River Road

by JoAnn Ross

  Puzzled how a photograph taken only a few hours ago could have gotten through the mail system so fast, Julia turned the envelope over. The blood drained from her head when she saw that it hadn't been postmarked.

  Which meant the photographer had been at her house. Even worse, since the scene where Vanessa shot Amanda had been the final one of the day, if Graham hadn't held her up at the studio, she might have arrived home just as the photographer had been putting it through her mail slot.

  She leaped to her feet. She scanned the beach, searching for . . . whom?

  Several months ago, shortly after the beginning of the year, she'd begun receiving a flurry of letters from someone who declared himself her number-one fan. While they hadn't overtly threatened her, they'd become more and more possessive sounding. Enough that she'd begun to lose sleep, waiting for what, she hadn't really known. Which was what made the entire experience so unsettling.

  Then, for some unfathomable reason, they'd suddenly stopped. Now, it looked like the letter writer was back.

  There was a loud knock at her front door. Julia jumped and dropped her wine glass, which shattered into crystalline shards as it hit the stone patio.

  Chapter 4

  Twenty hours and innumerable gallons of coffee after leaving D.C., Finn passed the blue and white sign welcoming visitors to Blue Bayou, Louisiana. Though the town and its people had changed dramatically since antebellum days, some things remained the same: according to the sign, the Rotary still met at Cajun Cal's Country Cafe on Wednesday evenings and the Daughters of the Confederacy at the Blue Bayou museum and bookstore on Saturday mornings.

  Gaslights still glowed along oak-lined, cobble stoned Gramercy Boulevard, the planters edging the brick sidewalk overflowed with early fall color, and at one end of the lushly green town square, the twin Gothic spires of the Church of the Holy Assumption lanced high into the sky. At the other end of the square a majestic Italianate courthouse boasted tall stone steps, gracefully arched windows, and lacy cast-iron pilasters. The courthouse had served as a hospital during the War Between the States, and if one knew where to look, it was possible to find minie balls still lodged in the woodwork. A red, white, and blue Acadian flag waved beneath the U.S. and state flags on a towering pole in front of the courthouse, and a bronze statue of one of Finn's ancestors, war hero Captain Jackson Callahan, graced the lawn.

  What had once been reported to be the largest flag in the state snapped in the breeze in front of the weathered, gray American Legion building, where military men had been shooting pool, sucking suds, and avoiding talking about the battles they'd fought since the War of 1812. Back when he'd been alive, Finn's father, Big Jake Callahan, had marched as flag bearer with the veterans in the annual Fourth of July parade.

  Marching behind the honor guard in his Boy Scout uniform, Finn had watched his father with a young boy's pride and wondered how he'd ever measure up. Years later, there were still times when he secretly worried about that.

  He turned the corner onto Royal Street, which boasted one of the state's best rows of single-story antebellum offices, and pulled the Suburban up to the curb in front of the office with Callahan Construction written on the window in black script. Below that, in a smaller font, was Nate Callahan, mayor.

  Finn wasn't surprised his youngest brother had grown up to be a politician. Nate had, after all, been blessed with his maman's good looks and his daddy's gregariousness. The combination had helped him win the award for selling the most Scoutarama tickets year after year.

  Nor was it surprising he'd become a contractor. Back when they'd been kids, while his older big brothers were playing cops and robbers and having quick draw shootouts with cap pistols, Nate had been dragging home old boards he'd unearthed in the swamp, to build the jail.

  Finn opened the door and walked inside.

  "Well, look what the cat dragged in." A blonde wearing a pink-and-white striped spandex top looked up from painting her fingernails. "Hey, Finn. We didn't expect you back home so soon."

  "I didn't expect to be back." He glanced into the adjoining office, which was empty. "Where's the tycoon?"

  "Tycoon." She snorted. "That'll be the day. Your baby brother has always had this really warped idea that it's more important to be happy than rich."

  Lorelei Fairchild and Nate had gone steady for a couple months back in high school; she'd strutted around in a sequined red, white and blue uniform and tasseled white boots, tossing her baton up in the air while his brother threw passes for the Blue Bayou Buccaneers football team.

