Dead End (23 page)

“Reb!”

She could be asleep in there—really asleep.

With Girard’s transportation out front?

He stomped through to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, slammed it shut, rattled glasses on a shelf, opened the freezer and shook the ice drawer, scooped out cubes with the glass, noticed the blender, dumped the cubes in and turned it on.

It had been said he ought to be singing in the Quarter. “Didn’t He Ramble” was one of his favorite numbers. Madge suggested it was the “ashes to ashes” bit that appealed to him.

Cyrus poured his ice slushy into the glass and raised his voice in song. Where his gravelly, right-on-key, N’awlins-nights belt had come from, he didn’t know. Not a soul in the family—that he was aware of—could carry a tune in a balloon.

Barking, Gaston hurtled into the kitchen and skidded to a halt with the aid of his front claws. When he saw Cyrus, he snapped his jaws shut.

Close behind came Reb.

She wore nightclothes and looked as if she’d spent an hour or so in a tumble dryer. Pretty, but really mussed.

The old dictates clicked in, and he averted his face. Must not encourage carnal thoughts by looking upon a provocatively dressed woman.

“Hi, Cyrus,” Reb said, in a high, surprised schoolgirl voice he’d never heard her use before. “When did you arrive? I didn’t hear a thing until Gaston barked.”

A future line for reconciliation just got one penitent longer.
“I was starting to think you weren’t here.”
And one longer.
Gaston hadn’t quit kicking up a ruckus since Cyrus approached the house.

“Yesterday was one of the most tiring I’ve ever had,” Reb said with her eyes on the almost totally liquefied glass of ice. “You don’t even know what happened when I got back here last night—”

“Sure you do, don’t you, Cyrus?” Marc, his shirt inside out, joined them. “Spike told you all about it. You’re a good friend to Reb, letting the law send you over here at this hour.”

The man was good-looking. Rugged would be a word women would use. And he was mad. “Spike takes his responsibilities very seriously.”

Marc shoved his hands in his pockets, kept one eye on Reb, and said, “He takes
himself
very seriously. And he doesn’t like the idea of Reb being here with me. You’re his patsy. You’re supposed to make sure I’m not spending time with Reb. Spike Devol is frustrated, and he wants to make sure no one else is having a good…Forget it.”

The reason for Marc’s irritation was pretty evident
before
he wandered into the murky, male area of frustration. Even if he didn’t say “sexually frustrated,” that’s what he meant. Strange how men never saw the irony in getting heated on the subject around an expert who had signed on for lifelong abstinence.

“Spike would have checked back on Reb himself, but he needed to get home to Wendy.”

Marc muttered to himself, and Reb patted his arm. “What Cyrus says about Spike is true. He feels as accountable to this little town as I do.”

“Who the fuck is this
Wendy
you people use to excuse his interference? His wife? If so, how come he doesn’t behave as if he’s got a woman he really wants to get home to?”

Cyrus hid a smile and emptied his glass into Reb’s old but scrubbed-to-a-shine sink. He guessed Marc was wishing he could suck that outburst back.

“Wendy is Spike’s daughter,” Reb said, and a heavy frost had formed in the kitchen. “A man can’t have any kind of life on a sheriff’s salary. He has a gas station—last thing you see on the way out of town to the south.”

“First thing on the way in from the south,” Cyrus commented.

“Thank you, Cyrus,” Reb said. “There’s a convenience store there, too, and they carry a bit of everything. Spike’s dad, Homer, holds down the fort, and looks after Wendy. She’s four. Spike’s wife took off with a bodybuilder. End of that story.”

Cyrus chanced facing them again, just in time to catch Marc’s glance at Reb’s hand on his sleeve, and to see his realization that his shirt was inside out. He showed no awkwardness, just exasperation.

“Man after my own heart,” Cyrus said. You had to help a fellow out when things weren’t going so well for him. “I’ve worn shirts on both sides before washing them. Bachelors have to conserve their energy for more important things.”

The hush that followed was heavy stuff. He was a diplomatic man, Cyrus thought, everyone said so.
So why did every other word he said sound suggestive.

He was too touchy. They wouldn’t have noticed a thing.

“Nice going,” Marc said. “Let me know about your next night out with the boys, I’ll tag along.”

