Baton Rouge Bingo (14 page)

They certainly wouldn’t have been scared off and left without the information they were being paid to get.

So he lied about that.

He’d also led us straight into the arms of Diana Killeen and AFAR. He’d lied to them about us, which was why we were adrift at sea with a tiger.

Yes, good old Dr. Fleming had some serious explaining to do once we got back to shore.

Mom and Frank must be going crazy with worry
,
I thought, which made me want to get my hands on Barney Fleming all the more. It was bad enough that
Dad
was missing, but now Taylor and me, too?

I sighed in relief as I remembered I’d had Taylor call Frank to tell him we were following Fleming. Frank knew that much at least—and while he might not think to look for us at sea, maybe he’d get it out of Fleming.

I knew it was wrong, but I actually kind of hoped Frank beat it out of him.

He certainly deserved whatever he got.

But Dad was still missing, on top of everything else. Fleming—and AFAR—clearly didn’t have anything to do with Dad being taken.

Fleming was the connection between Dad and AFAR?

Okay, Scotty, reason it out
, I told myself as I took another slug of water and wiped sweat from my forehead. I slipped my T-shirt over my head and started thinking.

This whole thing had started because of Veronica Porterie. She was the common denominator for everything that was going on. She masterminded stealing the tiger. She’d been murdered. And through her family, she was also a link to the deduct box.

I thought about that for a moment. Okay, her grandfather had been a cohort of Huey Long’s, one of the governor’s closest friends and advisers. Dr. Fleming claimed Governor Long had passed the deduct box along to Porterie for safekeeping, but he was killed in a car accident the same night Governor Long was shot to death in the state capital, and had never told anyone where he’d hidden it. The people who’d kidnapped Dad—and there was no reason to believe Rev Harper wasn’t behind that—were looking for Porterie’s long-lost diary, in which he recorded the location where he hid the box.

I sighed and took another swig of water.

None of it made any sense to me, quite frankly—I didn’t see why the deduct box, some eighty years later, would be of any value to anyone.

Certainly it didn’t have enough value to make finding it worth the risk of kidnapping someone.

And why, of all people,
Dad
?

Even if they believed Veronica had told Mom something last weekend, wouldn’t it make more sense to kidnap
Mom
?

No, what made the most sense was for them to kidnap VERONICA.

Whoever had killed her clearly wasn’t looking for the deduct box.

I took another swig of the water.

Maybe the problem with figuring all this out is I’m assuming everything is all part and parcel of the same thing, when maybe it’s separate things.

Maybe Dad’s kidnapping had nothing to do with Veronica’s murder.

The kidnappers didn’t mention the diary when they called—they mentioned the deduct box.

They wouldn’t have killed Veronica before they got the diary from her, and if they had the diary, there was no need to kidnap Dad.

My head was starting to hurt. I was almost there—but the answer was just out of reach in my head. It was so fucking frustrating.

I took a deep breath, stood up, and started pacing.

It was only logical to conclude whoever killed Veronica was not the same person—or persons—who’d kidnapped Dad.

I really wanted to talk to Barney Fleming again.

If AFAR wasn’t interested in the deduct box and hadn’t been involved in Veronica’s murder, why were they involved with the leading Huey Long scholar in the country? What was the connection there?

How had he come into contact with Veronica and AFAR?

The deduct box—he had to be involved in that part of the story.

Another unexpected roar from below made me almost jump out of my skin, and I had to grab the dashboard for balance as the boat went up a large swell.

The sea was getting rougher, and I’d noticed too that the wind was picking up.

I went down the stairs to the second level and heard another noise—a low moan—coming from Taylor’s cabin. Remembering how thirsty I’d been, I went into the little kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water, and carried it back to his cabin. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw him sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Scotty?” he said faintly. “Where are we? What happened?”

I sat down next to him on the bunk and pressed the water bottle into his hand. “Here, take a drink. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’m a little confused and groggy. How long have I been asleep?” He downed half the bottle in a couple of quick gulps before belching loudly. “Where are we?” he asked again. “What happened? The last thing I remember was those people had tied us up and were asking you some questions.”

No sense in sugarcoating anything, I figured. “We’re adrift in the gulf in a boat with no power,” I said. “And no way of calling for help.”

Almost on cue, Mike roared so loudly it seemed like the boat shook.

“Oh, yes, Mike the Tiger is belowdecks.”

