Dead End (29 page)

“Uh huh,” Amy said as if she were distracted. “Why would Marc care?”

“I don’t have to know that. He does is all. He’s turning Toussaint upside down, and everyone in town hates him. They all think he’s going to interfere with their businesses because the Girards own the buildings. Getting an order to dig up bodies in the graveyard didn’t help his popularity poll. People showed up for miles around. It was a spectacle.”

Amy gulped. She scrubbed at her exhausted face. “I never gave that boy anythin’ but grief. Better for him when this is over and he knows I’m gone. I can do that much for him. Precious, you never did say how you finally found out about me and Chauncey.”

Again, what harm was there in telling it like it was. “I got a call from a weird woman who goes by the name of Oiseau de Nuit or something similar. She wanted a
reward
for giving me important information. When I told her to drop dead she gave me what she called “a taste of my betrayal.”

Amy dropped her hands to her knees. “Oiseau? We had an apartment together. I wanted out, but the place was cheap.”

“What did you do to make her hate you so much?”

“She doesn’t hate people,” Amy said. “She doesn’t like them, either. She always needs money, and she saw a chance to make some out of me, that’s all.”

Precious pushed her hands into her pockets. She’d be driving home in the dark along poorly maintained roads. The dusky mist folded onto the swamp, gray into green. “She’s in Toussaint. Oiseau’s in Toussaint. She turned up at the exhumation, dressed in black drapes and whirling around like a witch of some sort.”

“How come she knew about it enough in advance to get there, when you didn’t find out until the day.”

“Day before. She had plenty of time to get there.”

“Not if someone didn’t tell her,” Amy said.

Precious considered. She paced the room, corner to corner, to corner, to corner. “She’s got a contact in Toussaint, has to.”

“She met Chauncey,” Amy said. “Maybe he gave her a reason to hate him, too. He’s the one who’s most likely to get hurt by anything she decides to say.”

“This is too much grief for me,” Precious said and meant it. “Don’t you want to rub Chauncey’s nose in his own mud?”

Amy stared and twisted her hands together.

“Then maybe you could find a way to make your brother proud of you.”

“How? Pose for scary posters to warn kids off drugs?”

“You’re not on drugs now.”

“Look at me.” Amy pulled her hair behind her head and stretched out her free arm. “I might as well be using. I look as if I am. That stuff ruined me, but it’s my fault. And when you do what I’ve done, the only good thing left to do is make sure you don’t hurt anyone anymore.”

Precious barely stopped herself from slapping Amy. She frowned at her, bent over her. “You and I got something in common,” she said. “We both got worked over by the same lousy man. Only I’m not giving up. It’s payback time for me.”

“Good. It’ll make you feel better. I should have said I’m sorry about the baby.”

“Baby?”

“Back in March Chauncey told me you were expectin’ and he owed it to you and the baby to break off with me. He’s not so bad, see, not when he’s got something to shape up for. I should have accepted what he said and not followed him back to Toussaint. He told me you lost the baby but that didn’t change his feelings. He still owed you.”

“Chauncey told you I was pregnant?” Precious thought her way through what she was hearing. “That’s why he had to finish with you. Then, when you came out here he said I lost the baby. Cute. I wasn’t pregnant. Chauncey, he doesn’t want any children. He likes being an only child.”

Amy took up the glass of milk and drained it. “He’s a liar,” she said. “But I knew that. Why wouldn’t I expect him to lie about a baby? I know all about him, you know. All about his so-called business. As long as I did what he said, he trusted me to keep my mouth shut. Now he’s afraid I’ll turn him in to the law.”

Precious wasn’t learning anything new, apart from the pregnancy, miscarriage stuff. “You’re right when you say he’s afraid. I don’t know how long I can keep you safe. He’s going to know about this place in the end. The guy who’s supposed to be finding it and offing you for him is a joke. Chauncey’s sweating more over you every day. He’ll decide to do his own dirty work and come after you himself.”

“He hired a hit man?” Amy’s voice was flat, but there was no missing the flicker of disbelief in her eyes. She raised her face. “Just now you said you were keeping me safe. That’s not what you said before. You said you wanted me to suffer for what I did to you and you’d kill me when you were ready.”

