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  Trot wonders what else his mother is right about. Probably everything, he thinks. Gives him the willies.

  “Miss Carlotta?” he says again. He’s nervous. Not sure why he’s so nervous, but when Carlotta walks out of the kitchen it becomes clear. He just needed to see her again. Just wanted to make sure she was really alive, really that beautiful.

  And she is. Without a doubt. At least to him.

  Outside the ghost house, a cloud moves away from the sun and the room is suddenly filled with light. Everything looks silver. Shines. Takes his breath away. Or maybe it’s the bleach. Or maybe Carlotta. It’s hard to tell. His eyes are watering profusely.

  She is so beautiful, he thinks over and over again.

  Carlotta is wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt with so many holes it looks as if it’s made of Swiss cheese. She holds the bleach-soaked mop like a scepter. There’s a fresh crown of passion fruit flowers in her hair. Her pink rubber gloves glow. Her scar is not hidden. In the silvery light it looks more like delicate lace edging her face. Makes her seem even more beautiful.

  Trot is speechless.

  “Nice to see you, Sheriff,” she says, sweetly. Seems to be blushing a little. At least, that’s what Trot hopes.

  He nods. Clears his throat. His mind is blank.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  He nods again. Then, like a newborn, he coughs until he is red-faced. Carlotta suddenly looks alarmed. When he finally catches his breath, “Miss Carlotta,” he says in a voice that he remembers from puberty: two octaves higher than his own, and splintered.

  Not exactly the sort of effect he was going for.

  Carlotta puts a bleached arm around him. “You sure you’re okay?”

  Trot shakes his head, but before he can say anything else, the smell of bleach overwhelms him. Burns in his throat. He starts to cough again. At first, it’s just a tickle. Then it seems as if his lung is about to eject itself.

  Get a grip, he thinks, sweating. This is unprofessional. This is not going well. But Carlotta looks exceedingly concerned, and he likes that.

  “I got some water, hang on,” she says and goes into the kitchen. Comes back out with a half-filled bottle in her hand. “I only took a couple of sips. I hope that’s okay.”

  Perfect, he thinks.

  She wipes the top of the bottle on her T-shirt. Even better.

  Trot now, officially, wants to be that shirt.

  He takes a long drink from the bottle and coughs a few times. Takes another drink. It’s a slow process for Trot to recover from the overdose of her beauty, and the fear it inspires. But when he finally does and finds his voice, he says, “Miss Carlotta, what are you doing here?”

  The question makes her go pale. “I was waiting for Leon.”

  Was.

  She shrugs. Wraps her arms around her shoulders. “I heard the explosion, but . . .” Trails off. Looks away.

  Trot wants to hold her, but can’t. Not professional, he tells himself, and wonders why she stayed out here so long without heat or electricity. But she seems so upset, he’s afraid to ask.

  Truth is this: she stayed because she’s in love.

  She heard the explosion. Saw the flash of light. Watched the fire in the distance. Didn’t move. Of course, she didn’t know it was Leon, but still. She just sat on the cypress porch and watched the stars hang low over the harbor, fat as fruit. Watched the bats as they wove around each other—blind, yet so graceful. Watched the ancient sea turtles lumbered onto shore, uncaring as gods.

  At the time of Leon’s reported demise, Carlotta was falling in love with this place, the ghost house—its pounding surf, its warm taffy salt air.

  As a family of cats walked along the moonlit shore, Carlotta couldn’t imagine ever leaving this place. She’d never been anywhere so wild, and so kind, at the same time. The mother and three kittens were as big as hunting dogs. They had crooked tails, and a cowlick in the middle of their backs. Long Roman noses.

  Panthers, she thought, and remembered that Trot said they could eat you. But it didn’t seem possible. They looked quite sweet as they whistled back and forth to each other. Made little peeping sounds. Every now and then one of the kittens would veer away from the pack and the mother would pick it up by the nape of its neck and carry it back to the others in her teeth. Lick the top of its head. Whistle and coo. Then they would all move on.

  But she doesn’t tell Trot any of this. She can’t. It seems too personal. Besides, now that Leon is dead, she knows she’ll have to leave. The thought pains her. She gets a faraway look in her eyes.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  She shrugs.

