She knew she had done the wrong thing in developing these feelings for Milton. He was close to the age that a son of theirs might be if they’d been successful at staying pregnant in the salad days of their marriage. Instead, she’d endured miscarriage after miscarriage—the great sorrow of her life. As a result, she had let herself become cynical and been willing to immerse herself in the activities of Party Palooza in Rosalie as she had before in New Orleans, where they had started—with Rex always in charge of the major decisions. She wondered how different he might be now if he had a son or daughter of his own to root for and bring up, instead of planning parties for other people’s children and all the rest of it that Party Palooza had become.

  After the last miscarriage a few years back, she had even brought up the subject of adoption to Rex, hoping he would be amenable. She felt that a child was the one thing missing in their marriage—and might even save it at some point in time.

  “If I can’t have one that comes from me, I don’t want one that comes from someone else,” he had told her. His handsome features had hardened as he said it, daring any further conversation to take place. And so, none ever had again. The couple had continued childless, and their work had occupied all their time.

  Still behind the wheel and stopped at a red light, Merrie returned to what had been troubling her for some time now in her job. She had stopped short of making a pass at Milton when Rex wasn’t around the office, which wasn’t all that often. How very Mrs. Robinson of her had she done so. For that matter, she didn’t even know if Milton was straight. She had her suspicions otherwise because of his affinity for humming show tunes and the fluid way he moved his body in general; and, yes, she knew she was being outright stereotypical in her thinking. But he was so guileless and so easily swayed by his elders and those in authority that it hardly mattered what his orientation was. She had never pictured herself as the “older woman” anyway; she could, however, picture the wrath of Rex Boudreaux had she ever attempted such a thing and been found out by her husband.

  In any case, she didn’t think she could bear it if the unthinkable happened to Milton.

  Damn that silly woman’s vision that had spun things off so suddenly into a dark, alternate universe that seemed to be so haunting and unending. Had Rex and Milton put it to bed with their delivery to Professor Isaacson, or was it still out there, hanging around in some devastating, unimaginable form—ready to take someone down? Merrie shuddered to think that that someone might be Milton.

  * * *

  Across town, Wendy knew something was up the second Ross trudged into the kitchen with his eyes downcast and his posture slumped. She could almost see the great weight resting on his shoulders. He threw his keys on the marble countertop haphazardly and noisily instead of hanging them up neatly on the little metal hook by the door as he usually did. He did not say hello warmly to his wife, either, and that almost never happened.

  “Sweetheart . . . Ross . . . what’s the matter?” she said, approaching him cautiously.

  He continued his silent journey until he collapsed on the living room sofa and Wendy followed along behind. Finally, he said, “I just need to snuggle with you for a little while.” He motioned to her gently.

  She quickly complied. “I’m here for you—whatever you need.”

  He put his arm around her shoulder and got as close to her as it was possible to get. “This feels good,” he told her, the tiredness showing in his voice. “It feels safe, and I need to feel that way right now.”

  “For God’s sake, tell me what happened. I’ve never seen you like this.” Suddenly, she stiffened as an emotional bomb hit her. “Wait . . . please tell me nothing’s happened to Daddy.”

  “No, no, no,” he said, trying to sound reassuring, but it didn’t come off that way at all. “I didn’t mean to give you that idea. Bax is just fine. Everyone at the station is fine. But . . . Earl Jay Doxey was stabbed to death tonight.”

  “Daddy’s friend from way back?” Wendy said. Her hands instinctively assumed a prayerful pose as her eyes widened, and she felt something hurting in the pit of her stomach.

  Ross nodded somberly.

  “Then something’s happened to Daddy, after all. His contacts mean the whole world to him.”

  “You’re right, of course. He’s taking it pretty hard.”

  “Is Daddy still down at the station? Do you think I should call him up now or go to him?”

  “Yes, he’s still there, but I really think it’d be best to leave him alone just now. Take my advice.”

  Wendy knew he was right, but she was still full of questions. “Did they catch who did it? Or do they at least have a suspect?”

  “No, but the murder seems like a hit. Doxey had hinted to Daddy just this morning that he might be onto something at long last, but he had to check out a few things. He wouldn’t say any more than that, though. That was Doxey for you—he never spoke unless he was sure of himself, and when he finally did, he was never wrong. He knew the streets and what was going down.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “Somewhere up on North River Street. The worst stretches of it. You know where they are,” he told her.

  Wendy quickly reviewed the map of Rosalie in her head and frowned. “Merleece lives around that neighborhood—but the better part.”

  “I doubt she would know anything,” Ross said. “This happened where North River turns into a gravel road near the cemetery.”

  Wendy shuddered, but that soon turned into a smile. She was recalling some dares she and her girlfriends had taken at the age of twelve from obnoxious neighborhood boys to roam around near there in search of ghosts during the full moon. Of course, they had never seen anything real, but the boys had dressed up in creepy costumes, jumped out from behind elaborate mausoleums, and caused at least two of them to wet their pants. At least Wendy had not been one of them, although her heart had definitely skipped a beat or two.

