Magnolia Moon

by JoAnn Ross

  “What a terrible, terrible thing.” Melancon shook his silver head. “It was a miracle no one was seriously hurt.”

  “It sure could’ve been a lot worse,” Nate agreed. His head was beginning to clear, and he was no longer in immediate danger of bustin’ the zipper out of his jeans. “Detective, this is Charles Melancon. Charles, Detective Regan Hart, from Los Angeles.”

  “It’s a pleasure meeting you, detective.” He shook her hand with the robust action of a small-town politician, which he was. Along with being CEO of Melancon Petroleum, Charles Melancon was head of several redevelopment committees, president of the Blue Bayou Rotary Club, and past president of the Chamber of Commerce. “I was very impressed by your bravery. Did the mayor happen to mention we’re in the market for a new sheriff?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, he did. But I already have a job. I’m an LAPD homicide detective.”

  “Are you now?” His silver brows shot up. “That must be exciting work.”

  “Actually, homicide’s pretty much society’s clean-up crew. We’re like the guys with the wheelbarrows who follow the elephants in the parade and shovel up the shit.”

  Behind the counter, Cal gave a bark of a laugh.

  “Still, it must be interesting,” Melancon said. “The closest thing to excitement here in Blue Bayou is watching paint dry.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t think running an international oil company could possibly be dull.”

  Interest turned to surprise. “You know about Melancon Oil?”

  “It would be hard not to, since I see the blue sign every time I fill up my car. Though I never realized the home offices were located in southern Louisiana.”

  That was, Nate knew, a lie. He suspected that after having learned about the stock certificates, she could probably quote the company’s latest balance sheet.

  “We’re not the biggest fish in the pond, but we make a right nice splash.” Charles Melancon might not be the type of guy Nate would swap stories and go fishing with, but he’d always seemed fairly down-to-earth for someone whose father had probably owned half of southern Louisiana at one time. “What brings you to Blue Bayou, detective?”

  “Oh, this and that.” Despite seeming half the town knowing what she was up to, and the other half undoubtedly finding out by Mardi Gras, she wasn’t one to give anything away. Her smile turned as vague as her tone. “Partly I’m here for a little R&R.”

  “Most folks go to N’Awlins for that.”

  “I’ve been there and done all the touristy, French Quarter things. This trip I decided to see the real Louisiana.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place.”

  “I don’t suppose you conduct tours of your facilities?” she asked.

  He frowned. “Not as a rule. Refineries can be dangerous to those not familiar with the work, and our insurance company likes us to keep our liability risk down.”

  “Well, it never hurts to ask.” She sighed heavily in a very undetective-like way. “I suppose I’ll just sign up for the alligator swamp tour instead.”

  “You’d pretty much be wastin’ your money,” Nate volunteered. “Seein’ as how the gators are hibernating right now.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth turned down in a little moue that was far more woman than cop. “Well, I’m sure I can find something to occupy my time. I seem to recall reading that Exxon Mobile has a refinery in Baton Rouge. Perhaps—”

  “I suppose,” Melancon interrupted her, “it would be all right to show you around, just this once.” His eyes swept over her in what Nate decided was an unnecessarily intimate way for a guy who had a wife at home. “After all, what Louisiana Liability and Trust doesn’t know won’t hurt them.”

  “It’ll be our secret.” Her smile would have done a Miss Cajun Days queen proud. “Why don’t I drop by Monday morning?”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to be out of town on Monday. A meeting in Houston.”

  “Oh. Well, Tuesday will be fine.”

  “That’s Fat Tuesday,” Cal volunteered.

  “He’s right,” Charles Melancon said with what appeared to be a bit of honest reluctance. “Which means that while a skeleton crew will be working, I’m afraid the offices won’t be open.”

  “How about Wednesday?” she pressed on. “Say, about eight o’clock?”

  “I’m afraid the office isn’t open quite that early.”

