Mostly Murder

by Linda Ladd

  Claire took umbrage to his remark. “Whoa, Black, no need to be rude. I’m the rude one, remember? Maybe Jack and I aren’t done talking, ever think of that?” Claire gave him a long, dead-eyed stare, apparently so as to reveal her true feelings about what she thought he’d done. Unfortunately, she still looked damn good to him, so good, in fact, that he could barely keep his hands off her. He’d been gone too long this time.

  Claire turned back to Jack. “Okay, go ahead and tell me what you came down here to tell me, Mr. Holliday, and tell me now, if it’s really pertinent. What about Madonna’s gifts? Black can hear this, I guess. After all, the two of you attend secret birthday parties at the Ritz together.”

  Nick gave her a sour look. Holliday was quick to respond. “I’ve still got some of those presents. Most of it, Wendy returned to her for me.”

  Now that’s pretty good news, Black thought. For Holliday’s case, at least.

  Claire said, “Did you bring them with you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, why not?”

  “They’re out at my river house.”

  “Oh, but of course, they are. You rich guys, you just slay me. Tell you what. Bring them down to the Lafourche Sheriff ’s Office as soon as possible and don’t come looking for me again. You’ve got my number if you want to add something to your statement.”

  Nick said, “And you’re calling me rude, Claire? Listen, Jack, don’t take offense. She’s like this with everybody.”

  Before Claire could retort to that unkind remark, Nancy joined their happy little soiree, looking pretty damn sober herself. “Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to you, Claire.”

  “Black, you wanna let me out?”

  He didn’t want to, but he obliged and stood politely while she exited the booth. Claire hurried after Nancy into a back hallway and out of sight. Then he sat back down. He and Jack needed to have a little chat or Jack just might end up behind bars before the night was over.

  “Okay, Jack, listen good. Don’t mess around with Claire while she’s working your case. I found that out firsthand and the hard way, not so long ago. I know you didn’t do this, but she doesn’t know it yet. She’ll think you’re trying to play her, believe me.”

  “Yeah, I’m beginning to see that. She’s something else, isn’t she?”

  “She’s good at what she does. Remember that. You were with us, and you can prove it. Back away and let her prove it to herself, and you’ll be free and clear.”

  “She’s just so—man, she’s just so …”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m a lucky man, but she’s annoyed with me at the moment so why don’t you clear out, and let us patch things up.”

  Jack nodded, and they both looked at Claire when she arrived back at the table. She didn’t waste words.

  “Mr. Holliday, I just received word that Madonna Christien was pregnant when she died. Are you willing to come in to our office in Lafourche Parish and take a paternity test?”

  First off, Holliday just looked stunned. Nick decided that he was going to have to coach Jack on better veiling his reactions, especially around Claire.

  Nick said, “Call your lawyer, Jack. Now. You should never have come down here without him. She’s like a dog with a bone when she’s after somebody.”

  Claire didn’t retort. Hell, she probably liked that description.

  Holliday ignored Nick and said to Claire, “Absolutely, I’ll take that test. I never touched Madonna that way. Never. Not once. I’ll take the test right now, this minute, if you want. Just say the word.”

  Now that sounded like the protestations of an innocent man. Nick felt relieved, too, and vindicated.

  Claire said, “We appreciate your cooperation, but going in for the test tonight is unnecessary. Would it be possible for you to come in sometime during the next few days?”

  “Just give me the date and the time. I’ll take a polygraph test while I’m there, too. Just set it up, and fingerprints, or anything else you want me to do. I didn’t hurt that girl, I swear to God, I didn’t.”

  “Black’s right, you better ask that slick lawyer if he’s copacetic with all this stuff you’re offering up to us, Mr. Holliday. I predict he’ll put the brakes on it quickly enough.”

  “He’ll do what I tell him to do.”

  “Then we’ll see you then, Mr. Holliday. Thanks for bringing me the DVD. Maybe you can bring those gifts from Madonna Christien with you when you drive down to Thibodaux for those tests.”

