Where The Devil Won't Go: A Lucas Peyroux Novel (5 page)

“That from her stomach?” Tara asked,
pointing.

“Last meal was an assortment of shrimp,
crab, roast beef, vegetables, some possible caviar. Some items digested more
than others.”

I wrote in my notebook. “Like she was
having little bit of everything. Like appetizers or hors d’oervres.”

“A cocktail party,” Tara added.

“That video wasn’t at any cocktail
party.”

He presented a tray that looked to
contain little red buttons. “Her nails had been manicured.”

I focused on Billy’s face. “Either at a
party or a fancy dinner. Probably drinking alcohol.”

Billy stopped tinkering with the food.
“We’ll have to wait for the tox screen to see if drugs were involved.”

I touched Tara’s arm. “Let’s check out
Haley’s apartment to at least get some DNA to compare. Then, we’ll inform the
Robicheaux family.”

“You want to call Dobson?” Tara asked.

I moved toward the door. “Yeah, she can
check out Haley Robicheaux’s history while we head over to her place.”

“Tell her to have CSU meet us there.”

“Right.” I followed my partner out while
explaining our findings to Captain Dobson. We stepped out of the building where
I noticed Tara’s hand had swelled a bit. She had just been with Harvin
questioning the Callio residents. Could she have decked him, too? I put my arm
around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For adding to my artwork on Harvin’s
face.”

“Your artwork? You gave him that black
eye?”

“Yep. Why did you hit him?”

“He was talking shit about you. Said I’d
get a bullet in my back. How do you know I hit him?” Tara questioned.

He cocked his head and smirked. “I’m a
detective.”

Chapter 8

Cozy laid in a ball on her twin bed,
staring at a silver-framed picture of Haley taken five years earlier. Haley’s
mouth was wide with genuine happiness at her seventeenth birthday. Ash had his
arms around her sister’s waist from behind as if surprising her, a picture of
two people in love. Having sex with Haley’s ex-boyfriend was a way of lashing
out at her sister, but it didn’t help. It should’ve made her feel guilty, but
it only made her numb.

The bedroom was barely cool, despite the
window unit. She wandered to the refrigerator, cracked open a beer and poured
it down until her throat burned. After a quick breath, the rest of her Abita
Amber vanished with one last large swallow. She pushed the bottle deep into the
trash, and then watched through the screen as her Momma dragged the ice chest
along the pier, stopping at the large pot and burner. Cozy meandered outside
and leaned against the metal pipe that acted as a railing. Her momma offered a
comforting smile while pouring salt into the tap water to purge the crabs in
the cooler.

“Those are big,” Cozy said.

“Paul just dropped them off. He’s such a
sweetheart. I told him to stop by later tonight with Ash.”

“Mr. Paul likes you. He gave you crabs.”
Cozy giggled and blushed.

“Cozy, ew.” She rolled her eyes. “I told
you,
hawt
, the man who wins my hand
isn’t going to be anyone that lives here.”

“But you’re stuck here. Kind of a
catch-22.”

Her momma wiped the sweat on the back of
her neck and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “You are so smart. I wish you
would change your mind about college. It’s
close
enough for you to keep living here.”

Cozy deflated. “You need to get the
police to find Haley and talk to her.”

“You need to concern yourself with the
here and now.”

“I am. Haley should be here… now. I don’t
know why I don’t just go and search for her myself. I could do it every
weekend.”

“You most certainly won’t.” Aponi slid a
rogue hair away from Cozy’s face. “The Spirits can guide you if you choose to
let them.”

“Do you think the Spirits are upset that
the Indians who once honored them are mostly gone or stopped searching for them
altogether?”

“Interesting question. I never thought
about it. Hypothetically, would the Christian God be less powerful if there was
only a handful of worshippers?”

“I guess not.” Cozy gave her mother a
rare, genuine smile.

Her momma inhaled like a bloodhound. “You
drinking beer?”

“I had one.”

Instead of a speech, her momma surprised
her. “Go get us two more, would you, dear? We can set up the boiler together.”

“Sure.”

Cozy ran into the house, grabbing onto
the counter as the room spun. With a splash of water on her face, her
equilibrium balanced, and a wave like being upside-down passed though her eyes.
Something was wrong – she could feel it.

Steady again, she opened the refrigerator
and let the cool air even her out. Enjoying a beer with her momma? How odd. She
pulled out two ice cold Coors Lights.

