Dead End (6 page)

“Shee-it,” Jilly said and immediately followed up with, “Forgive me Father for I have sinned.”

Cyrus put a fist over his grin. “Sin no more and for your penance bake cakes as well as bread for Harvest Festival.”

“Hoo-mama,” William grumbled, coming across the lawn. He used a large handkerchief to mop his glistening black face and bald head. “It’s hot as a whore’s ass on a griddle, and I ain’t makin’ nuthin’ up. You jest gimme time to get there. I’m an old man and gettin’ older ever’ second in this crazy place.”

“I’m going,” Wally said, raising his skinny butt from the bench. Jilly eyed him, and he sat again.

“William,” Cyrus said. Chastising the man for his questionable analogies would only goad him into further earthy eloquence. “Welcome, podner. You’re moving too fast for a big man in weather like this. But don’t give me that
old
stuff. You’re as strong as an ox. Sit down.” He indicated the bench. “Take a load off.”

“Rather stand,” William said. A huge, muscular fellow, he stood six and a half feet tall and had a grin that could tease at least a glimmer of a smile out of the meanest of critters. “I ax for you to call me.” He worked a red, white, and blue cell phone from the back pocket of low-riding tan jeans. His T-shirt, complete with the American flag plastered across his sweating chest, resembled a frayed and stretched Austrian blind and only paid lip service to covering his fine torso.

“You’re looking good, William,” Jilly said. “Keeping those brothers of yours in line?”

The man splayed a hand built like a plate-sized filet mignon over his heart. “I suffer, ma’am. I surely do suffer. How my dear departed mama came to birth those twin hellcats when she was near fifty, I cain’t say. Between those two and my motherless Martha, the burden’s enough to break a man’s back.”

Cyrus decided it would take something major, like a runaway train, to break William’s back. “You do a good job with your family,” he told him and meant every word. “I would have called you later.”

“No reason they two cain’t hear anythin’ I got to say. Ever’body gotta be warned about that man.”

“Marc Girard?” Jilly said, still toe-picking the lawn while she shaded her eyes to look at William.

“How’d you know, Miss Jilly?”

“‘Cause everyone in town’s talking about him,” Wally said, and Cyrus was almost sure he saw the start of tears. “And he’s scaring my folks. Scarin’ them mad. They are so mad they can’t hardly talk normal at all.”

“Wait a minute, Wally,” Cyrus said quietly. “That’s what it’s all about? Doll and Gater are worried—and they don’t have any need to be—but they’re upset, and that’s why you don’t want to be at home?”

Wally shifted his eyes from place to place, avoiding looking at anyone directly. He nodded.

Cyrus saw Jilly open her mouth to speak but signaled for her to hold off. “Marc’s been here only days.”

“I gotta go.”

“You’ve been staying out of the way all day for weeks,” Jilly said, sitting up straight and crossing her legs under the yellow dress. “Your folks aren’t even sure how long.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Wally said, pulling his brown sack from beneath the bench.

Cyrus knew better than to intervene while tempers were so high. “You’ll have to talk about it,” Jilly said. “They know
everything
now. You might as well face the music and get it over with.”

Clutching the sack to his chest, Wally backed off. “Everything?” he said. “They found out about…everything? About what happened?”

“Wally,” Cyrus said, but his young buddy wasn’t hanging around for more conversation. He made a run for it, and when Cyrus moved to go after him, William’s hand on his shoulder changed his mind.

“Let he go, Father. You ain’t gonna git anythin’ out of the kid while he all riled up and scairt.”

“We weren’t even talking about the same thing,” Jilly said. “He’s got something on his mind we don’t know about.”

“You know who you pushin’ around, Devol?” Chauncey Depew asked, managing to swagger with another man holding a fistful of his seersucker jacket right where it pulled his shoulder blades together. “I want a telephone and a leak, in that order.”

Deputy Spike Devol didn’t like Chauncey, in fact he considered him the kind of lowlife who would look good floating among the water hyacinths on Bayou Teche. Spike liked a quiet life with his four-year-old daughter, Wendy, enough time for the two of them to fish and to drive into Lafayette for a movie—and for him to play a game of pickup basketball.

