Cypress Nights (3 page)

If she could think of the right words, she'd tell him he had already changed her and she was grateful. That would have to wait, at least long enough to find out if she continued to feel grateful.

He moved as if he would touch her, but pulled back. “Okay. I'll ask you to do that, but I'll give you some time. You need to go home. But I warn you, I'll be calling you again and inviting you out.”

“I feel like an idiot.” She arrived at her car with Roche right behind her. “Don't waste time on me. I'm too much of a liability emotionally. Move on, Roche.”

His heart turned, and he realized the sensation was new. “Don't sell yourself short.” She might not know exactly what he meant. He dealt with the kind of “liabilities” she talked about every day. It could be that they had a chance to heal each other—or create a kind of hell for themselves. Whatever the risks, Roche felt like taking them.

He heard the sound of a door slamming, a muffled sound.

“Where was that?” Bleu said. “The church?”

The church was the closest building to the parish hall.

“I don't think so. Farther away and not so heavy. The rectory. There's Cyrus, I think. He's across the alley.”

The window of Bleu's car was open, and she threw everything but her purse inside.

Together they hurried downhill again and past the church. They met Cyrus just inside the gate to Bonanza Alley. “What are you two doing here?” he said, not sounding like himself. “I thought you'd gone home, Bleu.”

“I had to finish up,” she said. “Roche was seeing me to my car. It's pretty dark to be on your own out here. Is Madge still at the rectory?” Her cousin, Madge Pollard, was Cyrus's assistant.

“She left with that…Sam Bush drove her home. He's our accountant, Roche.” Cyrus stared at Bleu for a moment. “I shouldn't have left you. I wasn't thinking.”

Cyrus, Roche thought, often seemed to have a great deal on his mind these days. If he didn't, he wouldn't have forgotten that Roche already knew Sam Bush and got along with him well. Cyrus might not be so keen on Sam, since the man openly showed his attraction to Madge. Cyrus and Madge were a complicated story, seemingly without hope of a happy ending.

“Did you see Jim Zachary at the meeting, Bleu? I saw him earlier. He always spends a little time in the church. He said he'd be at the meeting, and now I can't remember if he was.”

“I don't know him,” Roche said.

Bleu thought about it. “He wasn't there,” she said slowly. “No, I'm sure he wasn't. He would have spoken up if he had been. I don't know why I didn't miss him at the time.”

“He could have changed his mind,” Roche pointed out.

“No,” Cyrus said, “he couldn't. Jim does what he says he'll do. He's a bachelor, and he and the widow who lives next door keep an eye out for each other. She just called me, because he told her he'd be home around ten and it's almost eleven.”

“Maybe he went out for dinner. Or for drinks with friends,” Bleu said.

“He's not the kind to go out to dinner. And he doesn't drink. He'd tell you himself that he's a recovering alcoholic.” Cyrus sounded distracted. Abruptly, he let out a breath. “Is his car still here? Maybe he got hung up somewhere. Jim's always doing things for people. That's what's happened.”

“What does he drive?” Roche asked.

Cyrus considered, then said, “A Camry. Black. Fairly old, but they don't seem to wear out, do they?”

“No,” Roche agreed. “There was a black Camry behind my car when I parked in front. See. I'm facing this way.”

Bleu turned to see. The cream-colored BMW showed up clearly—so did the Camry once all three of them got closer.

“Was he upset about something?” Roche said, visualizing the dark, sluggish bayou beyond the church grounds. How easily a man could slip into those waters.

“I don't think so,” Cyrus said. “No, he was his usual cheerful self. Mrs. Harper said she tried to call him but he didn't answer on his cell phone.”

“Would he have his phone on in the church?” Bleu said.

Cyrus shook his head. He pulled a phone from his belt, peered at a piece of paper and pressed numbers. Roche could hear the faint ringing from Cyrus's phone.

“Nothing,” he said.

“He's a nice man,” Bleu said. “He's really behind building a school.”

Roche nodded. “A lot of people will be.” He looked at Cyrus who frowned absently.

“I'd better check inside the church,” the priest said, and
started walking toward the vestibule door. “He could have collapsed in there.” He broke into a run.

Roche and Bleu ran with him and they filed inside the gloomy building. This was Roche's first visit, and he wrinkled his nose at pungent scents he didn't recognize.

“I don't see him,” Cyrus said. He went rapidly to the top of the center aisle and scanned from side to side, carefully.

“He always sits in the same place,” Bleu said. “I've noticed.”

