Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set (2 page)

"Nothing conclusive, you understand."

"You never know until you see the evidence."

"Right, but let me give it to you in a nutshell. I
compared the results of Ellie Deveraux's examination with the stuff you put on
the wire about your brother, and—" The man's short cough almost seemed to
be for effect. "Well, there's reason to believe Frank killed his
wife."

"What?" Zach sputtered. "What did you
find?"

"Just this." He handed Zach a medical file.
"Couldn't do an autopsy without Frank throwing a fit. But I have
plenty."

The thick folder was old, the edges bent, and it contained
the records of every member of the Deveraux family. Unusual these days to see a
family file, but Port Chatre was still a small, old-fashioned town. Some of the
papers looked the worse for wear, but a new top sheet contained the results of
the doctor's examination.

Zach read the doctor's report carefully. Ellie Deveraux had
died in her sleep. Frank found her the next morning.

Just the idea of waking up to discover your wife lying dead
beside you gave Zach the creeps. Just as creepy was the act of going through
the family folder of the first girl he'd ever loved.

Were the results of Izzy's examinations in here? Did they
mention her vitality? Her love of life? Those remarkably flecked amber eyes
that always reminded him of the stone called cat's eye? Did those pages tell
all these things about a young woman whose life was wiped out so early?

An unwelcome thickness in his throat made him turn his
attention back to the report. Except for the lividity about the lips, the same
unexplained blue cast Jed's desecrated body had also borne, nothing looked
unusual about Ellie's death. A stroke, Doc Allain had written, causing
paralysis of the lungs, resulting in anoxia and eventual asphyxiation. A blood
test revealed no oxygen in the bloodstream. There was tissue decay of the
fingers and toes.

Hell, Zach wasn't a coroner. But he didn't have to be to see
this was another wild goose chase. This sweet old guy was one of those
backwoods physicians with an honorary coroner's title who fancied himself a
forensic expert.

He leafed through the folder, telling himself he wasn't
really looking for something about Izzy, and when he came across a sheet on
her, he quickly passed it by. Near the back he found a report on Catherine
Deveraux, Ellie's mother. She, too, had died of a stroke. Same lividity about
the lips, and decay of the digits.

"Those the same kind of marks found on your
brother?" Allain asked.

"The bluish lips, yes," Zach said. "There
wasn't enough left . . ."

"Petechiae under the eyelids?"

"Yeah." At least on what was left of the lids.

"You identify the body yourself?"

Zach reached for a cigarette. One thing about small
Louisiana towns, no one objected to smokers, not even in a doctor's office.
"Yeah," he said after lighting up. "I did."

"Must've been rough seeing him chewed up that
way."

"Wasn't the easiest." He looked back down at
Catherine's sheet. "Looks like strokes run in the family."

"Or maybe murders. Frank brought Catherine in,
too."

"You examine Catherine yourself?"

"Yes, but those days I didn't know what I know
now."

Bull's-eye. Yep, give a man a little knowledge. One thing
was clear, Allain sure did want to prove he'd found a killer.

But accusing Frank Deveraux? Zach remembered the man's dark
laughing eyes, the way his big, rough hands could so gently touch a kid's
shoulder.

Investigators didn't put much stock in coincidence, and he'd
given years to the business, but connecting these deaths was a stretch he
couldn't quite make.

True, Ellie's lips had shown a blue cast; so had
Catherine's—and Jed's. Not uncommon in asphyxiation, but this particular marker
was unusual because color on the lips usually faded rapidly as uncirculated
blood pooled in the body. Another medical anomaly that would suddenly start
popping up again and again? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, despite the
similarities to the findings on Jed's body, there was nothing in these reports
that a stroke couldn't explain away.

"Frank's gone half bonkers," Allain went on,
"saying Ellie died of la maladie malefique. Shows a guilty conscience, you
ask me." The man chuckled derisively. "Evil illness, indeed. These
swamp Cajuns and their hocus-pocus. Have to admit, though, it's one I haven't
heard in a while. Hell of it is, some take him seriously enough they'd never
think murder."

