Hall, Jessica (17 page)

"We've restricted scene access to essential personnel
only,
but it hasn't been easy." Gil glared at two news vans waiting just beyond
the official security perimeter. "Had some asshole with a camera climb the
barricade and try to get a shot of the body when we brought him out. Reporters
have been dogging us all day."

"Do the walk-through with me."

As he and Gil entered the building, Cort concentrated on getting
an overview of the scene from Gil's description of the blaze and how the
building had burned. Evidence was not limited solely to components of the
devices used to start the fire—ash and debris were collected for testing, and
certain interior fixtures and freestanding objects would also be removed and
analyzed.

"We've got a preliminary theory going. Looks like three
bottles were ignited on the second floor from the inside; then another three
were thrown into the building through the rear windows in the alley." Gil
stepped around a puddle of dirty water. "Not a lot of concrete so she
burned fast. NOPD canvassed but there weren't any witnesses other than the
Duchesne woman. The surrounding buildings are unoccupied, and no delivery or
service people were in the vicinity immediately prior to the fire."

Cort knelt to inspect a fallen beam, which was charred and had broken
into several pieces. The heat inside the building had been intense, and the
fire likely spectacular before it was brought under control. "We get a
videotape of the crowd?" Arsonists often stayed to watch the buildings
they torched burn, and it was standard procedure to film the spectators.

Gil nodded. "Got them from all angles. Photographer will
cover the funeral, too."

"All right. I want the evidence-processing team on
this
tonight. Make sure the access and recovery logs are completed and a full photo
and ledger inventory is made back at the lab before testing. Call in whoever's
up for overtime and tell them we're making this priority one. No one goes in or
out; I want officers posted here until I release the scene."

"Somebody need a cop?"

Cort rose to his feet and turned to see Terri Vincent standing a
few feet away. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd stop in, see what progress you all have
made." She switched her gaze to Gil. "You boys find anything that
looks like a baseball bat or a table leg?"

"Not so far, ma'am." Someone called his name, and Gil
excused himself.

Cort watched the lanky brunette as she carefully stepped over the
beam and peered at a blackened set of aluminum shelving. He'd already had his
fill of her smart-ass remarks back at the station, but he suspected she hadn't
come to check on the investigation or talk to him. "What are you looking
for?"

"Murder weapon. It's official—someone caved in the victim's
skull before they torched the place. Possibly left whatever they used behind."
She went around behind the shelves, then emerged and gestured toward the stairs
leading to the second floor. "Mind if I take a look?"

"I'll go with you."

He accompanied her up the staircase to the loft storage area,
where smoldering spots had left the air thick and hazy. Water used to put out
the fire still dripped from a fragment of roof that hadn't collapsed. "Any
word from J. D.?"

"No."

He watched her as she walked around the white
tape
used to outline where Marc LeClare's body had been found. She'd shed her jacket
sometime since he'd cornered her at the station parking lot, and the unadorned
white blouse she wore looked wrinkled and wilted. Her short dark hair resembled
a rat's nest. Weariness made her sharp cheekbones stand out even more.

Cort had never liked Terri Vincent, or her natural talent for
getting under his skin in less than sixty seconds. But she was a good cop and
probably his brother's best friend.

"If this is blood"—she knelt down and bent over until
her nose nearly touched a dark uneven stain still visible under the puddle of
wet ash—"then he was killed up here."

"Forensics should be able to tell from the trace residue and
the spatter pattern." He watched her hands, which were as long and elegant
as her body, but she didn't touch anything.

She stood and scanned the immediate area around the tape, then
tilted her head to look up. "Came up behind him, maybe, from over
there." She pointed to the pile of crates which had been scorched but
still remained in a semiorderly stack.

One of his men appeared at the top of the stairs. "Gil said
you'd probably want to see this, Marshal." He held out a large evidence
bag with the remains of a man's leather briefcase inside. "It was empty,
but you can still make out the monogram. Initials are
MAL."

Cort took the bag and turned it over, examining the case.
Everything had been removed except for two pens stuck in a side pocket. He
handed it back to the tech. "Make sure that's processed inside and out for
fingerprints."

"Yes, sir." The tech retreated.

Terri was pacing around the outline now. "Okay, so the killer
whacks him; he goes down; he whacks him a few more times. Then Isabel walks in,
he whacks her twice, and then he sets fire to the building and leaves her to
burn with Marc."

"He went out to the back alley to toss the last three gas
bombs through the windows." Cort went to stand at the base of the outline,
and then crouched down. He looked to the left and the right before rising and
walking over to a tangled pile of wood.

"Why did he leave the girl alive?" Terri followed him.
"He'd already killed Marc. Why didn't he bash her head in, too?"

"Maybe he thought she was dead."

Terri went over to the window and glanced down at the alley before
turning to look back at him. "He beat Marc's skull to a pulp, but then he
only gives Isabel a couple of love taps? Doesn't sound right."

"He could have been pressed for time."

"We got something here." Gil came up the stairs and
handed Cort another, smaller evidence bag. "Recovered part of a key from
the front-door lock. Looks like it broke off."

Terri glanced down the stairs. "When your boys responded, was
the front entrance locked?"

Gil nodded. "They had to break it down."

"So he locked her in. Coldhearted bastard." She blew out
a breath. "That makes it murder and attempted murder."

Cort looked at a pile of wood, then went over to it. He removed a
handkerchief from his pocket and used it to cover his hand as he pulled a long,
heavy length of pine from the pile. The entire piece was burned, but not
heavily, and one end had splinter marks and dark stains along the wood grain.

