“What?”
“She was a nurse. She bathed the faces of the ill and those put under the weather thanks to the ravages of lead balls and saber slashes.”
“She cleaned that old blood off his face.”
“She who?”
Doc’s face twisted itself up and Leland knew he’d have to tell him about it, even though it was none of his business. Leland didn’t like nosy people. But he didn’t see that telling would hurt anything.
“Game warden and lady warden came to my camp this morning. They had this camera stuck up on a tree to spy on me. He was going to get his radio to get help, but I caught him, and she was cleaning the blood off this guy’s face when I came in.”
“Holy shit! Game wardens? And you did what?”
Leland shrugged, taken aback by the dumbness of the question. “They was trespassers. I killed ’em.”
“And then?”
“I got shed of them and I sunk their boat where nobody won’t never find it. A deep hole I know of.”
After thinking for a few seconds, Doc smiled. “Not a problem. Good thinking, Leland. You did the right thing.”
“You mean on killing those wardens?”
“You, a specimen endowed with such suspect genetics, take instruction amazingly well for an overly muscular individual blessed with the intelligence usually associated with invertebrates and the inanimate. You actually showed initiative and took what might have been a disastrous situation, and—I have little doubt—handled it with the thoughtful planning of an enraged primate encountering a potential Armageddon. You never fail to astound me with your Kong-like aplomb, your measured directness in solving complex problems with straightforward acts. Leland Ticholet, I am more certain than ever that for you the world holds no mysteries whatsoever.”
Leland felt his face flushing. He couldn’t help but smile when Doc laid on fancy compliments. “I just do what needs to get did, I reckon. Nothing nobody else like me wouldn’t a’ did in my place.”
“If you could accomplish another complex assignment, get that stepladder out of your old truck for me? We have a lot of work to do in preparation for this evening’s festivities. Perhaps you can observe what I do and give me unsolicited, and undoubtedly moronic, advice while I connect up my little devise du demise.”
Leland went out and brought back the ladder, which was in his father’s old truck. Doc had gotten a mechanic to fix the truck up so it worked pretty good and he’d told Leland he would be able to use it after things were settled, and the wheels would come in handy for getting up groceries and like that. All Leland wanted to do now was get back to the swamp, but since Doc had asked so nicely, he’d stay and watch him put his little contraption together. Doc was a very smart man, and Leland listened to what Doc was saying without being interested in any of it, or caring how rich the man was going to get from this.
Doc didn’t talk much about things that Leland cared anything about. He told Leland he knew more about most anything than any man alive, teachers even, and Leland believed him. Doc was the best electrical man, the best plumbing man, the best car driver, the best food cooker, the best wine drinker, the best lover of beautiful women. Hellfire, Doc was about the best there was at whatever the hell it was he decided to tell about.
An hour later, Leland had to admit the deal Doc had built in the little house was something to look at. All those wires that went all over the place through the pulleys and the way it was all hooked up to that bowl. Doc explained it, but it seemed like a bunch of showing off to Leland. Why go to so much work for something so simple to do and be done with?
Why would anybody waste all this time and effort when all he needed was a piece of pipe? Maybe the smarter you were, the more you figured you had to show off. Leland couldn’t figure out why Doc was always telling him what he was going to do and exactly how he was going to do it. Leland didn’t care if the little man could light a match to his fart and fly up to the moon from the flames shooting out from his ass.
Leland was, as usual, bored enough to bash Doc’s head in and go back out to the cabin where he had traps that wouldn’t set their own selves.
Thinking about the cabin reminded him that he had done everything he had said he would do on the boat deal. He was tired of thinking about it. If Doc added one more thing Leland had to do to get the owning papers on the boat, Leland was going to kill him. And it wouldn’t be nobody’s fault but Doc’s.
“You want some gum?” Doc asked him.
“You got some?”
The package of Juicy Fruit chased all other thoughts from his mind, and as he opened it, Leland was thinking that Doc was the best guy he’d ever known and that was a fact.
54
At ten minutes past five o’clock, Kenneth Decell arrived at LePointe’s, parked beside the Bentley in the courtyard, lifted the valise containing the two and a half million dollars, and strode to the front door, noting a slight breeze. He knew it was at least twenty-four hours before the feeder bands from the hurricane arrived and stirred things up. By then he would be a well-heeled man. He would take a few weeks off and go to Paris for some R&R. After Decell had stood at the front door for thirty seconds, Dr. LePointe opened it, and he shook Decell’s hand vigorously. He led Decell back to the office, never once so much as glancing at the valise, which held one man’s fortune and another’s walking-around money.
“So did Roger give you any trouble?” he asked Decell.
“He expressed mild concern when I refused to sign a release,” Decell answered.
“It is a substantial amount,” LePointe said.
“I told him he should call you if he needed clarification as to your wishes, or have you come and sign his receipt. He declined to pursue the matter, and here it is.”
LePointe nodded. “He’s a professional worrier, and has my best interests at heart.”
“More likely his own.”
“I’m sure he’s covered, since he has a video recording device in his office, which I’m sure captured the transaction. One can’t blame him for being cautious.”
