by Tami Hoag
“No,” she said, stiffening her knees, squaring her shoulders. “No, thank you.”
He slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers and wandered along a wall of leather-bound tomes. “Forgive me for being less than supportive in Kenner's office. I've learned the best way to handle him is not to handle him at all.” He shot her a sideways look, taking her measure. “And I admit I wanted to see you in action. You're quite ferocious, Laurel. One would never suspect that looking at you—so delicate, so feminine. I like a paradox. You must have taken many an opponent by surprise.”
“I'm good at what I do. If the opposition is taken by surprise by that, then they're simply stupid.”
“Yes, but the plain fact is that people draw certain conclusions based on a person's looks and social background. I've been on the receiving end of such impressions myself, being from a prominent family.”
Laurel arched a brow. “Are you trying to tell me you may be a son of the Garden District Danjermonds, the shipping Danjermonds, but at heart you're just a good ol' boy? I have a hard time believing that.”
“I'm saying one can't judge a book by its cover—pretty or otherwise. One never really knows what might hide behind ugliness or lurk in the heart of beauty.”
She thought again of Savannah, her beautiful sister, spinning around Frenchie's with Annie Gerrard in a headlock, smearing excrement on the wall of St. Joseph's Rest Home outside Astor Cooper's window, screaming obscenities in the moonlight. Sighing, she closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead as if she could scrub her brain clean of doubt.
“I'll do what I can to influence Kenner,” Danjermond said softly.
He was behind her now, close enough that she could sense his nearness. He settled his elegant hands on her shoulders and began to rub methodically at the tension. Laurel wanted to bolt, but she held her ground, unsure of whether his gesture was compassion or dominance, unsure of whether her response was courage or acquiescence.
“I can't make any promises, though,” he said evenly. “I'm afraid he has a valid point concerning the information on Baldwin. Your sister has something of a credibility problem. Particularly as she's gone missing. You know all about credibility problems, don't you, Laurel?”
She jerked away from his touch and turned to face him, her anger blazing back full force. “I can do without the reminder, thank you, and all the other little snide remarks you so enjoy slipping into our conversations like knives. Just whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Justice takes the side of right. Nature, however, chooses strength,” he pointed out. “Right and strength don't always coincide.”
He let that cryptic assertion hang in the air as he opened a beautiful cherrywood humidor on his desktop and selected a slim, expensive cigar. “The courtroom more often resembles a jungle than civilization,” he said as he went about the ritual of clipping the end of the cigar. “Strength is essential. I need to know how strong you are if we're going to work together.”
“We're not,” Laurel said flatly, moving toward the door.
He slid into his high-backed chair, rolling his cigar between his fingers. “We'll see.”
“I have other things to see to,” she snapped, infuriated by his smug confidence that she wouldn't be able to resist the lure of his offer or the lure of him personally. “Finding my sister for one, since the sheriff's department is obviously going to be of little help.”
A lighter flared in his hands, and he drew on the cigar, filling the air with a rich aroma. “I wouldn't worry overmuch, Laurel,” he said, his handsome head wreathed in fragrant, cherry-tinted smoke. “She may well have gone to N'Awlins, as her lover suggested. Or perhaps she's enjoying the charms of another man. She'll turn up.”
But what condition would she be in when she did? The question lodged like a knot in Laurel's chest. If Savannah had gone off some inner precipice, what would be left to find? The possibilities sickened her. One thing was certain—Savannah wouldn't be the sister Laurel had always leaned on. The child within her wept at the thought.
Prejean's Funeral Home was typical in Acadiana. Built in the sixties, it was a low brick building with a profusion of flower beds outside and a strange mix of sterility, tranquillity, and grief within. The floors were carpeted in flat, industrial-grade, dirt brown nylon, made to last and to deaden the sounds of dress shoes pounding across it. The ceilings were low-hung acoustical panels that had absorbed countless cries and murmured condolences.
