by Tami Hoag
In truth Tony hadn't changed a bit in the ten years since he'd dropped out of high school. Physically, he had matured early, reaching his full height of five feet eight and bulking out with muscle the instant his hormones had sprung to life. Psychologically, he hadn't matured at all. His temper was still the volatile and unpredictable creature of an adolescent. He used his penis like a homing device, and his idea of a good time invariably included sports, crude humor, and mass quantities of beer.
He'd been in trouble off and on since junior high, but his trouble had never amounted to much, to his way of thinking—a few smashed cars, the occasional fist fight. Twice he had been hauled in for pushing Annie around, but he had never hurt her badly. The court never wanted to hear it, but she'd always given as good as she got, the little hellcat.
He smiled a little at the memory of her hurling beer cans at him, swearing at him a mile a minute. But the smile twisted into a knot of pain as he reminded himself that Annie wouldn't be around to throw anything at his head anymore.
He stared down at the plain gold wedding band on his left hand, unable to look away from it, unable to stop from twisting it around and around on his finger.
“You can take that off and hock it, Tony,” Sheriff Kenner drawled, planting a boot on the seat of the only other chair at the table. He rested his forearms on his lean thigh and looked at Tony sideways, feeling exhausted and mean. He'd gotten two hours' sleep since the discovery of the body. “You're not married anymore.”
Tony just sniffed and looked away.
“Divorce would have been cheaper,” Kenner said, watching his man with narrowed eyes. “You don't have jack shit to sue for. Might have lost your truck, is all. You're gonna pay now, boy. They'll throw your pretty ass in Angola Pen, and you'll pay for the rest of your miserable life.”
Tony blinked at the itchy pressure in his eyes, never glancing Kenner's way, and mumbled, “I didn't kill her.”
“Sure you did. You just spent six weeks in our little parish hotel 'cause of the missus. You had six weeks to get up a good head of steam. You got out, went to pay her back, got a little carried away . . .”
“I didn't kill her.”
“Tell me, Tony, what's it like to wrap a scarf around a woman's throat and choke the life out of her? Did you watch her face? Did you watch her turn color, watch her eyes bug out as she realized the man she married was gonna kill her?”
“Shut up.”
“Did you like the sounds she made, Tony?”
“Shut up.”
“Or did you like it better when she was begging you to stop using that knife on her?”
“Shut up!” Tony exploded to his feet, sending his chair skittering backward on the linoleum. His face contorted with rage, and spittle flew as he shouted, “Shut the fuck up!”
Kenner pounced like a wolf, grabbing him by the back of his thick neck and digging his fingertips in. As Tony gasped at the pain shooting down his spine, Kenner leaned in close, invading the man's personal space in every way he could. “No, you shut up, dickhead!” he bellowed in Gerrard's ear. “Shut up and sit down.” He let go of Tony's neck and shoved the old wooden straight chair back under him just in time to catch him.
Tony hit the seat of the chair so hard, it felt like a baseball bat hitting his balls. Another swarm of red and blue dots swirled before his eyes. He swallowed hard and propped his elbows on the scarred table, hanging his head and rubbing weakly at the back of his neck. What was left of his cigarette smoldered in the ashtray, the smoke nauseating him.
Kenner walked away to an old army green metal desk that squatted along one wall of the barren room and picked up a manila file folder. He took his time about it, believing firmly in fucking with a perp's mind. Tony Gerrard wanted out of this room. Let him think that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Let him think that the reason why the cops figured they had all the time in the world to question him was that they were damn certain he did the deed.
“You're a sad sack of shit, Tony,” he muttered, thumbing through the file. “Getting off on this kind of sick torture stuff.”
“I didn't do it,” Tony whispered, pinching the bridge of his nose. He wanted to cry, and he hated Kenner for that. He wanted out of this crackerbox of a room. He wanted to stop thinking about Annie and words like “torture” and “murder.”
“Hell, everybody knows you knocked her around.”