Decell said, “Bastards won’t get to cash the bonds. They’ll be back in the bank’s vault Monday morning.”
LePointe shrugged. “Ransoms are just forced business transactions, Kenneth. Business arrangements. Someone has something that they want something else in exchange for. In this case, two and a half million dollars. The thing that bothers me is that whoever is behind this has to know the item in question is worth a larger percentage of my holdings than this. If I could pay it and be done with this forever, I’d just pay it and write it off to lessons learned. Just lessons learned. In this case, the extortionists may see this as a down payment. Human nature being what it is ensures that the extortionists see me as a golden goose. Giving me what I’m paying for would be killing the goose. There are people who understand economics, who are comfortable with wealth, and there’s everybody else. It’s a remarkably small club, Kenneth. So the question is, how do you get the object and keep from rewarding such greed?”
“It’s under control,” Decell said.
“I suppose you understand the criminal psychology as well as I do, based on your experience with such people. So, fill me in on your day. What did you find at Dorothy’s house?”
“Just what I told you earlier.”
“I want to hear the details.”
“Are you sure?” Decell wondered if LePointe was recording this and his questions were designed to give the doctor a lever.
“I know Dorothy is dead and you tidied up the residence, removing any and all incriminating evidence. There’s more, isn’t there?”
“I did what you asked.” He reached into his pocket and placed a small cassette on the desk, which LePointe merely looked at as though it had no real value.
“I lifted this from the answering machine. Your voice was on it eighteen times. If they pull your phone records, there are calls to the house, but short ones. You can say you wanted to check in on an old and valued friend.
Perhaps you wanted her to help take care of your wife.”
“Let’s leave Sarah out of this. Unless it becomes necessary, I mean. It’s a solid reason, and one I overlooked.”
Decell nodded. “Of course.”
“No other complications?” LePointe asked.
“Like?”
“Like any unexpected complications?”
“I was interrupted in my search by that FBI agent. Keen.” Decell knew she had visited LePointe, and there was no way to avoid telling the doctor about her involvement, since it was unlikely that she’d failed to mention it. “I assume she picked the lock. I had the key you gave me, but I’m sure I locked the door.” He told one small lie to cover his failure to lock the door.
“The FBI agent showed up and you did what…slipped out the back door?”
Decell contemplated his fingernails for a second. “She was searching the house. She never saw me. When she went into the basement, I locked the door and left.”
“Why not escape out the back?”
“The back door was dead-bolted and there was no key in the mechanism. I went out the way I came in.”
“You removed all of the evidence tying myself or Sibhon to Dorothy’s house, I assume?”
Decell felt heat rising in his chest. “I found a package of correspondence, cards, that sort of thing. But I was interrupted before I had a chance to really search with the sort of thoroughness I would have liked.”
LePointe’s eyes grew cold, and he stared at Decell.
“I might have missed something,” Decell said hastily. “There were a few bottles of pills. Danielson’s name wasn’t on any of them. Of course, I took those and destroyed them.”
“My name, as the prescribing physician, was on them. I learned that from Agent Keen, who saw them before you took them. I assured her the prescriptions were forged, and I doubt she can prove otherwise, but she knows they were there. She also knows Sibhon was there. The only thing that eludes me is how she knew to go to Dorothy’s house in the first place. That had to have come from someone at River Run, and I have to admit it makes me anxious to think there are loose lips out there. Veronica Malouf springs immediately to mind because she was in a position to pick up things, and she told you Keen and Manseur were there. Dr. Whitfield didn’t have the information, and wouldn’t dare inform on me if he did. Anything else?”
Decell was satisfied that LePointe wasn’t recording their conversation, because he couldn’t edit it without leaving evidence, and it implicated him.
“As to who at River Run told the agent about Dorothy Fugate, I don’t believe it was Malouf or Whitfield. We have to assume there are people out there who might have heard talk of one sort or another.”
“I see.” LePointe drummed the desktop with his fingers. Decell had never seen LePointe worried about anything before. “There is no evidence remaining pertaining to Sibhon Danielson’s release or stay. Those records are ash.”
“You burned them personally?”
LePointe nodded.
“I don’t believe Agent Keen or the Homicide cops will find anything.” Decell tried to maintain an air of confident certainty. “If they do, I’ll deal with it.”
“How?”
“I have a lot of good friends in the department,” Decell said. “And so do you. I can pull in a lot of favors, and nobody in there will be quick to allow anything to happen to you. This city loves and appreciates their saints, and only one’s among the living.” Decell saw LePointe’s eyes light up at the saint reference, just as he had hoped, and he relaxed somewhat. God only knew what kind of shit-storm LePointe might have to weather if the Sibby-in-his-hospital thing found its way into the press. “Right now every cop within a hundred miles is worrying about the hurricane, and it’s only going to get worse until Sunday night. We have a clear window.”
