Bayou Heat: A Shadow Bayou Mystery

By Suzanna Myatt Harvill

As Hurricane Gladys bears down on Shadow Bayou, Fontaine Varney’s ex-husband, lusty porn star Travis Coltrane, is shot to death in a fishing boat near Maison Fontaine, the luxury hotel Fontaine owns.
Coltrane’s reputation for chasing anything that catches his eye, male or female, makes him ripe for killing. The list of people with motives for murdering the bayou stud is as long as a gator’s tail. Among the list of suspects is Travis’s widow, Fontaine’s mother, who spitefully married Travis before the ink dried on the papers nullifying his marriage to her daughter.
Football-hero-turned-private-eye, Ace Chapelle, is hired by Fontaine’s wealthy father to protect her. Ace is just too handsome, too cocky, and too blatantly sexy for Fontaine’s taste.
Fontaine cannot ignore her attraction to the roguish jock, but instinct warns he is a dangerous man. Meanwhile, she is equally drawn to the bayou’s handsome and charming new doctor, Dan Birdsong, a far more fitting mate for a Creole princess; however, the young physician clearly has a past he wants left undisturbed.
Sheriff Cheyne Delacroix’s investigation leads him from the bayou into the fleshpots of New Orleans, where, he finds a spicy gumbo of suspects, most of whom voice the opinion that Coltrane wasn’t worth killing…yet somebody violently murdered him.
Suspicions of blackmail, rumors of illicit affairs, and stories of past killings simmer in the sultry heat of Shadow Bayou’s dark, murky waters, when, without warning, an attempt is made on Fontaine’s life.
Tension and tempers rise, heightening the fears of the stranded inhabitants of Maison Fontaine, as the storm approaches and the identity of the killer remains unknown. At the peak of the storm’s fury, yet another murder is committed.
A terrified Fontaine realizes most of the people surrounding her harbor secrets, secret lives, and hidden agendas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781663241504

Suzanna Myatt Harvill

Suzanna Myatt Harvill is an author of suspense stories with a Southern flair and attitude. Writer’s Digest award winner. She is the author of the Shadow Bayou series and the comic mystery No Place Like Home

Book preview

PROLOGUE

TRAVIS COLTRANE LAY back on the cushions he had tossed into the small fishing boat and fanned himself with his straw hat. The mid-summer heat and humidity lay on Bayou Ombre like a damp blanket. He stretched out in his tight jeans and unbuttoned his red and blue checked cotton shirt, letting the breeze cool his skin. A dragonfly hovered near the can of cold beer clutched in his expensively manicured paw.

The quiet was soothing, only the white noise of insects buzzing in the weeds, the occasional croak of an amorous or disgruntled frog perched on one of the lily pads floating atop the still water. The subtle, primitive odor of the swamp wafted on the scant breeze, the smell not unpleasant, fecund, like the odor given off by hot bodies after satisfying sex.

Travis wasn’t fishing. He’d guided the boat near the bank where spindly tree limbs dipped toward the greenish water, trailing Spanish moss, providing a nice shady nook. He’d cut the trawling motor and tied the boat off to a cypress stump, or knee, protruding out of the water like a misshapen phallus. This was the spot where he could commune with his Muse, Erato, to inspire the sexy poetry for which he was gaining some renown.

At a reading in a bar in New Orleans last week, he’d been approached by a journalist from the Times-Picayune newspaper.

Travis huffed a laugh. New Orleans had to be the only city in the world where the number one newspaper would publish erotic poetry. Of course, his stuff wasn’t raunchy, but it was stimulating, or so he’d been told.

His blue eyes crinkled at the corners when he grinned, thinking about the woman from the newspaper. Good looking, fortyish, no wedding band, not that it mattered. Dark blond hair streaked with platinum. Big breasts barely contained by a sheer white blouse. She’d kept leaning toward him, giving him an unobstructed view, allowing the aroma of her musky perfume to tantalize his nostrils. The odor held an undertone of hot, primitive female, a scent he found all too enticing. He twitched his nose, conjuring the memory. She had been hot for him, but he had decided to let her desire simmer for a day or two, let it ripen into full-blown lust. He’d call her this evening.

