Heather Graham (14 page)

“Well, the swamp. God, there are so many miles of just nothing except for grass and water and snakes and alligators. And when it’s dark, it’s so dark. When there’s a storm, it’s like the ends of the earth.”

“That’s the nature of a bayou.”

Cindy trembled. “We need to make sure that no one knows that she’s going there.”

“Who could know but you and me?”

“You don’t think that anybody overheard you talking?”

Gregory hesitated, looking around himself. He stared down at Cindy. “No, I don’t think so. Why do you care so much?”

“I don’t know why, I mean, set aside Ann Marcel. Gina and Jon probably had an awful fight, and maybe neither of them ever meant it, but in the heat of fury like that...well, maybe he did kill her.”

“Then she’d be safe.”

“What if it didn’t happen that way?” Cindy wailed. “What if we’re all in danger.”

Gregory set an arm around her shoulders. “What is that saying—‘The truth will set you free.’ Cindy, we’re not going to be able to stop Marcel’s ex-wife.”

“We’ll have to look out for her, though.”

“Yeah, well, she will come back to the club. She’ll keep coming back until she gets what she wants.”

“Maybe I can teach her to dance.”

“Maybe she can do some paintings herself.”

Gregory paused in the street. “What the hell are we talking about? No matter what she does at the club, she’ll be there.”

Cindy shivered fiercely. “Gregory, I’ll come with you tomorrow, too.”

“To the bayou?”

She nodded. “There’s safety in numbers,” she said determinedly. “I mean, what if somebody did hear you talking about taking a trip out to the bayou tomorrow?”

“Cindy—”

“Gregory, we’ve all gone to Mama Lili Mae’s a dozen times before. We never thought a thing of it. Believe me, it will be better if we’re together, don’t you think?”

Gregory sighed. “If you wish.” He set an arm around her shoulders. “Let me get you home, then. I have the feeling that tomorrow is going to be one hell of a long day.”

Gina L’Aveau was buried in a mausoleum bearing her family name.

Ann came to the church for the service, but stayed just inside the doors, watching from a distance.

Gina’s pallbearers were an interesting assortment of men: Gregory, Harry Duval, the man who had been pointed out to her as her distant kin, Jacques Moret, and, curiously enough, Lieutenant Mark LaCrosse.

Ann was fairly certain, by the time she’d followed the procession to the cemetery, that she still hadn’t been seen—by Mark at least. His partner, the tall man with the basset hound face, was in attendance as well, but like her, he seemed to be hanging about in the background. Ann thought that she was staying far enough from Officer Jimmy not to be seen by him as well. There were other cops there—she knew them because they had all been assigned, at different times, to watch the door to Jon’s room at the hospital.

It felt very odd to be here today; she hadn’t known Gina, but she was beginning to feel that she had.

It felt even stranger to be at the cemetery under the circumstances. Ann loved the cemeteries in New Orleans, and she had come to this one often enough. The first time, she had come on her own, only to be warned by a park ranger with a tour group that she was in “grave” danger, no pun intended. There’d been a shooting in the cemetery the night before she had come. She’d come with tour groups herself after that, sketching the tombs, the art, the lay of the cemetery against the city beyond. She didn’t think she was particularly morbid, but funerary art was a fantastic study in itself; and though New Orleans didn’t often offer the very old angels, death heads, verse, wings, Madonnas and other characters of New England and European cemeteries, the tombs, built above the ground because of the water level, were fascinating in themselves. Angels and other creatures and entities did abound, if differently. Winged griffins and wrought-iron gates guarded family tombs; vines, ivy, mosses and flowers took root in the cracks within cement and crept and crawled to create a haunting aura.

Gina’s family vault appeared to date from the later half of the 1700s. The great iron gates had been opened for the delivery of her coffin into the L’Aveau crypt. The mourners were a solemn, silent crowd. A few sniffles could be heard now and then. As Ann watched, she saw Cindy McKenna, surrounded by a group of young women, crying softly. A very old woman refused assistance from any of the men who attempted to help or escort her. Ann didn’t think she could be Gina’s mother. Though she stood tall and firm, her face was ancient, and she had to be in her eighties, at the very least.

