82 Desire

by Smith, Julie

  He found himself a pair of overalls at a thrift store, jammed a cap down over his eyes, and procured a case of Chardonnay from a place where he still had a charge account.

  When he rang the Cavignacs’ bell, the maid asked him to bring the goodies around to the back, just as he’d hoped she would.

  “You can just put it on the counter,” she said, obviously trying to make it easy on him.

  “Oh, no,” he said, “this stuff’s heavy. Be glad to put it wherever you want.”

  For a moment, she looked a little confused. “Well, let’s see. The pantry, I guess.”

  He was bent over the goods when high heels clicked into the kitchen. “Marka? Someone’s spilled iced tea on the sofa.”

  Aha. Dream come true, he thought, as Marka sped to the rescue. Quickly, he checked the kitchen windows. They were out of view, unencumbered by alarm sensors, and equipped only with standard closings. A twelve-year-old could open them—but it might be noisy. Still, it was a start.

  He didn’t dare go up the stairs, and guests prowled everywhere on this floor. He checked the door itself. It had one of those standard push-button locks set in the locked position. He imagined it was probably kept that way, so the door couldn’t be opened with a casual turn when the dead bolt was off.

  He punched the button, moving it to the unlocked position. And then he put away the wine. He was just coming out of the pantry when Marka returned.

  “Beautiful house,” he said, and the maid teared up.

  “It’s a sad house now,” she said. “It’s a real sad house.”

  She’d evidently been fond of Beau. “I’m real sorry,” Ray said, and found that a part of him was. No doubt Beau had been a rotten little bastard—a rotten little criminal, actually, who’d made other people suffer and had gone scot-free. But Ray was sorry for Mrs. Cavignac. He could no more imagine losing Cille than losing the sun.

  That night he made love to her like they were newlyweds.

  And the next day found him outside the Cavignac house an hour before the funeral. He made sure he saw the widow and children leave—along with a knot of black-clothed relatives—and then gave them ten minutes to come back if they’d forgotten something. Nobody did.

  He stepped to the back of the house and listened. There was a clatter of kitchenware—Marka loading the dishwasher, probably. And then a mechanical roar. Yes, the dishwasher. He stepped closer, actually sticking his face up to the window, just in time to see Marka disappearing. He waited a minute to see if she’d come back. When she didn’t, he pulled on latex gloves and his ski mask, and tried the door.

  It opened. Miraculously, it opened. Whoever had locked up the night before had probably just put the dead bolt on without trying the lock.

  He ducked into the pantry to get his breath and let Marka come back, in case she’d heard him enter. He waited ten minutes, trying to figure out a plan. Actually, if she did come back, he could step out and explore the rest of the house while she was in the kitchen.

  On the other hand, he had to be out of here before they got back from the funeral. He waited another five minutes, and shrugged. Five more, then full speed ahead—if he ran into her, he’d deal with it. He was wearing shorts, a polo shirt, and sneakers. Except for the ski mask, he could be anybody at all—no reason to connect him with yesterday’s delivery.

  She didn’t come.

  He was halfway to the second floor when he ran into her. Because the stairs were carpeted, neither had heard the other till it was too late.

  Without uttering a sound, she turned to run. Good. She’d be upstairs, which would make the whole thing easier to deal with.

  He caught her in about five strides, holding her from behind, one hand over her mouth. “I’m not here for you,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She was a black woman, about fifty-five and very dignified. He thought she must be scared to death, but he didn’t know what to do about it, except whisper to her while she breathed hard and whimpered. He stuffed a handkerchief in her mouth (brought specially for the purpose) and pulled a roll of duct tape out of his pocket, along with a Swiss Army knife. He taped her hands behind her back before she could get the gag out, and then taped her mouth, meanwhile whispering, “Sorry I have to do this to you, but nothing bad’s going to happen. I’m just here to steal something. You’re going to be fine.”

