A man squatted beside me. He said, “Good thing Harry saw you jump in and ran for help. Your friend’s going to be okay.”
I said, “She’s not my friend.”
Hef came to my side and nuzzled my neck, which made me burst into tears and bury my face in his wet fur. After a while, Harry came back and there was some genial backslapping as he thanked the men who had helped save Maureen and me.
The men left, and Harry put his hands under my arms and lifted me upright. He didn’t even breathe hard when he did it. Harry was strong.
He said, “Are you okay?”
Through my tears, I nodded. I was still wheezing and weak-kneed, but more upset than harmed.
He said, “Come on, let’s get you inside so you can dry out.”
I knelt to snag my phone from its protected spot and let Harry lead me inside the cabin. Hef followed me with his tail wagging. Mo had taken off her shiny raincoat and boots and was sitting on Harry’s bed wrapped in a big towel. When I came in, she gave me a murderous look.
Harry brought me towels and led me to a chair.
I said, “You saved our lives. Thank you.”
He grinned and shrugged. “I’m more at home in water than you two. What happened?”
Maureen said, “Dixie pushed me overboard. I nearly drowned.”
I looked from her to Harry. I’d never thought either of them was perfect, but then who is? When you’re young, you’re more prone to overlook friends’ faults and forgive their weaknesses because you know you’re all still cooking and nobody’s done. But we were adults now. All three of us had been in life’s oven long enough to rise to our greatest heights.
I said, “I found the script Mo wrote for you to read when you made the fake ransom call. She took it from me and ran to the deck. I chased her and her foot got caught in a crab trap and she fell overboard.”
Harry said, “I saw you jump in after her. Hef and I were coming home and I saw you. I yelled for help, and those other guys came running.”
He didn’t seem to get the implication of my knowing about the note and the fake ransom call.
I said, “Maureen told me that Victor was already dead when you tied the anchor to him and took him out to the inlet.”
The corners of his lips tucked in, so I thought I might be connecting.
I said, “Unless Maureen comes clean and tells how Victor’s drug-running rival killed him, you’ll probably be charged with both kidnapping and murder.”
He looked quizzically at me. Then he turned and looked at Maureen.
He said, “Mo, are you saying you didn’t kill your old man? I mean, for real you didn’t kill him?”
She glared at him. “I told you I didn’t kill him!”
“I thought you just said that ’cause you didn’t want me to know. That’s the only reason I helped you.”
Now it was my turn to finally get it. Harry had thought all along that Maureen had killed Victor. To protect her from a murder investigation, he’d agreed to make the fake ransom call. And on the theory that nobody could prove she’d killed him if his body was never found, Harry had taken Victor’s corpse out in a boat and dumped him overboard. The poor guy had done it all to protect Maureen.
Maureen didn’t share my sympathy for him.
She shrugged. “That’s your problem, Harry. I told you. And that note Dixie found is in the water. Nobody will ever see it, and nobody can prove it ever existed. Anyway, you’re the one who made the fake kidnapping call, not me.”
Harry’s face registered shocked pain. “You told me to!”
She said, “That’s just your word against mine, Harry. Nobody will believe you.”
I had forgotten that Harry could be quick when he needed to be. He was at her side in a nanosecond, leaning over her with one big hand gripping her arm.
He said, “You’d do that to me?”
Drawing her neck back, she swung her other arm up and slapped the air under his face. “Get your hands off me! Who the hell do you think you are? You’re nobody!”
Harry flinched as if she had managed to hit him. Over her head, his eyes sought mine and sent me a look of sad acceptance. I had the feeling that Harry was more disappointed in Maureen for her hateful words than he was for her greed or dishonesty.
Hef didn’t have Harry’s old loyalty to Maureen. All Hef knew was that a person had tried to hurt his friend. Like a shot, the dog ran at Maureen with his teeth bared.
Still in Harry’s grip, she kicked at Hef. “Get that damn dog away from me!”
