Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (20 page)

"If he'd been an hour earlier, he might have ended up dead," Ophelia said. "This guy doesn't let witnesses live. Have you made any progress on the other murders?"

"A lot of negatives," Gideon said. His phone rang. Ophelia watched him listen. "Huh," Gideon said. "Makes sense." Ophelia tried not to be irritated at his terse sentences and veiled eyes. "Thanks, Jeanie."

Ophelia started walking. "I need to go home and take a shower."

"Busy day?" Gideon asked politely.

We had sex this morning. Polite doesn't fit anymore.
"This morning Reuben and I went to the nursery to buy more Japanese maples. We dropped the trees at the customer site, prepared the ground for planting, and went to lunch. I have the charge slip." If he wanted proof. Goddamn it, what was going on? She waited, but Gideon said nothing, and his expression conveyed even less.

Ophelia forced her fangs to stay quiescent and her tone to remain neutral. "During lunch, I prepared a drawing for one of my estimates. Then we drove all the way to Baton Rouge to pick up some equipment, came back to plant the trees, which just about killed Reuben, and then went to Vi's house, where you found me. Reuben won't want to bodyguard me for a while. Poor baby, he didn't even get to sleep with Vi as a reward."

Gideon looked a polite question, and Ophelia pondered which one to answer. "Zelda got sent home from school for fighting, so Vi wasn't in the mood."

Gideon looked another question.

"Zelda was defending my honor. Lisa Wyler's been spreading word via the gossip tree that I molested Joanna, and although Joanna denies it, she won't say who did take those pictures. Vi spread word via another network entirely that Children's Services needs to leave me alone or they'll be sorry. Sometimes I'm grateful for my underworld contacts, but what if Joanna's in danger? She says she isn't, but whoever took those pictures must know she'll break down and tell somebody sooner or later." They reached Constantine's truck, parked behind Gideon's Mercedes. Gretchen came out from underneath and yawned. "You should be protecting Joanna instead of me. Now that I'm on my guard, I'll do fine."

"We're trying to keep an eye on Joanna," Gideon said. "Like I told you, we're a small outfit. In a mess like this, we have too much work and too few people." He gave her evil new machine a once-over. "A chipper. Be careful with that sucker, honey."

Ophelia rolled her eyes, trying for nonchalance, hoping the sick feeling didn't show on her face. Gretchen panted her way to Ophelia's side and yawned again.

"I worked for an arborist in college," Gideon said. "Did you pay good money for this piece of junk?"

"I only need it for one project," Ophelia said. "It'll do." She had to get away from there. "I have to go home."

Gretchen pushed a cool nose under her hand. "Take Gretchen. She's bored here," Gideon said. "She'll keep watch."

"All right," Ophelia agreed.

"I'll try to find somebody to keep an eye on you," Gideon added.

Surveil me, you mean?
Ophelia kicked a stone into the woods, fought her fangs, and forcibly relaxed her hands.

The crime-scene van showed up. "Will you have dinner with me?" Gideon asked, and Ophelia tried her best to read him, but still she could see no sign of a desire for sex.

She shivered. It felt so
wrong
. "You're asking for a date? What about all these murders? What about Joanna?"

"Not eating won't help me sort this mess out. Talking it through with you might."

More interrogation? No way.
Ophelia shooed Gretchen into the passenger seat and started Constantine's truck. "Call me when you're free. I might be feeling more sociable then."

"You don't have to be sociable, honey. You just have to be there."

Be there for what?
Ophelia drove away, the ancient chipper clunking along behind.
You're not supposed to discuss police business with me. And why aren't you looking for sex?

And yes, I'm a shallow bitch to be thinking about that, but I thought we had something going here. I thought you were different.

You didn't ask me to marry you. You didn't even ask me to move in. You didn't ask me to restore your garden.

And you sure as hell didn't say you love me.

She reached her driveway five minutes later. Gideon or no Gideon, she would ditch her past and move on. She drove around the house and across the dead back lawn to the edge of the woods and unhitched the chipper, then returned the truck to the driveway and hurried inside for a quick sandwich. No bodyguard showed up, so maybe even Lep couldn't always dish one up at a moment's notice. If only this would happen when she really needed to be alone. She cleaned the chainsaw, gassed it up, and put phase one of her plan into action.

But action left room for grief, and she kept seeing Plato, shot down because of her, dear crazy Plato who had given her unquestioning help when she'd needed it. Plato dead, while Gideon focused on her for no good reason and Plato's murderer went free.

An hour, a pile of branches and saplings ready for chipping, and no bodyguard later, she decided to take a hand in solving the mystery herself. Maybe Plato'd been killed at his place while he was watching hers. With Gretchen at her heels, she took her spare shotgun and marched across the road and up Plato's drive.

