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“I did,” Vivian said in barely a whisper.
“You didn’t say who you were,” Spike said to Errol’s partner.
The man fumbled to produce his badge. “Wiley. Frank Wiley.”
“Good to meet you,” Spike said and deliberately raised his voice a notch when he added, “Spike Devol. I’m Deputy Sheriff over in Toussaint and thereabouts.”
Errol had actually been too pumped up with showing how important he was to notice Spike in civilian clothes. He noticed him now. “I forgot to ask you on the phone. What the fuck you doin’ here, Devol? You know what I said I’d do to you if I caught you messin’ in my territory.”
“Aw, that’s nice of you Errol, but I wouldn’t hear of you putting yourself out,” Spike said, making sure his face didn’t show what he was thinking. “Good evening to you. I’m a guest here. Just happened to show up on a bad night.” He didn’t want trouble in front of Vivian and Charlotte—or Cyrus for that matter.
Errol’s mustache, which stuck straight out to begin with, bristled and brought unpleasant memories back to Spike. Errol said, “You seen the body?” Suspicion narrowed his eyes.
“Yes. As she already told you, Miss Vivian Patin here found it when she was looking for her dog. Then she called in here for help.” Might as well get the first round of rage over. He angled his head at Louis’s phone in the plastic bag and said, “I went out. That’s the victim’s cell phone. The rose is also from the scene.”
Errol’s chubby hand settled on his notebook and he looked from the phone to Spike. If possible, his face turned an even deeper shade of puce and puffed up. “I hope you’re tellin’ me the victim was in this house and left that behind,” he said.
“No,” Vivian said in a firmer voice. “He was on his way here but never arrived.”
Cyrus stepped forward and extended a hand. “I’m Father Cyrus Payne, Detective. St. Cécil’s in Toussaint. The unfortunate dead man is Mr. Louis Martin from New Orleans. He’s a lawyer and deals with Charlotte and Vivian Patin’s affairs.”
Errol sneered and managed to convey a “who asked you and who cares about the small stuff?” expression. “I was,” he said, “asking how that phone got into this house.”
“It was in Louis’s briefcase,” Vivian said in a rush, ignoring Spike’s attempted signals to keep quiet. “I’d left my phone in here and I figured he had to have one somewhere. I couldn’t leave his body, could I? I found the phone in his briefcase which wasn’t an easy thing to do because his head was resting on the case and his throat has been cut so there’s a lot of slippery blood around. And Louis’s head is heavy.”
She caught her breath and swallowed loudly enough for Spike to hear.
“I did put the briefcase back in pretty much the position I found it.” Her speech slowed and she blinked rapidly. “Um, I don’t suppose I should have touched anything but I could only think of getting help. There’s a kiss on his face—made with blood, I think.”
Charlotte backed up and sat on the bottom step of the stairs. She held her throat.
Vivian rushed on as if she was bent on making things as bad as possible for herself. “Now I think of it, I do think the killer may have taken something out of the briefcase because the only thing in there was a folder with our name on it and a single piece of paper in it, an agreement for us to sign, inside. And the phone, of course. There was supposed to be something else, or we expected something else, but it wasn’t there.” She paused for breath again and frowned. “The phone could have been touched by the murderer then, couldn’t it? Oh, dear.”
“Wiley,” Errol said softly. “Call for some backup—including a female officer. Stay here until the others show up. We need a search warrant.”
“Why?” Spike said. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”
“I run a tight ship. Unlike you, I cover all my bases—officially. But since you’re here, I’m goin’ to ask you to do some scut work, Devol. Might make things go easier on you. Call and arrange a search warrant. Tell ’em we got a body outside and the deceased’s cell phone—covered with his blood—in the house. We gotta make sure there ain’t no more of his effects mysteriously hanging around here.”
Spike opened his mouth to tell Errol…to remind him that Spike wasn’t paid by anyone in Iberia anymore. Instead he said, very carefully, “They aren’t going to take that request from me—even if I was prepared to make it. Don’t you think you might want to start at the crime scene? You know, the one where there’s a body, and get things taken care of there?”
“Wiley, don’t let these people out of your sight,” Errol snapped. “Devol, I’ll speak to you outside.”
