White Hot (12 page)

“Without bait? Tackle box, rod, everything was assembled there on the pier, but there wasn’t any bait.”

Chris gave each of them a look in turn, then raised his shoulders in a shrug. “I can’t help you.”

“It just looked sort of staged, you know?” Scott said. “Like somebody wanted us to think he’d gone there to fish, changed his mind, killed himself instead.”

Chris snapped his fingers. “I think you’re on to something, Deputy Scott. He forgot to buy bait, so he shot himself.”

“Chris.”

If Sheriff Harper hadn’t reproved him for that remark, Beck would have. His sarcasm was inappropriate and certainly wasn’t helping relations with the deputy.

“I apologize,” he said, looking like he meant it. “I meant no disrespect to my brother. But these questions are asinine. Danny’s reason for being at the camp is obvious. He went out there to kill himself, and he did.” Fixing his dark gaze on Wayne Scott, he said, “Anything else?”

“When did you last see him?”

“Saturday. At the country club. We played several sets of tennis that morning. We quit around noon because of the heat. I stayed to swim for a while. Danny left right after our match.”

“You didn’t see him on Sunday?”

“Chris answered your question,” Beck said. “He last saw Danny on Saturday morning. They parted company around noon.”

“Where were you on Sunday?” Scott asked Chris.

“Home. All day. I slept late. Lounged around. Read the
Times-Picayune.
Beck came over in the afternoon, and we watched a Braves game on TV. Our housekeeper can vouch for me. Is this necessary?” he asked, suddenly turning to the sheriff. “What’s this about, Red?”

“I’d like to know, too,” Beck said.

“Indulge us just a little longer,” Red said. “Hurry it along, will you, Wayne?”

The deputy consulted his spiral notebook again, but Beck figured that was window dressing. Scott seemed to have a direction already. “Where were you on Saturday night?”

“What difference does it make?” Chris countered impatiently. “Danny wasn’t there.”

“Where were you?” Scott repeated.

Chris held the detective’s stare, rocking slightly back and forth in his chair, clearly furious over having to answer to someone he felt was inferior. Eventually he said tightly, “I went to a new nightclub in Breaux Bridge. It had a great band. Pretty cocktail waitresses. You should try it, Deputy. Let it be my treat.”

But Deputy Scott was unimpressed with the offer. “Do you smoke, Mr. Hoyle?”

“Not habitually. Sometimes when I’m out.”

“Did you smoke on Saturday night at the new club in Breaux Bridge?”

Beck jumped in before Chris had time to answer. “Nothing more from Chris until I know where this is going.”

Scott looked down at Red Harper, whose hangdog face seemed to have stretched another several inches since the interrogation began. With apparent reluctance, he opened one of his desk drawers and withdrew a brown paper sack, like the ones they used for collected crime scene evidence. He handed it to the deputy, who made a production of opening it and shaking out the contents onto Red’s desk.

“B
eck—”

“Not until we get outside.”

“But this is—”

“Not until we get outside,” Beck repeated with emphasis. Ignoring the startled staff, he pushed Chris down the hallway, through the anteroom, and then out the door of the sheriff’s office.

He didn’t allow Chris to speak until they were inside his pickup, which felt like a convection oven cooking them from all directions. He started the motor and set the air conditioner on high, then turned to his friend, who it now appeared was a suspect in a homicide investigation.

“Tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Chris said with remarkable calm. “Just like I told Red and that…that deputy.” He spoke the word like an insult. “Regardless of what he found at the fishing camp, he can’t link it to me. I was not there on Sunday. Selma knows I didn’t leave the house all day. You yourself were with me for several hours. I did not see or talk to Danny after Saturday morning at the country club.”

“Where the two of you were overheard having a heated argument.”

“Over a baseline call. Who doesn’t argue over tennis? Jesus.”

“Him, too.”

“What? Oh.” Chris directed the vent in the dashboard toward himself so he could catch the blast of air that was finally beginning to turn cool. “True enough. According to Danny I blasphemed and said some derogatory things about his Holy Roller church. He was my brother. I saw my brother taking a wrong path. I was entitled to my opinion.”

“But did that entitle you to ridicule?”

Chris sighed. “Huff had asked me to see if I could talk sense into Danny, turn him around. If I got a little sarcastic—”

“You came down on him pretty hard, if those witnesses that Scott talked to heard correctly. Did they?”

“I don’t remember exactly what I said.”

“ ‘I don’t remember what I said.’ Not a very solid defense to take into court, Chris.”

Chris looked at him sharply. “Court?”

“Haven’t you caught on yet? They’re trying to put you at the scene. They’re this close to placing you at the spot where a shotgun blasted Danny’s head all to hell.”