  Trot knows he should ask her where she was at the time of the accident—did she hear the explosion—any number of questions that a good sheriff should ask, but he can’t. She is just so beautiful—her crown of passion fruit flowers, the delicate lace of her face—and alive.

  “Need anything?” he says.

  “More bleach.”

  Chapter 24

  It’s Happy Hour and the Blind Brothers’ Blues Band is playing low down and dirty. Jimmy Ray growls, “Don’t send me no doctors cause doctors won’t do me no good.” His eyes are closed. His body sways. He seems to have crawled into the music. It pulses through him.

  The crowd would be his, if there still were a crowd.

  Happy Hour at The Dream Café is usually packed. But at this moment, the only customer left in the place is Jesus. He’s sitting against the back wall beneath the “Hall of Fame” photos, which include a series of sixteen-by-twenty-four full-color candid shots of “Roxy the Rabbit Girl” and “Naughty Nurse Nanci.” Each dancer is captured at the height of her career. Each photo illustrates a set of particular skills.

  The range of limberness is breathtaking.

  But Jesus isn’t looking at the photographs. He’s intent on the band. In the dark, his white sheet glows. The ancient black men, their bones rattling the blues, move in and out of songs with great sorrow and real wisdom. Jesus’ bare feet are tapping. His head nods along. He whistles with the harmonica. He even got up once and did the hand jive—unfortunately the band was playing “Handyman” at the time.

  And so The Café is empty.

  Dagmar, perched at the bar, watched the steady flow of customers out the door. She hoped that it would stop on its own. However, when a bachelor party of twenty left before their orders could be taken, she panicked. She grabbed the man she thought was the groom and said, “Hey! He’s not Jesus, he’s just crazy!”

  Unfortunately, the man did not find this comforting. Nor did anyone else. People then began to push as they fled.

  That was about the time that Bernie, sounding every inch of Irish Catholic with immigrant parents from County Cork that she is, said, “Dagmar, girls told me to tell you that the show’s canceled tonight. They just can’t with him out here.”

  Then she made the sign of the cross.

  Bernie’s match-red hair was still in hot rollers. She held her worn pink chenille bathrobe at the neck so tightly her knuckles were pale. She looked ready for a slumber party, not a strip show. Jesus was singing along with Jimmy Ray. “She was a red-hot hootchie-cootcher! Hi-de-hi-de-hi-di-hi! Ho-de-ho-de-ho-de-ho!”

  “Even Syd the Atheist doesn’t want to go out,” Bernie said.

  Off to the side of the stage, Dagmar could see the cluster of dancers standing in their bathrobes watching Jesus watch Jimmy Ray. Dagmar sighed.

  “Happy Hour’s nearly over,” she told Bernie. “He’ll be gone soon.”

  “So you’re telling me that Jesus just came by for free nachos?”

  Dagmar frowned. “You do know he’s not Jesus, don’t you?”

  Bernie looked confused. “Well, yeah. Of course. I mean—sure. But he’s still leaving, right?”

  “Soon as this set’s over.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  Bernie hesitated. “It’s too bad he’s not Jesus, though. That’d be something, wouldn’t it?” She
sounded wistful.

  “Yes,” Dagmar said, watching him roll his head around to the beat like Little Stevie Wonder. “That would really be something if he was Jesus.”

  On stage, Jimmy Ray now rumbled on. “If my body can’t heal no more. That’s okay; I’ve had my fun.

  “There’s no need to call the doctor, baby. Let’s just get this dying done.”

  The set is finally over. Jimmy Ray disappears. Probably the men’s room, Dagmar thinks, so she walks over to Jesus’ table. “How’s the iced tea?”

  “He doesn’t have much time left,” Jesus says. “Hope you’ve made your peace with him.” Two days and counting, he thinks.

  “You’re not much for small talk, are you?”

  Jesus shrugs, “Just thought you should know.”

  They both watch as Jimmy Ray reappears from backstage to pack up his things. The old man is shaking a great deal. Sweating harder than he should.

  This Jesus guy could be right, Dagmar thinks, and feels a spidery numbness crawl across her chest.

  “I better go help,” Jesus says.

