“Whose house?”
He knew the answer before she said the words. “It’s Lila’s place.”
He stood up because their night out was over.chapter thirteen“I don’t know what you want me to say, Sheriff.” Bobby Petrie stood in the small cell, his hands on his hips. “Obviously, I couldn’t have burned down anything. I was here.”
“I’d like to know where your brother was last night.”
He suspected Donny Petrie had been busy the night before. Lila’s small home had been completely gutted. They’d made it back to Papillon in the middle of the night, but the morning had brought with it the sight of her destroyed house. She’d held his hand tight as she’d stared at the house she’d briefly called home and then she’d gone to work.
And so had he.
Bobby looked like he’d slept perfectly fine. He was bright-eyed this morning as he looked at Armie through the bars on his cell. “You would have to ask him, but I suspect he was busy trying to find me a lawyer since the only one in town turned us down. He probably spent the whole night on the phone trying to work something out. I assure you my brother wouldn’t have burned down some random woman’s house.”
He could feel Roxie moving to stand beside him. Likely she was going to try to make sure he didn’t murder their prisoner. “She wasn’t a random woman and you know it. You’re lucky Dr. Daley wasn’t in the house at the time.”
Bobby shrugged. “Why would I want to hurt Lila Daley? All she’s ever done is try to help my wife out. She doesn’t understand how sick Carrie is. I blame myself. I should have talked to her. I should have let her know that Carrie can be delusional at times and she loves to get my attention. That’s all this is. You should talk to Doc Hamet. He knows all about my wife’s problems.”
“You can’t fool Dr. Daley the way you did Hamet.” He wasn’t about to let Bobby muddy the waters by bringing the doc into this.
“Not trying to fool anyone. I’m worried about my wife.” He managed to sound like he gave a shit. “Look, I understand that she told you a bunch of stories about how I hurt her and I have, but not physically. I’ve been having an affair with another woman. This is how she’s trying to get back at me. We’ll go over all of it in court, I suspect. If I could talk to her, explain to her that I’m sorry about cheating on her, I’m sure we could handle this on our own. You know how women can be.”
“I don’t,” Roxie interjected. “Why don’t you tell me how women can be.”
“Vindictive,” Bobby replied, his eyes sharpening. “Sometimes nothing you do is enough for a woman.” He seemed to shake off the darkness that had briefly clouded his eyes. Or he’d managed to get his mask back on. “Marriage is hard. It’s definitely more complex when the wife has a mental illness.”
It was easy to see Bobby knew how he was going to play this. The problem was Armie could see some people buying into what Bobby was saying. Lila would be the one who had to explain to the judge and any jury how those injuries couldn’t have been self-inflicted or accidental.
Lila could be the one who tipped the scales of justice in this case, and there was zero question that she would do it. Lila wouldn’t back down.
“Sheriff, can I talk to you in your office?” Roxie turned away from the cell.
She was obviously trying to get him to back off, and she was right to do it because if he didn’t put some distance between them, he might reach in and throttle the asshole. Lila was going to be in this man’s way, and he’d already proven he was capable of hurting a woman.
He’d listened to Carrie on the long drive to New Orleans and he believed her. Even if Carrie hadn’t told him her story, he would have believed Lila’s logic.
Losing his cool here and now wouldn’t help Carrie or Lila down the line. He took a long breath and faced Bobby. “You settle in. I heard the judge is moving slow these days. I’ll let you know if your lawyer shows up. And don’t think that getting out on bond means I won’t be watching you. I see you even breathe around Lila Daley and we’ll be right back here.”
He turned and strode away before Bobby could get another word in. He nodded as Major walked in, ready for his shift. Roxie had spent the night at the station house, but she looked none the worse for it.
Ah, youth. He was getting old, and late nights showed on his face. He wanted to be just waking up, warm and happy with Lila cuddled up beside him. He would have kissed her and made love to her again, and then they would have gotten dressed and walked to Café Du Monde hand in hand. He would have driven her back, talking to her the whole time.