Bayou Hero

by Marilyn Pappano

  “I did the search at Gaudette’s house and didn’t find anything incriminating, though we haven’t even made a dint in his financials. We’ve got teams on everyone else’s houses and offices. Oh, yeah, Wallace’s youngest daughter showed up at Murphy’s desk this morning, too drunk to walk straight. She confirmed what Landry told you. I guess she had to take the edge off—and get out from under her sister’s evil eye—to be able to talk about it.”

  Alia felt a bit of relief that someone was standing by Landry’s story, along with a whole lot of sadness. How many lives had the bastards ruined? Landry would be okay—was okay. But what about Mary Ellen? This girl? All the others? Would they ever recover enough to live normal lives themselves? And the one who’d suicided right out of high school—she never even had the chance to try.

  “Did she have any idea where they were getting their current victims?”

  “Murphy asked her that, she got hysterical and he didn’t get anything else out of her. Had to have an officer take her home.”

  “I broached the subject with Landry, and it freaked him out. He’d just assumed it started and ended with their own kids. He didn’t have a clue that they were probably still doing it.” She heaved a sigh. “The only thing he could say was that his nieces were safe because of their ages.”

  Jimmy was quiet a moment, other voices in the background. She would bet he was still at work, paperwork covering his desk, file cabinets and the wall behind him, looking for some little detail that had eluded him. She understood the compulsion. She’d love to get a grip on that little detail, too.

  “Speaking of Mary Ellen...”

  They hadn’t been, but she’d mentioned the nieces, so that was close enough.

  “I take it he didn’t tell you that she tried to kill herself at that fancy school.”

  Alia’s eyes opened wide. She pictured the only Mary Ellen she’d seen: sorrowful, naive, gentle, adoring her family. And yet, at thirteen, she’d hated her life so fiercely that she’d wanted to die. Hadn’t just thought so, but had acted on it.

  “No. He said she hated being away from home, but nothing about that.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know. That family was damn good at keeping secrets. It was about three months after she got there. She washed down a handful of pills with a bottle of gin, but her roommate found her. She did the next few months of classes under the care of the resident psychiatrist.”

  Camilla’s drink of choice, Alia thought. Like mother, like daughter. “A resident psychiatrist...jeez, they say being rich comes with its own problems, but at least they can afford to deal with them.”

  “When they want to. Look at our guys. All richer than sin, all crazy sick perverts, and they didn’t use a dime of their fortunes to cure themselves. Just to cover up their crimes. Funny thing about the suicide attempt—” of course there was no humor in his tone “—she denied she did it. Not just lied about it, but swore she hadn’t taken the pills or drunk the booze. Swore it on her life, and no one could change her story.”

  Jimmy took another quick break from the conversation to talk to someone else, and Alia considered his last words. Shame for Mary Ellen that she’d given in to the weakness? Humiliation? Or did she really not remember her actions?

  When he came back, he said, “You know, my gut says there’s not going to be any physical evidence, unless maybe one of these guys liked to take pictures so he could relive it later. We didn’t find anything incriminating in a search of Jackson’s or Wallace’s homes or offices or anywhere else as of now.”

  That meant the sexual abuse, if the prosecutor even chose to file charges, would come down to the victims’ word against the suspects’. So far, the only victims who’d come forward were Landry and a woman who needed generous amounts of alcohol to let herself remember.

  Alia wanted with everything in her for the men to be publicly vilified, humiliated, convicted and sent to prison. She would prefer death—yes, as Landry had pointed out, she was a tad bloodthirsty—but she would settle for prison.

  Then she sighed. She would settle for public acknowledgment of the men’s crimes, thereby making it more difficult for them to find victims. Hell, if it was the best offer, she would settle for signs in the media, on buses and streetlamps and their vehicles with giant photographs.

  “Have fun doing nothing while you wait for your boyfriend to get off work,” Jimmy said. “While I wade back into this sick psycho stuff again. If he remembers anything else, call me. I’ll be here late.”

