Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund

by Blaize Clement

  As I got in the Bronco, she and Reggie stood in the doorway and gazed after me with identical expressions of stunned sorrow.

  5

  Before I pulled out of the driveway, I punched the CD button and let Patsy Cline’s voice fill the car. Spend a few minutes with Patsy, and the world gets back in balance, especially after dark. Before noon it takes Roy Orbison to set things straight. They sort of balance out the day, which isn’t surprising. Anybody who’s ever given it any thought knows that Patsy and Roy are riding through eternity on the same soul train, blowing each other away with their heart truths.

  It was near eight-thirty when I got home. Michael’s prized grill was glowing, and the plank table on the deck was set. Michael was standing on the beach with his feet spread wide and his hands jammed in his pockets. An enormous orange sun hovered wetly above the horizon, pulsating like a living heart so its edges moved with its own heat. I walked down and stood beside him, both of us silent as sun and sea touched like lovers. The sea pulled the sun inside herself and left the sky smiling cerise and violet and peach. Michael and I let out held breaths. No matter how many times you watch that lovemaking, you never stop being awed by it.

  He slung an arm over my shoulder, and we walked up the beach to the deck.

  He said, “Are you hungry?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m positively hollow.”

  He grinned with the pure joy that a master chef gets on hearing that people want to eat. Michael works 24/48 at the firehouse, meaning twenty-four hours on duty, and fortyeight hours off. But always, whether he’s at the firehouse or at home, he cooks. Like firefighting, cooking is Michael’s way of saving people. To him, there’s nothing so awful that a good meal won’t make better.

  I said, “Where’s Paco?”

  “Asleep. He has to work tonight, and he didn’t get to bed until late this afternoon.”

  Vice cops work irregular hours, and for the last several weeks Paco had been leaving every night a little before ten and coming home late in the morning. Since an undercover cop’s life can depend on secrecy, Michael and I never mentioned it, not even between ourselves. But it didn’t take a super sleuth to deduce that he was working at some night job.

  As much as he might enjoy having dinner with us, Paco exercises a good cop’s judicious selfishness. Cops have to know what they absolutely require in order to function at their best, and not let anything keep them from getting it. A cop who needs sleep may accidentally kill somebody. A cop who goes too long without food may let his temper flare. A cop who needs to be alone and sort out the horror of something he’s just seen may do something stupid. A cop who puts time with his family over his own needs won’t be a good cop. He may not even be a living cop. Anybody too sentimental to be selfish ought to take up a different line of work than law enforcement.

  I said, “I’ll just be a minute. I have to go shower.”

  I ran up the stairs to my apartment and was naked by the time I got to the bathroom. I jumped in the shower to wash away the afternoon’s heat and pet spit, slicked my wet hair back into a ponytail, ran lipstick over my mouth, and hopped around the closet pulling on underpants. I stepped into canvas mules and fought on a short dress with spaghetti straps and a built-in bra—surely the best invention ever—and was still damp and pushing everything into place when I clattered down the stairs to join Michael on the wooden deck.

  He pulled out my chair with an unself-conscious gallantry that always makes me feel misty-eyed, and headed inside for the food. Paco met him at the door, groggy-eyed and cheek-creased, but alert.

  Michael said, “Oh good, you’re awake!” and moved inside with a little extra zip in his step that made me grin.

  Paco gave my ponytail a gentle yank and slid into his chair. He was wearing the same outfit he’d been wearing every night since he started working at his mystery job: pleated khaki Dockers and a tucked-in black waffle-knit shirt with a collar and front pocket. The shirt was bulky, and you could see the bulge of its tail under his pants. My mind ran down all the night jobs that would require those clothes and came up with something like a motel night clerk. Not a sleazy motel where the night clerks could wear anything they wanted to, and not a premium motel where they wore suits. Maybe something along Tamiami Trail where families stayed.

