Adele snorted derisively. “That’s not a rumor. That’s the actual truth.”
“Ella, what trouble are you getting yourself into?”
Frustrated that he seemed to be taking the same attitude as Landry, she muttered, “None. But that doesn’t mean trouble won’t happen.”
He stuffed his hat back on his head and opened the car door. Glancing over his shoulder, his warm smile was back. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got your back either way.”
Adele waved at Al, but her smile melted away before he was out of sight. Why hadn’t Landry said that?
* * *
When Natalie awoke for the second time, the skies were bright enough that it was obvious morning had arrived. She reached over to the nightstand and checked her phone. 11:45 a.m. Natalie couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so late. She lay there for a moment, listening. The house was so silent that she was reasonably sure she was alone.
She shifted onto her side and groaned, feeling closer to sixty-four years old than thirty-four. Her back was sore from lying in bed for too long, and a tension headache was brewing just below the surface. She was dehydrated from crying so much, and the skin around her eyes felt sore and puffy. And with all that, she was quite certain that today would be far better than the day before.
“Time to get up, Nat,” she mumbled to herself.
On a chair near the guest room door she spied her overnight bag with a tented note perched carefully on top. Leaning over so far she nearly fell out of the bed, Natalie snatched up the note. The handwriting was a pretty cursive.
Natalie,
Pick you up at 12:30 for lunch?
— Ella
Detective Lejeune, she determined, could be a woman of few words. And she appreciated that. Natalie’s colleagues could pontificate for hours and hours, often just to hear themselves speak. This direct, simple communication was a refreshing change of pace.
Twenty minutes later she emerged from the bathroom, dressed and ready, to hear footsteps in the hall. Natalie stuck her head out in time to see a very wet Adele, oddly barefooted, walking slowly toward the far bedroom. It looked like every step was a chore. Her clothes were sopping and her hair was hanging in messy waves around her face.
Natalie cleared her throat, and Adele turned. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as though she’d been crying. “Hi,” Natalie said, feeling a little bit awkward after their intimate late-night talk.
“Hey.” Adele smiled valiantly, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’re up.”
“Just barely,” Natalie admitted self-consciously.
“You needed the sleep. Don’t feel bad about that.”
Adele was right. She had needed it and especially the support she’d gotten from the detective. “Okay. I won’t. Umm…” She gestured at the detective’s sodden body. “Did you decide to take a swim in the Mississippi?” Natalie didn’t really feel like teasing, but Adele looked equally down, and she didn’t think she could take them both feeling low.
Adele snorted. “Not exactly. I decided to have a conversation outside in the rain. Not quite as stupid, but still pretty dumb. Hungry? I can be ready in just a few minutes. Too many late-night calls for work have given me the ability to change and shower in less than fifteen minutes.”
Natalie’s stomach growled at the mention of food.
Adele laughed as she heard the ferocious rumble, and this time the gesture looked natural and came easily. “Okay, then.” She tilted her head toward Natalie’s belly. “Let’s feed that. Meet you out here in fifteen.”
“Just us for lunch?” Natalie was a bit surprised that Landry hadn’t come by, and she assumed that Logan was in preschool.
“Just us.”
Natalie nodded. She retrieved her purse from the bedroom then took a seat on the living room sofa. The cell phone inside her bag mocked her. Stomach suddenly roiling, she plucked the phone from her bag and stared at it. She had a few minutes until Adele finished showering. That meant she could do this, and do it quick.
Her fists clenched and unclenched as she decided what to do. “Okay, okay,” she finally mumbled. She lost track of how long she stared at the phone before dialing her mother’s number with shaky fingers.
It rang so many times that Natalie felt as though she had dodged a bullet and almost hung up. But then…
“Hello?”
Suddenly Natalie’s throat wouldn’t work.
“Hello?” Rose’s voice was irritated. “If this is one of those prank calls, I’m calling the police.”
“No…” A swallow. “No, M-Mom. It’s me.”
