Eight

Dave took the Sea Ray out at dawn the next morning to test the overhauled Chevy engines for his uncle. The boat had been in dry dock for over two weeks, a financially disastrous situation during peak season, but Marsilius had used the opportunity to update some of the equipment.

The old thirty-foot sports cruiser now offered a television, stereo, microwave and a fully stocked refrigerator, along with the two-burner stove, full head and stand-up shower. The cabin area could comfortably accommodate four guests for overnight trips out to the steel reefs where the bright vapor lights from the oil rigs beamed down to the water’s surface, attracting schools of bait fish that in turn lured in the yellowfin, mackerel and amberjack.

Marsilius had night fishing down to a science, but Dave had been trying for years to get him to invest in a smaller boat for the anglers who liked to fish the marshes and oyster beds in the basin. His uncle was set in his ways, though, and wasn’t looking to expand his business. He had Dave to relieve him when his knee acted up, and Jinx Bingham’s boy to run the bait and tackle. No sense fixing what wasn’t broke, he always said.

Throttling back the engines, Dave glided through a glimmering channel and dropped anchor in the bay to watch the sunrise. Mist hovered over the marshes and islets, and clung like wet silk to the treetops.

Pouring a cup of coffee from his thermos, he sat down to enjoy the solitude. He couldn’t help but think about the past this morning, or the case that Angelette Lapierre had dropped in his lap. She’d faxed a copy of the file to his office, and he’d sifted through the reports and made a few calls before going down to New Orleans late last night. But he needed more time to study the case before he made a decision about taking it on. He didn’t want to give the grieving family false hope until he figured out Angelette’s angle. She’d used the similarity to the Savaria case to draw him in, but Dave couldn’t figure out why she’d bother. She said Nina Losier’s parents were looking to hire a private detective, and she’d told them about him, but that alone set off an alarm for Dave. He and Angelette hadn’t exactly parted on good terms. Aside from the fact that she’d tried to kill him when he broke things off with her, he didn’t trust her and never had. Maybe at one time her edge had been a big part of her appeal, but now Dave knew only too well the cost of getting mixed up with Angelette Lapierre. And that was one mistake he wasn’t looking to repeat.

But a young woman had been brutally murdered and her parents wanted justice. That was a hard situation to walk away from, especially for Dave, and he had a feeling that was exactly what Angelette was banking on.

As the boat rocked gently in the current, Dave tipped back his head, propped up his feet and tried to let the peaceful setting lull him. Sunrise in the Gulf was always spectacular, a fiery palette of crimson and gold splashed across a deep lavender canvas. As the mist slowly burned away in the early morning heat, the landscape turned a deep, earthy green. Violet clumps of iris jutted through a thick carpet of algae and duckweed, and purple water lilies opened in the green-gold light that filtered down through the cypress trees.

Off to his right, a flock of snowy egrets took flight from the swamp grass, and a second later, Dave saw the familiar snout and unblinking stare of a gator glide past his boat. The vista was at once beautiful and menacing, a shadowy world of dark water and thick curtains of Spanish moss.

Dave had been born and raised in New Orleans, but he loved the Cajun Coast, with its teeming bayous and maze of channels where an outsider could get lost for days. Even when he’d still lived in the city, he had come down every chance he had to help Marsilius with the charters. After he and Claire were married, she would come with him, and when he was finished working for the day, they’d take the boat back out to watch the sunset. Sometimes he would rest on deck while she cooked dinner in the galley, but most of the time he would sit below and watch her.

Her face had mesmerized him. Even the menial tasks she’d performed dozens of times drew a fierce scowl of concentration to her brow, and Dave always wondered what went through her head then. He’d call out her name to make her glance up, so that he could see her quick smile. She had a shy, intimate way of looking at him that made him want to drop whatever he was doing and take her in his arms, no matter where they were.

Sometimes they would stay out on the water until well after dark, and make love on the boat. Afterward Claire would sit between his legs, his arms wound around her as they watched the stars shimmer through the treetops.

When Ruby got older they’d brought her along a few times, but she didn’t take to the water. Too many bugs to suit her, and she didn’t like getting her hair all tangled on the breeze.

“You’re a little city girl,” Dave would tease her.

To which Ruby would proudly respond, “I’m just like my maw-maw.”

Claire had always been a little befuddled by how Ruby emulated her grandmother, and Charlotte had been downright horrified. But Dave got a kick out of it. Lucille was earthy and she looked like a hot mess most of the time, but she had a good heart. And she was the only one in the family who still gave him the time of day.

