Bayou Hero

by Marilyn Pappano

  “Yeah. I believed him. Besides, his alibi checked out. He was playing poker until nearly six.” She popped another cookie into her mouth.

  “Okay, so he’s off the suspect list.”

  Alia leaned forward and twisted his laptop around so she could see what he’d typed. She snorted. “When did we take Mary Ellen Davison off the suspect list?”

  “Come on, look at her.”

  “Look at what? Her big brown eyes brimming with tears? Her Cupid’s bow mouth? Her sweet, sad smile? The neon lights around her flashing damsel in distress?”

  “She’s the original steel magnolia. She’s not gonna stab someone thirty-some times.”

  Slumping back in her chair, Alia pretended to thump her forehead with her palm. “The steel part of steel magnolia refers to strength, doofus.”

  He wasn’t the least bit fazed by his mistake or her insult. “No matter what it means, Mary Ellen Davison didn’t kill her daddy or the old lady. She’d be more likely to love someone to death.”

  He was right about that, Alia conceded. Mary Ellen was delicate, the kind of feminine flower who used to make her feel too tall, too thin, too flat chested, too unfeminine. Ah, she remembered well the teenage days when she was first getting into boys, when so many of them were into girlie girls like Mary Ellen.

  What kind of woman was Landry into?

  The kind that didn’t wear a badge or credentials and carry a gun, she thought as she took her turn to study the ceiling. Probably someone as impressive as he was, with a great face, great body, though probably not as fragile as his sister. Like Jimmy, Landry probably didn’t favor a particular type—redhead, brunette, blonde; white, black, Latina, Asian; working girl or career woman. Pretty, hot-blooded, cooking skills a plus but not required.

  She washed down the last cookie with half a can of pop, then asked, “Aren’t you ready for lunch yet?”

  “Holy hell, sweet pea, it’s barely 12:15. Where do you put all those calories? If I ate like you do, I’d be too big to fit through the door.”

  “That’s because you’re lazy. I heard there’s a really good restaurant near here called Mama’s Table. You been there?”

  “I don’t like Vietnamese food, remember?”

  She smirked as she stood again, swinging the strap of her bag over one shoulder. “Oh, Jimmy, your ego would shrivel if you knew how much I’ve forgotten about you.” It wasn’t true, but he didn’t know it. She remembered the first time they’d gone to visit her parents, the first time they’d visited her mother’s parents. The way he’d carried on, a reasonable person would have been forgiven for thinking he was going to starve to death after his first taste of pho ga, a savory chicken and noodle soup, bo luc lac and mi xao don. He’d hated lemongrass and cilantro and nuoc mam, three of her favorite food items in the world.

  Landry apparently had a finer appreciation for her culture’s food.

  When they walked out of the building, she automatically turned right, and Jimmy followed her. She wouldn’t force him to eat something he didn’t like, so she headed for a little Cajun place they’d frequented in their years together.

  “How are your mom and dad?” he asked, holding the restaurant door for her.

  “They’re fine. Mom still hates you.”

  “Good to know.”

  “I talked to Dad last night. He knew Jackson.”

  Jimmy nodded absently, checking out the hostess who led them to a table. “Anything useful to add?”

  “Nothing we haven’t already heard.” She didn’t bother with the menu the petite blonde set in front of her but looked around for the waitperson instead. Quint, a thin, young redhead and the best waiter in five square blocks, signaled one minute with his finger when he saw her, delivered drinks to another table, then swooped over to their table.

  “Kingsley and DiBiase, my favorite cops.” His accent was pure Southern drawl, his blue eyes shifting from her to Jimmy. “Aw, don’t tell me you two are back together.”

  “Not in this lifetime,” she replied.

  His smile spread as he gave Jimmy an appreciative look. It made her ex’s cheeks turn as red as Quint’s hair.

  Alia ordered her usual—a shrimp cocktail, a basket of warm bread and jambalaya, along with sweet tea—and Jimmy ordered a shrimp po’boy and bottled water.

