“Yeah. No worries.” Bennie made a couple of notes in his little book. “When I find the LaFleur broad, you want me to do her?”
“I want you to make her gone. After you get all the evidence she has in her possession.”
“What if she’s turned it over to this lawyer already?”
“Kill him and everyone who’s come into contact with the information.”
“That could mean torching the law firm, Bry.”
“I know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
October 15th, San Jacinto fazenda
“Please calm down, Jeannie.”
Scott mentally cursed the distance between him and the woman he loved. She needed him, and he was thousands of miles away. Thank God for Tony and his security firm’s resources. The damn DEA had never gotten him the satellite set-up they’d promised. But Tony had.
“What did the police tell you and Tony about this Matthews’ death?”
“The police said it looked to be a professional hit.”
The tension in Jeannie’s voice came over the digital connection loud and clear.
Scott closed his eyes to avoid Rosalie’s questioning ones. It was hard to talk to Jeannie with Rosalie in the room, but he couldn’t take the chance without her. Although they thought the camp had bought their lover’s act, neither one of them wanted to risk their lives on that belief. So, Rosalie was watching — and listening — for any extra-inquisitive passers-by.
“Did Tony go into New Orleans and check the situation out?”
“No. He was afraid that anyone looking for me might have resources in the NOPD and the Medical Examiner’s office.”
“Damn. He’s right. Thank God he’s staying with you. I feel a lot better knowing that he’s there to protect y’all.”
“How are you getting along?”
“Fine. Learning a lot of interesting things. Meeting lots of the locals. The One World set-up is very efficient — and productive.”
Scott hoped she would get the picture he was trying to convey. They had promised the DEA that Scott would not directly address any of the reasons why he really was in Brazil just in case someone had hacked into the satellite transmissions. Not even the most secure system was secure in the cyber-world. Later, he would be making a coded-report to his DEA and Customs contacts in their guise as his Uncle Lou.
In fact, the DEA and Customs people hadn’t wanted Scott to call Jeannie at all. But he had told them where they could shove that idea. There was no way he could do what he had to do without knowing — and hearing — that his loved ones were safe.
“Will you be home soon? It’s been over a month. I thought you’d only signed up for one.”
“Please try to understand, cher. These people really need medical care down here. So, I promised them another month. After that, I should be home.”
Through the miracles of modern digital technology Scott heard enough to realize that Jeannie was crying and trying hard not to let him know.
“Scott?” Jeannie sniffed. “Be careful. I’ve heard troublesome things about Brazil. If I had known before you left, I would’ve tried to stop you.”
“I’ll be fine, cher. Remember, I was a Marine. I can handle myself — and anything this old over-sized swamp can hand me. Don’t worry. Just take care of yourself, Little Bits and mama until I get back.”
“I want you home, Scott. Soon. In one piece.”
Scott smiled. Behind the words, Scott thought he detected a hint of Jeannie’s true feelings for him.
“I want that too. I love you, cher.“
“Good-bye. Mama Chloe and Little Bits send their love.”
The beep of the digital disconnect cut off any chance for Jeannie to add her love. He sighed. His woman still couldn’t admit out loud she loved him, too. Maybe he’d tipped his hand too soon back in the States. Oh, well, he couldn’t go back and do it over.
“How is your woman holding up?” Rosalie whispered.
“As well as can be expected with someone wanting her dead.”
“This person who wishes to kill your Jeannie. It is Lopez’s partner? This Rutherford of whom you’ve spoken?”
Rosalie spat the names of the two men as if they were a bad taste in her mouth.
“Yes.”
“You must love her very much to leave your safe world and come down here to find evidence against this man.”
“Just as much as you loved your Julio. You did the same, after all.”
“Yes. We are a pair, are we not? The only difference is you have someone to live for — and I do not. Go home, Scott. I will find the evidence to convict both men of their crimes. Your Jeannie needs you.”
