Patricia Dusenbury - Claire Marshall 01 - A Perfect Victim (11 page)

The children Tom rescued had built a bonfire of toys and newspapers on their bedroom
floor. The little boy admitted it afterwards but he would never say why. The arson investigator said
he wasn't a bad kid. Four-year-olds often play with matches.

She stared out the window and imagined waves, slow and implacable, washing up onto the
brick wall, white foam on red bricks. She slowed her breath to match their rhythm, inhaling with
one wave and exhaling with the next.

"Are you all right?" His question broke the spell.

She met his gaze. "Frank is dead. The arsonist is a murderer."

He frowned, as if considering this possibility for the first time. "We don't know if that's the
case or not. Mr. Palmer was dead before the fire started."

"Thank God, Frank didn't die in the fire." She hadn't meant to speak aloud, but the words
were out and she couldn't take them back.

"What difference does it make if he died in the fire or before the fire?"

She could only shake her head. He handed her a Kleenex, and she realized that tears were
running down her face.

"Did you set the fire, Ms. Marshall?"

"No."

"Then why are you relieved that the fire didn't kill Frank Palmer?"

"It's a terrible way to die." There would be no more tears. She was past crying. "Do you
have any other questions?"

"Yes, but first would you like a cup of coffee? A glass of water?" He gestured toward the
windowsill.

"No, thank you. But please go ahead."

When he stood and turned his back, her hand slid into her purse, found the vial and
removed a pill. She waited until he was pouring his coffee and swallowed it dry, nothing extra like
this afternoon, just her evening pill a little ahead of schedule.

He sat back down. "Your mother said you cut your visit short because of a problem with
work you were doing for Mr. Palmer."

"That's right."

Claire thought about the excuse she'd given her mother. She wondered if the police were
already looking for the non-existent problem subcontractor and asking the phone company for a list
of numbers called from her mother's house. Frank's death had transformed a little white lie into a
possibly criminal misstatement. She'd already told Captain Robinson about the bad check. In as few
words as possible, she told him about the telephone conversations that made her decide to return
early and confront Frank.

"Why didn't you mention this before?"

"I wasn't sure Frank was the source of the marriage rumors. I'm still not." Her smile was
rueful. "I didn't want to speculate."

She waited for him to ask, who else might it have been, a question she'd been asking
herself. Instead, he asked about her activities Friday afternoon and evening after she returned to
New Orleans. She answered truthfully but couldn't provide any collaborating evidence after she
picked Dorian up at the kennel. She'd treated herself to dinner out because it had been such a lousy
day. She'd been too immersed in her own thoughts to notice anyone, but she thought more than one
person had waited on her. The restaurant didn't take credit cards. She'd paid in cash and not kept
the bill. She'd gone to a movie but remembered little more than the plot and the names of the
stars.

"You're just going to have to believe me. Why would I lie?"

"Thank you for coming in. If you think of anything else, please call me." He stood and
handed her his business card.

Her fingertips slid across the raised lettering, hard and slippery on the soft paper, and a
torrent of memory washed the present away. She was back in the bungalow where she and Tom
had lived. The policeman who'd brought the terrible news was talking. She wanted him to leave, but
he kept talking.

"We need you to come downtown and identify your husband's body," he'd said. "We know
this is difficult, but it has to be done. Your husband was a hero, Mrs. Marshall. He saved the lives of
two little children.

"Call when you're ready, and I'll meet you at the morgue." He handed her a business
card.

She had reached out to take it, and her fingertips slid across the raised lettering...

"Ms. Marshall, are you all right?" Captain Robinson was beside her, a supporting hand on
her elbow.

"I'm fine, thank you, just tired." She walked out of his office on legs that were only a little
shaky.

When Claire returned home, the light on her message machine was blinking rapidly. Again.
She checked to be sure neither her mother nor Jack had called. They hadn't, but the couple who'd
bought the bungalow had left their prayers that God give her strength to face this latest tragedy.
They were nice people who'd written her a note after they moved in, saying how much they enjoyed
the house, what a nice job she'd done restoring it.

