Patricia Dusenbury - Claire Marshall 01 - A Perfect Victim

by Patricia Dusenbury

  "Okay, I'll do it."

  "I heard about that cabin fire where the guy died. Isn't that near where you go?"

  "I don't know. I didn't see nothing." Daniel had shrugged, trying to act cool, but he could feel his eyelid twitching. First Jason Corlette and now his father. If the killer came asking around about who might have been up there... He'd rubbed his eye, hoping his father hadn't noticed the twitch, and said, "Tomorrow noon, I pick up the diesel at Sammy's."

  He'd driven home and rigged an alarm system so no one could sneak up on him. Twenty-four hours, he'd told himself, you just got to keep safe for twenty-four hours. But as time passed and nothing happened, he'd calmed down and thought things over. The cabin burned last Wednesday. If the killer was going to come after him, he'd have already come. Wouldn't he?

  Daniel crawled out of bed, took three aspirin and thought some more. He saw that the bad engine had really been good luck. Otherwise he'd be out in the Gulf, stuck on the family shrimp boat for two weeks. Now he had a choice.

  He better pick up the diesel. Otherwise the old man would be really pissed. But when he got down to the dock, he'd tell them that he'd changed his mind. Tomorrow he'd be back out on his boat, doing what he wanted to do.

  Ray called a little after ten. "Hey Danny. You know the guy who died in the fire. His fiancée's on her way to your place."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "She didn't say she was the one, but she introduced herself, and I recognized her name from the newspaper."

  "You've been talking to the dead guy's fiancée?" Daniel struggled to get his head around what Ray was saying.

  "She's looking for a witness, someone who might have seen the cabin fire."

  "A witness?" His blood went cold.

  "She asked about Wednesday, specifically, and I remembered you coming in Wednesday afternoon, acting strange."

  "Wednesday," he said. The news never said nothing about when the cabin burned, and neither did Jason. Only him and the killer knew it happened Wednesday afternoon. Only him and the killer knew there was a witness. This fiancée was the killer, and she was coming after him. "You told her my name? Where I live?"

  "She's a nice lady, but it's up to you. You don't want to help her, say you weren't there."

  "When did she leave?"

  "A couple minutes ago."

  Daniel's hand closed around St. Andrew. The killer could be here in fifteen minutes. He hung up and grabbed his shotgun. On the way out, he sprinkled juju dust across the threshold. Not that he really believed in that kind of stuff, but it couldn't hurt. All she had to do was bust open his door, throw in some gasoline and light a match. His home, an almost new doublewide, would burn as fast and hot as Palmer's cabin.

  At five to twelve, Daniel pulled into the parking lot behind Sammy's Engine Repair, a cinderblock building on the edge of downtown. He looked around to make sure no strange woman lurked nearby and climbed out of his truck. Sammy's new wife was minding the office.

  "Where's Sammy?" he said. He knew Linda, but they weren't what you'd call friends.

  "What kind of hello is that, Daniel?" she said. "You never did have any manners."

  "I'm here to pick up my old man's engine. It's supposed to be ready at noon."

  "Sammy didn't mention it to me, but he'll be back in a few minutes." She looked him over. "Hey, I bet you know about that cabin fire."

  "What cabin fire?" He felt his eyelid twitching and turned away so she couldn't see.

  "Don't pretend to be dumber than you already are. You know what I'm talking about."

  "No I don't, and I ain't got all day. When's Sammy coming back?"

  "I told you, in a couple minutes. Since when is your time so important? And why do you keep looking out the window? You're supposed to look at a person when you're talking to them."

  He edged past her. "I'll wait in the shop." Five minutes of Linda and his headache was back worse than before.

  The shop smelled like diesel fuel and hot metal. Daniel wandered around, looking at the big engines and trying not to think about the killer who was looking for him. He wished he hadn't left his shotgun in the truck. Where the hell is Sammy? He's the one who said noon.

  "Yo, Danny, the wife said you were hiding out back here." Sammy stood in the doorway a big grin on his face. "She says you can't take a little teasing."

