’t think so. I think somebody was watching over me.”
He gave me a searching look, knowing I meant Todd. “Okay.”
“What will happen to Bull Banks now?”