She had talked Tom into buying that bungalow when they moved to New Orleans for his
residency. The evenings and weekends he stayed at the hospital, she had worked on the house. She
pulled up old linoleum and found heart pine floors, removed layers of paint and refinished the old
cypress woodwork. She'd met Jack when she hired his company to help with the heavy lifting.

Selling the house was supposed to finance the move to New York City. Instead, the money
went into her new business.

She poured a glass of wine and carried it out onto the porch. She wasn't supposed to drink
while she was on the meds, but one glass couldn't hurt. Dorian had finished eating and sat on the
top step watching swifts glide and dive, their dark swoops silhouetted against the sky and then
invisible in the shadows. Above the trees, lavender clouds floated in a dark purple sky. The peaceful
setting belied the ugliness of a world where people committed arson and murder.

Captain Robinson hadn't answered any of her questions, not directly, but now she
understood why a homicide detective was investigating Frank's death.

He hadn't died in the fire. Captain Robinson had asked why that mattered, but she couldn't
explain without telling him about the awful day Tom died, and the lost days that followed, the long
walks that, no matter the original destination, always brought her to the burned house. She would
stand on the sidewalk and imagine that things had ended differently and Tom was still with
her.

In a way, he was.

Walking down the street, she would glimpse him from the corner of her eye, but when she
looked again, it would be a tall, dark-haired man she didn't know. An old gray Corolla would drive
around the corner, and she'd peer inside, but the driver's face was never familiar. In a crowded
restaurant, she'd hear Tom's laugh and spin around, heart in her throat, to search a room full of
strangers. Each disappointment brought a fresh sense of loss and heightened anxiety.

Eventually the sightings stopped--she couldn't remember Tom's face unless she looked at
his picture--but her anxiety intensified, and the panic attacks began. The first time, she'd been sure
she was dying.

Death comes once, but panic attacks strike again and again without warning. Recovering
alcoholics aren't the only people who have to live one day at a time.

Reminders of how Tom died triggered her anxiety. She still couldn't see what hidden fear
lurked there. Visiting his grave hadn't provided any clue, but she was determined to figure it out.
She'd been doing better until Frank's death scraped the scabs off, and she wasn't going to give up
now. Of course, how a person died mattered.

I should have asked how Frank died.

Captain Robinson probably thought she was a cold and uncaring person, indifferent to the
death of this man she was supposedly marrying.

No, it was worse than that. Someone had killed Frank and set the cabin on fire to destroy
the evidence. Captain Robinson thought she was that someone. When he asked if she burned the
cabin, he was really asking if she'd killed Frank. That's why he'd wanted to question her again.

As if he sensed her distress, Dorian jumped onto the swing and settled onto her lap. The
purring cat was a comforting presence, warm, soft and non-judgmental. People would react
differently. When those strangers who'd called with condolences learned the cabin fire was arson,
their sympathy would turn to suspicion.

Part of it was her fault. She'd overreacted to everything--the rumors, the burned cabin,
even Captain Robinson's business card. If only she hadn't come back early. If only she hadn't been
so preoccupied Friday night. Or had just gone to a restaurant that took credit cards.

If only she hadn't suffered a panic attack. If only she hadn't taken too many pills.

"If only." The most worthless phrase in the English language.

Forget if only. She'd gotten herself in this mess, and she'd better get herself out.

She closed her eyes and saw again the blackened pilings rising from the ashes. The smell of
smoke and dampness of ground fog caught in her throat as if they'd followed her home. She felt the
charred rubble crunching under her feet, water dripping from the trees, the cold. The clearing and
everything in it had been cold. She'd walked through the ashes, rummaged around in them with her
bare hands and felt no warmth. Blackened spars lay around the clearing, none of them smoldering.
The smoke smelled old, like rotten ham.

That fire had been out for a long time, which meant the cabin had burned while she was in
Michigan. If she could prove that, the police would have to acknowledge her innocence, leave her
alone and go find the real criminal.

