Heartless
Raiford Chronicles #2
Janet Taylor Perry
Copyright © 2014 Janet Taylor-Perry
All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1494938253 ISBN-10: 1494938251
Disclaimer
All people, places, and events in the following story are fictitious. Any resemblance to any entity, living or dead, is coincidence.
Dedication
For Patricia, Julia, Jordan, Neely, Meghan, Alex, Kaitlyn, Trevor, Abby, Tyler, Julianna, Courtney, Gavin, Wesley, Zach, Cole, Brentyn, Brandon, Alicia, Lilah, Makayla, and Vicki, my fifth-grade gifted students who brought me excitement every every 2009. You so filled my heart that I know I am far from HEARTLESS.
Acknowledgements
A great many thanks to the readers of Lucky Thirteen who have clamored for the second book. If you got a first edition, hold on to it! The name of the town was misspelled Eau Bouease should have been Eau Boueuse. The second edition has it done correctly and it will be correct for all additional books. So, a special thanks goes to my friend and fellow author, Joss Landry (Mirror Deep), for speaking fluent French and catching that.
I owe much appreciation to my family for putting up with me when my eyes are glued to a computer screen and my fingers are stuck on a keyboard.
I give kudos to my two beta readers this go round —Norm d'Plume, author of Into the Mind of God, a work in progress and Rebecca Vaughn, author of The Beast of Caer Baddan, also a work in progress.
I can never thank my editor/mentor/friend, Lottie Brent Boggan enough. Her wonderful historical fiction saga, Redemption Ridge, should be available this summer.
Two groups must get a shout-out. Red Dog Writers (Lottie, Judy, Peggy, Lydia), thank you for all the encouragement and support; and to my TheNextBigWriter.com buds (for this particular piece—Ann Everett, Patti Anne Hauge, Rebecca Vaughn, Maggie Banks, aka Ceridwen on site) thanks for keeping me honest and on my toes.
Once again, great appreciation and recognition go to Christopher Chambers for another awesome cover design. Interested in his work? Contact him at [email protected].
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10
Contents
Disclaimer
Dedication
Acknowledgements
1 Stolen Hearts
2 Bad News
3 Brother
4 Marked for Life
5 Mia
6 Unlikely Suspects
7 Father
8 A Hard-knock Life
9 Acceptance
10 A Long Good-bye
11 Anger Issues
12 Thanksgiving
13 Without a Trace
14 Angel Flight
15 Stubborn Red-head
16 Reality Check
17 Scapegoat
18 Unconditional Love
19 Diminished Capacity
20 A New Life
21 Test of a Lifetime
22 Love Is More than Sex
23 Making Things Right
24 A Gathering
About the Author
1 Stolen Hearts
2005 Somewhere in Louisiana…
Thebaby wearing only a diaper, wailed with force. His gaunt-faced mother—so thin she appeared little more than a wraith—looked upon him with empty hazel eyes shadowed by deep circles. Long stringy brown hair framed a face bereft of feeling. She wore a black t-shirt with a skull on it and ragged jeans. Body swaying, her hand rested on the bassinet. All she wanted was some peace and quiet, but her son would not stop crying.
Wearing a plain white t-shirt and baggy jeans, a tall, thin man with greasy black hair pulled back in a ponytail approached the baby and turned to the woman. "Did you change his diaper or maybe feed him?" he growled through clenched teeth.
"I don't remember. I'm so tired. I just want him to shut up," she replied in a raspy voice before staggering to a worn sofa.
The man grunted in disgust, walked away, and came back a minute later with a bottle. He picked up the child and cooed, "Hush, little man. Mom is having a bad day." The man cradled the infant in his arms, fed him, burped him, changed his diaper, and laid him back in the bassinet. Caressing the boy's fuzzy, dark hair, he talked to him as if he understood. "Okay, now, I need to take care of Mom."
