Chapter Eight
The next morning Daniel sat at his desk and thought about the dinner he’d had with Angelique the night before. After their discussion about relationships, their conversation had remained light and casual for the rest of the meal.
Still, she had exposed more of herself than she probably realized.
He’d learned that the first man to betray her was the father who didn’t want to be a part of her life.
She’d said it hadn’t mattered, but it had to have hurt a little girl’s heart to know her daddy didn’t want anything to do with her.
He highly suspected Jason Webber was the man who had broken her heart with lies and cheating.
Daniel had gone to school with Jason, and he’d never particularly liked the man to begin with.
The fact that he’d broken her heart to the point that it had turned her cynical about all men made Daniel like the man even less.
It was a damned shame. She deserved the love of a good man who would treat her like a queen, a man who would never lie or cheat on her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t even giving herself a chance to find that special man. She was closed off to the very idea.
He’d surprised himself by sharing with her the tragedy in his own childhood. It was something he rarely talked about to anyone, and as he’d gained more distance from it, he rarely thought about it. He had very few memories of his mother.
He could still remember the way she smelled like roses and how her hand felt as it stroked across his forehead. He remembered her lips pressed against his cheek as she whispered good-night to him. However, that was pretty much all he had of her.
His memories of his brother were equally as nebulous. He remembered boyish giggles and wrestling together, and that was all he had of a brother named Alan.
With his mother and brother gone, Daniel had to grow up fast, especially when his father had started drinking. His father never got over the murders of his wife and son.
Throughout Daniel’s teen years, his father would drink himself stupid and then sit at the kitchen table and weep until he eventually passed out. The murders had absolutely broken his father beyond repair.
So, in reality, like Angelique, he had pretty much grown up without a father. But that was then and this was now, and Daniel rarely allowed himself to wallow in the tragedies of his past.
There had been a time when he’d hoped to have a woman to love and to fill his house with children. He had hoped to build the family he’d never really had, but he just didn’t see it happening for him anymore.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t incredibly drawn to Angelique.
He was, and the more he learned about her, the more he wanted to know about her.
He wanted to gift her with the solving of her mother’s murder and the identity of who had attacked her, but at the moment, much to his frustration, both cases were definitely at a standstill.
When Luke and Clay came in, the three of them sat in the murder room where the whiteboard taunted Daniel with its relative emptiness.
“I still put my money on Pierre,” Luke said. “I think it was a crime of passion. I believe that he wanted to get back with Mystique and when she refused, there was a fight.”
“The coroner did say the knife used was one like a fishing knife,” Clay added.
“Like a fishing knife, but he couldn’t say for certain that it was a fishing knife,” Daniel reminded them both.
“I’d love to arrest Charles Landry just for being an arrogant ass,” Luke said, his distaste for the man obvious in his tone.
“If he mentioned one more time how expensive his things were, I was ready to puke all over those expensive things,” Clay replied, making both Luke and Daniel laugh.
“He is a condescending jerk for sure, but what we need to figure out is if he’s a cold-blooded killer,” Daniel said. “It’s hard to believe he killed Mystique because the love charm didn’t work for him.”
“But we all know people murder for crazy reasons,” Luke said. “Maybe he didn’t want it to get out that he’d gone to Mystique’s for a love charm. Maybe he was embarrassed by the whole thing.”
A deep frustration ate at Daniel’s very soul. “Any more thoughts on who might be after Angelique?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Luke replied.
“Me, neither,” Clay said. “I think the only one who can solve that is Angelique herself.”
“And so far that’s not happening. She has no clue who might want to hurt or kill her.” Daniel took a drink of the cup of coffee before him and then slammed the cup down. “Damn, I’m so frustrated right now.”
“Maybe we should pull Pierre in here and sweat him a bit,” Luke suggested.
“Maybe you’re right,” Daniel agreed. “The only time we’ve spoken with him was during our search warrant.” He looked first at Clay and then at Luke. “You two want to bring him in?”
Both officers stood. “It would be our pleasure,” Luke replied.
Moments later the two were gone. Daniel kicked himself for not bringing his number one suspect in for more intensive questioning earlier.
Pierre would be out of his element here at the police station, and Clay and Luke had a mean bad cop/good cop routine.
