Jerry laughed, trying to look like he got it.
“Is he a rescue?” I asked, to let the poor man off the hook.
Didn’t work. He gave me a blank look before saying, “No, I got him at the pound.”
Abandoning the topic of dogs altogether, Jerry gestured at the telescope. “That’s a big mother. Sorry, ma’am,” he said, doffing again.
“Carlo is the astronomer,” I said, resisting the urge to assure him I thought the scope was a big motherfucker, too. I’m trying to refine my sensibilities. “It’s all I can do to tell the difference between the Pleiades and a hole in the ground.”
Jerry chuckled appreciatively again as if he knew what I was talking about. Fairly smooth recovery for a guy who says “this here” and has never heard of an adopted animal being called a rescue. “That thing looks heavy,” he said. “It’s mighty impressive.”
“It’s not that heavy, really. If you detach the scope from the stand it’s only about sixty pounds,” Carlo said. He pointed to a square of flagstones close to the fence. “This pad I made?”
“You made that pad?” Jerry asked, and then whistled, “Hoo.”
Carlo nodded. “I need to get the telescope out here. It’s awkward to carry because of the diameter. You have to sort of hold it out from your body. It makes it heavier than it actually is.”
“Let me help,” Jerry said. “It might not be as heavy as it looks, and I’m stronger than I look.”
Carlo welcomed the help, and I wondered for a moment why he hadn’t asked me. Then I looked doubtfully, not at the man but at his dog. “Tell you what,” I said, “I’ll get the pugs back in the house while you walk around to the front gate. Achilles here can come into the yard that way and make nice slowly.”
Al and Peg had meanwhile been up on their hind legs, front paws on the concrete ledge, already making nice with a very placid Achilles. While Achilles wandered off with his human companion around to the front gate, which Carlo had opened for them, I herded our guys in through the back door and shut it. They were not so content, but amused themselves by snotting up the glass while they watched Achilles take over their territory, methodically going from sage to planter to wall to birdbath, marking each. With his right rear leg missing he didn’t have a problem balancing on his starboard side.
Jerry had put Achilles’s leash down on the patio table, and took a handkerchief out of his back pocket. He wrapped it around the handle of the telescope, saying his hands were a little sweaty, and he got a better grip that way. He and Carlo lowered it to the ground. Then they carried first the tripod and then the scope out to the pad, where they counted three and swung it up to the tripod, jiggling it a bit until it popped into place. The man wiped his hands and put the handkerchief back in his pocket as Carlo thanked him and asked if he’d like a coffee.
* * *
The couple invited him to have coffee. Well, Carlo DiForenza did. The wife looked a little put out, like she had better things to do or didn’t think much of the bum in her yard. That’s right, he thought, she was one of those people he’d heard about, Saddlebrookians or some such up this way, who had some money and wanted to distance themselves from those who did not.
The wife, Brigid, her name was. There was something of the women’s libber about her style, the way she dressed and spoke. Were they even married? Yes, there were wedding rings on both their hands. She must be one of those libbers. Pretty old for that, he thought. At least she made the coffee, and brought two mugs out to them, and then went back into the house, leaving the men to sit on the back porch and watch Achilles sniff every piece of gravel individually. After a few minutes she opened the door again and let their dogs out.
“What kind of dogs are those?” Beaufort asked to be polite.
“Pugs,” the woman said.
At first the pugs seemed bent on driving the intruder from their yard. While keeping their distance they set up such a ferocious barking no one could be heard over them. The wife quickly went inside, and came back out with a piece of cheese she handed to Beaufort.
Alerting to the smell of the cheese, the pugs rounded back to the porch.
“Here, break that in half and give it to them,” she said. “They’ll calm down.”
They did, and went off to sniff Achilles, and that was pretty much that.
“I have to get used to gravel everywhere instead of grass,” Beaufort said, picking up the conversation where they left off. Beaufort would have liked to go inside the house, case the joint, but Carlo suggested they sit on the back porch, chairs facing a particularly craggy section of the Catalina Mountains.
