Cypress Nights

by Stella Cameron

  He did come in, even though she hadn’t responded to him. “Beautiful roses,” he said. “I saw Sig on his way out.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Cyrus bent to smell the roses. He glanced at the card and quickly away again. Madge picked it up, read, and handed it to him.

  “You don’t have to show me this,” he said.

  The card said: Please call me, and Sig had written his phone number under his name. Madge took it back from Cyrus, tore it in half and threw it away.

  “Are you going to leave me?” Cyrus asked. “I feel you moving away.”

  She tried to swallow and almost choked.

  “You need water,” Cyrus said.

  “No, I’m okay.” She wasn’t and doubted she ever would be.

  He walked around to stand beside her, stroked her hair, rested his hand on the back of her neck. “If you go, I’ll keep wishing I’d done something to stop you. I mustn’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “No.” She closed her eyes. Her lashes were wet.

  “But…I’ll miss you forever. And I’ll always feel guilty that I couldn’t have made sure we didn’t get to the point where you don’t want to go, but you can’t bear to stay anymore.”

  His hand settled on her shoulder and she put one of her own on top. “Cyrus…” Talking was too hard.

  “I know. I understand, but you’ll take part of me—the best part.”

  “I can’t go, unless you make me,” she said, broken. “You’ll have to tell me you don’t want me here anymore.” Madge leaned her forehead on her desk. “I’m not being fair, but I can’t help it.”

  Softly, he kissed the nape of her neck. “Stay, Madge,” he said. “I don’t have anything to offer but what we have, but don’t leave me.”

  Madge reached back to spread a hand over the side of his face. She ran her fingertips into his hair and turned her face toward him. When he looked at her, she kissed his cheek, crossed her arms around his neck and held so tightly her muscles hurt.

  “Madge—”

  She touched his mouth and shook her head. “Who knows if we aren’t the lucky ones?” she said. “We understand what we have.”

  “I understand what you mean to me,” he said. He smiled slightly. “If you go, I’ll have to pipe zydeco into the rectory. Think how that would look when the archbishop visits.”

  Madge smoothed her hands over his chest. “We can’t have that. I’ll have to stay, so you can blame me for the music. I’ll have to stay, because I don’t want to be anywhere you’re not.”

  “Ever?” he said, and his voice caught.

  “Ever.”

  Chapter 48

  Roche’s patient left and he pressed his message button.

  “Hi, it’s Bleu. Your cell phone’s off so I tried your office number. You must be busy. Wazoo got a call from Sam Bush asking for help. I can’t let her go alone. We’re not going far—just south of town. Talk to you later. And don’t worry.”

  “And don’t you go tellin’ anyone,” Wazoo shouted in the background.

  He heard the sound of a rough-running engine.

  Chapter 49

  At the same time

  “Slow down,” Bleu said. “We don’t want to miss the turn.”

  “If we get to New Iberia, we’ve gone too far,” Wazoo told her, bobbing up to see. The sun fell lower in the sky and hit the windshield exactly where Wazoo normally looked—an inch or so above the steering wheel.

  “Second turn on the left after the crossroads,” Bleu said. Wazoo had written down directions.

  They had passed the crossroads in the middle of cane fields. The crop rose way above head-height on all sides.

  On this road, the intersecting turns were a long way apart.

  “That’s the first one,” Bleu said, taking a quick look down a track between two fields.

  Bleu’s phone rang.

  “It’s gonna be that man of yours tellin’ you we got to turn around.” Wazoo said. “I’m not doin’ it.”

  Bleu looked at the phone and saw Roche’s number. She answered, “Hello, Roche.”

  “Where are you, damn it?”

  “Not far,” she said. “Sam’s a good man. He wouldn’t ask for help if he didn’t need it.”

  “He didn’t ask for your help, Bleu.”

  “No, he asked Wazoo because he knows she’ll stand by a friend no matter what. Unlike some of us.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She doesn’t worry about herself before she answers a call for help.” Bleu couldn’t seem to stop talking. “I don’t mean you wouldn’t help a friend,” she added quickly.

