American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (11 page)

He smiled shyly, shrugging his
broad shoulders. “That’s a term we use down here,” he said quietly. “It means
spending time with you, taking you out to breakfast, or dinner, or into New
Orleans for a good time. It means that there’s no one else in the world I’d
rather spend time with than you.  It means that I think you’re beautiful and
would very much like the privilege of getting to know you.”

It was a very sweet thing to say
and she could tell, simply from his manner and body language, that he sincerely
meant it.  She could feel herself relent.

“I think it would be okay,” she
murmured. “But I have to tell you, I’m not particularly thrilled with… well,
you know, the profession….”

She trailed off and he
instinctively looked at his badge.  “I know,” he said, gently squeezing her
hand. “I’m sorry ‘bout that. I promise I’ll do my best not to let it upset
you.”

She smiled timidly. “My heart’s
just a little fragile right now.”

“I realize that,” he whispered.
“I’ll take it slow and gentle.  We’ll just take it one day at a time and see
where that takes us.”

She simply nodded. “The kids…,”
she grasped for words. “We need to take it even more slow and gentle with them.
They lost their dad, so I’m not sure how they’re going to react to their mom
starting to live her life again.”

He nodded in understanding,
looking around to make sure no one was watching before lifting her hand to his
lips and kissing her fingers. “You do what you feel is best for them. I’ll
follow your lead.”

She gazed up at him, studying his
face seriously. “You know, beneath all of that professional sheriff garb, I
think there is an amazing man inside.”

“I hope I can show you that.”

“I hope you can, too.”

They just grinned at each other
for a moment before he kissed her hand again and reluctantly let it go. 

“I’ll see you in awhile,” he
winked at her and climbed into the car.

Elliot stood back as he put the
car in gear and took off down the driveway.  Somewhat dazed at the turn of
events, she realized that she was also very excited about it. 

From nearly the moment she had
met Nash Aury, there was something completely endearing about the man,
something that touched her deeply. Although she didn’t know much about him, she
was very much looking forward to changing that. He was an unexpected bonus in
her life-changing move to Louisiana. In fact, it was probably the very best
part.

As she entered the house, she
could hear Penelope and Alec arguing in the kitchen and she just shook her
head.  She had to laugh; some things in her life were changing; some things
were not.

CHAPTER SIX

Nash had always had a habit of
sleeping with the police scanner on.  It was just the way he was, something
that had driven his ex-wife into another bedroom during the course of their
marriage. He could sleep right through the radio traffic, hearing it in his
subconscious, oddly waking up only when something that pertained to him or his
deputies came over the air. He’d been doing it for almost twenty years.

In the master suite of his home
that sat on the greens of Pelican Point Golf Club in the city of Gonzales,
Louisiana, he was dead asleep as the police ban crackled quietly in the
darkened room. Nash had come home with thoughts of Elliot on his mind, wearily
fed his big German Shepherd, Wolfgang, and then dragged himself up to bed in a
master suite that was as big as some people’s entire house. He barely had time
to strip off his clothes before he was falling between the sheets. As the radio
traffic peppered the stillness, he slept right through it.

It was during the afternoon
sometime that a Medical Aid call went out over the radio. He could hear his
deputies chattering and then he could hear something about the town of
Sorrento. More chatter went on as he drifted back into a deep sleep, but that
that didn’t last long. One word had his eyes open and his head up.

Purgatory.

Nash pushed himself up and
grabbed the radio microphone, struggling to clear the cobwebs from his mind.

“This is S A-1,” he keyed the
mic. “Detail the medical aid situation at Purgatory.”

The dispatcher came on the
speaker. “Sheriff, we have a call for an ambulance and police. I don’t have any
information beyond that. I’ve got a unit on its way to contact Sorrento P.D.”

“Copy that. Update me when you
have any information.”

“10-4.”

