by Jana DeLeon
“You really think she’d take it that far?”
“She didn’t like it when people were happy. Before Venus, Allard and his wife had a decent thing going, even with the nonworking parts. And I’m pretty sure Venus hated men.”
“Why do you say that?”
He shrugged. “Just thinking back on all the things she pulled. I know she didn’t respect Percy. Thought he was weak for letting Starlight get the best of him. I ain’t no head doctor, but even I could see that Venus thought she’d got cheated with her life and she was intent on punishing anyone she thought had better. I think she played with people for fun.”
“That’s a dangerous game,” I said.
“Got her killed, didn’t it?”
“I heard she stole money from Percy right out of his safe-deposit box.”
I watched him closely, looking for any shift in the eyes, any twitch that might indicate he had something to hide. But he just shook his head. “Doesn’t surprise me. It was nice talking to you, but I have to pick up some fishing tackle up the highway before the store closes. Have a nice Thanksgiving.”
“You too,” I said and watched him inch his way toward the cash register.
Gertie was pushing back through the crowd and I took the bag from her as we headed outside. I put the bag in the back of the SUV and we climbed inside.
“Looks like a madhouse in there,” Ida Belle said.
“It was,” Gertie said.
Pastor Don rode up on his bicycle and leaned it against the wall of the store. He caught sight of us and lifted his hand to wave. We waved back as Ida Belle pulled out of the parking space and as we headed for my house, I filled them in on my conversation with Bart.
“You think he knew anything about the safe-deposit box?” Gertie asked.
I shook my head. “If he did, he was really good at hiding it.”
“Playing ignorant is one of Bart’s many talents,” Ida Belle said. “Especially since he’s not the most diligent on the job.”
The entire drive, I rolled the conversation with Bart around in my mind. Nothing stood out, but something about it bothered me. I held in a sigh. Maybe I was just being stubborn, refusing to accept that the simplest answer was likely the right one. Venus had tried to get revenge on her mother and it had cost her the ultimate price.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, trying to calm my restless mind. But it didn’t work. Things came in pieces, flashing in completely random and weird assortments—Bart Lagasse’s comments, the USB drive in the luggage, the luggage in the car, Venus’s overwhelming desire to destroy people’s lives, Catfish claiming the money was on the living room floor, Pastor Don riding a bicycle.
No man for her to sleep with.
Haylee’s words echoed through my mind like a gunshot and my eyes flew open.
“Has Jeff left the hospital?” I asked.
“Yes,” Ida Belle said. “Marie took them home a little while ago. She said Jeff looked a little exhausted but Melanie said they were going to take a boat ride and see if that would lift his spirits. Jeff really loves his boat.”
I grabbed Ida Belle’s arm so hard, she yanked the steering wheel to one side. “We have to find them. Now! We got it all wrong.”
“What are you talking about?” Ida Belle asked, now looking as anxious as I felt.
“I think Melanie killed Venus,” I said.
“What?”
“No way!”
They both sounded off at once.
“Just trust me on this. I’m still missing some pieces but everything else fits. We have to find Jeff right now.”
“Why?” Gertie asked.
“Because I think Melanie’s going to kill him.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
It really paid to have friends who trusted you, even when you sounded like a crazy woman. Five minutes after my declaration, we were in my airboat and headed down the bayou toward the lake. I’d asked Ida Belle to take us to the deepest known bayou where no camps were located and where people were unlikely to fish. She’d launched the boat without question and soon, we were speeding along the top of the water.
I had my binoculars in place, scanning the water for any sign of a boat. So far, I’d spotted several fishermen but none of them were Melanie and Jeff. Ida Belle went straight to the center of the lake and stopped so I could cover the entire thing from one place. Nothing. Not that I’d expected anything to be going on in the middle of the lake.
She pointed to a large channel on the left side. “That channel is deep and wide, but the fishing isn’t very good. I’ll pull up next to those fishermen closest to the opening and ask if they saw them.”
