At Risk (19 page)

He called out as he came, and she clung to him as she followed.

Afterwards, they held each other for a long moment, then eased apart, and both put themselves back together.

“I’m sorry, chérie,” he said.

“If I hadn’t wanted it, it wouldn’t have happened,” she heard herself admit.

She wanted to say more. But she’d gotten burned last time she’d brought up their shared past at the absolute wrong time.

Instead she said, “I think we have to talk to Calista.”

“Yeah.” He gave a harsh laugh. “She’s going to love the conversation.”

“Do we show her the book?”

“I think we copy the pictures and put the book away in a very safe place in case she decides she doesn’t want anyone to know about her past.

“Good idea.”

Chapter Eighteen

While Rafe used the scanner and the computer to make and print out copies of the photos with Calista and Jillian, Eugenia washed up and changed from her sweatpants and tee shirt into jeans and a white silk blouse.

When he had put the pictures into a folder, they looked for a good place to hide the book.

Rafe unscrewed a heating vent, shoved it inside and put the cover back on.
Then Eugenia called the voodoo priestess’s cell.

Calista picked up on the second ring.

“Eugenia?”

“Yes.”

“You’re calling pretty late.”

“We need to talk to you,” she said.

“About what?”

“About Villars’ murder.”

Her voice turned sharp. “You think I’m involved?”

“No. We think we know who did it, but we need proof.
Can we come over to talk to you?”

There was a long hesitation on the other end of the line.
Finally Calista said, “Okay.”

When they were in the car, Eugenia said, “I— uh—thought of something.
The autopsy report said the poison was a voodoo potion. What if Holly got it from Calista?”

“I thought of it too and decided it was unlikely,” Rafe answered.

“Because?”

“Because a voodoo potion would implicate Calista, so why would she want someone to use it at a ceremony she was conducting?”

“A good point.”

“Holly probably wanted the cops to suspect Calista—and instead Cumberland’s focused on us.”

“Yeah.”

They pulled up at a modest house in Gentilly.

The porch light was on, and when they rang the bell, the voodoo priestess came to the door quickly, wearing a pair of jeans and a mint-green cashmere sweater, an outfit that Eugenia had never dreamed of seeing on her.

She. ushered them into a large living room.

The exterior of the house looked a lot like its lower-middle-class neighbors, but the interior had obviously been extensively modified to combine several small rooms into one, with a newly installed kitchen area at one side. The furnishings were modern, with interesting African accents like a six-foot-tall giraffe in one corner, wooden masks on the wall, and tall carved candlesticks.

“You said you think you know who killed Villars,” Calista said. “Who?”

“It’s complicated,” Rafe said. “We should sit down and talk.”

Her reaction was similar to Eugenia’s when Rafe had put off showing
her
the book.

“Listen, you can’t drop something like that on me and then not come clean with me.”

“Let’s sit down,” Rafe said again.

He moved to a comfortable seating area with a sleek leather sofa and two chairs facing each other across a metal and glass coffee table.

Rafe and Eugenia took the sofa. Calista sighed and dropped into one of the chairs.

“We figured out why someone might want to get even with Villars,” Rafe said and passed her the folder.
As soon as she opened it and saw the first picture, she made a moaning sound.

“Where did you get this?”

Eugenia answered. “I got Holly out of the house so Rafe could search for evidence. He found a photo album hidden under a floorboard.”

“And these are copies of some of the pictures? Where are the originals?”

“In a safe place.”

“Are you trying to blackmail me?”

“No. You’re not the only teenager in the book. There are at least two dozen more. In similar poses. And there’s one pose of you and Jillian Hargrave together.”

“Shit.” She got up, walked away from them and stood with her back to them. “This is going to make Jillian sick.”

“What about you?”

Instead of answering the question, she said, “Martin used to say Holly hated his play-time pursuits, but she couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Apparently she did.”

“How do you know it’s her?
If there are dozens of women in the book, one of them could have gotten her revenge. I mean, Jillian was there that night.”

Rafe cleared his throat.
“It wasn’t Jillian. Come back so I can talk to you.”

She returned and sat in the chair, her expression angry.

“You can believe this or not. I have a talent for touching objects and getting visions from them.”

Her eyes widened.
“You? How? Why?”

“I don’t know how or why.
It’s just something that’s been with me since puberty. That gris-gris we brought to you last week. When I touched it, I got an impression of somebody making it. I mean I saw them doing it, but I didn’t know who it was until I went to question Eugenia’s cousin and realized I was in the room where it was put together”

Calista tipped her head to the side. “That’s a talent more likely with the black folks.”

