Dead End (15 page)

“And she had a wallet,” Cyrus said. “She opened it in front of me.”

Marc’s hands came down flat on the table, and Gaston did a one-eighty in midair. He forgot himself entirely and leaped on the table, planting all four legs apart and assuming his “Come on, come on, you want trouble? Come and get it” face. His whiskers wiggled and his lip curled.

“Dammit,” Marc said. “Can’t you control that animal, Reb? He just wiped out my train of thought.”

Lightning crackled directly overhead and zipped away like strings of firecrackers, casting flickering light on the green water of the bayou. The next clap of thunder was huge, and rain beat the tin roof like fine drumsticks on a bunch of bongos.

“Gaston took the wind out of your sails, you mean,” Reb muttered.

Marc knew not to persist. “Bonnie had a wallet, a license, and other things? You never found them, but you buried her.”

“The law allows us to do that with an unclaimed body—in thirty days. It was done with respect and good people in attendance. We continue to look for next of kin, but I don’t think we’re going to find any now.”

“Maybe you aren’t looking hard enough,” Marc said in a low voice.

Reb exchanged glances with Cyrus. They were helpless to stop Marc from digging himself in even deeper.

A young female deputy was making her way to the table. Sturdy, with long, straw-colored hair scraped into a rubber band at the nape of her neck, she appeared nervous. “Sir,” she said when she stood beside Spike. “A word, please?”

If Spike was irritated at the interruption, he hid it well and excused himself.

“Saved by the bell,” Marc said.

“You are an angry man,” Cyrus told him.

Reb closed her eyes and waited for Marc’s reaction, but he said, “You’re right,” even though it was through his teeth. “Deputy Devol and I will speak again. You knew all three women who have been killed in Toussaint in the past two years.”

“Bonnie’s death was an accident, remember?” Reb said rapidly.

“The question’s the same, Father.”

“Yes,” Cyrus responded, and his piercing eyes met Marc’s gaze squarely.

“That’s obviously bothering you.”

That blue-green stare shifted to Reb, and she cringed. “I explained—”

“No need to say anything,” Cyrus told her. “Marc will get to his point.”

The priest’s cool voice didn’t appear to encourage Marc to back off. “Why were you so upset about the three deaths?”

Cyrus brought his lips together in a line. The storm had completely lost control. Runoff sluiced down the roof and poured in illuminated sheets from the gutters. A wind had risen, and it drove blasts of rain into the windows like bullets from automatic weapons.

“I have normal, human feelings,” Cyrus told him. “Three women with a lot of life ahead of them—a lot of work they wanted to do spiritually—and with their place in the world—cut down before their time.”

“Were you their confessor?”

If disappearance had been an option, Reb would have grabbed it. She couldn’t believe Marc’s bald approach.

“Yes,” Cyrus said. “I was.”

“Do you still do that in the box, or is it all in a cozy room these days? Do these women come to visit you at your house? I’d think that would be nicer. More relaxed.”

“Face-to-face reconciliation is commonplace. Many people prefer it.”

“Do you?” Marc asked. “With some of your parishioners.”

“I prefer what they prefer. Whatever makes them more comfortable makes me more comfortable.”

“Don’t you have any opinions or preferences of your own?”

This was between the two of them, Reb decided. She had no right to intervene. But her time would come to tell Marc Girard what she thought of him.

Cyrus turned toward Marc, crossed his arms, and took an uncomfortably long time to say what Reb could see him getting ready to say. “I have a lot of opinions and preferences of my own. Some might say I’m a very opinionated man. Could be that growing up with parents who only wanted me to say “yes” to whatever they wanted of me taught me to think before I speak. Any child of Bitsy and Neville Payne—who was my adoptive father—learned what was expected of them. Ask my sister Celina. But maybe that wasn’t such bad training. There’s not too much wrong with thinking before you open your mouth.”

Reb had a crazy desire to cheer and tell Cyrus he’d made a good point.

“Did
Bonnie
tell you anything that might help catch her killer?”

“Marc!” Reb put her hands down on his and gripped them hard. “Bonnie had an accident. She wasn’t killed.”

“Do you believe that, Father?” Marc asked.

Cyrus looked away.

“Is it hard, being a priest, and being a man alone with women who confide their deepest secrets in you? Of course, maybe you aren’t still a man in the way I mean. I don’t mean . . . you know what I mean.”

