The Valentine Hostage

by Dawn Stewardson

  “My Magnum,” Sally said. “I think I put my Magnum down on the table.”

  “Hey.” Kevin eyed Ben curiously. “You look a lot like Larry, you know? I mean, except for your beard.”

  “He’s Larry’s cousin,” Monique told the boy.

  “Well, Kevin…” Sally said. “I’m afraid between hurting my arm and all this excitement I’d better lie down for a bit. So instead of working, you go on home now.”

  “Oh, I won’t make any noise, I’ll—”

  “I’ll pay you for your regular hours” Sally interrupted. “But you just go on.”

  “Uh…sure. If you say so.” With a confused look on his face, Kevin backed out of the office.

  “Lordy,” Sally said as the door closed behind him, “what do you think Larry’s going to do?”

  Ben shook his head. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do. I had to talk to him.”

  “Well, come into the apartment There are some things we’ve got to discuss.”

  Monique and Ben followed her from the office to the living room, Monique’s anxiety level sky-high. After Larry drove around for a while without finding them, wouldn’t he come home again?

  The thought of his arriving back made her stomach churn. And Ben must have had the same thought, because he unlocked their suitcase, handed her the snubby and clipped his own gun to his belt. Then he gave Sally the gun he’d taken from Larry.

  She’d sat down on a chair and now she gestured toward the couch across from it “Please sit. There are a few things I have to say.”

  Once they were seated, she said, “Ben, I apologize for lying earlier. About not having any other children. But when my uncle called and told me Anne was in his office asking about you—”

  “It’s actually Monique,” she interrupted, feeling she had to be honest “My name is really Monique LaRoquette and I was one of the witnesses to the DeCarlo murders. I testified against Ben, but now I know it wasn’t him who killed them.”

  “I see.” Sally slowly shook her head. “The world is a very strange place, isn’t it. The way things unfold. But getting back to my Uncle Harold’s call, it took me so by surprise that I’d hardly thought of what was best to say by the time Anne…Monique got here.

  “I followed your trials, Ben, so I knew your defense was that the killer had been someone who looked like you. And I realized that if you found out about Larry…

  “Well, pretending there was no Larry just seemed the best idea all around. I mean, you’d eluded the police all this time, so I thought, ideally, you’d gotten away for good. And if you had, then neither of my sons would be in prison.”

  “Are you saying,” Ben said slowly, “that Larry should be in prison?”

  “Ben, I just don’t know. But what’s worried me for a long time is that he wasn’t here in Las Vegas when the DeCarlos were murdered.”

  Ben’s hand tightened around Monique’s. Her heart began to beat faster.

  “He told me he was going skiing in Lake Tahoe, but I have no way of knowing if that was true. Actually, I eventually tried to check, but there are so many places to stay in Tahoe, and the room might have been in someone else’s name and… Well, the point is I couldn’t find out for sure.

  “There’s only one thing I know that might be a clue. But it might be nothing at all.”

  “What is it?” Ben said. When he leaned forward on the couch, Monique could feel the tension emanating from him.

  “Not long before those killings, a man phoned here one afternoon. Larry wasn’t home from work yet, and the man asked me to have him return his call. He didn’t leave a number, though. He said Larry had it. And it was right after Larry phoned back that he told me he was planning on taking a few days off work and going to Tahoe.

  “I assumed this man was someone he was going with or something, and I thought it was kind of strange that I’d never even heard his name before. But Larry rarely tells me any details about his social life, so I didn’t really think much about it. Not until a year later, Ben—during your original trial, when I learned about your look-alike defense. It was then that I went back through my journal and checked to see exactly when Larry had been away.”

  “And it was definitely at the time of the murders?” Monique asked.

  Sally nodded.

  “And this man who called?” Ben said, his voice barely audible. “Do you remember his name?”

  Monique closed her eyes and began to wish harder than she’d ever wished before.