Prejean's had two parlors for times that were regrettably busy, and a large kitchen that, if people had known how closely it resembled the embalming room, may well have gone unused. But, as with every social situation in South Louisiana, food was served for comfort and for affirmation of life. Women friends of T-Grace's, neighbors, fellow parishioners from Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows Catholic church would be in the kitchen brewing strong coffee and making sandwiches. Laurel knew Mama Pearl had brought a coconut cake.
Those who had come to pay respects to the Delahoussayes gathered in the Serenity room. The casket was positioned at the front of the room beneath a polished oak cross. Closed, the lid was piled high with white mums and gardenias, as if to discourage anyone from trying to lift it. Candles flickered at either end in tall brass candelabras.
People stood in knots of three and four at the back of the room, distancing themselves from death as much as they could while still supporting the family with their presence. Up front, more serious mourners sat in rows of chrome-and-plastic chairs that interlocked like Lego toys. Enola Meyette led the chanting of the rosary, a low murmur of French that underscored whispered conversations and muffled sobs.
T-Grace sat front and center in an ill-fitting black dress, her face swollen, her red hair standing out from her head as if she had been given an electric shock, her eyes huge and bloodshot. She was supported on one side by a burly son. To her right, Ovide sat in a catatonic state, his mouth slack, shoulders drooping beneath the weight of his grief.
Laurel's heart ached for them as she made her way through the throng to pay her respects. She knelt before T-Grace and took hold of a bony hand that had to be at least as cold as that of the daughter lying dead in the casket.
“I'm so sorry, T-Grace, Ovide,” she whispered, tears rising automatically. She had been schooled from childhood to keep her emotions politely concealed. Even at her father's funeral, Vivian had admonished her and Savannah to cry softly into their handkerchiefs so as not to make spectacles of themselves. But the day had been too long, and she was too tired and keyed-up for anything but a modicum of restraint.
T-Grace looked down on her, valiantly trying to smile, her thin mouth twisting and trembling with the effort. “Merci, Laurel. You're all the time so good to us.”
Laurel squeezed the hand in hers and pressed back the emotions crowding her throat. “I wish I could do more,” she whispered, feeling impotent.
She turned to Ovide, trying to think of something to say to him, but his eyes were on his daughter's casket, glazed with a kind of numb shock, as if he had only just realized how permanent Annie's absence would be.
As Mrs. Meyette began another decade of the rosary, Laurel rose and moved off toward the back of the room, restless and uncomfortable as she always had been with the rituals of death. She scanned the crowd, looking for Jack, but not finding him. She didn't know if she was more disappointed for T-Grace and Ovide or for herself. Stupid. How many times had he told her she couldn't count on him?
How many times had he made a lie of his own words?
He was a con man in his own right, playing a shell game with his personality. Distract the mark with the appearance of a rogue, while under one shell hid a heart filled with compassion and under another one compressed with grief and guilt. The shells swept and danced beneath his clever hands. Now you see it, now you don't. Which one held the real Jack? Would he ever let her close enough to find out?
She felt a little guilty, thinking about him during a wake, but in that moment she would have giv
en just about anything to feel his arms slip around her, to hear his smoky voice murmur something irreverent in her ear. She was tired and worried, and she wanted very badly to share those fears with someone.
A call to Maison de Ville in New Orleans had assured her Savannah wasn't staying there. A call to Le Mascarade had gotten her nothing but a derisive laugh. Patrons names were confidential. She had tracked down Ronnie Peltier, who was hefting sacks at Collins Feed and Seed. He hadn't seen Savannah since Tuesday night. She had come to his trailer in a temper and left an hour or two later. He claimed he hadn't seen her since.
Laurel spotted him standing with a group of cronies across the room—Taureau Hebert and several other regulars from the bar. They looked young and uncomfortable in neckties. Their eyes avoided the casket at the front of the room.
“It's fascinating, isn't it?”
She jumped as Danjermond's voice sounded low and soft in her ear. He stood beside her, looking as perfectly pressed as he had that morning, his suit immaculate, tie neat. Laurel felt wilted and rumpled beside him even though she had showered and changed into a skirt and fresh blouse before coming. That effect alone was enough reason to avoid him, as far as she was concerned.
