French Quarter Fatale, page 7
“Dad seems dead set on selling the shrimp boat,” Josette said when her father went into the bathroom.
“It appears he’s already sold it. He could have a good reason for his decision,” Keenan said.
“Hit me with a few of them.”
“Maybe health concerns that he hasn’t wanted to tell you about.”
“He assured me last night that his health was fine. Of course, I guess he could just be trying to protect me from worrying.”
“He could just feel the need to move on, try on a new lifestyle,” Keenan offered.
“Not Dad. This is his life. He needed it more than he needed the woman he loved. That’s why he refused to even consider moving to New York.”
“People change,” Keenan said. “He may be reconsidering life with Isadora. Sometimes life forces a person to change. I’ve read that large seafood importing companies are taking a much bigger share of the profits than they did a few years back. He may no longer think the financial benefits are worth the work.”
“Legally, half of Mother’s wealth is his. But he’s never touched it. Claims it isn’t his and he doesn’t need it. He makes enough to get by with his shrimping business.”
“Perhaps you’d have a better chance of getting Antoine to open up if I’m not around,” Keenan suggested. “I’ll go outside and check out the fancy shrimp boat. Who knows? Maybe I’ll buy it.”
“For netting terrorists? But leaving me alone with Dad is probably a good idea.”
“Can’t hurt. Call me when you get ready to go and I’ll meet you at the car.”
“Be careful,” Josette warned. “If you go for a walk and follow the inlet, you’ll eventually reach a boggy area that you could seriously get lost in.”
“I promise to stay clear of bogs and away from snakes and alligators,” he said. “Good luck with Antoine but remember, it’s his life. You can’t protect him from it any more than you can make decisions for your mother.”
He took her hand and gave it a squeeze before he started toward the door. She knew he intended it to be a comforting gesture, a reassuring one, so why did her breath catch and smoky desire curl inside her? There was no explaining her every reaction to his touch, so this time she didn’t try.
* * *
KEENAN WALKED OVER to the Lady Isadora and jumped aboard. It smelled of shrimp, dead fish and the damp, musky odors of the bayou even though the deck had obviously been scrubbed down. The nets were clean and appeared ready for use.
Winches, ropes, cables and such made the deck difficult to maneuver. The culling table was as large as his grandfather’s old family dining table, easily spacious enough to hold a full net of shrimp and several pounds of unwanted sea life to be thrown out to the gulls.
He glanced into the galley. It was spotless, smelled like cleanser and easily big enough for the basic requirements of a kitchen. There was a sink, cooktop, table, four folding chairs and a dorm-sized refrigerator.
The ice to keep the day’s catch cold was no doubt loaded into the hold, as needed. A small TV was bracketed above the sink. He wasn’t sure if that was for entertainment, keeping up with the weather or both. There was also a radio and mic setup, no doubt for relaying info to other boaters or requesting help.
The wheelhouse looked comfortable. The lumpy bunks in the two-bedroom cabin not so much. Three pairs of rubber boots sat near the back of the deck.
Keenan wondered what a boat in mint condition as this one would sell for. Probably enough to support the apparently simple lifestyle of Antoine Guillory for quite a while.
But Josette was right. To sell it meant not only to lose this lifestyle but to give up the livelihood he’d depended on all his life. So why now?
It couldn’t be because he couldn’t bear life without Isadora. According to Josette, he hadn’t shared a home with her in years. Not to mention, he’d gone without seeing her for long periods of time, especially when she pulled her disappearing acts.
Whatever the reason for selling the boat, Antoine clearly did not want Josette involved.
As an agent, Keenan was generally suspicious of people’s motives. Even more so when they acted out of character. He thought about Detective Max Hyde. Why was he still pressing Antoine for answers? Had he discovered evidence to suggest there was foul play involved in Isadora’s disappearance?
Was Antoine involved? If so, that might explain why he was ready to clear out of the area. Was Antoine trying to keep Josette out of this to protect her from something or someone?
That possibility was cause enough for Keenan to stick around even without official power or authority. Nothing stopped him from operating as a friend.
A friend, or had he moved past that a heartbeat or two ago?
* * *
JOSETTE HAD ALWAYS felt at home at Antoine’s house. Today, as she waited for her father to shower, she felt like a stranger. Worse, she felt unwanted, as if she were snooping, digging into his private life.
It was exactly what she was doing and yet she continued, working quickly, not knowing what she hoped to find.
At first sight, everything looked familiar. One basket of clean work clothes in the laundry room, two baskets of clothes ready for the wash with a large bottle of liquid detergent waiting next to them.
There was also a large cloth hamper of dirty linens, napkins and greasy aprons from Lorraine’s restaurant. Lorraine frequently used his extra-large washing machine for big loads, especially when her cabins were all rented. Nothing unusual.
She stepped into his bedroom next. What she found there stopped her in her tracks. A small travel bag held his shaving equipment and various toiletries, all packed and ready to stow inside his larger suitcase that lay open on the bed.