We headed out and stopped to question the fishermen who said they were pretty sure it was Jeff and Melanie who’d entered the channel about ten minutes before. I barely got a thank-you out of my mouth before Ida Belle took off. The width of the channel allowed us to move at a good clip but I could only see as far as the bends in the bayou would allow. And there was no way we could sneak up on them. They would have already heard the airboat echoing across the water.
But none of that mattered. All that mattered was that we got to their boat before Melanie finished what I was certain she’d started the night before. I didn’t believe Jeff had accidentally taken sleeping pills. I believed Melanie had given him sleeping pills, telling him they were aspirin. Or maybe she’d filled a bottle of aspirin with sleeping pills and handed it to him. But he hadn’t taken a lethal dose and he’d been lucid enough to call for help.
“There!” I saw them at the same time as Ida Belle and she cut the throttle on the boat, bringing it down to a cruising speed. I zoomed in on them with my binoculars. Two people. But my relief was short-lived when I realized that Jeff was standing in the bow of the boat and Melanie stood at the rear with a pistol trained on him.
“She’s got a gun on him,” I said.
“What the—?” Gertie said. “I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t want to believe…”
“Time to start,” I said, and pulled out my pistol as Ida Belle inched us closer to their boat.
Melanie dropped her arm to hide the gun next to her side, but I knew it was there. Jeff stared at us as we approached, his eyes wide with fear.
“Careful,” I said to Ida Belle, my voice low. “But if she makes a move, don’t hesitate.”
Ida Belle cut power to the boat and we began to drift closer, now maybe twenty feet away.
Melanie tried to force a smile. “Are you ladies out for a boat ride too?”
“No,” I said. “We’re here to keep you from killing your husband.”
She flinched a bit but the outrage that would have flooded the expression of an innocent person was nowhere to be found.
“What?” she said finally. “Are you crazy?”
I glanced over at Jeff, who was clearly panicked.
“You killed Venus, didn’t you?” I asked Melanie. “You work at the bank and managed access to the safe-deposit box. You stole Percy’s money. Was that what she told you it would take for her to leave town? To stop pursuing your husband?”
Realizing the gig was up, Melanie lifted her arm, pointing the gun at Jeff.
“Venus never wanted anyone to be happy because she was never happy,” Melanie said. “She knew Jeff didn’t want her but she got him drunk and tricked him. Then she bragged about it to me to get me to help her. She wanted the money and her sister’s legal documents.”
And suddenly it hit me. The twin sister who had died weeks after birth. She’d already been issued a birth certificate and a Social Security card, and Percy had kept them with other legal documents in his safe-deposit box. Those documents would have given Venus an entirely new identity, and the ten thousand would have allowed her to easily disappear.
“It was Venus who packed her things into the car, right?” I said. “She was going to meet you to get the money, then she was leaving town. So why did you kill her? Why not just let her go?”
Melanie’s face twiste
d in anger. “She mocked me. Said I was so ugly and plain that Jeff would never be faithful. That people like me didn’t deserve a family. Then she talked about how good he was in bed…and I slapped her across the face. She laughed at me. Laughed. And when I went to hit her again, she shoved me. As soon as I hit the ground, I knew.”
Tears began to stream down Melanie’s face and the truth of what had happened washed over me.
“She killed my baby!” Melanie said. “She’d taken everything I loved from me. Then she turned around, holding that bag of money, and started to walk away. She was just going to leave me on the ground clutching my stomach. So I pulled myself up, and I grabbed a piece of rebar and hit her as hard as I could. She deserved it!”
“Maybe she did,” Ida Belle said. “But Jeff doesn’t deserve it.”
“He cheated on me,” Melanie said. “He slept with her. I called him at work after I hit her. He helped me hide the body and then I went to the hospital and the doctors confirmed what I already knew. But we could have been fine. With Venus gone forever, we could have gotten pregnant again and had a family. But Jeff couldn’t handle it, especially after Venus’s body was found. He felt guilty. He wanted to tell the truth but I couldn’t let that happen.”
