by K. C. Sivils
MURDER ON A SATURDAY NIGHT
A James Benoit Heatley Crime Thriller
K.C. Sivils
KATY, TEXAS
Copyright © 2021 by K.C. Sivils
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
K.C. Sivils
Katy, Texas 77450
www.kcsivils.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com
Murder on a Saturday Night/ K.C. Sivils. -- 1st ed.
Laissez les bons temps rouler.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NOVELS BY K.C. SIVILS
CHAPTER ONE
Anna Devereaux's hand shook so badly she dropped her phone. So distracted was Devereaux, she didn't notice the phone as it bounced across the expensive, imported tile on her kitchen floor. Then, without consciously thinking about it, she stood up, walked from the breakfast table to the island, and collected her phone from the floor. Devereaux placed both hands on the wood-cutting surface of the island and started crying.
The tears filled her eyes to the brim before making their way down her perfect cheekbones. Unable to proceed further down her face, the tears ran laterally to her equally perfect nose and then sprinted downwards to her lips. She could taste the salt as tears ran over her lips and down her chin before falling to the wood surface below. Once the tears began to escape, she could not hold them back, and soon the dam burst, allowing a flood of emotion to wash out of her in the form of tears. Sobs soon followed and then cries of anguish. Minutes passed, and as suddenly as the outpouring of emotion had started, it stopped.
Anna gathered herself and went to the sink. She ran some cold water into her cupped hands and splashed it on her face. Anna patted her face dry with a clean, dry white dishtowel, ironed to perfection and leaving creases in the cloth's folds. She would wait five minutes and then repair her face skillfully with makeup.
Nobody would ever be the wiser.
Years of practice had allowed the thirty-eight-year-old movie star to develop the skills necessary to hide bruises, puffy eyes from crying, or any other reasonably minor blemish a married mother of two might acquire. Long ago, she’d stopped trying to hide her face from herself. Now she only hid the signs of distress from her two children, and when visiting, her parents and siblings.
Her mind replayed the words of the voice on the phone over and over. Each time, the impossible demand remained the same. Nick had to pay now and pay in full, or else. She'd tried to explain, but the voice wouldn't listen. Instead, it would just repeat the demand and without quoting a dollar figure.
An emotionally spent shell, devoid of any remaining feeling, Devereaux picked up her phone and thumbed the screen. She entered her numeric lock code, pulled up her phone contacts, found the one she wanted, and hit dial.
“Hey, Anna! It’s great here,” a cheerful male voice declared.
“I’m glad you’re having fun,” she retorted.
“Hey,” the voice snapped, the cheerful tone gone. “I needed a break.”
From the back of the house, the sound of a door slamming shut, and the patter of young children's feet could be heard. As the sound of happy children running approached the kitchen, a young girl called out, "mom!"
“He called again,” Devereaux whispered, barely able to control her anger.
“And what do you want me to do about it?”
“What?” Devereaux exclaimed. “I want you to solve this problem. I don’t have any more money and all Mr. Mystery will say is you have to pay!”
“Mom!”
"I have to go," she hissed, ending the phone call. She stood up and walked quickly over to the breakfast window and turned her back to the entrance to the kitchen, hiding her tear-stained face.
Two young girls, one a miniature version of her mother, sporting long, dark hair and a dancer's slender figure, the other a redhead with pale white skin and freckles, came running in the kitchen. Seconds behind was a younger boy with light brown hair and the same complexion as his older sister.
“Mom, can Katie spend the night?”
Anna flinched at the request. "I don't know."
"Mom, please," the miniature version pleaded, whining as only a twelve-year-old girl can.
“Becca, I'm exhausted, and I have a lot of work to do tonight."
Watching the reflection of the crestfallen expression of the two girls just made Anna feel worse. "I told you," the little boy gleefully announced.
"That's enough, Adam," Anna declared, turning to frown at her son. "Katie, do you think your mom would mind if you girls spent the night at your house?”
“That would be cool,” the redhead exclaimed.
"I'll call your mom," Anna told the two girls. "Why don't you go pack an overnight bag, Becca.”
"We can take my new tablet. I downloaded some cool fashion apps," Becca announced. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, the pair vanished.
“It’s not fair,” Adam protested.
"Hush, or you won't get to go to Billy's house," Anna threatened.
Her son’s face brightened, and he used his hand to make the motion of zipping his mouth shut and throwing away the key. Without a word, he vanished as well to go and pack a bag to spend the night with his friend.
Devereaux repeated the process of unlocking her phone and dialing from memory a number she’d found herself calling all too frequently of late.
“Anna, how are things,” asked the cheerful voice of Katie’s mom.
“Terrible,” Devereaux whispered.
“Do I need to come over?”
