Slow Heat in Heaven (41 page)

"I'm sorry. You scared me, too."

Schyler looked at her friend closely. Gayla's eyes were round with genuine fear. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing. I was just taking the evening air. Guess it's time I went in."

Gayla eased away from the wall and turned as if to ran. Schyler caught her arm. "Not so fast, Gayla. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Don't tell me nothing. You look like you've seen a ghost."

Gayla's mouth began to work emotionally. Tears formed in her large, dark eyes. "I wish it was a ghost."

Schyler moved in closer, concerned for her friend's mental stability. "What's happened?"

Gayla reached into the deep pocket of her skirt and took something out. Enough light from the window fell on it so Schyler could see what it was. It was an ugly little handmade doll that bore an uncanny resemblance to Gayla. There was a vicious-looking straight pin stuck in the brightly painted red heart on its chest.

"Voodoo?" Schyler whispered. She glanced up at Gayla incomprehensively. "Is that what it is?" She didn't believe in such nonsense. "Where did you get it?"

"Somebody left it on my pillow."

"In your room? You found it in your room? Are you saying that somebody in the house did this?" The cruelty of it was inconceivable, even for Tricia. There was no love lost between the two women, but. . . black magic?

"No. I don't think it was anybody in the house," Gayla replied.

"When did you find it?"

"Last night."

"Tell me."

"I heard something out here on the veranda."

"What time?"

"I don't know. After you left." The two women shared a guilty glance, then looked away. "It was late."

"Go on."

"I thought I heard a noise out here." Gayla glanced around apprehensively. "I wasn't sure. I thought it could have been my imagination. I've been real spooked lately. I think I see Jigger behind every bush."

"That certainly isn't a figment of your imagination," Schyler said grimly, nodding down at the doll.

"I worked up my courage and came out here to investigate."

"You shouldn't have done that alone."

"I didn't want to make a fool of myself by waking up everybody."

"Don't worry about that the next time. If there is a next time. What happened when you came out here?"

"Nothing. I didn't see or hear anything. When I went back inside, this was lying on my pillow." She crammed the doll back in her skirt pocket and tucked her hands under her opposite arms.

"Do you think Jigger did it?"

"Not him personally. He's not that subtle." She thought for a moment. "But he might've hired somebody to do it, to let me know he hasn't forgotten."

"Who does that kind of thing these days?"

"Lots of the blacks."

"Christians?"

Gayla gravely nodded her head. "The early slaves believed in black magic before they ever heard of Jesus. It's been passed down."

"Does Jigger believe in it?"

"I doubt it. But he knows that other folks do, so he uses it to scare them."

"Then he's used these scare tactics before?" Schyler was remembering the two dead cats found on the veranda.

"I think so, yes."

"Do you know who he gets to do his black magic for him?" Gayla looked everywhere but at Schyler. Schyler clasped her arm and shook it. "Who, Gayla?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure."

"But you have a fair idea. Who?"

"Jigger only mentioned one hex to me in all the time I lived with him."

"And?"

"He was probably lying because it isn't a black."

"Who? Give me a name."

Gayla wet her lips. When she spoke, her voice was as soft and fitful as the Gulf breeze. "Jigger said Cash Boudreaux did it for him."

Cash heard the old board on his porch squeak under weight. He laid down his magazine and casually slipped the knife from the scabbard at the small of his back. Pressed flat against the inside wall, he inched toward the front of his house. The door was opened. Insects dived toward the screen, making small pinging sounds when they struck. He didn't hear anything else. It didn't matter. He knew with a guerrilla fighter's instincts that somebody was out there.

Moving so fast that his limbs were flesh-colored blurs, he whipped open the screen door and lunged outside. The other man was cowering against the wall. Cash's shoulder gouged his midsection. As he doubled over, Cash pressed the tip of his knife against the man's navel.

"Jesus, Cash," he cried out in fear. "It's me."

Adrenaline stopped its chase through Cash's body. His brain telegraphed his hand not to send the knife plunging in and up. He eased to his full height and slid the weapon back into the scabbard. "Goddammit, I almost gutted you. What the hell are you doing sneaking around out here?"

"I thought that's what you hired me to do. Sneak around."

Cash grinned and slapped the other man on the shoulder. "Right. But not around me. Want a drink,
mon ami?
"

"I could damn sure use one. Thanks."

They went inside. Cash poured two straight bourbons. "How'd it go?"

"Just like you said." The man tossed back his drink and, with a wide smile, added. "They never knew I was there."

"What's so amusing?" Rhoda Gilbreath asked her husband from her end of the dining table. She laid her fork on her plate and reached for her wineglass. "They lock people who laugh to themselves into tiny, padded rooms, Dale."

Unperturbed, he blotted his mouth with his napkin and pushed his plate aside. Because Rhoda wanted to stay stick-figure thin, she expected him to eat as sparingly as she did. Not that he wanted huge portions of the health food she served at home. He ate sugary bakery doughnuts every morning for breakfast and a high-caloric lunch so that he wouldn't starve to death in the evenings.

