He stepped off the elevator and its doors banged shut behind him.
“I’m already late for an appointment,” she said.
“You’ll be a little later then. This morning I spent over an hour describing my movements for the last four days to a particularly unpleasant member of the police department. From the questions he asked, it was pretty obvious his visit had something to do with you. What’s going on? I saw you pumping my secretary the other day. What did you tell him?”
“That someone tried to kill me.”
“And you think… Hey, lady. If it’d been me, you wouldn’t be here now.” When he realized what a stupid thing he’d said, his face reddened. “… I didn’t mean that. What I meant was, why pick me?”
“Maybe because you lied to me.”
His face relaxed a bit. “Okay, I lied. But you shouldn’t have taken it personally. Ever since the Health Department had me cough up twenty thousand for an emission-control system for our chimney, I lie to everybody that comes snooping around. Those questions you were asking just sounded like another kind of trouble—one that was going to end up costing us money. Sure, I lied, but I didn’t try to hurt you. Believe me, I didn’t. To prove it, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, right now if you like.”
“Maybe later. As I said, I’m on my way somewhere and I need to get going.”
He pushed the down button. “You just call me whenever you’re ready.”
Weston’s frontal attack had her confused. It didn’t seem like the action of a guilty man, but that might have been exactly why he did it. She certainly wasn’t going to get on the elevator with him. So when it arrived, she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, snapped her fingers, and said, “Nuts, I’ve forgotten something. I’ll catch it later.” She strode purposefully to her office, where she waited until he had gone before heading for the stairs.
*
As Kit left the hospital parking lot and turned south, Broussard was just entering the city from the north. Because of a drawbridge that wouldn’t go down after letting a Chriscraft full of sunburned men with big bellies pass, she was still ten miles from the old church when Broussard rolled into his office and found Phil Gatlin waiting.
CHAPTER 17
Prickling with excitement, Phillip sat across from Broussard’s desk and told him how quickly things had developed since they had last spoken. Abruptly, Broussard reached for the phone.
“What’s up?” Phillip said.
For a reply, he got Broussard’s fat fingers waving him to silence. Not finding Kit in her office, Broussard tried her home and got only the answering machine. His secretary brought in some letters to sign. “Do you have any idea where Dr. Franklyn is?” he asked.
The woman looked over his head and sorted through her day. “She was here about ten o’clock, so anxious to talk to you that we nearly tried to reach you in Hammond,” she said. “That’s the last time I saw her.” She turned to go, then pivoted on one heel. “Just remembered. I transferred a call to her about thirty minutes ago, so you didn’t miss her by much.” Her face clouded over. “She usually keeps me pretty well posted on her whereabouts. Maybe, she’s at lunch.” Looking at her watch, she added, “Kind of late, though, for that, wouldn’t you think?”
A chill started at the nape of Broussard’s neck and ran down his spine. On impulse, he dialed Vogel’s lab in the Justice Center. Each unanswered ring was a highlighter drawn through his fears. He banged the phone down.
Gatlin saw the worry in his eyes. “Who’d you call?”
“Vogel. He’s not around, either.”
“I don’t like that.”
Broussard lugged out the phone book and flipped to the blue pages where state offices were listed. A few seconds later, at the other end of the line, a pleasant female voice said, “David Andropoulas? One moment, please.”
The half-dozen bars of canned harp music that followed seemed in poor taste considering the possibilities. He didn’t wait for David to say anything but started talking as soon as he heard him pick up. “David, this is Andy Broussard. Do you know where we could find Kit?”
“I thought she was with you.”
The chill came back. “What made you think so?”
“She was going to help me pick out some new carpeting for my condo, but a half hour ago, she called and said she couldn’t make it. Said she had to meet you somewhere.”
“She say where?”
There was a pause and Broussard winced in anticipation of a useless answer. “Highway… Eight,” David said. “… near the old church, I think. What’s the…”
The receiver bounced off the cradle and fell onto the desk, but Broussard was in too big a hurry to worry about it. “Come on, Phillip. I know where she is.”
They didn’t wait for the elevator but took the stairs instead, Broussard in the lead. “Vogel has lured her to a deserted spot near the old church on Highway Eight,” he said, his flushed cheeks bouncing in time with his belly.
“We’ll take my car and radio the state police,” Gatlin said. “They may already have men in the area.”
Phillip left a dollar’s worth of taxpayer rubber on the street in front of the hospital and made a U-turn in front of an old man whose glasses flew off and fell in his lap when he hit the brakes to avoid being hit. Producing a red light from under the seat, Phillip set it turning and put it up on the dash, next to his plastic statue of Saint Christopher. Broussard greatly admired the way Phillip maneuvered the car in and out of traffic with one hand while working the shortwave with the other, but that didn’t stop him from hooking up his seat belt.
*
The drawbridge that had delayed Kit for so long had finally come down. Now, ten miles beyond the bridge, the road was flanked on the left by a swamp twelve miles long and four miles wide. Looking at the gaunt cypress trees that stood as sentinels in its shallow water, Kit found it a place of ominous beauty, something nice to look at from a distance but nothing she wanted to see any closer. Over the tops of the willows on the opposite side of the road, a church steeple appeared, and Kit turned her attention from the swamp to the search for an unpaved road. The church was a red-brick building with all its windows shattered and too little of the gold lettering left on the portico for her to identify the denomination. She passed it and went on for nearly two miles before pulling to a stop. Where was that road?
