Body of Evidence

by Stella Cameron

  She smiled. He was right, and she didn’t want to leave Poke Around. “I’ve packed clothes,” she told him, and got a stupid lump in her throat. Leaving was what she’d dreamed of doing, but it was like her to get maudlin at the end. “I haven’t taken anythin’ else.”

  “You can have whatever you want,” Orville said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “Emma, we have to separate, I know that, but we don’t have to rush into a divorce. Give it some time.”

  “I’ve given it time.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “I know you have, but I’m still askin’ you to take more time over this. You don’t know how much I need you. I’m such a fool, I couldn’t tell you till you were leavin’ me.” He wiped the back of a hand across his eyes.

  “At the shop I told you I wanted us to be friends,” Emma said. “It won’t happen overnight, but we could aim for that—if you want to.”

  “I want to,” he said, nodding his head up and down but keeping his eyes shut. “I suppose everyone’s gonna know. It isn’t my reputation I’m worried about. I just don’t want people tellin’ me how sorry they are for me.”

  Emma swallowed. “It’ll come out, but I’m not goin’ to run around shoutin’ about it. And I meant what I said about bein’ your hostess, at least through the nomination.”

  “For now it helps that Rusty’s lost it and the damn newspaper isn’t comin’ out,” Orville said. “I shouldn’t say that but I don’t need grief from that direction. Thank you, darlin’. We’ll be the best of friends, I truly believe that. But it’s gonna hurt like hell to lose you.”

  “Only for a while,” Emma said. He slumped like a broken man, and she hated to be responsible for that. “You’ll marry again.”

  He looked at her, and tears shone in his eyes. “You’re the only woman I ever wanted to marry. There won’t be anyone after you.”

  She straightened her back and thought of the woman with her head in his lap. “There will in time.” He might actually believe some of what he said, but it had taken real fear for his public image to help him find his conscience. She needed to remember that, to remind herself of it frequently.

  “Is it safe at your folks’ place?” he said. “When you’re in town, I want you to stay here. It’s your home, too. I promise I’ll never bother you.”

  Over my dead body. “That’s a nice thing to say. I’m very safe at—”

  “You have credit cards. Use them. You don’t need to go short of anythin’, you understand?”

  She had no intention of taking his charity. “We don’t need to talk about this anymore now. I should go.” Before he did a personality switch.

  “Emma, you will be here for the party, won’t you? It’s just a few days away.”

  “Of course.” She wanted to make sure Holly and Annie got the opportunity to showcase their skills and get more business.

  “There’ll be other parties,” Orville said. “They don’t have to be here, but I will rest easier if I know you’ll be at my side.”

  “I said I would.” But she already regretted it.

  “You buy whatever you need. A whole new wardrobe. You’d be beautiful in jeans, but I want you to knock ’em dead. Just lookin’ at you, I… Get whatever you want, honey.”

  “Thank you.” She had more than enough already, including gowns she’d never worn. “Orville, the divorce will go ahead. It has to.”

  He shook his head slowly. “It’s not havin’ children, isn’t it? And what I said to you. Emma, I should never have said that to you. I was angry, is all. We don’t know you can’t have more children. They said it shouldn’t be too soon after, that’s all. You’ve had time to mend now.”

  Ten years. She didn’t trust herself to respond.

  “I know,” Orville said. “I shouldn’t bring it up now, because it hurts you too much.”

  Emma stood up.

  “Thank you for all you’re doin’, Emma,” Orville said, getting hurriedly to his feet. “You won’t regret it, but I’m not goin’ to stop tryin’ to change your mind.”

  “I’ll be talkin’ to you in the next couple of days,” she said.

  He followed her to the gate and let her out. When she sat behind the wheel of the Lexus, he said, “My dad will feel so bad about this.”

  “He doesn’t know anymore,” Emma said, but gently. “He might if he was himself.”

  Orville sighed. “Before you leave, could I ask you one question?”

  She feared what it would be. “All right.”

  “Do you still have a private investigator followin’ me?”

