Revenant (18 page)

“You're not going to invite me in for coffee?”

“No.” My emotions were too unstable to move from a public good time to a private one. And, I'd limited myself to three martinis. I wasn't drunk enough to rush a jump.

“I had a good time, too, Carson. Thank you. It's enjoyable to spend time with a bright woman.”

“There are so few of us,” I said drolly.

“I didn't mean that. I just haven't had a lot of time to date.”

“I'll keep you honest, and politically correct,” I teased him. Leaning over the door of the BMW, I brushed a kiss across his cheek. “Good night.”

I'd turned to walk into the house when I heard his cell phone ring. It was almost midnight, and I paused, caught by instant curiosity and a whisper of dread.

“What?” he asked, his voice revealing shock. “I'm on my way.”

Before he could protest, I was back in the passenger seat. “I'm going,” I said. “You'll have to drag me out of this car before you leave me.”

“Carson!” He was exasperated. “This is official business.”

“How well I know. I'm going.”

He backed out of the driveway without another word and sped back across the bridge toward the purple-and-orange neon of Biloxi.

S
panish moss draped the spreading limbs of the oak trees and cast eerie shadows over the white-shell cemetery road. I would have thought it was a joke except for the flashing of the red lights up ahead. Mitch didn't waste his breath telling me to stay in the car. As soon as he stopped, I hopped out and followed at a discreet ten paces. It looked bad for him—bringing his date to a crime scene, especially his reporter date. I couldn't help it. I wasn't about to miss a story, and I already knew, in my heart, that we had another dead girl.

I stopped short of the crime-scene tape when I saw the body. She was propped against the headstone, her bare legs extended in front of her, arms at her side, her naked torso covered in the blood that had gushed from the slash in her neck. Long brunette hair fluttered against the folds of a bridal veil. Her pale eyes gazed at nothing.

“Shit.” I whispered the word.

Mitch had gone up to a knot of police officers. From among them Avery Boudreaux gave me a hard glance, daring me to try to get any closer. I was close enough. This crime scene might actually yield physical evidence. Unlike the public pier, which had contained thousands of fingerprints, a tomb was relatively private. Chances were only the caretakers, the family and the murderer had been in this area in recent weeks.

I knew I should call the newspaper photographers, but instead I reached into my purse and turned my cell phone off. I had no heart to see this mutilated young girl on the front page of the paper. I got out my notebook and began jotting down details. The picture I painted with words would be bad enough.

Avery approached me, scowling. “I see a serious conflict of interest.”

“It could be worse,” I said. “He could have been out to dinner with Mimi Goldcrest from the television station. Do you think she'd hesitate to call a crew out here right this minute?”

He growled something I didn't catch. “Just to prevent you from trying to get closer, I'll tell you that her ring finger is severed. That's not for publication.”

So far, I'd been able to hold back that information on all of the bodies. The time would come, though, when it would have to be printed. “Any luck with the air force captain?”

“He's with a sketch artist now.”

I nodded. “Have you identified the girl?”

“She didn't have anything on her. Looks like she walked in here on her own. There are footprints. I'm sure she was drugged, like Pamela.” He spoke with some bitterness, and I realized he was blaming himself.

“You couldn't have prevented this, Avery.”

“I could have if I'd caught the freaking pervert last week.”

“Good plan, if you'd had something to go on.”

“Tell it to the corpse. I'm sure she's sympathetic to the difficulties of my job.”

Whatever I said, Avery was going to take this murder very personally. I understood. Stories became personal to me, too. Justice was important to both of us.

“Ballpark on how long she's been dead?” It was after midnight now.

“Not more than a few hours.”

“How'd you find her?”

“Couple of kids parking.”

He was protective of the kids. He wanted a chance to talk to them first, at length, and away from the gruesome crime scene so they might calm down and remember something important. I would have done the same thing.

“They stumbled on the body?”

“Right. They had a cell phone and called 911. I got here and called Mitch.”

I had the sequence of events, even in minimalist form. “Did the kids see anything?”

