by Tami Hoag
“God have mercy, I love dat chil'. I love dat chil' like my own!”
“Mama doesn't love me,” Savannah said, her voice hollow and sad, breaking the stillness of the cool fall night.
They lay in bed together, wide awake, way past Laurel's bedtime. She cuddled against her sister, knowing she was supposed to be too old for it but afraid to move away. Not a week had passed since Daddy's funeral, and she was too aware of the precious, precarious state of life.
It was a knowledge no child should ever have to grasp. The weight of it was terrible. The fear it inspired had been with her day and night—that the world could be tipped upside down in a heartbeat. Everything she knew, everything she loved could be snatched away from her without warning.
Knowing that made her want to hang on with both hands to everything that was dear to her—her dolls, the kittens old mama cat had hidden in the boat house, Daddy's tie pin, Savannah. Most especially she wanted to hang on to Savannah—the person who loved her most after Daddy, the person who kept her from being alone.
“I love you, Sister,” she said, quivering inside at the desperation in her voice. “I'll always love you.”
“I know, Baby,” Savannah murmured, kissing the top of her head. “We'll always have each other. That's all that matters.”
Laurel sat down on the bottom step, dazed and weak, her stunned gaze locked on the small pendant that dangled from her fist. And the feeling she had feared so badly all those years ago crept over her and into her, spreading through her like ink, opening her heart like a chasm that grew wider by the second.
The sister who had loved her, protected her, defined her world, was gone. And it didn't matter that she was thirty, or that there were other people in her life now who mattered. In that moment, as she sat there on the step, she was ten years old all over again, and she was alone. Her world had turned upside down, and the most precious thing in it had been snatched away, leaving nothing behind but a small heart of gold.
“I want to see her.”
They sat in the parlor at Belle Rivière, Kenner, Danjermond, Laurel, and Caroline. An incongruous scene. The parlor with its soft pink walls and quietly elegant furnishings, a place of serenity and comfort, filled with brittle tension and people who had gathered to talk of a brutal, heinous crime. Men for whom this death was a part of their business, and family who couldn't reconcile the idea of one of their own being torn from their lives.
The sound of Mama Pearl weeping drifted in from the kitchen, breaking the silence that hung as Kenner and Danjermond exchanged a look. Laurel set her jaw and rose from the camelback sofa to pace.
Caroline sat at the other end of the sofa. Her aura of power and control had been snuffed out, doused by a tidal wave of shock and grief, leaving her powerless. A queen who had suddenly been stripped of her potency. For the first time since her brother had died she seemed completely at a loss, so stunned by the news that she wasn't even sure this was really happening. But of course it was. Savannah had been found murdered. That was the terrible reality.
Lifting a crumpled tissue to her eyes, Caroline looked up at Laurel, who paced the width of the Brussels carpet like a soldier, shoulders back, chin up. She had been this way when her daddy had died, as well, full of stubborn denial and anger. Ten years old, demanding she be taken to him, insisting that he wasn't dead.
She could remember too clearly the rage, the fear, the heartbreak, Vivian telling the girls to cry softly into their hankies like little ladies. Caroline had gone up to Savannah's room with them, and they had all lain on the bed and sobbed their hearts out together.
“I want to see her,” Laurel said again.
Caroline caught her eye and shook her head sadly, reproachfully. “Laurel, darlin', don't . . .”
Laurel jerked away, clinging to her stubbornness like a life preserver. After her initial reaction to the news Kenner had brought, she had slammed the door on her grief, bottling it up, saving it for later. For now, she had to hang tough, she had to keep her head . . . or lose her mind altogether.
Kenner rose from the armchair, restless, unnerved by what he'd seen this morning out on Pony Bayou. If he lived to be a hundred, his sleep would forever be plagued by Annie Gerrard and Savannah Chandler, their bodies carved up like biology experiments, rotted and bloated by the effects of death and the merciless southern sun.
“I don't think that would be a very good idea,” he murmured.
