Feeling heavy and sad, I called the people who were extending their vacation and talked to their voice mail; nobody talks directly anymore, we communicate through machines. I said I’d got their message and not to worry about their Airedale. I made my voice strong and cheerful, because that’s part of my job, seeming on top of things. It’s like being a parent, even when you don’t know what the heck you’re doing, your job is to act like you do so the people depending on you won’t freak out.
I stood up and unwound the towel and pulled on clean underwear. Michael was right. I did need new underwear. As I was stepping into clean shorts, the phone rang again. I let the answering machine click on while I pulled on a sleeveless T.
A thin voice spoke. “Um—uh, Dixie? This is Priscilla.”
I leaped to snag the phone and answered so loudly it scared her.
She said, “Oooh! I didn’t think you were there.”
“Priscilla, do you have something to tell me?”
“Well—um, Pete talked to me, and Josephine too. And they think I should—”
Her voice cracked, and I realized she was crying.
“Are you at Josephine’s?”
“I’m at home.”
“Tell me where you live.”
She gave me an address about a mile from Josephine’s, and I told her I’d be there in ten minutes. I laced up clean white Keds, dropped the gun in my pocket, and grabbed the door remote and my backpack. Outside the French doors, I lowered the shutters and looked over at the house. Michael had left the pool and was probably upstairs in the shower. Paco was probably asleep, resting up for his undercover night job. With my storm shutters closed, they might think I was still inside my apartment. I could nip over to Priscilla’s and be back before they even knew I was gone, thus sparing them the concern they might feel about me leaving.
What a load of horse manure.
The truth was that if I told them I was leaving to get the name of the person who had tried to kill me with a truck and a rattlesnake, they would hog-tie me and call Guidry. But I had promised Pete I would let Priscilla tell me personally. He had kept his promise and persuaded her to talk to me, and I would keep my promise and keep the police out of it.
I didn’t exactly sneak away, but I went down the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible, and eased the Bronco out of the carport. It wasn’t yet time for my afternoon rounds, so nobody was at the end of the drive to tail me.
Pete’s house turned out to be a moss-green stucco bungalow almost hidden by old trees and hibiscus. Built before central air-conditioning, the house had a couple of window units humming and dripping on the side by the detached one-car garage. The apartment above the garage looked as if it had been built at the same time as the house, not added on later. A wide picture window overlooked the driveway, the glass covered by white pleated drapes. As I parked in the driveway, the drapes separated just enough for somebody to peek out and then fell back in place. I got out of the Bronco and walked around the corner of the garage, noting neatly trimmed flower beds running along the perimeter of the house. Somebody had spent time encouraging shrimp plants and green and white caladium to flourish. I wondered if gardening was another of Pete’s skills.
The stairway to Priscilla’s apartment was steep and narrow, with a wooden railing on the outside that seemed to have been recently stabilized and freshly painted. In the outside corner of the covered landing, an enormous staghorn fern in a moss-filled wire container hung from the ceiling. Priscilla opened the door before I knocked. She wore frayed cutoff jeans and a tiny ribbed T molded to her bony rib cage. Her pink hair was sleep-flattened on one side, and the bruises on her arms had turned a sickish blue. Her face was so ashen that her diamond nose stud and the gold rings rimming her ears seemed cruel impalings. She seemed agitated and flapped her hands to hurry me inside. As soon as she could, she slammed the door closed, turned a dead bolt, and slid a night latch closed.
Her apartment was one big room, with a tiny kitchenette by the front window and two doors at the back that I assumed led to a closet and a bathroom. The baby was asleep in a wooden crib in the corner, her knees tucked under her tummy and her rump raised in the air. A single bed against the wall had firm bolsters on its long side to make it double as a sofa. In front of it, a dented military trunk sat as a coffee table. The lid was open, and Priscilla hurried to it and started digging into it like a spaniel after a buried bone, pulling out articles of clothing and throwing them in a black plastic garbage bag next to the trunk.
She was obviously getting ready to run. Under any other circumstance I would have gone all mushy with regret and sympathy and concern. Now I just wanted the girl to get on with it and tell me what she knew.
I leaned against the wall. “What is it you have to tell me, Priscilla?”
In a strangled rush, she said, “I wasn’t sure it was him … I didn’t think he would do that … he’s not like that, not really … he’s good to the baby and lots of times he’s real sweet … but when Pete told me about the snakes, I knew it was him … he’ll kill me if he finds out I told!”
She gave me a look so fearful and young and lost that I was undone. This was a child raising a child, trying to make a nest for herself and her baby in an uncertain world. Life couldn’t have treated her well or she wouldn’t be here alone, living precariously on the charity of other people.
More gently, I said, “The person who drives that truck, is he your boyfriend?”
She nodded, big-eyed, and began to cry.
“The baby’s father?”
More nods, more tears. She collapsed on the bed and buried her face in a tiny shirt—I supposed it was hers although it was almost small enough for the baby.
I went over and sat beside her. “Why the snakes? Why did that convince you?”
“That’s what he does. He catches them and sells them. Alligators too. That’s why he has those big tires, so he can drive in ditches and things. He grabs them with hooks and puts them in boxes in the back of his truck. Not the alligators. I think he has to shoot drugs in the alligators and then tie them up.”
My heart did a little leap. “What kind of drugs?”
“Something to keep them from fighting so they don’t get bruised or cut. If they’re perfect, he gets about fifty dollars a foot for the skin. Not so much if they’ve got marks. He uses a dart gun to shoot them.”
“They don’t go to sleep?”
“Gabe said they watch him until he kills them, so I guess not.”
“His name is Gabe?”
“Gabe Marks.”
She raised her head and looked pleadingly at me, asking me for something I couldn’t give: to erase whatever had led to this moment, or at least to reassure her that she and her baby would be okay.
The baby snuffled in her sleep, and Priscilla was instantly alert. I was beginning to see why Josephine and Pete were so protective. She was a combination of loopy child and sensitive, caring woman.
“How in God’s name did you get mixed up with a man who traps venomous snakes and alligators for a living?”
Priscilla went back to stuffing clothes in the plastic bag. “I went to work at All-Call and Mr. Brossi introduced us. I wanted to be a clown, but I couldn’t make any money at it.”
“Gabe works at the call center too?”
“No, he does other work for Mr. Brossi, I’m not sure what. See, Gabe used to get the golf balls out of the water at the golf course. Nobody else would do it because of the snakes in there, but Gabe liked it, and that’s where he met Mr. Brossi.”
She held up a red knit sweater that I was almost sure was for the baby. “By the time it gets cold enough for her to wear this, it’ll be too little for her. Don’t you think?”
“Probably.”
She laid it on the floor next to the garbage bag. “Then I’m not taking it.”