Chapter Eighteen
“I never wanted things to go this way, Maryse,” the killer said.
Maryse’s eyes popped open, and she raised her head in disbelief. “Johnny?” she said as she stared at her father’s best friend. “But why?”
Johnny shook his head.
“If I’m going to die, shouldn’t I at least know why?”
“Because you had to go poking your nose in where it didn’t belong. Why couldn’t you leave things alone?”
Maryse’s mind raced with questions but not a single answer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What did I do?”
Johnny sneered. “Don’t play stupid with me. I know all about those tubes you send to New Orleans for testing. You knew the chemical company was dumping waste in the bayou, and you figured that’s what killed your dad, so you were going to get even. All that crap about trying to find a cure for cancer. You weren’t looking for a cure—you were looking for the cause.”
Maryse’s head began to spin. “You’re telling me you knew the chemical company was dumping toxic waste in the bayou? You knew that’s what killed my dad and you never said a word?” She stared at the man in front of her. “I thought you were his friend.”
“I was his friend, and I watched him waste away from that disease, and all I could think was that’s not going to happen to me. No way.”
A wave of nausea washed over Maryse. The thinning hair, the weight loss. She’d thought it was diet or age, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. “You have cancer.”
Johnny nodded. “And no insurance. As long as I keep the chemical company’s secret safe, they’ll keep paying for my treatments.”
“But other people could die because you haven’t told.”
“I was going to report them as soon as I was in remission, but then you had to get in the way, and I couldn’t afford to have them busted just yet. I’ve got another year, at least, of chemo to go.” He leveled the gun straight at Maryse’s head. “I’m sorry it has to be this way, Maryse. Sorrier than you’ll ever know. But I promise you won’t feel a thing. Not after the first few seconds, anyway.”
Maryse felt her blood run cold as she watched Johnny’s finger whiten on the trigger. This was it. The end of the line. An entire life devoted to one cause and her work left unfinished. What had been the point? She clenched her eyes shut and waited for the shot to enter her body, waited for her life to fade away, and when the shot came, she almost passed out from fear.
It wasn’t until she heard Luc shouting that she opened her eyes. Johnny lay splayed in front of her, his vacant eyes staring up at the night sky, a single bullet hole through his temple. Luc crouched in front of her and pulled her up from the ground, his eyes searching every square inch of her body.
“Am I dead?” Maryse asked.
Luc let out a strangled cry. “No!”
Maryse started to cry, and Luc pulled her close to him, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her forehead. “I wasn’t sure,” she said between sobs. “I mean, with you being able to see dead people. I just wasn’t sure.”
Luc let out a single laugh and held her even tighter. “I didn’t even think about that.” He pulled back a little and placed his hands on each side of her face. “You are very much alive, Maryse Robicheaux, and you’re going to stay that way to a ripe old age.”
Maryse rested her head on Luc’s chest and relaxed as his arms tightened around her. For that moment, she would choose to believe him.
It seemed Maryse had barely gotten her breath before the backup arrived in the form of cops, an ambulance, and the coroner. She felt the thrill of victory pass through her as she realized the morgue could just as easily have been there for her if not for Luc’s shooting accuracy. She still didn’t know how he’d found her, or why he was even looking, but at the moment, she didn’t care.
The paramedics whisked her off to the ambulance to assess the damage, and Luc joined a group of cops over to one side, probably giving his statement of the events. One paramedic was bandaging her shoulder while another tended to her cut feet when Mildred came rushing up. The hotel owner took one look at Maryse sitting in the ambulance and Johnny lying dead in the alley and began to sway.
She sucked in air like a drowning woman, and a paramedic shoved an oxygen mask over her face until her breathing became regular again. Maryse waited until she had taken a few normal breaths before explaining what had happened, leaving out, of course, the part that Helena had played in everything. Which brought Maryse up short. Where was Helena, anyway?
Mildred listened to Maryse’s story, her eyes growing wider and wider with each sentence until finally she’d finished her tale of horror. Mildred gasped as Maryse finished, and the paramedic hovered, oxygen mask in hand. She waved one hand in dismissal and told Maryse her own version of the night’s events.
