Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (12 page)

"Depends on the grownup," Zelda said. "Who do you want to do it with? Him?" She waved the scissors in the direction of a hunky eighth grader named Rick, whose collage of a multicolored goddess had begun to take shape. "It's obvious sex is on his mind."

"No!" Joanna hissed. Hurriedly, she cut out a carving knife.

"Maybe those are your boobs he's putting on his collage," Zelda murmured. Rick raised his head, first looking blankly in their direction and then unexpectedly fixing on Zelda. She grinned at him and turned back to littering the table with flowers. "They're definitely not mine."

"You're so lucky. I hate the way guys look at me," Joanna said. She snipped around a cross studded with diamonds.

"Ignore them," Zelda said. "And to answer your unspoken question, don't have sex."

"That's easy for you to say, but you don't care what other people think. I need a good reason why not. And don't tell me it's illegal until I'm sixteen or I might get pregnant or an STD. I already know all that." Joanna found a photo of a pair of garden shears and cut them out.

"How about because you don't want to?"

Joanna blinked.

"Having a guy look at your boobs is part of sex," Zelda said. "If you don't want that, you don't want sex. And then, of course, there's love. It's better if you're in love."

"That's what Ophelia said. That's what her policeman said, too."

"They were right. The only way to not care what other people think is to just not care."

"But--"

"Think about it," Zelda said. "You don't have to be a wimp if you don't want to."

A minute later, Joanna looked up from the vodka bottle she had cut from an ad. "They may not be your boobs," she told Zelda, "but Rick is definitely looking at you."

Zelda raised her eyes coolly to Rick's. His mouth hung slightly open, and his eyes widened when Zelda's gaze fenced with his.

Zelda shrugged and turned back to her friend.

At the nursery that afternoon, Ophelia stood by while a sturdy guy named Bob loaded Japanese maples onto her truck. She could have done it fine herself, but Bob was dying to help, to gaze at Ophelia and brush by her any chance he could. The last-ditch option of jumping Gideon was looking better by the second. Hot sex would take the edge off her allure.

Stop planning on sex. That's only a last resort.

Stop hoping for a last resort.

Late in the day, when all Andrea Dukas's plants, including the stressed azaleas, had homes in the ground, Ophelia parked in a small gravel lot off the river road and wandered with Gretchen down a path to the river. "I'm not exactly planning to sleep with him, but I'm incredibly nervous," she told the dog. "What if he doesn't like the fangs?"

Gretchen grinned, showing a delightful set of teeth.

"Sure, but you're
supposed
to have magnificent canines. I don't want a man who has sex with me because he can't help himself and then freaks out afterwards." Gretchen hared off down the trail, and a minute later an angry quail rose from the underbrush. The dog lolloped expectantly back, but Ophelia's mind was elsewhere. "I know it's old-fashioned and impractical for a vamp, but deep in my unrealistic heart, I want someone who loves me--me
and
my fangs."

Gretchen nudged Ophelia and took off again. Ophelia reached the edge of the woods to see two wild turkeys flap noisily away. The dog returned and butted the shotgun tucked under Ophelia's arm.

"A hunter, are you? I'm not hunting today, Gretchen. The only prey I need is a man."

They stood by the river, their respective curls ruffled by a fitful breeze.
It's my nature,
thought Ophelia.
I'm a frigging man hunter. Nothing more.

A solitary fisherman appeared upriver on the opposite bank and raised a cordial hand; men were so much more pleasant at a distance. Ophelia waved away a cloud of gnats and picked her way disconsolately downriver. At a flicker of movement beside a log, she and Gretchen both stopped dead.

Slowly, very slowly, Ophelia laid down the gun, pulled a slingshot out of her pocket, loaded it with a convenient pebble, took aim, and let fly. Bingo! The nutria toppled into the river, and Gretchen bounded past, almost knocking Ophelia into the water. She returned with the rodent, neck neatly broken. "Supper," Ophelia said. "Gretchen, you're the best."

They hiked up an overgrown trail toward the road, pushing vines this way and that, dipping under a fallen ironwood, climbing over a rotting pine. They came out of the woods a short way down the road from her truck. Gretchen yipped excitedly and trotted toward the parking area, bounced partway back to Ophelia, and took off again. Ophelia gave up on justifying herself, saw the flashing blue light from a police car, heard voices, and arrived in the parking lot to find Gretchen licking a uniformed policeman.

