[Bayou Gavotte 03.0] Heart of Constantine (38 page)

And then the bombshell hit. The chief of police came on with an announcement:
Anyone knowing the whereabouts of seventeen-year-old Zeb Bonnard should contact the Bayou Gavotte Police Department immediately. He is wanted for questioning in the murder last night of Nathan Bone.

Marguerite leapt from her chair, rushed to pay for dinner, and hurried onto the street. But after all that haste, she realized she had no idea what to do. She’d known the police were watching Zeb, but he hadn’t done anything wrong. He
wouldn’t
. And it was one thing for the police to seek him
privately and another entirely to blast it over the news as if he were a serial killer.

She made her way slowly down the street to PJ’s for a café granita and a date square. The coffee shop was doing a brisk business. She stood in line, ignoring the stares, calmly polite to acquaintances who greeted her. If it weren’t for the suspicion in the air, she might be able to get used to the attention.

But she didn’t need to, right? She wasn’t involved with Constantine anymore. That episode of her life was done and gone. She hadn’t even noticed anyone shadowing her. Forlornly, she found a corner table and spent a half hour pretending to do a crossword puzzle in the newspaper while she worried about Zeb and tried to figure out what to do.

When at last business slowed, she went to the counter again for a cup of decaf.

“Much better,” said a dry male voice behind her.

She turned. “Hey, Al.” She wasn’t supposed to trust anyone, but Al Bonnard had an alibi, and he must be freaking out about his son. “What’s better?”

“Your choice of diversion.” Zeb’s father tapped the newspaper she still held. “Better than that trashy book the other day.”

She resisted snapping at him. “It might be, if I could focus on anything. I’m so worried about Zeb.”

“That boy will be in a heap of trouble when he returns.” Marguerite’s surprise must have shown, for he raised his brows. “You’ve been talking to Lavonia, I see. The stomach flu seems to have affected her mind. Zeb is a great disappointment, but I don’t suspect him of performing a hired killing for Dufray or anyone else.”

That didn’t jive with what Lavonia had said, but maybe she really was addled. Or maybe Al was regretting some hasty words. Usually his aura revealed nothing stronger than mild irritation. Now he showed some other emotion that she couldn’t quite pin down. His aura reminded her of a leaky bag with goo oozing out the seams.

“He’s probably holed up with some friend and planning to pimp at the Threshold at night,” Al said. “I suggested that to the police, but they’re too busy with this murder case to care.”

She gaped. “That’s not what I heard. The TV news said the police want him for questioning.”

“They want
Zeb
?” he asked, brows raised, but… his aura showed no sign of surprise at all.

She was sure hers did. She couldn’t stop staring.

“As if I didn’t already have enough trouble with the boy, that joke of a chief had to broadcast it to the world.” But Al’s leaky aura didn’t look upset. It looked almost… smug.

“How did you know it was the chief who made the announcement?”

He hesitated, while consternation, yellow and muddy, streaked his aura. “Who else? He wants to get elected again, so he has to make it sound like he’s doing something.”

She paid and left him in line to order, trying to figure him out. She put a generous dollop of milk in her coffee, added cinnamon and nutmeg, and stirred the brew while absently staring at the bulletin board on the wall. People put ads there for roommates, apartments for rent, kittens to good homes… She took a lid and put it carefully on the coffee cup.

Kittens to good homes
. That was Lavonia’s ad, and… Marguerite stared. Blue dots, one inch apart, the entire length of the paper. Had she printed them on her own printer? No, Marguerite remembered—she’d done them at Al’s place one night.

But Al couldn’t be the murderer. He had an alibi for last night, as did Lavonia, and…

Marguerite took her coffee, got out her cell phone, and moved hurriedly toward the door.

“Don’t make that call.” Al spoke very softly, right in her ear.

She turned, gaping at him. The ooze dripped from his aura, thick and slimy, rotten sludge brown.

He murmured, “If you make a fuss, the police will receive proof that Zeb murdered that idiot reporter.” His aura flared with evil intent. She’d seen an aura like that before—when she’d been chased by the black van.

