Agnes and the Hitman Read online

  He was definitely missing something, but since it had happened eighteen years ago, it wasn’t something he cared about. “How many people are coming?”

  “Not that many. About a hundred.”

  “That’s a lot. And half of them are from Maria’s side of the family, right? Fifty Fortunatos? And Maria’s father’s family?”

  “Maria’s father is not around. It’s just the Fortunatos. But it’s not like you think. I know Maria. She’s not a mob princess. Lisa Livia raised her away from all that. She’s just a nineteen-year-old girl in love with a preppie golf course designer who’s got more money than God, and they’re going to have a nice wedding on my lawn and then go have babies dressed in Ralph Lauren. Nobody will be kissing the Godfather’s ring or whatever the hell that is. He’s going to have cake like everybody else and then leave.”

  Shane went very still. “The Don. Michael Fortunato. He’s coming?”

  “He’s Maria’s great-uncle, of course he’s coming.”

  Shane rubbed his head. Fucking Joey. “You didn’t mention that.”

  “Shane, I don’t think the kid last night wanted to take Rhett because the Don is coming. The Don’s never even met Rhett. They don’t move in the same circles.”

  Shane took a deep breath, but then the coffeemaker beeped, and he took a Cranky Agnes mug from a hook under the cabinet and poured out a cup, deciding he’d said enough. “Coffee?”

  Agnes looked over at his cup. “That looks like mud.”

  “I like it strong.” He sipped the brew, heartened by the way it reached up into his brain and pressed go, and then he took his cup back to his seat at the counter, where he had a better view of Agnes, which was the only thing about this mess that was any good at all.

  So there was another question for Joey. After You know anything about that old mob gun at Agnes’s, Joey? and You acquainted with that Thibault family, Joey? and Why did you ask Agnes about Rhett, Joey? he was definitely going to mention You think maybe the Don coming has something to do with this, Joey? Jesus. “Okay, anything else happen this week you want to tell me?”

  “Nope.” Agnes stirred the red pepper in the butter, and the smell made Shane dizzy, sharp and sweet and pungent. Iwant eggs, he thought, and tried to get his mind back on the job.

  “Think harder,” he said. “Anything this week that was out of the ordinary?”

  “Sure, lots.”

  Agnes was driving him crazy with the buttery pepper and sausage smells. She frowned down at the pan as she talked, her cheeks flushed from the heat from the pan, her sweats sticking to her with the humidity, and that wasn’t helping his concentration, either.

  “The baker quit yesterday, so I’m making a wedding cake,” she was saying, “Golf Magazine did a rave article on Palmer’s latest golf course, the Flamingo, calling him a genius of green design, and he’s only twenty-eight, so we’re all very proud. Doyle told me I was going to have to replace the driveway bridge pretty soon or learn to swim, and I told him I have no money and to shore it up with whatever fell off the house next.”

  “Doyle?”

  “Handyman.” Agnes peered over her steamed-up glasses at the pepper. “I moved in and he showed up.” Shane focused. “How long ago?”

  Agnes used the back of her hand to push her glasses back up her nose. “About three months. I don’t think he’s spent them sneaking up on Rhett, if that’s what you’re getting at.” She tipped the eggs into the pepper and butter and then picked up the pan, tilting it so that the egg covered the bottom. Then she looked up. “Listen, nothing out of the ordinary has happened. Well, except for the kid with the gun. And you.”

  The phone rang and she answered it. “Good morning, Reverend Miller. Yes, I’m sure Maria’s a good Christian girl. What?” Agnes scowled, her face twisting behind those big red-rimmed glasses. “Of course she’s been baptized-she’s a Catholic. Yes, I know for sure, I’m her godmother, I was there.” She listened another moment, shaking her head the entire time. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right. You bet. You’re welcome. See you Saturday. Good-bye.” She hung up and said, “Moron,” and turned back to her eggs.

  Shane decided to let that conversation pass. “Okay, let’s go back to the dog. How many people know Rhett is here?”

