Kitabı oku: «Private Investigations», sayfa 2
“Glenn, did you—” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, but she didn’t have to. He understood.
“No, I didn’t kill her, Christy. And the cops haven’t accused me of her murder. Yet.”
“But they suspect you of being involved, huh?”
“Oh, yeah, I know they do. I could feel it and my lawyer, who was with me when they asked all their questions, agrees that I may be this far from being arrested.” He held up thumb and forefinger a scant inch apart. “That’s where we were before I called you, with the police.”
“What makes you their chief suspect?”
“I guess it’s no secret our marriage was in trouble, that we’d been fighting a lot lately, mostly about money. And also—” He hesitated, reluctant to impart the rest.
“I have to know everything, Glenn.”
“Yes. Well, Laura’s best friend talked to the police. She told them she’d been worried about Laura, that she’d been acting frightened about something. When she’d asked her about it, Laura said it was me, that she was scared of me, and another friend backed up this story. Which is crazy. You know me, Christy. You know I’d never threaten anyone, least of all hurt them. But the police—”
“No, it doesn’t look so good, does it? But come on, Glenn—”
He cut her off with a swift, “I know what you’re going to say, that the cops are thorough, that they’ll look at every angle before they bring a charge. But how can I trust them to do that if they’re already convinced they have Laura’s killer, that all they have to do now is collect enough evidence against me?”
“Meaning,” she said slowly, “you want me to try to prove your innocence.”
“Yes. Will you?”
She appreciated his faith in her. But a case like this, aside from the obvious problems, presented another slight difficulty. The police did not appreciate P.I.s investigating their crimes. She’d have to be careful about that.
Have to? Whoa, when had she said yes? She hadn’t. But no didn’t look like much of an option, not with those lost gray eyes pleading with her across the table. Not with the memory of her mother telling her that her earnings this past quarter totaled to a nice round zero.
“All right, you’d better tell me the rest.”
He did and within ten minutes Christy had the essentials. How Laura, not for the first time, hadn’t come home last night. How her body, skull split open, had been found early this morning in the old Claiborne cemetery out along the river road.
No, Glenn didn’t know why Laura had this interest in what had once been her family’s plantation, a property now reduced to a house in ruins on a worthless scrap of wilderness. But she’d been haunting the place lately. That’s why he’d driven out there late yesterday afternoon, expecting to find her. He hadn’t, but two witnesses reported seeing him speeding away from the scene in a state of agitation. Why wouldn’t he be agitated, when his marriage had become as rotten as that crumbling house?
That was a particularly interesting portion of his story for Christy. On a personal level, anyway. Glenn was a teacher. That’s how Christy had met him. She’d been attending the University of New Orleans, training for a career in education. Her semester of student teaching had been spent in his classroom where she had learned, after coping with a herd of fiendish sixth graders, that education was definitely not in her future but that Glenn Hollister could be. Maybe. Hopefully.
But before their relationship had a chance to develop into something permanent, Laura Claiborne had come back into Glenn’s life. The Laura who had walked out on their affair several weeks earlier, but had now decided that Glenn was the man for her. And how could Glenn resist a woman so lovely, so enticing and so very pregnant with his baby?
End of episode. And, as it turned out a moment later, end of their meeting at the Café du Monde. There was a lot more information Christy needed from Glenn, but before he could supply it, his cell phone rang.
After speaking briefly to the caller, he pushed back from the table. “Sorry, Christy, but I have to leave. That was Monica’s housekeeper.” Monica being Laura’s sister, Christy remembered. “Monica is expecting me to join her. There are arrangements we have to make.”
The funeral, Christy guessed. She and Glenn agreed to meet again in the morning, then he paid the check and left.
Now what? But the answer should have been obvious to Christy, and it was. She finally had a job—thank God she had a job!—and since there were still several balmy hours of daylight left, why not begin performing it? She knew by then where she wanted to go and what she wanted to see.
Coming purposefully to her feet, she turned her back on the table and hurried away. Neither of them had touched their coffees.
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, having collected her vintage Ford Escort from where she kept it parked in an alley behind her office, Christy had crossed the Mississippi to the west bank and headed up the river road.
