Showdown in Mudbug Read online

  “I want an answer,” Zach demanded, “and I’m not leaving here until I get one.”

  “An answer to what?” Raissa tried on her best innocent look. “He was obviously looking for my car or maybe Maryse’s and something spooked him, so he ran.”

  Zach’s face flushed with anger. “You know damned good and well what spooked him. The man was being chased by a crowbar—a crowbar without a human being attached. Damn right he was spooked. I’m spooked, and I’m three stories up in a hotel room. It’s like a B horror movie. What the hell is going on, Raissa? I know you and Maryse are keeping something from me. That whole picture-taking story never added up.”

  Raissa sighed and sank into one of the folding chairs in front of the monitors. “How open-minded are you?”

  “In what way? Religion? Politics? Equal rights for cats?”

  “To…um…paranormal things.”

  “You’re telling me your friend, this Helena, can make herself invisible? I’m not buying it.”

  “No, she doesn’t make herself that way. Man, this is hard. The paranormal realm has so many avenues that we really don’t know that much about. I’m learning every day, and it’s been my business for over eight years.”

  Zach stared at her, clearly uncertain of what to say. “You told me you hacked information to convince your psychic reading clients you were the real thing.”

  Raissa nodded. “And that’s true, but…uh…that part where I told you I talked to dead people…Well, it’s actually only one dead person, and I didn’t ask to talk to her, but she’s there anyway.”

  There was complete silence in the room. Raissa was sure neither of them was breathing. Zach stared at her with a mixture of horror, confusion, and a touch of fear. His expression clearly said he’d not only bought into the ravings of a madwoman, he’d slept with her, too. He was probably mentally processing his severance pay as he stared.

  “I know,” Raissa said, “it’s a lot to buy—”

  “It’s impossible to buy. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but you’re not going to play it with me.” He shoved his wallet and keys into his pants pocket and turned to leave the room, but before he could walk out, Maryse stepped in.

  “I thought there might be a problem with, well, you know,” Maryse said, “so I came back to help.”

  “Oh, there’s a problem all right,” Zach said. “You two are crazy. And from now on, you’re on your own.”

  Maryse shook her head. “We’re probably crazy, but not in the way you think.” Maryse looked to Zach’s side and nodded. “Show him, Helena.”

  Zach looked to his right as Raissa’s lipstick rose from the dresser.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zach stared in amazement as the cap came off the lipstick and the dial on the bottom spun round, pushing a glossy burgundy color out the end of the container. The lipstick connected with the mirror and swirled out sprawling lettering.

  Sorry I missed the show earlier when Maryse walked in on you two.

  Zach was certain he hadn’t blinked since the lipstick left the dresser, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing, either. “Who are you?” he asked.

  Helena Henry.

  Zach’s mind raced. That name was familiar. He whirled to face Maryse. “Your mother-in-law?”

  “Ex-mother-in-law, but yes.”

  Zach slumped into a chair, completely overwhelmed and exhausted from the day. Of all the things in the world he had seen, this was by far the most outlandish. Never in his life would he have believed it was possible. Hell, he still didn’t believe it was possible, and he was looking straight at it. “I don’t understand.”

  Maryse snorted. “You think you don’t understand. I’ve been able to see Helena since the day of her funeral. The woman I hated the most in the world, and I was the only one who could see or hear her for a long time.” Maryse sighed and looked over at the mirror. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Helena. You know I don’t hate you anymore. I’m just giving him the four-one-one.”

  I don’t wear panties. The words appeared on the mirror.

  Zach grimaced. He had, after all, seen a picture of Maryse’s mother-in-law in her police file. “That was far more information than I ever needed to know.”

  “All right,” Maryse said. “Show’s over, Helena. It’s time for you and me to go back to bed.” Maryse mouthed Sorry to Zach and opened the door, then glared at the air, apparently willing the ghost to leave. “No, I don’t think he’s getting naked again,” he heard her say as the door shut behind her.