Scott laughed harshly. “What kind of man do you think I am?” He grabbed Rosalie’s arm and pulled her close, until their noses almost touched. “After the butchery I’ve seen here and the stories I’ve heard from the relatives of the missing, I can’t run home… Jeannie, if she knew what we knew — and saw what we’ve seen — wouldn’t want me to. No right-thinking man or woman who calls themselves a decent human being could turn their backs on the atrocities committed here. I’m staying. When I go, you’ll be leaving with me. Your Julio wouldn’t have wanted you to martyr yourself.”
With tears running down her face, Rosalie nodded abruptly.
Scott groaned. He’d made her cry. Pulling her into his arms, he offered the only comfort he could — a reassuring hug. It must have been enough, because she hugged him back, then pushed away, her cheeks pink, her eyes downcast.
Had he embarrassed her in some way?
“What do we do now?” Rosalie’s tone of voice negated the previous few minutes as if they had never happened.
“Well, we have more than enough of the doctors’ notes on the harvesting of organs from donors that are still living. Thanks to you, we also have some of the same donors’ statements on tape about how they were tricked into having surgery. But we need more.”
“We need witnesses to the murders of the heart and liver donors.”
“Yes, and we need visual evidence of the drug manufacturing and smuggling.”
“Then, we had better get busy.”
Rosalie went over to the chest of drawers that Scott had set aside as hers. She pulled out a portfolio. From it, she pulled a sheaf of what looked to be e-mails.
“Let me read you what Julio sent me before he was killed. I went over these with some of the other DEA agents who have worked in Brazil. We agreed that there are only two or three places in the Pantanal that could be the source of the drugs. From what Julio wrote, those were the same areas where the organ donors were killed so the bastards could harvest hearts, livers and lungs.”
“The smugglers way of making sure the locals wouldn’t talk to outsiders about the drugs?”
“Yes. That’s what we assumed.” Rosalie sighed. “Julio was just sick near the end. He had gotten some grief-stricken mothers to tell him about their children being killed for their organs. He said he’d found actual correspondence from your Rutherford for the juvenile body parts. It’s all so — evil.”
Scott looked over the e-mails. “I can’t see where Julio mentions any specific areas in the region.”
“That’s because they are in code. He wasn’t sure what he was getting himself into, so we had devised a code. Later, the DEA used it to communicate with him.”
“Okay, so when do we start following Julio’s trail?”
Rosalie smiled. “We start tomorrow. I found a native who goes by the name of Sam and is willing to act as a guide and translator. He will take us to a medical fazenda on one of the tributaries of the Rio Verde de Mato Grosso. It is deep into the southern Pantanal, where few outsiders have ever gone. We can reinterview the natives there. Julio had listed it as one of the areas where most of the major organs were harvested.”
“Sounds like a place just ripe for the body mafia.”
“What is this ‘body mafia?’”
“It’s what the United Nations calls the organizations and peop
le who trade in illegally obtained body parts.”
“The international community knows of this and still has done nothing?”
Scott smiled at the outrage in Rosalie’s voice. “They are trying. But many nations, like Brazil, not only ignore what is happening within their own borders, but actually participate in it.”
“Brazil is a Catholic country! It is a sin.”
“The government doesn’t care.” Scott lowered his voice. “We can’t trust anybody in Brazil — no local police, no federal police and especially no government officials. So, if we have to run, we’ll be on our own. The only safe place is the closest U.S. consulate, which according to my calculations is in Brasilia.”
“If we have to run, we would never make it. It is soon the beginning of the wet season. It’s hard enough to get in and out of the Pantanal in the best of weather. Add to that, Lopez and his private army control the air fields and equipment around here. Even if we could make it to Porto Jofre to pick up the highway, they would catch us soon after we got there. The highway is all but impassable in the wet season.”
“That’s why if we have to make a run for it, we’ll be going by water,” Scott said.
