Kiss Them Goodbye (35 page)

Cursing his slowness, cursing his foolishness, carelessness, he pushed through a side door from the auditorium and back into the glaring sunshine. Blood dripped from the fingers of his right hand and he knew it soaked his pants.

Deal with the bleeding. Deal with the pain. Finish the job and you’re in the clear.

Limping, he made it to the fence and squeezed through a gap. Finally inside the compact cottage and standing in his bathroom, he stripped off his clothes, but there was something to be done before he showered and tried to stanch the blood with dressings and bandages.

Knowing how to deal with a crisis like this one had been part of what he and his “faithful friends” had taught themselves. He prepared rows of cocaine on the countertop beside the sink, but before he snorted, he found the morphine and administered the dose he knew he could handle, the dose he could rely on to work with the cocaine while it gave him the blast he needed.

Disaster supplies, he had. Showered, he stood in the stall until he’d managed to wrap the wounds tightly. Still naked, he climbed out and looked himself over in front of the mirror. He’d done a good job.

Clean clothes and back to the fete.

“Hey there, Bill,” Vivian said. She had the little rat in her arms. He hadn’t counted on that. He’d walked around the arrowwood bushes to avoid passing any of the others on his way to her. “You weren’t long,” she said. “Want that beer?”

“No thanks,” he said, using every shred of resistance he had against the buzz in his brain, the colors that came and went before his eyes. He pressed his ears hard. Bees were buzzing in there.

“Do your ears hurt? Hey, we’ve got the doc right here, let’s—”

“Please don’t,” he said. “I don’t like to make a fuss and I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, but I’ll be watching you.”

Too cheerful, too sure of herself, too nosy. And she didn’t look at him the way he liked a woman to do. It didn’t matter. He was here to protect his alibi and he was doing a great job. Most men would still be spread out on that stage with their blood draining out. Not Bill Green. He’d live to chop Ulisse fine enough to make boudin.

“There’s something going on,” Vivian said. “A little while after you left, Ellie Byron asked Spike to go some
where with her. Apparently it was to the back of the house. They’re still there.”

“Yeah.”

“Bill?”

He turned his attention from the crowd gyrating and merging into a single entity in front of him. “They’re having a good time,” he managed to say.

Vivian wasn’t listening. Instead she looked down and when he followed her gaze he saw what the cocktail made sure he didn’t feel. Blood ran from beneath his right sleeve and over his hand. While he watched, drops fell from the tips of his fingers.

Quickly, he pushed the hand into his pocket. With his left hand, he took hold of Vivian’s and pulled her apart from the others.

“What’s happened to you?” she asked. “You’re really bleeding, Bill.” She pushed out the words in worried little gasps. “Into the house. You need attention.”

“You don’t understand,” he told her. “I hoped Spike would be here. Maybe I should go back there and find him.”

“Ellie didn’t want anyone else with them.” She tucked the dog more firmly under her arm. It looked as if it would like to finish what Ulisse had started. She squeezed the animal and shushed her. “Spike wanted me to stay put and wait. But I’m getting Reb and taking you inside to see what you’ve done to yourself.”

A red bird as big as an ostrich swooped in front of his face. Red bird that turned green, then yellow. The huge beak opened and a cottonmouth rolled out. The bird shook its feathers and drops of water flew, flew and turned into rainbow-colored confetti.
Bad ride
, he thought in his muzzy mind. When he tried to focus on Vivian she stretched and shrank and wouldn’t keep still.

He shook his head. “You’re right that something happened to me. I’ve been cut in several places. I think it was
the killer, only, he blindfolded me and I didn’t see him. He must have followed me to the theater. He thought I was dying and he left me there.” Fuck it, he couldn’t allow her to stay here and blow his cover.

Vivian turned white. “Let’s find someone to take a message to Spike.”

He put on a frightened expression. “I need the hospital.” He swayed a little but clung tightly to Vivian’s hand. “I was on my way but I stopped here to tell Spike about everything. I shouldn’t have. I should have gone right to get help. Please, I don’t like being the center of attention and I’m going to be if I don’t get out of here. Will you drive me to the hospital? I trust you, Vivian.”

