by Lisa Jackson
As Ansel stretched on the counter and patently ignored her command to hop onto the floor, Abby walked into the living room, where she placed her portfolio onto a gate-legged table.
“What was your name again? And your number?” she asked as she hurried back to the kitchen, retrieved a pen from her purse, and began scribbling the pertinent information onto a note pad she kept near the phone. “Okay, see you at three.”
Abby hung up and glanced at her watch. The potential buyer would be here in less than four hours.
Not that the place was in too bad a shape. Unless you spied the film of gray cat hair that clumped everywhere and collected in the corners. Despite her best efforts with the vacuum, she could barely keep ahead of the fur as Ansel was in full shed mode. “Maybe what I need is an electric razor for you rather than a vacuum cleaner for the house, hmmm?” She plucked the heavy cat from his perch near the windowsill and held him close to her for a second. Petting his soft fur, she whispered into his ear, “I love you anyway. Even though you and I both know that you can be a real pain in the backside when you want to be.” He rubbed the top of his head against the underside of her chin and purred so loudly that she felt vibrations from his body to hers.
It felt right to just spend a second saying stupid things to the cat.
The last two days had been so hectic, she hadn’t had a chance to catch her breath. She’d gone from sitting to sitting and fortunately hadn’t had time to stew about Luke or his public annihilation of her character.
Abby had decided not to let Luke’s diatribe over the airwaves get to her.
“It’s just not worth it.” She kissed the cat between his ears then set him on the floor and checked his water dish. Still half-full. He trotted to the back door, circled, and cried until she opened it. Darting outside, Ansel made straight for the tree near the bird feeder where chickadees and nuthatches fluttered. The warmth of October, caught on a gentle breeze fragrant with the earthy smell of the swamp, swept inside.
Abby stepped onto the porch. Sunlight was struggling to peek through a wash of gray clouds. For a second she thought she saw the pale arc of a rainbow, but as quickly as the image appeared, it faded.
“Wishful thinking,” she told herself and closed the door behind her as she walked inside. Glancing around, she realized she’d have to spruce things up before the showing.
In her bedroom Abby peeled off her slacks and blouse, then yanked on her “cleaning clothes,” a favorite pair of tattered jeans and a T-shirt that showed off not only old coffee stains, but bleach spatters as well. After snapping her unruly hair into a ponytail, she went to work, polishing tables, cleaning windows, scrubbing counters, and washing the old plank floors.
Turning on the television for background noise, she listened to warnings about a tropical storm forming in the Atlantic, one poised to enter the gulf within days. After much meteorological speculation, there was a break for a commercial, and when the news resumed, Abby, swabbing a windowsill, heard a phrase that always caused her heart to freeze.
“Our Lady of Virtues . . .”
Abby’s head snapped up. She turned her attention to the little set balanced on a bookcase shelf. On the screen, a willowy reporter with perfect makeup and short dark hair stood in front of the grounds of the old hospital where Faith Chastain’s life had ended.
“. . . the hospital has been a landmark in the area for nearly a hundred years,” the twenty-something reporter was saying as wind feathered her hair. “This building behind me has gone through several different incarnations in its long, and sometimes scandal-riddled, history.”
Oh, God, they weren’t going to bring up her mother’s death again, were they?
Abby felt every muscle in her body tense, as if waiting for a blow.
“Originally built as an orphanage, the main building was converted to a full-fledged hospital after World War Two, and has been, from its inception, run by an order of Catholic nuns.” The camera panned away from the reporter to capture the full view of the once-stately building.
Abby’s heart clutched as she looked at the hospital where a wide concrete drive, now buckled and weed-choked, had cut through once-tended lawns to curve around the fountain. Long ago Abby had sat on the edge of the pool and watched koi darting beneath thick lily pads as sunlight had spangled the water and the spray from the fountain had kissed her skin. She’d been able, from that vantage point, to look up to her mother’s room situated on the third floor behind the tall, arched window.