It didn't take long to find the patch of dried blood and the disturbed gravel, and tears threatened again, followed by rage at the thought of Plato dying in the dirt. She batted Gretchen away and ordered the dog to wait, carefully skirted the path into the woods, and climbed up to the platform where Plato had so faithfully kept watch.

Plato had done more clever pruning. The view had expanded from her own house and garden to include Donnie's and Willy's on one side and the woods on the other, and unless you were looking for it, you wouldn't see the changes from across the road. Nothing seemed different from usual. No one was at Willy's, but he probably had another gig tonight, and Lisa and the girls might be anywhere. Donnie's truck was gone, too, but the TV flickered through his uncurtained front window, which meant he'd probably run to the corner store for milk.

She let her eyes rove around the contents of the platform itself: Plato's telescope on its tripod, pointing toward the floor, his old shears on a nail, a half-empty package of potato chips, a pile of wisteria leaves, and the utility knife he used to strip the vines. A stack of three baskets in a corner and the uncharacteristically misshapen bottoms of two more, set against the wall.

A tendril of wisteria hung untidily over the edge of the roof, brushing Ophelia's face. Automatically, she reached up to snap it off, but the squeak of a screen door distracted her. She whirled, fangs slotting down, ready to leap for her life.

A rotund uniformed officer of the Bayou Gavotte police fended Gretchen off and hurried up the gravel drive. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

Ophelia jammed the fangs into place. "What the hell are you doing here?" She clutched her shotgun and drummed up some allure.

Ponderously, the cop approached. "Ma'am, I need you to come down from there right now. This here's a crime scene."

"Did Gideon O'Toole send you here to keep watch?"

"Ma'am, I need you to get down right now."

Ophelia smiled blindingly at the cop, flipped her cell phone open, and dialed Gideon's number. "You should have told me you had someone at Plato's place," she said when he answered. She passed the shotgun to the officer, then swung down the rope ladder with the cell phone to her ear. "I don't mess with your goddamn crime scenes on purpose. Can't you put up some yellow tape?"

"Can't you mind your own business?" Gideon said savagely after a short, awful silence.

"This
is
my business." Ophelia shot a smile edged with just enough allure that the cop stepped out of her way. "He was my friend and he was killed because of me. You did notice the bloodstain, I assume? And the gravel where he was dragged?"

"We have samples and pictures, Ophelia, but we're short of manpower and haven't been able to process that scene yet. I'm under a lot of pressure to catch this guy, and I'll do it better without your interference. Believe it or not, I know what I'm doing."

"Perfect," Ophelia said. "Next time tell
me
what you're doing." She slapped the phone shut, retrieved the gun from the now-docile cop, and marched herself and Gretchen back home.

Several minutes later, she got out of the shower. With a towel wrapped around her, she pattered into the bedroom at the far end of the trailer. Stopped. Sniffed. Then she kicked aside the area rug that covered the secret compartment in the bedroom floor and yanked open the ten-inch-long door.

The odors of blood and gunpowder leaped out at her. In the plywood compartment lay a small-caliber pistol. The same kind used to kill Plato Lavoie.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

As if Gideon didn't already have enough going on, Darby showed up at the crime scene in the woods and conned the young cop putting up yellow tape into believing he carried an urgent message.

"I've been looking for you the whole damn day," Darby said.

"I don't have time right now. Art is a grown woman. She can do what she likes."

"Not when she's sleeping with a murderer," Darby growled.

Gideon suppressed a grin. His friend sure had it bad. "Constantine won't hurt her. Which reminds me, you need to send Marissa back to Atlanta before she
does
get hurt."

"Jesus, Gideon, if that's what you think, how can you let your sister go out with Dufray?"

"Why shouldn't she have some fun? I don't think she got much satisfaction with Steve."

"She can have all the fun she wants, but not with him." Darby paused then blurted, "Your dispatcher says Art had a crush on me way back when."

It was then that Gideon noticed the paper in his friend's hand. "You really do have a message."

"I went looking for you at the cop shop, and the dispatcher gave it to me. Said she tried calling, but you didn't answer and it couldn't wait."

Gideon scanned Jeanie's scribbled note. Thirty seconds later, after a flurry of curses followed by remarkably composed instructions to the others at the site, he hightailed it to his Mercedes. "You're a lifesaver, man," he told Darby. "And, yeah, she had a whopper of a crush on you. By all means take care of her, but if you value your life, forget the sweet and innocent crap." The engine chugged alive and Gideon peeled out.

Think.
Ophelia's fangs shifted at the smell of coagulated blood on the muzzle of the gun. She sucked them back where they belonged.
Thought one: somebody sure has it in for me.
But that was old news.
Thought two: there's no point planting something if it won't be found.