He smiled, running his fingers through the thick mat on his chest and belly. He felt himself growing hard, imagining what he and the woman would do.

Travis was a chick magnet, handsome, overwhelmingly masculine…and sensitive…a poet. Women liked poets. Thought they were romantic and all such shit as that.

Ladawn, his wife, claimed she’d been lured by his poetry, his artistic side. Laughter rumbled in his chest, and he swigged his beer. He had a hunch his appeal had more to do with his other assets, none of which were financial, nor particularly artistic.

Ladawn didn’t need a man’s money. She had enough. He belched and pulled a face. She wasn’t too eager to parcel the long green out to him, however, but she bought him pretty much what he wanted, like that black Ferrari parked in the garage and the orange Harley-Davidson CVO Road Glide, his toys. She didn’t expect the two of them to be joined at the hip, a rare quality in a woman. Ladawn let him come and go as he pleased, and she seldom asked questions. She had her girly interests, charity socials, a theater group, maybe even another man or two on the side, not that she needed one. He had the equipment to give her all she needed in masculine attention.

He stretched like a big tomcat, enjoying the warmth of the sun filtering through the tree branches, and nearly purred his pleasure aloud.

Ladawn paid the bills, and Travis doled out what Ladawn wanted from him as often as she wanted it, and she wanted it often. Life didn’t get any better for a local boy.

Travis batted away another curious insect, a hungry mosquito. A gator slithered into the water from the opposite bank, barely making a sound, probably spotted something that whetted its hunger.

Everything’s hungry for something, Travis mused. All God’s creatures have hungers, especially people.

Hungers.

He pondered hunger as a theme for a poem.

Food.

Sex.

Money.

Fame.

He could understand hungers. He had plenty of his own. He was a sex shark, always hungry, and he hadn’t met a woman yet who could fully satisfy him. Not one woman, maybe four or five, even a guy or two. It didn’t really matter to him. One hole was as good as another, which had worked to his advantage in his former profession.

Before returning home to New Orleans, he’d made a pretty nice living for himself in California making art movies, porno. His Big Willie was a real moneymaker. Over nine inches of hard, thick, quivering cock and the stamina to keep that bad boy working long after others had worn themselves out. He’d been told most men didn’t have a whanger like Willie, even in a profession known for heavy equipment. It was long and nearly as big around as a beer can. Women loved it.

Thinking about his former lifestyle increased the twitch in his jeans. He’d enjoyed making those flicks…all the different women…and a few men. Might want to get back into it, but this time as a producer. He’d already talked to a couple of people about collaborating on the money end of things, offered to make cameos. Wondered how Ladawn would feel about that. He’d stashed a nice nest egg, so he really didn’t need Ladawn’s money…not that she needed to know that.

Before coming back home, he’d shaved off the black mustache Tom Selleck would have envied and let his luxuriant body hair grow back. Never understood why porn performers had to shave or wax themselves. He’d always found women attracted to the thick fur on his chest and belly. He scratched himself.

Ladawn sure did like to run her fingers through his pelt while she bounced on Big Willie. Lord, how that woman liked it, and she liked it hot, hard, and often. He should have married her in the first place, instead of wasting almost six months of his life on her daughter, his ex-wife.

His chuckle carried over the green water. He was the only man he knew who was married to his ex-wife’s mama.

And they all lived together in the family mansion, now an upscale hotel, here on Bayou Ombre, Shadow Bayou, Louisiana. He bet the locals were doing a lot of speculating about what was going on behind those walls, a handsome young stud, his still beautiful, older wife, and her daughter, his drop dead gorgeous ex-wife, Fontaine. And now the baby sister, Brittney, who’d been gone for over two years, had put in an appearance. His smile widened. He’d tapped her little honey pot shortly after she’d returned to the family hearth and home.

Oh, my, my. Oh, hell yes, he sing-songed. Lemme get into yo’ party dress. The twitching in his jeans was becoming more insistent, and he cupped his hands around his crotch and adjusted his package. Like her mama, that Brittney couldn’t get enough of Big Willie. Enjoying two women in the same family, mother and daughter, was a fantasy for a number of men.

The gator floundered out of the water and returned to the creek bank, hissing in the direction of Travis’s voice.

