Kiss Them Goodbye

by Stella Cameron

  “Wazoo,” Charlotte called after her, but got no response.

  Around and around Wazoo sped until she finally captured enough attention to hush the crowd a little. “Now,” she shouted. “It’s time for some ceremony. Ain’t no proper event without ceremony.”

  Ozaire marched forward with the megaphone he’d been using to hawk his wares and delivered a ringing announcement. “Listen up. This is me, Ozaire Dupre. I got the best crawfish and crabs around. Cheapest, too. Now give your attention to Miz Wazoo who’s tryin’ to have a ceremony.” He handed the megaphone to her.

  “Thank you, Ozaire.”

  Charlotte put her fingers in her ears to lessen the blast.

  “It’s late, but not too late. We’re gonna have us the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Gimme a drumroll.”

  The drummer on the back of the Ford obligingly started a rumbling.

  “Swamp Doggies.” Wazoo pointed to the regular band from Pappy’s Dancehall. “You play…that thing they do for the Pres-i-dent. Not too loud.”

  “Pomp and Circumstance,” zydeco style, had men snatching off their baseball caps and slapping them over their hearts.

  Charlotte noted that the dour gathering near the arrowwood bushes was actually smiling, and she smiled with them. Only Wazoo could create this kind of scene.

  A huge circle of foam-topped water rose from the dunk tank. The tank was Joe Gable’s contribution to the fun, even though he had Wally running it for him. Shrieks followed, ruining Wazoo’s setup. She marched to the tank herself and laughter broke out when people saw it was Wally in the water.

  Wazoo chided him loudly but he protested for everyone to hear, “I was just checkin’ it out, Wazoo. It doesn’t fall easy enough so I was fixin’ it.”

  “The ribbon,” Wazoo cried, giving Wally another scowl before she returned to the clearing she’d made in the crowd. One man held the end of a bolt of wide ribbon while Thea, looking bashful, pushed a sturdy stick through the middle of the reel and walked backward to unwind a long band of yellow satin.

  “Now,” Wazoo cried. “Dr. Link and Mrs. Hurst will do the honors.”

  Morgan, with Susan on his arm, came forward and took an impressively large pair of scissors from Wazoo. Charlotte couldn’t help admiring the couple for the handsome picture they made. Susan wore all white and her diamond earrings sparkled in the sunlight. She looked pretty and young, and healthy. Morgan’s relaxed stance and the way he looked at his wife made him more appealing than he’d ever seemed to Charlotte before.

  “Say somethin’ real meaningful,” Wazoo said. She gave Susan the bouquet of flowers.

  Morgan opened the scissors and said, “May each of us get what we deserve. I declare this fete open.” And he cut the ribbon.

  Spike and Cyrus stood on either side of Vivian. She caught each one of them by an upper arm and pulled until they bent close to listen to her.

  “Did you see that?” she asked.

  Both men said, “Yes,” and she joined them in whispering, “Left-handed.”

  “I think I almost forgot about it,” Vivian continued.

  “Doesn’t have to mean a thing,” Cyrus pointed out. “Many people are left-handed.”

  “But many people aren’t left-handed and adept with blades,” Vivian said.

  Shadow hid much of Spike’s face. “I don’t think the Martin boys hired Morgan Link to kill Louis, do you?”

  “If they hired anyone at all,” Vivian said, and when Spike looked at her she saw nothing too reassuring in his expression.

  Spike filled the others in on Vivian’s observation and all faces became grave. “I thought Bonine was going to be here,” Marc Girard said. “Not that I expect any help from that quarter.”

  Joe pushed his hands deep in his pockets. “That man’s a dud. It’s like he’s deliberately brushed two killings under the rug. He needs to be held accountable.”

  Spike and Vivian glanced at each other.

  “You think something’s going to happen today?” Reb made an automatic sweep of the grounds. “I don’t think it will. Too public.”

