A Thousand Lies (24 page)

“Growing old,” she said.

“What?”

“Never mind,” she said and reached for the Dr. Pepper.

The can was cold and wet with condensation. She held it to her forehead and then her cheek, savoring the cold against her hot, achy flesh before taking a drink.

“It’s good. Thank you, Daddy.”

Thankful to be in her good graces again, Grayson beamed.

“You are so welcome.”

Chapter Thirteen

Anson spent the whole afternoon making the rounds of his marijuana fields, then moved on to the bamboo in the shed and watered the ones already potted. They had a shipment ready to go out tomorrow to a wholesale flower market in Louisville, and that driver was always on time.

But the whole time he was working, he was thinking of his cash crop. Keeping thieves out of the marijuana patches was an ongoing problem. Someone was still helping themselves to a big armload of plants about once every six weeks, which pissed him off to no end. He’d already tried to get Sam and Chance to stand guard in order to catch them in the act, but they’d both refused point blank.

He kept on working with the bamboo, potting the new canes that were rooting and watering the order that was ready to go. He never noticed the evening coming to a close, or that the sun had already set. One minute, he’d been checking off an invoice and the next time he looked up, it was dusk. By the time he had everything packed, it was dark.

The swamp was alive with everything from crickets to the boom of bull gators—even the croak of tiny tree frogs were making their presence known. When the swamp suddenly went silent, he knew a bigger predator must be about.

The shriek of a panther a good distance away was followed by the howl of someone’s dog, but it didn’t faze him. He walked with his head up and his shoulders back, moving with the confidence of a man who was certain the world was more afraid of him than he was of the world.

He was almost to the back door when something on the doorstep caught his eye. He paused, wishing he had his flashlight, then remembered the penlight on his key ring. He aimed the weak beam toward the step and stopped, staring in disbelief at a tiny black coffin. The hair crawled on the back of his neck as he leaned down for a closer look. There was a picture of his face and a kitchen match on top of it.

Lisette’s little visit to Mama Lou via the voodoo express had just arrived, and it never occurred to him she would be responsible. She had already spilled her guts about him to the cops and been told his alibi was airtight. Certainly, she would then have assumed any countless number of others could have caused the fire. So what was this about? No one knew a—

He stood abruptly as a dark scowl crossed his face.

One man knew.

Voltaire LeDeux.

His scowl deepened. This was something he would never have suspected from Voltaire. Although he lived under the radar of everyone and everything, it had to be him. There was no one else who could have fingered him. The question now was what did he do about it? He felt a little uneasy that he’d been cursed, but refused to let it get under his skin. He wouldn’t accept that mere words, a fake coffin, and some chicken blood could make a man die. He kept staring down at the coffin, his mind racing, and then all of a sudden, it hit him. The scheme was so brilliant that he actually laughed out loud.

He picked up the coffin as casually as if it had been a jar of jelly someone left as a gift and carried it into the house, turning on lights as he went. He knew March’s men would be watching for them to mark the time he’d come inside. He dropped his picture in the trash, put the match and coffin in a small plastic bag, and then made himself a sandwich and a beer as if nothing had happened.

With an eye on the clock, he went upstairs, returning a few minutes later wearing hunting boots and dressed completely in black. He’d smeared his face with chimney soot to hide his identity, even though he didn’t plan on being seen, buckled on his holster and pistol, pocketed the baggie with the coffin, grabbed a flashlight, and slipped out the back door. If everything went according to plan, he’d be rid of every monkey on his back, including March’s guards, before the night was over.

It was almost two miles as the crow flies from Wisteria Hill to Voltaire’s hidey-hole in the bayou, and every bit of it rough going, but Anson didn’t have enough sense to be scared. He was too focused on payback to worry about snakes and gators.

He slipped through the woods on the north side of his property and headed for the road. The first thing he needed was to eyeball March’s guards. He knew where they parked and needed to make sure they were there.

