Meizel jerked his head toward the silver Honda. “Inside the car.”
“Aw, shit.” Gentry walked to the front of the vehicle and looked over the hood at the figure who’d been Tommy Mason. His face, waxy and white, was frozen with raised eyebrows and mouth hanging open, head tilted back. A heavy wash of blood had spilled out his mouth and down his chin, and blended with the red slit dissecting his throat. The horizontal cut had congealed and turned black in the center, with pinkish-white bits of tissue hanging out at the edges. Here, the blood had run down his neck in streaks, gradually fading into the fabric of his red Terrebonne Tigers T-shirt.
“Is he . . .” Gentry squinted at the face and the blood pattern.
“Missing his tongue?” Meizel nodded. “Yeah. Subtle message, huh?”
Shit. Yeah, it was a message, all right—probably a message to him. Too late.
“Can you give us a positive ID so we don’t have to get his wife back down here?” John Ramsey, the lead detective on the Eva Savoie case, walked up and stood alongside Gentry. He was a short, trim, buttoned-and-clipped type of guy with café-au-lait skin and sharp brown eyes. He exuded competence and oozed disapproval.
What was done, however, was done. All Gentry could do now was be cooperative and not react to attitude.
“It’s definitely Tommy Mason. Thomas, I guess. Grew up here in Dulac and was running buddies with my brother Langston as long as I can remember. Works up in Chauvin as a mechanic at Landry’s.” And that’s all he knew about this man who, this time yesterday, probably thought his biggest worry was a misbehaving Honda engine and maybe protecting his resurrected childhood friend.
Ramsey shot out question after question, many of them multiple times. Gentry knew the drill, and Ramsey was good. He was trying to get Gentry to trip up on his story.
With a rush of adrenaline that shot through him like bullets from his own duty rifle, Gentry realized for the first time that he might be a suspect—or at least suspected of being an accomplice. He could tell from Ramsey’s questions. The detective was trying to decide if Gentry had been covering for Lang, maybe if he’d even been hiding him. Of course they thought that. He sure would, in their place.
Shit. Gentry had just been worried about losing his job. “Do I need a lawyer, Ramsey?”
The detective gave him a smile that dripped with condescension. “I don’t know, Broussard. Do you?”
“No.” Well, maybe, but not because he was guilty of anything besides being stupid and having a murderous junkie for a brother. Last time he checked, stupid wasn’t a prosecutable crime. Otherwise, half the state of Louisiana would be behind bars, led by its politicians. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Mind telling me about it in Houma later tonight?”
They were going to make him go through an official interrogation, and he had no intention of fighting it. “I don’t mind at all. Should I meet you there, or you want me to ride in with a deputy?”
If John Ramsey thought he was going to humiliate Gentry into giving them a reason to lock him up, he had the wrong wildlife agent.
They watched the EMTs pull Tommy Mason’s body from the car. “Coroner thinks he was already dead when you got the call from your brother,” Ramsey said. “His tongue’s been cut out, but I guess you can see that for yourself. We haven’t located it.”
“Jesus.” Gentry rubbed his eyes, wishing for either a drink or a barf bag, or both. “Who does this kind of shit?”
“You tell me.” Ramsey looked back at him and Gentry thought maybe, just a little, he saw a shred of sympathy on the man’s face. “It’s gonna take us a while here, Broussard. Meet me back at the sheriff’s office at eight.”
“I’ll be there.”
Before that, he needed to have a come-to-Jesus meeting with Warren Doucet, and he had to warn Ceelie Savoie that the murderer was his brother.
CHAPTER 14
Swamp Goddess. Jena had liked the title when her NOPD friends gave her a camo T-shirt as a going-away gift with the words written across the front in rhinestones. She felt self-conscious wearing it here in the parish, so she slept in it.
Now, as she embarked on her third hour of sitting in her truck in Ceelie Savoie’s driveway, she’d been rethinking her love of All Things Dark and Swampy. She was sweating like a boar in heat because she refused to give crazed killers and mosquitoes an easy target by rolling down the windows. Dumb and dumber.
