An Evil Shadow (24 page)

Val went back to his window. “He’ll live.”

“Now it’s one on one, Mister Chiefman. How’s your
ammunition lasting out?”

“I have all I’ll need.”

“Glad to hear it. Give up Kellerman and you can walk
away from here.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. A murdering bastard like that isn’t
worth dying over. You can keep the money, all I want is Kellerman.”

“You want him? You come and get him.”

“Maybe you’ll change your mind when I tell you why I’m
not leaving here without him.”

“I’m listening,” Val shouted back.

“My real name’s Raoul Duval. Marie Duval is my
half-sister. I was reported killed along with my father in eighty-six. His body
and that of another man were burnt beyond recognition. Things in Haiti were
very confused at the time. Mistakes were made.”

Val popped his head out. The Wagoneer’s battery had
finally died; the headlights no longer shining. Gilett was lying stomach down
in the lee of an oak. All that was visible was one leg and an ankle. The early
morning sun had come out and the damp ground was steaming.

“Who made the mistake?” Val asked.

“The Haitian that Kellerman hired to kill my father
and me. He was a small time crook, and a rapist who had fled Port-au-Prince
while Baby Doc was still running things, but returned to carry out Kellermen’s
orders during the early days of the
dechoukaj
.”

Val allowed the news to sink in. Small wonder that
Gilett wanted a chance to reciprocate. “How can you know for sure that it was
Kellerman?”

“My father’s killer took a long time to die. When it
was done, I swore a blood oath that one day I would come to America and kill
the man who sent him.”

“Why did you wait until now? Because of your mother?’

“Correct, Mister Chiefman. I bided my time until I had
all their names. Every single one of them would pay for what they had done to
her. No one would be allowed to escape the consequences.”

“How did you find out about Donny Jackson? Lausaux
tell you?”

“Right again, Mister Chiefman. He had chanced on my
true identity from a contact of his in Haiti, though it meant nothing to him
until Roy Jackson told him about Marie.”

“Roy and Rita Jackson didn’t deserve to die. They
tried to help your mother. They were trying to help your sister.”

“Their used their silence to shield their son and
Kellerman.”

“Kellerman will stand trial for what he’s done.”

“He’s a priest and an old man. Your American courts
will be lenient on him. They won’t sentence him to the chair.”

“Living out the rest of his life in Angola prison farm
would be a greater punishment.”

From further up the bayou came the hacking cough of an
aero engine kicking into life. After idling for a minute to circulate the oil,
the roar increased as the seaplane turned into the wind and started its
take-off sprint. Val watched it rise free of the trees about a quarter of a
mile to the east. It soon became a dot in the sky.

“Looks like neither of us is going anyplace,” Gilett
shouted across.

“Suits me,” Val yelled back at him. “Can’t be long now
before somebody starts to wonder what’s happening at the Jacksons’s. All I need
do is sit tight and wait. Plenty of good clean water to drink, and all the
tinned food I can eat.”

“Ain’t nobody for miles.”

“These bayous are crawling with fishermen. I’ll wager
you this twenty million that right now several are making for town and the
sheriff’s office.”

There was another shot and a bullet slammed into the
set of bleached gator jaws the Jacksons’s had mounted above their fireplace. It
tumbled to the floor.

Returning fire at the oak Gilett was behind, Val saw
bark and wood chips fly from it. Two rounds left.

Val checked his watch. A quarter past six. Angie had
ingested the neurotoxin ten and a quarter hours previously. Was she still
alive? Lausaux could have given her too strong a dose. Maybe it wasn’t too late
for the doctors to pump her stomach. Why not do as Gilett asked and give him
Kellerman? No one would ever know or care. Angie was worth a hundred of
Kellerman.

The priest stirred. His eyes blinked open and quickly
shut again.

A wave of tiredness swept over Val. He had averaged
less than three hours of sleep per night for the last six days. He yawned and
rubbed a hand over his eyes. How long before Gilett decided to make his move?
If he wanted Kellerman bad enough, nothing would stop him from torching the
house. But to do that he would need gasoline and the only place he could now
lay his hands on that was from the Wagoneer’s tank.

What were his own options, Val wondered? The Wagoneer
couldn’t be started with a flat battery. He could try making a break for
Lausaux’s cell phone, but Gilett would pump round after round into the vehicle.
He could set fire to the house himself, a controlled fire. Maybe somebody would
report seeing smoke. Too risky, Val decided.

An hour ticked by.

Val’s eyes hurt from the constant strain of focusing
on the oak tree. His hand ached from holding the gun. His trigger finger had
stiffened. Why hadn’t Gilett made his move? What was keeping him? Was he still
hurting too badly from his earlier injuries to chance it? Or was he out of
ammunition? Maybe the seaplane hadn’t deserted him. Gilett was bluffing about
going nowhere, and had sent the pilot for reinforcements. Val listened for the
sounds of an engine in the distance, but could hear nothing other than the
chirping of crickets and the rasping croak of bullfrogs.