“I’m still sexual, if that’s what you mean,” Cyrus said, his face pale. He wasn’t offended, Reb saw that, but he was shaken.

“So you want to make love to women?”

Reb studied each of these unforgettable men in turn, and rested her forehead on the table. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.

“I struggle with a normal sex drive,” Cyrus said, very softly. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“Oh, hell,” Marc responded. “I don’t know what I want, but I just stepped way over the line. Forgive me, please. I couldn’t do what you do, even if I wanted to. But I’m going to give this to you straight. No frills. There wasn’t any Bonnie Blue. I’m convinced of that, and more convinced now I know there isn’t any identification. The woman who died was my sister, Amy Girard, and I’m not relaxin’ or leavin’ this town until I find out exactly what happened to her.”

Lifting her head, Reb looked at Cyrus, at the shock he registered. Marc’s eyes were softened with emotion, but every other line in his face was rigid. “I want that body exhumed,” he said through his teeth. “Tomorrow I’ll start the wheels in motion. I’ll speak to your buddy the deputy and get him on board. I want to put my sister to rest where she belongs—with her family—and to find out what made her come here after all that happened to her before. I want to know every person she spoke with, anyone she spent time with, and I’ll work on that. But I want to…see Amy.”

Marc’s voice broke up, and tears sprang into Reb’s eyes without warning. She didn’t stop to think before getting up and going to put her arms around him. He held her and whispered, “I’m a pig, and you should hate me.”

“I don’t,” she whispered back. “I hurt for you.”

“Excuse me, Father.” It was Spike Devol, who rotated his Stetson by its brim and gave off waves of discomfort. “There’s been a 911 call from St. Cecil’s.”

He must not, Cyrus thought, resent his ancient Chevy Impala station wagon, or the fact that blown shocks had the dark red monster floating and rocking its way toward Toussaint. So what if there was a sound like glass grinding in the transmission—he’d lived with that for months, and tonight the rain belting against the car partially covered the noise. What did make him angry was watching the blurred taillights of Spike Devol’s vehicle (together with his flashing lights) and Marc Girard’s Range Rover,
and
Jilly Gable’s pea green Beetle grow fainter in front of him.

And he didn’t like it that Spike had refused to expand on the emergency call other than to say an aid car had been sent for.

He punched in the auto-dial on his cell phone—again—and again got a busy signal. Sweat ran past his temples and stung his eyes. The air conditioning was selective at best, and the inside of the wagon felt like a steam room. What if Madge had stopped in, as she often did, to put in extra hours?

Cyrus gave the Impala more gas—which only seemed to confuse the engine. His reward was a hiccuping reaction that added serial jolts to the float-and-rock motion. Water fanned a plume over the hood.

So he wouldn’t get there with the others. They’d make sure Madge was taken care of…he didn’t
know
something had happened to Madge.

She was the best assistant he could imagine finding, and she was as good a friend as he ever expected to have. Madge kept his life running smoothly, endeared herself to the most difficult parishioners, kept Oribel as in-line as anyone could, and made sure Lil Dupre, Ozaire Dupre’s wife and cook-housekeeper, at the rectory, had as few reasons as possible to go into a sulk. And Madge alone laughed at Cyrus’s jokes.

If she was all right, he’d find the money to give her a raise. He should have arranged it at least a year ago. He might not be the most observant man about such things, but although she invariably looked lovely, she had few clothes. And her car wasn’t much better than his—which was a bad idea for a woman driving around alone.

What if…Bonnie had been alone and driving at night.

He tried to phone again, and got a busy signal again.

No lights of any kind shone on the road ahead anymore.

He peeled off and took the back road, the one Bonnie had taken. Through breaks in the trees he saw the sluggish waters of the bayou gleam beneath strands of lights that shone from a dock. The surface wallowed more than flowed. Cypress trees stood with their feet underwater and their silhouettes grotesque, like thickened and posing skeletons. Cyrus rolled the window down an inch and breathed in the scents that pleased him, faint, impenetrable green odors from the bayou; soft, mossy mold; dust mixed with overdue rain; and drenched pine.

Another bend in the road took him to a place where the bell tower on St. Cecil’s shone white above the trees. He blinked and swallowed an acid rush. Since Bonnie’s death, the reaction had plagued him each time he looked at the belfry, or heard the bells.

