Текст книги "Plantation Shudders"

Автор книги: Ellen Byron

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Nine

Later, back at the shotgun house, Maggie sat on her bed and pondered the brochures in her lap. After Bo booted her out of the Rose Room, she’d stepped onto the veranda and found Gran’ fast asleep. So much for standing guard, Maggie thought. She didn’t have the heart to wake her grandmother, so she returned home alone, put on a pair of gloves, and carefully opened the envelope she’d found in Beverly Clabber’s drawer.

Unfortunately, the only gloves available were Gran’s elbow-length black evening gloves, which were warm on a ninety-degrees-plus day. But the last thing Maggie needed was to be busted for tampering with evidence, so damp hands were a small price to pay if it meant she wouldn’t leave fingerprints on anything. Her plan was to make copies of both the envelope’s contents and the ring, and then replace everything once the Rose Room was reopened, trusting that the Shexnayders would uncover the items during one of their meticulous cleaning rounds and turn them over to the police.

The envelope contained two brochures. One was for McDonough Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, and the other was for a quasi castle—technically a “country home,” the brochure explained—in the Gloucestershire county of England. Both had been kitted out as luxury hotels. Nice life where you can afford these places, Maggie thought, a little envious. But “life” was the operative word, and both Clabbers’ lives had been snuffed out, one by nature, the other by design. There was the possibility that they’d visited the sumptuous establishments before coming to Doucet, but the brochures had a crisp sheen that spoke of being brand new rather than carted across an ocean and through Great Britain.

She put down the brochures and picked up the ring. Designed for a woman, the diamonds on its flat front spelled out an ornate monogram—a small b sandwiched between two large Ds. Except for the small b, the initials didn’t resemble Beverly Clabber’s. Were they from a previous marriage? Did the ring even belong to her? What if a previous guest had left it behind? Maggie could match the initials to archived reservations, but she assumed someone who’d forgotten a ring this valuable would have contacted Crozat the minute they realized that it was missing. Besides, Marie Shexnayder’s near-OCD level of maid service could be counted on to unearth anything forgotten by past visitors.

Given that she felt safe assuming that the ring and brochures belonged to Beverly, what did it all mean? Were they connected, or had the woman just found separate hiding places for things she valued? And why exactly were the brochures so important to her? Maggie could see keeping them in a safe place so they’d stay in pristine condition, but hiding them like they were blue chip stock certificates made no sense. Yet that’s exactly what Beverly Clabber had done.

Maggie closed her eyes, placed her hands on the brochures and ring, and cleared her mind, just the way Gran’ had taught her. After a few meditative breaths, her intuition kicked into high gear, sending the powerful feeling that the answer to why Beverly Clabber was murdered somehow lay in the three items resting under her hands. If she could figure out how the ring and brochures were tied to Beverly’s death, it would help lead the police to who did it.

She turned on the color printer that she’d treated herself to when she moved back home and carefully made copies of the brochures and ring. Then she hid the originals under a pile of papers she kept in the bottom drawer of the heirloom desk where generations of Doucets had sat paying plantation bills, keeping diaries, and penning the occasional lovesick note to a potential suitor or mate they were crushing on. She searched for a clean manila folder and couldn’t find one, so she stuck the copies of the brochures and the ring in an old folder labeled “Receipts.”

Maggie locked the drawer and tugged at it to make sure this was the rare Crozat lock that did its job. Satisfied, she hid the key under the liner in her underwear drawer—it had worked for Bev Clabber—and then pulled off Gran’s evening gloves. This took some effort, since her calloused painter paws were larger than Gran’s delicate hands. She finally peeled off the gloves and headed to the main house to help her father find accommodations for any guests who wanted to bolt after their police interviews.

She found Tug hunched over his computer in the B and B office. “How’s it going?” she asked.