Laurel wheeled on him, ears pinned, eyes flashing fire. “You didn't think she was in any danger, either. You didn't think she would be anyplace but in bed with one of a hundred men,” she said bitterly, stalking him across the carpet. Toe to toe with him, she glared up into his lean, hard face and narrow eyes. “Pardon me if I don't have a whole helluva lot of faith in what you think, Sheriff.”
He glanced away from her, unable to meet the accusation in her eyes. His gaze landed on a graceful side table that held framed photographs of the Chandler girls, Savannah's senior year high school picture catching his eye. He had a daughter nearly that age.
“Next of kin has to make a positive ID,” Laurel said, grasping hold of practicality for an excuse. She wasn't feeling practical. Desperation was like a wild thing inside her. She had to see her sister now, sooner than now. Maybe someone had made a mistake. Maybe it wasn't really her. Maybe Savannah wasn't really dead. God, she couldn't be dead. They had parted so angrily, left so many things unsaid. It just couldn't be true—
“We already have an ID, Laurel,” Danjermond said, his smooth, low voice penetrating her thoughts. He sat in Caroline's throne, his masculine grace perfectly at home draped over rose damask. He met her gaze evenly. “Your stepfather came down to the funeral parlor.”
He could just as well have slapped her. The idea of Ross Leighton's being the first of them to see Savannah appalled her. The bastard had dealt Savannah enough degradation in her life. He shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near her in her death. Fresh hot tears welled in Laurel's eyes, and she turned her back on the district attorney.
“Sheriff Kenner and I realize the grief you've been dealt, Laurel,” he said, “but time is of the essence here if we're to catch your sister's murderer. We need to talk about this necklace you found. You were a prosecutor. You understand, don't you, Laurel?”
Yes, she understood. Business. Danjermond and Kenner would take her sister's death and boil it down to facts and figures. It was their job. It had been her job once too.
“The necklace was Savannah's,” she said flatly. “She never took it off. This morning it was in my pocketbook.”
“Do you have any idea how it might have gotten there?”
“I expect someone put it in there, but I didn't see it happen.”
“You think the killer put it there?”
Killer. Her stomach churned at the word, sending sour bile up the back of her throat. She choked it down and snatched a quick, hard breath, rubbing a hand at the base of her throat. “No one else would have gotten it off Savannah. It meant the world to her. She would never have willingly taken it off.”
Danjermond rose and came around to face her, his hands in the pockets of his gray trousers. His expression was one she had seen in the courtroom a hundred times, a look she had honed to perfection herself—subtle disbelief, designed to rattle a witness. “You think the murderer took it off her and somehow slipped it into your handbag without your knowledge—for what purpose?”
The rush of anger was welcome. It distracted her, focused her attention on something she could affect the outcome of—an argument. She went to the Sheraton table and with jerky, angry movements, dug through the purse she had left there, tossing out Kleenex, Life Savers, a tampon. In one handful she scooped out the heart-shaped earring and the butterfly necklace and dumped them on a silver tray, then swung around to face Danjermond again. “For the same reason he made certain I found these.”
The idea shook her to the core. A murderer, a psychopath had singled her out to send his trophies to. Why? To ta
unt, to challenge? She didn't want the challenge. She hadn't come here to be sucked into something twisted and sinister. The thought that someone was trying to do that made her want to cut and run as far as she could go, as fast as she could get there.
Danjermond pulled a slim gold pen out of his jacket pocket and poked at the items like a scientist, frowning. Kenner's eyes caught on the butterfly necklace, and he swore long and colorfully.
He shouldered Danjermond aside and bent to stare at the evidence Laurel Chandler had been carrying around in her handbag. “That was Annie Gerrard's. Tony gave it to her. He asked about it when he picked up her personal effects.” Hard and sharp, his gaze cut to Laurel. “Goddammit, why didn't you bring this to me?”
“Why would I?” Laurel snapped back. “I found it in an envelope on the seat of my car. Why would I have assumed a serial killer had sent it to me? Why would I think you would do anything about it but laugh in my face?”
