by Robin Caroll
That was enough for him to recognize the girl that had been in the picture by the one eye he could see. “Lissette Bastien?”
She opened the door wide. “Dimitri Pampalon.”
He stared at her for several moments before blinking. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to stare. It’s just your—”
“My eyes. I know.” She smiled. “Why don’t you come in?”
He returned the smile and stepped across the threshold into a living room. Dimitri wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t the normal and boring sight before him. Two couches with an end table sat in front of a small coffee table. A TV on a stand in the corner. One wall had an abstract painting hanging over a couch, the other housed a hallway.
“Have a seat. Would you like something to drink? I have hot coffee.” Lissette shut the front door and motioned Dimitri toward the couches.
“No, I’m fine.” This was all surreal to him. The girl who had been said to be casting curses at him and his father stood before him, as ordinary as any other girl, sans her remarkable eyes.
She plopped down on the adjacent couch and smiled at him. “You’re wondering about my eyes.”
“They’re very unusual. I’ve only seen one other person have such a color.”
“Your father.” She reached for her cup on the end table and took a drink.
“Yes.”
“Claude Pampalon. Your father.” She set the mug on the coffee table and pulled her legs up to her chest. “And mine.”
“Yours?” This poor girl must be confused, but her eyes . . .
Yet she grinned even wider. “Ah, I see you’ve been left totally in the dark. Don’t worry, you aren’t alone.”
Maybe he was the one confused. “I don’t understand.”
“Just hear me out, okay? I’ll tell you as much as I know, which is more than what I was told.”
Dimitri relaxed against the couch and nodded. Surely there was a logical explanation. Like one a DNA test would go a long way in providing.
“My mother, Odette, used to work at your hotel. She worked in the housekeeping department back when they were called maids.” She took another drink from her cup. “This was way back. From what Mom told me, she remembers Claude bringing you to the hotel after school. She said you’d sit in Claude’s office and do your homework.”
Dimitri nodded slowly as the memories crept across his mind. He did remember a woman he called Ette who worked at the hotel. He remembered his father planting him in his office, demanding he complete his homework perfectly before time for supper. If he failed to meet this demand, the consequences could be as harsh as a thrashing or as light as being sent home and to bed without supper.
“Mom said you were a darling and Claude doted on you.” Her words brought Dimitri back to the present.
“I’m sure it looked to people on the outside that my father was doting. He wasn’t. He was demanding and harsh. Cruel, even.”
Lissette opened her mouth, hesitated, then shut it for a moment before speaking. “I’m sorry he treated you like that. At least he acknowledges you.”
“About that—”
She nodded. “Let me continue. Mom thought Claude was everything she ever wanted. When he showed her attention, she couldn’t resist.”
“He and your mother had an affair?” Dimitri had suspected his father of such many times over after his mother left them, but never had any proof. Technically, his parents had never divorced, as far as he knew.
“They did. For roughly ten years, until I was five years old.” She held her bottom lip between her teeth. “That would’ve been right when you started high school or thereabouts.”
A lifetime ago.
She curled her legs under her on the couch, her long hair covering her shoulders like a shroud. “I have bits of memories of Claude visiting when I was child. Partial memories of him at Christmas. Having Thanksgiving dinner so late it was almost my bedtime.”
“Father came here?” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.
“No, he didn’t. He wouldn’t dare come here. Even back then when the neighborhood wasn’t as bad as it is today, it wasn’t good enough for Claude Pampalon.” She let out a dry laugh. “Oh, my mother was good enough to sleep with and have a bastard child with, but not visit her house. Oh, no. He would put us up in a suite in the Darkwater Inn.”
“I didn’t mean to disrespect your mother or your home.” Dimitri had a hard enough time wrapping his mind around the fact that his father had sired another child. “You said the affair ended when you were five?”
She nodded. “Their relationship ended, and my mother never got over it. Never got over him.” There was such venom in her pronunciation. “Mother didn’t have many skills, so she ended up doing laundry and keeping house for some of the families in the Garden District. Claude, despite being my father, didn’t feel a responsibility to help me and my mother out financially.”
“Are you sure?”
She snorted. “Of course I’m sure. When I turned sixteen, I had to enforce my mother’s power of attorney as her early-onset dementia robbed her of her common sense. Too bad it didn’t rob her of her memories of your father.”
Dimitri could only stare at Lissette.
“You see, that’s where her mind was stuck—back when she was in love with Claude. When I was a baby.” She shook her head, her hair partially covering her face. “She would tell me that Claude was coming over to visit her and Lissy—that’s what she called me when I was a baby. She would talk about what she’d cook for him. How they’d eat together. How he would hold me with such gentleness that her heart would almost explode.” Lissette let out a half snort, half groan. “All the times they had together. It was enough to make me sick.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“In her lucid moments, she’d recognize me as her daughter. During those times I’d beg her to let me contact him and ask him for help. At least to help out with some of her medical expenses.” She shook her head as her eyes glistened with tears. “But, no. She wouldn’t allow it. Made me promise not to approach Claude as long as she lived.”
