Cypress Nights

by Stella Cameron

  “These are both dogs that won’t be available long,” Ozaire said, as if Bleu hadn’t asked him a question. “You don’t often see specimens like these.”

  “Nope,” Roche said. He crouched to ruffle the dachshund mix. “Ridgeback, too, I think. Look at his fur.”

  A line of short fur stood up along his spine.

  The first dog climbed on the bed.

  Bleu looked at Ozaire who behaved as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

  The other animal left Roche and followed his buddy. Bleu got a face-licking from both sides before the pair settled down, each with a head in her lap.

  “They’re great dogs,” Roche said. “But they aren’t what I had in mind. We need a well-trained thoroughbred. Something with a reputation for making a great guard dog.” He reached to lift the smaller one off the bed.

  “Don’t,” Bleu said. “He’s fine there.”

  Ozaire pointed to his offerings. “You won’t find more loyal, protective dogs than those right there. If I were you, Bleu, I’d take my pick of ’em and have done. You won’t be sorry.”

  “Look at them,” Cyrus said. “Instant attachment.”

  “How old are they?” Bleu asked.

  “Toady’s nine months,” he said, pointing to the dachshund mix. “Killer’s almost a year.”

  “Someone called this pretty girl Killer?”

  “Probably just for effect,” Ozaire said. “Toady’s a real suck-up.”

  “Who gets them—I mean, who’s next in line after you show them to me?”

  Ozaire puffed out his cheeks. He let the air out and looked at the floor, winding the leashes around his fingers. “They got left behind when some drifters moved on,” he said, all but kicking a toe into the carpet.

  “You mean they’re like—brother and sister? They’ve been together?”

  Ozaire nodded sadly. “I made up what I said about folks waiting for ’em. Reckon they’ll go to the pound now. But don’t you worry about it. You can’t get all tied up in knots over every critter that needs a home.”

  Bleu blinked very fast. “So you don’t even know how old they are?”

  “About what I said,” Ozaire said, still with his eyes lowered. “I know about dogs. You gotta look at their teeth and bones and stuff. Age I said is about right.”

  “Someone’ll take ’em from the pound,” Roche said gruffly.

  “Probably,” Ozaire agreed. “Could be. I’d better get on. Here. C’mon.” He pulled on the leashes.

  Bleu looked at Roche and shook her head. His half grimace, half smile made her grin. “I want them both,” she said.

  Ozaire straightened. “You got good taste. These two are winners. I’ll give ’em another bath and get ’em all dolled up for you.”

  “They are dolled up,” Bleu said. “And they’re tired out, too.” Killer and Toady appeared to be asleep.

  “Yes.” Ozaire did something close to a bob. “It’s been a bad day, that’s for sure, but you’re doin’ a good thing, Bleu. These two will take care of you. I’ll help you train ’em.”

  “Thanks,” Roche said.

  “I told you I’d find the right one,” Ozaire said.

  “You found two,” Roche reminded him.

  “Will you listen to that?” Ozaire said of the pounding from outside. “Music to the ears. We gotta get on with that school—make this place live again. Doug’s boys are tearin’ things up out there.”

  Bleu wished she could get out of bed, and would once she was alone. “We’re going to wait a bit on doing anything about the school,” she said.

  “Why would you do that?” Ozaire said. “The sooner we get on with it, the sooner that crazy out there knows he’s beat.”

  “Can you keep a secret?” Bleu said.

  Cyrus shifted and started to get up.

  “We think the reason Jim died, and now Mary, is because of the children who died in the fire,” Bleu said. She got a lump in her throat thinking about it.

  Handing the leashes off to Roche, Ozaire shook his head. “What fire was that, then?” he said.

  “Wake up, Ozaire,” Cyrus said sharply. “The fire that burned the school down. The school people are dyin’ over. Your family’s lived here forever. You must know about it.”

  “Oh,” Ozaire said. “I never saw it. Me, I was a little’ un. I heard it was a terrible blaze. Went too far before anyone knew, so they couldn’t do a thing about it. That would be with it happenin’ in the middle of the night.”

