People are convicted of murder every day on circumstantial evidence. Half the people on death row have been found guilty because of circumstantial evidence, and a lot of them are innocent. I knew that. Guidry knew that. God knew that, and unless the new DA was an imbecile, she knew that.
I said, “I’m not feeling very good, Guidry. I’m going inside.”
He stood up while I raised the shutters with the remote. I unlocked the French doors and turned to tell him good night. The next thing I knew he was enfolding me in a tight hug and I was snuggling into it like a puppy searching for a warm nipple.
Against the top of my head, he said, “I’m sorry, Dixie. You deserve a lot better than this.”
I didn’t say anything, just stood there for a long time clinging to him while my eyes leaked all over my face. Guidry took a deep breath and tilted my chin up and kissed me. A gentle, sweet kiss that made me tremble for something more, that made my lips open with an urgent hunger. He ran his hands down my back to my butt and pulled me closer, and the kiss deepened just long enough to leave me gasping when he stopped.
“Good night, Dixie.”
He left me standing there and took the stairs two at a time. Then he got into his car and pulled out without looking back at me.
Weakly, I stepping into my living room and dropped to the sofa. My mouth still vibrated from the kiss, as if my lips had been touched with an electric charge and all the taste buds of my tongue had been inflamed. Guidry’s taste was still with me, a clean, healthy, liquid taste, a little salty, a little tart. I covered my face with both hands and let out a small moan that was half whimper of despair and half satisfaction.
I had crossed a line from which there was no turning back, and I wasn’t at all sure I knew what the hell I was going to do about it.
TWENTY-FOUR
When the alarm went off at 4 A.M. Saturday morning, I came awake with the gluey memory that I was having supper with Ethan that night, that it would probably get sexy, and that I was still a suspect in the murder of Ramón Gutierrez. I weighed about three hundred tons as I went down the hall to the bathroom. After I’d brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face, I was almost surprised that my reflection in the mirror over the sink looked normal. I twisted my hair into a scrunchy and slogged to the office-closet to pull on underpants, shorts, and a T-shirt. Laced up clean white Keds, grabbed my shoulder bag and all my pet-sitting stuff, and squared my shoulders. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, Dixie Hemingway is going forth into the world to act the part of premier pet sitter. She may feel like shit, she may have a few loose cogs in her machinery, but by God nobody can say she doesn’t do her job!
Downstairs in the carport, a grumpy pelican on the Bronco’s hood gave me a yellow-eyed glare before he went off to find a more hospitable roosting place. If the parakeets in the trees noticed my passing, they decided it was too early for pretend histrionics and closed their eyes again.
My brain was still too sore to try a hard run with Billy Elliot, but I looked into the parking lot as I drove past the Sea Breeze to see if he might be taking Tom’s new girlfriend for a fast-stepping walk. All I saw in the dark lot were sleeping cars. I had to fight the impulse to pull in. Billy Elliot was probably upstairs waiting for me, all nervous and twitchy, but the adolescent ER doctor had done a good job of impressing me with the fact that a concussion wasn’t something to take lightly. I’d give my brains until Monday to finish healing, and then I’d make it up to Billy Elliot with an extra-long run.
I finished the morning dog routine early and headed south to see to the cats. It was still that waking-up time of day, when the only people on the streets are dog walkers, delivery people, and a few enterprising early risers getting a head start on the day. Starbucks was doing a brisk business dispensing hot coffee to a line of caffeine-needy drivers, and I swerved into the turn-in to get my share. Next door, Dr. Phyllis Layton pulled into her empty parking lot and went inside her office. Dr. Layton is an African-American veterinarian of uncommon courtesy to her animal clients. She would never declaw a cat.
Once I’d got my cup of hot jolt juice, I pulled into Dr. Layton’s lot and parked next to her car. She was behind a holly-circled receptionist’s window when I went in, and for a second her face showed a trace of wariness at having such an early morning visitor. Then she saw it was me and smiled.
We exchanged good-mornings and I said, “I have a formerly feral cat client who hates being inside, and he’s spraying and clawing everything in sight. Do you know anybody who lives in the country and would like a good mouser? A kind family with maybe an enclosed porch where he could sleep?”
“And give him lots of affection and protect him from dogs and see that he gets his shots every year?”
“Yeah, that too.”
She laughed. “You can add him to the list.”
She handed me an index card and pointed toward a bulletin board on the waiting room wall where cards were arranged in neat rows.
I said, “I guess you get a lot of requests like this.”
“I do, but the surprising thing is that people read those cards and take in pets that need new homes. Pet lovers are generous.”
I wrote the particulars of Muddy, stressing that he was a nice cat, he just didn’t like being cooped up in a house, and gave my number to call.
I said, “Muddy can get cantankerous. What if somebody takes him and it doesn’t work out?”
“Then they’ll bring him back. A couple of days ago a woman took a miniature bulldog who’d been orphaned when his owner died. He was such a sweet little guy that I’d put a FREE TO GOOD HOME notice out front. She came in late in the afternoon, acted like she loved him, and took him home with her. Brought him back the very next morning. Didn’t even keep him twenty-four hours! Said, being Irish, she hadn’t felt right with such a wee dog. Took me a minute to get what wee meant. I don’t think it was because she was Irish, I think she just changed her mind.”
My head felt as if it needed air holes drilled in it to keep my brains from expanding wider than my skull. I think rage does that to a brain—makes it heat up and swell. I knew before I asked the question what the answer would be.
“Was she a tall dark-haired woman?”
“You know her?”
“I met a woman like that Tuesday morning with a miniature bulldog.”
“Well, I found another home for the wee dog, so it worked out okay.”
I pinned Muddy’s card to Dr. Layton’s board and left her going through pet files.
My cell rang, and I barked “Hello!” without looking at the ID tag.
Mildly, Guidry said, “You get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”
“I just found out who the Irishman was who called me. It was Jessica Ballantyne faking an Irish accent.”
“My, my, imagine that. One would almost think she wasn’t an open and aboveboard person.”
I made mocking faces at the phone. “Did you call me because you felt like being an ass, or was there some other reason?”
“We got a call from a neighbor of Kurtz’s last night. He heard gunshots he thought came from Kurtz’s house and wanted us to investigate. The officers who went out found Kurtz in the driveway. He’d been chasing an intruder and collapsed out there.”
“Ken Kurtz was chasing somebody?”
“Probably more like inching along wanting to chase somebody, but he did shoot at somebody. Or at least that’s what he claimed. He said he heard a rumbling noise during the night that he recognized as the sound of one of his garage doors going up. He got up to investigate and saw a man in the courtyard carrying his iguana. The iguana was fighting pretty hard, I guess, because the guy was having trouble holding him. Kurtz fired a shot in the air and the guy dropped the iguana and ran through a garage to the driveway. Kurtz tried to follow him and collapsed. The deputy helped him back to bed and secured the garage. He looked around, but he didn’t see any intruder or evidence of one. Do you think Kurtz hallucinates?”