She wiped away the tears with the bottom of her T-shirt. “Unlike Claude, who filled my mother with such dreams, then ripped them away from her, I kept my promise. I’ve yet to contact our father, but that’s about to change. My birth certificate lists my father’s name as refused to state, but I know the truth and I’ll prove it. I know tests will prove he’s my biological father, even if he didn’t do a single thing for me.”
“I can understand how you feel.” He caught the disbelief in her face. “I can’t relate to it, but I can understand feeling unwanted and abandoned.” He stretched his legs out in front of him, sliding them under the coffee table. “I’m sorry for the childhood you had, but if you think having Claude Pampalon in your life would’ve made it better, I beg to disagree. The man has never shown me one ounce of affection. Not a single Good job, son, even when I made dean’s list at school. He ran my mother off when I was a child, leaving me reliant on him. I hated my mother at times because of him. At least you had your mother.”
“That’s true. I never thought about how it was for you. I grew up seeing you in photos with Claude and assumed you had a loving, doting father.”
“That’s a joke.”
“Hey, at least he supported you.” She offered him a smile.
“Supported me? That man has done almost everything in his power to destroy me. He’s done his level best to cut out any self-esteem I might have by belittling and ridiculing me. I have no friends because of his rudeness and arrogance and abuse of power.”
He shook his head as random memories flooded his mind. “And don’t even dare let me think of having a girlfriend. He could run those potentials off with merely a glare and well-placed putdown. He might have provided for me financially, but trust me, I’ve earned every penny that man ever put out for me. In spades.”
“I guess I had you all wrong.” She took another drin
k. “Looks like Claude Pampalon messed up both of our childhoods.”
He nodded. “Not just childhood. He’s still pulling the puppet strings on me.”
She sat upright, slamming her socked feet to the floor. “Let’s not let him get away with it any longer, big brother.”
Dimitri started to reply then remembered the snake and chicken. “Before we get all sappy over our relationship, why don’t you tell me why you’ve been targeting me with voodoo or whatever? Then we can talk about DNA testing.”
Adelaide
“I can’t believe Beau backed out of coming.” Vincent Fountaine stared at Adelaide as he wound garland around the holder. “That isn’t like him.”
She weighed how to reply. “He is working a homicide, Dad.” She shoved the Christmas wreath into its octagon-shaped bin.
“How’s it coming along?”
“He can’t discuss that with me.” She gave her father a scrunch-face. “You should know that if you do enough research for your books.”
“Ha. As if I don’t.”
“How’s the latest one coming?”
“Turn it in next month. I’m letting it stew for a bit, then I’ll do a final read-through before sending it off.” He added the tinsel to the big plastic container, then reached for the tree’s twinkling all-white lights. “Back to the case, what do you know about it?”
“They’ve cleared the room, so we were able to get a crime scene cleanup company to come in. They’ll be finished by tomorrow afternoon.” Hopefully before Mr. Pampalon returned. At least that would be something she’d done that wouldn’t make him angry. “They didn’t find anything to do with the murder in any of the passageways.” Something else she wouldn’t have to answer to her boss about.
“Those passages and tunnels are so intriguing. You should show them to me sometime. I could probably work them into a book.”
She smiled as she finished putting away their stockings. “I’ll see about doing that once everything calms down.” If she still had a job.
“Addybear, are you okay?”
The old nickname warmed her heart. She moved into her father’s embrace. “It’s just been a rough couple of days, Daddy. I’m tired.”
“That’s it? There’s nothing else?” Vincent held her chin in his hand and stared into her eyes. “I worry about you.”
“I know, but I’m okay. Just tired, like I said. And not looking forward to Mr. Pampalon’s return if this case isn’t wrapped up by then.”
Her father released her. “That man’s an arrogant cuss. Always has been.”
Funny that she’d never really heard her father talk about Mr. Pampalon. “Do you know him personally?”
He shrugged, then closed the containers. “He wanted me to have a book signing at the hotel once he found out who I was.” He shook his head. “Didn’t want to take my no as an answer. He just couldn’t understand why I didn’t want people to know the town where I lived.”
“Not everybody knows about the stalker, Daddy.”
“Well, it’s enough that I said no. I love what I do, but if it ever put you in danger again, I’d quit writing in a heartbeat.”
She stacked the bins on top of one another and shoved them into the corner to be carried up into the attic before she left.
She wrapped her dad around his waist and led him into the kitchen. “I was never in any danger, Daddy. You were. You were the one he wanted to kill because you’d offed his favorite character.”
“He was mentally unstable. There are a lot of those types out there, Addy. It’s a father’s job to protect his daughter.”
She let her arm fall. Despite all the advice everyone seemed determined she know, Adelaide knew this was why she hadn’t told her father what happened to her and never could. His perceived guilt would eat him alive, and she couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow that to happen to him.
“Well, he didn’t get near me and he’s in an institution now.” She turned on the kitchen faucet. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”
“Me too. That lasagna smells wonderful, sweetheart.”
