Cry Wolf (36 page)

Naturally. Just as she never stayed with a job or anything else that might have given her help or a sense of purpose that didn't involve sex. Laurel's hands fisted on the tabletop, and she wished for something she could hit to let off some of the impotent anger that was building inside her. “She's determined to let the past rule her life, dictate who she is, what she is. We had an awful fight about it the other day. I lost my temper, but it makes me angry to see her throw her life away for something that ended fifteen years ago.”

For a moment Caroline said nothing. She sat quietly toying with one of the heavy gold hoops that hung from her ears and let Laurel's statement hang in the air, let it sink in not for her own benefit, but for her niece's.

“Tell me,” she said at last. “Do you not still see those children from Scott County in your sleep?”

The abrupt change of subject jolted Laurel for a second. The question brought the faces up in her memory, and she had to force them back into the little compartment she tried to stow them in during the day. “Yes,” she murmured.

“But that's over and done with,” Caroline said. “Why can't you let them go?”

“Because
I
failed them,” Laurel said, tensing against the guilt. “It was
my
fault. I deserve to be haunted by that—”

“No,” Caroline cut her off sharply, her dark eyes bright with the strength of her feelings. “No,” she said again, softening her tone. “You did all you could. The outcome was not in your hands. You had no control over the attorney general or the lack of evidence or what other members of the community did, and yet you blame yourself and let that part of your past torment you.”

Laurel didn't try to argue her culpability; she knew what the truth was. The point her aunt was making had little to do with her, anyway.

“Are you saying Savannah blames herself for the abuse?” she asked, incredulous at the thought. “But what happened was Ross's fault! He forced himself on her. She couldn't possibly believe that was her fault.”

Caroline stroked a fingertip thoughtfully along her cheekbone and raised a delicately arched brow. “You think not? Savannah is a beautiful, sensual, sexual creature. She always has been. Even as a child she had a certain power over men, and she knew it. You think she hasn't blamed herself for being attractive to Ross or that Ross hasn't taken every opportunity to blame her himself? He is and always has been a weak man, taking credit that isn't his due and shedding blame like water off a duck's back.”

A fresh spring of hate for Ross Leighton welled up inside Laurel, and she recognized that a large part of her anger was for the fact that Ross had never been made to pay for his crime. Justice had never been served. Some of the blame for that was hers, she knew, and the guilt for that was terrible.

If only she had found the courage to tell their mother or go to Aunt Caroline. But she hadn't. Vivian was still in ignorance of her husband's atrocities. Caroline had found out the truth years after the fact. There had been no justice for Savannah . . . so Laurel had spent her life seeking justice for others.

I'm not trying to atone for anything!

God, what a lie. What a hypocrite she was.

Caroline rose gracefully from her chair, tucking her letters into a patch pocket on the full yellow skirt that hugged her tiny waist and swirled around her calves. She came around the table and slipped her arms around Laurel's shoulders, hugging her tight from behind. “The past is always with us, Laurel,” she said gently. “It's a part of us we can't ignore or abandon. And it's not always easy to keep it behind us, where it belongs. You'd do well to remember that for yourself, as well as for your sister.”

She pressed a kiss to her temple and went inside, leaving Laurel alone on the gallery to listen to the birdsong and to think.

When her thoughts had chased one another around her brain sufficiently to give her a headache, Laurel turned her attention back to the mail, thumbing through the bills and pleas from missions. At the back of the stack was a plain white envelope with no address, return or otherwise.

Puzzled, she opened the flap and extracted not a letter, but a cheap gold necklace with a small golden butterfly dangling from it. She lifted the chain and watched the butterfly turn and sway, and a strange shiver passed over her, like a chill wind that had slipped out of another dimension to crawl over her skin.

The wheels of her mind turned automatically, searching for the most logical explanation for the necklace. It was Savannah's—though Savannah's tastes were much more expensive. Laurel had forgotten it on the seat of the car—but why was it sealed in an envelope?

No answer satisfied all the questions, and none explained the knot of nerves tingling at the base of her neck.

In his office in the Partout Parish courthouse, Duwayne Kenner leaned over his desk, hammers pounding inside his temples, acid churning in his gut. He leaned over the fax copies of crime reports from four other parishes. His eyes scanned the photographs the sheriff from St. Martin had brought along with him of Jennifer Verret, who had been found dead Saturday morning, strangled with a silk scarf and mutilated. On the other side of the desk, Danjermond stood looking pensive, twisting his signet ring around on his finger.

