Free Cypress Nights by Stella Cameron Page B

him, and he kept her place in good repair. Seems like a perfect deal to me.”
    Roche sniffed his coffee before taking another swallow. “God, I hope Spike and his people find the killer quickly. We’d all be fools if we weren’t waiting for another hit.”
    The murder hadn’t left his mind, except, he’d have to admit, when Bleu had wiped his memory clean and left him only able to think about her. She was new, unaffected. The kind of rich, often spoiled females he worked with at the Green Veil clinic bored him—all but the patients he knew he was helping.
    He saw his nonclinic patients at an office in Toussaint. There weren’t many of them yet. These people he admired, not the least for their courage in bucking the trends in a town where old superstitions continued, likethe respect for voodoun and the habit of carrying gris-gris, usually as charms or talismans in small cloth bags. Folks either believed in these collections, often of unspeakable things, or said they did out of fear that they should. Yet seeing a psychiatrist seemed to be a badge of shame, a sign of giving power over the mind, the property of practitioners of the old arts, to modern intruders.
    Bleu gazed off, apparently not focusing on anything.
    â€œBleu, how much do you know about the woman, L’Oisseau de Nuit?” he asked. This person, a flamboyant woman, did her part to keep voodoo alive in these parts.
    â€œWazoo? I’m sure I don’t know her anywhere near as well as you do, but I think she’s terrific. She came here to visit and brought all kinds of goodies for me.”
    â€œWhat kind of goodies?” He frowned. “Nothing homemade?”
    Bleu smothered a laugh. “Only the cookies and the cake. And the jam. She’s a really good cook. And I think we could be friends.”
    He let out a long breath. “You and Annie. She thinks Wazoo walks on water. Not that I’d be surprised if that woman had figured out a way to make it seem that she does.” There had been something close to proof that Wazoo was a “seer” as they called them, but Roche couldn’t totally get past his skepticism.
    Bleu frowned. “You think so. Well, in that case, I’m glad I didn’t eat whatever it was she had in her little velvet bags. She said they’re all wonderful and help keep you young.”
    â€œShe did?” Roche slopped coffee on the table. “That’s the sort of stuff they use to keep people in line, they—” He stopped.
    Bleu giggled. She lowered her face and looked up at him. “Sorry, couldn’t resist teasing you.”
    She was something else. He leaned a little forward on his chair and rolled his shoulders, but didn’t feel a whole lot more relaxed.
    â€œYou don’t like Wazoo? I guess that’s to be expected.”
    â€œWhy?” he said, propping his chin on the heel of a hand and watching her mouth.
    Her smile was an impish one he didn’t think he’d seen on her face before. “Because you’re a medical doctor and medical doctors don’t have any time to even think there might be effective alternative medicine. Wazoo’s magic isn’t black, not that I believe in all that.”
    â€œAlternative medicine?” He got up and stood over her. “Wazoo? Pet therapist, seer of the future and peddler of potions and superstition? There’s a name for all that, and it isn’t the term you used.”
    â€œOoh.” She turned sideways in her chair and looked up at him, her eyes the green of new ferns, and so bright. “Science scoffs at the possibility of arts as old as time. There aren’t any scientific papers published about them. And the spells. Woohoo! Pure inventions of simple minds.” She raised her hands and simulated spiders crawling in the air.
    â€œYou’re laughing at me.” Damn, even when she made fun of him, her smile made him amused by himself. What was