The Whispering Room

Seven

The high brick wall that surrounded Sonny Betts’s sprawling stucco mansion was all but hidden by twenty-foot-tall crepe myrtle trees that also concealed surveillance cameras. The wind was blowing off the lake, and as Mitchell pulled the car up to the scrolled iron gates, the scent of oleander drifted through the open window.

A guard with a clipboard came over to the car and leaned down so that he could see into the window. He was tall and swarthy with the forearms and neck of a former linebacker.

“Can I help you folks?”

Mitchell and Evangeline hauled out their IDs. “I’m Detective Hebert and this is my partner, Detective Theroux. We need to talk to Betts.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“Just tell him we’re here,” Mitchell said. “He’ll want to see us. Unless, of course, there’s a reason he wouldn’t want to cooperate with a homicide investigation.”

The man smirked. “Homicide, eh? Who died?”

“Open the gate, asshole. Or else the first call I make will be to the Times-Picayune. I’ve got a buddy over there who’s just itching to put your boss back on the front page. Unless he likes the publicity, nosy reporters poking through his trash and all that, he’ll talk to us.”

With an angry glare, the guard lifted the cell phone to his ear and walked away from the car. A moment later, the gates slid open and Mitchell drove through.

“Nice bluff,” Evangeline said as they pulled up to the house.

Mitchell shot her a glance. “What bluff? My buddy writes the obituaries at the Times-Picayune. Like I said, he’s just itching to do a real nice write-up on Sonny Boy.”

Betts was out by the pool watching a blonde in a turquoise bikini swim laps. When he saw Mitchell and Evangeline, he walked over to the edge and waited for the young woman to hitch herself out of the water. Then he wrapped a fluffy white towel around her shoulders and gave her a pat on the ass.

As she sauntered toward the pool house, she gave Evangeline a sideways scrutiny, sizing her up with one disdainful glance.

Betts was dressed in white trousers, sandals and a dark blue shirt left unbuttoned to expose a smooth, muscular chest. He was just shy of middle age, with brown hair, brown eyes and a mouth that tilted at the corners in a perpetual sneer. A silver medallion hung from a chain around his neck and glistened in the sun as he turned and watched their approach.

“Miguel tells me you’re homicide detectives. Hebert and Theroux, right?” His gaze moved from one to the other, his eyes narrowing in the sunlight. “Which is which?”

Evangeline could smell the cologne that emanated from his heated skin. It was something expensive and cloying.

His gaze vectored in on her. “Let me guess. Detective Theroux, right?” He held out his hand. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”

Evangeline ignored the proffered hand. “We need to ask you some questions about your relationship with Paul Courtland.”

He cocked his head, his insolent gaze raking over her.

Betts wasn’t exactly what Evangeline expected. Since he’d slithered up from the New Orleans gutters after Katrina, he’d acquired a pseudosophistication that did little to disguise the puckered knife scar under his right cheekbone or the gleam of cruelty in his cold, dark eyes.

The way those eyes lingered on Evangeline’s body made her skin crawl.

“Let’s go talk in the shade, get out of this heat.” He walked over to a table covered by an umbrella and sat down. Evangeline and Mitchell followed him over, but neither took seats. “Let me get you something cold to drink,” he said. “Or maybe you’d like to take a swim. I’m sure Monique could rustle up a swimsuit that would fit.”

“I’ll pass,” she said.

He shrugged and turned to Mitchell. “What about you, Detective Hebert?”

“I’m afraid of sharks,” Mitchell said and Betts laughed.

“So you want to ask me some questions about Paul Courtland. Once upon a time, he was my attorney. Was, as in the past tense. I haven’t seen or talked to him in months. Why? Is he in some sort of trouble?”

“He’s dead,” Mitchell said.

One brow rose slightly. “Is that so? I assume since you’re here, someone must have whacked him.”

“Someone whacked him, all right. Someone whacked him good,” Mitchell said. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“That’s right, I wouldn’t. I’ve got a dozen people right inside the house that will swear to my whereabouts.”

