by R. Jean Reid
“Yep. Shame that I had to,” he said accusingly.
“What was I supposed to do, parade my reporter through the police station to you?” she suddenly flared. “Given what Harold told me about the time of death, I don’t see that the alibi Jacko gave Ronald Hebert would matter a damn.”
“Okay, fine, I can understand why you made the decision that you did. But please call me, at least. Believe it or not, we’re on the same side.”
“Believe it or not, we are, but that doesn’t mean I have to call you every half an hour and report what I’ve been doing. I knew that Harold would contact you, so you can’t accuse me of withholding information. All I can see here is your ego smarting because I didn’t do the little woman thing and run to you first.”
Doug Shaun said nothing, his face a blank slate. Then he abruptly burst into laughter. “You know, you’re quite attractive when you’re irate.”
“Oh, please …” Nell started.
“No, I’m serious,” he interrupted. “Brings out the blue in your eyes.”
“And this hardly qualifies as irate. You might not find me so ‘attractive’ if I was really angry.”
“Point noted. I would like to talk to Jacko.”
“I sent him home,” Nell prevaricated. “Thought he’d had enough for a day.”
“Will he be in tomorrow?”
“He’ll be around. Let me talk to him and we’ll set up a time.”
Doug Shaun nodded either in agreement with her offer or because he knew that it was as good as he was going to get from her. He suddenly asked, “Are you going to keep him on?”
Nell was taken aback at the question and realized it was probably one she was going to have to answer over and over again. “Of course. I’ve decided to make the Crier tabloid. What better way to start off than with ‘My Night with A Murderer—The True Tale of Passion in a Killer’s Lair.’ Then Jacko can out all the fine citizens of Pelican Bay who frequent places they’re not supposed to be at. We’ll have everything from the blood alcohol level of yacht club members to who’s at the stripper bars over in Biloxi.”
“Guess that answers my question.”
“Why did you focus in on Ronald Hebert?” Nell asked, taking the conversation in a direction that gave her control.
“A hunch.” She let her silence pull him to continue. “I ran a search for sex crimes in residents of Pelican Bay.”
“You must have had a field day with that. Want to work on a tabloid?”
“Ronald’s name came up.”
“For what?”
“He was arrested over in New Orleans. Crimes against nature statute.”
“The sodomy law?” Nell wondered if the chief thought she wouldn’t be familiar enough with the law to know what it really covered. “Or I should say, the former law. If it’s no longer illegal, is it still in the records?”
“He solicited an undercover officer for oral sex. Got arrested. Yeah, the law’s old, but still there.”
“You targeted Ronald Hebert because he’s gay?” It was barely a question.
“Look, I got the killer. What do you want?”
Nell sighed, then replied. “I want it to be some monster that doesn’t feed into people’s prejudices. That was it—just an oral sex charge?”
“His car was seen near one of the crime scenes. And he was at Rayburn Gautier’s funeral.”
“He’s the local florist. He probably goes to a lot of funerals.”
The jangle of an unfamiliar phone sounded. It was Chief Shaun’s cell phone. “Sorry,” he said as he answered it, getting up and stepping out of Nell’s office to do so.
She finished packing up to leave. She really did need to check on her children, although nothing more traumatic than having to wait for her to come pick them up now threatened their lives.
Just as Nell got to her office door, Doug Shaun came back in. She stepped abruptly back to avoid running into him.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “Report of some teenage kids drinking and running through a neighborhood, trashing mailboxes and cars. Maybe instead of lunch we can do dinner some other night?”
Nell was surprised. “Some night when I’m able to make arrangements for the kids,” she reminded him. “The kitchen isn’t pretty if I let them fend for themselves.”
She started to move through the door, as she thought he would, but he was still facing her. Nell suddenly wondered, am I so blind I didn’t see this coming? He leaned in to kiss her and put an arm around her shoulders. It was an awkward embrace; Nell felt like she couldn’t remember how to kiss a strange man.
His cell phone rang again, and they both used it as a signal to pull away.
Then Dolan came through the front door. “Nell, you still here?” he called.
“Just leaving,” she said. She and the chief walked to the door; he was talking on the phone as they left. Evidently he was getting an update on how many mailboxes had become victims of the rowdy teenagers, and how many people were complaining that something needed to be done.
He continued talking and walking with her until they arrived at her car.
“Good night, Chief,” she said.
“Doug,” he mouthed at her. Then he leaned in to gently kiss her on the cheek, as if sensing that she wasn’t ready for more. Or maybe it was just the talking on the phone that kept him at that chaste level.
Nell unlocked her car and got in. She quickly started it, worrying that he might end his conversation and she would lose this time to think about what had happened. But the chief was heading toward the police station, still talking.
Why can’t it be easy, Nell thought. His touch had reawakened some physical urges in her; not so much sex, but the desire to be touched and held. Even if she wanted him to kiss her, was it only to stave off her loneliness or did she actually see something in the man? He was, well, he was attractive, although not in a way she’d expected. She found herself thinking that it might be nice to have someone in her life, even if—if what? Doug Shaun wasn’t the perfect man of her dreams. Even if she could see a number of rough spots ahead? Could she see a lifetime with him? Then she chided herself—that’s not the right question at this point. Could she see going out to eat with him and having a good time? Yes. And did she want a chance to return his kiss?