  “I don’t think anything else will happen at all,” Bill said. “Ever. I think the killings were professional. Someone wanted Louis dead and poor old Gil got in the way. Now it’s over.”

  Cyrus nodded agreement but Spike said, “If you remember, Vivian and I made an unscheduled landing in Bayou Lafourche. That had to be a warning, didn’t it? For us to quit stickin’ our noses into things. And that was after Louis died.”

  “I don’t know.” Bill narrowed his eyes. “You may have something there. When do you think you’ll hear more from your Iberia source?”

  A ball hit Cyrus in the middle and he trapped it against him, looking around for the culprit. Wearing a pleased expression, Madge jogged toward them. Cyrus lobbed the ball back and she caught it.

  “To be honest,” Spike said, “I may never hear another word.”

  “Shit,” Bill said with a lot of feeling, then, “Sorry about that.”

  “You don’t have to be,” Reb told him. “This whole thing stinks.”

  Snickers apparently went over her head. “I’ve got to run out,” Bill said. “Believe it or not I’ve got a couple coming in to look at that old theater. And before you ask what they think they want it for—they’re talking about renovation and in time, putting on productions. I think they’ll take one look at the place and take off running so I shouldn’t be long. I’ll be ready for a cold beer when I get back.”

  They shouted after him, promising to drink every drop before he could get any. Vivian saw Gary Legrain walking straight toward them and said, “Gary’s back,” under her breath.

  “Nice of him,” Spike said.

  Grinning, Gary strolled up to them and said, “Hi. Some do going on here.”

  He got polite responses and stood among them as if he’d never left Rosebank without a word to anyone.

  From close range, Madge sent the red ball back to Cyrus with enough force to buy her a solid “oomph.” She followed it almost at once and he took her head in the crook of his arm while she yelped for mercy. He deposited her on the ground and went to his haunches beside her. “Wicked deeds never pay,” he told her, keeping a hand on her neck. “Do you promise to reform?”

  Spike and Vivian blocked the two of them from the others who couldn’t have seen how the smile faded from Madge’s lips and longing entered her dark eyes. Cyrus touched her hair, smoothed it lightly and jumped up, helping Madge to join him. “You did hear these two are getting married, didn’t you?” he asked her.

  Vivian winced.

  “No,” Madge said, smiling again. “I’ve been running the children’s races. Nobody told me anything. Congratulations.”

  “And,” Vivian said softly, “we’ve been able to put Cyrus’s mind at rest about my fictitious pregnancy.”

  Madge stopped in the act of brushing grass clippings from her jeans. “Huh?”

  Vivian winked at her. “Thea overheard some remark that made her think I was pregnant. She told Doll, who told Reb, who went to Cyrus for advice on how to help me.”

  “Oo, ya ya. That would be the remark I made to get you away from Bonine that day?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  In barely more than a whisper, Madge said to Cyrus, “If you’d said something to me, the way you used to, I’d have explained.” She looked at her watch. “Excuse me. Time for the egg-and-spoon race.”

  Vivian and Spike were silent, watching Madge walk away and trying not to let Cyrus know they saw his confusion. Confusion and something close to anger. Vivian promised herself she’d push hard to have Madge move into Rosebank, then hope she could do something to help, like introduce Madge to a man who was both nice and available.

  The egg-and-spoon race soon had them laughing. One toddler boy wrapped both pudgy hands around his egg and the bowl of a spoon and trotted toward the finish line with a huge pucker between his fair eyebrows. While turmoil raged around him and the field became steadily smaller, he kep
t on moving until he crossed the line first. He formed his own cheering squad but his parents and others were quick to join in, at which point the remaining contestants quit. Madge pronounced little Kirby the winner and the crowd laughed but demanded another race.

  “That boy will go far,” Joe said amid murmurs of agreement.

  “Spike.”

  Ellie Byron had walked behind them and she tapped Spike’s shoulder. When he turned to smile at her she said, “Would Vivian excuse you if I had you come with me for a few minutes?”