“There's no doubt in my mind,” Kenner growled, his voice turned to gravel by two packs of Camels. “We're dealing with the same killer.”

“Everything matches?”

“So far. We'll have more details when the lab reports on Annie Gerrard come in, but it's all there—the silk scarf, the same pattern of knife wounds. Most importantly, details that were kept away from the press match, eliminating the possibility of a copycat.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the markings on the wrists and ankles, and the fact that each woman had items of jewelry taken off her body. Sick bastard likely keeps them as souvenirs,” he mumbled, his eyes narrowing to slits as he took in the savagery one human being could commit against another. “Well, by God, I'll find out when I catch him. I swear I will.”

Chapter
Nineteen

One of Vivian's more annoying traits was her sporadic attempts at spontaneity. Laurel recalled the times during her childhood when her mother would snap out of her day-in-day-out routine of clubs and civic responsibilities and life as mistress of Beauvoir, and scramble frantically to do something spontaneous, something she thought terribly clever or fun, which the events seldom proved to be. There was always an air of desperation about them and a set of expectations that were never achieved. Not at all like the spur-of-the-moment notions of Laurel's father, which had always been unfailingly wonderful in one way or another, never planned, never entered into with a set of criteria or goals.

“Seize the moment and take what it gives you,” Daddy had always said with a simple joy for life glowing in his handsome face.

Vivian had always seized her moments with grasping, greedy hands and tried to wring out of them the things she wanted. Laurel had always felt sorry for her mother because of it. It wasn't in Vivian's makeup to be spontaneous. That she felt compelled to try, and tried too hard, had always left Laurel feeling sad, particularly when one of Vivian's failed attempts led her into yet another spell of depression.

Perhaps that was why, when Vivian had called to invite her to have dinner out with her—dinner and “girl talk,” God forbid—Laurel hadn't managed to find an excuse during that slim five-second window of opportunity when lies can go undetected over the phone lines. Or perhaps her reasons had more to do with the day and the thoughts she had had of family and the fickleness of life.

Savannah would have no doubt had a scathing commentary on the subject. But as Savannah had yet to return from wherever she had spent the day, Laurel didn't have to listen to it. She accepted the invitation with an air of resignation and did her best to turn off the internal mechanism of self-examination.

They sat in one of the small, elegant dining rooms of the Wisteria Golf and Country Club, chatting over equally elegant meals of stuffed quail and fresh sea bass. The club was housed in a Greek revival mansion on what had once been the largest indigo plantation in the parish. The house and grounds had been meticulously restored and maintained, right down to the slave cabins that sat some two hundred yards behind the mansion and now served as storage sheds for garden equipment and between-round hangouts for the caddies—who were quite often black youths. No one at Wisteria worried about offending them with the comparison between caddies and slaves, and there were no other people of color to be offended other than hired help, because Wisteria was, always had been, and always would be an all-white establishment.

Laurel poked at her sea bass and thought longingly of bluepoint crabs and the colors of the Gulf sky at sunset, the sound of the sea and gulls, the tang of salt air. Instead, she had a grouper glaring up at her from a Limoges plate, green velvet portieres at tall French doors, a Vivaldi concerto piping discreetly over cleverly hidden speakers, and the artificial cleanliness of central air-conditioning. Her mother sat across from her, completely in her element, ash blond hair sleekly coiffed, a vibrant blue linen blazer bringing out the color of her eyes. Beneath the jacket she wore a chic white sheath splashed with the same shade of blue. Sapphire teardrops dripped from her earlobes.

“The world has gone stark raving mad,” Vivian declared, spearing a fresh green bean. She chewed delicately, as a lady should, breaking her train of thought absolutely to savor the taste of her food. After washing it down with a sip of chardonnay, she picked up the thread of the conversation and went on. “Women being murdered in our backyards, practically. Lunatics running loose through town in the dead of night.

“Tell me why on earth anyone would want to vandalize St. Joseph's Rest Home, scaring those poor elderly people witless.”

Laurel went on point like a bird dog, straightening in her chair, her fork hovering over her mutilated fish. “St. Joseph's?”

“Yes,” Vivian went on with appropriate disgust as she took a knife after her quail and dismembered it. “Spray-painted obscenities outside one of the rooms, left a terrible mess on the lawn that I simply won't even speak of in public or anywhere else, banged on the windows, shouting and carrying on. It was an absolute disgrace, the things that were done.”

