Stella Cameron - Kiss Them Goodbye

Vivian dropped her hands at once, but she shook her head, turning down any assistance from Charlotte, who didn’t waste time arguing. She sped away and returned with a self-sealing plastic bag and opened it for Spike to drop Louis Martin’s phone inside. He set it on a marble-topped demi-lune table and rested the mangled rose on top.

“We could go into the kitchens maybe,” Cyrus said—ever the diplomat. “Get out of the hall so we don’t look like we’re hovering.”

A young officer arrived at the door. Spike expected him to ask exact directions to the scene and to tell them they should all remain in the house. The man looked at Spike as if he knew him and said, “Detective Bonine said you’d make sure nobody leaves before he gets here.”

He left and they turned to get out of the hall.

They never made it to the kitchens before Errol Bo-nine clomped in without so much as a knock. “Detective Bonine,” he said, flashing his badge around. “Who found the stiff?”

Errol watched too many big city cop shows and subtlety had never been his middle name. His partner, as slim and fit-looking as Errol was paunchy—and sloppy—looked vaguely apologetic. Spike figured Bo-nine had cowed the younger man into being no more than his errand boy.

A few years earlier Errol had tried that on Spike and found out he had a maverick on his hands, a maverick with brains. From that day on, stomping on anyone who might make it easy for Errol to keep up his cozy arrangements with the local muscle had become Spike’s reason to live.

Eventually Spike had taken a walk down an alley. He didn’t remember that alley so well when he woke up in hospital, beaten to a pulp. He’d been told he was fired for jeopardizing the reputation of the force, and pressured out of New Iberia.

“Best get over the shock,” Errol said to the company, yanking his tightly cinched pants higher under his belly. He wore a heavy khaki duster which probably accounted for his redder than usual face and the sweat running from beneath his greased-back gray hair and down his shiny jowls. Errol had always loved his duster and apparently thought it turned him into a romantic figure, a cowboy cop, although he never let anyone forget he was a detective. “Givin’ in to weakness slows things down. Who found the body?”

“I did,” Vivian said in barely a whisper.

“You didn’t say who you were,” Spike said to Errol’s partner.

The man fumbled to produce his badge. “Wiley. Frank Wiley.”

“Good to meet you,” Spike said and deliberately raised his voice a notch when he added, “Spike Devol. I’m Deputy Sheriff over in Toussaint and thereabouts.”

Errol had actually been too pumped up with showing how important he was to notice Spike in civilian clothes. He noticed him now. “I forgot to ask you on the phone. What the fuck you doin’ here, Devol? You know what I said I’d do to you if I caught you messin’ in my territory.”

“Aw, that’s nice of you Errol, but I wouldn’t hear of you putting yourself out,” Spike said, making sure his face didn’t show what he was thinking. “Good evening to you. I’m a guest here. Just happened to show up on a bad night.” He didn’t want trouble in front of Vivian and Charlotte—or Cyrus for that matter.

Errol’s mustache, which stuck straight out to begin with, bristled and brought unpleasant memories back to Spike. Errol said, “You seen the body?” Suspicion narrowed his eyes.

“Yes. As she already told you, Miss Vivian Patin here found it when she was looking for her dog. Then she called in here for help.” Might as well get the first round of rage over. He angled his head at Louis’s phone in the plastic bag and said, “I went out. That’s the victim’s cell phone. The rose is also from the scene.”

Errol’s chubby hand settled on his notebook and he looked from the phone to Spike. If possible, his face turned an even deeper shade of puce and puffed up. “I hope you’re tellin’ me the victim was in this house and left that behind,” he said.

“No,” Vivian said in a firmer voice. “He was on his way here but never arrived.”

Cyrus stepped forward and extended a hand. “I’m Father Cyrus Payne, Detective. St. Cécil’s in Toussaint. The unfortunate dead man is Mr. Louis Martin from New Orleans. He’s a lawyer and deals with Charlotte and Vivian Patin’s affairs.”

Errol sneered and managed to convey a “who asked you and who cares about the small stuff?” expression. “I was,” he said, “asking how that phone got into this house.”

“It was in Louis’s briefcase,” Vivian said in a rush, ignoring Spike’s attempted signals to keep quiet. “I’d left my phone in here and I figured he had to have one somewhere. I couldn’t leave his body, could I? I found the phone in his briefcase which wasn’t an easy thing to do because his head was resting on the case and his throat has been cut so there’s a lot of slippery blood around. And Louis’s head is heavy.”

She caught her breath and swallowed loudly enough for Spike to hear.

“I did put the briefcase back in pretty much the position I found it.” Her speech slowed and she blinked rapidly. “Um, I don’t suppose I should have touched anything but I could only think of getting help. There’s a kiss on his face—made with blood, I think.”

Charlotte backed up and sat on the bottom step of the stairs. She held her throat.

Vivian rushed on as if she was bent on making things as bad as possible for herself. “Now I think of it, I do think the killer may have taken something out of the briefcase because the only thing in there was a folder with our name on it and a single piece of paper in it, an agreement for us to sign, inside. And the phone, of course. There was supposed to be something else, or we expected something else, but it wasn’t there.” She paused for breath again and frowned. “The phone could have been touched by the murderer then, couldn’t it? Oh, dear.”

“Wiley,” Errol said softly. “Call for some backup—including a female officer. Stay here until the others show up. We need a search warrant.”

“Why?” Spike said. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“I run a tight ship. Unlike you, I cover all my bases—officially. But since you’re here, I’m goin’ to ask you to do some scut work, Devol. Might make things go easier on you. Call and arrange a search warrant. Tell ’em we got a body outside and the deceased’s cell phone—covered with his blood—in the house. We gotta make sure there ain’t no more of his effects mysteriously hanging around here.”

Spike opened his mouth to tell Errol…to remind him that Spike wasn’t paid by anyone in Iberia anymore. Instead he said, very carefully, “They aren’t going to take that request from me—even if I was prepared to make it. Don’t you think you might want to start at the crime scene? You know, the one where there’s a body, and get things taken care of there?”

“Wiley, don’t let these people out of your sight,” Errol snapped. “Devol, I’ll speak to you outside.”

“By all means,” Spike said. If Errol wanted a fight it could take place outside, away from Vivian and Charlotte. Cyrus was a different matter; he was no stranger to violence, but he was needed with the women.

Before Spike and Errol could get to the door, the wheels of another vehicle crunched to a halt in front of the house, a door rattled open and shut, and fleet footsteps rushed to the steps.

L’Oiseau de Nuit, locally known as Wazoo, whirled her small, black-clad body into the hallway. Spike groaned but Cyrus thumped him on the back and said, “‘Evenin’, Wazoo. What brings you this way?”

Wazoo, arms extended to make the best of trailing filmy sleeves, allowed her eyelids to droop and made unintelligible sounds. A flamboyant medium from New Orleans who had descended on Toussaint a little more than a year ago, she had set up permanent shop in the twelve-room Majestic Hotel where, according to local gossip, business boomed.