Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery #7 (Faye Longchamp Series) (32 page)

One of Benoit’s orange eyebrows rose a millimeter. “Yes, on all counts. So do you think Dane has been squatting on Amande’s island around-the-clock while he looks for the treasure? Because evidence says otherwise. He gave me an address for a rented fishing shack. I drove past it. It’s rustic. Damn rustic. Latrine. Hot, plastic-tasting drinking water that comes from rain barrels. I could maybe see Hebert living in a place like that, but Dane grew up in a nice house. If he’s been staying there for months, and it looks like he has, then he really wants to be here. Your suspicion that he’s treasure hunting sounds about right.”

Faye looked away for a second, checking that Michael was still within arm’s reach. “That reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to ask you. Where is Steve staying? Because it didn’t look to me like anybody was living in that leaky and bug-ridden island shack. I saw beer cans and diving gear, but I didn’t see any clothes.”

“Steve had a cheap motel room, but he gave it up two days ago when he took up with Didi. Not only is his car overnighting in the marina parking lot, but his boat is now being moored at the dock that services Amande’s houseboat. Surely you’ve noticed.”

Faye gave a quick nod. “I’ve seen it here, but I didn’t know if it was moored in that spot all the time. So he’s given up his hotel room and moved in with Didi full-time after what? Two dates?”

“If you can call them dates.”

“Charming. I’ve been doing my best to keep Amande away from that man, but there’s only so much I can do when he’s living in her house.”

“You know that there’s absolutely nothing you can do about that. Unless you’re willing to call child services and try to get her put in foster care.”

“I just might get to that point. But never mind Steve. I’m starting to think Amande’s island is the center of all things.”

“It’s Steve’s island, too. Don’t forget that he owns three-quarters of it. What makes you say that?”

“Dane obviously thinks there’s treasure nearby, and there may be some unknown Busch-drinker out there poking around underwater, too. I’m thinking it’s Steve. Now Manny has neatly tied the two guys together by telling us that they’ve known each other awhile.”

Benoit was shaking his head. “I don’t know, Faye. There’s no link between the island and the two murders. It passed directly to Amande and Steve from Justine. Neither of the victims, Hebert nor Miranda, ever had any claim on it. The houseboat and stock
did
pass through Miranda, giving a motive to the people in line to inherit. That would be Didi and Steve, and maybe Stan. Also, technically, Amande.”

“I sure wish we could link Hebert to the island. At least we know Miranda was out there at least once, because Amande remembers it,” Faye said.

“Hebert didn’t have a boat, and he didn’t have the money to rent one. He didn’t even have a car.”

The word “boat” caught Faye’s ear. “Who
does
have access to a boat?”

“You are really hung up on that island, aren’t you?”

“Not just the island. Didn’t you say that Miranda’s body had gone right into the water, and that you hadn’t found the place where she was killed? And hasn’t it been bothering you that nobody saw Miranda and her killer leave the marina area? How hard would it be to bang an old lady in the head in her own kitchen, and load her unconscious body in a boat? It’s moored on the far side of the houseboat, you know, out of sight of the whole world. The killer could take off from there across the water to a place where it was more convenient to murder her. And neater, too.”

“Everybody knows Dane has a boat. Tebo’s no more got the money to buy a boat than Hebert did, so not him. Manny? Of course he has access to a whole bunch of ‘em. He manages a marina. Stan may have a boat—most people around here do—but I have no idea if he brought it with him when he came here to watch his wife cheat on him. Steve has one, of course. We’ve already been talking about it.”

Faye scanned the parking lot. Steve’s shabby green Ford was there, so she was guessing he’d taken his boat out. But where? To the island? Or somewhere else?

“Where do those people go in the daytime?” she mused. “Didi, Tebo, and Steve, I mean. We know they spend a lot of time in bars, but where else? I’m thinking Steve spends time drinking Busch and scuba diving without proper certification. Didi seems to have business around town. I’ve heard Amande mention her going to the grocery store or to government assistance offices. Tebo, though. Where does he go?”

“I’ll ask around and see if I can find out. In the meantime, I hope you’ll humor me and focus on the archaeological stuff I hired you to do. It’s gotta be less dangerous than talking to lowlifes.”

“So you’re going to find out where those lowlifes go when they’re not setting bad examples for a teenaged girl?”

“Yep, and you’re gonna see if you can figure out how those missing Spanish coins fit into all this. You’re also gonna try not to get crossways with a killer while you’re doing it.”

***

Faye sat idle in front of her computer, completely aware that she should be working. The cabin door protested as someone large pushed it open, and a long, tall shadow fell across the floor. There was no reason for Joe to leave his work and come home for lunch, so he had come for a reason and Faye knew what it was. They’d both been pretending this conversation wasn’t coming.

“We need to talk,” he said, taking her by the hand and sitting next to her at the dining table.

How many times had she heard the words, “We need to talk,” from Joe’s lips?

Not once. Joe was a doer, not a talker.

“I’ve been listening to the news,” he began. “We’ve got to get home. The oil’s been heading east for days.”

“But it’ll take a while for it to get there, yet. We can—”

“It’s gonna take a day for us to get home. I’ve gotta get the booms from Sheriff Mike. I don’t know how long it’s gonna take to get ‘em set up. Those booms might keep the worst of the oil away, but if they don’t get set up in time, it could cover our beach and smother the plants in the salt marshes. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to the wading birds and the crabs and the fish, but we have to do what we can. We need to go now.”