  “Anybody who read the flyers I put up when I found him on the front porch. Anybody who’s been outhere in the past four months. Anybody who gets the County Clarion.” She stuck a spatula under the slowly cooking egg and lifted it so that the uncooked stuff ran underneath it, concentrating on it as if it were the most important thing in the world.

  “The County what?” Shane said.

  “The County Clarion. The local newspaper. One of the papers that prints my column. I did one on cooking for dogs, and instead of my usual column picture they ran a big one of Rhett and me.”

  Shane sighed. “And you wait until now to mention this.”

  “What? The paper?” Agnes looked up at him. “Big deal. I’m telling you, everybody around here already knew about Rhett. He rides with me in the truck every time I go into town. There’s nobody on the side of the road that hasn’t been hit with his flying spit. He is not a secret.” She picked up the cheese, took a grater from a hook on the wall, and began to grate cheese over the eggs in long pale strips.

  Mozzarella, Shane thought. Memories of Joey’s diner sizzled in his brain. “When did this paper come out?”

  “Yesterday morning.”

  Shane closed his eyes. It was a damn good thing she was cute. “And you didn’t think this was significant?”

  Agnes kept an eye on the cheese and the eggs, and at exactly the right moment, she flipped the omelet over and slid it onto a plate. She took down a knife, halved the omelet with one clean slice, and transferred half onto another plate. Then she piled sausage on both plates, the smell making Shane dizzy with memory and hunger. “No,” she said, handing the plate to him. “Salsa?”

  “Yes, please,” he said, and she went around the counter and put a jar on the table and motioned him over. “So this paper-”

  “Toast, English muffins, or bagels?” she asked as he moved to the table.

  “Muffin,” Shane said, trying not to go headfirst into the omelet. It had looked so simple when she’d made it, but when he cut into it and tasted it, he realized he’d missed some stuff while he’d been making coffee. There were herbs in there or spices or something, and the egg was light-Fluffy, he thought- and the pepper still had crunch to it but was buttery, too. “This is good,” he said without thinking.

  “Thank you.” Agnes sat down across from him with her omelet.

  Then, having waited to show he was tough, he cut into the sausage and tasted it. “Damn.”

  “I know, it’s amazing, isn’t it?” Agnes said. “I don’t know where Joey gets it, but it’s fabulous.”

  Shane put his fork down. Fucking Keyes and memories. He picked up his fork again and began to eat. “So the paper-”

  “Are you suggesting that somebody looked at the picture in the paper and developed a burning desire to own Rhett?” She shook her head. “You didn’t see the picture.”

  “No, but I’d like to.” Shane loaded his fork with omelet and sausage together.

  “I threw mine out, but Joey will have one.”

  The muffin halves popped up from the toaster on the counter behind him, and she stood up to get them, the scent of her mixing with the hot yeasty smell of the muffins, and the buttery, peppery smell of the eggs, and the fat, spicy smell of the sausage, and Shane lost track of where he was in the conversation.

  “What?”

  “The Clarion.” Agnes put a hot muffin in front of him and passed him the butter. “Joey will have one.”

  It was real butter. He’d been pretty sure it was from the smell when she’d cooked his eggs in it, but now he bit into the muffin and the taste exploded in his mouth. A man could get used to food like this. “Okay, was there anything in the article-?”

  Agnes shook her head, her curls bouncing, an
d he stopped talking to watch her. “The article was about making your own dog biscuits. There was nothing about Rhett, the house, or anything else that would make anybody want anything here.”

  He plowed through breakfast in a semi-trance, overwhelmed by the sharpness and the creaminess of it all, which was distractingly like

  Agnes, and then his cell phone vibrated and he pulled it out. The letters that scrolled across the screen were unintelligible groupings of five. Wilson. The real world was calling. So was his breakfast. He put the cell phone away. He’d decode what the world wanted later.

  “More coffee?” Agnes said, and when he nodded, she got the coffeepot and filled both their mugs, leaning closer to him to fill his. She smelled good, he thought. She smelled-he searched in his mind for a word. Delicious.

  He also liked it that she didn’t ask him about the phone or the message.

  A door slammed somewhere in the house, and Shane stood, his gun out.

