Dead End by Stella Cameron Read Free Book Online Page B

hyacinths on Bayou Teche. Spike liked a quiet life with his four-year-old daughter, Wendy, enough time for the two of them to fish and to drive into Lafayette for a movie—and for him to play a game of pickup basketball.
    He’d started out his law enforcement career with big ambitions. The maverick in him had turned out to be trouble, and he was lucky to have the Toussaint job. Deputy pay was a joke, but the gas station and convenience shop his father watched over when Spike couldn’t be there kept the three of them comfortable enough. For the present he’d settle for being where he was, and although he hadn’t lost interest in cleaning up any scum that came his way, he’d gotten smarter about it.
    “You hear me, boy?” Chauncey said, and spat tobacco juice on the pocked linoleum floor. “You hear what I’m tellin’ you?”
    “Now, my good friend,” Spike whispered in Chauncey’s ear. “We’re on better terms than that. You don’t need a telephone ‘cause we’re just fixin’ to have a chat.” He shoved him past two rookie deputies—the result of Toussaint’s increased crime rate in the past year or so. The man and woman, both ridiculously young, huddled around the castoff television Spike had brought in. A rerun of L.A.
Confidential
had the pair lock-eyed.
    “If you ain’t got nothin’ on me, I’m outa here, Devol. I don’t chat with the law.”
    “That a fact? Humor me. It gets lonely in here some days. I’ll send out for a late lunch.”
    “I don’t want no lunch with you.” Chauncey whined. They’d reached Spike’s office, and he guided his lunch date inside with tender care, slammed the door shut with the heel of a boot, and deposited Chauncey in a green plastic lawn chair bought on special at Wal-Mart.
    Depew popped to his feet.
    Spike gripped a trapezius muscle over the man’s right shoulder and squeezed delicately. Depew looked close to tears and sank down, whimpering at the pain. He didn’t get up again.
    “Hey,” Spike said. “We don’t need takeout. We’ve got doughnuts and coffee. Fresh this mornin’.”
    An aching shoulder took up all of Chauncey’s attention. He didn’t even sneer when the day-old doughnuts and lukewarm coffee were placed within his reach.
    Spike closed stained roller blinds at windows that overlooked the squad room and placed himself between Chauncey and the door. “We’ll start out by makin’ it clear you are not under arrest and I’m not charging you with anything. I thought it was time we caught up is all.”
    That bought him a flat stare from Chauncey’s dark eyes. The man was fifty or so, but women still found him sexy, or so Spike had been told. At the moment his face was chalky under a sallow complexion, and straight black hair, well-pomaded, fell in shiny clumps over his forehead. He was a stocky man of average height who pumped iron at the local gym, but a layer of fat softened his body. It would take more than animal grunts and a pile of iron to neutralize the quantities of food he put down.
    “I’d like to leave,” he said. “If my wife gets wind of me bein’ here you and me’ll both wish you’d found someone else to get cozy with.”
    “This won’t take long. I’m not even writing anythin’ down—bein’ we’re friends. It was parking in a handicapped slot that did it.”
    Chauncey gaped. “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”
    “We try to watch our language around here, Mr. Depew. Sets a better tone.”
    The doughnut Chauncey grabbed sent a flurry of powdered sugar all over his brown-and-white striped suit. He smacked at the sugar with one hand and stuffed the stale pastry into his mouth with the other.
    “You a nervous eater?” Spike asked. Sugar sprayed in his direction.
    “I ain’t got nuthin’ to be nervous about,” Depew said. “Try mad.”
    “Back to the handicapped parking.”
    “I got a bad back. And I got a card on my rearview mirror.”
    “Good. I was just asking. Ila Mae Brown said you raced her