“All the different defense mechanisms people develop to deal with death,” he said, frowning slightly as his gaze moved over the gathering of the faithful and the bereaved. “A dose of religion, gossip, and jokes served up with coffee and a slice of pie afterward.”
“People take comfort in ritual,” Laurel said, trying to sidle away from him, but he had her neatly trapped between himself and a potted palm.
“Yes, that's true,” he murmured, his sharp green gaze taking in the tableau of grief at the front of the room. T-Grace had begun to sob again, and her children gathered around her. Mrs. Meyette raised her voice, but never broke cadence in the recitation of the Hail Marys.
“Are you here in an official capacity or just out of morbid curiosity?”
He arched a brow at her sarcasm. “Would you rather Kenner had come to represent Partout Parish?”
“Not even he would be that callous.”
T-Grace let out a series of soul-raking, ear-piercing wails, and one of her sons and Leonce Comeau half dragged her from the room. They were followed by old Doc Broussard, toting his black bag, and Father Antaya, each of them ready to dispense his own brand of medicine.
“Any sign of your sister, yet?” Danjermond asked.
“No, but if you'll excuse me, I see someone who may be able to help me.”
Calling on skills honed at countless cocktail parties, Laurel slipped away from him before he could voice a protest and worked her way through the crowd to the front of the room. The final amen was uttered, and those who had been praying rose stiffly, beads clacking as they stored their rosaries in purses, pouches, pockets.
Leonce came back into the room, his marred face grim, his bald spot shining with sweat. He pulled a red handkerchief out of his hip pocket and dabbed at the moisture. He had thrown a black jacket on over his black T-shirt and jeans, and shoved the sleeves to his elbows, making him look more like an artist or a rock star than a mourner.
“Hey, chère, where y'at?” he said, managing a weary smile as he settled a hand on Laurel's arm. “Jack here?”
“No.”
His gaze cut away so she couldn't see the hope that sparked in his eyes. He looked to the coffin, gleaming polished oak beneath its drape of waxy gardenias and frayed mums. “I shoulda guessed not. Jack, he don' do funerals. Been to one too many, I guess.”
Laurel made a noncommittal sound. “How's T-Grace?”
“She's laying down in old man Prejean's office.” He shook his head, still amazed. “Dat's some kinda scream she got, no?”
“I imagine losing a child tears loose a lot of things inside.”
“Yeah, I guess.” His dark gaze settled on the casket again because he was a little superstitious about turning his back on it. “Poor Annie,” he murmured. “Teased one dick too many. All she wanted was to pass a good time. Look what it got her.”
The implication made Laurel frown. No one asked to be tortured and killed. No woman deserved the kind of end Annie had met, regardless of what kind of life she had led. That thought bled into thoughts of Savannah, and Laurel's heart thumped at the base of her throat.
“Leonce, have you seen Savannah lately?”
He jerked around toward her, his brows slashing down over his eyes in a way that made his scar seem longer and more prominent. “Hey, yeah, I gotta talk to you 'bout dat one,” he said ominously.
Taking her by the arm again, he led her out the door and into the shadows of the hall that led to the room where Prejean practiced his craft of readying people for the great beyond. The skin prickled at the base of Laurel's neck, and she cast a nervous glance back toward the Serenity room.
Leonce let go of her and stepped back, one hand propped at his waist, the other unconsciously touching his cheek, fingertips rubbing at the scar as if it might be erased. “Tuesday night I'm comin' back from Loreauville—me, I sing with a band down there sometimes, you know?—and I'm drivin' down Tchoupitoulas 'bout a block from St. Joe's home. Here comes Savannah runnin' 'cross the grass, 'cross the street right in front of me. I damn near hit her. I lean out the window and I yell, ‘Hey, what's a matter wit' you, chère? You gone crazy or somethin'?' ”
Laurel felt as if an anvil had dropped on her from a great height. This wasn't the story she had wanted to hear. She wanted him to tell her he'd seen her sister driving off to Lafayette to visit friends or leaving with a lover for a tryst in New Orleans. She didn't want confirmation of a suspicion that made her weak with dread.