  Agnes stared at it. “Where did-?” Shane put a finger on her lips.

  She leaned closer and whispered, “It’s probably Doyle.”

  “Why-” Shane began, but then a loud voice with a thick Irish brogue echoed through the house. “Top of the morning, lass.”

  Shane put the gun away just as a hulking man limped into the door from the hall. Probably a boxer in his youth, given the poorly healed broken nose and the old scars crisscrossing his ruddy forehead under his shaggy white hair and bushy beard.

  “Morning, Doyle,” Agnes said. “Want some breakfast?”

  “No thank you, lass, although it’s mighty tempting.” Doyle looked at Shane with piercing blue eyes. “And who is this fine strapping lad?”

  “This is Shane, who is staying with me for a while. Shane, Doyle.”

  “Pleased to meet-” the old man began, and then he caught sight of the tear in the wallpaper to his right and stiffened. “And what in the name of all that’s holy happened here?”

  “Turns out I have a basement. Look.” Agnes went over and pushed on the wall so that the hidden door swung open. “A kid broke in and said, ‘I come for your dog,’ and then he fell into the basement and died.”

  “Saints be,” Doyle said, his joviality gone, and went over to poke his head into the doorway.

  Shane drank the last of his coffee and pushed his chair under the table. “Thank you for breakfast. I’m going into town to see Joey. If you think of anything else, let me know.” He looked around and picked up a piece of paper on the counter, turning it over to find a blank space. “Got a pen?”

  Agnes reached into a cup on the counter by the back door and retrieved a pen. He took it and wrote down his cell phone number and gave it to her, thinking that now four people had it. A crowd. His life was getting complicated.

  “Thank you for the number.” She took the paper, tore it in half, scribbled something on it, and held it out to him. “Here’s my numbers. Home and cell. What about Rhett? Should I keep him inside?”

  Shane took the paper. “No, I’ll take him with me just in case anybody else comes after him.”

  “He likes to hang his head out the window and snort the air,” Agnes said. “Sometimes the snot gets intense.”

  “Great.” Shane whistled to the dog.

  Rhett looked at him as if he’d said a dirty word.

  “Go on, baby,” Agnes said to the dog. “Go with your Uncle Shane. He’s going to take you for a ride.”

  Rhett lumbered to his feet, and Agnes bent to pet him, her sweatpants stretching against her butt again.

  Uncle Shane turned his eyes away and headed for the hall door, Rhett padding obediently behind him.

  He turned back to see Doyle watching him and Agnes standing in the sunlight from the back door, smiling at him surrounded by the scent of coffee and butter and sausage.

  “Did you forget something?” she said.

  Yeah, he thought I forgot this part of Keyes.

  “Be careful today,” he said.

  “You, too,” she said, and he nodded and left.

  Shane had toured Two Rivers the night before, checking to see if anyone had been hiding there, and he checked allthe rooms again before he left, going through the empty, generously sized living and dining rooms on the first floor; the four comfortable if sparsely furnished bedrooms on the second floor, two of them filled with wedding presents; and the two rooms at the top of the narrow stair up to the attics, the front attic rough, but the back, riverside room now a finished bedroom with white woodwork and pale blue walls, the low windows in the half walls softly lighting the big, low, blue-satin duvet-covered bed. It would be nice someday, he thought now, as he double-checked the partially finished bathroom that flanked it. Hell, it was nice now, a lot better than the narrow housekeeper’s cell Agnes was sleeping in.

  Not that he wouldn’t move in there in a second if invited. Breakfast had pretty much sealed that deal.

  He went outside and walked around to the back of Two Rivers, shaking off the well-organized comfort of Agnes’s house. He felt the weight of the phone in his pocket and knew the message from Wilson was waiting and that an attempted dognapping was not his priority, but something was threatening the world that Agnes had created with her hot breakfast and her warm kitchen, and he had to take care of that before he went back to his own world.

  Rhett watered the fence around the air-conditioning unit, which gave Shane a chance to see why the house was never cool-a place as big as Two Rivers needed a unit twice that size or at least another same-sized unit-and then the dog snuffled his way to the gazebo, its white wood freshly painted, its red roof neatly patched, one of the few things about the outside of Two Rivers that looked restored. The house was still stately with its double porches and tall columns, but it had been scraped in preparation for painting and it looked like it had a bad case of house mange.

