“Good.”
“So I suggest you find out everything you can about our victims.”
That went without saying, but rather than pick a fight with her, he asked, “What about the rest of the house?”
“Looks undisturbed, but we’re checking every room, including the attic.”
“The lock on the door?”
“Old and rusted. Broken. The fingerprint and tool guys are going over it.”
“Anyone know who owns this place?”
She shot him another don’t-mess-with-me look over the tops of her half-glasses. “Someone does, but it’s not me. Another thing you’d better check out.” She began drawing again and careful to disturb nothing, he took one last look at the victims in their macabre position dead center in the middle of the small room before checking his watch, logging out, and walking outside. Though the morning air was still thick and sticky, it felt crisp compared to the stagnant, foul atmosphere inside the cabin. Picking his way around an investigator making casts of tire tracks and footprints, he headed to the old red pickup.
A barrel-chested black man was seated on the driver’s side, his radio turned on, his thick fingers tapping against the steering wheel in an impatient rhythm.
“Ray Watson?” Montoya asked and flipped his ID in front of the open driver’s window. He cast a glance at the back of the truck. Beside the canoe was a fishing creel and a few poles, tackle box, oars, safety vest, and bucket of bait. Everything was strapped down as the tailgate of the truck was open to accommodate the length of the canoe.
“That’s me.” Watson was around fifty. He had a flat face with dark skin, wide-set eyes, and teeth that, when he talked, showed off a bit of gold. A tattered Saints cap was pulled low over nappy salt-and-pepper hair. Wearing big overalls over a T-shirt, he seemed agitated and tired. On the seat next to him were a pair of hip waders, a flashlight, and a tin of chewing tobacco.
“Mr. Watson, can you tell me what you found? How it happened?”
“You saw for yourself,” Watson said, his big eyes rounding. “I didn’t touch nothin’. That place”—he pointed past the bug-splattered windshield toward the house—“is just like when I first opened the door. I came up here fishin’ like always, but this time, somethin’ looked different about the place. Just kinda…I dunno…not right. I checked, noticed the door open, and stepped inside. That’s when I saw them, the dead people.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it. I mean the guy’s naked as a jay bird and the woman’s dressed up as if she’s goin’ to her own damned wedding.” He glanced away from the cabin and straight into Montoya’s eyes. “I took one look, saw that they were dead, then I came back to my car and used the wife’s cell phone to dial 911.”
“Do you know either of the victims?”
“No, sir,” he said emphatically and shook his head.
“What time was that?”
“About an hour and a half earlier,” he said, checking his watch. “Five
A.M
. So I can start fishing at dawn. I come early before breakfast. It was still dark when I passed by the house, but I shined my flashlight on it, like I always do, and as I said, somethin’ looked strange, gave me a weird feelin’, you know? Can’t really explain it, but I come up here quite a bit and I could tell things weren’t right. Thought I’d better check it out.”
“So that’s when you went in?”
“That’s right.” Watson’s nose wrinkled as if remembering the rank odor. “Never seen nothin’ like that before. No sir, nothing like that at all.”
“You know who owns this place?”
“Not anymore. It used to belong to a guy named Bud Oxbow, a fella I used to fish with.”
“Where’s Oxbow now?”
“Retired from the Mobile post office and moved up north, somewhere around Chicago, I think, five or six years ago. He never lived here, just came out fishin’ once in a while and hung out at Lottie’s Diner, that’s where we first got to talkin’. Had a place in Mobile where he worked.” Watson scratched his chin. “I think he told me he inherited this place from an uncle, but I can’t really say.”
Montoya ran Watson through it one more time and Watson recounted his discovery without adding anything new. He agreed that he’d be available for further questioning and would call the station if he thought of anything else that might help.
Montoya released the witness, patting the fender twice as Watson flipped on the ignition and backed down the leaf-strewn drive. The sun was climbing higher in the sky, the surrounding woods already warm, but he saw dark clouds on the horizon. After a few more minutes of talking with several of the investigators, Montoya decided he’d found out all he could here. He slid into his car and started back to the city.
It was going to be a helluva day. Two dead bodies and it wasn’t yet noon.
