Sam remembered the Dunlap case only too well. The man had been the worst kind of high-powered con, insinuating himself into people’s lives, fleecing them and moving on until he’d built a power base on broken dreams and blackmail. It sickened him to think of Antoinette caught up on the Dunlap train to hell. “Did you get out before the house of cards tumbled down around him?”
Antoinette heard the concern in Sam’s voice and was gratified by it. “Years before, although Ross was probably involved in shady dealings when we were married. I never saw enough of him to know what he was into. I’ve wondered since if the money I took as a divorce settlement was embezzled from some poor sucker who’d trusted him as much as I had.”
Sam’s face was grim. “I worked on that case. Undercover. It was my first step up from driving a patrol car.”
“I’m glad you got him.”
“Bitter?”
“Sure,” Antoinette admitted. She was silent while their waiter arranged their salads in front of them, and then she continued. “But it’s more than personal satisfaction that Ross got what was coming to him. The penal system in this state isn’t terrific, but I’m hoping he’ll get some help while he’s doing his time. Ross is a sick man.”
“Sick? He’s not sick. He’s a slime ball, plain and simple.”
“Nothing’s ever that simple.”
“Nothing’s ever much more complicated. There are good, honest people, and there are the other kind. Your ex-husband fit solidly in the last category.”
Antoinette took her first bite of salad and shut her eyes in sheer appreciation. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had a vegetable? I’m glad you rescued me tonight.”
Since she didn’t seem upset by what he’d said, Sam pushed her a little harder. “Do you actually believe that Ross Dunlap is going to change into an honest man after a little heart-to-heart talk with a prison psychologist?”
“I believe he can. That’s not to say that he will. If I didn’t believe people could change, I’d be in a different field.”
“Would you take him back?”
Antoinette swallowed her salad and washed it down with the last of her wine, holding out her glass to Sam for a refill. “Ross Dunlap could turn into God incarnate and I wouldn’t take him back. I’m not that forgiving.”
The answer gave Sam a peculiar sense of relief, which he promptly ignored. “Then your interest in seeing him change is purely professional.”
“Purely human. I don’t like to see anyone suffer.” She smiled a little. “Not even a slime ball like Ross.”
“What makes you think he suffers because of what he is?”
“He’s driven by needs he doesn’t understand. He was an unloved little boy who learned to manipulate the world to get back some of his self-esteem. It’s really a classic story.”
Sam waved away the rest of her explanation. “Do you really believe that people commit crimes just because of the way they’re raised?”
“It’s not that simple, but if I had to distill my thoughts on the matter, I’d say basically yes. The way they were raised along with their biological potential.”
“I’m eating dinner with a bleeding-heart liberal.”
“And I’m eating dinner with an opinionated reactionary cop who’s still the best company I’ve had in a long time.” Antoinette reached across the table and touched Sam’s hand. “Why do you think people are bad?”
“Not because they’ve been neglected or thwarted or bottle-fed or sent to the wrong schools.”
“Then why?”
Sam looked down at their hands, joined in a casual gesture by the woman who touched so easily. “Because they decide to be.”
“You think it’s a conscious decision? Something they just decide out of nowhere?”
“I know it is.”
“Then you must think psychology is so much mumbo jumbo. You’ve simplified the world so that it’s just God and the devil all over again. People openly choose which one they’re going to follow and that’s it. No more decisions.” Antoinette pulled her hand from Sam’s as the waiter cleaned off their salad plates and served the redfish.
Sam smiled with an easy grin that surprised Antoinette. She realized it was the first full smile she’d seen from him, and it was a knockout. She felt its warmth bloom inside her, and she was glad she was no longer touching him because she was sure he’d have felt her reaction.
“There’s a place for psychology,” he said, “but not to make people feel sorry for criminals. Someone who does the things I see every day doesn’t deserve pity or understanding. I don’t care what their motives are. I just care about seeing justice done.”
Antoinette changed the subject, realizing that both of them had given their final speech in defense of their positions. “Can you talk about the Omega Oil case? You mentioned you have suspects.”
Sam gave a short, humorless laugh. “If all our suspects stood shoulder to shoulder along the Mississippi riverbank, they’d stretch up to Minneapolis and back down to the Gulf.”
“Why are so many people under suspicion? Why does everyone hate Omega Oil?”
“Pick a reason. It’s not a well-run company. There’s been mismanagement for years generating harsh feelings among competitors and employees alike. The drop in oil prices hit Omega harder than other better companies who ran a tighter ship. Omega had to lay off almost twice as many employees as some of the bigger companies, to the point that they now have only skeleton crews working, and they’re working those people to death.”
“Sounds bad.”
“Then last year during Hurricane Eileen they lost a handful of men on one of the oil rigs.”
“I remember that,” Antoinette mused. “But I’d forgotten that was Omega Oil.”
“The families and friends of those men haven’t forgotten. One of my cousins works on an Omega rig, so I know. There’re bad feelings toward Omega down in the bayous where those men came from. They should have been evacuated, and nobody blames anybody except Omega’s board for the fact that they weren’t.”
