“Evenin’ Mace,” he said.

I waved. As I turned to leave, I noticed Maddie looking at her husband with pure love in her eyes. It might have been the pie, but I didn’t think so. She put a hand on my arm before I stepped out the door.

“You better straighten up, Mace. Maybe your relationship with Carlos isn’t perfect. No relationship is. But if a man makes you happy and treats you right, that’s as close to true love as you’re likely to get. Don’t screw it up.”

As I rolled down the unpaved drive to my little cottage, an owl hooted from a fencepost as if to welcome me home. A thousand stars lit the midnight sky. The beams from the headlights on Pam’s ancient VW bounced across the yard, catching a couple of raccoons loping away into the woods.

“Thieves!” I yelled after them.

My nemeses had returned, foiling an elaborate brick-and-bungee-cord garbage protection system. Cantaloupe rinds and chicken bones littered the grass; an empty potato chip bag tumbled across the driveway as the car passed by. I imagined constructing a raccoon-proof concrete garbage vault, complete with a steel top too heavy for them to lift. If I ever figured out how to foil the masked bandits, I could get a job as a government consultant on how to safeguard our borders from evil-doers.

Garbage cleanup could wait until the morning. I parked the car, threw a tarp over its broken convertible top, and made my way to the front door.

Once inside, I saw the red light blinking on the answering machine. I tossed the keys to the VW along with my own set into the gaping jaws of a preserved gator head I keep on my coffee table.

“Did you miss me, Al?” I said to the taxidermist’s specimen.

The gator and I had been on close terms once, since I helped wrestle him out of the pool of a newcomer who hadn’t pictured a ten-foot reptile with seventy-five razor-sharp teeth as a guest at his swimming parties.

Wila stalked out of my bedroom, making Siamese noises, which meant she sounded like a whole alley full of cats.

“Hush, Wila.” I scratched under her neck and on her back near her tail the way she likes. “I know I’ve been away all day. I know I’m a bad mama. And you’re right, a human child probably would have walked out on me by now.”

Meowr.

“It could be worse. If you were a little bit bigger, I’d set you on those damned raccoons outside.”

Meowr.

“Nah, I’m just kidding, baby. I didn’t save you just to see you come to harm.”

I shot a guilty look at Al, who had the bad luck of being classified as a nuisance gator after he got a little too used to being around people. That meant he could be trapped and killed, his hide and meat sold for profit.

“Sorry about that, buddy. There are just too many of you in places that used to be wild, aren’t there?”

Al didn’t answer. But I felt that beady glass eye of his judging me.

I added a little canned cat food to the dry stuff that Wila won’t eat unless she’s starving. It’s about time, her body language said.

Pressing the play button on the answering machine, I turned on the AC, shrugged out of my T-shirt and paced off the dozen or so steps from my living room to the bedroom of the tiny cottage. The first message sounded just as I tossed the dirty shirt into the clothes basket in the corner. The voice was pure Ivy League.

“I had a great time tonight,” Tony said. “I hope you did, too.”

Yeah, except for seeing my alleged boyfriend having a rendezvous with some gorgeous mystery woman, it was a lot of fun.

“I read in the Himmarshee Times about a rodeo next month at the Agri-Civic center. I’d really like to go, and I could use a local guide. Would you like to come with me?”

Hmmmmm. Maybe I would.

He went on about how he’d always wanted to see a real rodeo, how he couldn’t even believe they had rodeos in Florida, and how I’d have to tell him what was appropriate to wear. That was easy: Wrangler blue jeans, no matter how hot the temperature is. Nothing pegs an outsider faster than wearing Bermuda shorts and man sandals to the Himmarshee rodeo.

I had to give Tony credit. He seemed to really be trying to learn the way of life down here. Not like a lot of newcomers, who move South only to complain about how everything is different than it was up North.

Isn’t that the point?

The next message was one I’d saved earlier, when I called from my office to check the machine. There weren’t enough hours in my workday to listen to the whole thing.

“Mace, honey, this is Rosalee. Your mama.”

Mama always became oddly formal when she talked to the answering machine. I think she pictured it as a secretary, painstakingly writing down each message that came in.

“I was just thinking about our fitting tomorrow morning. Could you please not wear your boots? Obviously, those are fine for tromping through the swamp the way you do. But they’ll just ruin the drape of your bridesmaid gown.”

I doubted that lime-sherbet nightmare could get any worse, boots or not.

I slipped out of my jeans, brushed my teeth, and washed my morning coffee cup. Mama prattled on past the machine’s thirty-second warning, discussing the wedding favors again, telling me about a distant cousin who’d called and shamelessly invited herself to the wedding, asking whether I thought Alice would still want to come to the shower, considering what happened.

“I want to do the right thing, Mace. But, honestly, do you think a woman who just lost her husband to a crazed killer with a knife would want to sit there playing shower games?”

I wondered whether Mama was protecting Alice’s feelings or the party atmosphere. She finally began to wrap it up,

“Anyhoo … oh, yeah, there was something I wanted to tell you about C’ndee …”

Just as Mama was about to impart some news that might have been of actual interest, the machine cut her off. She probably had blabbed, unaware she’d exceeded the time limit until she heard the dead line. I had half a mind to call her back and wake her up to finish the message.

But it was beyond late now. I wouldn’t call her back tonight, or Tony either. In fact I might not return his call at all. I remembered what Maddie had said in the foyer at her house. What was I playing at?

I didn’t want to dwell too long on that question, as I had no answer. Instead, I took a shower so I wouldn’t have to bathe in the morning. I was surprised when I got out and saw the light blinking again. I hit the button to play the new message.

“It’s Sal. Sorry to call so late, but I need to talk to you. Call me tonight, no matter what time you get in.”

I immediately dialed the number he’d left. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine. But your mudder told me you two went out tonight with Tony Ciancio.”

“So?”

“You need to be careful with that guy, Mace.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to go into a lot of details.”

“Well, he’s C’ndee’s nephew,” I said. “She’s close to him and you’re close to her. I figured Tony was okay.”

“You’re right. I do like C’ndee. She was my late wife’s cousin. But she don’t have good sense sometimes. She married young, and got herself involved with the wrong family.”

“Tony’s family?”

There was a long pause on the phone. “Just watch yourself,” Sal finally said. “Tony Ciancio could charm the underpants off a Puritan.”