Day One
"Hello my son, the darkness said and I did naught but stare.
I've brought the gift of death to you, so nurture it with care."
His eyes popped open. But he didn't rise sweating. It took a lot more then a dream about darkness to bring the sweating on these days. He was pretty sure that he rarely even yelled out in his sleep anymore. Of course, since he slept the majority of his nights away alone, it was also hard to ask anyone.
He slid to the edge of the bed, trailing the softness of the Egyptian cotton sheet with him, the only barrier between himself and the coolness of the bedroom. He ran his hands through his hair slowly, pushing the thickness of it off his forehead and out of his eyes. It was tangled, it was just a little damp but then he'd fallen face first down on the bed right after he'd showered the night before.
He reached onto the cherry wood nightstand beside the bed, fumbling in the twilit dark for his cigarettes and lighter. He wasn't sure when he'd taken up smoking, it seemed like he'd been doing it since birth. The thumb wheel hissed as he spun it, the tiny orange flame casting the smallest of lights on his hand, on his face.
It was a good face, handsome really, with a strong jaw and just a suggestion of a cleft in the chin. The cheekbones were high and sharp above the softly hallowed cheeks and the straight, sharp blade of his nose. His eyes were blue, a good solid blue the color of the cloudless sky or the river undisturbed in summer. The face was regal, almost arrogant in its beauty and topped by thick, shiny crop of dark blonde hair that had a tendency to curl a little over his ears and forehead in the heat.
He inhaled sharply, letting the acrid smoke fill his lungs and held it as his mind wandered. It didn't take a genius to figure out that something was going to happen. These dreams were always prophetic in some way. The hard part was figuring out if it was something he was supposed to stop or something that had already happened that he was supposed to uncover.
He slid his hand farther along the nightstand until it closed over the warmth of solid metal. His baby: his Desert Eagle. He traced the lines with his fingers, felt the smoothness of the grip. A moment of sheer comfort slid over his soul. It always helped relax him; somehow it was as if he knew there was power in it, strength.
He crushed the cigarette out in the overflowing ash tray on the nightstand and stood up slowly. The sheet fell away like water and he padded naked through the bedroom and into the bathroom.
A flick of his fingers had the harshness of the over head light spilling down onto his face. He squinted and his eyes and stared at his face in the mirror. He looked…stark. It was the only word he could think of to describe himself. There were dark circles under his eyes and an underlying paleness to his skin that managed to make him look pasty.
He certainly wasn't going to win any beauty contests looking like this.
But, it wasn't the first or the last time he'd go without sleep. It seemed to be in his lot in life to lose sleep.
He practically fell into the shower. The stinging heat of the water felt like nirvana. He thrust his face into the spray and tried to finish waking up.
He wasn't entirely sure he was ready for another trip down evil lane. Didn't a man deserve a break once in awhile? It had been less than three months since his last case. He spent the better part of eight months tracking down what had turned out to be nothing more than rabid dogs that had been attacking the smaller animals in a suburban area. So, he'd saved the day for every spoiled little fluff ball mutt and cat in the area. All hail the conquering hero.
He wasn't sure he could take another bum case like that. He wasn't Ace Ventura for Christ's sake.
He slid out of the water, slipped a towel around his waist and was in the kitchen making coffee when the door bell rang.
A quick glance at the clock on the stove told him it was just shy of five a.m. He wasn't sure who would be paying a social call at this time in the morning.
He hoped to god it wasn't Ryman. He wasn't up to the daily trials of the dumb and hopeless today. As much as he loved his erstwhile, candy bar loving friend, he was just too damn tired to deal with it.
He walked from the kitchen, down the tiny hallway toward the door, careful not to trip over discarded shoes or magazines as he went.
As far as houses went, his wasn't a winner. It was a moderately sized (small) beach front condo (shack) with a slanted, peeling roof, two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen that doubled as a wash room and a living room that was probably about half the size of a sardine can.
He absolutely loved it.
It wasn't that he couldn't afford better. His family had plenty of money. He was a Kennedy, after all. And he made ridiculous amounts of money doing what he did. It turned out being the right hand of god had its monetary advantages as well as social ones.
So, he could have probably been living rather comfortably in a modest sized mansion in the Garden District or a penthouse apartment in the Vieux Carre (French Quarter to the layman) but he liked this shack that sat a few feet away from the Gulf of Mexico and that smelled like the bayou and tasted like the salt of the sea.