  Whatever it was, he didn’t seem to be looking forward to it. He and I sat like slugs while Michael brushed olive oil on grouper fillets and slices of plantain and chayote squash. He squeezed lime juice on the grouper and laid everything on the grill along with a rack of corn on the cob. While that cooked, we all ate yummy cold avocado soup with teensy shrimp in it, and I told them how Mame had found Conrad Ferrelli’s body. Except I left out the part about the lipstick smear on Conrad’s face. Even to family, you don’t divulge important secrets like that.

  Michael got up once to turn the stuff on the grill and get hot French bread and orange butter, but he didn’t ask any questions. Which made me nervous. Ever since we were kids, Michael has always known when I’m not being absolutely honest with him. When he thinks I’m holding out, he gets very quiet, like he was now. Paco was noncommittal too. He spooned up soup and listened intently, but he was as silent as Michael, and a couple of times I caught them exchanging enigmatic looks, the way parents do when they’re listening to a child getting herself deeper and deeper into trouble.

  When the fish and corn and plantains and chayote were ready, Michael served our plates at the grill and brought them to the table. He topped the grouper with mango salsa and added wine to my glass and his. Paco was sticking to iced tea.

  I took a bite and moaned like a satisfied cat. We all ate silently for a few minutes, our taste buds too overjoyed for speech, and then Michael came up for air.

  “Who’s investigating the Ferrelli case?”

  “Guidry. Guidry’s investigating.” I sounded like an echo chamber.

  “Ah, Lieutenant Guidry. So did you tell Guidry everything you knew?”

  “Sure.”

  “Uh-hunh. Did you tell him whatever it is you haven’t told us?”

  Paco looked across at him and quickly stopped himself from grinning.

  I chewed and swallowed. I took a sip of wine. I shook my head.

  “Not exactly.”

  He gave me a stern look.

  “What’s going on, Dixie? Why am I getting the feeling you’re involved in something you shouldn’t be?”

  Like it might be my last meal, I took a second to enjoy the flavors in my mouth.

  “It probably has something to do with the car I saw this morning.”

  Michael chewed somberly, looking steadily at me while I took another bite.

  I said, “I saw a car driving fast this morning. It was Conrad Ferrelli’s car, and his dog was in the backseat, so I thought Conrad was driving.”

  I took another bite and avoided Michael’s stare.

  “And?”

  “And I waved hello.”

  Michael drank half his glass of wine, sort of compulsively, I thought.

  He put the glass down and leaned toward me a tiny bit, the way he used to do when we were kids and he was getting ready to tell me he was going to kick my ass clear to Cuba if I didn’t tell him the truth.

  He said, “It’s all over the news that Conrad Ferrelli was murdered this morning. They found his car in one of the beach-access parking lots. Are you telling me you saw the murderer leaving and you waved at him?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  He took a deep breath and chomped hard on a chayote slice.

  “Did you tell Guidry you saw the car?”

  “Sure.”

  “But you didn’t tell him about waving to the driver, did you?”

  I chewed and swallowed. I took a sip of wine. I shook my head.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Dixie—”

  “Don’t lecture me, Michael. I wouldn’t have waved if I’d known a murderer was driving the car.”

  Paco said, “She’s righ
t, Michael. You would have done the same thing.”

  I shot Paco a grateful smile, but his face was somber.

  He said, “You have plenty of bullets for your thirty-eight?”

  Michael slammed down his wineglass. “Come on, Paco, it’s bad enough as it is.”

  “That’s why she needs to get her gun out and keep it with her. She’s in and out of empty houses all the time, and whoever killed Ferrelli may know it. She’ll be a sitting duck if she’s not prepared.”

  He was right, and I knew it. I had already thought about the thirty-eight.

  I said, “It’ll just be for a little while, Michael. They’ll catch the guy.”

  “You call your detective first thing in the morning and tell him about this.”

  “He’s not my detective, but I’ll call him.”

  “Just promise me you’ll stay out of this one, Dixie. I can’t go through that again.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll stay out of it.”

  He went silent again, and I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t believe me either. How could I stay out of it when I was already in it?