He stirred restlessly. The reminiscing had shattered his fragile peace. Loneliness started to creep up on him, and deep inside, he felt the familiar tug of a dangerous thirst. Maybe he’d been hiding out in the swamps and bayous of St. Mary Parish for a little too long. His trips to New Orleans—two days ago and again last night—had reminded him of a life he’d been trying for years to convince himself he didn’t miss.

Finishing off the coffee, he started the engines and headed back in. Marsilius’s place on the bayou was an old weathered building covered in license plates and sheet metal that glinted in the early-morning sunshine. The ramshackle bait and tackle shop also sold sandwiches and snacks, and as Dave tied off at the private dock, he spotted Latrell Bingham dumping bags of ice into the washtubs Marsilius used to chill soft drinks and beer. The kid looked up, grinned and waved to Dave, then went back to his work.

Dave lived just down the road in an old two-story bungalow with screened-in porches and trellises of climbing roses. It wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but the place suited him fine. Except for at night, and then he missed the noises of the city. The scream of a siren heading across Canal Street toward the hospital, or the music and drunken laughter spilling from the bars and strip clubs on Bourbon Street. But what he missed most of all was the hum of alcohol as it coursed through his bloodstream, numbing the pain and guilt, giving him a split second of peace before the rage took over.

The bayou gave him too much time to think. Sitting out on his porch after dark, with the moon glinting off the water and the croak of bullfrogs and crickets echoing up from the swamp, Dave would start to remember the way Ruby’s eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, and how she’d cling to his neck when he galloped her off to bed. The way Claire would look up at him when he returned, and quietly put away her book.

He remembered everything, and yet at times, it seemed to Dave that he had a hard time calling up their faces and the sound of their voices. The old demons would start to prod him then. Alcohol had always given him a moment of clarity along with the peace. If he stopped at one drink or even two, he would be able to remember them properly. The problem was, he’d never known when to quit. A couple of whiskeys would turn into a two-day bender that left him shaky and sick and wondering why he didn’t just hole up somewhere and die.

He didn’t want to go back to those days, no matter how lonely the nights were out here. New Orleans was temptation. New Orleans was Claire and Ruby and a life Dave was never going to get back.

Stepping up on the porch, he fished his house key from a flowerpot and let himself in. The shades were drawn and the house was still dim and cool. He’d converted the small living space off the entrance into his office, and the only other rooms on the bottom floor were an eat-in kitchen and a half bath out back. His current setup didn’t allow for entertaining, but that didn’t matter much to Dave because he rarely had company. And whenever someone did stop by—usually Marsilius or one of the neighbors—they always sat out on the porch, where they could catch a breeze off the water.

Rolling up the old-fashioned shades to allow in some light, Dave walked into the kitchen to put on another pot of coffee before heading upstairs to shower. By the time he came back down, the sweet smell of chicory filled the house. He dug through the coat closet off his office until he located the box of files he wanted, and then carried it out to the porch. Settling down in a padded rocker, he lifted the lid from the box and removed one of the folders.

Before he left the department, he’d made copies of the Savaria case files, and thumbing through the reports and statements now was like sifting through a pile of bad memories. So many things had gone wrong in Dave’s life that he didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on the loss of his livelihood. But he’d loved being a cop. It was the only thing he’d ever wanted to do. If someone had told him that he’d end his career by destroying evidence in a homicide investigation, he would have called that person a liar. But he’d done that and worse. His daughter, his wife, his job—all gone in the blink of an eye because of one bad decision. One weak moment that had changed the course of his entire life.

The day Ruby had gone missing, he’d let Angelette talk him into drinks after their watch, and the next thing he knew, they were checking into a seedy motel off the old Airline Highway. The tension had been building between them for months, and a part of him had known it was only a matter of time before he succumbed.

What he’d wanted from Angelette didn’t have anything to do with the way he felt about Claire, but she wouldn’t believe that. No woman would. Dave had still loved Claire then as much as he ever did. Maybe even more. But Angelette was like a poison in his bloodstream, and he only knew one way to get her out of his system.

Afterward, he’d left her fuming at the motel while he drove home to his wife and kid. And he liked to think that if things had turned out differently, he would never have put himself in that situation again. But he couldn’t be sure. Back then he’d been reckless with the things he cared about the most.

Claire’s call had come as he’d peeled out of the parking lot, and all he could think on his frantic drive home—and for days, months, years afterward—was that his daughter had been kidnapped while he’d been holed up in some motel room with another woman.

He’d never told Claire about that day, but she knew. When she hadn’t been able to reach him right away, she’d sensed something was wrong. He could see it in her eyes. He could hear it in her voice every time she spoke to him. Claire knew, and she blamed him for not being there to protect their daughter. She knew and she would never be able to forgive him.