Abby swallowed hard. How many hours had she spent by the fountain? Now the pond was dry and cracked, the sculptured angels streaked with a green, slimy moss that seemed to track from their eyes like tears.
“Most recently Our Lady of Virtues was used as a hospital for the mentally ill, and though it was privately owned, it, too, suffered when federal funds dried up. Amid allegations of abuse and the apparent suicide of one patient, the facility closed nearly eighteen years ago . . .”
Abby’s throat tightened. She dropped the sponge and watched the news bite that seemed surreal.
Above the television, mounted on the shelves near the fireplace, was an eight-by-ten picture of her mother, smiling, dark hair pulled away from a beautiful face, no trace of the tortured soul who had hidden behind those wide, amber-colored eyes.
Swallowing hard, Abby walked to the bookcase and took the picture from its resting place. A deep sadness swept through her and she felt a stab of longing to once again see her mother’s frail smile, feel her cool hands holding Abby’s, smell the gentle, clean scent of her perfume.
“. . . scheduled for demolition, sometime next year if all goes as planned.”
Abby’s head swiveled back to the television screen. They were tearing the old hospital down?
A schematic drawing of a two-story building, very similar in appearance to the old one, but newer, brighter, with more modern touches, flashed onto the screen. Gone were the beveled glass windows, gargoyles on the downspouts, and wide, covered flagstone verandas. The brick would become stucco, the windows wider, the fountain of angels replaced by a metal-and-stone “water feature.”
The screen returned to the newsroom, where the anchor, Mel Isely, sat behind a wide curving desk. In the corner of the screen was an insert of the reporter on the hospital grounds. She was still speaking.
“The plan is that this facility will become a graduated elder care home, starting with assisted-living apartments and including a full-care facility.”
“Thanks, Daria,” the anchor said as the inset of the reporter disappeared and all cameras were focused again on the news desk and Isely, a man Abby had met a few times while she’d still been married to Luke. A smarmy suck-up, she’d thought at the time. He was good-looking, but a little too GQ-esque to suit Abby’s taste in men. “Coming up . . . sports,” Isely was saying, while smiling broadly into the camera. She thought he might even wink. She recalled one Christmas charity event when, after a few too many drinks, he’d actually made a pass at her. Now, he picked up the papers on his desk and said, “After the break, we’ll be back with news about the Saints!”
“Save me.” Abby switched off the set and Mel’s face with its startling blue eyes ringed in thick lashes disappeared.
She let out her breath and considered the news report.
So what if the facility where her mother had died was scheduled to be razed? So what if a new building would replace the old? That was progress, right?
Leaving her mother’s picture on the shelf, she walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. No bottled water. “Oh, hell.” She grabbed a glass from the cupboard, then turned on the tap and listened as the old pipes groaned in protest. Resting a hip against the counter, she filled the glass and thought of all the reasons she’d agreed to return to Louisiana in the first place.
She hadn’t been keen on moving back here.
In fact, she’d thought Seattle—with its vibrant waterfront, cooler climate, rugged snow-capped mountains within driving d
istance, rough-and-tumble history, and most importantly, the over two thousand miles of distance from there to Louisiana—had been a perfect place to settle down.
Well . . . aside from Zoey and that nasty little indiscretion with Luke. She took a long swallow from her glass.
Be fair, Abby, her conscience argued, Luke’s involvement with Zoey hadn’t been a little indiscretion, it had been a full-blown, heart-wrenching, mortifying affair!
“Bastard,” she growled, then drained the glass and shoved it into the dishwasher.
She should have divorced Luke when she’d learned he’d cheated during their engagement, but oh, no, she’d been stupid enough to give the marriage another chance. He’d sworn to change his ways if she’d just move with him to New Orleans.
She’d been dubious of the marriage being able to resurrect again, of course, but the temptation for a new start had been hard to resist, and at that point, she’d been foolish enough to think that she still loved her husband.
