“Fine.”
He smiled. He was even more stubborn than me. But it wasn’t so bad having him looking out for me. I wasn’t used to having someone care so much.
~~~~
As it turned out, Andre was a fabulous cook. He was also the sheriff. Since he was off-duty, he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. That, combined with his wild red hair and stubbly beard, made him look like any ordinary guy in the parish. He was shorter and heavier than Jack, with broad shoulders and muscular arms. The better to catch the bad guys with, I thought. He wasn’t much older than me and had a sense of humor so dry that I couldn’t ever quite tell when he was joking.
“Almost done,” he said, tossing some sausage in a skillet.
“You didn’t have to do all this.”
“You’ve been working outside all day. Makes you hungry, non?”
His accent was even stronger than Jack’s. I felt like we had a ten-second delay, where I needed time to decode his words. He got a big kick out of that, I could tell.
Earlier, he’d stayed downstairs in the kitchen (front of the house, where he could see anyone entering the drive from the woods) and read the local paper, while I worked on finishing the spare room upstairs. I’d emptied the closet where Jack had found Vergie’s hat box of mementos and found little else I wanted to keep. My progress was slow, but I had to keep myself busy both to stay on track and to stop my mind from churning over Martine, my dad and Jack.
That afternoon, after standing guard in the kitchen, Andre had wandered around the yard, looking for any clues that might explain the weirdness that seemed to hover over us. When I’d started stripping the cracking paint off the porch rails, he’d grabbed a putty knife out of my toolbox and began working right alongside me. Every time he leaned way over, I caught a glimpse of the pistol tucked in a holster in the back of his jeans. Even without it, he looked like he could take just about anybody down in a fight.
Now he whistled quietly, stirring something in a tiny pot and taking a taste.
“Thanks for the help,” I said. “You didn’t have to paint, either.”
“What, you think I’m going to lie in the hammock all day and watch a lady work? Come now.” He winked in that way that must be reflex down here. He’d no doubt left his own trail of broken hearts. “Sit,” he said.
I wasn’t used to having men cook for me and look out for me, and frankly I was getting a little spoiled. Every once in a while, I’d forget he was there on guard duty—but then I’d catch him peeking out the window with a look on his face that showed, despite his friendly banter, he was on high alert.
Maybe he and Jack knew something I didn’t.
Andre put a plate in front of me and sat down with one for himself. “Hope you like it hot,” he said, deadpan as ever.
“You got any leads on the arsonist?” I asked. I’d spent all day fighting my curiosity.
“I probably shouldn’t discuss it,” he said. “But don’t you worry. We’ll catch him.”
“This is delicious,” I said, trying to muster all the charm I could. It seemed to get you a long way in these parts. “Might be the best I ever had.”
“Well I never get tired of hearing a lady say that,” he said. His smile suggested he might have spent some time on the other side of the law, back in the day.
“Come on. Can’t you tell me anything?”
He pushed the sausage around on his plate. “Don’t you think you’re in this deep enough?”
“I just wondered if you had any suspects, that’s all.”
He stared at me, his eyebrow raised, and I almost told him to forget I asked. This was probably the same face he made in the interrogation room.
“Unofficially,” he said, “we’ve got a few folks we’re keeping an eye on.”
His phone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket while I poured myself a glass of water.
“OK,” he said, turning away from me. “Where’s Theo?”
I strained to hear the voice on the other end of the line, but Andre stood and walked into the hall.
“Is anybody else around?” His voice was gruff. Sheriff mode.
Although I liked being cared for, I hated being baby-sat. I wasn’t this fragile little thing that couldn’t be let out of anyone’s sight for fear of getting broken, and I didn’t like men making me feel that way.
Andre came back in, sliding the phone into his pocket.
“Duty calls?” I said.
“There’s been an incident. But I can’t leave you here by yourself.”
“For heaven’s sake. I’ll be fine.”
“I swore I’d look out for you,” he said. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
“Then I guess you have to take me with you.”
“I can’t take you to a crime scene,” he said.
“Unless you can split yourself in two, you’re gonna have to.”
He grabbed one last sausage link and glared at me, his brown eyes narrowed. He tossed the fork in the sink and said, “You stay in the car.”
“Deal,” I said. It was certainly better than sitting all alone in the house, worrying about my deadline, my budget and the situation with my father.
He walked outside first, scanning the yard as I locked the front door. He led me to his cruiser and said, “I’m sure I’ll regret this, but it won’t be the first time a woman impaired my judgment.”
He opened the back car door for me, and I scoffed.
“Sorry,” he said. “Habit.”
He opened the front passenger door and stopped himself.
“How about we don’t tell Mayronne about this little field trip,” he said.
“Deal.”
~~~~
We pulled into a parking lot shrouded by trees. The ramshackle bar was for locals only—not a place outsiders would easily find. It looked like a shack with a porch. A hand-painted sign in the window read “liquor, cigarettes, bait,” illuminated by a couple of dim porch lights. I could barely make out the silhouettes of men standing around outside. A patrol car was already there, its lights still flashing. And an ambulance.