Faye took her hand from his and spread it atop the paperwork that was keeping her awake nights. “We can’t default on this project, Joe. We’ve spent too much money getting it done. It’ll bankrupt us, and we’ll never get work again.”

“There’s nothing you can do on that computer in this cabin that you can’t do at home. Yeah, I’m out there most days doing field work, but we can hire that out. You know we can. We’ve hired the rest of it out, and that’s working fine.”

Faye could feel it all slipping away. The project she’d worked so hard to land. The company she and Joe had struggled to build. The PhD that had taken half her life to get. And her home, lying defenseless in the path of an endless rush of crude oil.

She took her hand off the stack of paper, and gripped Joe’s hand with it. “You win.”

***

How many times had Joe heard the words, “You win,” pass Faye’s lips?

Not once. Not until now.

She wasn’t known for changing her mind, but he acted quickly, just in case.

“How long will it take you to pack? I’ll gas up the car.”

“I think you should pack enough of your own things for today and tomorrow, then go. It’ll give you a fighting chance of getting home by midnight. There’s a lot to do to get this place ready for checkout. Somebody needs to let Manny know we’re leaving. The rental boat has to be returned. The refrigerator needs to be emptied. I’ll stay here and shut things down.”

Joe was beginning to suspect that Faye hadn’t really meant it when she said, “You win.”

“When you say, ‘I’ll stay,’ do you mean a day or a month?” he asked.

“I mean two or three days. Some of our contract workers are a little lacking in their work ethic. I need to meet with them face-to-face before I go. I need to talk to our client liaison and make sure we’re not freaking him out when we shut down our on-site headquarters and move to a whole nother state. I can do it, Joe. Just not today, and probably not tomorrow.”

“If you don’t come with me today, you’ll be making a nine-hour car trip with a one-year-old. Alone.”

“I find that jelly beans make good bribes.” She looked out the window in the direction of the houseboat.

He squeezed the hand resting in his. It looked no different than it had the day he met her, small, brown, narrow-fingered, with close-clipped nails. The seven years that had passed were invisible, without leaving even an age spot to mark their passage, but the time had gone by. Years pass, and things change. Where would he be, if he hadn’t found Faye?

He nodded his head toward the window. “You’re gonna have to say good-bye to her, sooner or later.”

“I just wish I knew she was going to be okay. I was hoping to leave her in a good place.”

“I know, but there’s no help for it. We have to go home.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Faye had hardly kissed Joe good-bye when her cell phone rang and she saw that it was Reuss calling. After a perfunctory hello, he said, “Look. I didn’t want to say this in front of the little girl this morning, but I think somebody needs to know. Calling you about it is irregular, ethically. I should be talking to my client or her guardian, but I think it’ll be obvious why I can’t take this to Didi. Amande doesn’t have anybody else but you to look after her. And yes, I know she’s only got you for another week or two, but I’m afraid she’s going to have to take the next two years one week at a time.”

Actually, Amande would be on her own far sooner than “another week or two,” since Faye was packing even now, but Faye kept that to herself. “What’s the problem?”

“I was being completely straight with her when I said that Steve, Didi, Stan, and Tebo had all been to see me. I left out the part where Steve asked me if it might be possible for him to get custody of Amande. Just this morning, in fact.”

“
What?”

“Yeah, I know. I couldn’t come up with a less suitable guardian for a teenaged girl if I trolled maximum security prisons. He fed me some line about how he wanted to make sure his dead wife’s little girl had a good future, but think about it for a minute. He’s got even more to gain from getting control of Amande’s inheritance than Didi does. Amande and Steve together will hold half of the houseboat and stock, but Steve didn’t talk much about that. He was more interested in understanding how ownership of the island would be handled. This took me some time to explain, because the man is not overblessed with brains. Finally, he got the picture: Didi has no share in the island, because Justine owned it alone. If Steve gains custody of Amande, he’ll control the island outright, presuming he can get a cooperative trustee for the girl’s inheritance. If he
is
the trustee, she’s in deep trouble.”

“And you think he wants that island.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt. He wants it.”

“No sane judge would give that girl to Steve Daigle. Am I right?”

“Probably, although not all our judges are sane in these parts. But think about this. Amande says she’s looking to get married. What will happen if she marries Steve?”

“He gets control of the whole island.” She struggled to untangle the legal details she’d discussed with Reuss just an hour before. “She can’t get married unless Didi signs. Steve is
Didi’s
new boyfriend, so she’s not gonna be real excited about marrying him off to her niece…”

There was silence on the other end while Reuss waited for her to finish thinking.

“…but Didi’s not real dedicated to the sanctity of marriage, is she? There would be no reason for her to stop seeing Steve, just because he married her niece. And she can be bought.” When Faye sifted through Amande’s possible custody arrangements, she saw that Didi might be a lowlife, but she wasn’t stupid. “By taking up with Steve, Didi’s put herself in a no-lose situation. It doesn’t matter to her whether she is Amande’s eventual guardian, or if Steve is, or even if the girl gets emancipated by marrying Steve. Under all those scenarios, she and Steve will control the boat, the stock, the worthless island that everybody seems to want—everything.”