Chapter 25 #2
Reed waited, letting this man, Granger LaRoux, he assumed, let out his shock and anger and grief.
A meaty fist hit the ground. Once. Twice.
Then in rapid succession until, breathing hard, he raised it only to let it fall to his side.
His burst of fury spent, he exhaled a long, shuddering breath.
“I knew something would happen.” Replacing his cap, he rolled onto his butt and sat on the ground, looking up at Reed from beneath the brim of the cap with a marlin stitched across the front.
“You need some help here?” One of the deputies stepped forward.
Keeping his eyes on Granger, Reed held up a hand. “I’ve got this.”
He’d been in this awkward, painful position more times than he wanted to count, had dealt with grieving spouses, wives or husbands in denial, children who were frightened.
Friends and neighbors who were shocked. Bereaved relatives who had accused him of lying, one heartsick mother who had crumpled in his arms only to stiffen suddenly and slap him across the face.
Grief came in many forms.
None of them pretty.
And sometimes it was a lie. But not, he thought, in this case.
Aware that a firefighter and two deputies were watching him, Reed crouched next to the guy. “Let’s start over.”
“I told you. I’m her son.”
“Your name.” Reed prodded, wanting him to self-identify.
“What? Uh, Granger LaRoux. My mom lives … oh, God.”
“Just to confirm, who is your mother?” Reed asked, though this was just a technicality.
“Jeanne. Or, uh, Madam Jeanne, whatever she goes by. Don’t you know that already?
Jesus Christ, her name is Jeanne LaRoux, and she lives, er, lived, right down there!
” Still distressed, he jabbed a finger toward the gate and the dark lane beyond.
“The neighbor called and said there were cops all over this place. What happened?” In the eerie glow of the headlights and light bars, he stared at Reed as a car passed slowly by, rubberneckers gawking, a deputy waving them on.
“I’m sorry,” Reed said, and he meant it. He stood and offered the big man his hand.
“Yeah. Okay.” He sniffed. “You—you got a smoke?” he asked, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands.
“No, but …” Reed motioned to the deputy at the gate, who scrounged into a jacket pocket, then offered up a crumpled pack of Camels. Granger already had retrieved a lighter from his pocket, shook out a cigarette, and lit up with shaking fingers.
After a long drag, he cleared his throat and said. “So she’s gone.”
“Afraid so.”
“Jesus.” Another pull on his cigarette. “You know, when Dad died, I told her over and over again to move out of here.” Another long hit of nicotine.
And finally, in a cloud of smoke he asked, “So what happened? This,” he made a gesture with one arm to include all the official vehicles collected at the end of the lane, “says to me that she didn’t just die of a damned heart attack.
” Eyes narrowed, he stared at the array of police cars.
“Holy shit.” He sighed through his nose, smoke curling from his nostrils. “I told her it wasn’t safe here.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Why do you think? Hell, she’s an old lady, living here in the middle of the fuckin’ swamp, having all sorts of clients or whatever the hell you call them.
Strangers. Weirdos, if you ask me. People who come looking for answers to their messed-up lives.
They come out here, and she reads their fortunes?
Sometimes at night? Some of ’em are just fuckin’ crazy.
” He threw his cigarette onto the road and ground the butt out with the heel of his boot.
“But would she listen?” He blinked rapidly, looked up at the night sky, and his lips folded in on themselves as he tried to compose himself.
“We’ll need a list of the people she saw, especially anyone who would want to do her harm.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Granger nodded. “I know the drill. But I don’t know who she saw.
I mean the people who came out here looking for answers?
It’s not like they registered online and were on some kind of appointment chart or client list or anything.
Most of ’em heard of her through other ‘clients.’ Locals.
Word of mouth.” He sniffed loudly and looked away, down the road, but was lost in his own thoughts. “Look, I want to see her.”
“It’s not a good idea.” Not like this, not when she’d been found hanging from a crossbeam, blood staining her clothes, her eyes bulged, her neck broken.
Now, she’d been cut down and moved, zipped into a body bag, but it was still bad. Worse than viewing a cleaned body on a cold slab beneath a sheet.
“Don’t you need someone to confirm that it’s her?” Granger demanded. “Y’know, ID the body or whatever.”
“In the morgue.”
“No, man. No way.” Granger shook his head. “I don’t like morgues,” he said. “They give me the heebie-jeebies.”
Reed couldn’t help but ask, “You grew up here, with your mom and her, um, ‘clients’ and all, but morgues make you anxious?”
“Morgues and hospitals and cops!” he said pointedly.
“Mom was eccentric, or odd, and people thought she did some occult shit, but this was normal to me. What I knew. Morgues? Where they keep dead people on ice? That’s not.
” He seemed to stiffen his spine as he gathered in a breath.
“So—are you gonna let me see her, or not?”
Normally, Reed would have denied the man until the body had been taken to the morgue, but Granger seemed determined.
He was reluctantly explaining how she was found just as the ambulance was pulling out of the lane.
Reed flagged it down and watched as the EMTs stopped and allowed Granger inside.
They unzipped the body bag. Through the open door Reed watched Jeanne LaRoux’s son brace himself.
He visibly paled and took in a swift breath before, beneath his scruff of a beard, his chin wobbled, and again he blinked against tears before stumbling out of the back of the ambulance and leaning against the front panel of Reed’s Jeep.
“Who did this to her?” he said and fumbled into his pocket for the pack of cigarettes.
“What motherfucker would stab her in the neck and … Fuck!” He lit the filter tip with shaking fingers, cupping the cigarette with his free hand as he drew in hard.
“Son of a … goddamn!” Another drag and, a bit calmer, he asked, “Who? Who did that to her?”
“We were hoping you could help us with that. Give us a list of the people who might have held a grudge against her.”
“Maybe one of those religious nuts around here. You know, the go-to-church-on-Sunday, holier-than-thou hypocrites who preach about loving thy neighbor and all that shit, but do anything they can against anyone who don’t believe like them.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“Nah.”
“Who was it that let you know about the police here?”