  Zach stared behind them, still unable to form words.

  “Sorry to hit you with it like that,” Raissa said, “but there’s really no simple way to explain.”

  “Yeah. I guess not.” He studied Raissa, who sat calm and collected on the edge of the dresser. “None of that bothers you?”

  “No. I mean, not in the ways you might think it should. I learned a long time ago to never close my mind to possibilities. Every time I did it made a fool of me.”

  “But you and Maryse can actually see her?”

  “And Mildred and our friend Sabine, although I wasn’t able to until recently.”

  “So you did what, exactly, to make that happen? Dance naked with lit candles…?”

  “Well, Maryse has this theory that you develop the ability to see Helena when you’ve been targeted for murder. We’ve all come pretty close to biting it at some point fairly recently.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “It’s hasn’t failed as a theory for over a month now.”

  Zach ran one hand through his hair, trying to make sense of everything. Trying to make normal out of anything. “So when did you first see her?”

  “The night I left the police station, after I told you about the other girls. Someone pushed me in front of a bus on the corner. Helena pulled me out of the street just in time.”

  “Jesus!” Zach rose and started pacing the small room. “That means someone was following you before you ever came to the station. Your cover was already blown.”

  Raissa nodded. “Yeah, I tried to dismiss it at the time, but Helena was sitting in my car across the street. I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.”

  Zach stopped pacing and stared at her. “Do you realize what you’re asking me to believe? In ghosts…curses…whatever you think is going on here? Damn it, Raissa, you’d already stretched my mind to the limits with your past as an agent and your undercover work, not to mention your theories on the abductions, but this…this is something I can’t buy into.”

  “I’m not asking you to buy into anything,” Raissa said gently. “You know what you saw. You’re a sane, rational, intelligent man. There’s no other explanation than the one I gave you.”

  Zach sat back down again with a sigh, unable to get control over his warring emotions. “I don’t know whether to be amazed, or scared, or worried.”

  “I think all three is a safe bet.” She sat down next to him and placed one hand on his leg. “I know how you feel—well, maybe not exactly, but sorta. It’s going to be fine, Zach. Think of Helena as another form of weapon. She’s a pain in the rear a lot of the time, but she has her usefulness.”

  “So the pictures Maryse had developed—provided by Helena, the ghost photographer?”

  “I told you she had her usefulness. If she’d tucked the camera in her pocket and then managed not to get run over, the entire thing might have gone off without a hitch. You can’t always depend on Helena for the best judgment or to keep her cool.”

  Zach shook his head, still trying to wrap his mind around everything. “Yeah, I guess I can see that, especially after that garage escapade. That guy probably won’t sleep for a week. Which reminds me, did you recognize him?”

  “No. It was too dark, and the feed wasn’t clear enough for me to make out a face. I’ll do some work on the footage and see if I can clean it up, but the most we’re probably going to get off it is height, weight, and an estimate of age based on movement.
”

  “I figured as much.” Zach looked over at Raissa. “So is there anything else you’re keeping from me—a husband, five kids, a cat? Because I don’t think I can take any more surprises.”

  Raissa opened her mouth to answer, when one of the laptops at the end of the table started beeping. A loud, persistent, annoying beep. Raissa rushed over to the laptop and looked at the screen.

  “What now?” Zach asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve set a timer to brush your teeth or paint your toenails at two A.M.”

  Raissa motioned him over, so he rose from the chair and walked over to stand beside her. “There is one more little thing. This audio is from earlier tonight.”

  “Oh, no.” Zach looked down at the laptop as Raissa clicked on a speaker icon. A man’s voice, yelling and cursing at the top of his lungs, bellowed out of the laptop.

  “I had Helena put a bug in Sonny Hebert’s office.”

  Zach stared at the laptop, listening to the mob boss rant about his desire to kill his “demon” cat and bury it in the backyard. For the second time that night, Zach was totally speechless.