Nash threw off the covers, so
hard that they flew completely off the bed. In a hurry, he found his cell phone
to call Elliot and suddenly realized that he didn’t have her number. He’d never
gotten it from her. 

With a growl of frustration, he
took a chance and called his brother, hoping the man was at Purgatory by now.
He didn’t even know what time it was, looking at the clock as the call went
through and realizing he’d been asleep a little over six hours. As he began
hunting around for his pants, his brother answered.

“Nash?”

Nash was trying to pull on his
uniform pants and talk on the phone at the same time.

“Hey, Beau,” he said. “Are you at
Purgatory?”

“Yep, I’m here,” Beau replied.
“We’ve got a little problem.”

“I heard it come over the
scanner. What’s the problem?”

He could hear Beau sigh heavily.
“You’d better get out here.”

“Beau, what happened?”

Beau sighed again. “Well, the
woman who bought the place – Ms. Ellie….”

Nash cut him off, almost
frantically. “I know Elliot. Did something happen to her?”

“No,” Beau replied. “Not her. Her
son. Honestly, I’m not sure what happened. All I know is that the kid was out
back and suddenly, I hear all of this yelling. I’m sealing up the front window
until we can get a glass guy out here, so I run around back and there’s the kid
with blood all over him and a dead man at his feet.  It’s a mess, Nash. You’d
better get out here.”

“Oh, God,” Nash hissed. “I’m on
my way.  Is Alec hurt?”

“Yes. That’s who the ambulance is
for.”

“How bad?”

“He’s pretty cut up.”

“Call me if the ambulance leaves
before I get there.”

Nash hung up the phone, realizing
that his hands were shaking. Pulling on the slacks he wore earlier, he yanked a
clean shirt out of the closet and threw it on his big frame, snatching his
badge from the dirty shirt and collecting his keys and wallet. He made a stop
by the bathroom on his way out, running a comb through his hair and brushing
his teeth in ten seconds. Buttoning his shirt as he raced out to the car, he
threw the vehicle into gear and tore off towards the highway.

A six mile drive had never seemed
so long. He turned on his siren and hit his rotators, making people pull out of
his way as he sped along Highway 22 that would take him directly to Elliot’s
driveway. He glanced at the speedometer, once, and saw he was doing about
ninety. By the time he hit the long, half mile gravel drive to Purgatory, he
took the turn so fast that he almost sped off into the trees. Tearing up the
driveway, he came to a skidding halt just short of the ambulance.

He jumped out of the car, tucking
his shirt in as he headed for the house. There were four Sorrento Police units
in the driveway, a watch commander’s unit, and one sheriff’s unit. He could see
activity towards the rear of the house so he decided to head in that direction.

Taking the foliage-shrouded dirt
path that led along the south side of the house where the kitchen was located,
he emerged into the overgrown back yard and a fairly chaotic scene.

The Sorrento cops setting up the
crime scene had to work around the ambulance crew, who were just at the point
of helping Alec onto the stretcher. Nash could see Elliot and Penelope hovering
near the stretcher, trying to help, but being carefully held back by Deputy
Steve Pitot. The big deputy was having trouble restraining Elliot, who was
clearly distraught over her son. Nash made his way quickly in her direction.

“Ellie?” he called out as he
approached.

Elliot’s head came up like a
flash, her big blue eyes fixing on Nash. She looked as if she was ready to
erupt but Alec heard Nash also and turned in the man’s direction.

“I’m okay,” he assured both Nash
and his frantic mother. “I don’t even need this stretcher. I can walk on my
own.”

Nash made it to the side of the
stretcher, next to Elliot. His instinct was to put his arms around her and
comfort her but he restrained himself, not wanting to create a spectacle that
could possibly be construed as inappropriate. It was one of the biggest
struggles he’d ever had to face. He kept himself cool and professional as he
focused on Alec, listening to Elliot’s soft sniffles beside him.

“What happened, Alec?” he asked.