“On what day?”

“On whatever day he died.” He took out a pocketknife and ran the blade underneath his manicured fingernails.

An old habit, Evangeline thought. “Why did the two of you part ways?”

“After the trial I didn’t need him anymore.”

“A guy like you is always in need of an attorney,” Mitchell said.

“I’m a law-abiding citizen. Why would I need to throw my money away on a high-priced lawyer like Courtland?” His gaze was still on Evangeline and she saw recognition kick in. “Now I know who you are. You’re Johnny Theroux’s widow.”

“Yes, I am,” Evangeline said, returning the man’s stare. She suddenly had an urgent, unreasonable need to put her hands around the man’s throat and squeeze. The notion that he might have been involved in Johnny’s death filled her with rage, but despite his claim that he didn’t employ lawyers, she knew better than to lay a finger on a guy like Sonny Betts.

“Damn shame what happened to him.” He leaned in. “I heard a hollow point messed up his face so bad, a DNA test was needed for a positive ID. Can’t help wondering if there’s any truth in that.”

Before Evangeline could answer, Mitchell planted his hands on the table and bent toward Betts. “You know what I’m wondering about? I’ve been noticing all the goons you got patrolling this place. If you’re such a law-abiding citizen these days, what’s got you so worried?”

“It’s a dangerous world out there,” Betts said. “Just ask Detective Theroux.”

“What are they, Guatemalan? Colombian? You ever hear of an outfit called the Zetas?” Mitchell asked.

“Sounds like a college fraternity,” Betts said as he continued to clean his nails with the knife. His hands were rock-steady.

“They’re a fraternity of slime and cutthroats,” Mitchell said. “What you might call south-of-the-border enforcers. They do the dirty work for guys like you. I hear they like to get a little creative with their victims.”

“Maybe you’ve been watching too much TV. Sounds like an episode of Law & Order. ”

Mitchell reached over and tapped the silver medallion around Betts’s neck. “I’ve seen one of these before. A Haitian I once knew kept it tied around his ankle. He was the real superstitious type. ’Course, he had reason to be superstitious. He used to work for Aristide, so he had plenty of demons preying on his conscience. They caught up with him one night down on Canal Street. Doused him with a can of gasoline and lit him on fire. Now tell me something, Betts.” Mitchell jerked the necklace and the silver chain snapped. He dangled the medallion in front of Betts’s face. “You wouldn’t be worried about a little karma, would you? That why you wear this thing?”

Betts just laughed. “Leave it to a cop to get everything ass-backward. You shitheads seem to have a knack for asking the wrong questions. I’ve got a theory about that.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep.” He reared back in his chair. “See, I don’t think it’s stupidity so much as self-preservation. You ask the right questions, you might have to deal with the answers,” he said, his dark gaze burning into Evangeline’s. “Isn’t that so, Detective Theroux?”

By the time Evangeline got home that night, she was worn-out. It had been a long and trying day.

After they left Betts, she and Mitchell had gone their separate ways. He’d headed off to track down some of Paul Courtland’s neighbors while she’d dropped by the law firm in Canal Place to question his coworkers.

The interviews had not gone well. Courtland’s assistant had become hysterical at the news of her boss’s death. Evangeline had finally given up trying to question her.

And then the senior partner sent in to “handle” the situation had made it clear that under no circumstances would the police be allowed to go through Courtland’s office. With or without a search warrant. And he had flat-out refused to answer any questions about the firm’s relationship with Sonny Betts, neither confirming nor denying that Betts was still a client.

Evangeline had expected no less. She’d dealt with enough law firms to know how they closed ranks in times of crisis, all under the useful umbrella of attorney-client privilege. But she always suspected the defensive posturing had as much to do with CYOA—covering your own ass—as any high-minded code of ethics. She’d yet to meet the lawyer whose survival instinct didn’t run pretty damn deep.

