Magnolia Moon

by JoAnn Ross

  “I read the journal,” she said.

  “I was hoping you would.” He took another two steps forward; she held her ground. “So, you’ve come to Blue Bayou to track down some loose ends.” Forward.

  She didn’t budge. The challenge was swirling in the air between them. “That’s very perceptive.”

  “It’s what Finn’d do.” Forward. He felt a little tinge of victory when she finally retreated half a step.

  “It’s undoubtedly also what your father would have done, if he’d had the opportunity.”

  “Yeah.” Her long legs, which seemed to go all the way up to her neck, were now pressed against the desk. Don’t like bein’ boxed in, do you, sugar? “He was a good man, my father. And a damn good cop.”

  “I suppose, never having met him, I’ll have to take your word for that.”

  The little dig managed to get under Nate’s skin and remind him that she hadn’t come here to give a pleasant boost to his libido. Now that he’d gotten her attention, things could only get complicated, and he’d never liked complications. Which was why he still couldn’t quite explain why the hell he’d put himself into the middle of this long-ago story and tracked down Linda Dale’s daughter.

  “Dad didn’t believe the autopsy report,” he revealed.

  Although her expression didn’t change, Nate thought she went a little pale.

  “You have the autopsy report?” She sounded more pissed than shaken.

  “Yeah.” The look she shot him was way too familiar. Finn, who’d taken on the role of man of the house after their father had been blown away, hadn’t let either of his brothers get away with much, and Nate had been on the receiving end of it too many times to count.

  “And you didn’t think that was important enough to share with me?”

  “I wasn’t even one hundred percent positive that you were the right woman.” This time he was the one who took a step back.

  “Yet you were sure enough to give me some of the papers.”

  He swore inwardly. “Not the ones that’d be real rough to read.”

  “And you felt it your job to protect my so-called delicate female sensibilities why?”

  “It wasn’ that way.” Not exactly. “The autopsy report was an official crime document. The journal was a different matter. Jack and I figured that if our maman had died without us ever knowin’ about her, and she’d left something like that behind, we’d want to read it.”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Read it?”

  “Hell, no. It wasn’t any of my business.”

  Her eyes narrowed, studying him like he was some murder suspect in a lineup. “But you read the autopsy report.”

  “It was an official document. I’m a city official, so I figured I was entitled. The journal’s personal.”

  “Yet your father obviously kept it for a reason.”

  “He didn’t know where Linda Dale’s sister took off to. And knowin’ him, he probably wanted to keep it as evidence.”

  “In the event he reopened the case.”

  “Yeah. His notes, by the way, say he tried.”

  “As a rule, small-town police forces aren’t equipped to handle a homicide.”

  “I ’magine that’s the case. But Pop wasn’t just some small-town, gut-over-his-shirt hack sheriff. He’d been a homicide cop up in Chicago and had a drawer full of awards.”

  “Most cops hang them on the wall.”

  “Dad never believed in skatin’ on past accomplishments. He probably wouldn’t have even kept the commendations and stuff if they hadn’t meant a lot to maman. She’d always show them off to any of her relatives who’d badmouth her Yankee husband. After a while, they just shut up.”

  “Why, if he’d been working for a big force like Chicago, would he want to give it all up and come live in this…”

  “Backwater hick town?” he supplied.

  “It seems it would be a step down. Careerwise.”

  “Jake Callahan loved bein’ a cop. Used to say he was born to the job. But his family was the most important thing in his life. Maman was homesick, and he figured Blue Bayou would be a nice safe place to raise his children. But I don’ think it could have been easy on him in the beginning. From the stories he used to tell, he’d liked being a big-city cop, and I think the jury stayed out for a long time among the people here as to whether he was really going to try to fit in.”

  “Did he?”

  “Mais yeah. He taught us boys that man was put on earth to help out his fellow man and to be part of a community, and that bein’ a cop meant taking care of a community, and how organizing a youth baseball league, or taking an elderly widow a hot meal, or changing a tire on a pregnant young mother’s car could all be, in their own way, just as helpful as rounding up stone-cold killers.”

