After the Night (12 page)

She unpacked her toiletries and the single change of clothes she’d brought, then plotted her course of action. There shouldn’t be much problem in finding out what she wanted to know, as long as no one recognized her as a Devlin. Small towns could have notoriously long memories, and the town of Prescott had belonged to the Rouillards heart and soul, as well as most of its brick.

The easiest and most anonymous way, probably, was to go to the library and look through the old newspapers. The Rouillards had constantly been in the news, so if Guy Rouillard had returned from his little jaunt and resumed business as usual, she wouldn’t have to check many editions before his name would crop up.

She checked her watch and saw that she probably wouldn’t have more than an hour to do what she’d come to do; from what she remembered about the small library, it closed about six
p.m.
during the summer, and in a town the size of Prescott, that wasn’t likely to change. She was hungry, but first things first; food could wait, the library wouldn’t.

It was odd how selective memory could be; she had never been to the motel when she had lived here, and had often gone to the library, whenever she’d gotten the chance, but she had remembered the motel’s location while she drew a blank on the library. She fished the small phone book out of the dresser and looked up the address, and after a moment remembered the library’s location. Grabbing her purse and keys, she went out to the car and drove back to downtown Prescott. Before, the library had been located behind the post office, but when she got there she was dismayed to find the building gone.

She looked around, and heaved a sigh of relief. A prominent sign in front of the new building next door to the post
office proclaimed it the Prescott Library. The builders had disdained the sleekness of modern architecture and instead used an antebellum style, a redbrick two-story with four white columns out front, and shutters on the six-foot windows. There were plenty of parking spaces, probably more than needed, for only three cars were parked in the lot. Faith brought the total to four, parking in front and hurrying to the double doors. The sign posted on the left-hand door told her that she’d been right about the hours the library was open: nine
a.m.
to six
p.m.

The librarian was a small, plump, chatty woman who wasn’t in the least familiar to Faith. She went up to the desk and asked where the old newspaper files were.

"Right over here," the woman said, coming out from behind the counter. "Everything’s on microfiche now, of course. Are you looking for any particular dates? I’ll show you how the microfiches are filed, and how to work the scanner."

"I’d appreciate that, thanks," said Faith. "I want to start about ten years ago, but I may have to go a little further back."

"That’s no problem. It would have been until a couple of years ago, but Mr. Rouillard insisted that everything be put on microfiche when we moved into this building. I declare, the system here was positively antiquated; it’s so much easier now."

"Mr. Rouillard?" asked Faith, keeping her tone casual despite the way her heart jumped. So Guy
had
come back.

"Gray Rouillard," said the librarian. "The family practically owns this town – the whole parish, come to that – but he’.s just as nice as he can be." She paused. "Are you from around here?"

"A long time ago," Faith replied. "My family moved away when I was a child. I thought I’d check the old obituaries for some of my parents’ cousins. We lost track of them through the years, but I’ve started working on a family tree and got curious about what happened to them." For a spur-of-the-moment explanation, it wasn’t bad. People trying to trace their family trees always made up the bulk of those using the microfiche machines, at least in her experience. From what
she had gathered, listening to them talk and exchange tales of extended detective work that finally unearthed the whereabouts of Great-great-aunt Ruby on Mother’s side of the family, the quest could become addictive.

She had hit the right tone, for the librarian beamed. "Good luck, dear, I hope you find them. I’m Carlene DuBois. Call me if you need any help. We do close at six, though, and that’s less than an hour."

"It shouldn’t take long," said Faith, while searching her memory for a DuBois family in the parish. None came to mind, so perhaps they had moved to the area after the Devlin family had left so ignominiously.

Once she was alone, she quickly began scrolling through the files, scanning page after page of the
Prescott Weekly,
beginning from the date they had been escorted from the parish. She found several mentions of Gray, and though she tried to ignore them, she found that she couldn’t. Though that long-ago night had cured her of her infatuation for him, she had never been able to forget him; his image had lingered in her memory like a sore tooth, to be worried occasionally.

Helplessly giving in to the probing of that mental tongue, she scrolled back to the places where she had seen Gray’s name. The
Weekly
would never print anything derogatory or scandalous about the Rouillards – that was left to the Baton Rouge and New Orleans newspapers – but the normal comings and goings of the family were all duly reported to the inquiring minds that wanted to know, which was most of the parish. The first two tiny articles were mere mentions that Gray had attended such and such function. The third article was in the business section, and, stunned, Faith read it through twice before the words really sank in.

No one else would have seen anything alarming or even unusual in the sentence. "… Grayson Rouillard, who has taken financial control of the family enterprises, voted against the measure to…"

Taken control of the family enterprises.
Why would he have done that? Guy would still have been in charge, for after all, everything had belonged to him. Faith glanced at
the date of the newspaper. August fifth, not quite three weeks after Renee had left. What had happened?

She switched off the microfiche machine and sat back in the chair, staring at the blank screen. She had come back to Prescott only to tie off some loose ends in her life, to see that things had gone on as before. No one would have missed the Devlins; their absence would have been noted with relief, and then forgotten, but Faith had never been able to forget. She had thought that, once she had seen Prescott again, seen how no one had missed them, or even remembered them, she would be able to forget about the town in return. If she ran into Guy Rouillard, so much the better. She had never blamed Gray for what he’d done; she’d seen the pain in his face, heard it in his voice. But Guy… yes, she blamed him, and Renee. Even if they hadn’t run away together, Renee had walked out on her children, and Guy’s irresponsibility had caused a lot of suffering.

But Gray had taken over the family business. Instead of tying up all the old loose ends, she had found another one: Why had Gray taken charge?

