Key West (18 page)

Keeping a hold on Chris’s back, Sonnie climbed from the Harley.

Her knees began to buckle and Roy grabbed her by the waist.

“Does that ever happen to you?” she asked him. “You can’t feel your legs when you get off?” She giggled.

Roy gathered her up, pulling her hands from Chris’s jacket. “It doesn’t happen because I’m not fool enough t’get on that fool thing. You should have come with me. Take some deep breaths, Sonnie. You’re all shaken up.”

She didn’t remind him he’d told Chris to bring her, and rushed away. How strange to want to laugh when a big chunk of your house was destroyed, much of it lying in a pile of rubble on the front lawn. Hysterical? Oh, she wasn’t going to admit to that. No. Absolutely not. She couldn’t catch her breath.

“Hold on.” Chris had kicked the bike stand on. He took her from Roy and bent to look into her face. “We need to go over and talk to the folks, then take a look-see at the house.”

“Bad luck,” she said, smiling up at him until her eyes watered and his face blurred. “Everything I touch is bad luck. Nο, that sounds like a bunch of self-pity. And it’s not true, I’ve had a lot of—”

“We need to talk to the firemen.”

“I’ve had good luck, haven’t I? Is everything as much of a mess as it seems?”

He held her by the back of her neck and shook her gently. “You’ve had good and bad luck. More bad luck than could possibly be good for one woman. But I don’t think the mess is so bad. I...I want to help. I’ve told you I will.”

“You have?” Roy sounded outrageously bright. “Well, hell, if that isn’t the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”

“Swearing, Roy,” Sonnie said. “And you’re jumping to conclusions.”

“So,” Chris said, “my first inkling about the cuss code at the Nail.”

Sonnie didn’t get it, but neither did she ask for an explanation.

“You said you’re gonna help her,” Roy said to his brother as if Sonnie didn’t exist. “That means you’re taking on her case? Does it?”

Chris shot an arm around Sonnie’s waist and all but carried her across the road. “That’s what it means,” he said over his shoulder. “But if you say a word to a soul about it, I will cut off parts of you that will hurt and...Well, Sam Hill, we just won’t like you very much anymore.”

“My lips are sealed and my legs are crossed,” Roy said. “I think this man coming is the one who was asking for you, Sonnie. He’s a big son of a gun, but don’t worry; Chris and I can take him between us if we have to.”

Boots scraping gravel, a fireman who’d discarded his coat approached in a rubberized bib overall. Soot smeared his face, and in the white light of the giant lamp his eyes were bright blue. “Don’t suppose you’re Sonnie Giacano?”

“She is,” Roy said. “She works for me at the Rusty Nail. You know the place—on Duval.”

“I know it, sir.”

“Bring all your boys by. The drinks’ll be on me.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.”

Sonnie didn’t need a translator to figure out that Roy was making sure the fireman didn’t have any more questions about why she was getting home so late. “It’s pretty bad, huh?” she said.

“Could have been a whole lot worse. I guess you stored a lot of stuff in that room. Fire started there. We don’t know why yet. Destroyed that, and the small bathroom next to it. The other side of the house is pretty much untouched. Up and down.”

Sonnie felt suddenly cold, and she looked upward. “The skylight over the entry hall? Did it break?”

“I don’t know.” The fireman turned around and shouted to one of his men.

“Yοo-hοο.” Just Ena’s familiar voice—ratcheted up a notch or three or four—preceded her arrival by a second or so. “Oh, Sonnie. Oh, my dear, dear friend. When is it going to be enough? One might think the Fates were against you. You must come and stay with me. I insist.”

Sonnie smiled at her and leaned clοser to Chris, who wasn’t listening to Ena.

The second fireman came at a rustling trot. “I think we’ve got it, Chief. Just punching a few holes.”

Sonnie squirmed at
punching a few holes.

“Skylight over the entryway?” the chief said. “Did it blow?”

“Er—no, no, it didn’t. Not enough heat built up. Lucky we got the alarm so
early.
”

“I called in,” Ena said cheerfully. “Couldn’t sleep as usual, so I was taking a turn around my yard and I saw smoke puffing out of the open window. Rushed inside my place and called.”

The chief’s white grin made his filth-streaked face very appealing. “You’re Mrs. Fishbine? I’d say you saved the place. In fact, I know you did.”