Gina’s priest conducted the last of the service at the grave site. He offered words applauding Gina’s love of life and gentle soul, and promising that she would rest easy in God’s embrace, while justice was sought on earth.

Perhaps the priest didn’t have a great deal of confidence in New Orleans’ finest at the moment, because he promised as well that when justice wasn’t found on earth, it was always found by the Almighty, and Judgment Day would come.

Ann escaped quickly to the street and her car as the service ended; she wasn’t about to be seen now by Lieutenant LaCrosse and stopped. Not just when she was about to go out to the bayou. If he saw fit to drag her out of a club, he’d probably half drown her to get her out of a boat in the swamp. Slipping behind the wheel of her car, she felt warmth stealing over her—a now familiar warmth, since it had been assailing her all morning. She couldn’t forget his behavior last night. His kiss. God. She started trembling. Fool. This wasn’t what she wanted. The hell it wasn’t. He’d felt so good. Touching her, kissing her...

He’d stopped.

What would she have done if he hadn’t?

She’d have had no choice. Oh, God, she’d have been so easy. Because she wanted him so badly. That was ridiculous, surely; she just wanted him because she’d been so busy, she hadn’t been in a relationship, she needed a relationship, just that and nothing more.

No, no, she’d never been tempted before with other acquaintances. She’d never ached to feel them, naked, touching her.

Her palms were sweating. Hell! She should have jumped a stranger on the street before now. Because she did want him; she’d wanted to go on when he had stopped. She’d been seduced by the scent of him, the roughness of his cheeks, of his palms, the strength in his hands.

He is the cop trying to fry Jon!
she told herself furiously.

But she could see him now. She slumped down in her car, hoping he wouldn’t recognize her little gray Mazda. He was standing there talking with his basset-faced partner and a handsome Oriental man. He wore a black suit, white shirt, black vest and tie. He was very dignified, incredibly handsome with his auburn hair, just streaked at the temples. Very grave, clean-shaven for the funeral. She felt the heat again, the trembling. She didn’t really know him. She felt as if she had known him forever; he’d been in her face since the minute she had first met him. That kiss...

Then, of course, the way he’d sworn at her. Well, he was a cop. He wasn’t supposed to be seducing his—what? Was she a suspect and accessory to murder? A possible victim, a witness, a what?

All of the above? she mocked herself.

He was going to walk right by her. She slumped down even farther in her seat. Holding her breath, then barely breathing.

As if that could keep him from seeing her!

But miraculously, he didn’t notice her. He was too involved with whatever the Oriental man was saying.

“But nothing—nothing yet?” Mark LaCrosse was persisting stubbornly.

“Well, our Jane Doe was never in the military, I can tell you that. And she didn’t commit any crimes—no law enforcement agency in the United States or Canada has anything on her prints. We’re searching the dental records and sifting through mounds of missing person reports. But lots of single people can be missing several days before friends and family realize that they’re not out with other friends and family.”

“What about the club?” Mark asked gruffly.

“Well, we’re kind of in the same boat there—for the next twenty-four hours at least. Harry Duval says none of his girls failed to show up for work, but then, his girls don’t necessarily work every night. Naturally, I couldn’t press Duval too much right now with Gina’s funeral this morning, but I’ll get him down to the morgue to take a look.”

Mark shoved his hands into his pockets, staring back through the gates of the cemetery where the crowd was dispersing. “I should have recognized her if she’d come from the club.”

“You know all the dancers?”

“No,” Mark admitted.

“But what do you think? Could it have been the work of the same man?”

“Maybe.”

“M.O.’s are different.”

“I know that,” Mark said. “But what do
you
think; that’s what I want to know.”

“Well...,” the Oriental man began.

They were past Ann’s car. She strained to hear the answer, but try as she might, she couldn’t hear the man’s reply. She stayed sunk in her seat for several seconds, praying that there might now be some kind of forensic or circumstantial evidence that would begin to convince the police that Jon wasn’t guilty. The M.O.’s were different. It was sad, but true. Women were murdered frequently enough that there could easily have been two different killers.

She sat up, quickly gunned her car, and drove away from the cemetery, headed for Annabella’s.