“With the possible exceptions of Agent Keen and Detective Manseur, I am totally confident that you can keep the lid on this,” LePointe said. “Thanks to this FBI agent’s meddling, though, Casey is aware that Sibhon Danielson was Dorothy’s guest, and that she was also at River Run. I think I can deal with Casey so this doesn’t create a schism in the family, but my niece is more upset than I’ve ever seen her. There was something in her eyes that I never thought I would live to see. She was horrified and crushed, and she could act irrationally until her husband is returned. Once he’s home, all of this will be behind us and forgotten. If she’s determined to have West in her life, I’m prepared to live with it. I’ll explain to her truthfully that I wrote that letter to gain time to pay his ransom without police interference, to ensure West’s recovery. She is a LePointe. She will accept my actions once I’ve explained. Kenneth, you are the only living soul, aside from the perpetrators of this mess, who knows the whole story. You alone I can trust. As long as these extortionists know, this is not over. We can’t have that.”
Decell knew that if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had run headlong into LePointe’s secret when he was a street cop, his own life would have been a far, far poorer one. If Fugate hadn’t shared it, too, none of this could have happened. LePointe had needed Fugate’s involvement, but Decell knew LePointe only cared that the woman was dead because of what came of it, thanks to the fact that she’d kept a record. Who knew she was capable of such stupidity and disloyalty? LePointe had thought that the nurse’s involvement, a gift here and there, his affection in the guise of his erect penis (administered very occasionally), and a few promises—kept or not—would ensure Dorothy Fugate’s silence and loyalty. Decell knew better, but LePointe, for all his intelligence and knowledge of the psyches of patients, knew jack-shit about women.
“I can’t imagine Sibhon killing Dorothy,” LePointe said.
“Who else but Sibby could have?”
“So, where do you think Sibhon is? If she did kill Dorothy, where could she go? Did the extortionist find her? Or she him?”
“Or her. The blackmailer might be female.”
“Perhaps. What if the police find Sibhon? I don’t believe she could say anything with enough coherence that would matter. But I’m not one hundred percent sure of that. If she isn’t medicated, who can be sure? I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her, but if she were…”
“Possibly the blackmailer has her, or had her…if she’s even still alive,” Decell said. “The fact that she was at River Run is already out. That won’t be a problem, because the release form is misfiled, but it is in the files, so I doubt it will amount to anything but speculation. However it breaks, you have deniability and a depth of credibility few other men have. Sticks and stones.”
LePointe’s eyes grew dark and angry and he slammed his hand down on the desk. “Just speculation? Don’t you understand the harm that can do? I treated the woman who murdered my own brother. Do you know how that could make me look? The appearance of impropriety can be as deadly as any gunshot.”
“It shows that you are a professional with a heart. You treated her out of a boundless sense of compassion. You wanted her to have the best care, because she was already your patient before the incident and you wanted to help her regain herself, even though she’d killed people you loved.” Even as he was saying it, Decell saw how terrible it made LePointe look and regretted saying it out loud.
LePointe was silent for almost a minute. “Yes, Kenneth. What you say is probably true. Of course her mental health was at stake. Yes, I think you’re right.” LePointe squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his forehead. “It was compassion. Perhaps misguided. God, we all make mistakes out of misguided good intentions.”
“No good deed goes unpunished,” Decell added. “We can deal with that. Absolutely. Now, we need to talk about tonight.”
LePointe made a tent out of his hands. “I’m all ears.”
55
Alexa and Manseur sat across from each other at the dining table in his Uptown home eating the shrimp po’boys they had picked up en route to his house. They were studying the printouts of the telephone reco
rds that Alexa had requested covering persons of interest in the West case.
“How can people talk so much?” Alexa said.
Outside, car doors slammed.
“Sounds like my girls are home,” Manseur said.
The kitchen door opened and two young girls Alexa recognized from their pictures in Manseur’s office burst into the kitchen, laughing. Upon seeing Alexa, the girls stopped laughing and stared at her. Both had long hair and large expressive eyes. The elder was a head taller than her sister, and thinner. The younger was stocky and resembled her father.
A woman carrying groceries entered the house and closed the door behind her using her foot. She set the bags on the counter and turned.
“Girls, this is Alexa Keen,” Manseur said. “Alexa, may I present my daughters, Emma and Madge, and my wife, Emily.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Alexa said, standing. She extended her hand and greeted each girl with a handshake.
“I’m Emma,” the youngest said, pulling her blond hair back and tucking it behind her ears.
“Madge,” said the other.
“You a police lady?” Emma asked.
“Alexa is an FBI special agent,” Manseur said.
Emily Manseur radiated confidence. She was thin, had olive skin, long black hair, and smiled easily, exposing a slight overbite. “Agent Keen, Michael speaks very highly of you.”
“Are you really an FBI lady?” Emma asked Alexa.
“Yes, I am,” Alexa said.
“Don’t let us interrupt, Agent Keen,” Emily said. “Michael, we’re packed. There are enough can goods, bread, and bottled water to last you two solid weeks. Everything’s in the pantry. There’s candles, matches, flashlights, and batteries.”
“Then y’all need to get going.”
“We could wait until tomorrow to leave. It might turn.”
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