"Pretty much everything."
"Well, let's see. Body came in with a bunch of debris, traces of wood ash, drywall, and fragmented glass adherent to the body—that's likely from the scene. Global charring with complete burning of flesh from multiple sites, extensive tissue destruction of the head, upper torso, and extremities."
"So he burned to death."
"Ah, no. Further examination revealed cranial fractures to the occipital bone—wound area basically covered most of the posterior of the head. Massive subdural hematoma, comminuted fractures of the occipital bone, fragments lodged within the cerebral tissue, the works."
The medical jargon confused her. "Which translates to?"
"Somebody bashed Mr. LeClare repeatedly over the back of the head until his brain imploded and he expired. Take a look for yourself." He showed her an autopsy photo of the back of Marc LeClare's head, from which the scalp had been peeled back to expose the pulverized brain.
"Jesus."
"Mary and Joseph," he agreed. "Depth of penetration indicates the injuries resulted from multiple blows delivered at a ninety-degree angle from behind the victim. From the fractures of the front of the face, I'd say the killer hit him once while he was standing, then went to town when he hit the floor. I checked the lungs, but there was no sign of smoke inhalation." He replaced the photo. "Official cause of death is blunt-force traumatic injury, not burning."
Terri rubbed her tired eyes. "So someone bashed his head in, and then set fire to the place."
"Probably. Can't give you a time of death until tomorrow." He grimaced. "No question that it was a homicide, though."
She tried to think of what else he could tell her, but finally had to settle for, "Did you find anything strange?"
He considered that. "Now that you mention it, there was something." He flipped through the chart, stopped, and read for a minute. "Right—I pulled a half dozen wood splinters out of his brain, and sent them over to SDIC for analysis. Don't quote me, but they looked like pine."
"Could he have picked them up from the floor?"
Gray shook his head. "Too deep and wrong side of the head. He went down face-first."
"So they came from the murder weapon—which could have been anything from a baseball bat to a table leg." She brooded. "How big was it, do you think?"
"Judging by the wounds, about the size of a baseball bat, maybe a little narrower in width." Grayson closed the chart. "How long did the fire burn?"
"I don't know, maybe thirty, forty-five minutes. They were able to put it out, but the building was destroyed." She saw the change in his expression. "What?"
He tapped a finger against his mouth. "Whatever was used to bludgeon this guy to death was probably heavy and pretty thick. If the killer dropped it at the scene, it might have burned slower than the body. Could still be some evidence left behind."
Terri wanted to go home and go to bed and stay there for a few weeks, but she resigned herself to one more stop as she got to her feet. "Thanks, Gray. I owe you."
"Pray I never collect, or you may have to run away to Cancún with me and two suitcases filled with skimpy black bikinis." He came around the desk and tapped the end of her nose. "See you, Ter."
Chapter Six
"Marc LeClare was your father." The disbelief in J. D's voice was sharp as a slap.
"I told you, you wouldn't believe it." Sable tucked her cold hands under her arms and stared at the dried stains on the scrubs pants she'd stolen.
Caine Gantry had frightened her, but not as much as J. D. had, showing up out of nowhere. She'd barely pulled herself together when he'd jammed her against his car and kissed her.
If you call that kissing. She touched a fingertip to her bottom lip, which still stung where the edge of his teeth had cut into it. The violence of it had rocked her down to her heels—the Jean-Delano she had loved had never laid a finger on her in anger—but it had drawn something from her as well. A strange and deeply feminine response, one that had kept her from struggling under his hands and his mouth. It had made her acquiesce, and yet it created an intense desire to do more than simply yield to his anger. She'd wanted to revel in it.
Maybe I would have been safer staying with Caine.
J. D. slowed down, then pulled the car off to the side of the road and killed the engine. He sat in silence, not saying or doing anything for several minutes.
When he finally spoke, his voice remained hard and cold. "I've known Marc most of my life, and he never mentioned you. Not once. Not even when we were dating, for Christ's sake."
"He didn't know about me. My mother never told him that she was pregnant with me. She never told me that he was my father, either." Fresh grief spread inside her as she realized she would never know her real father now—she would only have that first, awkward meeting to remember him by.
"Your mother was a Cajun girl." It wasn't a question.
She knew what he was implying—Marc LeClare belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest Creole families in New Orleans—he and her mother wouldn't have been introduced by mutual friends. "Evidently they met when Marc got lost in the swamp. My mother found him and brought him home. Her father, my grandfather, took him back to the city."
He turned toward her. "And just like that, they fell in love."
"Marc did, or at least that's what he told me when we met. I think my mother took a little longer to convince, but she was pretty young, too." She shrugged. "He came back to see her the next day, and he kept coming back. He told me that summer was the happiest time of his life."
"Marc LeClare and a Cajun girl." He shook his head, still projecting utter skepticism.
"Why is it so hard to believe, J. D.? My mother was a beautiful, gentle woman." Bitterness made her add, "Besides, you went slumming yourself once, remember? It happens."
His eyes narrowed. "I was never ashamed of you, Sable. I was proud of you. I bragged about you."