"Sure, Doc," Zach replied absently as he spied
Izzy's name at the top of a sheet. This time he paused to look. She'd been in
to see Doc about a sore throat. Strep, the doctor had diagnosed, prescribing an
antibiotic. Odd, considering her mother's reputation as a natural healer, but
maybe the problem had gone on too long.

"Don't get many murders around here. Last one happened
in eighty-nine. Old Pete Bourg went off half-cocked in Tricou's café, shot
Louis Martin clean through the chest. Boy, what a mess. Pete carried Louis in,
bleating like a goat that Ankouer made him do it, blood spurting all over the
place, like to never clean it . . ."

Zach hardly heard. His mind drifted to his teenage years. He
and Izzy paddling through the swamps, sometimes alone, but more often than not
with Jed tagging along. Lots of mischief, lots of laughs. Now he was the only
one left.

How could that be? Sagging belly or not, he wasn't even
forty. Too young to have lost two people so close to him who were even younger.

"Town's not the same since your folks left,"
Allain remarked. "Cannery's gone, tourists all over the place. I miss the
old days."

Zach abandoned his trip down memory lane, and looked up.

"Ma couldn't run the cannery herself with Pa
gone," he replied. "Too bad the buyers couldn't make a go of it.
Times change, I suppose."

"Sure do." The doctor chuckled again, for no
apparent reason. Then out of the blue he asked, "Think we should demand an
autopsy? Get a court order, need be?"

Zach stared at the doctor blankly, reflecting on the possibility
that the man's brain hadn't fared as well as his body. "That would just
add to Frank's grief, and he's already had enough. Besides, your toxicology
came up negative."

"But the presence of petechiae . . ."

"Look, Doc, I'm no coroner, but wouldn't a bit of
hemorrhaging be normal from a stroke?"

"Not necessarily in the eyes and nose. And the same
type were found in your brother's body, and in the prisoner's."

Zach swallowed an impatient sound and dropped his gaze back
to the notes on Izzy. "I don't want to rain on your parade, partner, but
there's only a slim connection. Not enough to warrant an autopsy. Thanks for
contacting me; but—"

"The wake's being held right now over at Cormier's
house. How 'bout just talking to Frank? See if I'm not right about his bizarre
behavior. You could speak with the girl, too."

Zach's head snapped up so hard the bones in his neck
cracked. "Who?"

"Frank and Ellie's girl, Lizette I think. Yeah,
Lizette. In her mid-thirties now, but you must remember her. You used to sniff around
her enough."

"Izzy?" Zach choked out. "No. Izzy's
dead."

"Seems not. Drove in last night pretty as you please to
attend her mama's funeral. Care to come see for yourself?"

The wake was abuzz with quiet speculation about Liz's
reappearance in Port Chatre and about her mother's fate in the afterlife.
Discussion ended quickly at her approach. The gossipers then turned en masse
with cautious and sympathetic smiles to rev up their Southern charm and drawl
polite questions in soft, lazy voices that never revealed their true thoughts.

Liz pried herself loose from the latest gossip pod and had
drifted only a few feet away before the morbid topic was resumed.

"The girl's cursed, just like her mama."

"Not cursed, a witch. Runs in the blood."

"I hear she rose outta her vault."

A short, tubby man snickered uneasily. "Sure she did.
Like one of them
Tales from the Crypt
episodes."

"No, no," a woman interjected, lifting her hands
and wiggling her fingers. "Ank00000r helped her."

The snickers got louder and longer, but still sounded
spooked.

What rubbish, Liz thought. They couldn't honestly believe
she was a zombie or that Ankouer truly existed. Judging by the anxious edge in
their laughter, it was easy to believe they did. And it didn't help any that
her father was sitting in the kitchen, telling his old cronies that Ankouer had
sent
la maladie malefique
to kill his wife.

Wandering aimlessly through the spacious Cormier home,
feeling very much like the young girl she'd left behind so many years ago, she
sipped on a rum and Coke someone had pressed in her hand.

Liquor was always present at Cajun wakes, along with
enormous platters of shrimp and crawdads and plump grilled sausage, bottomless
bowls of etouffee, and dirty rice with beans.