  He heard heavy footsteps behind him and turned, hand instinctively going for his gun, but he stopped when he saw it was Doyle lumbering toward him.

  “Specialplace, isn’t it?”

  “It’s something,” Shane agreed, moving on toward the river. “Special woman, our Agnes,” Doyle said, moving with him. “She’s something,” Shane said, moving on faster. “You be staying long?” Doyle asked, catching up. “Long as it takes.”

  “To do what?” Doyle said, and Shane thought of Agnes on that blue bed upstairs and moved on before the old man could read his mind.

  He stepped up onto the dock, which creaked ominously, and looked back at Two Rivers, ringed on three sides by tidal marsh and the deep waters of the Intracoastal and the Blood, cut off from the forested land on the farthest side by an inlet, the ancient bridge its only link to the road out. It was beautiful but isolated. Like Agnes-

  “So how long will you be staying?”

  Shane sighed. “Who would break in to steal the dog, Doyle?”

  Doyle blinked at him. “That dog? Nobody.”

  “Somebody did. Who would want to hurt Agnes?”

  Doyle scowled. “Nobody. Everybody likes-”

  “Somebody did. I’ll be staying until I find out what’s going on. If you don’t like it, take it up with Agnes.” He turned and walked along the edge of the property until he could see the bridge ahead to his right. He heard the sound of cars and moved to where he could see the road but be hidden by the foliage, his hand drifting toward the butt of his pistol.

  Two cars appeared, a big white Lexus leading the way, followed by a baby blue ‘80s-era Cadillac. They crept over the wooden bridge and even at this distance, Shane could hear the creak of protests from the bridge supports. Both cars stopped in front of the house, and the driver’s door on the Cadillac opened first.

  A curvy little platinum blonde wearing a fluttery blue dress got out and surveyed the place like she owned it, her hands on her hips. She turned and looked in his direction, and he recognized her despite the years: Brenda Fortunato. She was still a beauty, passing for early forties in full sunlight even though she had to be in her fifties. S
he tilted her head as she looked at the house, and she did not look thrilled, possibly because with most of its paint scraped off, Two Rivers looked like hell.

  The other car door opened, and the driver of the Lexus stepped out. She was tall where Brenda was tiny, trim where Brenda was curvy, pale where Brenda was tan, tailored in beige where Brenda fluttered in blue, low-heeled where Brenda spiked, and she did not put her hands on her hips or look at Two Rivers as if it were hers; she just tucked her purse under her arm, nodded politely to Brenda, looked at the house and winced, and then began to walk toward the wide central steps. She oozed class and money, and Shane thought, Evie Keyes. Mother of the groom and First Lady of Keyes, South Carolina. Which was pretty much like being Queen of the Landfill, as far as he was concerned.

  Then Agnes came out the front door and down the steps with a tray of drinks, dark curls bouncing and red-rimmed glasses sliding down her nose again, wearing some kind of red dress with straps that tied on her shoulders and a skirt that whipped around her legs in the breeze, and Shane’s thoughts jumped track until she led the other two women around the side of the house to the gazebo.

  Agnes had damn good legs. And a great back. One pull on those ties- And she’d smiled at him, standing there in the morning sunlight. Might have been an invitation. Might not have been, too. Probably should make sure before he started untying things.

  “You be a watchful sort of fellow,” Doyle said from behind him.

  “Shouldn’t you be painting?”

  “Shouldn’t you be doing something someplace else?”

  Shane considered arguing, but since he was guilty of the thoughts that Doyle suspected him of, he called to the bloodhound and moved away, and Doyle headed back toward the house.

  Rhett padded across the inlet on an old log and immediately lost himself in the palmetto on the other side, and Shane followed, so focused on what might be ahead that when the dog stopped suddenly, he tripped over him and hit the ground just as a branch less than six inches from his head exploded in splinters, the sound of the shot echoing through the vegetation.