  “I’ll do that, Detective. Thanks for your time. Nick, take it easy. I’ll see you later.”

  Jack Holliday got up in a hurry and headed for the exit, getting the hell out of Dodge before the fireworks began, no doubt.

  Nick looked up at Claire. “Have a seat, Claire. We need to talk this out, don’t you think?”

  Claire didn’t particularly like Black’s bossy behavior, but she sat down across from him. Truth was, she was pretty damn glad to see him back in New Orleans, safe and sound. And did he ever look good tonight, like some kind of male model, a big, tough, angry one, maybe, with ice-blue eyes and thick black hair and sexy-to-the-max dimples. He had on a red pullover sweater under a black leather jacket, and dark jeans. He was probably the best-looking man she’d ever seen. Too bad he was a liar.

  “How did you even know I was here?”

  “Zee told me. He also told me that a voodoo doll at the crime scene had your face on it. I guess you forgot to mention that to me, right?”

  “Zee’s got a big mouth tonight. I’m gonna have to talk to him about keeping the facts of our case confidential to non-law-enforcement people.”

  They stared at each other until Black sighed, and then he said, “Look, I don’t like it when we fight. And I don’t like it when you don’t let me know where you are.”

  “Oh, my God, are you kidding me? Now you want to keep tabs on me? Okay. Well, I guess I’m in London with you.”

  “You’ve been refusing my calls. Don’t you think that’s a little childish?”

  “Maybe. So what?”

  “So I don’t like it.”

  “You’re supposed to like everything I do? Sometimes things happen that I don’t like, either. Deal with it.”

  Black blew out a frustrated breath, frowned darkly, and watched the band for a few seconds. Claire watched them, too. She and Black hadn’t had an argument in a long time, but Black wasn’t a man who groveled for forgiveness so she didn’t expect that to happen. Not in the kind of mood he was exhibiting at the moment. And what was with that? He was the one who had lied to her, not the other way around.

  “I missed you, Claire. A lot.”

  “Really? All the fun times and parties at the Ritz didn’t help you cope?”

  “I go to cocktail parties all the time when I’m out of town on business. You’ve never minded before.”

  “You never lied about it before. Not that I know of, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the exact truth, Claire. I should have.”

  The exact truth? What the devil did that mean? But he had offered an apology, sort of, and Claire appreciated it, sort of, but he wasn’t getting off that easy. “Tell me why you felt the need to lie to me. I’ve never tried to put you on a leash, and you know it.”

  Now Black began to look a mite uncomfortable. He shifted in the booth, picked up a menu but didn’t open it. “I can’t tell you right now. But there’s a very good reason.”

  Claire could not believe her ears. “Know what, Black? I’ve got a very good reason not to want to be with you tonight, too. Think I’ll just take this DVD, pop me some popcorn, and see what kind of parties you throw when I’m not invited.”

  “There’s something else you need to know before you watch that video.”

  Oh, God, what now? He did not look like he wanted to tell her, whatever it was. “Yeah? So hit me with it.”

  Black usually didn’t say anything he didn’t want to say. He was pretty strong willed himself. But he had nursed her
back to health and hovered over her bed for three long weeks when she had been in a coma and ever since, too, so Claire was usually willing to let a lot of things slide. This time he was being secretive, which was unusual and made her curious, more than anything else.

  “Are you in trouble, Black? Rob a bank, wake up with a dead hooker in your bed, something along those lines?”

  “Very funny.” Finally, he came out with it. “Just so you know, Jude was at that party in New York.”

  At first, Claire could only stare at him. “Jude, your ex-wife and famous supermodel?”

  “Come on, Claire.”

  “Come on, Black.” Now that was frosting on the disgruntled cake, to be sure. Not only was Jude gorgeous and sexy, she still acted like she was in love with Black and didn’t mind anybody knowing it.

  “She needed to talk to me about some personal problems, and I couldn’t fit her into my schedule so I invited her to have dinner with us. It was as innocent as that.”

  “You are just such a prince among men. No wonder she married you.”