  She blew on her wet, glossy nails, then waggled them at him. "What do you think? It's Passionate Pink."

  "It's sure bright enough." The color was like bubble gum blended into Pepto Bismol, but even Finn, who'd never claimed to understand the female mind, figured that wasn't the answer Lorelei was looking for.

  She held her hand out at arm's length to observe it herself. "It is, isn't it?"

  "Is Nate around?"

  "Sorry, sugar, you just missed him. He's off gettin' some old bricks to use out at Beau Soleil before all those people descend on the house."

  "I thought Jack and Dani were off on a belated honeymoon."

  "Oh, they surely are. Jack finished his book and sent it off to New York City last week. So, as we speak, the newlyweds are in Hawaii, basking in the sun, lounging around on the beach, drinking mai tais and eating passion fruit." She sighed with dramatic envy and gazed out the window into the gathering darkness, as if imagining herself lying on some coral tropical beach.

  "Why would people be coming to Beau Soleil if Jack and Dani aren't there?" His brother had spent the past several months restoring the magnificent Greek Revival mansion that had once belonged to Danielle Dupree's family.

  "They're from Hollywood."

  "So?"

  "Didn't Jack tell you?"

  "If he had, I wouldn't be asking, would I?"

  Finn resisted the urge to grind his back molars. On the rare occasion he'd returned home over the years, he'd noticed with regretful nostalgia that the belles who'd wrapped themselves in clouds of floral femininity while flattering and flirting weren't nearly as common as they'd been when he'd been growing up. A clever belle could charm a man around her manicured little finger, but trying to carry on a conversation with this female named for a mythical siren was flat out exhausting.

  Her peppermint pink lips, perfectly matched to her fingernails, which in turn matched the stripes in her top, curved upward, revealing sparkling white beauty queen teeth. "Remember when Jack's first book, The Death Dealer, was made into a movie?"

  "Sure." He also remembered Jack and the production company had taken some hits for violence for that one.

  "Well, seems he made friends with this Hollywood director who needs a plantation house for location shooting here in Louisiana, and since Beau Soleil's vacant, what with him and Dani in Kauai, and Holly and little Matt staying with Orelia . . . he's such a darling little boy, isn't he? And Holly is just the sweetest thing."

  "They're both great kids. Jack and Dani are lucky to have them." Finn figured Tolstoy could have written War and Peace in the time it was taking Lorelei to get around to letting him know where his other brother was. "So this Hollywood guy is filming a television show at Beau Soleil?"

  "He surely is. And it's none other than River Road. Mama and I were just tickled pink when we heard that, because it's our very favorite show. Why, we've never missed an episode. In fact, we have ourselves a bet about whose baby Amanda's carrying. I think it's Saxon's, which makes the most sense since he's her fiance, but Mama insists she got pregnant the night her Jag broke down and she had to walk to that roadhouse to call for a tow truck, and ended up makin' love on the pool table with the sexy bartender after the place closed. Winner has to buy the other lunch at the Neiman Marcus Cafe in New Orleans."

  She paused for a breath and eyed him speculatively. "You're a detective. Which do you think? I've lost the last three bets and I'd dearly love for Mama to ha
ve to be the one to spring for the chicken salad this time."

  "Sorry. I can't help you since I've never heard of the show."

  Morning glory blue eyes widened. "Gracious, darlin', where on earth have you been? Why, I thought everyone and their dog watched River Road. It does, after all, have international distribution. TV Guide says it's a huge hit in France and Japan."

  "I've been a little busy." Tracking down a stone cold killer,

  "Well, it's only been the hottest thing on television for the past five years. Shane Langley is even prettier than Brad Pitt. He plays the ne'er-do-well Southern rogue, Jared Jefferson Lee, who married Vanessa this season. Comfort Cottage Tea's been in her family forever. Her daddy—who's also Amanda's daddy—died when he keeled over while playing tennis at his club. Some say he was murdered, which I suspect is going to be another story line next season. Or maybe they killed him off because Keith Peters, the actor who played him, didn't get his contract renewed.

