by D P Lyle
“Jake, are you avoiding me?”
“I learned long ago that’s not possible.”
“Where are you?”
“In a swamp.”
“What?”
“I’m a bit busy right now.”
“Doing what?” Tammy asked.
“Something important.”
“What could be more important than my happiness?”
“Just about everything.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Look, I’ve got to go. But I’ll call you back. I promise.”
“We know about how good your promises are.”
“I’ll call you.”
“When?”
“Soon.” I disconnected the call.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
TWENTY MINUTES LATER everyone was deployed and ready. Pancake and I squatted among the trees, maybe a hundred feet from the front door but well hidden by drooping branches. Two SWAT guys, armed with assault rifles, flanked us but I could no longer see them through the thick brush and trees. Everything suddenly seemed eerily quiet. No breeze to rustle the trees, no birds, nothing. Just the dank odor of the swamp water. It was as if all the local fauna knew something was coming.
The floor plan Harbin had showed us was right on. The large front and rear picture windows allowed a clear view of the interior as well as letting plenty of light inside. We could even see through to the rear. I saw no one inside and no movement. Had they gone somewhere else? Tony’s limo was still in the drive, only a few steps from where I squatted. Had they left in another vehicle? If so, where? Were the twins already alligator food?
To my right, I saw Ray, Doucet, and Harbin creep toward the house, each with a weapon in hand. At about twenty feet from the deck, they spread out and knelt, weapons leveled before them.
My heart raced. I could feel my pulse in my neck, even in my eyeballs. I gripped the bat, my palms leaking sweat.
Pancake shifted his weight from one heel to the other, holding his Sig loosely in his hand. “Showtime.”
Harbin kicked off the proceedings, one hand cupped near his mouth. “This is Deputy Paul Harbin. Saint Tammany’s Sheriff’s Department. Come out right now.”
I saw movement inside. Tony had been sitting. Not visible from where we were. Now he stood and scurried toward a window that faced toward Harbin. He peeled back the curtain and peered out. He then turned, looking back into the room. Now I saw Johnny and Reuben stand, each pulling one of the twins upright. They herded the girls toward the back door.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Pancake didn’t hesitate. He lurched forward. I followed. One of the SWAT guys said something, but I couldn’t hear him well enough to know what. Probably something like, “What the hell are you doing?” We pressed on, staying low, running toward the front door. Tony and his two goons, each dragging one of the twins by the arm, stepped through the back door and onto the deck.
Through the open window to our right we heard Harbin shout, “Don’t move!” and Tony reply, “Or what?”
Pancake and I crouched near the window, peering through the screen, trying to take a read on the situation.
“Mr. Guidry, don’t do anything stupid here,” Harbin said. “There’s no need for this.”
“The hell there isn’t.”
“Take a breath,” Ray said. “Think for a minute.”
“They killed my Kristi!” Tony screamed, his voice cracking. He seemed borderline unhinged. Maybe not borderline.
The front door looked solid, oak most likely, with an intricate stained-glass inset. I tried the knob. Locked.
“They aren’t going to get away with it,” Tony said.
“If they did do it,” Harbin said, “they’ll pay for it. But not like this.”
Right,” Tony said. “I’m sure a couple of attractive rich bitches will have to pay for their sins.”
“They will, Tony,” Doucet said. “You know me. Know I’ll take care of business.”
“And you know me. One step and I’ll kill them both.”
Reuben stood to Tony’s left, his gun pressed against one twin’s head. Tony held the other, his gun near her shoulder, pointed upward. Johnny stood behind Tony. Relaxed, gun to his side.
“Tony, you can’t win this.” It was Ray. “You can only make things worse.”
“Things can’t be worse,” Tony said. “And if you think I won’t die right here, right now correcting this wrong, then you don’t know me.”
“Listen to me, Tony,” Doucet said. “There’s a half dozen SWAT guys with a bead on you and your guys. They have orders to take you down if you so much as flinch.”
“A flinch is all I need,” Tony said. “This one,” he said. “Tegan.” He tapped the barrel of his weapon against her temple. Tegan flinched. “She’s the one that killed Kristi. If I go down, so does she.”
There was brief silence. Brief. Then things happened quickly.
A pair of rifle cracks. Almost as one. Reuben’s head jerked sideways and he went down. Tara fell with him. Was she hit? Two more pops. Tony stiffened.
Then, Pancake went into full Pancake mode. His shoulder shattered the doorjamb. The door literally flew off its hinges, clattering across the floor, wood splintering, glass shattering. We raced inside.