Glancing in all directions, Ena simpered with pleasure. “Did you lose something, ma’am?” one of the firemen asked.

Ena shook her head. “Just surveying the scene. Isn’t that what you people do sometimes, survey the scene?”

The man laughed and said, “Always, ma’am. You’d better watch out. Get too familiar with the lingo and we’ll have to sign you on.”

Ena batted his arm and smiled. Some women, Sοnnie thought, would never stop being coquettish.

“I want to go inside,” she said. “Is that okay now?”

“Nope,” she was told. “Probably won’t be okay till tomorrow. We’ll want to check everythίng out thoroughly, make sure the fire doesn’t break out again. Then there’s the question of security. Wouldn’t want you living in the place till everything’s battened down again. Do you have somewhere to go, or should we—’’

“She’ll come to me,” Ena said.

“You’re a good wοman,” Roy said, and Sonnie didn’t miss the glance that passed between him and Chris, “but Sonnie’s always got a place with my partner and me. Her own suite of rooms. We make her keep them lived in, anyway, so this’ll fill her obligation for a little while. But thank you anyways.”

Ena’s smile had evaporated. “Did I ask you, sir? No, I did not. Friends stick together and I insist.”

“Sonnie’s a good friend of ours,” Roy said, as if patience was costing him a good deal. “Of course, it’s up to you, though,” he said, as if just remembering Sonnie might have an opinion.

“You’re a dear, Ena, but it’ll be easier for me to be at the Nail. This is a strain, and my life will be simplified if I stay there.”

Chris’s hand spread to hold her side. He squeezed, but when she looked up at him she wasn’t sure he even knew what he’d done.

“Well, of course,” Ena said. “I understand perfectly. Just want you to know you aren’t on your own here.”

The arrival of a white Jag with very dark windows was a blessed diversion.

“Hey,” the fire chief called out, bearing down on the driver’s window. “Not there. Νο. No! Goddamn it, not in the driveway, you moron.”

“Arrogant…” Chris pointed. “Will you look at that? He’s gonna park right in the middle of the driveway.”

“Oh, Romano,” Sοnnie said. “He’s not thinking.”

“He’s a pushy son of a bitch,” Chris murmured. “I don’t believe this. He’s determined to drive right over those fu—”

“Hoses,” Roy said rapidly. “He can’t drive over them. Even if he makes it, it won’t do his fancy car any good.”

Romano parked, head-on, between two fire trucks. With the front end of the car partway on the sidewalk, and the rear sticking out into the street, he threw open his door and a stream of Italian poured forth.

Another siren sounded in the distance, growing closer by the second. Then Sοnnie heard another, and another. She groped for Chris’s hand. “Is that more fire vehicles? Why, if the fire’s out?”

“Not fire,” Chris said. “Police. But I doubt if they’re coming here.”

“Sonnie,” Romano yelled. “Get over here now. Tell this man to remove himself from my face. He is in my face. Tell him who I am.”

Chris showed signs of restraining her, but she said, “Best if I go. I’ll
be fine,” and walked across the street. “This is Romano Giacano, sir. My brother-in-law.”

“I am also an internationally renowned tennis coach,” Romano stated. “I am a busy and important man. I am in Key West to take care of my sister-in-law, whose husband, my brother, is missing. She is not herself and requires my assistance. Now I wish to inspect the premises.”

Four firemen now stood in a line across the driveway. In response to a shout from the house, the chief had left.

Chris and Roy ambled up with Ena trotting in their wake. They stood at a short distance but the two men radiated hostility.

“Sonnie, my pet, we cannot allow these fire people to interfere with our wishes.” Romano spoke as if she were a child.

“These people just stopped my house from burning to the ground,” she told him. “They responded fast enough to do a great job of limiting the damage.”

“It doesn’t look to me as if there is so little damage. Sonnie—oh, no, I will not plant seeds.”

“What?” she said, inclining her head. “What seeds?”

He lowered his voice. “Did you start smoking again?”

“Smoking?” Completely bemused, she frowned. “I don’t smoke.”

“No, my dear, at least I didn’t think you had started again.”

 “I never smoked, Romano. What are you talking about?”

“Ah.” He sucked in his lips, then shrugged. “Forget I mentioned it.”

“No. What do you mean?”

“You have forgotten that you smoked until...I don’t wish to bring up unpleasant memories, but you smoked until you were pregnant.”

