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“Well, that’s interesting.” Alia picked up her purse and keys, then let herself out of the house. After the coolness inside, it was like stepping into an oven set on broil, with the added discomfort provided by the humidity. It reminded her of the first facial she’d ever got, back when she was barely a teenager, when the tech had spread a hot, steamy towel over her face, sucking the air right from her lungs.
“Jeez, Alia, a man gets sliced and diced, and you think it’s interesting?”
“Don’t you?” she retorted.
“Well, yeah, but you’re supposed to be a better person than me. Where’s your feminine sympathy?”
She snorted at that. “Are you going to the scene?”
“Hell, no, it’s my first day off in nearly a week. Murphy only called because of the connection between his victim and ours. He’ll keep in touch in case it turns out there’s something there. Enjoy your lunch. I’m gonna go find me a rare steak.” He said a cheerful goodbye.
Alia tossed the phone on the passenger seat. Leave it to Jimmy to describe a gruesome murder, then happily turn his mind to raw meat. Not that the same gruesome murder had had any effect on her appetite, either. What did that say about them?
As she drove away from her house, she considered the information. Was it coincidence, two old friends being murdered in the same manner less than a week apart? Possibly, but everything in her doubted it. Wallace’s death wasn’t a robbery gone bad. Burglars might kill if surprised by the home owner, but take the time to inflict extensive stab wounds? To sever his tongue? No way.
Like Jeremiah Jackson, Brad Wallace’s murder was a rage killing. It was personal. Given their friendship, it very well might have been committed by the same person.
So they had four murders—she said a silent apology to Constance Marks and Wilma and Laura Owens, whom she was convinced had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Camilla Jackson’s death had been cruel but not in the sense of her husband’s or his friend’s. It didn’t take nearly as much anger or strength to lock a woman away where she would likely die as it did to viciously, repeatedly stab two grown men. As for Miss Viola, hell, her murder had been simplest of all: a hand on her frail back, giving her a shove.
The two men, though...that had been overkill. They had been the real targets, while the women had died because... Maybe because of something they’d known about the two men?
What had Jackson and Wallace done?
If Alia hadn’t made plans with Landry, she would head to the Wallace house, seek out Murphy and get his permission to wander through and look at the crime scene. She would talk to Mrs. Wallace and the couple’s grown children and the people the new widow had called to comfort her. She would find out what kind of man Wallace was—husband, father, businessman—and she might even warn Mrs. Wallace to take up residence elsewhere for a time.
But she had made plans with Landry, and it was her first day off in nearly a week, too, and it was Murphy’s case, not yet officially tied to her own. She could get a report and/or talk to Murphy tomorrow.
Today she was just going to be a woman having lunch with a man she liked a whole lot.
And, knowing herself, finding out everything he knew about the newest victim. Unsolved puzzles just didn’t go away and leave her alone. She’d been that way a long time and didn’t expect to change anytime soon. But she would still have plenty of attention for Landry and lunch and whatever he had in mind after lunch.
Pulling to the curb on Bourbon Street, blocking Landry’s car in its reserved space, she shut off the engine and opened the door just as he walked through the gate. His cargo shorts were dark gray, his T-shirt white, his flip-flops looking as if they’d passed the thousand-mile mark a long time ago. Dark glasses shaded his eyes, an Ole Miss ball cap covered his hair and beard stubbled his chin. He looked... Damn!
“You can park in my boss’s space if you want to walk,” he said as she slid out. “It’s just down that way. The restaurant, I mean.”
She moved the car to the space on the right, locked up, then slid her keys into her pocket. “I’m hungry. Lead the way.”
They walked the first block in silence. It was barely noon, but all the detritus from last night’s partying had been swept up. The street was fairly quiet, waiting for today’s revelry to start once everyone had recovered from last night’s.
Though she usually found silence between them comfortable enough, that wasn’t the case today. Her mouth kept opening, questions about his father and Brad Wallace trying to spill out. It could wait until after they’d eaten, she silently insisted. She hadn’t had a home-cooked Vietnamese meal in a long time, and Mama’s Table was the closest she was likely to get. She intended to enjoy it.
