Dead End (35 page)

She’d finally decided to do something good, but she’d been too late. Amy had lost her nerve. She’d cut her own hair and tucked it under the covers to help turn the hidden pillows into a real enough “body.” She hadn’t trusted Precious, and the gators or whatever else likely got her had seemed like better friends.

Precious sat on the bench again, holding her purse to her chest and looking out through blurred eyes.

A rowboat, her rowboat, rested at the far shore. A lone figure stood beside it, waving at Precious.
Amy.

Gaston lay between them in Marc’s bed. After a couple of hours, during which he’d stared at shadows on the ceiling, Marc had given up on being cool with Reb choosing the guest room for the night and had gone to find out if she was asleep.

She wasn’t. Gaston was.

Marc had picked up the dog, who awoke too dazed to do more than give a sloppy grin, and thrown the covers off Reb. When she tried to turn away from him, he hauled her out, too, and wrapped an arm around her. She didn’t complain, just let him take her to his bed—where wily old AP had planted himself as a barrier to passion. Not that any passion had been in the offing as far as Marc could see.

He was still awake, and now Reb was asleep. Now there was justice. He’d told her he loved her, tried to show it the best way he knew how—and how was she taking all this? By getting mad when he said he’d buy her a safe car and that her home was with him until she could safely return to Conch Street. What had been wrong with any of that?

Once more he left the bed and wandered down the hall to the bare room where he’d had his computers installed. All he had to do was tap the mouse and he was looking at a multidimensional graphic of a room beneath a basement, reached by way of a door to a wine cellar and a sliding panel on the back wall. The clients would be storing furs down there, which meant there was to be a cooling unit. Marc enjoyed the quirky bits. The safe would be elsewhere.

He moved to another screen. Why did people always want the safe in their bedroom? They just had to be close to the jewels, he guessed.

“Marc.”

Reb’s voice broke in like a gunshot, and he straightened up fast. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Whether or not I’m asleep isn’t the issue. You need to go back to New Orleans. Back to work. I can tell that’s what you’re aching to do. Don’t hang around here because you think you owe it to me.”

He sniffed, and rubbed the space between his brows. And he screwed up his eyes. “Come again.”

“You heard. And you need your rest; you’ve got a lot on your mind. There’s stuff happening, and we both need to be alert.”

Marc didn’t point out that each thing she said was contradictory. Her sleep wasn’t the issue, yet
they
needed to be alert. He should go back to New Orleans, to work, but she went on to talk about everything that was going down in Toussaint. “I told you I can deal with company issues from anywhere, and it sure as hell doesn’t matter a hill o’ beans where I park myself to do this stuff.” He flicked a hand toward a computer. “I didn’t make that up. My most important unfinished business is right here, and it’s serious.”

“You didn’t really say if you thought there was anything significant in what May Lynn said.”

He leaned against a desk and crossed his ankles. Breeze from the fans felt good on his bare skin. He’d like to take off his shorts but thought better of it.

“Marc?” Reb wore a utilitarian, brushed-looking nightshirt and managed to look like the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

She crossed her arms under her breasts and glared at him. “Concentrate.”

“I am.” He was, indeed. “What I think is that we have to see Pepper Leach. Sure, you heard a few contradictory words, but if he’s innocent and just sitting there and taking it, the big question is why? It’s also time to bring Cyrus up to date. He knows Pepper, doesn’t he?”

Reb eyed him suspiciously. “You want to bring Cyrus up to date or you want to grill him about a parishioner? Pepper went to Mass regularly.”

“Both. He’s got the kind of insight into people that’s beyond most of us.” He got another evil eye and hastily added, “Although in your profession you’ve got to be in tune with the person as well as the body.”

“We meet with Cyrus,” she said and turned on her heel, arms still crossed. “And whether you like it or not, we should pull Spike in—when the time is right. He may seem quiet. He doesn’t show much emotion, but he’s smart. Anyway, we could need him to help us see Pepper. We bought his support by turning over Bonnie’s purse. Now he owes us one. I hope Wally won’t suffer for taking so long to hand that bag over.”

She left the room, and Marc scratched his head. He was thinking of using Cyrus and should be reprimanded. But Reb planning to use Spike was just fine.

