Mercy (6 page)

T
he room was filled with flowers when Theo woke up from his morning nap. He heard whispering in the hallway, opened his eyes, and saw a nurse talking to an older man. She was pointing to the box the aide had left.

The man looked like a retired linebacker, Theo thought. Or maybe a boxer. If he was Dr. Renard’s father, she’d gotten her good looks from her mother’s side of the family.

“I don’t want to disturb you,” the man said, his voice thick with a Cajun accent. “I’d just like to pick up this box Dr. Cooper fixed up for my daughter and be on my way.”

“Come in,” Theo said. “You’re Dr. Renard’s father, aren’t you?”

“That’s right. My name’s Jake. Jake Renard.” He walked over to the side of the bed and shook Theo’s hand. Theo didn’t have to introduce himself. Jake knew who he was. “My girl told me all about you.”

“She did?” He couldn’t hide his surprise.

Jake nodded. “You must have been real quick, son, because my Mike knows how to take care of herself.”

Theo didn’t know what the man was talking about. “I was ‘quick’?”

“When you clipped her,” he explained. “Where’d you think she got that shiner?”

“I did that?” He was incredulous. He had no memory of it, and she hadn’t said anything about it. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I figured you didn’t mean to hit her. She told me you were in considerable pain at the time. You were lucky she noticed you.” He leaned against the bed rail and folded his arms across his chest. “Now, my daughter doesn’t usually talk about her patients, but I knew she had gone to a fancy party wearing a brand-new dress she didn’t want to spend money on, and when I asked her if she had a good time, she told me about you. She had only just gotten there when she had to turn around and go back to the hospital. She didn’t get to have a single bite of food.”

“I should apologize to her.”

“You tore her dress. You should probably tell her you’re sorry about that too.”

“I tore her dress?”

“Just after you threw up on her.” Jake chuckled, then shook his head. “Ruined that brand-new four-hundred-dollar dress.”

Theo groaned. He did remember doing that.

“You look like you need to get some rest. If you see my daughter, will you tell her I’m waiting down in the lobby? It was sure nice to meet you.”

“Why don’t you wait here?” Theo suggested. “I’ve slept as much as I’m going to,” he added. “When your daughter comes looking for you, I can tell her thank you.”

“I guess I could sit a spell. I don’t want to wear you out, though.”

“You won’t.”

Jake dragged a chair to the side of the bed and sat down.

“Where’s home, son? From your accent, I’d have to guess the east coast.”

“Boston.”

“Never been there,” Jake admitted. “Are you married?”

“I was.”

“Divorced?”

“No, my wife died.”

His tone of voice suggested that Jake not pursue that line of questioning.

“What about your parents? They still around?”

“Yes, they are,” he answered. “I come from a big family. There’s eight of us, six boys and two girls. My father’s a judge. He keeps trying to retire but hasn’t quite figured out how to do it yet.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever known a judge,” Jake said. “My wife, Ellie, wanted a big family, and if we’d been blessed, I probably would have figured out a way to feed them all. I was willing to do my part, but we had to stop with three. Two boys and a girl to round the family out.”

“Where exactly is home, sir? Your daughter was talking about her clinic, but she never mentioned the name of the town.”

“Call me Jake,” he insisted. “Bowen, Louisiana, is home, but I don’t expect you’ve ever heard of it. The town’s not big enough to be a speck on a map. Bowen’s tiny, all right, but it’s the prettiest stretch of land in all Louisiana. Some afternoons when the sun’s going down and the breeze picks up, the moss starts in swaying and the light bounces off the bayou just so, and the bullfrogs and the gators start in singing to each other . . . well, son, I think to myself that I must be living in paradise. It’s that pretty. The closest town is St. Claire, and that’s where folks do their Saturday shopping, so we’re not completely isolated. There’s a hospital there on the north side. It’s old, but adequate,” he added.

“Do your sons live in Bowen?”

“Remy, my oldest, is out in Colorado. He’s a fireman and still not married,” he added. “He comes home every now and again. John Paul, the middle one, left the marines and moved back to Bowen a couple of years ago; he’s not married either. Too busy, I imagine. He lives in a nice little cabin he built deep in the swamp, and when he isn’t working the bar for me, he’s a carpenter. Last year we opened a brand-new high school, and John Paul helped build it. Daniel Boone is what it’s called. Named after a local celebrity.”

