The Dollmaker. Amanda Stevens

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      Eight

      Dave took the Sea Ray out at dawn the next morning to test the overhauled Chevy engines for his uncle. The boat had been in dry dock for over two weeks, a financially disastrous situation during peak season, but Marsilius had used the opportunity to update some of the equipment.

      The old thirty-foot sports cruiser now offered a television, stereo, microwave and a fully stocked refrigerator, along with the two-burner stove, full head and stand-up shower. The cabin area could comfortably accommodate four guests for overnight trips out to the steel reefs where the bright vapor lights from the oil rigs beamed down to the water’s surface, attracting schools of bait fish that in turn lured in the yellowfin, mackerel and amberjack.

      Marsilius had night fishing down to a science, but Dave had been trying for years to get him to invest in a smaller boat for the anglers who liked to fish the marshes and oyster beds in the basin. His uncle was set in his ways, though, and wasn’t looking to expand his business. He had Dave to relieve him when his knee acted up, and Jinx Bingham’s boy to run the bait and tackle. No sense fixing what wasn’t broke, he always said.

      Throttling back the engines, Dave glided through a glimmering channel and dropped anchor in the bay to watch the sunrise. Mist hovered over the marshes and islets, and clung like wet silk to the treetops.

      Pouring a cup of coffee from his thermos, he sat down to enjoy the solitude. He couldn’t help but think about the past this morning, or the case that Angelette Lapierre had dropped in his lap. She’d faxed a copy of the file to his office, and he’d sifted through the reports and made a few calls before going down to New Orleans late last night. But he needed more time to study the case before he made a decision about taking it on. He didn’t want to give the grieving family false hope until he figured out Angelette’s angle. She’d used the similarity to the Savaria case to draw him in, but Dave couldn’t figure out why she’d bother. She said Nina Losier’s parents were looking to hire a private detective, and she’d told them about him, but that alone set off an alarm for Dave. He and Angelette hadn’t exactly parted on good terms. Aside from the fact that she’d tried to kill him when he broke things off with her, he didn’t trust her and never had. Maybe at one time her edge had been a big part of her appeal, but now Dave knew only too well the cost of getting mixed up with Angelette Lapierre. And that was one mistake he wasn’t looking to repeat.

      But a young woman had been brutally murdered and her parents wanted justice. That was a hard situation to walk away from, especially for Dave, and he had a feeling that was exactly what Angelette was banking on.

      As the boat rocked gently in the current, Dave tipped back his head, propped up his feet and tried to let the peaceful setting lull him. Sunrise in the Gulf was always spectacular, a fiery palette of crimson and gold splashed across a deep lavender canvas. As the mist slowly burned away in the early morning heat, the landscape turned a deep, earthy green. Violet clumps of iris jutted through a thick carpet of algae and duckweed, and purple water lilies opened in the green-gold light that filtered down through the cypress trees.

      Off to his right, a flock of snowy egrets took flight from the swamp grass, and a second later, Dave saw the familiar snout and unblinking stare of a gator glide past his boat. The vista was at once beautiful and menacing, a shadowy world of dark water and thick curtains of Spanish moss.

      Dave had been born and raised in New Orleans, but he loved the Cajun Coast, with its teeming bayous and maze of channels where an outsider could get lost for days. Even when he’d still lived in the city, he had come down every chance he had to help Marsilius with the charters. After he and Claire were married, she would come with him, and when he was finished working for the day, they’d take the boat back out to watch the sunset. Sometimes he would rest on deck while she cooked dinner in the galley, but most of the time he would sit below and watch her.

      Her face had mesmerized him. Even the menial tasks she’d performed dozens of times drew a fierce scowl of concentration to her brow, and Dave always wondered what went through her head then. He’d call out her name to make her glance up, so that he could see her quick smile. She had a shy, intimate way of looking at him that made him want to drop whatever he was doing and take her in his arms, no matter where they were.

      Sometimes they would stay out on the water until well after dark, and make love on the boat. Afterward Claire would sit between his legs, his arms wound around her as they watched the stars shimmer through the treetops.

      When Ruby got older they’d brought her along a few times, but she didn’t take to the water. Too many bugs to suit her, and she didn’t like getting her hair all tangled on the breeze.

      “You’re a little city girl,” Dave would tease her.

      To which Ruby would proudly respond, “I’m just like my maw-maw.”

      Claire had always been a little befuddled by how Ruby emulated her grandmother, and Charlotte had been downright horrified. But Dave got a kick out of it. Lucille was earthy and she looked like a hot mess most of the time, but she had a good heart. And she was the only one in the family who still gave him the time of day.

      He stirred restlessly. The reminiscing had shattered his fragile peace. Loneliness started to creep up on him, and deep inside, he felt the familiar tug of a dangerous thirst. Maybe he’d been hiding out in the swamps and bayous of St. Mary Parish for a little too long. His trips to New Orleans—two days ago and again last night—had reminded him of a life he’d been trying for years to convince himself he didn’t miss.

      Finishing off the coffee, he started the engines and headed back in. Marsilius’s place on the bayou was an old weathered building covered in license plates and sheet metal that glinted in the early-morning sunshine. The ramshackle bait and tackle shop also sold sandwiches and snacks, and as Dave tied off at the private dock, he spotted Latrell Bingham dumping bags of ice into the washtubs Marsilius used to chill soft drinks and beer. The kid looked up, grinned and waved to Dave, then went back to his work.

      Dave lived just down the road in an old two-story bungalow with screened-in porches and trellises of climbing roses. It wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but the place suited him fine. Except for at night, and then he missed the noises of the city. The scream of a siren heading across Canal Street toward the hospital, or the music and drunken laughter spilling from the bars and strip clubs on Bourbon Street. But what he missed most of all was the hum of alcohol as it coursed through his bloodstream, numbing the pain and guilt, giving him a split second of peace before the rage took over.

      The bayou gave him too much time to think. Sitting out on his porch after dark, with the moon glinting off the water and the croak of bullfrogs and crickets echoing up from the swamp, Dave would start to remember the way Ruby’s eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, and how she’d cling to his neck when he galloped her off to bed. The way Claire would look up at him when he returned, and quietly put away her book.

      He remembered everything, and yet at times, it seemed to Dave that he had a hard time calling up their faces and the sound of their voices. The old demons would start to prod him then. Alcohol had always given him a moment of clarity along with the peace. If he stopped at one drink or even two, he would be able to remember them properly. The problem was, he’d never known when to quit. A couple of whiskeys would turn into a two-day bender that left him shaky and sick and wondering why he didn’t just hole up somewhere and die.

      He СКАЧАТЬ