Casting a glance over his shoulder, he reached into a small chest and retrieved a spoon, a rubber tourniquet, a lighter, a syringe, and a packet of brownish powder. He placed a small amount of powder in the spoon and held the lighter under the spoon until the powder melted. He drew the liquid into the syringe. Tying the tourniquet just above the woman's elbow, he spatted her arm, causing a vein to bulge. The man plunged the needle into the woman's arm and injected the liquid into her vein. She leaned her head back on the ragged couch and seemed to float into another world as she relaxed completely.
A smile flickered across the man's face when he checked once more on the baby who slept, sucking a thumb. He brushed a kiss on the child's forehead and whispered, "They should make a wanted poster with you on it. It should read, 'Wanted for stealing hearts.' You've stolen mine, so I know I'm not completely heartless. No, you're enough to make me want to get clean, but it's so hard." The man glanced back at the woman, deep lines etching his brow above dark eyes. "Mom's not heartless either. One day, you'll see. Still, I need to leave her to save myself, but I'm afraid to leave you. I love you, little man. Sleep now. And know this, if I do leave, I promise to come back for you."
The man repeated the procedure with the powder, spoon, lighter, and syringe and injected himself. He sat beside the woman and let himself go to another plane of existence as the heroin coursed through his veins.
2022, Seventeen years later, Eau Boueuse, Louisiana...
Ray barked orders as he arrived. "Officer Marceau! Keep those damned reporters away from the scene! Tase them if you have to!"
"Yes, sir." Ray ground his teeth in annoyance. This story does not need to break before I can tell Robert's family what's happened. How do I tell my own wife? She and Robert were once friends. And I hate reporters. Pains in the ass.
At the crime scene, Ray met Brian Baker and his partner, Ray's sister-in-law, Christine Gautier. Ray missed the days when he had worked side-by-side with Chris. Their first case together had introduced him to his wife, Larkin. Memories of those days flooded over him now as he thought about the male homicide victim in front of him. He said the name with its French pronunciation in an inaudible murmur. "Row-Bear LaFontaine." Remembering Robert brought unwanted mist to Ray's sapphire-blue eyes.
During his life, Robert had been both Ray's best friend and arch rival. Looking at his lifeless body from behind the crime scene tape now, Ray tried to remember why there had been so much animosity between them. Yes, it was about a woman, one of many Robert chased. Mia Godchaux, my fiancée turned to Robert when I got shot. Later, Robert tried to conquer Larkin, but the love between us endured. "My wife is no pushover," he mumbled. I can't think about this now. I need to focus on the task at hand. God! Robert—murdered.
At this moment, Ray wondered how he was going to tell Robert's wife, Deanna, her husband was dead in the company of a woman twenty years younger than he was and that both of their hearts had been removed. How was Police Chief Raiford Reynolds going to tell America that a philandering United States Senator and his presumed lover had been brutally murdered in the man's hometown of Eau Boueuse, Louisiana?
Ray surveyed the area where Robert's body had been found. It wasn't a road. It was little more than a dirt path overgrown with weeds near the old train trestle and only about two miles from his brother's fenced-in home. An almos
t primeval forest grew around it, and Spanish moss draped from the limbs of the ancient oaks and cypress trees in ankle-deep water to the side. Under normal circumstances, the water would have been much deeper. No tree frogs sang in the dryness. Except for the occasional bay of the hunting dogs with a man in orange garb, the tone was unnervingly quiet, voices barely above a whisper.
This made the perfect spot for making out. We used this place as teenagers. Robert and I came here on a double date once. He chuckled under his breath at the memory of trying to scare the girls into getting closer. "Rob, you were always a scoundrel."
Ray ducked under the yellow tape and arrived at Robert's expensive Mercedes. For the first time since his initial murder investigation when he was twenty-two, Ray left the scene and went into the woods to throw up. The bitter, metallic smell of blood assaulted him and the brutality sickened him. The fact that Robert had once been a friend touched a nerve long-buried for the pain of it.
Ray felt a gentle hand on his shoulder as Chris came to his side. Only two inches shorter than Ray's six feet, she did not have to reach up to touch him. With genuine concern she asked, "Ray, are you okay? You don't have to be here, you know, but Brian thought you would want to be."
