Alligator Moon

by Joanna Wayne

  “Yeah, but when the going gets tough, I hit the front lines. Is anything wrong?”

  “No, I just wanted to get Mom’s itinerary from you.”

  “She’s not due home for almost two weeks.”

  “I know, but I need to talk to her.”

  “Big news?”

  “I think I might join her and her friend for the last week or so of their trip.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  “Any chance you can fax her itinerary to me tonight or just attach it to an e-mail if you have it on the computer?”

  “I don’t think I have it anywhere. I don’t remember even seeing it.”

  “You must have. Mom wouldn’t leave the country for six weeks and not tell you how to reach her.”

  “I was in London when she left. I assumed she’d given it to you.”

  “No.”

  “Sorry, baby. All I know is what she told me. She and Patsy…Patsy somebody. Anyway their plans were to spend a few days in Athens then leisurely tour the islands.”

  “Patsy David,” Cassie said, filling in the last name for him.

  “That’s it. She’s an old high school buddy of your mother’s. Evidently they hooked up when Rhonda went back for her fortieth reunion.”

  “Patsy must be quite persuasive to talk Mom into a six-week vacation abroad.”

  “It’ll be good for her, especially with me working so much. Why don’t you give Moore’s Travel a call? It’s right here in The Woodlands. One of your mother’s friends from church works there, and Rhonda always lets her book our nonbusiness flights. I’m sure they’ll have a copy.”

  “What’s the church friend’s name?”

  “I’m not sure. But they’ll have the info in their computer system, so anyone can help you. Have them fax an itinerary to my office when they fax one to you.”

  They talked a few minutes more, about nothing in particular. When they hung up, Cassie picked up the postcard and stared at the picture of a small Greek village and the brilliant blue sea beyond. Beautiful beaches. Ancient ruins. Picturesque windmills. Snowy white monasteries. Living, breathing Greek gods.

  Goodbye, Drake. Hello, Greece.

  JOHN ROBICHEAUX stepped through the open door of Suzette’s and scanned the area looking for his brother Dennis. It didn’t take long to locate him. He was seated at a back table, his hands already wrapped around a cold beer.

  John maneuvered through a maze of mismatched tables and chairs, nearly tripping over a couple of young boys who were playing with their plastic hot rods on the grease-stained floor. The air was stifling and filled with the smells of fried seafood, cayenne pepper and stale cigarette smoke—enough to choke a man. Worse, the jukebox was cranking out a 70s rock song at a decibel level just below that of a freight train.

  A typical Saturday evening at Suzette’s. Later the families would leave and the drinkers and partiers would take full charge, not staggering back to their homes until the wee hours of Sunday morning. John planned to be long gone by then.

  He dropped into the rickety wooden chair across the table from his brother. A young waitress he’d never seen before appeared at his elbow.

  “You want a beer?”

  “I’ll take a Bud.”

  “Draft?”

  “In the bottle if you’ve got a real cold one.”

  “Icy cold.”

  “Bring me another while you’re at it,” Dennis said. “And keep ’em coming.”

  “You looking to have a good time tonight?” she asked, staring at Dennis through long, dark lashes so thick they had no use for mascara.

  “I might be,” Dennis said, giving her a once-over. “You looking to be invited to the party?”

  She blushed, but smiled. “I’m just here to bring the beer.”

  He and Dennis both watched her walk away, her white shorts hugging her firm little ass above great thighs.

  “How would you like to have those legs wrapped around you tonight?” Dennis asked.

  “Not enough to do jail time.”

  “Those breasts look like they’ve been growing at least eighteen years to me. Besides, a sweet thing like that might inspire you to clean up a bit—at least use a razor once in a while. You’re starting to look like a mangy dog.”

  John rubbed his chin and the spiky growth of half a week. “Hope you had a better reason for this visit than insulting me.”

  “We’re brothers. We should see each other once in a while.”

  “I’m easy to find.”

  “When you’re not out in the Gulf. How’s the fishing business?”