"Sorry, darling. I didn't mean to exclude you from the joke." He washed down his last tasteless bite with a swallow of tepid white wine. It, too, was low cal and had no sting. "Have you heard about the latest entertainment attraction in town?"

"They've reopened the drive-in theater. Old news, Dale."

"No, something else."

"I'm holding my breath," she said drolly.

"Jigger Flvnn's got a pet snake."

"Bully for him."

Dale leaned back in his chair. "This isn't any ordinary snake. It's a rattlesnake. Gruesome- looking thing."

"You actually went to see Jigger Flynn's snake?"

"I didn't want to be the only one in town who hadn't seen it," he chuckled. "That's all anybody's talking about."

"Which is a clear indication of the intelligence level in this community."

"Don't be snide. This really is a remarkable snake."

"You're dying to tell me all about it, aren't you? Well, go ahead." When he was done, Rhoda was impressed in spite of herself. "And he doesn't know who left it in his yard?"

"Claims not to. Of course Jigger is a bald-faced liar, so you can never be sure if he's telling the truth or not. Still," Dale said, recalling Jigger's giddiness as he showed off his prized possession, "I think this is more than just another of his money making schemes."

"How so?"

"I'm not sure. This snake seems to have touched Jigger in some way."

"Touched? You mean mentally?"

"Psychologically." Dale leaned forward and said in a hushed voice, "I think it was supposed to."

"Isn't this where the spooky music is supposed to come up full? Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo."

Dale ignored his wife's sarcasm. His expression was reflective, as though he were reasoning through an intricate riddle. "Whoever left that rattler for Jigger to find wanted him to be hyped up about it. Jesus, it wouldn't take long for that monster to fuck with my mind. You can hear the thing from two hundred yards. Never heard such a creepy sound in all my life."

Rhoda's slender, beringed fingers slid up and down the stem of her wineglass as she shrewdly regarded her husband. "You don't know anything about it, do you?"

Dale feigned surprise. "Who, me? No. Certainly not." At her skeptical expression, he laughed. "Honest. I don't know anything about Jigger's snake."

Rhoda took a sip of wine. "If you did, you wouldn't tell me.

"What makes you think that?"

"Because you're a provoking son of a bitch, that's why."

Dale frowned at his wife. She wasn't a cheerful drunk. Indeed, she got more surly by the glass. "I'd like to know
what burr has been stuck up your ass for the last week or so. You've been impossible to live with."

"I've got a lot on my mind."

"Not the least of which is who your next extramarital lover is going to be."

He had pushed himself away from the table and left the dining room before Rhoda came to her senses. She stumbled from her chair and chased after him. She caught up with him in the den where he was calmly lighting his pipe. Before he could apply the match to the Med bowl, she caught his arm.

"What do you mean, who my next lover is going to be?"

Dale jerked his arm free, lit his pipe, and fanned out the match, meticulously dropping it in the ashtray, before giving his wife his attention. "It's all over town that your most recent stud is humping the Crandall woman. Tough luck, Rhoda."

"What does it mean?"

"Humping? It means—"

She punched him in the chest. "Stop it! You know what I meant. What does this mean to us? To your plans for the takeover of Belle Terre?"

He glowered at her for striking him, but he puffed his pipe docilely. "Their affair falls right into place with my own plans. He might be nailing her, but he has an ulterior motive. There's bad blood between him and the Crandalls, having to do with his mother and Cotton I believe."

Rhoda's spirits lifted marginally. She had cause to want the sky to fall on both Cash and Schyler. As Dale had said, it was all over town that they were sleeping together. Rhoda herself had heard it at a meeting of the Friends of the Library. Helping to spread the salacious tidings was Schyler's own sister. Tricia Howell had held court to an enthralled audience while she dragged Schyler's name through the muck.

Oh, she had put on a great act, making her avid listeners drag the information out of her, bit by juicy bit. But once she'd confirmed the gossip, she said, "Everybody at Belle Terre is thoroughly disgusted. Cash is so trashy. I mean, think what his mama was."

Rhoda wasn't fooled. Tricia was jealous of her older sister, and probably envious of her affair with Cash. The catty little bitch had then launched into a story about Schyler's life in London with a homosexual, while Rhoda sat and stewed in her own juice. Schyler Crandall was the reason behind Cash's peculiar switch in personality. He had dumped
her
for Schyler Crandall. For that, she'd pay them back in spades.

"You can play one off the other," she suggested to Dale now.

Dale stroked his wife's cheek affectionately. "You're a vicious bitch, my dear. Vicious, but so clever."

"Is there anything I can do to help further things along?"

"Thank you, but I have everything under control. I'm keeping a very close eye on the situation. I'm being kept well informed."

"By someone you can trust, I hope."

"By someone who stands to gain as much as we do."

Rhoda laid her hands on his lapels and moved close to him, nuzzling his crotch with her middle. "Be sure to let me know if there's any way I can help you, darling."

Dale set his pipe aside and reached for the 9y of his trousers. "Actually there is. It also might serve to improve your disposition."

He pushed her to her knees, but she went willingly.

