“Did Manny back up his story?”
“Quite the amateur investigator, aren’t you? I’d tell you to stick to archaeology, but your instincts are too good. Yes, I’ve already, at this early hour, talked to Manny. He remembers Dane buying Miranda a piece of apple pie.”
“Why didn’t he tell you that already?”
“I have quite a long list of people to interview, and it’s only been a day. I hadn’t gotten to Manny yet.”
“I wasn’t questioning your skills, Detective. I just wondered.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m the one questioning me. Anyway, Manny checked his receipts and found a cash purchase at 2:07 p.m. that was probably the selfsame slice of pie, so everything checks out. According to both Dane and Manny, she was perfectly healthy when Dane left. Manny did not, however, remember giving Miranda’s phone number to Dane or to anyone else. Dane was insistent that he did, so it was one man’s word against another. Not sure how much it matters, since even Manny agrees that Dane met with her in broad daylight.”
Faye who had once, long ago, lived on a boat, said, “Miranda’s houseboat isn’t meant for the kind of use Dane has in mind. It’s too big, for one thing. It’s meant to spend its useful life moored in one place, just like it is.”
“Exactly. And that’s what Dane said she told him.”
Thinking as much about Amande’s infatuation with Dane as she was about the murder investigation, Faye asked, “What do you know about Sechrist?”
“I asked everyone I’ve talked to since Miranda died if they knew the name, since it was on her refrigerator door. Nope. He’s been hanging around here for awhile, but he keeps to himself. Whatever else I know about Sechrist I got from him, though now that I have his first name, I’ll be digging around plenty, starting today. He didn’t tell me anything especially exciting when I questioned him last night. He grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, in Biloxi, which explains his attachment to boats and the water. Everything about the man says his upbringing was middle class or better, and that makes him stand out in Manny’s usual crowd of customers. He says he spent a couple of years in college in Hattiesburg, but that’s just sixty-nine miles too far from the Gulf to suit him.”
Faye had felt the same way while she was a college student in Tallahassee.
“Hey, this might interest you,” Benoit said. “He spent the first summer after he dropped out of school on an archaeological research vessel. If we stumble over some more archaeology stuff, it might make some sense that we hired an amateur like you to help with this investigation.”
“You can hardly use the word ‘hired’ when you don’t pay a person. Did Sechrist’s archaeological research crew work in the Gulf of Mexico?”
“Yup. Our boy just doesn’t seem to be happy anyplace else.”
Faye didn’t hear anything that remotely linked Dane Sechrist to Miranda’s death. Nor to Hebert’s, so she cut to the chase. “Do you think he did either of the murders?”
“I see no motive. Compared to the other scumbags I’ve interviewed, he’s a Boy Scout. Until somebody tells me some compelling reason he’d want those two people dead, I just can’t imagine him committing any violent crime. But I’ve been wrong before.”
Faye agreed with the detective, mostly, but until she was definitively able to mentally move Dane Sechrist from the category of Boy-Scouts-who-might-have-committed-murder to the kinder and gentler category of Boy-Scouts-who-were-way-too-old-for-her-friend-Amande, she was not going to be happy.
Chapter Twenty
Amande had gone back to the houseboat to shower and change clothes, before starting another day as Michael’s paid playmate. Faye wasn’t surprised to see her back, but she was a little startled by her appearance. Amande had plaited the hair around her face into tiny braids, but she seemed to be having trouble with the back of her head. When Faye opened the door, the girl was standing on her doorstep, holding a clump of hair skyward so that it wouldn’t unbraid itself. With her other hand, she held out a bunch of elastic bands, saying, “Would you help me? I’m trying to cornrow it, but it’s not as easy as it looks.”
Having cornrowed a girlfriend’s hair in high school, Faye knew that it wasn’t easy at all. She also knew that doing a whole head of hair would take her all day. Fortunately, Amande had figured that out.
“I think I should have started from the bottom and worked up, but maybe we could just finish the hair on the crown of my head. Then I can do a little more every day. I was thinking of doing dreads like Manny’s, but I’m not actually sure how to make those. Cornrows aren’t hard to do, but I need so many of them to cover my whole head!”
Faye was going to ask her why she’d tackled this self-improvement project now, when she’d promised to be back in half an hour, but then she remembered high school girl impulsiveness. The answer to Faye’s question was probably “Why not now?” Instead, she sat the girl down and started plaiting. And, once they were no longer face-to-face, she got the real answer to her “Why now?” question.
“Grandmère would’ve had a stroke if I did this to my hair when she was alive. If I’d done dreads, she’d have killed me first and then had a stroke.”
“My grandmother pestered me about my hair hanging in my face until I finally cut it all off. I’ve worn it like this ever since.” Faye ran her fingers through her close-cropped hair. “It works great on hot, sweaty days in the field.”
“That’s one reason I want cornrows. I think it’ll keep my hair off my neck. And the other reason is that there’s nobody left who’ll tell me not to do it.”
Then she fell into silence while Faye made braids, and Michael ran around the room with his arms outstretched like airplane wings.