“But—but Zeb’s your son!” she whispered. “You wouldn’t turn in your own child.”

He snorted. “How innocent you are. Take the ad off the bulletin board.” She did, and he folded it and put it in his pocket. “Let’s go for a walk, Marguerite.” The urbanity of his voice contrasted shockingly with the horror of his aura. “We need to talk.”

She had no choice. “Sure,” she said. He held the door for her. She wanted to run screaming down the street, but instead she preceded him languidly into the heat of dusk. If only someone were shadowing her! She took a sip of coffee as if nothing was wrong and glanced toward the main drag.

“I guess Dufray can’t spare any bodyguards today,” Al smirked. “We’re going the other way.” His hand rested on
her spine, moving her not too gently in the direction of the park.

He would turn in his own son? “Zeb didn’t murder anyone.”

His aura surged again. “Fingerprints and blood on a knife don’t lie,” he said cheerfully. “He’s developed such a reputation for violence, coupled with a few positive drug tests, that no one will have a problem believing he did it.”

Al had the knife with which poor Nathan had been stabbed. He’d deliberately used a knife with his son’s fingerprints on the handle to commit murder.

She had to do something. She had to get that knife.

“You’ll never find it,” Al said, as if he’d read her mind. “If anything happens to me, it will be handed over to the cops. I did my best to spare you,” he added, once they were strolling along the sidewalk. “If you’d listened to Lavonia and stayed out of town for a day or two, you would have been fine.”

“If you don’t have anything against me, why did you chase me across town and try to kill me?”

His laughter grated. She’d never noticed before how unpleasant Al’s laughter could be. “I couldn’t resist,” he said. “It didn’t have anything to do with you, not really. Lavonia had told me about your dream, and messing with her superstitions is entertaining.”

God. Poor Lavonia.

He chuckled. “Admittedly, I got a little carried away.”

“Like when you ran over Pauline’s body as well as inducing her to kill herself?”

“Figured that out, too? You’re way too smart for your own good.”

Anguish swept through her. “You killed her because I told Lavonia about my dream that she was going to commit suicide?”

“Hush, Marguerite. You don’t want me to get carried away again, do you?”

No, but he would anyway. His aura was itching to let go. “Why?” she cried. “What did Pauline do to deserve that?”

“She was weak,” he said, as if that explained everything. “This world is full of weaklings. My wife was one. I thought a vampire would be strong and ruthless, but all she wanted in life was to help other weaklings. Once I got rid of her, I had hopes of Zeb, but he’s turned out to be a wimp—and a goody-goody, too.”

Realizations jostled one another in Marguerite’s mind. Al had killed his
wife
? How? Hadn’t she been in a car accident? Lutsky’d been driving, and… She shook her head. She had to focus on the here and now. Al had another grisly dream, this time Lavonia’s, to turn into prophesy—herself, Janie, and Zeb, all dead. She had to find a way to prevent it.

If Zeb and Janie weren’t already dead. She might be the only one left.

“As for Dufray…” Al’s voice was suffused with disgust.

“What does Constantine have to do with this?”

“Besides being a weakling?” He laughed again. “You’ll see. You want to help Zeb, don’t you? You want to save him.”

“Of course I do!” She wanted to spit.

“I might consider sparing him,” Al said, “if he were replaced by much bigger prey.”

Not that she believed a word of that, but… “Such as who?”

“Dufray, of course.”

“Why? What has Constantine ever done to you?”

His face twisted. His aura bloomed with bitterness and hatred. “Nothing but ruin my life.”

What? How? But she couldn’t get the words out. She could only gape.

“You’re going to call him for me. Arrange a meeting.”

She stopped right there. “No. I can’t trade Constantine for Zeb.”

Al laughed. “In love with the bastard, are you?”

She felt herself reddening in the semidarkness. Maybe, maybe not, but she wasn’t about to get into that with Al. “It’s nothing to do with love. We parted on very unpleasant terms last night. His bodyguards treated me like a pariah. They followed me home to make sure I didn’t come back.”

