Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03] (3 page)

“Which brings us to the three high profile ‘tricks’ caught with their pants down, so to speak,” Tremaine said, turning the podium over to Avery.

“Their embarrassment is going to be punishment enough, but they’ll be given substantial fines and community service,” the DA explained. “All hush-hush, which means you’ll read about it in the newspaper before the ink is dry on the documents.” Avery went on to detail what they had found and what needed to be done yet, including more arrests. He then discussed the schedule for handling the case; they hoped to bring the case to trial ASAP. Tank and John were expected to give their initial depositions after this meeting.

The FBI, ATF, and crime commission reps discussed their involvement in the case. Then the mike was turned back to Captain Sam. “I don’t need to tell you all to keep your mouths shut with the press. Let our media relations personnel be the only contact persons, unless given permission otherwise. Which leads me to this . . . ” The captain held up what looked like a copy of the
New Orleans Times-Tribune.
“It appears there was a reporter in the Playpen last night. Celine Arseneaux.”

“Uh-oh,” Tank said at his side.

“The main front page article isn’t too bad,” the chief said, “though we would have preferred that we put our own spin on the story. Nope, what has my temper about to boil over is this sidebar titled, ‘Fontaine Cop Was One Hot Prostitute.’ The first sentence reads: ‘Fontaine has its very own sex cop, and he is hot, hot, hot.’ No name. No photos. Just a cutesy little article poking fun at the department.” The chief leaned both elbows on the podium and asked in a way too sweet voice, “I wonder who it could be?”

The eyes of the chief and about thirty-nine other people turned to him.

John slid down in his seat, to no avail.

Laughter exploded throughout the room.

The general public wouldn’t know it was him, but his fellow cops and his family? Yeah, they would guess.

John would never live this down.

“What the hell is this all about?”

John, blood-curdling mad, stormed into the newspaper office the next day, waving yesterday’s issue of the
New Orleans Times-Tribune
at Celine Arseneaux, who had the good sense to put her desk between them.

The witch flashed him an evil smile. “What? You don’t like my story on the Playpen bust?” She batted her eyelashes with exaggerated innocence.

Man, she had the prettiest, unique pale blue eyes he’d ever seen, especially on a dark-haired Cajun. Must be a mutant gene, or else she wasn’t pure Cajun.

And, oh, yeah, she was as innocent as a cobra at a tea party. He growled and fisted his hands to prevent himself from leaping over the desk and throttling the infuriating pain-in-the-ass idiot.

Her newspaper had run not just a front page article, but also a full-page inside spread on a history of the Playpen, sordid details of exactly what was offered and for what price, the Dixie Mafia involvement, the arrests made, including the three public figures who were surely threatening to sue, bios of the various prostitutes, some of whom were college students working there part-time . . . a real tabloid style exposé that could very well earn Celine and her colleagues who’d collaborated on the assignment some major newspaper awards. For the rest of them . . . law enforcement and the arrestees . . . what they would earn was quite different.

The three “celebrity” clients were out on bail, their high-priced lawyers having indeed negotiated plea deals to keep them out of the courtroom and further notoriety. The prostitutes and other clients were slapped with hefty fines. Not so lucky the fifteen various-level Mafia guys for whom no bail was allowed. They were headed for a long stay in Angola if the eventual trial was successful. Unless they were willing to squeal on some of their buddies up higher in the food chain, which they would not do, having been sworn to
omertà,
a code of silence which pretty much said, “You talk, you die.”

But that was all out of John’s hands now . . . till the trial, when he would have to testify. Which led him right to Ms. Celine von Lois Lane here.

It wasn’t the main articles, front and inside, that had pissed off John, although he thought it was ruthless of the newspaper to use the names of people who had not yet been found guilty. No, what had his head about to explode was the sidebar Celine had done on the opposite inside page.
About him!
The headline read: “Fontaine Cop Was One Hot Prostitute.”

“I didn’t use your name or photograph.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“No one would know it was about you unless you told them.”

“You can’t be that clueless. This was revenge, pure and simple, Celine, and I wanna know why.”

She shrugged. “Stealing my camera and mike. Being an asshole. One small step for womankind. Whatever.”

“Is this about that one-night stand when we were in college?”

Her face turned a mottled beet red, and it wasn’t attractive, either. Unlike her slutty appearance the other night, she wore jeans, a Tulane T-shirt, and no makeup. Her shoulder-length hair was scrunched up on top of her head with one of those comb claw thingees. Her pale blue eyes peered up at him over a pair of half-circle, wire-rimmed reading glasses perched near the tip of her nose. “You remember that?” she squeaked out.

“Hell, yes. Why would you think I didn’t?”

“Well . . . uh . . . ”

“Get your hand bag. We’re goin’ outside where we can talk in private.” He could see a number of her office mates eavesdropping on their conversation.