Back into the room she came, the big frown still in place. She took him by the wrist, and he let her drag him toward his bed. After all, sometimes a man had to give the little woman her own way.

Somewhere along the hall progress paused and he lost his shorts. That funny-looking nightshirt didn’t feel so funny. The inside was silk and slipped over her skin like a hot, wet knife over frosting.

“My turn,” she said, and took him. He had a vague notion to mention that this wasn’t the first time she’d taken the lead—but vague notions didn’t stick around.

On the way to Robertsville, Cyrus didn’t utter a word. He’d said his piece when Reb and Marc told him what they intended to do—with Spike’s help and blessing—and he told them, without inflection, that a man had to take the course he chose. If Pepper had wanted to say anything useful—useful to his own case—he’d have said it in court. His lawyer had given up because Pepper hadn’t disputed any accusation May Lynn aimed at him. He’d neither admitted nor denied the two murders, and they hadn’t been able to pin them on him, but he got the stiffest sentence his crime allowed. If he wasn’t the Rubber Killer, the real culprit had taken a hike—maybe.

At the prison a guard told them where to park. It was dark, and they’d been informed that the governor was only doing this for Cyrus, who ministered to the prisoners at Robertsville, and it would be easier to allow the visit at night, when things were quieter.

Marc pulled into the slot and switched off the engine. Reb settled her sneakers on the dashboard and picked at signs of wear in her jeans. “Spike doesn’t think there’s any harm in this,” she said, for Cyrus’s ears. “Mostly because he believes Pepper won’t say anything different from what he’s said all along. Pepper is settled into a routine, and he isn’t complaining. He works in the kitchen and doesn’t make any trouble. He’s every prison guard’s dream inmate.”

Nothing from Cyrus.

“She’s right,” Marc said. “He reads, doesn’t watch television, and writes to his grandmother every week.”

“She brought him up,” Cyrus said quietly. “A wonderful woman carrying a heavy burden. Hasn’t left her house since her grandson was convicted, not even to visit him. She sends him cards—inspirational cards and books—but she can’t bear to see him here.”

Reb met Marc’s glance, not so easy to do in Cyrus’s presence. Every look told the story of what was happening between them, but this one showed something else: neither of them held out much hope of getting anything new from Pepper Leach.

Darkness in swampy places, with mist fingering its way around any obstacle in its path, had no beginning and no end. There wasn’t a frame, a border, not even looking out through a window just a slowly incessant shifting, sultry and unfriendly.

How many times had she almost called Chauncey? Precious had lost count. She was afraid of him. He hadn’t killed Amy—yet—but he might as well have. Now he was really desperate to keep his ex-lover from revealing all she knew about him. This time he wouldn’t tell Precious not to worry about the damage she’d done because Chauncey would take care of everything for her. She knew how violent he could be.

There wasn’t anyone else.

She couldn’t friggin’ well believe it. Amy, sick, weak Amy, had made a fool of the bleeding heart. Well, no more Mrs. Nice Depew. Payback time would roll around, and when she got the woman again, there’d be no backing off from what had to be done.

Shit, she had to get to shore before the bitch sent someone to find her, or worse, not just to find her but to kill her.

Swimming was the only choice, but she wasn’t trying it at night. Thinking of what was in and under that lime green sludge turned her stomach. At least she had real good eyes. She’d need them to watch for whatever moved. She’d wait until early afternoon, when critters became less anxious to fill and refill their bellies and more interested in finding a cool spot to take a nap.

The sound that reached her announced either salvation or a death knell. Oars cranking in rowlocks and the soft slip of water around a rowboat hull. She stood to one side of a window and peered out. There was her boat, getting close. Whoever was rowing hadn’t had much experience, if any, and pathetic splashes sent choppy spray into the air. A light in the boat shone toward the far shore—like that was the way it was supposed to be heading.

Finally the agonizing progress stopped, and she heard thumps on rubber.

“Precious, where are ya?”

She stared and didn’t know whether to respond or pretend not to be there.

“Hey, it’s me, Dante. I’m comin’ up and in, sweets.”

Sweets?
This was unbelievable. Even if he didn’t know Amy had got away, with Precious stranded in the cabin it was obvious someone had stolen her boat. She drew her gun, turned her bamboo chair to face the door, and waited.

