Natalie's Revenge

by Susan Fleet

  “Me neither,” she said, keenly aware of the cop approaching the checkout line. She set two dollar bills and her bottle of raspberry ice tea on the counter, saw the cop get in line behind a kid in a Saints T-shirt.

  She felt the cop's eyes on her, evaluating her, a barefoot woman in a teal blouse and a short black skirt. Sweat beaded her forehead and dampened her armpits. If the cop said anything to her, she would bolt out the door and run. But there was another cop outside.

  The clerk gave her the change, and she hurried to the door. The truck driver held it open for her. “Where y’all headed, sweetheart?”

  Through sheer effort of will, she managed a smile and stepped out the door. “Headed north across the lake.”

  “Me too." As they walked along the storefront he noticed her bare feet. "What happened? You lose your shoes?"

  "One heel broke off." With a rueful shrug, she said, "Just what I needed."

  Seemingly oblivious to the driving rain, he grinned. "Ain't that always the way? One damn thing after another. Where’s your car?”

  She gestured vaguely toward the street. “Over there, but my tank’s empty and this place is out of gas.”

  “How far north you going? I’m headed that way.” He gestured at the eighteen wheeler.

  “You got enough gas to get to Memphis?”

  “You bet, sweetheart. Want to ride with me?"

  “That would be fantastic! I’d be happy to pay you for your trouble.”

  “Won’t be no trouble, sweetheart. I’ll be glad for the company.”

  The look in his hazel eyes told her he’d like more than the company, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. He took her arm, guided her around a huge puddle, and they hurried to his rig. He opened the passenger door and beamed her a big smile, exposing yellow nicotine-stained teeth.

  "Welcome to my home away from home. I'm Paul Foster."

  Easing into seduction mode, she said, "Thanks, Paul. Nice to meet you. I'm Carla Jones." If she played her cards right, maybe she could get him to drive her to St. Louis. International flights flew out of the St. Louis airport. Perfect. Get out of town and then get out of the country.

  _____

  While the harried Eighth District desk officer, his face a study in misery, talked to Vobitch, Hammer tried to contain his fury. The station was bedlam, the phones ringing off the hook. He eyed the clock on the wall behind the desk. 7:23. The drive from Parades-A-Plenty, another exercise in frustration because of the snarled traffic, had taken him forty-five minutes.

  "He'll see you in his office," said the desk officer. "Through that door"

  "I know where it is. I had a meeting with Lieutenant Vobitch a couple of weeks ago."

  An extremely unpleasant meeting, but he saw no reason to mention this to some lowly cop. He opened a door with frosted glass on the upper half and marched down a dreary hall that stank of burnt coffee. A sign on one door said: HOMICIDE. Was Renzi in there? He'd love to go in there and bust his balls, but screw that. If you want information, start at the top.

  When he got to Vobitch's office, he paused, gathering his outrage. Then, without knocking, he opened the door and went in. Seated at his desk, Vobitch gazed at him, his eyes venomous. The prick didn't invite him to sit down, just said in a surly voice, "What are you doing in New Orleans, Hammer?"

  "Did you get her?"

  A muscle jumped in Vobitch's jaw. "Get who?"

  An ice pick of rage pierced his gut. He wanted to slam his fist into the Jew-bastard's face. With a supreme effort, he maintained control. "You've got a traffic control problem, Lieutenant. It took me forty-five minutes to drive two miles. Why is there crime scene tape on the gate to Parades-A-Plenty?"

  Vobitch stared at him for a moment, deadpan, then smiled. "Because a crime was committed there."

  Rage exploded inside him like a cluster bomb, destroying any shred of control. "Stop dicking me around, Lieutenant. Tell me what happened. Did you get her?"

  "Why don't you tell me who you're talking about? Then maybe we could have a civilized conversation."

  "April West, also known as Robin Adair, the bitch that murdered Oliver James. That's who. I know she stayed at Parades-A-Plenty last night, but when I went there just now, there was NOPD crime scene tape across the gate and the place was locked up. Did you get her?"

  "No." Vobitch gazed at him, expressionless.

  "You said it's a crime scene. What happened?"