“Maybe in your world. In mine, I know a lot of people who aren’t black—with talents you wouldn’t believe. But let’s stay on topic. I took Eugenia back to the night of the ceremony, and we saw Holly put poison on Villars food.”

“How?”

“Remember that big ring she was wearing? She moved the stone aside and dripped something onto a piece of quiche.”

“Clever,” Calista muttered.

“Of course we can’t use that as evidence, and by now she could have thrown the ring away.”

Calista nodded.

“What do you know about Holly?”

“She came to me asking for voodoo lessons.”

Eugenia sucked in a breath. “Did you give them to her?”

“I taught her some things about the religion.”

“Did you teach her how to make poison?” Rafe said.

“No.
But I lent her some books. They had old recipes.” She gave him a direct look. “I make love potions and gris-gris, but I don’t make poison.”

He didn’t know if he believed her, but he knew she hadn’t killed Villars.

She kept her gaze fixed on him. “And in any case, I wouldn’t have poisoned Villars. Her eyes were bright as she said, “There were some girls who hated what he did to them. At least one died of shame. And I know one killed herself. But not me. I found out that I liked it. Well, all except for when he made me do stuff with that creep, Carl Fortuna.”

Eugenia grimaced.
“His caretaker out at Marrero?”

“Yeah.
You know him?”

“Not well.
He was at a party I catered out there.”

“Villars was one thing.
Fortuna was another.”

“You’re saying you consented to your relationship with Villars?” Rafe asked.

“Not at first. Then I realized it turned me on, and I kept up the contact—on the proviso that I wouldn’t have to see Fortuna again. Villars met with me from time to time over the years, sometimes in town and sometimes at the country house. And he didn’t always want to be the top. Sometimes he wanted me to dominate him, which I was glad to do. He could be very generous to girls who pleased him. He rewarded me by setting me up in my shop. I owe him a lot. There’s no reason I would want to kill him.”

She looked defiantly at the other two people in the room.

“That’s why he had a locked room out there?” Eugenia asked.

“Yeah.” His playroom.

Rafe leaned forward. “How did you meet him?”

“I was the protégé of a voodoo priestess named Denada.
She thought Villars would like me. And he did.”

“And what about Jillian?”

“She had run away from home and was living on the street. She did a lot of stuff for money. Villars was out looking for young tail and brought her home. When I found out her background, I convinced her to go back to her family. And she took my advice. Her parents were strict but well off. She stuck it out at home until she went away to college. When they died, she inherited a lot of money from them.”

“You said you had no reason to kill him.
What was her attitude toward him?” Rafe pressed.

“She hated him.” Calista laughed. “She used her computer expertise to steal from him.
She enjoyed making money disappear from his accounts. That was more satisfying to her than killing him.”

Rafe nodded, thinking about the convoluted relationships among the people who had been at the voodoo ceremony.

“One more question,” he said.

Calista gave him an inquiring look.

“There was a knife on the table at the ceremony. Where did it come from?”

She tipped her head to the side.
“I thought.” She stopped and looked at Eugenia. “You didn’t put it there?”

“I thought it was yours.”

“I’m guessing it was Holly’s,” Rafe said. “I think she put it there for symbolic reasons.”

“Why?”

“She used it to kill a goat in a voodoo ceremony. I guess she wanted that extra juju. But that’s not what we really need to worry about. We have to figure out how to get ourselves off the hook by trapping Holly into a confession.”

A loud rap at the door made them all go rigid.

“Police. Open up.”

Chapter Nineteen

Calista looked at Rafe. “What should I do?”

“You have to open it, or they’ll bust it down,” he answered in a controlled voice.

When she opened the door, Detective Cumberland strode into the room, wearing his usual expensive suit and looking pleased with himself.

“Well, well.
The nest of conspirators. What are you up to—trying to figure out how you’re going to deflect my interest?”

“No,” Rafe said, looking the man straight in the eyes and thinking he’d like to ask how the detective kept showing up everywhere they went.
But he knew he wasn’t going to get a straight answer.

“Then what are the three of you doing together?”

“We know that Holly Villars killed her husband, and we’re discussing what to do about it.”

Cumberland laughed. “The distraught widow? And what is her motive, pray tell?”

“She was angry about her husband’s extramarital activities.” Rafe looked at Calista. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to show him the pictures.”

Her face had gone chalk white, but she picked up the folder from the table and handed it to Cumberland.”

“What is this?”

