Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund

by Blaize Clement

  I said, “Have you heard about Conrad Ferrelli?”

  “About a million times. His brother sending his coat back?”

  The baby squealed and bounced her bottom up and down, looking up at me with wide trusting eyes.

  I said, “His wife sent the coat back. But she said to be sure and tell you how much Conrad loved it.”

  “Then why’s she sending it back?”

  Resisting the urge to pick the baby up, I said, “So somebody else can wear it.”

  “I was hoping she’d bury him in it.”

  I couldn’t tell if she meant she was glad Conrad was dead, or if she meant she’d like him to spend eternity wearing the coat she’d made for him. The baby lost her balance and plunked down hard on the playpen’s padded floor. She began to cry, and Priscilla jumped up and came to calm her. Feeling slightly guilty for overstimulating the baby, I moved out of the way and stood beside the cloth dummy. My chewing gum seemed to be getting stringy and sticking to my back teeth. All the sweet juiciness in it was gone too.

  I said, “Why did you think his brother would send the coat back?”

  Josephine cast an evaluative eye toward Priscilla and the baby, then picked up the garment she was steaming and shook it out.

  “Denton Ferrelli hates the circus and everybody connected to it. He didn’t want Conrad to give all that money to build a home for circus people. If he has his way, it won’t happen now.”

  The baby stopped crying and Priscilla went back to her sewing machine. Josephine looked up with an approving glint in her eye. Josephine was not one to pay somebody for time spent placating a crying baby.

  I said, “I thought the circus retirement home was a done deal.”

  “Done except for being done. Denton Ferrelli did everything he could to put a stop to the clown school Conrad built, but that wasn’t anything compared to the retirement home. Now that Conrad’s gone, we think the home probably won’t happen.”

  By we, I assumed she meant the circus community.

  The baby had found a pacifier and curled up with it in her mouth. Priscilla looked relieved and bent over her work. She looked young enough to be doing junior high homework, but anybody that careful with a baby gets high marks from me.

  I said, “I didn’t even know there was a clown school.”

  “You think people just get born clowns? People train, they train damn hard. You see some clowns onstage doing a skit that takes maybe five minutes, you better know they’ve probably spent fifteen hours planning every move. It’s choreographed, just like a dance.”

  I wallowed the gum around in my mouth and wished I hadn’t started chewing it. I felt like a cow chewing her cud. Whatever a cud is.

  “Do you know anybody except his brother who had a problem with Conrad?”

  “You think it was a circus person that killed him?”

  From her sewing center, Priscilla stopped stitching and raised her head and looked at me. The baby’s eyes were at half mast, and she was making little humming sounds to herself. I tucked the gum into the back corner of my gums and started working my way toward the door.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Well, it wasn’t, I can tell you that. Every clown in this town loved Conrad Ferrelli, and so did all the other circus people. He was one of us, you know.”

  I’d never looked at Conrad that way, but now that I thought about it, I supposed the way he dressed was a way of being a clown. The baby’s eyes closed all the way, and I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to wave bye-bye to her. It’s enough to make Superman puke, what a pushover I am for babies.

  In the Bronco, I wadded a tissue around the used gum and tossed it in the trash bag before I headed for the diner. I waved to Judy when I came in the door, then made a quick detour into the ladies’ room. Tanisha had left the kitchen and was with another woman at the sinks, both of them wide as Volkswagens. When I was little, I always hoped I’d wake up one morning with satiny chocolate skin like theirs. It was a major disappointment when my grandmother broke the news that I would always be plain vanilla.

  Tanisha and my brother are the best cooks in Florida. When it comes to pastries, Tanisha’s got Michael beat hands down because he doesn’t bake at all. Tanisha would probably have a slightly smaller butt if she didn’t, but then she wouldn’t be Tanisha.

  She gave me a dimpled smile when I came in and pulled a brown paper towel from the dispenser. She said, “This here’s my sister Diva.”

  “Hi, Diva, I’m Dixie.”

