Miraculously, considering his sedation, Deke’s eyes fluttered open. “Dad?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” Jamie Lee choked out.
“I prayed . . . that . . . that you . . . would come,” Deke finally got out. Talking was difficult at this stage.
“That’s me . . . the answer to a little boy’s prayer,” Jamie Lee muttered.
“Am I dead yet?” His little hand clung to his father’s. “Are you an angel?”
Jamie Lee started to weep then. Hell, they all had tears in their eyes.
“No, I’m hardly an angel, son. Just your daddy.”
“I’m afraid. Will you stay with me?”
“As long as you want, slugger.”
And he did stay with him for the next five hours, never moving from the seat the nurse had pushed behind him, never releasing his son’s grip on his hand, until Deke slipped away. The death was almost an anticlimax.
Daniel had gone back to his office for several hours and returned just in time. As he left for the last time, he wondered how many more of these cancer deaths he could handle without going insane.
A dog is a dog, no matter the breed . . .
Samantha Starr walked down the corridor of the French Quarter courthouse with her new lawyer, Lucien LeDeux, at her side. They were headed toward a conference room where they would meet with her horndog ex-husband Dr. Nicholas Coltrane (aka Nick the Prick), his shark lawyer Jessie John Daltry, and an associate judge for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, District of New Orleans.
“Don’t say anything,” Luc warned her. “You know the good doc will try ta rile you into a hissy fit, which won’t sit well with the judge. Just let me do all the talking.”
“I’ll try.”
“Not good enough. I’ve studied the records, chère. You’re paying Coltrane as much alimony as you do because of your outburst last time.”
She stiffened and raised her chin haughtily. “Or because the judge was a female influenced by my ex’s dubious charms. Nick commented on my lack of sex appeal as an excuse for his adultery, and the judge didn’t even reprimand him.”
“Huh? No way! You are as hot as a goat’s behind in a pepper patch.”
“Charming.”
“Oops. That’s my Tante Lulu’s favorite Cajun saying. Hang around her long enough and she wears off on you.”
Samantha knew and even worked on occasion with Louise Rivard, better known as Tante Lulu to everyone, and she was outrageous in appearance, actions, and general reputation. Not the role model Samantha would set for herself.
Luc grinned. “Anyhow, don’t let the asshole put you down.”
“Oh, please! I am what I am.” Samantha was five-foot-ten in her bare feet. When she wore heels, she was taller than Nick’s five-eleven frame, which had annoyed him to no end. If that wasn’t bad enough, her body was covered with freckles from forehead to toes, and not the attractive kind. Once, in a drunken rage, Nick had likened her freckles to tobacco juice spit on her by a redneck farmer. Orange spittle. As for her bright red hair . . . no more! She paid a fortune to her hairstylist to keep it a more subdued auburn.
Samantha hated that she’d taken so much care with her appearance today . . . white, long-sleeved, Chanel pantsuit with a fitted peplum jacket, matching stiletto pumps, and tailored, jade-green, collarless, silk blouse . . . to match her green eyes, her only feature that she really liked. Her auburn hair was swept off her face in a neat chignon. Emerald drop earrings in a platinum setting and her great-grandmother’s emerald-and-diamond filigree ring were her only jewelry. Unfortunately, there was no way to cover the freckles on her hands, face and neck. She hadn’t dressed to impress Nick, but for her own self-esteem which always tanked in his presence. “I don’t need phony compliments.”
“The dickhead has done a job on you, darlin’. Talk about!” Luc just shook his head. “We can discuss that later. Maybe you should have stayed home and let me handle this.”
“No. I am not going to let him continue to bleed me. Did I tell you that a friend of mine saw him in the South of France? He was on the freakin’ French Riviera for a month. A month!”
Luc sighed. “Yes, you told me. His lawyer says it was a medical conference.”
“For a month? What kind of medical conference lasts a month? SDU? Slimy Doctors United?”
Samantha had been married to Nick for five years and divorced for another five, but she was still paying for that mistake. And not just with the continuing humiliation of his serial adultery, or the very public, acrimonious divorce. Nope, the jerk had demanded alimony, that on top of her having paid his way through medical school. And he kept wanting more and more.
