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“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 out here 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, and 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.”
