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He’d like to spare her this, but that was the thing about fame and wealth. It set you inside this giant ball and everybody who walked by felt compelled to give it a kick. She was in the ball with him, so she’d have to prepare herself for a new onslaught of reporters’ feet slamming into their ball.
“What is it now?” she asked.
“Dennis Robicheaux shot and killed himself last night.”
“Oh, no! Not Dennis.”
His towel slipped from his waist as he reached for her and pulled her into his arms.
“Not Dennis. Please. Not Dennis.”
“I know it doesn’t seem possible, but these things happen.”
“He didn’t kill himself. I know he didn’t. He wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know him that well, sweetheart. He had some problems.”
“No. Not Dennis. He wouldn’t kill himself. Why would he?”
“Who knows? Maybe it’s the Robicheaux blood. Look at his brother. As soon as the first blast of adversity hit, John came running home to drown himself in whiskey and the same stinking life he’d worked to escape.”
“Dennis wasn’t like John.”
“I’m not saying he was, but he was still a Robicheaux.”
“It was the reporters who did this to him, Norman, not his Robicheaux blood. They kept hammering away at him, determined to blame Ginny Lynn Flanders’s death on him.” She pulled away, looked in the mirror, then dabbed her eyes with the back of her hands. “What will this do to the lawsuit?”
“Nothing. The reporters will howl and make a big show about it, but in the end, it won’t have a thing to do with the legal proceedings.”
“I hope you’re right.”
So did he. “I’m going to finish my shower and meet the sheriff out where they found the body.”
“I want to go, too.”
“It’s no place for a woman.”
She barely knew Dennis, but she had a tender heart, cried over dead goldfish. He’d like to stay here with her. He sure had no desire to see the body, but he had to be certain John didn’t throw some of the stinking Robicheaux shit into the mix.
This was suicide. And a suicide it would stay.
CHAPTER THREE
JOHN HIT the brakes and steered the car to the shoulder of the narrow road. A group of about six men stood in ankle-deep water a few yards away, gathered around the body. The body. Dennis.
The reality of the situation hovered over him, but it hadn’t struck yet. Once he walked over and stood where the sheriff and the others were, once the image got inside his head, reality would grab him by the balls and squeeze down tight.
A warning screamed and echoed in his ears as he sloshed into the bog. Hold back the day. Hold back the stinking black day. But the sun was already beating down on him, the fetid air already clogging his lungs. There could be no holding back.
His boots sank into the mud, stirring up the mosquitoes that hid in the low grass.
“I’m sorry about this, John, really sorry.”
John nodded, acknowledging the sheriff’s words but avoiding eye contact with him and the others. He didn’t want to feel any bond with them, didn’t need their self-serving commiseration. Pity was debilitating, and he needed his wits and strength to see him through this.
He forced himself to look at what was left of Dennis. For a second, he thought he might just collapse and evaporate in the morning heat. Somehow he held it together and his training as a defense attorney checked in, registered every contingent. The position of the body, the bloodied and shattered remains of the brain. The splatters of blood on the thick plants that clogged the swampland.
“It’s a rotten shame,” LeBlanc said. “Dennis was a good man.”
“Yeah. A rotten shame. Has the body been moved?” John asked.
“We haven’t touched it,” Babineaux answered.
“I want pictures before it’s moved to New Orleans for an autopsy.”
“I know this is tough, John, but you need to get a grip. What’s an autopsy going to show that we can’t see for ourselves plain as day? Dennis was shot in the head at point-blank range with his own gun. We found the weapon right at his fingertips.”
“How do you know it was Dennis’s gun?”
Babineaux held up a plastic bag containing a small blue metal Colt .45 with a brown wooden grip. “Are you going to tell me it isn’t?”
John stared at the weapon. It was his grandfather’s pistol, World War II vintage, the first weapon John had ever shot. He’d practiced his aim by firing it at tin cans behind the house long before he was old enough to get a driver’s license.