“Where'd you find the earring?” he demanded, knowing in his gut it belonged to another victim. The killer had kept a souvenir from each.
“I found it on the hall table. Savannah told me she brought it in from my car.” She felt violated as she thought of it. The animal who had killed her sister, who had killed at least half a dozen women, had let himself into her car, touched things she touched, left behind mementos of his crimes. A shudder passed through her at the idea, chilling her to the marrow.
Kenner straightened, still swearing half under his breath. He couldn't believe this was happening in his parish. He ruled with an iron fist and an eagle eye. How could this have happened? He felt like a cleanliness fanatic who had turned a light on only to find roaches in his kitchen.
“I'm impounding the car,” he declared, stalking across the room in search of a telephone. “We'll dust it for prints, have the lab boys from New Iberia go over it for trace evidence. And I'll take the handbag too.”
Laurel nodded.
He snarled and turned to Caroline. “I need to use a phone, and I need to bag this jewelry as evidence. Have you got any Ziploc bags?”
“I don't know,” she murmured, rising, shaken anew by this bizarre turn of events. She fussed with the black beads she wore, trying without success to think clearly. “They would be in the kitchen, I suppose,” she mumbled, her gaze darting nervously to Laurel, to Kenner, to Danjermond, and back, as if one of them might have the answer. “Pearl would know. We'll ask Pearl.”
They went out and down the hall. As the parlor door swung open then shut, the sound of Mama Pearl's wailing rose and fell. Laurel stood staring down at the cheap, gaudy earring with its chips of colored glass. Some woman had thought it was pretty, had worn it to feel special, had died wearing it. Had she died a brutal death, as Savannah had, suffering horribly, alone with her tormentor, begging for death? Tears rose in her eyes, in her throat. She held them at bay with sheer willpower.
“Why you, Laurel?” Danjermond's voice flowed over her like silk, the question burned like acid.
“I don't know,” she whispered.
“Why would he single you out? Is he someone you know? Are you someone he wants?”
She flinched at the thought, struggled to hang on to her logic. “I—I d-don't fit the pattern.”
“No, you don't.” He hooked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face, as if he thought he might see the answers in her eyes. “Does he want you to catch him, Laurel? Or does he want to show you he can't be caught?”
She met his steady green gaze, felt it probing, felt its power. She backed away from it, from him, shaking her head, feeling too raw for this kind of cross examination. “I don't know. I don't want to know.”
He arched a brow. “You don't want to see him caught?”
“Of course I do,” she said vehemently. She paced away from him again, raking a hand back through the hair she hadn't even combed yet today. “I want him caught,” she said, her voice trembling with the need for it. “I want him tried and convicted and sentenced to a death worse than anything the courts would allow.” She stopped and glared up at him, hating him for his calm control. “If I could, I'd be the one to drive the stake through his heart with my own two hands.”
“You have to catch him first.”
“That's Kenner's job, your job,” Laurel said, backing down again mentally and physically. “Not mine.”
Danjermond lifted the earring on the end of his fine gold pen, watching as it twisted in the air and caught the light like a Christmas ornament. “I don't think he would agree, Laurel.”
Chapter
Twenty-Four
News of the murder cut through Bayou Breaux like a hurricane that left emotional devastation and uprooted fears in its wake. By noon there wasn't anyone in town who hadn't heard a telling and a retelling of Chad Garrett's story. It was the hot topic over comb-outs and manicures at Yvette's House of Style, where Savannah had had her nails done by Suzette Fourcade only days before. Suzette was near to inconsolable with hysterical grief over the loss of a friend and the idea of having touched someone who had since been killed. Yvette waited for the call to come from Prejean's asking her to do the grim honors of fixing Savannah's hair and makeup for her final public appearance before being laid to rest.
The story was served up with coffee and beignets at Madame Collette's, where Ruby Jeffcoat pontificated on the evils that awaited girls who wore skirts cut up to their fannies and no underwear, and Marvella Whatley refilled cups absently as her mind wandered back over the years she had served the Chandler girls rhubarb pie and Coca-Cola.