At night, when the humid air was just shy of cool and the willows that slid their branches through the murkiness of the shore line were whispering secrets to the night, it was easy to pretend nothing had ever changed for himself. That he was just a simple man with nothing more then no money and an uncertain future.
The house was his haven. And, like the havens of all men, often quite dirty. His clothes went unwashed until he was down to the very last threads he possessed, he had magazines from a year ago stacked up on the small oak table in the living room and stuffed under the couch; shoes missing mates were spread from kitchen to bedroom like a line of rejected people at the unemployment office. He often tripped upon entering and tripped upon leaving but it was perfect. Really perfect.
He got to the front door without too much hassle and pulled open the front door without looking through the peep hole. He seldom did. If someone was going to shoot him in the face when the door opened, so be it. At least he wouldn't have to have his last moments filled with fear.
The heat of the morning washed through the door; still cool enough that it tickled his skin but warm enough that his damp hair would no doubt begin to curl before he shut the door again.
He had a moment of surprise when he saw who was standing on his sagging porch, managing to look pristine even in the muggy morning heat.
It had been a long time since he'd had a woman waiting on his door step at the crack of dawn in the morning. And none of them that he could remember had ever managed to look so regal while doing so. Most of them consisted of box dyed hair, outrageous tattoos and cleavage that went down to their waist.
The woman staring back at him was anything but trashy.
She wasn't very tall. If he had to hazard a guess he'd put her at five foot two tops and she was built slim through the hips and stomach. Although there was no hiding the generousness of her chest even under the serviceable navy blue of her suit jacket and damned if she wasn't wearing a knee length navy skirt and high heels even out here in the middle of the bayou. He didn't want to imagine what it was like to slug through foot deep areas of swamp in three inch heels.
Although admittedly, his property was closer to beach in most areas then swamp.
Her hair, soft and red, was pulled tightly back from her face into a harsh knot at the base of her neck. Without the hair surrounding it, the face was beautiful. He figured there was maybe a hundred women in the whole world that could go without make up, with their hair slicked back like a man and still manage to be beautiful.
She had high cheekbones and a mouth that was just a little wide and little bottom heavy. Her eyes were hidden behind reflective lenses in, what he figured would be about six hundred dollar, sunglasses. There was a dusting of freckles over her narrow nose.
He was suddenly very conscious about the fact that he was standing in the door way in a faded blue bath towel. But, he was also very careful not to let her see that.
She said, in a voice that soft and had an accent that he found hard to place, "Mr. Kennedy?"
When he nodded, she pulled back one side of the navy jacket and brought his attention to the suggestion of the shoulder holster and the shiny gold shield attached to belt of her skirt.
He had another one of his classic moments of blankness before it registered. Then he said, softly, "Shit." and pushed one hand against the door frame, the other going up to rub at his forehead and the headache threatening to grow behind his eyes.
The woman smiled, cajoling and understanding at the same time and a small dimple flashed to right side of her mouth. "Sorry to disturb you at this time in the morning, Mr. Kennedy but I'm Special Agent Redfield. Do you mind if I come in for a minute? I just have some questions."
Leon Kennedy sighed and stepped back from the door. "Do I get to ask what this is about?"
Redfield stepped over the threshold. "I'd be shocked if you didn't."
Leon nodded and started through the living room. "I've got coffee on. You want some?"
"Sure. That would be great." She followed him down the hallway, careful to avoid tragedy by stepping over shoes.
Leon moved easily, pouring coffee into two clean mugs and placing one on the small island in the middle of the kitchen. His mind was still trying to wrap itself around what the feds might want with him when Redfield cleared her throat and said, in a completely blank voice.
"I can wait a few minutes if you'd like to…put something on."
Leon looked up at her face and saw the light blush that had crept over her cheeks. He'd forgotten he was in just a towel but it seemed that she hadn't.
He nodded absently and said, "Sure. I'll be right back, just make yourself comfortable."
He wandered into the bedroom and scrounged around until he found a pair of clean underwear, his faded jeans from the night before and ribbed tank top that usually served as an undershirt.
Barefoot, he padded back into the kitchen and found that Agent Redfield had made her way out of the kitchen, through the sliding door, and out onto the screened back porch.
Leon picked up his mug of coffee and followed, sliding the door closed at his back.
She turned as she heard him and she'd taken off her sunglasses.