“Did they catch this person?” Laurel asked carefully.

“No. She ran screaming into the night.”

Foreboding quivered down Laurel's spine. “She?”

“Oh, yes. A woman. Can you imagine that? I mean, one might expect a certain kind of hooliganism from a young man, but a woman?” Vivian shuddered at the thought of the natural order of things being so badly twisted. “I volunteer at the library, as you know. This was my day to take books to the rest home. Ridilia Montrose assists the activities coordinator there on Wednesdays. You remember Ridilia, don't you, Laurel dear? Her daughter Faith Anne was the one who had such extensive orthodontia and then wound up being elected homecoming queen at Old Miss? Married a financier from Birmingham? Ridilia says it was most definitely a female, according to the night staff.”

She pressed her lips into a thin line of disapproval and shook her head, setting her sapphires swinging. “Terrible goings-on. I swear, some people just breed indiscriminately and let their children grow up running like wild dogs. Blood will tell, you know,” she said, as she always said. And, as always, it made Laurel grit her teeth on a contradiction she had been trained not to voice. “Anyway, the person I feel most sorry for is that poor Astor Cooper. All this went on right outside her window. Can you imagine?”

What little Laurel had eaten of her meal turned into a lump of grease in her stomach. “Astor Cooper?” she managed weakly as her mind pieced together facts without her consent.

“Yes. Her husband is Conroy Cooper, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author? Such a charming man. So generous to the local charities. It's just a tragedy that his wife has to be so afflicted. Alzheimer's, you know. And I'm told her people up in Memphis are just lovely. It's such a shame. Ridilia said Mr. Cooper was absolutely beside himself over the vandalism. He's so very loyal to his wife, you know. . . .”

Laurel placed her hands in her lap, fighting the urge to grip the table to steady herself. While her mother sat across from her, going on about Conroy Cooper's sterling character, that same voice drifted out of the back of her mind, admonishing her for her manners.
Young ladies do not lay their hands on the table, Laurel
. . . . Then Savannah's face came to mind, her expression sly.
His wife has Alzheimer's. He put her in St. Joseph's. . . . I hear she doesn't know her head from a hole in the ground.

Sick dread ran down her throat like icy fingers. It couldn't be, she told herself. It simply couldn't be. Savannah had her problems, but she wouldn't resort to—As if to mock her defense, her memory hurled up a picture of her sister locked in combat with Annie Delahoussaye, screaming like a banshee and whirling like a dervish around Frenchie's.

“Laurel? Laurel?” Her mother's sharp tone prodded her back to reality. Vivian was frowning at her. “André would like to know if you've finished with your fish.”

“I'm sorry.” Laurel scrambled to compose herself, ducking her head and smoothing her napkin on her lap. She glanced up at the patient André, who watched her with soulful brown eyes set in a bloodhound's face. “Yes, thank you. It was excellent. My apologies to the chef that I was unable to finish it.”

As the dinner plates were whisked away and the tablecloth dusted for crumbs, Vivian studied her daughter and sipped her wine. “I hear you've been to the courthouse twice this week. They're seeing more of you than I am.”

An untrained ear may not have picked up the note of censure. Laurel received it loud and clear. “I'm sorry, Mama. I got caught up helping the Delahoussayes.”

“Hardly the sort of people—”

Laurel brought a hand up to stop her like a crossing guard. “Can we please skip this conversation? We're not going to agree. We'll both end up angry. Could we just not have it?”

Vivian straightened into her queen's posture on her chair, her chin lifting, her eyes taking on the same cold gleam as the sapphires she wore. “Certainly,” she said stiffly. “Never mind that I have only your best interests at heart.”

That Vivian had never had any interests at heart but her own was a truth Laurel chose to keep to herself. If she provoked her mother into an argument in public, she would never be forgiven. A part of her thought she shouldn't care, but the plain truth was Vivian was the only mother she had, and after a lifetime of walking on eggshells to gain approval, to garner what Vivian would consider love, she was probably not going to change. Just as Vivian would never change.

The pendulum of Vivian's moods swung yet again as she turned toward the entrance to the dining room. Like the sun coming out from behind a thunderhead, a smile brightened her face. Laurel turned to get a look at whoever had managed to perform such a miracle and caught another unpleasant surprise square on the chin.