“It sounds like most of Louisiana had a grudge to settle.”
“That’s just one level of bad feeling,” Sam continued. “About three months ago Omega began trying to clean up its act. There was a major reshuffling of positions in management here in the city. The whole executive branch of the company now has a gripe about the way they’ve been treated.”
“I don’t envy you your job,” Antoinette said with a shake of her head. “Even if you did find the man who carried Laurie out of the building and even if he really was the man who set the fire, there’s no guarantee he’s working alone or for himself. He could just be some flunky who’s been hired by somebody else.”
“No, but if he is the man who set the fire, then he’s the man who killed the executive who died in it. And that’s my particular piece of the puzzle to solve.” Sam’s words were punctuated by a buzzing under the light blue sports coat he wore. Antoinette recognized the sound of a beeper. “Excuse me,” he said, standing. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The waiter came and cleared away their plates. He was just in the process of pouring coffee when Sam came back to the table. Without ceremony he waved the man away. “Antoinette, I’ve got an emergency. Can you get a cab back to your car?”
She nodded before she realized he was shaking his head at his own words. “No, look, why don’t you come with me? You should find this interesting.”
“I won’t be in the way?”
“No. But I’ve got to go right now.” He pulled out his wallet and dropped several bills on the table. “Come on.”
They were in his Toyota and speeding toward the Central Business District before Antoinette could ask another question. “Can you tell me where we’re going?”
“Heard of a place called Tadlows?”
Antoinette had been there several times with friends. It was a bar where business people on their way home from work and employees from City Hospital often stopped off for
a drink. It was respectable and usually crowded, not the sort of place for a brawl.
At her nod Sam went on. “The message was from a friend of mine, Skeeter Harwood. He and Joshua were at Tadlows having a drink tonight after Joshua got off his shift at the hospital. A customer started some trouble, and the bartender asked him to leave. The guy pulled a gun and threatened the bartender and everyone else in the room. They all got out safely, but the guy’s still there behind a locked door, threatening to shoot anyone who comes in after him and daring them to try in the same breath.”
Violence wasn’t unknown in New Orleans, but Antoinette shuddered to think that Joshua had been involved. “Anybody who’d lock himself in a room and practically dare the cops to come after him is a sick man. He sounds suicidal.”
Sam’s laugh was derisive. “Do you feel sorry for him? God, woman, don’t you realize that it’s nothing more than luck that kept him from killing a roomful of people? If Joshua hadn’t been there to talk him into letting them all go, we’d be heading for the morgue right now.”
“He’s a sick man. That doesn’t condone what he did, Sam, it’s just a statement of fact.”
“Would he have to kill a friend for you to stop sympathizing?”
The only sound in the car was the soft purr of the engine as they sped toward their destination. Finally Sam spoke again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”
Antoinette could have told him what had gotten into him. A very human emotion called anger provoked by a picture of two friends suffering at the whims of a crazy man. “It’s all right,” she said gently. “I understand.”
Sam could feel her words—soft as they were—in every part of his body. She did understand, possibly better than he did, and she didn’t hold it against him. She was the most accepting individual he’d ever known and the easiest to be around. Since he wasn’t looking for either acceptance or that kind of companionship, his answer was a curt nod.
Antoinette watched Sam as he expertly guided his car through the heavy New Orleans traffic. His face was still set in grim lines. She wondered how in control of his own impulses he was at that moment. She wondered if he was carrying a gun concealed under the deceptively innocent sports coat. She wondered how often he’d been called on to use one and how often in a situation where his own emotions were involved.
“Why did Skeeter call you? I’m sure the place is swarming with policemen by now.”
“He knows I’m working on the Omega case.”
Intrigued, Antoinette sat forward a little. “What does this have to do with Omega?”
“Before the guy started waving a gun, he was rambling on and on about what Omega had done to him. Skeeter and Joshua were sitting close enough to hear it all. Seems he was fired about three months ago after twenty years with the company. He was within a year of being eligible for a generous pension. Skeeter thinks the guy was waiting for some of the Omega executives to stroll into Tadlows so he could blast them.”
“Do you think he might be connected to the fire?”
“I think it’s a possibility. I also think it’s a possibility that he had absolutely nothing to do with it at all.”
“Has Joshua been able to talk to him since he locked himself in?”
“Joshua and the police have been talking to him through the door.”
“Good.”
“A lot of good it will do.”
“It sounds to me like the choices are limited,” Antoinette pointed out.
Sam’s answer was apparent in the whiteness of his knuckles gripping the steering wheel. The rest of the ride was silent, culminating in Sam’s thoroughly illegal parking at a taxi stand down the street from the bar.
There was a crowd around Tadlows, although the immediate area in front had been cordoned off and was populated entirely by uniformed police officers and one man in a suit, Joshua Martane. Sam grabbed Antoinette’s hand and pulled her to stand at the edge of the crowd next to an exotic-looking man with a dark tan and a neatly trimmed mustache.
“What’s happening?” Sam asked with no preliminaries.