She stared into his face until he feared she saw inside his head and knew what he was up to. “My car is in the old stables,” she said. “Round back.”

“Mine’s in front of Serenity House. We could cut through there. Just drop me off at Emergency and I’ll have someone contact you later. Tell Spike what I told you, but wait until you don’t have an audience. We don’t know enemies from friends around here.”

Vivian backed away, past the bushes, pulling him with her. On the other side she said, “Can you hurry? Let me get an ambulance?”

“No! I can hurry,” he told her. “I’m a strong man.”

They made a run for the BMW.

“L
ook what I’ve done.” Ellie didn’t scream or cry, she simply looked matter-of-factly down on the body of Olympia Hurst and spoke in an even voice.

Spike knew shock when he saw it. He flipped on his radio and spoke into his collar mike. “This is Devol from Toussaint. Gimme Detective Bonine. Yeah? Where is he? No, you’re right, you don’t have to tell me a thing. How about Frank Wiley?” He said, “Sit down on that bench back there” to Ellie and she backed away slowly until she could do as she’d been told. “Detective Wiley? Frank? Thanks. Spike Devol here. I’m at Rosebank and we’ve got more trouble. Another body. You’ll probably want to bring on the army.”

He peered over the edge of the pool. Cloth had been stuffed in her mouth as a crude gag. Everyone had to be kept away and, much as he wanted to go down and take a closer look, he knew he’d make points by waiting for the Iberia folks and doing nothing to disturb evidence.

At the sound of footsteps on gravel, he spun around to see Wazoo, black garb flapping, speeding toward him.
He motioned for her to go back but she kept on coming. Cyrus loped a step or two behind, looking exasperated.

“Something gone wrong,” Wazoo said, and stopped beside Ellie so abruptly she might have had brakes on her shoes. “I felt it, me. I even bring this miserable God man with me and he don’t want to come here nohow.”

“Great,” Spike muttered under his breath. “Wazoo, stay back. Go alert Marc, Bill, Joe, Ozaire, my dad and every other able-bodied man you can reach fast, and tell them not to allow anyone back here, and not to allow anyone to leave the property. Go!”

She went, skimming across the ground as fast as she’d come.

Cyrus got there, gave Ellie a sharp look and bent over the edge of the empty pool. For an instant he bowed his head, then he crossed himself and said, “May I go down there?”

“Not until the Iberia people get here. That’ll be soon.”

“Poor kid,” Cyrus said. “Just a child still tryin’ to grow up.”

Spike intended to do what he wasn’t supposed to do, ask Ellie some questions, but her blank face and empty eyes stopped him. Cyrus went to her and put a hand on her head. She looked up at him and he knelt to rest her head on his shoulder. “Be very quiet,” he said, his voice gentle. “Be peaceful. You aren’t alone here.”

Spike decided he’d better do what he was always threatening to do and get lessons in woman handling from Cyrus one of these days.

On the other hand, what Cyrus did probably came naturally.

“I want to see her,” Ellie said in a loud voice. She ignored Cyrus’s attempt to stop her and joined Spike. “If I had called you last night this wouldn’t have happened.”

“We don’t know that. We don’t know when she died.” From what he saw, he was pretty sure it hadn’t been too long ago but Ellie didn’t need to be told that.

Cyrus came to Ellie’s other side. “Sentinels,” he said. “Odd how one always feels responsible for protecting the dead.”

“I didn’t know what he’d do,” Ellie said. “But I knew it would be terrible. He said I’d know when to come for you, Spike. He cut my neck.” She showed him a small wound under her hair at the back of her neck. “When I turned around I couldn’t see anyone suspicious but I knew I was being told to go—and I thought someone else had probably died.”

Later Ellie would need a lot of help.

Spike heard sirens and they drew closer. Lots of sirens. Wazoo burst from the side of the building again and raced to them. Reb, with Gaston trotting beside her, followed much more slowly.