Wearily, she climbed the porch steps and let herself into the house. Despite the shower, clean clothes and the hours that had passed since she’d left the crime scene that morning, the smell of death still clung to her nostrils, and she wondered if J.D. could smell it, too.

He began to fret the moment she picked him up, which in and of itself wasn’t so unusual. She and her son were still wary of each other, and after a day with the sitter or at his grandmother’s, he often seemed uneasy around her.

But rarely did he use his little hands to push himself away from her as he was doing at the moment.

“Don’t take it personally,” her sitter, Jessie Orillon, said with a shrug. “He’s been kind of crabby all day.”

Jessie was only nineteen, but she was really great with J.D. and he adored her. If money were no object, Evangeline would have tried to get the girl to move in and be a full-time nanny to the baby, but apart from the financial issues, Jessie had her own ideas about her future. She only babysat to help put herself through school. On the days when she had class—Tuesdays and Thursdays—Evangeline drove the baby to her mother’s house in Metairie.

If J.D. adored Jessie, he absolutely worshipped his nana, and he demonstrated his devotion, much to his grandmother’s delight, by protesting at the top of his lungs each and every afternoon when Evangeline came to pick him up. He sometimes fussed when Jessie left for the day, too, but not as loudly. The only time he didn’t carry on was when Evangeline left for work in the mornings.

She tried not to take that personally, either.

“He’s drooling like crazy,” Jessie told her. “I bet he’s cutting a tooth.” She pulled back her blond hair and fastened it into a high ponytail. Even after a day with a cranky baby, she looked lovely and fresh. Her crisp white shorts made her tanned legs look about a mile long.

Evangeline couldn’t remember the last time she’d put on a pair of shorts, or the last time she’d bought anything as cute and flattering as the apricot top Jessie had on. Since Johnny’s death, she hadn’t paid much attention to her appearance, but lately her dismal wardrobe was starting to depress even her.

Jessie reached for her backpack as she slipped her feet into a pair of white flip-flops. “My grandmother says you should make a clove paste and rub it on his little gums. She swears that’ll do the trick.”

Evangeline shifted the baby to her other arm. “Good to know.”

Of course, the advice would have been even more helpful if she actually knew what a clove paste was, but for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to ask. Her ignorance in the teething department was yet another way she felt totally incompetent as a mother.

Absently, she ran her finger along the baby’s smooth cheek. His little face always amazed her. He looked so sweet and innocent and yet somehow wizened, as if that tiny body harbored an old soul.

And those eyes. Like bottomless pools.

His eyes were so much like Johnny’s that sometimes Evangeline had to look away from him.

It was at those times that her son would grow very quiet, almost pensive it seemed to Evangeline, and she wondered if he could sense her despair. She’d read somewhere that babies were very intuitive and their keen instincts made them hyperaware of even the most subtle change in emotions or their environment.

She also wondered if he would one day hold all of this against her.

“What did you guys do today?” she asked as Jessie gathered up her iPod.

“We went to the park this afternoon. We had a good time, didn’t we, J.D.? There was a squirrel that kept trying to steal my sandwich. It was pretty hysterical. Oh…I almost forgot.” She pointed toward the dining room. “A package came while we were out. I put it on the table.”

“Thanks.”

Jessie swung her backpack over one shoulder. “So I’ll see you guys on Wednesday, then.”

“How’re you getting home?” Evangeline asked as she walked Jessie to the door. “I didn’t see your car out front.”

“Yeah, my mom came by and got it this afternoon. Hers is in the shop.”

“Do you need a lift?”

“It’s not that far. I don’t mind walking.”

Evangeline glanced out the window. “It’s getting pretty late.”

Jessie laughed. “It’s not that late. It’s still daylight out.”

“And this is still New Orleans.”

“Hey, you’re a cop. You should know you can’t believe everything you hear on the news about the crime rate here.”

Evangeline didn’t point out that there was plenty of crime that didn’t even get reported, let alone make the evening news.

