Kiss Them Goodbye (12 page)

Vivian moved closer to him until her toes, bare in strappy sandals, touched one of his boots. She looked up at him, way up at him. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a loser.”

He raised a brow and became expressionless.

“I don’t mean you’re a loser,” she said in a hurry. “I just mean you’ve been knocked around—and I know that creepy Bonine was behind it—and all you have to do is start believing in yourself again. We’re going to make hash out of that man and feed it to pigs.”

Cyrus found a Kleenex and blew his nose. “Something in the air,” he said. “This has been the worst year for allergies.”

”
You
,” Spike said to Vivian in a menacing tone, “will
keep your nice nose out of my business. This isn’t a party game. For God’s sake, Cyrus, tell the woman there’s a killer on the loose out there and she’s not to do anything stupid.”

Very suddenly Cyrus got to his feet and called, “Madge, why are you sitting over there?”

Responding from her seat on the top step outside the kitchen, she raised her voice and said, “I’ll wait till you’re through. I don’t want to interrupt.”

“You couldn’t interrupt,” Cyrus told her. “Come join us.”

Vivian met Spike’s eyes but he looked sad and lowered them at once.

“Lil’s poured iced tea for us,” Madge said. “Any takers?”

They all chorused “yes,” and Madge disappeared back into the kitchen to reappear with a tray and head in their direction.

“She’s so pretty,” Vivian said, appreciating the other woman’s energetic walk and the way her clothes fit so well—and her hair bouncing about her shoulders.

“Yes,” Cyrus said and this time Vivian avoided looking at Spike.

Madge reached them and held out the tray for each of them to take a glass of iced tea.

“Thanks,” Vivian said. “Just in time to save you and me from the wiggles.”

Madge looked at her uncertainly but Vivian pressed on. “I was so grateful you arrived in time to stop Detective Bonine from wiggling. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have gotten sick.”

That pulled a grin out of Madge. “Do you know why the detective is so angry, Spike?”

“Uh-huh. Me. He hates my guts. We used to work together and he was afraid I’d upstage him, or get in the way of whatever he had going,” he finished darkly. He
winced and said, “Forget I said that, please. I know better.”

“Do you want to explain all that wiggling?” Cyrus asked.

“Oh, that,” Madge said innocently. “Just a girls’ joke, right, Vivian?”

“Yup.”

Apparently unconcerned about grass stains, Madge sat on the ground with her feet crossed in front of her. She fell silent but fidgeted, turning her glass around and around and making patterns in the condensation on the outside.

At last she said, “Barging in on the interview was unforgivable. I’m sorry.”

Vivian choked on her tea and swatted at some flying insect intent on a divebomb attack. “Well, I’m not sorry. Bonine would have had me there for hours. If you weren’t sexy enough to distract him, goodness knows where he could have gone with his questioning. He’d already scared me. But one look at you and he got all cuddly.”

Cyrus looked right at Madge but let his eyes slide away and Vivian wished, again, that she could learn to censure her mouth.

“Sometimes,” Madge said, “I get completely carried away. Usually when I kind of get into something I’ve got to pull off. Do you know what I mean?”

Vivian had been trying to forget Madge’s wild words in front of Legrain and Bonine. “I know,” she said.

“The first idea you figure will shut people up doesn’t even connect with your brain before it slops out of your mouth.”

“Oh, yeah,” Vivian said with feeling. “Done that one too many times.”

“I don’t think anyone read much into it,” Madge said. “Probably just thought I was blathering on.”

Vivian prayed that it would be true. “Don’t worry about it.”

The men were quiet and watchful and when conversation faded, Spike said, “You’re talking in code. Are you gonna crack it for us?”

Madge looked panicky but Vivian giggled and kept on giggling until Madge joined in. When they collected themselves, Vivian said, “You’ll find out when the time is right,” while she fervently hoped no one noticed or repeated the not very subtle hints Madge had delivered at Rosebank.

Vivian edged closer to Spike, but faced the opposite way. Two herons swept in to land on a bleached cypress tree barely showing above the surface of the bayou. Vivian tried to concentrate on the birds and their freedom to come and go, but there was too much more to say here and all of it was bad.

She needed to feel Spike’s warmth, his strength. And she didn’t think she cared what anyone else thought. He could be the one to rebuff her if he wanted to. She slid her left arm beneath his right one and held on.
Spike still faced the others while Vivian looked toward the bayou.

He rubbed her forearm and she wanted to kiss him. He might only be trying to give her courage, but still he didn’t care who saw him around her.