“Does he?” Cyrus seemed surprised; Roche figured the priest got too involved in what he was doing to see who sat where during services.

“Over there,” Bleu said, pointing fairly far back. “He sits on or near the aisle. And he usually ushers, so he's on his feet quite a bit.”

They all stood with their hands on their hips. “Does he have any relatives at all?” Bleu asked.

“Not that I know of.” Cyrus turned away.

“Did you hear that?” Bleu said, raising her chin and listening.

Roche had. “Sounded like a little drill.”

“Or a phone set to vibrate,” Bleu said.

Cyrus looked at each of them, then covered distance in a hurry. He crossed to the side aisle and started toward the back of the church.

“Wait here,” Roche said and went after him. He expected to hear Bleu's sandals following on the stone flags, and she didn't disappoint him.

Cyrus skidded to a halt beside a pew. Even at a distance, Roche saw how the other man blanched. “Stay where you are, Bleu,” Cyrus snapped out.

Roche caught up with him. “Bastards,” he muttered.

Sideways on the bench, his legs sprawled, one on and one off the seat, his arms twisted above his head, lay an elderly man. His eyes were open—and empty. Clots of congealed blood matted his thick gray hair, spattered his face, the pew and the floor. His lips were drawn back in a grimace, and a rolled piece of paper stuck out of his mouth.

“Jim,” Cyrus said softly. He flipped open his phone and called 911.

Bleu's long, uneven breath meant she had seen the dead man. “He must have been stabbed so violently.” She shuddered but didn't glance away. “Whatever it was went right through his neck. It cut his jugular.”

Looking at the body from all angles, Roche went behind the pew and bent over to examine the obvious knife wound in the corpse's neck.

He was too slow to stop Bleu from pulling the yellow flyer from Jim Zachary's mouth. “Don't touch,” he said to her. “They'll want to dust for fingerprints.”

She puffed up her cheeks and backed away, holding the paper by one top and one bottom corner and unrolling it.

“Bleu,” Roche said. “Don't.”

“I already have and I'm glad.” She stared at him. “Do you think he brought this with him?”

“He could have. But why would the killer stuff it in his mouth?”

“To make a point,” Bleu said. “This is one of those flyers that got spread all over—the one telling people not to vote for the school.”

Early the following morning

R
oche felt Bleu watching him in his rearview mirror. He liked the sensation.

At around one in the morning, with Cyrus as well as Bleu in his car, they had finally left the church and he'd driven to the police station. Sheriff Spike Devol had kept his questions coming for hours.

“I'm not going to park right in front of All Tarted Up,” Roche said, as he drove the three of them to breakfast. “Better not give the regulars more to wonder about than they'll already have.”

Bleu was glad Cyrus sat beside Roche. That allowed her to be in back with a good view of Roche's profile. He had gotten her all stirred up and confused, when she was supposed to be concentrating on the job she was here to do.

“What could they make out of us being in the same car?” she said.

Roche laughed. “You can bet someone will ask where we've been so early. This way, we can say we just bumped in to each other on the way to breakfast.”

Cyrus didn't comment, but then, he didn't voice a lot of what he might think.

Tilting his head to one side, stretching tensed muscles in his neck, Roche sensed that Bleu was still staring at him. When he glanced in his rearview mirror, he saw that he wasn't imagining a thing.

He smiled, just a little, and decided he wouldn't look over his shoulder and let her know he'd noticed.

Main Street was coming up. Roche picked out a convenient parking spot a block away from the café, pulled toward the curb—and turned to meet Bleu's eyes.

She looked away at once.

Good. He liked it that she was paying him plenty of attention.

Roche parked the car beneath the branches of a sycamore tree, one of many planted at intervals along most of the town's larger streets. If it made sense to call any of the streets in Toussaint large.

Once out of the car, they were greeted by the telltale signs that this would be a super-humid day. Already, any chill had left the air, and the wind, although it had dropped, was warm.

“It's going to be a hot one,” Cyrus said. He looked as tired as Roche felt. “I'm going to give away one of my secrets. I make a point of stopping by All Tarted Up after there's been a disaster in town. News travels very fast here, and if anyone's going to be discussing recent events anywhere, it'll be there—or at Hungry Eyes.” Hungry Eyes was a book shop and café at the far end of Main Street. Elie and Joe Gable owned the place.

All Tarted Up belonged to Jilly Gautreaux. Roche had his own memories of encounters at the town's favorite eatery. His brother had gotten into a fight there once, something Max liked to pretend never happened.