  “I talked to more people wearing khaki yesterday than I can count,” Jimmy said once Quint left to get their drinks. His reference was to the standard uniform worn by senior enlisted navy personnel and officers. She had interviewed plenty of sailors in her career; she’d been happy to let him have a run at them. “Nobody had anything interesting to say. He was a good officer, he was big on discipline and order, so on and so on. Funny thing, though—none of them knew the first thing about his family. Weren’t even sure he had one.”

  “My dad never met Jackson’s wife, knew he had a daughter, didn’t have a clue there was a son.”

  “You find out what caused the split between them?”

  “Nope.” She tore apart a piece of still-warm rye bread, breathing deeply of its aroma. “Miss Viola knew, but she didn’t tell me anything he didn’t want me to know.” After a pause to butter the bread, she added, “Landry said he wished he’d killed Jeremiah.”

  The comment made no more impact on Jimmy than it had on her. “That’s one of the problems with homicide. A lot of people who get murdered tend to do something to deserve it. We just have to find out what that was.”

  And why Miss Viola had to die, too.

  * * *

  Friday promised to be the hottest day so far this year. Given a choice, Landry wouldn’t leave this block. He would get a mess of shrimp from the restaurant across the street, pick up a newspaper and a tall glass of iced tea, settle into a chair in the courtyard near the fountain and let the lazy breezes and the sharp-edged rays of the sun lull him into a stupor.

  But he didn’t have a choice.

  Facing the mirror over the bureau, he tried one last time to knot the tie draped around his neck without any more success than the first three times. He swore, thought how Jeremiah would react to his inability to tie a simple knot and smiled tautly.

  The light gray suit was uncomfortable. He had no use for dressy clothes, so he’d bought it just for this occasion. The dress shirt had a crisp, freshly pressed smell to it, and the shoes, also new, made him wish for sandals. There was a reason he lived in jeans, cargo shorts and T-shirts or aloha shirts. They suited him, didn’t choke him and didn’t remind him in the least of the life he’d escaped.

  Yet in the end, the bastard had managed to drag him back into it.

  Leaving the tie dangling, he scooped up his keys and cell and left the apartment. The family—extended to include a few aunts, uncles and cousins—were meeting at Mary Ellen and Scott’s, where the family cars would pick them up for delivery to the church. With all the lying that would be going on, he hoped they made it through the service without God striking someone dead.

  By the time he reached the Davison house, his nerves were humming. He had to park halfway down the block and walk back, steeling himself for seeing relatives he hardly knew anymore. But there were trade-offs, and they leaped into his arms the minute Geneva let him in the door, getting his attention while he spared no more than a glance for the somber group in the drawing room.

  “Uncle Landry!” seven-year-old Mariela squealed.

  Immediately nine-year-old Faith shushed her. “We’re s’posed to be quiet!”

  Mariela scowled at her. “You’re not the boss.”

  “I am, too. The bigger kid is always the boss of the little one. Isn’t that right, Uncle Landry?”

  He settled a girl on each hip, their dresses—dark green for Mariela, dark red for Faith—vivid against his gray suit. “Sorry, sweetie. That’s not always the case.” Ducking his head, h
e whispered conspiratorially, “I’m bigger than your mom, and I can’t boss her around at all.”

  Mariela stuck her tongue out at Faith, who retaliated with a pinch. Though they looked like pint-size versions of their mother with brown hair, dark eyes and porcelain skin, they’d been known to indulge in more than a few brawls, like their uncle. The thought made him smile.

  “Can I wear your scarf?” Mariela pulled his tie free of his collar and wrapped it around her neck. “Do I look pretty?”

  “Gorgeous. But I’m afraid I’ve got to wear it. In fact, I need to find your mom so she can help me put it on.”

  With a roll of her eyes, Mariela wrapped it twice around his neck, tucked the loose ends into his collar, then cupped her little hands to his face. “Now you look gorgeous.”

  Faith gave a long-suffering sigh. “Mama’s in the kitchen.”

