by Jana DeLeon
“I haven’t had time to check into it. Probably won’t until tomorrow.”
“But you’ll tell me what you find.”
He looked aggrieved, but nodded. “I’ll tell you what I find, but I’m not promising you involvement with everything I do. The reality is, you’re not only a stranger here but a woman. People aren’t going to speak freely with you. I refuse to jeopardize this investigation just to keep from hurting your feelings.”
She felt a flush run up her neck and onto her face. “Is that what you think this is—some girly attempt to force the big man to acknowledge my needs? You’ve got some nerve. Someone tried to kill me today. Someone I don’t know and may have never even come in contact with. The only feeling I’m worried about is feeling alive.”
“I didn’t mean—“
She held up a hand to stop him. “Maybe you should spend less time figuring out how to avoid me and more time trying to find out why someone wants to kill me in the first place. After all, I’m a stranger here, right?”
She stalked past him, not even bothering to speak to Shirley as she walked out of the sheriff’s department, slamming the door shut behind her. She was halfway down the street to the hotel when a voice sounded behind her.
“Ms. St. James?”
She whirled around, every inch of her body still tingling with anger, and with one look at the man who’d called to her, she suddenly felt stupid.
“Hello, Father,” she said. She had never met the man, but his robe and collar left her no doubt as to his station.
He was in his midfifties, with silver and black hair and pale skin that made her wonder if he always donned the robes before stepping outside. He smiled and extended his hand. “I’m Father Abraham.”
“Seriously?” she asked, and before she could help herself, a childhood song about Abraham started running through her mind.
He laughed. “You know the song. It was a favorite of mine too. Some of my fondest memories of my grandmother were her singing that song to me, which is why I picked the name.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound insulting.”
“Not at all. It’s quite a common reaction.” Father Abraham’s smile turned to a frown. “I understand you were at Duke Leger’s home this morning?”
“Yes, but I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”
“Of course. I would never ask you to violate a confidence. There have been rumors, of course, that he’s deceased. In a small town, it’s to be expected with this sort of thing, but I just wondered if you had any idea how long it will take the coroner to release the body. Duke’s father is one of my oldest parishioners, and not in the best of health. He visited me this afternoon at church and has worked himself into quite a state about making the funeral arrangements.”
Father Abraham gave her an apologetic look. “Given that there’s been no official release of information, I tried to reason with him, but when you’re battling age and dementia, it’s often a losing proposition.”
“I understand. I wish I could help you, Father, but I honestly have no idea how long the body will be held. Sheriff Bertrand may be able to give you a better idea.”
“I see, so the sheriff is in charge of the investigation? I thought since it happened in the swamp that perhaps that fell in your line of work.”
“It only does if it happens in the game preserve.”
Father Abraham nodded. “I apologize for my mistake. The inner workings of law enforcement departments aren’t something I’m overly familiar with.”
“No apology needed. Sometimes the lines are so blurred they’re confusing to law enforcement agencies as well. I’m assisting Sheriff Bertrand, as any respectable game warden would, but he’ll probably be the one to get the answers you’re looking for.”
“I understand. Thank you so much for your time, Ms. St. James. I hope to see you at service next week.”
Jadyn forced a smile and a nod but didn’t reply. Years of private schooling had left her with little desire to spend time closed up with people who would yell at her for her clothes, lifestyle choices, and friends. On the other hand, Father Abraham had seemed nice. Surely he didn’t yell at people and make them feel worse about themselves.
Given her current situation, she should probably give church attendance some thought. The last thing she wanted was for her first appearance in church to be in a coffin. Maybe a visit and a serious session of praying were in order.
Maybe since Helena knew God directly, she should ask her to call in some favors.
###
Colt poked his pinkie finger in the hole at the bottom of the game warden boat. He’d hoped she’d been mistaken—that she’d been confused about the shots and that the explanation was simple and nonlethal—but he’d bet his annual salary that she was dead right. This was definitely a bullet hole from a high-powered rifle, and based on the trajectory, it had been made from a location significantly above the boat. On Johnson’s Bayou, that meant a tree.
Shit.
He should have stopped her from leaving the sheriff’s office before he’d taken down all of the details on the shooting, but he’d screwed up and pushed her too far…let his own ego get in the way of good common sense. Now, she was too angry to be a good witness, even for her own attempted murder.
He’d watched her out the front window of the sheriff’s department, first stopped by Father Abraham, who’d paid him a visit after speaking to her. Then she continued on toward the hotel. Surely no one would have the audacity to take a shot at her on Main Street, but then, he wouldn’t have figured Johnson’s Bayou as a good choice to pull that stunt either. Why not pick one of the isolated bayous with narrow channels that made speed in a boat next to impossible? The shooter could have sat in a lawn chair, smoking a cigar, drinking a beer, and still made that shot.
He slammed one hand on the side of the boat and cursed. So many things were happening and they all seemed to be related, but none of them made sense. Why would someone want to kill Jadyn? She hadn’t even been in Mudbug a week. If that call hadn’t come from Duke’s cell phone, Colt would have thought one of the idiots trying to fetch money from the pond had been the shooter—trying to get a little revenge for her shooting down the bags of money and possibly trying to drive her out of town.