It wasn’t just that Nick knew the salary and benefits she drew from her family business, not to mention stock she owned in the company and a sizeable savings account. But he was aware of the gold coins and bullion, worth anywhere from a million and a half to two million dollars, depending on the market, stored in her bank safety deposit box. It started out as a million dollars in gold, a gift her grandfather gave on the birth of each of his grandchildren. In her case, it had almost doubled in value. Being of conservative Scottish stock, her grandfather preferred hard, cold metal, over stocks and bonds. Portable wealth. Since that gold wasn’t “earned” during their marriage, the courts had denied Nick access to it, over and over. But he kept trying.
During the course of her relationship with Nick, she’d met many of his physician friends, and they all seemed to be focused on their net worth and what expensive toy they could buy next. Very few were in the profession for the good they could do. And most had been divorced at least once, or were blatant adulterers. And talk about the conversations when Nick and his gynecologist buddies got together! If she heard the joke “I’ve seen more pussy than Hugh Hefner,” one time, she’d heard it a hundred.
Thus, her bias against doctors. It was an unreasonable bias, to lump all male doctors into one assumption. She realized that, but perhaps it was understandable.
“SDU? Sounds like a sexual disease. But see, that’s the kind of remark that will get you in trouble.” Even as he chastised her, Luc had to smile. “All we need is time. Wish you had contacted me earlier, but not to worry. I’ve got investigators checking into his activities. We’re gonna nail his sorry ass to the wall, one way or the other.”
“I wish I’d hired you sooner, too. My old lawyer, Charles Broussard, was a lovely man . . . a friend of my grandfather . . . but not the sharpest knife in the drawer, not a barracuda like Daltry.”
“I eat big fish for breakfast,” Luc bragged.
He probably did. That, or fried gator kidneys if his crazy aunt had any say.
Samantha put one of her recently manicured fingernails to her mouth and began to gnaw nervously.
Luc slapped her hand away. “Enough of that! You have to walk in there as if you own the world. Fearless!”
“Pfff! How do I do that with a man who looks like some kind of Norse God in Armani? And a lawyer who sharpens his teeth on people like me?”
“No, no, no! Daltry is a shark, guar-an-teed, but, darlin’, you hired yourself an even badder shark. A Cajun shark. The best kind.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Here’s a clue on how not ta be intimidated. When I’m in court, if it’s a man tryin’ ta disconcert me, I just picture him naked, walkin’ down Bourbon Street with a string of Carnival beads looped around his . . . um, family jewels. If it’s a woman, I picture her, naked, too, but with a behind the size of a bayou barge, doin’ a Cajun shimmy snake dance. In both cases, people are laughin’ their asses off at them.”
Samantha’s jaw dropped open before she burst out with a giggle.
And that was how her ex-husband and his lawyer saw her as she and Luc entered the auxiliary courtroom. And, to her surprise, Nick was the one who looked disconcerted.
“Game on, Samantha?” Luc whispered in her ear.
“Game on,” she agreed, leaning in to his ear.
As Nick and his lawyer stood, Nick’s ey
es widened with surprise at what must seem an intimate interplay between her and her lawyer. Luc might be fifty years old, give or take, and married with kids, but he was still handsome and successful, the type of man Nick had always intimated would never be interested in her.
The two lawyers exchanged cool greetings while Nick pulled his charm mask on and smiled at her. “Samantha, it’s good to see you again.”
Liar!
Giving her an insulting head-to-toe survey, he winked at her and drawled, “Lookin’ good, babe.”
Another lie. Among other things, Nick had more than once suggested she get breast implants. And skin bleaching to reduce the freckling. Like Dolly Parton and Michael Jackson, for heaven’s sake! The image still made her blood curdle.
Her upper lip curled with disgust at Nick’s continuing swarmy smile. Was there ever a time when she’d thought him attractive? Aliens must have invaded her brain.
“Oy-yay! Oy-yay! Judge Bernadette Pitre presiding in the case of Coltrane vs Starr,” the bailiff called out through an inner door which had just opened. The judge was followed by a court reporter with her portable steno machine.