“Hang in there,” he said. “Dealing with bullies takes time to learn. I think you’re doing great.”

“This is what Bonine wants to make people believe,” she told him. “He believes I killed Louis and you helped me because you hate him and you’ve been looking for a way to make him look bad.”

”
Bullshit.
” Spike said through his teeth. “Crazy. He’s lost what mind he ever had.”

“My prints are all over everything. I ruined any hope of lifting footprints from the ground and messed up the rest of the evidence. The only prints on the telephone
were mine and yours—and Louis’s, I guess. I took it from inside of his briefcase. Of course I shouldn’t have done that but I wasn’t thinking rationally. He thinks Louis was really bringing bad news, probably that Rose-bank didn’t really belong to us, according to him. And Bonine decided there was something to that effect in the briefcase and I stole it.”

“Ass,” Spike said, glaring into the distance.

“Take heart,” Vivian said. “He told me you’d have gotten rid of your prints if you were worried about them. He only thinks you’re covering for me. Lucky you.”

“Don’t take Bonine seriously, y’hear,” Spike said. He didn’t like the way Cyrus and Madge were looking anywhere but at him and Vivian. “He’s not interested in you.”

“I know what he’s interested in. Don’t sell me short, Spike, I may get down, but I also get up again when I’ve got to get on with it.” She pulled her arm from beneath his and turned around. “Listen up.”

Cyrus and Madge paid attention immediately. “Enough pussyfooting around. I’ve got one major mess on my hands. We already knew there were those who didn’t want us here. Between trying to make big decisions, like how many rooms to finish before opening, and how we’ll make the grounds inviting enough to camouflage how most of Rosebank will still be under repair for a long time—and hitting walls every time we try to get the money worked out—we’ve had plenty on our minds.”

She had their full attention. “Now we add the tragedy of Louis’s death, and the fact that there’s a crazy killer running around out there. We have just about nothing going for us except guts, but we’ve got plenty of those.

“Everyone means well and I love you for it. Without all of you, I don’t know what we’d do. But—” she gave long looks to Cyrus and Spike “—don’t talk down to me
or treat me like the little woman. Some of us really don’t like that.”

“Amen,” Madge said and Cyrus’s head whipped around. Vivian decided it wouldn’t hurt Madge to get tougher around here.

Spike shoved his hands deep in his pockets and slouched, the brim of his hat so low over his face it all but touched his nose. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was a sulking man.

“That detective intends to get you,” she told him. “That’s old news. I just don’t know if you’re taking it seriously enough. He wants you as an accessory to murder.”

“You read too many crime books,” he said, infuriating her. “I don’t need anyone to watch my back for me.”

Arrogant son of a bitch.
“Well, I do,” she said and instantly regretted her renegade tongue.

All eyes were on her.

Spike shifted his weight. He continued to look stubborn and closed. She guessed they really hadn’t known each other long enough for her to understand the man and maybe she never would.

Vivian felt her mood shift. She had a sudden desire to be outrageous, something she still hadn’t learned to control. She reached up and knocked his Stetson forward so that it fell. And she caught it before Spike could. He shook his head, but smiled faintly.

“You’ve got to watch yourself with the ladies,” Cyrus said. “Didn’t your mama tell you how unpredictable they are?”

“Crazy, you mean? Nope. My mama didn’t tell me much of anything.”

Little by little the pieces of Spike Devol came out. If Vivian had to guess she’d say talking about himself was unnatural but something had knocked him off his guard.

“I don’t find it admirable when men put women down because they don’t know how else to keep on feeling superior,” Madge said and gave Cyrus the benefit of her considerable talent for staring people down.

He smiled at her.

Madge didn’t smile back.

From what Vivian had been told, Madge was known to be direct but it could be that today would be remembered as the day she climbed all the way out of her envelope.

Spike kept on scuffing at the grass and Vivian had a notion to stand on his boots. She made sure she did no such thing. “Spike,” she said, breaking an awkward silence. “I want you to work the case at Rosebank.”

She had the sensation she was all alone out here and talking into a void. Not one word did any of them say.

“I trust you—”

“What are you thinkin’?” he said. “You know—and I would like to do it—but you know I can’t. Not unless you can get that place moved over the line into St. Martin.”

Vivian decided not to jump on that one. “I’ve worked it all out,” she told him. “There’s nothing to stop you from doing some private work when you can, is there?”

He said, “No,” in the slow manner of a man who felt himself backing into a corner.

“Good. Then will you work for me?”

