I flinched at the question, but it was fair. Every time I had reached out to Ethan, it had been because I needed help.
His suit coat was on a wooden hanger hooked over an arm of a mahogany hall tree, the kind you only see in antiques stores. The tree had an umbrella holder at its base. I imagined the countless times his grandfather had hung his own coats on that hall tree, imagined the hundreds of clients shaking out damp umbrellas and sliding them into the holder. All that solid tradition behind Ethan was part of what made me trust his advice. It was also part of what put distance between us.
I said, “Ethan, is it illegal to pay off kidnappers?”
His eyes widened. “Why do you ask?”
“A friend needs to know.”
One of his thick eyebrows lifted, and I felt my face grow hot. A friend needs to know has the same ring of truth as The dog ate my homework.
I said, “I have a friend whose husband has been kidnapped. She’s planning to pay the ransom. Is that against the law?”
“Not in this country. If she lived in Colombia, she’d be arrested if she paid.”
“What if the husband is from Colombia but lives here?”
“You have a friend whose husband is from Colombia, and he’s been kidnapped?”
“I’m not sure where he’s from. It could be Colombia.” I felt stupid saying it, like a receptionist who had failed to get a visitor’s name.
“Kidnapping is such big business in Colombia that the government has made it illegal to pay a ransom.”
I said, “But he lives here, and the kidnappers are here. My friend refuses to report it to the police because she can easily pay the ransom, and that’s what her husband has always told her to do if he’s kidnapped. She just wants to be sure it’s legal.”
My voice quavered a bit when I said that, because Maureen didn’t give a gnat’s ass whether it was legal.
Ethan said, “It’s dumb, but it’s not illegal.”
I said, “So I guess actually delivering the ransom money to the kidnappers, like putting it where they said to put it, is okay too?”
“I didn’t say it was okay. I said it wasn’t illegal.”
My lips squinched together to keep from asking what I wanted to know. Then I blurted, “Does it matter where the money came from? I mean, if the ransom money came from something illegal, does that change anything?”
“Let me be sure I understand this. You have a friend from Colombia, which just happens to be a huge exporter of illegal narcotics, and he’s been kidnapped. By a happy coincidence, his wife just happens to have a bunch of possibly illegally obtained money, and she’s going to use it for ransom. Have I got the facts right?”
I didn’t answer. The way he’d put it made it sound a lot worse than anything I’d been imagining.
Ethan sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Dixie, what the hell are you mixed up in?”
“I’m not mixed up in anything.”
“You’re going to help deliver ransom money. Possibly dirty ransom money.”
My chin jutted out. “I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you’re planning, isn’t it?”
“You just said it was legal.”
“I said paying ransom was legal. I also said it was dumb. Whether they get paid with clean money or dirty money, kidnappers aren’t nice people. Paying them ransom money isn’t like handing cash to somebody at the Taco Bell drive-through.”
I stood up. “Thanks, Ethan. I’ll pass the information along to my friend. I didn’t know anybody else I could ask.”
He stood too. “Don’t do it, Dixie.”
I said, “This is an attorney-client secret thing, right?”
“It’s a stupid thing to do.”
“It’s my friend’s husband. Her decision. I’m not really involved.”
“That’s what people say just before they get into deep shit. Don’t do it.”
This time I kissed his cheek as I left. His cheek was hard and smooth, with a clean, healthy, testosterone-laden scent laced with a musky aftershave. My hormones all stood up and cheered when my lips touched him. I was a fool to leave without throwing him to the floor and doing delicious things to him.
It was nearing sunset when I finished with all the four-legged pets. Big Bubba would be my last call, but first I swung by Hetty’s house to see if she’d heard from Jaz.
She was happy to say that Jaz had returned.
She said, “I was afraid she’d never come back, the way she ran out this morning, but she came back in an hour or two. We made cookies.”
Before I could ask if she’d got information for Guidry, she said, “I was afraid to push her, Dixie. She seems so scared. Any little thing spooks her. Something has traumatized that child.”
I said, “If she’s been involved with a gang, that would be enough to traumatize her.”
“She’s a sweet girl.”
“Something is weird about the whole situation, Hetty. Just be careful.”
She said, “It’s weird, all right. Her name is a secret. Where she lives is a secret. Why in the world would it be a secret?”
All the possible answers I could think of were too disturbing to voice.
I said, “Is she coming back tomorrow?”
Hetty looked guilty. “She may come back later today. She said she would try to.”
“Hetty, she knows gang members wanted for murder. Lieutenant Guidry really needs information about her.”
“I know. I’ll try, but I’ll have to wait until the time is right. If I push her, she’ll leave and I’ll never learn anything.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I also couldn’t argue with Guidry’s belief that Hetty was probably the only person who could get information from the girl. As a minor who had done nothing wrong, she was not somebody he could take in for questioning. All he had was the fact that she had behaved strangely when pressed for information about where she lived, and that gang members had asked for her by name.
At Big Bubba’s house, I put fresh water and a new millet sprig in his cage, along with some apple slices and half a banana. While I did that, he ran around on the lanai and squawked at the wild birds outside. Big Bubba is bilingual, which is more than I can say for myself. They squawked back, so I suspected he was saying rude things in bird language.
After his food and water were replenished and his cage tidied, I got out some of his toys and we played together. When it was time for me to go, he allowed himself to be returned to his cage, and I draped his nighttime cover over his bars.
I wished somebody would put me behind bars before Maureen came that night. I wished they’d drop a cover over me to hide me from the world.
Instead of going home, I called Michael and told him I wouldn’t be there for dinner. He didn’t sound disappointed. In fact, he sounded as if dinner was the last thing on his mind, which was another indication of his anxiety about Paco. I didn’t need to ask if he’d heard from him.
I drove to Anna’s Deli and got a Surfer sandwich to take to Siesta Beach. Siesta’s powdery white sand is composed of always-cool quartz, and locals believe it has mystic qualities unknown to ordinary beaches. Whether our faith is based on fact or fantasy, I need to shuffle my feet in that crystalline coolness on a regular basis and absorb some of its energy.
I arrived at the beach when a tangerine sun was inches above the horizon. Ribbons of cerise and gold streaked the sky and gilded the edges of baby white clouds. I walked toward the edge of the surf and sat cross-legged to watch. Along the beach, people fell silent and respectful, all of us watching the last quivering moments of resistance before the sun slipped smoothly into the water, sending out brilliant shafts of color.
When the light dimmed and the clouds turned gray, people gathered up their towels and picnic hampers and straggled toward the pavilion while seabirds wheeled overhead. Alone, I listened to a rosy-pewter sea whisper spume-filled messages, then took off my Keds and went down to let the surf wash over my feet.