The blast of a car horn woke Schyler up. She threw off the covers and ran out into the hall. Looking out the landing window, she saw Cash's pickup below. He was standing in the wedge made by the open door,

"Get dressed," he shouted up to her. "We've got a problem."

"What?"

"I'll tell you on the way."

She made it downstairs within minutes. Tossing her shoes in first, she jumped into the cab of his pickup. "You certainly raised a ruckus inside this house. I hope this is important."

"A chain on one of the rigs busted. Both bolsters gave way under the pressure. We've got a helluva log spill out
on Highway Nine. I called out a crew. They're working to clear the road now."

"Was anybody hurt?"

"No."

"Thank God." If the accident hadn't occurred so early in the morning, when the highway wasn't busily traveled, it very well could have cost lives. Schyler shuddered to think of the consequences. "You had a rig loaded this early in the morning?"

"I've got every man putting in extra hours. A team comes on as soon as it gets light. We've got less than a week to get the rest of that order to Endicott's, remember?"

"And if we don't get the mess on the highway cleared up, a whole crew won't be free to cut today."

"That's right. Every hour counts." Cash was driving the pickup with no regard for traffic laws or speed regulations.

"How long do you think it will take?"

"I don't know." He glanced across at her. "I should have told you to dress in jeans. You might end up lumberjacking today."

"Gladly, skirt or not. We've got to get that timber cut while the weather holds out." Gnawing the inside of her jaw in vexation, she muttered, "Why did the blasted chain have to break now?"

"It didn't." Schyler looked at him in surprise. "It was sawed through," Cash told her. "Clean as a whistle. The truck had no more than pulled onto the highway than the logs started rolling off."

"Cash, are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Who did it?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Who was driving?"

He named the man and shook his head firmly. "He's been with the company for years. Thinks Cotton Crandall hung the moon."

"But what about Cotton Crandall's daughter? What does he think of her?"

He turned to her with a leering smile. "Sure you want to hear it word for word?"

The way he asked made her certain she didn't want to know. "He's loyal?"

"Loyal as they come."

"What about the others on that crew?"

She gave him time to run through the list of names mentally. "I'd trust any of them with my life. What would be a logger's motivation to deliberately screw things up? He would lose his job permanently if Crandall Logging goes out of business."

"Not if he were bribed with a large amount of money."

"Sudden riches would be a dead giveaway. The traitor would never survive the others' revenge. None of them would be stupid enough to try it. Besides, they're as loyal to each other as they are to your daddy."

"An independent?"

"Again, what's his motivation? You've created an active, local market. He's making more profit because his hauling expenses are reduced."

"But you still think it was sabotage?"

"Don't you?"

"Jigger?" she asked. They stared at each other, knowing the answer.

That was the last quiet moment they had for the next several hours. A state trooper was already on the scene when Cash and Schyler arrived. He was engaged in a heated argument with the logging crew.

Cash shouldered his way through. "What's going on?"

The trooper turned around. "You in charge?"

"I am."

"I'm gonna ticket you, mister. This rig was overloaded."

"Find me one that isn't."

"Well you got caught," the trooper said in a syrupy voice.

"A chain busted."

"Because you were overloaded. And just because everybody else overloads doesn't make it right. I'll make an example out of you." He took a citation pad out of Ms pocket. "While I'm doing it, tell your driver to get his rig off the road."

As it was, the trailer rig and the logs were blocking both lanes of the two-lane state highway. "Look," Cash said, with diminishing patience, "we can't just scoot that timber aside. It's got to be reloaded onto another trailer."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. We'll have to scare up a loader that's not in use and get another rig out here. It'll take awhile. They're not built for speed."

"We can't shut down this highway. You'll have to do that at night."

"I'm afraid that's out of the question. I wouldn't risk the lives of my men by having them work after dark."

At the sound of the feminine voice, the trooper spun around. He gave her a once-over that was calculated to intimidate. "Who are you?"

"Schyler Crandall."

The name worked like a splash of water on a growing fire. "Oh, Ms. Crandall, ma'am," he stammered, tipping his hat, "well I was just telling your man here—"

"I heard what you told him. It's unacceptable." The startled trooper opened his mouth to protest, but before he could say a word Schyler went on. "I suggest a compromise. Could you keep open the east-bound lane and close only the west-bound? That might slow traffic down, but it will slow down because of gawking drivers anyway. Having only one lane closed wouldn't stop traffic and it would be a tremendous help to us. I think we can move all our equipment in and work from one side of the road. We could get this cleared much sooner and that would be to everyone's advantage. Am I right?"

"Am I right?" Cash mimicked her moments later, fluttering his eyelashes.

"You weren't getting anywhere with him," she said. "It was a macho, Mexican standoff. What was I supposed to do?"

"Well, a blow job might have done the trick quicker. As it is, what you did worked okay."

She gave him a fulminating look, but he missed it. He was already stalking away from her, issuing orders. Though it seemed like little was being done at any given time and confusion reigned, one by one the immense pine
logs were lifted by crane and swung from the highway to the trailer rig. Cash himself sat in the knuckle boom and operated the loader. He carefully chose each log before loading it and stacked them all to achieve the perfect balance.