"I do. You know I can't stay behind the desk on this one." "Yeah, but the mayor won't be happy with you. How many times has he told you to make a choice?"
"Lots, but I can't be a bureaucrat this time, even if I lose the salary. It's only money, and I was happier as a detective anyway. I'm good at it."
"Yeah, you are. You don't like pushing papers. Why did you ever take the job as chief?"
"Larkin. It gives her peace of mind to think I'm safer as the boss."
"I suppose it might. So, are you ready to handle this now?"
"Yeah. It's just that the brutality is so personal. Whoever did this knew his victims. This was very personal."
"Or just psychotic," Chris argued.
Ray took a deep breath and shook his head. "No. I know. I once hated Robert enough to have done it myself. But that was a lifetime ago. I can't imagine who hated him this much now."
"Maybe a former lover," suggested Chris.
"Maybe," agreed Ray.
"He has a reputation."
"'The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.'"
"Waxing poetic and quoting Shakespeare?" Chris asked, setting her mouth in a wry grin.
No but it's an appropriate quote for my old friend. Ray shook his head."Let's get back. I'm okay now. Who's the girl?" He thrust his hands into his pockets as they walked toward the car.
"One of his clerks, Dinah Horn, twenty-two, a poly-sci major at LSU. She worked out of his office here three days a week and took classes two days a week at the satellite branch where Larkin teaches. She would've been graduating in May."
"Dinah, won't you blow your horn?" Ray said, a sneer on his lips.
"Ray! The man's dead. Stop being so sarcastic."
"That doesn't negate what I see in that car."
She puffed out a breath. "No, it doesn't," admitted Chris.
"Check him for saliva and her for semen. The good Senator's car is parked out here in the middle of nowhere. The windows are down, and the key is still in the ignition. He was obviously still charismatic enough to convince that poor young girl to drive out here with him to give him a blow job. Whoever did this must have walked up to the passenger-side window, shot her in the back of the head"—He formed a gun shape with his index finger and thumb—"and then shot him in the temple before he could get out the door. He cut their hearts out after he shot them, hers from the back as she lay face down in the jackass's crotch and his from the front. The incisions look clean and precise—someone with medical experience? I bet the M.E. will confirm my theory." Ray rubbed his forehead, feeling a creeping migraine.
"The grass is flat beside both doors, so the culprit had to have stood there. It looks as if the blood could have dripped onto someone's shoes. There's a good pool of it on the driver's side. Try to get some footprints. And, of course, dust for prints."
"You don't have to tell us, Chief." Chris cut him a dirty look. "Already on it."
Brian Baker approached his boss and his partner. Although it was November, Brian perspired on his forehead and slick top. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped sweat, pointing toward the side of the little dirt path with his other hand. "It appears there was a motorcycle over there. But the tire prints aren't very deep. I'm not sure how good a cast of them we'll get. It's been so unusually dry that the dust just fluffed away. Ray, I heard you say 'he.' Are you sure it was a man?"
Lifting both hands, he replied, "No, but when in doubt, use the masculine pronoun. Just ask my wife. She's the English professor."
"Did you tell her who was dead?"
"Not yet, Brian," Ray answered. "I'll tell her after I see his family, but before the news. What does the guy with the 'coon dogs know?"
"Not much. He found them and called it in but didn't hear any gunshots or see anybody." He put the kerchief back in his pocket. "The M.E. says they've been dead about three hours and stated a scenario much like you described."
Ray shook his head. "I guess Robert thought he'd get his jollies and get back home before anybody missed him. He never changed, even with a good woman like Deanna LeCoeur for a wife and two sweet kids. Didn't he care anything for those people?" Ray sighed. "And I have to tell her."
Chris asked, "Are you driving to Baton Rouge tonight?"
"I have to. I'm the boss, remember?"
"Then you should tell Larkin who it is before you leave. The press might break the story before you get back."
"I'll call her and keep her and the kids away from the media. Lord, Chris! I didn't think losing"—He jabbed an index finger toward the body—"him would make me feel this bad."