  “Of course,” Vivian said. “Did you bruise your forehead?” There were purplish marks there.

  Ellie touched them and grimaced. “So silly,” she said. “A book fell on me in the shop.”

  “Why don’t we take Vivian with us?” Spike said. “We haven’t had a chance to tell you our news.”

  “No,” Ellie said. Her breathing was obvious and shallow. “This won’t take long, Spike. Please.”

  Vivian swallowed. Something about Ellie frightened her. She gave Spike a little push. “Go on. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  Chapter 42

  Almost everyone they saw had something to say and at least half an hour had passed before Spike and Ellie ducked under the rope that ran from a railing at the end of the gallery to a tree close to the boundary with Serenity House. Hand-lettered Private signs hung at intervals.

  Spike expected to run into rule-breakers on the other side but, apart from two teenagers huddled together against a wall, didn’t see any. “Can you tell me what’s on your mind now?” he asked Ellie.

  She looked at the ground and walked on.

  He caught her by the arm and waited until she turned her face up to his. She didn’t make a sound but tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Ellie,” he said gently. “Tell me. Let me help you now.”

  “I’m a coward,” she told him. “I don’t know what’s happening, but please God I haven’t put someone else at risk by saving myself.”

  Completely in the dark, Spike bowed his head to look at her more closely. She shook her arm free and took off, hurrying past the conservatory and toward the side of the north wing. He caught up with her and let her keep moving to the partially cleared but ruined gardens behind Rosebank.

  “He told me to take you back here.”

  “And he is?”

  She shook her head, whipping her curly hair back and forth. “I didn’t see him. He came up behind me in the dark last night. My head…I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, you’ve done as he asked.” There were situations in which pressing questions went nowhere. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know,” she murmured and the tears flowed faster. “Why didn’t I get in touch with you last night?”

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  “He threatened me. He would have killed me, I know he would.”

  Frustration made Spike’s nerves crawl but he had to let her go at her own pace.

  “He would.” Ellie sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.

  “It’ll be okay,” he told her, with no idea what he was talking about. “You were told to bring me back here. That’s all?”

  She put a hand over her mouth and looked past him. He glanced over his shoulder but saw nothing but the same scene from moments earlier: the gardens, pieces of equipment and the empty pool.

  She spoke and Spike had to lean close to hear. “He said to take you to the pool.”

  Spike studied the pale stone rectangle more closely. At the far end, steps led down into the drained interior. Empty flower urns stood high at each corner.

  “So we can go back now?” Ellie said.

  He wanted to agree but figured he ought to take a closer look first. “Stay here,” he told her and scrunched over weed-dotted gravel to the closest end of the pool.

  Even through his hat, the sun beat on his head. His mouth grew dry and he thought about cold water—like the water that once filled the old Rosebank pool.

  At the raised wall he stopped and squinted toward the opposite end. Small, wet pools glinted in the sunlight. He hadn’t known they’d been testing the plumbing.

  Bright pools, or narrow drizzles and drops, he guessed. In the glare they looked more like oil than water.

  Planting a boot on the wall, he leaned over to see the shallow end.

  The naked corpse, its hands tied behind its back, sprawled, chest down, where the poolside joined the bottom. The head rested on its side. A white rose bloom peeped coyly from beneath a shoulder. The obscene kiss shone sticky bright.

  Shaded from the sun, blood didn’t resemble oil at all.

  Chapter 43

  He’d about had it with the real-estate business. Driving demanding slobs around, often because they were bored and it was cheap entertainment, sucked.

  Well, Bill figured he’d be moving on shortly anyway.

  The Bellevue Theater, a pink stucco building baking in the sun, opened onto deserted Crawfish Alley, a bleached, sandy little street without sidewalks. Opposite the old theater, paint peeled from a row of condemned shotgun houses. Other than his own dark gray BMW sedan, the only vehicle in sight was a rusted-out red pickup, not what the would-be theater owners were likely to drive.