  “It happened when all the children were there,” Cyrus said, sounding angry now. “They burned to death.”

  Ozaire shifted from foot to foot, his face crumpled into puzzled folds. “Nope. It went up in the middle of the night. No one died.”

  Chapter 44

  Midafternoon, two days later

  Bleu sat at a table in the window at Hungry Eyes. Glaring like polished gold under a spotlight, sunlight bounced off the glass. She squinted and pulled sunglasses from her bag.

  A bee buzzed just under the fan above her head, caught in a pocket of calm but surrounded by waiting currents of air.

  Outside, the street glittered with fragments of mica. The sunglasses didn’t lessen the painful brilliance much. Bleu raised her shoulders and shivered. Like the bee, she was becalmed in stillness but the storm waited. The sky should be green-black, heavy on the rooftops, filled with thunder and lightning; rain ready to fall in sheets that would sweep every surface with demonic, sparkling strokes.

  Roche would meet her at the café as soon as he finished with his last patient. He had become her binding heat and her liberating storm. Whether he knew it or not, he controlled her future now.

  “Bleu?”

  Startled, she looked up at Wazoo and almost touched the woman’s hand. Instead, Bleu spread her fingers at the base of her own throat. “Sit down,” she said, more sharply than she intended. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Wazoo hovered, stared through the windows, looked over her shoulder. The only other customers, a woman and a toddler boy, talked at the back of the book stacks. The woman read to the boy in a low voice. He repeated words in bursts, laughing each time.

  “You’re tryin’ to make decisions,” Wazoo said. “Me, I got decisions to make, too. One decision.”

  Bleu kept quiet. Wazoo wasn’t asking for input yet.

  “You come here to be close to your man?” Wazoo said, nodding in the direction of Roche’s office on Cotton Street. “You still frightened because you want him? He’s a powerful man. Powerful sexy. You afraid he’s gonna be too much for you?”

  Little that Wazoo said shocked Bleu anymore, but she had caught her by surprise again this time. “What am I supposed to say to that?”

  Wazoo went to the counter, reached over and picked up a jug of iced tea and a glass. She returned to pour for herself and give Bleu a refill. “Too hot to eat,” she said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We’re in limbo,” Wazoo said. “Whole damn town is holdin’ its breath.”

  “We’re feeling the same things,” Bleu said. “Nothing’s happened for so long.”

  “Only a day or so,” Wazoo said. “Just seems longer. It can’t stay quiet much longer.”

  Bleu looked at her and set down the glass. “Have you heard anything?”

  The woman and her son came from the back of the store with a book in hand. Wazoo looked more relieved than she should to jump up and make a sale.

  After the door closed behind the customers and the bell stopped jingling, Wazoo said, “Where you got the dogs?” She rejoined Bleu at the table.

  “They’re at the rectory. I would have brought them, but it’s too hot.”

  “I thought you come to your senses and sent ’em back to Ozaire.” Wazoo laughed. “You’re the same kind of fool for animals as me.”

  “They’re something. They’ve settled right in. You’d think I had them from birth.”

  “Roche wouldn’t like you leavin’ them behind,” Wazoo said. “They suppo
sed to be guardin’ you.”

  “I’m fine,” Bleu told her, wishing she felt fine rather than jumpy. She picked up a spoon, but dropped it without stirring her tea. “The handle’s hot from the sun,” she said, giving her fingers a shake.

  “I heard you got the big story about Roche.”

  “Where did you hear that?” How many people knew about it?

  “Doesn’t matter. And I mean it doesn’t matter. That woman, she went lookin’ for him. She wanted to use him. They used each other. Slippery bodies, they always good to make the movin’ easier, sexier. Why wouldn’t a hot mudroom be real good? Hoo mama, I want me some hot mud one of these days.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Roche, he didn’t do anythin’ wrong. He’s just a man with an imagination and a real good way to work with it.”

  “I love Roche,” she said, and sat quite still, frowning.

  Wazoo smiled. “You surprised yourself.” She chuckled. “You told him that?”

  Bleu put her face in her hands. Loving him could be dangerous to her health. She didn’t know why she’d admitted it aloud.