Travis chuckled again. Maybe he should buy a little coke, get Mama and baby daughter snorting, and see if he could get them both in bed at the same time. He knew Brittney would go for a scene like that. Mama might. Now if he could just get Fontaine to join in.

Fontaine Marie-Louise Varney. His ex-wife.

His gut tightened, and he twisted his lips downward. That scene would never happen. His ex-wife was too cool and controlled for her own good. An iceberg in the sack, as he’d found out after their marriage. Only woman he’d ever bedded who’d insisted he marry her first. A twenty-three year old virgin…in New Orleans of all places. Lord, have mercy, he muttered. Virginity might’ve been her biggest asset, that and the thirty billion dollars her daddy dearest was reportedly worth.

He whistled and rubbed his fist over this crotch, enjoying the shiver of heat that ran through him.

He’d gone from an ice cold virgin to a red hot mama in just a few short days.

Only a week after Fontaine had their marriage annulled, he was in bed with Ladawn at the Monteleone in New Orleans. Her invitation. They’d hooked up in the hotel’s famous Carousel Lounge. She’d booked a suite for the two of them for the weekend. Hell of an end-of-marriage celebration.

To say he was pleasantly surprised when his former mother-in-law proposed marriage to him would be an understatement.

However, he hadn’t been so delighted to learn that she’d relinquished ownership of the Fontaine family’s real moneymaker, Maison Fontaine, to her daughter, his ex, so she would be free of all responsibilities and could do as she pleased. Ladawn assured him that she’d received more than ample funds from her divorce from Bob Ed Varney, one the richest men in Texas, to provide for anything the two of them might need, millions in fact.

Travis had spent less than five minutes thinking over Ladawn’s proposition, and they were married by a Justice of the Peace in Lafourche Parish the very next week.

Travis laughed out loud, startling a long legged white bird perched on a nearby cypress knee. The bird squawked and flapped upward into the trees.

Fontaine had nearly foamed at the mouth when the newlyweds told her the news. Her ex-husband was now her stepdaddy.

That had knocked Miz Fontaine down a notch or two. Embarrassed the living shit out of her and the rest of her high-toned family.

Fontaine Varney, privileged daughter of the South. His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. She’d never had to scratch for a thing like he’d had to do, when he was growing up in Gert Town, one of the less desirable sections of the Big Easy. He’d done things most young men never would have dreamed of doing, but he couldn’t say he hadn’t enjoyed most of them.

Everything had been handed to Fontaine on a silver platter…same with her mama…genuine old line, Creole princesses. The big difference was Fontaine had wanted to change him, control him, turn him into an old-fashioned Southern gentleman. Ladawn liked him just the way he was…a bad boy who could entice the knickers off a nun when he chose to be charming, and a rogue, a rascal at all other times…especially in bed. Some women liked it dirty and rough, and Ladawn was one of them.

His marriage to Ladawn was a good thing…lotta good, fun years to come.

He crushed his beer can and dropped into the bottom of the boat. Ladawn was talking about having another baby. After all, she was only forty-six and still fertile. He was thirty, good age to become a daddy.

Hmm, hmm-mmm. He twirled his finger in time to his humming, a tune playing in his head. A poem he might set to music. Ooo-ooh, baby. A baby. Baby, maybe.

He’d have to mull this. Kids had never interested him, but a baby would anchor him firmly in the family fortune.

He plopped his hat over his face, got more comfortable in his pillow nest, pondered fatherhood, and dozed.

The hum of an outboard motor intruded on his solitude.

Travis raised his head and cocked his hat to see. Whoever it was probably wouldn’t even notice him. He shifted his position on the pillows, sinking lower.

The sound of the boat’s motor changed.

Shit, he muttered. He could tell from the noise the boat was headed right for him. He rose up on his elbows and watched the vessel approach. His boat rocked gently as the newcomer disturbed the placid water.

The boater cut the engine about a hundred feet from where Travis lay and let the craft glide alongside. The two boats were about the same size, only twelve feet long, with small outboard engines, common bayou fishing boats, the type owned by nearly everybody.