“Nothing since I called you.” The man swept his black eyes over Antoinette and gave a stunning grin. “Not here, anyway.”
“You must be Skeeter,” Antoinette said, smiling back at him. “I’m Antoinette Deveraux. I think I met you the day Maggie gave her statement to the police.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
Antoinette remembered a much different man, one with hair to his shoulders, a gold hoop in one earlobe, a flamboyant handlebar mustache. This man had the same snapping eyes and easy grin, but he was much more civilized, although he would never fade into a crowd.
“Skeeter, stay with Antoinette. I’m going up front.”
“You invited me to come with you, and that’s what I’m going to do,” she said confidently. “I’ll stay out of the way, but Joshua might need my help.”
Sam didn’t have time to argue. If the situation proved to be dangerous, he’d insist. And she wouldn’t dare disobey.
At the front of the crowd, they were stopped by two police officers who apologized as soon as they realized Sam’s identity. Joshua was standing close to the door, apparently talking to the man inside.
“Is he getting anywhere?” Sam asked, inclining his head toward Joshua.
Before the police officer could answer, Joshua turned and saw them standing there. He said a few words to the man inside and then strode toward them.
Joshua was a large man, larger by several inches than Sam. He looked more like a prizefighter than a minister turned psychologist. He had none of Sam’s Apollonian good looks but much of his magnetism for women. He nodded to Antoinette before he directed his attention to Sam.
“He refuses to budge. He’s threatening to kill anyone who comes in after him.”
“Nice guy.”
“He’s not responding to me at all. I’ve put in a call for one of the female psychiatrists who practices at City. He might respond better to a woman. He lost his wife a year ago.”
“When does she get here?”
Joshua shrugged. “She wasn’t on call, so she’s not carrying a beeper. Who knows?”
“I’ll talk to him myself,” Sam said.
“Let me do it.” Antoinette waited for both men to face her. She only had to wait a split second. Sam’s expression was a study in seething anger. “Sam, you’re a man and you’re angry at this guy. It shows in every word you say. Let me talk to him. I know the history, I have the training. Let me give it a try.”
“Don’t interfere, Antoinette.” Sam’s voice was ice-cold.
Joshua was frowning at them both. “I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said, “but Antoinette’s right about one thing. You do sound too angry to deal with this guy appropriately. You’ll provoke him into doing something he really doesn’t want to do. And besides, you’re not a woman. I still think a woman might get through to him.”
“I won’t have Antoinette risking her life on your say-so.”
“The risk is minimal at worst. Frankly, I think the only person he’s in danger of killing is himself,” Joshua said wearily. “And if Antoinette can prevent that from happening, then we have to give her a chance.”
“It’s all right, Sam,” Antoinette said, reaching for his hand and squeezing it. “I’ll be careful. I know what to do.”
Sam felt the softness of her hand over his. She was reaching out to him again in that casual, reassuring way she had. He knew he had to let her go, but he knew one thing more. The next time they touched, it wouldn’t be at her initiation, and it wouldn’t be casual.
And when they were done, they would both be in need of reassurance.
Chapter 5
“Has he told you his name?” Antoinette asked Joshua.
“Howard Fauvier.”
“Has he said anything about a family we might be able to get in touch with?”
“Like I said, his wife died last year. They didn’t have any children.”
>
“Anything else?”
“Nothing except the business with Omega. I assume Sam told you about that.” At Antoinette’s nod Joshua stepped beside her to escort her to the door. In an instant Sam was between them.
“My job, Josh.” He took Antoinette’s arm firmly and walked with her, shielding her body with his own as they got closer to the door. Joshua watched them from behind the cordon.
Antoinette wasn’t frightened, but she did like the feeling of Sam beside her. She suspected, in fact, that she might like it entirely too much. At the door Sam waved the other police officers back and positioned himself so that he would be between Antoinette and any possible gunfire.
“Mr. Fauvier?” Antoinette waited for an answer and then tried again. “Mr. Fauvier, my name is Antoinette Deveraux, and I’m a friend of the man who’s been talking to you. I’d like to talk to you myself.”
The snarl from behind the door sounded only half human. Antoinette would have given anything to see the man’s face at that moment for a better reading of his mental state.
“I thought you might like to talk about why you’re angry,” she continued calmly. “Sometimes talking can help.”
Antoinette felt a hand on her arm. She turned to face Sam. “You have two minutes,” he mouthed. She frowned and shook her head, turning back to continue her one-sided conversation. Sam moved closer, fitting his body against hers in a pose that was instinctively protective. She felt the warmth and strength of it, and she forgave him for trying to rush her.
“I don’t believe you want anyone to get hurt,” Antoinette said to the closed door. “I think you want to make a point. The problem is that if you don’t talk to me, no one will ever understand what you’re trying to say by doing this.”
“Go away!”
Antoinette knew the words, hostile as they were, were encouraging. “I understand you lost your wife and your job in the past year,” she continued. “That’s very hard to live with.”
Her words were met by silence.
“You must miss your wife very much. How long were you married?”
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