Maybe it was possible they could sweat him enough to get an admission of guilt from the gator hunter who professed his deep love for Mystique.
It was almost an hour later when the two officers returned with an unenthusiastic Pierre between them. “Let’s head to an interview room,” Daniel said.
The four of them sat at the small table in a conference room. Pierre was clad in a pair of worn jeans and a stained white T-shirt. He smelled of fish and the swamp waters. Luke sat on one side of him and Clay on the other. Daniel remained standing next to the door.
“I don’t know why this is all so necessary. I already told you I didn’t have anything to do with Mystique’s murder,” Pierre said in a surly tone.
“We just wanted to ask you some more questions,” Daniel replied. “And it’s more comfortable to do it here rather than standing in the heat outside your shanty.”
“Well make it fast. I got important things to do,” Pierre said.
“Now, exactly where were you at around ten on the night of Mystique’s murder?” Luke asked.
Pierre’s thick eyebrows drew together. “I told you before I was out in the swamp gator hunting.”
“Are you sure you weren’t fishing that night?” Luke asked. “I thought you told us when we spoke to you earlier that you were out fishing.”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Pierre replied in obvious irritation. “It was either one thing or another. That’s all I do… I fish and I hunt big gators. All I know for sure is I wasn’t anywhere near Mystique’s place that night.”
Luke leaned forward. “There’s a lot of gator hunters in the swamp. You mean to tell me nobody saw you out and about on that night?”
“No, nobody saw me. Gator hunting isn’t exactly a social affair. I got myself a sweet little honey hole, where there’s fish and a big gator that I’ve been after. Nobody goes to my place. It’s a matter of respect.”
“Did you catch the gator that night?” Luke asked. Daniel continued standing quietly and watching the emotions that played over Pierre’s features. His irritation was obvious not only on his facial features but in the rising tone of his voice as well.
“No, I didn’t get him that night or any night since, but sooner or later that big scaly bastard will be mine,” Pierre replied.
“So, you don’t really have any alibi for the night of Mystique’s murder,” Luke said flatly.
Pierre’s nostrils thinned and a narrow trickle of sweat escaped and ran down the side of his face. Before the three had arrived, Daniel had turned on the heat in the interview room to make it less pleasant.
“I already told you I loved that woman with all my heart and soul and I could never hurt her, let alone kill her,” Pierre said. “In all the years Mystique and I were together, I never laid a hand on her.”
“But you two were broken up at the time of her murder. Who called things off between the two of you? You or her?” Luke leaned even closer to the man, getting into Pierre’s personal space.
“She decided we needed a little time apart,” Pierre said after a long pause. “But that was nothing new with us. She’d kick me to the curb for a couple of weeks, and then we’d get back together. It’s like we were addicted to each other. We could never stay apart for very long.”
“Maybe this time she didn’t want to get back together with you. Maybe that night you went to speak with her and she told you she was done with you forever. That made you very angry and a physical altercation ensued and you wound up slitting her throat.”
“The hell you say,” Pierre replied angrily. He slammed a fist down on the table. “Dammit, that didn’t happen.” He stared down at the tabletop and drew several deep breaths. It was obvious he was trying to get his temper under control.
For the next thirty minutes or so Luke pressed Pierre hard. “Were you drinking on that night? Is it possible you killed her because you were drunk? Maybe blacked out?”
“Hell no,” Pierre replied. “I don’t drink when I’m gator hunting. What kind of a damned fool would do that?”
By this time Luke had been questioning the man for almost an hour. “Back off, Luke,” Clay said to his partner as part of the bad cop/good cop act. “Pierre, would you like some water or maybe a soda?”
The man released a deep, ragged sigh and swiped the sweat from his face. “A glass of water would be great.”
“Let me go get that for you.” Clay left the room and returned a moment later with a cold bottle of water. Pierre took it from Clay, cracked it open and drank deeply.
He then offered Clay a grateful smile. “Thanks, man.”
The questioning went on for another half an hour with Luke pressing the man hard, and Clay telling his partner to back off. But despite the aggressive questioning, Pierre stuck to his story—that he hadn’t even seen Mystique on the night of her murder.