She knew how to get to where she was going. Some memories had a way of sticking with you, especially the painful ones. Wallowing in her misery after Glenn had parted from her five years ago, she had driven out to the Claiborne plantation. Why? Who knew. Maybe because she had expected to discover in its antebellum splendor, some satisfactory explanation for why Glenn had been so dazzled by Laura Claiborne. All she had found was a lost glory.
And how about today? What did she hope to learn by visiting the scene of Laura’s murder? Probably nothing that the police hadn’t already found and claimed. But you never knew what might turn up. It was a beginning, anyway.
Five years hadn’t helped the property, other than to leave no doubt it had deteriorated beyond all hope of rescue. Christy saw that as she turned off the river road below the levee and bumped along the rutted lane. The Claibornes had abandoned the plantation in the hard times after the Civil War, selling off pieces of the land in the decades that followed. Now all that remained in the weed-choked wilderness were the family cemetery and the crumbling house surrounded by an industrial farm with its ugly storage tanks. So much for the romance of the Old South.
The grove of live oaks shading the place, and where she parked her car, was still magnificent, however. She admired its canopies of new green as she made her way to the cemetery. Better start there, she thought, even though she wasn’t fond of cemeteries.
Yellow police tape marking the crime scene had been stretched along the wrought iron fence that enclosed the plot. The tape belonged to the New Orleans homicide division. Glenn had told her, because of its considerable facilities, it had been requested by the tiny local force to handle the case. Ignoring the tape’s existence, Christy entered the cemetery and wandered among the whitewashed tombs of Claiborne ancestors. Her gaze combed the ground, as if she expected to spy a startling clue overlooked by the police. There wasn’t one, unless you counted a couple of chicken feathers blown up against the iron fence. She didn’t.
There probably hadn’t been much for the police to collect either. She remembered it had rained heavily the night Laura’s body had lain here and that would have obliterated evidence. Her gaze drifted toward the house. She considered the place.
Funny thing about gut-level instincts; when they were reliable, they could be so useful. Christy had those instincts, the kind that served a P.I. very well. Trouble was, they needed to be accompanied by the skills that only came from experience. That, unfortunately, she lacked, which meant her instincts weren’t always dependable. At the moment, however, they were urging her to investigate the house. It was just possible it might produce something other than its ghosts.
Obeying her instincts, Christy turned her steps in the direction of the mansion. It really was a pathetic sight. The soaring brick columns that embraced the house on all sides were being eaten away by time and weather. Why had Laura repeatedly been drawn here?
The front door was gone. Boards had been nailed across the gap, but the widest of them had dropped, leaving a yawning hole. Christy didn’t hesitate. Popping through the opening, she was inside the house. Or what was left of it.
Resurrection. That’s what the plantation was called, named after the resurrection fern so common in southern Louisiana. But as Christy passed from room to room, she knew that this house would never be resurrected. It was a gray shell, stripped of everything but the dust bunnies.
Gone were the marble fireplaces, the paneling and carved moldings, the chandeliers, the floor tiles and silver locks. Vandals? If so, they had made off with what must have been some pretty valuable treasures.
Even the staircase was missing and if the outline of it in the peeling plaster on the wall was any indication, it had been a grand affair. But at the back of the house she located a plain service stairway that was still intact. Hey, why not check it all out? Which is why Christy found herself climbing the flight to the second floor where things got a bit more interesting. Or uncomfortable, depending on your point of view.
From behind a door that stood slightly ajar came a rustling sound. Spooks? Mice? Or maybe she was just imagining the noise. Either way, she took the precaution of removing the Glock from her shoulder bag. Of course, getting out of here fast would probably have been the smarter thing to do, but if you were a private investigator…well, you were supposed to investigate.
Semiautomatic firmly in hand, she spread the door wide. Behind it was another narrow flight of stairs leading to the attic. Saying a little prayer, she crept up the stairway, emerging at the top in the hollow vastness of the attic.
She could have sworn those instincts had been trying to tell her something. But, of course, they couldn’t have been because there was nothing to find. No spooks. No wild-eyed lunatic leaping out at her. Not even a scurrying mouse. And she could tell because there was plenty of light. There was a reason for that. The neglected roof had opened up in one corner.