Alligators were amazing animals, little changed from their prehistoric ancestors, and she never tired of watching them. The exploding population of wild boars posed a dangerous nuisance, growing worse by the day—they bred faster than hunters could kill them or gators could eat them. Snakes fascinated her, even the ill-tempered cottonmouths that proliferated in the Terrebonne marshes. The number and type of birds found in this ecosystem filled her with joy. She’d been so excited by her only black-bear sighting that she’d almost peed on herself.
Humans, however, sucked. Well, a lot of them.
Jena had gotten the go-ahead from Warren to stay with Ceelie Savoie until things were resolved at Gentry’s rendezvous with his brother; she expected the sheriff’s office would be showing up shortly and hoped they’d allow her to stay for moral support. She liked Ceelie and thought she might become a friend when things settled down. Since she’d been in the parish only a few months herself, worked irregular hours, and didn’t hunt and fish like most of her colleagues, she hadn’t found much common ground for friendship locally.
Only problem with keeping watch on Ceelie Savoie? Ceelie wasn’t home from her trip to see her swamp mystic. Jena felt too exposed sitting on the porch, for fear Langston Broussard would show up here instead of meeting Gentry in Dulac.
If he was a smart sociopath who didn’t want to be caught, he wouldn’t come anywhere near this place again. He’d be on his way to Mexico.
Her time on the NOPD, however, had taught her that sociopaths, while often extremely smart in theory, were impulsive in implementation. Often, they wanted to be caught, at least on some level. They wanted recognition of their brilliance.
She didn’t know that Langston Broussard was sociopathic, at least not in a clinical sense. But he’d proven he liked to play games. He’d toyed with Ceelie by leaving the skull and dramatic message at the cabin, where he risked exposure more than anywhere else. He’d toyed with Gentry by setting up this ridiculous meeting, which had little chance of ending well. Gentry had shot him three years ago in the line of duty, so he had to know, on some level, that his brother wouldn’t come in without backup.
Jena was no criminal profiler, but she’d pegged Lang Broussard as a classic narcissist. He liked showing off his intelligence, which, of course, was always superior to those around him.
But the big questions hung out there like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. Why had he killed Eva Savoie in the first place? And what did he want now?
Jena poured some of her bottled water onto a paper towel and scrubbed it over her baking face. Gentry would be making ruthless fun of her for being what he called cheap and she called fiscally responsible. She’d been turning on the AC every half hour or so to cool down the truck cab, but she’d be damned if she’d waste the gas to sit here and run it continuously in this fuel-guzzling truck, even if it wasn’t her dime.
Finally, Ceelie’s old pickup came into view in Jena’s rearview mirror, then pulled alongside her. Did she imagine a flash of disappointment crossing Ceelie’s face when she saw Jena instead of Gentry? Call her a matchmaker, but Jena thought they made a good pair—even if they hadn’t realized it yet, given the circumstances. Celestine Savoie just might be the one woman stubborn and spirited enough to keep a handle on Gentry Broussard and his unique mix of ego and overactive sense of responsibility.
Plus, he probably didn’t realize it, but he was smitten.
Of course he might not have any ego left after the lieutenant finished chewing him up and spitting him out, which would probably happen as soon as
the rendezvous went down. She didn’t want to be there, but had a feeling she’d get dragged in for a conversation about why she hadn’t gone around her partner and reported what he suspected about his brother.
Her only answer? He was her partner, and he’d trusted her with his doubts and worries about what he had and hadn’t seen. She didn’t take that trust lightly. Plus, she’d read the reports from NOPD. There had been no reason to think Lang Broussard was alive. She still couldn’t figure out how he’d survived, except that, in her experience, meanness was awfully hard to kill.
Jena climbed out of the truck’s cab, stretching like her cat, Boudreaux, after a long nap in the sun. Except Boudreaux didn’t sweat.
“How long you been here?” Ceelie got out of her truck and locked it using a key—the old rattletrap predated remote door locks. She carried a wallet and a plastic sandwich bag full of what Jena would swear were bones. “Your face is the same color as your hair.”
“Well, that’s a look I try to achieve—never. Mind if I come in and keep you company?” Jena followed Ceelie onto the porch and ran into her as soon as she rounded the corner. Ceelie had frozen in place four feet from the front door.