Tony’s head swiveled our way, shock on his face. Johnny spun through the door, gun raised in our direction. He snapped off a round, and I literally felt the bullet zip past my head. Pancake didn’t flinch, but rather steadied himself and put three hollow-points in Johnny’s chest. Pop-pop-pop. Just like that.
Through the window, I saw Tony stagger to his left. He clutched Tegan by the arm and spun her from the deck. Tegan screamed, arms flapping, airborne until she struck the water. Hard. Two more shots. Tony grabbed his chest and spiraled to the deck. Pancake and I raced through the rear door.
Tegan flailed in the water. Gasping, coughing, trying to clear her lungs. She had obviously inhaled a healthy dose of swamp water. Then she managed to gain her footing, and steadied herself. The water was maybe five feet deep, up to her chin.
Then the game changed. From beneath the overhanging brush along one side of the pond, a flotilla of alligators appeared. Seven or eight at least. They immediately locked on Tegan and with sharp tail kicks torpedoed her way.
Then all hell broke loose.
Gunshots came from every direction. Peppering the water, slamming into the gators, killing most, damaging others. The injured ones began to roll and thrash, churning the water. Tegan froze, as if unable to move. The shooting suddenly stopped, the following silence a vacuum. As if all the air had been sucked away.
Reuben lay to my left, Tony to the right, both very dead. Tara struggled to her feet, unharmed but shaken. It was over.
Or so I thought.
Another gator appeared. From beneath the pier. It motored toward Tegan. She seemed to sense it and turned. Her scream pierced the air. I saw a couple of the SWAT guys scurry around the edge of the pond, weapons raised, looking for a clear shot. They had none. The gator closed fast.
I had no idea what I was thinking but likely I wasn’t. The idea that this could go very badly jumped in my head but only after I was airborne.
It seemed to take forever to reach the water. As if some undetectable breeze lifted me and held me suspended. I flashed on the jump from the back of Victor Borkov’s yacht. There the drop had been three stories, the water dark, cold, and chopped by a storm—and deep. Very deep. Here the water was shallow, brackish, and warm. A much easier jump. But here, a ten-foot gator waited.
What the hell was I doing?
I hit the water feetfirst, driving straight to the bottom. Nearly lost my balance in the slimy silt.
“Jake!” I heard Ray yell.
The gator looked bigger now. And committed. It never lost focus on Tegan. I waded into its path. It veered toward me. Uh-oh. Brown water waked over its snout, its eyes large, round, with prehistoric slits for pupils. It didn’t blink. Or waver from its mission
.
I raised the bat and slammed it into its head. Hard. A sharp thwack. The gator shuddered, jerked its head to one side. I struck it again, and again. Confused, or more likely stunned, it turned away, its tail rippling the water. To my left I saw one of the SWAT guys had gained the deck. He raised his rifle. Pop, pop. The gator’s head jerked. It shuddered briefly and then sank.
I stood there, swirls of alligator blood around my chest. I scanned for any of its buddies, bat raised, but the only two gators I saw were dead. The others had obviously sunk from sight. Or were they triangulating me? I turned to Tegan. She stood stone still, her face pale, and then she collapsed. I caught her, wrapping one arm across her chest. I shuffled toward the pier, lifted her up on the boards. I scrambled up beside her.
My heart felt like it might explode. I suddenly felt cold. So much so that I was shivering.
Nicole ran across the deck and down the dock, dropping to her knees, hugging me.
“Jake, you’re an idiot.”
“Hard to argue with that.”
“And I love you.”
The day just got better.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
WHILE HARBIN’S GUYS secured the scene, and the SWAT crew packed up, Tegan jumped in one shower, me another. Fully clothed. The warm water leached most of the swamp debris away. I stripped off my clothes, wringing them as best I could. I dried off and then wrapped a towel around my waist. Tegan had done the same, her towel like a dress. We waited while Nicole tossed our clothes into the drier for a few minutes. Not long enough to dry them completely but enough so that we could wear them back across the Pontchartrain.
I checked my phone. Dead. Swamp water and cell phones didn’t mix.
“You trashed that thing,” Nicole said.
“At least Tammy can’t call.”
She laughed. “There are silver linings everywhere.”
More deputies and the crime scene techs showed up as we were leaving.
Nicole grabbed shotgun again. I didn’t argue. She twisted in the seat to face me.
“That was brave,” she said.
“Stupid’s what it was,” Pancake added.
“Seemed like a good idea until I hit the water,” I said.
“You saved Tegan,” Nicole said.
I nodded. “So she can spend the rest of her life in jail. Maybe on death row.”
There it was. Tegan’s future. Tara’s, too, most likely. We rode in silence, the only sounds the hum of the tires and the hiss of the wind outside the windows. The lake was flat, gray, like a massive metal disk.