Maybe, she admitted, especially if she could do it in some alternate world where she didn’t have to worry about what Lizzie and Josh would do. Or even about how she might feel driving by Thom’s grave. The widow McGraw didn’t waste any time before enjoying other men’s kisses, she imagined the gossips of the town somehow knowing. How can I still miss Thom so much and yet think about other men? Is there a proper period of grieving before you can think about sex again? Why the hell can’t I just stay numb and asexual? The familiar drive home gave her no clear answers.
“Maybe I need to push Carrie in his direction and solve the problem,” she said aloud as she turned into her driveway. Time to be a mother and not worry about strange men and their kisses. Mothers didn’t kiss strange men, after all.
Both Josh and Lizzie were home, and they’d made it there without resorting to the mom cab. Lizzie was even in the kitchen, with a chicken on the counter and a recipe book open.
It would have been easier to have done it herself, but Nell wasn’t going to discourage a budding cook. Besides, it gave her one of those “good mother” moments when the chicken came out of the oven, all roasted to golden perfection. She and Lizzie gloried in the feast they were providing. Nell helped Josh with the dishes, as Lizzie had used a more than usual amount of them.
All in all it was a quiet, calm evening.
Until the phone rang at two in the morning.
“Hello?” Nell answered it groggily.
No one spoke, but she felt that someone was there. Someone who intended to destroy her rest.
Suddenly sh
e said, “You’re not in jail, are you?”
The line went dead.
Nell stared at the phone in her hand for several seconds before finally putting it back down. Is it really possible they have the wrong man? she wondered. Or am I letting the darkness and being jarred into this make me paranoid? No, you’re the newspaper lady, she reminded herself. You piss people off if you can’t read their illegible handwriting and misspell their name. Most likely the call was a wrong number again, at worse a petty harassment from someone who didn’t like what came out in the paper.
She slept again, but only fitfully, caught between thoughts of men kissing her and strange, haunting phone calls.
twenty-four
The morning was bright and clear and Nell’s fears of the night seemed out of place in the bright sunshine.
It was a wrong number, she told herself firmly as she poured milk over cereal. Normalcy had returned; she was staring at three brightly colored bowls with bananas and strawberries cut up on top.
Then breakfast was over, books hurriedly found, her children at school and herself at work.
Jacko was at his desk when she arrived, early even for him. He didn’t have kids to cajole him into keeping school hours. They had talked briefly the night before, but all Nell had gotten from him was a mumbled “I’m okay.”
He looked like he hadn’t slept much, his eyes red-rimmed with dark circles under them.
“Good morning,” Nell greeted him.
“I’m sorry, but it’s not.” The toneless-ness in Jacko’s words worried her as much as what he’d said. “I’ve got pictures of the body bag. Good reporter to the end,” he added with a harsh, sardonic grimace.
“Another murder?” Nell asked, her fear from the late-night phone call instantly returning.
“Suicide, they said. They said that … he hung himself.”
“Ronald Hebert?” Nell asked quietly.
“I saw them taking the body out. Asked what was happening and they said that justice had arrived early.”
“How did you manage to be there?” Nell put her hand gently on his shoulder.
“Couldn’t sleep. Was driving around. Don’t know why I went by the jail … maybe because Ronald was there, just so not everyone would forget him.”
“That’s when you saw them bringing him out?”
“Saw a hearse, thought I might be a reporter and find out what was going on.” He suddenly looked at her. “Does it ever get to you? This job? Ever wish there were things you didn’t see, details you didn’t have to write down?”
“God, yes. Save me from the day I become so inhuman that some things don’t become ghosts to haunt me. Jacko, I’m so sorry.” Nell put her arms around him.
Jacko returned her hug, crying as he leaned against her. Minutes passed, and then he pulled away, wiped his eyes, and then said, “I need to wash my face.” He stood up abruptly, as if embarrassed by his crying.
“Coffee?” Nell asked as Jacko headed to the bathroom. It was one of their common morning greetings. Usually either Dolan or Jacko felt an immediate need for a jolt of caffeine as they came through the door, so they offered to run get coffee for all who wanted some.
He gave her a wan smile. “Yeah, that’d be great.”
Nell headed across the street. She got two coffees and two blueberry croissants, chanting to herself as she recrossed the street, “I will go bike riding with Josh this afternoon. And tomorrow and the next day.” That might atone for the croissant.
Jacko was back at his desk, his face scrubbed but still showing the effects of too-little sleep and a good bout of crying. He nodded thanks as Nell handed him the coffee and croissant.
“Do you want me to resign?” he asked quietly.
“No. Like I said, of course not. I need one good reporter around here. Unless you want to?”
“Not really, but … but the fact that I slept with a man accused of murder might be all that people ever see of me.”
