Martinez bustled around the house, re-checking everything we’d already checked to see if we missed anything. He found a piece of plywood I’d used as a shutter during the last hurricane, and nailed it over the broken pane on the porch.
I wavered between being grateful for his presence and annoyed that he thought I needed him. Even worse was the thought in my own mind that I did.
“I’m staying the night,’’ he announced, as he hammered the final nail into the plywood.
I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t recall issuing an invitation to share my bed.’’
“Don’t flatter yourself.’’ He smirked. “It’s purely a security measure. I’ll bunk on the couch.’’
Damn!
“Suit yourself,’’ I said. “It’s your backache.’’
“You shouldn’t be out here all alone.’’
I wasn’t about to admit I thought he was right. I’m not accustomed to the damsel-in-distress role. But I was tired. And it was late: one fifteen am by the hands of the clock shaped like a large mouth bass on the living room wall. I had to meet Mama in less than five hours. I’d promised to go with her to the sunrise prayer breakfast to help lend Delilah some moral support.
I went to the linen closet and gathered up some bedding for the sleeper sofa. “Listen, I appreciate this,’’ I told Martinez as he pulled open the couch. “There’s no need. But I do appreciate it.’’
He grabbed an end to the sheet I held and tucked it under the mattress. “You’re probably right, Mace. Still, better safe than sorry.’’ Trapping a pillow with his chin, he started wriggling a floral case over it. I like a man who’s not afraid to indulge his domestic side.
I handed him one end of a comforter from the closet. “I mean, it could have just been kids, right?” We dropped the spread over the sofa bed. “The McPherson boy’s been running with a bad crowd. I wouldn’t put burglary past those little juvenile delinquents. Maybe I scared them off when I pulled in with Wila, yowling in the car. Maybe they didn’t get the chance to steal anything but the shotgun.’’
Martinez sat on the pull-out, testing the mattress with one hand. It was just as comfy as any other sleeper sofa, which is to say he’d feel like he was resting on a sack of rocks.
“Yeah,’’ he said. “It’s not like the closet is an original hiding place. Any burglar worth his rap sheet knows to check high shelves and closet corners for homeowners’ weapons.’’
We each sounded like we were trying to convince the other there was nothing to worry about. It was becoming exhausting.
“Listen, I’ve gotta be up before the rooster crows. I’ll try not to wake you when I leave.’’ I yawned.
“No te preocupes … I mean, don’t worry about it. I’ll probably be awake anyway. I don’t get much sleep as a rule.’’
I wondered whether those sleepless nights began in Miami, after his wife was murdered.
As I started for my bedroom, I spoke over my shoulder, “I’ve got an extra-large cotton T-shirt if you want something besides that dress shirt and blazer to sleep in.’’
“Is it in that pile of filthy clothes you dropped on the floor?’’
I would have blushed, but I was too damned bushed.
“Just for that remark,’’ I said, “I get to wash up first.” I turned into the bathroom and slammed the door.
A half hour later, I was in bed, but nowhere close to sleep. Of course, I was worried about who took the shotgun—and why. But I also kept thinking about the glimpse I got of Martinez in the hallway. He’d come out of the bathroom and was standing still, looking for a wall switch to turn off the hall light. His skin was the color of graham crackers, and I wondered whether it tasted as sweet. Hard muscle rippled along his abdomen. He had a smooth chest with almost no hair. He wore nothing but boxer shorts. Light blue; intact waistband; no rip near the butt.
Would he slip out of those boxers when he climbed between the sheets?
I glanced at the alarm clock beside my bed. It was scheduled to beep me awake in about four hours. I tossed to my right side, even though I normally sleep on the left. I made a quarter turn, plopping onto my stomach to try to get comfortable. Punching the pillow didn’t work. It still felt wrong. Martinez’s shoulder would have felt just right. Stop it!
I grabbed the pillow’s underside to toss it off the bed. That’s when I felt something I knew wasn’t supposed to be there. I shot to my feet, turned on the lamp, and stared down at the pillow. Carefully, I lifted a corner to look underneath.
“Detective?” I called into the living room. “You’d better come in here.’’
He was beside me in a flash, proof that he hadn’t been asleep, either. I pointed at a sheet of folded notebook paper under my pillow. My name, misspelled, was printed in crude block letters between the wide blue lines: Mase. A love note from a demented fifth grader.
“Should I pick it up?’’
Martinez’s jaw was clenched. His eyes were dark, unreadable. “Do you have any tweezers?’’ he asked.
“In the medicine cabinet. Be right back.’’
He used the tweezers to open the note, and then placed it on the nightstand. In the glow of the lamp, we read it together:
You dindt stop. To many questons. See how easy I could kill you? I’m coming for you. Your mama to
The printing looked the same as on the note tossed on Mama’s porch. The misspellings and bad grammar looked familiar, too.
“Get me another plastic bag, would you?’’ Martinez said.
“What are you going to do?’’
“Not much I can do, tonight. Or I guess I should say ‘this morning.’ I’m going to take it in later, when I go to work. We’ll compare it to the other note, and see what, if anything, we can learn from it.’’
He didn’t sound optimistic.
“It looks a lot like the note from the mutilated toy dog,’’ I said.
“That it does. Unfortunately, they’re both written with pencil on common notebook paper. Finding out who wrote it would be easier if they’d used expensive parchment, or an unusual color of ink. Or a fountain pen. The more distinctive, the better.’’
“What about DNA?’’
“It’s possible. But you have to match it to a suspect whose DNA is known. And we don’t have a suspect.’’
We both looked down at the piece of paper. So ordinary. So disturbing.
“This puts my burglary in a different category, doesn’t it?’’