“You don’t mean it’s named after the Daniel Boone who helped settle Kentucky . . . the frontiersman . . . is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s the one, all right.”

“You’re saying Boone lived in Bowen?”

Jake shook his head. “No, son, we can’t boast that, but legend has it that Daniel roamed the area hunting and fishing. Of course, that was way back in the 1700s before Bowen was even a town. Still, we like to think that Daniel fished our waters and stayed a spell.”

Theo managed not to laugh. It appeared that the people in Bowen were hard-pressed for local heroes.

“Where does the name Bowen come from?”

“It comes from the word
Bowie,
like in the knife.”

“For Jim Bowie? Did he stop by too?”

“We like to think he did.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“No, I’m not,” Jake insisted. “Of course, Jim didn’t show up at the same time Daniel did. He came years later, in the 1800s,” he said.

“Are you sure you aren’t getting Daniel Boone mixed up with Davy Crockett?”

“I sure hope not. The school’s already got the lettering on it in stone.”

“Is there proof that Boone was in Bowen?”

“None to speak of,” Jake admitted with a twinkle in his eye. “But we believe it to be true. Now, as I was telling you, the Bowen kids used to have to bus over to the fancy high school in St. Claire, but it just got too cramped. It was past time we had our own. We’ve even got a football team. We were all real excited about that last year . . . until we saw them play. Lord, they’re a sorry lot at best. I never missed a game though, and I won’t miss this year either because, now that my daughter is home, she’ll be going with me. Mike agreed to be the team’s physician, which means she’s got to sit on the sidelines and fix them up when they get hurt. We all know they’re going to get trounced again, but I figure I ought to be supportive of their efforts by showing up and cheering them on. We didn’t win a single game last year. We’ve got some real big boys, but they don’t know what to do when they get the ball. They don’t know how to hit either. You like to watch football, Theo?”

“Sure,” he said.

“You ever play?”

“Yes, I did,” he answered. “High school, and college until I trashed my knee.”

“What position? You’re tall and thick through the shoulders. I’d guess quarterback.”

Theo nodded. “That’s right. It seems like a long time ago.”

Jake had a speculative gleam in his eyes. “You ever think about coaching?”

Theo laughed. “No, I haven’t.”

“Mike might be able to fix up your knee for you.”

“You must be very proud of your daughter, coming back home to open a clinic.”

“Of course I’m proud of her,” he said. “I’m not going to let her work herself to the bone, though. There are other doctors in St. Claire, and they’ll be taking call for one another so each of them can have some time off now and again.”

“Why is she doing surgery here in Brethren?”

“To make some extra money. They call it moonlighting, but she’s finished now and won’t be coming back. Do you like to fish?”

“I used to, but the last few years, there just hasn’t been any time for it,” he admitted. “I remember, though, there’s nothing like that feeling of peace that comes over a man when he’s —”

“Holding a fishing pole in one hand and a cold beer in the other?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Nothing like it in the world.”

They started discussing their favorite lures and bait, and then did a good deal of bragging about the fish they’d caught. Jake was impressed. He didn’t think anyone understood or loved fishing as much as he did, but he had to admit that from the way Theo talked, he had met his match.

“I’m telling you, you ought to come up to Bowen. We’ve got the best fishing in the state, and I mean to prove it to you. We’ll pass a good time out on my dock.”

“I may take you up on the offer sometime,” he said.

“What do you do for a living?” Jake asked.

“I’m an attorney.”

“How come the chief of police is sending you flowers?” he asked. He looked sheepish as he added, “They were sitting on the counter at the nurses’ station before they brought them on in here, and I read the card.”

“I came to New Orleans to give a speech,” he said, leaving out the fact that he was being honored by the local authorities. “I work for the Justice Department.”

“Doing what exactly?”

“I was assigned to a special task force,” he said. He realized he was still being evasive and added, “The area was organized crime. I just finished up.”

“Did you get your man?”

Theo smiled. “Yeah, I did.”

“Are you out of a job now?”

“No,” he answered. “Justice wants me to stay on. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”

Jake continued with his questions. Theo thought he would have made a great prosecutor. He had a sharp mind and a quick wit.

“You ever think about going into private practice?” Jake asked.

“Sometimes.”

