The Night Before

by Lisa Jackson

  “I don’t know. I’m just keeping an open mind.”

  Morrisette chewed her gum a little more loudly. “You? Like hell.”

  “We’ll see what the coroner says after the autopsy. I’m waiting for a report from the crime scene team about the evidence. All I’ve got so far is that the body doesn’t appear to have been moved. He died right in his desk chair. The last person known to have seen him alive was the maid, Ms. Pontiac, when she left for the night, but after that he could have had himself a damned party.”

  “I think it was a private party because of the wineglasses in the dishwasher. Only two. Not forty,” Morrisette mused aloud.

  “So we know he had company. Ms. Pontiac insists she’d cleaned up everything and even emptied the dishwasher before she left.”

  “Any prints on the wineglasses?” Reed asked.

  “Nope. Wiped clean, except for the lipstick smudge.”

  “Why would someone wipe for prints and ignore the lipstick?”

  “Careless or believes no one will be able to trace the smudge to her. There was also what looks like a couple of drops of wine on the carpet in the den. Depending upon how old the stains are, it’s possible that the wine was spilled and the glasses taken to the dishwasher.”

  “A neat killer.”

  “Or visitor. We’re not sure he was murdered,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, I know.” Reed plucked a piece of lint from his dark sock. “But let’s run with the murder idea for a sec. You have any ideas who might want to see him dead?”

  “At least half of Savannah. To begin with, he went through women like toilet paper. That doesn’t sit well with a lot of us. Then there’s his business partner, Al Fitzgerald. I think Josh pulled a fast one and cut him out of his share of stock in the company. And that’s not his first brush with the law. He’d been involved with some kind of securities scam before, but he lined enough pockets in Atlanta to keep himself out of serious trouble, so he was never prosecuted.” Her eyes narrowed a bit and she chewed her gum more vigorously. “I’m sure the list of people who had Josh Bandeaux on their most-hated list is long and distinguished.”

  “I’d like to see it. Maybe you could come up with a few names.”

  “My pleasure.” Leaning across the desk, narrowly missing her coffee cup with her elbows, Morrisette said, “Wanna hear what I learned about Caitlyn Bandeaux?”

  Reed inclined his head and wondered if Morrisette’s interest in Josh’s not-quite-ex-wife was more than idle interest. “Shoot.”

  “First of all, she’s pretty unstable. She’s got herself a nice long history of ending up in psych wards, ever since she was a kid. Off and on. I don’t know what the diagnosis is, or if there is one. It could be anything from dealing with slight depression to being manic, or, what do they call it these days? Bipolar. Maybe she was traumatized as a kid or got into drugs; some of those can end up makin’ ya effin’ paranoid. But I have heard that mental illness runs in the family. Neuroses lurk like catfish on the bottom of the Montgomery gene pool.”

  “So—has our estranged widow ever been violent?”

  Morrisette lifted a slim shoulder as she spat her gum into a trash can near her desk. “Not to the point of getting arrested, obviously.”

  “Where do you get your information?”

  “A friend of a friend.”

  “Gossip,” he guessed, a little disappointed.

  “Yeah, the kind of gossip we pay stoolies for every day of the week.”

  “Hearsay doesn’t hold up in court.”

  “We aren’t even sure we’ve got a homicide. I’m just giving you some information I gathered. I’ll check it out and see what’s what with the missus.” She smiled, her faded lipstick darker around the edges of her lips. “In case we do go to court.”

  He glanced at her spiked hair and a few dark roots that deigned to show. “You didn’t hear this at the local beauty shop?”

  “Shit, no.” One side of her mouth inched up. “I don’t go to the ‘beauty shop.’ God, I hate that term. ‘Salon’ isn’t a whole lot better. This”—she motioned to her stiff blond hair—“it may surprise you to know, isn’t a professional job. Oh, you may think I paid forty, sixty or even a hundred dollars to some hairdresser with a name like Claude or Antoine, but hell, no. This here ‘do’ is compliments of good old Lady Clairol and a pair of shears I inherited from my grannie. I give myself a couple of hours every six weeks or so and voila, the piece of the damned resistance!”

  “I think that’s piece de resistance, you know, complete with French accent.”