He shook his head. “We’re adrift at sea with a tiger?” He surprised me by starting to laugh. “How
Life of Pi
.”

I stared at him, worried that he’d lost his mind. “Life of pie?”

“It’s a book, by Yann Martel?” He stared at me. “We read it in my lit class last fall. It’s a great book, about a young kid stranded at sea in a lifeboat with a tiger after a shipwreck. It’s a great metaphor about—oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter.” He stood up and wobbled a bit, putting his hand on my shoulder to steady himself. “Wow, what a headache I’ve got. What are we going to do, Scotty?”

“I wish I knew.” I stood up. “Come on, let’s go up and get you some fresh air.” I walked alongside him to the hallway and up the stairs to the deck.

“There’s a storm coming.” He pointed off into the distance.

I followed his finger and felt a chill go down my spine. Dark clouds and that misty-looking sky surely meant not only a storm, but a bad one. I could see lightning flashing—no wonder the sea was getting rougher.

This was most definitely not good.

“I don’t suppose your cell phone has service?” I asked, turning my back on the storm.

He pulled out his phone and looked at it. “No, no bars. And it’s almost dead anyway.” He looked at the compass on the dashboard. “We’re pointed south—I wonder…” He grabbed hold of the wheel and fought with it, slowly getting it to start turning. “Can you help me with this?”

I obliged, grabbing hold and yanking in the same direction he was. “What are we doing?”

“If that storm is coming toward us, we’re better off if the front of the boat is facing the direction we need to go to get ashore,” he replied. “The storm is going to drive water in front of it, so hopefully it’ll push us that way, too. It makes more sense to be pointing in the same direction the storm will be moving us, don’t you think?” He shrugged and frowned. “I don’t know, to be honest. My only experience with boats is going waterskiing or fishing on lakes—not the open sea. But I don’t suppose it can hurt, right?”

The front of the boat slowly started coming around, and the muscles in my shoulders were starting to ache as we kept fighting the wheel. But finally, we were facing north according to the compass, and we both let go of the wheel with a sigh of relief. Taylor started rooting around, opening cabinets and compartments. I didn’t ask him what he was looking for—he’d tell me when he was ready. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander.

I must have still been groggy from the drug because I dozed off, not waking until Taylor’s excited shout jolted me awake.

“What?”

He grinned at me, holding up a gun of some sort. “I knew there had to be an emergency flare gun on the boat somewhere.” He gestured to the little cabinet that was open. “There’s a first aid kit, too—I took some aspirin, you might want to if you have a headache from whatever it was they shot us up with.” He tossed me a packet and walked to the rear end of the boat. He pointed the gun straight up in the air and pulled the trigger. A red flare shot up into the clear blue sky, floating in a slow arc when it reached its full height, trailing a tail of red smoke. He grinned back at me. “There’s a shitload of flares. Every half hour or so we can fire off another one. Someone is eventually bound to see one and come rescue us.”

“Pretty smart,” I said. “I would have never thought of looking for a flare gun.”

He shrugged off the praise like it was nothing. “Why would you? If you’ve never been on a boat before.”

“But you’ve never—”

“My dad always taught me you never go out on a boat without a flare gun, in case you get into distress—that way you can always signal for help.” His face colored at the mention of his father. “So I figured there was probably one on board somewhere.” His face screwed up. “I don’t think they meant for us to die out here, you know?”

“You don’t?”

He shook his head. “Well, sure, it could happen—you never know what’s going to happen when you’re at sea—but they left water for us in the refrigerator, enough to last us for a few days, if we’re careful with it. They didn’t get rid of the flare gun or the flares. They just took the keys so we couldn’t use the engine, and they disabled the radio. Besides, if they wanted to kill us, they could have just killed us back on land and fed us to the alligators in the bayou.”

Much as I didn’t want to give Diana Killeen credit for anything, he
did
have a point. As long as we kept our heads and didn’t panic, eventually we would have found the flare gun—and we had. Now it was just a matter of firing off the flares and hoping someone saw them before the storm arrived.

I glanced off into the distance. The storm was coming closer, and it looked even nastier than it had when Taylor had first pointed it out to me.

And, of course, there was a thousand-pound tiger down belowdecks.

When was the last time he’d been fed? The way the boat was moving up and down with the swells couldn’t be doing much for his nerves. If the storm scared him enough, he could probably break down that door with ease.

And without a weapon of some sort, there wasn’t any way we could protect ourselves from him.

