“I thought she got rid of that thing the last time she smashed it,” Spike said.
Roche, with Bleu at his side, had only taken a few steps down the cul-de-sac when a dark blue van appeared. Dented and scraped, emblazoned on its sides were ringed planets, signs of the zodiac and a list of Wazoo’s services in a block down the center.
Illustrator, makeup consultant, waitress, pet psychologist, housekeeper, expert on matters black and white, potions—or what you will, advertising executive, dancer and exorcist.
The little gathering in the cul-de-sac was seeing the good side of the vehicle. The other looked as if a giant ice-cream scoop had taken a passing dig at it.
“How would she know to come here?” Bleu said. Wazoo intrigued her; the woman had a way of showing up at odd times and in odd places.
Roche shook his head. “She probably monitors radio transmissions.”
To Bleu, although he hinted at disapproval, he actually seemed okay with whatever Wazoo did.
Spike bent forward so the brim of his hat completely obscured his face. “She’s got a radio.” He flicked a piece of ash from his well-creased short sleeve.
Roche waited for Wazoo to appear and frowned. “She’s not alone in the van.” Darkly tinted windows made it hard to see inside. Someone moved beside the driver.
“Nope.” Spike leaned forward, trying to see through the windshield.
“Is that Nat Archer with her?” Roche said. “Madge mentioned Wazoo threatened to get him in here.”
“Damn her hide, anyway,” Spike said, squinting toward the van. “Like I need an NOPD homicide cop sniffing around. Or any idle meddlers like Wazoo.”
Nat Archer and Jilly’s husband, Guy Gautreaux, used to be partners on the homicide squad in New Orleans. They still helped each other out when they wanted to know their backs were totally covered.
“You know she’s protective of you,” Roche told Spike. “She’s trying to help. That’s the only reason she’d get Nat to come.”
Spike looked at him sideways, one side of his mouth tipped up. “The only reason? I think that crazy man would marry our town loon if she’d have him.”
“Hush,” Bleu said.
The van door creaked open on the driver’s side. The wider Wazoo pushed it, the louder the sound of metal screeching on metal became.
Vertically challenged, she slid to the ground and closed the door with a mighty fling. Purple was the color of the day, with black, naturally. She resembled an exotic butterfly in motion—an angry butterfly.
“Is there fog crawling up the front of that wreck?” Roche said.
Bleu leaned to see around Wazoo. Vapor oozed over the hood of the van.
“Bum radiator,” Spike said. “That’s steam. Even leak stopper won’t work anymore. She carries water with her for when it really runs out the bottom.”
“This where you live, Bleu Laveau?” Wazoo called out.
“Yes,” Bleu said. “Nice to see you.” Even to her the greeting sounded banal, but everyone made conversation sometimes.
“Well, I surely can’t say the same about you,” Wazoo said, marching uphill toward the group. “A fire. Of course, a fire. We got a box of burned books, didn’t we? We know there’s someone around who likes fires.” She pointed from Roche to Spike and nodded at Bleu. “This girl, she’s likely to be the next one in the church—for her funeral. So you better be watchin’.” She looked over her shoulder and planted her hands on her hips.
Bleu’s pajamas were too warm. She needed to buy some new ones—not that she intended to spend a lot of time wearing them out here. A glowing orb in the sky, the sun, and all the gorgeous golden trim on parting clouds wouldn’t seem so lovely in an hour.
Wazoo stood right where she was until a woman appeared on the passenger side of her vehicle.
“That’s not Nat,” Spike said.
Wazoo shot him a pitying glance. “No shit?”
“What is Mary Pinney doing here?” Bleu’s top stuck to her skin. She had nowhere to hide from anyone who chose to come for the show.
Mary and her husband, George, whom most people had never seen, lived in rented rooms at Jim Zachary’s place. Mary managed Hungry Eyes, the café and bookstore at the far end of Main Street. As one of her many jobs, Wazoo had helped out there for years.
“Don’t you get uppity,” Wazoo said to Bleu. “I know it’s only because you’ve had a shock, but you need to get over it. We were on our way to open up Hungry Eyes. Followed one of Spike’s cruisers here. Mary’s concerned for you, too. You know how interested she is in a teaching job at the new school if it’s built. All these bad things happenin’ weigh on her.”