Every man has his limits, and Maureen had just pushed dumb, good-natured Harry over his.
White faced, he said, “You don’t kick my dog.” To me, he said, “Dixie, get the cops out here.”
She laughed. “Dummy, Dixie’s my friend. She won’t do that.”
I pulled my cellphone from my pocket and punched in Guidry’s number. This time he answered, and the sound of slapping windshield wipers told me he was in his car.
I said, “I’m with Harry Henry and Maureen Salazar on Harry’s house boat. They want to talk to you about how they faked Victor Salazar’s kidnapping. Maureen would also like to tell you about the rival drug dealer she believes killed Victor.”
“Are you speaking in code?”
I said, “Yes, his boat is in the Midnight Pass marina. Five minutes? That would be fine. We’ll wait for you.”
He said, “It’s raining. Give me fifteen.”
I slid the phone back in my pocket and smiled at Harry and Maureen. “The detective is on his way.”
Guidry actually made it in ten minutes, and considering the rain he had to drive through, that was some kind of record. I opened the door when he knocked. With a quizzical glance at my dirty, bedraggled, waterlogged self, he strode inside.
Harry’s grip on Maureen was still firm, and Maureen looked as if she would bolt in a second if she got a chance.
Maureen said, “I want my lawyer.”
Guidry nodded. “Fine with me. He can meet us at the station.”
Maureen said, “She. My lawyer is a woman.”
She said it so defiantly that I felt sorry for her. Maureen was still stuck in an earlier time when it wasn’t so common for women to become lawyers. I guess being the in-house bimbo of a drug dealer would keep you from noticing that a lot of old ideas had changed.
She was right about one thing, though. She definitely needed a lawyer.
29
With a promise from Guidry that Hef wouldn’t have to spend the night in jail, I left the marina. Actually, I was pretty sure that Maureen’s lawyer would have them home by midafternoon. Filing a false claim of kidnapping is only a misdemeanor, and so is illegally disposing of a corpse. More than likely, they’d each get off with a fine for those crimes. On the other hand, while I believed Maureen’s story and expected the cops to eventually accept it, I expected them both to be suspects in Victor’s murder.
On the way home, I thought how freaky it was that a group of big-time drug dealers were gathered somewhere in Sarasota right that minute. Every Floridian suspects that some of the tasteless megamansions that ruin our views have been built with money made from drug trafficking, but we like to believe they’re retired drug traffickers. If what Maureen had said was true, a lot of them were still in business. I imagined their counterparts flying into Sarasota’s private airport in their personal jets, each of them as rich and well armed as some countries, all of them in silk suits and dark glasses, all of them anxious about losing power to the man who would be named the new jefe of the North American drug-trafficking business. It made me feel like an extra in The Sopranos.
By the time I got to my lane, the rain had resolved into a gentle soaker. The oaks and sea grape along my drive were drooping with the weight of water, and all the parakeets were hidden under their leaves. I parked under the carport and squished up the stairs to my apartment. Inside, I was undressed by the time I got to the stacked washer and dryer in the hall alcove. Everything went in, wet shorts,
soggy T-shirt, damp underwear, water-logged Keds. I had been in so much water, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d sprouted fins.
I padded to the bathroom and hauled my tired self into the shower to let blessed warm water beat away the film of bay scum and disillusionment. I barely made it to bed before I fell into exhausted sleep.
I dreamed I went to a place with a lot of filmy white stuff that I guess was clouds. I was excited because I figured I was in heaven and that if I asked God nicely, he would send me to be with Todd and Christy. I came to a big golden gate with an arched top, the generic kind of gate you see in cartoons about heaven. I rang a doorbell and waited, a little annoyed that nobody was there to greet me. In a while, I heard a voice that wrapped around me with no source that I could see. It was a melodious voice that I associated with harps or cellos, the kinds of instruments you would expect in heaven.
The voice said, “Are you sure you want to enter here? You can’t change your mind, you know.”