Nor had the damage stopped there, as she discovered when she went to look. The invasive rain had rotted the floorboards under the gaping roof both here and on the floor below, collapsing ceilings and leaving a cavity that dropped from the attic all the way to the first floor. A meteorite couldn’t have fashioned a more perfect shaft.
There was an object above the deep well hanging from a rusted nail on one of the remaining roof rafters. It looked like a small bunch of dried plant material. Herbs of some kind? Leaning forward, Christy reached for it. That’s when the rustling she had heard earlier revealed itself without warning in an explosion of sound and motion.
Suddenly, alarmingly, she came under attack. They swooped down at her, beat at her neck and shoulders, flew at her face. It was like a scene out of that old Hitchcock thriller, The Birds. Except these critters, a colony of swallows nesting up in the shadowy rafters behind her, meant her no harm. They were merely frightened and in a hurry to escape.
Intentional or not, however, by the time the last of them had streamed away through the opening in the roof, they had cost Christy her Glock and her shoulder bag. Her balance as well. She lost that just as her fingers snagged the dried plants, which immediately crumbled to flakes.
The next thing she knew, she was down in the hole itself where the flakes had drifted, hanging by her hands from an exposed pipe once buried under the missing floor. It must have been a gas line that had supplied a chandelier suspended from a second-floor ceiling, though explanations hardly mattered when her precarious handhold was the only thing keeping her from a broken neck.
It was a damn silly situation to get caught in, not to mention absolutely terrifying. The pipe seemed solid enough. Problem was, as hard as she tried, grunting, straining, swinging, she couldn’t manage to pull herself up out of that shaft.
This was serious. Her arms were aching by now, her fingers numb. How much longer could she cling to this pipe before her hands began to slip, before she plunged—How far was it? She made the mistake of glancing down and was immediately so giddy that she closed her eyes. That’s why she didn’t see the long arm that reached down from over her head, didn’t know it was there until a strong hand clamped around her wrist.
Eyes flying open, she issued a little yelp of surprise. The hand tugged, urging her to release her grip on the pipe. No choice but to trust him. She did and was hauled up with such force that when her feet touched firm floor again, they failed to support her.
She staggered, slamming against a hard wall which turned out to be a broad-shouldered body. The body had a pair of arms that caught and steadied her in a comforting embrace. At least it was comforting until, dragging her head back, she looked up and discovered that the pair of lady-killer eyes colliding with hers belonged to the Prince of Darkness.
“You have got to stop falling for me like this,” he said.
Chapter Two
It was disgusting that, like half the female population in New Orleans, she should suddenly find herself susceptible to this man. Of course, there was a very good explanation. This was only a momentary reaction because she’d been so shaken by her predicament. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be experiencing all these treacherous sensations. This dizzy breathlessness as the pair of brash green eyes, that didn’t miss a thing, continued to hold her gaze. This sudden heat in her insides as she stared up at the bold face under its thatch of dark hair. And this weakness in her limbs as the powerful arms continued to pin her against his chest.
Okay, so the guy had a blatant sex appeal in a lean body that scraped six feet and moved with a sensual, confident gait. She’d give him that, whatever her earlier denials.
But Dallas McFarland? Come on, he was her rival, her sworn enemy. And nature was playing a mean trick on her, that’s all, one Christy planned to correct just as soon as she recovered her wind.
“Because,” he continued in a deliberately seductive voice, “if you go around dropping into holes just to get my attention, things are bound to happen. Really dangerous things.” And up came that grin again on his wide mouth, the sinful, mocking one.
“I suppose,” she said, finding air at last, “there’s an explanation for why you’re not on a boat with Brenda Bornowski. Why you happen to be—Hey, let me go.”
“That any way to express your appreciation to the man who just saved your shapely little fanny from getting flattened?”
“I’m forever grateful,” she said sarcastically, and then amended it with a grudging, “Okay, I am grateful. Now let me go.”
He released her and Christy moved back out of his reach. Better. Or it would be if those green eyes would stop trying to get intimate with her. “So what did you do with Brenda?”
