These were not happy people.
Roche wished he had arrived later, maybe much later. He had driven past Bleu’s place and seen that her car was gone, then he’d dreamed up an excuse for coming to the rectory.
“That woman can be a pain in the ass,” Spike said once Wazoo had made her exit. “She just mixes things up.”
Roche crossed his arms and waited.
“I need to talk to you,” Spike told Cyrus. He looked at Roche and frowned. “Where did you come from?”
“Good afternoon to you, too, Sheriff Devol,” Roche said, with a big smile. “I’ve been looking at the Cashman property. Right next to the rectory and the rest of the church’s property, it would get rid of the space problems for new building projects.”
“Only it doesn’t belong to the church and there’s no money to buy it,” Cyrus said.
He had chosen the wrong time to drop in. “Yes, well, I’ll leave you two to talk,” he said.
“You can stay,” Cyrus said, a bit too enthusiastically. “Can’t he, Spike? Unless there’s something he can’t hear, or—”
“He can stay,” Spike said, his nostrils pinched. “We could use another brain around here. Make sure nothing you hear goes anywhere it shouldn’t.”
Roche smiled. “Things do seem to be going to hell in a handbasket.”
“What do you mean by that?” Spike said. “D’you know something I don’t know?”
“Not about the kind of work you do,” Roche said hurriedly. “It just seems there’s unrest hanging out around here.”
“Fu—” Spike put a hand over his face, but it didn’t cover enough of his skin to hide his blush.
Cyrus patted his shoulder. “This is tough,” he said. “But it isn’t the first time things have been tough in Toussaint.” He raised his eyebrows. “Wazoo said she smelled something.”
Spike gave a short laugh. “She’s always smelling things. What else is new?”
“This time it was blood.”
Roche figured his opinions wouldn’t be welcome. He watched Spike’s reaction and saw plenty.
“The hell it was,” Spike said, his frown deep enough to rest his eyebrows in a straight line over his nose. “Why would she smell blood? What blood? Don’t tell me she thought she could smell somethin’ from the murder site in the church. If she did, that nose of hers will go to science.”
“She said this was living blood,” Cyrus said. “Belongs to someone who isn’t dead yet.”
This time Spike didn’t have a quick answer.
Madge Pollard’s little dog slunk from beneath the desk, then looked up at Roche with her shiny black eyes. “Was Wazoo suggesting she knows someone else is going to be murdered?” He picked up the dog.
Cyrus scrubbed at his face. “That had to be what she meant. But sometimes—a lot of the time—I think she says what comes into her head just to hear her own voice.”
The dog climbed high on Roche’s chest and licked his face. She was into checking out the insides of ears, noses and mouths. Roche wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, but planted a kiss between the critter’s ears just the same.
“Now Wazoo smells the blood of someone dead while they’re still alive,” Spike said, mostly to himself. “I wish she’d take her feelings somewhere else. What d’you think, Roche?”
“I didn’t expect to walk into a minefield around here,” Roche said. “I wanted to walk through the Cashman place and see how big it was.” His sneaky way of getting to the rectory and—Bleu—had turned into an idea with possibilities.
“There’s a lot of property there,” Cyrus said. He didn’t sound interested. “It isn’t even properly staked. I wonder who Mr. Cashman left it to.”
“The owner shouldn’t be hard to find,” Roche said. He liked Madge’s little Millie. She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed now and then. “Public records would have that information. That parcel is huge. I had no clue.”
“Do we care?” Spike asked.
Roche grinned at him. “I think you’ve been taking surly pills, Sheriff.”
Spike mumbled something, then said, “I went to see Kate Harper today.” He looked at Roche. “Do you know her?”
Roche said, “No. I don’t think so. Should I?”
“I don’t know. She’s the woman Ozaire Dupre’s busy painting as the arch villain of the piece. His version of the story is that she murdered Jim—or had him murdered—because he left her everything in his will and she wanted the money.”
“But you think that’s hogwash?”
“She’s a decent woman,” Cyrus said before Spike could respond. “I need to visit her again myself. She was widowed young. Never remarried, but she and Jim were good friends.”
“Real good, apparently,” Spike said. “He’s left everything to her in her will. So she said, anyway.”
“That’s what Ozaire told us, too,” Roche said.
Cyrus shook his head. “People will talk. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Ozaire wants to be sure I look into things there,” Spike said, not looking too serious. “She’d never be able to physically attack Jim herself, that’s for sure. And she didn’t like being questioned. She did say something interesting, though.”
Roche let Madge’s pooch drape herself over his shoulder. He was anxious to see Bleu.
“She told me to think about unsolved incidents from the past, as she called them. Or I think that’s what she was suggestin’. And there was a lot about how I’m suspicious of her because I’m a man in a man’s world and I’m picking on a poor woman.”
“What did she mean?” Cyrus asked.