“No, Paula. But could Becca and Adam spend the night for a couple of nights. I'm going to have to go out of town for a couple of days, and I just can't deal with the kids right now."
“Sure,” her friend replied. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I can’t,” Devereaux replied. “I’m just too drained. I can barely think, and I’ve g
ot to do something, or things are going to come crashing down.”
Silence filled the airwaves between the two phones. "You do what you need to, girl. Take as many days as you need. I'll come over later tonight and get the kid's school stuff in case you don't make it back for Monday."
“Thank you, Paula,” Devereaux whispered, her voice nearly cracking. “I don’t know how I’d ever make it without you.”
Paula bit her tongue and said nothing. She had her own ideas about how to deal with the underlying cause of her friend's current crisis but now was not the time to speak her mind. So instead, she silently promised herself when the current situation calmed down, she was going to sit Anna down and have a long girlfriend-to-girlfriend talk.
Something had to change. Katie was starting to say things about subtle changes in Anna and Becca's behavior, worrying Paula. The children of the two adult women were such close friends they were inseparable. It was this close proximity and emotional bond that drove Paula's decision to intervene.
If something happened to Anna’s children, it could happen to hers.
“You do what you need to,” Paula said a second time. “I’ll keep the kids safe with me.”
CHAPTER TWO
Heat glanced at his rearview mirror, signaled, pulled into the left lane, and accelerated. "Bout time," Boucher complained, glaring at the offending driver of the slower car as they sped past.
“Shut up, Elijah,” Heat ordered. “I’m not getting a ticket.”
“Heat, live a little, we’re goin’ to Death Valley to see the Tigahs play,” Boucher reminded his friend.
“I have Texas plates, we’re on the Atchafalaya Spillway, and you’re sitting in the passenger seat. How much more of a cop magnet do you want? We’ll get to Baton Rouge when we get there. I am not flying through this stretch of I-10.”
Boucher rolled his eyes. “Heat, just let me do the talkin’ if a State Trooper pulls us over.”
“Absolutely not,” Heat snapped. “I’m not winding up in Angola.”
“Angola, why would you end up in Angola?”
"Because knowing you, Elijah, you'll have either tried to seduce his daughter or made a pass at the trooper's wife. So, when we go before the judge, it'll be more of the same, and I'll get put away as an accessory."
"Heat," Boucher protested his right hand over his heart, "that hurts. It was just that one judge, and that was years ago."
Boucher looked out the window, avoiding the nasty look he knew Heat was sending his way. “I seem to recall that’s why you followed me to Houston,” Heat grumbled, turning on the Honda Pilot’s CD player.
“Okay,” Boucher whined. “Drive the speed limit. We just won’t have time to eat po-boys at Good Time’s and see the band come down the hill.”
An uneasy silence fell over the two as the sounds of the Rolling Stones played on Heat's stereo, the clunk, clunk of the Pilot's tires hitting the expansion joints keeping perfect time with the beat of the music. The miles passed quickly, with both men somberly enjoying the sights of the cypress trees and the swamp as they traveled across the causeway. An occasional boat with a lone fisherman could be seen from the bridge, reminding the pair of several summertime misadventures during their college days.
“Thanks for bringing me, Heat. I needed to get away,” Boucher said softly.
Heat didn’t say anything. Talking about things of late just brought up stuff he’d rather not think about. A scumbag human trafficker had murdered his estranged partner, Wolf Pfeiffer, leaving him the sole owner of their detective agency. Between dealing with how he felt about the loss of his friend and partner while they were not on the best terms and the workload it had created for him, Heat was exhausted, emotionally and physically.
His receptionist and researcher, Amy Nguyen, had ordered Heat to take the weekend off and go to the football game, or she was quitting. The look in her eyes spoke volumes of how much Heat was irritating her. Heat decided he knew what was best for him and thanked her for the two tickets.
"Take Elijah with you," Amy had ordered. "He won't leave Blondie alone, and she's not strong enough yet to flirt and leave it at that." Heat had just sat down in his chair when Amy's head made an appearance in the doorway. "And while the two of you are bonding over remembering the wild times of your college days, set Elijah straight about Blondie."
“I will,” Heat promised, letting out a big sigh. Blondie, like Amy, had been forced into sex work by human traffickers. Heat and Wolf had pulled Amy out of the life, cleaned her up, and put the beautiful young Vietnamese American to work. Blondie was another stray Heat had picked up off the streets of Houston. Amy had taken Blondie in as her roommate and developed a protective streak that surprised everyone, most of all Amy.
Convincing his friend, who was a relentless womanizer, to stay away from a woman as attractive as Blondie was going to require both a stern talking to combined with the threat of physical violence. If Boucher failed to heed Heat’s directive in the sensitive matter of respecting boundaries with Blondie, the threat would be carried out without a second thought.