  “I’ve always disliked that area. In my mind I’ve had this notion that if they paved the rest of that road, they would smother the demons that roam around out there with layers and layers of asphalt. Just get it over with once and for all and bury them deep so they can never see daylight again.”

  “If preventing and controlling crime were only that easy,” Ross said with a helpless shrug of his shoulders. “But one thing has come of this terrible tragedy. I’m positive that Aurelia Spangler’s death and Doxey’s death are linked together by drugs and drug dealing—and as far as I’m concerned, Aurelia as a suicide is off the table. I think it’s highly probable that whoever killed Aurelia killed Doxey, or had both of them killed. Bax feels the same way, and he’s bound and determined to track down whoever’s responsible.”

  Wendy shivered a little, even though she felt warm and protected up against Ross’s strong body. It was one of the things she liked best about their relationship—his strength was always there when she needed it. And hers when he needed it, as well. “I’m really getting frightened now, sweetheart. Somebody in Rosalie obviously means business and will stop at nothing.”

  “Yes, and your daddy is on the warpath as I’ve never seen him. That’s why I suggested you give him some time to get his equilibrium back. I don’t think either of us should be around him right now. Let him come to you when he’s worked things out in his head, and he’s breathing calmly again and even blinking. He’s most likely dealing with some degree of guilt since he asked Doxey to get involved in the first place. Bax does take his job more seriously than any other cop I’ve ever worked with. I’d be hard-pressed to match his level of passion in certain instances.”

  Wendy understood what he meant only too well. There were cases that truly seemed to trigger her father more than others: wives being abused by their husbands; children being abused by their parents; animal abuse of any kind; mistreatment or neglect of the elderly in nursing homes; and then there were those cases like Doxey’s, where a personal friend was involved.

  Wendy knew that her father had the utmost respect for the way the man had stared down his criminal past and made himself available to law enforcement to turn his life around completely. Bax Winchester particularly embraced a “phoenix rising from the ashes” scenario, and Earl Jay Doxey’s was one of the best. But Doxey had never revealed his sources and was a big user of burner phones so that their privacy could be maintained at all costs.

  “Poor Daddy,” Wendy said, resting her head on Ross’s chest and finding comfort in the way it rose and fell with his breathing. She was also reminded of the way her father had taken her mother’s unexpected death. It was as if a part of him had been surgically removed, and he was never to be whole again.

  “I guess it’s a little too soon for any information about Doxey’s services,” Wendy added.

  Ross managed one softly spoken word: “Prob’ly.’

  “When we find out, let’s go together.”

  “Of course, we will.”

  Wendy hesitated to intrude on what she knew was Ross’s profound shock but did so anyway. There was no way she would ever be able to retreat easily from her sleuthing gifts. “Did you have much interaction with Doxey?”

  “Not as much as your daddy,” Ross said. “But what I did have was a trip and a half with him. The man was always straightforward with you and always led you to the truth. He was never wrong about his hunches or leads. I’m sure he was really onto something, because it got him killed.”

  Wendy couldn’t help but wonder if Doxey had left anything at all behind, any clue, any inkling of what he was about to uncover. Maybe when things settled down a bit, maybe after Doxey’s services, maybe then she could find out from her father if they were any closer to tracking down the culprit who had staged Aurelia Spangler’s suicide and then brutally eliminated the Rosalie Police Department’s most reliable informant for a long time now.

  Meanwhile, teaching bridge lessons to her newbies seemed like it belonged to another lifetime entirely. Yet, it had somehow triggered everything—the alleged suicide and now this murder. She paused in her head. If only she could return to the days of the harmless mischief of rowdy boys dressing up as ghosts to scare the pee out of girls.

  As for the present, what force of true evil had been unleashed upon them all? Would there be even more to endure?

  Then, just as Ross was about to turn out the light on his nightstand as they were about to go to sleep a bit later, a rogue thought entered Wendy’s head. It struck her so forcefully that she felt she had to let Ross in on it right away.

  “Milton Bagdad is not the only person we know who wears a tuxedo,” she said, sitting upright.

  Ross’s voice was beyond drained. “What?”

  “Carlos Galbis, our bartender extraordinaire at the RCC. It’s his work uniform.”

  “And?”

  “Maybe there’s some connection to Carlos with Aurelia’s vision. Maybe he’s in danger of some sort.”

  Ross fought through his tiredness to express genuine interest. “I never thought of that.”

  “Maybe you should go out and question him and see if anything turns up. I realize it could be a long shot, but what could it hurt?”

  “Not a bad suggestion,” Ross told her, turning to give her a peck on the cheek. “I’ll run it past your daddy when I go in. Meanwhile, I gotta turn out the light and get some sleep, or I’ll be wrecked tomorrow.”

  Wendy sank back against her pillows with satisfaction. Had she stumbled upon something that might break the case wide open?