  He let them slide to the floor and strode down the hall to the last doorway before the sunroom. The caterers were at work, covering every surface in the large kitchen with trays, bowls and pans of food. They hurried about, avoiding collisions practically every time they turned around, intent on their work, paying no attention to Mary Ellen, seated at the small table out of the way, a glass of iced water in front of her.

  “Hey.” Landry nudged her as he pulled out a chair to join her. “You okay?”

  Though she gave him a smile, her face was as pale as the starched napkins stacked two feet high on the counter behind her. The sadness in her eyes wrenched at him, reminding him why he’d had no choice in coming today. “I’m okay. Lord, can you believe we have to do this again tomorrow for Miss Viola?”

  He nodded grimly. He’d got a call from Brett Fulsom yesterday.

  Her voice dropped to a quavery whisper. “I wonder where Mama is. I wonder if she knows....”

  Landry wondered if she knew, was she celebrating? Deeply relieved? Or was it possible she might/could/did miss the man they were well rid of?

  “Why would she disappear like that? She loved Daddy. He loved her. With his retirement coming up, they were going to have time for each other, to travel and just enjoy each other.” Mary Ellen’s breath caught in a hiccup. “Scott thinks she left him, but he’s wrong. Mama would never do that...would she?”

  This would be the perfect moment for some nearly forgotten family member to come into the room or for one of the catering people to drop a load of glassware. He looked around for a distraction, but no one wanted attention, not even his nieces, who had mastered the art of interruption before the end of the days they were born.

  Then Mary Ellen’s cell phone chirped, and he stood with a great rush of relief. He caught her attention, waved, and she wiggled her index finger, something she’d started when a pacifier had still been one of the most important things in her world.

  Back in the hallway, he listened to the voices from the front of the house, an even mix of men and women, from places all around the country but each of them sounding as if they’d been born and raised on the bayou. You could take the family out of the South, but it just reclaimed them the instant they set foot back on Louisiana soil. He didn’t dislike most of them. They were like any other family—some friendly, some not, some barely tolerable.

  He just didn’t want to interact with them.

  A left turn took him through the sunroom, then he headed outside. He didn’t stay in the back—too many windows offering full views—but circled the house and found a quiet place on the front veranda, on the opposite side from the room the Jacksons and Landrys occupied. The seldom-used steps creaked under his weight, but none of the suits gathered around the door seemed to notice him.

  Sliding out of his jacket, he hung it on the back of the nearest wrought iron chair. Before he’d managed to return to the railing to gaze off down the street, a dry voice spoke.

  “The porch furniture is cleaner than the tables and chairs inside my house.”

  Alia Kingsley stood six feet away. Her hair was neatly contained on the back of her head, leaving her neck bare to catch the occasional breeze, but that was the only concession she’d made to the heat. She wore pants and a jacket in a delicate shade of gray with a white shirt. Her shoes were gray, too, ugly, with a low heel. Even her jewelry was subdued: a sterling watch on her left wrist, a sterling disk with a white pearl on a chain around her neck.

  “Yours would be spotless, too, if you had staff.”

  She came a few steps closer, into the shade cast by a nearby tree. “We had staff a few times when I was growing up, thanks to my father’s job. My mother hated it. I wouldn’t mind a little part-time help myself.” She removed her sunglasses and dangled them by the earpieces. “We look like we shopped at the same store.”

  He gave her another once-over, not noticing the clothes so much as the way they fit her. The shirt clung to her breasts, lying snug against her midriff, and the pants hugged her flat belly. The fabric flared with the curve of her hips before falling in a long, straight expanse over muscled thighs and lean calves to partially cover the ugly shoes. “Nah. They didn’t have anything in my store that would do you justice.”

  But that was a lie. The shirt he was wearing would look damn good on her, especially if she had nothing else on. The stark white would enhance the olive shade of her skin, and with enough buttons left undone, the shirt would reveal the long line of her throat, the curve of her breasts, the hollow between them.