“But I never would'a done—” He broke off and swallowed hard as the gossip came back to him in an ugly rush. Everyone in town was talking about what those hikers had found. “I never would'a done that. Never.”
“You mean, this?” Kenner pulled the crime scene Polaroids out of the file and tossed them on the table.
For one long, terrible second Tony stared at the body of his wife, his brain cataloging the gruesome atrocities—the scarf knotted around her throat, the cuts the knife had made in her breasts and belly and thighs. In that one second the images were forever branded into his memory. The skin, unnaturally pale, mottled with bruises, sliced open in places, torn and ragged in others. And her eyes. Those beautiful big brown eyes, frozen in a stare of pure horror.
“She probably looks worse than when you dumped her body,” Kenner said coldly. “She was in the bayou a couple days. Lucky there was anything left, what with the fish and the gators and—”
Tony swept the pictures off the table with a cry of anguish, then turned and vomited on the floor, his guts wrenching at the images flashing through his head.
“Annie! Oh, God, Annie!” he cried, the sobs tearing up from his heart. He rose in a half crouch, doubled over by the terrible pain of loss, and stumbled away from the table to sink down on his knees in the corner.
Kenner frowned and sighed. He picked up the snapshots, careful not to look at them, and slipped them back in the folder. The hot, acidic scent of Tony's stomach contents burned his nostrils, but that wasn't what left the bad taste in his mouth.
He had wanted Gerrard to be guilty, had honestly believed he could have committed the crime. A confession would have justified what he had just put Tony Gerrard through. It was a hell of a lot more gratifying to torment a guilty man than a grieving husband.
“You're free to go,” he said in a low voice, then let himself out of the room.
The next door down the hall opened, and Danjermond walked out looking cool and composed, unaffected by what he had seen through the two-way glass.
“My God, you're a ruthless bastard,” he drawled mildly.
Kenner watched him straighten a shirt cuff and align his onyx cuff link with the top stitching. “No,” he said. “Whoever killed Annie Delahoussaye-Gerrard is a ruthless bastard. I just mean to catch him.”
Danjermond glanced at him from under his brows. “You don't think Gerrard is guilty?”
He shook his head as he dug a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and hung it from his lip. “You saw him.”
“He could be acting. Or perhaps what we witnessed was abject remorse.”
“If he's acting, then he deserves the goddamn Academy Award.” He struck a match and cupped his hands around his cigarette as if he were standing outside in a stiff wind. To banish the sour taste and smell that lingered in his senses, he drew the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled through his nostrils. “I got a call in to the sheriff in St. Martin Parish, where they found that last dead girl. A hundred says the same piece of shit did this one.”
He tossed his match down on the floor and ground it to shreds with the toe of his boot. “I'll catch the son of a bitch,” he swore. “Nobody does this in my parish and gets away with it.”
The very corners of Danjermond's mouth curled in a sardonic, unamused smile. “I appreciate your attitude. Killers running around loose don't do my career any good, either.”
Kenner shot him a hard look, his eyes mere slits in his lean, leathery face. “Fuck your career, Danjermond. I got a wife and two daughters. This maniac comes sniffing around my turf, I'll tear his goddamn throat out.”
“Yeah, and I'm mean enough to take that as a compliment.” He glanced through the window into his office and pulled up short of the door, a headache instantly piercing his temples as he caught a glimpse of Laurel Chandler's profile through the venetian blind. “Shit. This is all I need. She's probably here to tell me Jimmy Lee Baldwin did it.”
Danjermond gazed between the slats of the blinds, taking in the feminine lines of Laurel Chandler's face and the determined set of her chin. She sat in the chair beside Kenner's desk with her legs crossed, and bent as he watched to scratch a spot on her stockinged calf. “She does have a reputation for being . . . dogged.”
Kenner snorted and stubbed his cigarette out in the dirt of a potted orange tree that sat beside his secretary's desk. “She has a reputation for causing trouble, and I don't want any more than I've already got.”
