Motor Mouth (Alex Barnaby 2)

We pushed through the doors and found a table on the patio that overlooked the pool and the ocean. Probably the dog wasn’t allowed here, but no one was going to tell that to the bitch Huevo. She put the dog bag on her lap and swiveled in my direction, opening the bag a little. “This is Itsy Poo,” she said. “She’s three years old, and she’s the best little girl.”

Itsy Poo popped up and looked at her mistress, and Huevo made an instant transformation from bitch woman to gaga googoo dog mommy.

“Isn’t she the best?” Huevo asked Itsy Poo. “Isn’t she the cutest? The sweetest? Isn’t she mommy’s darling?”

Itsy Poo’s eyes bugged out of her tiny head and she vibrated with excitement. She was a miniature something, small enough to sit in a woman’s hand. Sort of rat size but not that much muscle. Her mousy brown hair was long but not especially full. If Itsy Poo were a woman, she’d be on Rogaine. The hair on her head was pulled into a topknot and tied with a tiny pink satin ribbon.

I tentatively stuck my hand into the bag, and Itsy Poo cuddled into it. She was in a nest made from a cashmere shawl. She was warm, and her scraggly hair was as soft as a baby’s breath.

“Wow,” I whispered, genuinely taken with the dog. “She’s so silky. So pretty.”

“She’s mommy’s baby. Isn’t she? Isn’t she?” Huevo gurgled at the dog.

A waiter approached the table, Mommy Huevo partially closed the bag, and Itsy Poo settled herself into her cashmere.

“Martini, dry,” Huevo told the waiter. “Three of them.”

“Iced tea,” I said.

The widow Huevo’s unblinking eyes fixed on me. “Get serious.”

“I have to drive.”

“I can’t sit here drinking martinis with someone nursing an iced tea. How about a margarita? It’s got fruit juice in it. It hardly counts. You can pretend it’s breakfast.” Huevo flicked a glance at the waiter. “Give her a margarita. Cabo Wabo, on the rocks, float the Cointreau.”

A handful of very tan people lounged by the pool. No kids. No one actually in the pool. There was a slight breeze, but the sun was still hot and the temperature was about forty degrees higher than the hotel lobby. I felt the blood pulsing back into my fingertips, felt my nipples relaxing. I removed the sweatshirt and slouched back in my chair. The widow Huevo didn’t slouch. She was at rigid attention, hands clenched on the tabletop.

“So,” I said, “what brings you to South Beach?”

“Business.”

Our drinks arrived, and Huevo belted the first martini back, exhaling when the alcohol hit her stomach.

I extended my hand. “Alexandra Barnaby.”

“Suzanne Huevo.”

Her handshake was firm. Her hands were like ice. Definitely needed another martini.

I raised my margarita glass. “To Itsy Poo.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Suzanne said. And she downed the second martini.

I gave the new blast of alcohol a minute to register, and then I got right to the meat of the matter, because at the rate Suzanne Huevo was slurping martinis, I worried she wasn’t far from incoherent. “Did you happen to know the man who was murdered? I think his name was Huevo.”

“Oscar Huevo. My asshole husband.”

“Omigod, I’m so sorry.”

“Me, too. Someone killed the bastard before I could get to him. I had it all planned out, too. I was going to poison him. It was going to be nice and painful.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding? I was married to that jerk for twenty-two miserable years. I gave him two sons. And I sacrificed and suffered for him. I logged enough hours on the StairMaster to go to the moon twice. I’ve had my thighs sucked out and my lips plumped up. I’ve got enough Botox injected in my face to kill a horse. I’ve got double-D implants and full-mouth veneers. And how does he thank me for my effort? He trades me in for a newer model.”

“No!”

She ate a couple olives. “He was going to. Served me with divorce papers. And then he died before I signed them. How’s that for justice?”