“Ah, we’re connoisseurs of gravel out here,” Carlo said. “There must be a dozen different kinds, in different sizes and colors. That spot where Achilles is peeing now, that’s called pea gravel. Not because of what the dogs use it for, the size.” He took a sip of coffee. “Amazing how your dog gets around on three legs as if that were the natural way of things,” he said. “Al, stop that.”
“It’s okay. It’s just a dominance thing. This is Al’s territory. Nice place you have here,” Beaufort said, as he sipped from a mug with a red, white, and blue A on the side. He was careful to just touch the mug on the handle, and even then he rubbed his fingers back and forth discreetly to smear any prints left there. “Been here long?”
“Decades,” Carlo said. “Even so, we were the last house in the development to get this view.”
“It seems that everyone I run into asks the question ‘Where did you come from?’ like nobody is actually from Tucson.”
“That’s the case,” Carlo said. “I was born in Kansas, but came out here when I was still young. My wife is from Florida.”
Kansas. Right. But Beaufort didn’t follow up on that. Instead, though he had never actually lived there, he went with “Florida! What a co-inky-dink. I’m from Florida, too.”
The woman came out to ask if they wanted more coffee.
“Jerry is from Florida, too,” Carlo said.
“Where in Florida?” the woman asked.
He hesitated, not wanting this to go further, then tried, “East coast.”
“Me, too,” she said. “Did Irma get you?”
Taken off guard, “Who?”
“Hurricane Irma.”
“Oh, Hurricane Irma. No.”
“Would you like more coffee?”
Beaufort took another sip. “It’s delicious, but I’m fine, thanks.”
The woman retreated back into the house, and Carlo continued with the job talk. “I’m retired from the university.”
Beaufort thought he couldn’t stand much more small talk. But then he couldn’t just bring up Santangelo right off the bat. So he asked a few more questions about Carlo’s job. Acted impressed. Said he had been a jockey before he retired. He might have given Gloria a different story but what could it matter? He needed something classier for these people.
Despite the cool weather Beaufort had started to sweat. He rubbed his palm on his jeans.
“Are you doing all right there?” Carlo asked him.
Beaufort looked up, startled, fearing Carlo could see his tension. But then Carlo said, “Are you sure you don’t want a refill?”
“Maybe coffee’s not such a good thing,” he said. “I think I’m still used to the northern temperatures.”
“I thought you said you were from Florida,” Carlo said. “By way of the Deep South, perhaps? I think I can detect a bit of an accent.”
“It’s true, I did some time in Mississippi,” Beaufort said.
Carlo tipped his head as if acknowledging a joke. “I’ve heard other people speak of it that way, too.”
Sixteen
The new neighbor didn’t stay that long. I picked up the mug he left on the patio table and carried it into the kitchen, where I put it in the sink for washing later. Carlo came in and poured himself another cup from the pot I had made.
“It’s probably bitter,” I said. “I could drink it. Give it here.”
&nb
sp; “It’s okay, I’m getting to appreciate rancid coffee,” he said.
“So that guy,” I started, turning and leaning against the counter while Carlo got some creamer out of the fridge to make his coffee more drinkable. “Who is he?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, O’Hari,” Carlo said. He could take apart any sentence and examine it five different ways.
“I mean, who actually says ‘co-inky-dink’ instead of ‘coincidence’ anymore? Didn’t that have its heyday for about five minutes in the eighties?”
“You were eavesdropping?”
“I heard him when I came out to offer coffee. It was kind of weird when he didn’t know what a rescue dog was. That’s why I mentioned Irma. It wiped out the Keys last year.”
“I remember.”
“Even if they don’t remember specific names of hurricanes, anyone who ever lived in Florida would know what we mean when we ask, ‘Did Irma get you?’ What does he do for a living?”
“He said he’s retired.”
“Retired from what?”