An old wooden building would have made quite a blaze. The smoke would have been
visible for miles. There were no other cabins nearby, but Frank had mentioned buying gumbo from
a café across the bayou. He was going to take her there for lunch after they looked at the
cabin.

She'd start with the café.

Daniel woke at the usual five thirty, but instead of getting up, lay in bed feeling sorry for
himself. His head hurt, thanks to the six-pack he'd consumed while watching the Raiders eke one
out over the Broncos. He'd put twenty dollars on the Raiders, but the Broncos beat the spread. His
money was gone. And today, he was going out on the family shrimp boat.

Yesterday morning, he'd driven straight from Ray's down to the docks, ready to jump
onboard and get the hell out of Dodge. He'd been surprised to find his father there alone. "I decided
to join the crew," he'd said. "Where's everyone? I thought you were going out this afternoon."

"One of the diesels seized up. Sammy's got it. Lucky it didn't happen offshore."

"Ain't nothing lucky about being stuck here." He'd freaked out, still thinking the killer might
be looking for him. "When's it going to be fixed?"

"Sammy says tomorrow noon. If you're in such a big hurry, you can pick it up."

Picking it up meant going into town, and he didn't want to do that. "Why don't you send
Charlie? His truck is bigger."

"You want to join the crew, but the first thing I tell you to do, you try to weasel out." He
turned back to the rope he was coiling.

"Okay, I'll do it."

"I heard about that cabin fire where the guy died. Isn't that near where you go?"

"I don't know. I didn't see nothing." Daniel had shrugged, trying to act cool, but he could
feel his eyelid twitching.
First Jason Corlette and now his father. If the killer came asking around
about who might have been up there...
He'd rubbed his eye, hoping his father hadn't noticed the
twitch, and said, "Tomorrow noon, I pick up the diesel at Sammy's."

He'd driven home and rigged an alarm system so no one could sneak up on him.
Twenty-four hours, he'd told himself, you just got to keep safe for twenty-four hours. But as time passed and
nothing happened, he'd calmed down and thought things over. The cabin burned last Wednesday. If
the killer was going to come after him, he'd have already come. Wouldn't he?

Daniel crawled out of bed, took three aspirin and thought some more. He saw that the bad
engine had really been good luck. Otherwise he'd be out in the Gulf, stuck on the family shrimp boat
for two weeks. Now he had a choice.

He better pick up the diesel. Otherwise the old man would be really pissed. But when he
got down to the dock, he'd tell them that he'd changed his mind. Tomorrow he'd be back out on his
boat, doing what he wanted to do.

Ray called a little after ten. "Hey Danny. You know the guy who died in the fire. His
fiancée's on her way to your place."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"She didn't say she was the one, but she introduced herself, and I recognized her name
from the newspaper."

"You've been talking to the dead guy's fiancée?" Daniel struggled to get his head
around what Ray was saying.

"She's looking for a witness, someone who might have seen the cabin fire."

"A witness?" His blood went cold.

"She asked about Wednesday, specifically, and I remembered you coming in Wednesday
afternoon, acting strange."

"Wednesday," he said. The news never said nothing about when the cabin burned, and
neither did Jason. Only him and the killer knew it happened Wednesday afternoon. Only him and
the killer knew there was a witness. This fiancée was the killer, and she was coming after
him. "You told her my name? Where I live?"

"She's a nice lady, but it's up to you. You don't want to help her, say you weren't
there."

"When did she leave?"

"A couple minutes ago."

Daniel's hand closed around St. Andrew. The killer could be here in fifteen minutes. He
hung up and grabbed his shotgun. On the way out, he sprinkled juju dust across the threshold. Not
that he really believed in that kind of stuff, but it couldn't hurt. All she had to do was bust open his
door, throw in some gasoline and light a match. His home, an almost new doublewide, would burn
as fast and hot as Palmer's cabin.

At five to twelve, Daniel pulled into the parking lot behind Sammy's Engine Repair, a
cinderblock building on the edge of downtown. He looked around to make sure no strange woman
lurked nearby and climbed out of his truck. Sammy's new wife was minding the office.