Slowly, she returned the way she had come, this time alert for a break in the tall grass and cattails on the swamp side. Two hundred yards beyond the church, she found one and turned in, going only far enough to get fully off the road. Ahead of her, little more than a path barely wide enough for a car twisted and turned away into the grass, which obscured any view of what lay ahead. On each side of the path, she could see patches of duckweed and black water showing through the grass. Once committed, it would be impossible to turn around.
She rolled her window down to listen for voices that would tell her this was the place. Hot air rich with pungent odors of decaying vegetation rolled thickly into the car. She listened and heard the snapping sounds of grasshoppers springing from one grass stalk to another. Something unseen buzzed close to her ear. She heard the liquid warble of a bird and off in the distance, a muffled splash. But no voices. She was hoping for the crackle of a car radio, a shout, or maybe snatches of conversation. Then, she could proceed without concern. But there were only animal sounds: grasshoppers and birds, buzzing insects and an occasional fish cracking an open patch of water with his tail.
It was the absence of frog noises more than anything that was making her uneasy. She thought about climbing up on the car to try and see over the grass but decided against it after picturing what that might do to the roof. Figuring that even a wrong decision was better than no decision, she traded the brake for the gas and proceeded slowly into the swamp.
The path was so full of turns, she could see ahead for only a few feet at a time. Then it straightened and she saw that it went up into a stand of cypress a city block awa
y. Well before she got that far, she came upon a wide ditch full of black water and duckweed. Damn! This wasn’t the right place after all. Now she would have to back out, and she was terrible at it.
She put the car in reverse and gave it a little gas. As she did, there was a sharp crack and the car slumped to one side. Even without looking, she knew a tire was gone. Not recognizing the sound she’d heard as a gunshot, she got out to deal with the problem. The tire was as flat as she feared and she swore and kicked it. Having never used it, she began to wonder how the jack worked. It was only a skipped heartbeat from there to wondering whether there even was a jack.
Perched on a knot of roots behind a big cypress off to her left, Vogel had her shapely neck in his sights. His heart was still thumping from the effort of poling his old pirogue through the grassy swamp. Sweat matted his hair and ran in erratic paths down his cheeks and onto his neck. It dripped off his nose and was inhaled as his chest heaved against his wet shirt in a fight for the heavy swamp air that seemed devoid of oxygen. Anyone else would have also had to contend with the vicious mosquitoes that protected the glory holes in the area from the local fishermen, but for some reason, he was not to their liking. He drew his index finger slowly toward his face and tried to relax.
The bullet shattered the Nissan’s left-rear window and for a moment, Kit stood rooted in confusion. Then she dropped to her belly and crawled to the other side of the car. Now it was clear to her: the bogus phone call, the freshly dug ditch. And she was pretty sure who was behind it. “Vogel, don’t do this,” she called out.
Hearing his name ring openly through the swamp, Vogel felt like a snake whose rock had been turned over. He licked his lips and looked nervously about him.
“Vogel. Can you hear me?”
His name again. But what did it matter? There was no one to hear her and she was trapped. If he just followed through, this would end as he’d planned.
Kit searched for her next words, wondering how to reason with someone trying to kill you when you don’t even know why. She looked back the way she’d come in. Sure, when you need the path to twist and turn, it was open and straight. And she now realized that the land grass in the area had been trampled flat. He could drop her before she got ten steps. She glanced behind her, thinking she might escape into the swamp grass, but saw the head of a turtle or a snake staring at her from the water. A turtle she could deal with, but not a snake.
Vogel realized that if he didn’t move in, she could just stay put and they’d be here forever. He stepped into the water.
On Vogel’s side of the swamp, the water between his cypress and the path was relatively free of grass. So, she could see him coming. “Why are you doing this? If you’re going to kill me, surely I have the right to know why,” she shouted over the hood of her car.
“The only rights anyone has are the ones he can force people to grant him,” Vogel shouted back.
“It has to do with the fabric we brought you, doesn’t it?”
“It might.”
“Having worked in forensics, you must realize you’ll be caught.”
“That’s exactly why I won’t be caught. It takes a body to prove murder and yours is going into a bottomless muckhole a short way from here. So what if your car is found with a few bullets in it? Rifling marks can be matched to a gun only if they find the gun and this one is going into the muck along with you.”
She had no real hopes of talking him into throwing his rifle down, but she was simply buying time until she could think of a way out. And it was working… at least for now. Since she had called his name, he hadn’t moved. Behind her, the dark water swirled as something came near the surface and returned to the bottom.
She’d waited too long to reply and there was splashing from Vogel’s direction. Over the Nissan’s hood she saw him fighting his way through the thigh-deep water and she prayed for a hole that would suck him under. But instead of falling away, the bottom rose up and the water went to his calves. She was certainly not going to just wait for him. Compared to the odds at Vogel’s hands, the swamp was a far better risk.