The temperature inside the house was rising; the air
was that still it made little difference that most of the windows were out. Val
licked his lips and imagined what a glass of fresh cool water from the kitchen
faucet would taste like, knowing he couldn’t abandon his vigil at the window.

“Mister Chiefman,” Gilett called out. “Now you’ve had
plenty of time to think about it, can’t you see how dumb it is to protect
Kellerman? He’s not worth dying for.”

Then Val heard it. At first it was so faint, he
thought he was imagining it. But there was no mistaking that sound. A police
siren in the distance, growing louder by the second.

For one brief moment, Val rested his forehead against
the bare wood of the wall. He pulled back and looked out the window. Gilett had
heard the siren too. He was up on his feet. Val braced his arm against the
window frame as he tracked Gilett in his sights. Still too far away for Val to
have any chance of hitting him, the Haitian was moving to his left, dodging
from tree to
tree. His intention was clear;
he wanted to put the Wagoneer between him and the house when he made his
charge.

Val reacted quickly. With help coming, Gilett wouldn’t
expect him to go on the offensive. He moved Lausaux’s body and heaved the
dresser away from the door. Then, sucking in a deep breath, he swung open the
door and hurled himself over the railings of the porch. Although the ground was
soft and he hit with his left shoulder, it still knocked the wind out of him.
He rolled across the ground to the overturned pirogue. Bullets tore up the
earth around him.

Bullets penetrated the boat tearing great splinters of
wood from the flat hull. Val pushed himself up off the ground and knelt on one
knee as he took careful aim. The charging Gilett reminded Val of one of those
running figure targets that the army uses on their firing ranges. Only Gilett
was no two-dimensional, monochrome picture.

The wail of the siren filling his ears, Val squeezed
the trigger twice. Both shots slammed into Gilett’s chest. He managed another
couple of strides before flopping across the pirogue’s hull. Val rose and took
Gilett’s gun from his hand and checked for a pulse.

Marie Duval’s half-brother was dead.

The 4x4 of the St Francis sheriff clattered over the
wooden bridge, a deputy’s car immediately behind. They pulled up beside
Gilett’s body and the Sheriff and a deputy jumped out, their guns drawn. Val
threw both guns to the ground and ran to the back of the Wagoneer and released
the tailgate. Angie was inside, curled up in a fetal position. He couldn’t find
a pulse, though her body was warm. Let it be more than the heat inside the
trunk, Val hoped. He lifted her tenderly in his arms.

“Get me to the nearest hospital,” Val commanded the
sheriff.

The sheriff caught the urgency on Val’s face and
wasted no time. He threw open the door of his 4x4 and helped Val lay Angie
across the rear seat. Val climbed in beside her, and the sheriff, shouting
instructions to his deputy the whole time, got behind the wheel. He was already
on his radio asking the operator to patch him through to the Morgan City
hospital as they crossed the wooden bridge.

“Tell them she was given a neurotoxin approximately
twelve hours ago,” Val said. “She’ll need some sort of chemical blocker.”

The sheriff started relaying the information to the
Emergency Room
.
He wasn’t holding
back on the gas.

“Tell them she’s in early months of pregnancy,” Val
added. He felt so useless. The help Angie needed most, he couldn’t provide.

The sheriff turned his head slightly. “I see you
finished what you started with Gilett. I had a call from the Coast Guard. Some
seaplane pilot radioed in a report that World War Three had broken out down in
the bayous.”

Val looked up. “You better have them dispatch a
paramedic team. I left a priest back there with a head wound. Tell your deputy
to place him in custody.”

The sheriff got busy on his radio again.

Val swept a blonde hair back from his wife’s face.
What had she ever done to deserve any of this?

The sheriff intruded on his thoughts. “The Emergency
Room doctors want to know what sort of neurotoxin we’re talking about?”

“A Haitian Zombi juice. A mixture of extracts from the
liver of the puffer fish and the bark of the manchineel tree.” Val caught the
look of incredulity that flashed across the Sheriff’s face. That was going to
be the first hurdle to overcome at the hospital; convincing the doctors to take
him seriously.

“They want to know if you can be more specific?” the
sheriff reported.

“Have them contact a Professor Richard Bickford of the
Anthropology Faculty of the University of New Orleans. He should be able to
help them out.”

Something Lausaux had said came back to Val. When he
talked about the antidote, he said it had been much easier to conceal. He
didn’t use the word hide. Conceal. He probably had the antidote on him the
whole time, or in the Wagoneer somewhere. Val considered what do to. Take a
chance and have the sheriff turn around and go back to look for it, or
concentrate on getting Angie to an Emergency Room as quickly as possible?

Lausaux had been a devious bastard. He would put the
antidote where no one would think of looking for it.

