Dead End

Stella Cameron

Copyright © 2002 by Stella Cameron

All rights reserved.

Previously published as A COLD DAY IN JULY

Cover design by Writerspace

For Suzanne Simmons Guntrum. RIP

In a place filled with good people I met some of the best. These folks got into my story, into my quest for the details I already felt in my bones but didn’t know about for sure.

Julian Savoy, an extraordinary guide, never told me he “didn’t know,” only that he’d “get right on that.” And so he did, dedicating himself to providing me not just with tales only a true Cajun spirit could tell, but with facts, maps, and charts that decorated my office and kept me feeling I’d never left Louisiana. It was with Julian and his wife, Gerry, that I visited Breaux Bridge and learned about those dance halls that are unique to the state. Thank you, Julian and Gerry.

Connie and Al Perry, Lorna Broussard, Karin and Irvin David—and “the Ladies of Louisiana”—opened their hearts and their homes to me and gave me information far more valuable than they know! Thanks to each of you.

Thank you, Josh Perry, for your kindness.

Suzanne and John Viescas shared their knowledge of primitive art and have my gratitude.

And what would I have done without Giselle, Bryony, and Tess McKenzie, Australian friends who taught me everything I know about poodles. Thank you, ladies.

Kate Duffy, astute and gifted editor, RIP.

Last, and most, love and thanks to Jerry Cameron, alligator man and camera-toter.

Dear Reader:

For the first time, I’ve significantly expanded a book…DEAD END.  As I’ve seen other writers revise published work, I have insisted I’d never do this with a story, but COLD DAY IN JULY has managed to niggle at me for a long time.

When I finished the first edition it was with a flourish, a kind of “take that” on the part of an important character.  I liked it and still do, however I became convinced that I hadn’t really finished the story.

Back I went to Father Cyrus’s first full novel after I introduced him in FRENCH QUARTER as the brother of the heroine—he still is her brother!  Back to Louisiana’s lush, mysterious and sensual atmosphere.  Back to Marc Girard, architect and maverick in all he does, and Reb O’Brien, Toussaint’s town doctor and local medical examiner, trying to dig up the truth about a suspicious death and chase down a killer in the process.

Revisiting the town gang and watching Cyrus deal with being a man of God who is also human was engrossing.  Seeing Marc and Reb work as a team in a struggle to foil a murderer while they are faced with the unfinished business in their own relationship, well, that was more excitement than may have been good for me!

I changed the title to DEAD END because this time I have the right end and in the wake of COLD, the first Alex Duggins book, I needed to make a distinction.

And now I offer the result of all this to you,

Stella Cameron

Three miles and she’d be home.

She was close enough to smell safety but not close enough to touch it. And the car didn’t feel right, hadn’t felt as if it were responding quite right since she’d started it. She got a sensation that she couldn’t rely on the engine, and that this time it would let her down, not that she could always trust her premonitions. Her imagination often went wild in the night.

These late drives home were getting worse. Why couldn’t she have been born to love darkness, the black on moonless black of the hours after midnight and before dawn? Rather than taking this suffocating back route along the bayou, just to save a few minutes, she could start driving the better lit main street through Toussaint, then cut down Bonanza Alley to St. Cecil’s and the parish house.

Only 2.4 miles and she’d be home.

The car jerked. It had been jerking since she left Pappy’s Dancehall. She stepped on the pedal and it sank to the floor with no resistance.

2.3 miles.

Move, move, move.
God, get me there just this one more time and I
’
ll light all the candles in the church.

Out of gas?
The needle bounced.
I filled up last night. It
’
s gotta be full now.
Could be more of an incline than she thought and it was throwing the gauge off.
Oh, yeah, it
’
s those big ol
’
hills of Louisiana.
This was the land of the Big Flat, and people who remarked on it weren’t talking about tires.

2.2 miles? Hell, no. She’d gone farther than that.
Come on.
I
’
m bein
’
good now.
Have been for a long
time, months.
Listen up, someone! I
’
m doin
’
my best to put all the bad stuff behind me. Don
’
t punish me some more, I
’
ve been punished plenty.

2.1 miles. Still making progress. Ah, who was she kidding? The engine had quit and she was coasting. And she was going to throw up. Sweat seeped from her back and beneath her arms. Her hair stuck to her neck and face.

The only sounds she heard were grit beneath the wheels, and live oak branches slapping against the car as it rolled to a stop on the rock-and-grass verge.

She came to a standstill with drifts of gray Spanish moss cloaking the windshield.

If she dared, she’d call the law for help, but she didn’t want any special notice from Deputy Spike Devol. There wasn’t anyone else she could bring out here at this time of night.

