A Marked Man (23 page)

Annie felt pink. “Thank you. Yes, I understand what you mean.” She nodded.

Promptly, while Max lowered himself into a folding canvas chair, Wazoo whipped back the note. “I’ll just make sure you don’t forget to take this home.” She reached under the kneehole in Annie’s desk and pulled out her purse as if she knew exactly where it would be.
Plop,
the bag landed on the seat of Annie’s chair and Wazoo, with her back to Max, pushed the paper into the purse and felt around inside at the same time.

“How are you doing?” Max said to Annie. “You look wonderful.”

“Thank you. You don’t look so bad yourself.” She smiled at him.

Wazoo made sure Annie saw her roll her eyes. She worked out the brown cotton bag that had sunk to the bottom of the purse and held it in both hands. Her eyes closed.

Annie smiled at Max again, grateful he’d decided to riffle through the pages of his newspaper.

The intensity of Wazoo’s stare grabbed Annie’s attention. Her pale face had become red and her eyes glittered. Slowly, she approached Annie until she stood in front of her, so close Annie had to hold herself where she was.

The brown bag, slowly raised in Wazoo’s hands, looked no different, until she squeezed it, carefully, pausing from time to time and holding it out to show Annie. A faint smell, a mixture of dirt and old things, like incense residue and burned wax, tickled her nose. Wazoo grasped one of Annie’s hands and placed it around the cheap cotton.

The contents felt lumpy and softer in some places than others.

Annie winced and Wazoo took the bag from her at once. “See,” she said. Sharp ends of wire stuck through in many places. “I hoped it wouldn’t be so, but this is the proof. The effort is costing him plenty, but that man, he is getting closer and coming in the open because he can’t get to you no other way.”

“What are you talking about?” Max said sharply.

“Quiet,” Wazoo said. She refocused on Annie and continued to feel the bag. “This isn’t all bad. It’s good as long as we don’t mess up with the timin’.”

She pushed the smelly bag to the bottom of Annie’s purse again.

“I don’t understand,” Annie said, but her stomach clenched hard.

“Things have gone wrong for him. He’s gettin’ scared and scared people do crazy things. Watch yourself. We can’t know when he’ll strike again.”

“Who is
he?
” Annie asked.

Wazoo raised her shoulders. “I don’t know yet. If we’re real unlucky, we never will—until it’s too late. But he’s a killer and he’s startin’ to crack up.”

“A
re you going to tell me what that was all about?” Max asked.

Wazoo had dropped her amazing comments and left, announcing her intention to find “that mind-changin’ man, Nat Archer,” and “spend some good lovin’ time with him.”

“I don’t know,” Annie said, honestly enough. She didn’t want to bring up the…whatever she had in her purse that didn’t belong there, not with Max. “I say we don’t give it another thought.”

“‘He’s a killer and he’s starting to crack up,’ that’s what she said.” Max had tossed his paper on the floor. “Of course I’m going to give it another thought. Do you really think she knows things other people don’t know?”

Annie stood over him, looked down into his eyes. “Dr. Savage, what would your colleagues say if they heard you ask a question like that?”

“They won’t. You’re the one I’m asking. Wazoo likes to act out, but I’ve heard too much about her to dismiss her completely. Guy believes she’s got some sort of powers, and even Cyrus hinted at them.”

“Maybe she does,” Annie said. “She has told me about things she shouldn’t know. I always look for regular ways she could have found out but I don’t find any.”

Someone tapped on the door and this time Max’s eyebrows rose, and he rolled his eyes. “Whatever it is, if you can get rid of it quickly we really do need to go over something.”

“Okay.” She raised her voice. “Come in.”

Madge was first, then Cyrus.

“Cyrus brought me over to show you something,” Madge said. Her movements were jerky and she wore the same dress she’d had on the previous night. She glanced down at herself and looked sheepish. “I haven’t been to bed. I just couldn’t. Cyrus is doin’ his best to calm me down and persuade me to go sleep at the rectory but I can’t till I’ve seen everyone I need to see.”

Cyrus rolled onto his toes, and when she looked at him, turned a sunny smile on her. “We’d better make it quick. I’ve got a parish to run and these people have their own responsibilities.” No one could miss the warmth in his expression when he looked at Madge.

“We know there are some really strange things goin’ on. There’s a lot that makes no sense, but Millie’s okay. Can you believe it, she’s fine. She was in my room waiting for me when I got home from the hospital last night. Charlotte and Vivian and I sat up the rest of the night just being happy about it. And tryin’ to figure out what happened.”

That’s when Annie noticed something moving inside Cyrus’s plaid shirt, one of the fraying few he used when he worked in the rectory garden. She stared until a wet, black nose appeared between two buttons.

Cyrus looked apologetic. “I know you can’t bring dogs in here, but Madge says she isn’t goin’ anywhere without Millie.”

“Never again,” Madge said, her eyes bright with tears. “Give her to me.”

Cyrus unbuttoned his shirt and Madge held her hands out to Millie. The dog squirmed up Cyrus’s chest, causing him to wince when her claws dug into his bare skin, and arranged herself over his shoulder. A sigh lifted her entire body and she set about licking Cyrus’s neck, his ear, the side of his face.

“Look at that,” Madge said. “She’s mad at me and makin’ me pay for all she’s been through. Of course, she’s got good taste. She knows when a man is too good to let go.”