  When he leaves the table, Dagmar takes a plastic bag out of her pocket and uses it to pick up his empty glass. She shakes the ice into a plant. All she needs is the glass for fingerprints.

  Not exactly Buddhist of her, she knows that, but a little caution is in Jimmy Ray’s best interest. Dagmar woke up in the middle of the night suddenly worried. In all the confusion over Leon’s death, she’d forgotten to mention Jesus to Trot. At 2 A.M. it occurred to her that the American Dream showed up the same day Jesus did. And Trot is worried about these Levi people who could be missing. So, even though the Jesus guy seems harmless, Dagmar knows it’s better to check it out. Drop the glass by Trot’s office.

  It’s the right thing to do, but Dagmar still feels guilty. Jimmy Ray really likes the man. Seems happier when he’s around. She knows that as soon as she gives the glass to Trot, he’ll play cop. Probably haul Jesus in for questioning on general principles. Then Jimmy Ray will give her the “bad Buddhist lecture” and be icy for at least a week.

  Unless I don’t tell Trot the real story about the prints, she thinks. I could say they belonged to some guy who drove away without paying. Make it seem like it’s a favor. He’d buy that. Trot always believes me.

  She looks back at the stage, and Jesus and Jimmy Ray are joking like old friends. They see her watching them and they both wave, arms around each other like Siamese twins. Then laugh. The guilt grinds her, but that’s not uncommon. Everyone Dr. Ricardo Garcia encounters always feels a little guilty when they first suspect he’s a murderer. It’s only natural. He really isn’t a bad guy, as far as serial killers go. He means well. People sense that. He wants to do what’s right. And he’s very helpful. Sure, he kills people. But he has manners, elegant manners. He knows his salad fork from the dessert. His parents made sure of it.

  As a child, Dr. Ricardo Garcia was given all the best life had to offer. His father, Dr. Luis Garcia, was a wildly successful plastic surgeon in predominately white St. Petersburg, Florida. His mother, Maria Garcia, was a family practice doctor.

  The Garcias were an attractive, popular family. They lived in a barrel-tiled Spanish house on a deep-water canal in the old money Snell Isle neighborhood. The country club district was well known for red brick streets that wrap genteelly around Coffeepot Bayou and flood in high rains—but flood with all the style that money can buy. They played tennis often. To the outside world, the Garcias were a successful prominent Cuban American family.

  There was only one problem—they were actually Polish.

  Luis and Maria, born Boguslaw and Jadwiga, were olive-skinned Poles who immigrated to this country right before Ricardo was born. They came to America for money. And sunshine. It was a fairly easy transition for them. They were successful doctors in Krakow and spoke many languages, including Spanish. They were also politically connected—and quite skilled at blackmail—so a diplomat who had a fondness for cross-dressing and small farmyard animals magically transferred their medical licenses. He extended them diplomatic immunity and made them the official physicians for the consulate in Miami. No further schooling or medical training was required.

  The only snag came when a low-level immigration officer wondered “Why on this good green Earth” would someone from Poland want to change his or her name to “Garcia.”

  “It’s like exchanging one problem for another. If you’re going to change your name at all, most like “Smith.” Something neutral like that,” she offered. “Or “Brown.” Or “Eisenhower.” Everybody likes Ike.”

  The idea of taking the name of the then-current president did have a momentary appeal. However, in textbook Spanish, Luis said, “My wife wants to live in Florida. How many successful Polish doctors do you know in Florida?”

  And so the Garcias came to be. They never stepped foot in Miami, but moved to St. Petersburg because it had the fewest Cubans in the entire state. They wanted to refine their newly acquired ethnic heritage without question.

  The scheme worked well until Ricardo turned ten years old, and Maria decided it was time to tell her son of their secret Polish heritage. Hoping to make her child understand the difficulty of their decision, she attempted to ease the shock with a meal that her mother used to make back in Poland.

  With great love and devotion, Maria/Jadwiga explained each of the seven courses in both English and Polish. There was borscht made with cabbage and sausage; Kielbasa, a garlic sausage, served on a bed of sweet and sour red cabbage; cabbage rolls stuffed with sausage and mashed potatoes, and, of course, perogis, moon-shaped raviolis stuffed with mashed potatoes, cabbage, and sausage, then served with a white cream sauce. There were also herrings in cream sauce and sauerkraut with caraway seeds. And potato pancakes with chives. And lots of butter. And lots of sour cream. And three kinds of poppy seed cake for dessert.

