by Tami Hoag
Laurel looked up at him, more curious as to why he had shown up than what he was going to do to Jimmy Lee Baldwin. She probably should have stood her ground or made him leave with her. After all, assault was against the law, and she was sworn to uphold the law. But she glanced over at Baldwin and felt a surge of something primal and angry, and for once turned her back on rules and regulations. She didn't like the things Baldwin had intimated about Savannah—even if she knew deep down they may well have been true.
She slipped the Lady Smith back into her pocketbook and without a word turned and left the bungalow.
Jack settled his hands at the waist of his jeans and waited for the echo of the screen door slamming to fade away before he turned fully toward Jimmy Lee. Jimmy Lee, who believed the best defense was a good offense, snatched up the mostly empty bottle of E&J brandy off the three-legged coffee table and brandished it like a big glass club.
“Get the hell out of my house, Boudreaux.”
“Not before we have us a little chat.” Jack circled Baldwin slowly, moving in on him by imperceptible degrees. He didn't appear threatening. He scuffed his boots along on the gritty linoleum, his head down, as if he had nothing better to do than count the cigarette burns in the floor. “Now, Jimmy Lee, I don' know what you did to make Miz Chandler pull her little peashooter on you, but it had to be somethin' bad—her being such a law-abiding sort and all.”
“I didn't do shit to her,” Jimmy Lee snapped, turning, turning, to keep Boudreaux in front of him. His fingers flexed on the neck of the brandy bottle. “She's unbalanced. She was in an asylum, you know. She's nuts, just like her sister.”
Jack shook his head in grave disappointment, still shuffling along, still turning, still moving in a little at a time. “You're impugning the character of a fine, upstanding woman, Jimmy Lee. Even I have to take exception to that.”
Jimmy Lee made another quarter turn, wondering dimly at the way the floor seemed to dip beneath his feet. “I don't give a rat's ass what you take exception to, you coonass piece of shit.”
Jack suddenly moved toward him, and Jimmy Lee swung the heavy, unwieldy brandy bottle. He did so with gusto, imagining the mess it would make of the Cajun's head, but he missed badly, throwing himself off balance in the process.
Jack ducked the blow easily. Quick and graceful as a cat, he stepped around Baldwin, caught hold of the preacher's free arm, twisted it up high behind him, and ran him face-first into the rough plaster wall. The bottle fell to the floor and shattered in tinkling shards, the last of the brandy soaking into Baldwin's wingtips.
“I told you once to leave Laurel Chandler alone,” Jack growled, his mouth a scant inch from Baldwin's ear. “You shouldn't make me tell you twice, Jimmy Lee. Me, I don' have that kind of patience.”
Jimmy Lee tried to suck in a watery breath. His face was mashed against the nubby plaster, and he was sure he'd chipped at least three of his precious caps. While the blood pounded in his head and spittle bubbled between his ruined teeth and down his quivering chin, he damned Jack Boudreaux to hell and plotted a hundred ways to torment him once they were both there.
“I mean it, Jimmy Lee,” Jack snarled, jerking his arm up a little higher and wringing a whimper out of him. “If you give her another moment's trouble, I'll rip your dick off and use it for crawfish bait.”
He gave one last little push, then stepped back and dusted his palms off on his thighs as Baldwin stood, still facing the wall, doubled over, clutching his arm.
“Hope I don' see you 'round, Jimmy Lee.”
Jimmy Lee spat on the floor, a big gob of blood and saliva flecked with fragments of porcelain. “God damn you to hell, Boudreaux!” he yelled around the thumb that was feeling gingerly for the sorry condition of his caps.
Jack waved him off and walked out and away from the bungalow.
“I don't want to know one thing about it,” Laurel said as she came toward him from the base of a huge old magnolia tree. “If I don't know anything, I can't be called to testify.”
“He'll live,” Jack said sardonically. They walked toward the vehicles they had left on the scrubby lawn beside Baldwin's beat-up Ford. Huey sat behind the wheel of Jack's Jeep, ears up like a pair of black triangles, mismatched eyes bright. Jack shot Laurel a sideways glance. “You okay?”