She wore a smile, but her stomach and heart flipped places. If he ever found out, it would kill him.
That would kill her.
Twenty-One
Beau
Monday morning dawned cooler and brought a mist over the city, the gloominess casting a pallor over the beginning of the workweek.
“Detective Savoie, Allison Williams with channel 6—care to comment on the fingerprints found on the murder weapon?”
There had to be a leak in the department somewhere. He’d mention it to the captain, but for now, he gave out his standard “No comment.”
“But Detective—”
Beau tuned out the reporter, trudged into the station, and headed to his desk. He peeled off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair.
Marcel came from the break room and set a cup of coffee on Beau’s desk before he took a seat at his desk with his own cup. “Morning. Made a fresh pot, so at least our first cups won’t taste like burnt sludge.”
“Thanks. I was bombarded by a reporter outside, asking about the fingerprints.”
“Yeah, me too. I told the captain, who wasn’t too happy.”
“Well, neither am I. We need to seal the leak.” Beau sat down and took a sip from the mug. Marcel could make a mean cup of java. “You know, I spent a good part of yesterday thinking about the case and Geoff’s little sister.”
“Oh? What’d you come up with?”
“I’m not convinced big brothers know intimate details of their little sisters’ lives, despite what they like to think. Like who she might have been involved with but didn’t want her family to know about.” Beau remembered several times that Addy had met up with a guy because she knew Vincent wouldn’t approve, so she didn’t invite him to pick her up at the house.
“I can understand that. My sisters are older, but we usually don’t discuss private details about our lives. Especially if there is romance or sex involved.”
Beau nodded. “Exactly.”
“What do you want to do?” Marcel took a sip of his coffee.
“I think maybe I should call the college. Ask around and see if there was any connection between Jada Aubois and Kevin Muller.”
“From so many years ago?” Marcel shook his head. “I think it’s a long shot, man.”
“We’ve got nothing else at the moment. Do you have any other suggestions?”
“Call campus security and ask if there are any records on either of them. That might be a start.”
Just when he thought his younger partner had blown off his idea, Marcel came up with a good jumping-in point. Beau opened a search on his computer for the phone number of the security department.
Marcel opened a folder on his desk. “Nolan came by earlier with some interesting results.”
“Really? What?” Just one break, that’s all they needed.
“He finished his inspection on Muller’s laptop. Not much to help us. A lot of porn on there. Nolan underlined the words lot and porn.” Marcel chuckled. “Guess that’s Nolanese for the man was a deviant. He made special note that there was a good bit of porn relating to bondage and nonconsensual intimacies.” Marcel looked at Beau. “Those are his phrases, not mine.”
“What a prince,” Beau mumbled, as his computer loaded the number for the university police on the Northwestern campus.
“Yep, the guy was pure scum.” Marcel nodded. “I also heard back from our contact in Natchitoches. Muller’s father-in-law was in Natchitoches the evening of the murder. Seems there was a holiday party, and he was there at least from ten until midnight, according to a multitude of witnesses.”
“And another possible suspect bites the dust.” Just one break, that’s all they really needed. A point in the right direction would be nice.
Marcel continued. “Nolan also got other test results back. The DNA found on the linens in the hotel room came back positive for sperm from Kevin Mulle
r.”
Dejection weighted down Beau’s shoulders. “From his encounter with Zoey Naure, I’m sure.”
“There was female DNA, and it did come back belonging to Zoey Naure.”
“That’s not interesting.” Beau took a drink of the coffee that bit as much as the disappointment.
“No, it isn’t. But what is interesting is that the DNA of Muller was contaminated with DNA of another male.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Nolan said the DNA of Muller could conclusively be determined because we have Muller’s body. But there’s a side note that the initial run of the semen brought back a result of belonging to a Brayden Colton.”
“How does that happen?” Beau had never heard of such.
“I don’t know and Nolan’s trying to figure it out. He says he ran it multiple times and got the same result. The only thing he can surmise is that Kevin Muller’s DNA somehow was marked in the system as belonging to a Brayden Colton almost a decade ago.”
“Who is Brayden Colton?”
Marcel snapped his fingers and pointed at Beau. “I’m about to check that out while you call the college.”
Beau grinned as he dialed the number. He gave his name and rank to the person who answered, then asked to be connected with a supervisor in campus security. He was quickly corrected: Northwestern State University didn’t have campus security, they had university police, before being put on hold. He glanced across the desks as Marcel leaned back in his chair, nodded.
“This is Captain O’Reilly, how may I help you?”
Beau quickly gave his name and rank before explaining. “I’m working a homicide, and we’re looking into connections to some former students who may or may not have given a report, or been reported.”
“Our digital records only go back twenty years.”
“The former students would have been within that time frame.”
“Okay, Detective, shoot me a name, and let’s see if we get any hits.” The university police captain seemed eager enough to assist.
Beau pulled out his notebook as he gave the first name. “Kevin Muller.” He could hear typing over the connection.