Jena’s training kicked in. She gently reached out with her left hand and shuffled Ceelie behind her while unholstering her pistol with her right. She scanned the porch, the swamp, the shoreline down the bayou, then shifted her gaze along the same route a second time.
“Did you see anyone or just—” Wait. What the hell was that lying in front of the door?
“Just that.” Ceelie stepped around and stood next to her, looking down. “Looks like a skinned animal of some kind. Maybe a rat or frog? Another animal could’ve dragged it up here.”
Jena took a deep breath. “Stay here.” She was the big bad wildlife agent, right? She knew about dead things.
She approached the door, which, despite a lot of scrubbing, still bore the faint outlines of GO HOME, BITCH, and knelt in front of the bloody lump. She closed her eyes. Jena wished she was wrong, but she was fairly certain the lump was a human tongue, and a fresh one. Judging by the amount of blood, the tongue’s owner had not been dead when it was removed, or at least he or she hadn’t been dead long.
Ceelie walked up beside her. “What is that thing? It looks like . . . Oh my God.”
They stared at it for a few horrified seconds before Jena finally shook off the shock. “Don’t touch it. I need to call the sheriff’s office.”
“Shouldn’t you call Gentry?”
Jena’s nerves skittered, but she kept her voice slow and calm. “I’ll call my lieutenant as soon as I talk to the sheriff. This is their case, not ours. And Gentry’s on a special assignment right now. He’s fine.” God, she hoped so.
“But . . .” Ceelie took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. I’m going inside. There are a couple of things I need to do. You want to come in or do you have to . . .” She looked down at the tongue.
Unfortunately. “Yeah, I need to stay out here and make sure a gator doesn’t decide it smells like dinner. Go on inside and lock the door behind you. Don’t open it for anybody but me, and make sure I’m alone.
Ceelie smiled, but it looked forced. “How will I know if you’re alone?”
Jena looked at the solid door and a pair of front windows that wouldn’t give a full view of the porch. “My secret code phrase is swamp goddess.” At Ceelie’s raised eyebrows, she added, “It’s a long story.”
Ceelie unlocked the deadbolt and took an exaggerated step over the tongue to get into the house, taking her bag of bones with her. Jena wasn’t sure she wanted to hear that story. It, too, was probably a long one.
First, she called the sheriff’s office, identified herself, and reported finding a human tongue on Celestine Savoie’s porch on Whiskey Bayou.
“I’m sorry, did you say a tongue?” The dispatcher would have her own tales to share tonight.
“Yes, ma’am, and a fresh one. It might be related to the operation half your department is working in Dulac right now.”
That statement was enough to get her transferred straight through to the sheriff, who—after her stumbling introduction—handed her off to Warren. Sheriff Knight, a tad impatient on the best of days, probably thought she was verbally challenged and cursed that he had to coordinate his own operation with LDWF.
“Talk, Sinclair.”
She relaxed at hearing the dulcet bark of her own lieutenant. Warren sounded about as cheerful as a mama gator whose nest had been raided, so she kept it brief, ending with, “The tongue looks kind of . . . fresh.”
“The tongue probably belongs to the late Tommy Mason, who seems to be missing his,” Warren said, to which Jena closed her eyes. Whatever Gentry had walked into, it had been bad. “Stay with the evidence until it’s collected by the TPSO. Anything to make you think Langston Broussard is in the area?”
So they hadn’t caught him, damn it. Jena turned around on the porch, looking in all directions. It was almost dark. Down the bayou, the gator hunter licensed here for the season had arrived and was wrestling a big reptile into his boat, already so loaded the vessel was sitting low in the water from hundreds of pounds of extra weight. Louisiana didn’t allow gator hunting after nightfall, so he probably was bringing in his last line of the day.
“There’s no sign of him, but there’s a gator guy nearby. I’ll flag him down before he leaves. Maybe he saw something.” She paused. “Sir, is Agent Broussard okay?”
“Other than the new asshole he’s going to get ripped by myself and the sheriff, he’s fine. You might get a new one yourself, Sinclair.”
Great. Just what she wanted to hear.
