Her blond hair was chopped off just below her ears with a fringe of uneven bangs across her forehead. It was an odd cut, and Evangeline wondered if she’d somehow gotten hold of a pair of scissors and whacked it off herself.
“I’ve brought you a visitor,” Dr. Carlisle said. “This is Detective Theroux. She’s come all the way from New Orleans to see you.”
The woman’s unblinking stare unnerved Evangeline.
“Hello,” she said as she knelt before the woman.
Evangeline’s first instinct was to recoil when Mary Alice put out a hand, as if to touch her face. This was a woman who had brutally murdered her own children. But Evangeline forced herself to remain still, and the hand that brushed against her cheek was surprisingly gentle.
Mary Alice reached out with her other hand, and for a moment, Evangeline thought she meant to cup her face. Then she realized the woman was holding something out to her.
In her palm was an origami crane.
After Evangeline left Pinehurst Manor, she headed south through Baton Rouge, deep into Bayou country.
Leaving Highway One, she continued her south-ward trek on a two-lane blacktop that wound through a long corridor of oak, cypress and willow trees. White clouds drifted across a soft blue sky, and as the light shimmered down golden through the leaves, a lush drowsiness settled over the canebrakes and along the flooded ditches, thick with lily pads, cattails and drooping stalks of water iris.
Just on the outside of Torrence, Nash called.
“You’re breaking up,” Evangeline said as she pressed the phone to her ear. “I can’t hear you.”
There was a long pause before he came back on. “Is that better?”
“Some.” She could hear the roar of an engine in the background. “Where are you?”
“In a plane on my way back to New Orleans. I was wondering if we could meet this afternoon. I have something I want to talk to you about.”
“I’m not in the city. I asked for a personal day so that I could take care of some things.”
“Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”
“J.D.’s fine. He’s with my mother. I’m in the Bayou Country just outside Torrence.”
“What are you doing down there?”
“It’s where the Lemay family used to live. I’m trying to get a lead on Rebecca Lemay’s whereabouts. Lena Saunders said that her sister may have been spotted recently at the family’s old house. I want to see if the local law enforcement knows anything about it.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Maybe. I’ve asked someone at NOPD to look into both Ruth and Rebecca Lemay’s backgrounds, but you’ve a lot more resources than we do.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.”
“One more thing. Lena Saunders told me that she thinks Rebecca may be working with an accomplice now. She also told me that she and her sister were raised in a charismatic church, so that could be why snakes were used to kill Paul and David Courtland.”
“You think that’s how she and her accomplice hooked up?”
“I have no idea, but I thought I’d throw it out there in case you run across anything in either of their backgrounds.”
“Anything else?”
“No, that’s it. I’m just entering the city limits so I need to go.”
“Evangeline?”
“Yeah?”
“You run into any trouble down there, you call me.”
“I don’t anticipate any trouble, but thanks.”
The concern in his voice made her uncomfortable. After last night, she knew Nash was interested in her, but no matter what Johnny had done, she still wasn’t ready to move on yet. Especially with a man who had been so instrumental in shattering her illusions.
In Torrence, she located the sheriff’s office near the courthouse and parked beneath the tangled limbs of a water oak. The sun was boiling overhead, but the breeze in the shade was so cool on her damp back, she found herself shivering as she pushed open the glass door and stepped into the air-conditioned police station.
After giving her name to the receptionist, she was shown into Sheriff Arnie Thibodaux’s office, a small, square room encased in glass on two sides to provide a view of the street, as well as the outer office.
Thibodaux was about fifty, with a thick black mustache and tiny eyes that seemed to disappear into folds of skin the color and texture of sun-baked mud. He was dressed in a pressed blue uniform that looked so fresh, Evangeline had to wonder if he’d set foot outside his office all day.
Boots propped on his desk, he sat reared back in his chair reading a fishing magazine, but as soon as he saw Evangeline, he tossed the periodical aside, dropped his feet to the floor and waved her in.
“So tell me something. What’s a New Orleans homicide detective doing all the way down here?” he asked when she’d settled into a hard plastic chair across from his desk.
“I’m hoping you can give me some information on an old case.”
“Well, that all depends on how old we’re talking about.” His voice was flat and reserved and he didn’t seem overly anxious to be of service.
“Over thirty years ago.”
He whistled as he adjusted the belt around his ample waistline. “That could be a problem. Most of the files that go that far back were destroyed in a fire. Floods got the rest.”
“Well, that’s not what I wanted to hear,” Evangeline told him. “Maybe you can help me anyway. I’m looking for information on Mary Alice Lemay. She killed—”
“I know what she did.” The good-ol’-boy facade slipped for a moment as something unpleasant flitted across his weathered features.
“You were around back then?”
“I was a deputy,” he said grimly. “Still wet behind the ears when we got the call that day, but what we found out there at that old house seasoned me real fast.”
“I can imagine.”
“I never saw anything like it, and hope I never do again. I couldn’t sleep for a month. What that woman did to those li’l’ ol’ kids…” He trailed off, shaking his head, still, after all these years, unable to fathom how a mother could take the lives of her own children. His dark eyes fastened on her, and she could see his natural curiosity warring with the small-town cop’s wariness of his big-city counterpart. “What’s your interest in that case, anyway?”
Evangeline decided to be up-front with him. The last thing she wanted was to alienate local law enforcement. “We think there may be a connection to a recent homicide in New Orleans.”
He cocked a dark brow in surprise. “I don’t see how that’s possible. Mary Alice has been locked up in the loony bin ever since it happened.”
“I realize that. But I’m interested in her daughters.”
“You think one of them is involved? How?”
“It’s a long story.”
He folded his hands behind his head. “I’m not going anywhere. Besides, cooperation is a two-way street in my book. Let’s hear what you got.”
Evangeline paused, glancing out the window as she wondered where to start. Across the street, a woman pushed a baby carriage along the hot, steamy sidewalk.
“Rebecca Lemay may have been involved in the murder of a prominent New Orleans attorney named Paul Courtland. Have you ever heard of him?”