“It might be,” Nell admitted. “But let’s see how things go. I don’t want you to go. The choice would be yours.”
Jacko nodded, then took a sip of his coffee, but there was an expectant look on his face as if he had something more to say. “I’d like to stay on the story.”
“As a reporter or as a vendetta?”
“I want it to be as a reporter. I want … some account of the vigilante justice that Ronald got.”
“You don’t think he committed suicide?”
“No, I don’t. He just wasn’t the type.”
“Maybe not in usual circumstances. But he was far beyond that.”
“I don’t think he would have given up so easily. If he didn’t do it, why kill himself so quickly?”
“What if he did do it? Can you be sure he wasn’t the murderer?”
Jacko took another sip of his coffee. “No, I can’t be sure. I don’t think he was the killer. I don’t think he killed himself. But I can’t be sure. I’d like to investigate. I’d like to find out what the truth really is.”
“Even if it’s not a truth that you want to hear? What if you never find it?”
“At least I’ll have looked. I don’t think that there’s any truth I want to hear,” he added softly.
“Okay, I’ll let you dig. But it’s a short leash,” Nell told him.
“Thanks. It needs to be. I guess I don’t … I want to be a reporter, not some wild-eyed crusader. I trust you to keep me there.”
It was a compliment, but Nell merely acknowledged it with a nod. “I want a daily report of what you’ve done and what you’re doing. We’ll meet every day at the end of the day—Carrie should be gone by then. There may be times when I’ll go with you. And times when I’ll go without you. Understood?”
“You’re the boss, Miz Nell,” Jacko said. He even managed a bare smile.
“Are you willing to do the obit for Ronald? If not, I can …”
“I’ll do it.”
“Okay. Also do a background on the county jail. Any other instances of jailhouse justice? Is there a pattern? Let’s do the archives first before we tackle the present.”
Jacko made a few quick notes, then turned to his computer with a nod in Nell’s direction.
She left him to begin his day, going back to her office and the guilty pleasures of a blueberry croissant. I’m going to miss him, Nell thought as she glanced at the intent look on Jacko’s face as he worked online. The terrain they’d just negotiated wasn’t gentle, yet they’d easily understood and agreed with each other. Much as she liked and respected Dolan and Ina Claire and Alessandra and the rest of her staff, she hadn’t found the easy camaraderie with them that she had with Jacko. It was hard to admit, but it would take a miracle for him to remain an effective reporter in their small town.
twenty-five
Nell met Marion at a local coffee shop. “A mid-afternoon break,” her friend had called it. They had already twice rescheduled any discussion of the library book Marion was concerned about, once because Marion’s mother was ill and once because Nell got a call about a sighting of the elusive alligator. She’d rushed to the harbor but only managed to get a picture of something that might have been an alligator tail. Or a floating log.
Marion opted for mint tea, while Nell went for an espresso. The late night phone calls had penetrated her sleep, making her restless even when nothing happened.
“I presume that you’ve heard the news,” Marion said as they sat down.
“Probably, but which news are you referring to?”
“Ronald’s murder.”
“You don’t think he killed himself ?”
“I’ve know Ronald for a long time—we went to elementary school together—and if I had to pick a person least likely to hang himself, it would be him,” Marion said.
“Even if he’d murdered children and knew what was facing him?”<
br />
“Maybe I’m one of those wide-eyed innocents,” Marion said slowly. “Like the neighbor who thought the serial killer was a nice guy. But I just can’t fathom Ronald as a killer of any kind, and particularly not of children.”
“Did you know he was gay?”
“An unmarried man in his mid-thirties who’s a florist? I never suspected.”
Nell chastised herself for her misstep. It had sounded like she was conflating his being gay with killing children, but she’d really been probing to see how well Marion knew the man she claimed wasn’t a murderer. “I was trying to find out how much you really know about him,” she said, hearing how lame her excuse sounded as she said it.
“Right,” was Marion’s terse reply. When she’d first sat down, she’d put her elbows on the table, leaning over her tea. Now she sat up straight, her arms crossed.
“I don’t think that being gay and murdering children have anything to do with each other,” Nell said. Defensively, she noted.
“Then why bring it up?” Marion retorted.
“Reporter’s habit. Ask provocative questions.”
“A habit that must not make you many friends,” Marion answered coolly.
Nell wondered if this was the time to finally confess that she knew about Marion and Kate, and that she knew why Marion was so offended by her comment. She decided against it. It could sound too much like she was belittling Marion’s anger, insinuating that Marion was only upset because she was gay, too.
“You’re right,” Nell admitted slowly. “I’m not very good at making friends. It was something I relied on Thom to do, and now … I’m trying to find my way. I know how to be a reporter, but not … not really how to be the life of a party.”
“Always asking the questions and never answering them might not be the best way,” Marion said. But her voice wasn’t so cold and she now leaned slightly forward.
“What questions have I asked and not answered?” Nell asked.
“You asked me why I came back to Pelican Bay. About what it was like growing up here, about my family, the library. We joked about it really being Perdition Point. But you didn’t really talk about yourself. You never said why you stayed.”