“Wait in the car,” Andre said. He tucked a bit of his shirt into his jeans, just enough so the badge clipped to his belt was visible.
“Yes, sir.”
I slouched down in the seat as he strode into the bar. A deputy was outside, talking to bystanders as he scribbled on a pad. I rolled the window down a couple of inches, straining to hear what they were saying, but I only caught bits and snatches—nothing that explained what was going on. The folks outside took turns lighting cigarettes and scuffing their toes in the dirt, clearly bored and hammered.
I sat up when two medics wheeled a gurney out with a body covered by a sheet. At first I thought I wasn’t seeing right, but when they pushed it closer, over to the ambulance, there was no doubt. This was a murder scene.
I was so focused on the sheet that I didn’t see Andre until he was a few feet away, ushering a roughed-up Remy right past me toward the other patrol car. Remy’s hair was tousled, his shirt ripped, his hands cuffed behind his back. He paused by the window, looking confused for a minute as it seemed to register that I was sitting in a police car. A familiar sneer spread across his face, and he gave me a salacious wink.
Andre shoved him onward, and I jumped out of the car, my pulse pounding in my ears.
“You son of a bitch!” I yelled, stomping across the parking lot.
Remy half-smiled, and I wanted to knock that smirk right off his face.
“You think you can terrorize us?” I said.
Andre spun around. “What do you think you’re doing? I told you to stay in the car.”
The other officer took Remy while Andre steered me back to the cruiser. “It’s him!” I said. “He tried to burn my house down.” I sidestepped Andre and moved toward Remy. I’d have given anything to be six inches taller so I could stare at him nose to nose. “I know it was you, and so help me, I swear—”
Andre grabbed my elbow and pulled.
I yanked my arm free and swung with my other, and my fist caught Remy right in the nose. It hurt like hell, and I thought I’d broken my hand for sure.
Remy chuckled, a thin trail of blood trickling from his nose. “Sheriff,” he said coolly, “are you going to stand there and let this woman assault me?”
I shook my hand by my side, cringing at the sight of Remy’s blood on it.
“I didn’t see any assault,” Andre said flatly, turning back to me. “But Miss Parker, I think you ought to go back and wait in the car while I talk with Broussard here.”
“He tried to kill me!” I said. “And Jack! You’ve been tearing this town up looking for the arsonist, and he’s standing right here!”
Remy stared at me, his eyes darkening. “I think they call that slander, Miss Parker.”
“And I suppose you don’t know anything about the slashed tires and people creeping around the house, either.”
“That’s real sad somebody tried to hurt your boyfriend,” Remy said, his voice still cool. “But he’s made enemies around here.”
“You bastard,” I said, stepping closer.
Andre grabbed my arm again and said, “Come here, Enza.” This time there was no getting out of his grip. He walked me over to the car and said only loud enough for me to hear, “Don’t make me lock you in the back.”
“You have to arrest him! You can’t just let him walk away. I know it’s him, Andre. I know it.”
His jaw was rigid. “Do I need to remind you, Miss Parker, that I am the sheriff? When I tell you to wait in the car, that’s not a suggestion.” His eyes were cold, not like they’d been the rest of the day, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He was all business now. I’d pushed him too far.
I climbed in the front seat and closed the door, still glaring at Remy. He puckered his lips in a mock kiss, and I felt the blood rush to my head again.
Andre wrote in a small notepad as they talked. Remy occasionally shrugged as if to say, Who, me? It made me want to jump out of the car again because I knew he was lying. But if I did, Andre would probably handcuff me and drive me to jail himself. So I sat, fuming, hoping Andre was smart enough to see through this act.
~~~~
When Andre got back in the car, I was ready for a tirade. At first, he remained motionless, watching the ambulance lights disappear down the gravel road, and then he turned to me.
“Now, just so I can continue to improve my communication skills with the public,” he said, “what part of ‘stay in the car and keep out of trouble’ was unclear?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I lost it.”
“You can’t go around taunting people like Broussard.” He sounded just like Jack.
I balled my fists by my sides. “But he’s behind all of this, and seeing him standing there—cocky as hell—I snapped.”
“That may very well be, but you can’t interfere with ongoing investigations. We have a much higher rate of success when the criminals don’t know we’re onto them. And it’s safe to say the element of surprise is lost when you call them out in front of the sheriff.”
I thought he was messing with me again, but I didn’t want to push my luck. My mouth had gotten me in enough trouble lately.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But he’s just arrogant enough to think he’s still getting away with it, right? Don’t guys like him keep doing what they’re doing, pushing everybody’s buttons until they get caught? I mean, he probably wants to get caught, right?”
“I think you’ve been watching too many cop shows, Miss Parker. How about you let me handle the bad guys like Broussard, since that’s what the great state of Louisiana pays me to do.”
I sighed as he started the car and pulled back onto the highway.
With the faintest smile, he said, eyes never leaving the road, “You’ve got a mean right hook, though, I’ll tell you that.”