“By all means,” Spike said. If Errol wanted a fight it could take place outside, away from Vivian and Charlotte. Cyrus was a different matter; he was no stranger to violence, but he was needed with the women.
Before Spike and Errol could get to the door, the wheels of another vehicle crunched to a halt in front of the house, a door rattled open and shut, and fleet footsteps rushed to the steps.
L’Oiseau de Nuit, locally known as Wazoo, whirled her small, black-clad body into the hallway. Spike groaned but Cyrus thumped him on the back and said, “‘Evenin’, Wazoo. What brings you this way?”
Wazoo, arms extended to make the best of trailing filmy sleeves, allowed her eyelids to droop and made unintelligible sounds. A flamboyant medium from New Orleans who had descended on Toussaint a little more than a year ago, she had set up permanent shop in the twelve-room Majestic Hotel where, according to local gossip, business boomed.
“The sight,” she said, opening her dark eyes and looking intently at Errol Bonine. “A blessin’ and a curse I’m tellin’ you. Death am here. I felt it—and maybe saw a thing or two—and I come right here to do what I the only one can do. I need to talk with him on the other side now.”
“Go home, lady,” Errol said. “Do it before I change my mind about letting you leave at all. Just climb on your broom and fly away.” He made flapping motions with one hand.
Promptly, Wazoo descended to sit cross-legged on the floor with her many-layered dress floating about her. “I feel evil in the house,” she said. “I must stay to protect the innocent.”
“Shee-it,” Errol said with great feeling. “Devol, make yourself useful and call the station for more backup. Wiley’s got his hands full.”
“Dial on the way to the scene,” Spike said, walking out of the door. “You’ll have seen lights being set up when you arrived so you know where it is.”
“I told you to make a call.”
Spike smiled engagingly. “You know the number, I’ve forgotten it.”
He glanced back at Vivian who gave him a pretty encouraging smile for a woman who had a right to feel she’d joined the circus, and he warmed up around the knots of anger that were eating him up.
Chapter 5
Cyrus had pinned Errol Bonine’s partner as a man who would do whatever he was told, but he’d been wrong. As soon as Spike left with Bonine the younger detective withdrew a distance from everyone else. And Wiley, a lithe brown-haired man with a thoughtful face, showed no intention of continuing Bonine’s badgering ways.
Evidently Charlotte had come to a similar conclusion. She said, “There’s hot coffee in the kitchen. Would anyone like some? You, Detective Wiley?”
A smile turned him into a pleasant and engaging man. “I would be forever in your debt, ma’am.” When Charlotte turned away, Wiley said, “Why don’t we all go into the kitchen?”
Everyone, including Wazoo, did as he suggested and Cyrus doubted any one of them resented Wiley tipping his hat to his partner’s instructions to watch over all of them.
Cyrus walked behind Wazoo and when he saw the opportunity, caught her by the arm and turned her gently toward him.
She looked at his hand on her arm. “You don’t wanna do that, God man. Your magic not strong enough to fight with mine. Could be, I hurt you without meaning to.” She looked directly into his face and he realized again that she couldn’t be more than thirty-five or so and without the bizarre getup, she’d be a pretty woman. For an instant her eyes were unfocused, then she said, “Kisses of blood,” and dropped her head back to send up thin moans, “the devil’s work.”
With his free hand, Cyrus moved her tangled hair, revealing a wire running from an earpiece, undoubtedly to a radio hidden somewhere on her person. “Get pretty good reception on that thing, do you? It’s probably a big help to your magic and invaluable when you need to see the exact location of bad news.”
“You don’ know what you sayin’. L’Oiseau de Nuit jest helpin’ out, me. People are grateful for that.”
Cyrus waved her ahead of him to the kitchen thinking, and there goes voodoo’s answer to an ambulance chaser.
Chapter 6
Spitting tacks without moving your face took talent. On the other hand, Spike thought his face might crack if he twitched a muscle, that and he’d start spilling what he thought of Errol Bonine.
“Never saw such a screw-up,” Errol told the gathering in the kitchen.
Spike caught Frank Wiley’s eye and did his best to ease up on the rage when the man winked at him.