  “No.” She wouldn’t tell him she never had.

  “Did you have him give you the negatives of the photos?”

  In his position, she would want to know, too, but he was making it easy to get in her car and drive away. “The photos are in a safe place. Goodbye, Orville.” He couldn’t be any more worried about those photos than she was, she thought. She still had to wonder who had taken the photos of him with his lover—and why?

  22

  “Most people think it’s a good idea to leave me alone in the mornin’ until I’ve had my first pot of coffee,” Billy said, eyeing Finn with something close to disbelief. “Particularly on a Monday mornin’. Who let you into my office?”

  “I did,” Finn said. “I figured you had a long, busy day ahead, and I know I do, so why not start early? How’s the Steen investigation comin’?”

  “You asked me that yesterday, and I told you.” Someone had already brewed Billy’s coffee, and he poured the gurgling black liquid into a huge mug with a skull and crossbones on one side. “Coffee?”

  “I’ll pass,” Finn said. “I expect you checked all the veterinary folks in the area. And the docs and pharmacies. Who all has drugs like that, anyway?”

  “When I need you to suggest the obvious, I’ll let you know. If someone wants to get their hands on drugs for purposes of euthanasia, they’re gonna do it.”

  “Sick,” Finn said. “You still got Rusty?”

  Billy swallowed coffee, kept his eyes trained inside the mug. “He lawyered up. Out on bail.”

  “You know he didn’t kill Denise.”

  “Do I?”

  Billy in a truculent mood was no fun at all. He crossed the office, his face a little pasty in the yellow overhead lights. Finn could smell aftershave. Billy’s dark uniform had its creases in all the right places, and the caps of his shoes shone bright.

  “He’s only out because of the mixed DNA. Damn nuisance.”

  “So it would make you happier if all you’d found was Rusty’s, and you could make him the murderer and wrap up your case?”

  Billy smacked his mug down on his metal desk, and coffee spattered a nearby stack of papers. He ignored the mess. “I don’t make murderers, Finn. Any more than your daddy did. I didn’t realize Rusty Barnes was such a buddy of yours. He had sex with her.”

  “Accordin’ to the lab, so did someone else. He was in love with her. They were lovers.”

  Billy narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that? He didn’t even want to talk about it to save himself.”

  “Denise wasn’t ready to have it all over town,” Finn said.

  “Denise is dead.”

  “Some of us don’t stop lovin’ after someone dies.” Which was his segue into other things. “I’d like to take a look at my dad’s records.”

  Billy looked at him sharply and frowned, turning his bristling brows into one straight line. “Why would you want to do that after all this time?”

  “A year isn’t long. I wasn’t in a position to get here when it happened, and when I did come a few months back, it would have upset my mother for me to go pokin’ around into Dad’s death. She was upset enough.” And hadn’t made it past a few more weeks alive.

  “Are you tryin’ to tell me somethin’?” Billy flopped into his chair and put his feet on the desk. He jerked forward to tap his computer mouse and peered at the screen when it came to life. He swore and turned back to F
inn.

  Finn shook his head and hoped he looked innocent. “Wouldn’t you want to take a look if you were in my position?”

  Billy thought about that. “Maybe.”

  “I’d like to see the records.”

  “So you just said. Okay, why not? Sorry I don’t have time to go through them with you. Just got a warrant to search Rusty Barnes’s place and the paper. If they’d moved on it, we could have been in and out yesterday while the guy was out of the way.”

  Poor Rusty. Finn wondered what his dad would have done in Billy’s position. The same things, he supposed, only Tom Duhon wouldn’t have been wishing he could just pin a crime on the easiest possibility. “Records still in the same place?” he asked.

  Billy nodded. “Someone back there will give you any help you need.” He got up and left without a backward glance, but Finn heard him yelling in the reception area. Billy wasn’t himself this morning.

  The records room covered a sizable area. When Finn got there, he was relieved to see that except for the addition of more computers in the center of the space, everything looked pretty much as it had the last time he’d been there.