“You’re going to have to let it happen,” Ida Belle said. “When everyone hears your story, they’ll go easy on you. You didn’t plan to kill her. It was a fight gone wrong. But if you shoot Jeff, that changes everything. Just put the gun down and we’ll all go talk to Carter. You know Carter will do everything he can to help you.”
I watched Melanie’s face, looking for a sign that she was buying into Ida Belle’s plan. Ida Belle was doing an excellent job trying to talk her down from the ledge. She’d hit on all the right cylinders and the fact that Melanie had known and respected her for her entire life should weigh in.
But it didn’t appear to.
Melanie stared at Ida Belle for several seconds, then finally she shook her head.
“I can’t.”
She looked at Jeff and as her finger tightened on the trigger, I squeezed off a round.
It was a direct hit.
The bullet caught her right in the biceps, which is what I’d been aiming for, but reflex caused her to fire anyway. The shot hit Jeff in the shoulder and sent him careening backward into the bayou. Melanie screamed in pain and dropped the gun as she fell into the bottom of the boat. I shoved my pistol into Ida Belle’s hand and dived into the bayou. Jeff’s shoulder was out of commission and he was probably still weak from all the sleeping pills. I couldn’t be certain he could swim for the surface.
The bayou water was too dark to see in, so all I could do was swim for the spot where Jeff entered the water and dive down. The tide was slowly moving out, so I moved forward a bit with it, waving my arms as wide as I could get them, trying to lock onto Jeff. I had my eyes open, but it did no good. Seconds ticked by and I found nothing. Ida Belle had been right. This section of the bayou was deep.
I dived deeper, still searching, but if I didn’t find him soon, I was going to have to surface for air. And that would seal Jeff’s fate. My lungs began to burn and I struggled to control them, pushing for that few extra seconds that could make the difference between life and death. But when I started to heave, I knew I had to get to the surface.
As I repositioned myself to swim up, my hands brushed something solid. I grabbed onto an arm and swam as hard and fast as my stressed lungs would allow. I opened my mouth to breathe right before breaking the surface and a rush of bayou water flooded into me, causing me to choke. I heard yelling, and then someone grabbed my arms and I felt the hard metal of the boat. As I grabbed the side with one hand, I felt Jeff being lifted away from me.
I coughed up the water and blinked, trying to clear my eyes. I could hear Ida Belle calling CPR instructions to Gertie and I grasped the side of the boat with both arms and gave one last tremendous kick to pull myself up. Adrenaline must have been working overtime because I managed to haul myself over the side and fall into the bottom of the boat, still choking. Ida Belle and Gertie were performing CPR on Jeff, who didn’t look responsive. I crawled over and looked down at his pale face.
That’s when the first shot flew right by my head and struck the side of the boat.
Melanie!
Ida Belle and Gertie ducked at the sound of the blast and I scanned the boat for my pistol. I spotted it next to Jeff and grabbed it as the second shot rang out on the bench. Without hesitation, I rose up and fired.
This time, my aim was a permanent solution.
The bullet struck Melanie center mass. Her eyes widened and she stared at me for a second, her expression shifting from fury to surprise. Then she took one staggered step and fell forward, collapsing in a heap.
I heard a cough and looked over to see Jeff spitting up water. Ida Belle and Gertie rushed back into paramedic mode and helped him onto his side so he could rid himself of the rest of the water. I grabbed the anchor from the side pocket of the boat and tossed it into Jeff’s boat, then pulled it over to us.
I jumped into the boat and checked Melanie’s vitals. “She’s gone,” I said.
“She didn’t give you a choice,” Gertie said. “She was too far off the deep end. She would have kept shooting until we were all dead.”