And because of his moral frailty they’d lost their daughter forever.

Pain seared through his chest and he glanced up from the file to stare off across the water, letting the glide of a blue heron capture his attention, giving him a moment’s reprieve before the suffocating guilt settled back in his lungs. And with it came the longing.

All he had to do was walk over to Marsilius’s place and take a bottle of beer out of the tub. For a moment, Dave let himself imagine the twist of the bottle cap between his fingers, the taste of the icy liquid in his throat and the soothing numbness that would come later when he moved on to the hard stuff. His need was so great that he actually got up from his chair and opened the screen door.

Marsilius stood on the other side. Dave hadn’t even seen him come up, but now he felt annoyed and relieved at the same time by his uncle’s unexpected appearance.

Peering around Dave, Marsilius glanced at the papers scattered on the floorboards, where the folder had slid from his lap when he stood. “You going somewhere?”

“Just got up to let you in,” Dave lied. He moved back so that Marsilius could step up on the porch. “What’s up?”

“Thought I’d come over and make sure you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Marsilius shrugged, but his blue gaze was direct and slightly accusing. “You were out pretty late last night. Must have been after two when I heard you come in.”

“You keeping tabs on me?”

“What if I am?”

“Well, you can relax.” Dave let the spring snap the screen door closed. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I drove into New Orleans to visit a sick friend.”

“A sick friend, huh?” Marsilius looked as if he wasn’t buying it. “This sick friend wouldn’t happen to be named Jim Beam, I don’t reckon.”

“I wasn’t drinking, Marsilius.”

“Never said you were.” But Dave saw a flicker of relief on his uncle’s face as he took out a white handkerchief and mopped the back of his neck. He sat down heavily in the rocker and stretched out his bad knee. “Gonna be a hot one today. Barely eight o’clock and it must be close to ninety.”

“It’s the end of July. What do you expect?”

“Heat gets to me worse every year, seems like. Maybe I’ll sell my place and head north one of these days.”

North to the Creasy clan was anything above I-10. “You’re not going anywhere, old man. You’d freeze your ass off up north.”

Marsilius grunted as he leaned over and absently rubbed his knee. He was a big, muscular man with grizzled hair and a broad face weathered from the years he’d spent under a sweltering Gulf Coast sun. He wore faded jeans, a Mardi Gras T-shirt from twenty years back and a pair of old Converse high-tops he’d bought at the Salvation Army.

Dave pulled out a lawn chair, but didn’t sit. “You want some coffee?”

“I wouldn’t say no.” Marsilius folded his hands behind his head and stared up at the drowsy ceiling fan. “I heard the boat go out earlier,” he called after Dave. “How’s she running?”

“Purring like a kitten.” Dave poured the coffee, then carried both cups out to the porch. Marsilius had picked up one of the folders from the box and was glancing through the contents. “That’s private business,” Dave told him.

“Saw the name on the box and couldn’t help myself.” Marsilius exchanged the folder for the coffee. “Why you hanging on to those files anyway, son? That was a bad time for you back then. You’re not doing yourself any favors by dwelling on that old business.”

Dave sipped his coffee. “I haven’t had a look at those files since I’ve been sober. Thought I might have missed something. Besides, some new information has come to my attention.”

Marsilius frowned. “What kind of information?”

“Have you seen the news reports about that murdered Tulane student?”

“It was all over the news a few weeks back, but what’s that got to do with Renee Savaria?”

“They both worked at a strip joint on Bourbon Street called the Gold Medallion. The owner’s a greaser named JoJo Barone. He goes all the way back to your old vice squad days. You wouldn’t happen to remember anything about him, would you?”

“Nothing more than what I told you seven years ago.”

“I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly seven years ago. Refresh my memory.”

Marsilius shifted his weight to accommodate his knee as he looked out over the bayou. Dave followed his gaze, and for a moment they both seemed to get caught up in the sway of the Spanish moss that fell, like an old woman’s knotted hair, from the water oaks in the yard. The motion was hypnotic in the silent heat. Then another heron took flight from the marsh, breaking the spell, and Dave watched until it was out of sight before turning back to his uncle.

“Well?”

“All I remember is that JoJo had a lot of irons in the fire back then. Besides the skin club in the Quarter, he ran a couple of massage parlors out on Chef Menteur Highway. Had a bunch of Haitian drug dealers for clients, low-life badasses that used to necklace Aristide’s political opponents back in the early nineties. Bastards like that have antifreeze in their veins. I saw one of ’embite the head off a chicken one night and drink the blood like it was pop.”

“Did you ever bust JoJo?”