“In your dreams, bozo.”

He could flash evil smiles, too. Taking an envelope out of his sport coat pocket, he pulled out several photos and dropped them on the desk in front of her.

She gasped.

There were a half-dozen photos of her on the night of the Playpen bust. And she sure as hell didn’t look like any hoity-toity I-am-so-pure newspaper journalist. Nope, she looked like a high class slut on the hunt for what his great aunt would call hanky-panky. She hadn’t been the only one with a hidden camera.

“Where did you get these?” she gritted out.

Gritting is good. Turning the tables when attacked is good. Rule number one of police training. What is that old saying? “You can be the hammer or the nail.”Well, I pick hammer.
“You weren’t the only one wired, baby.”

Setting her glasses on the desk, she exhaled on a loud whoosh which caused her breasts to move under her T-shirt. Which he was not noticing.

“Can I assume there are copies?”

“What do you think? Frankly, you look pretty good, sugar. Betcha
Penthouse
would offer you a mint to pose, based on these pictures alone. It could have the headline: ‘New Orleans Reporter Was One Hot Sex Mole.’”

She said something under her breath that most refined southern belles didn’t. Not that she was a belle. Nope, she was more like that other B-word.

“Tsk-tsk. ‘Ya gotta wash the okra if ya want a good gumbo,’ as my Tante Lulu would say. You better wash your okra, Celine.” He used an exaggerated Cajun accent, then drawled out her name so it sounded like saaay-lean.

“Screw you!”

“No thanks.”

She picked her purse up off the floor. “Let’s go.”

As he followed her swinging hips through the cube farm to the elevator, heads were popping out of office cubicles, like gophers in a Bill Murray movie. A few of the men flashed him surreptitious high fives.

When they were enclosed in the elevator, she glared at him, then hit the down button so hard it was a wonder it didn’t fall off.

“You don’t really think I’m going to be intimidated by a sissy glare, do you?”

She pressed her lips together—
very nice lips, even without lipstick, dammit!—
forcibly preventing herself from reacting to his comment.
Smart girl!

There were about six feet between them. No way was he getting within smacking distance

Into the silence, he grinned at her. Why? Because she hated his grinning at her. “Ain’t payback sweet,
chère?
”

Chapter
3

A short time later, they were in the Oyster Bar of the Red Fish Grill on Bourbon Street, feasting on barbecued oyster po’-boys . . . a Louisiana specialty served on loaves of French bread overflowing with red onions, lettuce, tomatoes, and homemade blue cheese dressing. If that wasn’t enough, there were sides of Creole potato salad and tall glasses of sweet tea.

She demurred on a dessert after the huge meal, but then found herself picking at John’s double chocolate bread pudding. An oddly intimate and strange thing for her to do. But everything about the angry sparks that flew between the two of them was strange.

They were seated before a long bar, on sculpted metal sea creature barstools. The atmosphere was heightened by the giant oyster mirrors on the ancient brick wall behind the bar and by the black and white photographs of Louisiana bayous and residents taken in the 1940s. The artwork had been part of a dissertation at Newcomb College of Tulane by Claire Brennan, mother of Ralph Brennan, the original owner. Those who had grown up in southern Louisiana, like her and John, knew this establishment and frequented it often.

Many restaurants and businesses in the quarter had suffered and still suffered from Katrina. But New Orleaners were survivors, as evidenced by how busy the streets were this afternoon.

She turned her stool to face him, even as she continued nibbling at his sinfully delicious dessert. As she ate, he watched her closely in a disturbing way she didn’t want to analyze.

“Okay, you made me come—”

“Hardly.”

“You are so crude.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m trying to say, you made me come
with you
. So, spill.”

He used his thumb to sweep some chocolate off her bottom lip, then sucked on his thumb. He honest-to-God didn’t seem to have done it for sexual reasons, but she felt his action all the way to her curling toes. Whoo-boy, he was one potent male. Especially clean-shaven today, wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and a blue linen sport coat with the sleeves pushed up,
Miami Vice
style.

She could not get close to this man. She could not lower her defenses. One one-night stand was enough. And she, for sure, could not tell him he had a son. When her grandfather had emptied his meager bank account so that she could finish college—she’d been a junior and John a recent graduate by then—she’d made a promise to him that she would keep the paternity secret. She’d lost her scholarship because she had to drop out for a semester after the birth. And now that she’d moved back to Houma, her grandfather was Etienne’s primary caregiver while she worked erratic hours. Even before that, her grandfather had been her rock, especially after her father’s suicide, when it had been brought home dramatically to a fifteen-year-old girl that her father chose death over a life with just her. Yep, she owed her grandfather so much! Gramps had a long-running feud with Valcour LeDeux, John’s notorious alcoholic father, and if he chose to pretend that Etienne had no LeDeux blood, well, so had she.