  “Your father sounds like a good man.”

  “My father was a great man.”

  Her gaze shifted from his face, out the window to where the cobblestone streets wore a satiny sheen from an earlier rain and the sunset looked like red-and-purple smoke against the western sky. “What was the cause of death cited on the autopsy report?”

  “Same as the death certificate,” he hedged, even though he knew she was about to find out the answer herself. “Carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  She returned her gaze to him. “Was it listed as a natural death?”

  Nate could tell that she had a lot more invested emotionally into the answer than she was letting on. He supposed cops, especially homicide detectives, grew used to death, but he also knew firsthand that the death of a parent was an entirely different thing. It was more personal. Even, he suspected, if you were talking about a mother or father you’d never known. Maybe Jack had been right; maybe he just should have left well enough alone and tossed the damn file into the trash.

  “Non. It wasn’t natural.”

  “That leaves either suicide or murder.”

  Jesus, did the woman have ice water in her veins? The only outward sign that he’d managed to score a direct hit was a quick blink of the eye. A train whistle sounded at the crossing just outside town. “The coroner opted for suicide.”

  Wishing that either of his brothers were around to handle this, Nate reached into the top desk drawer where he’d stashed the file, suspecting that if nothing else, her cop curiosity would eventually make her want to read it.

  “Your father’s not alone. Because I don’t believe it, either. I’m going to want to see the house where she died.”

  “Now, there’s going to be a little problem with that.”

  “Oh?”

  “It got blown to pieces in a hurricane back in the nineties, and the land where it used to sit is now water.”

  “It figures.” She shook her head and frowned as she read the top page with absolute concentration.

  Nate was idly wondering if she’d give the same attention to sex when a sound like a bomb going off shook the building.

  9

  What the hell?” He jerked his gaze from those tempting, unpainted lips to the window. “That sounded too close to be a rig explosion.”

  The oil rigs out in the Gulf had always been a hazard; his maternal grandfather had died on one before any of the three Callahan boys had been born. A cloud of smoke billowed over the top of the courthouse.

  “Christ. It’s coming from the tracks.”

  He turned back toward Regan. “You remember any first aid from your patrol days?”

  “I passed a disaster response test six weeks ago.”

  “Good. Because we’re gonna be needin’ all the help we can get.” He opened a desk drawer and threw her a badge.

  “I don’t need that,” she said, even as she snagged the shiny sheriff’s badge out of the air.

  “Stuff like this tends to brings out the lookie-loos and Good Samaritans. There are going to be a lot of people getting in the way out there. This’ll give you the authority to get rid of folks who don’t belong or can’t be of a
ny real help.”

  Again proving that he could move damn fast when the occasion called for it, he was out the door like a shot, Regan right on his heels. Without waiting to be invited, she jumped into the passenger seat of the black SUV parked outside and pinned on the badge. It took them less than three minutes to drive to the redbrick fire station where Blue Bayou’s fire and rescue department garaged its only pumper truck.

  “There’s not gonna be room for you in the truck.” He was yanking on a pair of tobacco brown fireproof pants that had been folded down with tall rubber boots already inside them, so all he had to do was step into the boots and pull the pants up. “The keys are in the SUV.” He grabbed a heavy coat and helmet. “I’ll meet you out at the crossing.”

  Unlike the other narrow towns she’d driven past, which she’d supposed had sprung up in long narrow strips to save valuable waterfront land for crops, Blue Bayou had been laid out in grids. Sweeps of sunshine-bright yellow daffodils brightened squares fenced in fancifully curved wrought-iron fences, and trees lined the clean brick sidewalks. It appeared, as Nate Callahan had described it, a peaceful town.

  There was nothing peaceful about the scene at the rail crossing. At least a dozen freight cars left a zigzagging trail along the muddy banks of the bayou. Broken railroad ties were scattered along the track, the metal rails shredded. On the far side of the track, a trailer from an eighteen-wheeler was on its side; farther down the other trailer was crushed and mangled, mute evidence that the semi had been hit trying to cross the track. The cab was upside down, the roof resting inches from the edge of the water; the glass lying on the ground had once been a windshield. It could have been worse. A lot worse.

