“Me, too.”
“What does this mean? What’s going to happen? Is he really targeting us?”
Mark shook his head. “I wish I knew. We have to find Ray,” he said. He looked past her down the long antiseptic hallway, and saw Ray slumped over in a folding chair. “Ray!” He let Allie go, and they both ran to their friend’s side. Still wearing his dress blues from the funeral, though they were soaked with blood, Ray stood up and accepted their fierce hugs.
“How is she?” Allie asked.
“Alive,” Ray said. “I went in and saw the smoke, and she was layin’ there…fire all ’round her…”
“Thank God you found her.”
“I have thanked him, believe me.” He wiped his rough face and shook his head as he sank back down. “But she ain’t conscious yet. They got her in surgery, and they’re tryin’ to see how much damage the bullet did to her lungs.” He looked up at them, his lips thin as he bit the words out. “Shot her through the back, you know. Poured gas in a circle around her. But the fire spread away from her instead of toward her.” He looked up at Mark, his eyes tormented and anguished, and he asked, “Why, Mark? Who did this?
“I don’t know.”
“It ain’t the guy they got locked up, that’s for sure. And it don’t have nothin’ to do with drugs. It’s us, Mark. Somebody’s comin’ after our wives!”
The double doors opened again and the nurse came back escorting a distraught Vanessa, the Ford’s fifteen-year-old daughter. Behind her was Sid, Ray’s brother, still in his cop’s uniform, who looked as if he, too, had wept all the way from Newpointe.
“Daddy?” Vanessa cried when she saw her father. “Is she dead, Daddy?”
Ray got up and she ran into his arms. “No, honey,” he said. “No, she ain’t dead. But she’s in bad shape. We’re waitin’ to hear how her surgery comes out.”
Vanessa wailed against her father’s shoulder.
Sid patted his brother’s back. “I called Ben. He’s on his way from Baton Rouge.”
Ray nodded, still clinging to his daughter. Finally, he looked back at the rest of them over Vanessa’s head. With pleading eyes, he said, “Don’t waste your time here, Mark. Take Allie and go back to Newpointe. Call a meetin’ of all of the firefighters and their wives, and brainstorm ’til you figure this thing out. Somebody knows somethin’. Somebody will have some idea who might be doin’ this. Mark, we can’t let him get any of the other wives.”
“You’re right,” Mark said. “But I’d rather stay here until I know how Susan is.”
“I’ll call the station and let y’all know,” Ray said. “But time’s wastin, Mark. We have to do somethin’.”
Reluctantly, they left Ray with hugs and empty words of comfort. Then, hand in hand, they pushed back through the reporters. Other firemen and their wives had come in by now and were surrounded by cameras and microphones. As Mark pushed through the doors leading out, one of them called, “Mark, what did you find out? How’s Susan?”
“Still in surgery,” he said. “Ray wants us back in Newpointe. He wants us to call a meeting with all the firefighters and their wives, and figure out some kind of strategy.”
“How are you going to protect your wives, Mr. Branning?” one of the reporters asked.
Without answering, Mark pushed out through the double doors, pulling Allie beside him.
Uneasy now that they were out into the open, he found himself with his arm around Allie, holding her close as they walked. Yes, all three wives had been at home alone when the killer had gotten to them, but now he must know that they were onto him, and that it wouldn’t be so easy anymore. What if he got desperate or overconfident or anxious and started coming after them wherever he could find them? His eyes scanned the cars in the parking lot as he headed to his own.
Allie picked up on it immediately. “He wouldn’t come after us in broad daylight out in a parking lot, Mark. He’s doing this in secret.”
“You’re assuming he’s consistent,” he said, “This guy’s too unstable to be predictable. Anyone who would murder a woman and then set her on fire has a loose wire somewhere. There’s no telling what he might do.”
He opened the driver’s door of his car, guided Allie in first, and then slid in next to her. He checked the rearview mirror for anything out of the ordinary, then turned his key in the ignition.