Poor little Madge. If she was okay, he’d forbid her to drive over from Rayne at night.

He steered a loose right turn onto Bonanza Alley. Flashing lights were everywhere, and he could hear raised voices from the area in front of his house. Evidently whatever was going on warranted backing up Toussaint’s lone firetruck with support from neighboring communities. That, or the parish was having a slow night.

At least the activity wasn’t around the church as it had been last time.

Emergency vehicles blocked the entrance to the driveway. Breathing harshly, Cyrus left the car and ran through sloppy gravel and mud toward the house.

Shrieking horrified him.

“I am calm, me,” a female voice announced before breaking into loud sobs.

“Now, now, Lil,” an unidentifiable male said. “I don’t blame you for being upset, but this isn’t helping anything.”

“Not—natural,” Lil Dupre said. “My heart will never be the same. Capering hoodlums. But they weren’t from this world. I saw the horns, and their teeth, me. Red teeth. Blood, I tell you.” She moaned. “Oh, what’s happenin’ in Toussaint? Makes a body glad to put her head down in Crowly at night, I can tell you.”

Cyrus collided with Marc, who stood by watching Reb. She was bent over Lil, who was stretched out on a gurney beneath a tarp canopy while a medic took vital signs. “Madge,” Cyrus said. “Where is she? Have you seen her?”

Marc’s expression was indistinct in darkness constantly sliced by revolving colored lights, but Cyrus saw enough to catch a curious glint in the man’s eyes. “We just got here,” he said. “All I know is that Lil Dupre thinks she’s having a heart attack and there are people swarming all over the place.”

“Who’s in charge? Spike, I suppose.”

“He’s inside the house,” Marc said. “They all are.”

“I’m going in,” Cyrus said, but first he checked out the cars present, and saw what he’d hoped wouldn’t be there: Madge’s battleship gray Pontiac. The gray was an undercoat for a new paint job that had never happened.

“What is it?” Marc said, his voice coming to Cyrus distantly. “Cyrus, you look sick. Let me help you.”

Cyrus turned to him once more and managed a smile. “I need a priestly refresher course. Acceptance of God’s will doesn’t come as easily as it used to. Help me find out who’s where in there.”

They squelched hurriedly toward the house, pausing only long enough for Cyrus to smile down at Lil and pat her hand. She said, “Oh, Father Cyrus,” and he nodded reassuringly.

Marc had placed a hand on Reb’s back, but he didn’t attempt to interrupt her.

“Come on, if you’re coming,” Cyrus said to him and walked through the open front door. As far as he could tell, rather than all over the house, the activity centered around the ground-floor rooms at the back, and he took off, bouncing off a deputy in conversation with a fireman. Cyrus was beyond putting names to faces.

The throng had gathered in the kitchen and crowded in front of the steamed-up windows. Sleeves had made swathes across the glass. Warm dampness hung in the air. Cyrus thought he heard a laugh, and the rage he felt shocked him.

He couldn’t see her.

The others made a semicircle on one side of the kitchen table. “Get out of my way.” The words burst from him, and men turned their heads as he elbowed a path through them.

He heard Marc say, “We’re coming through,” behind him.

Madge’s bright eyes met his past a brawny shoulder, and she smiled. She
smiled.
“Madge?” he said. “Are you okay? Madge?”

She reached him and said, “Fine. But you don’t look so good, Cyrus.”

“Thank God,” he said and drew her into a bear hug. “You scared me.”

Gently, she eased away but smiled softly at him. “I think we’ve all been scared, but it’s okay. Lil saw what she saw and just about collapsed. Don’t blame her.”

He deliberately shook his head and grimaced. “What now? I’m permanently on edge.” His behavior confused him. His feelings confused him. But why wouldn’t a man be concerned for a good friend? In the future he’d be more careful about his reactions.

“Father Cyrus?” Wally Hibbs dashed at him and stood on his toes until Cyrus brought his ear to the boy’s mouth. “They found me here. My folks.”

Cyrus responded quietly. “What are you doing here at this time of night?”

“I came ‘cause of the sirens. I was scared somethin’ was wrong with you.”

“Okay, okay.” This child needed him, now. Past Wally’s shoulder he saw Doll and Gator hovering, casting accusing stares at their priest. The Gables stood at a short distance, looking uncomfortable.