  "The woman we believe to be the prime suspect in two recent murders, April West if you want to call her that, disabled the owner and escaped. We put out an APB, but . . ." Vobitch gave him an evil smile. "In case you haven't noticed, we got a major fucking hurricane headed our way and as you so kindly pointed out a moment ago, we got major traffic tie-ups, which means every cop on the force is directing traffic so people can get out of town."

  "So you lost her," he sneered. "Where's hot-shot Detective Renzi?"

  Vobitch didn't answer, his face impassive, but something flickered in his eyes. What was it? Anger? Fear? Grief? But why waste time on that? The bitch that killed Oliver was on the loose and he had to find her. "Did you post some officers at the bus and train stations?"

  "How did you know she was staying at Parades-A-Plenty?"

  "My assistant used some special software we've developed to find certain people." He'd almost said terrorists but he didn't want Vobitch to call the Agency and tell anyone he'd used face-recognition software to find a common criminal. "Our software has algorithms that can compare a photograph to several million faces in mere seconds. We used the photograph on Robin Adair's New Hampshire DL."

  "How'd you know she was using the April West ID?"

  "I'm not at liberty to talk about that. Certain aspects of our research must, of necessity, remain confidential. Did you get her car?"

  Vobitch nodded slowly. "Yup."

  "What else did you get? Anything?"

  The bastard smiled, his eyes wide with innocence. "I'm not at liberty to talk about that. This is an active criminal investigation."

  "Fuck you! You can't withhold important information! This woman is a cold-blooded killer. We need to share our Intel and find her!"

  "Well, at the moment I don't have any Intel to give you." Another evil smile. "Anything else I can do for you? We got a break room down the hall, might be some coffee left in the pot."

  He ground his teeth, molar against molar, felt excruciating pain in his jaw. A warning voice in his mind said: Get out of here before you do something you might regret. Ignoring the terrible pain in his jaw, he forced himself to say in a calm voice, "I'll be in touch, Lieutenant."

  He ran down the hall, pulling out his cell as he went. In the lobby the phones were still ringing and the desk officer looked even more harried. He went outside and stood under the portico that shielded the steps. Torrents of rain sluiced off the portico roof, spilling down the steps. Beyond the sidewalk rainwater flowed like a river in the gutter.

  He speed-dialed Jason's number. These NOPD idiots had no clue how to catch criminals, but he did. When he found the bitch that killed Oliver, she was going to die, and he'd take his time with it. Her death would be long and slow and painful.

  _____

  "Thank God you're okay, Frank. I was frantic when Kenyon called and said you'd been shot. But the doctor says you're going to be fine."

  Even though she had a worried look on her face, he was happy to see Kelly beside his bed. He tried to smile but couldn't. He felt woozy and nauseous. Any minute now he was going to throw up.

  "Don't try to talk," she said. "You just got out of surgery and I know what that's like. Kenyon's here, too."

  Miller joined her by the bed. "Man, I thought you were a goner."

  "What happened?" He remembered chasing Natalie into an alley. After that everything was fuzzy. He remembered hearing shots. Did he shoot her?

  "You called me on your cell," Miller said. "When I got there, you were bleeding like crazy, about to go into shock." />
  He flexed his left leg. That one worked okay, but his right leg felt weird. "Jesus, what did they do? I can't feel my right leg."

  "Gunshot wound through and through," Miller said. "That's why they took you into surgery, hadda clean out the crap so it wouldn't get infected. You won't be running a marathon anytime soon, but you're a tough sonofabitch, Frank. Couple weeks and you'll be fine."

  "What about Natalie? Did you get her?" Every time he tried to talk waves of nausea hit him.

  "Stop worrying," Kelly said. "We'll get her."

  "Doc said the slug didn't hit the bone," Miller said. "That's the good news. But the shock waves fucked up one of the nerves in your leg."

  "The peroneal nerve," Kelly said. "That's why you can't feel your leg. The doctor said that will go away in a few days. Could have been worse. Good thing Kenyon got there when he did. You lost a lot of blood."

  "Took one look," Miller said, "got you an ambulance."

  He tried to speak, couldn't, cleared his throat and whispered, "Thanks."

  Miller waved a hand. "Nothing to it. Relax and I'll tell you the rest, okay?"

  He nodded. That made him feel worse, nausea nibbling at his gut.