“That’s enough,” Reb said. “Thank you for coming, Cyrus. When you speak to Spike, let him know I’m okay.”

“I put my shirt on wrong.” Now Marc was belligerent. “Is that a sin? If anyone would know, you would.”

Cyrus felt the smallest twinge of guilt, but he grinned. “That’s one that seems to have slipped my mind. When I get back I’ll look it up.” He’d give the guy points for chutzpa. “I didn’t expect you to be…I hoped to get to you with a question later, but I’d be grateful to do it now. A call came in at the rectory. Right after I finally thought the commotion was over and I could catch my breath. Do you know a woman who calls herself
Oiseau de Nuit?
”

“Night bird? No,” Marc said promptly. “Sounds like a hooker.”

Reb’s “Marc!” was predictable.

“He’s heard the term before.” Marc Girard was a last-word kind of guy. Cyrus could handle it, but he’d spent enough time listening to wife-parishioners on the topic to know what women thought about the syndrome. Reb’s flared nostrils didn’t bode well for her old buddy.

“She called me from New Orleans,” Cyrus said. “She’d heard something about a pending exhumation in Toussaint and wanted to warn me of the terrible things that would follow if it happened.”

“Great,” Marc said. “How the hell would this bird woman find out? Who is she?”

“It’s so late,” Reb said. “We’re all tired. Why not go after this in the morning?”

“It’s already morning,” Marc said in a more reasonable tone. “Did she fill in any of the gaps, Cyrus?”

Cyrus shuffled his feet. “I think she’s a medium, or she could be a medium. She talked about the other side, and hearing from the other side.”

Marc was unnaturally still. He looked haunted, his eyes black and bottomless. “Did she mention a name? Like my sister Amy’s?”

“No.”

“How about a return phone number?”

Cyrus hadn’t been able to get any answers from the woman. “Nothing.”

“It has to be Amy’s roommate in New Orleans. She talked about communicating with Amy and I knew she didn’t mean by e-mail.” He shielded his eyes. “I think she’s got contacts she isn’t talking about. How else would she get her information.”

“She’s probably harmless,” Reb told him. “Some of those people are sad. The only way they feel important is by putting on an act and frightening others.”

“It shouldn’t be difficult to isolate the people who know about the possible exhumation,” Cyrus said. “Then it’s a matter of following the trails to this woman. And I think she has a need to play this out, so she’ll make contact again.”

Reb shook her head at him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone in Toussaint knows about it—and I don’t see why you’re so sure she’ll call you again.”

“She said she’d be coming here, with help, to stop the, er—” He cleared his throat. “I think she mentioned the forces of evil.”

Reb said, “Just what we need. Let’s go sit down where we can be comfortable. I’m not sure if it’s too early or too late to offer drinks, but I’ll do it anyway.” She glanced up at Marc, and the smile he gave her was gentle, and to Cyrus, out of character. It made the man more likable, and squeezed Cyrus’s heart, just a little.

They trooped along the hall toward Reb’s study. Rather than lead the way in, she pulled up short and closed the door. “The best brandy is in my consulting-room desk. And the chairs in the waiting room are the newest furniture in the house. They are
really
comfy.”

The procession moved in that direction, with Cyrus scolding himself for wishing he could see inside the study. He’d definitely interrupted a…tryst? Was that what they called such a meeting? Or was it an interlude? Why look for euphemisms? They’d probably been making love.

He prayed hard for control over his wayward thoughts—all the way to the waiting room. Reb told the truth. The chairs were easy on the body. She went into her office and called out, “I don’t know one brandy from another, but I think this is good.”

There was the click again. Faint, subtle, but something out of place. Cyrus frowned toward Marc without expecting any response. Marc’s eyes were screwed up, and he leaned his head to one side.

“Whatever it is, bring it on,” he said to Reb.

And there was a click.

“I’ll be damned,” Marc said, getting to his feet. “Are you hearing what I’m hearing?”

Cyrus was grateful for a corroborator. “If I’m hearing what we both think we’re hearing, there’s been an amateur night around here.”

He led the way into the consulting room, meeting Reb as she made to rejoin them. “Listen to this,” he said and held his tongue. Right on cue, the sound came again. “Did you hear it?” Once more he was rewarded.

“I think so,” Reb said, turning toward the examining table. “From over there.”