I said I was sure, and the gate clicked open. I walked through and looked around. It was clear in there, with no rain or clouds, just pretty flowers and butterflies and songbirds and little gurgling streams—a standard heavenly environment.
The voice spoke again, and this time it was ahead of me. It said, “Come this way, honey.”
That struck me as funny, to have an archangel or whatever he was call me honey. I followed the voice and came to a place where a lot of women were having a picnic. They had fried chicken and watermelon and potato salad and the little green olives I love so much. The women were all different ages and colors and shapes. The only thing they had in common were big satisfied smiles. These women were enjoying life, big time.
I said, “Excuse me, I’m looking for God.”
They all turned their happy faces toward me and spoke with the sound of wind singing through silver flutes.
And the voice said, “Honey, I AM.”
I woke up smiling, and lay for a minute feeling happier than I could remember feeling in a long time.
Then I remembered that Jaz was missing and perhaps killed, which made me get up and get busy so I wouldn’t think about it. I’d done all I could do that day.
Naked, I padded to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. While I waited for the water to boil, I looked out the window over the sink. Rain was still falling and from the looks of the sky, it would continue to fall for a long time. As I carried my tea to the closet-office, I flipped on my CD player to let Patsy Cline’s no-nonsense, no-equivocation, no-shit voice break the silence. With a fresh burst of energy, I returned phone calls to new and old clients, then whipped through all the clerical part of my business. Then, still naked, I hauled out the vacuum cleaner and sucked up all the dust in my apartment. I cleaned my bathroom too, and washed damp towels along with my wet clothes. Like Harry Henry, I like my environment to be clean and neat. It makes me feel as if I’m in control of my little corner of the world.
When I finished, I still had a little time before my afternoon rounds, so I got dressed in jeans and T-shirt and pulled on a reflective yellow rain slicker. I even put on the matching sou’wester hat with a dorky wide brim that drooped in the back like a dragging butterfly wing. Wearing all that rain stuff made me feel like a kindergarten kid, but at least I wouldn’t get soaking wet again. Just sweaty and claustrophobic. I was careful going downstairs because the steps were slippery, and then I dashed across the deck to Michael’s back door. He was sitting at the butcher-block island with a cup of coffee and a slice of pie in front of him. He looked miserable.
Ella sat beside him on her adoring stool, and when I came in she let her eyes open all the way for a moment. Cats do that in the dark, so maybe she thought my presence caused the lights to dim. Either that, or the sight of my big yellow self had made her think a lion had entered the kitchen.
Michael said, “Want some key lime pie?”
Like Guidry, he had new stress lines around his mouth. We were all too aware of dark fears lurking in the basement of our minds.
I shrugged off the coat and peeled off the hat and poured myself a cup of coffee. He sliced a wedge of pie for me, and I joined him at the island.
I said, “No word from Paco yet?”
He frowned. “I told you, Paco’s fine. He’ll call when he can.”
“I just thought he might have called.”
“I’ll tell you when he does.”
Ella watched us with a worried expression on her face.
I ate a few bites of pie. I drank some coffee. I said, “Guidry has taken Maureen and Harry to the sheriff’s office for questioning.”
Michael’s eyebrows raised. Good, I had distracted him.
He said, “I’m almost afraid to ask you what those two numb-nuts managed to get arrested for.”
“First you have to know that Maureen says her husband was a drug importer.”
“A what?”
“A major drug trafficker in heroin and cocaine. Bought it direct from the big cartels in South America and Afghanistan. I’m talking big dealer. She calls it importing.”
He made a face. “And she stayed with him?”
I said, “Remember, this is Maureen Rhinegold we’re talking about. She’s not any smarter now that she’s Maureen Salazar. Anyway, she says there’s a big shake-up going on in the drug world. Some Colombian top dog, one of Pablo Escobar’s men, has come to Sarasota to meet with all the drug bosses in this country. He’s going to name one American to head the whole North American drug operation. Maureen thinks somebody killed Victor so it wouldn’t be him.”