  “Just talked to Billy,” he told a woman working at an open cupboard packed inside with stationery supplies.

  She looked at him and said, “Hey, Finn. Look at you, boy. You just get better.”

  “Hey, Mrs. Valenti, it’s been too long. You’re lookin’ pretty good yourself.”

  He should have known better than to use flattery on this one. “For sixty-five goin’ on ninety-five, you mean?” she said. “Uh-huh. Don’t butter me, boy. Spit it out. What d’you need?”

  “My dad’s records?” he said, and couldn’t keep on smiling. “Billy said it’s okay if I take a look.”

  She sighed and turned away from the cupboard. “Back this way.” File cabinets stood in rows, and she threaded her way through, then waited for him to catch up. When he joined her, she said, “I miss Tom. He was the best ever.”

  “You won’t get any argument from me.”

  She bowed a head of curly white hair and crossed her arms. “Mmm,” she said finally. “It’s none of my business, but why make it all fresh again? You can’t bring him back.”

  “I’m havin’ trouble with it still,” he told her. “I need to put it to bed.”

  Mrs. Valenti nodded. “I didn’t expect to change your mind.” She pulled out a cabinet drawer. “You’ll find everything in there.” She checked the letters on the front of the file drawer and said, “Yep. In there. Call me if you need me.”

  He stood alone, looking at tightly packed files. Nothing he did now would bring his father back. Reading the details of the death would only stir up more feelings of rage and disbelief.

  Finn knew he would look anyway.

  The damn files were so crammed in, he could hardly move them, and he couldn’t find one for Tom Duhon. He started at the front again and went through one by one.

  Thomas Duhon.

  He’d missed it because it was thinner than the ones on either side. Flipping through the contents, he walked to one of the computer tables and sat down, pushing the keyboard aside.

  Half an hour later, he looked up and turned his head toward the cupboard where Mrs. Valenti had returned to her stationery.

  Finn closed the folder and returned it to its place in the drawer. When he turned to leave, Billy stood in the doorway to the records room, his eyes like black holes. He turned on his heel and walked in the direction of his office. Finn caught up before he could close the door.

  “Leave it,” Billy said, his back to Finn, who closed the door and stood just inside. “Sometimes it’s better to let the truth go to the grave. Tom was a fine man who made one mistake. He was human. Forgive him.”

  “He didn’t die at the scene,” Finn said. “Nobody told me that.”

  “You were a long way away. The details didn’t matter afterwards.”

  “They matter to me. What happened to the uniform he wore that night? And his badge.”

  Billy turned on him. “How the fuck should I know what happened to his uniform after all this time? Or his badge? I went with him to the hospital in Lafayette. All that stuff was taken off him and bagged. It would have gone into evidence.”

  “Where are the rest of his records? There’s nothin’ there but the notes from the hospital and the autopsy report.”

  Billy didn’t recover quickly enough to hide either his shock or what Finn decided was the relief that followed.

  “Everything’s there,” Billy said, and his voice broke. “You didn’t look closely enough.”

  “I’ll take you back and show you,” Finn told him. “I need to anyway. You can’t brush this under the rug any longer. I want the truth. All the crime scene notes are missin’.”

  “Don’t you accuse me of mishandling a case,” Billy snapped. “Go home. Get some sleep and settle down. I’ll have you over to the house for one of Blanche’s home-cooked dinners. Your folks would have liked that idea. We’ll go through everythin’ until you’re satisfied. Okay?”

  “Not okay,” Finn said. He took a step toward Billy, who held his ground. “You’re hiding somethin’. Why wouldn’t you tell me he died in surgery? You don’t have to answer that. We both know that if my father decided to do the job, he’d have done it right. He’d have stuck the barrel in his mouth and blown away his brain stem. No risk of livin’ as a vegetable for Tom Duhon. The bullet went in through the top of his skull, and with a half inch of luck it would have missed his brain.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My father was murdered.”

  23

  She was going to play again.

  For an audience.

  On Wednesday evening.