  “Especially on Ash Wednesday, when everyone in the parish is going to be hung over,” Cal said.

  “Not everyone,” Melancon corrected. “Why don’t we have lunch together in the company dining room at one on Wednesday?”

  Her smile could have lit up Blue Bayou for a month. “That sounds fab.”

  Fab? Nate stared down at the surprising metamorphosis from cop to belle.

  “I’m staying at the Plantation Inn, in case something opens up before then,” she said.

  “Good choice,” he said.

  Only choice, Nate thought.

  “The inn’s a famous historical landmark,” Melancon continued.

  “So Mr. Callahan tells me. I’ll be waiting for your call.” She held out her hand like a princess to some duke she was considering marrying. “It was lovely meeting you, Mr. Melancon.”

  “The pleasure was all mine, Ms. Hart.” He flashed his Chamber of Commerce meet-and-greet grin and returned to his table across the room.

  “Isn’t he a charming man?” Regan said.

  “An absolute gem,” Nate agreed dryly.

  “Order’s up,” Cal announced.

  Nate took the brown bags. “It’s on me,” he said when Regan began to take some money from her billfold. She looked inclined to argue, then merely shrugged.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Nate asked Regan when they were back in the SUV.

  “What was what all about?”

  “That Scarlett O’Hara act you pulled with Charles Melancon.”

  “I’ve no idea what you mean.”

  “You’re not the type of woman who normally goes around batting your eyelashes.”

  “Too bad you missed my days in vice, when I did undercover prostitution stings.” She pulled her seat belt across and clicked it. “I’ll have you know, some men found me very appealing.”

  “Of course you’re appealing, dammit. But not in that way.”

  “And what way is that?”

  “You know.” Feeling as if he’d somehow landed in verbal quicksand, he skimmed a hand over his hair. “That over-the-top come-and-get-me-big-boy way. You were sending off signals that you were open for a lot more than a damn oil refinery tour.”

  “That’s quite a comment from the man who’s claimed he wants to take me to bed, and was undressing me with his eyes when Melancon interrupted.”

  “I didn’t hear you complaining.” He jerked his own seat belt closed.

  “We were in a public place. I didn’t feel the need to embarrass you by telling you to knock it off.”

  “What a bunch of bullshit.” He twisted the key in the ignition with more strength than necessary and pulled away from the curb with an angry squeal of tires.

  The heat that had sizzled between them in the restaurant shifted into a low, seething anger. Regan was tempted to tell him to take her back to the inn; she didn’t need his help. After all, if she couldn’t handle one cold case committed in a town where everyone knew everyone else, which meant someone had to hold the key to solving the murder, she might as well turn in her shield and go sell Avon products door to door.

  The problem was, if she stomped back to the inn, she’d risk letting him know how affected she’d been by that suspended moment in the restaurant, when she’d been fantasizing about Nate dragging her down to the black-and-white-checked floor and making mad, passionate love to her.

  “I wasn’t flirting with him,” she said into the heavy silence. “I need to talk to him about the stock certificates. Since I don’t have any police powers down here to force the issue, and since he’s undoubtedly
used to calling the shots, I figured he might be more amenable to charm.”

  “You couldn’t just come right out and ask?”

  “With everyone in the place watching us and listening to every word?”

  “Yeah, I can see how you’d rather them think you were coming on to a married guy twice your age than have them overhearing you ask a basic business question.”

  “It’s not basic when a woman got killed over it.”

  He shot her a surprised look. “You think Linda Dale was murdered for her Melancon Petroleum stock?”

  “She wouldn’t have been the first person to be killed over money.”

  “And wouldn’t be the last,” he allowed. “But if that was the motive, then why were the stocks left behind?”

  “Maybe the murderer got interrupted and had to leave before he could retrieve them. Maybe she had them hidden.” Regan shrugged. “There could be any number of answers. Which is why I want privacy when I talk with Melancon. Not that he sounded real eager for a meeting.” She frowned. “I wonder why that was?”