“That rankles, does it?”

“It was horrible, but just because he’s a jerk doesn’t mean I can trade him for another human being.”

“Why not? Time for a little revenge, Marguerite.” He nudged her onward. “Wouldn’t it be fun to take him down a peg or two?”

No!
But Al would never understand that. “I want to put the past behind me, but I can’t deliver him up to you to be murdered. At least Zeb has a chance if he’s picked up by the cops.”

“Who said I want to murder Dufray? Even if I did, I wouldn’t do it now. I’m enjoying the results of my handiwork too much. He’s in such deep shit, and all because of me.” He grasped her elbow and got her moving again. “He owes me, and the only way I’ll ever get what I need is by forcing his hand.”

“What does he owe you? Money?”

“You have disappointingly little imagination, Marguerite. You’ll find out when we meet up with him. Oh, yes, you’ll be there, too. I need all the ammunition I can get.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Al said softly. “Who knows? Maybe you can wheedle Dufray into bargaining for both you and Zeb.” He chuckled, and Marguerite could only describe it as gleeful. “Or maybe not.”

Now that Zeb had someone to talk to, it all came pouring out. Well, not all. He told them the bonbons his dad handed out sometimes contained drugs, but he wasn’t about to whine about having to watch what he ate or drank for fear he’d suddenly find himself hallucinating or so speeded up he felt his heart might explode. He wasn’t about to tell them about how he’d learned to figure out what set his dad off and what didn’t, even if it made no sense, and to live in the Zone so his dad would think he was cool with going along with whatever role he’d been assigned. “Not long before she died, my mom told me Dad was unstable and carrying around a lot of anger. She was trying to work him through it. She asked me to be considerate and understanding.”

“And you tried,” Zelda said, her voice brimming with compassion. “Even more so after she died.”

Zeb nodded. “It wasn’t so bad at first. Supposedly he was helping me get over losing my mom by playing practical jokes on Lutsky because her death was his fault and by messing with Eaton Wilson because he wouldn’t shut up about
how great my mom was and how perfect she expected me to be.”

Maybe his mom’s death had turned his dad from unstable to crazy, but it had taken Zeb a long time to figure that out. And even longer to accept it. “Lately the jokes turned nasty. He got Lutsky’s password and wrote obscene emails to Constantine’s fan club, and he slipped hate propaganda into the middle of Eaton Wilson’s class handouts. I had to spy on him constantly to try to counteract the next awful thing he’d think of. Then he drugged Marguerite—she’s the girl in the drawing—and left her on the mound with all that junk, and the next night he chased her across town, trying to kill her. Zelda, can I have your coffee, too?” Without waiting for an answer, he guzzled it all down.

The girls were taking it pretty well, considering. While they drove into town, Zelda surfed the Internet on her cell. “Unbelievable. The police chief wants you for questioning!” She glared at him, fangs bared. It was beginning to get dark, and they glowed a little. “Don’t you dare change your mind again. We will not give you up to the cops. I can sneak you into the Cat, no problem.”

“What I want to know is, who made the cops think you have anything at all to do with the murder?” In the rearview mirror, Juma’s eyes narrowed almost to slits. “I always thought your dad was a bit of a slime.” She pulled into the Burger King drive-through.

Zeb slid onto the floor at the back. “You did?”

“Yeah, the cool, sophisticated prof thingy was obviously a role, but I never imagined anything like this.” She bought him a burger and fries, and he sat up enough to eat them.
By the time he finished, they were approaching downtown. “You might want to stay out of sight again,” she said.

Zeb slid lower. “I think he had something to do with Pauline’s death, too. She was Marguerite’s roommate. And I should have known better than to believe he got tickets to Constantine’s concerts because he wanted to humor me. I feel like such an idiot for not figuring it out sooner. I’m pretty sure he handed out spiked candy and got people riled up, and that’s what started the riots where those people were killed.”