“O
nly half a mile more,” Abby promised herself as she ran along the side of the road, her heart pounding, her calves beginning to protest, the bottoms of her shoes slapping the asphalt. Sweat ran into her eyes, and though the weather had changed quickly, sunlight chased away by burgeoning, purple clouds, she’d decided to chance the jog. It had been three weeks since the last time and her muscles weren’t used to the punishment. She set her jaw and kept at it.
While she’d lived in Seattle, she’d run at least three times a week, but in New Orleans with the humidity in the stratosphere, the heat oppressive, and the road on which she lived narrow enough that two cars could barely pass without one set of tires touching the shoulder, she’d found more than enough excuses to let her exercise routine slip.
No more.
Her birthday had been a milestone and propelled her into getting into a regimen again. Whether she lived here or with Alicia in the bay area, she wasn’t going to let her body slide out of shape. Too bad that right now her lungs burned and she’d developed a stitch in her side. She pushed the pain out of her mind and kept jogging until she reached the Pomeroys’ mailbox, the three-mile mark.
Slowing as she passed the massive gates, she barely cast a look through the expensive wrought-iron-and-brick barricade that shuttered Asa Pomeroy, a local multimillionaire, from the curious. Married to his fourth wife and secluded in an ante bellum home reminiscent of Tara in
Gone with the Wind
, he opened his estate to the public twice a year, once at Christmas, the other time on Fat Tuesday. Otherwise, even though she was a neighbor, she’d not been inside.
She and Vanessa Pomeroy didn’t run in the same social circles.
She heard a low growl and glanced at the fence. The Pomeroys’ Rottweiler paced on the other side of the grillwork. He was a huge animal, with a head as broad as a bear’s. From the other side of the fence he barked madly, loud enough to raise the dead from here to the city.
Give me a break,
Abby thought. Breathing hard, sweating so much that her hair was wet and damp tendrils escaped her ponytail to curl around her face, she walked briskly toward her own place around a curve about a quarter of a mile down the road. Her pink T-shirt was plastered to her body; even her shorts were damp with her perspiration. She tugged at the hem of the shirt and leaned over, dabbed at her face with the faded T’s hem, but as soon as she swiped away the droplets, more appeared.
She gave up and, at her own driveway, she leaned against the
FOR SALE BY OWNER
sign, stretching her calves and the backs of her thighs. Despite the pain, she felt good; as if she’d actually done something positive for herself.
Maury’s call about Luke had put her on edge. What the hell was her damned ex up to? “None of your business,” she said aloud, her hands on the back of her hips as she curved her spine slowly forward, then back, feeling all her muscles stretch and relax.
She’d spent the morning doing more housecleaning, fielding calls about viewing the cottage, and had sneaked in the three-mile jog before she met with her first clients in the studio at one-thirty. After that, she had two more photography sessions and two more showings of the house. One couple had already seen it the night before and wanted a second look. The second potential buyer was a single man.
Good news.
She grabbed the newspaper from her box as Ansel, a mouse in his mouth, slunk around the corner. “Oh, geez, what have you got?” she asked, seeing that the little rodent was still alive and squirming, its beady eyes fixed in fright. “Oh, Ansel,” Abby whispered, not wanting to deal with the field mouse alive or dead. “Let him go. Now! And don’t catch him again or bring him back to me without a head! Ansel!” The cat started to dart away as she heard the sound of a car’s engine. She turned just as a police cruiser pulled into the driveway. Her heart nose-dived. What was it her father used to say? The police only stop for two reasons, neither one good.
Either someone is dead.
Or you’re about to be arrested.
The spit dried in her mouth.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the mouse somehow wiggle free and scamper quickly through the underbrush, Ansel in hot pursuit. Abby barely noticed. She was focused on the police car and the man who was climbing out.
He was five-ten or -eleven with an athletic build, jet-black hair, and chiseled features that suggested a bit of Native American tossed into his Latino gene pool. A trimmed goatee surrounded his mouth, and in one ear, a gold ring winked in the sunlight.
“Abby Gierman?” he asked and slid off his shades to reveal dark, intense eyes guarded by thick black eyebrows. Though he wasn’t exactly Hollywood handsome, he was good looking and there was something about him that hinted at danger. He hooked the shades on the neckline of his open-collared shirt where a few dark chest hairs were visible.