Laurel gave him a look. “What are you doing here, Jack? Two hours ago you weren't even willing to give me a straight answer, let alone ride to my rescue.”
He scowled blackly, caught in a trap of his own making. He should have stayed the hell out of it, but as he sat at his desk, smoking the first pack of Marlboros he had allowed himself in two years, trying to conjure up a violent muse, he hadn't been able to get the image out of his head—Laurel charging at Baldwin with the courage of a lion and the stature of a kitten. Baldwin was a con man, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable of worse, and try as he might to convince himself otherwise, Jack couldn't just stand back and let her take a chance like that alone.
“I followed you,” he admitted grudgingly. “I don' want to get involved, but I don' want to see you get hurt, either. I've got enough on my conscience.”
Too late for that, Laurel thought, biting her lip. He had hurt her in little ways already. He would break her heart if she gave him the chance, and damn her for a fool, some part of her wanted to give him that chance. Knowing everything she knew about him. Even after everything they had said in his kitchen. She couldn't think of his tenderness in the night, of the vulnerability that lay inside that tough, alley-cat facade, and not want to give him that chance.
“Why, Mr. Boudreaux,” she said sardonically, gazing up at him with phony, wide-eyed amazement, “you'd better watch yourself. One might deduce from a statement such as that one that you actually feel concern for my well-being. That could be hazardous to your image as a bastard.”
“Quit bein' such a smart-ass,” he growled, his expression thunderous. “I didn't like the idea of you comin' out here alone. Ol' Jimmy Lee, he might not be as harmless as he seems, you know.”
“He might not be harmless at all,” Laurel muttered, turning her gaze back toward the shabby little bungalow.
Reverend Baldwin was into kinky sex and bondage, and he had an ugly temper. He also had a near-perfect cover. Who would ever suspect a preacher of murder?
“Murder.” The word made her shudder inside. She had come here looking for her sister, and now she was thinking of murder. She wouldn't begin to allow the two subjects near each other in her mind. In any regard.
“Well, whatever your reasons, thank you for coming.”
They seemed beyond the formality of thanks, and it hung awkwardly between them. Laurel pushed her glasses up on her nose and shuffled toward her car. Jack shrugged it off and curled his fingers around the door handle of the Jeep.
“Where you goin' lookin' for trouble next, angel?” he asked, calling himself a fool for caring.
“To the sheriff,” she said, already steeling herself for the experience. “I think he and I need to have a little chat. Want to come?”
It was a silly offer. She had no business feeling disappointed when he turned her down, but she didn't want to break the fragile thread of communication between them. Foolish. Even as she chastised herself, her fingers snuck into her purse and came out with the red matchbook. She offered it to him, simply to feel his fingertips brush against hers.
“Would you happen to know anything about this place?”
Jack's expression froze as he stared down at the elaborate black mask and the neat script title. “Where'd you get this?”
Laurel shrugged, her mouth going dry as his tension was telegraphed to her. “I found it. I think Savannah left it in my car, but she wouldn't admit it was hers. Why? What kind of place is it?”
“It's the kind of place you don' wanna go, sugar,” he said grimly, handing it back to her. “Unless you like leather and you're into S&M.”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Kenner lit his fifth c
igarette of the day and sucked in a lungful of tar and nicotine. His eyeballs felt as if they'd been gone over with sandpaper, his vocal cords as if they'd grown bark. He had ice picks stabbing his brain and a stomach full of battery acid disguised as coffee. In comparison, a rabid dog had a pleasant attitude. He was getting nowhere with the Gerrard murder, and it pissed him off like nothing else—except maybe Laurel Chandler.
He stared at her through the haze of smoke that hovered over his cluttered desk, his eyes narrowed to slits, his mouth twisting at the need to snarl.
“So you think Baldwin killed your sister and all them other dead girls?”
Laurel bit back a curse. Her fingers tightened on the arms of the visitor's chair. “That isn't what I said.”
“Hell, no,” Kenner barked, shoving to his feet. “But that's what you meant.”