He strode through the woods without worrying about being quiet, confident the city boys would be sitting with their windows rolled up and the air conditioner on. When he caught a glimmer of moonlight on the car they had backed up in the trees, he smiled. The first part of his plan was in place.

At that point, he took a sharp right and headed east at a trot, staying deep under cover. The mosquitoes were out in full force, swarming around his head, in his ears, even up his nose. He swiped them away and kept going, gaining confidence with every step. When he came to the first creek, he pulled out his flashlight and swept the area. No need asking for trouble by stepping on a snake, or even worse, walking up on some panther getting a drink. The creek was clear.

Even though the water was nearly up to his knees, he waded through it in four long strides and came out on the other side in a leap. Once he figured out how far he’d come, he shifted direction to the northeast and kept moving.

The undergrowth was thick, but timing was of the essence and kept his stride long and strong. He was about three-quarters of a mile from Voltaire’s place when he heard a hound bay and then another answer farther south. Someone was hunting. He didn’t want to run into them on the way back, and made note to change his return route.

Sweat was pouring from his hair and down through the soot he’d rubbed on his face, but he didn’t dare wipe it off for fear of removing the disguise, so instead of a dark face, it was now striped. His clothes were sweat-soaked, as wet as the socks in his boots. It had been a long time since he’d done anything this physical.

He walked into a spider web and spent a few moments slapping at his head and clothes to make sure he wasn’t crawling with spiders. Something swooped across his line of vision on soundless wings, most likely an owl. He heard the dogs again, signaling the fact they’d struck trail. They were closing in on their prey and so was he.

He came up on Voltaire’s shanty almost before he knew it, then stopped short to survey the clearing. There was lamp light on the far side of the tiny house, which reminded him there was no electricity on the premises. Even better for what he intended.

He pulled the plastic bag out of his pocket and started moving toward the front door in a stealth-like stride. When an owl suddenly hooted from a nearby tree, Anson froze. Knowing Voltaire, he would read that as a warning and moved faster, needing to get the set-up in place before it was too late.

He was almost at the front door when he caught a glimpse of the lamp light moving through the house.

Son of a bitch.

He ran the rest of the way in an all-out lope. With only seconds between him and the lamp light, he set the tiny coffin and the match on the top step and then turned tail and ran as fast as he could into the trees.

He was already there when he heard the squeak of the hinges and watched as Voltaire opened the door. Anson saw the lamp and a vague silhouette of the man behind it and held his breath, waiting for Voltaire to step out.

To Anson’s dismay, Voltaire came outside without seeing the coffin, then walked out into the yard just far enough to reassure himself there was no one there. It wasn’t until he started to go back inside that he must have seen what was on the step.

The scream that came out of Voltaire’s mouth was sheer panic. Anson watched him stumbling backward, tripping, and then dropping the lamp. Lamp oil spilled out onto the ground and took fire, highlighting the tiny coffin even more. Voltaire was on his knees throwing dirt onto the fire, when all of a sudden the match on the coffin that was a few feet away suddenly flared and caught fire, as well.

Voltaire began frantically throwing dirt onto the lamp fire, and then on the coffin, desperate to keep the fire from spreading to the tinder-dry wood of his little house.

Anson could hear him bawling and praying out loud as he vaulted over the smoking coffin and into his house, then slammed the door behind him.

Now it was Anson who took a nervous step back. That match was too far away from the fire to have started from the heat, so how did it catch fire all by itself?

Then he shook off the thought. It didn’t matter. He’d done what he needed to do. The first phase of his plan had just been put in place, so he took off running.

****

Parker and Roberts were tired of chasing after Poe. It was their personal opinion that the man was way too smart to do anything that would get him caught. It was embarrassing that Poe had the balls to use them as his alibi when Frenchie’s burned. But, March signed their paychecks and a job was a job. The worst part now was the all-night stakeouts. Nothing ever happened, which made them boring as hell.