  Diva turned off her faucet and shook water from her fingertips. She and I grinned at each other, but we didn’t shake hands. Women don’t shake hands in the restroom. I’ll bet men don’t either. I can’t imagine them turning from a urinal to shake somebody’s hand. Ick.

  Diva had on a khaki skirt made of enough material to cover a truckload of oranges. She also wore a waffle-knit black shirt with a collar and front pocket. Her shirt wasn’t tucked in but hung loose over her enormous hips. I knew that shirt. It was a twin to the one Paco wore every night when he left on his current undercover job.

  Tanisha handed her sister a paper towel and said, “Me and Diva was just talking about how she ought to kick her husband’s sorry ass out.”

  Diva giggled. “It’s the truth. He don’t do nothing but get my butt wet, and I can do that myself in the tub.”

  I didn’t even want to think about how he got her butt wet. I was more interested in what she was wearing.

  I said, “Where do you work, Diva?”

  She wadded her damp paper towel and tossed it in the bin on the wall. “Well, that’s the thing. That no-call thing has really cut down on work, you know? I used to could pull in maybe twelve-thirteen dollars an hour, what with them giving a dollar for every sale on top of the seven dollars an hour. I mean, that’s good money, you know, and they paid the dollar bonuses in cash. But now they got that no-call list, and we can’t hardly call nobody, so I’m back to seven dollars an hour, period. I can’t live on that. I got bills to pay.”

  Tanisha walked to the door and pulled it open. “Your old man don’t work! He don’t help pay them bills. What’s that got to do with it?”

  Diva headed for the door, heaving a sigh that made her bosom expand alarmingly. “Yeah, I know, but what if I get laid off? Where else am I gonna make even seven dollars an hour?”

  At the door, she looked back and smiled at me. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Thanks, you too.”

  The door shut behind them, and I headed for a stall. Now I knew Paco was working as a telemarketer. Half of me wished I didn’t know that much about his undercover work, and the other half wished I knew a lot more. He was going every night to a job where people made unwelcome telephone solicitations to people’s homes. He was wearing a wire. What the heck was he hoping to pick up? It didn’t make any sense.

  I scarfed down my usual eggs and home fries and biscuit. I drank my usual three cups of coffee. I thought my usual thoughts. Except now my usual thoughts were crowded with some unusual ones that had to do with Paco’s undercover job and the person who’d been driving Conrad Ferelli’s car. Josephine had said Conrad Ferrelli’s brother hadn’t wanted him to give money to support a retirement home for circus professionals. Maybe he had killed Conrad to stop him from putting millions into that foundation. Maybe Denton Ferrelli wanted the money for himself.

  Exhaustion finally made me pay my tab and drive home. I’d had less than four hours sleep last night, and I needed a nap bad.

  Michael and Paco were both gone when I got home. Michael had started his twenty-four-hour shift that morning at eight, and Paco was off making drug busts or something.

  As soon as I unlocked the French doors, all the little hairs on my body stood up in alarm. Something was different—a subliminal foreign scent or a rearrangement of the air. I pulled my .38 out of my pocket and held it stiff-armed, ready to blow an intruder away, and moved slowly forward. Nobody in the living room, nobody hiding behind the bar in the
kitchen, nobody in the bedroom. I flattened myself against the wall in the hall and then sprang into the doorway of the office-closet. Nobody there. My clothes weren’t tumbled, my desk wasn’t messy. Down the hall to the bathroom, where I repeated the move into the doorway. Nobody in the shower, nobody behind the door. I retraced my steps, still certain somebody had been in my apartment.

  In the office-closet, I lifted the loose tile that covers a floor safe and peered inside. The only articles I kept in the safe were a diamond ring that had been my grandmother’s, and a living trust giving my half of the beachfront property to Michael. They were both there. In the bedroom, I pulled my bed out and opened the drawer on the wall side where I keep the guns. They were all there.

  So I was being paranoid. So I was imagining things. Going without sleep will do that.

