Marilyn Pappano - Bayou Hero

Regardless of his motive, she accepted. With the temperature and humidity both hovering close to one hundred, the couple blocks’ walk would sap a good chunk of her energy.

Again, the trip was made in silence. This time he didn’t pull into the driveway, even though the young officer waiting there would have let them pass. He parked across the street and didn’t even glance to his left.

“It’s a beautiful house,” Alia said, watching him closely.

His only response was the twitch of a taut muscle in his jaw.

“You haven’t been here in twelve years?”

Another faint twitch. “Closer to seventeen.”

“Miss Viola said you left home when you were fifteen. Was that the last time you saw the place?”

“Yeah.”

“Going out on your own at fifteen...” Alia gave a shake of her head. At fifteen she’d thought she was grown-up and competent, but her parents had known better. She wouldn’t have made it two days on the street all by her lonesome. “Why did your mother let you do that?”

“She had no choice.” He glanced at her, then at the street ahead, and murmured, “He never gave any of us a choice.”

The words were soft, not meant for her to hear, and the expression on his face was bitter, resigned. She knew from cases she’d worked that some parents lived to make their children’s lives miserable, but she didn’t understand it. Why bring a child into the world if all you intended to do was torment it?

Obviously Jeremiah Jackson had tormented his son.

And that made Landry a viable suspect in Jeremiah’s death.

She asked the question she should have asked first thing back at Mary Ellen Davison’s house. “Where were you between three and six this morning?”

He looked at her then, dark eyes locking on her face. There was no guilt in them, no emotion whatsoever, but that didn’t mean anything. She’d met some skilled liars in her life—had even married one. Popular myths aside, there was no way to look at a person and know beyond a doubt that he was lying.

“I was at the bar. Got roped into filling in for one of my boss’s poker buddies. I didn’t get home until a quarter to six.”

“So you didn’t kill your father.”

Again, he took a long time to answer, and again, his features were unreadable. “No,” he said at last, breaking gazes with her, gesturing toward the passenger door, a clear sign he wanted her to get out.

She did so and was about to close the door when he looked at her again. “But I wish I had.”

“Watch who you say that to.” Closing the door, she circled behind the car to cross the street. The cop on guard was young, probably very new, hot and in need of a break. She smiled at him as she passed, climbed to the top of the incline, then grabbed a lawn chair and toted it back down. “No protocol says you have to pass out from the heat while you’re on watch.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Anybody been here who doesn’t belong?”

“Reporters. Some of ’em are still taking pictures across the street.”

She leaned past him to see the small pods of camera-wielding people on the far side of the street.

“Some people claiming to be relatives stopped by, too. Wanted to go in and get some precious little something-or-other the admiral or his wife promised ’em the last time they were here.”

“Ah, families. Gotta love them.”

She climbed the driveway again, studying the windows, the outdoor spaces, the lawn, the flowers, the detached garage. How well had the killer known this place? Had he been a regular guest? Had he lived for a time in one of those curtained rooms upstairs? Had he been a she, come back from her own disappearance to take revenge on the husband who’d cost her a son?

Once she was inside the house, she wandered through the common areas downstairs before going upstairs. This time she ignored the admiral and Camilla’s suite, turning the opposite direction. The first room she came to was a guest room—lovely, richly decorated. Across the hall was another, and next to it, a girl’s room. This room was impressive and, judging from the pristine state and the faint scent of paint, recently decorated.

The admiral had two young granddaughters, just the right age to appreciate the whimsical colors and design of the room. Every girlie princess fantasy had been incorporated into the space, with enough toys and dress-up clothes to make any girl happy to move in.

The whole prissy/happiness/light room made Alia shudder.

Back into the hall and down to the last remaining door. The knob creaked when she turned it. It was one of those curtained rooms she’d noticed outside. It smelled stuffy, and a flick of the light switch illuminated a layer of dust everywhere. Pale blue walls, a single bed, a desk and wooden chair, a bookcase. No pictures on the walls, no linens on the bed, no television or computer or books on the shelves. No keepsakes. No clothes in the closet. No sign that anyone had lived in the room in the past twenty years.

Or, at least, seventeen.

They hadn’t kept anything that showed a fifteen-year-old boy had lived here, hated here, plotted to escape from here.

Landry would probably be happy that they’d sanitized his memory from the room. After all, he sure appeared to work hard at sanitizing their memories from his life.

Chapter 3

As Landry lost sight of the Jackson home in the rearview mirror, he took a few deep breaths of relief. Now he could go home. Push his family back into the dark little corner they belonged, at least until morning. Go back to being just Landry instead of Jeremiah Jackson III.

Blue Orleans, the bar where he worked, was located in the French Quarter, an old brick building that stood, faintly crooked, between a restaurant and a vacant storefront. The job came with an apartment upstairs and his own off-street parking. He pulled into the space that ended at an elaborate iron gate set into a matching fence and kept anyone without a key away from the courtyard and the apartments beyond. Beyond the fence, there was a fountain, flower beds and brick walkways that led to two doors downstairs and two sets of stairs, one for each place upstairs.

He took the stairs on his left, coming out on a long landing that had been a balcony in the original house. The brass numeral three that had fallen off the door long ago had left an impression of the number in faded red paint. In fact, faded was the best description for the entire building. What had been a pricey, showy home fifteen decades ago reminded him of an aging, wrinkled beauty queen: a ghost of its former loveliness but with its grace and gentility intact.

He’d just finished opening a few windows when his cell rang. After a glance at the screen, he debated answering long enough for the caller to hang up. A moment later, the phone beeped, signaling a voice mail. In the cool, dim light of his bedroom, he sprawled across the bed before playing the message, closing his eyes at the soft greeting.

“Landry, it’s Dr. Granville. I heard the news about Captain Jackson... I guess I should make that Admiral. I understand he’s been promoted since the last time I saw you. Anyway, hearing the news made me think of you, and I wanted to tell you if you need to talk—and you know, of course, that I think you should—I’m still here or I can refer you to someone else.” The faintly accented voice paused before going on. “Take care of yourself through this, Landry.”

He noticed as the message clicked off that she hadn’t offered condolences.

Victoria Granville, blonde, British and beautiful, was a few years younger than his mother and knew him better than anyone, including his mother. Without her, he wasn’t sure he would have survived being Jeremiah’s son.

But he didn’t need to talk to her now. He was okay with his father’s death. His only care was a vague sort of relief. The admiral was dead. Now he could burn in the fires of hell, where he belonged, and Landry...