She picked up a large envelope beside the luggage. Nothing inside. No plane tickets. No passport, but those could always be added at the last minute.
She unzipped a faded blue duffel bag up by the pillows. Clean, folded casual clothes, none realistically suitable for working the shrimp boats all day.
Her father was getting ready to travel? Where?
She could hear cups and spoons clatter in the kitchen. She hurried to rezip the duffel but she thought she saw something shiny inside. A flash of something.
She started to unzip the bag and take a second look.
“Josette?”
At the sound of her father’s voice, she spun around, expecting to see him in the doorway, a demanding look on his stern face as he asked why she was rummaging in his private gear. Luckily, he was calling her from the kitchen. She left the bag and joined him there. She sat across from him at a scratched wooden table that he’d had all her life.
“Did we lose Keenan?” Antoine asked as he gestured to the coffee he’d poured for them.
“He went outside to check out the bayou scene and give us a little privacy.”
“Thoughtful. How’d he get that limp?”
“He says it’s a work-related injury.”
“Exactly what kind of work would that be?”
She considered pretending not to know. But she’d never flat out lied to her father, and she really didn’t want to start now. Lies had a way of tangling you in their web.
“Keenan’s an FBI agent in the counterterrorism division,” she admitted.
“When were you planning to tell me that?”
“I wasn’t because that has nothing to do with us. He’s on medical leave until he completes his rehab. He’s in New Orleans only as Bart Gordon’s best man.”
Antoine looked skeptical. “You claim you just met him, and yet he’s here with you today.”
“He has no ulterior motive in being here if that’s what you’re suggesting. He’s not here on FBI business concerning Mother’s disappearance.”
“Good.” Antoine nodded his agreement. “Let’s keep it that why. Max Hyde does enough of that.”
“I don’t see how Max can justify spending so much time in this area,” Josette said. “It’s not as if he’s making any progress with finding Mother.”
“Word on the bayou is that Max is working a murder case involving one of the cartels. Doesn’t take much for some fool to end up owing them more than he can pay, and they have their own way to collect their debts.”
Josette grimaced. “I didn’t realize the cartels had become such a problem here.”
“They’re a problem everywhere they can get a foot inside the door, especially when they’re working from a major city like New Orleans.”
“Is that why you’re selling out?”
He picked up his coffee mug and swallowed a mouthful. “No. You don’t need to worry about me, Boo. I know my way around the shrimping business.”
Using one of his favorite nicknames for Josette didn’t totally reassure her this time.
Lorraine had likely called it right.
This had to do with Isadora.
Josette began nailing her father with questions the way the paparazzi had Friday night.
“Have you heard from Mother?
“Have you heard something about her from someone else?
“Do you believe the rumor that she’s planning to reappear on Mardi Gras?
“Is she coming back to her show?”
Antoine didn’t respond to any of them, which was all the answer she needed. “She’s my mother. I have a right to know whatever you know.”
He rested his elbows on the table and massaged his temples. “I suppose you do, but you have to promise me one thing. You can tell no one what I’m about to tell you. No one, especially not Mr. FBI.”
Her body stiffened. She had no idea where this was going, but it couldn’t be good.
* * *
KEENAN FOUND A pair of boots large enough to fit over his shoes. He only had one pair of sneakers with him and he didn’t want them to get wet and muddy on his first full day in Louisiana.
He stepped off the boat. Two large turtles sunning on a log jumped into the water, reminding him of the alligators who’d slid into the bayou earlier. He went back to the car for his trusty Smith and Wesson and his waistband holster. He wasn’t going alligator hunting, but just in case one decided to attack, he’d be ready.
He began the trek along the bank of the narrow inlet. A sleek, shiny crappie dangled from the beak of a regal gray heron that had just caught its breakfast. He spotted two river otters playing in the water near the opposite bank.
A yellow wasp dived at him and hungry mosquitoes buzzed at his ears. He slapped them away.
After a few yards, he stopped walking and checked his surroundings. The area was still calm and peaceful except for an occasional splash from a fish and the loud cawing of a murder of crows fussing at him from the needle-loaded branches of a cluster of cypress trees. He stepped around the knotty cypress knees that stretched into the water.
A hand-sized black spider fell from a tree and landed on his shirtsleeve. He knocked it away quickly, almost tripping on a tangle of vines.
A few more yards and boggy water began to flood the low-lying lands. Fronds of huge palmetto plants intermingled with thick brush and stubbly cottonwood trees. Trunks of fallen trees lay haphazardly amongst the brush.
It was as if he’d reached the other world Josette had mentioned and he began to understand why people fell in love with life along a bayou.
Just as he turned to follow the inlet back toward the shrimp boat, he caught a glimpse of movement in the peripheral of his vision. For a second, he could have sworn it was human, but when he looked again all he saw was a flock of egrets on the move.
He continued on and when he had the shrimp boat in his view, he heard the unmistakable sounds of gunfire behind him in the distance.