Spike became aware of bees droning, and how much hotter it was getting. Madge hummed and Cyrus joined in. The tune could be “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” but he couldn’t concentrate well enough to be sure.

Vivian watched his face and when he couldn’t stand either the rustling quiet, or not looking back at her, he met her eyes and felt himself taking a nosedive. She leaned slightly toward him and repeatedly wetted her lips.
Concentrate, Devol.
Didn’t she get it that if Bonine
was pissed at him now, having Spike pop up around every corner saying, “I’m Vivian’s P.I.” was going to start a war? He wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her, and tell her she could lean on him, but he wouldn’t work for her.

“Spike?” she said. “Will you do it? Please.”

Aw, hell. “You mean you want me to moonlight as a P.I. for you?”

“Yes.” She spoke in a whisper. “A private investigator…and bodyguard.”

C
yrus led the way into Lil Dupre’s fragrant-smelling kitchen. Either Lil chose to ignore the strained atmosphere or was too tied up with her own agenda to care. She didn’t greet them.

Cyrus decided it was time he had those private words with Spike and he didn’t look forward to the event. “Spike, if you could spare me a little time? We’ll go back to my office.”

He couldn’t understand the glare he got from Madge, or the damp sheen that sprang into Vivian’s green, green eyes. Truly, he did not get women. Oh, sure, what was he thinking of? Spike hadn’t responded to the request for him to investigate at Rosebank. In fact he’d come into the rectory without a word. Being spurned tended to make females resort to crying. He didn’t like to see it, though, especially not when Vivian had been through so much.

“Father Payne, there you are at last,” Lil Dupre said as if noticing him for the first time. She stopped still,
halfway up a kitchen ladder and with a bag of cornmeal in each hand.

“How are you today, Lil?” Cyrus said. The official address didn’t bode well.

“I’m as well as any woman can expect to be when there’s a killer on the loose. I wouldn’t think there’s a woman for miles around who feels safe.”

“The victim was a man,” Cyrus pointed out mildly. “Not that it’s any less of a tragedy.”

“The
first
victim,” Lil said, depositing the cornmeal on a shelf and turning around. She didn’t climb down from the ladder. “If he
was
the first victim. And who’s to say the next one won’t be a woman? For all you know that madman killed the lawyer to throw us all off the track.”

Spike offered Lil his hand and she held it to climb daintily to the floor and stand with her yellow high-top sneakers planted apart. A short, wiry woman with symmetrical rows of manufactured sausage-shaped curls circling her head, she gave her knight a coy smile. “I always feel safer just knowin’ you’re around, you,” she said. “I surely can’t imagine what we’d do without you.”

Spike said, “Thank you,” and disentangled his hand. “Cyrus and I have some talking to do so we’re hoping we can leave these ladies in your care.”

Lil wasn’t so easily distracted. “I think it’s a cryin’ shame the way you trained up them two assistant deputies and they transferred from under your nose.”

“That’s the way things happen. I’m glad they’re getting a chance at advancement.”

“Sometimes you’re too sweet for your own good, you. Now all you got is that Lori who don’t never say a word.”

Spike glanced at Cyrus as if for help. “Lori is going to make a fine sheriff one day. She’s shy is all, and not used to making small talk. Next time you see her Lil, give me a hand and be extra nice to her. Ask her about her horse. I think that’s about all the company she’s got.”

Cyrus screwed up his eyes. He was still waiting for a response from Madge or Vivian and he didn’t have much longer to wait.

“Madge,” Vivian said. She stood straighter and ran her fingers through her shiny black hair. “You’ve worked long enough on a Saturday. Would you like to come back to Rosebank with me and look at some of the rooms we’ve started renovating? Things are pretty much at a standstill for the moment but we’ll get going again. I’d like any ideas you have.”

Madge said, “You bet. I’ll get my purse.”

“Did you have lunch yet?” Lil asked the women.

They shook their heads.

Lil didn’t look either of them in the eyes. “You’ll be that Vivian Patin.”

Vivian said, “Yes, pleased to meet you,” although she wasn’t sure that was truthful.

“Well, I was hoping you’d eat with me,” Lil said. “I made me some boulette and they full of crawfish. Went light on the onion on account of it hurts my eyes to peel them things. They get to me even if I cut ’em under water.”

“I’m jealous,” Cyrus said. “Enjoy yourselves.”

“There’s plenty of food, only you’re too busy to eat it,” Lil said, putting fresh fruit in a bowl. “I had visitors while you were in town. They waited a bit in case you come back but then they give up. Never could understand why folks in the same family insist on usin’ different names.”