  There was a sofa with a lamp table in a landing at the top of the stairs. He led her over there. “I want you to be nice and comfortable. You just sit down and I’ll tape your ankles real gently, and then I’ll leave you alone. You okay now?”

  Her eyes told him she wasn’t, but she sat down obediently, pressing her legs firmly together while he taped her ankles—no doubt to reassure herself he wasn’t going to rape her. “I’m real sorry about this, but they’ll find you when they come home. I’m going to leave you alone now.”

  He could hear her release her breath, maybe for the first time in the encounter, as he strode away. Nice lady, he thought. I hope she doesn’t have nightmares.

  The upstairs was such an odd warren of rooms he felt uneasy—he wasn’t sure he’d hear if anyone came in. And as luck would have it, the room equipped with computer, humidor, television, and hunting-lodge photos was way in the back.

  Nervously, he sat down, turned on the computer, took off his ski mask, and wiped the sweat off his face. Ray looked in the index for “Skinacat,” but of course it wasn’t there.

  He used the “Find” command to locate his own name, and sure enough, there it was, in a file called “Xmas List.”

  He opened it up and … yes! A veritable Xmas present. A list of names, including his. Descriptions of properties, with stats—leases, seismic findings; in some cases, dates. In his case, it was the date of sale. The next-to-last word in the entry, just before the date, was the name Fortier.

  Marion Newman’s name was on the list, too, and his also had a date by it, preceded by the name Cavignac.

  Ray’s heart speeded up. It must be a target list; a wish list. And in cases where they got the leases they wanted, they added the date. The name must be the person assigned to get the lease. He skimmed the list for more names and came up with two: Favret and Seaberry.

  He pulled a disk from his pocket and copied the file. Then he copied it several times more onto Beau’s hard disk and gave each copy a different name. So if anyone deleted “Xmas List,” there were plenty of backups.

  On his way out, he dropped by the landing where Marka sat. “I’m going now, baby. I’ll undo your ankles, okay? At least you’ll be a little more comfortable.”

  She made a deep sound in her throat as he slit the tape. It could have been fear, or a grunt of gratitude for not killing her.

  Twenty-six

  “JANE, IT’S ME.”

  Calling her at home again. She didn’t need to be told who. She knew the voice perfectly well. “Mr. Tipster,” she said. “How are we today?”

  “We are tip-top this fine Sunday, Ms. Storey—funny you should use that particular pronoun, ‘cause this is our day.”

  Her heart fluttered briefly. Maybe he was just some kind of stalker. She kept quiet.

  “I’m bringing the goods.”

  Oh, sure. They all say that, she was thinking, when it dawned on her whom she was talking to. “Did you say bringing, or did I misunderstand?”

  “I’m coming right over. I’ve got what Eugene Allred was killed for. Maybe Cavignac was killed for it, too; I don’t know.”

  “Right over to where, Mr. Tipster? You just called me at home.” She prayed he didn’t know where she lived.

  “Oh. Guess I forgot my manners for a minute. What about we meet at the paper?”

  “What the hell have you got?”

  “Something that’s gonna win you a Pulitzer.”

  She sighed, wishing she smoked. “Look, if this were a movie, you’d get killed on the way over. So just in case, could I have your name, please?”

  “Sure. Ray Boudreaux.”

 
He was waiting for her when she got to the paper, a tall, lanky customer who obviously cultivated a rough-hewn cowboy look. She had dated men like him—slept with them anyway. They never planned enough ahead to make dates. Small-scale con men. They could be bothered with the minor con of seducing someone, but hadn’t the ambition for major ones. So far she wasn’t impressed.

  Boudreaux held up a disk. “Here’s what’s going to get you the Pulitzer.” He handed it over along with some audiotapes. “That, and these.”

  “Let’s go look at it.”

  But he shook his head. “It’s just the proof. First, I’ve got to tell you the story. Where can we go?”

  Somehow, Jane thought this was more than a cafeteria kind of story. “I think,” she said, “we need a power lunch.”

  They went to the Pizza Roma on Bienville. It was convenient and it was reasonably noisy—it wouldn’t be easy to overhear them.