  “It’ll do. I’ve got a group of guys down from New York for a week starting Monday. Long as Delilah don’t come calling, we’ll be fine.”

  “Supposed to be a bad year for hurricanes.”

  “Don’t take but one to be bad if she hits you dead-on.”

  “Yeah.”

  The waitress returned with the beers. Dennis took a long, slow pull on his. “You ever miss your old life?”

  “Mais non.” John drank his beer slowly, letting the cold liquid trickle down his throat. He wasn’t about to rehash the past or his mistakes. Old horror stories should not be washed up by cold beer.

  “You could be rich by now,” Dennis said. “Driving a Porsche, picking up high-class babes.”

  “High-class babes don’t screw any better than poor ones, sometimes not as well. Besides, one successful Robicheaux is more than Beau Pierre ever expected to see.”

  Dennis cracked his knuckles, a nervous habit he’d picked up from their grandfather. “I’m thinking of leaving Beau Pierre.”

  The statement was the night’s first surprise and the first clue as to what had really prompted Dennis’s call. “I thought you and Guilliot were close as two crabs in a pot.”

  “Guilliot’s all right. I just think it’s time I move on. Beau Pierre’s starting to feel more and more like one of Puh-paw’s old muskrat traps.”

  “You didn’t knock up some local jolie fille, huh?”

  “Nothing like that.” He stretched his legs under the scarred old table. “It’s just time I move on. That’s all.”

  “You didn’t feel that way last time we talked.”

  “Things change.”

  “They changed real fast. This doesn’t have anything to do with losing a patient on the operating table, does it?”

  Dennis choked on the beer he’d just swallowed, coughed a few times into his sleeve, then slammed his almost empty bottle onto the table. “You talking about Ginny Lynn Flanders?”

  “Who else?”

  “That wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t nobody’s fault. She just had a bad heart condition that had never been diagnosed. Guilliot’s gonna win that lawsuit easy.”

  “I just asked.”

  “Well, I just answered.”

  Not honestly, John figured, judging from Dennis’s reaction. But he sure as hell wasn’t in a position to tell anyone how to live his life. “When will you be making the move?”

  “Soon, but keep it quiet. I haven’t told Dr. Guilliot yet, and I want him to hear it from me first.”

  “Good idea. Have you told anyone else?”

  “Nobody I can’t trust. You ought to think about a change, too, John. You can’t live in that old trapper’s shack and avoid life forever.”

  “I’m not avoiding.” He chased the lie with a swig of beer. “Where are you planning to go?”

  “I’m thinking about Los Angeles. I got a buddy out there I went to medical school with. He says the field’s wide open. Lots of job opportunities and enough sun-bronzed hotties to make me forget my Cajun bellos.”

  “Might not be as good as it sounds. The rules are different once you leave the bayou country. No buddies watching your back when the gators come after you.”

  “I don’t think they have a lot of gators in Los Angeles.”

  “Oh, they got ’em all right. Only the gators out there wear high-priced suits and designer shoes from Italy.”

&nb
sp; “Maybe I won’t go that far.”

  But he was going. John could tell the decision had been made. He’d liked to have asked more questions, but that wasn’t the type of relationship they had. He didn’t answer questions so he forfeited the right to ask them. Still, he hated to see Dennis leave town, especially if he was being driven out.

  And that was a possibility he wouldn’t put past Norman Guilliot. “It’s your call, Dennis. Just make sure you’re the one doing the calling.”

  The waitress stopped by their table again. “You want another beer?”

  John looked at her again, letting his gaze take it all in, from the dark, straight hair that curved around her face and fell down the back of her neck to the perky breasts and hips that flared from the narrow waist.

  She was a looker, and the way she was batting those eyes at Dennis, seemed like she might have changed her mind about wanting to party.

  “Make mine a whiskey,” John said. His little brother was leaving town. Reason enough to hit the hard stuff.