Tug crinkled his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to relieve a headache. “Bad,” he said. “Pelican is sold out because of Fet Let. There are three conventions in New Orleans right now, so you can’t even find a place to stay on airbnb-dot-com. LSU starts this week, so the Baton Rouge area’s a no-go. I found a Motel 6 in Metairie and a few iffy choices everywhere else. Not sure I want to take responsibility for steering our guests toward the Chateau des Femmes Motel on Airline Highway. Especially since I think it’s partly a halfway house.”

“They could go north, or west to Lafayette.”

“For one thing, that’s a whole different vacation. And for another, Rufus would probably make a stink about it. He doesn’t want to go chasing all over the place if he needs one of them. Too much work.”

“We’ll give everyone suggestions and let them make their own decisions. Look at the upside: the more guests who leave, the less of them we have to float.”

Tug gave his daughter a half smile. “Ouch. You are cold.”

“And here I am thinking I’m being an optimist.” Maggie put an arm around her dad’s shoulder. “We’ll present all the options during what might turn into a very unhappy happy hour.”

“Just keep the liquor flowing, darlin’.”

Which was exactly what Maggie did an hour later as Tug distributed a handout of lodging alternatives to each guest. The only ones missing were the Ryker kids, who were sheltered in their room, and Kyle Bruner. The Texan had told the family in private that he had no intention of bailing on them. Whether this declaration was motivated by pure human decency or the fact he was seriously crushing on Lia didn’t matter. He would remain a guest, and a paying one at that.

“These suck,” Georgia Two griped as he glanced at the list. “We’ve stayed in nicer places during spring break, and last year the motel had bedbugs.”

“We didn’t come to Cajun Country to stay in a Motel 6,” Jan declared.

“We also didn’t come here to stay where somebody was murdered,” Angela countered.

“More wine, Angela?” Maggie made the question rhetorical by filling the Cutie’s glass as she spoke. It was Angela’s third refill. The flush of gentle inebriation was starting to bloom on her cheeks, as well as those of a few other guests.

“I think we need a family meeting,” Lachlan Ryker said to his wife, who nodded. “Let’s go talk to the kids.”

The Rykers excused themselves. There was grim silence as the remaining guests pondered their choices. Maggie discreetly topped off a couple of glasses. Finally, Cutie president Jan spoke. “You know what? When I look around this room, I don’t see a killer anywhere. Do you?” The others exchanged uncomfortable glances. “Well, do you?” Jan pressed. A few glanced around and muttered no.

Encouraged, Jan continued. “You know what I do see? People from all different parts of the country who came here to experience the culture and beauty of Cajun Country and of Crozat itself. Nice people, good people whose adventure shouldn’t be derailed by a nutjob off the streets or someone who had a vendetta against Mrs. Clabber—who none of us even knew before this week.”

The others, gaining confidence, chorused agreement. “I never even thought of that,” Emily Butler said. “The poison could have been planted months ago. We all saw how many pills she had. Someone could have stuck poison in one of them and just waited until she got around to taking it.”

Maggie debated what she could and couldn’t reveal about the box of arsenic found in the Crozat plantation store. “Evidence may be produced that shows a local poison was used,” she said, proud of how police procedural she sounded. Or legal procedural. She wasn’t sure which but still felt good about it.

“Has anything been proven?” Jan demanded.

“Well, no, but—”

“Then it’s just a theory. Besides, lightning doesn’t strike twice.”

“Unless it’s a serial killer,” Georgia Three pointed out. “They always strike a bunch of times. That’s kind of their job.”

Jan flicked a dismissive hand at the student. “I doubt that out of all the places in the world, a serial killer would choose an old lady in a remote area to start his spree. I think Emily’s scenario makes the most sense. In which case, this whole crazy nightmare is over.” Jan motioned to the other Cuties. She was on a roll now. “I think I speak for all in my group when I say that we’re not going to let some psycho ruin our vacation. Evil can go straight to hell where it belongs, because we’re going to stay at Crozat and show our support for the wonderful family that has fought through terrible times to keep a small piece of American history alive so that they could share it with the rest of us. Yes, we Pelican! Right, ladies?”