“There aren’t any good attorneys in Bowen. We got two over in St. Claire, but they’ll rob you blind. Folks don’t think much of them.”

While Jake talked about his town, Theo kept trying to think of a subtle way to bring the subject back to Michelle.

“Is your daughter married?” So much for subtle.

“I was wondering when you were going to get around to asking me about Mike. The answer’s no, she isn’t married. She hasn’t had time. Of course, the men in Bowen and St. Claire are all trying to get her attention, but she’s been too busy setting up her clinic to pay them any mind. She’s still young,” he added. “And smart. Lord, is my girl smart. She finished college before she was twenty, then started in on her medical training. She had to go out of state to do her residency, but she came home to visit every chance she got. She’s mindful of family,” he added with a nod. “And she’s pretty too, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is.”

“I figured you’d notice.”

Jake stood up and put the chair back against the wall. “It was nice passing the time with you, but I should go now. You get some sleep, and I’ll carry that box to the car. Dr. Cooper gave my daughter some old surgical equipment, and when she asked me to come and fetch it, she was smiling like it was Christmas morning. If you ever make your way to Bowen, you be sure and come by The Swan. That’s my bar,” he explained. “Drinks on the house.”

He was at the door when Theo stopped him. “If I don’t see your daughter before she leaves, please tell her thank you for me, and also tell her how sorry I am about the dress.”

“I’ll be sure and tell her.”

“Maybe our paths will cross again someday.”

Jake nodded. “Maybe so.”

J
ohn’s friends never saw it coming.

Two weeks to the day after Catherine’s funeral, Cameron happened to run into the grieving widower at Commander’s Palace, a four-star restaurant located in the Garden District. Cameron was sitting in one of the dining rooms waiting for his attorney to join him to discuss the never-ending and thoroughly nauseating topic of his divorce settlement. His wife was determined to destroy him financially and to publicly humiliate him in the process, and from the way things were going, it looked as though she would succeed.

John was having dinner with a young woman in the next room. The blond looked vaguely familiar. Her head was bent down, and she was diligently writing in her Day-Timer.

Cameron couldn’t remember where he’d seen the woman before, but he was pleased to see his friend out for the evening, even if it was business. John’s moods had been so volatile since his wife’s death. One minute he was overjoyed, almost euphoric, and the next, he was wallowing in self-pity and depression.

The blond lifted her head, and Cameron got a good look at her face. She was quite pretty. He still couldn’t place her. He decided to interrupt the couple to say hello. He ordered a double scotch neat as fortification to get through the ordeal ahead of him with his attorney, then started winding his way through the tables into the next dining room.

Had he not dropped his pen, he never would have known the truth. He bent down to scoop it up, and that was when he saw John put his hand on the blond’s thigh under the white linen tablecloth. Her legs spread, and she shifted ever so slightly until she was leaning into his hand, which was now moving upward under her dress.

Cameron was so shocked by the intimacy he almost lost his balance. He quickly caught himself and stood. Neither John nor the woman noticed him. She had turned her head and was staring off into space, her eyes half-closed in obvious bliss.

Cameron couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but that instant of disbelief swiftly turned into confusion.

He suddenly remembered who the blond was, though he couldn’t recall her name. She was the insipid female who called herself an interior decorator. Cameron had met her in John’s office. Oh, yes, it was all coming back to him now. She didn’t have taste or talent. She had turned his friend’s office into a bordello parlor by painting the beautiful walnut-paneled walls a deep, garish mustard yellow.

She obviously had talent in another area though. The way John was all but licking his lips as he greedily stared at her pouting mouth indicated she was real talented in the bedroom. Cameron continued to stand near the doorway, staring at his friend’s back while the truth settled in his mind.

The son of a bitch had duped them all.

Incredulous, and at the same time overwhelmed with anger, Cameron turned and walked back to his table. He tried to convince himself that he was jumping to the wrong conclusions. He had known John for years and trusted him completely.

Until now. Damn it, what had John done to them? White-collar crime was one thing; murder was quite another. The club had never gone this far before, and what made it all the more chilling was that they had convinced themselves that they were actually doing a good deed. Tell that to a jury of their peers and watch them laugh.

Dear God, had Catherine really been terminal? Had she been dying a slow, agonizing death? Or had John simply been lying to them to get them to do his dirty work?

No, not possible. John wouldn’t have lied about his wife. He’d loved her, damn it.