“Turned her over to one of my operatives when the boat made its first stop. Routine stuff at that point,” he boasted. “She did meet the punk onboard, by the way. I imagine Daddy will be subjecting her to a harsh punishment when he gets my report. Probably deprive her of her credit cards for at least a month.”
He sounded so smug about it, so carelessly confident that Christy wanted to smack him. She had gone and busted her backside, that same backside he had just so familiarly referred to, to win the Bornowski case, and he’d reached out with ease and plucked it from her grasp. It was an outcome that still rankled.
McFarland had a pair of black eyebrows, thick ones that seemed to express his moods. Right now they were lifted in amusement. “Yeah, I know,” he said, reading her thoughts, “you’re wondering how I managed to catch up with little Brenda when you thought you’d left me in the dust back on Canal. It’s called being resourceful—like slipping a couple of twenties to the subject’s best friend beforehand to let you know by cell phone where she’s planning to wind up. Hey, don’t scowl at me like that. All’s fair in love and private investigation.”
“Which still doesn’t explain what you’re doing out here.”
“Oh, didn’t I say?” He leaned negligently against one of the attic’s supporting posts. “See, my operative wasn’t alone. He’d brought Monica Claiborne with him to the landing. She wanted to speak with me before she went on to meet her brother-in-law.”
Oh, no, Christy thought with a sinking heart, knowing what was coming.
“Seems Monica isn’t satisfied with what the cops are doing to find her sister’s killer. And since, unlike her brother-in-law, she can afford to hire the best—that’s me and my agency—she asked me to look into it.”
It was worse than Christy imagined, because Monica must have told McFarland that Glenn meant to hire her for the same purpose.
He smiled that odious smile again. “News travels fast, huh? Hey, take it easy. Way you’re reeling, you’ll be sliding into that hole again.”
Christy couldn’t stand it. She positively could not stand it. This case was vital to her, probably her last chance to survive as a P.I. in her own right, and now here was Dallas McFarland again threatening to mess it up for her. Well, not if she could help it.
Recovering her gun and her bag from the floor, clutching them against her breasts, she fired off a livid, “I can’t stop you from working for Monica Claiborne, but you keep away from me and my client or I’ll report you to the licensing board for unethical practices! I swear I will!”
“Uh, actually, I was sort of thinking—”
“Don’t!”
Pushing past him, she fled down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor. McFarland was right behind her, as persistent as a dog barking up a tree. And equally annoying.
“I don’t know what you’re so mad about. If I hadn’t come out here, just like you did, to take a look at the scene of Laura Hollister’s death, where would you be? Still hanging from that gas pipe, right?”
Christy rushed on, not answering him.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it? So the least you could do—” He followed her through the gap in the boards and out into the yard. “—the least you could do is listen to me.”
Ignoring him, she headed for her car under the oaks. He was still nipping at her heels.
“Look, grits, slow down long enough to hear me—”
This time she stopped, rounding on him so swiftly he almost collided with her. “What did you just call me?”
He backed up a safe distance away from her, his hands raised in mock innocence. “Hey, it’s a compliment. Grits is one of my favorite foods. Really.”
“Is it? Well, that’s one Southern dish I can do without.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing. With a little honey on top, it’s downright irresistible.” There went those eyebrows again, registering something far too suggestive.
“I’ll bet.”
Swinging away from him, she went on to her car. It was no longer alone under the oaks. McFarland’s car was parked beside it. And wouldn’t you know it would be a sleek, cream-colored convertible just reeking of success, making her own old red Escort look all the more inadequate by comparison.
Well, so what? It was dependable enough to take her out of here and away from McFarland, providing she could find the keys. Naturally, she couldn’t. She had to stand there digging through all the junk in her bag while McFarland caught up with her. Trapped. Forced to listen to him as he leaned his rangy, tempting frame against the side of her car.
“Got a proposition for you, grits. Oh, you’re gonna love it.”
He spoke in a lazy, deep-voiced drawl, the country-boy variety. She suspected it wasn’t altogether genuine and wondered how many women had been dumb enough to fall for it.
“What I was thinking,” he went on, “is that you and I could work together on this case.”
Now that took her attention away from her frantic search for the car keys. Boy, did it ever! She lifted her head and stared at him, not believing what she was hearing. Somebody here had just lost his mind, and she didn’t think it was her.
