82 Desire

myself, don’t get mad, get even. And I hired Gene Allred. Know what we did? We bugged the place. Don’t ask me how. Just trust me. Or better yet, listen to the tapes.” He gave her a sure-I’ll-respect-you-in-the-morning kind of grin. But oddly enough, this was the moment when she did begin to trust him.
    He had told the story with so much high emotion and so many doubtless-phony references to his dear wife and soulmate, Cille, that she figured he was probably just shoveling manure.
    But when he got to the “get even” part, something in him came alive—and something in her felt it. That’s just what this dude would do , she thought. He’d be crazy enough to bug an oil company and then tell a reporter.
    “We heard ’em talkin’ about it,” he said. “Actually talkin’ about it. The only thing was, we didn’t know who it was doing the talking—except Russell Fortier, of course—or who they were talking about: in other words, who their victims were, except me. And then I did a really stupid thing—I started leaning on Fortier.”
    “Leaning on him for what?”
    Boudreaux seemed embarrassed. “Oh, taunting him, I guess. Trying to get him to give up the other names. I shouldn’t have messed with him. I just shouldn’t have messed with him.” He was shaking his head vigorously.
    “Why? What did he say?”
    “He didn’t really say anything. Just disappeared into thin air. Then we did get some evidence, and somebody killed Allred and stole it.”
    “What evidence?”
    “The stuff on this disk. Pretty funny what you said about me getting killed on the way over—that’s more or less what happened with Allred.”
    “You think somebody from United killed Allred? How could they have even known about him?”
    “Well, I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought quite a bit about it. He must have told them himself.”
    It didn’t make sense. Jane was quiet a minute, and the answer came to her. “Blackmail?”
    “Must have been that. I should have gotten a better class of detective.”
    Jane’s mind had kicked into gear. “How many people were involved in this?”
    “Four that I know of—Fortier, Beau Cavignac, and two others.”
    “Was Douglas Seaberry one of them—Fortier’s boss?”
    “You catch on fast. Seaberry and a guy named Edward Favret.”
    It was falling into place. “I wonder if they acted with the company’s knowledge?”
    Ray shook his head. “That I couldn’t tell you. But I don’t think so—having run a company myself, I just don’t see it. What percentage is in it for United Oil to break the law and undergo all kinds of risks for what to them is more or less chump change? On the other hand, if you had a few guys who were pissed off because they weren’t out in the high-profile end of things, they’d feel like they had to do something spectacular to get the company’s attention.”
    “So you think it’s a sort of cabal of renegades?”
    He nodded. “Listen to the tapes. They called themselves the Skinners.”
    Jane felt a frisson.” Nice name.” She sipped her coffee, organizing her thoughts. “Okay, here we go. You taunt Fortier, and he disappears—or maybe, he first kills Allred, then disappears. Is that possible?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Okay, you taunt Fortier. Then Allred tries to blackmail all of them—through Fortier, or did he have other names?”
    “By then, he had other names.”
    “Okay, he tries to blackmail one or more of them, and they decide to kill him. Or maybe one of them does it on his own. Maybe Fortier, maybe not. If not Fortier, maybe Allred’s killer took him out.”
    “Or maybe they did it as a group.”
    “Then for some reason Cavignac balks—he threatens to go to the police. And they kill him, too. Is that the way you see it?”
    “More or less.”
    She nodded. “Where’d you get the disk?”
    “Does it matter?”
    “Probably not. Not if I can confirm the information on it.”
    “Let’s look at it.” They went back to the paper, uploaded it into Jane’s computer, and looked at it while Ray explained to her what he thought it was. “Try this guy,” he said, pointing to Marion Newman’s entry. “I found him another way and he told me his story. Beau was his contact the same way Russell was mine.”
    She would certainly try Marion Newman. But that still wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to get at least two more stories, one involving Seaberry and one Favret.
    And that was only the beginning. Then she’d have to