  "When you called me you kept mumbling about Natalie, so I figure she shot you, right?"

  He tried to remember. Drew a blank. "I guess."

  "Mrs. Reilly's here too. They're keeping her overnight to make sure her heart doesn't act up." Seeing his puzzled expression, Miller said, "The woman that runs Parades-A-Plenty?"

  Again he nodded. More nausea. Man, he wanted to go to sleep. But not until he found out what happened with Natalie, who had shot him apparently, though he didn't remember it.

  "I found a Ford Focus with a New York plate registered to April West," Miller said, "had it towed to the police garage. Nothing important inside, but we dusted it for prints, should be able to match 'em to the ones in Boston. But here's the best part. Mrs. Reilly gave me the keys to April West's room." Miller grinned. "Man, that woman's got the most god-awful voice I've ever heard."

  That he remembered. He'd only talked to her on the phone, but who could forget a voice like that?

  "Found a suitcase and a laptop in her room," Miller said, "Also found a New York Yankees T-shirt and a pair of jeans hanging in her closet. Strange."

  The outfit Natalie had on at Cafe Beignet. Why was she there, he wondered. She had to be watching the news, had to know he was primary on the Peterson and Conroy murders. Was she flirting with fate? Did she want to be caught? But his head was too fuzzy to figure it out.

  "Crime lab techs gonna be pissed at me for messing with a crime scene." Miller gave him a droll smile. "But as my partner, Renegade Renzi, says: sometimes you gotta break rules to catch the criminals."

  And stop Natalie before she kills someone else, Frank thought.

  "After they put Mrs. Reilly in an ambulance," Miller said, "I locked up Parades-A-Plenty, strung crime scene tape across gate and took the suitcase and the laptop to Vobitch."

  A nurse poked her head in the room and said, "Time's up folks. The patient needs to rest."

  He grabbed Miller's arm, "She killed Peterson and Conroy. She came back for a reason. I think she’s got another target. We need to figure out who."

  Miller glanced at Kelly, "Yeah, well, unfortunately we already know who. Desk clerk at one of the no-tell motels on Airline Drive found a dead man in one of his rooms this morning, one shot to the head.”

  He closed his eyes. Dammit to hell. Score another one for Natalie.

  “You got a name?”

  “Yeah. Chip Beaubien, the bigshot that runs the GoGo Bars. You believe it? Another VIP murder and we're in the middle of a hurricane evacuation."

  It hit him like a hand grenade. Chip Beaubien, the son of BoBo Beaubien, Jane Fontenot's prime suspect in the Jeanette Brixton murder in 1988.

  Then the room started whirling like it did after you drank too much booze, the whirlybirds before you puked.

  He pulled Miller closer and whispered, "Natalie killed him. We've got to catch her before she gets out of town."

  CHAPTER 36

  Wednesday, 20 August Memphis, Tennessee

  She woke with a start, momentarily unsure where she was. Then, feeling the body heat beside her, she remembered. She was in a motel room with Paul. Oddly, the warmth of his body made her feel safe. A nightmare had woken her: Chip's hate-filled eyes, the hole in his forehead leaking bright red blood, hideous images that left her sickened and sweaty.

  On the drive from New Orleans to Memphis yesterday she'd had no time to think. But last night, lying awake in the darkness, hearing Paul's even breathing, she had sunk into a dark pit of despair. She had achieved her goal, but in the process she had become a monster. She'd killed Tex Conroy and Oliver James, men whose only mistake was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She felt no remorse for killing Peterson or Chip. Chip's father had murdered her mother, and Peterson had helped him escape.

  But killing them didn't bring Mom back.

  She pictured Renzi outside Parades-A-Plenty, his eyes fixed on hers as she stood by her car. Panic-stricken, she almost shot him. But something stopped her. And later, hiding in the alley, knowing she would rather die than be captured, she had been sick with fear.

  If she hadn't shot him, would he have shot her? Unwilling to kill him, she had purposely aimed for his leg. But one thing was certain.

  If Renzi was alive, he was still hunting for her.

  She felt Paul stir beside her. To her surprise, he'd been an enjoyable companion during their traffic-snarled, eight-hour drive to Memphis. He loved listening to music when he was driving. He had five Rolling Stones CDs, three by The Who, one by Bon Jovi. When she said she loved Joan Jett, he'd laughed and reached over to stroke her hair.