“I wonder if he’d count me,” she said in a flat, pensive voice as he pulled out of the parking space.
“What do you mean?”
“As a wife,” she said. “Maybe I’m safe because we’re not married anymore.”
That almost sent him over the edge. “We are married, Allie.”
“On paper,” she said miserably as tears filled her eyes again. “Maybe he knows that. Maybe that exempts me from all this madness.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “We can hope.”
She covered her face with a hand, and her shoulders shook as she wept quietly.
He could feel her trembling next to him as her tears came harder. “I never thought there would be a blessing in our separation,” she whispered.
He swallowed the emotion in his throat, but couldn’t find a response to that. So he said nothing.
He concentrated on breaking into the traffic on Highway 90. They traveled for several miles in silence before he finally turned on the radio.
They listened to the news of Susan’s shooting and the fires and the two other wives. Mark gritted his teeth. To the reporters, these women were just statistics—not real people with husbands, children, friends. When he realized that they were just repeating the same information over and over, he turned the radio off.
“As soon as we hit town, we’ll go by the fire station and ask the chief to schedule a meeting. Then we’ll go home and pack our bags.”
“Bags?” she asked. “What for?”
“We can’t be where he expects us to be tonight. I’m supposed to go on duty at five, but I’ll get somebody to cover for—”
“Mark, every fireman in town is going to want to take off tonight. They’re not going to let you.”
“Then they’ll have to fire me,” he said. “I’m not leaving you alone tonight.”
He wasn’t sure what to make of her silence. “Mark, this isn’t necessary,” she said finally. “Believe me, I’m scared to death. I’m not going to stay at home alone. I’ll stay with Jill or something.”
“Two women alone could be just as bad as one. No way.”
“Then I’ll stay with Celia and Stan. What better place to be than with the detective who’s investigating the murders?”
“He won’t be home. Celia will be looking for a place to stay, too. She’ll probably stay at Aunt Aggie’s, and that’s no help.”
“Maybe we could all stay together. All the wives of the men who are on duty tonight. We could rent a hotel suite somewhere and hide until they catch him.”
“No. Too easy. He could get you all in one swoop.”
She shivered. “Don’t be so morbid, Mark. I’m trying to find a solution.”
“The solution is that I’m going to stay with you. We’ll go get a room on the Southshore, where he won’t be looking for us. I’m not going to leave your side until this is over.”
Instead of relieving her, his insistence seemed to make her angry. “That’s very touching, Mark, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t want you suddenly caring about me because someone’s trying to kill me. If you can’t care about me every day, then it doesn’t mean anything. There are other people who can protect—”
He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “I do care about you, Allie,” he shouted. “Every day. You’re just too blind to see it.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. They wouldn’t help his cause. But he couldn’t pull them back.
“And I suppose falling in love with another woman was one of the caring acts I was too blind to see?” she cried.
“I did not fall in love with another woman
!” he shouted. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Don’t tell me, show me,” she yelled. “That’s all I’ve been asking all along. And what I’ve seen is just the opposite. I’m not blind, Mark, you just wish I were.”
“So you want me just to throw you to the wolves and pretend like you’re not my wife?”
“You’ve been pretending it just fine for the past two months, Mark. I have friends, lots of them. I can stay with some of them, and I’ll be fine.”
“But I won’t,” he rasped. “I won’t! Every time we get a 911 call I’ll worry that it’s you. Every minute I’ll wonder if he’s seeking you out, if he’s found you. I’m not working tonight, Allie, and I’m not letting someone else do the job that I’m supposed to do. I promised to honor and protect you, and I intend to do that.”
“You fell way short of the honor part,” she cried. “Why is the protection part so important? Does it make you feel more like a man?”