Rose sighed in obvious relief. “I thought it was those stupid kids playing on their cell phones. They practically get them when they’re babies nowadays. How their parents can afford that I’ll never—”
“Mom, I’m calling from New Orleans.”
There was a long silence on the phone before Rose said in a dull voice, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Natalie felt like an elephant had parked squarely in the center of her chest. “Yes. I…” Tears pooled in her eyes then spilled over. “Yes. I’m so sorry,” she croaked. She might have been sick again if there had been even an ounce of food left in her stomach.
Rose’s sigh sounded different this time. “I know, honey. I’m sorry you had to make this call.”
Natalie let out a sob. Given a million years, she still wouldn’t have expected this reaction. She felt the strongest yearning to be in her mother’s arms, and she could hear the other woman sniffing back tears.
“I assume it was the drugs.”
“I-I-” Natalie dropped the phone and stared at it as though it was a snake. She felt dizzy, but picked it back up and pressed it to her ear. “What-what did you say? The drugs?”
Rose sniffed loudly a few more times, and Natalie heard her blow her nose. “You’re going to be mad.”
“Oh, no, no, no.” Natalie closed her eyes. “What have you done now?”
“Don’t get smart! Especially—”
“Mom!” Natalie barked, patience gone. “What made you think it was drugs?”
“He called me a year ago from Houston and then six months ago from New Orleans, asking for money.”
Natalie stood and looked skyward for assistance. “And you didn’t think to tell me?” She wiped futilely at her eyes. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?” Her voice sounded shrill and desperate to her own ears. Thank God she wasn’t in the same room as her mother now. She wanted to strangle her.
“I didn’t want his father to know that Josh was hooked on dope. It would crush him.” Now Rose openly wept as well. “How am I going to break this to him? He loves that boy to a fault.”
“He’s not the only one.”
“How can you say that? Believe you me, I was only trying to help.”
“Not again,” Natalie gasped. Though she knew it was ridiculous to continue to be surprised by the same action from the same person. “Tell me you didn’t give him money to buy drugs.”
“He said the money was for rehab! The first time it didn’t take, but I heard that Dr. Drew on TV say that sometimes it takes several tries. Josh told me it had almost worked the first time. He promised to come home as soon as he got out of treatment. He was trying to get better! Was I not supposed to help him?”
Rose sounded so bereft and confused that Natalie didn’t have the heart to yell and lash out the way her guts were demanding. Instead, she sat back down heavily on the sofa, gripping the phone so hard that her knuckles turned white.
“It wasn’t drugs, Mom.” Natalie looked around for some Kleenex only to have a sympathetic-looking Adele appear out of nowhere and offer a fresh box. She thanked her with her eyes. “Josh was killed in a fight of some kind. The police are still investigating, but the man who did it confessed.”
When Adele moved to leave the room, Natalie motioned for her to stay.
“Murdered?” Rose shrieked, as though this news was somehow much worse than Josh overdosing on drugs. She wept fo
r a long moment before calming enough to say, “The police ha-have him? The killer?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Rose said, her voice loaded with bitterness. “Then the man will get the electric chair,” she announced with one hundred percent certainty.
“The electric chair?” Natalie swallowed, feeling sick. She glanced at Adele who shook her head no. “I don’t…they don’t do that anymore, Mom. At least not that way.”
Adele looked as ill as Natalie felt.
Rose ranted on about killers and justice, and Natalie held the phone away from her head with a deep sigh. She let her mother vent for a moment before interrupting. “He won’t get away with Josh’s murder. I’m staying here a couple more days to make sure.”
“Good. Whatever it takes to keep that monster off the street. Is that nice detective who helped you before helping you again? The one who is a girl?”
Natalie gave Adele a watery smile, well aware the other woman could hear her mother’s voice, even though the phone wasn’t on speaker. “She is.”
Rose sniffed and her voiced thinned. She sounded so old that Natalie almost didn’t recognize her. “Natalie?”