“We ran him in two or three times, but he had the juice on some pretty high-up officials back then. They always got a little nervous whenever JoJo was in custody, so the charges had a way of disappearing.”

“Did you ever spend any off-duty time at his establishments?”

Marsilius’s features tightened as if Dave might have hit a sore spot. “Chef Menteur Highway was always a place where a guy could get into trouble pretty damn fast. I never went out there unless I had to. And anyway, JoJo didn’t hire the usual crack whores you saw hanging out in the Quarter. His girls were quality and they didn’t come cheap. Where would a cop get that kind of coin?”

Dave laughed.

Marsilius didn’t. He was like a lot of cops Dave had known over the years. He hadn’t been above taking a little something under the table now and then in exchange for muscle or protection, but he didn’t like getting called on it. “Where you going with this, Dave?”

“Maybe nowhere. But now that I’ve got a clear head, I’m starting to remember some things.”

“Like what?”

Like a diary entry with initials and an address on Chef Menteur Highway, Dave thought.

The discovery of Renee Savaria’s diary was the first break he’d had in her case for weeks, and it had come seemingly out of the blue when her roommate called him at the station and asked to meet at a bar on Magazine Street. She was a dancer at the Gold Medallion, too, but that day she’d traded her G-string and pasties for dark glasses and a black head scarf. She’d sat huddled in the back booth of the bar, fear dripping from every pore as she sipped a whiskey sour and chain-smoked Lucky Strikes.

She’d never told Dave how she came to be in possession of the dead woman’s diary, but she did nervously confess that someone had ransacked her apartment looking for it. And she was getting the hell out of New Orleans before they came after her. She’d claimed she didn’t know anything about Renee’s murder, but she was convinced that whoever tore her place up looking for the diary was someone who would kill to get his hands on it.

She’d turned the diary over to Dave that day and he’d never heard from her again. He’d been in the tedious process of sifting through the entries when Ruby had gone missing. Two days later, he’d gotten the first phone call.

“If you want your daughter back alive, you better listen carefully to what I have to say.”

Even at the memory, Dave’s chest tightened painfully, and he had to wonder if Marsilius was right. Maybe he wasn’t doing himself any favors by dragging up a seven-year-old homicide. But now that he was sober, he was starting to remember a lot of other things. Like the helpless rage that had engulfed him when he’d realized that his daughter’s disappearance had nothing to do with Renee’s death. The crimes were connected only by Dave’s gullibility. While he’d been played by Renee Savaria’s killer, Ruby’s abductor had gotten clean away.

The pain in his chest intensified, and he absently rubbed his hand up and down his arm as he watched a pelican dive-bomb the surface of the water, rising a moment later with a sliver of glistening silver in its beak. Dave felt a little like that flapping mullet. Hopelessly trapped by the things he’d done in his past.

Beside him, Marsilius waited for a response, but Dave wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell him. Not that he didn’t trust his uncle; he did. But if the calls Dave had already made generated some heat, he didn’t want anyone else caught in the middle.

“Those murders were seven years apart,” Marsilius finally said. “JoJo may not have the connections he once did…hell, no one does since Katrina. But you’ll need more than that to go after him.”

“Maybe I’m not after JoJo.”

His uncle looked glummer by the moment. “Who you after, Dave?”

“Right now I’m just asking a few questions.”

“Why?”

“It’s what I do for a living, remember?”

“For a paying client, maybe, but not just for the hell of stirring things up. Why complicate your life? You’ve got things good these days. You don’t need NOPD breathing down your neck.”

“Who says they will be?”

“What, you think they’re going to be happy to see you back in town? You were a mean drunk, Dave, and you burned a lot of bridges. Everyone understood what you were going through so they were willing to cut you some slack up to a point. But let’s face it, you didn’t exactly leave behind a pile of goodwill when you cleaned out your desk. You start nosing around in an active investigation, somebody might use that as an excuse to mop up the floor with your ass.”

“By somebody, you mean Alex Girard.”

Marsilius set his cup on the porch and straightened slowly. “There’s a lot of bad blood between you two, and he’s got the upper hand these days. Like I said, Katrina changed things in New Orleans. Most of the old alliances were swept away in the floodwaters, and the way I hear it, he’s been cozying up to some of the new power brokers in town. He’s got ambition and he’s got muscle. That makes him a dangerous man in my book. You get crossways with him again, you could end up losing your P.I. license. Then where will you be?”

Dave grinned. “Maybe I’ll buy myself a boat and give you a run for your money, old man.”

Marsilius wasn’t the least bit amused. “You watch your back, boy, you hear me? You keep asking questions, you might find out the hard way there’s a hollow point out there somewhere with your name on it.”

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