He nodded. That made him feel worse, nausea nibbling at his gut.
"When you called me you kept mumbling about Natalie, so I figure she shot you, right?"
He tried to remember. Drew a blank. "I guess."
"Mrs. Reilly's here too. They're keeping her overnight to make sure her heart doesn't act up." Seeing his puzzled expression, Miller said, "The woman that runs Parades-A-Plenty?"
Again he nodded. More nausea. Man, he wanted to go to sleep. But not until he found out what happened with Natalie, who had shot him apparently, though he didn't remember it.
"I found a Ford Focus with a New York plate registered to April West," Miller said, "had it towed to the police garage. Nothing important inside, but we dusted it for prints, should be able to match 'em to the ones in Boston. But here's the best part. Mrs. Reilly gave me the keys to April West's room." Miller grinned. "Man, that woman's got the most god-awful voice I've ever heard."
That he remembered. He'd only talked to her on the phone, but who could forget a voice like that?
"Found a suitcase and a laptop in her room," Miller said, "Also found a New York Yankees T-shirt and a pair of jeans hanging in her closet. Strange."
The outfit Natalie had on at Cafe Beignet. Why was she there, he wondered. She had to be watching the news, had to know he was primary on the Peterson and Conroy murders. Was she flirting with fate? Did she want to be caught? But his head was too fuzzy to figure it out.
"Crime lab techs gonna be pissed at me for messing with a crime scene." Miller gave him a droll smile. "But as my partner, Renegade Renzi, says: sometimes you gotta break rules to catch the criminals."
And stop Natalie before she kills someone else,
Frank thought.
"After they put Mrs. Reilly in an ambulance," Miller said, "I locked up Parades-A-Plenty, strung crime scene tape across gate and took the suitcase and the laptop to Vobitch."
A nurse poked her head in the room and said, "Time's up folks. The patient needs to rest."
He grabbed Miller's arm, "She killed Peterson and Conroy. She came back for a reason. I think she’s got another target. We need to figure out who."
Miller glanced at Kelly, "Yeah, well, unfortunately we already know who. Desk clerk at one of the no-tell motels on Airline Drive found a dead man in one of his rooms this morning, one shot to the head.”
He closed his eyes. Dammit to hell. Score another one for Natalie.
“You got a name?”
“Yeah. Chip Beaubien, the bigshot that runs the GoGo Bars. You believe it? Another VIP murder and we're in the middle of a hurricane evacuation."
It hit him like a hand grenade. Chip Beaubien, the son of BoBo Beaubien, Jane Fontenot's prime suspect in the Jeanette Brixton murder in 1988.
Then the room started whirling like it did after you drank too much booze, the whirlybirds before you puked.
He pulled Miller closer and whispered, "Natalie killed him. We've got to catch her before she gets out of town."
CHAPTER 36
Wednesday, 20 August Memphis, Tennessee
She woke with a start, momentarily unsure where she was. Then, feeling the body heat beside her, she remembered. She was in a motel room with Paul. Oddly, the warmth of his body made her feel safe. A nightmare had woken her: Chip's hate-filled eyes, the hole in his forehead leaking bright red blood, hideous images that left her sickened and sweaty.
On the drive from New Orleans to Memphis yesterday she'd had no time to think. But last night, lying awake in the darkness, hearing Paul's even breathing, she had sunk into a dark pit of despair. She had achieved her goal, but in the process she had become a monster. She'd killed Tex Conroy and Oliver James, men whose only mistake was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She felt no remorse for killing Peterson or Chip. Chip's father had murdered her mother, and Peterson had helped him escape.
But killing them didn't bring Mom back.
She pictured Renzi outside Parades-A-Plenty, his eyes fixed on hers as she stood by her car. Panic-stricken, she almost shot him. But something stopped her. And later, hiding in the alley, knowing she would rather die than be captured, she had been sick with fear.
If she hadn't shot him, would he have shot her? Unwilling to kill him, she had purposely aimed for his leg. But one thing was certain.
If Renzi was alive, he was still hunting for her.
She felt Paul stir beside her. To her surprise, he'd been an enjoyable companion during their traffic-snarled, eight-hour drive to Memphis. He loved listening to music when he was driving. He had five Rolling Stones CDs, three by The Who, one by Bon Jovi. When she said she loved Joan Jett, he'd laughed and reached over to stroke her hair.
“Sit back and relax, Carla, this is gonna be a fun ride.”
By the time he pulled the eighteen wheeler into a truck stop with a motel outside Memphis, she had made her decision. Paul had helped her escape from New Orleans. She owed him her life. Having sex with strange men was nothing new. Paul might be a truck driver, but he had more class than Arnold and BoBo and Chip, rich men with a sense of entitlement who used women as playthings and discarded them. Or killed them. Last night when they had sex Paul tried his best to please her. But her mind filled with revolting memories, worse than a horror movie: her abject terror when Chip aimed the gun at her, the disgust she'd felt as his eyes devoured her naked body. After a while, to Paul's delight, she had faked an orgasm.
