Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery #7 (Faye Longchamp Series)

by Evans, Mary Anna

  Benoit shook his head. “No, Sugar, I was just talking to him about the goings-on here at the marina. You know—people getting killed. Stuff like that. Manny’s here all the time, and I thought he might have seen something helpful.”

  Amande was not to be dissuaded from defending her friend. “Manny wouldn’t hurt my grandmother. He was good to her. He never raised the rent. If he didn’t see her for a few days, he’d ask me how she was or come check for himself. When either of us came in for groceries, he’d look around and find out-of-date food, just so he could give it to us instead of throwing it away. Manny taught me everything I know about computers, and he let me do my schoolwork on his old one until I saved up enough money to buy it from him. You leave him alone.”

  Amande’s tone made Faye wonder whether Manny would be the lucky guy if Amande decided she needed to propose to somebody.

  “Amande, would you go…um…”

  Faye wanted Amande out of this conversation with Benoit, and she was too poor a liar to come up with a diversion quickly. Michael’s diaper was freshly changed, and it wasn’t time for his lunch or nap. Maybe she could send the girl to the marina for ice cream…

  “If you want to get rid of me, just say so.” Amande’s tone was matter-of-fact. No hurt feelings. No attitude. Just an offer to disappear. Maybe she was tired of listening to people try to figure out who killed her grandmother. “I have some homework to do, actually. I’ve been neglecting it lately.”

  Benoit smiled down at her, and the smile did nice things for his dour face. “I think you’ve had some pretty good excuses. Miss Faye and I are gonna walk you over there. Just to make sure there’s no bad guys lurking. You lock yourself in, okay? You’re doing that all the time now, aren’t you? And keep a phone handy. We can practically see your bedroom window from here, but there’s no sense in being stupid.”

  After Benoit and Faye were satisfied that the houseboat was empty, except for a napping Didi, and after they were sure that Amande was safely locked in, Faye asked, “Where were we? Oh, yeah. How come Manny’s just now telling you this stuff?”

  “Good question. If he’s being straight with me, it’s taken him a while to piece together that I’d want to know this. When I questioned him after Hebert’s death, Steve hadn’t showed up on Miranda’s doorstep yet and you hadn’t seen Dane’s name on Miranda’s refrigerator yet, so we didn’t even have either of them in our sights. Since Miranda died, word has gotten around that I was looking for someone with the name Sechrist, but Manny didn’t know Dane by name at the time. However, the sight of that man hitting on his little friend Amande put Manny over the edge. He spent some time yesterday finding out who he was, then he grilled the poor kid about just how well she knew Dane. He even went back through his orders to see when his Abita sales picked up.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to fire me and hire Manny to be your unpaid consultant?”

  “Manny’s too smart to work for free.”

  Faye waited for his deadpan expression to crack. It didn’t.

  He went on. “When Manny pieced together that this person flirting with his young friend was definitely the same Sechrist I was trying to find, he called me. He’s sure that he saw Dane and Steve together at least a few days before Miranda died. Before even Hebert died. Manny says he distinctly remembered Amande sitting at the bar, like she always has, talking to him while he dealt with his credit card receipts. Dane and Steve and their beers were just a few feet away. That was the day he realized that a pretty sixteen-year-old shouldn’t be in a room where somebody like Steve was drinking. Other than the one time you saw her, she hasn’t been back in the bar since Hebert died, not even just to hang out, because Manny hasn’t allowed it. He made an exception that night she came in with Didi, and he lived to regret it.”

  Manny’s story hung together. If things had truly happened the way he described, then Faye liked him. Respected him, even.

  “What does it mean that Steve and Dane knew each other before Steve even showed up on Miranda’s doorstep?” she mused. “How likely is it that they could have randomly met?”

  “I know that life is random, but I don’t like it. I’m always going to look for a reason things happen.”

  Faye nodded her agreement and waited for Benoit to continue.