  Paco stood up and stacked his dishes to carry inside. Before he picked them up, he put his arms overhead and stretched, tilting his head back and pulling his spine tall, twisting a bit to get vertebrae lined up right. When a healthy man as gorgeous as Paco stretches out in front of you, you might as well enjoy the sight even though he’s as unattainable as one of the rings of Saturn. As he flexed his shoulders backward, his knit shirt snagged on something on his muscled chest, and a chunk of comprehension fell into my brain with a scary thunk. Paco wore a transmitter under that shirt.

  I blurted, “I can see your nipples when you do that.”

  Startled, he jerked his arms down and gave me a puzzled look. Michael had the same incredulous look on his face, like What the hell?

  I met Paco’s gaze and saw his eyes shift as he realized my meaning.

  He said, “Thanks, babe, I’ll remember not to do that.”

  Michael stood up and started gathering dishes to take inside, shaking his head and muttering that all God’s children had nipples, for God’s sake, and what was the big deal? Paco and I didn’t enlighten him. Michael worries enough as it is. He didn’t need to know that Paco was going to some job every night to record information that would lead to somebody’s arrest.

  Up in my apartment, I locked the French doors and lowered the metal hurricane shutters that double as security bars. In the bedroom, I pulled my narrow bed away from the wall and opened the drawer built into its far side. The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department issues 9-millimeter Sig-Sauers to its officers. When an officer leaves the force, either through retirement or death, the department-issued gun has to be returned. But every law-enforcement officer has personal pieces for which he or she is lawfully qualified, and I had kept both Todd’s and mine in a specially built case in the drawer under my bed.

  The guns were all there, fitted into their felt-lined niches: Todd’s 9-millimeter Glock and his Colt .357, along with my own Smith and Wesson .32 and a .38 that was my favorite. The .38 fit my hand the way it fit its niche in the case. I took it to the bar in the kitchen and cleaned and oiled it, finding as always a deep sense of satisfaction from the workmanship that went into making it, all the pieces sliding into one another so smoothly. When it was gleaming and ready to operate, I slid a magazine in the butt and got out two extra magazines to carry in my pocket. I put away the oil and polishing cloth and took the gun with me to the bathroom. I took a long shower and fell into bed with the .38 on the bedside table.

  As usual, I dreamed of Todd and Christy. I dreamed of them every night, as if we had a standing dreamtime appointment to get together. This time I dreamed I went to heaven to get them and bring them home. I went to a big barred door and yelled for somebody to let me in, and God came down a long walk to look through the bars at me. He looked like Heidi’s grandfather, with long white hair and a flowing white robe, but he had a wreath of leaves around his head like Caesar.

  I said, “You can’t keep them here. It’s against the law.”

  He shook his head in a kind of pitying way, the way people do when they hear somebody say something incredibly stupid. “I’m above the law,” he said. “You should know that.”

  I said, “Nobody’s above the law, not even you.”

  “Ah,” he said, “you still believe that, do you? That’s your lesson to learn in this lifetime: the law isn’t for everybody.”

  He turned his back on me and I clung weeping to the bars and shouted after him. “What about Todd and Christy?”

  His voice floated back like a sigh. “They’ve already learned their lessons. Now they can reap their rewards.”

  I woke up with clenched fists, so angry I could have smashed someone. It’s the same anger that has simmered under the surface for the past three years, the anger that makes the sheriff’s department leery of letting me go back to work. I wish I could get rid of it, but it seems to have moved in to stay, like an undesirable relative that I can’t shake.

  The digital readout on the bedside clock showed 2:26. The red numbers lit the gun and gave it an eerie glow. I thought of Stevie Ferrelli sleeping for the first time without her husband, probably having her own dreams of loss. I thought of the killer who might believe I’d recognized him. I thought of all the places where I would be vulnerable: the early morning streets when I walked dogs, the houses where cats or gerbils or birds waited alone.

  I turned over and tried to go back to sleep. I had to get up in an hour and a half, and I would need to be alert.

  The killer could be anywhere, he could attack me at any time. Stevie had mentioned a bullet hole in Conrad, but she had also said that Guidry hadn’t told her how he died. Had she been assuming a gunshot, or did she know? If Guidry hadn’t told her, how did she know?

