Chapter Twenty - One #2
“And my mother asked me to get rid of her car in August of 2000. I decided to put it in the bayou. I clean out the car. Travis leaves. I use his truck to push the car into the water. That’s it.”
“That’s definitely not it,” Rita says. “That’s why I’m still here. The pieces are starting to reveal themselves. Time to put them together. And I bet I’m a lot closer than that Podunk police chief and that investigator.”
“Rita.” I lower my chin, study her. “Slow down.”
She drains the remaining coffee in her cup and stands. “No room for slow down here. I’m rolling on this.”
“You’re scaring me a little bit.”
She releases a loud laugh, and the other two customers in Taylor’s turn to stare. “Good.”
I don’t bother to tell Rita exactly what my mother told me, that this could be bigger than her. She’s beyond listening. Whether it’s her that puts all this together or not, I hope it gets done quickly. Despite the good night’s sleep, despite the coffee, I feel something ominous hovering close.
Rita gazes down at me. “I’ve got something I’m checking out this afternoon. Somebody I want to interview. Possibly a secret boyfriend of Emily’s. My digging uncovered that gem as well. Then I’m heading over to talk to Tom Bordelon.”
The drawing from Mabry’s sketchbook comes to mind. Like the pictures she’d drawn of Ermine and her husband, Travis and me, even Mama and her boss, Mabry was capturing what love looked like to her. Emily and a boy.
Rita points a long manicured nail at me. “Keep your phone on. I’ll fill you in when I’m done.” She clips to the front of Taylor’s and is out the door before I can yell after her.
Ermine slips up beside my table. “That one’s a real piece of work.”
“Indeed.”
“She bothering you?”
I shake my head. “I actually think I’m starting to like her.”
Then Ermine says to me what I intended to yell to Rita. “Be careful.”
I text Travis and ask him to please come by again. When I get back to the house, I go through each room, with my gun. Although, I’m not sure what I would have done if someone had been here. I didn’t think that far into my plan when I started looking in rooms. Thankfully, it hadn’t mattered.
I set my keys and gun on the kitchen table and look at the kitchen door. The chair I wedged under the knob before I left is still there. I hear tires on the oystershell driveway, then someone calling my name out front.
Travis sits in his truck with the windows down. I walk up to the passenger window. He looks as if he’s been up all night. His hair is scattered in all directions. His clothes are wrinkled. He looks at me with sad eyes. “Doyle’s missing.”
“What?”
Travis tilts his head. “I figured that’s why you texted me.”
“No, Travis. It’s not. I texted you because I just had a very interesting conversation with Rita Meade and—”
Travis scoffs.
“And,” I continue, “she mentioned something that got me thinking.”
“What’s that?”
“Did Emily have a secret boyfriend?”
“What? Why?”
I hold up my finger. “I’ll be right back.” I race to the kitchen and snag Mabry’s sketchbook from the counter. I fumble through the pages until I find the loose sketch Liv Arceneaux ripped in half; then I race back to Travis.
I hold out the drawing, slightly out of breath. “Mabry drew this. The other half is a drawing of Emily.”
Travis’s jaw goes slack. “What the fuck?”
He grabs the picture and holds it closer. His throat moves as he swallows.
“Do you know who that boy is?”
Travis’s jaw is no longer slack. It’s tensed so hard I can see the muscle in it. Travis looks up, and the answer dawns on me even before he says it. The expression on the boy’s face. I’d seen it last night, by the bayou. On Raymond St. Clair’s face.
“It’s Raymond,” I say.
Travis nods and thrusts the picture back into my hand. “Yeah. I always suspected.”
Then something else comes to mind, and the sketch shakes in my hand. “Rita also mentioned there may be evidence at least some of the victims were drugged.”
“Jesus. Y’all had quite the chat.” He rubs his face.
“Is it true?”
He nods.
The fine hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Last night by the bayou comes back into focus. So many people come close to danger and never know it. One minute, they’re having fun somewhere; the next minute, they’re incapacitated. “And Raymond was an EMT before he was a cop.”
“How do you know that?”
“He mentioned it when I was at the impound.”
Travis raises his eyebrows. “What were you doing at the impound?”
I hurry on. “It doesn’t matter. But listen, last night I was out by the bayou.”
“Alone? Willa, I wouldn’t do that right now.”
“I wasn’t alone. Raymond was there, too, and he told me—”
He interrupts me. “What do you mean Raymond was there too? Raymond’s in New Orleans. Said he had to follow up on a lead.”
My body goes cold. “Raymond wasn’t in New Orleans last night.” Raymond who works for the same sheriff’s office that possibly falsified a report years ago. A report that pertains to this case. Our guy’s too smart to get caught.
But what about the sand? I’d seen piles of it from Emily’s bedroom window the day I visited. It’s possible someone else had seen it. Doyle may not be smart, but he’s smart enough to know that could lead back to him.
“Travis,” I say. “What if it’s him? Raymond?”
Travis shakes his head, incredulous. “No way. No fucking way.”
“You told me you know when it’s one of your own. What if you didn’t know?”
“I’d know.”
I look down at the sketch. “How sure are you Emily died of natural causes?”
“What?” He shakes his head again, then stops. A harsh breath escapes. “Wait a minute. Just wait a minute.” He holds a finger up, sits a few seconds, and says, “I used to see Raymond, back then, in the woods behind our house. Sometimes I’d run him off. I thought he was there to torment me but . . .”
“But he wasn’t interested in you,” I say.
Travis’s jaw clenches again. “He was interested in Emily.”
“Travis.” I glance behind me. “It sounded like someone was in the house with me this morning. Tiptoeing around.”
Travis is out of the truck before I can say another word. I follow him up the front steps and into the foyer.
“Travis, I—”
“Stay here.”
I wait on the porch, tapping my foot, but I can’t stay still. I catch up to Travis as he’s coming down the stairs to look around the first-floor rooms. All the rooms are empty.
Back at the front door, he says, “This all just keeps getting more out of control.” He runs his hand through his hair, stalks back to his truck, and jumps behind the wheel. I follow him to the driver’s side door.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on, but when I find Raymond . . .” His words trail off as he slams his truck in gear.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. You need to let the investigators handle this.”
“This could involve my family. I’m handling it.”
“Because it’s family is exactly why you shouldn’t handle it.”
He looks at me with a cold stare. “If you see him, call me. And don’t go near him.” Then he swerves out of the driveway before I can say anything else.