“Stephen!” Vivian said, offering her beringed hands to Danjermond as he strode to their table. He took them both and bent over one to bestow a courtly kiss. Vivian beamed. All but purring, she turned toward Laurel. “Look, Laurel dear, Stephen is here! Isn't this a lovely surprise?”

In a pig's eye
. Laurel forced a smile that looked as if she had a lip full of novocaine. “Mr. Danjermond.”

“Stephen, you're just in time for dessert. Do say you'll join us.”

He treated her to a dazzling square smile. “How could I decline an offer to spend time with two of the most beautiful belles in the parish?”

Vivian blushed on cue and batted her lashes, impeccably schooled in the feminine art of flirtation. “Well, this belle needs to powder her nose. Do keep Laurel company, won't you?”

“Of course.”

As she walked away from the table, Danjermond slid into the empty chair to Laurel's right. He was, as she was, dressed in the same clothes he had worn to the courthouse that morning—the coffee brown suit, the ivory shirt and stylish tie—but he had somehow managed to come through the day without a wrinkle, while Laurel felt wilted and rumpled. Something about his elegance made her want to comb her hair and take her glasses off, but she refrained from doing either.

“You're angry with me, Laurel,” he said, simply.

Laurel crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt, taking her time in replying. Outside, a squall line had tumbled up from the Gulf and was threatening rain. Wind pulled at the fingers of the palmetto trees that lined the putting green. She stared out at them through the French doors, debating the wisdom of what she wanted to say.

“I don't like the games you play, Mr. Danjermond,” she said at last, meeting his cool green gaze evenly.

He arched a brow. “You think my being here is part of a conspiracy, Laurel? As it happens, I dine here often. You do concede that I have to eat, don't you? I am, after all, merely human.”

The light in the peridot eyes danced as if at some secret amusement. Whether it was her he was laughing at or the line about his being a mere mortal, she couldn't tell. Either way, she had no intention of joining in the joke.

“Anything new on the murder?” she asked, toying with the stem of her water glass.

He plucked a slice of French bread from the basket on the table, tore off a chunk, and settled back in his chair with the lazy arrogance of a prince. Chewing thoughtfully, he studied her. “Kenner released Tony Gerrard. He feels the murder is the work of the Bayou Strangler.”

“And what do you think? You don't think Tony Gerrard might have pulled a copycat?”

“No, because if he had, he would have screwed up. Our killer is very clever. Tony, regrettably,” he picked a white fleck of bread off his tie and flicked it away, “is not.”

“You sound almost as if you admire him—the killer.”

He regarded her with a look of mild reproach. “Certainly not. He intrigues me, I admit. Serial killers have fascinated students of criminal science for years.” He tore another chunk off the fresh, warm bread, closed his eyes, and savored the rich, yeasty aroma of it before slipping it into his mouth. As he swallowed, his lashes raised like lacy black veils. “I'm as horrified by these crimes as anyone, but at the same time, I have a certain”—he searched for the word, picking it cleanly and carefully—“
clinical
appreciation for a keen mind.”

As he said it, Laurel had the distinct impression that he was probing hers. She could feel the power of his personality arching between them, reaching into her head to explore and examine.

“What do you think of sharks, Laurel?”

The change of direction was so abrupt, she thought it was a wonder she didn't get a whiplash. “What should I think of them?” she said, annoyed and puzzled. “Why should I think of them at all?”

“You would think of them if you found yourself overboard in the ocean,” Danjermond pointed out. He leaned forward in his chair, warming to his subject, his expression serious. “In all of nature, they are the perfect predator. They fear nothing. They kill with frightening efficiency.

“Serial killers are the sharks of our society. Without souls, without fear of recrimination. Predators. Clever, ruthless.” He tore off another chunk of bread and chewed thoughtfully. “A fascinating comparison, don't you think, Laurel?”

“Frankly, I think it's stupid and dangerously romantic,” she said bluntly as her temper began to snap inside her like a live wire. Ignoring the dictates of her upbringing, she planted her fists on the table and glared at the district attorney. “Sharks kill to survive. This man is killing for the pure, sick enjoyment of seeing women suffer. He needs to be stopped, and he needs to be punished.”

Danjermond scrutinized her pose, her expression, the passion in her voice, and nodded slightly, like a critic approving of an actor's skills. “You were born for the prosecutor's office, Laurel,” he declared, then his gaze intensified, sharpened, as if he had sensed something in her. Slowly, gracefully, he leaned forward across the table until he was just a little too close. “Or were you
made
for it?” he murmured.