“That was—what do you call it? Words of passion. Or spoken in passion.” Truth was she’d meant what she said to Amy in the first place, only Amy wasn’t all bad. She was what Father Cyrus would call a product of circumstances. “Seems to me we’ve both got good reasons to make sure Chauncey never gets anything he really wants.”

“You don’t mean you want to…”

“I don’t know.” Precious felt different, she felt—just. “You knew him before I did. You’ve got cause to feel cheated, too.”

Amy burst into tears. “You are the best, the very best. There can’t be another soul with as much fairness and forgiveness in her heart as you. You’re forgiving me, aren’t you?”

Was she?
“Yes.
Yes,
I am. I’ve been wronged. You’ve been wronged. By the same man. It’s time to make him pay.”

“I don’t want you to do anything that’ll make him hurt you.”

“Thank you. I won’t.” Precious looked at the manacle and chain. “I’m going to take that thing off. I want you to stay here until I can find a better place—if we need one.” She put her gun away and found the manacle key. “I’ll leave in the rowboat like I do. Don’t go into the water, like try to swim away from here. There’s snakes—”

“And gators.” Amy actually giggled. “I grew up here, remember? I’m going to try that tuna after all.”

She started to get up, but Precious eased her back. “I’ll get it for you. You rest up. There’s lotion and some creams in the bedroom. Use them, and I’ll leave you my makeup. I’m gonna buy as much time as I can for you to get plenty of sleep and pamper yourself. I need time to figure out a plan.”

“We could think one up now and get right to it,” Amy said.

Precious went for the tuna, got a fork from the kitchen, and handed both over to Amy. “I’ve already got parts of it,” Precious said. “Chauncey’s been real good, helping us out and all.”

Amy looked blank. She put a forkful of tuna into her mouth and chewed slowly.

“He stole a body and put it somewhere. Now I’m going to find out where it is and drop some hints in the right places. Wrong places for Chauncey.”

For several minutes Amy ate, concentrating on the food.

“I’ll give Chauncey some advice,” Precious said, getting so excited she bounced on her toes. “First I tell him the deputy sheriff and all have evidence to prove it was you in the tomb—including facts about you visiting our place and not being seen since.”

Amy quit chewing.

“To save himself, Chauncey’s got to make sure they
find
the body and discover it’s not yours. See?”

“Not exactly.”

Exasperated, Precious sighed. “I never was so good at explaining myself. Spike Devol will get a tip to stake out wherever the body is and wait. If anyone can hide something where it won’t be found, it’s Chauncey. Eventually Chauncey will show up to relocate the evidence where it’ll be easier to find—I can convince him to do anything when he’s scared—so he’ll start moving the body. They’ll catch him at it.”

“How am I going to help?”

“Show up in court looking real good, and sit with me where Chauncey can see us.”

Precious liked the way that sounded, but she couldn’t afford to be a sentimental fool. If she showed up with Amy there would be too many dangerous questions. She’d like to set her free but didn’t know how. In practice, the end of the story would have to be different—and time was running out.

Marc’s hands squeezing hers on the handlebars, his legs astride the front wheel, and his face bending over her in the glare of the Range Rover’s headlights made Reb furious.

“You cut me off,” she shouted at him. “You could have killed me.

The Rover’s engine ran, and they had to raise their voices to be heard. “You were coming to a stop at the sign,” Marc told her. “Yes, I cut you off, but I knew what I was doing. Get off that thing. I’ll drive you.”

“No, thank you. This is how I make home visits.”

“Sure,” he said. “And I’ll bet everyone for miles around knows it. You are a sitting duck on that thing, cher. Please, Reb, don’t fight me on this.”

She couldn’t believe he was doing this. “I have a patient in labor at a very critical stage in her pregnancy. Every minute may be crucial.”

“Get in the Range Rover.”

“I’m going to drive on. It would be a good idea for you to get out of my way.”

“I’m not takin’ the time to list all the reasons why that isn’t going to happen, but a reminder or two are called for. A tape recorder was put underneath your examining table. What do you suppose that was about?”

“Prurient interest in very private conversations. A Peeping Tom—or ear.”

“Not with everything else we’ve been dealing with. You may be okay with the threats, I’m not. And they are threats.”

