I hated to think of gangs in our lovely part of the world. Most people think of gangs as swaggering street thugs shooting at one another, but today’s gang member is just as likely to be the teenager next door, the one whose parents are too busy or too dumb to notice that their kid suddenly has a lot of spending money. Gang leaders recruit kids to rob or sell drugs, relatively small-time stuff, but a lot of those kids who aren’t killed or put in prison go on to big-time drug smuggling, big-time fraud, sometimes big-time assassinations.
I thought about the kid with the knife at Big Bubba’s house. Yes, he had been stupid enough and weak enough to be recruited by a gang. So had the others. And they had asked for Jaz. I thought about the tattoo on Jaz’s ankle and wondered if the dagger was a gang symbol.
I said, “Guidry, that man with Jaz wore an underarm holster.”
He made a note in his little black book. “Anything else?”
“When I was leaving Big Bubba’s house, I think I saw Jaz’s face through the bushes. She and her stepfather didn’t look like they could afford that neighborhood.”
He said, “Big Bubba?”
“He’s an African Grey. A parrot. Talks like nobody’s business.”
Guidry passed the back of his hand across his forehead as if he’d suddenly suffered a pain. Another thing he does when I talk about animals.
I said, “There’s something else. Hetty Soames offered Jaz a job helping her with a new puppy. She expects the girl at her house tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll have somebody in the area.”
I looked bleakly at him. He couldn’t have somebody from the sheriff’s department watch Hetty’s house around the clock.
He said, “Morgan said you outtalked those guys that came in on you.”
“I played dumb blonde. Not a big act.”
His mouth played with a smile. “The sisters used to warn us about smooth-talking girls like you.”
His eyes had a spark that looked like he meant it as a compliment, but I was still a bit put off. It was hard enough to wonder what his parents’ opinion of me might be if I ever met them. Not that I ever would, but I might. I sure didn’t want to have to worry about his sisters too.
I said, “Are they much older than you?”
He frowned. “Who?”
“Your sisters.”
He laughed. “I meant the nuns at school. They were forever warning us boys about the danger of Protestant girls.”
“What about Jewish girls?”
“They didn’t think we’d ever meet any Jewish girls, and I doubt they’d ever even heard of Buddhist girls or Muslim girls. But they knew damn well there were loose Baptist girls hiding behind every bush ready to jump out and make us get them pregnant so they could trap us.”
“Did that scare you?”
He grinned. “Scared the hell out of me.”
He stood up and dropped bills on the table. “Dixie, if you see those guys again, don’t interact with them. Stay away from them and call me. And if you see the girl or the man, try to find out where they’re staying. I want to talk to them.”
He touched my shoulder again, letting his fingertips linger a moment longer than necessary, and left me sitting there with my hormones racing as wildly as my imagination. Guidry always has that effect on me. The hormone part, that is. Well, the imagination part too.
Judy scooted to my side with her coffeepot in hand and an inquisitive look in her eyes. “You and your hunky detective been to bed yet?”
I glared at her. “He’s not mine, and we most certainly have not.”
“Hon, when a man looks at a woman the way he looks at you, he’s hers. And I don’t know what you’re waiting for. If you don’t use it, it’ll rust.”
I rolled my eyes and slipped out of the booth. “I’m going home.”
She grinned. “Girl, when you finally give it up, you’re liable to kill that poor man.”
I made a face and hurried away. The mortifying thing was that I was pretty sure Judy was right.
4
My morning schedule is practically set in concrete. I get up at 4:00 A.M., splash water on my face, brush my teeth, pull my hair into a ponytail, drag on shorts and a sleeveless T, and jam my feet into clean Keds. By 4:15, I’m out the door, and by 4:20 I’m working my way north calling on all the dog clients. Then I retrace my route and see to all the other pets. I spend about thirty minutes with each pet—there are usually seven or eight, ten at the most—so with traveling time and occasional glitches to slow me down, it’s usually about ten when I’ve fed and groomed and played with the last pet. Then I head to the Village Diner for breakfast. After I’ve convinced my stomach that it isn’t starving to death, I head home for a shower and a nap.
My apartment is above the four-slot carport that I share with my brother and his partner. They live in the two-story frame house where my brother and I grew up with our grandparents. The house and garage apartment are at the end of a twisting lane on the Gulf side of the key, on a hiccup of sandy shore that alternately erodes and rebuilds with shifting currents. That continual shape-shifting makes our property considerably less valuable than most Siesta Key beachfront land and keeps our property taxes in the lower stratospheric reaches.
When my grandparents moved to the key back in the early ’50s, they ordered their frame house from the Sears, Roebuck catalog. The carport was added later, and the apartment wasn’t built until after my brother and I moved in with them. Our father had been killed saving somebody else’s children in a fire, and our mother had run off with another man. I say “run off” because that’s how my grandmother always described her daughter’s desertion. I doubt that she really ran when she left. More likely, she skipped.
I was seven when my father died, and nine when my mother left. My grandfather built the garage apartment when I was about twelve. At the time, he meant it to be guest quarters for visitors from up north. He never dreamed I would end up calling it home.
When I came around the last curve in the drive, I saw Michael and Paco under the carport by Michael’s car. Michael is my brother, two years older than me and my best friend in all the world. A firefighter like our father, Michael is built like a Viking god. He’s strong and steady as one too, and so good-looking that women tend to grow faint when he crosses their line of vision. Too bad for them, because Michael’s heart belongs to Paco, who is an undercover agent with the Special Investigative Bureau of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department.
As slender and dark as Michael is broad and blond, Paco also gives women hopeless fantasies of turning a gay man straight. His family is Greek-American, but he can pass for just about any nationality, which is a strong asset in his line of work. He’s also a master at disguise, and there have been times when our paths crossed while he was working undercover and I didn’t recognize him. Since I’ve come close to blowing a few drug busts that way, he now gives me a secret hand signal if we meet when he’s in disguise—usually his way of telling me to back the heck off. After thirteen years as my brother-in-love, Paco is almost as dear to me as Michael.
Michael works twenty-four/forty-eight at the firehouse, which means he’s on duty twenty-four hours, then off forty-eight. Paco doesn’t have any set schedule, and Michael and I never question him about where or when he’s working. He wouldn’t tell us if we did, and we’re better off not knowing because we would worry a lot more than we already do.
Michael’s twenty-four-hour duty had ended that morning at eight, and from the looks of the bags of groceries he and Paco were hauling out of his car, he had apparently left the firehouse and hit every supermarket in Sarasota. Michael is the family cook. He’s also the firehouse cook. If it were possible, Michael would be the world’s cook. I don’t think it’s because he loves throwing raw stuff in pots and pans and putting them over heat, I think cooking is merely one step toward his real goal, which is to feed people. With all due respect to the miracles Jesus performed, give Michael a few fish and a little bread, and he’d not only feed multitudes with it, he’d season it and turn it into the best dinner anybody ever ate. Plus he’d give them dessert.