Val used his thumbs to prize open Angie’s mouth. A
small glass phial lodged in the back of her throat. He used two fingers to fish
it out. It was a match for the one Lausaux had shown him back at Woldenberg
Park. Only this phial still contained a liquid. What if
it was neurotoxin as well? If Lausaux had played one final bluff?

Val made his decision. He ripped off the rubber
stopper and tilted the contents into Angie’s mouth, making sure not to spill a
single drop of the precious liquid. He gently massaged Angie’s throat to help
the liquid descend her gullet. Now all he could do was to wait.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Marie Duval’s heart missed a beat when she saw him.
The last person she expected to find waiting on her doorstep was Val Bosanquet.
She had been to the neighborhood 7-eleven for some milk and cereal for her
breakfast and had been gone less than ten minutes. Had something happened to
Angie? Had he brought bad news?

Bosanquet had a parcel with him, wrapped in brown
paper. “Can I come in?”

“Of course. Is Angie okay?’ She had visited Angie the
day before at Tulane Medical Center, and the toxin specialist assured her that
she was going to be fine, although she had lost her baby.

“Yes, she’s making a full recovery. The medical center
plan to discharge her later today.”

She turned the key in the lock and pushed open the
door. He followed her in and shut the door after them.

“Take a seat. Can I get you a coffee?”

“No thanks.”

Marie sat on a chair at the small white table. Val sat
on the end of the couch. Her apartment seemed a lot smaller with him in it. He
had tired eyes.

“I brought you something,’ he said, handing her the
parcel.

She took it and set it on the table. The string that
bound it was loose and easily removed. Inside were five thick bundles of one
hundred-dollar bills.

“What is this?” she asked, totally confounded.

“It belongs to you. Fifty thousand dollars.”

“I don’t understand. How can it be mine?”

“Your father wished for you to have it.”

Marie bit her lips. Val had broken the news to her
yesterday of her real father’s identity, and that Donny Jackson was her
half-brother. They had talked for an hour in a family room at Tulane. Or rather
Val talked, she had listened. He had explained how her mother had intended to
go to the press and expose Arena Victory. How Kellerman had her killed. How he
also had her father and brother killed all those years ago.

She pushed the money away from her. I can’t accept his
blood
-
money. Did he really think
this would make up for what was done to my mother?”

“Your father was a good man,” Val assured her. “He
made one mistake. He trusted his son, then had to pay for it for the rest of
his life. I don’t care what you do with the money. Throw it in the trash can,
donate it to charity. Or spend it the way your father intended.”

Marie didn’t want to think about it just now. “What
will happen to Kellerman?”

“He’s been indicted for the murder of Philip Lausaux.
Other charges will follow.”

“And Donny Jackson?” According to the late-evening
television news, her half-brother was now in a New Orleans jail. He had tripped
a silent alarm while attempting to burglarize Jean Moncoeur’s empty Lake
Pontchartrain mansion. When the NOPD patrol car turned up, he tried to make a
run for it, but a leg wound, not yet fully healed, slowed him up. They caught
him easily enough.

“The same. An indictment for murder,” Val said flatly.

Marie caught his eye. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve
brought on you and Angie. What do the doctors think? Will she ever be able to
have another baby?”

“There’s no medical reason why not. She and Marcus
plan to marry as soon as the divorce comes through. They’re already discussing
IVF treatment with the doctors at Tulane. It’s the right thing to do. Angie and
I love each other, but she also loves Marcus, and he her. She will find her
happiness with him.”

“What about you? Don’t you deserve some happiness as
well?”

“That will come. I’ve decided to rejoin the New
Orleans police department as soon as the university can appoint a replacement
chief.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do? I thought
you despised law enforcement.”

“It wasn’t law enforcement I despised.”

Marie left it at that. Something inside Val Bosanquet
had changed, and as to whether it was a good or a bad thing, the jury was still
out. She suspected that he was holding something back from her, but if he was,
then he was sure to have a good reason for doing so.

A shiver went up her spine.

After leaving Duval’s apartment, Val sat in his car
for a short time, listening to a news update on the radio. The Securities
Exchange Commission had stepped in and called a postponement to Arena Victory’s
flotation. The journalist went on to speculate on the prospects of it ever
going ahead, as, following recent press allegations and the announcement of a
police investigation into the circumstances leading up to Stuart MacLean’s
death, the big stock-broking firms were hastening to disassociate themselves
from it.

 
The news report
that followed on was a linking story. Veteran New Orleans broadcaster, Harry
Nolan, the man who scooped the Arena Victory story, had initiated a campaign
for the boycotting of all sports equipment manufactured in sweatshop
conditions. His crusade was snowballing and the network media were taking it
up. All across the country, sport stars’ agents were checking the fine print on
their clients’ endorsement contracts with equipment manufacturers.

Val turned off the
radio, started his car and joined the traffic flow on Canal.