“Water? Do you have any idea how long that would take us? Besides some of the areas between here and Brasilia are inhabited by people who hate outsiders. We’d never make it.”
“We’ll make it. Trust me. Let’s just hope we don’t have to run and can arrange to leave on the next transport out after our contract with One World expires.”
Rosalie looked as doubtful as he felt about the latter happening. Once they started to retrace the same ground that Julio had traveled to gather the evidence he’d uncovered, Lopez would hear of it. After that, it would only be a matter of time before they would have to run for their lives.
The DEA had made it clear that the agency wouldn’t be able to get anyone in to get them out in an emergency. Like Julio, they would be on their own.
Unlike Julio, Scott knew how to survive in a swamp in the rainy season.
———
October 15th, Manchac, Louisiana
“Jeanette. Cher?” Mama Chloe’s sweet voice pierced the depression that had settled over Jeanette after she’d cut off the call to Scott. “There is a call for you from a Mr. Devereaux. How did he know you were here?”
“I told him. He’s a good guy. I’m his principal witness against Dr. Rutherford in a medical malpractice case.”
Mama didn’t look too sure about others knowing Jeanette’s and Brigitte’s whereabouts. “You can take the call in my sitting room. That will give you some privacy.”
“It’s okay, Mama Chloe. You can sit in. I don’t have anything to hide from you.” Jeanette walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone. “Scott knows all about this. We’d hoped that the civil case could be expanded to include reckless endangerment and battery. That way, Rutherford would be so busy fighting a legal battle to save his career and his reputation that he wouldn’t notice the attacks on his other business ventures.”
“Do you really think that will work?” Mama’s frown indicated she had her doubts about the success of such a strategy.
“We don’t know, but I couldn’t just sit around while Scott was trying to prove the criminal charges. I have to stop this man from hurting any other innocent people. He blinded Ms. Barrios in both eyes — ruined her life. We’ve got a good chance to take one thing away from him that he prides himself on — his good reputation.”
“You’ll do whatever you wish, cher, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Jeanette did too, but she would never admit it out loud. She had to do something to bring Rutherford down. The only thing she could do was to help Lynn Barrios get her revenge and some compensation.
“Evan. How are you? How’s Lynn?”
“I’m doing fine, Jeanette.”
Evan’s baritone washed over her, imbuing her with a sense of calm and strength. That voice should be able to charm a jury into listening to Lynn’s story.
“Lynn, well, she is still depressed most days, but determined as ever to bring Rutherford to his knees. You hear anything from your man and his investigations in Brazil?”
Scott and the Federal agents had agreed that Evan Devereaux could be advised about the potential criminal evidence against Rutherford. He, in turn, agreed to stall the case for as long as possible so that Rutherford would be occupied in New Orleans. That way, if the evidence of criminal activities were found, the Feds would know where to find him. They didn’t want Rutherford to get the wind up and flee.
“I spoke to him today for the first time. He is working on it, but needs more time.”
“Damn, I was afraid of that.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I filed the civil case two days ago…”
“Why so soon? I thought you were going to file it later this month?”
“One of the firm’s private investigators got the word that somehow Rutherford heard about the lawsuit and your involvement in it. Rutherford has hired a thug by the name of Bennie “The Finger” St. James to find you. He and his pals are following me around to get to you.”
Icy fingers clutched at Jeanette’s throat. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe. Rutherford was working harder than ever to shut her up — permanently.
“Well, Bootsie, did ya just think da man would roll over and forget about you because you’re hiding?”
“Jeanette? What’s wrong? What did that man say to you? Tony!! Come here!”
Mama Chloe’s voice sounded a long way away, beyond the tunnel of cold white light which grew quickly narrower, threatening to squeeze Jeanette to death.
Jeanette gradually became aware of Tony’s angry tones in the background as Mama Chloe hovered over her, wiping her face with a cool, wet cloth. Where was she? On the couch in the sunroom off the kitchen.