  CHAPTER 14

  Ross was genuinely surprised the next morning when he was informed that Vance Quimby had shown up at the front desk and had something very important to share with him. All sorts of wild ideas began circulating throughout his brain: Did Vance know something about Doxey’s death? Was he somehow involved? Or was there something important he had held back about his sister’s death? Ross couldn’t wait to get into the interrogation room and find out, because Vance Quimby was the one person who continued to make him frown at a mere mention. What was that about, and was it even fair of him?

  “I wanted to come to you immediately with this even though I realize that I didn’t have to,” Vance was saying once the two of them had settled across from each other at the long table.

  From his vast experience with interrogating people over the years, Ross thought that that particular statement smacked of manipulation, of a story well rehearsed. He also could not help but notice how haggard Vance looked, as if he hadn’t been getting much rest lately. Not to mention that the white shirt and the gray pants he was wearing were both wrinkled. The ensemble and Vance’s face reminded Ross of people he’d run across in his work who were too substance addicted to worry even a little bit about their appearance.

  Nonetheless, Ross remained stoic and said, “Please go ahead and tell me all about it, then.”

  “It’s about Relly’s life insurance policy,” he continued, not making direct eye contact. “The insurance company is going with the coroner’s ruling and the autopsy results. They see no reason not to accept their opinions in the matter, and so, they are not going to give me the money, which is what Relly intended, I assure you. She would not want to see me in this situation now that she’s gone.”

  “I hope this doesn’t sound impolite, but . . . you have no savings at all? Are you flat broke or something?”

  “I have a little in the bank, and I won’t starve to death, I assure you. But that’s not the point, Detective. Someone robbed both Relly and myself of our livelihood for all time, and I want to see that justice is done. I hope I’ve conveyed that to you from the beginning.”

  Ross was staring straight at Vance, searching for tells of any kind. But the man’s face was a poker player’s blank, even if there was that element of tiredness in it. “So with all due respect, I can’t interfere with the decisions of insurance companies. I can’t help you there, and I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

  Vance drew back suddenly, and his tone became strident. “But you can solve the case and prove that my sister was murdered. And please save yourself the speculation that I would ever do such a godforsaken thing as kill my own sister. I loved her very much. This is not about the money.”

  Ross decided to play it straight and said, “Fair enough. But is there anything at all you can tell me—tell us, in fact—that would help us get to the solution of this case? Maybe something you’ve overlooked or brushed aside?”

  “Just one important thing,” Vance said, leaning forward with urgency in his tone. “If my sister said that the vision of a knife being plunged into a man’s tuxedoed chest shook her to her roots, you have to believe her, and you have to find a way to make some sense of that. Who knows? Maybe it was a representation of something else entirely, but I think it bears repeating. You find out what struck terror into my sister’s heart and even made Milton Bagdad skip town the way he did like some runaway puppy, and you’ll understand why my sister was murdered.”

  Ross reflected on the telegram that Milton Bagdad had delivered after which Professor Isaacson had taken a knife to all the rag dolls he had received as a result of his female students’ crushes. Those hormonal outbursts surely came with the territory. The CID had effectively put Aurelia’s vision to bed with that incident; yet Vance Quimby was demanding—and with what could only be described as a great deal of passion—that he and the CID revisit it, put it under a microscope again. It seemed like an exercise in redundancy to Ross, but there were obviously still two people around to question about the incident, and Milton had already given his full account of what had happened that evening. But what about Professor Isaacson himself? Could there possibly be anything more that he could reveal about what went on that night? Some little detail or insight that might have a bearing on the case?

  Ross stood up, and the two men shook hands. “Mr. Quimby, I assure you, we are doing everything possible to get to the bottom of your sister’s death. As you said, you did not have to come in today and talk to me, and I thank you for that. We’ll keep you posted on any and all developments.”

  Then Vance revealed what had been obvious to Ross from the minute the two of them had sat down and begun their conversation. “I . . . haven’t gotten much sleep lately. My mind just keeps reliving the horrible reality of it all. Losing my sister like this has been driving me crazy. I never dreamed things would end like this. Who would? I thought Relly and I would retire together somewhere, and she would never have to look into people’s faces again and coax things out of them. Maybe she’d only have to look at sunsets and sunrises and . . .”

  The spurt of emotion in his voice shut him down, and Ross gave the moment his silent respect. He had no trouble dealing with Wendy’s various moods, even what he considered the most unreasonable of them, but with men—such as his father-in-law, Bax, and what he was going through with Doxey’s death—he was less comfortable, less sure of himself.

  Finally, Ross said, “You’ve given me an idea, Mr. Quimby. Maybe it’ll lead to something that’ll break the case.”

  There was a glimmer of hope in Vance’s face. “I’d like to think so. And I want to thank you for taking me seriously. This is the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to me, and if I’ve conveyed that to you today, then I can maybe get a little relief from this terrible weight I’m carrying around.”

  Ross offered up his best smile. “Yes, I hope you can, too.”

  After Vance had left, Ross returned to his desk and made a note to himself in all caps: