And where was Barry?
With no apparent effort, the two pulled Copley Carmichael up out of the hole and propped him against the wall.
“Excuse me,” I said to Mr. Cataliades, who was looking at Amelia’s father with a speculative gleam in his eye. “Where is Barry Bellboy?”
“He detected a familiar brain signature,” Mr. Cataliades said absently. He checked Copley’s pulse with a large finger. Diantha squatted to peer into the captive’s eyes curiously. “He told us he’d catch up with us later.”
“How did he tell you this?”
“Via text messaging,” Mr. Cataliades said distastefully. “While we were following a false trail for Glassport.”
My teeth were on edge. “Should we be worried about him?”
“He’s got his car and a cell phone,” Diantha said slowly and carefully. “And he has our numbers. Uncle, did you check your other messages?”
Mr. Cataliades made a face. “No, Sookie’s news startled me so much I gave up on doing so.” He brought out his phone and began looking at it and pressing things on the screen. “This man is dehydrated and bruised, but he doesn’t have internal injuries,” he told me, nodding toward our captive.
“What am I supposed to do with him?”
“Whateveryouwant,” Diantha said, with a certain amount of glee.
Copley Carmichael’s eyes widened with fear.
“Of course, he did try to have me killed,” I said thoughtfully. “And he didn’t care who got caught up in his vendetta against me. Hey, Mr. Carmichael, you see this big bandage on my shoulder? That’s courtesy of your man Tyrese. He almost got your daughter, too.” The man’s color wasn’t good, but it got worse. “And you know what happened to Tyrese? He got shot dead,” I said.
But this wasn’t a pastime I could really call fun. Even though Carmichael deserved a lot of bad things, taunting him would not make me feel better about myself or anything else.
“I wonder if he’s responsible for the voodoo doll, or whatever it was, in Alcee’s car,” I said.
I watched his face carefully as I said this, and all I got was a blank stare. I did not believe Copley had put a hex or curse on the detective.
Mr. Cataliades said, “Yes, I do have a message from Barry. Voice mail.” He held the phone to his ear.
I waited impatiently.
Finally, Mr. Cataliades lowered the phone. He looked serious. “Barry says he is following Johan Glassport,” he said. “That is not a safe thing to do.”
“Barry knows Glassport killed Arlene,” I said. “He shouldn’t take the chance.”
“He wants to identify Glassport’s companion.”
“Where was he when he left the message?” I asked.
“He doesn’t say. But he left the message at nine last night.”
“That’s bad,” I said. “Really bad.” The problem was, I couldn’t think of anything to do about it, and I couldn’t imagine what to do with Copley Carmichael.
A knock at my door startled us all. I was definitely distracted. I hadn’t even heard a car come up the driveway. My neighbor from up the road, Lorinda Prescott, was at the front door with her fabulous supper dish that was supposed to be scooped up with tortilla chips. And she’d brought Tostitos, too. “I just wanted to thank you for the delicious tomatoes,” she said. “I’ve never tasted any as good. What brand were they?”
“I just bought ’em at the lawn and garden center,” I said. “Please come have a seat.” Lorinda said she wouldn’t stay long, but I had to introduce her to my company. While Lorinda was being charmed by Mr. Cataliades, I raised an eyebrow at Diantha, who slipped back down the hall to shut the door to the guest bedroom, where Copley Carmichael was still propped against the wall. After that, Diantha and Mr. Cataliades went upstairs, having said polite things to Lorinda, who seemed a bit stunned at Diantha’s ensemble.
“I’m so glad you’ve got someone staying with you while you’re getting better,” she said. She paused, and her brow wrinkled. “My goodness, what’s that noise?”
A dull thumping sound was issuing from the guest bedroom. Damn. “That’s probably . . . gosh, I guess they shut their dog in that room!” I said. I called up the stairs, “Mr. C! The dog’s acting up! Can you get Coco to calm down?”
“I do beg your pardon,” Mr. Cataliades said, gliding down the stairs. “I will make the animal keep silent.”
“Thanks,” I said, and tried not to notice that Lorinda was looking a little shocked to hear Mr. C call his dog “the animal.” He went down the hall, and I heard the door to the guest room open and close. The thumping ceased abruptly.
Mr. Cataliades reappeared, bowing to Lorinda on his way through the living room to the stairs. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Prescott,” he said, and vanished into one of the upstairs rooms.
“Gosh,” said Lorinda. “He’s mighty formal.”
“Comes from an old New Orleans family,” I explained. A couple of minutes later, Lorinda decided she needed to get home to start supper, and I bowed her out of the house with lots of pleasantries.
When she was gone, I breathed out a deep sigh of relief. I was hurrying to the guest bedroom . . . and the phone rang. It was Michele, checking up on me, which was a nice thing for her to do, but real bad timing.
“Hi, Michele!” I said, trying to sound perky and healthy.
“Hey, nearly-sister-in-law,” she said. “How are you today?”
“So much better,” I said. That was only half a lie. I was better.
“Can I come by and pick up your laundry? I’m doing mine tonight, so Jason and me can go line dancing tomorrow night.”
“Oh, have a good time!” It had been ages since I’d been dancing. “I’m caught up on my laundry, thanks so much.”
“Why don’t you come to Stompin’ Sally’s with us, if you’re feeling so much better?”
“If my shoulder isn’t too sore, I’d love to,” I said impulsively. “Can I let you know tomorrow afternoon?”
“Sure,” she said. “Anytime before eight, that’s when we’re leaving.”
I finally got to the guest bedroom. Copley was there, unconscious, still breathing. I hadn’t been sure how Mr. C had silenced him, but at least it was not by snapping his neck. And I still didn’t know what to do about him.
I called up the stairs to Mr. C and Diantha to tell them supper was ready. They came down the stairs lickety-split. Each of us had a heaping bowlful of the ground meat, beans, sauce, and chopped peppers, and I shared out the bag of tortilla chips to use in scooping up the mixture. I had some shredded cheese, too. And Tara had left a pie made by Mrs. du Rone, so we even had dessert. By tacit agreement, we didn’t discuss the disposition of Copley Carmichael until we’d finished eating. The locusts were singing their evening chorale while we tried to reach a consensus.
Diantha’s opinion was that we should kill him.
Mr. Cataliades wanted to lay some heavy magic on him and put him back in place in New Orleans. Like substituting a ringer for the real Copley Carmichael. Obviously, he had a plan for using the new version of Amelia’s father.
I couldn’t see letting him back into the world, a soulless, devil-tied creature with no impulse for good. But I didn’t want to kill anyone else, either. My own soul was dark enough. While we debated and the long evening turned into darkness, there was another knock at the back door.
I couldn’t believe I’d ever longed for a visitor.
This one was a vampire, and she didn’t bring any food.
Pam glided in, followed closely by Karin. They looked like pale sisters. But Pam seemed energized, somehow. After I’d introduced the two vampires to the two part-demons, they took seats at the kitchen table and Pam said, “I feel that I’ve interrupted you when you were talking about something important.”