The doors were locked. Dawn wasn’t too far away. Why not stay where she was until it got light? She rolled down her window an inch, and the nocturnal choral burst inside on air that would heat up again before it ever cooled down. Katydids calling, and the staccato whine of cicadas—frogs grunting their own descants. And the bayou was there even if she couldn’t see it, the nebulous surface of the water silently sucking at drenched banks. As a child she’d giggled at the sight of slick-coated nutrias sliding between marsh grasses that thrived with muddy roots. Tonight the idea of the soup made from those big white rats gagged her.

Before she’d left Toussaint to sing at Pappy’s she’d stopped for gas. Could be she had a hole in the tank…or that someone had made a hole in the tank?

She had enemies, but they wouldn’t come around to punish her now. She’d outrun them.

In the past week or so kids had been caught syphoning gas from cars and trucks around town. Damn their scaly little hides. That’s what this was all about. Tomorrow night—tonight now—she’d be at Pappy’s listening to everyone complain about the same thing. Two and a half miles wasn’t any distance to walk, not since she’d cleaned up her act and got healthy. She knew the way well. This would be a piece of cake.

Yeah, so why can
’
t I believe my own happy talk?
Staying put until morning was the safest thing to do.

A heel could kick the glass in. Or a good sized rock could smash it—and her.

In her purse she carried a gun, a very small gun, but it could kill real well. She’d never actually fired the thing, but she’d been shown how. If someone crept up on the car, she’d shoot them. She would be fine where she was, and every minute that passed brought daylight closer.

There wasn’t enough air. Bugs slid through the narrow opening in the window and buzzed around her head. Bugs were all the company she had out here, and they weren’t going to do her more than minimal harm.
Swallow and bre
athe and get out…
and walk.

The door, as she unlocked it, ground as if muffled by a quilt. With her purse strap over her shoulder, she slid out and shut the door behind her. The pencil flashlight she had on her keys gave only a pinpoint beam of light, but even that was comforting.

Instinct—and alligator sense—made her walk in the middle of the narrow old road. Any markings had disappeared long ago. The penlight bobbled over the ground like a drunken glowworm. Faster and faster she walked until she reached a sharp bend in the road and looked back. Shapes of trees and swaying moss made an entrance to a black tunnel, and when she faced forward again, it was toward another hole filled by the night.

Just beneath her skin, flesh and nerve crawled. And even as she sweated she turned cold until her face flushed again, and her head seemed about to burst.

Something cracked.
Oh, shit.
More cracking, splintering, the steady breaking of brittle wood—a faint whirring.

She screamed, then clamped her mouth shut and carefully withdrew the gun from her purse. Holding it in front of her, trying not to shake, she shone the penlight on the barrel. Let them see the chrome gleam and know they weren’t playing games with a pushover.

Silence.

They must have seen the gun and it had scared them off. Walking on, she kept the gun in her hand and made sure it could be seen from time to time.

The sooner she got back to her room at the parish house, the sooner she could lock herself in and climb into bed. This was never going to happen to her again, she’d make sure of that. She ran until she couldn’t drag another breath down her throat and had to pause.

Still quiet…Oh, please let her get out of this. The steady crackling started up once more. Sticks breaking, then a noisy
whump
into the brush as if someone had fallen, and a sound like breaking glass.
Footsteps.
Tears started, tears and grating sounds from her throat. Feet thudded, not on the road but in the trees along its edge. Heavy footsteps. To her right when she turned around. The light did nothing, except…She screamed again, and again.
There.
Something solid passed through the minuscule shaft, and that something had to be close because the light was weak and didn’t reach far.

Running, pounding along, stumbling and catching her balance again, she left the road and took off through the trees. The church was no distance now. The thought cleared a cool place at the center of her panic. Her purse slid from her shoulder to her elbow, and she tried to hitch it back but couldn’t. She had to have her hands free and let the purse fall. Tomorrow she’d come back for it…if she could.

It didn’t have to be a person who moved through the flashlight beam. Lots of things moved out here.

Her legs turned formless and gave out every few steps. Her knees hit rough ground, and she righted herself only to fall headlong over a stump.

Crying didn’t help. The sound of her own gasping breaths deafened her, but she scrambled on until she had to stop, to stop just for a moment. Her heart would surely explode. Her imagination had gone wild. She was alone and didn’t trust her own company, that was all.

The speck of light turned brown. Soon she wouldn’t even have that.

A shadow cut the weak shaft once more, and from the heavy thumps that followed, the shadow wore big shoes.

Backing away, she tripped yet again and fell to her back, completely winded.

She fought with air that didn’t want to enter her lungs, and she held the gun in both hands while she squirmed to her knees and stood up. The footsteps, or whatever they were, had stopped for now.

Run to that church, girl, and don
’
t look back till you
’
re closin
’
the door. Not then, if you can stop yourself
.

From the trees she finally emerged at the end of Bonanza Alley and saw the white stone church glistening in the center of the churchyard. She needed to reach the rectory but would never make it without a rest.

Everything would be fine now. Once inside St Cecil’s she’d be safe. No one would follow her in there.