She’d jumped up as soon as the alarm sounded and ran straight to Maryse’s room. When she found the door standing wide open, the window broken, and the empty bed, she’d run back downstairs to call the police, expecting the worst but hoping for the best. Maryse kept waiting for Mildred to blast her for running out of the hotel rather than to her for help but was relieved when it seemed that her substitute mother was going to let it go. Or was reserving it for a later date when she needed a good guilt trip to use.
Family was a wonderful thing.
Since Maryse’s injuries were minor, the paramedics released her to Mildred, and they headed back to the hotel with instructions from the police to await questioning within the next thirty minutes. Maryse looked around for Luc, anxious to speak to him, to fill in the missing pieces of the story, but she didn’t see him anywhere.
Disappointed, she followed Mildred into the hotel lobby, wondering why Luc had left so abruptly. In the alley, it had seemed like he’d really cared. Was that all just part of his job? She was just about to march outside and insist on seeing him when Sabine burst through the doorway in a panic.
As soon as she locked her gaze on Maryse, she ran across the lobby and grabbed her in a hug. “I’m fine,” Maryse said as Sabine squeezed harder. “Okay, well maybe now I have a broken rib, but other than that, I’m fine.”
Sabine released Maryse and brushed the tears from her face. “Don’t you dare joke about this, Maryse Robicheaux. I could have lost you.” She hugged her again, and Maryse felt the tears well up in her eyes once more.
“It’s all over now,” Maryse said through her tears. “It’s all over.”
Sabine released her once more and gave her a smile as Mildred hustled into the room with a glass of water and some aspirin. “You sit right down on that couch,” Mildred directed, “and I don’t want one bit of lip. All these goings on, it’s a damned wonder you haven’t had a heart attack—or given me one. You’re going to relax for a minute if I have to sit on you.”
Maryse grinned at Sabine, not caring in the least that Mildred was being bossy and pushy. Being bossy was simply her way of assuming control of the situation, her way of finding relief. Maryse relaxed on the couch and propped her sore feet on the coffee table, then took the water and aspirin from Mildred and downed them both.
The hotel door opened, and Luc walked in with a man he introduced as Agent Stephens. Maryse worried for a moment that this man might have seen her in fewer clothes and a much more compromising position, but she wasn’t about to go there now.
“More agents,” Maryse finally asked. “Is something wrong?”
Agent Stephens smiled. “Not at all, Ms. Robicheaux. And please, call me Brian. Everything is actually great.”
Maryse looked from Brian to Luc, hoping for confirmation and an explanation. “Really?”
Luc nodded. “The local police picked up Harold at the motel where he was staying. He’s in a small dingy cell, and he won’t be leaving for a long time. We’re betting the DA goes for the death penalty.”
Maryse shook her head. “He can’t.”
Luc looked confused. “Harold confessed to murdering his wife. That rates the death penalty in Louisiana.”
“Except that Harold didn’t kill Helena.”
All movement in the hotel ceased, and everyone stared at Maryse.
“How can you know that?” Sabine asked.
“Simple,” Maryse said. “Harold said he slipped rat poison in her coffee, but Helena’s medical file didn’t indicate any of the symptoms from rat poisoning at all. He may have tried to kill her—and me—but he didn’t succeed in either case.”
“Shit!” Luc said. “Not exactly the outcome I was looking for.”
Maryse nodded. “I understand, but Harold’s confession should be enough to get a court order to exhume Helena’s body, right? With a proper autopsy, looking specifically for foul play, we might get some answers.”
Luc looked over at Brian, who nodded. “Should be easy enough for the local DA to get,” Brian said.
“And what about Hank?” Maryse asked. “Did the police get a statement from him?”
Brian glanced over at Luc, clearly unsure how to answer. Luc looked at Maryse and shook his head. “Hank’s gone. His hospital bed was empty when the locals went to question him, and the nurse confirmed he never checked out through proper channels.”
“Gone?” Maryse tried to hide her disappointment. Why had Hank left? At this point, he couldn’t be found guilty of anything except being stupid, and that wasn’t a crime or half the people she’d ever met would be in jail.
Luc handed her an envelope. “He left this in the room.”
She took the envelope and opened it, pulling the papers from inside. It was a signed divorce decree. No note. Only Hank’s signature, putting an end to the marriage that never really was. She supposed he figured it was the least he could do for her. Maryse passed the papers to Mildred, who gave an exalted cry and waved them in the air at Sabine, who cheered.
