Guidry said, “I know you’re not going to like hearing this, but would you consider leaving town for a while?”
“I’m not running away, Guidry. Gabe may kill me, but he won’t make me run away.”
He didn’t look surprised.
Now that I’d laid out the reasons why Gabe Marks was probably going to kill me, I went speechless. Guidry didn’t say anything else either. He slipped a hand inside his jacket, pulled out a slim wallet, and laid bills on the table. I gathered myself to stand up, but he leaned across the table toward me.
“About the newspaper photograph in your floor safe.”
The old sick feeling of shame and fury began to roil in my stomach.
Guidry said, “Forensics didn’t get any prints from it.”
“I didn’t think they would.”
“You know what your problem is, Dixie?”
“Plenty of people have told me what my problem is, Guidry. Spare me your opinion.”
“You never got to finish the howl. You had a good one going, and they stopped it. They had to, seeing you probably would have done serious damage to that fool reporter if they hadn’t grabbed you. But that stopped the howl coming up from your guts. It’s still down there, and you need to finish it. You won’t be well until you do.”
Nobody had used the word well about me before, as if I weren’t well now, as if I were sick. I looked up at Guidry and checked the expression in his eyes, looking for the slightest sign of ridicule. His gray eyes were clear and direct. Not pitying, not condescending, not even sympathetic. Maybe not even kind. Just direct. Guidry said what he thought, and he thought I needed to finish the howl that had been stopped three years ago.
I didn’t answer him, and he didn’t seem to expect me to. Wordlessly, we walked across the street to the hospital parking lot and got into our respective cars.
Afternoon rain clouds had rolled in while we were in the restaurant, putting everything into shadow and stirring up a breeze that fluttered palm fronds and bougainvillea branches. Thunder growled in the distance and thin traces of lightning flitted in outlying purple clouds. We were in for a storm for sure.
Before he drove away, Guidry gave me a wave that looked a bit like a soldier’s salute. I started the engine and sat for a moment letting the AC cool the car. It was early for my afternoon rounds, but if I hurried I might get them over before the thunderstorm hit. Besides Mame, I had three other dogs on my list. I could get away with a short run with two of them, but the third was Billy Elliot, and Billy would be a quivering mass of nerves if he didn’t get his usual long race. I pulled into a side street that would take me back to the key and Billy Elliot. Sometimes you have to put aside the possibility that somebody will kill you and just get on with life.
I called Michael while I was in the elevator in Tom Hale’s building and explained where I was and what I was doing. I promised I’d cut all my visits short and get home early. He didn’t lecture me, just promised he’d have dinner waiting. Grateful for not having to hear his worry, I didn’t tell him I’d just eaten a late lunch.
Billy Elliot and I ran like banshees in the parking lot, both of us looking up now and then at the encroaching dark clouds. Back in his apartment, I handed him off to Tom and scooted out without taking time for chitchat. My two other dogs were nervous about the thunder and willing to make their runs just long enough to squat and do their business and then head back home. I didn’t plan on walking Mame at all, so I made quick stops at the cats’ and birds’ houses. They were all slightly on edge with the instinctive knowledge that animals have when the earth is about to let rip with a quake or a big storm. I gave them fresh water and food and a little conversation and then went to Secret Cove.
I found Mame in Judge Powell’s study, lying morosely with her nose on her front paws. I carried her outside to use the bathroom and invited her to play fetch on the lanai, but she wasn’t interested. In the kitchen, most of the kibble I’d put out for her that morning was still in her bowl. I took a Jubilee Wafer into the study and held it in the palm of my hand so she could take it in her mouth. Mame loved Jubilee Wafers the way I love bacon. She gave me a patient look and took it, but she didn’t chew it, and I had the distinct impression that she was waiting for me to leave so she could spit it out.
Thunder cracked overhead, and I gave Mame a quick kiss and left her. I told myself she was safe and dry. The Powells had been adamant that I was not to have anybody stay with her in their house, but I didn’t feel good about leaving her. I didn’t feel good at all.
I felt even worse when I swung around the circle to check on Reggie and a deputy on guard duty told me Denton Ferrelli had taken him away.
The wind was up by now, bending saplings and whipping palm fronds like flapping flags. Through the thick trees and foliage, it sounded much worse than it was, like a hurricane gale. Ominous thunder was rumbling all around too, so that standing listening to the deputy I felt as if I were in a dark cave with a bass drum’s endless echoes bouncing off the walls.
Angry, I said, “You let Denton Ferrelli take Reggie?”
“He’s the next of kin, ma’am. Who are you?”
I didn’t answer, just got back in the Bronco and headed home. I was nobody. I had no right to Reggie, and Denton Ferrelli did. But the truth was that Reggie going off with Denton Ferrelli was almost surely Reggie going off to his death. I didn’t know how I could save him, but I knew I had to try.
When I got home, a rain-colored car was parked beside the carport, and a man in a white short-sleeved dress shirt and dark polyester pants was standing beside it talking to Paco. When I drove up they both looked around with almost stealthy expressions. Paco backed away with a dismissive wave, and the man opened his car door and got in. His shoes were dull dark leather with thick rubber soles. He wore white socks. Somebody should tell those federal guys that white socks are a dead giveaway.
He made a sharp U-turn and headed down the lane toward Midnight Pass Road, and I sprinted through quickening rain to my stairs, pushing the remote to raise the shutters as I ran. Inside my dark apartment, I switched on lights and hurried to the bathroom to clean up before dinner. By the time I was out of the shower and dressed in threadbare old jeans and a stretchy T, the rain was coming down hard and fast.
My answering machine was blinking, so I stabbed the PLAY button and skipped through the messages. I stopped when I heard Pete’s voice and let it play to the end.
“Dixie, Priscilla and I talked on the way to the airport, and I learned something … maybe it’s … she said Gabe spent Sunday night with her, and he had a little kitten with him … she thought he’d brought it to her, but when he left Monday morning he took it with him … she said he left a little before five, but I saw him leaving in his truck about seven that morning … I don’t know where he’d been between the time he left her and the time I saw him, but I thought it might be something you should know … may not be relevant.”
I stood looking at the machine while pictures flashed like a montage in my head. The box of free kittens I’d seen Monday morning on Midnight Pass Road could have been put out Sunday evening. Maybe the box of kittens had activated Denton’s need to inflict emotional pain. Gabe could have walked to Secret Cove from Priscilla’s apartment, killed Conrad, and driven Reggie to Crescent Beach. From there, it would have been an easy walk back to Priscilla’s for his truck. But Denton Ferrelli had to have been present when Conrad was killed. Denton had to have been the one who got Conrad to stop his car and step into the woods where the kitten lay.
I backed away from the answering machine as if it were a ticking bomb. I’d had about all I could take for the day. I couldn’t absorb anything else. On the porch, I lowered the shutters and pulled a yellow slicker over my head before I ran down the steps and across the deck. A golden light glowed through the kitchen’s bay window, and I could see Michael and Paco moving around inside. That was my beacon, my safe harbor.