Jessie cocked her head. “You okay? You seem a little stressed.”

“I’m just tired. And I guess I am being a little too soccer momish. Sorry.”

Jessie grinned. “It’s nice to have someone worry about me once in a while.”

Even though she lived only a few blocks over, Evangeline didn’t know that much about Jessie’s home life. She had the impression, though, that things between Jessie and her mother had been tense lately.

She also had a feeling it had something to do with a boyfriend, but Evangeline wasn’t about to pry. She remembered all too well how hurt and angry she’d been by her father’s disapproval of Johnny.

Besides, whatever the problems in her personal life, Jessie was a conscientious and caring sitter, and J.D. loved her. That was really all that mattered to Evangeline.

Jessie came over to drop a kiss on the top of the baby’s head before she left, and he grabbed the necklace that dangled from her throat. It reminded Evangeline of the medallion that Sonny Betts wore. “Be a good boy for Mama, J.D. Let her get some rest tonight, okay?”

“That’d be a nice change.”

“You ever want me to come over and stay while you take a nap or something, just call. I could always use the extra cash.”

“I may take you up on that.”

Evangeline carried the baby out to the porch and watched as Jessie ran down the steps. She waited until the girl was out of sight before she turned to go back inside.

Despite the baby clutter all over the place and J.D. fussing in her arms, the house seemed empty and quiet as she closed the door.

An image of Meredith Courtland came to her suddenly, and Evangeline wondered if the woman felt all alone tonight in that great big house of hers. She had everything that money could buy, but her wealth wouldn’t inoculate her from loneliness. It wouldn’t spare her the despair that would set in as soon as she lay down to sleep.

Evangeline walked across the room to the windows that looked out on the tiny backyard. As she stared out at the deepening shadows, J.D. dropped his little head to her shoulder and gave a deep, troubled sigh.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

But even as she held her son close, Evangeline’s mind refused to shut down. Snippets of the day’s conversations kept rolling around inside her head.

I don’t want to end up like that dead cop.

There’s not one shred of evidence linking Johnny to Paul Courtland or Sonny Betts. Not one shred.

You’re grasping at straws, Evie.

Maybe she was. Maybe the reason she clung so hard to her obsession was because when she finally let it go, she would have to let Johnny slip away, too.

And Evangeline wasn’t ready to say goodbye. She wasn’t sure she ever would be.

After the baby was fed and bathed, Evangeline put him in his swing while she examined the box Jessie had left on the table.

The package had been sent via UPS by a local company she’d never heard of and the return address was a post office box rather than a physical address.

Being a cop and naturally cautious to boot, a strange package would normally have given her pause, but her mother had recently developed a mean shopping addiction, which, Evangeline suspected, was in retaliation for her father’s perceived neglect.

In the past few months, Lynette Jennings had entered the world of home shopping networks with a vengeance—cubic zirconia jewelry being her favorite indulgence—and lately she’d also discovered the Internet.

To conceal her expensive obsession, she’d started having some of the packages shipped to Evangeline’s house. Although Evangeline had long ago concluded that if her father were home as rarely as her mother let on, he probably wouldn’t even notice all the deliveries anyway.

But that little contradiction didn’t seem to faze her mother, who seemed to get a perverse pleasure from thinking that she could still pull the wool over her husband’s eyes.

So Evangeline kept her observations to herself. The last thing she wanted to do was get caught in the middle of her parents’ squabbling. She tried her best to stay neutral, but if everything her mother told her was true, she could only deduce that her sixty-year-old father had slowly but surely lost his mind.

But she was too tired to worry about all that tonight.

As she tidied up the living room, she started to place the box by the door so she’d remember to take it to her mother’s the next morning. Then she changed her mind, and thought, what the heck? Her name was on the label so she might as well take a peek inside. A diversion would do her good, and besides, sometimes her mother actually did order things for her and the baby.