Vivian crossed her arms and concentrated hard, hoping Lil would clear up her meaning.

“Dr. Link, Susan Hurst, Olympia Hurst. Now why wouldn’t a woman take her husband’s name, I ask you?”

“It’s common enough practice for a woman to keep her name,” Cyrus said.

“Not around here though, Lil, right?” Spike gave her
another smile and Vivian decided he was almost too good at charming women. “We’re old-fashioned types.”

“We surely are,” she said, puffing up her chest and looking pleased. “They wanted you, Father. If you’ll forgive me, Miz Vivian, I just have to tell Father what happened. They wanted your opinion on how they could help the Patins. Neighborly, that’s what they are. Of course, they’re concerned about the murder right next door. And they’re very social so they don’t want any hint of something sordid getting to their friends.”

Vivian kept quiet but her temples pounded.

“The Patins are penniless,” Lil said. “Or so Susan told me. She said it’s pathetic how they have big plans and no way of carrying them out. Dr. Link didn’t think anything would come of it anyway. He can’t imagine people wanting to stay in a run-down dump like that—especially when it gets around about the murder.”

Vivian felt sick. She avoided looking at anyone, but Madge squeezed her arm and whispered in her ear, “Let her gabble on if you can stand it. We might want to hear everything she’s got to say.”

A glance at Spike found him trying to telegraph a message to her and Vivian thought it might be pretty close to Madge’s. With a nod, she slid into a chair at the big oak table in the window.

“Why did you say these people wanted to see me?” Cyrus asked, also playing along, but not looking happy about it. Vivian was afraid he’d get a giant case of conscience and stop Lil from having her say.

“I told you. To ask your opinion and to tell you some of what’s happened to them. They aren’t sure how to deal with stopping the Patins from trying to get their hotel going.” Lil’s brow puckered and her eyes slid toward Vivian. “Like Susan said, it isn’t like those women want to have a hotel, they just want a way to make a liv
ing. And someone should help them figure out they can’t handle what they tryin’ to handle.”

“It isn’t Dr. Link or Susan Hurst’s place to interfere,” Cyrus said and Vivian noted he deliberately avoided looking in her direction.

“Oh, they wouldn’t do anything they shouldn’t,” Lil said. “And a lot of what I’m saying is what I think they meant not what they said. But you can see how bad this is for them. They want to be kind to their neighbors but they don’t want their own plans ruined. Dr. Link said they’ll do whatever they have to do to get rid of the Patins.”

“Get rid of the Patins?” Spike said slowly. “Did they mention how they’d go about that?”

“Well, maybe they didn’t say exactly that. Get rid of the nuisance is probably closer. They’re going to ask you if you think lending them money would help. I think that’s real decent of them.” This time Vivian got a significant glance from the woman.

Vivian pressed her lips together and swallowed. She should consider herself lucky to hear all this. At least she and Mama would know what they were up against with the neighbors.

Lil scanned her audience with avid eyes.“Do you know there’s an awful detective in charge of this case and he even asked Dr. Link and Susan questions. And the daughter. Can you believe it? Good upstanding people like that?”

“Pretty hard to figure,” Spike said. Vivian’s eyes were downcast and color slashed high on her cheeks. He wanted to stop this but the investigator in him had to be sure he didn’t switch off any useful information. Vivian had to understand the importance of that.

“Um…The detective kind of suggested he thought Miz Vivian killed her own lawyer because he disappointed her over something.” Lil looked at the floor.
“You need to know all this, Miz Patin. And accordin’ to what Olympia Hurst said, that Detective Bonine thinks you were involved, Spike. I told her to watch her tongue ’cause that couldn’t be, but she’s the kind who doesn’t care what she says.”

Vivian had an elbow on the table and she held tightly curled fingers against her mouth.

“I appreciate your confidence,” Spike said when nobody had spoken for a long time.

Lil ducked her head to focus her bright eyes on Vivian. “I thought you should know everythin’, too.”She marched to the refrigerator and took out a jug of iced tea. Selecting a tall glass, she filled it and plunked it in front of Vivian. “Now, let’s us have us some boulette and Madge can help us get acquainted.”

Spike didn’t want to leave Vivian. “Look,” he said to Cyrus. “There’s something I want to say to Vivian—alone. Give me a few minutes and I’ll be right in. Okay if we use your office, Madge?”

Madge nodded and told them to make themselves comfortable. She’d start on the boulette.