“Crime scene folks are out there now. Reckon it’ll take ’em forever and it don’t help that just about every-thin’s been handled.” He eyeballed not Charlotte, but Vivian, and said, “I’m gonna be talkin’ to you and everyone else here for a few hours, then I’ll give you a break tonight but things are gonna get hot and heavy in the mornin’—late mornin’ on account of I got other duties first.”
Drinking and sleeping, Spike thought.
Vivian nodded but didn’t speak to Bonine.
“I don’t want any of you gettin’ the idea I’m thinkin’ you’re a suspect. Reckon all we got here is a random situation and we’ll never find out who did it.”
Spike chewed his tongue. He’d heard Errol spout the same advance excuses for his own incompetence before. A man who just wanted to pose and draw a paycheck didn’t cotton to the kind of hard work that went into successful investigations.
“Could be somethin’ else, but I doubt it. But you—” Errol pointed at Vivian “—you made a lot of work out there with your messin’. Don’t keep me hangin’ around when I get back tomorrow, y’hear? Be here when I need you and say your prayers I don’t have to take you in—”
“Can it, Bonine,” Spike said. Enough was enough. “She’s an innocent bystander who happened on a corpse. Leave her alone.”
“You’re forgettin’ your place, sonny,” Bonine said, smiling in a way that let Spike know the man enjoyed baiting an old enemy he’d decided was powerless. “Keep it zipped or I’ll have to speak to someone in Toussaint. And pour me some of that coffee.”
“Wipe your own ass,” Spike said through his teeth and instantly rubbed a hand over his face. Of all the things to say in front of Vivian and her mother—and Cyrus.
He needn’t have worried about Cyrus, who laughed like he’d bust a gut and said, “Never heard such language before. Your penance is to call for senior bingo next month.”
Chapter 7
The second day
Vivian had debated whether she should tell her mother she’d decided to go to Spike’s place, even if it was two in the morning, and take him the dinner he never got to eat. She needn’t have worried about Charlotte’s reaction because she behaved as if the mission were all her own idea.
A deputy stood guard at the entrance to Rosebank, the driveway was lined with official vehicles and there were floodlights in the area where she’d found Louis. Only the police and the experts were allowed in or out of the main driveway. Since no one paid any attention to the second gate that led from the back of the property to a side road and Vivian’s green van was parked in the yard of the old stable where it couldn’t be seen from the front of the house, leaving hadn’t been a problem.
After five hours during which his partner and a female officer made sure Vivian and Charlotte, Spike and Cyrus didn’t have a chance to talk to one another in private, the hateful Detective Bonine had abruptly stopped his round of interviewing them, one by one. Spike and Cyrus had been dismissed with warnings to “be available.” Vivian and Charlotte were told, “It’s in your best interests not to plan any trips.” Bonine had pulled Vivian aside and said, “I’ll be back,” before scuffing from the house.
Spike had left about an hour earlier so he could only have been home half an hour at most. He was probably looking for something to eat right now.
The rain had stopped and the moon shone clear, even if it was banded with cloud. Driving north into St. Martin’s Parish Vivian tried to concentrate on how much she’d grown to like this quiet place. Visions of Louis, dead in his car, pushed their way in but she moved them aside quickly and found that thinking about Spike’s face took her in a whole new direction.
If she hadn’t been distracted she’d have made sure he took the food with him.
Yeah, and who was she fooling? Seeing the leek pie in the refrigerator and the color-frosted sugar cookies shaped like Raggedy Ann and Andy baked by her mother for Wendy had lifted Vivian’s spirits and made her hands shake with anticipation. That was one convenient excuse to do what she wanted to do: see Spike again. She couldn’t wait to see him.
Up ahead she could already see the black and white sign in front of Devol’s, St. Martin’s First Gas Stop. Store Out Back. The Bayou Provisioners. You Want It, We Got It. We deliver anywhere. And Eats. On the other side of the board, Last replaced First.
Vivian’s courage fled. Driving from Rosebank to Spike’s place took about half an hour, which meant that instead of being, “only two in the morning,” it was now, “only two-thirty in the morning.”
Idiot woman. How did she think she was going to get to Spike without waking up Homer and Wendy? And what made her imagine for one moment that the object of her fantasies would be delighted if she dropped in on him when he probably had to be on duty early?