  “Are you suspicious of everyone? Never mind,” he said before she could answer the rhetorical question; “I know the answer to that. But just because he’s CEO of the company doesn’t mean he’ll be able to tell you anything. His mother was running the place thirty years ago.”

  “From what you said about Mrs. Melancon, the chances are she wouldn’t recall details. But not only would he have access to the records, this is a small town. It seems implausible that anyone living here—especially a nightclub singer—would own that much stock without the family being aware of it.”

  “Good point.”

  “Thank you. That’s why L.A. pays me the big bucks.” Which barely covered the rent on her closet-sized apartment in Westwood and insurance on a five-year-old tomato red Neon. “I wonder if he knew her?”

  “Like you said, it’s a small town, and it sounds like she was a local celebrity.”

  “I got that impression from the newspaper even before we talked with Jarrett Boyce.” She chewed thoughtfully on a buffed fingernail. “Do you suppose they could have been lovers?”

  “That’s unlikely.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause I already checked it out. Charles got married two years before Linda Dale’s death.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. They could have been having an affair.”

  “That’s also unlikely. Not only does the guy consider himself a pillar of morality, the conventional wisdom around these parts says that he married into money to keep his family in the style to which they’d become accustomed back when oil was king.”

  “You’d think being CEO of a family petroleum company would pay very well.”

  “Not well enough. There was a time when his daddy probably had more power than the governor. He’d had more than one governor and several congressmen in his pocket. Regulation slowed the money flow, then the bust tightened things even more. The family’s richer than most around these parts, but if it wasn’t for Charles’s wife’s money, they’d probably have to give up the plane, the yacht, the ski chalet in Aspen, and the villa in Tuscany.”

  “I didn’t find any villa when I did my search.”

  “The title’s in his mother-in-law’s name. But she lives in one of those retirement communities in Baton Rouge and hasn’t been out of the country in a decade.”

  “I suppose you got that from Finn.”

  “He did a little digging.”

  “I don’t even want to know,” Regan muttered. “I’m beginning to feel as if I’m dealing with the Hardy boys. Maybe Melancon gave Linda Dale the stock to pay her off.”

  “To get rid of her once he tired of the affair?”

  “That’s always possible.”

  “Sure it is. But if that was the case, then why would he kill her?”

  “Maybe she refused the offer.”

  “She had the certificates.”

  “Okay, maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she took them, then threatened to go to his wife.”

  “Because she wanted more money?”

  “Or because she was in love and decided that she couldn’t live without him.”

  “So he killed her to shut her up.”

  “That’s one scenario.”

  “You realize, of course, that if you’re right, Melancon could be your father?”

  “We can’t all have heroes for fathers.” It was looking more and more likely that she probably didn’t. “But the name’s wrong. Dale referred to the man she was going to run off with as J,” she reminded him. Then paused. “There’s something I haven’t wanted to bring up. But I don’t think we can overlook it.”

  “What?”

  “You do realize that there’s someone else who could have been involved with Dale.”

  “More than one someone. There are a helluva lot of names in this parish that begin with J.”

  “Like Jake.”

  She’d expected him to swear. Maybe even rage. At least snap back a denial. He did none of that. He threw back his sun-gilded head and roared with laughter.

  “It’s not that funny.”

  “If you’d known my dad, you’d think it was. There’s no way he would have looked at another woman. He and maman used to embarrass the hell out of us kids, the way they used to neck like teenagers. They renewed their vows on their twentieth wedding anniversary, right here at Holy Assumption.

  “The very next weekend, on the night before he was killed, they were partying at his fortieth birthday party. I remember groaning with Jack when they were dancing to this slow Cajun song about love goin’ wrong and they kissed, right there, in front of God and everyone in Blue Bayou. And not just a friendly little husband-and-wife public peck on the cheek. They were really gettin’ into it.” His expression turned reminiscent and understandably sad. “Everyone in the parish knew Jake Callahan flat-out adored my mother. And she adored him back.”