Wazoo looked down at the carnage and soon Reb arrived to do the same. She shook her head and said, “Why would anyone do that to someone so beautiful and so needy? You’ll have her mother on your hands shortly. She’ll get wind of what’s happened and you won’t be able to stop her.” With great care and ignoring Spike’s protests, she climbed down some steps and onto the pool floor.

Ignoring any protests, Cyrus jumped down and stood beside her. She bent over Olympia’s body and felt for a pulse, then continued going through the pointless routine that was her job to do.

Spike recognized Frank Wiley heading toward him with several pairs of officers. An ambulance bumped over the ground, stopped, and two women pulled a gurney and equipment from the back.

“We won’t be needing that yet,” Spike said. He called to Reb, “Anything to be done? The medics are here.”

She shook her head slowly.

Wazoo paced back and forth, hugging herself and muttering. Each time she passed Ellie, she patted her.

The formerly silent place began to fill with official types, their paraphernalia and their hushed voices. Those hushed tones must be taught during training. It couldn’t be that many of these people felt too much if they’d done the work for long.

Without warning, Wazoo sat on the edge of the pool, covered her face and began to say what sounded like prayers. Spells and incantations, Spike thought, were much more likely.

At a run, Marc came, his elbows pumping, looking in all directions with a horrified expression on his face.

“Reb’s okay,” Spike said. “She’s helping out.”

Marc’s face went from white to red as his circulation kicked in again.

“No one else down there, please,” Frank Wiley said, all business but without Bonine’s snide authority. “We’ll take it from here.”

Wazoo let out a moan. She stumbled to her feet, pointing downward, and visibly shaking.

“Wazoo?” Spike jogged, then ran to reach her. Her body trembled convulsively.

“The book,” she said. “That came from my book.”

He put an arm around her thin shoulders. “Hey, hey, friend, hush now. C’mon and sit with Ellie. She needs you.”

“No.” Wazoo threw off his arm. Her eyes seemed afire. “In her mouth. It’s the bag that book was in.”

She took hold of a handful of his shirt. “It’s the treasure,” she said. “She die for the treasure, her.”

Wazoo wasn’t making much sense.

Ellie approached. Close at Spike’s side, she rested her head on his arm. Joe and Jilly, with Ozaire, watched the scene. More suits showed up.

Wally’s presence didn’t please him. The kid had just appeared but what he’d seen, he’d seen.

Spike gave Wazoo all the time she needed to calm down. There was nowhere he had to go. Charlotte came, and Homer, and he wondered how many cops were out front that they could keep the general public out.

Wazoo turned to him—on him—and with no warning beat his chest and shoulders with her fists. “Listen up, you.” She shrieked and plucked at him. “That in her mouth am the bag what the book was in. The egg book. It in there when it got stole from me.”

He clamped her against him to stop her from doing any real damage and looked at Ellie. “That’s right, isn’t it? The book was in a silk bag.”

She nodded. “Yellow, orange and green. The one in her mouth.”

“With red stars,” Wazoo said, quieting slightly. “And a gold rope to close it.”

“That’s why you wanted the book,” Spike said. “Or why it got your attention. Because of the bag. And because…” The sensation he had must be like getting a sandbag in the gut. “Vivian!”

Wazoo and Ellie stayed with him but he rotated, searching for Vivian. “Where is she?”

“She’s with Bill Green,” Wazoo said. “I seed them talkin’.”

“Concentrate,” he told her. “Think back. You said you heard Ellie talking to someone at the store about the book. Who was it?”

Wazoo shrugged. “Bill.”

A
second, less than a second, and he knew.

Cyrus came from behind him. “Spike?” His face loomed too close, his mouth stretched too wide. Spike heard him. The rest spun together.

Then everything broke free. His muscles worked. His heart beat hard and loud and he heard nothing else.

He took off, brushing people aside when they approached. The pounding of feet joined the roar of his heart. Others ran with him.

The bands were louder, bursting on him when he cleared the front of Rosebank. They must have been told to crank it up.

“Where are Vivian and Bill?” he said to anyone who might be listening.

