The devil laughed, p.3
The Devil Laughed, page 3
“I did not not like them.”
“Did you see them a lot?”
“Not a lot.” Her brows came together and I saw a storm gathering.
When I asked where she stayed when her mother and Johnny would go away, she said she had a nanny and that her name was Soledad Lopez. “I fired her,” Evangeline said. “She was bossy. I can look after myself.”
“Who stays with you when your aunt’s out of the country, like now?”
“Uncle Baron comes to stay with me. We have a maid, that’s still Soledad, and a cook named Benny.”
Portia stared at the girl. “Do you have an attorney?”
“Yes, he is Mr. Allister Dames. He’s a trustee, too.”
Portia wrote that down. “Your mother was a very wealthy woman, I understand.”
“She still is,” Evangeline said.
“Is,” Portia said. “I stand corrected.”
The child’s aggravation coagulated on her features. “I always have to remind people.”
The subject of money continued. Evangeline said she had access to her mother’s and father’s money through trustees. She leaned forward. “I can pay for you to find my mother, and find out who killed Johnny, if we already didn’t know.”
“You have someone in mind?” Portia asked.
“Laurant Cocineau.”
“Any reason to suspect him?”
“He was in love with my mother.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“I have eyes in my head.”
I’m not fond of snotty comebacks from twelve-year-olds, but Portia simply asked, “Was your mother in love with him?”
Evangeline hesitated. “He was handsome. She was beautiful.”
I said, “That doesn’t mean they were in love with each other.”
She turned on me. “Johnny was a clown and Janet was ugly. My mother was beautiful but she didn’t know what was best for her.”
Portia toyed with her pen. “A lot of people don’t know what’s best for them, but now that the sailboat’s been raised, why don’t you reserve judgment until we find the people who sailed it that night?”
Evangeline cocked her head. “I can do that. I am fair. Uncle Baron says I have a good head on my shoulders.”
“I can see that you do.”
“When can you start finding her?” Evangeline said, sharp as a new pencil. “I’d do it myself, but nobody listens to kids—people my age.”
Portia breathed in, held the air, then exhaled. “As I have previously said, I am not an investigator.” She looked at me.
Vacation was the operational word here. Next week I was headed for the beach, and I’d spoken about it with Porsh who can forget things when it’s convenient. I took a deep breath, too, before I spoke. “I’ll have to talk to your uncle, Evangeline. Now, with the sailboat found, the police will pursue the case efficiently. I don’t know that I can do better than they can.”
Evangeline’s body stiffened. This was one determined little girl. There was a sudden rap on the door, and Portia’s clerk cracked it open and stuck his head into the office. “Excuse me, Your Honor, Baron Bonnet has returned from his errand.”
Portia rose and looked down. “Miss Dru, I will continue the discussion with Miss Broussard. Talk with Mr. Bonnet in one of the ante rooms.”
Standing, I gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Sure.”
“See me after your interview,” she said. She looked at the clerk. “Don’t go home until we’ve talked.”
He lowered his eyes. “Yes, Your Honor.”
3
When Baron Bonnet came through the door of my impromptu office, my mouth dropped enough for him to see the silver fillings in my back teeth if he were close enough. I told myself, just do not laugh.
Rhett Butler walked across the floor, or Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. More precisely, Baron Bonnet, playing Clark Gable, playing Rhett Butler. He held a flat-crowned, wide-brimmed hat in his hand.
I breathed from my diaphragm and lifted myself carefully from the chair. “Mr. Bonnet.” I came around the desk, extending my hand. “Moriah Dru.”
Darned if he didn’t have a Clark Gable smile, dimples and all. “Mighty pleased to meet you,” he said, touching my fingers gently. Another wispy handshake.
I waved and said, “Have a seat, Mr. Bonnet?”
He adjusted his silk cravat. “Surely, ma’am.” Lordamighty, if we weren’t going to have a vocal imitation. The gabardine frock coat with velvet collar, cuffs and pocket flaps were enough. But add the silk waist vest, stove pipe pants, and then the voice … oh boy … I’ve never like impersonators.