“As soon as—” The lieutenant paused at the low, rhythmic hum sounding from inside the cabin, obviously loud enough for him to hear. Jena moved farther from the door. “What the hell is that?” he asked.
Jena lowered her voice. “It’s Ceelie Savoie, chanting or singing or something.” She paused, but couldn’t resist adding, “She has some new chicken bones.”
There was a long pause.
“Chicken bones. Godalmighty.” Warren sighed. “Well, as soon as the TPSO picks up the tongue, get Ms. Savoie and her chicken bones away from that cabin. The sheriff wants to stake it out since our suspect keeps returning to it. She needs to be gone.”
Jena looked at the closed door. Behind it, Ceelie continued to sing in what Jena suspected was Cajun French, but she wasn’t sure. “That could be a problem, sir. She’s pretty stubborn.”
“Then knock her over the head and drag her out.” The lieutenant didn’t sound as if he were joking. “You’re supposed to a smart woman, Sinclair, not that you could prove it by your recent actions. Figure it out.”
“Yes, sir.” It was going to be a long, long night. “Where should I take her?”
“Wherever she’ll go, as long as it isn’t anywhere near Whiskey Bayou.”
Jena ended the call, unsnapped the holster strap above her SIG Sauer to make sure it was at the ready, and dragged the rocking chair to a spot where she could see all of the bayou. Her only blind spots were the sides and back of the house. The state needed to equip its officers with camera-carrying drones.
She waved the hunter over when he finished tagging his gator and had turned his boat back toward Bayou Terrebonne. It was a long shot, and Jena didn’t expect to learn anything, but any tidbit she could uncover might put the lieutenant in a better mood.
“Don’t know if it means nothin’, but there was a boat pulling back into Bayou Terrebonne when I was cutting back here to check my last lines,” he said. The man, from a family whose name Jena recognized as longtime parish residents, said he’d been surprised to see anybody else. “Don’t usually find nobody else back here. Didn’t get a look at his face, really. It was a skinny guy with dark hair. Mostly, I was lookin’ at the boat.”
Jena pulled out the small notebook and pen she kept in her pocket. “What can you tell me about it?”
“He wasn’t no hunter, is a
ll. Old beat-up boat, no gear. I’m always on the lookout for another poacher.” He jerked his head toward the cabin. “I been keepin’ an eye on this place too, since Miss Eva’s girl come back out here to live. Don’t want nothin’ happening to her.”
And that’s why Jena loved it here. People watched out for each other, even for people they’d never met. “You see that boat again, call the sheriff’s office or call me and I’ll contact them.” Jena handed him a business card. “Don’t engage with the guy, though. Steer clear of him.”
“Don’t you worry ’bout that. I can take care of myself. Can take care of him too.” The hunter left, saying he needed to get his gator haul to the buyers in Houma before they shut down for the night.
And that’s why Jena hated it here. People watched out for each other, and felt perfectly qualified to mete out justice in their own way.
She tensed at the sound of a vehicle door slamming behind the cabin, then chastised herself for getting jumpy. If Lang Broussard showed up here, he wasn’t likely to slam a car door to announce his arrival.
She turned as two SO deputies rounded the corner of the porch. She’d seen them both before but didn’t know their names.
“Hey, I hear you got an extra tongue,” said the shorter of the two. Jena had at least six inches of height on him. In her olive uniform, she felt like the Jolly Green Giant.
She stepped aside and pointed at the darkening lump, which had two big horseflies crawling on it, just in case it hadn’t grossed her out enough already. “Get that thing out of here. Please.”
Then she had to figure out how to get Ceelie Savoie out of here as well.
CHAPTER 15
The deputies’ boots clattered around on the porch, but Ceelie did her best to block out the thumping, along with the low murmur of voices as they examined and discussed their evidence.
She’d also been trying, without much success, to block out the feeling that Jena Sinclair knew a lot more about Tante Eva’s murder and the investigation than she’d let on. Otherwise, why sit out here and wait without having any idea when Ceelie might get back? The woman had been on the verge of heatstroke, which meant she’d been here a while. Ceelie’s best guess? To play bodyguard until someone from the sheriff’s office could get here and talk her into leaving the cabin.
Wild Man's Curse (Wilds of the Bayou #1) Page 13