He opened his mouth to shout a reply, then stopped. He breathed deeply a couple of times, then lowered his voice to a barely controlled monotone. “You won’t insult me out of this, Allie. When you decided our marriage was over, I left. When you told me you wanted to quit going to counseling, we stopped. Until now, you’ve called most of the shots, but now I’m telling you! You’re going home and packing a bag, and you’re coming with me to New Orleans tonight, if I have to physically carry you.”
“So you’re going to protect me if it kills me?”
“That’s right,” he said.
To his relief she said nothing else. It wasn’t until they passed the “Welcome to Newpointe” sign that he realized that he’d meant every word he’d said. Nothing on this planet could keep him from staying with her tonight. He just wasn’t sure what her stubbornness was going to cost him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As soon as Aggie Gaston had heard about the meeting for the firefighters and their wives that evening, she’d started working to prepare enough food for all of them—and she’d been at it all day. She’d had no way of getting it all into the courtroom at city hall, where the mayor had suggested they hold the meeting, since none of the rooms at either the fire station or police precinct were big enough. One of the firemen had suggested that she borrow a gurney from one of the ambulances to cart the food on—an idea that had seemed distasteful at first, but after she’d wiped it down with Lysol and gotten all the food loaded on, she had found it quite a handy thing to have. She even toyed with the idea of buying one herself, in case the need ever arose again. She unloaded the pots and bowls onto the defense table, then set all of her china on the prosecutor’s table, complete with silverware and cloth napkins folded in the shapes of swans. She had to admit that it had exhausted her to do all this, and she would no doubt sleep like a baby tonight, but it was worth it, because she knew it would be appreciated. They must all be starving to death, what with the murders and the fires, and that poor little Susan lying up in the hospital fighting for her life. And she should know, of all people, since she knew their appetites better than anyone else.
The courtroom smelled like a Creole restaurant by the time the firemen and their wives began arriving. In another room in the courthouse, Lynette Devreaux, a rookie cop, baby-sat their children. The courtroom filled up as they filed in, all eighteen married firemen and their wives, as well as the seven bachelors. Craig Barnes, the fire chief, was among them, as well as Jim Shoemaker, the police chief, and Patricia Castor, their esteemed mayor who liked to be at the center of everything important in the town, if for no other reason than to campaign for the next election. Stan and Celia were there, too—Stan, to answer questions and help with the brainstorming process as the detective working on the case, and Celia, because she was Aunt Aggie’s great niece and a friend to everyone there—and because she had insisted on helping to clean up.
To Aunt Aggie’s chagrin, few of those who came seemed to have appetites, and over half of them took their places without even looking at the food. She briefly considered taking the leftovers down to the jail, but changed her mind when she realized that that’s just what Aunt Bea would have done.
When Patricia Castor finished her plate of crawfish etouffee and took her place in the judge’s seat, as if she were in charge here instead of the police chief or the fire chief, Aunt Aggie took a seat in the defense attorney’s chair, turned it so that she could see everyone in the room, and waited for Jim Shoemaker to tell them who was killing the firemen’s wives.
Mark and Allie sat side by side in the courtroom-with several inches between them, since both were still angry over their fight in the car. In the end, she had capitulated-they had gone by the house and she had packed a bag. But, to Mark’s annoyance, before they had settled into their seats in the courtroom, she had looked for someone else to stay with. It wasn’t to be, however, since none of the wives intended to stay in their homes that night. All of them had plans to go into hiding until the culprit was caught. Allie was stuck with him, Mark thought angrily.
As if she were the judge reading out a verdict, Patricia Castor, in a pullover cable-knit sweater and a pair of khaki pants, banged the gavel on the judge’s desk and insisted it was time to get down to business. “Now, I know ya’ll are upset by these killings,” she drawled, raising her voice since she didn’t have the microphone she usually had when she spoke in public. “We all are. But we cannot panic. I’ve been hearing some of you men saying that ya’ll refuse to go on duty until the killer is caught, but that is simply out of the question. We have to have firefighters on duty. We can’t leave Newpointe without its protective services. That would present a crisis for our town. So the shifts will proceed as scheduled.”