  "Jared married Vanessa for her money. He used to be a lawyer, but lost his license to practice after he got caught embezzling funds from one of his clients to pay his gambling debts. Of course, he doesn't really love Vanessa, and started sniffing after her half sister Amanda ever since they met at their wedding—Vanessa's and Jared's, not Jared's and Amanda's—so I think they're going to have an affair.

  "Which is really a good plot twist since, like I said, Amanda's showing signs that she's pregnant. She's engaged to Saxon Elliott, the town doctor, and he's a sweetheart, but he just isn't hunk material like Jared. Why, every time that man walks into a room, my heart just goes pitterpat." She tapped her fingers against her perky breasts.

  "Havin' them all here is going to be the most exciting thing Blue Bayou's ever experienced. Mercy, everyone has just worked themselves into an absolute tizzy over it."

  The idea of the entire town of Blue Bayou worked into a tizzy was too much even for an FBI Special Agent to contemplate. Maybe he'd just lay in some groceries and hunker down out in the swamp until the Hollywood crew packed up and returned to Tinsel town.

  "They're hiring local people to be extras," she continued breathlessly. "Mama and I are going to the tryouts. Mama's got herself a new hat that she's sure will help her get selected, but bless her heart, of course I'd never tell her to her face, but all those feathers make it look like a giant canary molted all over her head. I don't think that's exactly the look those TV people are going for.

  "I'm hoping to get picked for one of the fancy dress ball scenes, but I can't decide whether I should wear my Miss Crawfish Days tiara, or the one I won for being crowned Sweetheart of the Shrimp Fleet last year. The crawfish one is taller and more ornate, but I am partial to the Shrimp sweetheart because it's more sparkly. Mama's lobbying for the Sweet Potato Princess crown. Which do you think I should choose?"

  Finn was so in over his head here. "I haven't any idea." Inspiration struck. "What did Nate say?" If there was ever a man who knew the right thing to say to a woman, it was his baby brother.

  "He suggested I go with the one that gave me the most confidence."

  "Sounds good to me. And Nate is where?"

  "Oh, didn't I tell you? Why, he's down in Houma."

  "When do you expect him back?"

  She shrugged. "Not for a couple days."

  "Do you know where he's staying?"

  Her pink lips turned down. "Sorry, hon."

  "That's okay. Just give me his cell phone number."

  "Sure." She glanced at a Post-it stuck on the monitor of her computer. As she read off the number, Finn wrote it down in the notebook he used for investigative notes. "But it's not going to do you any good to call."

  "Why not?"

  "Because he never turns it on. It frustrates folks no end, but he says if he turned it on, then people would call him."

  Hell. That definitely sounded like his laid-back baby brother. "I don't suppose he happens to keep the keys to the camp here at the office?"

  "You're in luck, sugar; there's an extra set in the top drawer of his desk."

  She tilted her teased cloud of pastel blond hair toward the adjoining office. "I'd get them for you, but"— she wagged her pink-tipped fingers at him again—"my nails are wet."

  ***

  Pressing a palm against her jack hammering heart, Julia went back inside the bungalow to answer the front door, locking the patio door behind her. Her breath escaped in a relieved whoosh as she viewed the familiar face on the other side of the peephole.

  "Warren!" She flung open the door. "Come in! What a lovely surprise. Would you like some wine? I have a bottle of Chardonnay from that Sonoma Valley winery where we filmed the scene where Amanda pushed her grown stepdaughter into a vat of grapes."

  "I'd better not. I noticed this morning that I was looking a bit jaundiced, so I'm staying clear of alcohol until I can get a blood test to check for liver damage."

  River Road's head writer was a card-carrying hypochondriac. Since his various life-threatening illnesses never impacted his work, everyone took his little neurosis in stride.

  He'd been pitching film ideas to her for months, and been turned down each time, so he now seemed a bit puzzled by her enthusiasm. But apparently living by the carpe diem bumper sticker he'd stuck onto the lid of his laptop, he decided to seize the moment.