  “Yeah, I do know.” She motioned toward her head as she stood. “It’s cheap, it’s fast and it’s state of the art!”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do,” she said, scrounging in her purse and coming up with a pack of Marlboro Lights. “Time to have myself a little break. Wanna come?” she asked as she shook out a cigarette.

  “I’ll take a rain check. I think I’d better do a little more checking on the friends and relatives of Josh Bandeaux since you seem to think he was so detested and unrespected.”

  Grinning, she motioned to the image of Josh Bandeaux visible on her computer monitor. “Some people even called him Josh ‘The Bandit’ Bandeaux.”

  “Cute.”

  “It fit. He was always taking something from someone. I think one of his ex-partners dubbed him with the name and the press loved it.”

  “They would.”

  “No love of the Fourth Estate, eh, Reed?”

  “None,” he growled.

  She asked, “So you think I can sell this picture?” In the shot Josh Bandeaux was as they’d found him, slumped over his expensive desk, blood drizzling down his fingers to pool on the carpet. “Anyone who pays the price can put this little pinup on their own PC . . . you know as wallpaper or a screen saver or something.”

  “Funny,” he said without a laugh.

  “Thought you’d appreciate the humor.” But any trace of a smile that had lingered on her thin lips had faded. Reed guessed Morrisette had been closer to “the prick” than she’d ever admit.

  Which was par for the course. In Reed’s estimation Sylvie Morrisette hadn’t gotten over any of her ex-husbands or lovers. Brittle as she tried to appear, she wasn’t as tough as she feigned. Just had bad taste in men. The way he’d heard it, she’d grown up without a father. Rumor suggested her old man had left her mother for a younger woman the day Morrisette had been brought home from the hospital. But that was just talk. Speculation by the local rednecks who couldn’t handle Sylvie’s tough-woman attitude.

  Reed didn’t know the truth and didn’t care. Or at least he hadn’t until now. “You wouldn’t do anything to compromise the case, would you?” he asked.

  “What?” she demanded, but he didn’t really buy her innocence.

  “You heard me.”

  “Blow it out your ass, Reed. You know what kind of cop I am.”

  “That’s the problem,” he said as he got to his feet and suffered a ball-shriveling glare from her. “You bend the rules more than I do.”

  She glanced at her watch and scowled. “I’ve got to get out of here. It is Saturday. I already missed my daughter’s soccer game. Again.”

  “Cops don’t have weekends.”

  “Just great pay, fabulous benefits and more glamor than a rock star,” she quipped. “Madonna’s been calling me and asking to trade places. I’m thinking it over. Told her I’d get back to her.”

  Reed laughed as her phone shrilled, then walked back to his office. He didn’t want to think what a shrink would make of his partner.

  Or Caitlyn Bandeaux, if Morrisette’s information was correct. He tried to work around his gut feeling that Caitlyn Bandeaux was the prime suspect in the death of her husband. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was involved.

  He’d learned from Bandeaux’s maid that Caitlyn, estranged or not, was a regular visitor to his house, had once lived there and probably still had a key since Band
eaux hadn’t bothered to change his locks. A woman had been with Bandeaux that night if the glasses in the dishwasher were to be believed; the lipstick was a pink color that was similar to the one that she’d worn today, though without tests, the similarity could be coincidental. There were hundreds of shades of pink lipstick, possibly thousands. Most of all, she didn’t have an alibi, at least one that would hold up it court. He’d thought during the interview this morning that she’d been shocked and bereaved, but also holding back, keeping a secret. He’d met enough liars in his years as an investigator with the San Francisco Police Department to spot one.

  But this could be a suicide, don’t discount that. Not yet. He snapped on his desk lamp. He’d bet a month’s salary that Caitlyn Montgomery Bandeaux wouldn’t pass a polygraph test if he administered one to her right now.

  She was lying about last night; Reed was sure of it.

  He just had to figure out why.

  Six

  The telephone jangled.

  Caitlyn, thinking the caller might be her sister, dashed into the kitchen. Almost tripping over Oscar, she snagged the handset and noticed the lack of a name and number on Caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Hi. Is this Caitlyn Bandeaux?” an unfamiliar female voice asked.