“I can see by the way that sweet little nose of yours is twitching that you’re just a tad upset by the notion. But think about it. Even if we do have separate clients, we’re after the same thing, aren’t we? The truth behind Laura Hollister’s murder. So why not join forces and share our efforts? Make sense?”
“About as much sense as a cottonmouth getting cozy with a bunny rabbit.” As she went on staring at him, Christy realized there was something intense behind this casual offer of his. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Well, sure.”
“It’s never going to happen, McFarland. And why would an exalted P.I. like you, want it to happen when you know how I feel about you? Which, in case you’ve been wondering, isn’t good. Besides—and correct me if I’m wrong—your opinion of me and my agency is—” She broke off with another sudden realization. “Oh, I get it. I’m a direct pipeline to the chief suspect. You want easy access to any privileged information my client might share with me. And that’s about as underhanded as slipping a pair of twenties to Brenda Bornowski’s best friend.”
“Why, when I’d be sharing anything Monica Claiborne knows with you?”
“I’ll collect my own information, thank you. And move aside so I can get out of here.” She had found her car keys, and now all she wanted was to put Dallas McFarland behind her. Far behind her.
“Sure you won’t reconsider?” He stepped away from the Escort. “It would be an opportunity for you to work with an experienced P.I. Just think of how much you could learn.”
There was one thing she had to say about this man, Christy thought, opening her car door and sliding in behind the wheel. He didn’t lack ego or tenacity. As she fumbled with her seat belt, he poked his head through the open window of the driver’s door.
“Okay, so you’re going to solve this murder all on your own. But did you ever stop to think, grits, that the cops might be right and that Glenn Hollister did kill his wife?”
She turned the key in the ignition, started the car, and resisted the temptation to raise the window with his head in it. “Glenn is a decent, caring man, incapable of murder, and I’m going to prove that!”
“We’re sensitive about ol’ Glenn, are we? Interesting.”
Christy angrily tugged at the brim of her baseball cap and shoved the gear stick into Drive. Dallas McFarland leapt back from the window just in time to save himself from being decapitated as she sped away from the oak grove.
On the first half of the drive back to New Orleans, Christy fumed. On the second half she cooled down and thought about McFarland’s reasons for wanting to work with her. And by the time she reached the city, she decided there was something wrong with those reasons. They weren’t good enough. So what was he really after?
When she got back to the office and told Denise all about it, the woman agreed that McFarland’s proposal didn’t make sense. “Yeah, what’s a hotshot P.I. like him need with you?”
“Thank you, Denise.”
“Well, sure is funny.”
On the other hand, Christy decided, they were probably assigning dark motives where none existed. And what did it matter, anyway, since she wouldn’t be working with McFarland? No sir, she worked alone and starting tomorrow she was going to be much too busy helping Glenn to worry about anyone else.
However, at this moment, it was a little hard to concentrate on Glenn and her feelings for him with the memory of Dallas McFarland’s hot eyes haunting her. And that was another thing. How could green eyes be hot? She didn’t know, but his were.
THE OFFICE SUITE of the McFarland Detective Agency was located in a high-rise overlooking the Mississippi. Dallas’s private office, as classy as his cream-colored convertible, had floor-to-ceiling windows that commanded a sweeping view of the New Orleans harbor, one of the busiest in the country with its barges, tugs and freighters.
At this moment, with a flaming sunset gilding the river and its traffic, the scene was particularly impressive. Dallas paid no attention to it. Tilted back in his comfortable chair, he occupied himself with something far more absorbing. His yo-yo.
Dallas was very good with the instrument, able to execute intricate loops that had been the envy of every kid on his block. Hell, he could make the thing actually sing when he tried. Right now, though, he was simply sending it out and back at a horizontal angle, an activity that permitted him to think. Unfortunately, whenever his frustration was considerable and he shot the yo-yo too far, it left marks in the designer wall covering.
That covering was taking a real beating this evening. The subject of his thoughts was Christy Hawke. Or, to be more accurate, how Christy Hawke had felt when she’d been plastered against him up there in that attic this afternoon.