“He said he was a jockey.”
I felt my eyebrows edge up toward my brow. “He has sort of a large ass relative to the rest of his body. Did you notice that?”
“I can’t say that I noticed his ass as much as you did, dear.” Carlo sipped the coffee, added a little more cream, and sipped it again. Then he put the creamer back in the fridge before fixing me with that calm but firm expression that says he’s about to cut me off. “Honey, have you ever heard other couples in conversation? It usually doesn’t sound like a police procedural. Why are you going on like this?”
“There was something off about him. All the usual things people know about. Not knowing what I meant by a rescue. He sounded like he’s been in a coma for ten years.”
“Well, maybe he has. Honey, aren’t you being a trifle…” Carlo paused and I saw his lips press together as if he was going to say “paranoid,” and then they remolded themselves around “… suspicious? Just because you got burned once it doesn’t mean everyone in Arizona is a villain.”
That made me a little angry, mentioning how I’d let myself get suckered. I wanted to tell a real funny lighthearted story about how many times I’d been caught for underestimating villains.
Like the time I saw the man in the wash while I was collecting rocks there, and knew immediately that he had a thing about raping older women, and I thought I could get the truth out of him by letting him drag me into his van. No, that wasn’t funny.
Or like the time I thought someone had to be okay because of a good sense of humor. Until I found out they’d killed a child.
Or like the time I watched a man bleed out and only regretted he died so slowly …
Nope, nothing funny going on here. What came to mind was a slideshow from my FBI years, getting shot in the leg, and Laura having her ear stapled because I couldn’t see what was in front of my face, and men who liked to fuck mummies, and Jessica, oh the worst of all because Jessica died and it was my fault. Those were the stories I could tell but never had, and now I never would because they weren’t like the stories Jane would tell, lighthearted and funny and, and good.
Amazing how quickly we can think all of that. Instead of saying it, I said, “I got burned because I forgot that everyone is a potential villain until I prove they’re not. This guy. He’s a type. I worked with forensic profilers enough to recognize a personality type.”
“Am I a type?”
“Oh stop. I’m talking about an intensity. The way he stared without blinking while he was trying to project the good old boy image, like he was trying to read our reactions. There’s something mean and hard about him, underneath all the cap doffing and ma’aming, that’s all I’m saying.”
Carlo fixed me with that gaze that made me wonder if I’d been speaking aloud what I supposed were only thoughts. Not for the first time I thought if I wasn’t careful he could make me confess to anything. He said, “It has been a while since we’ve had guests. Maybe it’s time. I invited him over for stargazing. As a thank-you for helping me. I’m sure he won’t murder us in our beds.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I growled softly, then got myself a refill and went back to work on the skip trace. At least it was something different to think about.
Seventeen
There were so few places of business up in Catalina it was easy to appear to just happen on someone coincidentally. Beaufort threw a few things into his shopping cart at Bashas’, the only grocery store in at least ten miles, the same one where he picked up flowers for Gloria. He stopped at the Starbucks counter to get a coffee. They didn’t used to have coffee shops inside grocery stores either.
Carlo was sitting at a small table near the Starbucks booth with two other men, all intent on their conversation. Beaufort had a rubber hedgehog that he had picked up for Achilles in the pet aisle. As he paid for his coffee he squeaked the toy to get Carlo’s attention. It worked, and Carlo called a hello to him.
Beaufort maneuvered his cart to the table. He was not invited to sit with the men, but he sat down anyway in the fourth chair. “Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?” he asked, hoping it sounded classy enough.
Carlo introduced him to Father Elias Manwaring, from St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, and to Harold Maas, an astronomer who taught at the college and was also part of the Mars Rover project. Carlo explained that they were getting together regularly to talk about a seminar they were planning on the interface between science and religion. When Carlo was finished explaining, the three men looked at Beaufort expectantly, maybe thinking he would be off now so they could get back to their discussion, but he didn’t go. So the portly man identified as a priest stepped in politely.