Pepper Leach faced the three of them through heavy glass. He kept his eyes downcast and took a long time to pick up the phone on his side.

“Hi, Pepper,” Cyrus said. “Doctor Reb wanted to come with me tonight and this is—”

“Marc Girard,” Pepper said, glancing up and smiling slightly. “It’s been a long time. You look great.” He spoke in a soft voice.

Reb waited for Marc to respond. Finally he said, “You don’t look too bad considering.”

Pepper focused the full force of slate gray eyes on Marc. “Considering what? This isn’t such a bad place to be.”

“Better than painting in your studio?” Reb asked. “Are you painting here at all?”

Another silence went on long enough to have them all shuffling their feet.

“If you need paints,” Cyrus said, “I’ll ask the warden if I can bring them in. Madge paints occasionally; she’d like to get you some supplies.”

Pepper shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ve got what I’m allowed to have. Charcoal and paper—it’s good, I’m getting a lot done. Learning a lot.”

The man was startling to look at. He was a little more than average height and well-conditioned, with a face that was all angles, eyes and brows sweeping up some, a cleft in his sharp jaw, and high cheekbones. Reb knew there was no particular way for a killer to look, but Pepper seemed a most unlikely candidate. Quiet, handsome, articulate, and artistic. Surely that didn’t add up to him setting out to molest May Lynn.

“We’re here to see if you can help us,” Marc said. “No pressure, though. Just say the word and we’re out of here.”

“It’s good to have company, but there won’t be anything I can do to help you.”

The answer came too quickly, Reb thought. She deliberately avoided looking at Cyrus or Marc. Pepper leaned his ear on the phone and studied the counter in front of him.

“Pepper,” Cyrus said. “You know I’ll be glad to talk to you on your own, don’t you?”

“I was going to send word to ask you to come,” the man said. He turned up the corners of his mouth. “You beat me to it. Soon you’ll come back, will you?”

“Yes,” Cyrus agreed at once.

A guard shifted his weight from leg to leg. He leaned on the wall behind Pepper, not far enough away for it to be impossible to hear if he wanted to.

“I saw May Lynn yesterday,” Reb said. Trying to creep up on the subject wouldn’t achieve a thing. Pepper was too smart.

For the briefest instant his nostrils flared and muscles in his jaw flickered. But the reaction was over quickly enough for Reb to wonder if she’d been the only one to notice.

“She’s getting married in December,” Reb said, knowing she was pushing her luck.

Pepper looked into her eyes. The man talked a good line, but he was miserable, desperate even. Badly shaken, she stared back but was the first to glance away. Marc watched Reb speculatively. He was too in sync with her now, as if he felt what she was feeling at the same time.

“I visited your grandmother,” Cyrus said. “What a lady.”

“How is she?” Pepper moved forward in his chair. “Did she say anythin’?”

A silence followed. Reb figured if she could see her own face as well as Cyrus’s and Marc’s, they’d all show how unexpected the latter question was.

“I didn’t go in,” Cyrus told the man. “She was busy.”

Pepper made a fist with his free hand.

“She looks just fine,” Cyrus added hurriedly.

“I was out to see her, too,” Reb said, filling her expression with reassurance.

“Why?” Pepper broke a sweat on his upper lip. “She’s sick, isn’t she? Her heart . . . That’s why you came to—”

“
No,
no, as far as I know her heart condition is stable. I went out to visit, that’s all.”

“Because she doesn’t get out anymore,” Pepper said. “And you wanted to make sure she hadn’t died in her own house. Maybe some neighbor she won’t see or talk to called you because they were worried. Was that it?”

“No it wasn’t.”

“Did she let you in?”

Mentioning seeing Joanie Leach hadn’t been a good idea. “I couldn’t stop, because—”

“Don’t lie. Lyin’ doesn’t come easy to you, Reb, never did. Gramma wouldn’t have you in because…” He sat back in his chair and raised his face to the ceiling.

“Because?” Cyrus asked gently.

“She doesn’t even go to Mass, does she?”

A shake of the head from Father Cyrus was an unlikely response to such a question. He took a breath and said, “It isn’t my place to talk about one of my parishioner’s habits.”