With her first steps, the mud and rotting matter on the bottom covered her deck shoes and oozed into them. Ripples spreading across the stagnant water announced her arrival and a cloud of gnats came to pay their respects.
On the edge, the water was only as deep as her knees, but a step more and it went to her thighs and then played around the V where her legs joined. There was a dense stand of wire grass a few yards away. If she could get to it, she would at least have a chance. Surely, it wouldn’t be but a few seconds more before he was upon her.
She fanned the air with both hands to clear the gnats from her eyes. The warm water now became as much of a nemesis as the man stalking her. It held her legs in a leaden grip, holding her back. It was a nightmare as the water rose to her waist.
“Dr. Franklyn!”
Vogel’s voice so close at hand caused her stomach to roll. She snatched a look over her shoulder and saw him on the bank, his cheek resting against the stock of an ugly rifle. The malevolent black mouth of the barrel seemed enormous.
“This is going to happen,” he said. “But it’s for you to decide how. Stand quietly and it’ll be over quickly. Move, and it could be much more unpleasant for both of us.”
She froze, not because of his words but because she simply found herself unable to act. She closed her eyes to wait for the end.
“If it’s any consolation, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Vogel said.
Kit was only half-aware of what he was saying. She was wondering how it felt to be shot. Would she just black out or would there be pain first? Did your brain know you were dead before you fell? Would her body ever be found? The thought of an eternity that would go on without her seemed unbelievable. There were things left undone, people she needed to see again. This couldn’t be happening.
There was a sharp crack of gunfire and she felt as though the muck had suddenly fallen away from beneath her. The contents of her stomach rose hot and foul into her mouth.
CHAPTER 18
Either they allowed shouting in heaven, or Kit was not dead. She opened her eyes and saw Vogel racing down the road on the other side of the ditch. There was another shot and he lurched to the left. The rifle slipped from his fingers, but he kept running. As Phil Gatlin sprinted past her, Vogel leapt into a hundred acres of tall swamp grass. Kit jumped in surprise as strong fingers closed on her shoulders.
“You all right?” Broussard asked, holding her at arm’s length and looking her over.
She shook her head and together they sloshed back to shore. Phillip returned, his pants soaked halfway to his knees. He held Vogel’s rifle cradled in his arms.
“Sonofabitch just disappeared,” he said. “But there’s blood on the grass, so he’s hurt.”
A blue state police car pulled in behind Phillip’s Pontiac, and the driver, a lean fellow with one temple temple of his sunglasses stuck down the neck of his sharply creased shirt, got out and walked toward them. Phillip met him halfway, badge in hand. “Gatlin, New Orleans PD,” he said, pocketing his ID. “I’ve got a killer hiding down there in the weeds and I could use some help flushing him out.”
“Just how do you plan to do that?”
“I figured we could spread out and sweep the area where he went in.”
“Sweep the area, as in get in the swamp and sweep the area?”
“Can’t be done from the road,” Phillip said, his temper beginning to rise.
“We got no snake boots with us and there’s no way we’re goin’ in there without boots.”
Before Phillip could respond, his radio crackled, “Unit Thirty-eight, please respond. Unit Thirty-eight.”
He went over to his car and put Vogel’s gun in the trunk. Dropping into the front seat, he thumbed his mike. “Unit Thirty-eight, go ahead.”
“Your wife asked us to relay the following message; Shelby is home. Do you copy?”
For a
moment, the words he’d been longing to hear didn’t sink in. He sat without moving. “Do you copy, Unit Thirty-eight?”
He put the mike slowly to his lips. “I copy, Thirty-eight out.” He hung the mike under the dash, moving as in a dream. But then the words took hold. Shelby was home! His baby was safe! The desire to see his daughter dwarfed all other concerns and the parent side of him saw why it was reasonable to leave.
Those knuckleheads from the state police were going to be no help, and they had a point. It was foolish to go crashing around in a swamp without the proper gear. He looked at his watch and blindly convinced himself that by the time he could get a properly outfitted crew in to comb the area, it would be too dark to search properly. Then too, with each minute that passed, Vogel was probably working his way deeper and deeper into the swamp. There was nothing to be accomplished by staying here. At the same time, the detective in him could not ignore one possibility.
He walked over to where the lean patrolman had gotten back into the air conditioning. At his approach, the driver lowered the car window a few inches. No sense letting all that heat in just to conduct a little police business, Phillip thought, fixing the number on the side of the car firmly in mind in case these guys refused or screwed up the favor he was about to ask.
“Boys, I need your help… and you won’t even have to get wet.” He dropped his voice so that should Vogel still be within earshot, he wouldn’t hear. “This guy we’re after must have a car somewhere in the area. It’s a white Cutlass with Louisiana plates, 1BC388L.” He rattled off Vogel’s plate number after having seen it only the one time in the Justice Center parking lot. It was one of the talents that had helped him earn his nickname.
“He may head for his car and somebody should stake it out just in case. I’ve got urgent business in town and can’t do it myself. Will you fellas cruise the area and if you find the car, keep an eye on it for awhile? He’s a big fish and the collar would be something nice for your jackets.”
Cajun Nights Page 19