And, frankly, she didn’t feel guilty over her secret, or not very much. John had a reputation from his early teens of being wild, moving from woman to woman. That’s not what she wanted as a father for Etienne. She doubted he’d have any interest in having a son, anyway. It would interfere with his lifestyle.

But what about Etienne?
her conscience sometimes nagged at her.
Doesn’t he have a right to a father?

“Earth to Celine. You ask me a question, and then tune me out.”

“Oh. What did you say?”

“I said that, as a result of your article, I’ve been given a leave of absence.”

“A suspension?”

“More like a request to request.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong. Did you?”

He shook his head. “Police do not want publicity, especially undercover detectives, even when their identities aren’t specifically spelled out.”

She flushed. She had wanted to embarrass John, in a private way, not make him lose his job. “What will you do?”

He shrugged. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Paid?”

“Yes, but I’ve got to disappear for a while. Until after the trial. I have an idea for some work I can do in the short term. After that . . . ” He shrugged. “I’m not sure I can go back to the force in Fontaine. They’d probably assign me to office work.”

“I’m sorry, John. I never intended for this kind of thing to happen.” She put her hand on his forearm without thinking.

He stared down at her hand, then glanced up at her face.

She removed her hand, which sort of tingled.
No, no, no! No tingling. Last time I tingled around this bundle of sexual magnetism I ended up pregnant.

“Actually, my suspension is due to some other things, too,” he admitted.

She smacked him on the arm. “You rat! You deliberately tried to make me feel bad.”

“Just deserts, baby.” He smiled at her.

Damn, she hated it when he smiled at her.

“Congressman Martinez is threatening to cut state funding to our police department for embarrassing his wife. Ted Warner is running editorials non-stop on his TV stations about police brutality. And that bogus evangelist did a public confession in which he managed to make law enforcement Satan’s disciples and him the repentant sinner.”

“Well, I’m not surprised. As you can imagine, they’ve been lobbing volleys at the newspaper, too.”

“My biggest beef, though, is what you did to me. I’m this close . . . ” He held a thumb and forefinger about two inches apart. “ . . . to gettin’ calls from
Cosmo
magazine,
Entertainment Tonight,
Matt Laurer,
Star Magazine,
and every other media outlet in the world, wanting an interview with the general theme bein’ ‘The Very Virile Cop.’”

She couldn’t help but giggle.

“You think that’s funny, do you? There’s even a dingbat who wants to set up a fan club Web site for the anonymous hot cop.”

“So, what does this have to do with me? That horse is already out of the barn, no putting it back now.”

He nodded. “You’re gonna pay, that’s what I’ve decided.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “How?”

“What have you got to offer?”

“For you? Nothing.”

“Tsk-tsk-tsk! So much hostility. One can only wonder how you would put that hostility to work for you in certain situations.”

She could feel herself blush, which was probably what he intended. “What do you want for the pictures?”

“Hmmm.” He leaned back on his barstool and surveyed her slowly from head to foot. “I’m thinkin’ I’d like a weekend of hot screaming can’t-get-enough sex at a place of my choice.”

Oh. My. God!
“You can’t possibly mean that.”

“I was just wonderin’,
chère,
are you a faker or a quaker?”

“Huh?”

“In the sack.”

“How immature!” she said, when she finally understood, even knowing he was just needling her. Then, “Look at me. I am the farthest thing from your usual sex toy.”

“My reputation is vastly inflated, sweetheart. And if you’re implying that I don’t find you attractive, you’re so far off base it’s laughable.”

“I don’t even like you.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think of me.” He pulled another photo from an inside pocket of his jacket. “Oops, it looks like there’s a photo I forgot to show you. You can thank Tank for these.”

She took it from him, then wished she hadn’t. It was the kiss between her and John at the Playpen. While one of his hands held her nape, the other was inside the front of her dress. It must have been when he filched her mike from inside her bra and unclipped the brooch. They both had their eyes closed. The kiss was open-mouthed. The worst thing was, she didn’t appear to be struggling.

This is bad. Really bad.
“This is blackmail.”

“And your point is?” Slapping some bills on the bar, he stood and took the photo out of her hands, tucking it back in his pocket. Before he left, he said, ominously, “I’ll be in
touch.
Be ready.”

You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
John told himself when he was back at his Baton Rouge apartment, packing. He often heard voices in his head, which he identified as his conscience, but Tante Lulu would probably attribute to St. Jude.

Hah! Did you see the look on her face when I mentioned wild sex?
said his darker side, his non-conscience.
Her idea of wild sex is probably a vibrator and a George Clooney movie.

He zipped up a duffel bag and continued to fill a small, wheeled overnighter. No way was he going to sit around this small efficiency twiddling his thumbs while the department decided what to do with him. He was off to Bayou Black, where he could think more clearly . . . make some decisions.