  Black had now reverted to his unruffled shrink-composed self. Mr. Sangfroid Personified. “You’re being unreasonable. It was nothing. You know good and well that it’s over between Jude and me. It was over for years before I even met you. We’re old friends now. That’s it.”

  “Tell you what, Black. I’ll be reasonable after I watch this video and see what went on at that party.”

  “Fine. And then you’ll see that nothing happened.” Small silence. “Okay, Claire, what if I told you I was working on a special Christmas surprise for you while I was in New York?”

  “I’d say that sounds pretty damn fishy, and that I don’t like surprises and you know it.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “And what do I think?”

  “That I was with another woman. Or Jude.”

  “You were with Jude.”

  “We were with a group of friends, and it was purely professional. She just wanted to talk to me about a personal problem. As psychiatrist and patient.”

  “What about?” Oh, man, she was beginning to sound jealous and petty and that was the last thing she ever wanted to be or wanted him to think. Maybe she was, though. A little.

  “Her thirteen-year-old stepson’s into drugs and she doesn’t know what to do.”

  “Okay. That’s a problem, all right. I can believe that.”

  Black studied her face and looked skeptical. “So everything’s all right between us now?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “What would you say?”

  “I’d say that if you lie to me and keep secrets, then you can’t complain if I do it to you, too. Starting now.”

  “Now wait just a minute, Claire. What secrets are you keeping from me?”

  “Seriously, Black? Seriously?”

  He stopped, looked annoyed, and then just resigned. All anger fading away, just like that. “I missed the hell out of you, babe. I just want to go home and make love to you. We can talk about this there where we have some privacy. I’m tired. It was a long flight, and I spent the whole time worrying about you.”

  “Go on ahead. I’ll catch you later. I promised Nancy I’d hang with her and have some dinner, and I don’t want to disappoint her.”

  Black’s jaw tightened and a muscle worked in his cheek, giving away his true feelings, but he nodded. He was not going to beg, and he wasn’t usually overly controlling, either. “Okay. I’ll see you at home in a little while. Don’t forget to show up. If I’m asleep, wake me up.”

  Claire watched him thread his way through the tables and disappear out the door and began to feel fairly down in the dumps herself. They rarely had cross words, much less a fight. She didn’t like it any more than he did. But he certainly hadn’t given her a good reason for lying about where he’d been. It made her wonder how often he had been off having good times with his friends when he’d told her he was working. She sighed, and then headed to the bar and Nancy. She’d have a good time with her friend, too, damn it, or die trying.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After a fantastic dinner of a fried-shrimp-and-mayonnaise po’boy and Cajun cheese fries and a Pepsi and some fun with Nancy Gill, Claire decided to bid her friend farewell and drive back over to Lafourche Parish. She had something important she had to do there, and she wanted to take a look at Holliday’s video before she went home to Black. The roads were dark and relatively free of traffic, and once she reached the bayou crime scene, she drove straight past the house, still surrounded by crime scene tape, her headlights spearing the black velvet night. She turned off the engine and sat there alone in the dark, listening to the tick of the cooling motor. She thought about the brutal murder that had gone down and the abused body found just up the hill and felt an urge to turn the car around and go home posthaste. But she couldn’t, not quite yet, so she got out. She smelled the cigarette smoke first, and then she saw the shadow move across the aft deck. Her nine-millimeter was in her hand instantly, and she went down behind the car door and held it on the dark figure moving around on the boat.

  “Who’s there? Don’t move, you hear me? Don’t move a muscle! I’ve got a gun on you.”

  “Claire! Don’t shoot. It’s me, Ron Saucier.”

  Claire recognized his voice, so she re-holstered her weapon and walked quickly to the lamppost that housed the covered outside light switches. She flipped all of them on, and the boat was flooded with light.

  Ron Saucier still stood on the aft deck, not far from her, a lit cigarette in his left hand. He had a rifle in his right fist, pointed down at the ground. What the hell was he doing on the boat?

