Chapter One

      REESE HUNKERED DOWN on one knee and burrowed his fingers into a patch of soft golden fur covered by a colorful neckerchief. “You have a good day, buddy,” he said to the Labrador retriever. “Take a couple of naps for me.” Giving the dog a goodbye scratch behind the ears, he walked outside and got into his patrol car. He’d already talked to the dispatcher on duty. The night had been a quiet one. Reese hoped the calm would continue at least for the next three days, at which point a new crop of tourists would descend upon Key West in the four-day Thanksgiving break.

      He’d just backed out of his driveway when a message came through on his radio. Instantly tuning in, he hoped the call from the station would be nothing more important than a request to stop for doughnuts. “This is Reese,” he said into the mic on his shoulder. He preferred using his real name instead of his official police-speak identity when he could. “What’s up?”

      His hope for continued calm evaporated when the dispatcher said, “It’s Huey Vernay, Reese. He’s at it again.”

      Reese gripped the steering wheel in response to the coiling in his stomach. Anything to do with Huey, his trinket business or the happenings at Vernay House produced this reaction. “Did we get another complaint from a tourist about his attitude?”

      “Nope. This is worse.”

      The coiling resulted in an all-too-familiar pain in his neck. “What’s he done now?”

      “Edna Howell just called. She said Huey started another fire in his backyard and the smell came over her fence. She claims that if she opens her windows, she’ll suffocate from toxic fumes.”

      “Here we go again,” Reese muttered as he turned onto Duval and headed toward Southard Street, where the ten-room Vernay House had stood since the late 1850s. He leaned out the window, caught a whiff of burning rubber. “Shit.”

      “What’s that?” the dispatcher asked.

      “Sorry, Merlene. Call the fire department. I’m only a couple of blocks from Huey’s now. I’ll go on over.”

      “Roger that, Reese. Do you need backup?”

      As much as he’d like to foist the responsibility on anyone else in the department who would take it, he declined. He didn’t see flames shooting into the air, so that was a good sign. “Probably not. But I’ll want a half bottle of aspirin when this is over, so make sure we have some.”

      The dispatcher chuckled before signing off, and Reese gave up hope of filling his thermal mug with coffee from Martha’s Eye Opener Café. He flipped the switch on the car’s light bar and sped toward Southard Street.

      REESE PULLED TO A STOP in the plume of smoke drifting over the wraparound porch of Vernay House. He got out of the cruiser and waved his hand in front of his face to dispel the foul air. Walking around to the backyard, he spied Huey Vernay standing upwind from a smoldering pit of who knows what. Thank goodness the flames that still existed were minor, but acrid gray clouds hung over the old Classic Revival mansion.

      Reese strode to the big man, who was bare-chested except for the apron of his denim overalls. Smudges of soot blotched his face and arms.Atypical scowl creased his face.

      “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Huey?” Reese asked.

      The man took a drag on the stub of his cigarette and released a long, wispy stream of smoke. He flicked the butt to the dirt and ground it in with the heel of his boot. Looping his thumbs through the straps of his overalls, he said, “What’s it look like?”

      Reese wanted to say, Insanity, but refrained, knowing that answer was too close to the truth.

      Huey raised his bushy white eyebrows in the condescending smirk he’d perfected after years of boasting about his blue-blooded-Louis-the-Something background. Genetically speaking, French ancestry, even ties to royalty,