Hetty’s cat, Winston, sat in a cane chair calmly grooming his white socks. A gray mixed shorthair with a white ruff and Cleopatra eyes, Winston surveyed the world and all its inhabitants with the patient tolerance of the Dalai Lama. Winston could have worn a saffron toga and still keep his dignity.
Pups raised to be service dogs are introduced to just about every situation under the sun. In addition to the regular places that all dogs go, service dogs in training go to church, to movies, and to restaurants. They learn to live serenely with other pets and children. They learn to keep their cool no matter what happens, so that when they are eventually teamed with a person who needs them to be their eyes or ears, they’re unflappable. Ben hadn’t learned that yet. When he saw me, he forgot all about the ball game and charged over to check me out.
Hetty followed him and knelt beside him to keep him from jumping on me.
She said, “I’ll bet I know why you’re here. You’re concerned about Jaz, aren’t you?”
I said, “I’ve just been at Reba Chandler’s house, and some young toughs came in looking for her.”
With one hand on Ben’s neck, Hetty looked sharply at me. “Did they hurt you?”
“No, but they were scary. I called nine-one-one and a deputy came and got the information. He said they would keep extra watch on this area, but I wanted you to know about it.”
Leading Ben, Hetty went back to her chair. “You think those boys are friends of hers?”
I nudged Winston to one side of his chair and sat down beside him. I scratched the spot between his shoulders, the acnestis that animals can’t scratch by themselves, and he looked up at me and smiled.
I said, “They asked for her by name, so she must know them. And another thing: When I was leaving Reba’s house, I think I saw Jaz hiding in the shrubbery.”
Hetty nodded, her eyes clouded with worry. “She lives nearby.”
“You got her address?”
“No, but she said she was close enough to walk here. She’s coming tomorrow morning.”
Winston stretched his head back so I could scratch his neck. He did it with great poise. I wish I were more like Winston.
Hetty said, “Jaz seems like such a sensitive girl. Why would she be friends with boys like that?”
“Sensitive girls can be dumb as anybody else.”
“I wouldn’t call it dumb. She’s just young.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Even under the best of circumstances, adolescence is a god-awful age—too young to have learned from experience but old enough to act on impulsive decisions. No kid is truly immune to taking a wrong turn, and only the lucky ones who go wrong get a helping hand. From the look of her, I didn’t think Jaz had had an easy life, and I doubted she’d had many helping hands.
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 h
is 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.”
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 chi
ldren 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.
Raining Cat Sitters and Dogs Page 3