  Raissa slid into the booth across from Dr. Breaux and signaled to the waitress for a cup of coffee. “Morning,” she said, and nodded gratefully to the waitress when she slid a mug in front of her.

  Dr. Breaux looked at her over the top of his newspaper, an amused expression on his face. “It’s not even eight o’clock. It can’t already be a bad morning.”

  Raissa poured a ton of sugar in her coffee, stirred, and took a long swallow. “Because it’s not even eight o’clock is exactly the problem.”

  Dr. Breaux laughed. “So you’re not a morning person.”

  “Not much. I’m more of a night owl, which tends to catch up with you when you agree to coffee with the chickens.”

  “If I’d known you weren’t a morning person, I would have suggested seven just for a change of pace. It’s good for the heart, you know?” He put down his paper and gave her his full attention. “So what was so interesting that it kept you up last night?”

  Raissa felt the flush at the base of her neck and hoped like hell Dr. Breaux would think it was only the coffee heating her up. There wasn’t anything interesting, really, unless you counted hot sex, an intruder, introducing a ghost, listening to an hour of Sonny Hebert cussing, more hot sex, and maybe thirty minutes of sleep. “Nothing much.”

  Dr. Breaux raised one eyebrow. “The young man would probably be crushed to hear that.”

  Raissa groaned. “It can’t possibly be that obvious. It’s because you’re a doctor, right? I’m emitting some pheromone. Or I have a tic. Please tell me everyone else cannot just look at me and tell I spent last night with a man.”

  “Well, I don’t know about all that pheromone stuff, but in all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you flustered over anything. I realize that coffee you’re drinking is hot, but it’s probably eighty degrees in this café, and that coffee is not hot enough to make you blush.”

  “Maybe you could give me something to throw people off track. Poison ivy would be a good start. Then people wouldn’t know.”

  Dr. Breaux laughed so hard he shook the booth. “Lord, Raissa,” he said, wiping his eyes with his napkin. “I don’t think you have to go to such extremes. Why, if I were you, I’d be happy to have spent a night worth blushing over. It’s been a lot of years since my wife passed, but I’m not so old I can’t remember one or two of them enough to wish she were still here, and that we were both a lot younger.”

  Raissa took another drink of coffee. “You’re right. It’s normal. It’s natural. Everything in nature does it.” She looked over at him. “Then why doesn’t it feel natural to me?”

  Dr. Breaux cleared his throat. “If you’re having…female issues…I’d be happy to see you in a professional capacity.”

  “If only it were that simple. It’s not the plumbing. That part is natural and exciting and everything it should be. It’s the emotional side of things that’s a problem.”

  Dr. Breaux shook his head. “Matters of the heart I cannot help with. Unless of course, you’re having a heart attack.”

  Raissa laughed. “Not yet. But I’m not ruling it out.” Raissa looked up as the bells over the door jangled and Maryse rushed in.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Maryse said as she slid into the booth beside Raissa.

  “No, you’re not,” Raissa joked.

  Maryse blushed a bit. “I picked Luc up at the airport this morning. We had some catching up to do, so you’re right, I’m not sorry I’m late.”

  Dr. Breaux gave them a wistful look. “Ah, to be young and in love again. I envy you girls.”

  “It’s never too late,” Maryse said. “There’s a couple of eligible women in Mudbug I can think of.”

  “No, my time has passed. I’m married to my work right now, and in a year or so, I’ll likely retire and spend the rest of my life sitting in a fishing boat off the Florida coast.”

  Maryse nodded. “Probably a lot more relaxing than a relationship. And definitely cheaper. Do you have any idea how much furniture costs? Luc and I looked at couches for the new house last week, and I swear I think I’m going to sit on the floor. Ridiculous.”

  Raissa laughed. “Says the woman who will pay thousands for a magnifying glass.”

  “That’s a Meiji Epi-fluorescent microscope and is serious laboratory equipment. But I guess I see your point.”