#

The squat, middle-aged landlord wore a
wretched, powder blue tank top, shorts and sandals. The thinning hair on his
head looked like a hot spot that a dog can’t stop licking, but it might’ve been
his only sympathetic quality. With a thick beard and crossed eyes, he
impatiently rocked to and fro as Tara and I spoke to our captain on my cell’s
speaker.

“We’re right outside Haley’s door.” I
tilted the cell next to Tara, standing far enough away so the landlord couldn’t
pry.

Dobson continued, smacking loudly as if
chewing gum, “I ran Haley Robicheaux’s name. Robicheaux is like the Cajun
version of Smith. Still, she is definitely Cozy’s sister.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing on Haley. Completely clean
record. You already know about Cozy killing her father. Got the address out in
Manchac for you if you don’t already.”

Tara backed away. “Can’t wait to get to the
bayou. Yee-haw.”

At the hospital, Cozy had invited me to
visit her home. All I knew of Manchac was passing the exit on my way to Hammond
and seeing some of the bayou houses called ‘camps’ situated on pylons while
crossing on I-55. It looked like one of those small towns Stephen King wrote
about, a town you grew up in, but never moved to.

Tara’s breath smelled of spearmint as she
spoke. “Now we have to deliver the news, but with the caveat that it might not
be her. How messed up is that?”

“We can hold off.”

Dobson’s voice shot out of the phone. “Go
talk with them after you go through the apartment and see if they can fill any
holes. Dr. Jerry’s on his way with his team.”

“Thanks, Cap.” Tara said to the phone. I
ended the call not telling our Captain that had been the plan all along.

“You say she was hardly ever here?” I
asked Mr. Porter.

He rattled the keys in his hand.
“Sometimes I saw her leave in the afternoon and usually she’d come in sometime
before dawn. Like she worked a night shift.”

“You know this how?” Tara asked, folding
her arms and shifting her weight.

“My place is right at the entrance so I
can see what kind of characters are coming and going and I’m a light sleeper.
My ma’ said that’s because I’m a worrier. I worry a lot.”

“She
bring
any
friends over?”

“Only two I know of. There was this
little black dude that came over a few times and there was this white loser
that came by once that I saw.”

“Little black dude? Like a kid?” I asked.

“Like a thug.”

“And the white kid was a loser? Why?”

His head swayed as if it got his brain
moving. “Raggy, baggy clothes. Didn’t get a look at his face. Can’t help you
there. It was dark, but he was young, brown hair. They hugged and kissed like
they knew each other. Like I said, though, she was hardly ever here.”

I turned to the door with my partner.
“Open it up, please.”

#

Haley Robicheaux’s miniscule apartment
lacked any meaningful clues. It had none of the charm of an intimate French
Quarter residence. A flophouse actually came to mind. After inspecting each drab
room, we quickly ruled it out as being the location of her murder, considering
the voyeuristic landlord and where the body was disposed. The landlord Porter
had said she only moved in with a suitcase, using the furniture of the
previously evicted tenant. At least Tara and I could stop saying River Doe,
small comfort as it was.

Dr. Jerry arrived with his crew of two:
Julia Sawyer his assistant and Freddie Boucher, the photographer. The small
apartment suddenly became cramped.

“Hey y’all.” Julia’s blonde hair hung in
a ponytail covered with a Saint’s cap.

“Did Dobson threaten to pull you off the
case, being that girl’s sister and all?” Dr. Jerry surveyed the place.

“Not yet. And she better not.” I watched
Freddie take general shots around the room.

Dr. Jerry put on a pair of gloves. “Don’t
give her a reason. You didn’t touch anything in here, right?”

“I vaguely recall that from my procedure
manual.”

“Leave my man alone, Jerry,” Tara held up
her fist and shook it comically.

“What you guys got?” he asked, switching
gears.

“A messy twenty-something that didn’t
spend much time here. Not much in the fridge. Some beer and take out.
Basic toiletries in the bathroom.
This wasn’t a
home,
it was a place to sleep. We still need to talk to the
family out in Manchac. There’s a hairbrush in the bathroom. You’re going to run
DNA off it to compare to the body?”

“I seem to remember that from forensic
school.”

I held up both palms to him. “Just had to
say it for my own piece of mind.”

He ignored me and spouted off
instructions to Julia. Tara and I left forensics to do their job and headed out
the door. Manchac was our next destination. We preferred not to invite the
State Troopers to accompany us on this one. The fewer cops seeing me power
through this, the better.