“I think I'll skip breakfast and walk down to St. Cecil's for my car,” Bleu said. She stepped onto the sidewalk, but didn't join Cyrus and Roche. “I should get home and finish up some work before I go in today.”

Some said Roche was too silent, but this morning he was grateful for his habit of thinking before he spoke. He felt watchful—and edgy. There were too many potential hazards to negotiate with this woman, especially when he had his own demons to control.

“You've been up all night,” Cyrus said to Bleu. “The church is too far for you to walk when you're tired, and you need a good meal. Jilly will fix you up.”

Bleu still seemed uncertain, but after a huge sigh, she said, “Okay. I'll get my car afterward if you don't mind taking me back, Roche.” She moved purposefully in their direction and they all set off for the café.

He couldn't, Roche thought, have done as good a job of persuasion as Cyrus had managed.

Flanked by the men, Bleu straightened her back and ran her fingers through her hair. She should feel good being escorted by two such impressive specimens who gave her obvious attention. Well, she supposed she shouldn't think of Father Cyrus that way. She looked up at him. Darn it, what a shame for a man like him to be wasted.

Her face turned hot. It was so wrong to suggest he was wasted as a priest. You weren't supposed to contemplate things like that.

Once around the corner and on Main Street, Bleu
walked behind the priest and immediately stepped off the curb.

A hand caught her arm with a painful grip and yanked her back onto the sidewalk. “You really aren't doing very well,” Roche said, while a car passed at a good clip. “You do need to eat. Then go home and sleep. I'll drop you off and arrange for your car to be brought over for you.”

Bleu didn't say a word. This was not a good time to lead with her irritation. “Thanks,” she said, making sure the street was clear, and setting off ahead of the other two.

The bright pink door at All Tarted Up had received a fresh coat of paint and it shone. Bleu's feet moved slower. Inside the shop, at a window table, she saw faces turned in her direction and recognized Lil Dupre, who was Cyrus's housekeeper, and Doll Hibbs, proprietor with her husband of the only hotel in town, the Majestic.

Doll was the town bullhorn, or so Bleu had been told. Lil was the woman's good friend but Bleu had heard, more than once, that Doll was a bad influence on Lil.

“For crying out loud,” Roche said, taking her by the elbow and marching her to the opposite sidewalk. “Have you got a death wish?”

There wasn't time for her to feel fragile, but tears pricked in Bleu's scratchy eyes just the same. “What's the matter with you?” she asked. His fingers dug into her flesh. Not a vehicle was in sight.

He looked into her face. “You stopped in the middle of the street,” he told her.

He loomed. Her stomach flipped, when she looked up at him and sensed his anger.

Feeling foolish, she twisted free of him and dodged around one of several large wooden containers filled with
tall, slender bamboo and coral honeysuckle that climbed the living canes.

“Are you crying?” Father Cyrus said suddenly, mortifying her. “Bleu, look at me. You've had a terrible shock. That's what's upsetting you.”

“We all had a shock,” she said. “I'm as capable of dealing with it as either of you.”

Only she wasn't, Roche decided. He shouldn't be harsh with her, but he didn't feel so hot himself and he hadn't been thinking when he snapped at her. “Of course you are,” he said, and to Cyrus, “How was that woman who lives next door…lived next door to Jim Zachary? Mrs. Harper.” Cyrus had insisted on going to the woman's house with the deputy who'd been charged with breaking the bad news.

“Really broken up,” Cyrus said. “I think she already knew something awful had happened to Jim, because he didn't normally alter his routine. Day by day, always the same. They may have been closer than I'd thought. She made dinner for the two of them every night and had done so for years.”

“Poor woman,” Bleu muttered, her attention on the windows ahead and the not-very-casual way people turned their heads to watch her approach with Cyrus and Roche.

Roche.
He was the most unexpected thing to happen to her—in her whole life. Complex, certainly not a talker most of the time. When she was with him she didn't breathe quite normally and her skin became supersensitive. She didn't imagine that he felt vaguely dangerous to be with. These were not signs that brought her any peace. They thrilled her, though. Quiet he might be, but he had a big personality, and when it touched her, she wanted more
of him—even if the reaction tensed her muscles until they ached.

In the darkness last night, he almost paralyzed me. I never knew that sensation before. He can't know what an enigma he is, can he?

When he looks at me now, by daylight, my breath rushes away. For moments, I forget who and what I am. All I can think about is sex—what it would be like with him.