  The suckers were supposed to meet him there and he’d timed things so they’d show five minutes before him. Timing would be everything today.

  Might as well open the doors and let in some air. The place would be a fry pan inside. The doors were double, arched and wide, with a broken lamp on either side. The box office had been shuttered for years. On boards weathered to paintless gray, layers of paste had petrified the withered fragments of playbills past.

  The doors were already open. At least, the right one was cracked an inch or so. The key in Bill’s pocket was supposed to be the only one. He pushed the door all the way open and a lance of blinding light spread over filthy carpet where the single color he could make out had once been red in a fleur-de-lis pattern.

  Bill glanced back at the red pickup. Jerks looking for something or someone to break, and in the building to destroy before running away? Or his clients? Wouldn’t be the first time by many that customers found a way to get inside some place before he got there.

  The door could be warped and have opened on its own.

  Flexing his hands, he stepped inside and stood against a wall. Old habits never died. The kind of habits he’d had to learn had kept him alive this long.

  Dust instantly covered his shoes and billowed upward to spin in the light through the door. On the left stood the concession counter, covered with more thick, pale dust. A row of glasses, upside down, made an eerie sight sitting where they’d been left and strung together with skeins of cobwebs. The mirror behind the counter reflected wavery gray shapes in its grimy glass.

  Bill turned, taking in the entire lobby. Sure it looked bad, but he didn’t see any water damage. From the back of the ticket office he could see through the glass to where the cashier had sat. On the counter, beside a big brass till, were rolls of tickets and when he investigated he saw they’d been worth a dollar each.

  He should suggest that his thespian enthusiasts could make a killing by turning the place into a haunted setup. If they still thought the play must go on, there were plenty of ghoulish productions they could run. Yeah, not a bad idea in a little town that could use a new draw.

  In the mud-colored wall that separated the theater from the lobby were three brown baize doors with one tiny, oval window in each.

  Bill approached the left one with caution and peered through the bubble glass. The smallest wash from the outside sun settled a faint rim along the back row of seats. He could see where the aisle started downward, but nothing more.

  A sudden rumble had him ducking and covering his head. The noise rolled overhead and for an instant he wondered if it could be thunder.

  Where the hell were his clients? He had to get back to the fete, the sooner the better.

  He heard the rumbl
e again and felt the building vibrate mildly.

  If a couple of young toughs thought he was too old to deal with them, they were about to meet some painful truth. Bill pushed into the back of the theater, pulling a minute flashlight shaped like a credit card from his pocket. The device had a strong, directed beam but he wouldn’t use it until he had to.

  The sounds he heard came from the direction of the stage. Treading carefully, he walked slowly down the aisle, using his very acute hearing to separate the noise that was different from the creaks he expected in an old building.

  More bumping came, and he heard a man laugh. That didn’t sound like a kid. The prospective buyers had availed themselves of a weak lock to push their way in. Funny how few people understood trespass.

  “Hey,” he called out.

  Silence followed before a man yelled “Hey” back. “We’re looking for the fuse box back here. Should be in one of the wings.”

  Using the red beam of his flashlight now, Bill made his way to steps that led up to the stage and climbed to soiled boards that squealed at his every step. “Which side are you? Left or right? From where I’m standing?”

  “Right. I see your light. We could sure use that.”

  Bill started for stage left but halted in his tracks. A whirring, a clanking, a whipping together of something overhead caused him to look up.

  Just in time for a heavy gauge nylon net to cover and slam him to the ground. Winded, scrabbling with the netting, he tried to get out, but only became more and more twisted inside his cocoon.

  “Help,” he cried out, feeling foolish. “I think you touched the wrong thing. Help me get out of this.” He tore at the mesh and felt the nylon strands cut into the palm of his right hand.

  He felt but did not see someone move. Somewhere beyond his feet the man pulled on the nylon cords as if he were closing Bill inside like a big fish in a purse seine.

  Sweat popped out, then it poured. His shirt stuck to him and his eyes stung. He’d dropped the flashlight.