But Duke’s cell phone eliminated that possibility.
It was a miscalculation on the killer’s part. Was the suggestion of Johnson’s Bayou another as well? Or was the answer as simple as the killer wasn’t from Mudbug and therefore didn’t know the minor bayou channels or the residents well enough to know the things he could take advantage of?
He climbed out of the boat and looked down the bayou. What in the world had blown into this sleepy little town? In the past three days, everything he’d known previously had been swept away and replaced by something ugly, the very thing he’d never expected to find here.
Jadyn St. James only added fuel to the fire. Sorting out this mess would be hard enough without her to consider, but conducting the investigation without her wasn’t an option. Whoever had taken shots at her thought she knew something so important that it was worth killing her for. But what? Jadyn didn’t seem to have any idea what the cause could be and he believed her. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a clue what the impetus could be either.
To add insult to injury, he felt guilty for the way he’d spoken to her in the sheriff’s department. When he’d first arrived, he’d been annoyed with her attitude—expecting him to answer to her—but then she’d told him about the shooting, and he realized her demands were an attempt to regain control. He’d been there before, and it was a crappy place to exist.
He sighed. The absolute last thing he needed was a damaged, frightened woman on his conscience. Unfortunately, the only solution he had for keeping her safe was keeping her close, and Jadyn was a whole lot of temptation to have at his elbow every minute of every day.
She’d surprised him with the way she handled the crime scene this morning, especi
ally when he considered that the coroner passed out cold and he spent every day with death. Then she’d located the odd key hidden in the backyard, and rounded out her afternoon by narrowly avoiding death herself.
She had brains, beauty, and spunk but most importantly, she had heart.
A quadruple threat. Something he was in no way prepared to handle. Suddenly, his old job in New Orleans looked easier.
Chapter Fifteen
Jadyn blew straight past Mildred and went to her room. She knew the hotel owner was worried—could see it all over her face when she walked inside the hotel—but Jadyn couldn’t handle talking to anyone else right now. Her mind was too frazzled, her body weakened to the point of exhaustion. She was tired, frustrated, and angry. But the worst thing was she was scared.
Plenty of things in her past had caused her discomfort, but few had caused the kind of raw fear she’d felt today. In fact, only one such incident existed and she’d spent a good portion of her life trying to forget it. It wasn’t the way she liked to remember her father. But today, everything about that day had flooded back—the helplessness, the terror that her life could end at that moment.
When she’d chosen her profession, she’d known that it came with risks, but she’d never imagined the risks would be this great and certainly not occurring in such a short span of time. The job in Mudbug had seemed the perfect solution. Never would she have believed such horrible things could happen in this tiny, seemingly quiet town. She’d had other opportunities, but she’d taken the one she thought was the best fit. The one that gave her the opportunity to know Maryse, the family she’d never been allowed to spend time with.
It had seemed perfect.
She should have known better.
She shrugged off her clothes and stepped into the steamy shower, then grabbed her loofah and gel and started to scrub as if the exfoliate could strip all the negative thoughts and energy from her body. Ten minutes later, her skin tingled and didn’t contain a single spot of dry skin. Between the hot water and the scrubbing, she emerged from the shower with a medium-red hue from head to toe.
But for the first time since she’d stepped inside Duke’s cabin that morning, she felt clean and fresh. Her mind had cleared some but it hadn’t helped her put all the moving pieces together. The picture was still blurry and disconnected, but at least now she knew for sure it wasn’t her foggy thinking. The bottom line was, none of the things she knew made sense.
She threw on clothes and headed downstairs. Mildred would fret like a worried mother until Jadyn talked to her. It was an odd feeling for Jadyn, having an older woman looking out for her, but it was sorta nice in a slightly intrusive way. She supposed that’s how most daughters felt about their own mothers.
Mildred was in her office, staring at her computer screen, but the floating beach screensaver gave away her lack of activity. She looked up as soon as Jadyn entered the room, and Jadyn could see the worry lines on her face.
“I hear you’ve had an eventful day,” Mildred said.
Jadyn sighed and slid into a chair in front of the desk. “Helena told you.”
Mildred nodded. “She burst in here a couple of hours ago, ranting about deer hunting, shootings, and almost dying several times. It took me thirty minutes and all of my good chocolate to calm her down enough to get the story out of her.”
“So you know everything?”
Mildred put her hands in the air. “I know everything from Helena’s point of view. I was hoping for a more logical, lucid description from a sane person.” She gave Jadyn a small smile.
“I bet. Although part of me is disappointed that all the good chocolates are gone. I could have used some myself.”
Jadyn took a deep breath and began to recount her day to Mildred. The older woman’s expression changed from horrified to exasperated then horrified again, but aside from a few gasps, she never interrupted. When Jadyn finished, she turned around and poured two shots of scotch from a bottle on her credenza.
Her hands shook slightly as she pushed the glass across the desk to Jadyn, then she tilted the glass back and downed the entire serving in one gulp. Jadyn sipped the strong liquid and grimaced. She was a real lightweight when it came to drinking.