He'd been wrong, her eyes weren't brown, they were blue. Almost startlingly, pale blue. The only words that came to mind were arctic sky. The eyes themselves were almond shaped and just slightly tilted at the ends and heavily lashed. Exotic. They were exotic. Like a cat.
Shaking himself mentally, Leon stepped up to lean against the railing and face her.
He said, "What can I do for you anyway?"
He figured that he probably wasn't imagining her face was still a little flushed. But it could have been from the heat. He didn't think so, but it could have been.
She cleared her throat once and skimmed her hand over her hair, a nervous gesture. Yeah, it wasn't the heat. Or at least not the kind that comes from the bayou.
"How much land do you own, Mr. Kennedy?"
"It's Leon."
She just looked at him.
Shrugging, he said. "I dunno really. I think something like a hundred acres. Why?"
She tilted her head, studying him he imagined. Trying to figure him out. "Because last night, someone was murdered on your property. So now you get to tell me where you were between midnight and four this morning."
Leon stood up slowly, feeling his blood chill. The dream. It had to have something to do with the dream. On his property, on his fucking property.
He ran a hand around the back of his neck. "Jesus. I got in about two o'clock this morning. Before that I was at O'Malley's over on Bourbon Street with a buddy of mine, Kevin Ryman."
"Can anyone verify that you were there until two o'clock?"
He just looked at her. "Yeah, Ryman and everybody else in the place I'd imagine. It was my birthday party. When I left, the party was still goin'." Leon just shrugged. "The bartenders name is Tim. He'll tell you that I was there until two o'clock and when I stumbled out, I was so shit faced that I dropped trow and pissed all over Ryman's brand new Mazda."
Redfield managed to maintain a blank face through this tirade. He wondered if she was considering the fact that he seemed to be volunteering too much information. He just felt like she needed to know that he'd been drunk. He couldn't have murdered anyone. He wouldn't have.
She stared at him for a long moment before she said, "Okay. What about between two and four?"
Leon sighed. "I got in about two, fell into the shower and then collapsed into bed. I just got out of bed about fifteen minutes before you came callin'."
"Were you alone?"
"What?"
"Were you alone in bed?"
He looked at her for a long moment and then smiled. "I wasn't that drunk."
Her face flushed again and Leon couldn't help himself, he was pleased. She was doing her job but he'd have bet his right eye that she'd had an alternative reason for asking.
Leon leaned back on the railing. "Her name's Ginger Franks. She's a deputy with the 68th precinct. The same station that Ryman works in. I'm betting you'll find both of them there."
Agent Redfield nodded and scribbled in the little notebook she held in her right hand. Leon wondered if she was putting little X's through Deputy Franks name.
Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew a plastic baggy that contained a Louisiana driver's license with a picture of a shiny faced blonde with overly tanned skin and blue eyes. The corner of the license was brown with old blood. The license said Marianne Beth Costas.
Leon stared at the license for a long moment. He wanted to remember the face, it was important that he remember what she had looked like. Because, deep down, he knew he was going to have to help her. He didn't know why or how yet but she was dead because of him. And the dream had been telling him that he was the only person in the darkness that could save her.
He lifted his eyes, met those of Special Agent Valentine and said, "Who is she?"
"She's the dead girl, Mr. Kennedy."
"I got that. I mean, who is she?"
"She's the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Enrique Costas. They are the owners of the Costas Air Travel Agency. She was eighteen, pretty and Harvard bound. Now she's dead, on your property and I'm going to find out why." There was something on her face, something determined that made Leon realize that maybe, just maybe she didn't think he was responsible.
But the cop in her wouldn't let her ignore the facts. Marianne Costas was dead and unless Ginger would back his story that she'd spent those few hours with him (debatable as he'd pretty much passed out in the middle of anything exciting and she'd been after him for months) he was about to become the number one suspect.
Leon sighed and looked out over the Gulf of Mexico. The sun was rising steadily now and the softness that came with early morning was fading. From the heaviness of the air, Leon was betting it was going to be a scorcher.
Agent Redfield intoned quietly. "Stay available, Mr. Kennedy. And stay in the area."
"I know the drill."
"Good. Have a nice day. I'll be in touch." She turned and opened the screen door, slipping down the steps. Apparently she was going to walk back around the house to her car.
Leon watched her go and wondered if he'd see the inside of a jail cell before night fall.