“Idiot,” she muttered under her breath, returning to the living room and the dust rag sitting on the windowsill. There had been other reasons for moving to New Orleans, or the area surrounding it. Hadn’t she always promised herself that she’d return to the place where her life had changed forever when Faith Chastain had fallen to her death? Hadn’t Abby decided that the only way to put the ghosts of the past to rest was to visit the hospital, take pictures of it, reexamine that night that was so fragmented in her mind?
“Oh, Mama,” she said, once again picking up the framed head shot and staring into eyes so like her own. She glanced at the fireplace where, only a few nights earlier, she’d burned the photos of her marriage. Black curled ashes still clung to the grate.
Her cell phone rang. She could hear it singing inside her purse, which sat in the dining room next to her portfolio. She hurried to the purse, snatched up the slim phone, and flipped it open. “Hello?”
“Hi, Abby, this is Maury,” the caller said. Abby’s heart sank. “Maury Taylor. You remember. I work with Luke.”
“Of course I remember you.” Her voice grew cool. Maury the Moron.
“Look, I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Luke, have you?”
“No,” she said slowly, sensing a trap. Maybe this was one of her ex-husband’s pranks. He was known for setting people up while he was on the air, then letting the whole listening world laugh at the victim’s expense. Even if the show wasn’t airing at the moment, he would tape his victim’s responses and replay them over and over again when the show was broadcasting. Her stomach tightened.
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Why would I hear from him?”
“I don’t know.” There was an edge to Maury’s voice. Worry? Panic? “He, uh, he didn’t show up at the station yesterday. Missed the program completely. We had to air an old program we had on tape from last summer.”
She wasn’t buying it and really didn’t care. She was finished with Luke Gierman. “So why do you think I’d know where he was?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might have heard the show we aired earlier this week, the one on ex-spouses.”
She didn’t respond, but felt heat climb steadily up her neck. Bastard, she thought, imagining Luke at the microphone, spewing his lies. Her fingers clenched over the phone.
“He, uh, well, you probably already heard, he really ripped you up one side and down the other.”
“And that would make me want to talk to him?” she mocked, somehow managing to hold her temper in check. She still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t a setup. “What a charmer. I have no idea where he is. Good-bye.”
“No, look! Abby,” he said anxiously, as if afraid she would hang up on him. “I’m sorry. The program was . . . over the top, I know, but that’s what his audience likes, what they connect to.”
“So?”
“So . . . after that program, Luke disappeared. He didn’t show up at his health club and you know he always works out after the show.”
She remembered. Didn’t comment about Luke’s obsession with staying in shape. It wasn’t just about looking or feeling good, it was some kind of rabid mania.
“No one has heard from him. I went over to his town house, but no one answered the door. I’ve called his home phone and his cell and he’s not answering.”
“He’ll surface,” she said, refusing to be sucked into Luke’s antics.
“But—”
“I haven’t seen him. Okay? And as he so publicly made certain of, I’m not his wife anymore.” She was angry now, and her tongue wanted to go wild. “I don’t keep tabs on him. Why don’t you talk to his girlfriend?”
“Nia . . . yeah . . . Luke and Nia . . .”
When he trailed off, she asked impatiently, “What?”
“Nia doesn’t know where he is.”
She could tell he’d been going to say something else. Whatever it was, she didn’t care. “Maybe she does and she’s not saying.”
“This isn’t like him.” Maury sounded worried. Really worried.
Good. Let him stew about Luke’s whereabouts. To her surprise, Abby didn’t care about Luke’s shenanigans or his love life at all. And she wasn’t worried about him. Luke was known to pull all kinds of publicity stunts. He was just the kind of guy to fake his own death to give the ratings a shot in the arm. “I haven’t seen Luke since last weekend when he picked up Hershey, the dog we share custody of. Sorry, I can’t help you. And he’d better be taking care of my dog.”