* * *
Back at the NOPD, while Tara and Tegan were booked, we each gave a statement, telling them everything we knew. Nicole called her uncle, waking him up, it being early in Paris, bringing him up to date. To say he was shocked didn’t quite cover it. Ray and Pancake headed back to the Monteleone while Nicole and I hung around. Doucet had arranged for us to talk with the twins once their processing was complete.
It was after eight when we were directed into an interrogation room. Tara and Tegan sat at a table, now dressed in jail garb. At least they weren’t cuffed or shackled. They looked pale and worn, resigned. Still beautiful, yet each seemed lifeless as if the magnitude of their situation had now come into focus.
We sat across from them, Doucet leaning against the wall. They had already told their story to Doucet, and according to him, had been very straightforward and honest, as best he could tell. They had declined to have an attorney present. I was sure Kornblatt would be thrilled at that.
Now they related their tale to us. It wasn’t easy, and came in fits and spurts. They held hands, continually looked at each other, and more than once sniffed and wiped away tears. They told of Tegan’s affair with Kirk Ford. How it had started at a party one night. At some producer’s home in Holmby Hills, near the Playboy Mansion. Both had been drinking. They had explored the house and had somehow ended up in an upstairs bedroom. Party going on downstairs. It was like a dream, as Tegan related it.
They continued the affair for a few weeks, but that’s it. Kirk said it would never work and moved on to a new adventure. This one an eighteen-year-old brunette who was starstruck and then some. Kirk’s favorite type. Tegan told of her pain and humiliation. Of her smoldering anger that she couldn’t shake. Couldn’t rationalize away. Regardless of how hard she tried to tamp it down, it visited her day and night, when she least expected it. Maybe on the set, doing a scene with Kirk. Maybe in the middle of the night, jerking her awake. It seemed relentless. And she seemed powerless to make it go away.
But the truly cruel part? Her pain and anger were laced with hope. Hope that Kirk would one day return to her. That all his roaming would end when he realized she was best for him.
That was before the appearance of Kristi. Tegan quickly realized that she wasn’t just another one of Kirk’s dalliances. That she was special and that Kirk was falling for her. Really falling.
Tegan then told of how she had hatched the plan, of convincing Tara to go along, of getting the drugs from “some dude,” who by her description was obviously Ragman. Of how they gave Kristi the loaded joint, clipped Kirk’s key card from his dresser drawer, and then the long wait. An hour, two. Seemed like forever. They then returned, after Kirk and Kristi were out.
Tara told us of Tegan’s second thoughts, and that they had even discussed killing Kirk and not Kristi, as they stood beside the bed and stared down at their drugged forms. But in the end, Tegan loved Kirk and couldn’t follow that path. They talked of how they almost decided to walk away and of how Tegan ultimately swept those doubts away and strangled Kristi. Of the fear and regret that had gripped them since that moment. Of how they managed to use “all their acting skills” to appear as if they supported Kirk, while hoping he would pay for his abuse of Tegan. Even as she loved him.
They cried, Nicole hugged them and cried, I cried. Even Doucet’s eyes glassed with moisture.
* * *
Doucet drove us back to the hotel. We met with Kirk in his suite. Ebersole was there. I let Nicole take this one. She wanted to, and she really was the one who should tell Kirk about all the dirty laundry he had dropped in his wake.
It was a gut-wrenching half hour. Filled with moans, and tears, even from Ebersole—maybe it was seeing his franchise go up in smoke—but I thought he looked truly hurt.
“I can’t believe this,” Kirk said. “I never suspected.”
“Tegan is an actress,” Nicole said.
Kirk nodded. “But this? I always thought of our fling as just that. I thought she did, too. I thought she realized, like I did, that it would never work. That it wasn’t good for either of us.”
Nicole laid a hand on his shoulder. “She fell hard. Very hard.”
“I never knew.” He looked at Nicole. “I should have. How could I have missed seeing it?”
“Guys are pretty good at missing clues,” Nicole said. “Particularly when the new shiny thing comes along.”
He looked up at her, eyes now welling with tears. “And that’s me, isn’t it? Always looking for that next thrill?”
Nicole shrugged. “Kirk, you’re not alone in that pursuit.” She glanced at me. “I think it’s a guy thing.”
Me? How did I get into the conversation?
Kirk sighed. “But this? How could it ever go this far?”
“It’s an old story,” she said. “Happens all the time. Unrequited love and all that.”
Kirk broke down, buried his face in his hands.
We left him curled in a ball on his bed, sobbing.
The life of an A-List actor.
filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