Now she heard him yawn. Felt his hand touch her thigh. When she traced a finger down his hairy chest, he grabbed her hand and kissed it.
“Your boyfriend in St. Louis gonna be mad?”
“Who says he has to know?”
Gazing at her with sad eyes, Paul said, “You real close to him?”
She could see where this was heading. No place good. Paul was having the time of his life. She was running for her life and she wasn't safe yet.
She gave him a quick kiss. “We better get going. I promised to meet him in St. Louis today. I get the shower first, okay?”
“Okay.” His sad eyes brightened. “Want company in the shower?”
Resigned to it, she said, “Why not?”
Once Paul got what he wanted, she would hurry him along so they could get on the road to St. Louis.
Any kind of luck she'd be on a plane by sundown.
_____
12: 20 p.m.
Frank watched Kelly pop the caps on three beer bottles, one for herself, the others for Miller and Vobitch. Seated at her kitchen table, they were noshing on chips and salsa. No beer for him. He was taking antibiotics and fucking pain meds that made his head woozy.
Worse, he was confined to a wheelchair, the crucial word being
confined
. Three hours out of the hospital and he was ready to explode. The doctor wanted to keep him another day, but he'd refused and signed himself out. Kelly wouldn't let him stay at his second-floor condo in a wheelchair, so she'd taken a personal day and drove him to her house. Vobitch and Miller were waiting, had plunked him in the chair and carried him inside.
Normally he loved being with Kelly, but he needed some space, alone-time to think. Having Kelly wait on him was irritating too, but that wasn't the cause of his funk. Natalie had escaped, and he was sitting in a fucking wheelchair.
Kelly distributed the beer bottles around the table. "Want something to drink, Frank? Ice tea? Ice coffee?"
"Yeah. I'll have a big glass of Glenfiddich over ice."
"The patient's getting feisty," Miller said. "Must be feeling better."
"Feisty?" he said. "Fuck feisty. I'm pissed."
"No more than me." Vobitch drank from his beer bottle and gestured at the slider to Kelly's deck. "Fucking Josephine."
Driven sideways by the howling wind, rain pelted the glass. For the second time in two months a hurricane was pummeling New Orleans. And for the second time in two months, Natalie Brixton had killed a man and escaped. He still didn't know why she'd killed Arnold Peterson, but he knew why she'd killed Chip Beaubien. Her twisted version of revenge. Chips' father was BoBo Beaubien, Jane Fontenot’s prime suspect for the murder of Natalie's mother.
Kelly set a tall glass of ice water in front of him, no Glenfiddich, and took the chair beside Kenyon Miller.
"Did Gus Walker get anything from the laptop?" Frank said to Miller. Walker was their computer forensics tech.
"Not yet," Miller said. "He had a helluva time breaking the password to open it. He found some emails from Gabe Rojas. He's still working on the hard drive, and he wants to check her Internet browsing history, too."
"What about Rojas?" Vobitch said. "You think she might contact him?"
He drank some ice water. "He's in Pecos. If she's driving, that's a helluva hike from New Orleans. But let's contact the Pecos police and have them put a watch on Rojas."
"Good idea." Vobitch picked up the leather briefcase beside his chair and pulled out two journals, the kind you could buy most anywhere, marbled black-and-white fiberboard covers with lined paper inside. "Brought you a present, Frank. We found these in her suitcase."
He picked up the top one, opened it and read the first line. Written in small neat handwriting, it said:
One night Mom didn't come home.
The date on the entry made the hairs on his neck curl.
October 20, 1988.
The date of Jeanette Brixton's murder.
This was Natalie's diary. An adrenaline rush jazzed his heartbeat.
Kelly opened the other journal. "Neat handwriting. Looks like a diary."
"Bada-bing." Vobitch looked at him. "I didn't have time to read much, but now that you're on the disabled roster, you can. Might get us some answers."
"Why don't you guys hit the road so I can get started." He wanted to read every word of Natalie's diary right away. But the diary wasn't going to tell him where she was now. Or where she was going.
A cell phone rang and everyone checked their handsets. It was Vobitch's cell, but when he answered, his face sagged in disgust. After a moment he said, "When I hear something, you'll be the first to know." Then he theatrically clapped a hand to his forehead. "Check the airports?"
For Natalie, Frank assumed. New Orleans had been spared a direct hit from Hurricane Josephine. The storm had veered east but was still dumping torrential rains on the city. So far there'd been no major flooding, the pumps working like crazy, the levees holding. The mayor had announced that no one would be allowed back into the city until noon on Saturday.
"Nothing's flying out of Birmingham or Nashville," Vobitch said to whoever was on the phone. "Houston's open. So is St. Louis and Chicago." Abruptly, he ended the call and snarled, "Our favorite District Attorney, Roger Kiss-My-Ass Demaris."