Spike wrinkled his nose. “Damned if I know. Except she was suggestin’ something happened here in Toussaint that was never sorted out and I ought to figure out what it was. She reckons there’s someone else in town with good reason not to want the school built and Jim Zachary was too enthusiastic about the project for this person’s comfort.”
“She was suggesting she’s got some knowledge of who killed Jim?” Roche said.
“Who knows?” Spike said. “That’s the way it sounded, but nothin’ I said would make her open up any more than that.”
“I can’t imagine what she meant,” Cyrus said. “Could be, she’s just mad and lashing out. It’s not fair for some to suggest she’d get rid of her best friend for his money.”
“It didn’t make any sense to me.” Spike looked from Roche to Cyrus. “Roche hasn’t been here long enough. Can you think of something I didn’t get to the bottom of, Cyrus?”
“No,” Cyrus said at once. “Is that all you wanted to ask me about?”
“For now,” Spike said, sounding irritable. “I’ll get back to you if I come up with something else you might be able to help with.”
“Fine,” Cyrus said. “Let’s continue this in the kitchen. Madge and Bleu will wonder what’s goin’ on.”
“I’ll join you once this has been picked up.” Spike indicated the box of burned books.
Madge met Roche and Cyrus in the doorway to the kitchen, a finger to her lips. “Bleu’s asleep,” she whispered. “Come quietly. I can’t let her stay that way or she’ll never move her neck again, but I don’t want her shocked awake.”
Cyrus tiptoed just inside, but Roche followed Madge quietly until he saw Bleu, her head and arms resting on top of the kitchen table.
Her blond hair shone in what was left of the daylight. He moved closer and looked down on her slim neck. Everyone was vulnerable in sleep but she looked especially so.
Without waiting to see what Madge had in mind, he rubbed Bleu’s back lightly and bent over her. She took a deep breath, turned her face to the side.
Her eyelashes flickered.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” he whispered. “You need to be in bed.”
Her eyes opened. She stared at him without lifting her head. Then jerked upright. “Oh, good heavens,” she said, rubbing her face and running her fingers through her hair. “I must have gone to sleep. How funny.”
The rest of them laughed. “It might be strange if you’d had any rest in the last almost two days,” Madge said.
Bleu blinked and concentrated on Roche, which he didn’t mind at all. “You’ve got a friend,” she said, yawning and pointing at Millie.
He’d gotten used to the dog. “Just giving her a ride.”
“I’ve got to make coffee for Spike,” Cyrus said.
“And me,” Bleu said. “I’ll never make it home otherwise.”
“I’ll take you,” Roche said promptly.
Bleu gave a lopsided smile. “Thank you, but where I go, my car goes. Leaving it behind last night caused enough trouble.”
I don’t know how much longer I can wait for you. And it isn’t just more conversation I need.
“Let me hold Millie,” Bleu said. “I’m going to have a dog one day. Michael never…I couldn’t have one before.” She got up, as if trying to cover her confusion, and stroked Millie.
He held quite still. This had to be a new beginning for him with Bleu. He would be angelic around her. The thought almost made him laugh. One way or another, she would learn to trust him, and he intended to make sure that was a good idea.
“Come on, baby,” she said, trying to lift the dog away from Roche.
Millie didn’t cooperate.
“You’ll just have to be masterful,” he said, and smiled. If he could keep her close to him a little longer, he’d do whatever it took.
Cautiously, she looked behind his shoulder to see Millie’s face.
Roche got a spine-locking brush of Bleu’s breast across his arm—and the soft touch of her hair on the backs of his hands.
“Come on,” Bleu wheedled.
If he looked up, Roche knew he’d catch Cyrus and Madge watching.
“I’d better take her,” Madge said. “She embarrasses me. She’s such a little slut.”
What followed was an example of the pregnant pause before Madge said, “Why would I call her that? I’ve never called anyone that, ever.”
“I’ll get her,” Bleu said. She held out her hands.
Millie pulled back a fraction.
“Be good,” Bleu said. But she gave up on being discreet and lifted the dog. Her hips connected with Roche’s body and he locked his knees. He enjoyed every second.
“Got you,” Bleu said triumphantly and stepped away—to Roche’s disappointment.
He glanced at her white blouse, through which he could see the suggestion of a bra that might be pink.
Anyone who looked at the lower regions of his anatomy would see he was a man in pain.
He turned away and sat at the far end of the table.
Cyrus carried mugs of coffee over, and a can of the cashews he was never without. Then he sat down, threw a nut in the air and caught it in his mouth. Roche looked at Madge and grinned.
He wondered if the two of them realized that their happiest smiles were for each other, that they came alive when they were together.
And he thought he had problems.
“So,” Cyrus said. “What are you thinking about—with that Cashman property?”
Madge slid into a seat and Bleu sat down again, the dog cradled in her arms.
“I think it should be considered as a location for this new school you want,” Roche said.
The other three gave him their attention.
“It doesn’t belong to St. Cecil’s,” Cyrus pointed out. “And we’ve already got a site we can rebuild on.”
Roche looked at Bleu. “Is there enough room for the school buildings there?”