She couldn’t keep her mind from the immediate events. As she drove, she wondered how it had happened that Mark LaCrosse had been a pallbearer for Gina L’Aveau.

“Let me take you to lunch, Mama Lili Mae,” Jacques Moret told his great-great-great-aunt. He glanced sideways at the woman. She’d been stoic throughout the services. Now, she still stared straight ahead of herself, silent. She didn’t cry, but he knew she was mourning. Gina had always tried to lie somewhat to Mama Lili Mae. She’d tried to make her life seem rosier than what it was. Mama Lili Mae was a great-great-great-aunt to at least two dozen young men and women who had originally sprung from the bayou country, all stemming from the family name L’Aveau.

And all were quick to claim her when one of the television networks determined to do a special on the woman who, it was estimated, was now approaching her hundred and tenth birthday. She remained in amazingly good health, the usual weaknesses of old age refusing to claim her. She walked every day, and didn’t need a cane to do so. Her eyesight continued to serve her excellently. Occasionally, she felt a twinge of arthritis, but a pair of Advil worked the magic there.

“Mama Lili Mae?” Jacques repeated.

She shook her head.

“You shouldn’t go back just yet. You should eat at a restaurant, spend a little time in New Orleans.”

Mama Lili Mae fumbled in her purse for one of her hand-rolled, cigarlike cigarettes. She lit it.

Jacques didn’t like smoke in his custom white Mercedes. He wouldn’t tell her that. “You shouldn’t smoke. It isn’t good for your health,” he told her.

She rolled her eyes to glance over at him. “What? I’m going to die young?”

Jacques sighed. “Fine. Light up. And fine, be stubborn, I’ll take you back.” He offered her one of his charming smiles. “Most women want to go to lunch with Jacques Moret, you know,” he teased.

“Most women are fools,” she told him, but she took the sting away from her words by patting him with an incredibly thin and bony hand on the arm. “You come home with me. Most men and women must pay to listen to Mama Lili Mae. You come and listen to the advice I give you, and I’ll dish you up some of the finest crawfish you will ever have, even in New Orleans, eh,
mon fil
?”

“Sure, sure,” he said with a sigh. Jacques glanced her way; she returned his stare with her steady dark eyes. They probed him. He felt as if he suddenly started to sweat inside. She saw things. Everybody knew that. She saw things.

It terrified him to wonder what she saw in him.

“Get me home quickly,” she said to him.

“Yes, I’ll get you there quickly, though I still say that you should—”

“I must be home,” she repeated.

“Why?”

“People are coming to see me,” she said complacently.

He felt himself starting to sweat again, inside and outside this time.

“People should leave you alone—”

“Gina was murdered.”

“The police have spoken to you,” he said, trying to be gentle. “They have the man—”

“Oh, bullshit!” Mama Lili Mae said. She looked sternly at him. “No one tells the truth to the police, eh? We never know what innocent truth may hurt us. But then...”

“Then what?”

“Then those who are guilty must pay, if they are blood, if they are not.”

What the hell was she going on about? he wondered. He should probably drown the old bitch in the bay, save all her descendants the effort of being at her beck and call when she chose to make her appearances now and then.

“You shouldn’t talk to people at all,” he told her sternly. “And the police should leave you alone. You are too involved; you are too emotional.” He hesitated. “You always loved Gina most, more than anyone else in the family.”

“I’ve lived too long and seen too much death to be too emotional,” she assured him. “But what about you,
mon cher
? Are you not perhaps too close to the issue, too emotional? Are you afraid for yourself when you talk to the police?”

An ash dropped on his white leather upholstery. Surely she saw it. Surely she knew how much she annoyed him.

He really wanted to strangle her.

“I’ve talked to the police,” he told her.

“You loved her once. As more than your distant cousin.”

“I loved her still, as more than my distant cousin. She did not love me.”

“Passion breeds hatred?”

“Did you learn that from sacrificing chickens?”

She smiled complacently. She wasn’t afraid of him; she wasn’t afraid of anyone. She was old, and worn, and ready to meet her Maker when the time came.

“Passion breeds hatred, fury and tempest.”

“They have the man! They have the man who was covered in her blood! Why does everyone question what is so obvious? Her murderer lies in a hospital in a coma.”