Laurel emerged from her interview with Kenner feeling like she'd just gone three rounds with Dirty Harry. How the man had ever won an election was beyond her. He certainly hadn't gone the route of charming the voters. More likely they had been afraid not to vote for him. A territorial sort, he'd torn into her first for invading his office. Then had come the “I have better things to do” speech. He calmed down only marginally when she explained herself, explained that the Delahoussayes didn't understand procedure and only wanted someone to act as go-between on their behalf.
Grudgingly he gave her the barest of details concerning the investigation. Because of the priority nature of the case, the autopsy was already being performed. He couldn't say when the body would be released. He wouldn't say if they had any solid physical evidence. No arrests had been made.
“You brought Tony Gerrard in for questioning.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. She couldn't even see the pupils. A muscle ticked in his cheek.
“It's common knowledge, Sheriff. This is a small town.”
He lit a cigarette and slowly went through with the ritual of shaking out the match and taking his first deep drag. “We brought him in. Had a little chat.”
“I suppose you're aware that his wife had had relationships with a number of other men.”
“You gonna tell me they all did it? It was a goddamn conspiracy, right? You're big on that kind of bullshit.”
“I'm not telling you anything.”
She wanted to tell him to do the anatomically impossible, she thought as she marched down the hall. He had her pegged as a head case, and everything she said he twisted into the ineffectual babblings of a hysterical woman. He wouldn't have believed her if she had told him the earth was round. Of course, Neanderthal that he was, he probably had doubts about that anyway. A nasty insinuation concerning the species residing in Kenner's family tree ran through her head, and she smiled a little at the mental image of orangutans with slitted eyes and cigarettes dangling from their nonexistent lips.
“I've seen people convicted on the basis of a smile like that one.”
Danjermond stepped out of the water fountain alcove, seeming to materialize out of nothing. Laurel's heart jolted, but she managed to keep from shying sideways. She looked up at the district attorney, finding the quiet amusement in his clear green eyes both irritating and inappropriate—just as her smile must have looked.
“I should probably be fined at the very least,” she said with a rueful look. “Psychic defamation of character.”
He tipped his head. “Not on the books in the state of Louisiana.”
“Then I'm off the hook as long as Kenner can't read minds.”
“I believe his talents lie in other areas.”
Laurel sniffed and crossed her arms, allowing a little of her anger to sizzle up. “Yes, I'm sure he's a whiz with a rubber truncheon and thumbscrews, but that's not my idea of a good time.”
“No?” Danjermond chuckled, then the sound faded away and a heavy silence fell between them like a blanket of humidity. His gaze turned speculative and held fast on her face, searching, probing. “What is, Laurel?” he asked softly.
Something about his question froze her tongue to the roof of her mouth. She had the feeling, as she looked up into that calm, stunningly handsome face that he was running possible scenarios through his head. Hot, dark, erotic. The air around them seemed suddenly charged with his powerful sexuality. She felt it envelope her, felt it penetrate the skirt and blouse she wore and stroke over the silk beneath. A delicate shiver of arousal rippled through her, followed closely by something like revulsion. She wasn't sure she understood either.
“We might discuss it over lunch,” he said quietly, his gaze lingering on her mouth, as if he were imagining watching her lips close over a red, ripe strawberry. He stroked the fingertips of one hand along the stylish silk necktie he wore, smoothing it with a lover's caress. His voice softened to the texture of velvet. “Or after.”
“That seems a highly improper suggestion, Mr. Danjermond,” Laurel said coolly, wishing fervently that someone else would happen out into the hall and break the sexual tension or at least witness it. But then she had the eerie feeling that no one else would see it or sense it. The signals he was sending out were for her alone.
Sliding his hands into the pockets of his coffee brown trousers, he smiled that all-knowing feline smile that made her feel as if he were a superior life-form who had taken the guise of a mere mortal for amusement. “I don't believe I've broken any rules by asking you to lunch.”
Once again he had neatly maneuvered her into a corner. The realization annoyed her. If she wanted to make an argument against his statement, she would have to be the one to bring up the topic of sexual tension and implied propositions.