Angela nodded a little reluctantly, Suzy with trepidation. Debbie beamed. She leaned over to Maggie and whispered, “That’s why she’s our leader.” Maggie smiled weakly. She was torn between being touched by Jan’s support and resenting its price tag. Since the other guests seemed a beat away from giving Jan a standing ovation, it was obvious they shared her commitment to not bailing on Crozat. Maggie’s last hope was the Rykers, who hadn’t been around to hear Jan’s rallying cry.

“The kids want to stay,” Lachlan told Maggie when she tracked the couple down after the rest of the guests had dispersed to ready themselves for dinner.

“And,” Carrie added with a helpless shrug, “we could hardly say no, could we?”

Maggie, who had heard “no” quite a bit from her own parents while growing up, thought that was exactly what parents were supposed to say when the situation called for it, but this wasn’t the time to debate parenting styles. “We’re so glad you’ll be with us for the rest of the week, and we’ll do everything we can to make sure you leave Crozat with wonderful memories,” she told the Rykers with the forced enthusiasm of a cruise director before retreating to the kitchen to give Ninette a hand preparing dinner.

Later, as Maggie served the guests, she studied everyone at the table while they made small talk. Kyle, the Cuties, the Butlers, the Rykers, the Georgia boys—did one of them have a connection to the Clabbers that led to murder? She wished that she had Jan’s confidence in the innocence of Crozat’s guests, but something was bothering her. Why had they all chosen to stick around? She had a sense that it went beyond the understandable lure of a free ride. But a sense was all that she had. Since Rufus would provide nothing but obstacles, Maggie realized it was up to her to ferret out whatever secrets the group might have.

*

That night, long after everyone at Crozat had gone to sleep, Maggie sat in bed typing away on her tablet. She’d decided to research alphabetically, starting with the Butlers. Both Emily and Shane had a heavy presence on social media, which wasn’t a shock. So did Maggie. In fact, she was surprised that she’d never crossed iPaths with either of them.

The only revelation, found in a gossipy New York Post Page Six blurb about their engagement, was that Emily Butler, née Fuller, came from a Boston Brahmin family while Shane was the first member of his blue-collar Long Island family to attend college. Emily had “married down,” as society mavens liked to cluck. She was the only child of divorced parents, and ancestors on both sides could be found on the Mayflower manifest. But when the upper class crashed, it crashed hard. Emily’s mother was a model and drug addict who ran off with the lead singer of an eighties hair band. She had died eight years earlier when her heart stopped in the middle of breast lift surgery. Emily’s father passed away the month before Emily’s wedding of “liver disease”—which Maggie immediately recognized as alcoholism. Maggie imagined that the poor girl welcomed the chance to join the Butler clan, which the Post painted in a boring but much more grounded light. Maggie gazed at the wedding party photo that accompanied the story. Emily, in an exquisite 1920s-style beaded wedding gown, was flanked by four women of varying ages who all bore a resemblance to Shane and looked uncomfortable in their elegant ice-blue drapey satin bridesmaids’ dresses. If the only members of her bridal party were, as she guessed, Shane’s sisters, then poor Emily lacked friends as well as family.

Having read all she could find about the Butlers, Maggie moved on to the Cuties. Angela DiPietro seemed to lead the typical life of a suburban empty nester. Why does every couple feel the need to go on an Alaskan cruise the minute their kids move out of the house? Maggie wondered as she paged through pictures of Angela and her husband mugging next to totem poles and a series of what she assumed were supposed to be artsy photos of pine trees that instead looked like someone kept dropping the camera.