“Marc Girard has been advising us,” she said. Marc, married to Dr. Reb, owned an architectural firm in New Orleans. “He’s got all the plat maps and he says we can make a start.”
She didn’t look happy.
“A start?” Cyrus said.
“The new building would be four times as big as the old one and should accommodate the children who might come for several years. But space could become a problem then. These are things I intend to present at the potlock over at Pappy’s next week.”
“What happens when we don’t have enough space anymore?” Madge said.
“First we go to portables, and eventually we figure out how to expand more. We may have to consider acquiring land for a satellite campus.”
Spike came in, helped himself to the coffee and joined the rest of them.
“We’re talking about the school,” Cyrus told him. “Looks like we’ve got big space problems before we even get started.”
“So you start small and expand as you can,” Spike said. “My Wendy says she wants the school built fast.”
Wendy Devol, Spike’s daughter by a first marriage, was around eight and didn’t mince words.
“I haven’t seen that Wendy for too long,” Madge said. “I leave Rosebank before she’s about in the morning and get back after she’s in bed. I’ll have to make sure I do get to see her, and David.”
The expression on Spike’s face became contented. He adored his children.
“I’m going to find out about the Cashman land,” Roche said. “What do you intend to do about a multipurpose center, Bleu?”
“It’s only been about ten days since I realized it was such an issue. I’m thinking about asking Marc to work on using the area where the parish hall is and build something a bit bigger, with two stories. What do you think?”
After a silence that seemed to stretch, Madge said, “The parish hall was built at the same time as the church. They’re both pretty old. People want a new adult facility, but I think if we try to touch that hall, we’ll find we’ve got preservationists breathing down our throats.”
“I’d be one of them,” Cyrus said. “Sorry, Bleu. And the idea of acquiring another parcel of land is great, but we’d never raise the money. This isn’t a wealthy town. I wish what we already own was bigger. When the Church bought the parcel for St. Cecil’s and the other buildings that went up, they didn’t anticipate there would ever be such a need for growth.”
“Maybe we should give the whole idea up,” said Madge. “Jim’s already dead and the note with the ashes was a threat.”
“What note?” Bleu said.
“Just a silly note,” Cyrus said.
Madge glared into her coffee. She reached for the cream and poured in more. “What it said meant the killer was threatening to burn the new school down and kill the children inside,” she said.
Roche glanced at Spike and could see he was irritated at having his evidence chatted about.
“I expect Spike would like us to promise that what we’ve been talking about stays here,” Roche said.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat anything you’ve heard,” Spike said. “But you can’t let someone bully you into abandoning your plans. The school must go ahead, Madge. Even if it didn’t, we’d still have a murderer to catch.”
The dog had fallen asleep again, this time draped over Bleu’s shoulder. She supported Millie’s bottom and stroked her gently. “He’ll be caught,” she said, sounding convinced.
“Let’s hope it happens before someone else dies,” Cyrus said.
Madge rested her chin in her hands. “Meanwhile, we’ll be wondering about what Wazoo is or isn’t smelling,” she said.
“Fresh blood that’s still pumping,” Bleu said and rolled her eyes.
“Don’t,” Madge said and shuddered.
Cyrus offered her the can of nuts and she took several. Then she set them on the table; Roche figured she’d only accepted them to be polite.
Spike sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He had his Stetson balanced on one knee. “Well,” he said. “Me, I’ve got one big question to answer before I move on.”
“Okay,” Bleu said. “So tell us what big question.”
“How did someone drop that box at the front door and get away so cleanly? So far, we’ve got nothing, and it’ll be dark soon. The front of the house will have to be taped off, Cyrus.”
“No problem,” Cyrus told him. “I’ve got another big issue to deal with, too. We’d better get the word out that mass will be held in the parish hall until the church is available again.”
“What kinds of things are you looking for out there?” Roche asked Spike.
“I’d take anything. Gum wrappers with big, fat fingerprints on ’em. A dropped wallet complete with ID.” He made a grumbling sound. “I’m not even amusing myself. It’s rained, there should be some footprints. My men didn’t find any. No fibers or fragments of fabric anywhere. No hairs. No convenient puddles of body fluids. They scoured it. Nothing.”
“There are footprints out there,” Roche said.
“Yeah, yours.” Spike shook his head. “You aren’t so funny tonight, either.”
“Mine are there, but they aren’t the only ones. There are some that show in the soft ground just out from Cyrus’s office—the side, not the front. I didn’t think anything of it, except it seemed funny for them to come from that side and head up toward the lane, when it would be quicker to go straight out that way.” He nodded toward Bonanza Alley.
Spike was on his feet. “The fewer people who take a look at this, the better. I’ll have to get casts made of the prints. Let’s hope there’s something unique on the bottoms of his shoes.”
Roche’s stomach flipped. He hoped he wasn’t starting a lot of trouble for someone completely innocent.
“Spike,” he said. “The prints are from high heels. The footprints are a woman’s.”