“Oh, no! Another female judge!” Samantha complained to Luc.
Seemingly undismayed, he patted her arm and murmured something that sounded like, “Thank you, St. Jude.”
“Your honor, Jessie John Daltry representing Dr. Nicholas Coltrane.” The judge nodded at Daltry, but then frowned when Nick, in an impeccable gray suit with lavender shirt and purple striped tie, his blond hair perfectly groomed, and reeking of Bleu de Chanel, said with a teeth-showing, I-can-get-any-woman-I-want smile plastered on his sun-tanned face, “It is such a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Pitre. I have heard so much about you. Congratulations on your recent—”
“Are you tryin’ ta influence me, young man?” the judge asked with steel in her deep Creole voice. At forty-something she was not that much older than Nick’s thirty-four, but she was a big-boned, mocha-skinned Amazon of a woman who clearly handled her courtroom in a no-nonsense fashion. She looked a little bit like Queen Latifah in a judge’s gown.
Samantha had to grin at a female stonewalling Nick’s charm tactics.
Then the judge turned to her and Luc, and groaned aloud. Samantha could swear she said under her breath, “Oh, crap!”
Not a good sign.
“Lucien LeDeux! What’re you doin’ here, cher? Shouldn’t you be down the bayou chasin’ ambulances or somethin’?”
Instead of being insulted, Luc just grinned. “How’s yer Mama, Bernie?”
“Jist fine. And that old bird, Tante Lulu?”
“Still causin’ trouble. Thanks fer askin’.”
Samantha did a mental Snoopy dance as they all sat down, Nick and Daltry looking as if they’d swallowed bad crawfish. It would appear that Tante Lulu’s outrageousness had unexpected benefits.
“I’ve read the history on this case. It appears that Ms. Starr is requesting a termination of alimony payments . . . very substantial alimony, I see here . . . to her ex-husband Dr. Nicholas Coltrane. How come a doctor needs alimony?” the judge asked right off the bat.
“Because Doctor Coltrane deserves to live the lifestyle he shared with Samantha Starr while they were married. The same would be true if the genders were reversed, and a woman wanted alimony from her husband.” Daltry then cited some statute which supposedly supported his position.
“Don’t y’all be tryin’ ta teach me the law, Mistah Daltry.”
“My apologies, your honor,” a red-faced Daltry said.
Judge Pitre nodded. “For how long? It’s been five years. How long before Dr. Coltrane earns an income to match his former lifestyle?”
There was a telling silence which pretty much said, “Forever.”
Then Daltry said, “Records show how expensive the medical equipment is in the facility Dr. Coltrane had to purchase for his practice after moving out of a Starr family building. That on top of rising office salaries, insurance, etc. Little is left for even a minimal standard of living.”
The judge raised her eyebrows skeptically.
“Your honor? If I may speak?” Luc stood and picked up a folder, which he opened on the table.
The judge nodded.
“There are new circumstances that warrant the termination of alimony payments to Dr. Coltrane.”
“I object,” Daltry said, standing abruptly. “What are those documents? We’re entitled to discovery.”
“Don’t be an ass, Mistah Daltry. This isn’t some high-falutin’, on-TV, criminal trial,” Judge Pitre exclaimed.
Daltry flushed again and plopped back down into his chair.
Nick raised his hand in the air like a little kid asking his teacher for permission to go to the bathroom. At Judge Pitre’s surprised nod of acceptance, he smiled his lopsided smile, the one that meant he was playing the ain’t-I-adorable card. “I never wanted a divorce. It was Samantha who rejected my affections.”
“You were screwing the neighbor’s babysitter, you prick!”
“Samantha!” Luc hissed. “Remember. Carnival beads.”
“So not true! Your honor, Samantha is very insecure,” he confided in a whisper as if they couldn’t all hear. “She was always looking for infidelity in our marriage.”
“And you were looking for size double-D’s.” And, yeah, taking Luc’s advice, Samantha had to admit that Nick did look silly in her mind picture, bare-assed naked, with an erection standing out like a bird’s roost, holding strands of colored beads. She couldn’t help but grin.