  I sat up and looked at the clock. It was three o’clock, and I was wide awake. I got up and turned on lights, stuffed dirty clothes and Keds in the washer, shook in detergent, and turned it on. The homely sound of water gushing on my laundry at 3 A.M. was oddly comforting. Naked, I padded to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. While it gurgled and spat and hissed, I turned on Roy Orbison, cranked the sound up, and to the tune of “Pretty Woman” pushed the vacuum cleaner around with a lot of balletic bending and swooping. There’s nothing so empowering as running around vacuuming while Roy Orbison is singing and you’re buck naked.

  As small as my place is, the floors were dust-free by the time the coffee machine made its final sputter. I stored the vacuum away and went in the kitchen and looked out the window while I drank a cup of coffee. Roy Orbison had finished “Pretty Woman” and moved on to “Mean Woman Blues.” I was alert. I was composed. I was a normal woman drinking a normal cup of coffee on a normal morning. I was so normal, if I’d had a donut I would have eaten it.

  I rinsed my coffee cup, turned the pot off, and ambled down the hall. I tossed wet laundry in the dryer. I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth and flossed them. I took a shower and slathered moisturizer and sunscreen all over myself. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and put on rosy lip gloss, being careful not to meet my own eyes in the mirror. In my office-closet, I stepped into lacy bikinis and new khaki cargo shorts. I put on a black satin racerback bra. I pulled on a stretchy black sleeveless top. I put on clean white Keds and laced them up. I dressed as carefully as if I were getting ready for an important date.

  I might end up on a metal autopsy table that morning.

  Or I might shoot somebody and he would end up on the table.

  Either way, I wanted to look nice.

  6

  Before I raised the metal shutters, I dropped the spare magazines in my shorts pocket and got my backpack on. I held my car keys in one hand and my .38 in the other, and I stood to the side while the shutters folded into themselves and disappeared inside a cornice above the French doors. Nobody was on the porch, and I didn’t see anybody when I went to the railing and look
ed over.

  That predawn hour is my favorite time of day, a sensual time that always makes me pause to breathe in life. The sky was oyster-hued, the air silky smooth and tasting of salt and new beginnings. Mourning doves were waking in the trees lining the drive, calling to one another and making yearning answer. On the shore, wavelets kissed the beach and sighed like a passionate woman. In the distance, I could see dark humps of dolphins at play.

  Holding my gun close to my thigh with my trigger finger pointed down the barrel, I walked down the stairs and scanned the darkness under the carport. A great blue heron lifted from the hood of the Bronco and sailed away making an irritated gargling sound. I got in the car and put the gun on the floor beside me, then sat with the motor running for a minute. This was nuts. I couldn’t live like this. I couldn’t go creeping around looking behind every door and examining every shadow. If the killer was out there waiting for me, he would find me. I wasn’t going to be any safer for trying to see him before he got to me.

  With that settled, I headed for the Sea Breeze to run with Billy Elliot. I parked in a visitor’s spot by the front door, and put the gun in my pocket before I got out of the car. I wasn’t going to go around scared, but I wasn’t going to be unarmed either. The lobby was deserted that early in the morning, and the muted whine of the stainless-steel and mirrored elevator taking me to the second floor was the only sound. Tom was still asleep when I got to his condo, but I could hear Billy Elliot’s nervous toenails on the tiled foyer. I unlocked the door and knelt to hug him and whisper good morning. Then I clipped on his leash and we took the elevator downstairs. Like thieves leaving a heist, we skittered silently across the shiny tile of the lobby to the glassed front door.

  Billy Elliot needs a hard morning run the way some people need caffeine before they can think, and the Sea Breeze parking lot is a perfect substitute for his old racetrack. Cars park in the middle and around the perimeter of the asphalt, leaving a wide oval where we can run. I always try not to hamper his style with my inferior two-legged sprint, but no matter how hard I run, he still strains against the leash. In his dreams, he probably streaks around a track shouting hosannas because he doesn’t have to drag along a poky blond woman.