Body of Evidence

by Stella Cameron

  “I can’t do this,” she said, and almost put her foot on the brake. “What do you want from me? Rusty? You’re not goin’ to be there, so what do you want from me?”

  “Take the papers you’ll find inside the back of the TV. The back slides up and off. Give them to Finn—he’ll figure out what to do.”

  “Tell me what has to be done.”

  “I don’t know what they say. I haven’t seen them, either. That was the deal.”

  As soon as you got away from town, in any direction, there were no streetlights. An occasional gas station or illuminated billboard sometimes cut the darkness, but not for long. On a moonless night, car headlights on worn street markings were all that kept a vehicle from going off the road.

  Emma had set her gun on the seat beside her. She wouldn’t be going anywhere without it for the present, if ever.

  She’d only been to Rusty’s home once, and that had been with Denise driving.

  Necessity could give you, if not courage, then bravado. Rusty deserved to be trusted. “I don’t believe you had anythin’ to do with what’s happened,” she told him. Only the truth would do now. “You’re your own worst enemy. You’re so awkward with people, and the cops need a suspect. Rusty, you look like a suspect. You could go through a lot of pain before the authorities give up tryin’ to pin these crimes on you.”

  “Thanks, I think. Are you sure you’re not being followed?”

  She looked in the rearview mirror. “I almost wish I was, but I’m all alone out here.”

  “You know how to get there, though?”

  “I went with Denise once. I’ll manage. It’s on the right fork where this road divides. At the end? Close to the bayou?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  Her headlights picked up the fork, and she made a right. “I’m to give these papers to Finn?”

  “He’ll know what to do with them.”

  “Can’t you wait till I get there? It won’t be long now.”

  “Emma, I’m not there now.” He paused. “Denise said you were the best, and she was right. Denise was a great judge of character—too bad she didn’t think more of me.”

  “She wasn’t ready to settle down,” Emma said with a lump in her throat. “But there wasn’t anyone else but you.”

  “No. I know that. Get away from my place as quickly as you can, okay?”

  Tiny hairs rose along her spine. “What should I be afraid of?” The road became unimproved, and the vehicle dipped into ruts.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just get in and get out, and get rid of the papers. And, Emma?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you promise me you won’t say where you got them, or what we’ve talked about? Someone else has risked everything to do this. Don’t ask more questions, just say you promise.”

  She thought about it. “Finn will ask. I’ve got to say somethin’.”

  “Okay, tell him I’m the only one involved, that I asked you. He doesn’t need to know there was anyone else involved. Deal?”

  “Billy’s gonna find out, and I’ll be grilled.”

  “I hope that doesn’t happen, but I can’t do anything else. Do we have a deal?”

  “Deal,” she said, and regretted it immediately. “When will I see you?”

  The phone went dead.

  A deep lot separated Rusty’s house from the bayou. Lights burning at the entrance to the driveway lifted Emma’s spirits a little. The dark A-frame structure, built on tall stilts, cast her down again. She parked at the bottom of steps leading to a screened gallery and switched off the engine.

  Before she’d left Orville’s house, she’d changed into cotton sweats and running shoes. Moving quickly, she ran up the front steps and opened the screen door. It creaked, and she slapped a hand over her heart—then realized it was the hand that held the gun and smiled to herself.

  Once inside the unlocked front door, Emma stood and listened to the sounds every house made. Her heart slammed against her ribs. The noises of silence almost deafened her. By the faint reflection of the driveway lights, she could see the television screen.

  At each step she expected to be grabbed.

  A clock chimed twice, and Emma let out a cry. All she wanted to do was turn and run, only someone might run after her.

  Emma crossed the room on her toes, grateful for the way her eyes gradually adjusted so she could make out furniture and avoid bumping into things.

  The TV sat on a table placed in front of a window on one side of the wraparound gallery. A scatter of pinprick lights showed in the distance outside, and she figured she was seeing buildings on the other side of Bayou Nespique.

  She didn’t like the uncovered window at her back but went behind the TV and ran her left hand over its back. Keeping the gun in her right hand, she tucked her fingernails into a crack where the panel rested against the set and managed to get a grip. Slowly, dropping the panel back twice and having to start over, Emma eased it up, took it away and set it against the wall.

  She found what she was looking for immediately. A large envelope, not unlike the one that had contained the photos, but much thicker.

  The temptation to leave the back of the TV where it was and make a run for it didn’t last. Carefully, she replaced the panel…and heard someone on the gallery. With the envelope clutched to her chest, she dropped to the floor where she was. The sounds came from right behind her.

  On her hands and knees, Emma crawled rapidly to the front windows and peered out from a corner near the sill.

  Her breath caught. A small person, short, thin, crouched over, trod rapidly along the gallery. Emma tensed and got down. She trained her gun on the front door.

  But it didn’t open.

  Once more she dared to peer outside, just in time to see the little figure hurry past the pale-colored Lexus and duck into the undergrowth before reaching the driveway lights.

  Only then did Emma realize how badly she was shaking, how soaked with sweat her tank and jacket were.

  An explosion of noise jarred her, and she heard a powerful engine rumble to life, roar, saw headlights swing across dense trees on the opposite side of the dirt road and turn away. The vehicle noise took a long time to recede.