Cameron was sick to his stomach. He didn’t know what to think, but he did know it would be wrong to condemn his friend without knowing all the facts. Then it occurred to him that the affair, if that was what this was, could have begun after Catherine’s death. He latched onto the idea. Yes, of course. John had known the decorator before his wife’s death. The blond had been hired by Catherine to redecorate her bedroom. But so what if he had known her? After his wife died, John was grieving and lonely, and the young woman was available. Hell, she probably pounced on his vulnerability right after the funeral.

A nagging doubt remained. If this was innocent, then why hadn’t John told his friends about her? Why was he hiding it?

Maybe because his wife’s ashes hadn’t even had time to cool off yet. Yeah, that was it. John knew it wouldn’t look good to get involved with another woman so soon after Catherine’s death. People would certainly think it was odd and start talking and speculating, and the club sure as hell didn’t want that to happen. John was smart enough to know he should keep a low profile.

Cameron had almost convinced himself that what he had seen was pretty harmless, but he still felt compelled to make certain. He didn’t let John see him. He paid his bar tab and slipped out of the restaurant. He had the valet bring around the used Ford sedan he was forced to drive these days — his soon-to-be ex-wife had already confiscated his cherished Jaguar, damn the slut. He drove to the next block, ducked down in the seat, and turned to watch for the couple to come outside. While he waited, he called his attorney on his cell phone to cancel dinner.

The two of them came outside twenty minutes later. They stood at the curb, facing each other about five feet apart, acting stiff and formal, as though they were little more than strangers, John with his hands stuffed in his pants pockets, the blond clutching her purse and her Day-Timer. When her car arrived, she tucked her purse under her arm and shook John’s hand. The valet held the door of her cherry red Honda open, and she got inside and drove away without a backward glance.

To the casual observer, the scene was very businesslike.

A minute later John’s gray BMW convertible arrived. He took his time removing his suit jacket, folding it just so before carefully placing it on the passenger’s seat. The well-fitted suit was Valentino, the only designer John ever wore. A wave of bitterness washed over Cameron. Six months ago he, too, had had a closet full of Joseph Abboud and Calvin Klein and Valentino suits, but then his wife, in a drunken rage, had grabbed a butcher knife and shredded the clothes into rags. That little tantrum had destroyed over fifty thousand dollars’ worth of garments.

God, how he longed to get even. Some nights he lay in bed and fantasized about all sorts of ways to kill her. The most important element in the daydream was pain. He wanted the bitch to suffer as she was dying. His favorite scenario was smashing her face through a glass window and watching the whore slowly bleed to death. In his fantasy a shard of glass barely nicked her artery.

Oh, yes, he wanted her to suffer the way she was making him suffer, to get even with her for stealing his life from him. She’d frozen all of his assets until the divorce settlement was reached, but he already knew what the outcome would be. She was going to take it all.

She didn’t know about the Sowing Club or the assets they had hidden. No one did. Her attorney wouldn’t be able to find the money either, even if he had been looking. The millions of dollars were in an offshore account, and none of it could be traced back to him.

But for now, it didn’t matter that he had money hidden. He couldn’t touch any of it until he turned forty. That was the deal the four friends had made, and he knew the others wouldn’t let him borrow from the fund. It was too risky, and so, for the next five years, he was going to have to bite the bullet and live like a pauper.

John was the lucky devil. Now that Catherine was dead, he had what was left of her trust fund, which he didn’t have to share with anyone.

Cameron was filled with envy as he watched his friend put on his Saints’ ball cap. He knew John only wore the thing to hide his bald spot. He was going to be completely bald by the time he was fifty, like all the men in his family, no matter what precautions he took. But what did that matter? He’d still look real good to women. Women would put up with any flaw if there was money involved.

Cameron dismissed this latest bout of self-pity with a shake of his head. Feeling sorry for himself wasn’t going to change anything. Besides, he could hold on for a few more years. Concentrate on the future, he told himself. Soon he would be able to retire as a multimillionaire and move to the south of France, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing his ex could do about it.

John slid onto the soft leather seat. Then he loosened his tie, adjusted the rearview mirror, and drove away.