Earlier Miller had taken him aside and told him Demaris had canceled his threat to take them off the case. After Chip Beaubien's body was found, Miller said, Vobitch had gotten into a screaming match with Demaris, had threatened to call a news conference and tell the reporters Demaris was disrespecting the NOPD, taking Detective Frank Renzi off the Peterson case as he lay in a hospital after heroically chasing the killer.
"Christ," Vobitch said, slamming his palms on the table. "Demaris thinks we're miracle workers like the cops on TV. Wave a magic wand and find out if she flew out of any nearby airports. Like the TSA is gonna help us. Anybody got any brilliant ideas about where she's headed?"
"How do we know she got out of town?" Kelly said.
Miller turned to her, clearly shocked. "You think she's still
here
?"
"If she is," Vobitch snapped, "we'll get her. Every law enforcement agency in Louisiana is looking for her."
No we won't
, Frank thought. She's gone. He pictured the dress he'd seen in her Nashua apartment, the one with the Yves St. Laurent-Paris label, recalling what Gina had said:
They don't sell clothes over here with labels that say Paris
.
"How about Paris?" he said.
"Why Paris?" Kelly said.
Irritated, he snapped, "You got a better idea about where she's going?"
One look at the sea-green eyes he found so alluring told him she was pissed. He should have kept his mouth shut. But his calf was throbbing and he didn't want to take his pain meds and he didn't want to sit in a fucking wheelchair for a week, graduate to crutches and do his fucking PT and maybe start running again in six weeks. Not to mention the real kicker. Before he left the hospital, the doctor had given him a stern warning: "No strenuous activity for two weeks. That includes sexual activity."
Screw that. He'd let Kelly hop on top. He loved watching her face when they made love in that position. Or any position, for that matter. But the look on her face now foretold storm clouds ahead. If he didn't eat some crow, they might not be getting it on for a while.
Ending the uncomfortable silence, Vobitch said, "Even if we find her, I'm not convinced Demaris will charge her. We don't have shit for evidence."
"We got the security video on the Peterson hit," Miller said. "We got the ballistics report that says she killed Peterson and Conroy with the same gun."
"But we don't have the gun," Vobitch said. He took a pencil out of his shirt pocket. "Boston PD ballistics report says the slug that killed Oliver Jame
s
" He swung his leonine head, eyeballing each of them in turn. "Presuming our friend Natalie killed him. Report says the slug didn't come from the gun she used down here."
"So she got another gun," Frank said. "She was living in New Hampshire. Gun laws there are pretty loose. We could check the gun shops."
"Christ, that'll take forever." Gripping the pencil in both fists, Vobitch snapped it in half. When they all burst out laughing, Vobitch glowered at them.
"I'll call Hank," Frank said. "Maybe we can get Boston PD to check the New Hampshire gun shops."
"Fine," Vobitch said, unappeased, "but we need to build a case that'll fly with a jury. Everything we got is circumstantial. No witnesses. No weapon. No prints in Peterson's hotel room."
"Got even less with the Conroy hit," Miller said. "We assume she used his car to leave City Park after she shot him, but she wiped it clean, no prints, no way to tie her to Conroy. We never found his wallet, probably dumped that too. Bet you a case of Bud we won't find her prints in the room where she killed Beaubien either. And we still haven't found his car."
Vobitch's cell rang again. He answered. After a moment, he said, "What's up?"
Frank watched anger and disgust ripple over his boss's face.
"We got nothing on this end either," Vobitch said, and after a pause, "Thanks for calling. Let us know if you find her." He slammed his cell down on the table. “Fucking prick.”
“Hammer, right?” Frank said.
“Right. Calling to say he didn’t find her with his ICU software or whatever the fuck it’s called. Face recognition, my ass. Peek-a-boo, I see you.”
“You think he’d tell us if he did?” Frank asked.
“I'm not holding my breath.” Vobitch drained his bottle of Bud.
“Where did he use this super-duper software program?”
“New Orleans bus and train stations. Not the airport. No planes flew out of Louis Armstrong Airport yesterday or today, maybe not tomorrow even.”
"What if she's got another fake ID?" Kelly said.
"That's almost guaranteed." Frank touched her hand and smiled at her. "Good thinking, though."
Ignoring him, she picked up her beer bottle and drank some. She was still pissed. After Vobitch and Miller left, there'd be a big showdown at the OK Corral.
Vobitch slammed his fist on the table. “Dammit, she killed three people in our jurisdiction. Peterson, Conroy, now Beaubien. If Hammer finds her first, we'll never get her. You know how the fucking CIA works. Ooops, she put up a fight and my gun went off, blah, blah, blah. We gotta find her!”
"Shitload of people left town yesterday," Miller said. "Maybe she hitched a ride with somebody.”
"She tried to kill Frank," Kelly said. "Maybe she's still here. Maybe she's got another target."