  “Sit back and relax, Carla, this is gonna be a fun ride.”

  By the time he pulled the eighteen wheeler into a truck stop with a motel outside Memphis, she had made her decision. Paul had helped her escape from New Orleans. She owed him her life. Having sex with strange men was nothing new. Paul might be a truck driver, but he had more class than Arnold and BoBo and Chip, rich men with a sense of entitlement who used women as playthings and discarded them. Or killed them. Last night when they had sex Paul tried his best to please her. But her mind filled with revolting memories, worse than a horror movie: her abject terror when Chip aimed the gun at her, the disgust she'd felt as his eyes devoured her naked body. After a while, to Paul's delight, she had faked an orgasm.

  Now she heard him yawn. Felt his hand touch her thigh. When she traced a finger down his hairy chest, he grabbed her hand and kissed it.

  “Your boyfriend in St. Louis gonna be mad?”

  “Who says he has to know?”

  Gazing at her with sad eyes, Paul said, “You real close to him?”

  She could see where this was heading. No place good. Paul was having the time of his life. She was running for her life and she wasn't safe yet.

  She gave him a quick kiss. “We better get going. I promised to meet him in St. Louis today. I get the shower first, okay?”

  “Okay.” His sad eyes brightened. “Want company in the shower?”

  Resigned to it, she said, “Why not?”

  Once Paul got what he wanted, she would hurry him along so they could get on the road to St. Louis.

  Any kind of luck she'd be on a plane by sundown.

  _____

  12: 20 p.m.

  Frank watched Kelly pop the caps on three beer bottles, one for herself, the others for Miller and Vobitch. Seated at her kitchen table, they were noshing on chips and salsa. No beer for him. He was taking antibiotics and fucking pain meds that made his head woozy.

  Worse, he was confined to a wheelchair, the crucial word being confined. Three hours out of the hospital and he was ready to explode. The doctor wanted to keep him another day, but he'd refused and signed himself out. Kelly wouldn't let him stay at his second-floor condo in a wheelchair, so she'd ta
ken a personal day and drove him to her house. Vobitch and Miller were waiting, had plunked him in the chair and carried him inside.

  Normally he loved being with Kelly, but he needed some space, alone-time to think. Having Kelly wait on him was irritating too, but that wasn't the cause of his funk. Natalie had escaped, and he was sitting in a fucking wheelchair.

  Kelly distributed the beer bottles around the table. "Want something to drink, Frank? Ice tea? Ice coffee?"

  "Yeah. I'll have a big glass of Glenfiddich over ice."

  "The patient's getting feisty," Miller said. "Must be feeling better."

  "Feisty?" he said. "Fuck feisty. I'm pissed."

  "No more than me." Vobitch drank from his beer bottle and gestured at the slider to Kelly's deck. "Fucking Josephine."

  Driven sideways by the howling wind, rain pelted the glass. For the second time in two months a hurricane was pummeling New Orleans. And for the second time in two months, Natalie Brixton had killed a man and escaped. He still didn't know why she'd killed Arnold Peterson, but he knew why she'd killed Chip Beaubien. Her twisted version of revenge. Chips' father was BoBo Beaubien, Jane Fontenot’s prime suspect for the murder of Natalie's mother.

  Kelly set a tall glass of ice water in front of him, no Glenfiddich, and took the chair beside Kenyon Miller.

  "Did Gus Walker get anything from the laptop?" Frank said to Miller. Walker was their computer forensics tech.

  "Not yet," Miller said. "He had a helluva time breaking the password to open it. He found some emails from Gabe Rojas. He's still working on the hard drive, and he wants to check her Internet browsing history, too."

  "What about Rojas?" Vobitch said. "You think she might contact him?"

  He drank some ice water. "He's in Pecos. If she's driving, that's a helluva hike from New Orleans. But let's contact the Pecos police and have them put a watch on Rojas."

  "Good idea." Vobitch picked up the leather briefcase beside his chair and pulled out two journals, the kind you could buy most anywhere, marbled black-and-white fiberboard covers with lined paper inside. "Brought you a present, Frank. We found these in her suitcase."