  "I really believe I've come up with the perfect vehicle for you this time, Julia. I hoped you might get a chance to read it on the flight to Louisiana,"

  "Isn't that a good idea," she enthused, as if he'd just informed her he'd written both the Declaration of Independence and The Great Gatsbysince she'd seen him last. Taking his arm, she pulled him into the bungalow, closed the door behind him, and double locked it. "I'm dying to hear all about it!"

  She flashed him her most delicious smile and hoped that this script would be a departure from, his usual ideas, which invariably had her playing an exaggerated version of her River Road vixen role.

  "I think you'll like it. I've been thinking a lot about what you said, about my last story being too over the top."

  "Oh, I didn't mean that in a bad way. Why, I'm sure an actress with a wider range could have handled it wonderfully." She patted his arm. "I just didn't believe I had the range to play a bisexual prostitute serial killer possessed by Satan."

  "You would have been terrific," he insisted again. "But I decided your suggestion of playing against your soap image was a good idea. So I went back to the drawing board and came up with this cool woman-in-jeopardy script."

  "A woman in jeopardy?" Sirens sounded in her head as he held the slender stack of bound papers toward her.

  "Yeah." He grinned his pleasure at having come up with a new story he thought she'd accept. "In this one you're a movie star being stalked by a crazy guy who's confused your movie roles with real life and keeps sending you threatening letters."

  "A stalker?" This was not amusing.

  "He's an obsessive fan." Since she still hadn't taken the script from him, he turned to the first page. "It opens with the actress opening a letter and finding a photograph of herself in the shower."

  It wasn't exactly the same as the "dead Amanda" shot, but close enough. Even as she told herself that she was over dramatizing a coincidence, Julia tightened her fingers around the dead bolt key, the way she'd learned in her self-defense class, and tried to convince herself that she'd have no compunction gouging Warren Hyatt's smiling blue eyes out to save her life.

  Chapter 5

  The sight of the weather-bleached cypress camp—built planters' style, on stilts—stirred long-forgotten memories. His father teaching him to check the traps, an uncle teaching him to cook, hanging out here with his brothers back in their teens, drooling over a stack of Playboy magazines and arguing whether they'd rather be stranded on a desert island with the pretty, peaches-and-cream sorority girls of the SEC, or the PAC 10's sun-gilded beach bunnies.

  There were also memories not as sweet. Like sneaking out here the night before his father's funeral and get
ting tanked on the bottle of Jack Daniel's he'd filched from the bottom drawer of the oak desk in the sheriffs office.

  Big Jake Callahan had kept the unopened bottle in the drawer as a reminder of his wild past and a daily test of the vow he'd made to quit drinking the day he'd proposed to Finn's mother.

  The Jack Black was the first and only thing Finn had ever stolen in his life, and guilt had roiled in his gut along with the whiskey, sorrow, and most of all fear of how he, now the eldest Callahan male in the family, could even think of filling his father's size thirteen boots.

  Finn pulled up next to the screened porch. Because of the constant conflict between water and land in this part of the country, there were times when the only way to the camp was by boat. Now there was a narrow, twisting road that Nate had recently graveled. Of course, one good storm and the road would turn right back into a waterway.

  He unearthed the Spic and Span and spent the first thirty minutes cleaning the refrigerator, tossing out all the green mystery items he figured had been left behind after the bachelor party Jack had thrown for a friend a couple months ago. He put away the groceries he'd bought at the Cajun Market, where everyone had been eager to tell him all about the Hollywood people coming to town. Apparently Lorelei hadn't been exaggerating when she'd said folks were in a tizzy.

  Next he unpacked. Swept the floor. Changed the sheets on the moss-stuffed mattress, then poured some vinegar into a pan and used the classified section of The Times-Picayune to wash the windows.

  Finally running out of domestic chores, he pulled the tab on a can of RC Cola, went out onto the porch, propped his feet up on the railing, and settled down to watch the lightning bugs. Cicadas were singing their high-pitched night song; bullfrogs croaked a bass accompaniment.

  "So," Finn said as night descended over the bayou, "what the hell am I going to do for the next three weeks and six days?"

  ***

  Warren appeared nearly as upset by the photograph as Julia.