He lowered his weapon, stepped to the room’s single window—painted shut—and glanced out. A dense forest began not more than fifty yards from the back of the building.
Bobby considered holstering the gun and didn’t. Forests gave him the twitchies. Pretty much anything could be in there.
New Orleans had swamps—thick ones, with dripping Spanish moss and lots of alligators. Creepy in their own way, but also familiar. Bobby knew how to search a swamp. But a forest?
Not a clue.
He returned to the street. His car still sat in the center, the shadow of the woman shifted inside. Oddly no one had come out to see what was going on—as if shrieking women and cars idling in the middle of the road were commonplace. Then again, had she shrieked? Maybe not.
He crossed to the car, flicked his finger, indicating she should get out. Instead, she lowered the window a few inches. “Did you see anything?”
“No.”
She frowned. “Nothing?”
“Was it a he? She?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Definitely a he. Or a she.”
Bobby’s lips twitched. He shouldn’t be amused, but he was. “They didn’t trash the place, unless you call knocking your phone on the floor along with a few of the ‘One fish, blue fish’ papers a mess.”
She lifted dark brows toward hair as black as his own. The contrast of that ebony hair and milky skin made him think of Snow White. Too bad he wasn’t any kind of prince.
Foolish thoughts. What was wrong with him? Probably nothing more than his having had no dates in the last year combined with the enticing sway of her ample breasts loose beneath that ancient tank top. Any man would want to be her prince the instant he saw breasts like that.
“Who are you?” she asked, her gaze on the gun in his hand.
He slid his weapon into the shoulder holster. “Bobby Doucet. I’m a detective with the New Orleans PD.”
“You’re a long way from New Orleans.”
His gaze touched the trees again. “Don’t I know it?”
“Why?”
As now was not the time for that explanation, he ignored the question. “I didn’t find anyone in the apartment, Miss…”
“Larsen,” she said. “Raye Larsen.”
“The intruder could have come down the stairs on your heels, then hoofed it into the woods at the sight of my car.”
“Maybe.”
“The other option is that no one was there in the first place. Take your pick.”
A police cruiser, lights flashing, slid to a stop behind Bobby’s car. Apparently someone had noticed its presence after all and called 911. Or maybe the night watch had finally gotten back to this street. It wasn’t as if there were that many streets to keep track of.
A sinewy fellow with tufts of white hair above his ears and none anywhere else stepped out. “What’s goin’ on here?”
“Chief!” Miss Larsen hit the locks and nearly smacked Bobby in the chest as she opened the car door. She was taller than he’d first thought, at least five seven in bare feet.
“Raye, what are you doin’ out here?” He turned his scowl on Bobby. “Who are you?”
“Detective Bobby Doucet. Chief Johnson?”
The man nodded.
“I think you’re expecting me.”
“Not in the middle of the night,” Johnson grumbled.
Bobby cast a glance at the numbers displayed on his dashboard. Since when was ten o’clock the middle of anything? In New Orleans ten was barely the beginning.
“Miss Larsen requested my assistance.”
The chief’s scowl deepened. “What kind of assistance?”
“I saw someone lurking around the crime scene,” she blurted.
Bobby opened his mouth, then shut it again. What the— Johnson’s eyes moved to Raye’s face, studiously avoiding parts lower than her chin. “Who?”
She shrugged.
“And then?”
“The detective arrived, and I flagged him down to tell him.”
“You saw a strange man in a strange car and thought he could help you with the stranger?”
She nodded.
Bobby wasn’t sure what to do. She was lying. Then again, he’d found no meat-cleaver-wielding maniac in her apartment, nor any sign of one. Perhaps she’d decided she’d had a vivid dream while drunk paper correcting and just wanted it all to go away. He could relate.
“Was there anyone there?” the chief asked.
“No,” she answered. “Must have been a shadow.”
Johnson grunted. He wasn’t convinced. But what could he do beyond calling the woman a liar, and why would she lie about something so pointless? Bobby couldn’t wait to find out.
“You have a place to stay, Detective?”
“Just point me to the nearest hotel.”
“Forty miles that way.” Raye’s finger indicated the direction he’d just arrived from. Come to think of it, the only hotel he’d seen between here and the Dane County Regional Airport had given him Psycho flashbacks.
“There’s no hotel in town?”
“We don’t need one,” she said. “Visitors stay with the relatives they came to visit.”