Apart from a single bulb at the corner of the building, the gas station lights were off. The store, set far back from the road, was also in darkness and she couldn’t see the house which she thought was closer to the bayou.
Spike’s Ford sedan, complete with insignia on the trunk and front doors, stood beneath the gas station light. Pretty good deterrent to troublemakers.
Vivian pulled her van in, considered for a moment whether she had the courage to walk boldly to the house and leave the food on the gallery—with a note on top—and decided she certainly did.
If the striped moon weren’t still casting some light, it would be difficult to see without a flashlight and she’d run the risk of disturbing someone.
The only sounds were of rustling leaves and buggy nightlife with voices way too big for their size.
Once past the gas station and beside the store, Vivian saw the dark outline of Spike’s house. Bigger than she’d expected, it stood on substantial stilts. The gallery had to be on the other side, facing the bayou. The part of the building she approached probably contained the bedrooms.
A little jumpy, she hurried around the house, skirting a light-colored van as she went and, sure enough, two wooden chairs glowed white on a screened gallery—between them stood a miniature version. Wendy’s. Vivian swallowed. Intruding here without an invitation was a dumb idea.
The dishes she’d brought were stacked in a plastic crate with wire handles. A picnic table sat out front of the gallery. She placed the crate there and backed away, wiping her hands on the legs of her jeans.
Oh sure, that would be there in the morning.
Animals around here were too well-mannered to eat every scrap and spread dishes and debris in all direction. Then there were birds. Like the crows that had hung out around Louis’s body, diving in for pieces of his hamburger and fries. She couldn’t expect to forget too easily.
She stared at the back of the house again. The complete lack of lights surprised her, but it could also prove convenient.
Hiking the crate from the table, she hunched over and approached the steps to the gallery and door. On the balls of her sneaker-shod feet, she climbed the wooden stairs, unnerved by a sensation that she ought to check behind her. She wasn’t easily frightened, or not usually.
On the gallery, against the split log wall and right by the door, Vivian eased her burden down once more. She’d forgotten to write a note but he’d know where the food was from.
”Don’t move.”
The whispered order might as well have been shouted. Vivian stumbled and landed on her knees. A light snapped on, a light with a blinding beam that settled over her like a stage spot.
“You drove here alone? You walked around out here in the dark alone?”
“I’m not twelve.”
He looked skyward. “There’s a murderer on the loose around here. And in case you’ve forgotten he killed at Rosebank—right at your home—and you don’t know what he came for. Only to kill Louis Martin? I doubt it. Could be he wanted something in the briefcase and that was it. We don’t know, though. Could be he wanted to get at you.” He held a gun against his thigh. “Didn’t anyone stop you when you were leaving? No, obviously they didn’t. Damn Bonine’s sloppy hide.”
She shivered and crossed her arms under her breasts.
“Goddammit!” Spike turned down the beam and hurried to her on silent feet. He stuffed the gun into the waist of the jeans that were all he wore and hauled her up with one hand. He dropped his voice. “What do you think you’re doing? Why? Why would you do something as stupid as creeping up on my house in the early hours of the morning? Damn it, Vivian, I’m…You could have been killed.”
When she could moisten her mouth enough to speak, she said, “You didn’t have dinner. I decided to drop the food by for you to share with your family.”
“Keep your voice down, I won’t have Wendy scared for nothing.” With that he bundled her down the steps to the warm, damp grass and away from the house.
For nothing. He was right, but she still felt bad to hear him refer to her that way. “I’m really sorry,” she said in a soft voice. “I stayed up because I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. To be honest, I didn’t think it through before I got in the van. Forgive me, please. I’ll go now so don’t give this another thought. I am sorry I woke you up.”
“Ah hell,” he said and released her arm. “Nothing’s simple, know that?”
“Yes.”
Spike recognized this as proof that there was no way he could let her know how he really felt, not now and maybe never. His life wouldn’t mix with any woman’s. He touched her face and she recoiled. “Oh great,” he said. “I frightened you. I frightened you. That makes me feel like hell.”
“No, no, don’t. You were only guarding your family and property. I put you on alert and a man like you goes on autopilot then, you have to. You thought I was…I’m an intruder.” She gave a short laugh. “I’m not doing too well with the law, am I?”