Annie’s silences didn’t help Max. He wanted her to read the piece in the
Trumpet
and see what her reaction was without hearing his opinion first. Afterward, ideally, they would discuss what Lee O’Brien might or might not mean by what she’d written. He knew what he hoped Annie would not think, but there were no guarantees.

After a visit with Madge and Cyrus that had lasted longer than Max had expected, both he and Annie had more on their minds than ever. But Max also found some hope in the uncertainty over where the dog had gotten out of Lil’s car and how she had arrived at Rosebank without a scratch, or even a sore pad. Somewhere there was a lead.

“I think Lil was left for dead,” Annie said. “She’d hit her head hard and when the off-road bikers roared through and whoever attacked her ran off, he could well have believed she’d already been killed.”

“She thinks he was trying to make sure she was dead,” Max said. “Lil talked about him holding her down and hurting her more—and a lot of pain. She blacked out when the pain got really bad. I’m not sure if she’s only talking about pain in her head but it’s likely.”

Annie had asked for coffee to be brought. One of the waitresses knocked on the door and bustled in to set a tray on top of littered papers as if she hadn’t noticed they were there. “Coffee, cream, sugar, honey,” she said, pointing to each item. “Ice water. Iced tea. Baby crab cakes, fried shrimp and a plate of pralines left over from the kids today.”

“Thanks, Josie,” Annie said. “Whose idea was it to give the kids pralines? Pure sugar isn’t going to help their mothers keep them calm.”

“It was all of us,” Josie said and Annie recalled how loyal the woman was and that she was a great team player. “We watch the kids so the moms don’t have to worry so much and the kids get to do what they wouldn’t at home. Including eatin’ sugar and gettin’ high. We figure they sleep real well later.”

Max ate a praline and licked his fingers. “Every kid should have as many of these as they want,” he said, grinning and taking another one. “Thanks for bringing them.”

Once they were alone, with Max demolishing the pile of shrimp as if he were afraid Annie might get one, she wished their lives were simple and she could think about him without the specter of disaster hanging over them.

She poured iced tea and when Max nodded, gave him the glass and got another for herself.

He wiped his hands and mouth on a paper napkin. “I forgot how long it’s been since I ate.”

“You’ve got something more than food on your mind.”

Max inclined his head and looked her over slowly. “I do. You. You’re on my mind all the time, but that’s not what either of us mean.” He picked up the paper, opened it to a page he’d obviously read before and folded it back for her. “I’m not sure what to think about this, but Lee O’Brien is angry. I think this is a threat.”

Annie took the paper and read:

D
ON’T
M
ESS
W
ITH
T
HE
N
ATIVES

A S
MALL
-T
OWN
, L
OUISIANA
P
RIMER
F
OR
F
OREIGNERS

BY

L
EE
O’B
RIEN
, E
DITOR

“What does she mean by
foreigners?
” Annie asked. The piece had been given a prime spot on the editorial page.

“People who aren’t from around here,” Max told her.

Annie shook out the paper.

“Oh, my, goodness,” Annie said.

Max watched her face as he’d watched it all the time she was reading.

“I think Lee’s done something dangerous here,” Annie said.

“Dangerous why?”

Annie looked up. “She’s accusin’ someone of a sexual attack—right here in Toussaint. It doesn’t sound as if she has any evidence except hearsay stuff. She could make someone furious enough to do her harm.”

“Do you always think about someone turning violent if they’re cornered?” Max regretted saying that.

“No!” Annie folded the paper convulsively. “Not usually. Just when weird stuff’s been happening around here.”

“I’m a foreigner in the way she means,” Max said, waiting for any change in Annie’s expression. “So are my brothers.”

“So are a bunch of people. We’ve got construction workers—you know that. Most of them were brought in from other places. I’ve got a couple of new, out-of-town hires here. Then there’s even Tom Walen hanging around. And
Bobby.
Dr. Reb’s got an assistant helping out at her clinic and he came from Mississippi.”

“That would make him really foreign,” Max said with a smile.

Annie sighed. “Right.”

“Spike showed the piece in the paper to me.”

“He’s worried about Lee’s safety?” Annie asked.

Max thought about how he should put Spike’s suggestion. “He wondered if Lee could be writing about you and me. He intends to speak to you to make sure I haven’t been taking advantage of you.”

Annie’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way.

“He says Lee’s a crusader and it would be like her to take your side and try to fight me.”

“Good grief,” she murmured. “She’d have no reason to make suggestions like these.” She flapped the paper, then looked sharply at him. “No, Lee isn’t talking about us, she’s talking about someone else and I’m worried about her.”

Relief crashed over Max. He hadn’t believed Annie would think Lee was talking about them, but he couldn’t be sure unless she reassured him. “She’d have had to make most of it up anyway since she wasn’t there,” he said with a wink. “And find out about the dominatrix stuff and put that in. Oh, yeah, are you a turn-on in black leather. I love those nipple holes.”

“Max!” Annie glanced at the door. “Keep your voice down, you clown.”

“I am. It just sounds loud because you’re shocked. I kinda enjoy shocking you. Or should that be, I enjoy underestimating you?”

Annie got up, put the paper on the seat of her chair and came to lean over him, her hands on the arms of his chair. Her face was close and got closer. “I do believe you may underestimate me,” she said. She left him and checked to be sure the door was locked. “We don’t have a lot of time, so cooperate.”