Drawing his weapon, he turned and crouched low behind a palmetto frond. His eyes scanned the dense foliage and—There! He caught movement. This time it was no flock of birds. A person was running helter-skelter toward the bayou, a gun held chest high as he or she fired.
Warning shots...or was the gunman firing at someone Keenan couldn’t see?
His instincts kicked into overdrive and he took cover. Fearful that Josette or Antoine would exit the house and be hit by an errant bullet, he started toward the figure. The pain in his left thigh flared hot as he scrambled along the uneven, boggy terrain. He struggled to keep the gunman in his view as his vision was blocked by low-hanging vines. Nevertheless, he charged ahead, gaining on the figure, when his dragging left foot hit the root of a cypress tree and he plunged headfirst into the dirt.
Pain speared him and he grasped his leg. But he couldn’t stop. He had to know what the gunman was doing near the Guillory place and he couldn’t let Josette venture into the line of fire. Forcing himself to stand, he dragged in a ragged breath and trudged on.
But the gunman was nowhere in sight.
He spun in every direction for a few minutes. Too long, he thought. He had made himself a target if the gunman was still in firing distance.
Angry and disappointed, he turned toward Antoine’s house just as his phone dinged. A text from Josette.
Ready to go. NOW.
By the time he reached the house, she was already in the car. There was no sign of Antoine.
He had an idea the ride home would not be pleasant.
Especially when he told her what he’d met in the bayou.
Chapter Seven
The watcher’s hands were sweaty, breath quick and painful. One pull on the trigger and Josette’s blood would pool in Antoine Guillory’s driveway.
Her death might pass as accidental, a reckless firing of a weapon from someone shooting indiscriminately out in the bayou or from the swampy bog behind her dad’s house.
Only once the body was identified, the accidental aspect wouldn’t fly. The investigation into Isadora’s daughter’s death would be all-consuming.
Better to hold off and stick with the original plan. There was no reason for it not to work unless Josette started nosing around and ruined everything. Antoine wouldn’t let that happen as long as he remained convinced that his ex-wife was not only alive but needed him.
The watcher could trust Antoine, but what about the stranger? Was he Josette’s lover? Her bodyguard? Possibly a new detective. Maybe someone who already knew too much.
Better to get the business over with and get out of this area fast. Time was running out. Either the plan came together quickly or there would be no choice but to kill or be killed. The watcher hated to kill. But if it came down to live or die, there would be no contest.
Chapter Eight
Josette watched the house’s roofline and the tall outriggers of the shrimp boat shrink and finally disappear from the side-view mirror. Her nerves were a ragged mess.
If only she could believe that her dad had received the truth. But there was no hard evidence that Isadora had indeed communicated with a friend that she was alive and well.
Antoine claimed he didn’t know Isadora’s exact location, nor would he share the identity of the so-called friend.
All Antoine admitted was that Isadora was alive and well and would be returning on her own time.
None of which explained Antoine’s sudden rush to sell the Lady Isadora nor to turn away from the only life he’d ever known.
And it certainly didn’t explain why he had packed luggage on his bed. If Isadora was returning, why was Antoine leaving? And where did he plan to go?
Josette rubbed her temples as the questions ping-ponged in her mind. About the only thing she knew for certain was that her father was acting totally out of character and she had no reasonable explanation for it. Apparently, neither did Detective Max Hyde.
For the first time, she wondered if Antoine was connected to her mother’s disappearance.
“Are you okay?” Keenan said after several minutes of silence. “You seem upset, depressed.”
She forced a smile she didn’t feel. “I’ll work on that,” she said. “Can’t be a party pooper at all the wedding events.”
“You can never be a party pooper. Addison won’t allow it. But talking about whatever your dad said that has made you even more uncomfortable than you were before might help.”
She’d love to tell Keenan the full truth and get his take on everything. But she took her promise to her dad seriously.
“There’s not much new to say other than that Dad really is selling the boat and it has nothing to do with Isadora.”
“And you’re not quite buying that?”
“I’d love to, but when I think about it, everything in his life has always centered around Mom. Right or wrong, they share a bond that I’ll never understand. The whole situation has me totally frustrated.”
“Then we should probably change the subject. I won’t ask more, but if selling the boat is prompted by a sudden need for cash, I’d encourage you to go to the police or the FBI. And the sooner, the better.”
“Not you, too. Dad is not one who’d ever get involved in something illegal.” She said the words but couldn’t stop the niggling doubt that prevented her from totally believing them. She knew her father was not telling her everything. She just didn’t know why. Was he in over his head? Had he—
She stopped the thought before it formed. What was she thinking? This was her father. The man who loved her and her mother. She knew him, and knew he’d never do anything to harm either of them.
Again, she wished she could lay everything out on the table and get Keenan’s professional opinion. But she couldn’t. And it hurt her to hold back the truth from him.
Keenan broke into her thoughts. “I’m not accusing him of anything. I’m just saying that danger can sometimes find innocent victims.”