  He drew a breath to clear the thoughts from his mind. All he needed now was to imagine her with her hair down, tumbling loose around her shoulders, and he’d have to put his jacket back on. It was too damn hot for that.

  “What does your father do?”

  She blinked, apparently needing a moment to remember that she’d mentioned her father’s job. “He’s retired now.”

  “What did he do before he retired?”

  She did a cute little thing with her mouth, kind of pursing it, before looking away, then finally back. “He was in the navy. He was a rear admiral.”

  Landry couldn’t say why that surprised him, maybe because people tended to remark on things they shared in common with someone else. And there had to be restrictions on how many admirals the navy had at any given time. A person didn’t run into those admirals’ grown children every day.

  But he hadn’t run into Alia. She was trying to find out who killed Jeremiah, whether Landry was the guilty party. Hardly the situation to say, Hey, your father’s an admiral? Guess what? So is mine.

  “The same as Jeremiah?” he asked.

  “Not entirely. My father retired a rear admiral, lower half—a one-star admiral. Your father was upper half with two stars.”

  He smiled thinly. What were the odds that an admiral’s daughter would be considering another admiral’s son a possible murderer? “So you went through the whole navy brat experience.”

  She shrugged. “Like you, my father didn’t tolerate brattiness, but I did get to do all the moving around. The upside is I can adapt to anything. The downside is I don’t have that roots-heart-and-home attachment anywhere.”

  For years Landry had thought that kind of detachment sounded pretty damn appealing, but he never could have abandoned Mary Ellen completely or cut off contact with Miss Viola. He had to admit, he would miss New Orleans, too—the people, the music, the food, the life, the history, the strength, even the weather. And, yeah, that roots-heart-and-home thing.

  “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” Louis Armstrong had sung. Landry didn’t know personally because every time he’d gone away, he’d always come back a week or two later. More than that, he didn’t want to know. He didn’t have a whole lot in his life, thanks to Jeremiah.

  And he wasn’t about to give up anything he did have.

  She gestured to his throat. “Have I missed the new trend in neckwear?”

  He looked down, from his pers
pective, seeing only bits of the “scarf” Mariela had wrapped around him, and smiled. “Apparently, my seven-year-old niece is no more knowledgeable about tying ties than I am.”

  “May I?” After his nod, she caught the end of the tie, pulled it free and draped it around her own neck. “I only know how to do it when I’m wearing it. Mom has pretied Dad’s ties for him their whole marriage. I was her backup for emergencies when she was out of town.”

  He watched as her thin fingers pulled fabric here, slid it through there, tugged it back over here. The black-silver-and-red-striped pattern went with her clothes as well as his own, and there was something about a woman in a tie pulled loose, loose...

  “Here you go.” She tugged the tie over her head, stepped closer and lowered it over his head. It took her seconds to straighten, snug, slide, and then she stepped away again.

  But he still smelled her. No longer than the tie had been around her neck, no more than it had touched her bare skin, it had picked up traces of her perfume, rich and sexy and intimate.

  He hoped it stayed with him through the rest of the day.

  * * *

  By two thirty-seven that afternoon, Alia was officially pooped. First, it was about a hundred and ninety degrees outside, and the accompanying humidity hovered somewhere around “that’s impossible.” Second, even low heels that weren’t supposed to torture her feet did torture them after three hours constantly moving at the Davison home, the church and the cemetery. Third, dehydration had kicked in because she got minimal bathroom breaks, which prevented her from drinking anywhere near the amount of water she needed to stave off the heat and sweat.

  “Thank God it’s almost over.” Jimmy swiped a handkerchief across his forehead before returning it to his pocket. He’d just returned from checking in with everybody around the perimeter of the cemetery.

  Alia hadn’t counted how many NCIS agents and police officers were there. The admirals who’d traveled in from various commands, their white dress uniforms a splendid contrast to the many dark outfits, had brought their own security details with them. But those agents’ focus was on protecting their own flag officer, not assisting in the surveillance.