I moved my scratching fingers to the top of Winston’s head.
I said, “Do you really believe she and her stepfather live in this neighborhood?”
“Not really.”
Neither did I. Except for old-timers like Reba and Hetty who had bought before prices skyrocketed, most of the residents in that exclusive tangle of lanes and canals were modestly rich. Hetty and I both knew that rich girls don’t have Jaz’s pissed-off fear, and rich men don’t wear shiny polyester suits like Jaz’s stepfather.
Hetty said, “Tourists?”
“Maybe.”
When you live in a resort area, you get used to a river of strangers flowing through. But if Jaz was a tourist, why had those young men come to Reba’s house looking for her?
Winston decided he’d allowed me to scratch him long enough and bounded to the floor. For a moment, he and Ben touched noses in a kind of neutral acknowledgment of each other’s presence. Then Winston leaped into Hetty’s lap and Ben trotted away to see if the ball still needed to be picked up. Heads of warring nations could learn a lot about how to achieve lasting peace by watching dogs and cats who live in the same house.
I said, “I’ll stop by tomorrow after I leave Reba’s house.”
Hetty’s lips tightened, and I knew she was annoyed that I thought she needed help. Independent as she is, though, Hetty’s also a realist, and she didn’t argue.
With my stomach sending urgent reminders that it was time for breakfast, I drove through the ramble of lanes from Hetty’s house. I peered into the foliage for a sign of Jaz, but I didn’t see her.
The Village Diner is in the part of Siesta Key that the locals call “the village,” meaning the bulgy part of the key toward the north end. The Chamber of Commerce and the post office are located there. Restaurants and real estate offices share space with trendy boutiques, and shops sell touristy T-shirts and giant seashells that people will be embarrassed they bought when they get back home. You have to drive carefully in the village because sunburned tourists in skimpy swimsuits and straw hats are apt to step into the street without looking. They’re on their way to Siesta Beach, and either the negative ions of the seaside make them temporarily goofy or they’re blinded by the sun. Being compassionate people, we wouldn’t run them down even if they were locals, but we probably wouldn’t be quite so patient if it weren’t for the fact that our entire economy depends on them.
At the Village Diner, Tanisha, the cook, always starts my breakfast the minute she sees me come in the door. Judy, the waitress, has my first mug of coffee poured and waiting for me by the time I get to my usual booth. That’s how much of a regular I am.
Judy is tall and lanky, with pecan-colored eyes and a sprinkle of freckles over a pointed nose. She and I have never met anyplace except the diner, but I know everything there is to know about all the no-good men who’ve disappointed her, and she knows about Todd and Christy and how crazy I went when I lost them.
At my booth, I dropped my backpack on the seat and took a few deep glugs of the coffee that was waiting. Tanisha stuck her wide black face through the pass-through from the kitchen and waved to me so vigorously her cheeks shook. Tanisha’s another friend I only see at the diner.
A second before Judy materialized with my breakfast, Lieutenant Guidry of the Sarasota County Homicide Investigative Unit tapped me on the shoulder and slid into the seat opposite me. As usual, my heart did a little tap dance when I saw him. Guidry is fortyish, with eternally bronzed skin, steady gray eyes, short-cropped dark hair showing a little silver at the temples, a beaky nose, and a firm mouth. Laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and lips. Nice lips. Those lips have kissed mine a couple of times and I can attest that Guidry is one fine kisser. Oh, yes, he is.
Guidry and I had a kind of on-and-off sort-of relationship, meaning that every now and then some strong magnetic force sucked us together, and then we’d pull back as if it hadn’t happened. I didn’t know why Guidry stepped back, but for me it was just flat too scary. Falling in love with another cop carried the risk of losing him, and I wasn’t sure I could take that risk again. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to love anybody again. I’d lost too many people already. I didn’t think I could bear losing anybody again.
On the other hand, my body didn’t seem to pay much attention to what my head wanted.
I looked across the table at him and tried not to let it show that I felt like a sixteen-year-old in the presence of the captain of the football team.
Judy plopped my plate down and splashed more coffee in my cup.
She said, “What’ll you have, sir?”
From the respectful way she spoke, nobody would have dreamed she called him the hunky detective behind his back.
“Just coffee, thanks.”
He was silent while she scooted to get a mug for him. His mouth looked as if he’d been chewing on something for a long time and wished he could spit it out. Other than that, he looked his usual self—more like an Italian playboy than a homicide detective.
When I first met him, I’d thought he really was Italian, but he’d told me once that Italian was one of the few things he wasn’t. I’d also learned that his easy elegance came from growing up wealthy in New Orleans. I knew his whole name too, but I’d had to prize it out of him. Everybody called him Guidry, but when I pushed he’d admitted that his mother called him Jean-Pierre. Which made him some kind of New Orleans French. That was all I knew, other than the fact that his father headed a big law firm in New Orleans and that his mother was a soft hearted woman. Not that I’d pried, or that I was overly curious. I had merely asked very casually. And I would never try to get any more information because it was absolutely none of my business. None whatsoever.
After Judy brought him coffee, he said, “Tell me about the boys who accosted you this morning.”
“They didn’t exactly accost me. They came in Reba Chandler’s house and scared me.”
“The fingerprint people got a good print from the jar, but we haven’t got a report back from IAFIS yet. Deputy Morgan said one of them had a knife?”
“Switchblade. I imagine they all had them, but he was the only one who got nervous and showed it.”
Guidry pulled out his notebook and flipped some pages looking for notes, probably searching for what he’d got from Deputy Morgan.
He said, “This girl they were looking for, you didn’t hear a last name at the vet’s office?”
I shook my head. “Dr. Layton just took the dead rabbit from her. Jaz was crying, and the receptionist was calming her. They didn’t have her fill out any forms with names and addresses.”
“Dead rabbit?”
“The man had run over a rabbit. It was wrapped in a towel, but it was dead.”
Guidry gave me the blank look he always gets when I mention animals.
I said, “Last time I looked, you were a homicide detective. I’m pretty sure you’re not investigating the death of a rabbit, so why the interest in Jaz and those boys?”
I could see him debating whether to tell me, and if so, how much.
He said, “An elderly man was killed in his house last night. He lived alone and apparently woke up and surprised somebody in the act of burglary. There was a tussle, and he got stabbed. One of his neighbors reported seeing three young men loitering near the house earlier in the evening. Their description fits your guys.”
I shrugged. “Lots of young guys look like them. Half the boys on the street have baggy drawers.”
Guidry drummed his fingertips on the table. “Most of those guys showing their underwear are just high on the fumes of their own testosterone. That’s normal stuff that kids do just to outrage adults. Robbing and killing is not normal, it’s gang behavior.”