Should he follow him? Cameron threaded his fingers through his hair in frustration. He knew he wasn’t being fair to John and that it was wrong for him to become so easily spooked by what was surely innocent. John had loved his wife, and if a cure had been possible, Cameron knew that his friend would have spent every dollar he had to save Catherine.

Yet, the nagging uncertainty wouldn’t go away, and so he did follow him. He figured that if he could just sit down with him and talk, they would be able to clear up this . . . misunderstanding. John would tell him this suspicion was simply a reaction to the horrible guilt he was feeling over what they had done in the name of mercy.

Cameron thought about turning the car around and going home, but he didn’t do it. He had to be sure. Had to know. He took a shortcut through the Garden District and arrived at John’s house before he did. The beautiful Victorian home was on a coveted corner lot. There were two enormous, ancient oak trees and a magnolia casting black shadows on the front yard. Cameron pulled onto the side street adjacent to the electronically gated driveway. He turned the lights off, then the motor, and sat there, well-concealed under a leafy branch that blocked out the streetlight. The house was dark. When John arrived, Cameron reached for the door handle, then froze.

“Shit,” he whispered.

She was there, waiting. As the iron gate was opening, he spotted her standing on the sidewalk by the side of the house. The garage door lifted then, and Cameron saw her red Honda parked inside.

As soon as John parked his car and walked out of the garage, she ran to him, her large round breasts bouncing like silicone balls underneath the tight fabric of her dress. The bereaved widower couldn’t wait to get her inside the house. They tore at each other like street dogs in heat. Her black dress was unzipped and down around her waist in a matter of seconds, and his hand was latched onto one of her breasts as they stumbled to the door. His grunts of pleasure blended with her shrill laughter.

“That son of a bitch,” Cameron muttered. “That stupid son of a bitch.”

He had seen enough. He drove home to his rented one-bedroom apartment in the untrendy section of the warehouse district and paced for hours, stewing and fuming and worrying. A bottle of scotch fueled his anger.

Around two in the morning, a couple of drunks got into a fistfight outside of his window. Cameron watched the spectacle with disgusted curiosity. One of them had a knife, and Cameron hoped he’d stab the other one just to shut him up. Someone must have called the police. They arrived, sirens blaring, minutes later.

There were two officers in the patrol car. They quickly disarmed the drunk with the knife and then slammed both men up against a stone wall. Blood, iridescent under the garish streetlight, poured from a gash in the side of one drunk’s head as he crashed unconscious to the pavement.

The policeman who’d used the unnecessary force shouted a crude blasphemy as he rolled the unconscious man over onto his stomach and then knelt on his back and secured the handcuffs. Then he dragged him to the car. The other drunk meekly waited his turn, and within another minute or two, both were locked in the back of the car on their way to the city jail.

Cameron gulped a long swallow of scotch and wiped the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand. The scene under his window had freaked him, especially the handcuffs. He couldn’t handle being cuffed. He couldn’t go to prison, wouldn’t. He’d kill himself first . . . if he had the courage. He had always been a little claustrophobic, but the condition had worsened over the years. He couldn’t be inside a windowless room these days without feeling tightness in his chest. He’d stopped using elevators, preferring to walk up seven flights of stairs rather than spend thirty or forty seconds inside a metal elevator box, squeezed in like a dead sardine with the other office dwellers.

Dear God, why hadn’t he thought about his claustrophobia before he agreed to this lunacy?

He knew the answer and was drunk enough to admit it. Greed. Fucking greed. John was the motivator, the planner, the man with the vision . . . and the money connections. With the fervor of a southern evangelist, he’d promised he could make them all rich. Hell, he already had. But he had also played them for the greedy fools he knew they were. When he started talking about killing himself, he knew they’d all panic. They couldn’t lose John, and they would do anything to keep him happy.

And that was exactly what the bastard had counted on.

Bleary-eyed from drink, Cameron finished the bottle of scotch and went to bed. The following morning, Sunday, he battled a hangover until noon. Then, when he was clearheaded, he came up with a plan. He needed absolute proof for Preston and Dallas to see, and once they realized how John had manipulated them, Cameron would demand that they split the profits in the Sowing Club now and go their separate ways. He wasn’t about to wait five more years to collect his share. After what John had done, all Cameron could think about was running away before they got caught.

Cameron had a few connections of his own, and there were a couple of calls he needed to make. He had five working days before the confrontation he planned on Friday. Five days to nail the son of a bitch.