He’d started out his law enforcement career with big ambitions. The maverick in him had turned out to be trouble, and he was lucky to have the Toussaint job. Deputy pay was a joke, but the gas station and convenience shop his father watched over when Spike couldn’t be there kept the three of them comfortable enough. For the present he’d settle for being where he was, and although he hadn’t lost interest in cleaning up any scum that came his way, he’d gotten smarter about it.

“You hear me, boy?” Chauncey said, and spat tobacco juice on the pocked linoleum floor. “You hear what I’m tellin’ you?”

“Now, my good friend,” Spike whispered in Chauncey’s ear. “We’re on better terms than that. You don’t need a telephone ‘cause we’re just fixin’ to have a chat.” He shoved him past two rookie deputies—the result of Toussaint’s increased crime rate in the past year or so. The man and woman, both ridiculously young, huddled around the castoff television Spike had brought in. A rerun of L.A.
Confidential
had the pair lock-eyed.

“If you ain’t got nothin’ on me, I’m outa here, Devol. I don’t chat with the law.”

“That a fact? Humor me. It gets lonely in here some days. I’ll send out for a late lunch.”

“I don’t want no lunch with you.” Chauncey whined. They’d reached Spike’s office, and he guided his lunch date inside with tender care, slammed the door shut with the heel of a boot, and deposited Chauncey in a green plastic lawn chair bought on special at Wal-Mart.

Depew popped to his feet.

Spike gripped a trapezius muscle over the man’s right shoulder and squeezed delicately. Depew looked close to tears and sank down, whimpering at the pain. He didn’t get up again.

“Hey,” Spike said. “We don’t need takeout. We’ve got doughnuts and coffee. Fresh this mornin’.”

An aching shoulder took up all of Chauncey’s attention. He didn’t even sneer when the day-old doughnuts and lukewarm coffee were placed within his reach.

Spike closed stained roller blinds at windows that overlooked the squad room and placed himself between Chauncey and the door. “We’ll start out by makin’ it clear you are not under arrest and I’m not charging you with anything. I thought it was time we caught up is all.”

That bought him a flat stare from Chauncey’s dark eyes. The man was fifty or so, but women still found him sexy, or so Spike had been told. At the moment his face was chalky under a sallow complexion, and straight black hair, well-pomaded, fell in shiny clumps over his forehead. He was a stocky man of average height who pumped iron at the local gym, but a layer of fat softened his body. It would take more than animal grunts and a pile of iron to neutralize the quantities of food he put down.

“I’d like to leave,” he said. “If my wife gets wind of me bein’ here you and me’ll both wish you’d found someone else to get cozy with.”

“This won’t take long. I’m not even writing anythin’ down—bein’ we’re friends. It was parking in a handicapped slot that did it.”

Chauncey gaped. “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”

“We try to watch our language around here, Mr. Depew. Sets a better tone.”

The doughnut Chauncey grabbed sent a flurry of powdered sugar all over his brown-and-white striped suit. He smacked at the sugar with one hand and stuffed the stale pastry into his mouth with the other.

“You a nervous eater?” Spike asked. Sugar sprayed in his direction.

“I ain’t got nuthin’ to be nervous about,” Depew said. “Try mad.”

“Back to the handicapped parking.”

“I got a bad back. And I got a card on my rearview mirror.”

“Good. I was just asking. Ila Mae Brown said you raced her for a slot outside the liquor store.”

Chauncey chased his doughnut with cold coffee. “No race about it. I got there first is all.”

“You drove around her to get there.”

“I didn’t know it was her.” He wiped at full lips.

“Even when you shot her the bird?”

Chauncey found a handkerchief and mopped his sweating brow. “That woman was shoutin’ at me. I could see her through her windshield, and them words wasn’t so refined.”

“You said you didn’t know her.”

“We both got a right to that spot. I was faster. I gotta look out after my back.”

Spike scrunched lower in his seat. He hated the peeling pea green paint in this room, and the metal desk decorated with brilliant scratched-in wisdom. And he’d moved from disliking Depew to hating him.

“Can I go now? I got a business to run.”

“Ila Mae Brown drives a special vehicle. She does everything with her hands.”

Depew guffawed. “Is that so?”

“It is so. Ila May doesn’t have any legs.”

The pumped-up bastard took out a Swiss Army knife, found the pick, and went to work on his teeth.

“Dante Cornelius a friend of yours?”

