Until a few years ago, a drawbridge connected the mainland to Bird Key, Lido Key, Casey Key, St. Armand’s Key, and Longboat Key. But people who moved here to escape the fast pace of big cities objected to the slow pace of waiting for the bridge to open, so now we have a span of soaring concrete. Who knows, one day the people who came here to escape concrete wastelands may grow impatient with the water around the keys and demand the waterways be paved over.
I passed the exit to Bird Key, which has the feeling of a tropical gated community, and Lido Key, home of Mote Marine Laboratory and Pelican Man’s Bird Sanctuary, both places where dedicated volunteers work to rescue injured wildlife. On St. Armand’s Key, I slowed for pedestrians around the fashion circle, then turned onto John Ringling Parkway. The New Pass Bridge spilled me onto Gulf of Mexico Drive and Longboat Key, where buildings that look like public libraries are really the homes of multimillionaires. Longboat Key has a gulfside beach where sea oats wave in the breeze, but it isn’t open to the public like Siesta’s Crescent Beach. To enjoy the sand on Longboat Key, you have to buy a house or a condo. Otherwise, the Longboat Key Police Department will arrest you for trespassing. At least the people who named the streets had a sense of humor—boat lovers can live on Sloop, Ketch, Schooner, Yawl, or Outrigger. Golfers live on Birdie, Wedge, Chipping, or Putter.
At Harbourside Drive, I turned to skirt the bay, scanning the sleek boats slipped at the Longboat Key Moorings. One of those boats belonged to Denton Ferrelli. The Longboat Key Golf Club has two courses, one harborside, and one inland. The clubhouse of the harborside course was less than a hundred feet away from the dock. I imagined Denton coming into that dock after killing his brother. Perhaps the lipstick he’d used to draw the leering grin on Conrad’s face had been tossed into the sea. I imagined him mooring his boat and ambling over to play golf with his friends.
Back on Gulf of Mexico Drive, I began watching for Denton’s street. It was one of the older streets edging the bay, where normal people used to live in normal houses. Now those normal houses are being bought up and bulldozed to make room for megamansions in which two or three people count their money or plan where their money will go when they die or whatever really rich people do when they’re alone. Denton’s three-story gray stucco edifice squatted at the end of the street like a leering gargoyle. A black iron gate spanned a driveway that curved to a garage somewhere behind the house. I could see open air at the back, but tall stucco walls ran along both sides of the lot. Only boats and fish would be looking at them, but Denton and Marian Ferrelli were taking no chance of being seen inside their house.
I drove past the end wall and over the curb to park beside the wall where I thought I would be out of view. The builders had spared an ancient banyan tree there, in a thick green copse of palmetto fronds and potato vines. From the car window, I could see the third-story roof and the side of a second-story deck that was probably above the garage. Part of the deck was covered with a blue canvas awning, and the rest was caged with ribbing that rose to the third-story roof. Too hot now, but probably a pleasant place to sit early in the morning and late in the afternoon and watch sailboats and dolphins on the bay. I got out of the Bronco and eased the door shut, then walked between the stucco wall and the rooting banyan branches toward the back of the lot.
An old mango tree at the far end of the wall emitted a pungent odor of rotten fruit, and I could hear the scurrying of fruit rats as I approached. Careful not to step on any of the mushy mangoes on the ground, I slipped under the overhanging branches and stopped behind the tree’s thick trunk. A rat the size of a cat leaped past me with a mango in its mouth, giving me a red-eyed glare as if it thought I had come to steal its booty.
Cautiously, I angled my head so I could see the back of the house, but all I got was a view of a five-car garage and the pavement in front of it. All the garage doors were closed. Above the garage, the deck shimmered in the afternoon sun. A blue-and-white-striped table umbrella made an occasional movement from the sea breeze, but that was the only sign of life. No doors slammed, no car motors started, no music or conversation sounded. With Reggie’s keen senses, I was surprised he wasn’t barking at the fruit rats. Or at me. But maybe he wasn’t here. Maybe Denton had taken him someplace else. I didn’t want to think about the someplace else he might have taken him.
After a while I got the prickly, uneasy feeling that happens when somebody is staring, as if eyes were boring into the back of my head. I looked behind me, but all I saw was a screen of palmetto fronds, potato vines, and trailing banyan branches. No-see-ums were beginning to snip at my flesh and get into places no living creature should get into without specific permission. If I ever gave permission to go there, it wouldn’t be to an invisible biting insect. Not that anybody was asking.
I looked at my watch. It would soon be time to start on my afternoon pet rounds, and the drive home would take me about forty minutes. I shouldn’t have come here. I should have stayed home and taken a nap. What had I expected to see, anyway?
A sound reached me, the mechanical whine of the front gate swinging open, then the sound of a car engine. A shiny red car came to a jerking stop in front of the garage. I squinted through the leaves at it. I knew that car. It was the classic red Honda I’d seen in Birdlegs Stephenson’s garage. I knew the man getting out of it too. It was Leo Brossi, still with his nose taped and wearing dark glasses to hide his swollen eye.
One of the garage doors lumbered up, and Denton Ferrelli strolled out to meet Brossi. They stood close together and spoke in low tones for a couple of minutes, then Brossi laughed and stepped back.
He said, “Where you going to kill him?”
Denton said, “I thought I’d take him out to the country where nobody can see.”
“That’s good. You can throw him in the river for the alligators.”
“You want to come watch?”
“Sure. I haven’t seen a dog killed in a long time.”
Denton went back inside the garage and came out with Reggie on a leash. My mouth went dry. Now I knew why Reggie hadn’t barked. He wore a muzzle buckled around his mouth to keep him quiet. He looked listless too, as if he were drugged or exhausted.
Brossi said, “I don’t want that dog in my car. He might shit or throw up or something.”
Denton looked down at him with a pouting frown, but went back inside the garage and prodded Reggie into the backseat of a black Land Rover. Denton backed the car out of the garage, and Leo Brossi got in the passenger side. Denton swung the car back and then moved forward toward the front gate. As they drove off, I could see them laughing.
I ran for the Bronco, pulling out my cell phone as I went. I started the motor while I punched in Guidry’s number. Something seemed different, and I looked at the phone screen.
“Fuck!”
There was no light on the screen, no nagging little logo of a lone battery trying to get my attention. My phone was dead.
I threw the phone on the passenger seat and waited until I was sure Denton had turned onto Gulf of Mexico Drive before I tore out after him. This wasn’t about catching the killer of Conrad and Stevie Ferrelli anymore. This was about preventing Reggie’s murder.
At Gulf of Mexico Drive, I looked south and saw Denton’s car half a mile ahead. I stayed well back, passing cars that got in my line of vision, but not getting close enough for him to recognize me. At St. Armand’s circle, I slowed at every crosswalk to let wilted pedestrians creep across the street, then turned onto John Ringling Boulevard and picked up speed. Denton had had to slow down too, though, so I hadn’t lost him. We raced over the new causeway to the mainland, where Denton hung a right along the curve of the bay.