  Caitlyn was instantly wary. Every muscle in her body tensed. “Yes.”

  “I’m glad I caught you.” The voice was friendly. Had a “smile” to it. Which made Caitlyn all the more cautious. This wasn’t the day for smiling, disembodied voices cozying up to her.

  “My name’s Nikki Gillette, and I’m with the Savannah Sentinel. I know you’re going through a rough period right now, and I’d like to offer my condolences about your husband.”

  Oh, yeah, right. “Let me guess,” Caitlyn said, trying to control her temper as she leaned a hip against the kitchen counter. “You’d like an interview. Maybe even an exclusive.”

  “I thought you’d like to tell your side of the story.” Now there was an edge to Nikki’s voice.

  “I wasn’t aware there were ‘sides’ and I’m not sure there is much of a story.”

  “Of course there is. Your husband was a very influential man, and the police seem to think he was either the victim of homicide or a suicide. I thought you’d like to set the record straight.”

  “My husband and I were separated,” she said, then immediately wished she’d held her tongue. Her personal life wasn’t anyone else’s business.

  “But you were still married.”

  Caitlyn didn’t reply.

  “Every marriage has its ups and downs,” Nikki Gillette cajoled, using a tone usually reserved for women’s confidences.

  The ploy didn’t work. Caitlyn’s back was already up. “That’s right and it’s private, so let’s stick with the ‘no comment.’ ”

  “But—”

  It was time to end this. “Listen, Ms. Gillette. I have nothing more to say. Please, don’t call again.” Caitlyn slammed the receiver down before the woman could argue with her. The phone jangled instantly. “Damn it all.” She picked up the receiver, hung up and then let the answering machine take any other messages. Even Kelly’s. If her sister were to call, she’d leave a message or Caitlyn would recognize her cell number on Caller ID, or, if all else failed, Caitlyn would drive out to her place by the river and try to track her down. But she was getting desperate. For God’s sake, Kelly, call me. She poured herself a glass of iced tea, took a sip then slid into a chair at the kitchen table and held her head in her hands. What had happened last night? How had she dreamed that Josh had been killed? How had all the blood gotten into her room? Her head throbbed, the ice melting in her barely touched glass. She remembered driving downtown and parking just off Emmet Park on River Street. Yes . . . she was certain of it. She closed her eyes, trying to relive the night before. Her headache thundered. Distorted images of the city at night spun crazily through her mind.

  Neon lights.

  Boats on the river.

  A crush of people on the street.

  Vaguely, in bits and disjointed pieces, she remembered crossing a street against the light as some taxi had careened around the corner and blared its horn. She’d ducked past the Cotton Exchange and down the cobblestone walk to the river. Wending her way through people on the crowded sidewalk, past shops, the smell of the slow-moving river ever present, she’d gone into a bar . . . The Swamp, one she’d never been in before. Why had Kelly asked her to meet there, then not shown up? Or had she? Why couldn’t she remember?

  Had she somehow ended up at Josh’s house?

  Dear God, where had she been?

  Her lower lip began to tremble, then slowly, bit by bit, her entire body followed suit. She felt the threat of tears and steadfastly pushed them back. What was Troy’s comment, that she always played the victim? Well, no more. Never again. Her jaw clenched when she thought of her dead husband. “Damn it, Josh,” she whispered. “What the hell happened?” She noticed a business card that Detective Reed had left on the coffee table. Maybe she should call him.

  And tell him what, that you dreamed you were at Josh’s house? Or that you don’t remember if you were really there? That your memory is shot—you just have bits and pieces that don’t make any sense. Or maybe you could explain that you’re a fruitcake, just like Grandma Evelyn . . . you remember her, don’t you . . . remember what happened at the lodge?

  Caitlyn shivered, her mind reverberating with the questions Kelly would certainly throw at her if she ever found out that Caitlyn was considering confiding in the police. You want to end up in the looney bin, again? That’s what’ll happen. And how the hell are you going to explain the blood? Jesus, Caitie-Did, one way or another, they’ll lock you away for good this time! Prison or a psych hospital. Take your pick.