  “I know you don’t.” Roche paused. “Bleu, we’ve got to think straight. Why would Sam call on Wazoo?”

  Roche was concerned for her. Bleu knew that otherwise he would never suggest she leave Wazoo on her own out here.

  “Relax,” she said. “We’re about there.”

  “Where?”

  “Not even to Iberville. Just off 347 in the cane fields toward Loreauville—”

  “No,” Wazoo cried loudly. “Don’t tell him anything else, Bleu. Roche Savage, I got a gun, hear me? I always got a gun. Your lady is safe with me, not that I want her here. Now cool your heels a bit and she’ll get back at you. Hang up,” she told Bleu.

  “Stay on the line,” Roche said. “Did you call Spike?”

  Bleu didn’t answer him. He’d know what that meant.

  “There!” Wazoo said. She made an abrupt left onto a cane-strewn dirt road. A few moments later, she pointed toward a white panel truck. “That’ll be Sam. He said to look for a truck like that one. Hang up the phone.”

  “I don’t see him,” Bleu said. Her skin prickled. “Sure I see the truck, but where’s Sam?” He should have come out when he heard them.

  “Bleu,” Roche said, but he sounded calmer. “Don’t hang up.”

  She glanced at Wazoo, who concentrated on driving. The phone slid easily into the pocket of Bleu’s jeans. What could it hurt for Roche to hear what they were doing? And she wanted a connection to him while she was out here.

  The van stopped and the engine clanked before it fell silent.

  “Where is he?” Bleu said. She searched in every direction.

  “He’s makin’ sure it’s me,” Wazoo said.

  “With this van? Who else would it be?”

  “He can see there’s someone with me,” Wazoo said. “We’d better show ourselves, fast.”

  Grimacing, Wazoo pushed open her creaky door and got out. Bleu didn’t want to, but she followed, and they approached the truck together.

  All around them, the cane rustled.

  Yellow dust hung in the air, and Bleu sneezed.

  Wazoo raised an arm overhead and waved. “We’ve come, Sam. Where are you?”

  “Oh, thank God.” From the other side of the truck, disheveled, her face streaked with dirt, came Kate Harper. “He left me here. I can’t drive this thing.”

  Wazoo closed her fingers on Bleu’s nearest wrist and they both stopped walking.

  “Sam left you here?” Bleu said, confused.

  “How did you know where I was?” Kate said. “Who sent you?”

  Bleu and Wazoo looked at each other and Wazoo said, “We didn’t know you were here. Sam called me askin’ for help.”

  “Sam called me, too,” Kate said. “He said he needed me. He was always kind to me, and he was Jim’s accountant. I just came. He laughed at me and took my car.”

  “Why didn’t you call someone?” Wazoo asked.

  Kate stared. “Oh, you mean with one of those phones. I don’t like things like that.”

  Abruptly, she broke down. Sobs shook her body and she hunched over. “I was goin’ to start walkin’, but I knew it was too far.”

  “It’s okay now,” Bleu said. She started to reach for her own phone.

  “Sam killed them,” Kate said. “I thought he’d kill me. He kept s
ayin’ he would, if I didn’t do what he said.”

  Wazoo’s grip on Bleu’s arm tightened.

  “Killed who?” Bleu said, her heart thumping. “You don’t mean Jim? And Mary?”

  Kate backed away. “I’m goin’ to be in dreadful trouble, aren’t I?” she said. “I should have told someone, but I was so afraid. I think he’s waitin’ for us somewhere. He wouldn’t leave us here. Two—three more murders don’t make any difference to him now.”

  What was Sam’s real reason for calling Wazoo?

  This track headed straight on. Bleu cleared her throat. “Sam must have gone back the way we just came,” she said. “How long ago, do you think?”

  “He did go that way,” Kate said, looking around. “I don’t know how long…not so long, though. He must have hidden himself and my car.”

  You don’t drive, Kate. You didn’t get here on your own. Bleu made fists. She had no idea whether or not Wazoo knew Kate didn’t drive.

  Wazoo rubbed her middle rhythmically and swayed.