Never in her hearing. She shifted her shoulders again. "It doesn't matter. They're both dead now and no one ever has to know."
He started to say something, stopped, then asked, "Why didn't your mother tell you about Marc?"
"I don't know."
"Why wouldn't she tell Marc about you?"
"I think she was afraid. Papa remembered some well-dressed people coming down to the bait shop to see my mother toward the end of that summer. He thinks they might have been Marc's parents. He didn't know what they said to her, but she broke it off with Marc right after that. By then she must have known that she was pregnant with me." She traced a circle around one of the bloodstains. "My grandparents sent her to stay with her relatives in Mobile, and that's where I was born. She didn't come back to the Atchafalaya until I was a few months old."
He processed that in silence for a moment, then asked, "Is Marc's name listed on your birth certificate?"
She nodded. "She hid it from everyone, but I think she wanted me to know. It's hard to say—Papa said she never told him. He found my birth certificate only after she died. She had it and some letters from Marc that she saved from the fire."
"Fire? What fire?"
"A few weeks after my mother returned to the Atchafalaya, someone set fire to the old bait shop. Remy—my papa—got me and my mother out, but both of my grandparents died in the fire. Remy was burned so bad they didn't think he'd live, either, but he survived. Bud Gantry was arrested, and Remy and my mother got married and moved back deep into the swamp, where his family lived."
"Bud Gantry?"
"Caine Gantry's father—he set fire to the house." She glanced back toward the road that led to Gantry's outfit. "Bud always claimed it was his own idea, but folks around here were pretty sure someone had hired him to do it—he had money the week before, and he bragged about getting more on top of that. He died the second day he was in prison, before anyone could find out who paid him to do it."
Something cracked and whined, and metal pinged. Sable barely had time to register the sounds when J. D. grabbed her sho
ulder and shoved her forward. "Down!"
There was a second sharp crack. Glass exploded over her head from a hole in the windshield, pelting her with sharp fragments.
Gunfire?
"Stay down."
J. D. rammed the car into gear and pulled back onto the road, then lunged over and swore violently as the driver's-side window shattered. Sable watched him jam his foot down on the accelerator and clutched the seat, bracing herself as the car fishtailed wildly.
"J. D.!"
He had his gun in his hand and fired twice at someone through the ruined window. The explosive sound of the shots he fired and the smell of the gunpowder made her bury her face in the seat with her hands over her ears.
There were two loud, different explosions beneath the car, and the front end of the car dropped without warning.
"Hold on!" J. D. hit the brake as the car slid sideways. Sable was thrown from the seat and into the ceiling liner as the car skidded off the road and jolted wildly through the brush.
There was a moment that felt like they were flying through the air, then a tremendous crash. Sable felt J. D.'s hands on her a fraction of a second before dark, cold water blasted through the hole in the windshield, flooding the interior.
"Grab on to me." He kept an arm around her as he turned and used his foot and arm to force the driver's-side door open. More water and a tangle of weeds rushed in as the car began to sink quickly. The smell of floutant was raw and strong. J. D. checked her face, then clutched her closer. "Grab my shoulders and hold your breath."
Sable held on as he dragged her out of the car and under the water. The water was dense and numbing, and it pressed against her ears. He kicked them free of the car, and then hauled her around to the front of him. She swam with him, using her legs to propel them away from the sinking wreck. Just as her vision grayed and she thought her lungs would burst from the lack of oxygen, he guided her up to the surface.
The first breath she took almost made her cough, but J. D. put a hand over her mouth and spoke close to her ear. "Be quiet. Someone's coming."
Fresh horror spread through her as she realized whoever had been shooting at them had come to see if they'd survived the crash. She nodded and swam beside J. D. to the far side of the sluggish river, where he pushed her up through a thick patch of cordgrass onto the bank, then hoisted himself from the water.
There was movement through the scrub on the other side of the river, and the sound of the last of the air bubbling up from the sunken car. J. D. covered her with his body, pressing her down in the thick tangle of weeds and cypress leaves. She held her breath and felt her heart skip a beat when she spotted a shadowy form appear on the very edge of the river.
After an eternity of silence, the figure turned around and retreated back to the road.
Sable closed her eyes and let all the air she'd been holding out in a rush. She was bruised and cold and wet but she was alive. They were alive.
"Sable." J. D. lifted himself up and to the side, then gently turned her over onto her back. "Baby, are you all right?"
She couldn't speak—her mouth wouldn't work— and then she realized she still had her jaw clenched. She lifted a hand to push herself up but it was shaking badly. "I think so."
"It's okay." J. D. helped her to sit up and cradled her with one arm, still watching the other side of the river. "Looks like he's gone. I'll get you out of here and to someplace safe."
What he was saying didn't make sense. "I thought you were going to take me to jail. For stealing that car."
"No. We're going to find out who killed Marc," he said, pushing the wet hair back from her eyes, "and who's trying kill you."
She thought of Caine Gantry, whom she had known all her life. She had never thought him capable of murder—and if he'd wanted her dead, why had he tried so hard to chase her off tonight? It didn't make sense.