Sitting, I turned on the recorder and picked up a pen. “I met your niece, Evangeline.”
“Corker, ain’t she?” He was artful with the slightly crooked smile and eyebrow tilt.
I tapped the pen on a legal pad. “She is that.”
“Got her mama’s spunk, bless her heart.”
Whose heart … Evangeline’s or her mama’s?
He sat sideways in the chair and folded one knee over another. Actually, he had a nice face, a little too much cheek for Rhett Butler, er, Clark Gable. He must have been forty and clearly running to the good life in the hips and chest. He sat back and laid his elbows on the chair arms, gripping the claw ends with his fingers. “She’s got this wild hair she wants the judge to investigate what happened to her mama.”
“As I told her …”
He interrupted. “I can guess what you told her. Just what I told her and her aunt told her. The authorities are all over this case and don’t need any PIs messing around, fouling the waters for the real investigators. No offense, ma’am.”
My back had arched like a cat’s. “None taken.”
“I read a lot of true crime novels, and the cops get the goods and the bad guys. I read a couple a fiction novels once with a detective, and if the writer didn’t twist things around, the cops would of got to the bad boys before him.”
“Fiction novels do that,” I said. As if novels weren’t fiction.
“You want a real cop like a Joseph Wambaugh—boy he writes those crime stories like he really knows what he’s doing.”
“He really does, doesn’t he?” I dead-panned, “Mr. Bonnet, you remind me of a movie star.”
He ran his thumbs under his lapels. The big Gable grin lit his face. “I’m president of the Rhett Butler Regulars, Southeastern Chapter.”
I rolled my lips together. “Let’s talk about Evangeline’s request.”
“You just say no, and we’ll be gone out of here.”
“Somehow I don’t think Evangeline will take no for an answer.”
“You got her down pretty good. You turn her down, and I’ll take her by the cops and maybe they’ll satisfy her.”
I couldn’t not grin. “Good luck.” On both points—the cops and Evangeline.
He rose and flicked an imaginary speck from his coat.
I stood and said, “Tell you what I’ll talk to the cops and see how far along they’ve gotten. It’s only been three days, but maybe they’ve made progress. That might satisfy Evangeline. No need for her to shell out any money for a PI.” I gave him my best calculated over-eye stare. “We get pretty darned expensive even if we can’t compete with the real cops.”
He straightened, offended. “Hey, ma’am, money’s no object where we’re concerned.”
“Money’s always an object.”
“Me and her aunt, my sister Lorraine, we got our own resources to raise E, but she’s not short of cash for a little girl.”
I nodded.
He pulled at the corners of his waistcoat. “You seriously thinking about taking on E’s project?”
I hadn’t been until this yahoo came in busting my chops. I came around the desk. “The case has always intrigued me. What happened to the three people on a boat as well as the boat itself …” Rub-a-dub-dub popped into my head, unbidden, like little demons do. “And since I spotted it first in the lake, it kind of makes it personal, you see?”
“Why sure. Like it’s personal with E. It’s her mama and her step-daddy who she liked all right when he wasn’t taking her to task on some pet project or other.”
“I can see Evangeline would be prone to pet projects.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Tries to get folks involved. Save the turtles. Save the cormorants. Pick up trash off the beach. No pesticides on the grapes.”
“What’s the name of the Brownes’ vineyard?”
He told me that Crescent Moon Winery was prospering due to Johnny’s hiring a cracker-jack vintner before he got killed. He also said that he and Lorraine shared responsibility for the operations now, but I detected something dodgy in that statement. He put on the flat hat. “You sure you want to get badgered again?” He winked, but not subtle enough for Gable.
“You met Judge Portia Devon yet?”
“Nope. Hope to.”
I let him out thinking, When you do, Mr. Baron Bonnet aka bogus Clark Gable, you’ll know what badgering is.