  “So Manny says that Dane and Steve have some kind of history, even if it’s only a week or two. Even better, Manny is the only person I’ve talked to who knew Hebert, outside his family. Lots of people knew who he was, but they were mostly bartenders and drunks. In a bar, you stand beside a stranger and drink, or you stand in front of a bartender and drink, but you don’t really know those people. Manny actually knew Hebert as a person. He said that the man was a drunken jerk who had a soft spot for his little stepsister Justine, which meant that Manny had a soft spot for him. When Justine ran away from her baby and her stepmother, Hebert stopped coming around. I think Manny missed him a little.”

  “Maybe because Manny’s got a soft spot for a teenaged girl, too. Does his interest in Amande seem unhealthy to you? Miranda would’ve gone head-to-head with any thirty-year-old man that she thought was after her granddaughter, don’t you think?”

  “Actually, I think she would have just hexed him, but I don’t think she did. Manny seems to be the nice guy Amande thinks he is.”

  “If you say so. So forget Manny for now. I’m more interested in the fact that Dane has known Steve for a while. Did I tell you that I believed Dane was diving for treasure somewhere near Amande’s island…the one she owns with Steve? And would you be interested to hear that he’s been over here picking my brain about local archaeology? Or in the fact that somebody’s been hanging out in the shack on that island, drinking beer and scuba diving?”

  One of Benoit’s orange eyebrows rose a millimeter. “Yes, on all counts. So do you think Dane has been squatting on Amande’s island around-the-clock while he looks for the treasure? Because evidence says otherwise. He gave me an address for a rented fishing shack. I drove past it. It’s rustic. Damn rustic. Latrine. Hot, plastic-tasting drinking water that comes from rain barrels. I could maybe see Hebert living in a place like that, but Dane grew up in a nice house. If he’s been staying there for months, and it looks like he has, then he really wants to be here. Your suspicion that he’s treasure hunting sounds about right.”

  Faye looked away for a second, checking that Michael was still within arm’s reach. “That reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to ask you. Where is Steve staying? Because it didn’t look to me like anybody was living in that leaky and bug-ridden island shack. I saw beer cans and diving gear, but I didn’t see any clothes.”

  “Steve had a cheap motel room, but he gave it up two days ago when he took up with Didi. Not only is his car overnighting in the marina parking lot, but his boat is now being moored at the dock that services Amande’s houseboat. Surely you’ve noticed.”

  Faye gave a quick nod. “I’ve seen it here, but I didn’t know if it was moored in that spot all the time. So he’s given up his hotel room and moved in with Didi full-time after what? Two dates?”

  “If you can call them dates.”

  “Charming. I’ve been doing my best to keep Amande away from that man, but there’s only so much I can do when he’s living in her house.”

  “You know that there’s absolutely nothing you can do about that. Unless you’re willing to call child services and try to get her put in foster care.”

  “I just might get to that point. But never mind Steve. I’m starting to think Amande’s island is the center of all things.”

  “It’s Steve’s island, too. Don’t forget that he owns three-quarters of it. What makes you say that?”

  “Dane obviously thinks there’s treasure nearby, and there may be some unknown Busch-drinker out there poking around underwater, too. I’m thinking it’s Steve. Now Manny has neatly tied the two guys together by telling us that they’ve known each other awhile.”

  Benoit was shaking his head. “
I don’t know, Faye. There’s no link between the island and the two murders. It passed directly to Amande and Steve from Justine. Neither of the victims, Hebert nor Miranda, ever had any claim on it. The houseboat and stock did pass through Miranda, giving a motive to the people in line to inherit. That would be Didi and Steve, and maybe Stan. Also, technically, Amande.”

  “I sure wish we could link Hebert to the island. At least we know Miranda was out there at least once, because Amande remembers it,” Faye said.

  “Hebert didn’t have a boat, and he didn’t have the money to rent one. He didn’t even have a car.”

  The word “boat” caught Faye’s ear. “Who does have access to a boat?”

  “You are really hung up on that island, aren’t you?”