“They can’t place me there because I
wasn’t
there.”

Beck looked at him hard. “You cannot lie to me, Chris. If this thing turns ugly, I don’t want any surprises sprung on me.”

“What do I have to do? Cross my heart and hope to die?”

“Fine. Be funny. This is all a huge gotcha joke.”

Chris relaxed his smirk. “Look, I realize you’re in lawyer mode now. Like Huff said, you’re paid to worry, so we don’t have to. But I don’t know what else I can say to convince you that I wasn’t at the fishing camp this weekend.

“The last time I was there was that night several months ago with you. And the last time I saw Danny, he was headed for the locker room at the country club on Saturday morning. He’d gone round the bend with that religion nonsense. He was supersensitive to criticism of it. I made some irreverent cracks about it, so, yes, he left a little hot under the collar.”

“What about you? What was your mood when you separated? Danny was always so tractable. Suddenly he’s developed a stubborn streak. How did that sit with you?”

“I admit I was upset with him for making such a fool of himself in front of those Bible beaters. A lot of them work for us. We can’t have them thinking we’re pussies, for the Lord or anything else. I was angry.

“To cool myself off, I did laps in the pool, then went to Lila’s house as soon as she called me with the all-clear, and spent the rest of the afternoon between her strong thighs. It’s amazing how much frustration you can work off having sex with a rough and rowdy partner like Lila. Her creativity knows no bounds.”

“Spare me the details.”

“Your loss, friend. Anyway, I left her house around five, went home to change, then drove to Breaux Bridge. That’s it. There’s nothing more to tell.” Spreading his hands, palms up, he looked at Beck imploringly. “Besides, give me one good reason why I would want to kill Danny.”

“We have that going for us,” Beck said. “Lack of motive. But they’re trying to place you out there, and that eager young detective is going to be digging for a motive. If there’s something I don’t know—”

“There isn’t.”

“You’d better tell me now, Chris. Don’t lie to me. Should I be soliciting a trial lawyer, putting a criminal defense attorney on the payroll?”

“No.”

Beck’s cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID. “It’s Huff.”

Chris covered his eyes with his hand. “Fuck.”

Beck answered. “Hey, Huff, we’re leaving now and should be back in five minutes. Want a Blizzard? We could swing past the Dairy Queen. You sure? Okay then. Yes, I’ll fill you in the minute we get there.” He clicked off and said to Chris, “We’re not to stop for anything on the way back. He’s waiting for us.”

“How much should we tell him?”

“Everything. If we don’t, he’ll get it from Red. Outside of Wayne Scott’s hearing, of course.”

“That’s the other thing I’ve got going for me,” Chris said. “Good ol’ reliable Red Harper. He’s not going to let me get hit with another bogus murder rap.”

Sayre didn’t make the drive back to New Orleans. Following her visit to the foundry, her conversation with Clark, and the resultant crying jag, she was physically and emotionally whipped. Driving for two hours, then having to contend with the inconveniences of modern air travel held no appeal whatsoever.

One of her clients in San Francisco was president of a jet charter service. He owed her a favor for redecorating his Russian Hill town house under a ridiculously short deadline. She placed a call to him. He lent a sympathetic ear and then asked for five minutes to make the arrangements. He called her back in four. “Luckily we had an available plane in Houston. It’s on its way to you now.”

“Can the runway here accommodate a private jet?”

“That was the first thing I checked. There’s some big outfit in Destiny, a metal pipe manufacturer. They have a company jet.”

She remembered now Beck mentioning that, but she didn’t tell her client that she was a partner in that “big outfit.”

“Leave your rental car keys with the airfield personnel,” he told her. “Someone will pick the car up later and drive it back to New Orleans.”

The royal service was a rare luxury for her, but she could afford it. And if it got her out of Destiny sooner rather than later, it would be well worth the cost.

When she reached the airfield, she parked the rental car in the designated space and retrieved her overnight bag from the backseat. As she entered the compact building, a middle-aged woman approached her. “Are you Ms. Lynch?”

“That’s right.”

“Your plane’s coming in now, honey. Have you got car keys for me?”

The concrete tarmac was like a broiler when Sayre walked out to greet the distinguished-looking gray-
haired pilot who stepped out of the small, sleek jet that had taxied to within twenty yards of the building.

“Ms. Lynch?”

“Hello.”

“I’ll be your captain on this flight.” He introduced himself, and they shook hands. Once they were aboard, he introduced his copilot, who waved at her from the cockpit. Then the captain pointed out the emergency exits and showed her where drinks and snacks were stored. “Make yourself at home.”

She thanked him, and he went forward to take his seat in the cockpit. Relieved to be under way and grateful to relinquish control to someone else, Sayre rested her head against the cool leather upholstery of her seat and closed her eyes. Within minutes, the plane began its taxi to the end of the runway.