“
I
didn’t.”

He sighed. “Very well, you didn’t. It is of no importance, anyway. I just wondered if you could have had a little accident up there.”

“She hasn’t been here,” Chris said. “And she doesn’t smoke. Anything else?”

Romano jutted his chin and moved close to Chris. “You are not needed here. This is a family matter. This is my brother’s house.”

Chris stepped around him.

“And my house,” Sonnie said, and managed not to wilt under Romano’s shocked glare. She looked away from him and at the damaged area of the house once more. “That room again,” she murmured.

Chris’s breath against her ear was warm, clean, intimate. “Don’t say anything else, please. Okay?”

She nodded, and avoided Romano’s stare.

“Good girl. Keep cool and we’ll get through this. I’m with you. But we keep what I was and what I do under our hats. Remember that.”

She nodded again, and touched his jaw.

Romano took hold of her arm roughly. “You are not yourself. I will take you back to the club with me.”

“I don’t need this,” Sonnie said.

The sirens were no longer distant. Revolving lights swept across the houses on either side of the street. The first vehicle belonged to the fire department, but was different from any Sonnie had seen before. This was followed by three police cars. Men spilled forth and formed huddles with some of the firemen.

“Hah,” Romano said. “Such a provincial place. They have nothing to do so they
all
come to a fire that is already,
poof
nothing.”

Roy cleared his throat and said, “What d’you think, bro?”

“Trouble,” was all Chris said. “Arson team could be routine here for all I know. But we’ve got a lot of cops on the scene, huh?”

“That’s what I thought.”

“You’re going to upset Sonnie,” Romano said, then seemed to notice Ena for the first time. “You should stay back, madam. With the rest of the crowd.”

Ena said, “Twit,” very succinctly and remained where she was.

Sonnie grinned at her, and received a gleeful smile in return. Sonnie told Romano, “This is my friend Ena. She lives next door. And she reported the fire or there probably wouldn’t be anything left of the house.”

Carrying equipment and followed by the entourage of police, the man and three women from the first vehicle trudged up the driveway and into the house.

But for sounds from onlookers, minutes passed in silence for Sonnie. None of the others spoke.

A police officer appeared on the front steps once more. He began unwinding crime scene tape across the veranda steps.

“Why would he do that?” Ena said. “It’s to make people stay out, isn’t it?”

“They must think it’s arson,” Sonnie said slowly. Fire. It could have been another attempt to frighten her away.

Or to kill her.

Spinning around, she walked into Chris’s chest. Sounding almost impassive, he said quietly, “I’m asking you to keep it together. Don’t give anyone any ammunition. We don’t want to give some whiz kid—or someone with an agenda—an excuse to say you’re acting strangely. I’ve got a hunch some people would just love to pin that little fire on you, then use it as an excuse to get you to a place where no one even heard of Key West. For your own good, of course. To rest. And just to remind you, whatever happens, do
not
say I’m an investigator of any kind, or that I’m working for you.”

“They’re putting that tape everywhere,” Ena said loudly. “Will you look at that? I bet that kid never got a chance to use the stuff before. Looks like he’s playing cat’s cradle or something.”

Ducking the tape, a man in a suit and a straw fedora ran down the front steps and made straight for the group beside the Jaguar. He pointed to the car and said, “I want that out of the way. Now.”

Roy said, “I’d do it if I were you, Romano, old buddy. You’re lookin’ at the law—I can recognize it, y’know, had practice—and he’s prayin’ one of us gives him a reason to slap us in irons.”

“Move it,” the man demanded, and snapped his fingers. Romano’s nonchalant walk to his car must have taken will-power—he was definitely jerky. He got in, gunned the engine, and backed up.

The man in the straw fedora reached Roy, Chris, Ena, and Sonnie. He pushed the hat back on his head and smiled, showing a wide space between his two upper front teeth. “Mrs. Giacano?”

“That’s me,” Sonnie said.

“Detective Kraus,” he said. “I need a word. Alone, please.”

She nodded and followed him under the tape that crossed the end of the driveway now. He took her by the arm and led her closer to the house.

“The fire’s out,” he said. “I understand you’ve been told to spend at least tonight elsewhere. That’s a good idea. You may want to make that more than a night. Because of the odor, if nothing else.”

“I’ve already made arrangements,” she said, starting to relax a little.

“You’ve only been here a few weeks, is that right?”