Depew dropped his hands and looked at Spike with the toothpick sticking out between two teeth. He’d given up on mopping sweat. The air conditioning in there wasn’t doing a thing, and wet rings were spreading under the arms of the seersucker jacket. The perfume du jour wasn’t going to be a winner.

“I see you’re overcome for the moment. Cornelius is in town. He says he knows you. Says you’ll vouch for him.”

Depew looked like a sick man. “I know him. He’s had bad times. Might say he’s misunderstood.”

“I’ve heard hit men described that way before. Must be hard on them. He’s strictly New Orleans. What’s he doin’ in St. Martin Parish? Said he was visitin’ you, but I find that hard to believe.”

Depew did a crummy job of appearing nonchalant. “He used to live around here when he was a kid. Never had no luck. His pappy was a pusher and his momma turned tricks. He gets depressed so I let him come and talk to me.”

“His sheet shows he could have been involved in taking out troublesome marks for the New Orleans family. Attempted hits, that is. Apparently his aim isn’t so good. That’s gotta be a drawback in his line of work. Of course, there’s some who went missing and were never found, so maybe he doesn’t miss every time. Maybe he’s one of those people who always wins at hide, and don’t seek if he plays long enough.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Depew said. He looked still sicker. Spike hoped the guy wouldn’t throw up.

“How are you and Precious getting along these days?”

“Great,” Depew shouted. “Not that it’s any of your goddamn business.”

“Not yet it isn’t. You might want to tell Cornelius to stop following Precious around. This isn’t the Quarter. Guys who read newspapers while they walk get noticed, and it can be irritating if they keep bumping into people.”

Depew was on his feet. “You got nothing on me—or anyone else, from what I can see. Who told you Dante was following Precious around?”

“Your wife.”

Before heading into Toussaint the following morning, Marc had left Cletus with instructions to hire a team of cleaners and get Clouds End properly opened up. The gardens were a beautiful jungle, and Cletus was also to find gardeners. The house needed extensive renovations, but Marc would deal with the contracting himself; he didn’t want to overwhelm the man who had been with the Girards for forty-five years and who was spry, but elderly.

Mark drove into Toussaint and headed for Reb’s place. Yesterday afternoon hadn’t been a happy time. Reb had responded to another page at the rectory and headed out, terminating their discussion—if that’s what it could be called. She’d been kind in the way people were kind to someone they’d decided deserved pity. The bottom line was, she didn’t buy his theory about Amy having been the woman who died at St. Cecil’s.

He made a turn, edged his Land Rover along Conch Street, and came to a stop at Number Four, a pretty white Victorian with galleries upstairs and down and metal railings surrounding a small but mature garden. This house, too, needed work, but a brass bell shone on the wall beside a dark green front door, and hibiscus bloomed in pots on scrubbed marble steps while a lush fern hung close to frosted glass on one side of the door. A polished plate attached to the railings still had Reb’s father’s name on it, but hers had been added below. He figured it was consulting-room time, so he’d take a place in the waiting room until it was his turn to see her. There were some interesting feelings attached to the thought, but he wouldn’t be making anything out of them.

He rang the bell and immediately opened the front door as was known to be the routine. The waiting room was ringed with overstuffed furniture, and a large, low table overflowing with magazines took up space in the center.

Only three people sat there, staring straight ahead and listening to the loud ticking of a grandfather clock. Gaston lay on the floor outside the consulting-room door. Today his topknot ribbon was a puff of multicolored chiffon. “Hey, Gaston,” Marc said. “Go on strike till she quits dressing you like a girl.”

Three pairs of eyes made his skin prickle, but he smiled all around. The patients, a man and two women, all gave him
drop-dead
stares. He didn’t recognize any of them, but he’d jump on any bet that they all knew him.

The consulting-room door opened, and a man wearing a tie-dyed shirt, baggy khaki pants, and Birkenstocks came out with a small boy under each arm. “Thanks, doc,” he called back. “Home to bed for you two.” Both of the children coughed and wiped pudgy hands across their noses.

Marc held his breath and waited for the germ gang to leave.

The next patient, one of the women, spent only ten minutes with Reb and left smiling. The second woman bustled in, and he heard her laughing even with the door closed. She was still laughing when she walked out. Reb must have turned into a comedienne.