It wouldn’t be the first time either.
The first falling out between the two friends had taken place during spring break during their freshman year at LSU. Boucher had not taken Heat seriously when warned to stay away from a particular co-ed. The result was a thrashing that got Boucher's attention. Unfortunately, the handsome Cajun from New Orleans couldn't seem to help himself.
Neither could the young co-eds, or several married women for that matter. The wealthy, smooth-talking Elijah Boucher was just dangerous enough attractive women couldn't resist him, leading to the second falling out between them. It wasn't that one James Benoit Heatley didn't play the field himself. Rather, he possessed a healthy dose of common sense regarding who to leave alone, something Boucher seemed to lack. Heat had not appreciated the rather rough warning he’d received from a pair of goons that was to be passed along to Boucher.
Upon graduation, the pair had made amends, joined the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Department, and made detective in a few years' time. Then, after a bit of trouble at work, Heat packed up and left, heeding the advice of former newspaperman Horace Greely to an extent, "Go west, young man, go west."
Houston, Texas, was far enough west, or so Heat had thought.
The Houston Police Department was hiring, and Heat managed to land a job as a detective where he was partnered with the man who would become his business partner. When Heat reached his limit with the politics and quit the job, Wolf quit a week later. The pair decided to start their own private investigation firm, and Pfeiffer and Heatley Investigative Services was born.
Boucher, needing to leave Baton Rouge and unable to return to New Orleans at the moment, made the trip on I-10 to Houston and hired on with Houston PD as well. Partnered with a detective by the name of Miguel Garcia, the unlikely pair had the best clearance rate of any two HPD homicide detectives.
The pair’s clearance rate and Garcia's pleading had been the only reason Boucher had been suspended without pay for six months and not fired. Like Heat before him, Garcia had made things clear with his partner regarding where they stood. Garcia would not save Boucher from himself and his endless womanizing again.
Mick Jagger began to lament the lost love of a sweetheart named Angie when the causeway came to an end, and the concrete of I-10 once again had land beneath it. It had been a long time since Heat had left Baton Rouge. He knew Amy was clueless about why he never went home to visit, and not accepting the gift of the two tickets was out of the question, even though she'd bought them with company money and done it to get both him and Boucher out of her hair for the weekend.
Amy had no way of knowing the hurt he’d run from with his flight from Baton Rouge. Heat had turned his back on the pain, vowing to never hurt like that again, and pushed the pain deep inside. At least, that was what Heat told himself. The pain never bubbled up enough to enter his conscious mind, but it had festered, resulting in bitternes
s Heat couldn't quite understand or explain.
“When we get to Port Allen, we need to stop,” Boucher exclaimed.
“No.”
“I gotta pee.”
“No. You’re going to wait until we’ve crossed the New Mississippi River Bridge. You can go when we get to Good Times.”
Boucher sighed and shook his head. “Okay.” He grinned playfully at Heat. “I didn’t like her that much anyway.”
“I thought so.”
“Man, I can just taste those fried pickles, Heat. Think I’m gonna get a pizza instead of a po-boy.”
CHAPTER THREE
Crowds and the smells that came with them appalled him. It wasn't that he didn't like sports. As a youth and during his school days, he'd played football and basketball. He enjoyed watching a good college game as much as any other sports fan. But crowds meant people might touch him without his permission, the mere thought of which caused his skin to crawl. Combined with the smell of greasy food, booze, cigarette smoke, and a general smell of stale everything, crowded sports stadiums were on high his list of things to be avoided.
Death Valley, the home stadium of the Louisiana State University Fightin' Tigers, was an edifice built for the faithful to come and display their loyalty to their beloved team. Former Louisiana Governor Huey P. Long, the Kingfish himself, had once said the most important job in the state, after being governor, was that of head football coach at LSU. So dedicated, in fact, was Long to his beloved Tigers, he played a significant role in obtaining funding for expanding the stadium as well as co-writing its fight songs.
None of this trivia meant a thing to him. He considered research to be essential to his job. The fact he'd collected large amounts of insignificant information didn't bother him. It was far better to leave no stone unturned than to fail to complete an assignment—more than once, his attention to what others considered an insignificant detail had saved him from failure.
Twenty-three steps he’d counted, climbing up to his reserved seat in Section 416 in what old-timers called the South End, Upper Deck. For over an hour, he sat in his seat, ignoring humidity so heavy you could see it in the air while seeming to casually watch as the crowd filtered in. Sweat ran down his back, dampening his shirt. His hair began to stick to his forehead, plastered in place by the same sweat that ran down the bridge of his nose and into his eyes.