John Miller - Too Far Gone

“Agent Keen,” he said. “Looks like we’re looking for an old GMC or Chevrolet panel truck. CSI says it was a pipe, just like you thought. Lead, with a nutria hair and salt water on it. Nutria’s a pesky swimming rodent the size of a house cat that lives in the swamps and marshes. Two blows. They’re running the Volvo prints now. You get anything new?”

“Michael, I think it’s possible the woman who killed the LePointes, Sibby Danielson, is out,” she told him. “That may explain the media’s sudden interest in those files.”

The implication of that possibility didn’t escape the seasoned detective.

“Can you find out where she was being held and if she’s out?” she asked. “We need to do it quietly so we don’t set off any alarms and have the hospital calling the media.”

Manseur’s heart rate sped up as his gait increased.

“I’ll check on her place of incarceration, and I’m on my way,” he told her. “Sit tight and I’ll come get you.”

One call and he found out Sibby Danielson had been sent to River Run, ten miles north of the city, facing the Mississippi River levee. He picked up Alexa at a strip mall parking lot and drove out River Road, which more or less hugged the Mississippi River levee. The highway started at Canal Street at the river and ran, under a variety of highway numbers and street names, clear to Minnesota, or someplace up north. Despite what the weather people said, the crystal-clear sky and the dry air seemed to belie the fact that a storm was swallowing up almost the entire Gulf of Mexico, making its way toward them.

“Sibby aside for the moment, you think Gary got grabbed because he was in Casey’s car?”

“Since the Volvo’s windows are tinted dark, it’s a possibility the assailant didn’t see that Gary was driving her car,” Alexa said.

“If the Danielson woman did do it, she had to have had some help. I suppose the perps could have thought Casey was still in the car if they hadn’t been watching closely and seen him leave in it,” Manseur said.

“If they saw him drive there in the GTO with the baby, they could have waited down the road for the Volvo and followed it, assuming Casey was in it,” Alexa said. “The perps could have waited down the road so they wouldn’t be seen lurking, and followed the car. But…”

“But?”

“It’s also possible that someone on the inside knew they’d switch cars and told the perps.”

Manseur absently tapped the steering wheel. “So you like the assistant, Smythe, for it,” Manseur said.

“Well, Grace talked about the Volvo being found in a residential neighborhood. I never said where the Volvo was found.”

“You sure?”

“Location never came up. I suppose Evans could have told Dr. LePointe and he mentioned it to Casey.”

Manseur said, “Grace could have assumed that since the Volvo wasn’t found immediately, it was because in a residential area parked cars wouldn’t attract police attention. She’s been a close friend of Casey West’s forever, so why would she be involved? What would she have to gain…besides cash?”

How could she relate the feelings she had about Grace Smythe’s hero worship? With Gary out of the way, Grace might think she’d be closer to Casey. That Casey, in her grief, might cling to Grace as a convenient life raft.

“Maybe Grace has another motive,” Alexa said. “My impression of Grace is that she is the sort of person who was born into a respected family but without any money left to go with the name. She told me the LePointes took her around the world, implying she couldn’t have gone on such trips otherwise. Given her history as Casey’s friend, she can’t enjoy being a salaried employee and fetch-it girl, which is exactly what she is. Dr. LePointe treats her like a servant, and to a lesser extent so does Casey. I suspect that Grace went on those trips because she was an acceptable traveling companion for Casey, and a paid pal was how the LePointes saw her, and that’s how William still sees her. I think Grace knows it deep down, and is in denial over it.”

“So Casey isn’t her friend?” Manseur asked.

“Yes, a close friend, but she’s also her employer. Grace is a remote second banana to Gary with Casey, and maybe that’s a hard wire to walk. Grace is basically expendable, and maybe Gary sees her that way. He’s fiercely into Casey and Deana, but it’s possible he doesn’t care much for Grace. She’s sort of clingy and self-important.”

“I don’t see her best friend doing it, but she’s on the inside, and I’m open to anything. But lots of people not connected to the Wests could have gotten this every-Friday meal pattern by watching them, or maybe a waitress, like Cindy/Nancy, or another waitress, said something to a husband, or a hundred somebody else’s.”

Alexa shrugged. It was true and possible. But it didn’t feel right to her.

“You think Casey West could be in any danger?” Manseur ventured. “Say, if Sibby Danielson is out and is after revenge or something, a crazy person obsessing on it for twenty-six years might act on it as soon as she can swing an exit from the nut hatch.”

“I think Casey’s well-enough protected from an axe-swinging middle-aged woman,” Alexa said. “Even if Casey were the original target and somebody’d planned to get LePointe to pay a ransom for her, they’d certainly know Gary was a valuable enough commodity to make their effort pay just as much.”

“Not a crazy woman’s thinking,” he said. “More likely revenge.”

“Someone acting with her might have changed the focus for her. If they took Gary by an unanticipated turn in events, they could be flexible enough to adapt from revenge to profit.”

“You have a point or three,” Manseur agreed.

“And something Casey said needs to be considered. It’s also possible that someone who thinks it would please Dr. LePointe is behind this.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know. Why not Decell? He sure could have pulled it off.”

“He wouldn’t have targeted Casey. If that’s the case, Gary West is dead. If Decell’s behind it, he’ll have covered his tracks and wouldn’t have any reason to keep Gary alive. You can take that to the bank. And if that’s the case, it means we’re wasting our time.”

“Pollyanna Manseur,” Alexa said, laughing.

“This is where the hospital property starts,” Manseur said, pointing out through the windshield.

The corner of the perimeter fence started a quarter of a mile before the driveway into River Run. The buildings were set back from River Road on a field of green grass that looked like a fairway. The manicured grounds were dotted with stately oaks. A green tractor towed a mowing platform, doing a job that probably never had an ending place. The hospital’s main structure was a two-story brick monster with massive columns spaced its entire width to support the extended roof. The building might have passed for a monastery or a junior college, except for the steel wire grates covering some of the windows.

“Tara,” Alexa said.

“Place was built during Governor Huey P. Long’s administration,” Manseur explained. “In order to steal big, old Huey had to spend big. He built roads and bridges and hospitals and got millions back from the contractors. The Long administration designed the snatch-and-grab model for the political structure of the State of Louisiana that lives on today.”

“Stephen King would love this place,” Alexa said dryly.

“If Sibby isn’t here,” Manseur said, “she was let out. She might have been moved to another hospital, or released to a halfway-house situation or something. She sure didn’t escape, I can tell you that for fact. They even have their own graveyard out back.”