  I dropped my gun back in my pocket, went out to the porch, and fell into the hammock. The world spun and I spun with it, down into a dreamless velvety black sleep.

  I woke up groggy and dry-mouthed and went into the kitchen for a bottle of cold water. I drank half of it while I looked hopefully in the refrigerator for a gift from the fruit fairy, like a surprise peach or a fresh bag of oranges. All I found was a dried-up lime and a hard mystery fruit that might have begun life as a succulent apricot but got overlooked and went wrong. I apologized to both the lime and the mystery fruit and tossed them in the kitchen wastebasket. I really needed to go grocery shopping.

  I drank more water while I went down the hall to the office-closet, where my answering machine’s little red light was flashing. I hit PLAY and listened to a woman explain in excruciating detail that she’d called to ask about my fees because she and her husband were going to Cleveland to visit their son, but they weren’t sure when they could go because the son was buying a new house and was busy packing, so they would have to wait until—”

  The machine cut her off and I gave it a nasty smile of approval.

  A new voice clicked on, and I stopped smiling. It was a man’s voice, deep and menacing. He spoke only two words.

  “You’re next.”

  I set the water bottle on the desk and replayed the message. It still said the same thing. I told myself it was a joke, somebody trying to scare me. I played it again. It was somebody trying to scare me, but it didn’t sound like a joke.

  I drank the rest of the water and carried the empty bottle to the kitchen. I stood a minute looking out the kitchen window at the treetops, and then I went down the hall to the bathroom and took a shower. I took extra time with my hair and lipstick. I even put on a slim skirt and heels. I was going to question Ethan Crane, and I wanted to look like the kind of woman who should get answers.

  Ethan Crane’s office was jammed into Siesta Key’s business section, otherwise known as the Village, in a stucco building gently crumbling around the edges. I had been there only once before, when he had given me the depressing news that a woman had left a considerable living trust to her cat, with me as trustee. In spite of his crummy office, I remembered him as both surprisingly handsome and surprisingly efficient.

  The gilt paint on the glass door was still flaking, still proclaiming ETHAN CRANE ESQ., ATTORNEY AT LAW, even though it had originally been painted for the grandfather of the man who now held the office. Built to withstand flood tides and hurricanes, the building had a flight of worn wooden stairs leading directly from the front door. I took them with what I hoped was a measured tread, letting my heels click on each step to alert the people upstairs that somebody was approaching.

  I needn’t have bothered. Nobody was in the secretary’s office. Her desk was bare except for a gooseneck iMac, and her chair had been neatly pushed in as if she were gone for the day. Across the hall, Ethan Crane was asleep, tilted back with his feet on his desk and his mouth open. A herd of elephants wouldn’t have waked him.

  I rapped on his open office door, and his eyelids flickered. I rapped again, and he snapped to attention, jerking his feet off the desk and bringing his chair upright so fast he almost launched himself into space.

  He yelled, “Jesus!”

  Smiling sweetly, I walked forward with my hand out. “Mr. Crane, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Dixie Hemingway.”

  He recovered well, got to his feet in one graceful thrust, and leaned over the desk to shake my hand. Even sleeprumpled, he was still as handsome as I remembered him. Tall, jet black hair brushing the collar of a crisp white shirt, prominent cheekbones, eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate, eyelashes so thick and black they made his eyes look rimmed with kohl, a strong nose and broad jaw, even white teeth. He gave me a politician’s smile as he adjusted his tie and got himself in professional mode.

  8

  I said, “I take care of Conrad Ferrelli’s dog. I suppose you know what happened to Conrad.”

  His face sobered. “Oh, God, yes, I’m sick about it. Conrad was a great guy. It’s just inconceivable that somebody would—”

  “I know about the retirement home Conrad was funding. Will those plans still go forward now that he’s dead?”

  He frowned. “Why would you ask that?”

  “People in the circus community think it won’t. They say Conrad’s brother will put a stop to it. Is that true?”