Maggie yawned and debated powering down but opted to check out one more guest. She typed in an image search for “Debra Stern” and the screen filled with a variety of Debra Sterns from coast to coast. Maggie found a photo that looked vaguely similar to the Cajun Cutie—if the Cajun Cutie had been a female executive who preferred power suits to ill-fitting leggings. Maggie stared at the picture, wondering if she’d made a mistake. She scrolled through a dozen more images for Debra Stern but returned to the original one that caught her eye. She was sure the woman in the navy wool blazer with the confident smile was the Crozat’s anemic guest.

The caption under the photo read, “Debra Stern, CEO, SPI.” Maggie typed this into her search taskbar and was rewarded with a long list of sites that revealed Debbie had founded Stern Partners International, a headhunting firm with offices around the globe, which she’d sold five years prior for a small fortune. Debra Stern, CEO, was successful and ambitious—the polar opposite of the dim bulb she now appeared to be.

Maggie turned off her tablet and snuggled under the cool cotton duvet cover. But she was too excited to sleep. She’d finally found someone with a secret—perhaps a secret that somehow led to Beverly Clabber’s murder.

Chapter Ten

As Maggie drove to her tour guide shift across the river at Doucet Plantation, she pondered the best way to bring up the dichotomy of Debbie to Cuties leader Jan, who might hesitate to talk behind a member’s back. She slowed down as she passed through Pelican’s infamous speed trap, the brainchild of a very proud Rufus. While Pelican PD usually spared locals, they showed no mercy for people trying to make time between New Orleans and Baton Rouge when I-10 backed up, and Maggie grudgingly gave Rufus credit for gifting Pelican with a steady stream of much-needed speeding ticket income.

The morning went by quickly as bus after bus unloaded vacationers taking advantage of summer’s last week. Maggie, suited up in her fake plantation garb, gave back-to-back tours where she patiently answered the same questions over and over again; no, it wasn’t hard to be a hired hand at the estate that her mother’s family once called home, and yes, she’d pose with visitors for selfies next to the portrait of Magnolia Marie, the ancestor she’d been named after.

By lunchtime, Maggie was ready for a break. She took her sandwich and joined a few of her fellow guides at their private rest area behind the overseer’s cottage. “You are Doucet’s queen of selfies,” Gaynell Bourgeois, a nineteen-year-old coworker, teased her.

“I know, right?” Maggie said as she fanned herself. “If I had a dollar for every one I posed for, I wouldn’t need this job.” She took off her banana-curled wig, pulled a travel-sized antiperspirant out of her bra, and swiped it across her underarms to avoid the dry-cleaning fee that would come out of her salary if she got sweat stains on her flouncy costume. She was getting to know and like some of the other women working at Doucet, like Gaynell, who seemed sweet and ingenuous. There was only one coworker Maggie wasn’t crazy about.

Vanessa Fleer was a tall, zaftig woman teetering on the edge of obese and had the arrogance that sometimes accompanies ignorance. A trend follower who considered herself Pelican’s foremost trendsetter, she’d recently tried the ombré look on her bleached blonde perm. The at-home dye job resulted in an erratic patchwork of yellow and orange, giving her hair the look of melting sherbet punch. As if Vanessa weren’t unlikeable enough on her own merits, she was dating Rufus Durand.

“Lord, it’s a hot one,” Vanessa said. She motioned to Maggie’s deodorant stick. “Can I borrow that?” Without waiting for an answer, she pulled the deodorant out of Maggie’s hand, pushed aside the frilly sleeves of her plantation gown, and swabbed her underarms.

“I had two busloads of Japanese tourists,” Gaynell, Maggie’s Doucet bestie, shared eagerly. She sat cross-legged on a towel, the edge of her pantaloons sticking out under her knee-length plaid dress. Gaynell, who barely grazed five feet and weighed under a hundred pounds, often got drafted to play a plantation child since she was the only guide who fit into the costume. “I love the Japanese group tours. They take so many pictures with me, I feel famous. And they gave me some real nice tips.”