Jim Shoemaker, the plump, bald-headed police chief who leaned on the railing in front of the jury box, rolled his eyes. “We’ve taken care of it, Patty. The unmarried firemen on the force have agreed to work until the killer is caught, so that the married firemen can tend to their wives. Newpointe won’t go up in a blaze of smoke, and you won’t come out with egg on your face. Don’t worry-if you lose the next election, it won’t have anything to do with this.”
The mayor’s face reddened, and she leaned forward condescendingly. “Jim, I’d suggest that you start looking for the killer instead of worrying about our firefighters’ schedules or my next election.” She glanced at Craig Barnes, the fire chief. “Craig, do you always let the police chief do your job?”
Craig Barnes, whose eyes and nose were red, as if he’d had a weeping bout of his own over the killings, bristled at the accusation. “No, Patty, I do not. And I, personally, don’t like the idea of keeping the same crew on duty until this person is caught. It could take weeks, and my men would be exhausted. I’ve tried to think of alternatives, and to me, the best solution is to let the wives whose husbands are working stay together with a twenty-four-hour guard. You can handle that, can’t you, Jim?”
“No way, Mark called out, looking around at the others. “I don’t want Allie anywhere near the other wives. No offense, but she’s not gonna be a sitting duck.”
“The wives could leave town,” Patricia said. “Just take a vacation until it all blows over. Visit relatives or something. Why should the bachelors work consecutive shifts without a break?”
“They can sleep when they’re not out on a call, Mayor,” Mark said, “and they’ll eat better than ever while they’re at the station anyway.”
Aunt Aggie beamed.
“I don’t care,” the mayor said. “There has to be another alternative. We will not jeopardize the protective services in this town.”
“And I will not jeopardize my wife’s life!” Mark yelled, jumping to his feet.
Everyone got quiet, and the mayor, who hadn’t given Mark the time of day since her last campaign, pinned him with a look. But Mark would not back down.
“Two women are dead and another is fighting for her life. I don’t give a rip about schedules and shifts. I am not going on duty tonight when some ma
niac wants to see my wife dead!”
Stunned, Allie looked up at him.
The mayor banged her gavel again. “It appears to me that your wife is the least endangered, since you don’t even live together!”
Mark breathed an exasperated laugh and shook his head dolefully. “And here I thought that the mayor had too much to do to worry about all the town’s gossip.”
Pastor Nick Foster, always the peacemaker, stood up. “Mayor, as one of the unmarried men in the department, I can say that I’m more than willing to work as long as necessary, provided I can get off for a couple hours on Sunday morning to preach. There’s not a lot I can do, but at least I can do that.”
“That’s nice of you, Preacher,” Patricia said, “but you’re not the only bachelor we’re talking about.”
Dan Nichols cleared his throat, getting the mayor’s attention. “Uh, Mayor, I’m one of those single men, too, as you know, and I’d very much like to work in my friends’ places while they take care of their wives. It’s no problem. We get plenty of sleep on most normal nights. These women are my friends, too, and it would do me good to know that I was helping in some way.”
“Me, too,” Jacob Baxter, a young widower, added. “I’d feel a lot better about it. Don’t seem right these women should be in danger just because their husbands are city employees.”
The other two bachelors chimed in, and finally, Shoemaker tried again. “It makes the most sense, Mayor. And Craig, no offense intended, but if you force these men to leave their wives and work tonight, you might be asking for mass mutiny. If you make these husbands work, and then something happens to one of the wives, well…”
Craig looked at Jim as if he’d like to step outside and settle the matter with his fists. His jaw popped as he turned back to his men. “You’re firefighters. My firefighters. And firefighters are public servants—which means they do their jobs when their jobs need to be done. Without good firemen, people die. Now, this is a critical time in Newpointe. If people hear that our firefighters are turning tail and running—”
Private Justice Page 11