They couldn’t have known how any of this would turn out when they cast us adrift.

How could anyone claim to be for animal rights yet abandon a beautiful animal like that at sea? No matter what Taylor said, there wasn’t any guarantee that we’d be rescued or would have figured out a way to save ourselves. And had Mike not roared, I wouldn’t have even known he was down in the hold. I could have just as easily walked down the stairs, opened the door, and found myself staring at a live, hungry, angry, and frightened tiger.

And no matter how used he was to people, that was a combination that might have added up to one dead Scotty.

Diana Killeen just better hope she never comes face-to-face with me again
,
I thought angrily.
I hope they throw the book at that bitch.

“Scotty!” Taylor shouted excitedly. “Look!”

In the distance in the east, a boat was heading our way rather quickly.

It was a Coast Guard cutter.

Thank you, Goddess
,
I prayed with gratitude, and the sense of relief that swept through me was instantaneous and staggering.

Oh, thank you, Universe, for the United States Coast Guard!

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling.

I had probably the worst cottonmouth ever, and I also had to go to the bathroom.

Frank was lying next to me in the bed, gently snoring. He was lying on his side with his back to me, and I could feel warmth radiating off his skin.
Is there anything nicer than being in bed with Frank?
I thought, a smile creeping across my face. I didn’t want to get up. I turned my head to look at the clock and was startled to see it was already after noon.

I sat straight up and hurried to the bathroom.

As I brushed my teeth, I stared at my face in the mirror. I was a little sunburned from yesterday, and my lips were still chapped. I’d sweated out a lot of water while out on that boat, and I definitely needed to rehydrate.

I hadn’t gotten back to the apartment until around three in the morning and had barely been able to get my clothes off before collapsing into bed and going to sleep.

The Coast Guard had been wonderful to Taylor and me. We hadn’t just gotten lucky that they’d seen the flare—they’d received an anonymous tip about a boat in distress, with our approximate location. So the cutter had already been out looking when Taylor fired the flare. Diana Killeen or one of her gang must have phoned it in, but it didn’t soften the way I felt about them. Sure, they’d called in a tip, but the gulf is big and there was no way they could guarantee the Coast Guard would find us.

Not to mention what might have happened had they not found us before that storm hit.

The Coast Guard gave us sandwiches and water, and a medic they had on board had checked us both out as the cutter headed toward shore, towing the boat behind us. I kind of wished my phone’s battery hadn’t died, because the look on their faces when I told them there was a tiger belowdecks was priceless. They’d originally considered riding out the storm at sea until I told them about Mike. Instead, they secured a towrope to the boat we’d been on—after checking first to make sure I wasn’t bullshitting about the tiger—and then made a beeline for shore.

They also radioed ahead, and somehow managed to arrange for the veterinary school at LSU to bring his traveling cage down to the Coast Guard station at the Port of Baton Rouge.

Taylor and I didn’t make it all the way upriver to Baton Rouge, though. They dropped us off in New Orleans and in fact delivered us right into the waiting hands of the New Orleans Police Department. Detectives Venus Casanova and Blaine Tujague, to be exact—both of whom I have already become well acquainted with over the years. I used to get on their nerves, I think, but I’ve proven myself to them over the years and they’ve become, if not friends, at least more tolerant of me.

Venus is a tall black woman probably in her late forties who is always dressed to kill and clearly spends time in the gym keeping her body in top physical condition. She’s very pretty, and she wears her hair buzzed down close to her scalp. Her face is very hard to read, and when Taylor and I were escorted ashore by two uniformed Coast Guard men (who looked sexy as hell in their uniforms) she shook her head. “You know,” she said with no facial expression, “when the Coast Guard called in, I just had a feeling it was you.”

“That’s not totally true,” her partner said with a grin. “They told us who you were.”

Blaine Tujague is about my age, give or take a few years, and is just as gay as me. We’re about the same height, but he’s a little more thickly muscled than I am. He has bluish-black curly hair and bright-blue eyes. He’s pretty attractive, to be honest, and I saw Taylor gaping at him with that
I’d like to tap that
facial expression I’ve seen on so many other gay men’s faces over the years. I grinned to myself, but would have to warn Taylor about Detective Tujague. He lives with his long-term boyfriend in the lower Garden District. Blaine always wears dress slacks and a blazer, but his shirts are always a little small for his bulging muscles.

I couldn’t blame Taylor, really. If I didn’t already have the two most perfect boyfriends on the planet, Blaine would turn
my
head.