It took an hour and ten minutes as we
traveled over calm water and tree lines full of moss worthy of enough to be
painted. Getting to Manchac was one thing, finding the physical address proved
to be another. Tara had checked the paper map every time the GPS voice told us
to turn, thinking we’d end up in the bayou. She loved technology, but always
expected the glitch.

“You’re nervous.” Tara stated.

“No. I’m just dreading this. I can’t
imagine their reaction.”

“I hope I don’t hear any Coon-ass
banjos,” Tara said.

“Same old bayou jokes.
Listen,
try not to be too black out there with those rednecks, okay? No
shizzle my nizzle
.”

Tara cocked her head, and then spit flew with
a burst of laughter. “Alright, Peyrizzle. Let me get my jar of mayonnaise. I
can be as cracker as the next cracker.”

“You’re more like a Trisket.”

“Shit, your last name’s Peyroux. I hope
you speak Cajun. You gotta protect me.”

“You better hope your ass can run faster
than me.”

I parked where the grass met road. My
stone legs pounded up the gravel path with a folder in my hand. The immediate
front of the house was on land and the rest extended over the water. I took my
sunglasses off, making sure my firearm was holstered and our badges were
visible. The locals were sure to be armed with shotguns and suspicion. I
knocked and seconds later an extremely attractive face peered through a crack
in the door. It was hard not to imagine a red stream flowing from her throat.

Her eyes lit up. “Detective Lucas!” The
door swung open and Cozy latched her arms around my waist. “About time you come
see me.”

“Cozy. You look good. How are you?”

“Great, now.” She let go. Her scar made
my stomach pinch. “Detective Tara, I remember you from the hospital.”

“Good to see you again. Is your mother
home?”

Her eyes looked from Tara to the folder. “Wait,
this ain’t about seeing me. Is this visit about Haley?”

“Maybe you should get your mother for
us.”

“My momma’s right inside. Come on in.”

The front room was decorated for function
and comfort. Native American items occupied shelves. Old Pictures of Native
Americans hung on white and gold fleur de lis wallpaper, an eclectic clash of
cultures. Small, Indian-patterned throw rugs covered most of the floor and the
occasional alligator head kept watch over the room.

She
led me into the kitchen. “Here, sit,” she said, offering us chairs at a
chrome-rimed Formica table. Tara and I didn’t sit just yet, which made Cozy frown.

She yelled towards the screen door
leading out back. “Momma. Detective Lucas is here about Haley.”

Aponi Robicheaux stepped through the
flimsy screen door with a single glance toward us and then leaned over the sink
to wash her hands. Cozy sat on her knees with her elbows on the table, staring
as if I was going to burst into flames. Her mother turned, dried her hands and
then approached, assessing us from under lazy eyelids.

She shook my hand with confidence. “How
are you, Ms.
Robicheaux.
This is Detective Gray.”

“I’ve told you before, call me Aponi. So,
you have news on Haley. Please sit, Detectives. Can I get you some tea? Water?”

“No, thank you.” I inhaled the
intoxicating aroma of crab boil.

“That was a long ride,” Tara said. “Can I
use your restroom?”

“That way to the left,” Cozy pointed.

Aponi sat rigid with her hands on the
table while watching Tara disappear into the hallway. A tilt of her head told
Cozy to sit properly in the chair. Aponi addressed me. “I imagine it can’t be
good news.”

“I’m afraid not. Maybe we should speak in
private.”

“That’s quite alright. You go on.”

I hesitated. “But, Ms. Robicheaux - Aponi…”

Cozy stood and the chair kicked out. “I’m
not leaving.”

Aponi motioned for her to sit back down. “Whatever
happened, she’s going to find out anyway.”

My eyes fell on Cozy’s and I couldn’t
protect her yet again. “We pulled a female from the Mississippi River. Haley’s
cell phone was found on her person.”

“Oh, God,” Cozy said.

“So, Haley drowned?” Aponi never
flinched.

“Actually, the victim had been killed
prior to being left in the river.”

“Victim?” Cozy repeated.

“We’re not a hundred percent positive
it’s Haley. The body is unrecognizable.”

Cozy’s voice cracked. “Then, maybe it’s
not her. You could get her address from the phone, right?”

I nodded. “We did, but Haley hasn’t been
at the address for days.”