“I can't be sure. They may have heard something.”

I made a note. If I didn't use their names, I could say they might have evidence without putting them in the line of fire. I looked up to find Avery watching me.

“They're kids, Carson. I don't want them in any danger. Even if you find out who they are, don't print the names.”

Sometimes Avery could push it too far. After delivering his edict, he left me and went back to talk to the forensics team. I heard some commotion at the gate to the cemetery and looked up to see the television van trying to drive past two patrolmen. Avery was going to have his hands full now. He'd soon discover that I was a far different kettle of fish.

“Damn it all to hell. Where did they come from?” He headed toward them like a pit bull after a poodle.

The television crew probably heard it on a scanner, or they could have a tipster in the police station. At least this was one area where Avery couldn't suspect me.

I reached in my purse and pulled out my pack of cigarettes. It was, after all, Friday night. Though I'd given up Lissa's and my date with the karaoke boys, I needed a cigarette. I lit up and blew a spiral of hazy smoke against the reflection of the still-whirling red lights. I sat back to watch the battle between the police and the fourth estate.

The television camera was only allowed inside the cemetery gate, but Tate Luckett, the reporter, walked up to stand beside me. “Good God,” he said, his voice shaking. “This is sick. What a shot! Dead girl on a tomb with a bridal veil. We don't have a lens long enough to get it, though.”

“It would be a sensational shot,” I agreed. The nicotine had calmed my shaking hands. Now I was simply cold. And needing a drink. The scene throbbed in the whirl of the red lights, hellish and cruel. Tate Luckett's face reflected only ambition, and I wondered if I'd ever looked that way. Probably.

“My camera guy can't get a damn thing from back there.”

“Could be for the best,” I said.

He looked at me. I obviously wasn't the hotshot reporter he'd heard I was. “It's not my place to decide what's best for the viewer. I'm just supposed to get as much as I can.”

“There'll come a day when you realize it is up to you to decide,” I said slowly. I didn't buy into the pass-the-buck defense.

“I wondered why you'd work for a paper like the
Morning Sun.
Now I know.”

“Fuck you, Tate,” I said. It wasn't the witty rejoinder I'd hoped for, but I was weary and cold. A young girl's life had ended some fifty yards in front of me. My reputation with the likes of Tate Luckett wasn't important.

Mitch was busy talking with the M.E. and a forensics team. The last thing he needed was to tell me good-night in front of everyone. I slipped away into the darkness, letting the moss-draped shadows fall over me until I was lost to his view. When I'd made it to the road where the TV camera crew huffed and fumed, I called a taxi. I smoked three more cigarettes while I waited.

When I got home, I made a pitcher of martinis and took my cigarettes out to the porch. There was no wind on this protected side of the house, and the smoke from my cigarette curled lazily up. I finished one martini and poured another. I intended to get very, very drunk, and if I was lucky, the image of that dead girl would blur behind a haze of vodka.

“Carson.”

I thought I was imagining things. “Who is it?”

“It's Michael. Are you okay?”

“Where the hell are you?” My words slurred out of control.

He stepped out from beside the tall azaleas and came up the narrow steps to the screened door. I stumbled toward it, unlatched it and let him in.

“I called several times this evening. When you didn't call me back, I got concerned.”

“I'm too tough to kill.” My pronunciation was interesting. The words tumbled into each other.

He sat down on the wicker sofa beside me and I caught the scent of his cologne, something gentle and clean, like I remembered him.

“I'm tired,” I said. “He killed another girl.”

His arm slipped around my shoulder and I leaned against him. He was warm and I burrowed closer. “You're okay,” he said, his hand rubbing my arm as he would a frightened horse. “The things you've had to see in your life.”

It had been such a long, long time since I'd allowed anyone to comfort me in any way. “Talk to me, please.” His voice was solid, something that connected me to a fragment of my old self that was still strong and unbroken.

“I had a day today,” he said, his hand rubbing, his voice soothing. “Old man Windom had four cows down. I lost two and saved two, but I tell you, Carson, I came as close as I ever have to striking a man. Sometimes I just don't understand the cruelty in this world.”