She was dozing by the time it turned and positioned itself for takeoff.

But rather than the engines revving as she expected, they gradually whined to a stop. She opened her eyes to see the captain squeezing himself out of the cockpit. “Sit tight, Ms. Lynch. We’ve got a situation here, but I’ll take care of it and then we’ll be on our way.” He spoke politely and calmly, but she could tell that he was hopping mad about whatever had held them up.

He released the lock on the door, pushed it open, and rushed down the steps. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“I need to see your passenger.”

Sayre unfastened her seat belt and moved toward the door. The pilot’s back was to her. He was reading the riot act to Beck Merchant, who seemed unfazed.

“I tried to get the lady in the terminal to radio you not to take off, but she refused,” he explained. “She said I had no authority. I didn’t know how else to stop you.”

Sayre climbed down the steps. When Beck saw her, he motioned toward his pickup truck, which was idling in the center of the runway directly in front of the jet. “Get in.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Huff’s had a heart attack.”

Beck glanced at his passenger. “Aren’t you the least bit curious to know what happened?”

Sayre hadn’t spoken a word since he boosted her into the cab of his truck. She turned her head toward him now. Her expression was impassive, but at least she was looking at him.

“Huff was in his office,” he said. “Sally, his assistant, heard him cry out. She rushed in, found him slumped over his desk, clutching his chest. Her quick thinking may have saved his life. She pushed an aspirin tablet into his mouth and then called nine-one-one.

“Chris and I got to the hospital right behind the ambulance. We were there maybe half an hour—although it seemed longer—before they allowed Chris to see him. They only let him stay in the ICU about five minutes. He said they were trying to get Huff stabilized but he was fighting them. He was extremely agitated and asking for you. I was dispatched to locate you and bring you back.”

“Did they give Chris a prognosis?”

“Not yet. They’re still trying to assess the severity of the attack. All I can tell you is that when I left the hospital, Huff was still alive. I told Chris to call me on my cell if there was some drastic change. He hasn’t.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“The car rental company. I called the branch office in New Orleans to see if you’d turned in your car yet. I was told you were leaving it at the airfield here to be picked up later. I raced out there.” After a pause, he said, “I offered you the company jet.”

“And I declined the offer. I wouldn’t avail myself of the company jet when the company doesn’t provide adequate work gloves to its employees because they’re more expensive. How expensive can work gloves be?”

“That’s not my department.”

She looked at him with contempt. “Right. You’re their errand boy. They send you to do their dirty work. You could have caused a catastrophe by driving onto an active runway.”

“The captain mentioned that.”

“But his words bounced right off you. You pulled an arrogant stunt like that because you knew you could get away with it. No wonder you fit in so well with my family.”

Beck’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “You don’t approve my methods? Fine. It’s not your approval I’m after. I was asked by my employer to find you and bring you to the hospital, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“And you always do what they tell you to do. It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong, or how it may affect someone else.” Tilting her head slightly, she appraised him. “How far would you go for them, I wonder. Where would you draw the line? Or would you ever?”

“You’ve already made clear your low opinion of me.”

“Last night at the diner, why didn’t you tell me that you were at the fishing cabin because Sheriff Harper had asked you to be there?”

“And spoil your fun? You wanted to think the worst of me, and I handed you an opportunity to do so.”

She turned her head away and stared out the passenger window. Anger was radiating off her like the heat rising out of the hot asphalt. Her hair shimmered like flame in the glaring sunlight. Her skin looked feverish; it would be hot to the touch.

Better not to think about touching her.
Although it did no good to tell himself that. He had thought about little else since seeing her for the first time.

Yesterday at the cemetery, when he’d come face-to-face with Huff’s daughter, he’d had a hard time concealing his shock. Naturally, he’d seen pictures of her, but they were pale representations of the real thing. In the flesh, she made a stunning physical impact that could never be captured two-dimensionally.

He’d thought, This is Chris’s younger sister about whom I’ve heard so many wild tales? This is the femme fatale of Destiny, the Lolita, the little sister of vicious tongue and vile temper fame?

He had expected her to be loud and vulgar. He’d expected a flashy dresser who flaunted a voluptuous figure, not a sophisticated fashion plate with impeccable taste. She’d made understated elegance sexy and tantalizing.

She’d been described to him as a firebrand, a spoiled brat, a pain in the ass, a harridan. All of which he was certain she could be. But Chris had failed to mention that his sister was a woman of alluring mystery. Because incongruent with the appropriate clothing and air of cool condescension was a restlessness that hinted at a latent passion, an unmined lode of sensuality that flowed far beneath the surface of her hauteur.