  DENNIS KEPT both hands on the wheel as he slowed and maneuvered the sharp turn. He shouldn’t be driving at all after so many beers, but it wasn’t far to the old house he’d rented from Guilliot’s nephew. Another mile or so and he’d be home.

  His mind wandered back in time. Shrimping out in the bays with Puh-paw. And on Saturday nights Muh-maw would make the big pot of gumbo. And the stories Puh-paw would tell about trapping and hunting back in the good old days before there was such a thing as licenses and limits. They’d been terrific grandparents.

  John and Dennis had different mothers; it didn’t matter much since Muh-maw and Puh-paw had raised them both anyways.

  Dennis didn’t remember his parents at all. He’d been only two when their father had gone to jail up in Jefferson Parish. He’d never come home. He didn’t know that much about his mother. Muh-maw hadn’t let anyone mention her name in the house, but John had told him once that she’d run off with some guy from Lafayette.

  Dennis nodded, then jerked his head backward, fighting sleep. He shouldn’t have taken those two pills back at Suzette’s, but he’d had a migraine the first part of the week and the thing was threatening to come back on him.

  He gunned the engine, then threw on his brakes when he saw something lying across the road in front of him. The car left the pavement, skidded along the shoulder, then careened into the swamp before it finally came to a stop.

  Dennis wasn’t sure what was on the road, but it had looked a lot like a body. Could be some drunk passed out walking home from a neighbor’s. Only there weren’t any houses along this stretch of road. He loosed his seat belt and opened the door. When he stepped out, his feet sank into a good six inches of water before being sucked into the mud. His good shoes, too.

  He jerked at the sound of something swishing through the water behind him. A water moccasin? A gator? He spun around. Too late.

  His head exploded, but Dennis never felt the pain or the blood and bits of brain spilling over his body. Never knew when he sank to the soggy swamp now red with his blood.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT WAS HALF PAST EIGHT in the morning when Cassie padded to the front door of her fourth-floor condominium, stepped into the quiet hall and snagged her morning copy of the Times Picayune. She skimmed the headlines as she walked back to the kitchen for her first cup of coffee.

  Drake and the Flanders case were beaten out for top billing by a three-car pileup on I-10, but they made honorable mention in smaller headlines about a third of the way down the page: Pierson Accuses Beau Pierre Sheriff Of Mishandling Evidence.

  And whether he had or not—whether Drake believed he had or not—he could ride that horse for days. The bigger spectacle the pretrial hoopla, the less attention anyone actually paid to testimony or evidence once the trial itself got underway. And Drake was the master of spectacle.

  Dr. Norman Guilliot was in for a fight.

  Cassie dropped the paper to the kitchen table and poured the dark, chicory-laden brew into an oversize mug. But instead of taking it back to the table, she took it out on the balcony to watch the morning traffic of ferries, tug boats and barges along the muddy Mississippi.

  The view from the balcony had been the factor that tipped the scale for buying this condo instead of the larger and more reasonably priced one on St. Charles Avenue. The view and the fact that she could walk the six blocks to work rather than take the streetcar.

  She sipped her coffee and took in the sights. The ferry from Algiers to the foot of Canal Street passed a few yards in front of a slow-moving tanker heading downriver. A sleek cruise ship was docked at the River Walk and nearer the aquarium a much smaller boat was already loading tourists in shorts and sunglasses, their cameras around their necks and their cash stashed in fanny packs that hung under paunchy stomachs.

  The activity was like a restless surge of energy, constantly moving, searching for the next bend in the river, the next port of call.

  The next chapter in her life. Nothing like making an analogy personal.

  She glanced at her watch. Almost nine. Moore’s Travel should be opening soon. Greece might be the answer to her need to go forward with her life, and she was so ready to get out of New Orleans for a while.

  Besides, the trip would give her a chance to spend some quality time with her mother. They’d drifted apart during the seven years she’d spent married to Drake. Mainly because when they’d been together her mother had always cut to the chase and asked the dreaded question.

  “Are you happy?”

