Joanna Wayne - Alligator Moon

The next chapter in her life. Nothing like making an analogy personal.

She glanced at her watch. Almost nine. Moore’s Travel should be opening soon. Greece might be the answer to her need to go forward with her life, and she was so ready to get out of New Orleans for a while.

Besides, the trip would give her a chance to spend some quality time with her mother. They’d drifted apart during the seven years she’d spent married to Drake. Mainly because when they’d been together her mother had always cut to the chase and asked the dreaded question.

“Are you happy?”

Well, duh? I’m married to the hottest upcoming attorney in New Orleans if not the south. No one but a mother would even think to ask such a question. And if no one ever asked, Cassie didn’t have to answer.

You can ask now, Mom. The answer is not yet, but I’m getting there. Greece would be a nice step along the way. But with or without Greece, I’m taking back control of my life.

BUTCH HAVELIN rolled over in bed and stared at the ceiling of his Houston apartment. It was already late afternoon in Greece. Rhonda was probably getting ready for dinner with her friend. She liked to eat early, liked schedules and order and life that fit into neat little compartments and never got befuddled with spontaneity or excitement.

Opposites attract. The problem was the attraction wore thin over time, became frayed and faded, like an old shirt after too many washings. He and Rhonda had seen thirty years of washings.

Now they lived in the same house, slept in the same bed—at least, they did the nights he made it back to their home in The Woodlands—still saw some of the friends they’d known since the early days of their marriage. Rhonda still offered her cheek for a quick peck in the mornings when he left for work and they hugged each other when he left on business trips.

Sometimes they even went through the motions of making love. The saddest thing was that he didn’t even know when it had all slipped away. The passion had just crept from their lives like heat seeping from a hot bath, leaving nothing but tepidity.

Babs stretched beside him, but didn’t open her eyes. The sheet slipped down and her breasts peeked over the top, soft mounds of firm, golden flesh and pinkish nipples. Small, but all perky and perfect.

Butch never bothered with trying to convince himself that what he and Babs had now would last or even that he wanted it to. She was thirty-four, only a couple of years older than Cassie. He was sixty-one. They were a generation apart in music, memories and experiences. But none of that seemed to matter when they were together. She made him potent and alive, gave him back snatches of his youth, and made him feel as if he were some stud muffin she couldn’t get enough of.

He didn’t want a divorce, definitely didn’t want to split up his assets at this point in life. But he was glad Rhonda was in Greece, would be happy for her to stay there a few more months. Safe. Happy. And gone.

Truth was he’d never given her itinerary a thought, but he’d phone his daughter again today and feign a little concern so that Cassie wouldn’t get all upset and start bugging him about why he didn’t know exactly where her mother was.

The one thing he didn’t need in his personal life was complications. Not from Cassie. Not from Rhonda. Not even from Babs.

Conner-Marsh was all he could handle right now, and if he let this merger get screwed up, his ass was grass. There were plenty of younger guys waiting around to knock the old man off the top.

JOHN ROBICHEAUX pulled the pillow over his head to block the jangling ring of the telephone. The whiskey from last night was blasting away inside his head like a jackhammer. His stomach didn’t feel so great, either. He reached across the bed, checking to be certain he was in it alone.

He was. Time was that would have been enough to send him back to the kitchen for a hair of the dog that was gnawing away at the base of his skull. These days it just brought a quick wave of relief.

The phone kept ringing. He reached for it, started to yank it from the wall connection, then changed his mind. It might be a guide job and he could use the business—as long as they didn’t expect him to ride those choppy waves today.

“John Robicheaux. Can I help you?”

“I got some bad news for you, John.”

John struggled to pull his mind from the mire. “Who is this?”

“Sheriff Babineaux.”

The sheriff. Shit. John must have gotten in a fight and busted up something last night. He tried to remember but only picked up bits and pieces of the night between the shattering blows of the jackhammer. “What’d I do?”

“It’s Dennis, John.”

“What did he do?”

“He’s dead.”

The words cut through the fog, jerking John from the stupor. He threw his legs over the side of the bed, the sudden move sending the room into a tailspin.

“You gotta be mistaken, Tom. I saw Dennis last night. He was fine.”

“It’s no mistake. I wouldn’t call you with this kind of news if I wasn’t certain.”

Damn. This was John’s fault. He should have stayed sober. Should have seen that his little brother got home safe. Now… “Did he hit another car or just run off the road?”

“Neither. It wasn’t an accident, John. Dennis ate a bullet.”

“Murdered?”

“Suicide.”

No! Hell no! Him, maybe, but never Dennis. Dennis had a life. Beer to drink. Women to screw. A big move all planned.

“I guess I should have come out there and told you myself, but it being Saturday and all, I thought I’d better catch you before you headed out into the Gulf on a fishing trip.”

“When did you find out?”

“A few minutes ago. Must have happened sometime during the night, but no one noticed the car over in the swamp until this morning. Hank LeBlanc and a couple of his sons found it and gave me a call. I’m here now.”

“Where’s here?”

“Bayou Road, a couple of miles before the turnoff to Dennis’s place.”

“Don’t move the body until I get there.”

“This ain’t a pretty sight, John. Why don’t you wait and see the body once it’s down at the funeral home and Dastague’s got it cleaned up?”

“Forget Dastague. I want an autopsy and I want it done in New Orleans.”

“No cause, John. There’s not a sign of foul play.”

“Yeah, well I call a bullet plenty sign of foul play. And the cause for the autopsy is that I said so. I want a full investigation, Tom, not some half-assed job that won’t get beyond the ridicule stage with a grand jury.”

“Calm down, John. I know how you felt about Dennis. Hell, we all loved him. He was good-time tonic in solid form. But he had his problems. You know that.”

“Yeah, well you’re the one who’s got them now, Tom. Full autopsy. Full investigation. Stay put. I’m on my way over there.”

“There’s no use. I checked—”

“I’m on my way. Be there.”

The jackhammer was still at work, pounding so that John stumbled as he went to the kitchen for drugs to kill the pain. He shook four extra-strength painkillers into his hand and chased them with a glass of water from the tap.

Images flashed through his mind, like stabs of glaring light. Dennis laughing. Dennis fishing. Dennis scared as shit the time he tipped the pirogue over when they were teasing the old gator with raw chicken wings.

Dennis shaking like an old man in detox a few hours after Ginny Lynn Flanders had died on the operating table.

Suicide, hell! This had the stench of Dr. Norman Guilliot all over it.

“I’M NOT SURE who I need to talk to,” Cassie explained once she got Moore’s Travel on the phone. “My mother is Mrs. Butch Havelin and my father said she books all her travel through your agency.”