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We stepped out of Coyote Lick, and Ortega promised, “We’ll make sure there are regular patrols by your house.”
“Why?” Baker asked. “She didn’t like it when I was outside her house waitin’ on Michelangelo.”
“Come on. I’m sorry,” I told him.
“Good. You ought to be sorry,” he said.
When I grinned, he gave me a stern look and asked, “What the hell you so happy about?”
I just shook my head, not bothering to explain that Ortega had told me to expect a fuck you if I apologized. What I got was a lot nicer.
The promise of regular patrols did the trick, and I slept surprisingly well. After following Ricky Stephens to work and hitting the gym, I decided a little sun was needed, so my next stop was the beach instead of the office. At my house, I stripped down, put on my sunflower-yellow bikini, and threw on a sleeveless San Marco University tee over that. I put the Virgil Flowers book in my beach bag, filled a water bottle, and stepped out my door to find myself face-to-face with a woman. She wore a dark-gray suit with slacks, dark sunglasses, and a tie. Her hair was cut short with precision, like her stylist had measured each single hair with a ruler. One second, her arms were at her side. In the next, she held up a billfold that displayed an ID on one side and an FBI badge on the other. I figured she practiced that move in front of a mirror.
“Special Agent Janet Davis,” she said in a deep, clipped voice.
“Beach-bound Lise Norwood,” I answered.
“Analise Norwood?” she questioned, as if Lise and Analise were worlds apart.
“Uh-huh, that’s still me.”
In one quick movement, her billfold disappeared into her suit. “We understand that you’ve been assisting the San Marco PD in the recent murders?”
I put down my beach bag. “As a consultant. I have an arts history background.”
“We know.”
“And as the killer left his victims in poses replicating famous sculptures, they used me to tell them which ones. Except for that last one—her body was based on a painting.”
The special agent’s left eyebrow rose in an arc over the top of her sunglasses.
“Which you already know.”
Special Agent Janet Davis reached up to resituate her sunglasses, which might have slipped a whole micro-millimeter. “We’ve taken over the case, and your services will no longer be needed. However, since you have been given two photos by the person responsible, we consider that a direct threat and will have an agent watching you at all times.”
It was instinctual for me to reply with a smartass zinger. However, I admitted to Davis, “Thanks, I’ll feel better having you around. Though I’m bummed about not working the case anymore. If something comes up and you need my—”
Davis shook her head. “Not a possibility. May I see your phone?”
After fishing it out of my beach bag, I handed it to her.
As she tapped in a number, she said, “If anything at all happens, hit this number, and it’ll go right to my phone.” She gave my phone back, and I saw she’d put it as my number one contact. “The others on your surveillance team will provide their numbers during their initial shifts.” She slid her sunglasses down her nose and looked over them with remarkably clear blue eyes. “Let me reiterate, however, that you are no longer doing anything for the case. In any capacity.”
“Okeydokey.”
She stared at me like I’d spoken Greek. “Do you understand?”
Trying to speak in her lingo, I answered, “That’s affirmative, Special Agent Janet Davis.”
As I watched her descend my stairs, I wondered if her time at Quantico had wrung every ounce of humor out of her. It wasn’t until she got in the car at the curb that I realized she was to be the first agent to watch over me.
At the beach, I took off my T-shirt, spread out a towel, and lay on it, closing my eyes. The smell of the salt air and the sound of the surf were intoxicating. I always preferred coming in the morning because it wasn’t as crowded. It might have been early, but it was already a scorcher.
I thought about those murdered girls and my murdered cousin. I was no longer connected to the current investigation, not even as a lowly consultant, and I was only connected to Gracie’s by being a member of the victim’s family. An idea came to me. I wondered if I could get copies of Gracie’s case file since I was related to her. The Panama City PD might have relegated it to cold-case status, but I wondered how far I could get if I took a run at it. My aunt and uncle were still alive, and I knew they were still distraught their daughter’s killer had never been brought to justice.
Even if I did go ahead with it, I would have to wait until I was finished with The Floating Ballerina case. I was eager to call Alden Whitt, the black-market art dealer Adolph had contacted, but I worried that if I seemed impatient, it would make him doubly suspicious. On the other hand, I didn’t want to wait too long in case information about the sketch was already in the pipeline. It was a balancing act, but my gut feeling told me to wait another few days then call him.
Still, Michelangelo kept coming to mind, and I was thankful the FBI was watching over me. However, I was sorry that the first special agent I’d met had a stick so firmly embedded up her backside that her burps smelled like pine. I sat up and waved back toward the dunes, where Davis sat in the sand, suit jacket off, tie pulled down, and sleeves rolled up. It was hard to tell with her sunglasses on, but her mood didn’t seem to be a happy one. Must suck being so hot, I thought as I rolled over and got the Virgil Flowers book out of my beach bag.
***
THE TIME I PUT IN TRAILING Ricky Stephens was long, but Special Agent Janet Davis worked in shifts with two other agents, Mark Carter and Kyle Teague, each taking eight hours. While I had enjoyed making Davis sweat at the beach, I didn’t go out of my way to make things difficult for them for the next few days. When at my house, they stayed in their car at the curb. At my office, they stayed in the parking lot. I brought them the occasional coffee and snack.
That morning, I’d picked up a coffee cake at Genelle’s, a bakery and coffee shop that was on the way to my office. I ran a piece out to Teague, and while we chatted, I found out he was from Columbus, Ohio, where his father and mother both taught at Ohio State. A proud Buckeye, he loathed the Florida Gators, loved the beaches, and tolerated the heat and humidity. He could have been the poster boy for an FBI recruitment ad. He was tall—I guessed six two—in optimum condition without bulking out, and had a strong jaw and coffee-dark eyes. My favorite of his features was a lock of his near-black hair that fell over his forehead. I could tell it bothered him; he was constantly brushing it back in place with his hand.
My phone rang, and I told him, “Duty calls,” then headed back in. “Morning, Baker.”
“Those feds still breathing down your neck?”
I liked two out of three of the agents and stuck up for them. “They’re not breathing down my neck.”
“Parked in front of your office?” Baker asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, good. Come out your back door. We want to talk to you.”
“You’re here?” I asked, but Baker had hung up.
I went down the hallway that led out the back door. Sure enough, Baker and Ortega sat in a dark unmarked car. I opened a backdoor and climbed in. “If I’d known you were dropping by, I’d have picked up more coffee cake.”
“The feds tell you anything about the case?” Baker asked.
“Other than to stay out of it, they’ve been tight-lipped.”
Baker chuckled. “When did you start listening to anyone when they tell you what to do?”
“It’s kind of hard when they have people watching over me.”
“We’re still working it,” Ortega said.
“Officially?”
“Unofficially,” Baker said. “And it’s nice without having everyone from the mayor to the captain to the DA’s office trying to micromanage us. Now the DA can be a pain in the butt to the feds.”
“What’s your boss have to say about that?”
“The key word is unofficially.”
“We work the cases assigned us and squeeze in working Michelangelo where we can,” Ortega said.
“Good for you,” I said and meant it. “How’s it going?”
Baker said, “There’s been another murder.”
“What? When?”
“Sometime last night,” Ortega said. “She was found early this morning at her place of employment. We’re not supposed to know a thing about it.”
“Another pose?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Baker said, “but this time, it’s not a sculpture or a painting he’s copying.”
“What then?” I asked.
Baker brought up a photo on his cell phone and passed it back to me. The brunette corpse had been forced into a pose I was all too familiar with.
“A sketch,” Ortega said.
She’d been posed exactly like The Floating Ballerina.