  "I came to pick up my old man's engine." Daniel hated it when anyone outside the family called him Danny.

  "Bad news, Danny. The truck came in this morning, but they didn't have the part."

  "No way."

  "Way." Sammy said. "Next delivery is Thursday morning. I'll call to make sure they get the part on the truck this time. Soon as it gets here, I'll start work. I'll try to have it done by noon Thursday."

  "You said noon today."

  "Tell the old man I'm real sorry, but there's nothing I can do about those lazy old boys back at the warehouse."

  Linda had come up behind Sammy. "I told you he was acting weird," she said.

  "We're leaving this afternoon," Daniel said.

  "Not without an engine you're not." Sammy put a friendly hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Danny. Two days. It's not that big a deal."

  He slapped Sammy's hand away.

  "Hey. Lighten up, man." Sammy gave his arm a little punch.

  Linda was whining some more about bad manners.

  Daniel lost it. He'd taken more than enough crap from these two. He wanted out but Sammy stood between him and the door. He swung, fist met face with a loud crack, and Sammy went down, blood pouring from his nose. He lay on the floor, groaning.

  Linda started screaming.

  Ignoring them both, Daniel walked out. His knuckles were starting to swell and his hand hurt like hell. Sammy's nose might not be the only thing broken. He started the truck with his left hand and peeled out of the parking lot.

  Back at the dock, he shared Sammy's bad news with his father and brothers. No one was happy about two more days sitting on shore not making money, and his swollen hand, which he said he'd shut in the truck door, earned him no sympathy.

  "Long as you're here, you can make yourself useful." His father pointed to a net that had gotten tangled in the winch.

  Daniel started to protest that he couldn't do that with a bad hand, but stopped when he saw the look on the old man's face. He untangled the net, using his left hand. By the time he finished, his right hand was swollen up purple, and his headache had become blind agony. He said he felt sick and was going home.

  He wasn't sure where he was going, but he needed to get his gear first. He drove past his place, checking things out, and noticed the little blue car parked under the live oak, the woman sitting on his front steps. The killer fiancée -- it had to be her -- was waiting for him. He parked around the bend and reached behind the seat.

  * * * *

  A young man walked around the side of the mobile home, carrying a shotgun.

  "Hi," Claire stood up. "I'm looking for Daniel Doucet."

  "You're under arrest." He raised the gun to his shoulder. "Put your hands over your head and don't move."

  She put her hands up. "The man at Ray's Café gave me directions to his house. Isn't this it?"

  He waved the shotgun toward her jeans pocket. "Is that a weapon?" His voice broke and the question ended in an adolescent squeak.

  This strange person acted even more scared than she felt, and he was the one with a gun. "It's a mobile phone. I don't have any weapons," she said, hoping that would lower the tension.

  "Put it on the top step and move away."

  She complied.

  "Further away, next to the tree. But don't get any funny ideas. You make a wrong move and I'll blow you away."

  Keeping the gun trained on her, he walked over and picked up her phone. He held the gun against his side, still pointed in her direction, and punched in a number. He acted like his hand hurt, and it looked swollen.

  "This thing don't work," he said.

&nb
sp; "You have to dial the area code."

  This time the call went through. He demanded to speak to Jason Corlette, no one else.

  "You're calling the Sheriff's Office, aren't you? Deputy Corlette can vouch for me. My name is Claire Marshall."

  "Jason," he spoke into the phone, his voice urgent. "It's Daniel. I arrested her for you, the killer. Come get her."

  "Ask him. He knows me."

  "You shut up," he yelled. "No, not you, Jason. I was talking to her. She came after me, but I was ready. You going to come get her or not?" He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and she caught only the occasional word, but it was enough to know they were discussing her. This had to be the man she was looking for. Why was he afraid of her?

  He hung up and said, "The law's on the way."

  "The sooner the better." She hoped Deputy Corlette recognized the urgency of the situation.

  He grunted a reply and leaned back against his house, the gun resting against his thigh but no longer pointed at her.

  Her arms ached from being held up. She interlocked her fingers and slowly lowered her hands until they rested on her head. When he didn't object to that, she leaned against the tree and slid down to sit on the ground.