  He didn’t give her time to inquire. “Sorry if I scared you. I was out fishin’ and came by here. I just pulled in to check out the place and see if you were still stayin’ out here alone. There’s a night light on inside, and I just wanted to check, that’s all. You know, just to make sure you were okay.”

  “Didn’t you see my car wasn’t here?”

  “Yeah, but I just wanted to be sure. Honestly? That voodoo scene up there in that house pretty much freaked me out. So I decided to sit down here in the dark and watch the crime scene. Thought maybe the killer might come back and revisit the place once the police were gone. They do that sometimes.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. I guess you haven’t seen anything?”

  “No. I’m really sorry if I scared you, though,” he said again. “I didn’t know it was you. Too dark, and I didn’t want to give away my position.”

  “That’s okay. Thanks for checking on me. I appreciate it.”

  “So why are you out here? Anything wrong?”

  Claire didn’t want to tell him the truth, a little embarrassed about her spat with Black, so she only said, “I guess we’re thinking on the same wavelength. I wanted to check the place out.”

  “Yeah. It’s really creepy down here in the dark. The floodlights make it better.”

  An uncomfortable silence ensued as he made his way down the narrow, roped gangplank, still holding the rifle. Claire decided to be gracious. After all, the guy had gone to the trouble of checking on her. “Want a beer, or something, before you go?”

  “Nah, I need to get home. It’s late. You’re not stayin’ out here tonight, are you?”

  “Oh, no, I’ll hang around a while, then I’m heading home.”

  “Okay, see you tomorrow at the office.”

  She watched him climb into his boat. It was a big brown-and-gold bass boat with a built-up seat in back, a nice one that looked fairly new. He got the motor started, gave her a quick air salute, and took off. Saucier was truly a weird dude, to be sure, she had to admit. Pretty nice, too, but definitely on the peculiar side.

  When he faded into the darkness, headed downstream to his own place, she climbed the gangplank and looked around for anything out of place. After all, and despite his story about worrying about her, she didn’t know Ron Saucier all that well. But the houseboat looked no
different from the last time she’d spent the night there. She shivered in the cool air, thinking about what had been done to Madonna Christien’s body. She drew her weapon again and thoroughly checked out the boat, turning on overhead lights in every room, but found nothing disturbed. Satisfied, she slipped out of her faded denim jacket, walked to the DVD player, and slid in the disc. It came on as she collapsed in the worn brown recliner facing the television, with the sound of multiple male voices, loud and boisterous in overlapping conversations. Then there they all were, with smiles and toasts and laughter and great good cheer. About fifteen or twenty people sat around a formal dining room table set with lots of crystal goblets and fancy gold-rimmed plates and one giant silver candelabra sitting in the middle of the table and burning with a multitude of white tapers. Male hotel waiters in starched white shirts and black vests hovered around unobtrusively, topping off wineglasses and serving delicious-looking food.

  Wow. Black knew how to throw a birthday party sans her, all right. But, hey, this was how rich shrinks and famous sports agents celebrated stuff. Hell, just the other day their department had Zee’s birthday party down at the office with red Solo cups and a sheet cake Nancy had picked up at Winn-Dixie. Nope, and there hadn’t been any candelabras on his desk, either. In fact, there hadn’t been any candles at all. Claire had forgotten to buy them. But the cake had been milk chocolate with fudge icing and sugar sprinkles and had probably tasted just as good as the three-tiered, magnificent white cake with Holliday’s name on it sitting on the buffet. Jack’s cake was decorated with fleurs-de-lis, too. In fact, there were lots of fleurs-de-lis decorating the table. Tulane graduates, all, and through and through.

  On the screen, the hijinks commenced, a good time being had by all, it seemed. Bone tired all of a sudden, Claire kicked back the footrest and watched her honeybun have a spanking good time with all his friends. It was turning out to be a friendly, good-natured roast, with lots of teasing about Sigma Chi and all their wild shenanigans in their college days. They even mentioned the night in jail during Mardi Gras so they were probably telling the truth and not exaggerating everything.