  “Yes, I wrote it into my journal at the time. His name was Danny Dupray.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Monday, February 10

  5:57 p.m.

  The fellow who worked the evening shift at the Shilo Inn’s office started at five. And despite Sally’s objections, as soon as he’d arrived Ben and Monique had bundled her into a cab and taken her to her sister’s.

  Sally might have been certain that Larry wouldn’t harm her if he returned, but Ben wasn’t taking any chances. And even though they hadn’t told the night man where she was going, ensuring he couldn’t relay the information to Larry, Ben had gotten the sister’s number so he could call later and check that all was well.

  While Monique walked Sally to the door, carrying her hastily packed suitcase, Ben gazed at the house from the taxi—wondering exactly how many relatives he had that he’d never known about

  With any luck, he’d meet most of them some day. But only if he could figure out how to get the name he so desperately needed from Danny Dupray without ending up dead in the process.

  There was no longer any choice about approaching the sleazoid again—regardless of how dangerous it would be. Because if Dupray had been Larry’s contact in New Orleans, he definitely knew who’d been behind the murders.

  Ben glanced back at the house as its front door opened and a woman who looked a lot like Sally appeared in the doorway.

  He could see her exclaiming about Sally’s arm. Then Sally said something to her about Monique. When Sally finally turned and waved goodbye to him, he got that tight feeling in his throat again.

  As the door closed behind her, he forced his thoughts to the issue of how he was going to convince Monique to sit on the sidelines for what she’d referred to as the final act.

  Getting this fresh lead, after he’d figured all hope was gone, meant he still had a chance for a future with her. And there was no way he was going to let her take any further risks—especially when it came to Dupray. But she was so damn stubborn…

  Watching her hurry the last few feet back to the taxi, he told himself it wasn’t stubbornness as much as determination to help him. And he loved her for it—as well as for a million other things.

  “McCarran,” he told the cabbie as she climbed into the back beside him. “And we’re in a hurry, so I’ll double the fare and cover a ticket if you get one.”

  “You’re on,” the man said, quickly pulling away from the curb.

  When Ben put his arm around Monique, she snuggled against him. “We’ll make it there in time?”

  “We should be fine.” He’d checked with the airlines while they’d been waiting for the night man to show, and had booked them on Delta’s next direct flight to New Orleans.

  “Ben?” she murmured quietly enough that the driver couldn’t hear. “Is there any chance that Danny Dupray himself was behind the murders?”

  He shook his head. “No, Danny doesn’t have the brains to plan things. He’s a middle-man, an informer for whoever’s paying, a parasite. The odd time, though, he’ll get involved in something if the price is right So I can imagine his being Larry’s contact. But he wasn’t the main man. That had to be either somebody with a major grudge against my father, or somebody who’d benefit from his death.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Other members of the Dixie Mafia. Whenever there’s a shake-up, the positioning of the families changes. And when it’s a planned shake-up like that one, whoever planned it—whoever had advance knowledge, so t
o speak—usually comes out a winner.

  “So who came out a winner after your father was killed?”

  “Well…it’s hard to tell when you’re not really involved. And I had other things occupying my mind at the time. Besides, Dominick was my father’s righthand man. And I gather he jumped in and grabbed control of the family’s interests so fast that nobody had much chance to take advantage of him.”

  Monique was silent for a moment, then said, “Getting back to Danny Dupray, even if he wasn’t the main man, he’ll know who was, won’t he?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then are we going to go and see him tonight?”

  “No, with the change in time zones, we won’t land in New Orleans until about eleven. And waiting till tomorrow will be better, anyway. On Mardi Gras, there are thousands of people wandering the streets in costumes and masks. If I dress up, I’ll be able to move around freely without worrying about anyone recognizing me.”

  “If we dress up, you mean.”

  He tried to just let that pass. He knew her we assumption was going to end them up in a lengthy discussion, and there was no sense getting into it when they were only minutes from the airport.

