" Baldwin is not only making a nuisance of himself, he's defaming the Delahoussayes and inhibiting their right to free trade."
He took a deep pull on the cigarette, pretending to consider the facts as she had presented them. "He hadn't hurt anybody, has he?"
"Is that your criterion for action?" Laurel asked coolly. "You wait until someone has resorted to physical violence?"
Eyes narrowing to slits, Kenner blew twin streams of smoke out his slim nose and pointed a finger at her, shaking ash down on the cheap linoleum floor. "I do a damn good job in this parish, Missy. Everywhere around us they got dead girls stacked up like cordwood and drug dealers crawling around thick as copperheads in canebreaks. You don't see that here, and I'll tell you why-'cause I know damn well whose ass to kick."
"I'm sure you do."
"You're goddamn right I do." He took a quick drag on his smoke and shot a glare over his shoulder at the maintenance men, who were making an unholy racket with the blind. "And I'll tell you this-I got better things to do with my time than chase around after that television preacher, tellin' him where he can piss and where he can't."
Laurel rose gracefully, smoothing the wrinkles from her trousers, schooling her temper. Kenner was hardly the first jerk she'd ever come up against. "I don't care where he pisses, Sheriff," she said smoothly. "I don't care where he does anything, as long as he doesn't do it at Frenchie's Landing. Judge Monahan has granted a temporary injunction until the formalities can be taken care of. Diligent as you are, I expect you'll do everything in your power to see that Reverend Baldwin respects it."
Kenner gave her a flat look, the muscles in his lean jaw working. His cigarette smoldered between his fingers, ribbons of blue smoke curling up into the stagnant air. "I know who you are, Miz Chandler," he said softly. "I don't need some female with an overactive imagination running around my parish crying wolf every time she turns around and dud'n like the look of somebody."
The jibe hit and stuck. Laurel tensed against it, steeled herself and her pride, and dug down for some of the grit she had been known for back in Scott County. Lifting her chin, she met Kenner 's stare, unflinching. "I don't make empty accusations, Sheriff. If I cry wolf, there'll be one coming to chew your skinny ass."
He gave a snort of derision and stubbed out his cigarette, shooting another glare at the maintenance men, who had stopped working altogether to watch the confrontation.
"Get your lazy asses in gear and get that goddamn blind up before I get a heat stroke!"
Laurel turned and walked out, gritting her teeth as her stomach knotted and her nerves gave a belated tremor. The hall was cooler and darker. The courthouse had been built before the Civil War, and for a town the size of Bayou Breaux, it was an impressive structure, three stories of brick with Doric columns and a broad set of steps out front. Inside, the hallways were wide with soaring ceilings where old fans turned lazily to stir the humid air. The dark green plaster walls were decorated with a framed gallery of prominent citizens from the past.
For a moment Laurel leaned back against the cool, nubby plaster and rested her eyes, willing herself to relax. It didn't matter what Kenner thought of her. His opinion was no great surprise. She imagined a great many people held it. The Prosecutor Who Cried Wolf. The headline still made her angry, still made her want to lash out, to rail at those who had doubted her.
I wasn't wrong. They were guilty.
She wasn't wrong, she was a failure. That was the worst of it. Knowing that those children had been committed to terrible fates because she hadn't been able to prove it.
"No one will believe you, Laurel… Don't tell Mama."
For an instant she was twelve again, standing in the door to the parlor, watching Vivian fuss with an arrangement of calla lilies and delphinium. The secret was there inside her, a big gooey ball of words that clogged her throat. Savannah 's warning rang in her ears-"No one will believe you, Laurel. Don't tell Mama. She'll only get cross with you…" Helplessness and fear gripped her like icy hands, grappling with her sense of justice. She wanted to tell, thought she ought to, but she just stood there, watching Vivian frown and fuss, her temper slipping visibly as the flowers failed to please her…
Sucking in air like a diver just breaking the surface, Laurel shoved herself away from the wall and turned into a shallow alcove, where a water fountain gurgled. She bent over and swallowed a mouthful of cool, over-chlorinated water, dampened her fingers, and patted her cheeks. Dismissing the memories, she dug through her pocketbook for a roll of Maalox tablets.
She would have to go to Frenchie's and explain things to T-Grace and Ovide. Maybe she would stop by the antiques shop and tell Aunt Caroline everything had gone well enough.
"Back in harness, so to speak, Laurel?"
She jumped at the sound of Stephen Danjermond's voice. She hadn't heard his approach, had been too focused on herself, she supposed. Closing her purse, she casually took a step back. "Just doing a favor for some friends."
"The Delahoussayes?" he asked, his smile telling her he already knew the answer. He stood half in shadow, his face half light and half dark, like a figure in a dream. Laurel found the effect unsettling. "News travels fast in a town this size," he said, sliding his hands in the pockets of his tailored charcoal trousers. "I had a chat with Judge Monahan over lunch. He was very taken with you."
"He was taken with the idea of making Reverend Baldwin's life unpleasant," Laurel said. "Some years ago his mother gave a sizable fortune to a man of Baldwin's ilk, and it was later discovered he spent the contributions of his flock on such things as air-conditioned dog houses and spiritual retreats to nude beaches on the French Riviera."
"You sell yourself short, Laurel. I was discussing with him the possibility of your coming to work for me. The idea pleased him."
She frowned a little. "I wish you wouldn't have said anything. I told you, Mr. Danjermond, I'm not thinking about going back to work at this point."
"But you're thinking about seeing justice done, aren't you, Laurel? A job title has little to do with it. You are who you are."
The way he said it had a ring of inevitability, as if mankind's little play of the busy, bustling world was all superfluous to the core of life. The trappings could all be stripped away and everyone reduced to their very essence. She was the champion for justice.
"It's what matters most to you, isn't it?"
Laurel kept her answer to herself, feeling it would somehow give him an advantage in their chess game. She resettled her purse strap on her shoulder and shifted her weight toward the door. "I ought to be on my way. I have to go tell T-Grace and Ovide what's going on and make sure Baldwin gets the message. I don't have a lot of faith that Kenner will do the job."
Amusement lit the district attorney's eyes and widened his smile. He turned and started toward the door with her, checking his long, fluid strides to stay beside her. "I assume it wasn't love at first sight between you and Duwayne."
"He's a racist, a sexist, and a jerk," Laurel said flatly.
"And he's very good at his job."
"Because he knows whose ass to kick. Yes, he told me."
They stepped out onto the broad portico. A capricious breeze slithered between the columns, riffling Danjermond's raven hair and playing with the end of his burgundy tie. He cut a handsome figure, Laurel admitted, athletic and elegant, perfectly at home in his tailored suit standing at the portal to the halls of justice. He would go far on looks alone, farther with a mind as sharp and clever as his. She really couldn't blame her mother for seeing him as a potential son-in-law. Vivian had been raised to believe in matches made for family allegiance and social prominence. Stephen Danjermond had to fit her requirements to a T.