“Uh, sheriff, we got this,” a fat
sergeant with a big Smokey the Bear hat spoke from the other side of the
stretcher. “We’re settin’ up a crime scene right now. We’ll handle it from
here.”

Nash looked at the sergeant. He
knew the man vaguely, a good old boy who tended not to get worked up into a
sweat over anything, violent crimes included. This wasn’t Nash’s jurisdiction
so he had to force himself to back off.

“I can see that,” he replied.
“I’m a friend of the family. My questions aren’t in an official capacity.”

Sergeant Rollens nodded as if he
didn’t believe him but, to his credit, he didn’t say anything. He turned back
to his crime scene as Nash refocused on Alec.

“What happened?” he asked again,
more quietly.

Alec tried to shrug but he
couldn’t; his entire right arm and shoulder were bandaged up tight, including
both hands. The medic was hooking the I.V. to the gurney as they prepared to
roll it out.

“I was back here trying to figure
out if I could get the propane tank to work, you know, pulling away the vines
and stuff, and all of a sudden that old dude came rushing out of the trees with
a big hatchet in his hand,” he pointed to the body laying in the overgrowth
several feet away.  “He caught me in the shoulder so I kicked him away and the
hatchet fell. He picked it up and tried to swing it at me again but I blocked
it. I finally grabbed the hatchet and he tried to fight me for it, and… well, I
stabbed him with it. It was an accident but I swear to you, he was trying to
kill me.”

Nash didn’t react other than to
pat the young man consolingly on his good shoulder and move around the gurney
that they were starting to roll towards the ambulance.

He went over to the taped off
crime scene, gazing down at the bloodied body of an older white male dressed in
a dirty tee shirt, dirty jeans and old shoes.  The man was lying in a pile of overgrown
weeds with a hatchet buried in his chest. Nash was staring at the body when he
felt someone walk up beside him.

He glanced over to see his
brother standing there, also looking at the body. Nash snorted ironically.

“Got more than you bargained for
today, didn’t you?” he said.

Beau Aury grinned up at his
younger brother. Shorter than Nash by several inches, he didn’t look anything
like his studly sibling. He had dark curly hair, brown eyes, and the round body
of a man who used to be muscular in his youth before age and an inactive
lifestyle caught up with him. But he was as honest as the day was long and
funnier than anyone Nash had ever met.

“You always get me mixed up in
the craziest things,” Beau muttered.

“Me?” Nash lifted his eyebrows.
“All I did was call you over to help out Ms. Ellie.  But this….”

He looked over at the dead body,
his words trailing off. Beau looked at the body, too, and the scene in general,
before sadly shaking his head.

“This is going to be trouble,” he
muttered.

Nash scratched his cheek. “I
know,” he mumbled in return. “That’s Femmie Loreau.”

“I know,” Beau glanced around to
see if the cops were listening. “Do they know that?”

Nash shrugged. “I’m sure the
sergeant does,” he said, looking to see where Rollens was. “I’m sure he’ll want
to talk to me about it.”

Beau sighed heavily. “When the
Loreau boys hear that their daddy has been killed, they’ll be all over this
place. Ms. Ellie and her kids need to get out of here.”

Nash already knew what Elliot was
going to say about that.  “Their daddy was trying to murder a young man,” he
pointed out. “I have no doubt that Femmie was responsible for the fire bomb
last night, too, only this time, he picked on the wrong person to attack. Alec
had every right to defend himself.”

Beau nodded, shrugging, thinking
that it was going to get real ugly around here. He scratched his head and
turned back to the house.

“Well,” he said. “I’m going to
finish with that front window. I have a glass company coming first thing
tomorrow to replace it, at least temporarily.  This whole place is falling down
so I told Ms. Ellie that we shouldn’t do anything too permanent or expensive
until we can figure out what, exactly, needs to be done. First thing I’m going
to do is have an electrician and a plumber here in the morning so we can start
figuring out the electrical and plumbing of this place. It’s a goddamn mess.”