“It’s pretty clear,” Rafe said.

Cumberland’s eyes bugged out when he saw the photographs, including the one of Calista with Villars.

“What did you do, fake these?”

“Look at Calista’s face in the photos. These pictures are ten years old. It’s like saying Obama’s mother faked his birth announcement in the Honolulu papers. Nobody planned a conspiracy years in advance.”

Rafe could see that Cumberland conceded the point.
“Then where the hell did you get these?”

Rafe kept his voice low and calm.
“Villars forced Calista and dozens of other girls into an S and M relationship with him against their will. We found the pictures in an antique chest that must have belonged to Villars.”

Neither woman in the room spoke up to correct him.

“Apparently it was Villars’ sick little hobby to dominate young woman, and his wife didn’t like it. Which is why she killed him.”

“You have proof of this?” the detective asked.

“No.”

Cumberland snorted.
“Then this is all a story to throw me off the track.”

“No,” Rafe said. “I saw her put the poison in a miniature quiche and hand it to him at the voodoo ceremony.”

“And you didn’t tell me this before—why?”

“Because at the time I wasn’t sure what I had seen. And it would be Holly’s word against mine.
But the pictures confirm her motivation for me.”

“We want to get her to confess,” Calista said.

“How?”

“I think I can do it,” Eugenia added.

Rafe shook his head. “Not you.”

“Yes, me.
What? You think she’s going to confess to Calista? Why would she? But I think she’ll open up with me. I can go to see her wearing a . . . a wire, do you call it? You can be outside listening.”

Rafe could see Cumberland considering the idea.

“All right,” he clipped out.

Rafe was torn between victory and despair.
He’d come over here thinking they could use Calista as the bait, but he knew that Eugenia was right. She was a better choice for the dangerous job because she was from the same social class as Holly. And she hadn’t been fooling around with her husband, either.

“When were you planning to do this?” Cumberland asked.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Eugenia answered. She turned to Cumberland. “Can you be ready by then?”

“Yes.”
He looked at each of them. “And I don’t want any strategy planning among the three of you tonight.” He focused on Rafe. “I want you at your B&B. And I want Ms. Lacoste and Ms. Beaumont in their own beds. I will reinforce those restrictions with cops inside each of the women’s homes to make sure you’re not telephoning or e-mailing. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” they all answered.

“We’ll pick you up and drive you to the station house in the morning.”

oOo

Rafe ached to have a few minutes alone with Eugenia, but Cumberland had made that impossible. He took one last look at her before a uniformed officer ushered him out of Calista’s house. He’d thought he was being so clever when he’d suggested showing the pictures to the voodoo priestess. Now he’d put Eugenia in terrible danger, and he had no way of stopping the plot that he’d set in motion.

He let his police escort take him back to his room, when he wanted to spend the night with Eugenia, coaching her on how to handle Holly in this crucial confrontation.
He prayed that he’d get a chance in the morning to give her some tips on how to deal with a woman who had already coolly murdered her husband in front of a bunch of witnesses and then convinced everyone that she was grieving.

oOo

Hating being out of the loop and knowing he had to find a way to relax, he put on his robe and practiced some strenuous martial arts moves until his muscles were screaming.

Finally he lay down, but his mind was still turning over everything that had happened.
Like Cumberland showing up at Calista’s. Maybe after he knew Rafe had found the GPS on his car, he’d gone to more conventional methods—like a tag-team tail.

Of course there was no way to prove he’d been the one to put the tracking device on the car, and asking about it couldn’t be a good idea.

Rafe set that aside, and finally he was able to sleep for a few hours.

When he arrived at the station house in the morning, he found Cumberland had already wired Eugenia for sound and given her some instructions for dealing with Holly.
Then she got out her cell phone and dialed the widow.

He waited with his heart pounding as he listened to the phone ring.
Finally Holly picked up, with the volume set so they could all hear.

“Eugenia?”

“Yes.”

“What can I do for you?”

“You know that antiquing expedition we went on a couple of days ago?”

“Yes.”

Rafe could tell she was struggling not to sound like she was on edge.

“There was a piece I saw that I was interested in.
I went back and gave it a more careful look and found something in one of the drawers . . .” She stopped and started again. “I want to talk to you about it.”

“Oh? What is it exactly?”

“I’d rather not talk about it over the phone. Can I come over?”

Holly hesitated for a moment. “Yes, if you think it’s important.”

“Would ten o’clock be too early?”

“No. That’s fine.”