  “Movin’ on,” Wazoo said. “They stopped workin’ on that school place?”

  “Yes.” Bleu’s voice sounded muffled in her own ears. “The old walls are gone.”

  “But you’re not carrying on.”

  “Not immediately,” Bleu said.

  “I heard all about what Kate Harper said. Why would she lie about little ones dyin’? Could be, she’s crazy.”

  “I don’t think she’s crazy,” Bleu said. “In shock, that’s what Cyrus thinks.”

  Smoothing the tablecloth, Wazoo frowned. “You know George Pinney?”

  “No, not really.”

  “That’s a beautiful-lookin’ man. They reckon Spike doesn’t think he’s done anythin’ wrong.” She glanced around the shop. “Poor Mary, dyin’ like that. Me, I keep thinkin’ she’s still here.”

  Bleu hunched her shoulders. She believed there had been a pirogue beside Eugene Cashman’s cabin. And she was certain she had heard the murderer putting Mary in that pirogue and dragging her to the bayou. The other sound had been the drill, killing her. Knowing she’d been there, but couldn’t do anything to help, sickened Bleu.

  “Will you look at that?” Wazoo said.

  The sheriff’s cruiser shot to a stop at the curb. Instead of parallel parking, Spike nosed in and just left the car there. He slid out and came toward the shop at a rapid lope.

  “I’m lookin’ for you,” he said to Bleu the moment he was inside. “Madge said you were meetin’ Roche here. Good thing you’re makin’ sure folks know where you are.”

  “Why? Did something happen?”

  Spike glanced at Wazoo who started to get up. “Sit down,” he told her. “You’ll find out what I say, even if I don’t say it.”

  “Why, thank you,” Wazoo said. “You were always smooth with the compliments.”

  Spike shook his head. “I’m looking for Sam Bush,” he said. “Madge said you’ve been doing some work with him at his place. She hasn’t seen him for a day or so that she can remember.”

  Bleu frowned. “Madge is muddled up. It’s been days since I was at his office.” She thought back. “He was at Pappy’s with everyone. I haven’t seen him since then.”

  “Excuse me!” Wazoo leaped up. “I forgot something. Be back.”

  Spike turned to watch Wazoo hurry behind the counter and through a door that led to a storeroom and a flight of stairs to the flat above. He met Bleu’s eyes and raised his brows. “It’s not like Wazoo to duck out on fresh information.”

  Bleu agreed, but didn’t say as much. “Sam’s probably busy working.”

  “He lives at Rosebank, remember,” he said as if she would finish the rest of the thought.

  She did. “You haven’t seen him out there?”

  “Nope. If he contacts you, I want you to listen, agree with whatever he says, then get to me. Get to me right then. If I’m not the one who picks up, you tell whoever does that I told you to talk to me.”

  “Yes.” Bleu swallowed. “Do you think something’s happened to him?”

  “I can’t talk about that.”

  “Then I can’t call you if Sam calls me,” she said in a spurt of anger, and then felt foolish. “I’ve been through everything that’s going on from the beginning. Why can’t you tell me why you’re worried about Sam?”

  Spike ran a finger around the inside of his collar and turned his head from side to side. They were all accustomed to stifling weather, but today was a scorcher.

  “Spike?” she prompted him.

  He tipped his face down and crossed his arms. Then he looked up at her. “It’s not Sam I’m worried about.”

  Chapter 45

  Wazoo didn’t reappear until Spike drove his cruiser away. After that, she just about fell back into the shop and began cleaning up behind the counter.

  “Everything okay?” Bleu asked.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Wazoo sounded edgy.

  She lined up the big jars of candy on a shelf, clacking the glass together. In the middle of washing what few dirty dishes remained, she looked at the door, almost wild-eyed. And she muttered while she hurried to turn the sign there to read Closed from outside.

  By Bleu’s watch, it wasn’t yet five. The shop stayed open till six.

  Dishwashing resumed. And a conspicuous absence of conversation.

  “Would you like me to leave?” Bleu asked. “You’re getting ready to close up.”