*

They took us straight down to the Eighth District police station on Royal Street, putting us into the back of Venus’s black SUV. I asked about my Explorer on the way, and Venus radioed in, asking someone to get ahold of the Placquemines Parish sheriff’s department and have them go out and look for the Explorer, as well as to check out the place where AFAR had held us hostage. She also put out an APB for that bitch Diana Killeen, without really asking a lot of questions.

It is nice to have a good relationship with the police.

Before the questioning started, I asked for permission to call Frank and also for a phone charger. Venus passed me her cell phone and rolled her eyes before going to get me the phone charger. He answered his cell phone on the second ring. “Venus? What’s up?”

“Hey, Frank, it’s me, Scotty,” I replied. “My phone’s dead, and Venus is letting me use hers.”

“Where are you?” He sounded relieved but still a little panicked. “I’ve been worried sick about you and Taylor. Are you both okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine, it’s a long story, though, and I’m going to have to answer some questions.” I smiled at Venus as she returned to the interrogation room with an iPhone charger in her hand. “I’m at the Eighth District station house, Taylor’s here, too, and there’s nothing to worry about right now. Thanks, Venus, for the charger.”

“Still no word on Dad,” Frank said. “And no word from the kidnappers, either.”

“Okay, I’ll call you as soon as I can.” I disconnected the call and passed her phone back to Venus. “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

She smiled. “No problem. Now, do you want to explain to me how the hell you and that kid and Mike ended up on that boat needing rescuing by the Coast Guard?”

I spent the next three hours being grilled by Venus—I assumed Blaine was interrogating Taylor. I hoped Taylor had the presence of mind to not spill the news about Dad being kidnapped—while it was pretty safe to assume the kidnappers wouldn’t know if we told the cops, I didn’t want to take that risk. We went over everything, over and over again. She knew I wasn’t telling her everything—she’s pretty sharp—but as much as I wanted her help in finding Dad, I couldn’t tell her.

Finally, she leaned across the table, that look I’ve come to know so well on her face. “Scotty, I know you’re lying to me about why you went over to Barney Fleming’s in the first place.” She peered at me, her gaze intent. “Why all the sudden interest in Huey Long?”

I just shrugged. “It was just a hunch that didn’t pan out.”

“It didn’t pan out, but you decided to follow him out to Placquemines Parish and put Frank’s nephew’s life in danger.” She leaned back in her chair, a suspicious look on her face. “And somehow I’m supposed to believe all of this?”

I sighed. “I told you, Venus, Frank and I are looking into Veronica Porterie’s murder. You know the Baton Rouge cops think her daughter was involved in stealing Mike. We’re trying to help her clear her name, and I told you, Mom had known Veronica her whole life. I thought it might have something to do with Huey Long—the deduct box thing has come up a couple of times. Why wouldn’t we check with an expert on Long?”

“And you just decided to watch his house and follow him?”

I hadn’t mentioned Rev Harper because I wasn’t entirely certain he wasn’t behind kidnapping Dad—and I knew it sounded lame. “Venus, both Taylor and I got the sense he wasn’t telling us the truth, and he was trying to get us out of there as fast as he could.” A little white lie never hurt anyone, after all. “And so we figured it couldn’t hurt to watch his place. And sure enough, less than ten minutes after we left he took off. We followed him, and he led us right to AFAR’s hideout, where they took us prisoner, and well, you know the rest. They set us adrift at sea with a tiger on the boat and no way of calling for help.” I shrugged. “Sounds to me like they had more than a little to hide besides stealing Mike. Why wouldn’t they have killed Veronica?” I didn’t think Diana Killeen and her posse
had
killed Veronica—but Taylor and I could have easily died at sea. Payback’s a bitch, Diana—and so are you. “Probably a falling-out over the tiger-napping, who knows? But clearly they don’t have any respect for human life. Or animal life, for that matter. And Barney Fleming was clearly working with them—he led us right into their hands. So what was he doing out there? What’s the connection?” I ran my fingers through my dirty hair. I really needed a long, hot shower. “Veronica’s grandfather was a close associate of Huey Long’s. Barney Fleming is an expert on Huey Long. You do the math.”