“She know who it was?”
“She claims she doesn’t, but that may change if she looks at doing jail time for any part she had in Victor’s business.”
Michael looked slightly less miserable at the thought.
I said, “Harry thought Maureen had killed Victor. He helped her because he wanted to protect her from a murder rap. He made a fake ransom call so she could record it, and he took Victor’s body out and dumped it in the Venice inlet.”
“Poor stupid bastard.”
“He had plenty of direction. Maureen wrote out the words for him to say when he made the fake ransom call. I imagine it was her idea to dump Victor overboard.”
Michael grinned. “Too bad she didn’t tell him to use a shorter rope on the anchor.”
“It’s not funny, Michael!”
He got up to rinse his plate at the sink. “Yeah, it is.”
I didn’t tell him about the near-drowning incident at the marina. It was too long a story to go into right then, but I would tell him later. I wanted him to know that Harry had saved my life.
He put the plate in the dishwasher and turned to lean against the counter. “What about that what’s-her-name girl? Have they found her?”
I took a deep breath. “It’s Jaz. Not yet.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t sound good.”
I said, “If those gang members were waiting for her when she left the resort to go back to Hetty’s house, they could easily have grabbed her without anybody seeing. Even if she screamed, people are all shut up inside their houses with the air-conditioning on, so nobody would have heard her.”
Michael crossed his arms, probably thinking what he’d like to do to the gang guys.
I said, “I keep thinking about those boys, especially the one they called Paulie. He seemed like a pretty good kid. Or at least not as cynical as the other two.”
“Good kids don’t kill other kids.”
“Why didn’t his mother pay closer attention to him? How could he be peddling drugs or robbing houses without her knowing? She’d have to be awfully busy or stupid not to notice. Or maybe she just didn’t care.”
Michael gave me a knowing look. “Why do you blame the mother? The kid had a father too.”
I didn’t answer because I knew it wasn’t a real question. Michael knew why I blamed the mother.
I said, “If our grandparents hadn’t taken us in, we might have ended up
like Paulie.”
He gave me a long, level look. “One of the guys at work has a wife who’s close to nine months pregnant. He’s nervous, so she got him some Chinese worry balls. He’s supposed to rotate them in the palm of one hand to relax, but instead he’s more tense than ever.”
“Your point being?”
“You’re rotating all that crap around just like they’re worry balls, and it’s not doing you a bit of good. Not doing those kids any good either. It doesn’t matter why those guys turned bad. They killed another kid, and they’ll have to pay for it. Period. End of story. Quit hooking everything to our mother leaving us. And for God’s sake, stop wondering how we would have turned out if she hadn’t, or if our grandparents hadn’t taken us in. You can’t ever find an answer, so quit worrying it to death.”
That’s one of the best things about having a family. They’ll tell you when you’re doing something dumb. Michael was right. It was senseless to dwell on questions I couldn’t answer.
I said, “You’re right.”
“Damn straight I’m right. And I hope you’ve had your last conversation with Harry Henry and Maureen Rhinegold what’s her name now.”
“It’s Salazar, and I have.”
I thanked him for the pie, smooched the top of Ella’s head, and got back into my slicker. When I yanked the yellow hat down around my ears, Ella looked alarmed.
I said, “I’m going to leave early for afternoon rounds.”
Michael said, “We’ll have meatloaf for dinner. Mashed potatoes. Rain food.”
Too brightly, I said, “Great!”
Carnivore that I am, I love meatloaf, especially the kind Michael makes with tomato gravy. But Paco doesn’t eat much meat, so the fact that Michael was planning meatloaf for supper meant he didn’t expect Paco to be home.
I went upstairs to get my pet-sitting stuff and drove off through the soft rain. At least I didn’t have to wear the dumb hat in the car. The parakeets were still hiding in the trees and the lane was soggy under the shell. When I looked across the Gulf to the horizon, it was hard to tell where the sea ended and the sky began. The entire world was gray and dreary.
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