  She was eyeing him with a very suspicious expression, so he proceeded to kiss it away. And by the time he’d done that they’d reached McCarran International.

  “We’re flying Delta,” he told the cabbie. “So the nearest door to their counter.”

  When the driver pulled to a stop, Ben paid him double and added a healthy tip. Then, their one small suitcase in hand, they hurried into the terminal.

  After picking up their tickets and checking the suitcase, they headed straight for security. As they neared the end of the short lineup, they could hear raised voices at the front of it

  “I’m a security officer!” a man was saying. “I have every right to be carrying a gun!”

  “Not aboard an aircraft, sir,” a woman told him. “If you don’t go back and check it through, I’ll have to confiscate it.”

  “Oh, my God,” Monique whispered. “It’s Larry!”

  Ben’s blood froze in his veins as he appraised the man more closely. She was right His back was to them, but he was still wearing the security uniform he’d had on earlier.

  “I don’t have time to go back and check it!” he practically shouted. “You heard that last boarding call for the Miami flight I’ve got to be on it!”

  “He’s taking off,” Ben whispered. “I’ve got to stop him.”

  “No,” Monique told him, tightly gripping his arm. “Not while he’s got a gun and yours is checked.”

  “Hey,” someone in the line ahead of them said, “I recognize that guy from TV. Doesn’t anybody else? It’s that escaped murderer! It’s Ben DeCarlo!”

  Suddenly, the area was a sea of sound and motion. Some people were shouting for the police. Others were screaming and running. Larry had drawn his gun and was wildly looking around.

  For a second Ben was filled with indecision. Then he grabbed Monique’s hand and they ran for cover. Seeing she didn’t get killed took priority over anything else.

  They whipped around a corner and he pressed her flat against the wall.

  “Police!” a man shouted. “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

  Looking back around the corner, Ben saw that Larry had pushed his way through the security check and was charging in the direction of the gates—with a cop running flat out in pursuit his gun drawn. Bystanders were scattering from their path like pedestrians from a runaway car.

  Ben tried to think, his adrenaline pumping and his heart beating like mad. He had to do something! But what?

  Suddenly, it was too late. The cop shouted a final warning for Larry to stop, then assumed a firing stance and began shooting.

  Larry went down and Ben couldn’t see anything more through the crowd. But the cop didn’t stop firing until his clip was empty.

  There were a few moments of stunned silence, then someone yelled, “He’s dead! Ben DeCarlo’s dead.”

  “Everyone get back!” the cop shouted. “Everyone get back and someone call 911!”

  “Damn!” a man standing near Ben muttered to his companion. “Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Our coverage is gonna beat every other news team’s in the country.”

  He pulled a phone from his pocket, adding, “Forget our flight, we’ll grab a later one. You just get over there with that camcorder while I phone this in. Be sure you get lots of footage of the body, and try for a statement from the cop. And sound bites from anyone who had a front-row seat.”

  Ben’s stomach was turning over. “What do we do?” he whispered to Monique.

  “We get on our plane,” she said, her voice as uneven as he’d ever heard it “We get on our plane because there’s nothing we can do here that wouldn’t likely get you arrested.”

  ALL THE DEPARTING FLIGHTS were delayed by the shooting, which gave Ben time to phone Sally and tell her what had happened before the story hit the airwaves.

  He found the conversation difficult, both because she was so upset and because he was, as well. He’d barely met Larry, and certainly hadn’t had any reason to like him. But he couldn’t help wondering what had made his brother a killer. And what might have prevented that

  Telling himself he’d have to put those thoughts on hold until another time, he said goodbye to Sally, still wishing he could have broken the news to her in person.

  Monique was right, though. The only thing that made sense was to get on that plane and head back to New Orleans.

