Bayou Hero. Marilyn Pappano

      With a nod, she followed the drive up a slight incline. Another uniformed officer stood guard at the back door of the house. A short distance away, a sailor, his face as colorless as his summer whites, sat at a patio table, a handkerchief pressed to his mouth. He was talking to Jimmy DiBiase, college football star turned cop and, more importantly in her opinion, if not his, her ex-husband.

      This wasn’t a good start to her week.

      When Jimmy saw her, he left the table and met her halfway. “I was hopin’ you’d catch this.”

      “Yeah, we work so well together,” she said drily.

      “We did a lot of things good together.”

      “Are you sure that was you and me, or maybe one of your girlfriends?”

      He had the grace to flush at that, though if he truly felt any regret it didn’t show in his voice. “Aw, sweet pea, we ain’t ever gonna work things out if you don’t give ole Jimmy a break.” With that Southern drawl and broad grin of his, he managed to make the two of them working things out sound almost reasonable. Lucky for her, at 8:10 a.m. without nearly enough caffeine in her system, reasonable didn’t put in an appearance on her list of things to be.

      She gestured to the mansion behind him. “Whose house?”

      “You don’t know?”

      Obviously someone with money and, considering the official navy vehicle in the driveway and the kid in uniform, someone with enough rank to rate a driver. But she didn’t start her days, or her cases, making guesses, so she waited for Jimmy to tell her. He did so with great pleasure.

      “Honey, you are a special guest at the family home of Rear Admiral Jeremiah Jackson Junior.”

      She knew the name, of course. A special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service couldn’t spend more than a day at the New Orleans office without hearing Admiral Jackson mentioned. He was nothing less than a legend—tough as nails, hard-line, a leftover from the days when being an officer and a gentleman meant something. His career had been long and illustrious, his navy commands as shipshape as any and more than most.

      “Is he the victim?” she asked, gazing at the back of the house. Windows marched across each of three stories in perfect symmetry. The admiral liked order in his job as well as his home. She knew his type well. Her own father, Rear Admiral Charles Kingsley, Retired, was just like him.

      “Him. His housekeeper. Her daughter. The gardener.”

      Alia’s breath caught in her chest. “How old was the daughter?”

      “Mid-twenties. Had Down syndrome.”

      Four homicides. The spotlight would be shining brightly on this case. “Did the housekeeper live in?”

      “Had quarters right there.” He nodded toward the nearest corner of the house.

      “And the gardener? Did he live here, too?”

      “She. No. She just liked to get an early start before the day got too hot.”

      Alia shifted her gaze to the lawn. The grass was clipped, the sidewalks, driveway and beds neatly edged. Flowers bloomed profusely, and the pots spaced evenly across the patio contained plantings so healthy they looked fake. The gardener’s dedication to her job had been admirable...though it had cost her her life.

      Finally she looked at Jimmy again and asked the important question. “How did they die?”

      “Stabbed. Once each on the employees, in the chest. The gardener also suffered a blow to the head. We figure she walked in and surprised the killer, so he knocked her out, then killed her. The old woman was found in bed, the daughter on the floor beside her bed.”

      “And the admiral?”

      Jimmy hesitated. “In his bed. When I came out to talk to the driver, the ME’s investigator was still counting the wounds. He was up to twenty-seven.”

      Three people efficiently killed and one overkilled. It was safe to assume he’d been the real target, and the others had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jeez, how could being asleep in your own bed be the wrong place at the wrong time?

      “You wanna go in?”

      She could think of a hundred things she’d rather do, but she nodded and followed him to the back door, where the officer standing guard offered them both gloves and protective booties. The door was an old-fashioned one made of wood with a nine-paned window looking out. The pane closest to the knob was broken out.

      The door opened into a space that did double duty as mudroom and laundry room, and then into a kitchen. The house might be two hundred years old, but the kitchen was definitely of the twenty-first century. Appliances, surfaces, cabinets—all were top-of-the-line and pricey. The commercial-grade stove and the refrigerator alone cost more than everything in her little house combined.

      The smell of coffee coming from the maker on the countertop made her mouth water. “Is that on a timer?”

      “Yeah.” It was a crime scene tech who answered. “No help there.”

      Jimmy came to a stop beside the body facedown on the kitchen floor. “Constance Marks, age twenty-four. That’s her blue pickup out there. Self-employed, worked for the admiral, his daughter and some of their friends.”

      Constance was slim and tanned, wore shorts with a lot of pockets and sneakers with good support, and her blond hair was matted with blood on the crown. More blood stained her shirt and seeped onto the cream-and-white tile of the floor. All that outdoor work had given her solid muscles, which hadn’t mattered a damn in the end.

      “The servants’ quarters are down here.” Jimmy led the way through a door between the refrigerator and the wine cooler. Several doors opened off the hallway—a pantry, a closet—and at the end was a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath. The rooms were small, the furnishings good but worn. Judging by the kitchen, no expense had been spared in the main house, while none had been wasted here.

      Crime Scene Unit techs were at work in both bedrooms. The smells of blood and bodily waste were strong in the air, competing with the scents of furniture polish and antiseptic cleaner. Jimmy stopped in the doorway on the right. “Laura Owen. She put up a struggle—broke the lamp on the nightstand and knocked a pillow off the bed. She has defensive wounds on her hands.”

      Laura lay on her side, a pair of thick-lensed glasses broken next to her. She was short, chubby and her face bore the distinctive features of Down syndrome. Her nightgown was white cotton, sleeveless, covered with pastel bunnies, and a ragged stuffed rabbit lay on the floor near her, its floppy ear just touching the blood.

      “What kind of guy kills a mentally disabled kid just for being here?” Jimmy asked with a shake of his head.

      “You think a low IQ should be a disqualifying condition for murder?” The CSU techs snickered. “Then you’d be safe, wouldn’t you?”

      Alia turned across the hall to the other bedroom, and Jimmy followed her. “Wilma Owen. Killed in her sleep. No defensive wounds.”

      Wilma Owen was in her late sixties, maybe early seventies, her hair white, her face bearing the lines of long life and troubles. If not for the blood that turned much of her bedding red, she would appear peacefully asleep.

      Alia stepped back as two ME’s investigators came in with body bags, then she and Jimmy returned the way they’d come. “Any sign of forced entry besides the broken glass in the rear door?”

      “No. And that lock’s not double-keyed, so someone could get in there easily.”

      They walked through a swinging door into the formal dining room, filled with antiques. Jeremiah Jackson might have spent his life serving his country, but there’d been no need. His ancestors had amassed a fortune before the Civil War and had been among the few to hold onto it postwar. Jeremiah could have lived in luxury without ever working a day.