If she told J. D. about seeing Billy Tibbideau at the hospital, he'd have Caine arrested and Gantry Charters shut down—just as she had warned Caine's crew. A lot of families would suffer; the same families she was trying to help. She couldn't allow that to happen.
Sable had never agreed with the way that Cajuns protected their own. It allowed too many men to operate outside the law and get away with it. Yet until she had indisputable proof that Caine Gantry was behind Marc's murder, she had no choice but to do the same.
After hearing from Terri Vincent that J. D. and the only witness in the LeClare case had vanished, Cort went directly to speak with Captain Pellerin. The chief of Homicide refused to turn the case over to Cort's arson task unit, and used the media frenzy and the victim's high profile as the main reasons for keeping it under his control.
"Since your brother is the lead detective on the case, you two should have no problem working together." Pellerin sounded indifferent, but he looked like he'd been put through a hand wringer backward. "Let us know what you and your team find, and keep the lines of communication open."
Cort didn't bother arguing, but left the station and went to the warehouse district and the crime scene. A fire truck remained parked at the curb beside the ruined building, where it would stay until an all clear was given by the chief scene investigator. Since the city had followed standard emergency procedure and cut power to the entire block, temporary auxiliary lighting hooked up to portable generators provided lighting. Yellow barrier tape ringed the entire building now, and a staging area had been set up to provide work space for the investigators.
The unmarked white van used by Cort's task force had been backed up to what had been the entrance of the building, and its rear doors remained open. As he parked and approached the van, he saw two of his techs carrying out evidence bags filled with broken glass. Both men were dressed in disposable outerwear and heavy-duty gloves, which served to protect them from any residual heat while keeping them from contaminating the crime scene.
"Marshal." One of the men, Gil McCarthy, placed his bag in an open tub in the back of the van and stripped his gloves off as he came over to him. "Warren said you'd be back tonight."
Cort stared at the broken, blackened walls. The air smelled of wet, burned wood, melted plastic, and exhaust from the portable generators. "Give me an update on this."
"We've already done the safety sweep—didn't sniff out any airborne toxins or secondary devices. Structure's pretty much totaled, but the building inspector has marked a couple of potential collapse areas inside. Whoever did this knew what he was doing." Gil nodded toward the van. "We found remnants from what we're pretty sure were six individual gasoline bombs."
"All clear glass bottles with cotton rags?"
Gil nodded. "Same type used for the other two."
Cort's team dealt every week with the most common of incendiary devices, which were often made from improvised materials. Flammable liquids like gasoline, along with gunpowder and kerosene, were readily available to the public, and the easiest tools with which to build a firebomb. "Where did you find the body?"
"On the second floor. We got pictures and video of everything before we let the coroner move him. Pretty cut-and-dried, though—he wasn't moved." Gil gestured toward the temporary mapping station set up next to the front entrance, where plans for the building and a detailed grid map of the scene had been placed. Inside the front entrance, numbered Day-Glo orange flags marked spots where evidence had been collected.
"We've restricted scene access to essential personnel only, but it hasn't been easy." Gil glared at two news vans waiting just beyond the official security perimeter. "Had some asshole with a camera climb the barricade and try to get a shot of the body when we brought him out. Reporters have been dogging us all day."
"Do the walk-through with me."
As he and Gil entered the building, Cort concentrated on getting an overview of the scene from Gil's description of the blaze and how the building had burned. Evidence was not limited solely to components of the devices used to start the fire—ash and debris were collected for testing, and certain i
nterior fixtures and freestanding objects would also be removed and analyzed.
"We've got a preliminary theory going. Looks like three bottles were ignited on the second floor from the inside; then another three were thrown into the building through the rear windows in the alley." Gil stepped around a puddle of dirty water. "Not a lot of concrete so she burned fast. NOPD canvassed but there weren't any witnesses other than the Duchesne woman. The surrounding buildings are unoccupied, and no delivery or service people were in the vicinity immediately prior to the fire."
Cort knelt to inspect a fallen beam, which was charred and had broken into several pieces. The heat inside the building had been intense, and the fire likely spectacular before it was brought under control. "We get a videotape of the crowd?" Arsonists often stayed to watch the buildings they torched burn, and it was standard procedure to film the spectators.
Gil nodded. "Got them from all angles. Photographer will cover the funeral, too."
"All right. I want the evidence-processing team on this tonight. Make sure the access and recovery logs are completed and a full photo and ledger inventory is made back at the lab before testing. Call in whoever's up for overtime and tell them we're making this priority one. No one goes in or out; I want officers posted here until I release the scene."
"Somebody need a cop?"
Cort rose to his feet and turned to see Terri Vincent standing a few feet away. "What are you doing here?"
"I thought I'd stop in, see what progress you all have made." She switched her gaze to Gil. "You boys find anything that looks like a baseball bat or a table leg?"
"Not so far, ma'am." Someone called his name, and Gil excused himself.
Cort watched the lanky brunette as she carefully stepped over the beam and peered at a blackened set of aluminum shelving. He'd already had his fill of her smart-ass remarks back at the station, but he suspected she hadn't come to check on the investigation or talk to him. "What are you looking for?"
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