Leonce was watching her, waiting for some kind of response. She somehow managed to open her mouth and make words come out. “Did she answer you?”
“Oh, yeah,” he snorted. “She comes around the side window and tells me why don't I go fuck myself. How you like dat?”
“I don't,” Laurel murmured. She blew out a breath and combed her fingers back through her hair, walking in a slow circle around Leonce, her mind working automatically to assimilate the story into the other facts and pieces she'd stored away. Tears rose in her eyes as the nerves in her stomach twisted tight around a hot lump of fear.
“Hey,” Leonce drawled, spreading his hands wide. “I didn' mean to upset you, chère. I just thought you oughta know.” He reached out to her, offering comfort and concern. Curling his fingers over her shoulder, he let his thumb brush against the pulse point in her throat. “You wanna go get a drink or somethin' and talk about it? Me, I'm a pretty good listener.”
While the idea of escape appealed to her enormously, the idea of escaping with Leonce did not. There was just enough male interest in his big dark eyes to override the sympathy he was offering. And truth to tell, as ashamed as it made her feel, she didn't like looking at him. The scar continually drew her eye—the smooth, shiny quality of it, the grotesque burls of scar tissue that left brow and nose and lip slightly misshapen.
“We can go someplace dark,” he said, the musical quality of his voice flattened and hard. His fingers tightened briefly on her shoulder, then he jerked them away.
Laurel felt an immediate kick of guilt. “No, Leonce, I didn't mean—”
“Is everything all right, Laurel?”
Danjermond stood at the end of the hall, half in light, half in shadow, his steady gaze shifting slowly from her to Leonce and back. Leonce swore under his breath in French and pushed past her, heading for a side exit.
Laurel heaved a sigh and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Yes, everything is just peachy.”
“I was just leaving,” he said, producing the keys to his Jag and dangling them from his hand. “Would you care to join me for a nightcap or a cup of coffee?”
She shook her head, amazed at his inability to grasp the concept of the word “no.” “Your persistence is astounding, Mr. Danjermond.”
He smiled that feline smile. She could al
most imagine him purring low in his throat. “As I've said, nature rewards strength and tenacity.”
“Not tonight she doesn't.” Laurel slipped her hand into her pocketbook and brushed the chain of the butterfly necklace away from her tangle of keys. “I'm going home.”
Danjermond inclined his handsome head, conceding. “Some other time.”
When hell freezes over, Laurel thought as she walked out. The sky was purple and orange in the west. The light above the parking lot was winking on with a series of clicks and buzzes. She unlocked the door of the Acura and slid behind the wheel, thinking she would rather have gum surgery than go out with Stephen Danjermond. A date with him would have to be like consenting to have her brain poked with needles. She wondered if he had ever had a conversation that didn't run on three levels simultaneously. Perhaps as a child—if he had ever been a child. The Garden District Danjermonds probably frowned on childhood the same way her own mother had.
Odd, she thought, that they would have that in common and turn out so very different from one another. But then she'd already seen firsthand that shared experiences didn't guarantee shared responses. She and Savannah could scarcely have been less alike. Thousands of teenage girls were molested by stepfathers or other men in their lives; not all of them responded the way Savannah had. Statistics showed that abused boys grew into abusive men, but she couldn't picture Jack beating a child—he had wept over the one he had lost without knowing.
Jack. She wondered where he was, if he was privately mourning the loss of a friend or if he was tipping back a bottle of Wild Turkey and telling himself he didn't have any friends. He drank too much. She cared too much. She had read once somewhere that love wasn't always convenient, but she had never wanted to believe it could be hopeless. Jack swore he didn't want emotional entanglements. With tensions pulling her in all directions, she didn't feel strong enough to convince him otherwise.
She didn't feel strong enough to face Aunt Caroline tonight, either, but circumstances weren't offering any options. She had put it off as long as she could. Now she was going to have to sit down with her aunt and give voice to all the facts and fears about her sister.