“It is not—”
“Jesus, I've been just waiting to hear this—”
“Then why don't you listen?”
“—haven't I, Steve?”
Danjermond, lounging against a row of putty-color file cabinets, tightened his jaw at the shortening of his name. Kenner didn't notice. He'd been looking for an excuse to blow off some steam. First someone had the balls to kill a woman in his jurisdiction. Then he'd had to let Tony Gerrard walk. Then every hoped-for lead had piddled into nothing. Now this. He let his temper have free rein, not giving a damn that Laurel Chandler was connected. Ross Leighton himself said the girl was a troublemaker, said she always had been.
“I've just been waiting for you to come charging in here, pointing fingers and naming names.”
“I'm only trying to give you information. It's my civic duty—”
“Fuck that, lady.” He cut her off, leaning over the desk to tap his cigarette off in the ashtray. “You're trying to make trouble, same as you did up in Georgia. Point your finger, shoot your mouth off, get your name in the paper. You get off on that or something?”
Laurel ground her teeth and cut a look Danjermond's way, wondering why the hell he didn't do something. “I never said Baldwin killed anyone. I just thought you might like to know—”
“That he's some kind of pervert. A preacher.” Kenner snorted his derision and shook his head as he pulled hard on his smoke. “What was it up in Georgia? A dentist? A banker? Is there anyone you don't suspect of being a pervert?”
“Well, I doubt you are,” Laurel snapped, coming up out of her chair. She planted her hands on Kenner's littered desktop and met him glare for glare. “Why should you resort to perversity when you obviously have a license to fuck over anyone you want!”
While Kenner snarled and foamed at the mouth, her gaze cut again to Danjermond, who had the gall to be amused with her. She could see it in the translucent green depths of his eyes, in the way the corners of his mouth flicked upward ever so slightly. He roused himself from his stance against the file cabinets and came forward, turning his attention on Kenner.
“Now, Duwayne,” he said calmly. “Miz Chandler came in here with the best of intentions. If she believes she has information pertinent to the case, you ought to listen.”
“Pertinent to the case!” Kenner made a contemptuous sound in his throat and smashed out his cigarette in the overflowing plastic ashtray. “Savannah Chandler says the preacher gets off on tying women up. Savannah Chandler. Jesus, everyone in town knows she's got screws as loose as her morals!”
Fury misting her vision red, Laurel all but dove for his throat. “You son of a bitch!”
Kenner shrugged. “Hey, I'm not saying anything that idn't common knowledge.”
“But you're not saying it very tactfully,” Danjermond pointed out, frowning.
“Shit, I don't have time to be David Fucking Niven. I've got a murder to solve.” He snagged another Camel from the pack and lit it with a match, his gaze hard on Laurel. “Leave the investigating to me, Ms. Chandler.”
“Fine,” Laurel said through her teeth. “But it would probably be helpful if you would take your head out of your ass so you could see to do it.”
Kenner's color deepened to burgundy. He snatched his cigarette from his lip and shook it at her, raining ash down on his desktop and the drift of papers strewn across it. “You want a little advice on where you might find your sister? I wouldn't look any farther than a few dozen bedrooms.”
“And that's what you would have said about Annie Gerrard, too, isn't it?” Laurel felt a little surge of triumph as the hit scored. A muscle flexed in Kenner's jaw, and he glanced away. “Yeah, Annie liked to sleep around a little. Look where they found her.”
Kenner turned his back on her and stared out through the slats in the crooked venetian blind. Danjermond came around the end of the desk and caught her gently by the arm. “Perhaps it would be better if you and I discussed this in my office, Laurel.”
Gracefully, he turned her toward the door and ushered her into the outer office, where Kenner's secretary, Louella Pierce, sat with nail file in hand, absorbing every detail of the melee so she would be able to relate it blow by blow to everyone in the break room. A couple of uniformed officers looked up from the paperwork on their desks with smirks on their faces.
Adrenaline still pumping, Laurel glared at them. “What the hell are you looking at?”