Reb sighed. “I’ve already thanked you for your concern, but I think you’re reaching too far on the tape recorder.”

“Someone’s trying to catch you talking about incriminating stuff—incriminating to them.”

“That could be, but it’s only a guess.”

“You were the one who originally said you could be considered a threat. I think you’re right. Get off the damn bike.”

Nobody ever said she was a super-patient woman. “For the last time, kindly step out of my way.”

“You are so polite,” he said. “Too polite to run a man through with your motorcycle. Through the middle, in fact. Just imagine what you’d do to me.”

“You are irresponsible.” She gunned her engine. “My instruments are packed in back of me, and you’re wasting my time. This is it.”

The warning sounded good, but all she could do was keep revving the engine.

“Okay,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “We’ll do it your way.” And with that he managed a smooth move that landed him behind her on the bike. Into her ear he said, “Should have done this first. I never wanted to keep you away from a patient.”

“Your car’s running,” she yelled.

“I’m calling Spike,” he told her. “Ride.”

She couldn’t make out what he said to Spike on the phone, but they hadn’t gone far when she heard the sound of a siren.

Marc held her around the waist, and she remembered he wasn’t wearing a helmet. Applying the brakes, she drove onto the verge and twisted on her seat. “Helmet, dammit. In the Tourpak, and hurry.”

He made a face resembling that of a wise-ass teenage boy who’d like to refuse, but he wrestled the helmet out and crammed it on. Reb took off again while he was lowering the face shield.

Gaston was probably at dog protection services by now, turning her in for neglect. She could be hours longer getting home. “Marc,” she yelled over the intercom and was surprised when he answered. “You must have done this before. I need someone to check on Gaston. Madge would go.”

“I’ll call,” he told her.

Toussaint wasn’t even a dot on most maps. Clearing the straggling town boundaries to the north didn’t take long, but immediately the road became a tree-tunnel, and Reb’s headlight bored a hole through humid darkness. She wasn’t too sorry to feel Marc’s hands at her waist.

“I can’t believe you do this,” he said, his voice loud inside her helmet. “It would be dangerous even if you were a man and everyone loved you—or was scared to death of you.”

Reb didn’t answer. She had to concentrate on frequent curves in the narrow road. Moss became heavier and hung lower at night when dampness weighted it down. Mostly it flew away from the bike as it passed, but on occasion a length slapped Reb’s face shield and she had to hold steady or risk swerving and sending the two of them into a swampy ditch.

Another fifteen minutes and they passed the turn to Pappy’s Dancehall. A neon arrow flashed, pointing to the Lay By with its hourly rates. Reb was grateful for even that sign of life.

A vehicle approached from behind, and she checked in her mirrors. Some sort of wildly-painted van. She didn’t recognize it. The burly driver was a dark shadow hunched over the wheel. He honked as if to make her go faster, but she was already exceeding the speed limit.

The van fell back, and Reb relaxed.

“You okay?” Marc asked.

“Dandy,” she told him, and he squeezed her sides. The last thing she had time for tonight was dwelling on her feelings for him. They were too complex, and most of them were more than distracting.

“Watch out for the wise guy behind us,” Marc said. “I think he could be playing games.”

Driving on side beams that barely pricked the blackness in Reb’s mirrors, the guy in the van had moved in close again, and closer. The lights moved to the outermost range of the bike mirrors, and Reb was looking at the front grill and bumper.

“Stay cool,” Marc said as if he’d felt her tense up. “This one’s nasty, but we should be out of his way soon. Shit!”

A glancing blow to the bike almost threw it aside. Reb hardly knew how she’d managed to keep them upright. She plowed into mushy gravel and opened her mouth to scream when she rushed at young tree trunks. But then she had control again and was back on the road, with the van dropping behind them again.

Marc leaned on her back.

“That was close,” she said.

“That was a hit,” he said, and sounded tight. “Hush,” he told her when she started to react. “Barely a hit. He tapped my thigh is all, but another half inch and it would have been a different story.”

Her stomach rolled. The turnoff to the Lalonde place wasn’t more than a couple of miles now. All she had to do was keep her head until she could get out of the joker’s way.

“Marc. The leg?”

“I told you it’s nothing,” he said, but wasn’t convincing enough to please Reb.