  “Thank God it was a freight,” Nate said.

  Regan nodded in agreement, not even wanting to think about the number of deaths and injuries there could have been if the railroad cars had been carrying passengers.

  “I thought my furnace had blowed up,” she heard one onlooker, who appeared to be at least in his eighties, say to another man. “I heard a bunch of grinding and then boom,” he said. “Ol’ Duke jumped clean off the gallerie and started barking.” He pointed toward an old hound dog who was sniffing the air.

  One of the train cars had knocked a utility pole down; its lines were tangled in a tall, moss-draped oak and sagged about ten feet above the top of the truck’s cab. Sparks were flying, and as tree limbs burned, the lines drooped lower toward the cab.

  “The driver’s still in the truck,” someone shouted. “There’s an arm hangin’ out the window.”

  “Can you tell if he’s alive?” a fireman, whose helmet designated him as the fire chief, asked.

  “He’s not movin’.”

  “Christ,” another fireman said. “There’s no way to get the poor sucker out.”

  “We can’t just stand by and let him die,” Nate said.

  “Can’t run onto an accident scene with downed power lines, either,” the chief said. “That’s one of the first things they teach you in fire school.”

  A pair of state troopers arrived, sirens blaring, adding to the din. Walkie-talkies squawked. A crowd began to gather, as if to watch a Hollywood crew film a disaster-of the-week movie.

  “He’s gotta have family,” Nate argued doggedly, once again reminding Regan of his brother. Finn hadn’t been one to back down from an argument, either; not when there was a matter of principal involved. “Mother, maybe. Wife. Kids.” He pulled on his gloves. “I’m going in.”

  “You realize, of course, that truck could catch on fire any time,” Regan said. Okay, so it was a pretty impressive gesture; it was also foolhardy as hell.

  “One more reason to get the guy out. But I’ve probably got some time, since diesel fuel isn’t as flammable as gasoline.”

  She knew that, but the knowledge didn’t stop her from holding her breath as he cautiously ducked beneath the sagging wires. An odd hush came over the rescue workers as he dropped down on his belly and crawled the last eight feet.

  “Hey,” a voice called out from inside the cab. “We’re trapped in here!”

  Regan sucked in a sharp breath at the child’s voice. Watching carefully, she actually saw Nate’s shoulders tense beneath the heavy jacket.

  “It’s gonna be all right, cher,” he said matter-of-factly, as if train-truck collisions were an everyday occurrence in Blue Bayou. Metal screeched as the dented truck cab shifted, tilting precariously closer to the water.

  “Shit, we’re gonna drown!” the boy shouted.

  “Don’ you worry,” Nate said again, his voice as calm as it’d been when she’d first met him in the station. “We’ll be gettin’ you out soon enough, you.”

  He yanked on the door. Nothing. “Shit, it’s stuck.”

  “Can’t use the Hurst,” the captain pointed out. The Hurst, more commonly known as the Jaws of Life, could chew up metal like taffy. “You try takin’ that roof off, you’ll hit those wires for sure.”

  “How about goin’ up from the floor?” another asked.

  Nate shook his head. “We’re sittin’ on marsh, here. Even if we set it on blocks, they’d just sink into water. Then there’s the little matter of starting up the gas unit while diesel’s leaking from the tank.”

  He yanked again. Cursed again.

  Nearby, another tree limb burst into flame as the power surged. The wires drooped even lower, nearing the upturned wheels.

  “Anyone got a tow strap?” Nate called.

  “I got a cable I use for towing breakdowns in the trunk of the cruiser,” a trooper responded.

  “That’ll do. Go get it and bring it as close as you can.” Once again Regan heard him talking in a low, soothing voice to the child inside the truck. “And Henri, why don’t you back the ladder truck as near as you can get without hittin’ those wires?” Which were currently lighting up the gathering twilight like Fourth of July sparklers. “And can someone toss me—very carefully—a blanket?”