“Atta girl,” Luc said, guessing what she was thinking.
Nick snarled at her seeming amusement at his expense, then told the judge meekly, “I even suggested we take ballroom dancing classes together, not just to heal our marriage, but because, I have to tell you, Samantha has no sense of rhythm at all.”
Samantha returned the snarl. “And you have no sense at all, period.”
The judge put her face in her hands, then shouted, “Enough! Does anyone have anything to present today that is remotely sane? Otherwise, I’m going down to Arnaud’s where I plan to order a Hurricane . . . or five.”
“Your honor,” Luc said with exaggerated meekness, “I submit credit card statements for Doctor Coltrane which indicate he is living a lifestyle that far exceeds his supposed medical debts, despite his claims of near poverty.”
“There are privacy laws, LeDeux. You have no right to those records,” Daltry sputtered.
“Shut up!” the judge said, then turned to Luc. “Continue.”
Shoving one sheet of paper after another toward the judge, Luc explained, “In the past six months, designer suits worth ten thousand dollars, restaurant expenses totaling twenty thousand dollars, jewelry, fifty thousand dollars, and purchase of a condo during his recent one-month stay in the Cote d’Azur.”
Judge Pitre’s jaw dropped with each sheet. Daltry looked a bit shocked, as well.
But Luc was on a roll. “I would like the court’s permission ta subpoena Cerise Barclay, Antoinette Gaudet, and Pussy Gate.”
“Your honor!” Daltry protested.
“You bitch!” Nick seethed at Samantha. “You’re just jealous because you’re such a dog no man would want you.”
“You’re the dog, Nick,” she snapped back, leaning across the table.
Luc tugged on her arm, pulling her back. “Shhh. He’s baiting you. Naked. Carnival beads. Naked. Carnival beads.”
“You didn’t think I was a dog at one time,” Nick went on. “In fact, we’d still be together if I hadn’t had a vasectomy . . .”
“Without telling me,” she pointed out, sitting now, but with her arms folded over her chest in anger.
Nick shrugged. “Just because you drooled over kids didn’t mean I wanted to propagate the likes of you.”
The judge was pounding on the conference table. “Silence! Everyone!”
When they’d all quieted, though everyone was simmering, Judge Pitre addressed Luc. “Subpoenas, Luc? W
hat do you think this is, Law and Order?”
“No, but the women will never come testify unless you order them to.”
“Who are they?”
“Coltrane’s mistresses.”
The judge raised a silencing hand when Nick and Daltry prepared to protest again. “And the one with the funny name . . . Pussy-something?”
“Pussy Gate. A stripper,” Luc said succinctly, not even breaking into a grin, even though he probably wanted to.
Nick flashed her a venomous look. Hey, she hadn’t even known about the stripper. She’d thought his tastes ran higher class than pole dancers.
“This case is postponed until . . .” the judge consulted her calendar, “two months from now. September 15. At which time I expect documentation, supporting case law, and decorum. From both sides. Do I make myself clear?”
“I’ll be ready to leave in a few minutes,” Luc said, motioning toward the clerk who’d stayed behind while the judge left the chamber.
Samantha went into the corridor ladies’ room while she waited for Luc to complete some court paperwork. Although everything seemed to have gone well today, she felt drained . . . and frustrated that the case would be continued for another two months.
Nick was waiting for her when she came out.
She tried to step around him, but he blocked her way, then grabbed her with a pincer-hold on her upper arm, dragging her into a side corridor leading to a maintenance closet. The hatred on his face turned his normally perfect features into something scary.
“Have you lost your mind?” she asking, slapping at him. Her handbag dropped in the process, and her carefully-styled hair came undone.
Shoving her up against the wall, he spat out at her, “You stupid cunt! Do you honestly think I’m going to let you get away with this?”
“Let me go!” She tried to squirm away from him, but his arms now bracketed her against the wall.
“You’re not getting away with this, Sammie.” He used that nickname deliberately because he knew she hated it.
“Wanna bet, Nickie? The cash cow is about to shut down for business.”