  “I believe that.” It wouldn’t be that hard to fall in love with a Callahan man, if a woman was looking to fall in love. Which she definitely was not. “But nobody’s perfect. People make mistakes. Get themselves in messy situations they never could have imagined.”

  “Even if he had slipped, and I’m not saying he did, since I don’ believe it for a damn minute, if he’d gotten a woman pregnant, he would have done right by her.”

  “Done right. Does that mean marry?”

  “Hell, I don’t know.” He was no longer laughing. In fact, he was as sober as she’d ever seen him. Even more serious than when he was crawling beneath those electrical wires to rescue the trucker and a runaway teenager.

  He blew out a long ragged breath. “Maybe. Maybe not. I told you, he took his marriage vows seriously, so I can’t see him signing up for a lifetime sentence if he wasn’t in love.”

  “Sentence. Well, that certainly reveals how you think about marriage.”

  “Actually, I try not to think about it. I’m also not real wild about the way you’re analyzing every damn word I use, like this is some kind of interrogation. However, as I was about to point out, even if Dad were to go plantin’ his seed somewhere, he would have insisted on contributing to his child’s support.

  “I watched him chase down men who didn’t pay their child support and toss them in jail until they decided it’d be better to write the checks, long before it got politically popular to crack down on deadbeat dads. Dad was big on birthdays and holidays, and just taking us boys out to the camp for a lazy summer day of fishing, or even tossin’ a ball around the backyard before supper. He’d never desert his own flesh and blood.” His hand had curled into an unconscious fist. “He wouldn’t have let your mother live in the same town and never acknowledged you.”

  “I understand why you’d want to stand up for him. I also understand why you’d find it hard to believe that he might possibly commit adultery, since it’s obvious you respect him—”

  “There’s not a man, woman, or child who knew Jake Callahan who didn’
t respect him.”

  “I’m also willing to accept that. But we can’t ever really know our parents, Nate, because they try their best never to let us see their flaws. I’m proof that an otherwise honest parent might think it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep a secret from their children.”

  “Not my dad, dammit. Look, you’ve met Finn.”

  “Of course.”

  “Let me put it this way: our father would make Finn look downright flexible.”

  “You’re joking.” She’d never met a more rigid, black-and-white person than Finn Callahan. And living in the world of cops, that was really saying something.

  “This is not exactly a joking matter. It’s also a moot point, because Dad was working in Chicago when your mother got pregnant.”

  “He was sheriff of Blue Bayou when she lived here.”

  “When she died,” Nate corrected. “But you’re the same age as Jack, and he and Finn were both born in Chicago. We moved here when I was six weeks old.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess that does take him out of the picture, since there’s no indication Dale ever lived in Illinois.”

  “Not unless you want to concoct some theory about them meeting on some plane trip and becoming members of the mile-high club over Kansas, then going their separate ways after it landed.”

  The uncharacteristic sarcasm in his tone was sharp enough to cut crystal. “I suppose I deserved that.”

  “No.” He sighed and shook his head. “You didn’t. I understand this is tough on you, and you’re only doin’ what comes naturally. Detecting.”

  “I’m sure as hell not doing very well at it so far,” she muttered.

  “Like you said, it’s a cold case. You’ve only been in town two days.”

  “I know. I just get impatient.”

  “That’s not good for you. Raises your blood pressure and all sorts of bad stuff. Move here, and you’re bound to slow down. Live longer.”

  “Maybe it just seems longer.”

  He chuckled at that.

  “Do you know Melancon’s wife?”

  “Sure. She’s on just about every charitable committee in town. As mayor, I have a lot of dealings with her. She tends to keep busy, and her fingers are in most of the pies around town. She does a lot of charity work, but it’s seldom the hands-on kind of stuff. She’s more likely to donate a wing to the hospital than drive around in her Jag delivering Meals on Wheels.