Текст книги "Plantation Shudders"

Автор книги: Ellen Byron

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Eleven

Gran’ gave Maggie a cheery little wave. She might as well have been welcoming her to a tea party. “Hello, darlin’. Have you heard the latest gossip? Beverly Clabber used to live in Pelican. Years and years ago, when we were both girls. She wasn’t Beverly Clabber then, she was Francine Prepoire. Where ‘Beverly’ came from, I’ll never know, you’d think she’d have stuck with Francine. But anyhoo, Bo here—you don’t mind if I call you Bo, do you? I feel like we’ve reached a point where informality is acceptable.”

“Bo is fine, ma’am,” Bo responded politely. He was too tall for the delicate Victorian side chair he was sitting on, and as he adjusted his position, Maggie caught a glimpse of a gun under his blazer.

“Where was I?” Gran’ said, pressing an index finger to the side of her temple. “Oh, yes. Maggie, you remember my dear old friend, Yvonne Rousseau, don’t you? Well, in a piece of impressive detecting work on Bo’s part, he discovered that during Francine-slash-Mrs. Clabber’s brief time in Pelican, she paid Yvonne a visit. Yvonne may be in a home with Parkinson’s, but her mind is still sharp, so Bo was able to interview her about their conversation. He of course can’t reveal much of what transpired, but he did share that Yvonne remembered Francine stole my first love from me, Ignace Roubideaux. Isn’t that funny? An ancient Pelican soap opera revisited after all these years.”

In what was becoming an unpleasantly familiar sensation, Maggie felt the urge to throw up. “Gran’, that makes you a murder suspect,” she said as she pointed to Bo. “That’s why he’s here.”

“I know. Isn’t that exciting?”

“No,” Maggie practically shouted as she lost patience with her grandmother. “It’s not exciting at all, it’s horrible.” She glared at Bo. “Does my grand-mère need a lawyer? Because we’ll get her one, a great one, the best in Louisiana, the best in the country, and if you’ve done anything inappropriate here, he or she will have your ass on a plate.”

“Magnolia Marie Crozat,” Gran’ said sharply. “That was incredibly rude. You apologize to Bo this instant.”

“It’s all right, ma’am, no apology necessary,” Bo’s tone was quiet but authoritative. Bo turned to Maggie. She noticed that he had well-defined cheekbones and wondered if there was some Houma Indian in his ancestry. “Mrs. Crozat and I—”

“Please, call me Charlotte.”

“I prefer Mrs. Crozat.”

“All right, fine,” Gran’ said, a little annoyed.

“Mrs. Crozat and I,” Bo continued, “are just trying to see what she remembers from the past about Francine Prepoire Clabber, Ignace Roubideaux, or anyone who knew them.”

“And I was telling Bo that Francine did me the biggest favor of my life by stealing Ignace from me. I found comfort and love in the arms of your Grand-père Crozat, the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. Francine and Ignace barely lasted a month or more, then she left town—forever, I thought, until today. Ignace moved to Baton Rouge, where he died many years ago after plowing his car into a tree while drunk. So you see, I’m not a murder suspect at all, am I, Bo?”

Maggie didn’t like the way Bo only responded with a slight smile. Gran’, however, was oblivious. She gave Bo a friendly pat on the knee. “My, you must have worked up an appetite with all this talking. Why don’t you stay for dinner?”

“Thanks very much, ma’am, but that wouldn’t be appropriate.” Bo glanced at the tin in Maggie’s hands a bit wistfully. “Although whatever you have there smells pretty good.”

“Well, if you won’t stay, we’ll just make you a plate to go, right, Maggie?”

“No, really,” Bo said. “As an officer of the law, it’s improper for me to accept gifts of any kind. That includes free food and beverage.”

“Oh, please,” Maggie snorted. “Ru’s closets are probably full of stuff he ‘confiscated,’ or got as ‘thank-yous.’ But,” she hastened to add, realizing she might be encouraging Bo to join them for a meal, “I respect your ethics.”

Bo acknowledged this with a nod and another of his slight smiles. She couldn’t be sure, but this one seemed a little less enigmatic—it bordered on being a genuine smile and created a crease on the right side of his mouth that in other circumstances she would have called sexy.

Bo stood up to go. He wore his blue sport coat over a finely checkered tan button-down shirt and jeans, and she tried to ignore how the casual work look somehow seemed sexy on him. “Thank you both for your time. My men got called away to an accident on I-10, but they’ll be back later to finish searching for that box of poison you remembered seeing, Miss Crozat.”

As soon as Maggie was sure Bo was out of earshot, she turned to her grandmother. “Gran’, you need to remember that until they catch whoever killed Beverly or Francine or whatever her real name is, we are all suspects. All of us. Everyone in this house and now pretty much everyone in Pelican.”

Gran’ waved her hand dismissively. “Save your lecture, dear. The new addition to Pelican PD is as smart as he is handsome. He’s an astute enough judge of character to be able to see that I had absolutely nothing to do with Francine’s death. I’m sure the genuine shock on my face when he told me who she was quickly ruled me out as a suspect. I wonder if I have any pictures of her. I must dig up my yearbook. Oooh, maybe a picture in it will help lead Detective Dreamboat to the real murderer.”