“We’re checking into Barney Fleming.” She shook her head. “You’ll be interested to know that the place AFAR held you burned to the ground this afternoon. It was definitely arson—I suspect they burned it to destroy any evidence that they were behind kidnapping Mike.” She leaned back in her chair. “We’ve issued warrants for their arrest, for kidnapping and grand larceny, but I’m sure they’re long gone. If it were up to me, they’d be charged with two counts of attempted murder, too.” Her eyes hardened. “Probably couldn’t make that stick in court, though. I’m pretty sure they were the ones who tipped off the Coast Guard. No one else knew you were out there.”

“Yeah.” I could hear Storm’s voice:
You never charge people with anything you aren’t positive you can convict them on. That’s just asking for a hung jury or an acquittal. That call to the Coast Guard could very well be seen by the jurors as remorse, and any lawyer worth a shit would keep hammering that point home to the jury. We can convict them on kidnapping for sure, so why muddy the water?
“I’ll be more than happy to swear out a complaint, if you need one. And I’ll be more than happy to testify against them.” The thought of being on the stand while Diana Killeen was sitting in the courtroom next to her defense attorney brought a smile to my face.

It was really amazing how much I hated her.

“I’ll have your statement typed up.” Venus pushed her chair back and stood up, her face unreadable. “And for the record, even if they did make the call to the Coast Guard, they also couldn’t be sure they would get there before you both died. Or that the tiger didn’t get loose and eat the two of you.” Her lips narrowed into a tight line. “Not to mention the bomb threat to the LSU campus—Homeland Security wants in on that one. Domestic terrorism.” She clicked her tongue. “I sure wouldn’t want to be Diana Killeen when they catch her ass.”

It was around two thirty when she gave Taylor and me a ride back home in her black SUV. Taylor looked like he was barely able to keep his eyes open, poor thing. Seeing him stagger with sleepiness when we got out of the SUV made me realize that he was the reason I wanted to fry Diana Killeen so badly—not because of what she’d done to me, but because she’d put
his
life in danger.
This is what it feels like to be a parent
, I mused as I unlocked the gate, and the thought made me even angrier at Taylor’s parents.

How could you just turn off your feelings for your child like that?

What kind of people can
do
that? And call themselves Christians?

As we climbed the back stairs, I wished for a moment that the Christian afterlife would turn out to be true—but only if I could be there when his wretched excuse for parents tried to get into heaven so I could see the looks on their faces when St. Peter denied them entry and sent them to hell for eternity.

And I’m not proud to say it brought a grim smile to my face.

Once Frank let go of him, Taylor collapsed onto the couch and was asleep within a matter of minutes. I got a blanket and gently covered him with it, and watched him sleep for a few minutes before going back to our bedroom with Frank—who had the decency to let me shower before peppering me with questions about what had happened.

I was up for another good hour until I could finally collapse into bed and sleep.

And now I’d slept in, while every second that passed made it more and more unlikely we’d find Dad.

I pulled on a pair of Saints sweatpants and walked down the hall into the kitchen. I started a pot of coffee and checked to see if Taylor was still sleeping on the couch. He wasn’t there, so I had to assume Frank got him upstairs after I fell asleep. I logged into the computer while the coffee brewed and checked some of the local news sites…and sure enough, Mike the Tiger’s rescue was the big lead story on every one of them. There were some pictures of me and Taylor, but they’d been taken from a distance and were fuzzy, and unless you knew it was us, you’d never guess. None of the articles carried our names—which was an enormous relief. I didn’t want to have to deal with the press.

But every article clearly stated that AFAR was behind everything, including kidnapping us and setting us adrift at sea. They also stated that both Homeland Security and the FBI were now investigating AFAR, and probably the IRS would get involved, as well.

Which was good enough for them—as far as I was concerned, they all deserved much, much worse. Veronica was obviously the brains behind the entire operation. I had no doubt that without her running the show, AFAR would crumble and they’d be caught soon enough.

Likewise, AFAR was off the hook for kidnapping Dad. They had no reason to take him. I was also pretty sure Barney Fleming was a lot more involved than just working with AFAR.

Whoever had taken Dad thought we had Eugene Porterie’s diary, which meant they thought we knew where the deduct box had been hidden all these years. But I still couldn’t understand why the damned deduct box was so fucking important eighty years later—important enough to kill Veronica and kidnap Dad.

If Fleming hadn’t lied about everything, Governor Long had converted the money inside the box into state bearer bonds.

If that was true, wouldn’t there have been a record somewhere of the bonds being issued?

I pulled up a search engine, and typed in “Louisiana State Bearer Bonds.”