  Kate was a really bad liar. Sam hadn’t driven out of here recently.

  Bleu dropped her voice and asked her, “Where is he? Is he watching us now?”

  Kate shook her head. “He’s gone, but he’s goin’ to come back. I know I’m right about that.”

  She talked, gabbled, poured out a jumbled tale of Sam killing Jim for his money. Sam wanted her to marry him, she said. He threatened her so she told him she would. “But I never would have,” she said. “You can be sure of that. He tried to make it look like it was George who was in the wrong. He pretended to be George when he talked to me about Cashman’s place one night. Sam made sure Mary was listening and had me call him George. He pretended he had somethin’ hidden in some old cabin. Reckoned whatever it was would prove what he’d—or what George had done to Jim.”

  “Why would he do that?” Bleu asked, then wished she hadn’t.

  “He said if Mary went to the cabin to look, he could be sure she thought it was George she’d heard and he really was going to kill her. Sam would have killed her anyway. He said he’d give her enough time to tell someone what she thought George had in mind, then murder her.” Kate glanced all around and lowered her voice. “Mary let on she’d gone to Cashman’s with Wazoo. So he said he couldn’t leave either of them around.”

  Wazoo just stood there and didn’t enter the conversation.

  “Sam said again how he would marry me after Mary was dead and we’d share everything Jim left,” Kate said. “It was all about the money. That’s all it ever was. He went on about the school because Jim almost gave the Cashman land to the building fund.”

  They had to get out of there. “Listen to me,” Bleu said. “We’re wasting valuable time. Get in the van, both of you. We’re leaving.”

  In a flurry of pale pink skirts, Kate twisted away and half ran, half staggered toward the van. Almost there, she stopped, fell to her knees. She waved her fists in the air and screamed.

  “She doesn’t drive,” Bleu said quickly while she had the chance. “She’s putting on an act—all of it’s an act.”

  “I caused this,” Wazoo muttered. “Mary told me she overheard that talk Kate says she had with Sam. Mary did think it was George. But we didn’t find anything at the cabin. The pirogue didn’t mean anything to either of us, so we figured she’d misunderstood what she heard and there was nothin’ to worry about. I should have gone to Spike just the same. I kept thinkin’ about it. Me, I shouldn’t have cared if he laughed at me.

  “They wanted me to come out here alone so they could get rid of me. I’m a witness and I’d have figured it out soon enough. They couldn’t risk that. I’m sorry, Bleu.”

  The wailing continued.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Bleu said. “I think Kate is a victim. Sam’s done more to her than try to get money. She’s not right in the head.”

  The sugar canes rattled together. To Bleu, they sounded like pebbles on glass. This was the first time she had stood in the middle of cane fields. They dwarfed her, closed her in.

  “Kate!” Wazoo went to her. “Stop it. Get up and help us. We all got to help each other.” She caught her by the arms and pulled.

  “Sam found out Jim was going to give Cashman’s to St. Cecile’s,” Kate cried. “The night Sam killed Jim, he would have told everyone about the gift right there at Bleu’s parish hall meetin’.”

  Without warning, Wazoo released Kate and spun toward the truck. She put a forefinger to her mouth and Kate took big gulps, trying not to make any noise. She scrambled shakily to her feet.

  Then Bleu heard it—banging from inside the truck.

  Kate edged away. “There’s someone in there,” she said.

  Wazoo was already on her way to the back of the white vehicle and Bleu dashed to catch up. “Someone’s in trouble,” she panted. “They’re trying to get help.”

  Briefly, Wazoo looked at her. She hesitated. “I feel…We gotta leave.”

  “We can’t,” Bleu told her. “A person could suffocate in there.”

  “Stand still.” George Pinney walked from the hidden side of the truck. He pointed a gun at them, kept pointing it while he swung open back doors. “Get in.”

  “George,” Kate said in a quavering, tearful voice.

  “Shut up,” George said without looking in her direction. “Keep your mouth shut and you’ll be okay. Get in, all of you.”

  “Me, I’m not gettin’ in anywhere you say, George Pinney,” Wazoo told him. Her face looked damp in the sun’s glare.