I understood then that as solid as Michael was, he, too, saw horrors that he couldn't correct. I lifted my chin and kissed him. His mouth covered mine in a way I remembered, firm and wanting. I turned in his arms and was in his lap, clinging to him, kissing him with a passion that was partly liquor and mostly wild need.

“Carson,” his said, his voice shaking. “Are you—?”

I ripped his shirt open, buttons flying. I kissed him hard, my hands tugging at his clothes, demanding.

He stood up, lifting me with him, kicked the door open to my bedroom and carried me inside. Instead of putting me on the bed, he eased me to my feet. His hands held my shoulders. Eye to eye, he began to unbutton my blouse.

Long ago, we'd made love with youthful passion, unaware of the consequences of life and loving. We both knew now how much it cost to care. There would be a price. There always was. His hands began to slide the blouse off my shoulders, his palms tracing my skin. When he felt the scar tissue, he halted. He knew what it was. I saw it in his eyes. He was a man of medicine, after all. He could feel the ripples and puckers of burns.

I stepped back from him, pulling my blouse around me. “I was late getting home from work. Annabelle was home alone when the fire started. They meant to kill me, but I worked late. When I got there I ran inside. A beam fell on me. The house was burning and I had to get Annabelle. The firemen pulled me out and wouldn't let me go back inside.”

He didn't say anything else. He just pulled me to him and held me, rocking slightly, pressing me to him as if he meant to meld us together.

 

I woke in darkness, alone, my heart pounding from the vodka and emotions. There was a note on my bedside table written in Michael's loping script. “Call me tomorrow.” I took my cigarettes out to the porch. It was Saturday, technically, but I didn't care if I broke a few more rules. The cats came with me, tumbling and mock-fighting. I watched them, feeling a calm settle over me. They were independent and proud creatures, yet able to play and give affection. I'd lost that balance in my life. Pride was what I had left.

Chester climbed on the sofa and came to lick my cheek. Then he was gone, chasing Miss Vesta's black-tipped tail. It was good that we'd let Annabelle have both of them. They were company for each other while I was gone. There were times, though, that I found one or the other of them sniffing the boxes in the closet where I'd put some of Annabelle's favorite things. They could smell her, and I know they wondered where she'd gone. I wondered, too.

I finished my cigarette, took four aspirin and went back to sleep. I dreamed my daughter was standing beside my bed. She was so beautiful, her hair falling over her shoulders in curls. Her eyelashes were thick and fanned across her cheeks when she closed her eyes. Her pink lips curled with childish mischief as she opened her eyes and looked at me.

“Mama, I'm always here,” she said, laughing at me. “I watch you all the time. The cats know.”

“Annabelle.” I couldn't move. My body wouldn't respond to any order I gave it. I wanted to touch her, to grab her to me and kiss her. I longed for the feel of my baby in my arms.

“I'll stay as long as you need me,” she said.

There was the slightest green cast of light over her, and I shifted my head to see if dawn had broken through the window. It was still dark. The light came from Annabelle.

“I love you,” I told her.

“Of course.” She laughed. “I'm watching.” And she was gone.

I woke up but stayed still in the bed. Miss Vesta was on my pillow, staring at the exact spot Annabelle had been. I drifted back to sleep and woke up to the ringing telephone.

“Ms. Lynch?” The voice was young. “It's Jill Boudreaux—Detective Boudreaux's daughter.”

I glanced at the bedside clock. It was eight. “What's up?”

“Mom and I are going to New Orleans today, but could we meet next week?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I hope I didn't wake you.”

“No, I have a story I should write this morning.”

“It's the dead girl, isn't it?”

I wondered how much Avery told his family about the gruesome details of his work. In my experience, policemen seldom discussed a case with their loved ones. A “boys in blue” mentality developed that created a sense of isolation in a cop. My therapist had cautioned me against developing such an attitude. She'd never understood that reporters were observers, not participants. That was the real danger—to always view life from the outside.