Brian Stephens smiled. “Well, I guess if you guys don’t need anything else from me, I need to report back to New Orleans and fill them in on this latest angle in our case against the chemical company. Luc can explain the rest.” He gave everyone a wave and exited the room.
Maryse looked over at Luc. “The rest of what? I mean, I guess with the killer being Johnny—” Maryse choked a bit and had to clear her throat before continuing. “He said it was all because of the illegal dumping, so I guess that’s relevant to your case, right? But I still don’t understand why he thought I was getting evidence against the chemical company.”
Luc looked at her and sighed. “I think I do.”
Maryse stared at him in surprise. “How can you know?”
“I can’t know for sure, but I have a damn good idea what happened. One of those plants you sent for testing was selected from a contaminated area. When the head honchos at the chemical company realized that you pulled a plant from contaminated water and shipped it off to a lab in New Orleans, they assumed you were on to them and put pressure on Johnny to fix the situation.”
Luc stared down at his feet for a moment. “I’m really sorry, Maryse, that it was Johnny. I know you thought he was your friend. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think he was in his right mind any longer. The desperation that goes along with a terminal illness can break people. Obviously he wasn’t strong enough to do the right thing.”
Maryse sniffled. “I know. I keep trying to tell myself it wasn’t personal, and it certainly wasn’t about my dad, but it’s hard, you know? I mean, Johnny claimed this dumping is what gave my dad cancer in the first place, and he never spoke up. What kind of man does that?”
Mildred stepped over to Maryse and put one hand on her shoulder. “No man does that, honey. When it comes down to it, there’s just no excuse good enough, and we’re all going to have to live with that.”
Maryse shook her head. “I guess that explains Harold’s comments about the irony of life. He wasn’t special forces—Johnny was. Harold was the mess cook.”
Luc nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Maryse took a deep breath. “Then I guess it’s just a matter of going through my notes to find the contaminated area. I documented every location that I got plants from. It has to be one of the more recent ones or they wouldn’t have panicked, right?”
Luc stared her straight in the eyes but didn’t respond, and his hesitation made her nervous. “What?” Maryse asked. “What are you not telling me?”
“We’ve already found the contaminated area,” Luc said.
“But how?”
“The agency found the informant, and he gave us some of the dumping spots. I sorta broke into your lab and copied your notebook back when I first got here. Then things got weird with your inheritance and everything else, and for awhile I totally missed the clues that were right in front of me. But when I started thinking about everything, it made sense. The illegal dumping, your cancer tests, and the recent success that Aaron reported…well, I checked your notes and compared it to the information we’d gotten through our informant.”
Maryse didn’t know whether to be happy that the contaminated area was already identified and could be cleaned up, scared to death that she’d been hanging out in it, or mad at Luc for stealing her data. And despite all that information, she still couldn’t help feeling that there was something missing from his explanation. Before she could question what, Luc sat on the couch next to her and took her hand in his.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Maryse, but your trials were a sort of false positive.”
Maryse stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t discover a plant that cured cancer. What you discovered was a plant loaded with radiation from the illegal dumping.”
Maryse’s head began to spin. It couldn’t be true. She was right there, right on the verge of the solution. “No,” she whispered.
Luc looked at her with sad eyes and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, Maryse. So very sorry.”
Maryse stared at him, unable to think, unable to breath. Blooming Flower had never had a magical cure. She’d simply given her dad the radiation treatment he’d refused, courtesy of a contaminated plant. Maryse’s entire career, her whole adult life, had been a farce. There was no cure, at least not one in Mudbug Bayou, and she was no closer to saving lives that she had been before her advanced degrees and thousands of hours of extra work. And even worse, she’d unknowingly endangered everyone else in the process of trying to find a cure that didn’t even exist.
She rose from the couch, unable to face the people in the lobby, her friends, her family who had unconditionally believed in her. Believed the lie. “If you guys don’t mind,” she said, “I’d like to be alone for a while.” She hurried out of the lobby without waiting for a response, not wanting to see the disappointment, the pity, that would probably line every face in the room. All she wanted was to lock herself away in her room until the disappointment was gone.
And the fear.
All this time, Maryse had thought she was right on the verge of success. It’s the only reason she hadn’t launched into panic over Sabine’s test. She thought she’d be able to help her friend if things turned out for the worse.
But it had all been a lie.