Meanwhile, the voices in his head were waging a bloody battle.

Yeah, but the blackmail . . . the sexual barter. You didn’t really mean that.

Didn’t I?

She’s a good girl.

One, she’s a woman, not a girl. Two, she wasn’t all that good when she hit the sack with me six years ago. Three, Celine in that hooker dress and bed-mussed hair did not spell “good girl.”

You’re a pig.

So I’ve been told, but kiss me hard enough and I stop squealing.

Very funny. She has a secret.

Huh? That thought caught him up short. Where did that come from? What did it mean?

He frowned. He did sense something that Celine was withholding. But a secret? He didn’t know about that.

You’ll see.

Her secrets have nothing to do with me.

There was laughter in his head now.

He was going to have a talk with Tante Lulu about this mind message crap she was planting in his head.

The laughter continued.

John LeDeux was the father of her five-year-old son Etienne.

But he didn’t know it.

He never would.

Her grandfather was waiting for her when she got to their Houma home later that day, a glass of iced lemonade sitting on the kitchen counter in welcome.

She took a long drink, then asked, “Where’s Etienne?”

“The rascal, he is in his room havin’ quiet time.”

She arched her eyebrows.

“He painted Mrs. Thibodeaux’s cat. Purple.”

She put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. Mrs. T’s cat Wiener was the ugliest creature, with mottled white fur and pinkish-gray eyes that tended to cross.

“Gramps, I was thinking today . . . maybe I should tell John LeDeux about his son. Now, now, don’t go getting excited. Hear me out.”

Her grandfather’s face was florid with outrage.

“Not for John’s benefit,” she went on quickly, “but doesn’t Etienne have a right to a father? And, really, John isn’t that bad. I had lunch with him today, and—”

Her grandfather stood and literally growled. “Not so bad? He’s a LeDeux, ain’t he? Girl, ya cain’t be thinkin’ straight. That boy has a reputation as wild as a peach orchard hog.”

“He’s not a boy anymore, Gramps,” she told him. “He’s twenty-eight years old.”

“That doan make no difference. He’s a wild
man
, too. Besides, have ya thought on what you’d do if he wanted to take Etienne away from you? That whiz-bang lawyer brother of his would be on ya like white on rice.”

That was a concern . . . a remote one, but a concern nonetheless. She relented then, recognizing the worry in his eyes, and patted him on the arm. “It was just a thought.”

He appeared mollified, but still grumbled. “I doan like ya breakin’ bread with no LeDeux.”

“More like bread pudding,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’ll talk to you when I come down.” She was already heading toward the stairs, but she turned around and backtracked to give her grandfather a quick hug, whispering in his ear. “Don’t be worrying about the LeDeuxs.”

“But John LeDeux . . . you were with him.”

“I am not involved with John LeDeux, and I never will be. Okay?” In the back of her mind was John’s ominous threat about the kiss photograph and a wild weekend of sex.
He can’t possibly be serious. I can’t stand to be around him for five minutes, let alone forty-eight hours.

Her grandfather nodded at her reassurance.

“Let me go talk with our little Van Gogh,” she said with a smile, heading for the stairs again. “What’s for dinner?”

“Crab soup.”

“Yum! It’ll go great with the fresh bread I bought down at the French Quarter Market today.”

She entered Etienne’s pint-sized bedroom with its alligator wallpaper, goldfish aquarium, plastic baseball bat, kiddie-sized fishing rod, and Hot Wheels and pirate collections. Not to mention that jar of worms which Gramps had failed to throw out when Etienne took his nap this afternoon. They probably stank by now.

He launched himself at her so his arms were wrapped around her neck and his skinny legs straddling her waist. She practically fell backward, but then sank down on the bed with him in her lap.

All in one breath, he told her, “I dint hurt Wiener. I jist put some purple dots on him with my paint markers, and he liked ’em. He really did. He licked my face. And then Grampa said I did a nasty and made me go ta my room. And it’s so boooring. I wouldn’t hafta play with Wiener if I had a dog. A big dog.” Etienne had a playmate, Pete Doucet, who had a German Shepherd. Ever since Etienne had seen it, a puppy had been his constant request.

“Listen, honey, you mustn’t do anything to anyone else’s property. Not their animals. Not their houses. Not their toys. Anything. It’s not right. Do you understand?”

He nodded. “I want a dog.”

So much for remorse. “I know you do, sweetie, but not yet. Gramps doesn’t get around as good as he used to. Let’s wait ’til you’re old enough to care for a dog yourself.”

“I’m old enough now.”

“Not quite.” She lay down on his bed and motioned for him to lie beside her, his face pressed against her chest. She kissed the top of his head and murmured, “Tell me about your day, honey.”