Dear Big Doofus and Little Doofus,
Knowing that you may starve without me to feed you, I have left you a casserole and salad. Heat the oven to 425. Take the foil off the casserole. Put it in the heated oven for 15 to 20 minutes until it’s bubbling and the top is slightly browned. Remove. Turn off oven. Love, Michael
PS: I’m assuming you know what to do with the salad.
I said, “Hot damn!”
“Amen.”
I said, “I have to shower first.”
“While you do that, I’ll open the wine and turn on the oven.”
“What did he make?”
“Who cares? It’s food, and we don’t have to go anywhere to get it.”
I galloped off, charged up the stairs to my apartment, and within ten minutes was out of the shower and pulling on white gauzy pants and a bright yellow floating gauzy top with spaghetti straps. I love that gauzy stuff for lazy Florida nights. It’s like being invisibly naked. I slid my feet into flip-flops, shoved a wide white abalone bracelet on one wrist, and thundered down the stairs.
Paco had set the butcher-block with big white plates, napkins, and tall wineglasses. A bottle of white wine chilled in an ice bucket. A big salad bowl sat in the middle of the butcher block. Paco looked extremely proud of himself. From her perch on her favorite bar stool, Ella looked proud of him, too.
Paco said, “I set the temperature, the thing dinged, so I already put the pan in the oven. I tossed the salad, too.” Paco’s one culinary expertise is that he makes a great olive oil and lemon juice salad dressing.
We high-fived.
I went to the wall of ovens and peered through the glass door of the top one. A square casserole dish sat on the rack.
“How much longer does it have to cook?”
“Uh, I think it’s been in around five minutes.”
“You didn’t set the timer?”
He looked uncertain. “He didn’t mention setting a timer.”
Paco goes out every day disguised as a criminal of the worst kind. He infiltrates gangs and wrestles killers to the ground. He’s a tough, experienced cop, and other tough, experienced cops trust him with their lives. But when it comes to heating a casserole in an oven, he has to have written instructions.
I said, “That’s okay, we’ll just watch for it to bubble and turn brown. What is it?”
He shrugged. “I only know there’s grated cheese on top.”
I smiled thanks at him. I just hate it when somebody knows something before I do.
While we waited for the cheese to bubble, Paco opened the wine and splashed some in two glasses. I made note of the fact that he was having wine for dinner because it meant he wasn’t on duty that night. In his line of work, Paco’s life depends on keeping a clear head and quick reflexes, so he’s scrupulous about avoiding alcohol before going off to deal with the scum of the world. I didn’t mention it though. When you love somebody whose everyday duties could kill them, you don’t let them see that you worry about them. You just quietly pay attention to tiny details, like fatigue shadows under their eyes and the fact that they drink wine with dinner instead of water or tea.
When we judged the cheese on the casserole sufficiently bubbling and brown, Paco manfully pulled on a pair of Michael’s oven mitts and rescued the pan from the oven. I leaped to put a trivet on the butcher block, and he set the casserole down with a triumphant flourish.
I said, “Yaaay!”
Ella waved her tail and gazed at Paco with undisguised adoration.
He switched the oven control to OFF, and we both took seats at the island.
Paco picked up a big serving spoon and approached the casserole like a bomb-squad cop getting ready to inspect a ticking package. He plopped big servings on each of our plates, and we both leaned over them and said, “Mmmm.”
Michael probably should have left instructions on how to dish it up, because it turned out to be seafood crepes under a creamy, cheesy, white sauce, and the crepes didn’t end up intact on our plates. I doubt that Paco noticed that, and I didn’t care. It was a perfect dinner for two people worn out by honest work that put them up against some people whose work was far from honest.
For several minutes, we didn’t make any sounds except moans of appreciation. Then Paco got a second helping and looked at me with renewed energy.
He said, “I know what happened today at Trillin’s house.”
That didn’t surprise me. More than likely, every deputy in Sarasota County knew all the particulars about the murdered woman in Cupcake’s house, just like everybody in town knew that a famous model named Briana had been there.
I scraped the last bite from my plate and took a sip of wine. “What you don’t know is that Briana followed me when I left. She wanted to talk to me, asked for my help. I don’t know if I did the right thing or not, but I met with her at the beach pavilion, and I led her to Ethan’s office. He took her to the defense attorney who went with her to turn herself in.”
Paco’s gaze was steady. If Michael had been home, he would have had steam coming from his ears when he heard what I’d done. Paco is calmer. Not less protective of me, just calmer about it.
He said, “Did she kill the woman?”
“She says she didn’t, but her story is weak. She claims she went to change her clothes after I left—which really means put on some clothes, because she was damn near naked when I went in Cupcake’s house to take care of the cats. She says when she went back to the living room the woman was on the floor dead. She says she doesn’t know who the woman was, doesn’t know who came in and killed her.”
“The investigating team said the security company has no record of her entering or leaving the front gate or the house.”
So Paco not only knew what had happened at Cupcake’s house, he knew some inside details. I let that slide without comment, but I noted it because Paco is a special investigator, not a homicide detective.
I said, “If Briana is telling the truth, she’s an accomplished thief. She told me she has an electronic gizmo that disables security systems for the few seconds it takes to go through them. Her story is that she left the house, climbed a ladder she’d conveniently hidden in those vines on the walls around Hidden Shores, got in her Jaguar parked out of sight on the other side, and waited until she saw me drive through the security gates.”
Paco sat for a moment without speaking, his dark eyes staring at nothing. I knew he was imagining what I’d described, processing it, and comparing its plausibility against what he knew of available technology.
“She’s saying she went in Trillin’s house to rob it?”
I pinched the stem of my wineglass, shifting it a fraction of an inch to and fro on the butcher block while a contest went on between my loyalty to my friend Cupcake and my trust in Paco’s wisdom and discretion.
“She says she just wanted to get close to him.”
“Creepy.”
“Paco, there’s something really weird about the connection between Cupcake and Briana. He claims he never heard of her, but she told me she and Cupcake grew up in the same little town outside New Orleans. She said they were both poor and broke into houses to steal minor things they sold. She says she ran away from home when she was sixteen after she killed an uncle who’d been molesting her.”
Paco’s face wore the expression of somebody who had heard every story in the world and only believed half of them.
I said, “She told a different story to Ethan, the same line she gives the press about being from Switzerland.”
“Which one of those stories do you believe?”
I said, “I don’t know what to believe. I asked Tom Hale to look up Cupcake on the computer. He did go to school in a little town near New Orleans. He got a football scholarship to Tulane and then went pro. Tom didn’t find records of Briana in the same town, but she could be telling the truth. But why would Cupcake lie about knowing her?”