"You're not heartless, Ray. You were close once."
"I know."
Chris's phone rang. "Detective Gautier…Hold a sec." She stepped away for a few minutes. When she got back, she said, "Ray, get ready for the FBI to be all up our asses. I have Colbert from the station on the line. Apparently, this is the fourth incident. Okay, Colbert, repeat so I can relay to the boss. 'Judge Salus in Le Place was discovered dead without a heart two months ago.'" She nodded. "'Beverly Vaughn, a DHS representative in Metairie was found two weeks later, no heart; and a couple in Kenner, the Byrds, suffered the same fate a week after that.'" She clicked her phone shut.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Ray said. He grimaced as if in pain.
"Ray, you know the feds would be involved," Baker said. "He's a Senator."
"I know, but damn it to Hell! Why couldn't this asshole have died in Baton Rouge?"
"Don't know, Ray," Chris consoled. "We have very little crime here, but when we do have something, we make national news. We haven't had a case this bizarre since Latrice Descartes and her coven sacrificing virgins to summon a demon." She looked around to be sure no one but Brian was nearby. "When we first arrived, the air here was frosty just like when we dealt with Latrice. The temp has gone up twenty degrees. Something evil this way comes, Ray."
Baker nodded, but mopped his brow again, this time with his sleeve.
"Well, shit." Ray ran fingers through still mostly-black hair. "I'd just as soon not have a press conference, but I have no choice. You two get everything you can. I'm going to Baton Rouge now. Leave it to LaFontaine to mess up my thirteenth anniversary. It's just his style."
Ray turned to leave just as lightning flashed across the western sky. "Brian, get those casts quickly. The drought might be over soon."
Baker glanced at the sky. The sliver of a moon that had shown an hour earlier had been obscured by fast moving clouds. "This is not the night for the drought to end. I pray the rain holds off a few more hours." The hoot of a nearby owl added to the melancholy atmosphere and jarred Baker back to reality. "I'm on it, boss," he assured. "I'll spur the crime scene team to move faster."
Ray climbed back int
o his vintage silver Thunderbird, one of several old cars he spent time restoring, and got on the interstate before he called home. He dreaded the nearly threehour drive.
2 Bad News
Ray dialed his home and got an unexpected voice. "Hello," his daughter, Courtney, answered. She sounds as if she's been crying. "Hey, Pumpkin. It's Daddy. Why are you still up? What's wrong?"
"We were waiting to give you and Momma a surprise."
"I'm sorry, baby. I won't be home until very late. Can you give it to us tomorrow?"
"I suppose. It was just a cake that Christopher and I made, so it won't spoil."
"But you made it, and that makes it extra special. I promise I'll eat it tomorrow. Thank you. Now, please, put Momma on and go to bed. I love you."
"I love you, too, Daddy. I guess Uncle Raif can tuck me in. Aunt Chris had to leave on a case."
Yeah, a doozy. "Is he still there?"
"Yes, sir. He stayed because…" The little girl started to cry again.
Ray had thought his brother who was babysitting might have gone home once he dropped Larkin off. "Yes, I know about Aunt Chris. I was with her. What's wrong, Court?"
"We have some bad news, Daddy."
"What?" I've had enough bad news for one night.
"Cyclops died. Uncle Raif stayed to make him a coffin."
"Oh, sweetheart. I'm sorry." Ray had a catch in his voice as well. He had loved that old one-eyed black cat his wife had rescued before he ever met her. "Put Uncle Raif on for a minute before Momma."
"Yes, sir. Good night."
Warily, Raif came to the phone. "Ray, what's up?"
"Robert is dead."
"What?"
"Don't say anything to Larkin. Cyclops is all she needs right now. I'm on my way to Baton Rouge to inform Deanna. I'll tell Larkin when I get back, but, please, help me keep my family away from the media until I do. Chris and Baker might be really late getting home. Why don't you and the kids stay there tonight?"
Heartless (The Raiford Chronicles) Page 1