She got up and went in search of Carlene DuBois. The front desk was empty, and the rest of the library appeared to be, too. "Mrs. DuBois?" she called, the sound absorbed and flattened by the rows of books. Carlene heard her, however, for there was the squeak of rubber-soled shoes on the tile.

"Right here," said Carlene cheerfully, emerging from the back of the reference book section. "Did you find what you needed?"

"Yes, I did, thank you. I noticed something else that puzzjed me, though. It was just a little article, but it said that Gray Rouillard had taken over control of the family businesses. This was twelve years ago, and it seemed strange, because Gray had to have been only in his early twenties – "

"My, yes. You must have left before the big scandal, or maybe you were too young to pay much attention to that sort of thing. We moved to town, oh, eleven years ago, and it was still a hot topic of conversation then, I can tell you."

"What scandal?" Faith tensed, her puzzlement turning into alarm. Something wasn’t right.

"Why, when Guy Rouillard ran off with his mistress. I don’t know who she was, but everyone says she was nothing but trash. He must have absolutely lost his mind, is all I can say, to walk off from his family and fortune the way he did."

"He never came back?" Faith couldn’t hide her shock, but Carlene saw nothing wrong with that reaction.

"No one’s seen hide nor hair of him since then. When he left, he stayed gone. Some say his wife was enough to drive any man away, but I can’t say for sure myself, because I’ve never met her. Folks say she hasn’t left the house since the day he walked out. He never even bothered to get in touch with his own children again."

Faith was staggered. Guy Rouillard had adored his kids; regardless of his feelings for his wife, there had never been any doubt about how much he had loved Gray and Monica.

"I suppose Mrs. Rouillard divorced him?" she asked, but Carlene shook her head.

"Never has. Reckon she didn’t want him to be able to marry again, if he was so inclined. Anyway, as young as Mr. Gray was, he stepped into his father’s shoes and things carried on just as if Mr. Rouillard was still here. Probably better, from what folks say."

"I was too young to remember much about him," Faith lied. "I do remember that he was a sort of local hero, playing football at LSU, things like that."

"Well, honey, let me tell you, things haven’t changed much," Carlene said, and fanned herself with her hand. "Lordy, that man rates a ten on my scale, I can tell you. He makes my heart flutter, and me ten years older than he is and about to be a grandmother besides!" She blushed, but gave a surprisingly bawdy laugh. "It might be those bedroom eyes, or maybe it’s the hair. Or it
could
be that tight little butt!" She sighed dreamily. "He’s a scoundrel, all right, but who cares?"

"Does he know you’re sweet on him?" Faith teased.

"Honey, every woman in town is sweet on him, and yes, he knows it, the devil." Carlene gave her lusty laugh again. "My husband teases me about getting
his
ear pierced so he can compete."

Gray had a pierced ear? Faith found herself caught in
imagination, and shook herself free. What she had learned was startling, and she needed to be alone so she could think things through.

She glanced at her watch. "It’s almost closing time, so I’d better clear out. Thanks for your help, Mrs. DuBois. It was nice meeting you."

"You, too." Carlene paused. "I’m sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name."

Because it hadn’t been thrown, but Faith saw no reason not to tell her. "I’m Faith Hardy," she said.

"Well, nice to meet you, Faith. That’s such a pretty, old-fashioned name. You don’t hear it much anymore."

"No, I suppose you don’t." Faith glanced at her watch again. "Good-bye. Thanks again for your help."

"Any time."

Faith drove back to the motel, stopping by McDonald’s for a sandwich. She didn’t particularly like fast food, but didn’t want to go to a restaurant where she might be recognized, so she made do. She ate half the sandwich and tossed the rest of it in the trash, too disturbed to have much of an appetite.

Guy Rouillard had disappeared. But if he hadn’t run away with Renee, what
had
happened to him?

Faith lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to sort things out. Guy wouldn’t have walked away from his home, his family, his wealth, without a reason. Everyone had thought Renee was that reason, but Faith knew it wasn’t so. And even if he had simply gotten fed up with his marriage, why hadn’t he just gotten a divorce? The Rouillards were Catholic, but divorce wasn’t a problem unless he wanted to remarry. But he had never seemed to be an unhappy man; why should he be? His world had been the way he wanted it. She couldn’t think of any reason why he would have left so abruptly, without word, and never tried to contact his family.

Unless he was dead.

The possibility – no, the
probability
– was stunning. Faith felt almost sick at the idea as she considered and rejected scenarios. He might have simply gone away for a couple of days and suddenly gotten sick, or maybe had an
accident, but if either of those possibilities had been the case, he would have been found, identified, his family notified. That hadn’t happened. Guy Rouillard had disappeared, on the same night her mother had run away.

Dear God, had Renee killed him? Faith sat up and distractedly ran her hands through her hair. She couldn’t dismiss the thought, even though she couldn’t see her mother doing such a thing. Renee had the morals of an alley cat, but she wasn’t, never had been, a violent person.

Amos, then? Faith could better envision that. If he’d thought he could get away with it, Amos had been capable of anything. But she remembered that night well; Amos had staggered home around nine, already falling down drunk and swearing at her because Renee wasn’t at home. Both Russ and Nicky, also drunk, had come home after that. Could one of them have killed Guy Rouillard, or perhaps even both of them? But nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, and Faith would have sworn they had been as surprised as she when Renee didn’t come home. More than that, they simply hadn’t
cared thai
their mother was sleeping with Guy; neither had Amos, for that matter.

Who else was possible? Maybe Mrs. Rouillard. Maybe Noelle had killed her husband because she was tired of his unfaithfulness, though from all reports he had been sleeping around since the beginning of their marriage, and she had never seemed to care, had even been grateful. His affair with Renee had been going on for years; why should she suddenly object to it? No, Faith doubted Noelle had cared enough even to scold him, much less go to the trouble of murder.