The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [92]
“No,” I said.
The first tear trailed down her face. I touched her hand. Her fingers wrapped around mine and held on.
“It’s alright,” I said, “it’s alright.”
She cried. I held her hand and lied. “It’s alright now, Wanda. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“Everyone hurts you,” she said. “You were going to hurt me.” There was accusation in her eyes.
It was a little late to explain good cop, bad cop to her. She wouldn’t have believed it anyway.
“Tell me about Gaynor.”
“He replaced me with a deaf girl.”
“Cicely,” I said.
She looked up, surprised. “You’ve met her?”
“Briefly.”
Wanda shook her head. “Cicely is one sick chickie. She likes torturing people. It gets her off.” Wanda looked at me as if trying to gauge my reaction. Was I shocked? No.
“Harold slept with both of us at the same time, sometimes. At the end it was always a threesome. It got real rough.” Her voice dropped lower and lower, a hoarse whisper. “Cicely likes knives. She’s real good at skinning things.” She rolled her lips under again in that lipstick-smoothing gesture. “Gaynor would kill me just for telling you his bedroom secrets.”
“Do you know any business secrets?”
She shook her head. “No, I swear. He was always very careful to keep me out of that. I thought at first it was so if the police came, I wouldn’t be arrested.” She looked down at her lap. “Later, I realized it was because he knew I would be replaced. He didn’t want me to know anything that could hurt him when he threw me away.”
There was no bitterness now, no anger, only a hollow sadness. I wanted her to rant and rave. This quiet despair was aching. A hurt that would never heal. Gaynor had done worse than kill her. He’d left her alive. Alive and as crippled inside as out.
“I can’t tell you anything but bedroom talk. It won’t help you hurt him.”
“Is there any bedroom talk that isn’t about sex?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Personal secrets, but not sex. You were his sweetie for nearly two years. He must have talked about something other than sex.”
She frowned, thinking. “I . . . I guess he talked about his family.”
“What about his family?”
“He was illegitimate. He was obsessed with his real father’s family.”
“He knew who they were?”
Wanda nodded. “They were rich, old money. His mother was a hooker turned mistress. When she got pregnant, they threw her out.”
Like Gaynor did to his women, I thought. Freud is so often at work in our lives. Out loud I said, “What family?”
“He never said. I think he thought I’d blackmail them or go to them with his dirty little secrets. He desperately wants them to regret not welcoming him into the family. I think he only made his money so he could be as rich as they were.”
“If he never gave you a name, how do you know he wasn’t lying?”
“You wouldn’t ask if you could hear him. His voice was so intense. He hates them. And he wants his birthright. Their money is his birthright.”
“How does he plan to get their money?” I asked.
“Just before I left him, Harold had found where some of his ancestors were buried. He talked about treasure. Buried treasure, can you believe it?”
“In the graves?”
“No, his father’s people got their first fortune from being river pirates. They sailed the Mississippi and robbed people. Gaynor was proud of that and angry about it. He said that the whole bunch of them were descended from thieves and whores. Where did they get off being so high and mighty to him?” She was watching my face as she spoke the last. Maybe she saw the beginnings of an idea.
“How would knowing the graves of his ancestors help him get their treasure?”
“He said he’d find some voodoo priest to raise them. He’d force them to give him their treasure that had been lost for centuries.”
“Ah,” I said.
“What? Did that help?”
I nodded. My role in Gaynor’s little scheme had become clear. Painfully clear. The only question left was why me? Why didn’t he go to someone thoroughly disreputable like Dominga Salvador? Someone who would