Free River Road by Suzanne Johnson Page B

water was deepest. “I’d take you home with me, chère .”
    The weirdness factor in my life had shot into the ozone. As soon as the splash sounded from Rene’s departure, I checked on Alex again. He’d need me to help him search, but I knew he wanted to look alone first. He was the investigator here, even if I hadn’t yarked on his crime scene.
    I walked back to the wheelhouse, half wishing Jean had dog-paddled off with Rene so I could stretch out on the bench for a nap. I hadn’t burned much magic to zap the mers or to fuel the tracking charms, but the more of my limited physical magic I used, the less juice I had until I could sleep and replenish my metaphysical batteries.
    “How do you like Eudora Welty?” I asked.
    Jean looked up at me, brows knit. “Among your modern women, to what does the word brassière refer?”
    I tried to gauge whether he was serious or starting another round of inappropriate banter. “What did it mean in your time?”
    He mumbled in French a moment, trying to translate. “One used it on the arm if it had been broken, as a brace.”
    “And why are you asking about brassieres?” I hadn’t read any Eudora Welty in a while, but didn’t recall her writing about underwear.
    He brandished the book. “To her friend, a woman is offering”—he began reading—“a ‘pink brassiere with adjustable shoulder straps,’ as if this were a desirable thing to have. This woman, however, did not break her arm. So it is perhaps an article of clothing?”
    I bit my lip. He would take offense if I laughed at him, and then I’d owe him even more favors. “It’s a woman’s undergarment, sort of like a corset, only smaller.” Surely even pirate women wore corsets.
    “Ah.” His gaze settled on my chest, and a smile ticked up the corners of his mouth. “You will show me this article of clothing?”
    Uh-huh. When Britney Spears became president. “We have a murder victim on our hands. No time. Sorry.”
    “That is unfortunate,” Jean said, returning his attention to the book. I didn’t think he was referring to the dead man.

 
    CHAPTER 8
    A splash and thump near the front of the boat diverted my attention from Jean and his preoccupation with Eudora Welty’s underwear. Alex had levered himself aboard and was rooting through boxes and other paraphernalia on the aft deck.
    “What are you looking for?” I shucked my denim shirt and draped it across the top of my backpack. Only the fear of an inter-preternatural incident kept me from peeling off the jeans still heavy and wet from my earlier splashtastic landing in the water.
    “You got any Ziploc bags or anything we could use for evidence?”
    “What did you find?”
    “I think it’s our guy’s clothes, back in the grass.” Alex picked up a covered bucket and looked inside, wrinkling his nose as he clamped the lid back on and set it aside. “Bait.”
    His focus settled on my backpack.
    “Oh, no. You aren’t using my pack for murder evidence,” I said. “Don’t make me sic Charlie on you.” Yeah, I had named the elven staff. It was as much a pet as Sebastian and treated me with more respect.
    Behind me, Jean leaned over the side of the boat and pulled up Rene, back in human form and shaking off water like a dog. He gave me four stoppered vials of water and a glowering scowl before going into the wheelhouse to get dressed. I held the vials up to the light; it was a lot cleaner-looking than what I’d collected in New Orleans early this morning. I unstoppered it and sniffed, but it smelled like brackish water, nothing else.
    Yet when Rene returned and leaned against the side rail, he looked a little green around the gills—which had probably been literally true a few moments earlier.
    “That water is some nasty shit, wizard,” he said. “First time I been that deep since the problems started. You lock Denis Villere up, and his boy. Otherwise, me and Robert, we’ll take care of it ourselves.”
    I was beginning to think the mers