  “Not just the island. Didn’t you say that Miranda’s body had gone right into the water, and that you hadn’t found the place where she was killed? And hasn’t it been bothering you that nobody saw Miranda and her killer leave the marina area? How hard would it be to bang an old lady in the head in her own kitchen, and load her unconscious body in a boat? It’s moored on the far side of the houseboat, you know, out of sight of the whole world. The killer could take off from there across the water to a place where it was more convenient to murder her. And neater, too.”

  “Everybody knows Dane has a boat. Tebo’s no more got the money to buy a boat than Hebert did, so not him. Manny? Of course he has access to a whole bunch of ‘em. He manages a marina. Stan may have a boat—most people around here do—but I have no idea if he brought it with him when he came here to watch his wife cheat on him. Steve has one, of course. We’ve already been talking about it.”

  Faye scanned the parking lot. Steve’s shabby green Ford was there, so she was guessing he’d taken his boat out. But where? To the island? Or somewhere else?

  “Where do those people go in the daytime?” she mused. “Didi, Tebo, and Steve, I mean. We know they spend a lot of time in bars, but where else? I’m thinking Steve spends time drinking Busch and scuba diving without proper certification. Didi seems to have business around town. I’ve heard Amande mention her going to the grocery store or to government assistance offices. Tebo, though. Where does he go?”

  “I’ll ask around and see if I can find out. In the meantime, I hope you’ll humor me and focus on the archaeological stuff I hired you to do. It’s gotta be less dangerous than talking to lowlifes.”

  “So you’re going to find out where those lowlifes go when they’re not setting bad examples for a teenaged girl?”

  “Yep, and you’re gonna see if you can figure out how those missing Spanish coins fit into all this. You’re also gonna try not to get crossways with a killer while you’re doing it.”

  ***

  Faye sat idle in front of her computer, completely aware that she should be working. The cabin door protested as someone large pushed it open, and a long, tall shadow fell across the floor. There was no reason for Joe to leave his work and come home for lunch, so he had come for a reason and Faye knew what it was. They’d both been pretending this conversation wasn’t coming.

  “We need to talk,” he said, taking her by the hand and sitting next to her at the dining table.

  How many times had she heard the words, “We need to talk,” from Joe’s lips?

  Not once. Joe was a doer, not a talker.

  “I’ve been listening to the news,” he began. “We’ve got to get home. The oil’s been heading east for days.”

  “But it’ll take a while for it to get there, yet. We can—”

  “It’s gonna take a day for us to get home. I’ve gotta get the booms from Sheriff Mike. I don’t know how long it’s gonna take to get ‘em set up. Those booms might keep the worst of the oil away, but if they don’t get set up in time, it could cover our beach and smother the plants in the salt marshes. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to the wading birds and the crabs and the fish, but we have to do what we can. We need to go now.”

  Faye took her hand from his and spread it atop the paperwork that was keeping her awake nights. “We can’t default on this project, Joe. We’ve spent too much money getting it done. It’ll bankrupt us, and we’ll never get work again.”

  “There’s nothing you can do on that computer in this cabin that you can’t do at home. Yeah, I’m out there most days doing field work, but we can hire that out. You know we can. We’ve hired the rest of it out, and that’s working fine.”

  Faye could feel it all slipping away. The project she’d worked so hard to land. The company she and Joe had struggled to build. The PhD that had taken half her life to get. And her home, lying defenseless in the path of an endless rush of crude oil.

  She took her hand off the stack of paper, and gripped Joe’s hand with it. “You win.”

  ***

  How many times had Joe heard the words, “You win,” pass Faye’s lips?

  Not once. Not until now.

  She wasn’t known for changing her mind, but he acted quickly, just in case.

  “How long will it take you to pack? I’ll gas up the car.”

  “I think you should pack enough of your own things for today and tomorrow, then go. It’ll give you a fighting chance of getting home by midnight. There’s a lot to do to get this place ready for checkout. Somebody needs to let Manny know we’re leaving. The rental boat has to be returned. The refrigerator needs to be emptied. I’ll stay here and shut things down.”