  Without giving it a moment’s thought, Regan grabbed an army green blanket from a newly arrived ambulance and moved slowly, step by step, toward the cab.

  “That’s far enough, chère,” he warned.

  “If I throw it to you, it could hit the wires.”

  “If you get any closer, those wires could turn you into a crispy critter.”

  “Don’t you watch TV? We cops get off on taking risks.”

  Though her voice was as calm as if she were writing out a speeding ticket, her nerves were jangling with adrenaline.

  “That a fact?” Amazingly, his tone was as conversational as hers.

  “Absolutely.” The overhead wires crackled and sagged. Ignoring his warning, Regan bent lower until she was nearly doubled, and continued inching toward the truck. “Why, a day without danger is like a day without chocolate.” Despite the chill, sweat was beating up on her forehead and between her breasts.

  “I never heard it put quite that way before.”

  “Believe me, it’s true.” She shoved the blanket toward him. “It’s in our blood.”

  “Thanks.” He carefully pushed the blanket through the rectangular hole where the windshield used to be. “Hey, kid.”

  “Yeah?” The boy’s tone sounded remarkably defiant, but Regan knew some people responded to fear with aggression.

  “Put this over the driver as well as you can, okay? Then hunker down beneath it, because we’re gonna have some flying glass in a minute.”

  Nate waited a moment for the boy to do as instructed. Then he shoved his gloved fingers through a hole in the driver’s side window and tore the glass away. By now the trooper had arrived with the cable; the two men wrapped one end of it around the windshield post and the other around the bumper of the fire truck, which began slowly moving forward.

  There was an ominous sound of groaning metal, and the cab tilted a bit, as if it might pull right side up. Just when Regan thought for sure they’d land in the water, the door broke off its hinges.

  “Hey,” Nate said, again to s
omeone in the truck. “Good to have you back with us. Is anything broken?” There was a pause, then a mumbled response in a voice far deeper than the boy’s.

  “Bien. Now, here’s what we’re gonna do. You take my arm and climb out of here, real careful like, so you don’t rock the cab. And I’ll grab the kid.”

  A huge bearded man with the look of a renegade biker appeared in the open door and half jumped, half fell from the cab. Regan flinched inwardly when she heard the crack of a kneecap breaking, but the driver didn’t have any time to indulge his pain.

  The wires let loose, draping over the cab like Spanish moss just as Nate reached inside, grabbed the boy’s denim jacket, and jerked him from the truck. They’d no sooner rolled aside when the cab burst into flames.

  A collective cheer went up.

  “Thanks, man,” the grizzled driver groaned as a paramedic slipped a C-collar around his neck and strapped him onto a rolling half-backboard to protect his spine. “Weren’t for you, my old lady’d be puttin’ plastic flowers on my grave.”

  “Jus’ doin’ my job, cher,” Nate said agreeably. “Wouldn’t want you to get a bad impression of our little town.” He put the boy onto his feet. “We’ll be taking you into the hospital, too. Just to make sure.”

  Freckles were standing out like copper coins all over the kid’s pale, thin face, but his brown eyes, as he folded his arms, were resolute. “Fuck that. I’m fine.”

  “Sure you are,” Nate said in that mild, deceptively laid-back tone. “Problem is, I’ve heard of folks saying the same thing at accidents, then passing out without any warning. Wouldn’t want to take a chance on you falling into the water and becoming gator bait.”

  “I’m not scared of any damn gators.”

  Regan wasn’t sure if he was exaggerating or not. But having watched a special on alligators on the Nature Channel, she was uneasy about putting it to the test. Gangbangers she could handle, drug dealers she knew. But there weren’t a lot of man-eating reptiles in the normally dry Los Angeles River.

  “This your kid?” a paramedic asked the truck driver.

  “I just picked him up.” He looked decidedly defensive. Regan hoped it was only because he was worried about having violated the No Riders sign. “No law against giving people a ride. ’Specially when it’s cold enough to freeze a well digger’s ass and getting dark, besides.”