The sun was high and bright behind the driver of the other boat, creating a silhouette effect, and Travis squinted against the glare, unable to see who was interrupting his solitude. The other driver used an oar to shove Travis’s boat aside and change the angle at which the two vessels rocked in the water beside each other.

Travis got a good look at his visitor.

What are you doing here? Travis sat up in surprise when he recognized the person in the other boat. He tried on a smile.

Just taking care of business, business that damn sure needs taking care of.

At the tone of his visitor’s voice, Travis’s smile faltered. Now what makes you think you need to be concerning yourself with any of my business? He paused and pursed his lips. What’ve you got on your mind, comin’ out here? Like a bayou critter, he sensed danger, and danger always excited him, gave him a sexual jolt. His right hand wandered to his crotch, and he squeezed himself gently, enjoying the tingle that quivered in his loins.

Travis, my man. Cold eyes fell to the area of Travis’s crotch, clearly not missing the movement, the tremor, behind Coltrane’s denim fly. You’re just too damn big for your britches…and I don’t mean that as a compliment.

Hey, now…come on… Travis’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the gun emerging from a paper bag in the newcomer’s hand. What the hell are you doing?

The first bullet hit him between the eyes. He was already dead when another one drilled into his chest, followed by three into his groin.

The boater used an oar to maneuver around Travis’s boat and push the loop of rope up and over the stump, to allow the boat to drift freely along the bayou.

The killer’s hands had touched nothing on Travis’s vessel. The boat sped away upriver, and the gun was wiped and tossed far into the murky waters of Shadow Bayou.

1

I STOMPED INTO the office where my younger sister, Brittney, sprawled in a chair in front of my antique desk, her legs encased in too tight, fashionably distressed jeans, her breasts threatening to jump out of her low cut white tee shirt, a pink sequined crawfish stretched across the front. The blue streaks in her hair and the nose ring did nothing to reinforce the image of a Creole girl of good family. She picked at the cuticles of her overly long fuchsia nails, tiny rhinestones embedded in the tips, a couple of them chipped and needing rehab.

I steeled myself in preparation for her litany of gimmes. The little tart had no concept of the notion of working, and there was plenty of work to be done around Maison Fontaine, for which I was named. The opulent hotel had once been my family’s home, nestled among the Spanish moss-draped oak and cypress trees of Bayou Ombre, or Shadow Bayou in English.

About damn time you showed up. Brittney’s bottom lip was poked out so far pigeons could roost on it. I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes with nothing to do but look at all this tacky-ass junk you’ve got on the walls. All these damn paintings of N’Awlins, life on the bayou, such shit as that.

I don’t recall asking for your opinion on my décor, seeing as how all your taste is in your mouth.

Where the hell have you been?

While you lay on your ass and slept off last night’s party at the Bugaloo, I had errands to run, had some lunch down at Remy’s. Hurricane Gladys has us in her sights, and I need him to get up here and move those boats we rent from him. I lifted my hair from my nape and fluffed it, fanning my neck.

Remy Thibadeaux was a handsome Cajun man who ran a fish camp. He rented boats to me for our guests to use and had a barbeque and seafood eatery on his dock. Remy was also the local tomcat.

She eyed my lavender and sage knit top that matched my sage pants. You changed clothes from what you had on this morning. Did you get snagged on something? Something long and pointy, belonging to Remy. Her eyebrows danced.

Try to get your mind out of the gutter, Sister. I got something on my shirt at lunch. I sat down and unlocked my desk, threw the keys inside. I felt a tremor of annoyance at allowing myself to get irritated at my sister’s juvenile remarks.

You’re hair’s a mess. She snickered. Doing some monkey business with Remy?

Jesus, I hissed. Some of us have businesses to run, and I’ve got plenty to do before that storm moves inland. I blew a puff of air. That’s why it’s so hot and humid.

Yeah. Mama’s bitchin’ that she hopes it’s not as bad as Katrina, all the stores, restaurants, hair salons, everything closed. I swan, I can’t believe people are still harping on a hurricane that happened back in the dark ages.

Well, it did a lot of damage, killed a lot of people. Gladys doesn’t look as bad, but you never know how bad a storm will be until it hits.

A rumble of thunder punctuated my words, and a splatter of rain raced across the brickwork patio outside the French doors leading to the gardens and courtyard behind the hotel. The outlying bands of the storm were moving closer, but it would be a few more days before the hurricane hit.