  With one hand, George pulled down steps. “You first, Kate.”

  Another wail issued from Kate. She rocked from side to side.

  “Get in!” George flicked the muzzle of his gun.

  Kate stumbled forward and did as she was told, disappearing into the gloom inside the truck.

  “You two,” George snapped. “In, or I’ll shoot her right now.”

  Her meant Kate.

  With Wazoo beside her, Bleu shuffled toward George. When she got close enough, he hustled her up the steps.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” George said. “Wazoo’s the one I want.”

  “Let her go, then,” Wazoo said. “She doesn’t—”

  “Shut up,” George said. “Don’t lie to me. By now she knows what Mary told you.”

  By the time she saw Sam Bush, bound and curled up on his side, Wazoo had crowded in behind her and the first door slammed.

  “It’s Sam,” Bleu said past a dry throat. “George is using him, not the other way around.”

  “Clever girl,” George said with a snigger. “If I’d been the one to call Wazoo, she’d have gone straight to the sheriff, and I’d be on the run.”

  The second door shut and locked—loudly.

  “Sam,” Bleu said, bending over him. He appeared unconscious.

  Wazoo joined her. “Is he dead?”

  “He’s breathing,” Bleu said. “But he doesn’t look good.”

  Continuous sniffles and moans from Kate disgusted her.

  “You lied to us,” Bleu told her.

  “I never did like that George Pinney,” Wazoo said. She felt Sam’s pulse and opened first one then the other of his eyes to check the pupils. “But he made a bad mistake when he took us on. We gonna make his life hell, then laugh when they take him in.”

  The engine of the truck rumbled to life and the vehicle moved.

  Bleu and Wazoo clung to one another for balance.

  “Sit down,” Kate said. “Right there by Sam.”

  Sharp and completely unlike Kate, that was an order.

  Bleu looked at the woman, then at Wazoo who had already seen what Bleu saw now. Straight-backed against the panel behind her and very alert, Kate sat holding a gun. And this was no ordinary gun. Bleu had no idea what it was except that it was some sort of compact assault weapon. When Kate sat down in the truck, she must have known the gun was behind her.

  “Come on,” Bleu said, smiling at her. “You could no more use that on us
than fly without a plane. You wouldn’t even know how.”

  “Could be you don’t want to test me on that,” Kate said. “You two are a nuisance. You’ve made things hard, when they would have been simple.”

  Wazoo and Bleu sank to the dirty metal floor. “If we’d just stayed away and let the killin’ happen, you mean?” Wazoo said. “Maybe you should have warned us off.”

  “Don’t you go screamin’ at me,” Kate said. “Keep your mouth shut.”

  “What did Sam do to you except be kind?” Bleu asked.

  “George said Sam was poking around too much. He knew too much about Jim’s affairs. George wanted him out of the way.” Kate shrugged. “Everything’s goin’ to be all right now. Spike and the rest of them will never figure out we know what happened to any of you.”

  Wazoo made a disgusted sound.

  “And if you really want to know,” Kate said, “George didn’t like all the attention Sam paid me, either.” She looked smug.

  George drove fast. In the back, they were repeatedly thrown about and had to keep righting themselves. Bleu watched Kate closely, looking for a chance to overpower her, and she believed she could, particularly with Wazoo’s help.

  Sam worried her. He still hadn’t stirred and she had seen blood matted in his hair.

  “What if the cops come after us?” Bleu asked. It was risky to talk that way, but anything that caught Kate by surprise was a good thing.

  “Dreamer,” Kate said. “They’ll never see us out here.”

  “Where you takin’ us?” Wazoo asked.

  Bleu wondered where Wazoo’s gun was, if she could get to it, and how dangerous it would be for her to try.

  “You don’t need to know where we’re going,” Kate said and her smile sickened Bleu. This was a cold, self-centered woman.

  They seemed to keep going for a long time. Bleu hated it when the tall compartment swayed and she felt sick.

  The engine droned, obviously well-maintained. But George would have thought of that.

  A different noise filtered in. Different and distinctive.

  Kate turned an even paler shade than usual.