Removing the packing tape, Evangeline unfolded the flaps and removed a layer of bubble wrap. Nested inside sheets of pale blue tissue paper was a mobile made out of origami cranes. Each was done in a different color and pattern, but the shape and size were identical.

Lifting the mobile from the box, Evangeline carefully untangled the gold cords from which the paper cranes were suspended.

“See the pretty birds, J.D.?” She held them up so that her son would notice them.

There wasn’t a card, but Evangeline knew the mobile had come from her mother. Who else would spend good money for a bunch of paper birds?

“That Nana. I’d hate to be the one paying her American Express bill these days. But that’s not our problem, is it, J.D.?” Evangeline placed the mobile back in the box and got to her feet. “Let’s go put this on your bed.”

She laid the baby in the crib while she fastened the mobile to the rail. J.D.’s arms and legs flailed excitedly as she wound the music box. But once the melody started to play and the cranes took flight, he grew very still, almost as if the sound had a hypnotic effect on him.

The tune was something lovely and haunting, and it seemed familiar to Evangeline, but she couldn’t place it. The soft tinkle was like a memory that flittered just out of her reach.

As soon as the mechanism wound down, J.D. started to fuss, so Evangeline turned the key a few more times.

The same thing happened when the music stopped.

He grew very agitated only to fall silent the moment the melody started up again. After five or six turns, his little eyes started to droop and finally he drifted off.

For the longest time, Evangeline stood beside the crib, watching her son sleep.

When will it happen? she wondered. When will it finally seem as if he’s really mine?

She loved him, of course, but she’d never felt that overwhelming rush of emotion that new mothers were supposed to experience when they looked at their babies. J.D. still seemed like a tiny stranger to Evangeline, and more often than not, she felt completely out of her depth.

She did everything a mother was supposed to do for her child. She fed him, bathed him, walked the floor at night when he couldn’t sleep. She even made time to cuddle. But it wasn’t enough, and Evangeline knew there was something lacking in her.

The baby whimpered in his sleep as if even then he could pick up on her mood.

He was so sweet and so innocent and so totally at her mercy. The notion that she and she alone was responsible for his well-being overwhelmed Evangeline, and she’d never in her life felt so inadequate.

“I’m doing the best I can,” she whispered.

Not good enough, said a voice inside her head.

Johnny’s voice.

He’s our son, Evangeline. Why can’t you love him the way he deserves to be loved?

It was a question she’d asked herself a million times since the rainy Tuesday night her baby had been born.

Turning out the light, she tiptoed from the nursery and headed for the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of wine. Grabbing the baby monitor, she went outside to sit on the front stoop for a while.

With twilight came a cooling breeze from the gulf that stirred the banana trees and the night-blooming jasmine climbing up a neighbor’s trellis.

This was the time of day, with the sky still glowing from the sunset and the air soft and perfumed, that Evangeline missed Johnny the most. At times like this, her loneliness seemed bone-deep and boundless.

Down the street, several cars were parked in front of a house blazing with lights. Music and laughter drifted through the open windows, and melancholy tightened like a fist around Evangeline’s heart.

She wondered if they were celebrating an anniversary or a birthday, or if a casual get-together had blossomed into a full-blown party.

That was the way it used to happen at their place. Not this house, but the home she and Johnny had shared. Almost all of their parties had begun with a few friends dropping by. Then calls would be made, food and drink would be brought in. Before Evangeline knew it, their tiny house would be brimming with cops and the spouses of cops.

People who worked in law enforcement were an insular bunch, and as with any other group, there were those who fit in and those who didn’t. Most of the cops Evangeline worked with had always viewed her as something of an odd duck, but once she and Johnny became a couple, they’d at least made an effort to accept her. If doubts lingered, it was shelved for Johnny’s sake because everyone loved him.

But since his death, Evangeline was once again the odd man out. Not that she cared about a social life. Even growing up in the midst of a loving family, she’d always been a loner.

But Johnny was the opposite. He’d loved being surrounded by people.