  “I will.” She hung up and, even though there’d been no call-waiting beeps, checked the screen to make sure she hadn’t missed Landry’s return call. She hadn’t. He was at work now. Maybe the noise in the bar was too loud for him to hear the ring when she’d called earlier. She called up his number, hit redial and listened to it go to voice mail again.

  After flipping through two hundred channels on the television and another round with Landry’s voice mail, she pulled out the thick binder of take-out menus that kept her alive, then after a moment’s hesitation, put it back. Instead she laced on shoes, tossed her entire purse, her pistol and Taser into a backpack and headed out the door.

  She was doing what she did about three nights a week—on the nights she didn’t pick up dinner on the way home: going out to pick up something. No big deal. And if she happened to drive past the club on Bourbon and say hello to Landry, no big deal, either. After all, he’d told her to call him, right? And what man wouldn’t appreciate her offer to deliver dinner to him at work?

  So she made a beeline to Bourbon Street and found Landry’s parking space empty. Frowning, she pulled in, then went inside the bar. The music was particularly loud this evening, as was the collection of women on vacation scattered through the room. There were probably twenty of them, a miniconvention of some sort, and they were the too-loud, too-self-involved kind of people that Alia and her friends moved away from in public places.

  She sidestepped the three trying to start a conga line and went to the bar, stopping directly in front of the same bartender who’d been there the evening before. “Hey, is Landry here?”

  The young man, hair pulled into a ponytail, gave her a disinterested look. “Nope. Said he had family business to take care. Was supposed to be back half an hour ago but hasn’t showed.”

  Sliding onto a stool, she asked, “Did he ask for time off before his shift started?”

  “Nope. Got a call, told the boss he needed an hour and left.” The man frowned. “I know the guy’s got the worst damn luck in the world, but he was off most of last week, tomorrow, the next day for his mom’s funeral...I’d like to see my wife once in a while, you know?”

  “Yeah, I can bet.” She tried to sound sympathetic. “He didn’t tell you anything else? Who called, where he was going, what the problem was?”

  “He didn’t tell me nothing. Maxine—she’s the boss over there—he talked to her.”

  Alia swiveled the stool to look at the solid woman sitting in the corner, a laptop open in front of her, a bottle of icy water beside it. Neither was doing much to ease the scowl she kept directing at the group of rowdy women. As Alia passed them, she gave them her best imitation of her mother’s settle-down look before stopping beside the table. “Maxine?”

  Pure pissiness looked up through thick red glass frames. “Who you?”

  Alia didn’t bother pulling her badge from her backpack. “My name’s Alia. I’m a friend of Landry’s.”

  “He not here.”

  “So I see. The guy at the bar said he asked for an hour off for family business. Do you know what that was about?”

  “Why I tell you?”

  It seemed each person she talked to in the bar spoke in successively shorter fragments. Would Maxine send her to the bouncer, who would grunt indistinguishably to her questions? Alia breathed. “I’m a friend of his. More than a fri
end. And I know all about the police investigation. I was supposed to call him tonight, and he’s not answering.”

  “Family business. He not answering.”

  “I know. I just want to make sure he’s okay.” Impatience sneaked into Alia’s voice and earned her a less-than-impressed look from Maxine.

  “You wanna talk, you find him. You cop, ain’t you?”

  Alia fixed a smile on her face. “Find him. Of course, why didn’t I think of that? Nice chatting with you.” Spinning on her heel, she stalked back toward the door, getting caught up in the conga line that was now seven, eight, nine, ten women long. The tenth one grabbed at her arm to add her to the dance, but Alia raised one hand threateningly. “You touch me, you’re gonna be limping out of here.”

  “Sheesh,” the woman whined, then added in a loud drunken whisper. “Bitch.”

  Clearing a path, Alia exited the nearest set of doors and tried Landry’s number again. “Sorry to keep calling. I’m worried about you, Landry. If you could just let me know you’re okay...”