“They by the bushes where you all was.”

He hadn’t noticed Wazoo keeping up with him.

In the center of the main lawn a huge barbecue had been set up and Dale Gautreax from the electrical contractors in town yelled, red-faced over the heat, about the best barbecued alligator in Louisiana.

Spike skirted the crowd that had gathered to watch. They seemed oblivious to the drama taking place.

He reached the bushes. But his gut had told him Vivian and Bill wouldn’t be there.

He spun around. Marc, Cyrus, Joe, Gary, Homer, Madge, Ozaire and Charlotte were there, all staring at him, all expecting him to take command. Wally, on the dirt bike he was never without for long, rode back and forth with his snake box in a front basket.

“We don’t know if they’re on foot or if they’ve left by car,” Spike said.

“Or if they’ve gone anywhere. Or they’re wandering around in the crowd oblivious—or together at all,” Cyrus pointed out.

“They together,” Wazoo said. “I feel it.”

“It was him,” Spike said. “Bill Green all the time. He was everywhere, but how long have we known him? Not so long. He fitted in and we accepted him. Ellie was attacked in her apartment. He can get into that building anytime he likes. It’s all too convenient and it all fits.”

“And you could be dead wrong,” Gary pointed out. “We should go back to Wiley and let him take charge.”

“
You
go back to Wiley,” Spike said. “Until I’ve got Vivian, I’m following my gut. Homer, a search party needs to go through the grounds and the crowd. Get it organized. Wazoo, every room in the house. Would you go with her, Joe? Charlotte—” He made a move toward her, to reassure her, but she shook her head no. “Okay. Vivian’s going to be okay. She has to be. Put in a 911 call. Wiley said he’d put guards on the gate. I’ll hit them first.”

“Wiley will get the news without me,” Gary said. “I’m staying with you.”

Between them they kept up repeated shouts of “Have you seen Vivian” rolling while they ran. The jam didn’t help their progress.

The Swamp Doggies, dressed in signature mustard-colored suits, ambled down the driveway in the shadow of the live oaks, playing as they went and wandering back and forth, singing “We’re Going To a Hookilau,” with a spoken chorus of “Gator feed to you, boys.”

Spike shouldered his way between them.

The officers at the entrance hadn’t seen Vivian or Bill. They weren’t allowing more people to enter the estate and no one could leave. Yellow tape vibrated between the gateposts. Already a grumbling, concerned gathering hovered around, wanting to know what was going on that they couldn’t come in or go out.

“Someone better go back and tell Wiley anyway,” Spike said, looking at Ozaire. “You go. Tell him we’ve got what could be a related disappearance—related to the current murder—and we need to search. Now. Tell him what we know so far.”

Ozaire moved like a heavyweight sprinter.

“If I’m right,” Spike said, “we may have minutes or hours. I’d put my money on the minutes.”

“I saw Miz Vivian.” Thea, pulling a red wagon piled high with packages of napkins, pushed her way to Spike. “I been to get these. Parked over there.” She jerked her head toward the lot across the street. “Miz Vivian and Bill come out from there. That side by Serenity House.”

Spike caught her by the hand. “Then what?”

“Miz Vivian, she carrying Boa and that dog squawkin’ like a chicken.”

“Where did they go?” Spike couldn’t keep his voice down.

Marc said, “It’s okay, Thea. Spike’s anxious, is all. Did you see where Bill and Vivian went?”

Thea squared her shoulders. “This is what I see. They come out of there and they go to that fancy car of Bill’s. Parked right there.” She pointed a steady finger to the verge in front of Serenity House. “Somethin’ happenin’
because Miz Vivian set down Boa and do somethin’ with Bill’s hand. Bill, he didn’t like that, but Miz Vivian doin’ her thing. You know how she is.”

Hurry, hurry.
He met Cyrus’s eyes and got a warning to lighten up. So he wouldn’t get this done any faster by jumping all over Thea, but it was taking too long.

He waited.

Thea crossed her arms

“I’m getting my car,” Madge said and took off for the parking lot.