  Bent almost double, running at the same time, Emma made it to her vehicle and got in. She double checked the door locks and backed out of the driveway so fast the Lexus swayed.

  Her phone rang, and she screamed. Hardly able to breathe, she found the cell phone and switched it on. “Yes?” she all but shouted.

  “Where the hell are you?” Finn said.

  29

  If he could have made himself go home, he would have done it, but he had to see her. Finn made himself remain in his truck outside the Balou house while Emma got out of the Lexus and came toward him.

  He wanted to shout at her, to shake her and tell her she’d scared him to death. Finally he knew how a parent felt when a child ran across the road and narrowly missed being hit by a car.

  She tapped on his window. Her wan, upturned face almost made him relent, but not quite.

  Taking his time when he wanted to hurry, he got out and stood on the gravel beside her. “Are you out of your mind?” he said through his teeth. “You choose tonight to take some sort of detour on the way home? You’ve taken ten years off my life.” He hadn’t intended to sound so worried, but he couldn’t help himself. “It’s almost three in the morning.”

  “I didn’t want to be gone,” she said in so pathetic a little voice that he finally softened. “Finn, this has been so scary, but I don’t think I had a choice.”

  He took the door key from her hand and let them into the house—and stood there watching her turn on every light she could find. “There,” she said from the middle of the living room. “That’s better.” She held her hands, palms in, against her hips. Her eyes glowed huge and questioning.

  “What is it?” he asked, approaching but taking it easy. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I haven’t do
ne anything wrong,” she said. “I’m really edgy, Finn. I’m… Ooh,” she moaned, and her face crumpled.

  “Emma?” He reached her and held her by the shoulders. “Cher, tell me what’s happened?”

  She bowed her head and cried quietly. Finn took her in his arms and rubbed her back, noticing that she had something crackly and stiff inside her sweat jacket. He could feel it.

  “I’ve seen Rusty,” she said.

  Finn stopped rubbing. “Where?”

  “Well, I haven’t actually seen him. But I talked to him, and I went to his house.”

  The angry fear returned. “You went to Rusty Barnes’s house? It’s by the bayou south of town, right? In some deserted place, right? Billy told me. They’re lookin’ for him all over. Where is he? We’ve got to let the cops know.”

  “If I knew where he was, I wouldn’t tell them. But I don’t know.”

  “Emma, the police are looking for Rusty Barnes in connection with a murder investigation. You can’t play games.”

  She shrugged away from him. “I’ll have to unpack the SUV in the mornin’. I don’t feel like it now.”

  “Emma!”

  “I’ve got things to tell you and somethin’ to give you. But I don’t know where Rusty is, and I’ve got nothin’ useful to say to Billy.” Into the kitchen she went. She found two water glasses and half filled them with red wine. She gave him one glass and slumped into a chair by the table. “Sit down.” The first swallow she took sounded like water running down a drain.

  “Slow up with that,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me what to do. Sit down and drink your wine.”

  At least he could tell when a woman was punchy and not herself. He sat down and eyed the front of her jacket, where a flat oblong spoiled the customary view.

  “I wasn’t goin’,” she said between gulps. “If I didn’t know Rusty’s a good guy, I wouldn’t have. It was so scary. It’s dark down there. His house is all on its own, and I couldn’t turn any lights on inside.”

  He would go along with this quietly. “Where was Rusty?”

  “He had to leave. And while I was in there, someone ran along the gallery. I thought I was goin’ to die on the spot, but he went through the trees, and I heard him drive off.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t Rusty?”

  “Not unless he shrank to a third of his size. The clock chimed while I was there. It was awful. When you first go into the dark, you can’t see a thing, so I thought I’d fall over and—”

  “You’re gabblin’. Calm down.”

  “Yes.” Her hair still shone, and even if she looked frightened, she was beautiful.

  “You need rest, Emma. You’ve been through some bad stuff.”

  She blinked and looked away. “We both have. Why did I hire Holly for the caterin’?”

  “Because she was good. Damn good.”

  “If I hadn’t, she wouldn’t have died like that.”

  He tried to hold her hand, but she pulled it away. “Whoever killed Holly would have found a way,” he said. “It had nothin’ to do with you.”

  “If it was Harold, it did. She got the idea for the divorce from me.” Emma scooted her bottom forward on the chair and tipped her face up to the ceiling. “But I didn’t expect her to move out the way she did.”

  “No. Emma,” he said gently, “you said you had somethin’ for me.”

  “Yes. Rusty said you’d know what to do with these.” She fumbled to unzip her jacket. “Don’t ask me questions about them, because I don’t know any answers. Rusty didn’t know, either. He never saw them.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said while she wrestled a big envelope to the table.

  “There wasn’t time to find out why the guy went to Rusty with this. Maybe because Rusty’s bein’ hounded and this person feels hounded, too.”

  “Who is this guy, Emma?”

  “Sheesh, I said I wouldn’t say there was a guy. Now I have.”

  Finn flexed his tight back. “Rusty asked for too much from you. He should have reached me. I would have gone. Who’s the man?”