  Ray told his own story first—how he’d built up his own company and lost everything when he was cheated out of his lease by a company that was already making millions out in the Gulf.

  They had demolished a vast salad and most of an artichoke pizza by the time he said, “So I told myself, don’t get mad, get even. And I hired Gene Allred. Know what we did? We bugged the place. Don’t ask me how. Just trust me. Or better yet, listen to the tapes.” He gave her a sure-I’ll-respect-you-in-the-morning kind of grin. But oddly enough, this was the moment when she did begin to trust him.

  He had told the story with so much high emotion and so many doubtless-phony references to his dear wife and soulmate, Cille, that she figured he was probably just shoveling manure.

  But when he got to the “get even” part, something in him came alive—and something in her felt it. That’s just what this dude would do, she thought. He’d be crazy enough to bug an oil company and then tell a reporter.

  “We heard ’em talkin’ about it,” he said. “Actually talkin’ about it. The only thing was, we didn’t know who it was doing the talking—except Russell Fortier, of course—or who they were talking about: in other words, who their victims were, except me. And then I did a really stupid thing—I started leaning on Fortier.”

  “Leaning on him for what?”

  Boudreaux seemed embarrassed. “Oh, taunting him, I guess. Trying to get him to give up the other names. I shouldn’t have messed with him. I just shouldn’t have messed with him.” He was shaking his head vigorously.

  “Why? What did he say?”

  “He didn’t really say anything. Just disappeared into thin air. Then we did get some evidence, and somebody killed Allred and stole it.”

  “What evidence?”

  “The stuff on this disk. Pretty funny what you said about me getting killed on the way over—that’s more or less what happened with Allred.”

  “You think somebody from United killed Allred? How could they have even known about him?”

  “Well, I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought quite a bit about it. He must have told them himself.”

  It didn’t make sense. Jane was quiet a minute, and the answer came to her. “Blackmail?”

  “Must have been that. I should have gotten a better class of detective.”

  Jane’s mind had kicked into gear. “How many people were involved in this?”

  “Four that I know of—Fortier, Beau Cavignac, and two others.”

  “Was Douglas Seaberry one of them—Fortier’s boss?”

  “You catch on fast. Seaberry and a guy named Edward Favret.”

  It was falling into place. “I wonder if they acted with the company’s knowledge?”

  Ray shook his head. “That I couldn’t tell you. But I don’t think so—having run a company myself, I just don’t see it. What percentage is in it for United Oil to break the law and undergo all kinds of risks for what to them is more or less chump change? On the other hand, if you had a few guys who were pissed off because they weren’t out in the high-profile end of things, they’d feel like they had to do something spectacular to get the company’s attention.”

  “So you think it’s a sort of cabal of renegades?”

  He nodded. “Listen to the tapes. They called themselves the Skinners.”

  Jane felt a frisson.” Nice name.” She sipped her coffee, organizing her thoughts. “Okay, here we go. You taunt Fortier, and he disappears—or maybe, he first kills Allred, then disappears. Is that possible?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Okay, you taunt Fortier. Then Allred tries to blackmail all of them—through Fortier, or did he have other names?”

  “By then, he had other names.”

  “Okay, he tries to blackmail one or more of them, and they decide to kill him. Or maybe one of them does it on his own. Maybe Fortier, maybe not. If not Fortier, maybe Allred’s killer took him out.”

  “Or maybe they did it as a group.”

  “Then for some reason Cavignac balks—he threatens to go to the police. And they kill him, too. Is that the way you see it?”

  “More or less.”

  She nodded. “Where’d you get the disk?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Probably not. Not if I can confirm the information on it.”

  “Let’s look at it.” They went back to the paper, uploaded it into Jane’s computer, and looked at it while Ray explained to her what he thought it was. “Try this guy,” he said, pointing to Marion Newman’s entry. “I found him another way and he told me his story. Beau was his contact the same way Russell was mine.”