“That’s all,” Thea said. “Me, I had to keep on pullin’ this cart.”

“How long ago?”

“I don’t know. Few minutes, maybe.”

Spike had parked his patrol car farther along the road and behind a hedge where any official Iberia eyes were unlikely to spot it. He went for it without stating his intent but Gary Legrain joined him while Cyrus went after Madge.

Marc threw himself into the back of Spike’s vehicle the minute before he backed out.

“Darn it.” Spike pointed ahead. “What the hell does Wally think he’s doin’?”

“Using his head,” Marc said. “Lookin’ for the things we’ll miss drivin’.”

On his bike, Wally rode the shoulder, looking at the ground every inch of the way. When he saw Spike approaching he slammed his feet to the ground and waved his arms.

Spike cursed and slowed down, opened the passenger window. “Go back,” he told him. That was before he saw Boa wedged into the bike basket beside Nolan Two’s box. “Where—”

“Runnin’ in the road,” Wally said while the dog barked and growled. “There’s blood back there.”

Spike barely stopped himself from driving on without listening to the rest.

“Where they said Bill’s car was. Blood on the road. I don’t think they been gone long.”

“Good kid,” Marc said. “Keep on looking and call 911 with this if you see anything else.” He tossed the boy a cell phone.

Spike shot forward, then made himself slow down and peer from side to side. “Watch the left,” he finally told Marc. “Gary, take the Bayou side. Look for anything. Shit, where’re the Iberia boys when I need ’em?”

His answer came over the radio. The area crawled with reinforcements.

Spike’s throat dried out until it all but suffocated him. He’d bitten his lips until they bled.

“Ahead,” he said.

A motorcycle cop, parked on the side of the road, knelt on the other side of his bike.

Gary was ready when Spike lowered the window. “You looking for Vivian Patin and Bill Green, Officer?”

“Yeah. Got the word and saw the vehicle and license plate at the same time. Almost caught up. Son of a bitch ran me off the road.”

“Man driving, woman passenger?” Spike said.

“Just the driver as far as I could see.”

Bill Green killed Louis Martin. He’d said so.

Vivian tried to gauge how often his head fell forward and jerked up again. Either he’d already lost too much blood or he was high on something. “Let me drive,” she said. “We need to get to Emergency and I’ll be quicker.”

“Shut up. You know I’m the one you and your raunchy sheriff friend have been looking for. And you know we’re not going to any hospital.”

She knew all right. And she knew she wouldn’t get anywhere by crossing him. He’d already slammed her head into his lap when she showed signs of trying to signal a motorcycle cop.

In his left hand, clamped against the wheel, Bill held a knife. Each time Vivian glanced at it her gorge rose. A simple, businesslike steel knife with a narrow blade. Like a long scalpel. She thought of Morgan Link, who used scalpels, too, but not to kill anyone with. This knife of Bill’s had carried the blood of dead men.

He intended it to carry Vivian’s.

A panel truck with sheets of glass on either side traveled toward them.

“Signal them and you’re dead,” Bill said.

“Don’t signal and I’m dead anyway.” She blinked rapidly. She couldn’t break down.

“Sooner or later you will be,” he said, jolting his head up again. “Your choice.”

She sat still when the truck passed. All he’d had to do was ask and she’d gone with him. But they were supposed to be friends. Bill was everyone’s friend.

Their speed varied. Fast, but mostly a crawl. What were her chances of jumping out without getting the knife in her back?

“Why me?” she said. “I didn’t know what you’d done.”

”
Let’s get you into the house
,” he said in a silly voice supposed to sound like hers, she guessed. “
Shall I call an ambulance
? Fool woman. You saw the blood. You would have had everyone looking at me and I couldn’t have that.”

He liked puffing himself up. If she kept him talking she might get a chance to do something. “They wouldn’t have figured out the truth. You’ve covered for yourself so well.”

Bill’s eyes were slitted.

It felt as if they’d been on the road for hours, but it was only minutes. They weren’t that far from Rosebank yet.