Eugenia hung up and looked at her watch. “I’ve got to be there in a half hour.”

Rafe had had all he could take. Without looking at any of the other people in the room, he put his arms around her and held her tightly.
He felt her melt against him and dropped her head to his shoulder.

He stroked his hand down her back. “You’re going to do great.”

“I hope so.”

“Just don’t eat or drink anything while you’re in there.”

Eugenia’s laugh was brittle.

He wanted to say, “I love you. For God’s sakes be careful.”

The first part jolted him. He had never admitted that before. Now he knew with absolute conviction that it was true.

Cumberland stepped forward. “Come on lovebirds.
We have to get the show on the road.”

Eugenia swallowed.
“Yes.”

The detective pressed a speed-dial button on his smartphone, and someone answered.

“Are you getting all that?”

“Loud and clear.”

Eugenia flushed when she realized that she and Rafe hadn’t been talking only to the people in the room—they were also broadcasting to the technician who had wired her for sound.

They all trooped out to a white van with lettering proclaiming that it belonged to a rug-cleaning service.
The interior was carpeted and there was a bench seat along one side. On the other side was a long desk filled with monitoring equipment, where a technician sat.

Eugenia sat up front with Cumberland.
Rafe and Calista took the bench seat in back.

They drove toward Holly’s house and stopped around the corner.

Cumberland got out and looked around, then opened the back door and motioned Eugenia out. “Show time.”

“I want you to walk toward the house speaking in a low voice, and we’ll keep doing sound checks.
If we can’t hear you, we’ll use your phone vibrator.”

Eugenia nodded.

Rafe forced himself to stay where he was as she picked up the folder with the pictures. And when she disappeared from sight, he felt his chest tighten. But he could still hear her reciting a recipe for shrimp etouffee. When she stopped speaking, his heart gave a hard thump. Then he heard a doorbell ring.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Eugenia said.

“Come in.”

This was another test of the sound system.
The door closed behind Eugenia, and Holly said, “What’s this about exactly?”

“It’s kind of embarrassing,”

“Perhaps we should get comfortable.”

They heard footsteps, and Rafe tried to imagine exactly where they were going in the house.

The two women began talking again.

“Can I offer you some tea?” Holly asked.

“No. I’m fine.”

“Then why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

He heard sounds of them moving around. Then Eugenia said. “I found some pictures in an old dresser I had delivered yesterday. They must have gotten caught in the underside of a drawer”

“Pictures of what?”

Eugenia must have passed them over, because they heard Holly make a gasping sound.

“Did you know your husband was into . . . that kind of thing.”

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

“Do you think I’m lying about something so disgusting?” Holly snapped.

“I think it would be pretty upsetting to suddenly discover this kind of activity.
These are pictures of your husband and Calista, the voodoo priestess.”

“I know who she is.”

“But there were other girls. It looked like he’d been at it for a long time. How could he do that right under your nose?”

“Sometimes he took them out to our house near Jean Lafitte Park,” she snapped, then sucked in a sharp breath.

“So you did know.”

“I knew that bastard was more interested in his little honeypots than in me.”

“That must have been very disturbing.”

Holly made a sobbing sound. “It was humiliating.
I was willing to do anything he wanted, but I wasn’t young or pretty enough for him.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yes,” Holly sobbed out.

“I would have wanted to get even with him. How did you feel about it?”

“I hated him. I wanted him to pay for what he did, but I had to make it look like someone else wanted to harm him.”

Rafe leaned forward, wishing he could see what was going on, but they only had the sound.

“Did you study voodoo poisons?” Eugenia asked.

“What—have you been checking up on me?”

“No, of course not. I’m on your side. I’m here because I know how disgusted you must have felt.”

“I studied voodoo rituals.
I’d go out to the country house when I knew Martin was away. And I’d pay Fortuna to keep quiet about my being there. But the rituals didn’t do squat. I knew it was going to take more than sticking pins in a doll—or even killing a goat. I found an old recipe that seemed promising. I put it on one of the hors d'oeuvres at your restaurant the other night.”

“That was clever of you.”

“Don’t patronize me. I’m sure you’re here to collect evidence. Like the other day when you took me out for a visit to the antique shops. I’ll bet you did it so that detective could get in here and snoop around. And now what are you up to? Are you planning to go to the police?”

“No,” Eugenia denied.

“I can’t let you do that.”

Eugenia gasped.
“You can’t shoot me. Everybody will know you did it.”

“No, you came over to harass me for ruining the reputation of your restaurant.
You attacked me, and I had to shoot you.”