“I’m Abby.”
Though he was staring hard directly at her, squinting against the last of the sunlight, she figured he saw everything that was going on around him. His expression said it all: he was delivering bad news. Probably the worst.
She thought of her father…dying by inches from complications of emphysema and cancer. No, dear God, please, don’t let Dad be dead! Her heart was beating like a drum, her nerves strung tight as high wires.
“My name’s Chastain. Abby Chastain.”
He reached into a pocket and withdrew his badge. “But it was Gierman,” he said and added, “Detective Reuben Montoya, New Orleans Police Department.” His badge, glittering in the poor sunlight, confirmed his identity.
“Are you looking for me?” she asked, bracing herself.
“Unfortunately, yes. Maybe we should go inside.”
“What is it, Detective?” she asked, then remembered the conversation with Maury Taylor the day before. Maury had been worried about Luke. And the cop had called her by her married name. It wasn’t her father, after all! “Oh, God, it’s Luke,” she whispered, her hand flying to her mouth. “What happened?”
“Ms. Chastain, he’s dead. I’m sorry.”
She let out a gasp, and though she didn’t realize it, her knees began to buckle. Quick as lightning, Montoya grabbed hold of her arm. His strong grip helped her stay on her feet.
Her mind stalled. She felt disconnected. Then images of Luke flashed like quicksilver behind her eyes. Luke sailing on Puget Sound, his hair flying around his face as he tacked into the wind. Luke giving her a single rose when he asked her to marry him while they were hiking in the Olympic mountains. Luke hurrying out the door before dawn to report the news on the Seattle radio station. Luke, disheveled, coming home late, his eyes bright, his excuses lame. Luke, drunk, telling her about Zoey…
She closed her eyes. Fought tears. Her stomach lurched and she thought she might be sick.
Dead? He was dead? Luke?
No way! He couldn’t be. It was impossible. She’d just talked with him, argued with him on the phone a couple of nights ago. She blinked rapidly against hot, unlikely tears. “I—I don’t believe it.”
Montoya’s face said it all. This was no prank, no publicity stunt set up by the master of self-promotion himself. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.
She let out her breath, shoved her hair out of her eyes, and saw that Montoya’s strong fingers were still around her arm. As if he, too, suddenly realized he was holding her upright and recognized the fact that she wasn’t going to faint dead away, he released her.
“Why did you think I was talking about Luke Gierman?”
She lifted a shoulder and silently wished their last conversation hadn’t been in anger. “Because Maury Taylor called here yesterday looking for him. Maury was worried that something bad had happened. But I blew him off. I thought it was just one of Luke’s tricks…” She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled in a deep breath. This was wrong. So very wrong. “I can’t believe it. There must be some mistake.”
“No mistake.” Montoya’s voice was firm, his expression convincing.
“Sweet Jesus.” Luke…dead? She fought a sudden rush of tears for a man she no longer loved. “What happened?” she asked, and her own voice sounded distant and detached, the words coming out right and yet seeming as if they were from someone else. He must have been in an accident…his damned car, that was it.
“I think we should go inside.”
“Why?” she asked and then saw something in Montoya’s eyes, something dark and suspicious and frightening. Her heart started pounding double-time again. “What happened, Detective?” she demanded, her voice stronger, her mind racing.
“Gunshot wound. Close range.”
“What?”
“He was murdered.”
“No! Wait!” She took a couple of steps backward. No, no, no! “Someone shot and
killed
him?”
“That’s right.”
She heard him, but the words sounded as if they’d come from a long distance, through a deep tunnel.
“Dear God. I—I thought it had to be a car accident…” Automatically she reverted to her youth and deftly made the sign of the cross over her chest while her brain pounded with the news and bile crawled up her throat. Rain began to fall in fat drops that peppered the ground and ran down her face. “Who?” she asked. “Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Oh, God.” She rolled her eyes toward the sky, unaware of the raindrops splashing against her cheeks, running down her neck.
“Ms. Chastain,” he said, motioning toward the front porch. She looked up, saw the clear drops catch in his hair and trickling past his collar, darkening the shoulders of his shirt.