When it seemed he’d thoroughly cooled off, I said, “What happened to that guy in the bar?”
He shot me a sideways glance. “It seems he took a knife to a gunfight.”
“Did Remy shoot him?” I shuddered, dreading the answer.
“If he did, no one’s saying so. Broussard gave us enough of a scuffle inside that I sent him down to the precinct to think about his error in judgment. Folks said a stranger came in, and then Broussard and the guy started arguing out back. Then they heard gunshots and went outside and found him.”
“You believe that?”
He shrugged. “I suppose there’s about a four percent chance it happened that way. That no one saw a thing.” He glanced in the rearview, probably out of habit, and said, “To read our reports, you’d think the parish was overrun with drifters with hot tempers and bad aim.”
~~~~
At the house, Andre was back to his jovial self—mostly. He sat down in the study with a beer and laid his gun on the coffee table. “I’ll stay down here for the night.”
“I’m turning in,” I said. “Got to get up early and get back to the repairs.”
He propped his feet up on the coffee table. “Go ahead, cher. You ain’t got nothing to worry about. You get yourself a good night’s rest.”
“Thanks, Andre.”
The chances of that were slim under the circumstances, but I nodded and went upstairs. I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open—but as soon as I closed them, I’d see Remy sneering at me like he wanted to swallow me whole. It wasn’t entirely bad, knowing that Andre was downstairs with a pistol. I just hoped he wasn’t a heavy sleeper.
In the dream, I was painting a dollhouse, gluing shingles to the roof. Vergie was passing me miniature paintings, telling me they were some my mother had made especially for the house. We stuck them to the tiny walls next to photos of my mother and me. I rearranged the furniture as Vergie hummed along with the record player. Then my father appeared with a sledgehammer and a hard hat, bashing the house to pieces. When I turned, there was another house, so I started painting it too. My father laughed, still wearing a crisp Oxford shirt and pleated pants, a thin layer of sawdust clinging to his skin. You know what your problem is, he said to me, raising the hammer over his head, All wind-up, but no follow-through. He swung the hammer like a five-iron and smashed the house to bits. I stood, pounding my fists against his chest. He laughed again, but when I looked up at him, it was Remy. A grin stretched across his face as the dollhouse splintered in front of me, tiny shingles and windowpanes scattering across the room. His laughter made the room shake.
Then there was a burst of orange flame, and my throat closed as the smoke filled my lungs. The dog howled, and I ran toward the door, but I slammed into a wall that crackled with flames. Big arms tightened around my shoulders, arms that must have been pulling me to safety. But then they shoved me against the wall so the fire burned my skin.
I snapped awake, gasping as I sat up in the bed. The sheets were damp. My hair stuck to my forehead. My heart raced. Outside, the barking was louder, right by the window. I froze, terrified that Remy was in the house, that he had muscled his way through with a jug of gasoline and a match, bent on doing it right this time. I strained my ears, listening for footsteps, for anything, then heard the door open downstairs.
The feeling drained from my legs as I stood. I grabbed a screwdriver that was lying on the dresser and crept into the hallway. The floorboards downstairs creaked. Holding my breath, I eased down the stairs.
At the bottom, the dog rushed past me, her fur brushing my bare legs. I screamed without meaning to, then felt a hand on my shoulder as the screwdriver clattered on the floor.
“Enza,” Andre said, “it’s OK. It’s me.”
He put his other hand on my arm, steadying me. “It’s OK,” he repeated. “I just let the dog in. She was having a fit out there, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
I shivered, leaning against th
e wall.
“Easy, darlin’,” he said, pulling me against his chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Tears stung my eyes.
“Shhh,” he said. He hesitated, then draped his arms around me. “Take it easy. You’re safe. I’m right here.”
He led me into the kitchen and sat me down at the table. I held my head in my hands as he sat next to me and poured some bourbon into a glass.
“Here,” he said, pushing it toward me. “My grandma used to give me a shot to help me sleep. Worked like a charm.”
My hand shook as I sipped.
“You all right?”
I nodded. “Just a nightmare. Then I heard a noise down here.”
“Sorry. That fool dog was barking her head off.” He gestured toward Bella who lay on her side as if this was a perfectly routine event.
“She does that.” I didn’t think there was enough alcohol in the whole state to get me back to sleep, but it was worth a try. At the very least, it might ease my nerves and stop my blood from pounding in my ears.
When I could feel my knees again, I stood and walked toward the stairs. “I’m going to try this one more time,” I said, and Andre stood with me.
“You got nothing to worry about.” His eyes were steady on mine. “Nobody’s gonna get through me.”
I nodded and headed upstairs. “Hey, Andre,” I said, and he stepped into the doorway. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, and watched from the bottom of the stairs until I closed the bedroom door.
Chapter 21
Sunlight streamed through the windows. Cinching my robe over my pajamas, I trudged down the stairs, concerned only with finding coffee.
Andre sat at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper.
He’d already made coffee. I pulled a mug from the cabinet and poured myself a cup.
“You get some sleep?” he asked.
Bayou My Love: A Novel Page 24