  He watched, shotgun at the ready. "Don't try nothing."

  "I just want to talk to you. The man at the café thought you might have seen the cabin fire. I knew the man who was killed."

  He returned the gun to his shoulder and pointed it at her. "You stay right where you are."

  Time passed with excruciating slowness until a sheriff's department car pulled up behind Daniel's truck. Deputy Corlette got out.

  "I'll take over now." He put his hand on the barrel of Daniel's gun and pushed down until it was pointed at the ground. "Is this thing loaded?" He took the gun, removed two shells and handed it back. "You can lower your hands now, Ms. Marshall, but please stay where you are."

  "She came after me," Daniel said, "but I got the drop on her."

  "I just wanted to talk to him," Claire said.

  "She was waiting in ambush."

  "I was sitting on your front steps in plain view, waiting for you to come home." She turned to Deputy Corlette. "He's been holding me at gunpoint. You saw him. He's crazy."

  "She was going to kill me," Daniel said.

  Claire's jaw dropped. "Kill you? With what? You're the one with the gun, not me. And I want my phone back."

  "One at a time," Deputy Corlette said. "Daniel first. What happened to your hand?"

  "I shut it in the truck door, but I got the drop on her anyway."

  Claire bit her lip to keep from protesting as Daniel expanded upon his ridiculous accusations. When he finished, Corlette, nodded to her.

  "Your turn, Ms. Marshall."

  She explained that she was doing nothing more sinister than looking for a witness to prove Frank Palmer's cabin burned while she was in Michigan, because the New Orleans police seemed to think she had something to do with it.

  "See. She torched the cabin with the guy in it." Daniel said.

  "Did you see her near the cabin?"

  "I never saw no one, but you know she did it, and now she's here trying to kill me."

  "You really are crazy." Claire said, but neither paid her any attention.

  "How'd she try to kill you?" Deputy Corlette said. "She doesn't have a weapon."

  "Yeah, well she was trespassing."

  "Did you ask her to leave your property?"

  "I told her I'd blow her away if she moved," Daniel said.

  "I think we need to let her go back to New Orleans."

  "You're just going to let her go?"

  "I have no reason to arrest her."

  "Yeah, well if you find me dead, you'll know who did it." Daniel pointed at her. "You won't get away with it."

  Deputy Corlette retrieved her phone and escorted her to her car. He stood at the end of Daniel's driveway, watching her drive away. Had he believed her? Claire thought she'd seen a flicker of amusement toward the end of Daniel's ranting, but he'd remained impassive while she told her side of the story.

  CHAPTER 13

  Mike was working his way through case files for last year's unsolved homicides. Most had been sitting in the files for months without any resolution, or any action that he could discern. He divided them into three categories, prioritizing those most likely to be solved with a bit more effort, re-filing those that offered little or no hope of a case that could be prosecuted, and stacking those that could go either way. The phone call from Lafourche Parish brought a welcome respite.

  "I don't know where to begin." Corlette chuckled. "Some days I love being a cop."

  "Tell me. I could use a laugh."

  "This guy Daniel Doucet is a real swamp rat. I'm pretty sure he's the poacher Palmer reported. Proving it is something else. I talked to Daniel yesterday and got nowhere. Claire Marshall tracked him down this afternoon."

  "She's there?" She'd told him she never wanted to step foot in Lafourche Parish again.

  "Was here. Right now, she's on her way back to New Orleans. Flying low, I'll bet."

  "Do you know what was she doing there?"

  "Looking for a witness to prove the cabin burned while she was in Michigan. No one's told her that our arson investigators can figure it out without her assistance."

  "Have they?"

  "Not yet. Let me tell you what happened."

  Laughter punctuated Corlette's recital, but Mike didn't see what the hell was so funny. Maybe Breton was right about this deputy. He pushed the hair off his forehead. It was longer now, although still short by civilian standards. "Do you think Doucet witnessed the fire?"

