Stella Cameron: Out of Body

Before she could react, other than with a big thump in her chest, Winnie barged onto the stone-tiled floor of the hallway and disappeared into Marley’s sitting room. The television was on and the volume too high.

Sister Willow’s own set must be “on the fritz again” so she’d come to borrow Marley’s. This was a regular event. The whole family knew that in all probability Willow’s TV was fine, but she was often lonely if she wasn’t working and made the excuse to hang out with one of them.

“Oh, there’s my baby, Winnie,” Willow cried out in the voice she used only for the dog. “Come to Auntie Willow and have a cuddle. Marley?”

“Hey, Willow,” Marley said. “Give me a few minutes. I’m wet.”

She passed the sitting room and went directly into her bedroom where she shut the door and opened one of the built-in cupboards that flanked her bed. Her curly hair was barely damp and she wasn’t at all wet enough to matter.

She had to eat.

The DeBrand of Indiana Connoisseur Chocolates, or chocolate pralines from Aunt Sally’s on Decatur in the French Market?

They weren’t big boxes. She took them both, crawled into her bed and sat against her pillows. With the goodies open on her legs, she inhaled. The mouthwatering scents alone were enough to start the trickle of new strength into her weakened muscles.

Willow would think she was changing clothes.

A chocolate praline melted rapidly away in Marley’s mouth, followed by another, and then one of the exquisite little DeBrand chocolates, this one white chocolate passion fruit ganache dipped in milk chocolate with a piece of candied ginger on top.

Marley ate the entire contents of both boxes too fast and considered returning to her well-stocked cupboard for more.

There wasn’t time. She’d already dithered for too long. Where could she find some help in tracing two women who must be missing?

Her first step would be to track down Uncle Pascal and ask if he could suggest a way to locate someone without knowing their name—or anything else about them. How would she do that without making him even more suspicious about her activities?

“I saw someone and I’d like to talk to them.” She needed to practice a more conversational tone. Marley cleared her throat and tried again. “How d’you think I’d find a person without knowing their name or where they live?”

She groaned at the thought of risking what he might say after outrageous questions like those. And she must make sure he didn’t find out about the dollhouse. He would want to take it away if he discovered the danger it had got Marley into.

When she tried to call him, his phone rang and rang. “If I can help you, I will. Leave a message.” He might not be out, but his voice on the answering machine meant he was unavailable.

Could be lifting weights.

“Marley?” Willow called.

She gave her stash cupboard a longing glance, but got resolutely out of bed, quickly changing her clothes, and went to the sitting room.

All she could see of Willow were coppery-red curls as unruly as Marley’s own dark red ones, sticking out over one arm of the rust suede couch. “I was just feeding the toads,” Marley said loudly to be heard over the television. “I like ’em fat when I pop them in a spell.”

“Hah-hah,” Willow responded. She sounded distracted.

“Have you seen Uncle Pascal this afternoon?” Marley asked.

“Mmm, he and Anthony went out.”

Anthony was Uncle Pascal’s trainer. Frustrated, Marley hurried around the couch and sat on the edge at Willow’s feet. “I really need to find him.”

“I don’t know where he is,” Willow said, her voice sharp and rising. “Shh. I can’t hear with you talking.”

Television was Willow’s addiction.

Winnie-the-traitor sat in the curve of Willow’s diminutive body, eyes closed, pretending to be deeply asleep.

“Didn’t they say where they were going?”

“Nope.” Willow hauled a turquoise-and-gold cushion onto her hip and stood it up to form a screen between them.

“Uncle loves to chatter about his outings.” Marley wrestled the cushion away. “Are you sure—”

“Shh!” Willow hugged Winnie close. “The police conference is starting.”

Frustrated, Marley gripped one of Willow’s ankles and gave it a shake.

“Stop it,” Willow said, waving her aside. “This is important. It’s horrible…and scary. We all need to know about it. Haven’t you heard what’s happened?”

“I guess not.”

“They found a woman dead in the river. They think she was thrown there. And she got mauled by a gator.”

“In the river?”

“I don’t know if she was mauled there or somewhere else, then put there,” Willow said. “And don’t tell me there aren’t any gators in the river ’cause I already know. They’re pretty sure it’s murder.”

Marley shuddered. “Horrible.”

“There’s a panic because there are three other women who have gone missing. They’re saying they’re all singers in the Quarter. The police are going to hold a press conference. It should already have started.”

Marley looked over her shoulder at the television. On a split screen, a podium crowded with microphones stood vacant on the right side. On the left there were several photographs. An announcer’s voice, female and strident, rushed along, “We’ll bring the conference to you live the moment it starts. Meanwhile, here are photographs of the missing women and Ms. Cooper. Shirley Cooper, whose body was found this afternoon, is in the larger picture.”

“Nobody even knows when they went missing,” Willow said. “Not for sure. It’s horrible. It could be someone’s targeting singers.”

Four women.

Marley had seen two of them.

Neither of those two had been Shirley Cooper.

“This is a fucking mess,” Detective Nat Archer said, staring at a crowded whiteboard on his office wall. “I get a floater in the river at noon—I hate floaters, the water messes up evidence. And it looks like an alligator tore into this one. A gator attack in the Mississippi. You ever hear anythin’ like that?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. “Now everyone thinks three missing singers are connected to the body we found in the river, and they’ll wash up in bits and pieces, too. They got an army down there by the river lookin’ for a damn gator.”

Gray Fisher watched Archer’s back, the broad, tensed shoulders, long fingers shoved into his pants pockets. “So you could end up pulling three more bodies out of the river—give or take a few missing pieces,” Fisher said, grateful that he wasn’t on the force anymore.

“Goddammit, Fisher, I’m not laughing at this.” Archer gave him an unflinching, almost black-eyed stare. “You do know you’re the closest thing I’ve got to a suspect?”

“Because I came in for a friendly chat?” Well, hell!

“A chat about supposedly looking for a missing woman. One of our missing women. You haven’t told me how you knew about the vic.”

Even creased from a long day’s wear, Archer’s white shirt gleamed. It made his dark skin look even darker. Fisher didn’t like the way the other man looked at him.

“I didn’t know about the…You’re pissing me off. I didn’t know Shirley Cooper. I never even heard her name until I came to this office today. I came looking for information about Amber Lee. I thought you and I were friends and I could do that. When I got here I hadn’t heard there was a search on for several women.”

“Journalists are journalists and they’re mostly a pain in the ass. You’re an investigative journalist.” Archer’s eyes moved away from Fisher’s. “That’s worse than any other kind.”