“Yes, Mom?”
“You’ll bring him home this time, right? You won’t let me down again?”
Adele winced.
Natalie’s dry swallow was audible and she could feel the blood draining from her face. “Yes.”
“I have to go talk to Josh’s father now…” And without saying goodbye, Rose hung up.
Adele looked at a loss for words as Natalie stared at the phone in her hands. “I’m so sorry, Natalie. That was—” she floundered for something to say that wasn’t…the truth.
“That was horrid. Sometimes she can be horrid. Though she doesn’t mean to be.” Natalie’s eyebrows drew together. “At least I don’t think she means it.”
Adele moved a little closer to Natalie. “I didn’t mean to intrude on a private family moment. I heard you crying and was…I was concerned.”
“I—I actually feel a little better.” Natalie grabbed her small pile of tissues and clutched them tightly in one hand. “I was dreading that call. And now that it’s over…well, at least it’s over.” But even as she said it, her face crumbled.
“I wish I could do something,” Adele whispered tenderly. “Something to make you feel better.”
“I…” Natalie knew without a doubt what she wanted. “Maybe…please—” And she wanted to beg for it too, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to do it.
More tears spilled over Natalie’s cheeks and Adele didn’t bother waiting. “C’mere.” She wrapped Natalie in a fierce embrace, pressing their bodies tightly together, stroking Natalie’s soft dark hair with one hand. “Cry all you want. I’m not going anywhere. And I bought six more boxes of Kleenex.”
Natalie snorted despite herself and returned the hug with all her strength, melting into it with every fiber of her being. “Thanks, Ella.”
“You’re welcome,” was the whisper in her ear.
A few minutes later, Natalie’s tears had dried, but she hadn’t relinquished her hold on the detective. She felt a buzzing against her hip, but it wasn’t her phone, it was Adele’s.
“Are you okay?” Adele whispered before pulling away.
Natalie nodded, moving away reluctantly. “Yes. Of course. Answer your phone. It could be important.”
Adele reached for the phone and looked a little surprised at the name that flashed on the screen. “Al?” A pause. “What? An hour? Okay. Okay.” She hung up.
“What’s wrong?”
“They’ve moved up Crisco’s arraignment to this afternoon.” She glanced at her watch. “C’mon. We have to go.”
* * *
Adele sat in the back of the courtroom with Natalie as Crisco and his attorney, a public defender she’d seen many times, took the very front seats of the small courtroom. Crisco’s entire face was black and blue, and he limped as he walked. She didn’t expect his arm to be in a sling, but it was. His poorly cut hair had been slicked back, and his face was clean-shaven for the first time in what was probably years. He was wearing pants that were too long and a much-used tan blazer that Adele recognized as one his defense attorney routinely loaned out to his clients.
Adele prayed Crisco wouldn’t find her in the back of the courtroom. She didn’t think she could sit there quietly if he so much as glanced in her direction.
The lack of windows, a security precaution, left the room poorly lit. It smelled like sweat and was so dusty that Adele had to wrinkle her nose to keep from sneezing. “Are you good?” she asked Natalie out of the side of her mouth, her volume low.
Natalie’s eyes were glued on Crisco. “I just want this to be over.”
“Me too.”
“That’s who killed Josh.” Natalie gestured at Crisco with her chin. It wasn’t a question.
Adele nodded.
Natalie stared at Crisco, intense anger written on her every feature.
In fact, Adele figured if looks could kill, Crisco would be a smoldering pile of ashes right now.
“I thought he’d look more like a murderer. Instead, he just looks like a sad, beat-up old man.”
Adele’s attention was drawn to the prosecutor as she took her seat.
Before the judge could bang the gavel to open the proceeding, Landry snuck in the back of the room and took a seat on the opposite side of where Adele and Natalie sat. His blue suit jacket was stretched tight across his back as he leaned forward, elbows on knees, his necktie hanging loosely in front of him.