Terri and Gil came over and stared at the wood for a moment.
"Shit."

Cort watched her face. "This your murder weapon?"

"Might be. Sable has defensive wounds—wood splinters in her
palms." She gnawed at her bottom lip. "Gray Huitt found splinters in
Marc's brain, too."

Gil took the club in his gloved hands and turned it over as he
examined the odd-shaped end. "This looks like a tool of some kind, but not
one I've ever seen."

The cold air made Sable shiver as she stood up with J. D. Her legs
wobbled as she tried to find her footing, but he kept his arm around her and
didn't let her fall.

"We can't go back to the road," he said, scanning the
immediate area around them. "Someone might be waiting there."

"We can't stay out here, either." She pulled a hank of
wet weed from the back of her collar and shook it off her hand. "Aside
from the gators and the snakes and the bugs, the temperature's dropping fast,
and it'll probably rain again before dawn."

J. D. took a cell phone from his jacket, and held it up to watch
the water dripping from one corner of its leather case. He removed the case and
pressed a button before holding the device up to his ear. "Phone's
dead."

She took a look around to get her bearings and saw the old path
that led from Gantry's dock back into the cypress. "I know a place nearby
where we can go for the night."

"Where?"

"My cousin's grandparents live about a quarter
mile
from here." She climbed up the bank, then turned when he didn't follow.
"They'll help us, Jean-Del."

"The way Gantry was helping you?"

His reluctance was understandable, but she was tired and wet and
cold, and not inclined to curl up in a patch of poison ivy or a nest of
nutrias. "Caine isn't my family. The Martins are." She held out her
hand. "Come on."

After a noticeable pause, he took her hand and followed her into
the woods.

She stopped once along the way to tug the ruined shoe covers from
her bare feet. Luckily the path was worn smooth from generations of Martin
women walking from their home down to the piers to meet Martin men coming in
with the boats.

He watched her. "You want to wear my shoes?"

She eyed his feet, which were almost twice as big as hers.
"No, thanks. My feet are pretty tough." As she straightened, a sharp
arrow of pain pierced her right shoulder, and she took in a quick breath.
"I'm going to be one big bruise in the morning anyway."

"Take it easy." He slipped his arm around her waist as
they started walking again. "How much farther?"

She peered through the darkness and spotted a flickering light.
"It's right up there."

Seeing the familiar, moss-draped silhouette of the high,
steep-pitched gable roof made Sable want to weep. Like most of the elderly
Cajuns on the Atchafalaya, the Martins lived in a small house that had been
built from native trees felled and split with the help of family and neighbors.
Heavy blocks of cypress kept the house raised two feet from the ground, to
avoid flooding, heat, and insect problems. Over time weather had seasoned the
riven logs to appear as ancient as the scraggly trees surrounding the house.

A
lamp near one of the front windows cast golden light out on the
flat stone walk leading up to the whitewashed porch. Smoke drifted from the top
of the clay and stone chimney at the back of the house. Two hand-caned rocking
chairs sat on the porch beside the narrow front double doors, and there was an
orange marmalade cat curled up on the seat of one of them.

A short, stout elderly man opened the doors almost as soon as J.
D. knocked, and looked out of the center gap with wide eyes.
"Qui
est-il? Que voulez-vous?"

"C'est moi,
Isabel." She stepped
into the light so he could see her face and smiled. "We've had a bit of an
accident,
grand-p
è
re.
Can we stay with you for the night?"

"Mais oui,
come in, child." The
old man opened the door. "Why are you all wet? You fall in the
river?"

"Something like that." She gave J. D. a rueful glance
before adding, "This is Jean-Delano Gamble, my... friend."

Old Martin gave him a suspicious look. "You throw our Isabel
in the river, boy?"

"No, sir," J. D. said with a straight face. "I
fished her
out
of it."

The old man snorted out an appreciative laugh, then ushered them
in.

The Martins' home was equally unprepossessing on the inside, with
horizontal
barreaux
slats between the vertical posts and angular braces
that held the homemade insulation of clay and Spanish moss
bousillage
in
place. Lighting came from kerosene lamps of smoke-laced glass, with bits of
colorful flannel and rock salt floating in their bases.

Most of the furnishings Old Martin had made himself, out of the
cypresses growing around his home, but here and there were heirloom antiques
made of
cherrywood, which had survived
le Grand D
é
rangement
—his
Acadian ancestors' trip from Nova Scotia to Louisiana after being expelled by
the British in 1755. A primitive painting of the same determined ancestors
occupied a place of honor between framed religious portraits of Jesus and the
Virgin Mary.

Martin's wife, Colette, came into the front room, drying her hands
on her apron. Unlike her husband she was tall and very thin, and wore her iron
gray hair in a tidy wreath of braids. "Isabel!
Mon Dieu,
what are
you doing here this time of night?"

Sable explained as Colette fussed over both of them and brought
out towels and prepared mugs of hot tea. After Colette went to locate a change
of clothes for them, J. D. related an abbreviated version of what had happened.
Sable noticed he didn't mention Marc's murder, the stolen car, or the shooting,
for which she was grateful. The old couple didn't need the worry, and she
wasn't sure they'd be so sympathetic toward J. D. if they knew he was a cop.

"Here,
b
é
b
é
,"
Colette
said as she handed Sable a stack of clothing. "You go on in the bathroom
and take a shower. Then your man can have a turn." She turned a measuring
eye on J. D. "My husband's not as big as you,
chèr,
but I found an
old pair of jeans my grandson left here that might fit."