  “Well, ladies,” Dr. Breaux said, “I’m not senile enough to think two beautiful young women got out of bed early to have breakfast with an old codger like me just for fun. I have to assume something’s on your mind, and I have to admit, I’ve been itching to find out what. I’ve simply drawn a blank trying to figure it out.”

  Raissa gave Maryse a nod. They’d already agreed that what they had to say would probably work better coming from Maryse, as she’d known Dr. Breaux her entire life. Raissa had suggested Maryse question him alone, but given her investigative background, Maryse wanted Raissa there to see if she caught things Maryse might miss. Raissa hoped he’d be forthcoming with his responses and there wouldn’t be anything to miss.

  Maryse laid a file on the table and pushed it over to Dr. Breaux. “You know after everything that went down last month with me, the police got permission to autopsy Helena Henry.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Breaux said and picked up the file. “Is this it? They gave you a copy?”

  “I have my ways,” Maryse said, “and I’d really rather not explain them. The autopsy didn’t prove anything as far as Helena’s being murdered, but it clearly shows she had cancer. No one who knew Helena, including Hank or Harold, was aware of that. I was hoping you could explain.”

  Dr. Breaux frowned and opened the folder. He flipped the pages over one at a time, his brow scrunched in concentration. Finally, he placed the file on the table and shook his head. “I had no idea. The tests clearly show lung cancer and a rare form of leukemia, but Helena’s complaints were the usual sort for someone with asthma. I never even thought. My God. So many people in this town lost to that disease. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me so much, with her house sitting right on that polluted bayou.”

  “All we can figure,” Maryse said, “is that she wasn’t in a lot of pain and was dismissing it as age or whatever. You said she complained about something before she died?”

  “Not just before she died—chronically. Her asthma always bothered her, and she aggravated the situation with her weight and constant exposure to plants and flowers with her gardening.”

  “So did she come to see you any time right before her death?”

  Dr. Breaux frowned. “No, but she might have seen the nurse. I could check my rec ords if you think it’s important.”

  Maryse sighed. “It probably isn’t.” Maryse looked over at Raissa. Raissa gave her a nod to move on to the next topic. So far, Dr. Breaux had been forthcoming, not that it had gained them any ground. They might as well hit him with the doozy.

  “There’
s more,” Maryse said. “In looking over some of that information I got, I noticed something odd. When I looked into it, I got more confused.”

  “What’s wrong, Maryse?” Dr. Breaux asked. “You sound so troubled by this.”

  “There’s no way Hank could have been Helena and Harold’s son. The blood types rule it out.”

  Dr. Breaux stared at her, his mouth partially open. “I…well…that really doesn’t have any bearing on anything, does it?”

  “It might for Hank.” Maryse narrowed her eyes at Dr. Breaux. “You already knew, didn’t you?”

  “I was the family doctor, so of course, I’d requested blood work on all of them at times, especially Hank, since he was prone to be anemic. The irregularities were hardly something a good doctor should miss.”

  “Stop hedging. His mother is dead, and his father is in prison. Hank might need to know his real medical history.”

  Dr. Breaux sighed. “I noticed the discrepancy, but I never asked about it. I always assumed that Helena had another man while Harold was in the service. I’m afraid many of the men I served with arrived home to children that weren’t their own.” He paused for a minute. “I have to say, I never saw signs of it, though. If the other man was still around when Harold came home, no one in Mudbug was aware. I figured as long as it was in the past, no good would come of letting anyone think any different than that Hank was Helena and Harold’s son.”

  “So the babies couldn’t have been switched at the hospital or anything like that?”

  “Heavens, one wouldn’t like to think so, although we hear about it in the news. I guess anything’s possible, but that is far less of a possibility than a lonely woman seeking comfort.”

  Maryse looked over at Raissa, looking for advice on how to proceed. Raissa gave her a small shake of her head. There was nothing else to be done here. Helena had already been clear about her lack of outside relationships, and Raissa believed her. The ghost simply had no reason to lie and was obviously distraught over the entire mess.