  "After this afternoon, I'd bet money. He's scared. When Ms. Marshall came looking for him, he got scared of her. He thinks she killed Palmer and he's next. How he got there, I don't know."

  "Can you encourage him to talk, use the threat of an assault charge for leverage?"

  "What assault? He never touched her. We only heard about the fight because Sammy's wife called 911 for an ambulance he didn't need. The dust has settled, and no one has anything to say against anybody. Daniel, he shut a door on his hand. Sammy, he walked into a door." Corlette chuckled. "Doors can be dangerous."

  "Claire Marshall might be willing to press charges."

  "For what? She was on his property."

  "Maybe he'll get caught poaching."

  "The boys from Wildlife and Fisheries have been after Daniel for years, but they've never caught him. And last I saw, he was putting his boat up. He's going out on the family shrimp boat. He'll be gone two, three weeks."

  "Which is fine with you?"

  "He'll be out of harm's way." Corlette reverted to his official voice. "Enough fun and games. The autopsy came in while I was at Daniel's. It's homicide. Palmer was suffocated."

  "Not an overdose?" Yesterday, they'd found lethal levels of drugs and alcohol, an ambiguous finding that left the question of homicide or accidental death unresolved.

  "The doc said the whole thing didn't smell right. Death came too long before the fire. Plus he found fibers in the victim's mouth and nose. Consistent with passing out face down but, he thought, too many. He took another look and found a little broken bone in the victim's neck. He says our killer held something soft over Palmer's face. Despite his intoxication, Palmer resisted. It's all there in black and white. We'll fax it to you."

  "Nice job." Suffocation was a difficult diagnosis and often missed. "Anything else?"

  "We'll send the fibers off to the state labs along with the least damaged portions of the sofa upholstery. It looks like the killer used a sofa pillow."

  "It would have been handy." And it would provide no clue to the killer's identity.

  "So, our victim was the cream of New Orleans society?" Corlette said. "The more I see of New Orleans, the happier I am to live down here. You're new in town aren't you?"

  "I retired from the army the end of June and started here August first."

  "
So, what brought you to the New Orleans Police Department?"

  "New Orleans seemed like a good place to re-enter the civilian world. The police department, because I'm a cop at heart." He'd worked both sides of the courtroom, prosecutor and defense attorney, but found neither as satisfying as investigative work.

  "Me, I'm army too. I went in after high school and did my three years. They offered to send me to college if I re-upped, but I decided to go as a civilian. Another year of night school and I'll have my degree."

  "Do you plan to stay in law enforcement?" Despite his flakey sense of humor, Corlette gave every indication of being a good investigator. He was smart and thorough.

  "I'm thinking yes. That wasn't the original plan, but I'm enjoying myself. This afternoon was funnier than anything I've ever seen on TV. You had to be there."

  Mike couldn't match the deputy's jovial mood. A murder was most likely to be solved within the first forty-eight hours. Palmer was dead before the fire, which was Friday night at the latest. If Hatch set it, a real possibility, the fire was Wednesday, and the trail was cold before they knew a crime had been committed. He thanked Corlette for the update and signed off.

  "What did Boy Wonder have to say?" Lieutenant Breton was leaning against the doorframe, a file folder in his hand.

  "Come on in and close the door." He relayed the autopsy results.

  "Oh shit," Breton groaned. "Wait until the press gets hold of this. I can see the headline, 'Civic leader murdered during drug orgy.'" He rubbed his face as if trying to erase the lines his job had put there. "Lethal levels of alcohol and downers, suffocated, and burned--are we sure there wasn't a silver bullet? A stake through his heart?"

  "They're faxing the autopsy. When we get it, I want you to call Palmer's physician to see if any prescriptions match the drugs found in his body. I'll check with Claire Marshall's doctor."

  "She was out of it in Gilbert's office."

  Mike nodded agreement. "Yesterday evening she popped a pill when she thought I wasn't looking." He'd seen her reflection in the window. "She was in Lafourche Parish today." He repeated the citizen's arrest story. Now that he had time to think about it, it really was funny.

  Breton cracked up. "Corlette's poacher sounds like a real piece of work."