Bleu knew all about Mary’s interest in the school, but didn’t see why that gave her the right or a reason to be here.
“Hoo mama,” Wazoo said, watching Mary close her door and come around the front of the van. “That girl gotta have hidden depths. Have you met her husband?”
“No.” And Bleu wasn’t interested.
“Wait till you do see him. When he was made, whoever did it smiled, big-time. There’s things we can’t see, given the rules about wearing clothes, but we got imaginations—”
“Wazoo,” Spike said, trying to look stern.
“When can I go back inside the house?” Bleu asked him. “It looks like it’s only the carport and the siding that got damaged. Mostly the carport.” She stared in that direction. “Well, darn it anyway. My car’s a mess.”
“It didn’t blow up,” Wazoo said. “You should be givin’ thanks, girl. What’s a bit of soot among friends? Most of it will wash off. If you’re so inclined. I kind of like character to a vehicle myself. Now, are you hearing me?”
Bleu nodded yes.
“Never relax, not for one second, silly girl. Stands to reason, if the new school made someone mad enough to kill poor Jim, then you’re an ugly pimple on the killer’s skin. He wants to squeeze you out. Got that?”
“Lovely description,” Bleu said. “Thanks for the warning.”
“Bleu isn’t alone,” Roche said. “She’s being looked after.”
Wazoo looked up at him from beneath thick eyelashes. “I’m just sure she is. My, the gods were payin’ someone off when they made the Savage twins, too. You are a wet dream, boy.”
Bleu wanted to disappear.
Roche laughed. “Thank you, Wazoo,” he said, and that was the end of it.
Bleu stopped looking at Wazoo. She had met Mary Pinney at the parish hall meeting, but with the crowd and all the questions, there hadn’t been time to study the woman. Pointed inquiries about when teachers would be hired did catch Bleu off guard, but she had put the pushy approach down to eagerness.
Tall, tanned, muscular, her long dark hair scraped back into a thick coil, Mary made Bleu want to say that she didn’t see much hidden about her potential depths. There was a physicality there, even given a calm, fine-boned face and clear blue eyes.
“Hidden depths,” Bleu muttered under her breath.
“You’ve got that right,” Wazoo whispered in her ear. “She’s a nudist, y’know. Doesn’t wear a stitch when she’s home. Cooks, cleans, does everything in the skin she was born with.”
“How do you know?” Bleu said from the corner of her mouth, doing a poor job of hiding a grin.
Wazoo gave her an arch look and tossed her masses of curly black hair. “I’ve got my sources,” she said archly. “You’d be surprised what I know.”
Bleu let it go.
“Wow,” Roche said. “I don’t think Miz Pinney gets around much or I’d have seen her.” He cast Bleu a sidelong glance, a provocative grin. She kept her expression blank.
“What’s she doin’?” Spike said.
“Stretches,” Wazoo said. “She keeps very fit. She always stretches when she’s been sitting.”
Roche looked the woman over and muttered something that sounded to Bleu like, “Obsessive, compulsive.”
Wazoo didn’t notice.
There wasn’t any more time before Mary Pinney came their way, her walk resembling that of a big, graceful cat. Bleu couldn’t visualize her teaching young children, although she supposed that serene, almost empty air could be useful in some situations. A gauzy white poet’s shirt hung from her shoulders, worn over soft, white linen shorts—very short. With the sun behind her, her lithe body, including notable, uptilted and naked breasts, was outlined inside the shirt. Her feet were bare.
She raised a hand. “Good day to you. Bleu, I am so sorry for your trouble. You let me know right away if I can do anything to help you.” Her rich voice carried clearly across the cul-de-sac.
Realizing her mouth was open, Bleu closed it at once. She nodded at Mary.
“Jeez,” Spike said, not quite under his breath.
“Do we think someone came here just to set a fire?” Mary Pinney asked loudly.
Wazoo squinted toward the house. “Maybe. But it should have been easy to burn the place to the ground.”
“If his only goal was to burn Bleu’s townhouse down, he’d have done it properly,” Roche said.
“He must have figured she was home,” Mary Pinney said. “He could have rung the doorbell if he wanted to. Or broken in. Something must have stopped him.”