I nodded as I slumped down into a sitting position. I’d done what I had to do to save four other people. And even though Melanie was guilty of killing Venus and trying to kill her husband, I still felt horrible. She had been a normal person with normal wants and dreams until Venus had targeted her. Had taken from her the only things that mattered.
Melanie had handled everything wrong. But I still felt sorry for her. Sorry for Jeff. Sorry for lives cut short and dreams banished.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The aftermath of our bayou showdown took well into the night to unwind. Getting Jeff to the hospital was the first priority, and Carter had paramedics waiting on the dock as soon as we arrived, acting on the fast and confusing phone call I’d made to him. Once Jeff was off, a second round of paramedics had to collect Melanie. Given all the chaos at the dock, a crowd had gathered, but Carter had forced them to disperse and finally gotten us inside the sheriff’s department to explain what had happened.
We were separated immediately, per protocol, and each gave our statements to Carter and Deputy Breaux. Hours later, we were finally allowed to go. Carter gathered me into his arms as I rose to leave and hugged me so hard it hurt just a bit.
“I could have lost you,” he said. “Next time, call me instead of trying to apprehend a murderer yourself.”
“It was a wild idea,” I said. “I couldn’t be certain.”
“But your instincts told you that you were right. I appreciate and respect your abilities, but you have to trust that I’ll believe you when you put forth something that sounds crazy.”
I leaned into his chest, the warmth of it coursing through my exhausted body. “I love you,” I said.
“I love you too.”
Ida Belle and Gertie insisted on staying the night. And although I would never have admitted it, I was glad for the company. Being alone would have allowed too much time for reflection and regret, and I needed to move past the emotional high I was on and into a logical assessment of everything that had happened. I knew I’d had no choice but to shoot Melanie, but it still weighed on me. It would take time to get past it.
We all took a shower and trudged downstairs. I’m sure we were all hungry, but no one felt much like eating. After several minutes of silence, Gertie heated up some canned soup and put crackers on the table. We managed to start on the soup while we talked.
“I still can’t believe it,” Gertie said. “I mean, not that I doubted you, but how in the world did you figure it out?”
“I don’t know that I did,” I said. “Not completely. There’s still a lot that I’m guessing at and we won’t know for sure until Jeff talks.”
“Take us through it,” Ida Belle said. “Bec
ause I’m with Gertie. I still don’t see how you made the connection.”
“For starters,” I said, “there were a several things that bothered me. The first was the luggage in the car. It didn’t make sense for Catfish and Starlight to leave it in there, and it didn’t make sense that someone had waited until the next day to get rid of the car. But if Venus had packed the luggage herself, intending to leave town, but was killed before she could, then it made perfect sense.”
“So you think that was the plan?” Gertie said.
“I think it was always her plan,” I said. “She fled New Orleans after the other informant was killed. I think she came back here because she knew that her twin’s legal documents were in the safe-deposit box and she probably knew Percy kept off-the-books cash there. She just needed to figure out how to get to it and then she was going to disappear for good.”
“So sleeping with Jeff was just her way of getting Melanie to do her dirty work at the bank,” Gertie said.
“Not only that,” I said. “Remember what Haylee said—that Jeff was the only guy who’d ever turned Venus down? I think that stuck with her all these years. I think she was someone who could wait for revenge for a very long time. And seeing Melanie happy didn’t make it any better. She didn’t like for people to have the life she felt she got cheated out of.”
“You think she got him drunk?” Gertie asked. “Drugged, maybe? So she could get him to sleep with her?”
“I’m not convinced he did sleep with her,” I said. “I absolutely think she got him unconscious somehow. Then she made sure he woke up naked and she told him they’d slept together, but I wonder if they actually did. Remember what Bart told me about Dean Allard—that Allard’s wife had complained about certain parts not working? And Allard himself said he couldn’t remember having sex with Venus. It’s because I don’t think he did. I think she just set him up to get money out of him.”
“Happily married guy,” Gertie said. “Big family.”