“Aaarrgh!”
“You say that a lot. Is it a speech impediment?”
“Do you have a death wish?” She tried to swat him on the shoulder, but he rolled away onto his back.
It was fun baiting Sylvie. It always had been. But this was no time for fun and games. “Look, it’s been swell, but I better get out of here while I still can. If the Cypress Oil people don’t get me, you will.” He rose to his feet and walked into the living room and over to the French doors. Carefully, he checked the front yard and street. Empty. Amazing that none of the neighbors had heard the gunshots. Well, it was a Monday afternoon… a workday for most folks.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Sylvie asked, rising, too.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, rubbing his chin in contemplation.
“What? Why do you hesitate?”
“Well, I hate to draw the Houma police into this till we know for sure what we’re dealing with.”
“You’re saying they’re corrupt, too?”
He shook his head decisively. “No, but there would be publicity if we call them to investigate. It’s hard to keep a lid on it, especially when we’ve garnered as much press as we have so far, with so little effort. Putting ourselves in the limelight even more will make it all the harder to find out who’s behind this crap. Besides that, it will be awfully hard to continue my investigation or your experiments under a spotlight.”
Sylvie’s shoulders slumped with disappointment. “So we do nothing?”
Luc was a little concerned about the way both of them were using “we,” but he could address that later. “No, we have to do something. Make a record of this incident, if nothing else. I have a fishing pal who’s a P.I., a former police detective from Dallas. We need some expert advice.”
Sylvie brightened visibly.
Luc wasn’t feeling so bright, though. Too many things were happening too fast. Still, he reached for the phone.
“What’s your friend’s name?” Sylvie asked enthusiastically as he punched in the digits.
The P.I.’s number was ringing, and Luc looked up at her, a slow grin tugging at his lips. “Claudia Casale.”
Claudia Casale was a six-foot-tall blonde with the sharply honed physique of a female bodybuilder. None of her assets were hidden by her crisp white T-shirt, proclaiming “Extreme Exercise,” or her tight designer jeans. Sylvie couldn’t help wondering what type of fishing she and Luc engaged in. She’d bet it was strenuous stuff. Extreme to the max. And, for sure, Ms. P.I. wasn’t the type who would need a man to bait her hook.
Claudia had already dusted for prints; there were none. She searched for but found no physical evidence that would identify a suspect. She took photographs of the crime scene, regardless, and made a call to a locksmith and window glazier to come and secure the broken French door. She checked the bullet holes and gathered bullet casings, preserving them in little plastic zip bags. A small but efficient tap had been discovered in Sylvie’s phone, and photographic devices planted near her front and back doors.
The gris-gris held some interest for Claudia, which was surprising since Sylvie had expected a detective to dismiss the importance of voodoo. Claudia planned to show it to an ancient swamp woman who still dabbled openly in the voodoo arts. Everyone knew a gris-gris held a powerful curse that could only be removed by a certified exorcism of the spirits. Sylvie only hoped she wouldn’t be required to burn black candles every night, or carry around a bat’s eye, or make an animal sacrifice or some such thing. Perhaps the purchase of some magic charm would do the trick.
Geez, she couldn’t believe she was even contemplating such nonsense.
“Motives,” Claudia said, plopping down on the sofa next to Luc. Sylvie, sitting on a nearby upholstered chair feeding bits of bread to Samson and Delilah, noticed how Luc’s arm immediately went up over the top of the sofa—sort of, but not quite, embracing the woman. “Without evidence, the only way we can narrow down the suspects you’ve already mentioned is to examine their motives,” Claudia went on. “I can look for witnesses, though I doubt there will be any, and I’ll check police computer files for a similar M.O., but motive is our strongest working element right now.”