“Follow me,” Spike said to Vivian and wished he didn’t sound so gruff. He half expected her to ignore him, but she got up and walked behind him past walls papered with flights of ducks, to the sitting room Madge used as a second office. She usually worked at a desk in Cyrus’s study.

On the way past the bottom of the stairs, Wally and Wendy could be heard laughing upstairs in the counseling room where Cyrus kept a TV.

They went into Madge’s hideaway and Spike closed the door. Madge’s music system was still on and there was no mistaking the washboard, fiddle and accordion sound of the zydeco she loved. Everyone knew Madge was an enthusiast.

“We’d better keep this short,” Vivian said, crossing
well-worn gray carpet to stand beside a desk. “Cyrus is waiting on you. And I need to put distance between myself and Lil while I have a chance to think about all she said. I’m not sure she wanted to help me. Maybe she enjoyed watching my reaction.” The only window was high in the outside wall, but an overstuffed red chair and two more covered in a red floral chintz made the room cozy.

“Maybe,” Spike said. “But I hated what you listened to, informative as it was. It’s all crazy. Do you truly believe there is some provision for the upkeep of Rosebank?”

She nodded. “I told you I do and so does Mama.” What proof did she have outside what a dead man had said? But he had said it and he’d been in a position to know. Uncle Guy had enjoyed his little jokes and she was certain that once he decided his brother needed Rosebank more than the preservation society did, he’d devised some clever plan to make sure his beloved house could be kept up.

“I think there is, too,” Spike told her. “I think Louis died for it.”

“But if there’s a trust or something, I don’t see how anyone else could claim it.”

“No,” Spike said. “Neither do I. Which makes me wonder if what we should be lookin’ for is somethin’ other than money.”

Vivian shook her head. She put her hands behind her on the desk and gave a little jump to seat herself on top. She swung her feet and the full skirt of her yellow dress rippled about her calves. “I start imagining treasure maps and midnight searches,” she told him.

Spike screwed up his eyes and fell silent.

They remained where they were, looking at each other, and Vivian grew apprehensive about what else he might say.

“I like you in that yellow,” Spike said. “I like you in
anything, really—and most of all, in just about nothing.”

He embarrassed her and she didn’t answer.

“There’s something we’ve got to straighten out,” he said and muscles jumped in his lean cheeks.

Vivian slipped to stand on the floor again, crossed her arms and held her elbows. Ever so slightly, she swayed to the music.

“You like to dance?” he asked.

“I’ve never had much spare time but I like it when I can.”

“Like me.” He walked around her and came to a stop in front of her. With his hands on her arms, he swayed to the music and she swayed with him. “No spare time.”

His smile was speculative and he pulled her closer until he could put his arms around her and rest his chin on top of her head. And they kept on swaying.

“We can’t stay here,” she said. “It will look suspicious.”

The phone rang and a button flashed red. Almost at once the call was picked up elsewhere in the house.

“I’ve never worried much about what other people think,” Spike said.

Vivian giggled and bowed her forehead to his chest. Spike held her even tighter and moved, letting her know he was no stranger to dancing.

As abruptly as he’d started, he stopped, stood still and studied her face. “I saw you cry out there.”

“I don’t cry.”

“Fibber. You cried when you thought Cyrus and I were going off to talk on our own.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did. I’d like to think that was because you didn’t want me to go, but I think it was something more. I hadn’t answered your question and you were hurt.”

Vivian raised her chin. “We shouldn’t be here like this.”

“You’ve already made that point and I disagree. It’s a fine idea. The only better one would be for us to know we were alone and would stay that way as long as we wanted.” With that his face set. He took two steps backward, dropped into the red chair and pulled her off balance until she fell into his lap.

Hot all over, she pushed her hands down to propel herself to her feet again. Her hands were on his penis. She looked into his face. She wasn’t the only one who was hot around here. Vivian pulled her hands from their very intimate position.

“Are you always erect?” Vivian said and hid her face, mortified at what she’d said.

Spike didn’t laugh. He pried her hands from her face. “No I’m not, but it seems to happen a lot since I met you. Do you want to know what I’ve got to say to you?”

“I’m not sure I do.”

His gaze rested on her mouth and she returned the favor. They closed the space between them and rested their lips, skin to skin, tip of tongue to tip of tongue.

Vivian opened her mouth wider and Spike followed her lead. He put a breath of distance between them and she saw how his eyes were glazed. Once more he closed the gap and his eyelids lowered. Back and forth he glided his mouth over hers, back and forth, back and forth.