“Someone else died today,” he said. His head rolled.
“Timing couldn’t go wrong. Even with…even with what happened to me it was all working. But you had to be little Florence Nightingale.”

“Who else died?” Vivian asked in a whisper.

“Knew more than she should because she snooped around. None of her business. Fool girl just like her fool mother.”

Vivian couldn’t form a word.

“Had to have sex with me because her mother did. Not that I minded.” He sniggered and drool spilled from his lips. He shook his head. “Don’t you try anything.”

“I wouldn’t, Bill.” The only possible mother and daughter must be Susan and Olympia.

“I told the girl she had better tits, better ass, but her mother was better in bed. Made the kid mad.”

Vivian breathed through her mouth. If she threw up he was likely to knife her right then and there.

“Wanted me to tell Susan we were finished and why. Because little Olympia and I were in love.” His laugh didn’t work properly and the car swerved off the road and back on again. “Told me she did it with her step-dad, too. Thought I’d be jealous. She’s gone now, like you will be. They hate you. Afraid your…” His eyes closed.

Vivian looked at the keys in the ignition and shifted a little closer to him.

His lids opened heavily. “Susan and her hubby didn’t want your cheap hotel putting off their rich clientele.”

A swamp rabbit started across the road, followed by a second. They stopped and rose onto their hind legs.

“Watch out,” Vivian said.
Now.
She went for the wheel and turned away from the trees and into the middle of the road. She’d take an accident there over the chance of being hidden in trees and brush with him.

“Bitch.” He could scarcely get the word out. But he still had strength. He struggled but she held on, yank
ing to the left each time he pulled the car more or less level.

He was impaired. She’d keep reminding herself of that, keep on fighting.

She thought there were sirens, but then couldn’t be sure. They probably wouldn’t use them in case Bill did something awful when he heard them.

“Get—away—from me,” he said. With his right elbow, he threw her off. Her head hit the window and her neck whipped back.

Blood from Bill’s wounds smeared the inside of the car. It smelled sweet and sickly.

A moment was all she gave herself before attacking again. She threw herself at the wheel, reaching for the keys at the same time.

He gave her one short look and steel flashed.

Bill slit her forehead above her right eyebrow and the rush of blood into her eye was instant. She felt no pain, but neither could she see much.

The tires screeched and through the thumping pulse in her head she heard gravel churn. The car bumped forward, swung from side to side hitting hard objects as it went. She wiped away blood from her face with the back of a hand. Trees, they were hitting trees and running downhill.

An impact on the front left fender slammed them to a halt and the engine quit.

Vivian pulled on the door handle and it opened. She pushed and the door swung out. Clammy air flooded in. Her right foot met the ground at the same moment Bill threw himself across the console and on top of her.

She waited for the knife on her throat, but close in front of her she watched him open the glove box, remove a bag and manoeuver a needle until he could shoot something into a vein on his forearm.

The weight of him crushed her diaphragm and she struggled, beat about for more room.

He lay there and she thought he was dead or dying, until he shifted and hauled her from the car on his side, hauled her on her back through the cypress and the pond pine, the swags of moss turned to silver in the filtered sunlight.

It was hot and bugs swarmed.

He dropped her on boggy ground beside a live oak tree with branches dipping into Bayou Teche. Bill leaned on the trunk of the tree. She couldn’t see him clearly, but she heard his rasping breath.

“You can still make it,” she told him. “But you need a transfusion.”

He retched and choked, but when she moved he kicked her flat again. “Pretty face you’ve got there,” he said, swiping a hand repeatedly in front of his eyes. He muttered something else but she couldn’t make it out.

Again he retched. This time he pitched forward onto his knees, but the knife still shone in his hand.

Vivian felt around for something hard and found a piece of wood. It wasn’t big enough but it was hard. Blood soaked the back of his pants. She hadn’t seen that before.

Rising up, she jumped over him, to his right side. She brought the wood down on his wounded shoulder and arm.

He screamed but didn’t rear up as she expected. She hit him again. The wood didn’t break apart and it was jagged. Again and again she beat on his shoulder.

Bill’s screams turned into an endless wail.