Across the courtroom, their eyes met and held and Adele saw anger and pain and love all wrapped up together in a terrible package.
He was the first one to look away.
The preliminaries only took a few minutes. Before Adele knew it, her pulse began to pound, and the judge asked, “And in the matter of the State versus Otis Etienne, how does the defendant plead?”
A quiet hush came over the courtroom. Crisco’s mumbled voice broke the silence, loud and strong. “Not guilty.”
Adele’s jaw sagged. She heard Landry’s “Oh, shit,” from across the room.
“What happened?” Natalie asked, confused. “Why would he do that?”
Adele didn’t bother to stay to listen to the judge deny Crisco bail, instead she bolted out of the courtroom after Landry who had stormed off the second the words “not guilty” left Crisco’s mouth.
The hallway outside the courtroom was busy with men and women with briefcases hurrying about and uniformed cops coming and going. But her husband was nowhere in sight. Adele fought the urge to burst into tears. Everything was falling apart. Now it wouldn’t be enough to keep quiet about Crisco’s beating. She couldn’t just stay quiet. Unless Crisco got a plea, she’d have to lie on the stand.
She wrapped an arm around her stomach, glad she’d missed lunch.
“Ella?” Natalie appeared behind her, flustered and perplexed. “Where’d you go? What happened in there?”
Adele held in her sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ditch you. I wanted to catch Landry.”
Natalie frowned and did a quick scan for the homicide detective. “He looked upset.”
That was an understatement. Landry looked homicidal. “We all thought Crisco would plead guilty, Landry included. Crisco might just be trying to work out a better plea bargain with the prosecutor, probably to take the death penalty off the table. But he might actually want to take his case to trial.”
“Trial?” Natalie’s face fell. “That could take months, couldn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t stay here that long.”
“I know.” Adele continued to look around, hoping to catch sight of her husband’s head above the others. “Look, I need…I have to find Landry and then get Logan. I want to talk to the prosecutor too.” She gave Natalie a sympathetic look.
Natalie swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay, well, I have to arrange to take Josh home, so I’ll go do
that.”
Adele could feel her panic building. She raked a hand through her hair. “Then take care of that now. I’ll meet you back at my house, okay. Then we can go get something to eat and talk about all of this.”
“I’m not—”
“Me neither. But we have to eat eventually. Take my car.” She began digging through her purse for her keys but Natalie stopped her by laying her hands over Adele’s.
“I’ll just take a cab. You can text me the address?”
“Of course.” Adele frowned. “I would go with you if I could, you know. To help you so you wouldn’t have to go back there alone. But—”
Natalie squeezed Adele’s hands and then lifted her chin and took a step back. “You’ve done nothing but help me for days. Please do what you need to do and I’ll see you later.”
Adele nodded, grateful. “Thank you.”
“Ella?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s going to be okay. Crisco did it. He confessed. Like you said, he’s probably just dragging things out now to get a better deal. I’m not exactly surprised that a killer isn’t interested in making things easier for anyone but himself.”
Nothing about this was easy. “You’re probably right.”
* * *
The next morning, Natalie finished blow-drying her hair and drew a brush through it enough times to bring it back to its usual order. Adele hadn’t met her for dinner the night before. In fact, when the clock had struck nine p.m. in Adele’s living room, Natalie finished purchasing her airline ticket online and went to bed. The house felt bigger, the silence more ominous when she was there alone, and she realized that it was the detective’s presence that made it feel homey.
While she felt a bit out of sorts in Adele’s home without her, Natalie had also been exhausted again and welcomed the chance for an early bedtime. Even though her mind was crying out for rest, thoughts of Josh, her mother’s tears, and musty courtrooms plagued her sleep.
With a frown, Natalie wondered whether she’d see Adele again today before she had to fly home. Her heart ached a little at the thought that she might not. She owed her so much and Adele had been so kind.
A Dark Horse Page 10