“Japanese don’t usually tip, it’s against their culture,” Vanessa informed Gaynell in her usual superior tone. She tossed the deodorant back to Maggie, who pointedly dropped it into a nearby trashcan. Vanessa didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy devouring a diet cookie from her latest weight-loss plan. “The men were probably hoping you’d run off with them and be their geisha.”

“God, Vanessa, that’s so racist,” Maggie said, disgusted. Vanessa rolled her eyes and sat down on a bench. Her hoop skirt popped up like a spring, covering her face and revealing a too-tight pair of Daisy Dukes. The other women roared with laughter.

“Shut up!”

“I’m sorry,” Gaynell said as she wiped tears from her eyes, “but it’s funny every time.”

“Yeah, well, when I marry Rufus Durand and we turn Grove Hall into a showplace, I’m gonna invent a hoop skirt that’s way easier to sit in.”

Grove Hall, the decrepit plantation home with beautiful bones that Maggie had immortalized in her Save Our Structures series, was the Durand family home. Descendants had been trying to unload the place for years but couldn’t without Rufus agreeing to the sale. And Rufus constantly refused, preferring to live in a trailer on the property and get pleasure from how much Grove Hall’s decay bothered upstanding Pelican citizens like the Crozats.

“What about the curse?” Gaynell teased Vanessa. “You know all Ru’s relationships are supposed to fail. My mom told me he’s already been married three times.”

“So?” Vanessa adjusted her skirt, which continued to fight back. “That’s only one more ’n me. Besides, my relationship with Ru is stronger than any stupid curse. I can’t believe your great-great was so mean, Maggie. Then again, she was the only River belle who married one a’ them Yankees.”

It never took long for Vanessa to get on Maggie’s nerves. “‘One a’ them Yankees?’ You know, Vanessa, just because you’re wearing a hoop skirt doesn’t mean it’s actually 1860. Besides, Magnolia Marie’s ‘Yankee’ didn’t live very long, poor guy. He went in one of the yellow fever epidemics.”

Vanessa pounced on this. “Speaking of not living long, ohmuhgawd, that murder at Crozat is so terrible for y’all. People must be canceling their reservations like crazy.”

Vanessa was right, but Maggie would never give her that satisfaction, so she kept quiet.

“Their loss,” Gaynell declared. “Crozat is awesome.”

“Still, Maggie, I feel for you,” Vanessa said, doing a bad imitation of somebody who actually felt emotions like sympathy. “I know it can’t be fun giving tours here at Doucet when your family used to own it. If y’all lose Crozat, it’d be pain on top of pain.”

Maggie drew in a deep breath, quelling the urge to give Vanessa a swift kick in the hoop skirt. “As I’ve told you a million times, I do have fun working here. And while I know us losing Crozat is Rufus Durand’s wet dream, it’s not going to happen.”

Vanessa stood up and held her hands together as if she were praying. She wasn’t; instead, she was doing some old-fashioned isometric exercise that claimed to firm up sagging breasts. “I heard—and I can’t say from who—that the lady who died wants to be buried here. Someone I know heard from the lawyers for the estate and it turns out she used to live here. Can you believe it?”

Maggie couldn’t. Beverly Clabber had lived in Pelican? When? Where? This widened the pool of suspects considerably. Maybe the murderer wasn’t a Crozat guest. Maybe it was someone from the woman’s past settling an old grudge.

“You and Rufus sure have some interesting pillow talk,” Gaynell said, shaking her head, her soft blonde curls floating back and forth as she did.

“I didn’t say I heard it from Ru Ru, I just said I heard it,” Vanessa protested lamely. Maggie gagged at the nickname but filed it away as a future tool with which to annoy Ru. Right now, she needed to focus on the new information she’d picked up from the “Loch Nessa Monster,” as Vanessa’s coworkers secretly called her.