Finally, Amande spoke again. “That first night after Grandmère died, I couldn’t sleep. I was so angry that I wanted to punch out a window, but I didn’t want to hurt my hand and windows are expensive. Instead, I picked up the doll she made, the one that looks like me. My guardian. I decided she was doing a piss-poor job of guarding me, so I started bashing her against the window. After I’d been bashing a while, the poor thing’s head fell off. And I thought, “Who’s going to put her head back on for me? My grandmother’s not here to do it.” It’s almost enough to make me want to learn to use those basket-weaving tools, but not quite. And now that one of them is missing because…well, I just can’t. My guardian doll’s going to have to stay headless.”
Amande didn’t have much more to say, not even when Faye finished braiding and sent her outside to watch Michael run until he needed a nap.
***
Faye had been working steadily at her computer for so long that she was glad to hear a knock at the cabin door. She really didn’t care who was on the other side of that door. She was just grateful for the excuse to stop juggling budget dollars. Trying to estimate the cost of all the contract employees she’d hired was making her want to eat a pound of chocolate and take a month-long nap. She would have welcomed a drop-in visit from Attila the Hun.
Instead, she got Dane Sechrist. He stuck his hand out and introduced himself, which felt weird, since she knew exactly who he was, but she’d been too busy snatching Amande away from him to formally make his acquaintance the night before.
She wasn’t sure she had anything to say to the man, but she fell back on the manners her mother had drilled into her and responded to him simply. “It’s nice to meet you, Dane. I’m Faye Longchamp-Mantooth.”
“Amande said that you’re an archaeologist, and that you’re looking for contract workers.”
“I am, but this is such a fast-burn project that I can only take people with experience. Do you have a résumé?”
He reached into the beige canvas briefcase slung over his shoulder and drew out a single sheet of good-quality paper. It listed the brief work history of a man in his twenties, but his work experience was well-presented and s
ome of it was slightly pertinent to her project. She saw the summer job with an underwater archaeology team that Detective Benoit had described, as well as a few shorter-term diving projects. All the projects were in the general vicinity of the mouth of the Mississippi, which was Faye’s study area. Applying for a job with her company wasn’t a bad idea for Dane, actually. Except for the fact that she didn’t like him.
“I don’t need a diver.”
“I thought you were doing a comprehensive study of this area. I don’t see how you can do that and stay on top of the water. There’s so much history underneath it.”
The man was right. He just didn’t understand the limited scope of her project.
“Our contract is for an initial survey to document the condition of archaeological sites in the area likely to be affected by the oil spill, so that—”
“So that we’ll know what we’ve lost when a thick layer of oily gunk spreads itself all over them.”
Interrupting a potential employer was poor job hunting strategy, but Dane was right again.
He pressed his luck. “So why not send some divers out? I’m guessing the underwater sites are most endangered. Shouldn’t you be documenting them?”
“I’m no environmental scientist, so I don’t actually know which sites are more endangered. Will the oil settle to the bottom and gunk up shipwreck sites? Or will it float on in to shore and gunk up old forts and lighthouses and settlements? Hell if I know. But it’ll be here in weeks or days. We don’t have time to go looking for new sites, nor to do any serious exploration of the sites that are out there. I’ve got people researching everything that’s known about archaeological remains in the study area, and I’ve got people doing quick site visits to document current conditions, but that’s all the client wants. And it’s all the client will pay us to do.”
Dane was undaunted. “I’ve done plenty of library research. It’s on there,” he gestured at the résumé, “but it’s buried in the write-ups for each job, because I wanted to feature my diving. I do a lot of it online, obviously, but sometimes you have to go to the source. Maps, for instance. Trying to read a scanned copy of an old map on a computer screen just doesn’t work.”
Faye knew that this was true.
“Besides,” he continued, “I just like the smell of old maps. I’m on a first-name basis with the research librarians at the state archives.”
Now Faye knew why Amande liked Dane so well. He was cute and geeky, just like she was.
She glanced at his résumé, looking for an excuse not to hire him.
He kept pressing his luck. “You don’t like me much, do you?” Clearly, this man had never taken one of those courses on how to ace a job interview. “Dr. Longchamp-Mantooth, I swear I didn’t know she was so young.”
Faye raised a skeptical eyebrow in his direction.
“How could I know? When I first saw her, she was wandering around at noon on a weekday, waving a metal detector around. Teenaged girls are supposed to be in school at that time of day. And look at her. She’s as big as I am. She doesn’t look like a kid. Am I supposed to ask for ID whenever I talk to a new woman?”
Faye wasn’t feeling charitable, so she said, “Maybe.”
“Well, when you decide, will you let me know? Because I guess you’re going to have to decide whether I’m a pedophile before you know whether you can use my help with your project. For the record, I’m not. I’m not a pedophile, I mean, and I’ll never speak to your young friend again, if it’ll make you happy.”
Faye couldn’t say that it would make her happy, but she was pretty sure she’d be happier. Still, was it her place to choose Amande’s friends?
“While you’re deciding my status as an employee and a potential pervert, can I ask you some questions? I’ve got some maps and journal articles here,” he patted the briefcase, “and I’d like a professional opinion on some things.”