“So, how are you two acquainted?” he asked.
When Beaufort explained that he had met Carlo over the backyard fence, so to speak, and helped him move his telescope, Maas’s lip curled as in “You call that a telescope?” and Manwaring asked with a smile, “You’re familiar with the daunting Ms. Quinn, then?”
“I’m sorry?” Beaufort said, not recognizing the name.
“Mrs. DiForenza, I should have said. Carlo’s wife.”
“Her name is…”
“Quinn. Brigid Quinn,” Manwaring said. “I’d been told she kept her name.” He glanced at Carlo. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Maas said, “Man, Elias, for a liberal clergyman you’re way out of step.”
Beaufort asked, “But why do you say ‘daunting’? I think she’s a lovely lady.”
Manwaring winked at Carlo. Carlo said, “Elias is being ironic. My wife is an ex–FBI agent. You see, there was some trouble at the church, and that’s how—“
“Trouble my ass,” Manwaring said, while Beaufort thought it unlikely for a priest to speak that way. Was he really a priest and reflected more of the changing times, or were the others shitting Beaufort and he didn’t get the joke?
“She saved my life,” Manwaring added.
Carlo laughed and sipped his coffee. “Elias is exaggerating as he often does,” he said. “There was an incident that involved the church. Brigid took care of things.”
Behind their conversation Beaufort cursed to himself while he felt his grin stretching wider and wider like an idiot’s and hoped no one was smart enough to notice he was close to hyperventilating. He rubbed his palms on the edge of the table, took a deep breath, held it for a couple of seconds, and then released it and said, “So, how did Brigid get to be a superhero?”
Whereupon Carlo told him all about her fabulous career foiling villains for the FBI, awards from the president, a strong woman who still made him proud.
“Still?” Beaufort said, and it sounded to him like a croak.
No one noticed that either.
“She retired,” Carlo says. “But she’s still a private investigator.”
Beaufort still made no move to leave, until finally, in the silence that grew a little more awkward with each second, Ca
rlo said, “You know, that offer of an evening of stargazing still stands. If you give me your telephone number I’ll call you.”
Beaufort got out his wallet, took out the receipt from the restaurant where he and Gloria had been last, and handed it to Carlo. “Would you mind if I called you instead? I’m having trouble getting messages off my cell phone.”
“I know how that is. I don’t even own a cell phone.” Carlo took the scrap of paper, and with a pen that was lying on the table between the men next to a pad where they’d been making notes, he wrote down his landline number. “Call soon, while the moon is new,” Carlo said.
Without asking what the hell that even meant, Beaufort tucked the phone number back in his wallet and disengaged himself with thanks for the company. Harold Maas, who had sat quietly looking bored for most of the time, now said a cheerful good-bye. Beaufort remembered that he should buy at least what was in his basket, and went through the checkout line.
Patting himself on the back for getting the man’s phone number without giving up his own so that Gloria couldn’t get wind of what he was doing, he got back to the house, fired up Gloria’s computer, and googled FBI. But useful as this internet was, there was no way to tell when Brigid Quinn had been an agent, or which office she had worked for, whether Tucson or someplace else. So he wrote down the number of the nearest FBI office, which seemed like a likely place to go, and called them.
“Hello,” he said, using that airy-old voice that had worked before, “I’m looking for an agent. Brigid Quinn.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman at the other end of the line said, “there’s no agent here by that name.”
“Golly,” he says, “I’m trying to connect with her about my missing granddaughter. I’m told she’s an excellent private investigator now and is still in the area.”
The woman excused herself for a moment, and then a man’s voice came on. “Hello, Mr.…?”
Beaufort was using Gloria’s landline, and he knew that the office he was calling would probably have caller ID. “I’m Frank Bentham? Staying at my sister’s place in Tucson.” Beaufort repeated the business about wanting Quinn’s aid in locating his granddaughter. He embellished a bit about her having run away.
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