"Down, Gretchen!" the cop protested. "Where's Gideon? He can't be here yet. He was twenty minutes away five minutes ago." The man's eyes fell on Ophelia and stayed there.

Ophelia glanced from the cop to his car, which partly blocked the entrance to the lot, to a stunned, sick-looking couple propped up by a silver Toyota, and finally to her truck. To two bare feet hanging off the back of it. "What the hell is going on? Who is that in my truck?"

The policeman stopped gaping and remembered his job. "That's your pickup, ma'am? The green truck?"

"Of course it's mine," she snapped. "Is there any other truck here, green or otherwise?" Ophelia marched over to her vehicle, the policeman hurrying alongside, protesting feebly.

Dumped among the maple saplings lay a body. A horrendous pulpy mass had once been the man's face. Blood--there was blood everywhere: on his straggly dark blond hair, on his belly beneath a ripped Constantine shirt, dried and crusted on his jeans. His thigh lay across a helpless, broken maple twig, and his butt had demolished another tree entirely. Her mouth twisted in the effort to keep back her fangs. She pressed a hand to her face and stumbled to the edge of the woods, where she laid her shotgun and the nutria to one side and tried like hell to be sick.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

From the reception area of Bayou Gavotte's cheerful little police station came a shrill, unwelcome voice. "Who do you think you're looking at?" Marissa said, and then, "This place is a dump," and finally, "I want you to arrest Constantine Dufray." In the back, with a view through a partially open door, Gideon propped his feet up and waited for the inevitable.

"Woo-hoo!" Jeanie clapped her hands. "That's thirty-three whole weeks!"

The chief, unfortunately clad in his oldest overalls today, set the plywood he was staining on a newspaper-covered bench by the wall. He laid his paintbrush beside it, took out his wallet, and handed the dispatcher a five. "Damn it, Jeanie, I can't afford this bet anymore."

"Hey!" the blonde said. "Didn't you hear me?"

"Sure did, ma'am. That's thirty-three straight weeks of complaints about Constantine Dufray. Ever since his wife was poisoned, the psychic researchers have had a field day." He pulled a battered notebook from his hip pocket and sat on the bench. "He been sending you nightmares? That's the most common complaint, followed by sex dreams, suicidal depression--"

Jeanie snorted. "It can't be sex dreams. Women never complain about those. It's their stodgy old husbands who do."

"You don't look suicidal, ma'am," the chief said. "You look pissed off." He clicked his ballpoint. "What kind of nightmares? Wild mustangs trampling you?"

"That's a sex dream," Jeanie said. "One of the best."

"Tied to a super-size dream catcher?"

"Sex dream." By now, Jeanie would be buffing her long copper nails. "Lame. How about eagle-feather tickle torture?"

"Now, now, Jeanie," the chief said. "This is serious to our visitor, if not to you."

Marissa spat, "He's not sending me nightmares. He killed my husband!"

Jeanie laughed with delight, and the chief threw up his hands. "That's what, twelve?"

"Thirteen," Jeanie said, "and you know it." Grumbling, the chief gave her a twenty. He flipped several pages farther and made a notation. "Are you reporting a murder, ma'am?"

"Goddamn right I am!"

"Not my department," the chief said happily. "Gideon!"

Gideon took his sweet time, emerging to find Marissa pacing the floor in an animal-print bodysuit and a snarl. "This is a missing-persons case," he said. "Nothing to do with me."

"She said it was a homicide," the chief replied blandly.

"It's not a homicide without a corpse," Gideon said.

"Find the frigging corpse, then, and it will be!" Marissa splayed her hands on shiny, leopard-skinned hips. "This is your detective? I want someone else, not Vibrator Man."

Jeanie choked on a giggle. She glanced from Gideon to Marissa and back. "Ooh, what's our resident sex god come up with now? A new interrogation aid?"

"What kind of man gives his girlfriend a vibrator?" Marissa made a face. "An inadequate one."

"You have a new girlfriend, Gideon?" Jeanie bounced up. "Who? Is it
her
?"

"No girlfriend," Gideon said. "It was a gag gift." He leaned across and clicked on Jeanie's keyboard. "Mrs. Parkerson, I checked into your husband's disappearance this morning. We handled it close to two years ago."