  Emma drove toward the center of town, trying to decide if she was totally thrilled or scared out of her mind. Holly and Annie had brought lunch to Poke Around and persuaded her to play at Ona’s Out Back, for a benefit, on Wednesday. She hadn’t touched a piano in months.

  Mondays could be slow, but business had been good today. She and Sandy had kept the shop open an extra hour. As the customers dwindled, the timing had been good for Emma to explain what would probably happen with the shop after her divorce. Sandy reacted as expected, with a hug and a promise to fall in with whatever came along for Emma and Poke Around.

  Emma had decided this was the night to settle in at her folks’ place. Staying with Holly had been good for both of them, but the camping-out phase was over.

  Rain fell again, hitting the windshield in splatters so big the wipers had trouble clearing them.

  She should have refused the request to play.

  But it was for a good cause, to raise funds to renovate and restock the children’s library. How could she have said no?

  Holly and Annie had ulterior motives—they’d admitted as much. They would serve hors d’oeuvres and drinks to anyone who came and hope to pick up interest in their catering service. And new people would find out about Ona’s Out Back.

  They also thought Emma should make herself available to play for more of their events.

  No one would come, she told herself.

  Emma leaned forward to see better. Her palms slipped on the wheel, and she held on more tightly. She was nervous about playing the piano among friends. Shop lights had been switched on along Main Street, and neon signs appeared to run together with the water on the windshield. If the rain didn’t calm down, she would have to pull over.

  On her right, a cyclist without rain gear rode with his head down. Water sluiced off his bare elbows, and flew from the handlebars and wheels of his bike. She slowed as she passed to see who it was and came to a stop yards in front of him.

  She rolled down the passenger window and shouted, “Aaron!” as he toiled past. “Aaron!”

  He wobbled and slammed his feet down on the gravel beside the road. Bending over, he looked at her and smiled. “Mrs. Lachance? Hi. You have a problem?” His black curls stuck to his head, and his ey
elashes spiked together. The white polo shirt and dark jeans he wore were completely soaked.

  “You’re the one with a problem,” Emma said. “Here, the back’s open and the seats are already down. Put your bike in and I’ll drive you home.”

  “I’ll be fine, but thanks.”

  “Bike in the back,” she said, grinning at him.

  “I’m goin’ all the way to Finn’s place, not home.”

  She only missed half a heartbeat. “And I’m goin’ to my folks’ house, so I go right by. Hop in.”

  He didn’t waste more time but lifted his bicycle easily beneath the hatch at the back of the Lexus and got in beside Emma. When he’d slammed the door, he said, “I’m gonna make this car a mess.”

  “Put on your seat belt,” she told him. “If you insist, you can clean this jalopy for me one day.”

  “Deal,” he said, holding out a palm.

  Emma slapped it and said, “Deal,” before checking her side mirror and pulling back onto the road.

  “This isn’t going to be a fast trip,” Emma said. “It’s hard to see.”

  “Stormfront goin’ through,” Aaron said. “I like it.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Me, too.”

  “I’m goin’ to straighten out the attic for Finn,” Aaron told her.

  Emma nodded. “How long d’you think he’ll stay at the house?” She shouldn’t use the boy to get answers to questions that plagued her.

  “He likes it here,” Aaron said. “He’s looking for property.”

  “To build a different house?”

  “Nope. He’s staying where he is. I think he wants something commercial, but I don’t know what. He thinks Pointe Judah could have more housin’ if there was more business, and everyone would do better. Sounds good to me—until I can go away to school, anyway. Finn’s smart at business stuff—that’s what my mom says a lot. I told him I want to come back from school and work for him, but he thinks I’ll change my mind. I won’t.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do whatever you set out to do.” All she really heard or cared about was that Finn wanted to stay in Pointe Judah.

  “I don’t think he wants to clean out the attic himself because of Grandma and Gramps’s stuff bein’ up there. Old stuff. Papers, photos and such. My mom wants the photos, but she’ll probably never look at ’em.”