***
By the time Dane left, Faye knew quite a bit about him. He’d been careful about how much of himself he’d exposed, but he was ignorant of a piece of vital information: Faye knew a lot of people, and she knew people who knew a lot of people.
He’d couched his questions about sunken ships carefully, saying things like, “When I was working with Professor Morgan, we detected some anomalies in areas where we’d have never expected shipwrecks. Have you read any recent research that puts more wrecked ships in this area? Or maybe have you heard about findings that haven’t been published yet? I’d really like to do more of that kind of work, but I don’t have the right contacts. I need to know who’s out there working in the field.”
Dane could talk about mundane things like “making contacts,” all he liked. Faye recognized the treasure hunter’s light in his eyes. Dane thought he was onto something big, probably a shipwreck, based on the questions he was asking, but he wanted to keep the details to himself.
He’d spread copies of maps across her kitchen table and laid published papers beside them, blathering nonsense about job-seeking as he did it. She noticed that he’d chosen maps that covered a broad area, and he’d made no notes on these copies. He was being oh-so-careful to avoid letting her pinpoint the spot that interested him, but there was no doubt that he was trying to pick her brain. Again, classic behavior for a man seeking lost treasure.
Faye so desperately wished she knew the world-famous Dr. Peter Morgan well enough to call him and ask for his impressions of Dane Sechrist, but she did not. She did, however, know her cousin Bobby Longchamp very well, and Dane couldn’t possibly have known the consequences of showing her a handful of maps and journals that were clearly labeled as being from the Historic New Orleans Collection.
Dane, by his own admission, was on a first-name basis with staff at the state archives. Judging by the origin of his research materials, Faye would bet that he was also best-friends-forever with the staff of the Historic New Orleans Collection. Bobby wasn’t on staff there, but he might as well be. He was also an accomplished people-watcher and an incurable gossip.
As with any conversation with Bobby Longchamp, this phone call was going to take a while. Still, by the time Dane Sechrist had piloted his boat back to the spot where he hoped to find endless riches, Faye would have gotten Bobby to spill his guts. After she’d explained what she wanted to know, she fully expected him to be able to sweet-talk the collection’s staff into telling him every last detail of Dane’s research interests.
With Bobby’s research skills, he might even be able to ferret out the truth of whether the man was a pedophile or not. Then Faye could sleep better at night. Maybe.
***
“One child isn’t enough for you, Cousin dear? Tell me again why you’ve acquired a teenaged appendage. Doesn’t she have actual relatives to take responsibility for her?”
For a man whose etiquette was acquired at the knee of a blue-blooded mother who thought the Queen of England’s bloodlines were a bit suspect, Bobby certainly didn’t mince words.
“Amande isn’t an ‘appendage.’ She’s—she’s my friend. And, oh, Bobby, if you could meet her aunt and uncle and stepfather. To call them worthless drunks would be to insult drunks everywhere.”
The sarcasm left Bobby’s voice, but he still made his position clear. “There are children all over the world who are in the custody of worthless drunks, my dear. Jodi comes home from the police station crying over them, sometimes. She can’t save them all, and neither can you. I know the situation breaks your heart, but what makes you think you can save this one?”
“That’s why Amande is different. She doesn’t need saving. She could take care of herself right now, if she was of legal age and if she could be someplace where there weren’t a bunch of scumbags running around. Hell. A place where fewer scumbags were running around would be an improvement.”
“And you think I might know one of those scumbags?”
<
br /> “About six feet tall, dark tan, really short blond hair. Broad shoulders. Muscles. Mid-twenties. His name is Dane Sechrist.”
Bobby gave a gossip’s short and gleeful chuckle. “I do know him. The man’s on the hunt for sunken treasure, unless I miss my guess.”
“I think so, too. What do you know about him?”
“Not much more than that. He’s in the collection’s map room so much that he can’t possibly be burdened with a job. I didn’t like his looks, so I spent an afternoon hovering around and trying to make him nervous.”
“It worked, no doubt.”
“So it appeared. I also sicked Dauphine on him.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Bobby, that’s cruel.”
A laugh emanated from her cell phone that did, in fact, sound vaguely cruel. “I know. But Dauphine’s so bored with this library work you’ve got her doing. She wants to be digging up things, and she wants to be chasing your little rug rat around. Giving Dane Sechrist the evil eye will keep her so distracted and happy that her leg will heal quicker. I wouldn’t be surprised if her blood sugar comes down, too.”
“Okay. You have my permission to keep torturing the man. What can you tell me about his research interests?”
“I do not think Dane wanted me to get a good look at what he was working on. Fortunately, these maps and photos are like my children. I know precisely where Mr. Sechrist is diving for treasure. I can tell you the very USGS quadrangle. From that, you can get latitude and longitude and any GPS will take you straight there. Hang on a second. I stepped outside to talk to you, but I can go back in there and pull the coordinates right quick.”
Bobby was back in the time it took Faye to conduct a fruitless web search for Dane Sechrist. It took less time than that for Faye to poke the coordinates he gave her into a mapping program and pull up a photographic image of the area. Why wasn’t she surprised to see that Amande’s island was just west of the center of that photo?
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