“Roche was with me,” Bleu said, feeling defiant. “Someone could have come here expecting to find me alone and talk me out of continuing to work on the school project. They’d have waited for Roche to leave. Only…he was with me all night.”
“She was upset,” Roche said. “I couldn’t leave her like that.”
“You were so kind,” she said, looking up at him. “It hasn’t been easy lately.”
“Uh-huh,” Wazoo said. She looked Roche over. “I know a kind man when I see one and I’m seein’ a real kind man now. I expect he got into your mind—that’s what people pay him to do—and he smoothed out all your troubles. I bet he soothed your troubles away until you couldn’t remember a thing about them.”
The heat Bleu felt wasn’t because the day was getting hotter and stickier with every moment.
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Roche said. “Flattery makes me shy.”
“You’re quiet, Sheriff,” Mary said. “What are you thinking? That this was just practice for all the little children he threatened to kill?”
“Who told you that?” Spike swung back. He colored and glared toward Wazoo. “Don’t say that again, to anyone.”
“Oh, no,” Bleu said. Her eyes widened and grew dark. “This is awful. How did they find out?”
Roche followed the direction of her horrified stare and winced. He saw Father Cyrus’s dusty, dark red Impala station wagon floating up the road. Its shocks were blown again and the vehicle resembled an ungraceful liner. Cyrus refused to replace the vehicle and only Ozaire Dupre’s ingenuity kept it running.
“Why is he here? I’ll never be able to look at him again,” Bleu said.
“Just don’t let him block the emergency vehicles in,” Spike said.
Yellow tape flapped between stakes one of the officers had driven into the ground across the entire frontage of the property. The firemen were still busy, and Roche heard the distinctive sound of an axe splintering wood. They were opening singed walls in case any embers lurked inside, waiting to spurt into another fire.
Cyrus parked and got out, followed by Madge and, to Roche’s annoyance, Sam Bush. He didn’t like the man, didn’t like the way he hung around Madge. And he gritted his teeth whenever Sam looked at Bleu.
What was the difference between a man like that, who didn’t hide his obsession with women, and Roche? There was a difference, damn it. He might be physically attracted to any sexy female that roused his erotic factor, but he stopped his mind from engaging and taking action, and made sure he didn’t signal his reactions. And he never pushed for what a female made him want…unless fate threw a desirable and willing partner into his arms.
Fate had definitely brought Bleu to him. He looked at her. Right now, he wanted her again, and he only wanted her. For the first time in his life he lusted for one woman alone and the idea unnerved him.
Roche liked looking at Bleu. Her eyes were a clear green and honest. Her sudden smiles and laughs tightened his muscles, and he enjoyed the sensation. When he wasn’t around her, he wanted to be.
“Roche?”
He jumped and faced Cyrus. “Hey. We’ve got to stop having these morning meetings.”
Cyrus didn’t look amused. “You’re right.” If he noticed what Bleu wore, he showed no sign of it.
Sam Bush was another matter. He narrowed his eyes to look Bleu over from head to foot, taking too long over points in between. Roche knew Sam’s kind. He would have no finesse with a woman, take no time. Just squeeze and strain, thrust, sweat, tell lies behind closed doors, then roll off and fall asleep.
How did he know the way Sam was with women? Roche detested himself for thinking like a man who hadn’t spent years learning to listen and not make judgments.
Sam’s only sin was that he liked to look at a lovely woman. That didn’t make him a monster.
Sam approached him now, and they moved a few feet away from the others. “Have you given any thought to what they’re saying about Kate Harper?” Sam said.
“Not a lot,” Roche said honestly. “She seems like a nice woman to me.”
“She is,” Sam said. He had very serious gray eyes and right now they were concerned. “And no way could she have killed Jim Zachary.”
“I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it,” Roche said. “People want a name and a face to pin the blame on.”
“That’s because they’re scared,” Sam said. “I’m uneasy. Not for me—I can take care of myself. But for people like Madge and Bleu and the other women in town. And any men who are vulnerable, obviously.” He inclined his head toward the townhouse. “We heard they think this fire was set.”
“I think that’s what we’ll find out,” Roche said.
“It could be an accident,” Cyrus put in, but without conviction.
“He’s killed once,” Sam said, as much to himself as to Roche. “If we don’t get him, he’ll do it again.”