Or maybe she was just imagining the whole thing. Perhaps she had taken such an aversion to Vivian's notions of him as a son-in-law, she was reading into everything he said. Whatever the case, she didn't want to deal with him; she didn't have the energy.
“Thank you for the invitation,” she said smoothly. “But I'm afraid I already have plans.”
One straight brow lifted. His gaze seemed to intensify, his pale green eyes glowing like precious stones held up to the sun. “Another man?”
“My aunt. Not that it's any of your business.”
He treated her to a full-fledged smile that was perfectly even, perfectly symmetrical, bright, white, handsome as she imagined all the Danjermonds had been since the days of the Renaissance. “I like to know if I have competition.”
“I told you before,” Laurel said, edging toward impatience. “I'm not looking to get involved with anyone at the moment.”
The word “liar” rang in her head, and she had the distinct feeling Stephen Danjermond heard it, too. But he would have to call her on it. She wasn't bringing up the subject of Jack Boudreaux. Today she honestly wished she'd never heard the name.
“Sometimes we get things we are not necessarily expecting, though, don't we, Laurel?” he said.
He didn't like her rebuff. She could hear the faintest edge in his smooth, cultured voice, and behind the affable smile his eyes had a coldness about them that hinted at temper. Too bad. She had no intention of becoming entangled with him—emotionally or otherwise.
“Annie Delahoussaye certainly got something she wasn't expecting,” she said, neatly shifting gears to business. God, how appalling that murder seemed safer territory than personal relationships.
“You're here on her behalf, Laurel? For someone who claims not to be interested in going back to work you certainly are spending a great deal of time in the courthouse.”
“Her parents asked me to act as their liaison with the sheriff's department,” she said. “They're devastated, naturally, and Kenner is less than forthcoming, to say nothing of the fact that sympathy is a completely foreign concept to him.”
Danjermond nodded thoughtful
ly. “He's a hard man. He would tell you there's no place for sympathy in his work.”
“Yes, well, he'd be wrong.”
“Would he?” he asked, looking doubtful. “Sympathy can sometimes be equated with weakness, vulnerability. It can draw a person into situations where perspective becomes warped and emotion takes over where logic should rule. We're taught in law school not to allow ourselves to become emotionally involved, aren't we, Laurel? As you well know, the results can be disastrous.”
He couldn't have cut her more cleanly if he had used a scalpel. And he'd done it so subtly, seemingly without effort. And once again, Laurel could say nothing without incriminating herself. She had the distinct feeling he was punishing her for turning down his invitation, but she could hardly accuse him. The best thing she could do was concede to an opponent she was no match for and get the hell out.
She took a very rude, very deliberate look at her watch and said flatly, “Oh, my, look at the time. I have to be going.”
Danjermond gave her a mocking little half bow. “Until we meet again, Laurel.”
She left the courthouse feeling battered. Kenner had been bad enough, but she couldn't encounter Stephen Danjermond without feeling she had walked into a tiger's cage. He was beautiful, charismatic, but there was a strength, an ego, a temper there beneath the handsome stripes. This time he had reached out and swiped at her with his elegant paw, and she felt as if his claws had sliced into her as sure and sharp as razor blades. She thanked God she would never have to face him in a courtroom.
The Acura was parked beneath the heavy shade of a live oak at the edge of the courthouse lot. Laurel slid behind the wheel, and the tension that had gripped her in its fist all morning finally let go, leaving her feeling like a puddle of melted Jell-O. She stared across the street for a moment, watching the weathered old men who sat on their bench in front of the hardware store.
They gathered there every morning in their summer hats and short-sleeved shirts, suspenders holding up baggy dark pants. Laurel knew the faces had changed over the years, but she could remember old men sitting there when she had been a small child. They took their places on the bench to watch the day go by, to swap stories and gossip. Today they looked grim, unsmiling, wary of every car that drove past, watchful of strangers. A woman emerged from the store, holding the hand of a daughter who had probably considered herself too old for it just yesterday.