“Tony! She’s come around.”
Tony appeared at her side, portable phone in hand. His look of concern warmed her. He’d become a close friend, more like the brother she never had but had always wished for when she was growing up.
“Hey, kiddo. You scared us. Even Evan is threatening to come out here.” She must have made a sound of alarm, because Tony hurriedly added, “No, no, don’t look like that. I told the man he couldn’t come near here. He’d lead them to you.”
“What about the phone call? Can they trace it?”
Jeanette didn’t recognize the strained voice as her own. The realization that she wasn’t safe in the little swamp town had hit her hard.
“Nope. Old Evan ain’t stupid. He’s calling from a public phone.” Tony smiled to reassure her. “They couldn’t put a trace on it, because they’d have to know about the location ahead of time.”
Jeanette’s sigh of relief was audible, but she didn’t care. She’d come to love her life in Manchac, even considering why she had to move here. It was the safest she’d ever felt in her life. Even her life with Paul. This was home now.
Home.
Jeanette sat up with a start. When had she started thinking of this little town on the edge of a swamp as her home and not as Scott’s — or Paul’s?
Was it when Mama Chloe held Jeanette against her ample bosom after she’d broken down, crying over pictures of Paul and Scott in the Fontenot family albums? Or was it the day Frenchy brought by his fishing and hunting buddies and they offered their services to protect Scott’s woman from the bad ‘uns? Or maybe it was the day Brigitte and she found the tree at the edge of the swamp with Scott’s and Paul’s names carved into it?
No. Those incidences were only a part of the feeling. Manchac felt like home, because she missed Scott more than she missed her past life with Paul.
It had finally all come together after the call from Scott. He’d said he loved her and she finally accepted it. Accepted that she loved him, too, and wanted Scott to come home — home to her in Manchac. New Orleans and the apartment in which she’d lived and loved Paul and in which Charl
es had died was merely a place in her past. She knew she could never live there again.
Oh, my God. She hadn’t told Scott she loved him back.
What if she never got the chance? No, that wouldn’t happen. God couldn’t be so cruel as to take another man from her.
“Jeanette. Are you okay? Evan needs to tell you some things.” Tony knelt by the settee and stared into her face. He gently cupped her head with his hands and felt her scalp. “Did you hit your head again? Do I need to call a doctor?”
“No. No.” She sat up and disengaged herself from Tony. “I was wool-gathering. I forgot to tell Scott something, that’s all. I’ll have to remember to tell him later.”
She smiled at Tony and Mama, who smiled back, although Jeanette could tell they were still concerned for her.
“I’m fine, really. Please give me the phone.” She held out her hand for the portable. “Evan? Sorry, I must have fainted. It was a shock hearing that Rutherford is on to us so quickly.”
“I can understand that, Jeanette.” Evan’s tones, which before had calmed her, were now serious and somber.
She started to get afraid all over again.
“What is it that you haven’t told me? Is it about the case?”
“Rutherford somehow managed to get the case docketed for an early trial date. Some bullshit about the potential for damage to his reputation and that he deserved to have his case heard quickly and his name cleared as soon as possible.”
“From your tone, I take it that this doesn’t usually happen.”
“Not in civil cases, but he got the case assigned to a judge who is one of his golfing buddies and who we have to assume is in Rutherford’s pocket.” Evan sounded disgusted and disheartened. “Money talks in New Orleans. Rutherford has a lot of money.”
“Can we get another judge?”
“I’ve already asked for one on the grounds of bias and conflict of interest. Judge Tremayne has denied the motion and has refused to consider recusing himself.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“I’ve demanded a jury trial. He can’t deny us that — the Constitution guarantees that. The judge may be biased, but he isn’t stupid. He knows a denial of my motion would be immediate grounds for an appeal. After which, we could get a change of judge on the refusal to recuse and on his error in denying us a jury trial.”
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