I turned on my computer and glared at my sister. Now I’m busy. What did you want to see me about?

Fontaine Marie-Louise Varney, she sneered instead of answering my question. Big shot hotel entreprenueress. I still can’t believe Mama gave you the whole works, the hotel, golf course, cottages, not a damn thing to me.

You can’t manage a trip to the bathroom, much less Maison Fontaine. I was five years older than Brittney, so we’d never been close. I was not what you’d call a doting big sister. I went to Tulane and got an MBA in hotel management, while you were farting around barely getting by in high school, couldn’t even manage one semester of college. I worked my ass off while you took off for Europe to ‘find yourself.’ I fingered air quotes. All you found was a social disease and some fortune hunting trash, like that phony Duke Rigatoni….

Rispoli, she amended.

Whatever. Good thing our sheriff, Cheyne Delacroix, found out he was in the country illegally and sicced immigration on his ass. Got rid of him before he laid up here with you and you got pregnant…again. I cast my eyes upward. Thank God for small favors. You’re just like Mama, always have to have a man, any man.

Duke Ricky had certain assets. She held her hands apart, measuring almost a foot. Same reason Mama keeps your ex, Travis, around.

She’s welcome to that lying, whore-hopping leech, I snapped. No matter what his so-called assets are.

She straightened up in the chair and twisted her lips in a nasty smile.

I realized she was goading me, just like Mama liked to do to people to try to gain the upper hand. My hackles rose to a new height.

Brittney and I looked much alike. Both around five foot six, thick caramel colored hair, but where I was slim, she was, to be kind, voluptuous. I had inherited the dark green eyes of our St. Cyr relatives, while Brittney had our daddy’s cold, calculating blue orbs. Too bad the measuring glint in her eyes did not extend to any sort of business acumen or work ethic. My kid sister thought the world owed her something, an attitude inherited from Mama.

I gave a mental snort, my mother, who had married my ex-husband a couple years ago and still hadn’t seemed to figure out what a rat he was…or didn’t care.

Yeah…I’d done stupid in marrying the handsome, charming Casanova…but I’d wised up quickly and gotten rid of him. I still chide myself for my stupidity. I’d probably been the only twenty-three year old virgin on the planet, and I’d fallen for his you’re the girl of my dreams crap.

He turned out to be my worst nightmare. With the help of a great-uncle, who was buddies with the arch-bishop, the marriage was annulled after less than six months.

I returned to my family’s hotel from the condo he and I shared in New Orleans. I took up residence in the penthouse above the third floor, where I had lived with my grandparents since I was ten, when Mama and my father, Robert Edward (Bob Ed) Varney, III, owner of Varney Oil, were divorced. At that time, Mama moved back home from Houston and did the Southern Belle socialite routine…the clothes, the parties, the men. She chewed up men and spat them out like wads of bubblegum, but she didn’t marry them, until Travis.

Grandmere and Grandpere Fontaine were killed in a white water rafting accident on the Molenaars River in Africa, the trip an anniversary present to each other. I had just graduated from Tulane and gone to work at one of the upscale boutique hotels in New Orleans. Mama, the oldest of their three daughters, inherited Maison Fontaine. She attempted to run the place but, after a several months of flopping and floundering, she decided the responsibility of running Maison Fontaine interfered with her lifestyle, so she turned the hotel complex over to me, lock, stock, barrel, and golf course. My windfall arrived only three days after my annulment was final.

Before the ink was dry on the papers dissolving my disastrous marriage, Mama married my ex.

Coincidence? Ha. I figured she’d had her eye on him all along…and she was welcome to him.

She and my ex lived here at the hotel, along with my sister, who sulked across the desk from me, her expression mirroring the one my mother wore when she was finagling to get something for nothing.

Look, I don’t have time for your juvenile prattling. Tell me what you want or leave. I met my sister eyeball to eyeball.

She dropped her gaze first and shifted in her seat, still pouting. "Well, we’ve got that big ass ballroom, and I’d like to use it to throw a party for myself for my birthday. I mean, like you don’t turn twenty-one every day. I already talked to Mama, but she said you’d have to give the okay, seeing as how you are the owner."