Jeanie scanned the computer screen. "John Parkerson, exotic dancer from Atlanta. According to the report of a local pharmacist, Mr. Parkerson filled a prescription for painkillers, mentioning in idle conversation that he'd found a job in Houston. The pharmacist went outside for a smoke immediately afterward and recalls seeing Mr. Parkerson get into his car and take the ramp for Interstate 10. All other inquiries drew a blank. Parkerson's vehicle never surfaced under his name or any other, and Parkerson has not been seen in Bayou Gavotte since that time."

The chief said, "Have you tried Houston, ma'am?"

"Of course I've tried Houston," Marissa snapped. "I've tried everywhere. After he left here, Johnny dropped out of sight, and I bet it's because he never left at all. He was way too hung up on his stupid Ophelia Beliveau for that. But he's not at Blood and Velvet. I spent a fortune to have it checked out every day for two whole weeks."

"They don't have exotic dancers at Blood and Velvet." The chief spread stain on another piece of plywood with slow, smooth strokes. "It's an elegant sort of place. Try the Chamber or the Oubliette. If your husband's still working in Bayou Gavotte, that's where he'll be."

"Get your ass whipped at the Chamber while you're there," Jeanie advised. "A never-to-be-forgotten experience."

"That's enough, Jeanie," the chief said. "Gotta have some standards of decorum."

"Sorry, Chief," Jeanie returned unrepentantly.

"You're the
police chief
?" Marissa sneered down her nose at his paint-spattered overalls.

He dropped his brush into a bottle of spirits. "That's me."

"Then
you
look for Johnny, damn it! And when you don't find him, I want you to arrest Constantine Dufray. He's in cahoots with those bitches at Blood and Velvet. They got pissed off at Johnny, and Constantine killed him. I'm sure of it!"

Jeanie grinned. "Ooh, death by Dufray. Very sexy. Have you seen him in person, hon? Definitely to die for." The phone rang and Jeanie elbowed Gideon away to answer it.

"Yes, I've seen him," Marissa said. "He's creepy. He laughed like he was the devil himself when I said he killed Johnny."

"He always laughs like that." The chief thumped the lid onto the can of stain. "Likes to mess with people. Can't say I like him much, but he generates a lot of publicity for Bayou Gavotte. Nowadays we get as many tourists as New Orleans." His brows drew together. "You publicly accused Dufray of killing your husband?"

Marissa hunched a shapely shoulder. "Why not? Everybody knows he's a murderer."

The sergeant shook his head. "Not a good idea to mess with Dufray. Thirty-three weeks of allegations, and plenty of similar stuff in his past. Mostly it's people's imaginations running wild, but some of it might be true. Why take chances?"

"You believe that bullshit?" She added uneasily, "What could he possibly do to me?"

"Hard to say till it happens, ma'am. If you have any nightmares, if you get the feeling of being haunted or pursued, let us know."

"So you can do what?" cried Marissa.

"Take note," said the chief. "Gather all the information we can."

"This town stinks!" Marissa swept toward the exit. "Everybody in the whole place is perverted or insane. I'll find Johnny if it's the last thing I do."

"Not if Constantine killed him, you won't," Jeanie said as the front door closed behind the blonde. Back at her desk, she took another call. Her voice caught Gideon as he reached the door to the back. "This one really
is
yours."

"What are you setting me up for this time?" Gideon demanded. "After yesterday, I'm really not in the mood."

"You have to be for this one," Jeanie said quietly. She handed him a slip of paper to read.

Gideon blanched. "Shit."

"She's not there, though," Jeanie said hopefully. "There's no reason to suppose anything's happened to her. Oh God, poor Vi."

"Get a crew over there." Gideon slammed the door behind him.

Jeanie's voice floated in pursuit. "This totally sucks. And I didn't even get to tease him about the vibrator."

Ophelia sat on one of the logs ringing the small parking lot and waited for Gideon to show up. The sickening smell of death, the horrifying, enticing aroma of blood, and the fury over her trees roiled inside her brain. No one except another vamp would understand; her turmoil wasn't like a normal person's, and she hadn't even been able to vomit. The cop had come to check her out and all she'd been able to manage was "Lucky thing I had lunch hours ago."

"Luckier than those folks over there who called me," said the cop, a bashful young man named Turlow. "I hate to have to bother you with this, ma'am, but can you identify the body in your truck? Gretchen, sit!"

Ophelia suppressed the urge to scream.
Who cares who he is? He ruined my trees!

