Page 60 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

“That’s right,” Caitlyn said, and her voice seemed to reverberate in her head. That cold, dark morning had stretched into an eternity. “What I was about to say was that even though I sometimes don’t remember things, I’ll never forget the night Nana died because I was locked in the room with her, sleeping in her bed. I woke up and she was there—icy cold, just staring at me. I freaked, I mean really freaked. I screamed and cried and pounded on the door, but her room was located over the carriage house, away from the other bedrooms, and the windows were covered with storm windows. No one missed us. No one heard me.” Her throat tightened, and her voice cracked as she remembered curling into a ball near the closet and sucking on her thumb. “No one came for a long, long time.”

Fifteen

“This damned case—and I’m not including damned in the swear-word piggy bank,” Morrisette announced as she slung her purse over her shoulder and hurried down the back steps of the station. Reed was half a step ahead of her. “This damned case just gets screwier and screwier.”

“Amen.” He’d been thinking the same thing. Too many people had a connection to Josh Bandeaux. Too many people hated him. Too many women had been involved with him. Too many pieces of evidence didn’t fit. He’d talked to Diane Moses and was supposed to meet with her later to sort through her theories on the evidence the crime scene team had collected.

On the first floor, he shouldered open the door to the parking lot. It was late afternoon, and the station’s shadow crawled across the rain-washed asphalt, but despite the recent shower, the temperature was still hovering somewhere near ninety. He didn’t want to take a stab at how high the humidity was. He was sweating by the time he reached the car. “Tell me what you’ve got. I’ll drive.”

&nbs

p; “I’ll drive.”

Reed flashed her a smile as he unlocked the door to the cruiser. “Next time, Andretti.”

Scowling at his smart-assed reference to a race-car driver, she slid inside. “I’ll hold you to it.”

“I know you will.” He twisted on the ignition and wipers, letting the blades slap away the remaining raindrops. Morrisette leaned against the passenger door as he backed the cruiser out of its slot. “Okay, we know that the wife had reason to hate Bandeaux’s guts, but he had a few more enemies. Not only business types, but ex-girlfriends by the dozen.” He slid a glance her way.

“Oh, don’t even go there, okay? I’m not an ex-girlfriend. And Millie’s not a suspect. Jesus, Reed, I wish I’d never said anything!”

“I would have found out anyway.”

“Of course you would have,” she said sarcastically. “A crackerjack detective like you.”

He winced as he pulled out of the lot and headed past Colonial Cemetery. Sylvie Morrisette was one of the few people in Homicide who knew about his botched stakeout in San Francisco. “Does Jesus count as a swear word?”

“I was praying, all right.”

“Sure.”

“Damn it all to hell. There’s another thing I wish I wouldn’t have said anything about. You’re worse than my kids.”

“Is that possible?”

“Very funny. I have great kids.”

“They’re not teenagers yet.”

“And what would you know?” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “You know, I get damned sick of every dam—er, stupid single cop on the force offering me up advice on my kids. I’ve got it waxed.”

“If you say so.”

“They’re great kids,” she repeated.

“No argument here,” he said, hoping her motherly feathers would soon be unruffled. They were going to be spending a lot of time cooped up in the car together today, so it would be best not to start out irritating each other. Reed wanted to double-check a few alibis and witness reports for the night of Josh Bandeaux’s death. First on the agenda was Stanley Hubert, Bandeaux’s neighbor who reported spying a white car in the driveway. Next he hoped to catch Naomi Crisman, Josh’s elusive girlfriend, and finally he planned on visiting Oak Hill to talk to a few members of the Montgomery clan, see what they had to say about the man Caitlyn had married.

It all could prove interesting.

“You’ve totally tossed out the idea that Bandeaux offed himself?” Morrisette asked, scavenging in her bag until she found a mutilated pack of gum.

“Pretty much.”

“So whoever killed him just did a half-assed job of covering their tracks?”

“That’s the way it looks,” Reed said, easing onto the narrow street where Bandeaux’s house stood. He pulled into a spot near the curb and cut the engine. “But then, looks can be deceiving.” As Morrisette plopped the gum into her mouth, he climbed out of the car and made his way up Stanley Hubert’s walk. She was only half a step behind.

He’d barely punched the doorbell when there was a gruff bark from inside and the door swung wide.

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