I feel this even in the forbidden daylight and it is strange, foreign, to a woman who was taught that she should hate the realities of intimacy. Michael only approached me at night, in the dark.

Since he died, when the shadows gather, what should be quiet hours teem with distorted pictures, spin into a black miasma that is a mirror image of my marriage. Again, I'm huddled up in long, ugly nightgowns until my husband comes to rip at my clothes as if he was raping me. He assaults my body, pounds out his disgust with every stroke.

Then, when he is satisfied, he leaves me on my own.

What do I want? To see Roche by day when lust wakes up? Or to venture to him by night when terror could either hold me back from him, or crack open and send me to swarm over him until I've sucked him dry?

Bleu felt wild, shocked. She stared ahead, but saw nothing clearly.
I want him. I want to feel again, and hope to be alive inside.

“You're hovering,” Roche said.

She started, and everything came back into focus.

“Are you okay, Bleu?”

“Of course. I was just waiting for us all to catch up,” Bleu said, avoiding looking at him, and pushing open the pink door.

A wave of warm, fragrant air met them. Bleu smelled freshly fried beignets and the subtle sweetness of the powdered sugar they were dredged in, and realized just how hungry she was. She walked inside on unsteady legs, still reeling from thoughts and images that she could not have imagined before she met Roche.

She felt him close behind her. He might as well be touching her with his body—stroking every nerve ending.

“Hi, Miz Laveau.”

Bleu collected herself and looked at a familiar face from last night. The woman had sat in the front row at the parish hall. “Hi, there,” Bleu said.

“I'm Jan Pierce,” the woman said. “I work for the paper. I've got two kids and we really want that school.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Bleu said, and moved on.

Looking around at other friendly faces, she returned smiles and waves. Her heart lifted. There were a lot of good people in Toussaint.

“Hey, you three,” Jilly Gautreaux said loudly from behind the bakery cases, grinning at them as if they came in together daily. As always, there was a line waiting to buy pastries and coffee to take away.

Roche said, “Hi.” He liked Jilly because she was real. Most people wore armor of various kinds; Jilly faced the world as she was—soft spots, prickly spots and all—and so did her husband, Guy.

Guy Gautreaux, a former New Orleans police detective, ran his P.I. business from the flat above All Tarted Up. His oversized black dog, usually flaked out at the open front door beside the shop, was the signal that Guy was up there and available.

“You here for breakfast?” Jilly said with her strong Cajun lilt. When they all nodded, she pointed to an avail
able table close to the front of the shop. “Best table in the house. Saving it for you.” She winked. “Sidney, she'll be right over.”

Roche put a hand on Bleu's shoulder and guided her around the line for counter service. A faint tremor passed beneath his fingers, and she moved a little closer to him. Surprised was a weak word for the effect the little move had on him, as was pleasure. He felt almost lightheaded. She had come near to draw strength from him; he was certain of it.

To feed on his strength.

Arousal brought with it the inner flush, this time with even more force than he expected. He hardened. And he clamped his teeth together.

Staying away from her could be the kindest thing. That would keep her safe from him.

But need would bring him back to her again and again. He must fight his instincts to pursue until he captured.

Bleu sat down by the wall, facing the windows, and he sat beside her. Cyrus took a chair opposite.

“They're talking about us now,” Bleu said, so quietly that Roche had to bring his ear almost to her mouth to hear. “They're making something out of nothing.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, although he was aware of surreptitious glances quickly averted.

“I don't know. They watched us outside when we were coming here. Then I thought everything was fine—until we came inside. Now, they're pretending not to look at us and talk, but it's obvious they are. What can they be saying? Do you think they've heard about Jim Zachary yet?”

“I doubt it,” Cyrus said. “Lil won't have been at the rectory yet. Everything was done so quietly last night and
there was no one around but us, then Spike and his guys. It'll all come out soon enough. Everyone will be questioned.”

“Yep,” Roche said, catching a pair of interested eyes that looked away at once. “You're right though, Bleu. We're the entertainment around here this morning—at least for some.”

Cyrus cleared his throat and bent forward over the table. “Don't put too much emphasis on that. Not at all,” he said. “Small towns have their own habits. The folks are interested in everything. Yes, they surely are. You haven't been here long, Bleu, so you're the latest unknown quantity. They're still sizin' you up all right. I don't know why they'd look at Roche and they surely wouldn't bother with me. They're so used to me, I'm pretty much invisible.”