“Not at all,” she answered, glad to be on the positive side of her clients again. “They were talking and laughing like always. I remember thinking what nice people they were. He stood up, they kissed-I remember wishing my husband kissed me like that-and she touched his cheek and watched him all the way out the door. Oh, and he tried to kiss the baby, but she didn’t let him. Gosh, I hope he finds his watch. Anything else?”
“Thank you, no, Cindy,” Manseur said. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“Oh,” she said, laughing, “my name’s not Cindy, it’s Nancy. I wear the tag because I don’t want people to know my real name on account of some men can be too friendly and bug me, but I don’t wear my wedding ring because it really cuts down the tips. How skitzed is that? Plus, my husband is the jealous type. Men tip more if they think you’re single. Do you guys want to order anything?”
“Coffees,” Manseur said, closing the notebook. “Black for me. Alexa? And we’ll be eating breakfast.”
“Black is fine,” Alexa said, lifting a menu.
“Right up,” Cindy, who was really Nancy, told them.
“By the way, Nancy,” Alexa said, “did you notice any odd people in here yesterday? Maybe hanging around outside while the Wests were in here?”
“Odd people…in here? Throw a rock.” Nancy walked away laughing.
A minute later, she returned with two mugs of hot coffee and two menus. “I don’t think most people even know who the Wests are. Sometimes people who know them are here and they visit and like that. But not yesterday that I noticed.”
“Did you see any older green vehicles?” Alexa asked.
“No. Well, there was a beat-up SUV that I saw drive by about five or six times.”
“Wouldn’t be an SUV,” Alexa said. SUVs didn’t have glass headlights.
“Thanks, Nancy.” Manseur smiled. “You’ve been a big help. If you remember anything, please call me.” He gave her one of his cards. Unlike his boss, he only had one kind, with his office phone, fax, and cellular printed on them.
Nancy tucked the NOPD card into the back pocket of her jeans after reading it. “Is there a reward for this missing watch?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Manseur told her.
Nancy turned and went back to work.
“So it sounds like there was serious trouble in paradise,” Alexa said, opening the menu.
Manseur looked at her with a puzzled expression.
Alexa laughed. “I doubt their marriage could have survived the gumbo incident.”
Manseur smiled and shook his head. “Obviously they love each other.”
“He was abducted,” Alexa said. “There’s not a doubt in my mind. So there’ll be a ransom demand, or he’s dead.”
“See anything you want to eat?” Manseur asked, opening his menu.
“Detective Kennedy mentioned the seafood gumbo,” Alexa said. “Best on the Lakefront, he said.”
Manseur said, “Breakfast of champions.”
20
Betty Crocker felt like an idiot as she followed Parnell’s wide backside through the weeds and around the stunted trees and bushes. She had to fight laughing out loud, because the fool kept waving his hand around in the air, gesturing commands. The trouble was Parnell hadn’t told her what his signals meant. As far as she could tell, he could have been saying anything from “Follow me” to “Gal, I’ve got me some itchy-ass hemorrhoids.”
She was carrying the video camera and was tempted to film him from behind, but she was afraid she’d erase the hulk toting up into his private dwelling that sheet-wrapped object Parnell said was probably a gator with its tail chopped off.
Wildlife and Fisheries Officer-in-Training Betty Crocker followed the wide-ass fool Elliot Parnell onto the blistered-wood dock that anchored the floating-on-rusting-oil-drums, crooked little shack. Betty was careful to avoid the pool of crusted blood that looked like a pizza-sized scab that had flies scrambling over it and buzzing in the warm still air. On the dock, just underneath the tin porch roof, bowls of rusted fishing hooks and all manner of spring-loaded traps and empty-halfway-up scum-coated milk jugs were stacked helter-skelter on chicken-wire crab traps. The shack’s windows were covered inside with burlap sheets.
Parnell was sweating, so his shirt looked like he’d been juicing oranges using his armpits. The gun, a Smith amp; Wesson. 38, in his hand was rock-steady. He reached out and slowly turned the shack’s doorknob.
“It’s not locked.” Officer Parnell’s voice creaked just like the hinges on the door.
Pushing it open, Parnell looked inside. He took a step into the shack and his right foot crashed through rotten boards to his left knee. His right leg folded, causing him to bang his knee.
“Sheee-IT!” he bellowed.
Betty stared at him, trying not to laugh at what felt like a pratfall, but wasn’t.
“My damn leg’s caught in something. Shit! What was that!?”
Betty set the camera down and grabbed his left arm and pulled him up while he used his bent leg for additional leverage. When his leg came out of the hole, there was a large band of something wrapped around his boot. To Betty’s horror, it flopped and writhed hideously, then fell back into the hole. “Moccasin! It was a cottonmouth!” he screamed.
“You git bit?” she asked.
“Can’t bite through my boots. It was sliding all over my foot. If I hadn’t been wearing my snake-proofs, I’d be good as dead.” Parnell sat back in the doorway, pulling off his boot. Using his fingers as well as his eyes, he explored his naked fish-belly-white ankle with veins in it looking like blue lightning strikes.
“It was a damned booby trap!” He leaned forward and looked down. “Two of the biggest cottonmouth bastards I ever saw! Christ almighty.” He laughed nervously as he stood and, holding on to the doorjamb, tested the floor beyond the rotten spot. When he found solid flooring, he moved into the room. “Careful, Betty. Wait a second.”
“I don’t want none of them snakes,” she said, watching him lift a hinged plywood panel that he flipped over to cover the trap. She walked in and let her eyes grow accustomed to the dim interior and her nose to the remarkable stench comprised of God knew what all. The room was as cluttered as a junkyard storeroom and she knew she would have to be careful in case there were more booby traps, or snakes.
“Smells like a crack house,” she muttered.
“You been in a crack house?” Parnell smarted off.
Her eyes found a cot with a sheet covering something that appeared to be hiding a more human than alligator form beneath.
“Careful,” Parnell warned as she approached the cot. He was aiming his revolver at the still form.
“Your alligator’s breathing,” Betty said. She leaned out, reached down, and threw back the sheet.
“Good God!” she said as air rushed from her lungs. “It’s a man. He’s been beat to shit.”
“You sure he’s alive?” Parnell said.
“Put that gun away,” Betty said after noticing Parnell was still aiming his gun at the poor man. She felt the guy’s neck. “He’s got a pulse.”
“We need to call this in to the sheriff.” Parnell was looking around, probably hoping to find a fresh alligator skin or two in the mess, because that was the kind of prick Parnell was. A half-dead man and he’s still looking for some evidence on Leland Ticholet, Betty thought. Just itching to write a damn citation, like he was paid by the piece.
“I need something to wash off his face,” she said. “Call for help.”
As she started looking for some water, she noticed Parnell slapping at his belt. “My radio,” he said.
“You must have left it on the boat.”
“No, I think I set it down when I was looking at the video out there. Go get it.”
“What?”
“I’m in charge, Officer Crocker. Go get the radio.”