  “I don’t know.” She stared at him. “Honestly, Finn, I don’t. Rusty told me it was important for us not to know, because it would be dangerous. Don’t blame Rusty for not callin’ you. He doesn’t really know you.”

  “That’s for me?” He nodded at the envelope.

  “Mmm. At least you don’t have to expect pictures of your wife with another man.” She heard what she’d said and quieted inside. “I shouldn’t mention your wife like that. Flippantly.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, and didn’t appear concerned, but he didn’t take his eyes off the envelope when she pushed it toward him.

  “Rusty seemed to think you’d really want these and know what to do with them.”

  She admired his steady hands when he squeezed the metal clip together at the back of the envelope and slid it through its hole. First he looked inside, then slid a stack of forms onto the table. They were official looking, with printed headers, but handwritten.

  “Rusty told me to tell you we talked, but he doesn’t want Billy to know,” Emma said, suddenly desperate to protect Rusty.

  Finn stared at the papers. He fingered the top right corners repeatedly.

  Emma pushed the wine away and folded her hands in her lap. She wasn’t sure what she saw in Finn’s face, but it was something entirely new to her. He was, she realized, reading and rereading the first couple of paragraphs in front of him.

  He picked up his glass but set it down again untouched and began reading in earnest, resting one forearm along the edge of the table and narrowing his eyes. He turned the pages faster and faster, got to the end and sat with his face in his hands before starting from the beginning again.

  Once more he reached the last page, and this time he looked at Emma as if he’d forgotten she was there. She let him set the pace, decide when he was ready to speak.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked. His voice sounded unused.

  Emma said, “No.”

  He’d run his fingers through his hair so many times it stood on end in front. “I don’t know for sure what it means,” he said. “But I intend to find out.”

  She waited again.

  “These are the police notes taken at the time of my father’s death. They’d been removed from his file. Billy didn’t know where they were or how they’d disappeared. Or so he said.”

  “Finn,” she said, wishing she knew how to comfort him, “I’m sorry. I had no idea what they were or I’d have made sure they didn’t show up in front of you like that.”

  “No, no.” He cupped her cheek with his palm and stroked his thumb back and forth. “I needed to see them. I just don’t understand how or why they came to be at Rusty’s.”

  “He didn’t know what they were, either.”

  “I know. That’s what you said. I’ve got to think how to talk to Billy about this.” He tapped the top page. “He couldn’t bring himself not to write his real findings in the record, but he lied to everyone else, includin’ my mother and me. Then he took his chances no one would look at the file again.”

  He wasn’t making any sense to Emma.

  “I knew my dad didn’t kill himself. He never would.” He rolled the sheaf of papers. “But there’s somethin’ wrong with Billy’s conclusions, or what I think his conclusions probably were.”

  Anything she considered saying sounded wrong to her. “How can I help you, Finn?”

  “Emma, I can’t talk to anyone else about this.”

  “I understand.” Of course he didn’t feel he could share really personal things with her. She looked at her hands in her lap.

  “Only you,” he said. “Dad wasn’t dead when they found him. I already knew that. He died on the operating table. But accordin’ to this, he’d struggled with someone in the car and the gun went off. He may not have fired the shot.”

  “But… Billy wouldn’t cover up somethin’ like that.”

  “To save my
mother’s feelings when she was so ill he might. Dad was with a woman when he was shot. They’d… They’d been together.”

  30

  Where else but in a little town like Pointe Judah could you walk into a police station after four in the morning without anyone stopping you? The reception desk was deserted and the chairs in the lobby empty.

  “We should have waited for mornin’,” Emma said. “There won’t be anyone to help you.”

  Finn held her elbow. “You’re always supposed to be able to get at the evidence room. Crime isn’t nine to five.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to call or somethin’?”

  “Who knows? The front door of this place should be locked at night, and you should have to identify yourself over an intercom to get in. Time for some shake-ups around here.” He knew he needed to strike out at something, and he was picking whatever was handy. “Let’s go.”

  This building had been like a second home to him since he was a kid. Finn moved confidently through the corridors. Located in the same area as Records, the evidence room door was shut. He tapped, and after some scraping sounds, the top half of the door swung inward, revealing a counter attached to the lower part and an elderly officer standing on the other side.

  “I’m sorry it’s so late,” Finn said. “I’m—”

  “You’re Finn Duhon!” The man’s white hair had diminished to a fringe around the base of his scull and his pudgy, pink face could belong to anyone’s sweet old grandpa. “Son of a gun. I heard you was in town. Why didn’t you come to see me before now?” He landed a sideways punch on Finn’s arm. If the blow was friendly, an unfriendly one would be nothing to laugh at.

  “Hey, Colin,” Finn said, awkward at not having recognized the man at once. “I should have come.” And he would have, if he’d realized Colin was still there. “Things have been busy since I got back.”

  Colin tutted. “Whole damn town’s gone to the dogs.” He jutted his chin to look more closely at Emma. “Mrs. Mayor? What you doin’ here? Specially at this hour of the mornin’?”

  “Hi,” she said, shooting out a hand, which he shook enthusiastically. “You know what happened at my house last night, I’m sure.”