  Well, duh? I’m married to the hottest upcoming attorney in New Orleans if not the south. No one but a mother would even think to ask such a question. And if no one ever asked, Cassie didn’t have to answer.

  You can ask now, Mom. The answer is not yet, but I’m getting there. Greece would be a nice step along the way. But with or without Greece, I’m taking back control of my life.

  BUTCH HAVELIN rolled over in bed and stared at the ceiling of his Houston apartment. It was already late afternoon in Greece. Rhonda was probably getting ready for dinner with her friend. She liked to eat early, liked schedules and order and life that fit into neat little compartments and never got befuddled with spontaneity or excitement.

  Opposites attract. The problem was the attraction wore thin over time, became frayed and faded, like an old shirt after too many washings. He and Rhonda had seen thirty years of washings.

  Now they lived in the same house, slept in the same bed—at least, they did the nights he made it back to their home in The Woodlands—still saw some of the friends they’d known since the early days of their marriage. Rhonda still offered her cheek for a quick peck in the mornings when he left for work and they hugged each other when he left on business trips.

  Sometimes they even went through the motions of making love. The saddest thing was that he didn’t even know when it had all slipped away. The passion had just crept from their lives like heat seeping from a hot bath, leaving nothing but tepidity.

  Babs stretched beside him, but didn’t open her eyes. The sheet slipped down and her breasts peeked over the top, soft mounds of firm, golden flesh and pinkish nipples. Small, but all perky and perfect.

  Butch never bothered with trying to convince himself that what he and Babs had now would last or even that he wanted it to. She was thirty-four, only a couple of years older than Cassie. He was sixty-one. They were a generation apart in music, memories and experiences. But none of that seemed to matter when they were together. She made him potent and alive, gave him back snatches of his youth, and made him feel as if he were some stud muffin she couldn’t get enough of.

  He didn’t want a divorce, definitely didn’t want to split up his assets at this point in life. But he was glad Rhonda was in Greece, would be happy for her to stay there a few more months. Safe. Happy. And gone.

  Truth was he’d never given her itinerary a thought, but he’d phone his daughter again today and feign a little concern so that Cassie wouldn�
��t get all upset and start bugging him about why he didn’t know exactly where her mother was.

  The one thing he didn’t need in his personal life was complications. Not from Cassie. Not from Rhonda. Not even from Babs.

  Conner-Marsh was all he could handle right now, and if he let this merger get screwed up, his ass was grass. There were plenty of younger guys waiting around to knock the old man off the top.

  JOHN ROBICHEAUX pulled the pillow over his head to block the jangling ring of the telephone. The whiskey from last night was blasting away inside his head like a jackhammer. His stomach didn’t feel so great, either. He reached across the bed, checking to be certain he was in it alone.

  He was. Time was that would have been enough to send him back to the kitchen for a hair of the dog that was gnawing away at the base of his skull. These days it just brought a quick wave of relief.

  The phone kept ringing. He reached for it, started to yank it from the wall connection, then changed his mind. It might be a guide job and he could use the business—as long as they didn’t expect him to ride those choppy waves today.

  “John Robicheaux. Can I help you?”

  “I got some bad news for you, John.”

  John struggled to pull his mind from the mire. “Who is this?”

  “Sheriff Babineaux.”

  The sheriff. Shit. John must have gotten in a fight and busted up something last night. He tried to remember but only picked up bits and pieces of the night between the shattering blows of the jackhammer. “What’d I do?”

  “It’s Dennis, John.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He’s dead.”

  The words cut through the fog, jerking John from the stupor. He threw his legs over the side of the bed, the sudden move sending the room into a tailspin.

  “You gotta be mistaken, Tom. I saw Dennis last night. He was fine.”

  “It’s no mistake. I wouldn’t call you with this kind of news if I wasn’t certain.”

  Damn. This was John’s fault. He should have stayed sober. Should have seen that his little brother got home safe. Now… “Did he hit another car or just run off the road?”