I’ll have to check the schedule.

So check.

I’ll charge you the same thing I would charge anyone else to use the ballroom. I turned a ballpoint pen over in my fingers, then tapped it on my leather desk pad. That includes a damage deposit, the salaries of the servers, all the food and drink, decorations, entertainment, and all the other fees, including a twenty percent tip, just like anybody else.

Her lips became a tight line. You can be so shitty. Just like Daddy about a dollar bill. I swan I’d starve if it wasn’t for Mama.

I have a business to run, my dear. It’s enough that I’ve allowed Mama and Travis to live rent free in one of our executive suites, cutting me out of thirty-five hundred dollars a night in revenue…

"Well, Mama pays for my suite, she interrupted. And it’s not one of the executive spots."

Good thing, too, or you’d find your ass on the street. I’m not taking in any more freeloaders.

A quick tap on my door interrupted the tender conversation between devoted sisters, and the door was opened before I could call out an entrez.

My secretary, Anne Larue, appeared flustered. Excuse me, Fontaine. I don’t mean to barge in, but Cheyne Delacroix, the sheriff, is here. He really needs to talk to you, like right now. She gasped the words and bobbed her head in quick jerks. There’s been…. She flapped her hand. Oh, he’ll tell you.

It wasn’t like Anne to be so discombobulated. I’d heard sirens a couple hours ago, but I’d paid little attention to the racket. Now the sheriff was on my doorstep. Trepidation skittered up my spine. Intuition told me the sirens had something to do with the hotel…what, I could not imagine.

I cocked my head and spied our Bayou Ombre sheriff just past Anne’s shoulder. Beside him was a young woman with long curly dark hair. I recognized her as our mayor’s niece and wondered what she was doing with the sheriff. I nodded to Anne and called. Come on in, Cheyne.

Cheyne Delacroix was one fine specimen of manhood, six foot four, and built like a steel-reinforced concrete outhouse. Blond hair and blue chips of ice for eyes. Too bad he was intimately involved with my distant cousin and close friend Laurette St. Cyr.

What’s the haps, sheriff? I asked.

His visage was grim. He nodded toward the woman with him. You know Tammy Ardoin, Jackie’s niece?

Of course. Nice to see you back home. I hoped my tone didn’t reflect the insincerity of my words. Bayou Ombre could do without another homegrown floozy. And that’s exactly all Mayor Jacques Beausoleil’s niece ever was. I heard you were back from New York.

Three years in that place was more than enough. Uncle Jackie promised me a job if I came back home and went back to school. He said I could be doing something where I could ‘make a difference.’ She air-quoted with her long-nailed fingers.

I see. I found the phrase trite at best and could imagine the kind of difference she’d be making. The local women had better lock up their husbands.

My sister twisted in her seat, and the two women eyed each other like a pair of she alley cats getting ready to rumble. I had attended Sacred Heart Academy in New Orleans, but Brittney had insisted on going to public school here on Shadow Bayou. She had graduated from high school with Tammy, and they’d hated each other since grammar school.

Tammy was around five foot seven and had the body of an old-timey burlesque queen. None of this lean and mean skeletal look for her. Her breasts threatened to poke through her red silk blouse, and her hips and buttocks strained the tan pants that fit like sausage casings. Her long thick hair cascaded over her shoulders, and her black eyes registered pure hatred when they settled on my sister.

Jackie has given Tammy a job as his administrative assistant, Cheyne explained. He wants her to spend time with each of the department heads to get a feel for how the city and the parish work. Today it’s my turn. His facial expression told me he would rather have a screwdriver poked in his eye than put up with the mayor’s niece.

I gave Tammy a thin excuse for a smile. How nice for you. Obviously, nepotism was no more rife on Bayou Ombre than in any other part of Louisiana.

I told Uncle Jackie that Bayou Ombre has never had a female sheriff. I might want to be the first. She puckered her full lips and gave Cheyne a challenging, yet coy, look.

Our sheriff was not yet thirty-five and popular among the bayou residents, so she might have a long wait on her hands.