  Joe was beginning to suspect that Faye hadn’t really meant it when she said, “You win.”

  “When you say, ‘I’ll stay,’ do you mean a day or a month?” he asked.

  “I mean two or three days. Some of our contract workers are a little lacking in their work ethic. I need to meet with them face-to-face before I go. I need to talk to our client liaison and make sure we’re not freaking him out when we shut down our on-site headquarters and move to a whole nother state. I can do it, Joe. Just not today, and probably not tomorrow.”

  “If you don’t come with me today, you’ll be making a nine-hour car trip with a one-year-old. Alone.”

  “I find that jelly beans make good bribes.” She looked out the window in the direction of the houseboat.

  He squeezed the hand resting in his. It looked no different than it had the day he met her, small, brown, narrow-fingered, with close-clipped nails. The seven years that had passed were invisible, without leaving even an age spot to mark their passage, but the time had gone by. Years pass, and things change. Where would he be, if he hadn’t found Faye?

  He nodded his head toward the window. “You’re gonna have to say good-bye to her, sooner or later.”

  “I just wish I knew she was going to be okay. I was hoping to leave her in a good place.”

  “I know, but there’s no help for it. We have to go home.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Faye had hardly kissed Joe good-bye when her cell phone rang and she saw that it was Reuss calling. After a perfunctory hello, he said, “Look. I didn’t want to say this in front of the little girl this morning, but I think somebody needs to know. Calling you about it is irregular, ethically. I should be talking to my client or her guardian, but I think it’ll be obvious why I can’t take this to Didi. Amande doesn’t have anybody else but you to look after her. And yes, I know she’s only got you for another week or two, but I’m afraid she’s going to have to take the next two years one week at a time.”

  Actually, Amande would be on her own far sooner than “another week or two,” since Faye was packing even now, but Faye kept that to herself. “What’s the problem?”

  “I was being completely straight with her when I said that Steve, Didi, Stan, and Tebo had all been to see me. I left out the part where Steve asked me if it might be possible for him to get custody of Amande. Just this morning, in fact.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, I know. I couldn’t come up with a less suitable guardian for a teenaged girl if I trolled maximum security prisons. He fed me some line
about how he wanted to make sure his dead wife’s little girl had a good future, but think about it for a minute. He’s got even more to gain from getting control of Amande’s inheritance than Didi does. Amande and Steve together will hold half of the houseboat and stock, but Steve didn’t talk much about that. He was more interested in understanding how ownership of the island would be handled. This took me some time to explain, because the man is not overblessed with brains. Finally, he got the picture: Didi has no share in the island, because Justine owned it alone. If Steve gains custody of Amande, he’ll control the island outright, presuming he can get a cooperative trustee for the girl’s inheritance. If he is the trustee, she’s in deep trouble.”

  “And you think he wants that island.”

  “Oh, there’s no doubt. He wants it.”

  “No sane judge would give that girl to Steve Daigle. Am I right?”

  “Probably, although not all our judges are sane in these parts. But think about this. Amande says she’s looking to get married. What will happen if she marries Steve?”

  “He gets control of the whole island.” She struggled to untangle the legal details she’d discussed with Reuss just an hour before. “She can’t get married unless Didi signs. Steve is Didi’s new boyfriend, so she’s not gonna be real excited about marrying him off to her niece…”

  There was silence on the other end while Reuss waited for her to finish thinking.

  “…but Didi’s not real dedicated to the sanctity of marriage, is she? There would be no reason for her to stop seeing Steve, just because he married her niece. And she can be bought.” When Faye sifted through Amande’s possible custody arrangements, she saw that Didi might be a lowlife, but she wasn’t stupid. “By taking up with Steve, Didi’s put herself in a no-lose situation. It doesn’t matter to her whether she is Amande’s eventual guardian, or if Steve is, or even if the girl gets emancipated by marrying Steve. Under all those scenarios, she and Steve will control the boat, the stock, the worthless island that everybody seems to want—everything.”