Good. That’s how she’d felt. Damn good, with those luscious little breasts of hers squeezed against his chest, that honey-blond hair all fragrant under his nose. The crazy thing was, he’d never thought of her before as anything but a small nuisance in a baseball cap and running shoes. Never found her remotely alluring. But up there in that attic, he’d just about lost all self-control.
So how smart was it that he wanted to hook up with her, place himself in a situation where he would be close to her on a daily basis? Not smart at all. He didn’t need that kind of distraction.
The yo-yo in his hand flew out and back, out and back.
On the other hand, he did need what she was in a position to offer him. Needed it badly. Yeah, no choice about it. So all right, he would just have to resist temptation while he worked with her. He could do that. He could also live with the guilt of what amounted to using her. Couldn’t he? Hell, he had to. There was no way he could reveal this secret that was eating him up inside.
The yo-yo bounced off the wall. He refused to see that as a sign of any dangerous emotion. But, just as a precaution, he rewound it and laid it aside.
Of course, she had no intention of working with him. None whatever. But Dallas had the solution to that. Not that it was something he wanted to do. She’d call him conniving, blow that baseball cap right off the top of her head. No choice about it.
Swinging around in his chair, he reached for the telephone on his desk.
CHRISTY WAS grabbing a quick breakfast in her apartment the next morning when Denise hollered to her from the office below.
“Girlfriend, you up there?”
Bowl of corn flakes in hand, she went to the top of the stairs. “I’m here. What is it?”
Denise stood at the bottom of the flight, hands planted on her ample hips. “You got you a surprise waiting down here. Want me to send it on up, or are you comin’ down?”
“A delivery?”
“Uh, sorta.”
“I’ll be right down.”
What now? she wondered, not certain that she cared for the ambiguous tone in Denise’s voice. Spooning up the last mouthful of corn flakes, she dumped the bowl in the sink, snatched up her bag and flew down the stairs. As it turned out, straight into the outstretched arms of Denise’s surprise.
“Pop!”
Christy was the only member of her family who shared her father’s diminutive height. But what Casey Hawke lacked in size, he made up for in strength. She was reminded of that when he folded her in a hug that crushed her shoulder bag into her ribs.
When she was finally released, he demanded, “How are you, baby?” And before she could answer him, he turned to Denise. “How is she, Denise?”
“Got herself a case.”
“Yeah, I heard about that.”
How had he heard? What was he doing here? “Pop, what are you doing here?”
“On my way to help Roark with a client,” he said, referring to one of Christy’s brothers. “Didn’t your mother mention that when you called?”
Had she? Christy didn’t think so, but she kind of remembered Moura starting to tell her something about her father when she had to hang up on her. “Pop, this isn’t San Antonio.”
“Right, but I couldn’t get a direct flight.”
#8220;So you’re just here between planes?”
“That’s all.”
“Uh-oh,” Denise mumbled ominously.
Christy didn’t think she trusted her father’s explanation either. “Have you had breakfast?”
“On the flight down. I could stand to stretch my legs though, before I grab a cab back to the airport.”
He wanted to talk. He could have done that over the phone. This was beginning to sound more serious by the moment. “Let’s go, Pop.”
They left the office and crossed the courtyard, passing in the carriageway the side window of St. Leger’s Antiques. Her friend, Alistair St. Leger, was arranging a display of snuff boxes and waved to her. Out on the street, carriages conducted tourists through the Quarter, and around Jackson Square, where Christy and her father ended up strolling, street artists set up their wares for the day. It was Christy’s adopted city and she loved it all, even its seedier aspects, but her father’s presence had her fearing she might be forced to say goodbye to it.
“All right, Pop, let’s have it.”
He wasn’t gentle with her about it. Where business was concerned, he never was. “Your lease on the office comes up for renewal in ten days. We’re not going to pick it up, Christy. The agency can’t afford to carry you anymore.”
She stopped and turned her head to look at him. He had dark hair, liberally streaked with gray and a pair of blue eyes that at the moment were uncompromising. Beloved daughter or not, he was shutting her down. He was the senior member of the Hawke Detective Agency, who got tough whenever it was necessary. It was how Hawke’s had been able to survive and prosper all these years.