They’d decided early on in the beginning to take turns sleeping, and tonight was Parker’s turn to take first watch. He would wake Roberts at 1:00 a.m., then sack out in the back seat until daybreak. March had mentioned putting two other men on day watch and leaving the night shift to them, but it had yet to happen.

Parker downed the last of his coffee while watching a fat possum waddle across the road. They were weird-looking creatures, that when threatened, often played dead—unless, of course, someone got too close or tried to handle them and then they would bite—something like Anson Poe—lying low beneath the law’s radar, but way mean enough to bite if messed with.

He glanced in the back seat at Roberts, who was snoring away, then quietly opened the door and got out to pee. The car needed airing out, too, because Roberts farted on a regular basis as he slept. They’d already disabled the dome light days ago, so he wasn’t worried about being seen and was happily pissing away the three cups of coffee in his bladder when he thought he saw movement coming up the driveway from Wisteria Hill.

He watched, blinking several times to clear his vision before he realized it was a man in dark clothes, and before he got close enough to see his face, the man slipped into the trees.

Parker’s thoughts were jumping from one scenario to another, wondering why the man was on foot and where he was going, but the bottom line was that if the man was coming from Wisteria Hill, chances are it was Poe. He didn’t realize he was pissing on his own shoes until he heard the splatter and did a little shuffle step to get out of the way. The next time he looked up, the man was heading east and swiftly moving out of sight. He stifled a curse, reluctantly squeezed off the stream of urine, and jumped back in the car.

“Wake up, damn it! Poe is on the move!”

Roberts was out of the back seat and loading into the front as Parker started the engine.

“What’s going on?” Parker asked.

“I don’t know. I just saw a man dressed in black come up from Poe’s place and then fade into the trees. He’s heading east and moving fast.”

“On foot?”

Parker nodded.

“So what makes you think it’s Poe? He’s got a truck. Why would he walk?” Roberts asked.

“Well he knows we’re here, so I’d say he doesn’t want us to know he’s left the property,” Parker said.

“Then how the hell are we going to tail him? It’s not like we can drive up behind him without being seen.”

“Shit,” Parker muttered. He hadn’t thought about that. “Wait! There he is again on that rise, which means he’s out of the trees and on the road. What the hell is he running from?”

“Follow him with the lights off,” Roberts said.

“He’ll hear the engine.”

“Maybe not if he’s running and breathing hard. Drive, damn it, or we’re gonna lose him,” Roberts yelled.

Parker put the car in gear and pulled out of the tree and into the road. The windows were down and the lights were off.

“Should we contact March?” Roberts asked.

Parker frowned. “I hate to wake him up at this time of night for nothing. What do I say… that a man we think might be Poe is running up a road in the dark?”

“And, Poe isn’t going toward New Orleans. Whatever he’s doing can’t possibly involve anything to do with the boss or his family,” Roberts muttered.

“Yeah, you’re right, but we still better call the boss. If we don’t and Poe pulls some kind of shit and we didn’t tell him, we’re fucked,” Parker said.

Roberts made the call, unaware that March was not asleep, but at the hospital at his daughter’s bedside.

Grayson answered, then went out into the hall to talk.

“Roberts? What’s going on?”

“A few minutes ago Poe came up the driveway on foot. He disappeared into the trees, then jumped back out of them about a hundred or so yards up the hill and started running. Do you want us keeping track?”

“Hell yes. I want to know what the bastard does every waking moment. Stay with him and get back to me when you find out what’s going on.”

“Yes, sir,” Roberts said and hung up. “Boss said stay with him.”

“Then that’s what we’re going to do,” Parker said, keeping his gaze on the swiftly disappearing figure.

****

Anson was damn tired. This was his second trip to Voltaire’s place on foot, and it was going to be about a half-mile farther this way because he was not cutting through the swamp. But when he heard their engine start up, he knew they took the bait. Now he had pace himself so that they would be close enough to see where he went. He glanced over his shoulder and then took off in a long steady lope, ignoring the pain in his side.

****

“Do you still see him?” Roberts whispered.