Quite a feast, and one provided by the generosity of Richard
and family. When she'd lived here, the Cormiers had been struggling to make
their grocery a success, living upstairs, giving credit that wasn't always
repaid. Seemed as if these twenty years had been kind to them.

According to the others—who were more than happy to fill Liz
in—when the Fortier cannery folded, Richard Junior snapped up the wharf that
once fed it. He renamed it a marina—a title as grandiose as this tiny town's
name—and with the air finally freed of the stench of rotting fish, tourism
picked up. Cash customers arrived, needing supplies, needing rental boats,
which Richard supplied for a small king's ransom. The Cormiers then used those
profits to build an inn. And so it went.

Regular entrepreneurs. Judging by this mansion, a faithful
replication of a Creole plantation house, she wouldn't be surprised to see
their industries show up as her next hot penny stock. But their current
kindness couldn't erase her memories of their constant bullying during her
childhood.

Witch's child. Raggedy swamp girl. Those were the gentler
taunts. Other times they claimed she curdled milk or made babies sick with her
evil eye.

One day she hurled a curse at Richard in retaliation and he
broke his arm that afternoon, adding fuel to their accusations.

Liz stopped before one of the large stone hearths to warm
herself by the fire. It was unusually cold for an afternoon in the middle of
May, and she was grateful for the heat. As she rubbed her hands, she found
herself staring up at a crucifix hanging over the mantel, something that graced
almost every Cajun home. To most this represented all that was holy, but to Liz
it symbolized everything she'd fled.

"Praying for your mama's soul?"

It took a moment for Liz to realize the question had been
directed at her. When she turned, a chill crept up her spine.

"Hello, Maddie," she said coolly.

"Lord Jesus watch out for your mama, Izzy. You must
trust."

Liz regarded Maddie for a long moment, deciding not to
bother with asking if she'd call her Liz She noted with mild surprise that
Maddie, who was ten years her senior, somehow did not look a day over thirty.
Although painfully thin, a fact her sleeveless, scoop-necked gown emphasized,
Maddie was nonetheless striking. Her dark skin and large almond-shaped eyes gave
her an exotic beauty, and her bearing revealed a self-possession that even her
ungrammatical speech couldn't belie.

"I pray for her." Maddie brushed back an imaginary
stray hair. "I pray God take her soul to heaven and she be very
happy."

"How can you pretend you care?" Liz asked acidly.

"It weren't like that between Ellie and me. I love her
like a sister. Some things you don't understand, with them big city ways you
got now."

Liz placed her glass beneath the feet of the crucified
Jesus. "If you'll excuse me."

Instead of replying, Maddie stared at her long and hard. For
a peculiar second, Liz felt as if those slanted dark eyes were searching her
soul. But she met them boldly. As she did, an electric charge ran from the top
of her head and down her spine. Words spilled involuntarily from her lips.

"You will die a violent death," she said in a
strangely altered voice. "Fortunately, it will be quick."

"Ah, you is the daughter of your mama, after all."
A cynical smile crossed Maddie's face. "And got her gift of second
sight."

The words shattered Liz's trancelike state. Somewhat
stunned, she turned away from Maddie and rushed through the open French doors
to the veranda outside.

She walked to the edge, propped her elbows on the carved
railing, and stared into the distance. The dipping sun glowed behind a curtain
of misting rain. Tiny drops of water fell from the trees and clung to the
Spanish moss, where they glittered like rhinestones. The splash of a fish
breaking the water of the bayou not far away added an alto note to the high
chirrups of the crickets. Thunder rumbled softly in the distance.

What had happened in there?

Lord, she thought with despair, as intensely as she disliked
Maddie, nothing justified what she'd said. And it scared the hell out of her that
she'd said it. She suspected that somewhere in her morass of deliberately
buried memories she might discover similar incidents. That scared her even
more.

Everything about Port Chatre frightened her, in fact. The
memories it held. The flood of suspicion and fear directed her way. The
possibility that the false life she'd built for herself would be exposed. Even
the potential risk that listening to these gently slurred accents would cause
her to slip back into the speech patterns of her girlhood.

She didn't want to go back. Didn't want to remember. Which
was why she'd vowed that nothing would ever make her return to Port Chatre.
Nothing, that is, but her mother's funeral.