White Hot

by Sandra Brown

  “The last thing he said was insulting to the family.” He frowned. “I’m glad Beck came along when he did. No telling what that white trash was up to. Beck called me as soon as he and Sayre parted company. He was following her back to the motel. He watched until she was inside her room. She knew he was following her and probably knew he was talking to me the whole time. He said if looks could kill he’d be dead.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “She told Beck she was spending the night so she could get a fresh start in the morning, but I’m not convinced that’s her only reason. I think she regrets not being around when her family needed her.”

  “You give her more credit than I do,” Chris said. “I don’t think she gives a damn about us.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Beck said she wanted to know about that Iverson mess.”

  “How nice of her to finally get around to asking.”

  He smiled at Chris’s sarcasm. “I think your sister feels guilty for not being here for you when you needed her, and probably for not being here for Danny.”

  “What could dear Sayre have done for him that we didn’t?”

  Standing now in the shadowed hallway, Huff looked at the closed door to Danny’s room. “Nothing, probably. Hell, I never could figure out that boy. I think that losing his mama at such an early age must have taken something out of him that he never got back.”

  Chris laid his hand on Huff’s shoulder. “I hope he’s got it now, Huff. I hope he’s at peace.”

  With that they said good night and went into their respective rooms. Huff, who was rarely even tired, was exhausted tonight. But he didn’t go to bed. He sat in an armchair in front of the wide windows that overlooked the rear lawn and the bayou beyond it.

  The disturbing thoughts he had hoped to leave out on the gallery had returned inside with him, and Chris had contributed to them with the update on the Mary Beth situation. Then there was Sayre. Brimming with malice toward him. Him, her own daddy.

  He didn’t blame Laurel for dying, but she had left him with three children to rear. He’d done what he thought best for all three, but Chris was the only one who’d turned out to his liking.

  Life was complicated. Of course, it beat the alternative.

  Huff didn’t believe in an afterlife. Preachers could say what they wanted about laying up treasures in heaven, but when it was over, it was over. That was all she wrote, mister. Dead was just that—dead. He hadn’t contradicted Chris’s comforting sentiment about Danny’s finding peace, but he didn’t agree with it.

  Danny hadn’t found peace any more than he’d found a host of angels waiting to welcome him at the pearly gates with a star-studded crown and a set of wings. He’d been swallowed into a void. Eternal dark nothingness. That was death.

  That was why you had to make the most of life. The only rewards you got were those you stockpiled for yourself while you were alive. That was why he scraped and clawed and grabbed and did whatever else it took to be the best, the biggest, the baddest. And fuck anybody who condemned his methods. Huff Hoyle answered to no one.

  If his way of life didn’t allow for much tranquillity, fine. There were worse things to live without.

  chapter 9

  Sayre entered the sheriff’s office and approached the reception desk. The uniformed deputy seated behind it grunted an unintelligible reply when she told him good morning. He kept his big feet on the corner of the desk and continued paring his fingernails with a pocketknife.

  “I’m here to see Deputy Wayne Scott.”

  His surly expression remained in place, and if performing the public service he was paid to perform involved removing his feet from the desk, bringing his chair upright, and saving this personal hygiene project for a more appropriate time, he was disinclined and disinterested. “Scott’s out.”

  “Sheriff Harper then.”

  “He’s got a full schedule today.”

  “Is he here or not?”

  “He’s here, but you—”

  She sailed past his desk and marched down the short hallway. He lumbered after her, shouting, “Hey!” which she ignored and without knocking first pushed open the door to Red Harper’s private office.

  He was seated behind his desk, apparently dealing with the stack of paperwork in front of him.

  “Sorry, Red,” the deputy said from behind her. “She just come barging in here like she was somebody.”

  “She is somebody, Pat. It’s okay. I’ll holler if I need you.”

  “Want the door closed?”

  He had addressed the question to Red, but Sayre replied, “Yes.”

  He gave her a nasty look as he withdrew, pulling the door closed behind him. Coming back around to the sheriff, she asked, “Is he the best you could do?”

  “Pat can get cranky sometimes.”

  “Which is no excuse for rudeness.”

  “You’re right. It’s not.” Red Harper motioned for her to take a seat in the chair facing his desk. “Can I get you some coffee or something?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He took a moment to look her over. “California’s treated you favorably, Sayre. You look good.”

  “Thank you.” Unfortunately she couldn’t return the compliment. He looked even more haggard this morning than he had yesterday, as though he’d gotten little rest in the meantime.

  He eased back in his chair. “It’s good to see you, but I hate like hell the reason you came home. I always liked Danny.”

  “A lot of people did.”

  “He was a likable guy.” He paused for several seconds, as though paying proper respect to the recently deceased. Finally he asked, “What can I do for you this morning?”

  “More to the point, there’s something I can do for you. I have information pertinent to Deputy Scott’s investigation.”

  Registering surprise, he signaled for her to continue.

  “Beck Merchant and I happened to be at the diner last night at the same time. Around ten o’clock.”

  “Um-huh,” Red said, apparently unsure where this was going.

  “As we left, I noticed that the tires of his pickup truck, as well as his boots, were caked with yellow mud. The kind that surrounds the fishing camp. I accused him of going out there and compromising the crime scene, possibly even tampering with evidence. He admitted that he was there. He went after the meeting at the house, where we were told that the cabin was considered a crime scene and that the entire camp was currently off-limits.”

  “Right.”

  “Right?”

  “Beck was out there last night at my request.”

  It was as though he’d taken hold of the fringe of the rug on which she was standing. “Your request?”

  “I asked him to meet me and Deputy Scott out there.”

  He yanked the rug out from under her.

  Red continued, “I wanted somebody from the family—”

  “He’s not family.”

  “That’s the reason I asked him to go out there, Sayre. Scott and I wanted someone from the family to walk through the cabin, see if there was anything that didn’t belong, anything out of kilter, maybe something noticeably missing.

  “I didn’t have the heart to ask Chris or Huff to do it. It’s still . . . well, it’s a bloody mess, speaking frankly. There are companies that specialize in that kind of cleanup, but as long as we’re still gathering evidence—”

  “I think I understand,” she said thickly.

  “I didn’t want to put Huff or Chris through an ordeal like that, but we needed somebody familiar with the cabin to take a look around, check for anything unusual or out of place.”

  Feeling like a complete fool, she murmured, “That makes sense.”

  She hadn’t slept for wanting to report Beck Merchant’s activity, which had seemed suspicious at best, and possibly criminal. Instead he had spared her family from a horrible chore, and for that she supposed she should be grateful.

  His deceit, however, was another matter. When she’d cha
llenged him about the mud on his tires and boots, he could easily have explained the situation to her, told her that he had granted the sheriff a favor that couldn’t have been pleasant. He had deliberately set her up to look like an idiot.

  “Did he?” she asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “Did Mr. Merchant find anything unusual, out of place, or missing?”

  “I can’t discuss the particulars of a criminal investigation while it’s ongoing, Sayre. I’m sure you understand.”

  She understood perfectly. He was stonewalling her. “You’re calling it a criminal investigation. Does that mean you’re no longer convinced that Danny’s death was a suicide?”

  “Suicide is a crime, and as such must be investigated.” Leaning forward, he said gently, “We’re being thorough, is all. We want to be one hundred percent certain that at some point while he was fishing in Bayou Bosquet, Danny decided, for whatever reason, to take his own life. We’ll probably never know all the answers.”

  “Did he leave a note?”

  “Not that we’ve found.”

  Perhaps Danny had figured that if he wasn’t important enough to take a call from, he needn’t bother with writing a farewell note. Nevertheless, she said, “Don’t you think it’s odd that he didn’t?”

  “In at least half the suicides I’ve investigated, the person didn’t leave a note.” Looking at her kindly, he said, “The truth is, someone in that frame of mind can’t explain even to himself why he’s doing it. In such cases, we who are left behind are forced to accept the unacceptable.”

  It was a pretty speech, but if he’d been patting her on the head when he made it, he couldn’t have sounded more patronizing. He was a member in good standing of the good ol’ boys club, and even though she was a Hoyle by blood, she was, after all, only a female.

  “What about the fishermen who discovered the body?”

  “If you’re implying foul play, they’ve been cleared of all suspicion. Their wives were with them, and those ladies were shaken up by what they saw in that cabin, believe me. We’ve got no reason to think they were anything other than passersby, and unlucky ones at that.”

  “Tell me about Gene Iverson,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  Abruptly shifting the subject had been intentional. She’d wanted to see what kind of reaction she would get at the mention of the name, and she got one. The sheriff had gone whey-faced.

  “I went to the library as soon as it opened this morning and got on the microfiche,” she said. “The local newspaper’s accounts were laughably slanted and incomplete, so I read the Times-Picayune coverage of Iverson’s disappearance, Chris’s arrest, and the eventual trial.”

  She now had a better grasp of the facts surrounding her brother’s indictment. Eugene Iverson had been an employee of Hoyle Enterprises. Almost from his first day on the job, he had lobbied to organize a chapter of the ironworkers union. Although he performed his job without fault, he antagonized management personnel by rallying other disgruntled workers.

  Eventually he threatened to organize a strike unless working conditions improved and safety measures as mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were implemented and enforced.

  The threat of a strike agitated workers loyal to—or cowed by—the Hoyles. Many of the employees didn’t welcome union interference and resisted mandatory membership. This fission of opinion caused friction in the workplace that hampered production.

  Huff, wanting to prevent adverse publicity, OSHA’s attention, and unionization, called a meeting between Iverson and upper management to see if they could reach an agreement they could all live with.

  During that meeting Iverson denounced the lame concessions that Huff proposed. He said he couldn’t be bought with a piddling pay increase and empty promises for improvements. He pledged that he would continue his efforts until Hoyle Enterprises was a union shop.

  Iverson left the meeting and was never seen again.

  “After Iverson stormed out, my brother made a remark about shutting up the agitator for good,” Sayre said.

  “That was testified to at his trial by the men who heard him say it. Under cross-examination by McGraw, they also testified that Chris said it in a joking manner.” Red grinned wryly. “It was also cited that if you’re planning to kill somebody, you don’t announce it to a room full of people.”

  “You might if you’re a Hoyle.”

  Sheriff Harper gave her a reproving look.

  Sayre pressed on. “Iverson was trying to make my family accountable for all the work-related accidents at the foundry.”

  “They’ve been held accountable.”

  Now Sayre was the one to give him a look of reproof. “Their accountability is a joke. If they’re caught violating a safety regulation that caused a maiming accident—and two deaths that I recall—Hoyle Enterprises pays a fine and considers it a cost of doing business. They get a slap on the hand, and that’s the end of it until the next accident.

  “And every time OSHA inspectors come, they clean up their act only long enough to pass inspection, then it’s right back to business as usual. That foundry is a menace, and you know it, Red Harper.

  “Iverson was an agitator,” she continued. “He may have been the most obnoxious individual on the planet. I didn’t know him, and I probably wouldn’t have liked him if I had, but I admired what he was trying to do. Huff and Chris would not.”

  “Hundreds of workers didn’t like what he was doing, Sayre. He was threatening their livelihoods. If they don’t work, their families don’t eat. Maybe Iverson could’ve afforded to strike, but they couldn’t. Any number of them would have liked to see him dead.”

  “But no one did, see him dead, I mean. That’s how Chris got off.”

  “Chris got off because the jury thought he was innocent.”

  “Only half of them.”