  “I already closed,” Wazoo said. She paused and wiped her hands. “I do have to get away early. You stay as long as you want. Just lock up when you and Roche leave.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure.”

  Wazoo didn’t answer her.

  Something definitely was not okay. “Wazoo.” Bleu got up and went behind the counter to take the woman by the shoulders. “Stop rushing around.”

  “I told you—”

  “And I don’t believe it’s as simple as that. You’ve been acting strangely since Spike came in…before that even. Don’t try to put me off, because I won’t let you.”

  “You’re imagining things.”

  Bleu kept a hold on Wazoo’s shoulders until she lifted her chin and took a calming breath.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  Bleu’s heart gave a big thump. “Share it with me. I’ll help you.”

  “I’ve got to do it alone.”

  “No, you don’t. Not something that scares you. Talk to me.”

  Wazoo held up shaking hands. “Me, I said I wouldn’t tell anyone. I’ll go like I was asked and I’ll say someone’s waiting for me. I’ll come back to you. If I don’t get here in a couple of hours…No, I’m gonna be okay.”

  “No!” Panicked, Bleu shook her. “No one should ask you to do something and not to tell anyone, unless it’s wrong. You know that.”

  “He said his life depends on it.”

  “Who?” Bleu insisted.

  “Folks don’t think a lot about me, but I’m loyal and I like it that way. If I can help someone, I will. I didn’t mean to, but I let Mary down. I won’t let that happen again. He ask me to help him, and I said I would because I like him. He’s in a jam.”

  “It’s Sam,” Bleu said, dropping her hands from Wazoo’s shoulders. “Of course it is. Spike said something about him, and you took off. You don’t know what you should do, but I’ll tell you. You should go right to Spike. Now.”

  “And if Sam dies because I didn’t help him?” Wazoo said. “Or because I brought the sheriff where he wasn’t wanted—then what? I can’t stop you from talkin’ to Spike, but I can do what I’m goin’ to do anyway. I’m leavin’.”

  Chapter 46

  Fifteen minutes later

  Roche was not to be disturbed during a session. He glanced at the flashing light on his desk phone.

  Quietly, smiling reassurance at his patient, he depressed the button without picking up.

&n
bsp; The flashing stopped.

  Chapter 47

  “Come in,” Madge said, looking up when someone knocked on her office door.

  It was probably Cyrus, who had started knocking every time he approached her in there.

  She didn’t know if she should keep on working here or not. “Come in,” she called louder. So far, she hadn’t been able to stay away.

  Sig Smith put his head around the door. He smiled, but his eyes showed he was uncomfortable. “Hi,” he said. “I hoped I’d catch you before you left.”

  “Hi,” she said. This was the meeting she had dreaded. They had not been alone together since the night she ran from him.

  Carrying mixed-colored roses, already in a vase, he slipped into the room. “For you,” he said, and put the vase on her desk. “A peace offering.”

  A subdued rumble came from her striped chair where Bleu’s Killer had settled. The dog overflowed the seat, but evidently keeping Millie from her favorite spot was worth the discomfort.

  “You’ve got a new watchdog,” Sig said. “Dogs.” He saw Toadie curled on the rug.

  Millie sat on Madge’s lap. “They’re Bleu’s,” she said.

  “You’re probably going to say no,” Sig said, “but I’d like to take you out for a meal.”

  Madge tilted her head. She smiled at him.

  “That’s a no?” Sig said.

  “The way I behaved the other night was ridiculous. I apologize.”

  He took a long breath through his nose. “I was the ridiculous one. You shouldn’t have to fight a man off after a couple of dates.”

  “I’m not ready to go out again,” she told him.

  “I didn’t think you would be.” With one finger, he touched the card among his roses. “I mean this,” he said and left her again.

  This side of the house was cooler than the rest. All the trees screened the building. Madge figured that was why Bleu’s new buddies had followed her there. That and an opportunity to irritate the small dog they looked at with disgust.

  What should she do?

  The door opened once more, without a knock. “Okay if I come in?” Cyrus said. Despite the heat, he wore a cassock. His collar was a stark strip of white against solid black and to Madge he looked untouchable.