My sister shifted her focus from the other young woman to Sheriff Delacroix. She thrust her silicon-enhanced mammaries in his direction. He-e-ey, Cheyne. What brings you out here?

Nothing pleasant I’m afraid.

Y’all need some coffee? Anne nodded at me from the doorway, as if answering her own query. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth, and her eyebrows had climbed nearly to her hairline.

I caught her expression of apprehension. Apparently, Cheyne had already told her the subject of his visit. I suppose so.

I’ve already asked Harvey at the desk to fetch your mother, Cheyne said. She should be here in a moment.

Oh? I waved a hand for him and his acolyte to take the vacant chairs in front of my desk. What’s this about?

I’d like to wait until your mother gets here to talk to you about this. He took a seat between my sister and his temporary assistant. He had taken off his baseball cap embellished with the sheriff’s department logo. He crossed his legs and plopped the hat on one knee.

Anne always kept a pot of coffee prepared. She brought in a crystal carafe, a China sugar bowl, and a creamer on a silver tray, which she placed on the credenza beside my desk. She retrieved serving necessities from a hand carved, two hundred year old sideboard and lined them up next to the coffee pot.

My secretary was in her late forties and had worked at the hotel her entire life. She was a tall woman with light brown hair and gray eyes. Attractive in a conservative way and efficient to a fault. Um, Fontaine, I took the liberty of calling Dr. Hampton, but he’s out of town. Our guest, that Dr. Birdsong, the one who’s staying here until he finds a house? I just saw him coming in through the back, so I shanghaied him and asked him to join y’all. He’ll be here as soon as he changes clothes. Is that okay?

"Mais ye. I nodded and shrugged. What do we need a doctor for?"

Instead of answering me, she looked at Cheyne who said, Might be a good idea.

I didn’t comment on his usurping my option. Cheyne was not one to bulldoze, so he must have a reason for asking for a doctor and for waiting until my mother was present to disclose the reason for his visit.

Anne poured coffee all around and set the cream and sugar on my desk so the guests could help themselves. My desk, like the other furnishings in my office, was antique and a bit on the opulent side, but my taste doesn’t run to minimalism. My grandfather and his father before him had used the elegant piece of furniture.

Something bad has happened? I asked the sheriff, as my secretary handed me a coffee prepared the way I liked it.

Depends on your point of view, I suppose, Cheyne told me.

I guess this isn’t anything about me, is it? Otherwise, you’d’ve done said so. Brittney twirled a lock of hair around her finger and gave me the evil eye. I’d warned her about smoking dope in the hotel, so she probably thought the sheriff’s visit was about that. She leaned forward to reach the cup of coffee Anne poured for her, and her breasts nearly spilled out of her tee shirt. Of course, I haven’t done anything we’d need a doctor or a cop for. She giggled and flashed a taunting glance at the mayor’s niece. Not yet, anyway.

Tammy returned her dirty look, while I cast her a warning eye of my own. My sister was almost twenty-one, going on fourteen, and I was more than fed up with her juvenile shenanigans.

Dr. Daniel Birdsong came through the open door. Sorry for the delay. I was out and about and needed to put on some more professional clothes before I go back to my office. He adjusted the long sleeves of his white dress shirt and smoothed his tie.

Anne moved two more chairs from the conference table along the far wall nearer to my desk.

I introduced the doctor to the sheriff and his helper.

The two men shook hands.

Dr. Birdsong and I have met, Cheyne provided and introduced him to Tammy.

Tammy gave the doctor an assessing once-over and held out her hand. My pleasure. Her smile resembled a gator’s toothy grin. It’s nice to know we have a handsome doctor on the bayou and not some old dried up coot.

Birdsong’s smile was threadbare. Those old coots have a lot of knowledge.

Tammy batted her eyelashes. But their hands are so cold. She shivered, causing her outsized breasts to quiver.

He thanked Anne for the coffee and settled into one of the vacant chairs, pointedly ignoring Tammy’s attempted flirtation.

The physician was the new doctor in Frenchy’s Landing, the only sizable town on Shadow Bayou. As Anne had mentioned, he was residing at the hotel until he found a house for himself. Despite a silly name like Birdsong, the man was as handsome as Sheriff Delacroix and nearly as tall. Instead of the sheriff’s bulk,