“Oh, yes…of course,” she said, finally realizing that they were both getting soaked. “Let’s go inside.” Dazed, she walked to the garage door, where she punched an electronic code into the keypad. The keypad blinked in error. She tried again. Rain was already gurgling in the gutters, gathering on her eyelashes. Again the keypad flashed and didn’t unlock the door. “Damn,” she muttered. On the third try the heavy door rolled noisily upward, and before it had settled, she ducked beneath it and led the detective inside. Dripping, she walked between her parked hatchback and shelves filled with cans of paint, gardening supplies, and bags of cat litter, then kicked off her shoes as she opened the back door. With Montoya only a step or two behind, she headed straight for the sink, twisted on the faucets, and splashed more water over her face.
Luke was dead.
Dead!
Oh, Jesus.
She couldn’t believe it. Everything seemed surreal, blurred around the edges.
Snagging a kitchen towel from the counter, she swiped her face and all the while the words
Luke’s dead. Luke’s dead. Luke’s dead!
The thought pounded through her brain, creating a headache that began to throb.
“Are you all right?” Montoya’s voice was soft. As if he cared for her, for her feelings. He’d done this before. Probably dozens of times. Was used to giving out bad news. And yet his brown eyes missed nothing. Sexy and dark, they observed her every reaction. She felt it, and didn’t trust it. At all.
She exhaled a little disbelieving puff of air. “Okay?” she repeated. “No. I’m definitely
not
okay.” Shaking her head, feeling her wet ponytail rub against the back of her neck, she leaned a hip against the counter for support and offered him the towel.
“No, thanks. I’m okay.”
“I can’t believe it,” she went on as she folded the towel. “I know I said that before, but it’s just so damned hard to accept.” Her heartbeat was slowing but she was still stunned beyond belief. “I mean…we just talked the other night.” She remembered the fight about her getting rid of Luke’s things, and her face, which she was certain had drained of all color, suddenly flushed hot. A stab of regret cut through her at the thought that their final words had been accusing and spat in anger. She refolded the towel automatically.
“What did you talk about?” From out of nowhere it seemed he had extracted a notepad.
“Oh…” She let out her breath and shook her head, remembering. “We fought. Of course. We always did. Couldn’t ever seem to get past the divorce. This time it was about the things he’d left here after he moved out. He was pissed that I got rid of them.” She looked away, not wanting to stare into those knowing eyes. She realized then that she should be careful about what she said to this intense man. He wasn’t a friend or a preacher, or even an acquaintance. He was a cop. In her hands was the dish towel. How many times had she folded and refolded it? Four? Five? She hadn’t been aware of her actions. “Anyway, it’s been impossible to get along.”
“Do you have children?”
She shook her head and tried not to show any sign of regret as she dabbed at the sweat that had collected on the back of her neck. She’d wanted kids, had thought, fleetingly, that they could be a happy family. Two miscarriages had devastated her, but as her marriage had unraveled, she’d decided her inability to carry a child past the third month of pregnancy had been a blessing in disguise. “Just a cat and a dog,” she said, shaking off the bitter memory. “When we split up, I got Ansel, the tabby, and Luke ended up with Hershey, our chocolate Lab. Losing the dog was bad enough; I can’t imagine what would have happened if we’d had children.” At the thought of the dog, panic swept through her. “What about Hershey?” she demanded. “Where is she?”
“We’ve got people at Gierman’s town house now.”
“I want my dog back,” she said emphatically.
“A big dog for an apartment.”
“I know, I know. I wanted to keep both the animals, but Luke wouldn’t hear of it. He was supposed to be moving into a bigger place, a house with a yard…soon, I think.” Her eyebrows slammed together as she tried to remember. “How do I get my dog back? I’ll drive over there now.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Gierman’s place is still being processed.”
“What? But Hershey—”
“I’ll see to it.”
“Would you?”
“Yeah. It’ll be later today.”
Something inside her sagged. The single act of kindness by this hard-edged policeman got to her. “Thank you,” she whispered, shoving a hand over her damp, pulled-back hair. She blinked and sniffed before she shed any tears. The shock of it all was settling in.