  Gripping the phone, she paced the sidewalk. The second time she passed the gate into the courtyard, she acknowledged that she could vault it with little effort. She could kick in his apartment door, she knew. But she wouldn’t find him there. He wouldn’t be home when his car was gone. He wouldn’t handle a family problem at his apartment because who was left in the family to deal with? Mary Ellen, and he always went to her. She would stand out like a sore thumb on Bourbon, especially after dark.

  Maybe something had come up at the funeral home. Maybe there was a problem with one of the kids. Maybe Mary Ellen was back in the hospital or someone else had died or—or something.

  The only way to get any answers was to follow Maxine’s advice and go find Landry. If she eliminated all the places he wasn’t, then what was left was where he was.

  Yeah. Sure. That was going to be easy.

  The DeVille funeral home was on Alia’s way to the Garden District. She swung into the parking lot, half-filled with cars for another poor soul’s visitation. Neither Landry’s car nor either of the Davison vehicles was among them. Just to be sure, her next call was to the funeral home to get the deceased’s name. No one she’d ever heard of.

  From there she drove past Miss Viola’s house, looking sadly empty in the middle of its lush lawn. She turned right and found herself a moment later in front of Mary Ellen’s house. A few lights were lit against the early darkness—in the parlor, long fingers of light reaching out from the sunroom at the back. The driveway, like at the Fulsom house, was empty.

  Alia parked, trotted up the steps and rang the bell, hoping the housekeeper or a babysitter was inside. After ringing it again, she peered through the windows. Everything looked fine, except for the absence of occupants.

  She started pacing again as she dialed her phone once more. Jimmy answered, his words garbled by food in his mouth. “Hey, Jimmy, I’ve been trying to reach Landry. He left work a while ago to take care of a family problem and is late getting back. He’s not answering his phone. No one’s home at his sister’s house. Maybe I’m being clingy—” Jimmy snorted “—but you know what we forgot? He knew what the men were doing, and he didn’t do enough to stop it. He looked out for himself and Mary Ellen, but he didn’t try to protect any of the others. He could be on the killer’s list, too.”

  “Hang on a minute.”

  A shudder went through her as she walked from one end of the porch to the other. A doll sat, forgotten, in the chair there, an expensive thing, prissy-looking with perfect ringlet curls and turn-of-the-century clothing. Her name was probably Charlotte or Annabelle, and she probably looked on with her sky-blue eyes and perfect little open mouth while her owner played with her real toys.

  Who was her owner? Faith or Mariela? It was hard to guess. Alia had never played with dolls herself, but she would put her money on Mariela. Surely the older Faith had discovered there were far better ways to entertain herself.

  Turning her back on the doll, Alia walked the length of the porch. Something was poking at her brain, and it wasn’t just worry about Landry. That elusive little detail she’d thought about earlier, that one little clue that would make everything come together...or might turn out to be nothing, a coincidence, just a pointless bit of information.

  “Okay.” Jimmy had been gone so long, his voice in her ear startled her. “I called Mary Ellen’s phone and got voice mail. Called her husband, and he’s in Baton Rouge with the kids. He’ll be back in a couple hours. Said she told him she didn’t have any plans tonight. She intended to pick out clothes for tomorrow night’s visitation and would be waiting up for him when he gets home.”

  “So maybe she ran out of milk. Maybe she went shopping for a new outfit.”

  Would either have required Landry to take off work to accompany her? Alia could see him agreeing; after all, Mary Ellen was the last of his family. But she couldn’t imagine Mary Ellen asking. In the most trying week of her life, she’d made so few requests of him.