*****
After a second session with Evangeline, I didn’t learn anything other than she adored her funny Uncle Baron, but thought he didn’t know what was best for her. I agreed to meet her in the morning in Portia’s chambers with a decision to represent her or not. I was of two minds. Working with Evangeline would be a pain, but with a bona fide client I could delve into the tragedy to satisfy my curiosity, to say nothing of solving the case, always an over-riding goal. There are things a PI can ask and do that cops can’t. In more than one case I’d put my license on the line and somehow I suspected this might be another of those cases.
I got up to go. Portia went to her files, then handed me the clips of the Scuppernong case. As I was leaving, Baron Bonnet entered. I looked over my shoulder. Portia looked like she’d been plopped into an improv comedy club.
4
Mozart—my cell’s ringtone of the moment—woke me at four-in-the-damned-ayem. The cell’s LED told me who had summoned the maestro.
Portia. “You at Lake’s?” she asked.
Oh that I were still at that old cotton warehouse near the railroad tracks in downtown Atlanta, but I wasn’t. I was at home in my suburban cottage—left to my mother and me by my father. Now, Mama lived in an expensive place for those who could no longer care for themselves. “No,” I said to Porsh. “Lake got a late call last night and I came home.” I swung my legs out of the bed because this was a call for action, not reflection. “What’s up?” I was already stepping out of my pajama bottoms.
“Get to my place at the lake. They’re bringing in a cadaver dog.”
I pulled underwear out of the drawers. “For where?”
“The cove.” I opened the chifforobe door and pulled a white sleeveless shirt off its hanger. She said, “The pooch got a smell of decomp from the sailboat. I tried Lake’s cell. Since when does he work nights?”
“He’s lead on a case.”
“Damn. I wanted him there.”
Removing a pair of black slacks from the wardrobe, I said, “I’ll call him on his personal cell. See if he can be in two places at the same time.” Portia didn’t remark. “Guess we won’t be meeting with Evangeline and her uncle this morning.”
“Damn, I forgot. I’ll have my clerk call. I’m heading out now. They want the dog there at dawn, in the stillness thereof.”
“Makes sense.”
“You ready?”
“My eyeliner’s going on wrong.”
She hung up.
I backed the Bentley out of the garage. If it had been seven o’clock in the morning, I would have trotted up my street to Peachtree where there’s a rental agency on the corner. I love driving the Bentley, but it’s old and I want to have her for a long time. She was a gift of sorts from Portia when my beloved Saab got blown up in the service of her majesty, Judge Portia Devon. Long story, but she insisted I buy her mother’s car (for five hundred dollars!) now that her mother had, like mine, relinquished the coils of acute intellect and recent memory for the flat-line fuzziness of old times.
I called my office landline wagering that Webdog would be there, asleep on the narrow sway-back sofa in my office. Webdog is Dennis Caldwell, the geekiest of geeks and a student at Georgia State University where he’s about to graduate. Web has solved more cases from his computer than I have out hoofing it. I tremble at the prospect of his leaving me for some secret government agency where he will design computer architecture meant to save the world. I need him in mine.
“How’d you know I was here?” Web asked around the croaking frog in his throat.
“When I solve this case, I’m buying you an extra-large sofa for your office.”
“Just when I’m grooving the one in yours.” I couldn’t do this job without Webdog. He forgets to eat and stays up all night on his supercomputer inventing platforms and sharpening his hacking skills. “What’s moving this time o’ day?”
“I want what you can get on Candice Browne.” My agency pays good money to internet information agencies, but sometimes a deeper probe is called for.
“Candice of the Scuppernong?”
“Didn’t I say that?”
“I didn’t hear it when you yawned.”
“Also, Baron Bonnet, Lorraine Bonnet and any other Bonnet related to Candice Bonnet Browne.”
“Gotcha.”
“I’m on my way to Lake Lanier. A cadaver dog got the smell of decomp from the sailboat now at the GBI yard.”
“Rich,” he said.
“Get me maps of Wilmington, Southport, the whole Cape Fear area. Find out what you can about the Crescent Moon Vineyard.”
“I’m on it.”