Evangeline supposed his need for company came from being so alone as a child. His mother had abandoned him when he was a baby, leaving him to be raised by an aging grandmother who lived in the country. When she passed, he’d been shuffled through a series of foster homes until he was old enough to strike out on his own.

So, yeah, it was easy to understand why family and friends had meant so much to him.

Which made it all the more poignant that he’d died alone, in a deserted parking garage, crawling toward the exit.

Evangeline drew a shaky breath as memories of that night flooded through her.

Mitchell had come to the house to break the news to her. She’d been so stunned and distraught, she hadn’t asked for many of the details that first night. It was only later that she’d found out Johnny had been shot three times.

According to the coroner, the first bullet had only maimed him. He’d tried to get away from his assailant, but the second shot to the heart had killed him. The third shot had hit him in the face and obliterated his appearance so that even a forensic dental exam had been useless.

“Evangeline? That you up there, hon?”

She’d been so engrossed in dark memories, she hadn’t noticed her elderly neighbor approach the walkway in front of her house. The woman stood at the edge of the yard, peering through the falling dusk.

“You’re out kind of late, aren’t you, Miss Violet? Is everything okay?”

“I’m looking for Smokey. That blame cat got out again. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

“No, but if I do, I’ll grab him and bring him home.”

“Thanks, hon. I’d be much obliged. Ornery ol’coot ain’t worth much, but he’s all I got. I’d hate to lose him.”

“Try not to worry. I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” Evangeline promised.

She watched as Violet shuffled back across the street. The woman stood in the yard for a few minutes, calling loudly for her cat before she finally gave up and went inside.

The night fell silent, except for the occasional burst of laughter from down the street. A moth flitted past Evangeline’s cheek, and as she swatted it away, she caught a movement off to the side of the porch.

She froze, trying not to react, but her heart thudded against her chest, and she suddenly wished she’d brought her gun outside with her. She, of all people, knew how dangerous the city had become, with roving gangs of thugs terrorizing neighborhoods that had once been considered safe havens.

As Evangeline searched the darkness, she thought about her son, all alone in the house. If someone were hiding in the shadows, it would be up to her to protect him.

She waited, breathless, but nothing happened.

After a few moments, she got up and went inside. Locking the door, she turned out the light and went straight for her weapon. Then she moved back to the front door and parted the curtain.

Nothing moved outside. Maybe it had been her imagination.

But for the longest time, Evangeline watched the darkness. She felt restless and uneasy, and she couldn’t shake the notion that someone had been at the corner of the porch, watching her. That he might still be out there now, waiting for her to go to bed.

She left the window and headed for the nursery. She could see the glow of the night-light from down the hallway, and as she pushed open the door, her gaze went immediately to the crib, where she could see her son sleeping.

Nothing was out of place, so there was no reason to worry. No reason at all for the chill that slid up her spine as she stepped into the room or for the hammer of her heart as her gaze fastened on the baby.

He was lying just as she’d left him earlier, and yet…

Something was…not right.

Evangeline could feel it. It was as if the very air had been disturbed by…what?

Her breath came a little too fast as she reached for the light switch. The sudden brilliance caused her to blink and J.D. fretted in his sleep. Quickly, she moved to the side of the crib as her gaze darted around the room.

The space was furnished with only the baby’s bed, a changing table and a rocking chair by the window. Evangeline could see the whole room in one glance, and she knew, without a doubt, that she and her son were alone.

So why was the hair at the back of her neck standing on end?

Why was she suddenly so uneasy in her own home?

She walked over to the window and parted the curtains to glance out. It was still early and she could see a light shining in the window of the house next door. But the fact that her neighbors were up and about did little to assuage her disquiet.

As she turned from the window, she saw something on the floor. She thought at first it was a piece of transparent paper that had fallen off the mobile or out of the box that it had been packed in. But when she stooped to pick it up, she jerked her hand back in revulsion.

It wasn’t paper, she realized with a shiver.

It was a bit of molted snakeskin.