Paco looked at Guidry and tilted his head toward the back door. “Let’s go inside.”
I went ahead of them to the kitchen. I was a good hour beyond my limit of going without breakfast. Whatever Paco and Guidry had to tell me would have to wait until I’d had something to eat.
Michael was already slamming food from the refrigerator to the cooktop, laying paper-thin slices of ham on the grill and topping them with Gruyère cheese, grilling a split croissant beside them, and somehow with a few moves putting it all together and flipping it on a plate next to a slice of honeydew melon.
Paco and Guidry cast covetous looks at my plate, so he did the same for them and then for himself. Paco poured a round of coffee for everybody, and we all sat around the butcher-block island and ate like hogs. I was surprised that Guidry knew the trick to eating a sandwich that oozed melted cheese, but then I remembered he was from New Orleans. Probably had a French nanny who made him croque-monsieurs when he was still in diapers. Probably wore pure linen diapers too.
Once my stomach was reassured, I said, “You guys have something to tell me?”
Michael’s face darkened, and he got up and started putting food away with a vengeance.
Guidry said, “We picked Gabe Marks up for questioning. He said he does odd jobs sometimes for Leo Brossi, but he denied knowing Denton Ferrelli. Also denied trying to run you down with his truck. He said you’re a crazy woman who shot at him when he went to his girlfriend’s apartment. He didn’t deny using Scoline to capture alligators, but he has a valid Florida Alligator Harvest Permit, and, like he said, most everybody who handles alligators has some drugged darts. We couldn’t hold him.”
Three pairs of eyes were watching me, Michael like a statue by the sink. Nobody asked if it was true that I’d shot at Gabe Marks, just as nobody had asked if I was the person who had caused Leo Brossi to be home with ice on his face last night. I was stuck with being the only one who knew for sure I’d done both those things.
I said, “I can’t prove it was Gabe Marks who tried to run me down in the parking lot. I can’t prove he put snakes in my apartment. I can’t prove he was the one driving Conrad’s car or that he shot drugged darts into Conrad and Stevie. But I know Denton hired Gabe to kill them, and I know he wants me dead. Denton is a respected man with important political connections. He has powerful mob connections. If Gabe doesn’t kill me, Denton will have somebody else do it.”
Nobody spoke. Nobody argued with me.
I said, “It’s hopeless, isn’t it?”
Guidry said, “Nothing’s ever hopeless, Dixie.”
That wasn’t true, and we all knew it. Some things are flat-out hopeless, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. The kitchen seemed very still and quiet. The clock on the wall made faint clicking noises as the second hand moved. Sunshine streamed through the bay window facing the shore, and dust motes shimmered in the golden light. In that peaceful moment, it seemed incongruous that death could lurk nearby. But death is always lurking. The question isn’t if death will ultimately win but how we will face it when it does. I thought about how gracefully Mame had dealt with the hopelessness of her situation, how fearlessly she had gone to her last moment. Perhaps that’s why pets exist—to teach humans how to die.
I said, “What would it take to nail Denton Ferrelli for murdering Conrad and Stevie? Or for hiring Gabe Marks to do it?”
“A confession. A detailed account of how they did it. Details we could corroborate.”
“What if you caught one of them trying to kill somebody else?”
Guidry narrowed his gray eyes in a suspicious look. “Then we’d arrest him for attempted murder.”
“What if the somebody else was wired? What if the somebody else cleverly got a detailed account of how Conrad and Stevie were killed? And what if you rushed in and saved the somebody else before he actually killed her?”
Michael slapped the refrigerator door and glared at me.
Guidry said, “The somebody else would have to be pretty stupid to set herself up like that.”
I pushed my coffee mug away and rested my forearms on the butcher block. Everything suddenly seemed crystal clear to me. I just had to explain it so they understood it. Especially so Michael understood.
“If Gabe Marks isn’t locked up, and soon, he will kill me. Even if he is locked up, Denton will find somebody to kill me. Or he may do it himself. Denton is a psychopathic monster who enjoys hurting people. Gabe is a dumb thug who enjoys hurting people. Separately or together, they are determined to kill me, and they will. Even if I ran away, Denton has the contacts and the power to track me. He thinks I’m a danger to him, and he’s determined to shut me up.”
Michael turned away and stood motionless with his hands braced on the countertop, every hard line of his body saying he knew what I was saying was true and that he could not bear it.
I said, “Look, I’m not the shrinking violet you think I am. I know how to handle a gun, I know how to handle myself in a fight. So why not use me? Why not let Denton get to me? You have a whole fucking SWAT team that could swarm him the minute it sounded like things were getting too hairy. It would work, Guidry. It may be the only way to keep me alive.”
Michael said, “No! Goddamn it, no!”
Paco said, “I don’t like it either, Michael, but she’s right. It may be the only way.”
Guidry said, “I never thought you were a shrinking violet.”
“Well, okay, how about it?”
He looked at Michael. “Michael would have to be okay with it.”
Michael said, “Then it’s never happening. Never.”
He lasered us all with a look of sheer despair, and I got up and put my arms around him. Michael has taken care of me since the first time our mother left us when he was four and I was two. He kept me safe then, and for the rest of his life he’s felt that was his sacred duty. I could feel his strong heart pounding under his shirt, and I knew he was feeling utter anguish at not being able to protect me now.
I said, “I have to do this by myself, hon. It’s the only way. And I won’t be alone. Guidry and his guys will be close by. It will make it a whole lot easier if you have faith in me, if you believe I can do it.”
“Shit, Dixie.”
“I know.”
He gave a gigantic sigh and squeezed me close. “Guidry, you son-of-a-bitch, if anything happens to her—”
Guidry got up and rapped his knuckles a couple of times on the butcher block, like a ritual to ward off bad luck.
“I’ll get the stuff you’ll need. I’ll be back later.”
He went out the door without closing it behind him. I watched him cross the deck to his car and back out. The world looked different now, because I had moved to a new place in it.
Good or bad, I had taken a step in a new direction, and there was no going back.
26
I went up to my apartment, but I was too keyed up to nap. I took a long shower. I dressed in clean shorts and sleeveless top. I put on clean white Keds. I switched on the TV and saw Leo Brossi leaving the police station with his attorney while reporters yelled questions at him. His nose was taped and one eye was swollen almost shut. A newscaster said Brossi claimed he’d banged into a cabinet door the day before, but the newscaster didn’t sound as if he believed the story. I felt a little better about punching Brossi.
I entered pet visits in my client notebook. I made invoices. I returned all the calls that had to be returned. I went to the kitchen and looked out the window through the belled iron heart. I went back to the office-closet and looked up Denton Ferrelli’s address in the phone book and wrote it down. That made me feel efficient, as if I’d confirmed an important detail.
I still had several hours before I made my afternoon rounds, and I felt like somebody all dressed up with no place to go. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and went downstairs and pulled the Bronco out of the carport. I wanted to see where my enemy lived. One of them, anyway.