“Well, it’s probably nothing, but I just had an odd feel-ing when I saw this person sitting inside a dark car, engine off, lights off,” I said. “I got the tag number.”
“Good for you.” Rose patted my back. “Why am I not surprised?”
16
My shoes seemed loud on the stairs as I left Rose’s apartment, and I was conscious of my handgun when I went out the door into the cold night. The car was gone. I looked around for it as I approached mine.
The parking lot was not well lit. Bare trees made slight sounds that turned ominous in my mind, and shadows seemed to hide fearful things. I quickly locked my doors, looking around some more, and called Marino’s pager as I drove off. He called back right away because, of course, he was in uniform on the street without a damn thing to do.
“Can you run a tag?” I said right off when he answered.
“Lay it on me.”
I recited it to him.
“I’m just leaving Rose’s apartment,” I said, “and I have a weird feeling about this car parked out there.”
Marino almost always took my weird feelings seriously. I was not one to have them often without justification. I was a lawyer and a physician. If anything, I was more inclined to stay inside my clinical, fact-only lawyer’s mind and was not given to overreactions and emotional projections.
“There are other things,” I went on.
“You want me to drop by?”
“I sure would.”
He was waiting in my driveway when I got there, and he awkwardly climbed out of his car because his duty belt got in his way and the shoulder harness he never wore tended to snag him somewhere.
“Goddamn it!” he said, yanking his belt free. “I don’t know how much more I can stand this.” He kicked the door shut. “Piece-of-shit car.”
“How’d you get here first if it’s such a piece-of-shit car?” I asked.
“I was closer than you. My back’s killing me.”
He continued to complain as we went up the steps and I unlocked the front door. I was startled by silence. The alarm light was green.
“Now that ain’t good,” Marino said.
“I know I set it this morning,” I said.
“The housekeeper come?” he asked, looking, listening.
“She always sets it,” I said. “I’ve never known her to forget, not once in the two years she’s worked for me.”
“You stay here,” he said.
“I most certainly will not,” I replied, because the last thing I wanted was to wait here alone, and it was never a good idea for two armed people to be nervous and on guard in different areas of the same space.
I reset the alarm and followed him from room to room, watching him open every closet and look behind every shower curtain, drapery and door. We searched both floors and nothing was the least bit amiss until we went back downstairs, where I noticed the runner in the hallway. Half of it was vacuumed, while the other wasn’t, and in the guest bath right off it, Marie, my housekeeper, had neglected to replace soiled hand towels with fresh ones.
“She’s not absentminded like that,” I said. “She and her husband are supporting young children on very little and she works harder than anyone I know.”
“I hope nobody calls me out,” Marino compláined. “You got any coffee in this joint?”
I made a strong pot with the Pilon espresso that Lucy sent me from Miami, and the bright red and yellow bag made me feel hurt again. Marino and I carried our cups into my office. I logged onto AOL using Ruffin’s address and password and was extremely relieved when I didn’t get bumped off.
“Coast is clear,” I announced.
Marino pulled up a chair and looked over my shoulder. Ruffin had mail.
There were eight messages, and I didn’t recognize who any of them were from.
“What happens if you open them?” Marino wanted to know.
“They’ll still be in the box as long as you save them as new,” I replied.
“I mean, can he tell you opened them?”
“No. But the sender can. The sender can check the status of the mail he sent and see what time it was opened.”