  “But I didn’t do anything!” she said, pounding a fist on the table. Breathing hard, nearly gasping, she felt herself falling apart. But she wasn’t out of her mind. No . . . hadn’t Dr. Wade said as much? She willed her body to quit shaking, refused to feel sorry for herself. When she talked to Kelly, she would find out the truth. Whatever it was. Oh, yeah? Well, paranoia runs in the family . . .

  She shot to her feet, knocking over her tea, scattering ice cubes across the table and feeling the scabs on her wrists pull tight. She couldn’t think this way . . . couldn’t let all her self-doubts get the better of her. Quickly grabbing a sponge from the sink, she began swabbing up the tea while tossing the skittering ice cubes into the sink. She was losing it. Really losing it. She threw the towel into the basin. She needed to get out of the house, to take Oscar for a walk or run through Forsyth Park until she was sweating and breathing rapidly, her heart pounding, her head finally clearing. Yes, that was it. She had to get out. Get away. Just as she had since she was a kid.

  Life had been so much simpler then.

  Or had it been?

  Staring out the window to the walled garden, she remembered growing up in the old plantation house, running with Kelly and their friend Griffin through the woods and the squatty old slave quarters, chasing through the dilapidated rooms with hard dirt floors, crumbling walls and the musty smell of old sweat and wasted dreams. Wasps had droned in the rafters, and spider webs had clung to windowsills leaving the dried, desiccated corpses of insects littering the ledges.

  Caitlyn and Kelly hadn’t been ten years old yet, more like eight or nine, and Kelly had loved to play hide-and-seek in the interconnected rooms, disappearing into the shadows.

  “You can’t find me . . .” Kelly had taunted, and Griffin had always run toward the sound, not realizing that it bounced and ricocheted through the rotting timbers and broken doors. Some of the roofs had fallen in, and there were bird droppings flecked against the weathered walls.

  Kelly had hidden in the most disturbing of places, old alcoves and dark niches that made Caitlyn’s skin crawl. Places where rats and palmetto bugs and snakes could hide. Places that felt dark. Evil.

  “Oh, you’re just a fraidy cat,” Kelly had teased
, egging Caitlyn and Griffin into a crammed corner where a dark stain discolored a wall. “See here . . . this is where the old slave, Maryland—you remember the one Great-grannie told us about, she was named after the state where she was born—this is where Old Maryland squatted down and had herself that baby that died. Right here.” Kelly had pointed to the floor beneath the stain and Caitlyn had shuddered.

  Somehow Kelly had garnered all kinds of knowledge of the slaves and she’d sworn they practiced voodoo, killing chickens and heaven knew what else in a particular room or closet she found in the long row of houses. Her stories had never seemed to be the same, changing with the seasons or her whims, yet she’d insisted that every atrocity she spoke of was true. “If you don’t believe me, ask Lucille, she’ll tell you.” Kelly’s eyes had twinkled mischievously as sunlight danced through the leaves of a gnarled oak to dapple the ground in eerie, shifting shadows. It had been sticky-hot. Muggy. The temperature over a hundred degrees. But Caitlyn had felt a chill as cold as death.

  “Maryland still haunts the house,” Kelly had said. “I’ve seen her. She’s looking for that dead baby.”

  “No way.” Caitlyn had shaken her head vehemently. She’d always hated it when Kelly started telling her ghost stories.

  “I have. Swear to God.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Caitlyn had lied, but Griffin, always gullible, had trembled and whispered, “I think it’s the truth. I heard ‘em one night, moanin’ and cryin’.”

  “Why would I lie?” Kelly had asked with a smug smile. She’d known she’d gotten to them both.

  Because you like to, Caitlyn had thought, but hadn’t said it. Would never. Didn’t want to chance a lashing from her twin’s sharp tongue, or worse yet, her lapse into silence which could last days and require a hundred apologies from Caitlyn.

  “It’s the truth,” Kelly had said more times than Caitlyn could remember. “Swear to God and if I lie, poke a thousand needles in my eye.”

  Just the image had made Caitlyn cringe, but Kelly had only giggled and darted off, her laughter trailing after her and fading like the music at the end of a movie scene. Caitlyn had turned on Griffin. “You never heard those slaves.”