  She would certainly try Marion Newman. But that still wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to get at least two more stories, one involving Seaberry and one Favret.

  And that was only the beginning. Then she’d have to run it by her editor, who, in turn, would call in lawyers, though probably not till she had a first draft. She’d also have to call Seaberry and Favret for their sides, and of course, she’d have to ask Bebe and Beau’s wife if they knew anything. She didn’t at all like the idea of making those last four phone calls—two people were dead for sure, and maybe a third. But by the time she made them it would be too late to bother killing her—the story would be only hours from running.

  She felt another frisson. Better call superjerk David Bacardi—her editor and ex—before she did another thing. If she died, at least she wanted someone to know why.

  His wife answered. What fun, Jane thought. “Hi, Lisa, it’s Jane Storey. Sorry to call on Sunday…”

  “Hi, Jane. I’ll get him.” A bit abrupt, but that was just Lisa. She was a lawyer—what could you expect?

  David himself was damn near nasty. “You better have a story that’s gonna keep the lid on this town.”

  “Bacardi, this is big. Swear to God I’ve got something here.”

  “Give it to me in ten words or less.”

  “Corporate shenanigans leading to the murders of Allred and Cavignac.”

  “Okay.” He spoke in a pleasanter voice. “Start talking.”

  As she ran it down for him, he peppered her with questions that got more and more excited as she went on. He was buying it completely. Finally, he said, “How fast can you do it?”

  “Well, it’s a Sunday, so I might be able to get people at home. If I can, first draft by tomorrow. We run it by the lawyers in the morning, while I work on confirming everybody’s story, and then I call the honchos at United—at absolutely the last minute. It runs Tuesday morning. That fast enough for you?”

  “You’re a journalistic dreamboat. I love ya to death, Storey.”

  She spoke in as sultry a voice as she could muster. “I hate it when you talk like that.”

  And then she got to work.

  The list was a gold mine. Three of the first five people she called were home and eager to talk, and mad as hornets. Seizing the moment, she asked to come over right away.

  Five hours later she had the story in her pocket. Some days, she thought, it pays to get up in the morning.

  It was late when she
got back to the paper, and hardly anyone was in the newsroom. She was going over her notes when a phone rang somewhere in the distance. And then Jane’s phone rang. “This is Angie in the library. The Miami Herald called for clips on Russell Fortier—you want to take the call?”

  Jane’s heart thudded. “Bet your bootie.” She picked up the phone. “This is Jane Storey in the newsroom. The library transferred you to me.”

  “Hey, there. John McGonagil at the Herald. We’ve got a story working about a Coast Guard rescue involving a guy named Russell Fortier and some New Orleans cop. I called ‘cause I thought y’all might have some clips on Fortier—seems like I was right.”

  “You’re kidding. Russell Fortier’s alive?”

  “Who is he, anyway?”

  “Who’s the cop?”

  It went on that way until they both managed to calm down enough to exchange information, and when it was done, each had a mouthful of canary feathers.

  Jane looked at her watch—only ten o’clock. They could easily get the story in if they wanted to—and she was sure they were going to want to. She sauntered over to the night city editor. “I’m about to make your day,” she said, and proceeded to do so.

  Then she went back to her desk and started placing calls to Fort Lauderdale. First she confirmed the story with the Coast Guard, then she mentioned casually that she was a friend of Detective Langdon’s, and asked if anyone there knew where she was.

  Her source yelled at someone, “Hey. You know where Langdon went?”

  Jane heard the yelled-back answer: “Fort Lauderdale PD.”

  To her surprise, Skip actually took the call. “Jane. Don’t run this. I’m begging you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Can’t it wait a day or two?”

  “There’s absolutely no way to stop it—the wires have got it. It’s probably coming over now.”

  “Damn.”

  Jane couldn’t imagine what the big deal was. But one thing she knew—Skip was going to be furious when she saw Tuesday’s story. However, there was nothing to be done about it. Cops did their job, reporters did theirs.