The Bentley moved with stately grace around curves, up mountain rises and into shallow valleys as the purple veins of dawn lightened the encompassing hills of north Georgia. At Portia’s gravel road, the car rocked gently on her new shocks, then purred to a halt next to a pickup truck and two squad cars. Portia, hands holding binoculars, paced on the front porch. She flitted down the steps and urged me to follow. A step behind Porsh, I slipped and slid to the dock.
Two men, a woman and a dog were in a boat on the lake. I stared at the dog and shrieked with delight.
Portia shushed me. “She’s very sensitive.”
“I know that Chessie. Her name’s Betsy.”
Portia looked at me. “I forgot, you almost went on the K-9 Squad.”
That was before Portia talked me into founding Child Trace, which turned out to be the best thing I ever did, except fall in love with Lake.
The red haired Chesapeake Bay retriever wore a vest, much like a life vest I would wear. I took the binoculars from Portia’s hands and brought the two lenses into focus. “Betsy’s name was on her vest; a law enforcement badge pinned to it, too. She stood in the boat and stared at the water. After several moments, she lifted her head and circled to the other side of the inflatable craft. Maybe fifteen seconds later, she sat and looked at Eleta, her handler. Betsy’s body language told Eleta that nothing foul was down there. The pilot cranked the motor, and the boat moved away. A hundred yards or so, he pulled back on the stick and let the boat meander. Betsy took her stance; front paws on the rail, staring into the water, brush tail a wagging. These dogs love adventure. It’s a game. Betsy pushed back, four paws on the deck again and sat. We watched for an hour as the boat moved further from the spot where the sailboat had gone down, out into the center of the cove. The dog moved restlessly seeking the scent she was trained to find.
Search and Rescue dogs, no matter their specialty, hate to come up empty. I came across Betsy three years ago when one of Portia’s foster runaways decided to take a dive off a bridge to Tybee Island in the middle of the night when no one was looking.
Portia turned away with a disappointed slump of her shoulders. Then, quite suddenly, a look of happy surprise grew on her face. Before I glanced up the hill, I knew what caused her glow. Lake.
Sporting a blue straw panama, Lake—of the sure foot—scrambled down the stone-strewn path like it was as smooth as a high school track. We run 10-Ks, but his ankles are thicker than mine.
After he’d kissed Porsh and me on our cheeks, I asked, “How’d you know where we were?” He hadn’t answered his cell when I called several times.
“Let’s see,” he said. “I had phone messages, a beeper page, and Dispatch told me the judge was waiting for me at the cove.”
I studied his face beneath the hat brim. He didn’t look frazzled. For someone who hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, now heading into thirty-six, he looked as fresh as the large sun ball rising over the water. Me? I was already sweating at the guarantee of another blistering day.
“Betsy’s striking out,” Portia said.
Lake scrutinized Betsy as she worked both sides of the boat. He said, “She alerted in the forensic yard although there were no visible signs of tissue on the boat.”
“What part of the boat?” I asked.
“The deck, around a cleat. The galley in a bench locker where they stowed rope. And the head.”
“The head? Lots of stinks there.” I considered what it meant, which was probably nothing. Betsy had found the scent of dead tissue, but it could be from the killer or Johnny. I said, “Seems a long time in the water for rot to be detected”
“We don’t know how large the piece of rot was. Maybe a whole body.”
The deck, the galley, the head. Three places, three people. “There would be bones.”
“Maybe.” Then his stomach growled. He looked sheepish as he put his hand to his belt. ”Starved.” Missing sleep was a minor issue, a meal was quite another.
Portia looked at him. “I don’t know how you can think of food.”
He twitched a smile then looked toward the cadaver boat. The rocking intensified, and Betsy’s tail wagged like she was about to dig into a pound of steak. Suddenly she leaned over the portside rail, glanced back at her handler and launched herself into the water.
Lake laughed. “I think that means she’s found what she’s smelling for.”
“That’s how she alerts in deep water,” I said. “She’ll swim to where the odor is strongest.”