Eyebrows shot up as heads ducked down. Danjermond continued into the hall without pause, herding her along. His grip on her arm seemed deceptively light, but when she tried to discreetly pull away, she couldn't.
“I'll thank you to let me go, Mr. Danjermond,” Laurel said softly, angrily, her eyes flashing fiercely as she looked up at him. “I didn't appreciate your little Good Cop–Bad Cop routine back there. I'm not some wide-eyed civilian walking in here with a head full of gossip.”
“No,” he said calmly, never altering his stride or his expression, but there was something hard in his gaze as he glanced down at her. “You're a former prosecutor with a reputation for making allegations you can't back up. How did you expect him to react?”
There was considerable activity in the hall. Court was in session, but in addition to the usual cadre of attorneys and clerks and stenographers, there were reporters hovering like vultures, waiting for some meat on the latest of the Bayou Strangler's cases. Laurel sensed their presence. Her stomach tightened, and the hair on the back of her neck rose as she felt eyes turn her way—eyes that brightened with feral anticipation at the sight of her walking arm in arm with the parish's golden boy district attorney. Just as in old times, they homed in, scrambling to switch on tape recorders, fumbling for pencils and notebooks. They came forward in a rush, sound bursting out of them like a television that had suddenly been turned on high volume.
“Mr. Danjermond!”
“Ms. Chandler!”
“—is there any connection—?”
“—are you aiding in the investigation—?”
“—have there been any new leads—?”
Danjermond walked on, calm as Moses strolling through the Red Sea. “No comment. We have no comment to make at this time. Ms. Chandler has no comment.”
Hating herself for it, Laurel leaned into him and let him take the brunt of the media storm. He guided her into his outer office, and while he dealt the press a final, frustrating “No comment” at the door, she made a beeline past the curious gaze of his secretary and went into the quiet of his inner sanctum.
The details of the office penetrated only peripherally—hunter green walls, heavy brass lamps, dark leather chairs, the smell of furniture polish and cherry tobacco, a place for everything and everything in its place. The shades were drawn, giving the room the feeling of twilight. The mood of the room may have soothed her, but she was too caught up in the churning memories and emotions and self-recriminations. The way she had lost her temper with Kenner was too reminiscent of scenes from Scott County—fights with the sheriff, tirades unleashed on her assistants and colleagues.
She gulped a breath and stopped her pacing, bringing up both hands to press them against her temples
. As in a dream, she could see herself tearing her office apart, wild, ranting, throwing things, smashing things, screaming until her assistant, Michael Hellerman, had called in Bubba Vandross from security to come and subdue her.
After months of riding that mental edge, she had gone over. She wasn't on the brink now, but she was damn close. The frustration of trying to deal with Kenner pushed a button. She had no control over him, and control was the one thing she had needed most since her father had died.
And then the press. God, would she never escape the loop of recurrences? If she had gone to Bermuda instead of Bayou Breaux, would she now be standing in the magistrate's office, embroiled in some island intrigue?
She let out a shuddering breath and tried to let go some of the tension in her shoulders. She needed to regroup, to think things through. She needed to find Savannah and dispel the dark shadows lurking in the back of her mind.
She ran a hand over the soft leather of her pocketbook, thinking of the odd trinkets she had dropped into it—the earring, the necklace, the matchbook. She had shown none of them to Kenner, knowing he would only have taken them as further proof of her mental instability. They might have come from anywhere. They might all have been Savannah's.
The matchbook lingered in her mind. Jack turning it over with his nimble musician's fingers. His expression going carefully blank at the sight of the name. A leather bar in the Quarter. Secretive, seclusive, exclusive. A place where masks were commonplace and anything might be had for a price or a thrill. He had been there doing research for a book.
He had pinned her arms above her head, held her down as he joined their bodies. . . .
Jimmy Lee Baldwin was into bondage, Savannah said.
Savannah had allowed herself to be tied up. . . .
Nausea swirled around Laurel's stomach, and she leaned against an antique credenza and closed her eyes.
“Would you care for a brandy?”
She jerked her head up as Danjermond closed the door softly behind him.
“For medicinal purposes, of course,” he added with a ghost of a smile.