The old men on their bench in front of the hardware store shook their heads over the state of the world and watched the street with rheumy eyes that held anger and fear, and frustration that they were too old to protect their loved ones or to avenge them. And down at Collins Feed and Seed the boys all patted a dazed Ronnie Peltier on the shoulder and gathered in the break room without him to retell the tales of his and others' sexual exploits with Savannah. She was a legend among the male population of Partout Parish. If it hadn't been so gruesome, her sensational death would have seemed almost fitting.
All over town the details of the crime were broken down, scrutinized, analyzed, compared to the details of Annie Gerrard's death. Both women had been strangled. Both had been raped—or so everyone figured; the sheriff was keeping mum on that particular topic. Both had been subjected to the kind of horrors folks in Bayou Breaux had never dreamed one human being could put another through. But someone had dreamed it. Someone had done it. And rumor had it Savannah Chandler had been found with a page from a book clutched in her hand. A book called Evil Illusions by Jack Boudreaux.
“No one ever did know what to make of him,” Clem Haskell said, stirring a third packet of sugar into his coffee. Doc Broussard was after him to cut calories and reduce the size of the spare tire around his middle, but he was a cane grower and hell would freeze over before anyone got him to put chemical sweetener in his coffee or anyplace else. The stuff caused cancer and who knew what all, he was certain. His spoon rattled against his saucer, and he took hold of the cup and raised it to his lips, wishing he had something stronger to fortify his nerves. Too bad Reverend Baldwin frowned on strong drink.
March Branford forked up a chunk of cherry pie and stared down at it, his appetite in revolt as images of dead women flashed behind his sunken eyes like scenes from a movie. “What kind of twisted mind writes trash the like of that? No normal God-fearing man,” he ventured, putting the fork down to tug on one long earlobe. “The Lord never intended for man to profit from evil. That's the work of the devil, that's what that is.”
“That it is, Deacon Branford.”
Jimmy Lee nodded sagely, sadly, looking out on the audience of eavesdroppers in Madame Collette's as he ran his tongue along the jagged edges of two chipped caps. There wasn't a soul in the place who didn't look edgy. They'd had two murders in a matter of days. Annie Gerrard wasn't even in her tomb, and now poor Savannah Chandler was dead. People wanted an expla
nation. They wanted someone to be guilty. They wanted to be able to point a finger and say, “He did it,” so they would be able to sleep nights. Jack Boudreaux seemed a prime candidate.
“Didn't I say the very same to y'all when last we met to pray?” he said, struggling to keep from lisping through the cracks in his dental work. “Those books are the product of an evil mind. The poisonous spewings of Satan.”
Ken Powers knew all about poisonous spewings. His stepson Rick listened to rock groups with names like Megadeth and Slayer. Bunch of long-haired drug freaks who screamed out nothing but Satanic messages. And the kid was rotten to the core because of it. No respect for God or man. Sneaking pornographic magazines into the house and doing who-knew-what with that crowd of hoodlums he hung out with. They probably all read Jack Boudreaux's books and acted out the sex and violence with rock music blasting in the background.
“I knew the minute he bought that whore's house there was something strange about him,” Ken said, planting his elbows on the table and leaning toward the reverend, his round, pink face shining with conviction. He was himself a good Christian man, and wanted everyone to know it. By God, him and Nan and the rest of their kids would show the whole town what upstanding people they were. Never mind the bad seed son Nan had spawned from her first husband.
“He bought the house of a harlot who died a violent death. He writes of evil and vileness and sin. Now one of our own fallen daughters is found dead with a page from one of his books. It's a sign, as sure as the sign of Lucifer himself.”
Jimmy Lee bowed his head and folded his hands on the Formica tabletop. “Amen, Deacon Powers. If only our good Sheriff Kenner could be made to see the light.”
While his deacons grumbled among themselves over who would have the honor of representing them with the sheriff, Jimmy Lee rubbed his tongue over his ruined teeth and wished Jack Boudreaux a nice trip to hell via Angola Penitentiary.