  Alia slowed to a stop when chairs blocked her way and found herself facing the doll again. Whichever niece owned it must have intended to take it to their grandparents’ house, then forgotten it. With her free hand, Alia picked it up, and a soft-cover book that had been leaning against it flopped onto the seat. Propping the doll in the crook of her arm, she picked up the book with the perfect curls and sky-blue eyes on the cover and opened it. On the left page was written in painstaking lettering: “This book belongs to Faith Davison.” On the right, the story began:

  My name is Marie Clarice, and I’m ten years old.

  Alia sank into the chair. I’m ten years old.

  Mary Ellen was ten when the abuse began.

  Her voice hollow, her hold on the doll so tight Marie Clarice would have protested if she could, Alia asked, “You have your notes there, Jimmy?”

  “Yeah. I told you I’d be working late.”

  “How old is Faith Davison?”

  “Hang on a minute... Uh, she’s nine. Gonna be ten in...two weeks.” His voice turned sharp. “Didn’t Landry say they started molesting the girls when they turned ten?”

  “We were wondering why now. After all these years, why punish Jeremiah and the others now. Because Faith was about to turn ten. Because he had a brand-new victim to torment. She couldn’t stand the idea of her daughter going through what she did. She had to stop it.”

  “She— You mean Mary Ellen? You think she’s the killer?” He sounded both incredulous and thoughtful. “I can see that. Her mother didn’t protect her. That’s why she killed her first. Then her dad, then the old lady. Once the immediate family was dead, then she could take care of the others.”

  “But why not—” Alia had to gulp in air to finish the question. “Why not kill Landry when she killed their parents? Why go on to the friends, then come back to him?”

  “Because she truly loves him. Maybe she thought she could spare him. Maybe she didn’t blame him because he was just a kid, too. Then he went and told their secret to you. The police were involved, it was going to become public, she would become a suspect.”

  People would know what she had done. Probably more important to Mary Ellen, Alia thought, they would know what had been done to her. Did she think if she killed Landry, the problem would go away? The police would forget his claims? The ugliness would sink back into the past and stay there?

  Dear God, she couldn’t kill Landry. He was her brother. She loved him. Alia loved him, and he’d done nothing wrong. What safety Mary Ellen had found as a teenager had been thanks to him!

  And Miss Viola. And if they were right—which Alia’s gut said they were—Mary Ellen had killed Miss Viola.

  “Where would she take him?” Jimmy asked.

  Too many people around his apartment. Too much mess to use her own home. Too damn big a city to narrow down the cho
ices. Then, suddenly, the answer was there. “Where it all started.”

  Jimmy swore as the sound of a scraping chair came over the line. “I’ll meet you at the admiral’s house. Don’t you go inside without me, Alia. You understand? You wait until—”

  She ended the call. Still clutching the doll and book, she started toward the steps. By the time she reached them, she was running.

  * * *

  Landry had always given himself credit for being a good judge of character. Between his adolescence and years working behind the bar, he’d thought he had a pretty good handle on people. He’d thought the one person he knew best in the entire world was his sister.

  He’d been so damn wrong.

  He shifted, the thick layers of duct tape keeping him from moving more than an inch or two in any direction. His shoulders ached from being pulled back so sharply, and his head hurt from the contact with a small marble statue that had stood next to his mother’s jewelry case for as long as he could remember. Blood trickled down the back of his neck, a tickle that would have been annoying under any other circumstances.

  Under the threat of death, it didn’t seem so important.

  “Mary Ellen.”

  “Shut up.” She didn’t look up from the chest where she was rummaging through the drawers one-handed, grasping a long, nasty-looking knife in the other.

  He’d met her at the Saint Charles Avenue house a few hours ago by his best guess. She’d been pale and shaky as she’d unlocked the mudroom door, so fidgety he’d needed to steady the key in her hand. Once inside, though, her nerves had calmed. She hadn’t trembled at all as they’d climbed the stairs to the second floor, not even when she’d led the way into their parents’ room. She had glanced at the stripped-down bed where Jeremiah had died without any reaction at all, and the dried blood splattering across the wall hadn’t fazed her.

  He hadn’t expected it to faze him, but it did.