If he argued with her, he’d get himself in deeper water. “It’s too warm,” he told her. “Feel like something cold to drink?”
“We’d wake someone up. Thanks anyway.”
“No, in the store. No one will hear us there.”
A woman could put some spin on a comment like that. Unfortunately he was simply trying to recover balance for both of them by being polite and pretending he was already over her mistake.
“C’mon, Vivian, don’t make me suffer because I was an ass. Let me try to make it right so I can quit kicking myself.”
She looked at the shadows that were his face, and the unreadable gleam in his eyes, and smiled. “I can’t believe what I did.” She clapped her hands to her cheeks and shuddered.
“Come with me,” Spike said, “Gimme a break, okay? I want a cold drink and I want you with me while I have it. And we need to get some things straight between us—or I think so.”
She thought so, too, but didn’t pretend to herself that she’d like the result. “If you’re sure you want to do that, I am, too.”
Spike was more than sure he wanted to snatch at least this opportunity to be alone with Vivian. He was long past the age of buying a girl a soda and expecting nothing more than conversation and his own sexual frustration.
It would have to do.
Homer kept a spare key in one of the pots of flowers that hung from the eaves all around the store. This was one time when the idea didn’t irritate Spike.
He opened up and put a hand at Vivian’s waist to usher her inside.
“Oh,” she said in a small voice while she backed up against his hand. “It feels strange in here. You aren’t supposed to be inside stores when they’re closed.”
It didn’t feel out of place to slide his hand around her and splay his fingers to span her ribs. She stood so close he felt the warmth of her body.
“I didn’t know your shop was so big,” she said and her voice sounded real small. “Why do all the freestanding displays look weird just because there isn’t much light? They aren’t scary in daylight.”
He didn’t think what he was doing until his mouth touched her hair. He whispered in her ear, “Things we aren’t used to. The ordinary becomes mysterious when the context is out of whack.” They stood still like that, he with his hand at her side and his mouth close to her ear—and the sensation of her bare arm against his chest, Vivian soft and angling her head to bring her face closer to his.
Spike needed his legendary willpower to stop him from kissing her ear, her cheek, and turning her in his arms, and letting things go wherever they might.
Her white tank top didn’t reach her waist and the skin he touched there felt forbidden—and wonderful.
A deep breath expanded her chest and she walked away from him into the store. For an instant he felt cold at the loss of her, but he gathered his wits quickly enough and followed inside, closing and locking the door behind him. Wendy slept deeply and Homer had a history of being hard to rouse. The chances that he and Vivian would be interrupted were more than remote.
Spike hadn’t inherited Homer’s tendency to slip easily into oblivion. He slept only a fraction beneath consciousness and awoke with eyes wide open as if he’d been alert all the time. That was usually a good thing but forgetting he’d pointed a gun at Vivian tonight wouldn’t happen anytime soon.
“A person could do all their grocery shopping in here,” she said, her eyes evidently adjusted to the gloom. “That’s great. I bet you do a great business.”
“Fair. The big grocery stores are our competition but there isn’t one of those too close. The business with the folks who live along the bayou is a plus. So are the houseboats. The sandwich and ice cream bar is a little gold mine. Hey, c’mon and sit down.”
Each time Spike got close to her, Vivian struggled against touching him. His torso shone slightly in the semidarkness and she saw that the hair on his chest was surprisingly dark. Muscular and hard, what she could see of his body made her feel cheated out of what she couldn’t see. He walked away on bare feet.
Did he sleep naked?
Did he leap up and into a pair of jeans—and nothing else—if he had to? His hand at her side, where he had gripped her naked skin, had excited her almost as if he’d pressed between her legs. The flare of sensation she’d felt had given her an instant’s fear that she would disgrace herself by climaxing right then, standing beside him. She had responded to men before, but not like this.
He stood beside a shiny wooden table with two chairs, one of about five tables of various shapes and sizes. She sat in the chair he pulled out for her and looked up at him where he stood over her.
So serious. So many questions in eyes gone to navy-blue in the surreal cast of light. “What do you like?” he asked, leaving her and going to a refrigerated case. “We carry about everything.”