A Marked Man. Stella Cameron

and a little shakiness made a woman say bizarre things, stagger about with unfocused eyes, then collapse. He had never believed in such things before but he was almost convinced she had seen some sort of vision in that clearing.

      “Did you get my letter yet?” Max couldn’t keep that Darth Vader voice out of his head for long. He’d heard it before, several times. The one call he’d tried to get traced had come from a phone box and the trail was an immediate dead end.

      The rain had stopped and with the early evening came a lemon sun dressed in puffs of navy blue. Why wasn’t Annie here yet?

      “She be here soon, cher.”

      A soft female voice startled Max and he looked up at Wazoo (L’Oisseau de Nuit to strangers), whom Annie had told him ran the shop during recently extended hours.

      Wazoo also lived at Rosebank where she ran housekeeping and obviously had a special place in Vivian and Charlotte’s hearts.

      Calling Wazoo eccentric would be redundant. She was also a beautiful woman with olive coloring and an extraordinary face. And she was small, very feminine and the unofficial property of an NOPD homicide detective, Nat Archer. Or maybe that was the other way around. Wazoo wouldn’t take kindly to being called any man’s property.

      “What did you say?” Max asked.

      The woman didn’t meet his eyes and refilled his coffee as if she’d never spoken. But she had, and she must mean Annie. Wazoo didn’t know he and Annie were friends. Even if she did, how would she figure out he was thinking about her, waiting for her?

      Wazoo balanced the curve of her carafe on the edge of the table. Slowly, she raised her face and her blank expression confused him. Then light sharpened in her eyes as she looked intently at Max. He saw her shudder.

      “You like somethin’ else?” she asked, her voice flat.

      He shook his head, no. “You said—”

      “Nothin’,” she interrupted him. “I didn’t say nothin’, me.”

      Max drummed his fingernails on his cup. He raised one eyebrow in question.

      “I got to get back to work,” she said, frowning deeply, still staring at him. “Take care of what you love.” A wide smile transformed her. “Wazoo’s gettin’ tired. Enjoy the coffee.”

      When she turned away her dress swished. As she returned to the counter, she stopped to fill cups for other customers.

      Laughter came from deep in the shop, on the book side. Max couldn’t see anyone between the stacks.

      A man sitting alone rustled his paper loudly and felt around for part of a sandwich on his plate. He carried the food behind the paper.

      What had Wazoo meant, dammit? What did she know?

      He glanced toward Spike’s cruiser again. How much should he volunteer to the sheriff? Nothing? Everything? Mentioning the call would be pointless. Once his history spread through Toussaint, he would be second-guessing every look that came his way. And if Michele didn’t show up fast, he’d become the prime suspect in her disappearance.

      Spike got out of his car and Max studied the man: A tall, muscular guy, good-looking with blond hair and a Stetson tipped forward over his eyes. His khaki uniform fit him well. He flashed a smile at a woman leaving the shop and carried on to the door.

      This day continued to stink. More clouds piled over what was left of the sun and daylight faded fast. Max’s pulse beat off the seconds, double time, while he waited. He expected bad news to keep on coming.

      The shop bell rang and Spike stepped inside.

      Max turned to greet the man but Wazoo cried, “Be still, my heart. Here come that sexy lawman. You come on in, Spike, I been needin’ a gorgeous man to play with my mind. What you want? I got gumbo—best around. And…no, no, de gumbo best. I give you a bowl a gumbo.”

      Spike swept off his hat to reveal hair that stuck up in front, and bright blue eyes. His easy grin sent Wazoo twirling, her long black curls flying and the purple lace dress swirling about her feet. She held her hands over her heart and went into a mock swoon.

      Several customers laughed and so did Spike. “Guess I’ll be havin’ the gumbo, Wazoo. I’ll be with Max over there—” he nodded in Max’s direction “—and I’ll take black coffee with that.”

      The woman was odd, Max thought. She said whatever came into her head and everyone around knew she did. No one took her seriously and neither should he.

      Spike took the chair opposite Max and they shook hands over the blue-and-white check tablecloth. “You know Wazoo?” Spike asked.

      “I live at Rosebank, remember?” Max said. “So does she. I don’t think she’d allow me to ignore her.”

      “True.”

      “She seems to have a lot of jobs.” Max glanced back to the road. “I only found out about this one a few nights ago.”

      “Wazoo works for Jilly Gautreaux over at All Tarted Up, too. She helps with the early bakin’. Then she’s back at Rosebank makin’ sure the rooms are made up the way she likes ‘em. And here in the late afternoon.” Spike leaned closer. “Don’t say anythin’, but I think Ellie Gable came up with this evenin’ openin’ thing ‘cause Wazoo needs more money.”

      “Sounds like something Ellie would do,” Max said and almost followed up by saying he should be able to find something for Wazoo at the clinic. There were only so many hours in the woman’s day and she’d probably be a disaster around patients.

      Max hadn’t known about Wazoo’s job in the kitchens at the pastry shop where just about everyone in town passed through between early morning and midafternoon. He didn’t add to Spike that he’d been told Wazoo was an animal therapist—therapy for emotionally disturbed critters—and that she also dealt in a little hoodoo and gave foreboding predictions. And sang at funerals.

      Wazoo moved around rapidly behind the café counter, pausing frequently to snap her fingers in time to a country beat coming from an old radio. A glass jar filled with saltwater taffy kept the radio safely wedged on a small shelf. At a signal Max couldn’t hear, she opened the door to the back vestibule and stared down. A moment later she draped a tiny, mostly white cat around her neck. The animal stretched her small body to an impossible length and looked as if her dark markings were Egyptian, including the kohl-like lines around her eyes.

      No doubt the health department would have something to say about a cat in a café, but several of the patrons crooned, “Irene, baby, Irene, cher,” so he guessed the cat was a fixture.

      Irene baby curled her lip at every would-be friend, and she wasn’t smiling.

      “You called,” Spike said.

      Max looked at him quickly. “I called you back.”

      Spike gave a slow smile and nodded. “Is that the way it went? Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind, then I’ll tell you what’s on mine.”

      Playing it cute wouldn’t earn him any points with the sheriff, Max decided. “Michele Riley is on my mind. I’m hoping you invited me here because there’s good news.”

      Wazoo brought Spike’s coffee, glanced from one man to the other and slipped away quickly, but not before the cat gave Max a narrow-eyed stare. “This isn’t what I wanted to tell you,” Spike said. “We don’t have any leads, Max. All we have is what you told us. She had dinner with you and your brothers and afterward you drove her back to the Majestic. You saw her inside. And she disappeared.”

      “We both know that didn’t happen,” Max said. He stared outside again. He hadn’t driven away from the hotel until the lights went off in the hall. What the hell could have happened to Michele? “She went into the hotel. If there was—I don’t know, an attack—why didn’t Gator and Doll and their boy hear? Why isn’t