  It was a good shot, but it didn’t dent the sheriff’s armor. She hadn’t really expected it to. She could sit here all day and fire verbal volleys at him and it would be a waste of time. Red Harper would go to his own grave covering for the Hoyles because they owned him body and soul.

  She doubted his unflagging loyalty to them was founded on affection or allegiance or even avarice for the graft he took from them. Rather, it had become a habit he couldn’t break. He was like a chain smoker who doesn’t even realize when he’s lighting up. Red had lied for her family for so long that it was a conditioned reflex, no longer a matter of conscience and choice.

  And quite possibly he wasn’t covering for them this time. Chris may have been unfairly accused, indicted by an ambitious prosecutor trying to make a name for himself by bagging a high-profile person with enviable wealth. In fact, that had been the theme of a newspaper editorial she’d read that morning. Her brother may have been a convenient celebrity scapegoat for a mystery that remained unsolved.

  If he was innocent of the crime for which he’d stood trial, then her lingering suspicion was unfair. But if he had gotten away with murder, she wasn’t going to hear it from Red Harper.

  She gathered her handbag and stood up. “Thank you for seeing me without an appointment.”

  “You’re welcome anytime, Sayre.” He came from around his desk and ushered her toward the door. “Are you staying in town for a while?”

  “I’m leaving this afternoon.”

  “Well, you take care out there. Lots of weirdos in San Francisco from what I hear.” He stretched his droopy lips into what passed for a smile. “Deputy Scott has got all your phone numbers. I think he’ll have his investigation wrapped up by tomorrow at the latest. I’ll make sure he calls you when we make our official ruling.”

  “I would appreciate that.” As she was leaving, she remembered Jessica DeBlance, and that caused her to hesitate. Danny’s secret engagement could be relevant. But Red was on Huff’s payroll. Anything said to him would go straight to Huff, and Jessica had said she didn’t want Huff to know about their plans to marry.

 
Sayre wasn’t even sure she would trust Wayne Scott with the information, because he would feel obligated to share it with his new boss. Until she had cleared it with Jessica, she decided to say nothing.

  Something else was niggling at her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Then, just as she reached the end of the hallway, she realized what it was. “Sheriff Harper?”

  By now he had stepped back into his office. He poked his head out the door and looked at her inquisitively.

  “Earlier you said that at some point while he was fishing Danny decided to take his own life.”

  “That’s my best guess.”

  “I find that hard to accept.”

  “We’ve been through that, Sayre.”

  “I’m not talking about the suicide. It’s the fishing I don’t accept. Danny loathed fishing.”

  • • •

  The moment Beck walked into Huff’s office, he could tell the old man was upset. Before he could even say good morning, Huff picked up what appeared to be an enclosure card from a stack of similar cards on his desk and waved it at Beck. “This pisses me off.”

  Some would consider it unseemly that he and Chris had returned to work the day following Danny’s funeral. The correct protocol probably would have been for them to take the rest of the week off. But Huff had never stood on ceremony, and his credo was that every day was a workday. In his book, there was no such thing as a holiday.

  “What is it?”

  Huff handed Beck the card. He sat down on the short sofa adjacent to Huff’s desk. On the far side of the office was a wall of windows that overlooked the shop floor, which was a scenic view only if you were someone who profited from the grimy ugliness of iron pipe casting. It was dark, clamorous, hot.

  Beck had a similar office down the hall, as did Chris and Danny. Chris had stumbled in a short while ago. The door to Danny’s office remained closed this morning.

  Beck looked at the card Huff had given him. “With deepest sympathy, Charles Nielson,” he read. Then, looking across at Huff, he laughed shortly. “He sent flowers to Danny’s funeral?”

  “Can you believe the gall of that son of a bitch? Sally is going to send acknowledgments for me,” he said, referring to his executive assistant. “I wanted to go through the cards before turning them over to her. Came across this one. Can’t believe he would use my son’s death as a means of pricking with me.”