She hurried to the kitchen for a gallon Ziploc bag. With a paper towel, she picked up the gun, dropped it in the bag, and zipped it shut. A tiny stain, which might be blood, showed on the plywood floor of the compartment. There would be traces from the recently used gun as well. But the cops wouldn't know if no one told them.

But of course someone had told them by now, the same someone who had pried the thin bottom off the compartment from under the house, stuck the pistol inside, and nailed it hurriedly shut so the tip of a nail peeked through the previously unbroken wood.

How quickly could the cops react to an anonymous tip? Knowing Gideon, way too quickly. He was in a hurry, under heavy pressure to close the case. Ophelia got a hammer from the porch and with a few sure strokes knocked the thin plywood out of the bottom, wrenched it off the last nail, and placed it next to the gun. The pressure wasn't only because of the three recent murders. His failure to solve the mystery surrounding Constantine's wife's death must weigh heavily against him. A high-profile case like Constantine's could make or break a cop's career. And if the murder weapon was found in her place? He'd have to arrest her. Maybe he even
wanted
to arrest her. They'd had sex, and he wasn't interested anymore.

Why am I so surprised?
Ophelia asked herself. He was following a pattern he'd established in the past.
My father went nuts, my stepdad has guilt trips, and Gideon goes through bimbos.
Women might come and go, but his career was what mattered in the long run. Except, there wouldn't be a long run. Not for him, not for her.

If she survived in jail, if any man who touched her survived...
Oh God.
Regardless of whether she lived or died, all hell would break loose. Leopard and Constantine wouldn't tolerate either her imprisonment or her death. Gideon would be summarily executed. The uneasy alliance between the cops and the clubs would be shot to pieces. The peace, the hard-won tolerance in Bayou Gavotte, all would be gone. She had to get herself and the gun out of there. Now.

Thought three: who knows about the secret compartment and hates me as well?
The old man who'd occupied the trailer before her was dead. She couldn't recall showing it to anyone but Zelda and Vi.

A low bark sounded in the kitchen. Panic crowded Ophelia, but footsteps on the stairs outside propelled her into action. She closed the little compartment, covered it with the rug, and dumped the Ziploc and the plywood into a big pink shopping bag. Someone knocked on the door.

Ophelia took a deep breath and paced herself down the hall.
No quavering. No fear.
"Who is it?"

"It's me, Donnie. I need to talk to you." Barely suppressed excitement underscored her neighbor's words.

Ophelia slumped against the wall and let her breath out with a rush. Gretchen snorted and placed her head on her paws.

An excuse, any excuse.
"It'll have to wait. I'm getting ready to go meet Vi."
With a stop on the way.
She hurried back to the bedroom.

"Ophelia," Donnie called. "Why are all those cops over at Plato's? They're putting up yellow tape."

Ophelia returned with a comb in one hand and her jewelry box in the other. She glanced out the tiny kitchen window and took another huge breath. Across the road, a crime-scene van blocked the drive. "Plato was murdered this afternoon."

"You gotta be kidding!" The front door rattled as Donnie propped himself against it.

"Of course I'm not kidding." She raked the comb through her damp curls and twisted them into a knot on top of her head, then dumped the contents of her jewelry box onto the table. Earrings. Any pair. Any two even remotely alike.

"Who killed him?" Now Donnie was trying to peer through the curtain on the front door.

"How should I know?" Ophelia rammed in a garnet earring. "I don't have time to talk now." She found a red glass flower, good enough for the other ear, and shoved it into place. A string of the same red flowers went around her neck.

"The cops know who did it?"

"Why don't you ask them?"

Ophelia's heart lurched as Gideon's car came into view. It turned in behind the crime-scene van. She gulped in more air; there was still time to make a run for it. Back in the bedroom she armed herself in a deep-red bustier from the club days, a black silk evening skirt, excruciatingly uncomfortable red heels, and all the allure she could muster. She unpacked the shopping bag, crumpled tissue paper in the bottom, placed the gun and plywood back in the bag, and added more paper, then dropped a red evening bag on top. She grabbed her pocketbook and clattered down the hall to the kitchen.

Across the road, Gideon was talking on his cell phone, staring at her house. He already knew. She ran onto the screened porch for the duct tape and remembered she had finished it the other day on the damaged flowerpots. Damn. She couldn't even tape the gun to her leg. What else could possibly go wrong?

In the bedroom again, she unearthed a net bag with a long drawstring from the depths of the closet, dropped the Ziploc into the bag, broke the thin plywood into jagged strips, and jammed it in as well. She tied the net bag around her waist under the skirt, where it hung awkwardly against her thighs. The soft skirt would never hide the movement of the bag as she walked, so she dug in the closet again for a crinoline she had worn to a Mardi Gras ball and crammed it underneath. No time for more. She opened the front door and Donnie almost toppled into her. Gretchen shot out and down the drive.