Roche swallowed and glanced back at Bleu. There was little point arguing that Jim’s killer and whoever came here this morning weren’t the same person. What if the fire had really taken hold? What if she’d been killed? He couldn’t make himself think about it too deeply.
“Cyrus.” Spike beckoned for the priest, and they talked quietly together.
Glancing around, Cyrus indicated he wanted Sam to join them and they went into a huddle. Probably Spike was bringing them up to date. Roche wandered back to the women.
“Are they talking about me?” Bleu said, sounding worried. “They don’t have to follow me around all the time. I couldn’t stand that.”
“No,” Roche said. “Not necessarily them, and not all the time, but someone has to look out for you. We’ll take it in turns.” As many turns as possible would be his. He contemplated how he could keep Bleu somewhere close at all times. He couldn’t. His patient load had picked up and he couldn’t neglect people.
“It’s too much trouble,” Bleu said. “I’ll be careful, but other people can’t be worrying about me. I don’t want them to. Whoever was here wanted to scare me. So I am scared. That should give him his jollies.”
Standing beside her cousin, Madge took hold of her hand and leaned against her. “You are a walkin’ stick of dynamite. Move into the rectory. That way we can make sure you’re never on your own. Cyrus won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Thanks,” Bleu said. “I could also quit and let myself get run out of town, but I’m not going to. I’m calling an alarm company. I’m going to have sensors, not just in the house, but in the yard. I can put it on a credit card.”
Roche heard what she said, but didn’t comment.
“As soon as I can, I’ll get my dog. Lil’s Ozaire can help with that—everyone says he’s an expert. And I’ll get a gun. I know how to shoot.”
Madge met Roche’s eyes. He could tell she was worried, but didn’t know what to say.
“First the alarms,” Roche said. “We’ll get someone over to replace the door.”
“It just needs fixing,” Bleu said, frowning.
Roche figured she was adding up the expenses. “I broke it, I’ll get it fixed. I want something heavy-duty.”
Madge gave him a serious nod. “Of course,” she said. “What’s Mary Pinney doin’ here?” She finished in a whisper.
“She came with Wazoo,” Bleu told her, glancing toward Wazoo and Mary.
“Mary usually keeps to herself. We don’t see much of her, or we didn’t until she got wind of the school. She’s a teacher. She wants—”
“To teach at St. Cecil’s,” Roche said at once. “I’ve been told. Who called you about the fire?”
Madge frowned. “We’ll have to ask Cyrus. We were getting ready for an early meeting when the phone rang.”
Sam Bush ambled up to join them. “Spike told us what they know about the fire so far,” he said. “Not so much, except they think it was set.”
“At least we know we’re looking for a man,” Roche said. “That’s something. No woman could have killed the way Jim Zachary was killed.” He couldn’t explain the woman’s footprints outside the rectory, but still didn’t connect the crime to a female.
Wazoo walked up in time to hear, and give him a pitying look. “You, dreamer man, haven’t seen a real angry woman.”
Arguing wasn’t Roche’s way. “Perhaps not.” He had dealt with more anger, male and female, than most people could even imagine.
“Roche and I were talking about this,” Sam said. “Jim Zachary had a lady friend and there are some in town who would like to pin it all on her because she inherits his money. We don’t believe it.”
“I know all about Kate Harper,” Wazoo said.
Roche waited for her to continue, but she didn’t.
Firemen retracted their hoses, but he could see deputies continuing to comb the hillside behind the townhouses.
“No one goes in the carport,” one of the firemen shouted. “The chief’s held up. He won’t want it trashed by civilians.”
“Gotcha,” Spike shouted back.
An officer had taken the emergency brake off Bleu’s car. With the driver’s door open, he used a foot on the steep driveway to start moving the vehicle downhill and away from the carport. He trod on the brake and yelled, “Let me get this down the bottom, then we can turn a hose on it. Get the soot off and it’ll look fine.” He turned the key in the ignition and the engine turned over normally.
“She’ll be grateful to have her car,” Roche said. “Bleu doesn’t like relying on other people for anything, including rides.”
Black smoke poured out around the engine compartment.
An explosion splintered glass and sent pieces of the car flying.
“Bleu got lucky,” Wazoo said.