Maggie vowed to run this development by Gran’, who wasn’t much younger than Beverly and might remember her from the past, given enough clues. “Wow, Vanessa, that’s so weird,” Maggie said, hoping to stimulate more gossip. “Mrs. Clabber never said a word about it. Did the lawyer say anything else?”

Vanessa shrugged and continued her exercises. “That was all Ru Ru said. And then we got busy, if ya know what I mean.”

The women, who knew exactly what Vanessa meant, exchanged a look and managed not to recoil at the image emblazoned on their brains.

*

After finishing her shift at Doucet, Maggie clocked out and drove to Fais Dough Dough, where Briana and Clinton Poche were helping Lia restock the store shelves with gift items. “Your mugs are selling great,” Lia told her. “And you know what else are? The mouse pads. I guess people like a little history with their hi-tech devices.”

“Can we talk?” Maggie asked her cousin sotto voce.

“Sure. Briana, honey, you’re in charge of the register.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Briana said, thrilled with her newfound authority. “You hear that, Clinton?” she called to her brother. “I’m in charge.”

“Of the register, not my life,” her brother retorted. He followed this observation with a loud belch in his sister’s face.

“Okay, you two, that’s enough,” Lia said. “Briana, don’t make me sorry I asked you, and Clinton, you need to come up with a new party trick.”

Armed with chicory coffee and plates of Lia’s latest culinary inspiration, Bourbon Pecan Croissant Bread Pudding, she and Maggie retreated to a small café table in the building’s back garden. Maggie didn’t know which smelled more delicious, the pudding or the border of heliotrope sparkling with drops left by a late-afternoon rain.

“Big news,” she told Lia. “Beverly Clabber used to live in Pelican.”

“What?!”

“Yes. Total shocker.” She related Vanessa’s bombshell to Lia, who was as stunned by the news as Maggie had been.

“Do they know anything else, like what her maiden name was?”

“Vanessa and Rufus ‘got busy’ before she got any more gossip out of him.”

“Ugh.”

“I know.” Maggie finished the last spoonful of her bread pudding. She was one step away from licking the bowl but managed to control herself. Instead she ran her finger along the inside of it. “So . . . anything new between you and that tall drink of Texas water, as Gran’ would say?”

Lia laughed. “I think we like each other.”

“Want to share something not so blatantly obvious to everyone in the world?”

“We’re getting to know each other slowly and carefully.”

“How does that work when Kyle has a vacation clock on him?”

“He creates software programs, so he can work anywhere, really.”

“So, are you saying he may stick around for a while?”

“Yes. He may. I hope so.”

Lia finished the last sip of coffee in her cup and swirled the grounds absentmindedly.

“Let’s see what message your coffee sends,” Maggie said. “I’ll read the grinds.”

Lia looked at her skeptically. “You can do that?”

“When my life was imploding in New York, I visited this Iranian psychic a friend recommended. She read my grinds and taught me a little about coffee fortune telling.”

“Was she any good?”

“She foretold the death of my relationship,” Maggie said in an arch, sonorous tone, and Lia laughed. Maggie took her cousin’s cup, placed the saucer over it, and turned the cup upside down. She then righted the cup and looked inside. She grinned at Lia. “I see a shamrock. That means your wish will come true.”

Maggie left Fais Dough Dough with a tray of the bread pudding. Ninette, inspired by a rave review Maggie called in, had decided to serve it as the Crozat evening dessert. Maggie kept the Falcon’s top up for a change so the car could fill with the sweet, spicy aroma. As she pulled into the driveway behind the plantation’s main house, she noticed a nondescript silver sedan parked in her usual spot. A parking decal from the Shreveport PD tagged the car as Bo’s. Annoyed, Maggie pulled in next to it a little too close, making sure to ding Bo’s car when she opened her door. She grabbed the bread pudding tin and marched into the house. Her stomach fluttered with nerves when she found the detective in the front parlor with Gran’. He had his notebook out and was obviously interviewing her, a grim expression on his face.