Marc dropped to his haunches and peered under the table. Then he reached in and apparently tore something away.

“Here’s our culprit,” he said, and held out a voice-activated tape recorder sporting ragged pieces of duct tape.

These days Scully’s Mortuary Parlor belonged to a tall, thin Italian whose black sideburns and moustache—some said he never took off his bowler hat—were the source of speculation around town. Did he, or did he not apply black boot polish to them? They were very black, and very shiny, and Luigi, as he insisted upon being called, had bone white skin resembling the surface of uncooked pastry twists.

Unlike the case in Harold Scully’s time, the mortuary parlor no longer had sufficient black umbrellas for other than the deceased’s immediate family. As on the four preceding afternoons, rain streamed to earth without pause, and the large, uninvited gathering huddled beneath motley clusters of parasols and umbrellas.

When Cyrus, quite casually, let it be known that this was not to be a funeral, since a funeral had already taken place for the deceased, and that it would be a private affair, the populace had become incensed. The result of his announcement had been the arrival of “mourners” from miles around who swelled the crowd to such proportions that it overflowed the graveyard at St. Cecil’s, even though many people were to be seen encamped on tombs, eating their picnics and singing mournful songs between mouthfuls.

Dressed in their best mustard-colored suits, orange shirts, and purple ties—mourning clothes being too expensive to hire—the Swamp Doggies stood on the front steps to the church and played with vigor “for Bonnie, God rest her tortured soul.”

Numb and disconnected, Marc stood with Reb, Spike, and a somber collection of official types present to make sure all was accomplished with as much pomp and suspicion as possible. An awning had been erected over the simple tomb donated by the members of St. Cecil’s and a barricade erected to keep onlookers well back.

Since the interrupted night at Reb’s house, Marc had barely seen her. The tape recorder had been handed over to Spike, who had yet to make any comment on its discovery. Cyrus, with Luigi a respectful foot or so distant, waited near the foot of the tomb, and he wasn’t trying to hide his unhappiness at the proceedings. For the first time, Marc looked at the priest in his collar and long black cassock and saw him as other than merely a man.

This was an unbearable occasion, and he was more glad than he should have been to have Reb’s hand tucked beneath his arm. The slab was in the process of being removed by men whose muscles shone and steamed in the humid atmosphere.

A thump on his shoulder startled him. Spike stood behind him and said, “You doin’ okay? Tell me you want this graveyard cleared and I’ll call in the volunteers and get it done. They’re all here, so they’ll be easy to reach.”

“I don’t know how I’m doing,” Marc told him.

“You’re a tolerant man,” Spike said. “This has got to be a hellish experience.”

“Awful,” Reb said and squeezed Marc’s arm. He appreciated their restraint in not trying to insist the body they were about to disturb wasn’t Amy’s.

“Leave all of them,” Marc said, indicating the gathering. “They don’t mean any disrespect. Anyway, why mess with tradition. Maybe Amy would like it. She surely didn’t get much attention while she was living.”

“However you want it is the way it’s goin’ to be,” Spike said. Marc decided that to give the man his due, he seemed sincere.

Those shiny muscles bulged in straining backs, and the slab atop the tomb moved an inch or so.

Moans started out nearby and swelled as they passed backward through the crowd. A rhythmic swaying began. Some of the older folks bore parasols with long fringes, and they waved them back and forth. Vincent Fox and the Swamp Doggies burst forth with “Dem bones, Dem bones, Dem, Dry bones.” The assembly quickly gave up its unearthly wail to join their voices with awesome enthusiasm.

Marc shook his head slightly and marveled at so much natural inappropriateness in one place. Maybe he’d laugh about this one day.

The slab moved again.

And dem bones kept right on drying out.

Marc turned his face down to Reb’s, and she put her arms around him in a gesture that let the world know she set her own rules. She hugged his waist and rested a cheek against his dark suit jacket.

The officials put their black hats together to confer, then returned their wary eyes to the slow task of opening the tomb.

Marc held Reb tight. “You’ve been hard to reach,” he said.

“Lots of sickness,” she told him. “You haven’t been far from my mind.”

“I’m not going to fall apart here, am I?” He detested public displays. “If I show any sign of making a fool of myself, kick my ankle.”