“Okay, okay, but if you do hear from him, have him call the station immediately. The producer’s ready to tear Luke a new one.”
“Oh, great.” Just what she needed to hear. She hung up and refused to consider what Luke was up to. It didn’t matter anymore. They were divorced. Period.
And his things were out of the garage.
Still, she walked into the bedroom and opened the second drawer of her nightstand, on what had once been Luke’s side of the bed.
There, as it had been for years, was his father’s service revolver. Picking up the .38, she felt a pang of guilt for having lied to her ex about the weapon, but her remorse was short-lived.
For now, she was keeping the gun.
“Okay . . . so what have we got here?” Detective Reuben Montoya, in jeans, T-shirt, and a black leather jacket, stepped carefully toward the door of the small, dilapidated cabin in the bayou. Morning sunlight was crawling through the trees and brush, burning off the last of the night fog. The smell of the swamp was thick in his nostrils: slow-moving water, rotting vegetation, and something else, a stench he recognized as that of decaying flesh. His stomach turned a bit but he contained it. For the most part he’d always been able to button down his emotions, work the scene, and not lose his lunch.
“It looks like a murder-suicide,” the deputy, Don Spencer, theorized. He was short, with pale blue eyes and reddish hair buzzed into a military cut. “But not everything adds up. We’re still figuring it out. Crime-scene team’s been at it for an hour.”
Montoya nodded and looked around. Several officers had already roped off the crime-scene with yellow tape and were positioned around the perimeter of the little cabin stuck in the middle of no-damned-where. “You the first on the scene?” Montoya asked as he signed the security log.
“Yep. Got the call into dispatch from a local—a fisherman who admits to trespassing. He was on his way to the river, noticed the door hanging open, and walked in.”
“He still here?”
The officer nodded. “In his truck, over there.” Spencer hitched his chin in the direction of an old, battered Dodge that had once been red, but had faded after years of abuse by the hot Louisiana sun. In the bed was a small canoe and fishing gear. Montoya glanced at the cab of the truck, noticed the black man seated inside. “His name is Ray Watson. Lives about six miles upriver. No record.”
“Is he the only witness?”
“So far.”
“Have him stick around. I’ll want to ask
him some questions.”
“You got it.”
Hankering for a smoke, Montoya slipped on covers for his shoes, and made his way toward the house, careful not to disturb an investigator snapping pictures of the overgrown path to the door. Weeds had been crushed, leaves pulverized, and it was evident that several sets of footprints led to the steps.
Montoya made his way through the open door and stopped dead in his tracks.
“What the hell is this?” he said, looking at the crime scene and feeling his stomach clench.
Harsh lights illuminated the small room where blood, feathers, vomit, and dirt vied for floor space. The air was punctuated with the smells of cordite, blood, puke, urine, and dust. Investigators were filming and measuring, lifting latent fingerprints, and searching for trace evidence.
In the center of it all was the crime scene where two victims had died. One of the victims, a white man in good shape, who looked to be in his early forties, was lying naked as the day he was born and staring faceup. Blood had trickled from the hole in his chest, but not as much blood as Montoya would have expected. The man had died quickly.
“Jesus,” Montoya muttered.
The second victim, a young woman wearing a white silk and lace wedding gown, was lying atop the dead guy. She appeared to have fallen over him from what looked like a single gunshot wound to her head. Her long ponytail was splayed across her bare back where the neckline of the dress scooped low. Some of the blond strands were bloody and tangled from the wound at her temple.
A photographer clipped off shot after shot, his flash strobing the already macabre scene while Bonita Washington, the lead crime-scene investigator, was busily taking measurements around the bodies. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun at the base of her skull, her eyes trained on the floor as she squatted near the vics.
“You sign the log, Montoya?” she asked. Wearing half-glasses and a sour expression, she looked up from the sketch she was drawing. She skewered him with a don’t-mess-with-me look. African-American and proud of it, Bonita ran the criminologists team with an iron fist and a keen eye.