“I recognize it,” he said, figuring it was no use to lie. Babineaux had taken the thing away from the old man often enough when he’d had too much to drink in Suzette’s and started waving it at anyone fool enough to argue with him.
“I don’t give a damn if you found his finger on the trigger. Dennis didn’t shoot himself.”
“No sign there was anyone else with him.”
“You don’t have any proof there wasn’t. So I suggest you get a decent crime-scene unit out here even if it means calling one in from New Orleans.”
“I don’t know what they’d do that I haven’t.”
“I want every detail you can sieve out of this bloody swamp.”
“I’m sorry about your brother, John. We all liked Dennis. You know that. But the guy had problems and maybe he just couldn’t deal with them.”
“Or maybe Norman Guilliot couldn’t.”
“Don’t go making crazy accusations.”
“Then do your job.” John swatted at a mosquito that was feeding on his neck, then walked toward Dennis’s car. It looked as if he’d just lost control and slid off into the bog. A few seconds later and he’d have hit the bridge railing or possibly plunged into the rain-swollen bayou.
Maybe that’s what the killer had meant for him to do. A nice, accidental drowning. The gun might have been the insurance, plan B in case the first option didn’t fly. Either way, something must have been planted to make certain Dennis left the road at the specific spot where his killer was waiting.
Possibilities swirled in the fog that filled John’s mind. He looked up as a black Porsche skidded to a stop along the shoulder of the road.
Dr. Norman Guilliot crawled from the low-slung car and took a few steps toward them with the same air of authority he probably flaunted in the operating room. But a few steps were all he’d be taking. Dressed in white trousers and a light blue pullover shirt, he wasn’t about to traipse through the murky water the way the rest of them had.
At least not in the hot glare of the day with witnesses all around. Last night would have been a different story. John imagined him, slinking around in the dark, startling Dennis then sticking the pistol to his head. Dennis would have been an easy target, like blinding a doe with a high-powered flashlight and taking it down at point blank range. The kind of high-stake, no-risk operation a man like Guilliot would choose.
The sheriff started toward Guilliot and the rest of the entourage followed, leaving Dennis’s body to the insects and the stifling humidity.
John felt the hate swelling inside him and welcomed it. He could get his hands around hate, it was so much easier to deal with than the pain. He strode toward Guilliot, reaching him a few seconds after the others.
“I’m sorry about this, John, really sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I’m still reeling with the shock of it myself.”
“Shock doesn’t show much on you, Guilliot.”
Guilliot fixed his gaze on John, a study in faux compassion. “I’m not going to get into an argument with you at a time like this. I won’t show that kind of disrespect toward Dennis.”
“Your concern is underwhelming.”
Dr. Guilliot shrugged his shoulders. “If blaming me helps you deal with this, go right ahead, John. But it doesn’t change anything. Dennis took his own life, and I guess that means we all let him down, including you.”
“Dennis didn’t kill himself. He had no reason to.”
“Guess you best take that up with Sheriff Babineaux.”
The sheriff sidled up next to Guilliot. “I told you we don’t need no trouble out here, John. Why don’t you go back to your place and clean up a bit? Call you a friend to go to the funeral home in Galliano and make what arrangements need to be made.”
John turned and stared at the sheriff, studied his gray eyes, his two crooked front teeth and the way his bottom lip curled downward as if it wanted to crawl away from the rest of his mouth. He’d known Babineaux all his life, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever really noticed him until today. Now everything about the sheriff and the entire morning were searing their way into the lining of John’s brain.
“I expect, no make that demand, an autopsy, Babineaux. You see that it’s done or I see your ass in court.”
Guilliot moved into John’s space, his eyes narrowed and accusing. “Making a big show’s not going to bring Dennis back or atone for that little girl you set the monster loose on, John. So why don’t you just let your brother rest in peace?”
