LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t think there’s a need to continue the discussion now, do you?” Gary Legrain said to Bonine, who blinked a few times and gave a sharp shake of his head.

      Slap it some more. Vivian had an irreverent vision of the detective’s brain ricocheting inside his skull.

      Madge inhaled sharply, audibly, and said, “Oh, ya, ya, I was so taken with the company I forgot to remind you of your appointment this afternoon, Vivian. Your mama asked me to.”

      Appointment? “Thank you.” Vivian felt herself turning red. She wasn’t a comfortable liar.

      “I told you to be available at all times,” Bonine said. “I told you that early this mornin’.”

      Madge put her arm beneath Vivian’s. “Some appointments can’t be ignored, can they?” She smiled encouragement.

      “What kind of appointment?” Bonine asked. “Who are you seeing—Devol?”

      “No,” Vivian said.

      Instead of concentrating on catching a killer, Bonine had turned Louis’s death into a reason for a vendetta. Gary Legrain’s pinched expression could mean he was thinking the same thing. Since he was taking Louis’s death hard, that wouldn’t be a pleasing idea.

      Madge hung on her arm. “Now, Detective, you know there are some things a girl can’t discuss around men.”

      Vivian wanted some of whatever Madge had swallowed before coming into the office.

      Legrain actually seemed a bit flustered but Bonine’s curiosity made his head jerk forward and his mustache twitch.

      He opened his mouth to speak but Madge cut him off. “Private things,” she said, her voice conspiratorial. “Do you know Reb Girard?”

      “The lady doc in Toussaint?”

      “Uh-huh. The very one. I understand she’s real helpful in delicate times. She’s guided a lot of women through similar situations. And, of course, she’s a wonderful doctor. I’ve always thought women doctors were better at some things. They have smaller hands.”

      Vivian looked at Madge aghast.

      Chapter 10

      “Hey there, Cyrus.” Spike let the bubble-gum pink door to All Tarted Up, Flakiest Pastry in Town, close with enough of a bang to set the bell to jangling. “Just thought of a way to increase business, Jilly. Hold a contest to rename the bakery. Offer a good prize to the winning entry, like all the day-old bread you can carry.”

      Jilly Gable and her brother Joe owned the bakery and café. They’d come up with the current name to “make the place more sexy,” poker-faced Jilly told anyone who asked.

      “Sure,” she said from behind a counter. “Not much of a prize when everything gets sold the day it’s made, though. Maybe we could offer a tour of the Sheriff’s office instead. That should take five minutes. And you could throw in some of that mud you call coffee.”

      Cyrus watched the two of them idly. For a while there it had seemed they might have something going, but whatever that was didn’t last long. They’d come out of it even stronger friends than they were before, though, which said a lot for their characters and made Cyrus feel good.

      “Join me,” he said to Spike. “I had a nosy visitor a few hours ago. Our detective friend from last night. I’d decided the man didn’t do mornings but he fooled me.” Errol Bonine had turned up at the rectory at 8:30, to the consternation of Lil Dupre who didn’t take kindly to interruptions in her carefully crafted routine. Since Lil had moved into the housekeeper position, which she considered the most prized and important job around, Lil had turned from a whiner who did good work into a tyrant, who still did good work.

      For Spike, mention of Cyrus being questioned again interfered with the good mood his encounter with Vivian had left behind.

      “Go sit down,” Jilly said. “I’ll bring your coffee and a fresh one for Father. It’s comin’ up on lunchtime too so I’ll fix you something ahead of the rush.” Her startling hazel eyes made you take a second look every time. The eyes, the tawny skin and long, brown, blond-streaked hair.

      She called to Samie Machin, the extra assistant who had been added in the past year since Joe Gable’s law practice had grown and made it impossible for him to help out at all. “Two extra specials for Father Cyrus and Spike, please Samie.”

      Spike sat opposite Cyrus and said, “Ever feel like you’re waitin’ for the shit to hit the fan?”

      Cyrus smiled faintly. “The way we’re feelin’ right now, you mean?”

      “Yeah.” Spike tossed his hat on the seat of the chair beside him and ran a hand through his short hair. “So Errol dropped in at the rectory? Did you know him before last night?”

      “Never set eyes on him. Looked him up. He was baptized at St. Cécil’s but he probably lives in Iberia now.”

      Spike grunted. “I don’t see Errol Bonine as a churchgoing man.”

      He realized his mistake before Cyrus said, “You being an expert on churchgoing men.”

      Spike knew when to keep his mouth shut.

      “He has pretty narrow interests,” Cyrus said. “Mostly you, then you and Vivian Patin. I had to be the one to talk about passing poor Louis Martin when I was leaving Rosebank earlier in the day. He seemed to have forgotten.”

      If Errol didn’t get his act together this was going to be an unsolved crime. “But he talked about it once you raised the subject?” Spike said. “What theories does he have—if he told you?”

      “He told me he didn’t think it made a whole lot of difference. In his words, ‘what happened, happened.’ The detective gets right to the point. He isn’t putting himself out to find every angle. Gives a whole new meanin’ to putting your trust in the Lord.”

      Spike didn’t feel like laughing.

      The shop bell rang again and kept on trembling. Doll Hibbs, who ran the Majestic Hotel, came in with Wazoo, their one permanent boarder, and Bill Green. Bill was Toussaint’s leading Realtor. He was Toussaint’s only Realtor.

      Doll, whose moods were unpredictable, gave Spike an almost coy wave and said, “Good mornin’ to you, Father,” to Cyrus. Wazoo inclined her head at Spike but ignored Cyrus, and Bill Green joined the men while the two women claimed chairs at opposite ends of a table for eight near the windows.

      “For a semi-wide spot in the road,” Bill said, “this place gets more than its share of trouble.” He raised his voice to say, “Hi, Jilly. Cup of coffee and one of those famous meat pies of yours, please.”

      Fresh-faced Samie Machin hustled from the kitchen to put plates in front of Spike and Cyrus. The smell of fried onions caught Cyrus by surprise.

      “Eat ’em and weep,” Jilly said, laughing. “We mixed cooked and uncooked to keep ’em crunchy. Jilly burgers. First time on the menu.”

      “These are tortillas,” Cyrus said.

      “You try saying Jilly quesadillas more’n a time or two.”

      “I’ll stay with the meat pie,” Bill Green said, screwing up tearing eyes. “I deal with the public.”

      “I don’t know how any of you can eat today,” Wazoo’s high voice cut across the café. “A man hardly cold in our own backyard. All that blood and cut-up flesh. I’d surely faint if a plate of meat was put in front of me.”

      Cyrus’s mouth twitched. He laughed, grabbed his napkin and pretended to be coughing, then gave up and managed to subside into bursts of chuckles. Spike, with his back to the women, didn’t help a thing by rolling up his eyes in a parody of death.

      “We’re gonna be sorry Guy Patin’s kin moved into Rosebank,”

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