Jack reached over and hit the tape button. Instantly the frantic fiddle music of Michael Doucet whined through the speakers, snapping the tension, drowning out the grim news. He'd had enough grimness to last him. He had a stock stored up, ready to be called upon and brought down on his head like a ton of bricks any- time he wanted. He didn't care to bring in more from outside sources.
Don't get involved. That was his motto. That and the traditional Cajun war cry-laissez le bon temps rouler. He didn't want to hear about dead girls from Loreauville. He couldn't give Sheryl Lynn Carmouche her life back. He could only live his own, and he intended to do just that, starting with a big shrimp po'boy and a bottle of something cold down at the Landing.
Sweat trickled between Laurel 's breasts as she knelt in the freshly turned earth. It beaded on her forehead, and one drop rolled down toward her nose. She reached up with a dirty gloved hand and wiped it away, leaving a smear of mud.
No one would have spotted her for a once-aggressive attorney-a fact that suited her just fine. She wanted to lose herself in mindless manual labor, thinking of nothing but simple physical tasks like turning soil and planting flowers. She suspected she would appear to have bathed in dirt by the time she finished her work in the courtyard. There were worse things to become immersed in.
She poked at the root of a new azalea bush with a small hand spade, mixing in the special compost Bud Landry at the nursery had sent home with her-his own secret blend of God-knew-what that would grow anything, "guar-un-teed."
She spent most of the morning sweeping up yesterday's carnage and supervising the hanging of a new gate at the back of the courtyard. Not pausing for more than a sip of the iced tea Mama Pearl brought out for her, she swept and raked and piled. She then hauled the mess, one load at a time, to the edge of the small open field that lay to the east of Aunt Caroline's property, where she piled all the debris of her first two days' work, and would burn it all before it could become a haven to snakes and rodents.
She made a mental note to call city hall and check to see if she would need a permit. No one in Bayou Breaux had ever been much on that kind of formality, but times changed. She hadn't lived here in a lot of years. For all she knew the place could have been taken over by yuppies on the run from suburban life. Or the Junior League might have decided environmentalism was in vogue-so long as it didn't interfere with their husbands' businesses. Laurel could well imagine her mother leading the crusade against common folk burning brush while Ross Leighton polluted the bayou with chemicals intended to keep his cane crop money-green and safe from insects.
Thoughts of Vivian erased what was left of Laurel 's smile. She had been in Bayou Breaux four days now without making a call to Beauvoir. That wouldn't be tolerated much longer. She had no desire to visit her childhood home or the people who resided there, but there was such a thing as family duty, and Vivian was bound to bring it down on Laurel 's head like a club if she didn't make the expected pilgrimage soon.
The idea hardly overjoyed her. The fact that she would have to deal with Vivian and Ross, if only to sit at the same table with them for dinner, had been enough to make her reconsider the wisdom of coming back. But the instinctive need for a place that was familiar had overridden her aversion to seeing her mother and stepfather.
The thought of going off someplace on her own, someplace where her anonymity would be absolute, had been too daunting. Go someplace where the only company she would have would be herself? That was company she didn't want to keep just now. She had longed for the reassurance of Caroline Chandler's formidable personality and unconditional love. She had felt a need to see Savannah. She had missed Mama Pearl's fussing and truculence. The occasional encounter with Vivian and Ross seemed small enough penance to pay for the privilege of coming home.
With considerable force of will she shut the door on the topic and focused on other things. Her hands packed the soil around the roots of the azalea bush. The scents of ripe compost and green growth filled her nostrils. Across the courtyard bees were buzzing lazily over a wild tangle of rambling roses and wisteria that clung to the brick wall. A Mozart quintet drifted from the boom box she had left on the gallery of the house.
The heat grew a little thicker. She sweated a little harder. Overhead wispy clouds writhed and curled their way across the blue sky, scudding northward on a balmy Gulf breeze. The quintet ended, and the news began, signaling the start of the lunch hour.
"Topping the news this hour: the discovery of another apparent victim-"
Laurel jerked her head around as the announcement was cut short. Savannah stood on the gallery, hands on her hips, a pair of square black Ray-Bans shading her eyes. She had pulled her wild hair up into a messy topknot that trailed tendrils along her neck and jawline, and had dressed with her usual flare in a periwinkle spandex miniskirt that hugged the curves of her hips and backside, and a loose white silk tank that managed to show more than it covered. A diamond the size of a pea hung just above the deep shadow of her cleavage, just below the necklace Daddy had given her years ago, and gold bangles rattled at her wrists as she shifted her weight impatiently from one spike heel to the other.
"Baby, what in the world do you think you're doing?"
Laurel pushed her bangs out of her eyes and flashed a smile. "Gardening! What's it look like?"
She abandoned her tools and straightened up, dusting the loose dirt off the knees of her baggy jeans before heading for the gallery. Mama Pearl would cluck at her like a fat old hen if she tracked it into the house.
"You've spent the entire last two days gardening," Savannah said, frowning. "You're going to wear yourself out. Didn't your doctor tell you to relax?"
"Gardening is relaxing, psychologically. I've needed to do something physical," she said, toeing off her canvas sneakers and stepping up beside her sister. In her heels Savannah towered over her. Laurel had always felt small and mousy in Savannah 's presence. Today she felt like a grubby urchin, and the feeling pleased her enormously.
Savannah sniffed and made a comical face of utter disgust. "Mercy, you smell like a hog pen at high noon! If you needed to do something physical, we could have gone shopping. Your wardrobe is begging for a trip to New Orleans."
"I have plenty of clothes."
"Then why don't you wear them?" Savannah asked archly.
Laurel glanced down at the shapeless cotton T-shirt and baggy jeans that camouflaged all details of her body. Most of what she had brought with her was designed for comfort rather than style.
"It wouldn't be very practical for me to do gardening in stiletto heels," she said dryly, eyeing her sister's outfit. "And if I had to bend over in that skirt, I'd probably get arrested for mooning the neighbors."
Savannah looked out across the courtyard to L'Amour, the once-elegant brick house that stood some distance behind Belle Rivière on the bank of the bayou. The corners of her lush mouth flicked upward in wry amusement. "Baby, you couldn't scandalize that neighbor if you tried."
"Who's living there? I didn't think anyone would ever buy it, considering the history of the place and the state it was in the last time I saw it."
L'Amour had been built in the mid-nineteenth century for a notorious paramour by her wealthy, married lover. By all accounts-and there were many versions of the tale-she died by his hand when he discovered she was also involved with a no-account Cajun trapper. Laurel had grown up hearing stories about the place's being haunted. No one had lived there in years.
"Jack Boudreaux," Savannah answered, her smile turning sexy at the thought of him. "Writer, rake, rascal, rogue. And when he gets to be old enough, I imagine he'll be a reprobate too. Come along, urchin," she said, turning for the house. "Go hose yourself down. I'm taking you out to lunch."