Even Donnie, who was usually impervious to everyone but Violet, reeled under the allure. "Ophelia, you sure clean up good!"

"Thanks." Ophelia elbowed him away and slammed the door shut behind her.

"You left the kitchen light on," Donnie said helpfully.

"Didn't I tell you to go home?" She hitched up her skirts with one hand, carrying the shopping bag and her pocketbook in the other, and picked slowly down the stairs. The gun in its net bag thudded against her thighs.

"Going clubbing with Vi? Seems sort of heartless with Plato dead and all."

"Fuck off," Ophelia said. She flung open the door of Constantine's truck.

"Here comes the cop again," Donnie said unnecessarily.

"The cop can go to hell." Ophelia tossed the shopping bag and pocketbook onto the passenger seat.

"Been quite a day for bad news," Donnie said behind her. "You hear about Willy and Lisa? Bankrupt. It was that or selling the house quick, so that's what they did. They're moving out next week."

What? In spite of herself, Ophelia turned to Donnie. "How can their situation be that bad? The house was totally paid for. They could get a mortgage. Willy has regular gigs and still does session work."

"Session work's been slow. Then there's the blackmail."

Gideon came across the road, still on the phone. Donnie went on, "Lisa about killed him for telling me, but someone took every red cent of their savings because of those dirty pictures of Joanna. Burton Tate got beat up so bad he's in the hospital, and his little brother got caught bringing minors into the Chamber, so that gig's dead in the water. They don't even have money for food." He glanced at his watch. "Or gas. Lisa wants me to pick Joanna up at school after band practice and bring Connie to gymnastics. I better run."

"Poor Lisa," Ophelia said. "She loves that house."

Gideon shut his phone and continued up the drive, Gretchen dancing beside him.

"Thought you'd be glad," Donnie said, "the way she's been bad-mouthing you."

"How could I be glad about something so awful?" Ophelia cried. "Where are they moving to? Why doesn't Lisa get a job? Maybe Vi could give her temporary work at Blood and Velvet until they get back on their feet."

Donnie's eyes bugged out of his head. "You want to help them? After they vandalized your place and said all that nasty stuff about you? That's way more than neighborly, Ophelia. That's crazy!"

"Come to think of it, why don't you give Willy some construction work?" Ophelia said.

Donnie grimaced. "Jeez, Ophelia, I don't know about that. He's stoned or drunk most of the time."

"I know, but he's not totally useless. Not only that, it'll move you higher in Vi's estimation. She has a soft spot for people who help others."

"Well," Donnie said, squaring his shoulders, "I suppose I--"

"Wow," Gideon said from right beside her. "You look spectacular." He smiled, sexy and calculating as hell. "Going somewhere?"

Anywhere he wasn't. "Clubbing with Vi." Ophelia climbed into the truck and turned the key.

"We need to talk first."

"No, we don't," Ophelia said, desperately trying to ignore the crashing of her heart against her chest. "I'm late."

"We'll talk later, then," Gideon said amiably. "Mind if I take a look around while you're gone?"

Ophelia turned the key back to the off position. She glared at Gideon, strong and sweaty and so gorgeous that tears came to her eyes, and went berserk. "Goddamn right I mind!" She shot anger and allure in equal parts at the treacherous bastard. "When I told you to stay off my property, I meant it." She whipped her head around to Donnie, gaping a few yards away. "That goes for you, too. Go home!"

"Well,
so-rry
!" Donnie rolled his eyes at Gideon and dawdled toward the property line.

"I thought things had changed," Gideon said, so calmly she wanted to spit. "Honey, I have to do my job." He sounded so confident, so right.

Not right,
Ophelia thought.
Self-righteous.
Terror clawed up from her belly and into her throat. That he would trick her, try to trap her..."I don't
believe
this. I trusted you. I slept with you, for God's sake!"

Gideon's brows twitched together. "What does that have to do with anything? You go have fun with Violet. I'll check your place out." Complacently, the dog prancing beside him, he continued up the drive.

Ophelia jumped down from the truck, flinching when the gun slammed against her thigh. She picked up her skirts and stormed after him. A spike of fractured wood scraped her through the net bag, enraging her even more. "Get off my property!"

Gideon went around the back of the house. "When you're finished with your tantrum, we'll talk."

"I don't want to talk to you," Ophelia snarled, searching for an insult. "You are a coward. A sellout, just like everybody says."

Gideon stiffened to ice. "If all you can do is call me names, I will do what I damn well please." He pulled a penlight off his belt, got down on his hands and knees, and crawled under the house.

So he did know about the compartment and the gun. If she'd had the slightest doubt before, she sure didn't have any now. Ignoring the wood jabbing at her thigh, Ophelia uncoiled the hose from the hook at the end of the trailer and turned the water on full. She got down on her knees, adjusted the nozzle to the most punishing spray, and aimed it under the house.