“You have to do it all at once,” Mildred said, pointing at the glass.
Jadyn wasn’t the least bit convinced, but she lifted the glass again and poured the entire serving of scotch into her mouth, swallowing it before it could register. Her throat burned as it went down and her eyes started to water. She coughed twice, hoping she hadn’t damaged her throat or burned a hole in her stomach lining.
Mildred laughed. “Give it some time to work. Then you’ll be happy you did it.” She reached into a small refrigerator next to the credenza and pulled out two bottles of water. “Chase it with this.”
“Thanks,” Jadyn managed before opening the water and downing a huge gulp, the cold liquid mollifying her ravaged throat. As she took a second drink, a feeling of warmth began to wash over her and she leaned back in the chair.
Mildred looked over at her and smiled. “That should take the edge off, but it’s not enough to put you out. You were so hopped up when you came in, I thought you were going to jump right out of your skin. The shower helped you some, but you still had that wild look in your eyes when you came into my office.”
“I feel better now,” Jadyn said and frowned. Was this why her mother spent most of her life holding a glass of liquor? Was she not as happy as she’d have people believe and trying to take the edge off her choices?
Jadyn shook her head. Her mother’s issues had no place in Jadyn’s life, especially now. “Did Helena get the story right?”
Mildred nodded. “Her rendition was a lot more dramatic than yours, but essentially, she said the same thing. I was hoping she’d exaggerated the worst of it, but apparently this didn’t need embellishment to be a nightmare.”
“No. It’s all pretty grim. And confusing. Do you have any thoughts on Duke?”
“Not a one. He was a crotchety old bastard. Fond of drinking and fishing. Not at all fond of women. But I can’t imagine him getting tied up in something that ended like this. Small-time trouble, sure, but minor offenses don’t end this way.”
“No, they don’t. He told Leroy that he was going to retire off this side job—what does that mean in Mudbug?”
Mildred shrugged. “For someone like Duke, not much. He owned his cabin and land outright. Had an old truck, a shrimp boat, and a bass boat that all run fine. Aside from beer, cigarettes, and the occasional jaunt to New Orleans for a night of gambling, I don’t think he did much else.”
“So we probably aren’t talking a lot of money to most people.”
“I doubt it.”
Jadyn frowned. “In a way, that makes sense that he’d be on the lower end of the pay scale. Based on what I’ve heard, he lacked the experience to be a criminal mastermind.”
Mildred nodded. “And the intelligence. But clearly, he had something they wanted.”
“The key.” Helena’s voice sounded above Jadyn and a second later, she dropped out of the ceiling and into the chair beside her, squealing like a five-year-old the whole way down.
Mildred glared at her. “Is that why the bed in your room is broken?”
“Maybe?” Helena said, looking a bit guilty.
“Despite being a ghost,” Mildred said, “you’re no lightweight. And until you can control going solid, no more dropping through ceilings. It’s not like I can call my insurance company and file a claim.”
“Fine. This chair isn’t comfortable anyway.”
“That chair is perfectly fine for sitting.” Mildred let out an exasperated sigh, then looked back at Jadyn. “So what did the key look like?”
“It was heavy,” Jadyn said, “so probably iron. It was black and honestly…well, I hate to say it, but it looked like those keys you see in horror movies.”
Mildred nodded. “Can you draw a reasonable representation?”
�
�I think so.” Jadyn took the pad of paper and pencil that Mildred pushed across the desk and started to draw.
“What do you think?” Jadyn showed the drawing to Helena.
“That looks about right, but I think it was fatter at the top.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right.” Jadyn shaded in another layer around the top of the key, then passed the notebook to Mildred. “That’s it as best as I can remember.”
Mildred took the notebook and frowned. “This looks familiar. Hmm.” Suddenly she snapped her fingers and beamed. “It looks like the key that opens the gate to Mudbug Cemetery.”
“Seriously?” Jadyn asked. “Why would someone commit murder over a key to the cemetery?”
“I’m not saying it is the key to the cemetery,” Mildred said. “I’m saying it looks like it.”
“The cemetery on the edge of town, right?” Jadyn asked. “Is there a caretaker—someone who would have noticed anything odd?”
“Sure. Earl has been the caretaker there since he was a boy.” Mildred frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Jadyn asked.
“Ha!” Helena perked up. “She’s wondering if Earl would have noticed anything odd because Earl himself is odd.”
Mildred nodded. “I hate to admit it, but she’s right. He’s an odd duck. Kids have always been scared of him, even when he was a kid.”
“He totally looks like the Crypt Keeper,” Helena threw in.
“Great,” Jadyn said. “The perfect person to manage Mudbug’s dead.”
“Not my family,” Helena said.
“What do you mean?” Mildred asked.
“My family has a private cemetery about fifteen miles outside of town.”
Mildred frowned. “I attended your father’s funeral, and I’m certain he was buried in Mudbug Cemetery.”
“Sure,” Helena agreed. “But everyone before him is in the family cemetery. My father said the rest of the family was a bunch of useless assholes who had squandered a good portion of his inheritance, and he had no intention of spending the afterlife in their company.”