  His voice got a frosty edge. “Ms. Hemingway, I don’t see what any of this has to do with pet-sitting.”

  Although I hadn’t been invited, I sat down in one of the rump-sprung leather chairs facing his desk.

  “I saw Conrad’s killer driving away in Conrad’s car. I thought it was Conrad, so I waved to him. I was only a few feet away, and he could see me clearly. This afternoon somebody left a message on my answering machine that said You’re next. I think the killer thinks I can identify him.”

  “And you can’t?”

  “All I actually saw was Conrad’s dog in the backseat.”

  He gave me a look meaning So?

  “Look, everybody says Denton Ferrelli hated the circus and everything connected to it. I think he might have killed Conrad to stop it.”

  He sat down behind his desk. “That’s a serious accusation.”

  “I’m not asking you to decide if he’s the killer, I’m just asking you to tell me how the Ferrelli money will be used for the circus home.”

  He fiddled with a gold-capped pen for a moment and then laid it down decisively.

  “Angelo Ferrelli set up several philanthropic trusts. Each is an independent nonprofit with its own charitable focus and its own fiduciary and organizational responsibilities. One makes grants to environmental causes, one to health initiatives, one to education and the arts, one to community enrichment. They’re all under the discretionary trusteeship of a trust company that Angelo headed until his death. Then Conrad took over.”

  Being too mathematically challenged to balance a checkbook, most of what he said sailed over my head, but I thought I got the main idea.

  I said, “Which one of the trusts is funding the circus retirement home?”

  “Actually, none of them. Conrad formed a separate foundation for that. His idea was to have each of the trusts contribute to it as a part of its own philanthropic purpose. The trust devoted to health issues will provide money for the medical care of the residents, the education trust will provide funds for continuing-education classes, and so forth.”

  “So what’s Denton’s role in the plan?”

  “Denton is chairman of the board of the trust involved in community development. They fund building projects that improve a community’s economy and living standards. Their official statement of purpose is to provide jobs and create good communities.”

  He seemed to stop himself from saying what its unofficial purpose was. He got up and went over to a wall of bookshelves where an undercounter refrigerator had been fitted.

  “Would you like a cold drink? Water?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He leaned over and opened the door, giving me an opportunity to see the outline of a butt as toned and shapely as his s
houlders. He popped the tab on a Diet Sprite and took a drink as he walked back to his desk.

  “Denton’s board of directors is composed of bankers and financiers and politicians. Late last year, they brokered a deal between Sarasota County and some investment realtors for a large tract of gulfside land. The plan was to put a parking lot and dock for a casino boat there. They were going to build an administration building, a ticket office, the whole works. Denton even talked the state engineering department into agreeing to dredge a mooring for the boat. They claimed it would give jobs to a lot of people, plus bring in money people won on the casino boat. To sweeten the whole plan, some state senators and lobbyists in Denton’s pocket were pushing hard to get Indian land casinos declared illegal.”

  He took another pull on the Sprite and gave me a half smile. “Like my people might actually get a break now and then.”

  “You’re Indian?”

  “One-quarter Seminole, just enough to make me pay attention to the fact that the state never recognized Indian nations or made treaties with them.”

  I looked at his high cheekbones and square jawline. He was one fine-looking Seminole.

  He said, “Anyway, when Conrad got wind of Denton’s casino-ship deal, he went ballistic. It was not only in direct opposition to about a hundred environmental standards of the trusteeship, it smelled in a lot of other ways as well. Casino boats are unlicensed, unregulated, unscrutinized. They operate in international waters where anything goes, including money laundering. Conrad used his power as head of the trusteeship company and put a stop to it. Instead, he directed that the acquired land be used as a site for the circus retirement home. In other words, he pissed on Denton’s parade.”

  “And he made you head of the foundation to build the home.”

  “Correct.”

  “Who will run the discretionary trust now that Conrad’s gone?”

  “His successor will be elected by the board. Most likely it will be his wife. She’s closely involved and highly capable.”