  They had an unexpected advantage now. With everyone thinking he was dead, nobody would be watching for him. But that wouldn’t last

  Sooner or later, and he assumed it would be sooner, the authorities would discover the body they had wasn’t his—and the cops would realize he was still on the loose. So it was only for the next little while that he was relatively safe.

  “Delta Airlines’ flight 642 to New Orleans,” a voice announced over the PA, “is now ready for boarding.”

  He and Monique waited until the initial crush was over, then headed for the plane and settled into their wide leather seats in first class. They were all that had been available at the last minute, and he’d been worried about being conspicuous. Now, though, he could relax a little.

  Once they were airborne and the hostess served them each a drink, he used a Skyphone to call both his sister and Dezi. After explaining what had happened, and that regardless of what they’d hear it was Larry who was dead, he arranged for them to get some things he might need.

  As he hung up from the second call, the hostess reappeared with fresh drinks. When she left them alone again, Monique said, “How are we going to handle Danny Dupray tomorrow?”

  Ben took a large sip of his bourbon. “We’re not. I am.

  She merely eyed him for a minute. “I thought,” she said at last, “I made myself clear yesterday. I’m not sitting out the grand finale.”

  “Look, I—”

  “No, you look, Ben. Larry is dead. Which means there’s no way you’re going to get a confession from the real murderer. So we’ve got to find out who was behind things. Otherwise, you’ll end up back in Angola.”

  “Monique, it—”

  “Listen to me,” she snapped, poking him in the chest so hard he almost spilled the rest of his drink. “I love you, so I don’t want you going back to prison. But there’s also the little matter that I’ve been helping you. And at this point, unless we prove you’re innocent, I’m going to end up in prison too. I’ll be charged with aiding and abetting or whatever. And I’ll—”

  “You think I’d ever let that happen? I wouldn’t I’d swear you’ve been my hostage all along—that everything you did I forced you to do.”

  “Oh, right And you think the police would buy that? Give me a break! With my wig and glasses, nobody I’ve talked to has realized who I really am. But if you get caught and my picture ends up in the papers, they’ll clue in awfully fast. And
I’ll be in big trouble.”

  “No, you’d simply have to get out of New Orleans and—”

  “Uh-uh. They’d never just let me walk, no matter how far from New Orleans I got. There are too many people who know I’ve been willingly helping you. Like those detectives I went to see—on my own. They’d say I had a perfect opportunity to call the cops then.

  “Or what about Danny Dupray? And Barb, that waitress at the Twinkle? They know nobody was holding a gun to my head when I went to see them. Then, in Las Vegas, we’ve got a whole list of people who—”

  “Monique, it—”

  “Oh, no. My ass is on the line too, and I’m seeing this through with you—every step of it—whether you like the idea or not”

  He sank back into the chair and took a serious slug of the bourbon.

  “Now have I finally made myself clear?” she said sweetly.

  BY THE TIME THEY LANDED in New Orleans, the news that Ben DeCarlo had been gunned down in the Vegas airport was common knowledge.

  It gave Monique the spookiest feeling to hear people in the airport talking about his being dead. Then their taxi driver treated them to his considered opinion on the DeCarlo shooting while he drove toward the Quarter—the traffic getting heavier and heavier as they neared it.

  “The day before Mardi Gras,” Ben said when the cabbie took a break from talking to yell at some pedestrians blocking his way, “has become known as Lundi Gras. And the city’s almost as crazy tonight as it’s going to be tomorrow.”

  They started off again, only to be hemmed in by more people a few yards farther along.

  “Hey, there’s no sense trying to drive in this,” Ben told the cabbie. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.

  “The Quarter’s completely closed to traffic on Mardi Gras,” he explained to Monique as they got out of the cab. “And I guess everyone figures that takes effect at midnight.”

  They made slow progress on the crowded streets and by the time they reached the apartment it was almost one in the morning.

  “Dezi’s been here,” Ben announced when he flicked on the living room light. “Those are bullet proof,” he added, gesturing at the vests lying on the couch.