  It was July. The temperature was ninety-eight degrees with 98 percent humidity. It was also the 1960s—a time when air-conditioning was an inexact science.

  “This was Sunday dinner in Krakow when I was a girl,” his mother explained with a homesick lilt to her voice.

  For a boy who grew up teething on mangos (“This is how we did it in Havana,” his mother would tell her Snell Isle neighbors), the food of his real ethnic heritage had a profound impact on both his psyche and digestive system.

  Ricardo spent the better part of two days doubled over in the bathroom.

  The only comforting thought for the boy was that this revelation finally explained the unsettling first memory of his parents rocking him to sleep at night singing the “I Don’t Want Her You Can Have Her She’s Too Fat for Me” polka.

  Still, the family secret gnawed at him. Eventually Ricardo found himself listening to Liberace and Bobby Vinton. He surreptitiously read everything he could about famous Poles like Fredric Chopin, Madame Curie, and the Polish American baseball great Stan Musial.

  After a while, the pressure became too great. He began hearing voices. He began taking risks. He developed a fondness for mashed potatoes, poppy seed pastry, and plum preserves. On his twenty-first birthday, after being awarded a Harvard Medical School fellowship designed for Cuban refugees, he bought himself a button accordion.

  And so, in the dead of night, urged on by voices only he could hear, he lurked in the alleyways of Harvard Square practicing such polka greats as the Flying Dutchmen’s massive hit, “In Heaven There Is No Beer.”

  The double life had just become too much.

  Chapter 25

  There is something about the sight of Grover Cleveland in a tutu that would unhinge even the most sanguine man. But two hundred and fifty of them, prancing, hairy-chested in pink, were an embarrassment of psychotic riches. Plus, they were performing “Swan Lake.” Over and over again. It wasn’t a pretty delusion, but it was persistent. The only consolation for Leon was that Grover was a mighty fine dancer, even when multiplied to the two hundred fiftieth power. He hung in the air, seemingly magic
al. Effortless. Amazing.

  Hospital drugs, Leon thought. Dang cool.

  But Leon knew it was just about time to leave. After nearly a week in the hospital, and after being proclaimed Bee-Jesus by the news wire services (“Bewildered Bee-Jesus Be Found on Christmas Day”), and the apparition of the Virgin Mary—everything changed.

  It rained. The Virgin Mary washed away.

  Suddenly, the crowds of believers thinned. Nurse Becker decided to go back to the night shift. But that was all okay with Leon. He’d be happy if everybody left him alone. He liked lying in the clean white room drifting in and out of the puzzle of his life.

  The only true believer who was left was Sam, who rolled in twice daily, often bringing gifts like old copies of Sports Illustrated that he’d stolen from the waiting room.

  “Feel a miracle coming on?”

  Leon had grown attached to the boy. Knew he would miss him when he went home—wherever the heck that was. The details of Leon’s previous life were still a little fuzzy. A tiny voice in the back of his head kept saying, “Home is where the Clevelands are,” but Leon couldn’t imagine living in Cleveland. When he tried to imagine the city, all he could conjure up was a bitterly cold football stadium filled with people wearing stuffed brown dogs on their heads like hats—and barking.

  He preferred two hundred and fifty Grover Clevelands dancing Swan Lake.

  But he knew he’d have to figure it out soon. Little by little, the doctor was weaning him from the drugs. Soon, the tutued Clevelands would become a somewhat fond memory, and Leon would be out in the street. Or, worse yet, locked up in some state hospital like Chattahoochee—at least that’s what Nurse Becker had told him.

  “That’s the Florida Asylum for the Insane,” she explained sweetly. “But don’t you worry, they haven’t had nobody die from bilious dysentery in a very long time.”

  Facts like this made it difficult to concentrate. And all the interruptions—if it wasn’t the dancing Clevelands with their hairy tree-stump legs effortlessly pirouetting, it was that National Examiner reporter Harlan Oakley.