John fought the sudden urge to bury his fist into Guilliot’s gut. Instead he turned and walked back to his truck, wondering how in hell Dennis’s life had come to nothing more than a decaying body half-buried in a stinking bog on the edge of the road.
Both Babineaux and Guilliot probably thought this would blow over, that John would go home and drown his grief in a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, but they were wrong. Someone had murdered Dennis and John would see that the man who had done it paid if he had to strangle him with his bare hands.
If it turned out to be Dr. Norman Guilliot, the act would be pure pleasure.
CASSIE DROVE to Beau Pierre on Sunday afternoon, more to scope out the place than to do any kind of in-depth investigating. The newspapers and TV news broadcasts would carry the facts surrounding the suicide, but sterile details were not what Olson would be looking for.
Cassie had some ideas brewing in her mind, but she wanted to get a feel for the lay of the land and the emotional climate of the setting before she met with her boss the next morning.
She’d done her homework yesterday, searched for any information she could find on the small town of Beau Pierre. It was no more than a dot on the map, a fishing village a few miles south of Galliano.
It was like dozens of other fishing villages in the area except that Beau Pierre was home to the Magnolia Plantation Restorative and Therapeutic Center, the clinic that drew the rich and famous from all over the world to have the renowned Dr. Norman Guilliot surgically restore their youth.
She’d already stopped at the café in town and asked a few questions. Mostly she’d learned that folks didn’t hang out in the café on Sundays and that the waitress named Lily didn’t care much for reporters.
Cassie slowed and glanced at the map she’d printed from the Internet. If her directions were accurate, she should be close to the Center now. A half mile later she saw the gate, a massive iron affair just off the road.
She pulled into the paved drive and pushed the button on the entry panel. The intercom hummed softly, followed by a female voice.
“Welcome to Magnolia Plantation. How may I help you?”
She felt a little like a predator at the home of one of the little pigs. Let me in so that I can eat you. Or she could just say she was a reporter. That would get her about the same reception.
“I’m interested in touring the Center.”
“I’m sorry. The plantation and grounds are private. No one’s admitted except our registered guests and our staff.”
“How do I find out if I want to be a registered guest if I can’t view the facilities?”
“You can make an appointment during business hours and Dr. Guilliot will meet with you personally.”
“I drove all the way from New Orleans. Can’t I just take a quick look around?”
“I wish I could say yes, but the rules are strictly enforced to preserve the privacy of our guests. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”
And keeping out reporters was just a little lagniappe. Cassie climbed from her car, walked over to the gate and peered through the ornate pattern of iron bars. The driveway was long and winding, the extensive grounds perfectly manicured. Only glimpses of the plantation house were visible through the trees, but Cassie saw enough to tell that the place was not only massive but beautifully restored.
She was still staring when a mud-encrusted black pickup truck pulled in and stopped, blocking her car between its front bumper and the gate.
The man who stepped from behind the wheel was tall and muscular with long, straggly hair and a tanned face spiked with coarse black whiskers. He walked toward her, emanating a kind of raw animal potency that seemed more than a little menacing.
“Are you looking for Dr. Guilliot?” he asked, his hard stare never wavering.
“Not particularly.”
“Then who are you looking for?”
None of his damned business. She started to fire that comment at him, but stopped herself. It wasn’t smart to start fights when she was sniffing out a story. “I’m just interested in the clinic.”
“Like hell you are. You’re interested in digging up dirt for that magazine you work for.”
“How do you know who I work for?”
“You didn’t exactly sneak into town quietly. Even if you had, a stranger always gets noticed here.”
“Who are you?” she demanded, wishing he wasn’t standing between her and her car.
“John Robicheaux.”
“Any kin to Dennis?”
“His brother.”
“I see. I’m sorry. His death must have been a shock for you.”
He ignored her expression of sympathy. “Did Dr. Guilliot ask you to come see him?”
“I haven’t talked to Dr. Guilliot.”
“So you just smelled a little dirt and came running?”