Normal women didn't freak out because a dead body had broken a few branches. Normal women probably fainted at the sight of so much blood. But then, normal women didn't sprout fangs at twelve years old, either. And sensible women didn't evade police questions.

Well, she'd never earned either descriptor. She shuddered. "You saw that god-awful mess. His own mother wouldn't recognize him."

"All right, ma'am, if you'd just sit down over there and wait, please," the cop began. He eyed her shotgun warily, ignored the nutria, and because he clearly couldn't help it, blurted, "What are you doing with Gideon O'Toole's dog?"

"He loaned her to me," Ophelia answered. And felt terrible.

"He's a...a friend of yours?" A flush crawled up the poor man's ears.

"Oh, yes," she said with a sweet smile that told a lot of lies. And she felt even worse.

She sent him away and sat with the dead nutria across her knees and Gretchen beside her, unaccountably on edge as she waited for Gideon to show up. She'd have to tell him, of course, and if her assumption was correct he'd be pissed as hell with her for getting involved in the blackmail case in the first place, but how could she have known? And why should she care? It wasn't as if she had anything to do with this murder. Pure coincidence, that some bozo had dumped the body in her truck.

Goddamn it, why had some bozo dumped a body in her truck?

Far more unsettling, why was she so uncomfortable about seeing Gideon again?

When he arrived, he left his car by the road and strode onto the scene like some cool, dark, and capable god. Ophelia's heart leaped, and Gretchen's whole body hurtled toward him. He greeted his dog with a firm hand, gave Ophelia the briefest of businesslike nods, sent Gretchen back to her, and turned to the other cop.

Ophelia sat on the log and stroked the furry body of the nutria as Gideon conferred with Turlow, with the couple who had found the corpse, then with the crime-scene people when they showed up. The couple was allowed to leave, and Turlow got a roll of yellow tape and began laboriously ringing the parking lot. Gideon never once looked Ophelia's way, just directed the crime-scene people and poked at the body and probably hurt her trees even more, until Ophelia longed to strangle him.

Gretchen edged closer and snuffled anxiously at the nutria. "Your priorities are so right," Ophelia said. "The hell with him. Let's have supper." She grubbed in her pocket for a jackknife, sawed off the nutria's tail for the bounty it would fetch, and slit the corpse from throat to anus. More blood and gore. So there.

She scooped the entrails behind the log for scavengers to feast on, then hacked off the head and tossed it to Gretchen. "Help yourself," she said, and suddenly Gideon was standing over her.

"What are you feeding my dog?"

"Nutria head," Ophelia said without looking up. "Yum."

"Gretchen certainly seems to think so."

He was pissed off, she realized. "Be thankful I didn't give her the guts."

"Turlow thinks you're my girlfriend."

Ophelia glanced up long enough to see that the expression in his eyes matched the sarcasm in his voice. Okay,
that
was why she was on edge. She'd sure screwed up this one. "Because of Gretchen. He implied you wouldn't loan her to just anybody."

"I can see why it might be convenient for you to pretend to be my girlfriend under the circumstances--"

"What circumstances?" Ophelia said hotly. "I didn't kill that guy!"

"--but this is a murder investigation, Ophelia. It's best to stick to the truth."

Ophelia's insides heaved, but she came up with a shrug. "Says the corrupt cop. Anyway, I didn't exactly pretend to be your girlfriend. He made an assumption, and I couldn't see any advantage in denying it."

For way too long, Gideon said nothing, and Ophelia felt lousy and said nothing either. She sawed at the nutria and took a deep breath. "Listen, I'm sorry I shot at you last night. I know you meant well."

"I'm sorry I harassed you," he replied immediately. "You can pretend to be my girlfriend if you like. Even if I don't get to sleep with you, it makes me look like one hell of a stud."

Ophelia responded with a tiny chuckle.

"Turlow also says you don't know who that is in your truck."

Ophelia peeled the hide away from the nutria's belly. "Unfortunately, that's another impression I gave him."

"What the hell?"

"Since he's not easy to recognize in the condition he's in," Ophelia said, her voice tensing, "and since I wasn't a hundred percent sure, and since Officer Turlow had already said you were coming, I thought it best to wait and tell you. In case you wanted to handle it your own way."

"Damn it, Ophelia. Move over." He sat on the log next to her, his warm, firm body touching hers. She closed her eyes to sense him better and sighed. "Who is it?" he asked.