Gran’ took off to search her past for evidence of Beverly/Francine. While it didn’t seem to bother Gran’ much, Maggie hated that Durand was eyeing her grandmother as a potential murderer. I have to deflect his attention from her to someone else, she thought as she walked down the hall into the kitchen, where her mother was preparing dinner. Maggie put the bread pudding down on the counter; her arms ached from carrying the sweet carbo load for so long.

“Hey, chère,” Ninette said without taking her eyes off the beef she was seasoning in a large cast iron pan. She was cooking up a large batch of grits and grillades, a meal usually served at breakfast or lunch. But since Crozat’s guests found the dish too heavy for breakfast and were rarely around for midday meals, Ninette enjoyed making it the centerpiece of a dinner menu. “Is that detective done giving Gran’ the third degree?”

“I’m not sure who was messing with whom there,” Maggie said.

Ninette let out a deep sigh. “I just want this whole horrible business over,” she said.

“I know, Mama. Me too.” Maggie noticed perspiration doing a slow drip down the side of her mother’s face. She took a paper towel and gently wiped it away and then kissed Ninette on the cheek. “You feel warm,” Maggie said, concerned.

Ninette laughed. “For goodness’ sake, why wouldn’t I be warm? I’m cooking.”

Tug came in through the kitchen back door, laden with groceries. “Here you go,” he said to Ninette as he put down the bags. He gave his wife an affectionate pat on her bottom. “Everything for your fete crawfish.”

“Ohmygod, I totally forgot about the fete,” Maggie said with a groan as she helped her mother unload groceries into the cupboards and refrigerator.

Ninette checked the crisper drawers. “I need okra and red pepper from the garden.”

“I’ll get it,” Maggie said.

“Next year I’m not going to all this trouble. I’m just gonna make a big pot of franks and beans.”

“Yeah right, Mom,” Maggie laughed. Fet Let participants claimed bragging rights to certain dishes, and Ninette was famous for her Crawfish Crozat, a delicious pasta dish. Her mother threatened not to make it every year, but Maggie knew Ninette relished the moans of gustatory delight she got from her long line of customers. Fet cooks competed to see who’d run out of food first, but mostly they fought over second place because Ninette always nailed the top spot.

Maggie went out to the garden, where she picked enough okra and red pepper to fill a large basket. She was about to take it inside when she saw Cuties Debbie and Jan walking through Crozat’s parterre. The formal garden, whose design dated back to Crozat’s earliest days, featured immaculately clipped bushes and gravel paths laid out in a symmetrical pattern; maintaining it was a labor of love for Tug.

Jan’s sturdy frame and height of close to six feet meant that she dwarfed Debbie. But Maggie noticed there was nothing intimidating about her presence at the moment; in fact, she seemed parental with her compatriot. When Debbie yawned and said something to Jan, the Cutie board president nodded and patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. Debbie then headed toward the coach house, most likely to nap before dinner. Jan gave her a little wave good-bye and continued her stroll through the parterre, stopping now and then to admire the flowering plants that the trim bushes encircled.

This was Maggie’s chance to get the Cutie president alone and do a little digging about Debbie and her alter ego, Debra Stern. She put her basket in the shade and made her way over to Jan, who seemed pleased to see her.

“This garden is fantastic,” Jan said. “It’s very calming.”

“I know. It sure seemed to have that effect on Debbie—almost like it made her sleepy.”

“She’s a little tired from all of our sightseeing.”

“Is Debbie okay?” Maggie asked, concern coloring her voice.

“Oh yes, she’s fine. Just needs some rest.”

“It seems like something’s wrong. Is she unhappy with her stay here? I would totally understand, given the crazy circumstances.”

“No, she’s not at all unhappy here. She loves Crozat. We all know that what happened had nothing to do with your family.”

“What a relief. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate y’all’s support.” Maggie hoped a little charm and flattery might open Jan up, but the woman’s lack of response proved that Gran’ had not passed on the Glossy gene to her granddaughter.

As Maggie walked with the Cutie president, she debated the best way to draw the woman out. If she boldly asked what the deal was with Debbie, she’d reveal herself as a snoop, which would put Jan off. “A friend said she recognized Debbie from articles on the Internet,” she said, mixing a white lie with the truth. “My friend says she’s this incredibly successful businesswoman. I told her she must be wrong, because, no offense to Debbie or anything, but she doesn’t seem like that kind of person.”

Jan’s paced slowed. “Actually . . . your friend is right.”

“Really?” Maggie played up the surprise in her voice. She hoped she wasn’t milking it too much. “Wow, I don’t see that at all.”

“Well . . . she was a successful businesswoman. She’s not pursuing that anymore.”

“Why not?” Maggie adopted an innocent tone, grateful that she still remembered a few tricks from a high school drama elective.

“It’s just . . .” Jan hesitated. She glanced toward the coach house. There was no sign of Debbie or any other Cutie, for that matter.

“You’re not gossiping if you’re trying to help someone understand a friend,” Maggie gently prompted her, hoping that Jan wouldn’t wonder why she should feel compelled to help an innkeeper’s daughter “understand” a fellow Cutie. Luckily, Jan took the bait.

“You’re right,” Jan said. She hesitated again, and then launched into her story. “A few years ago, Debbie went through a horrible experience that almost destroyed her. Before she joined the Cuties, she was one of the country’s top female entrepreneurs. She’d started her own headhunting company and expanded it all over the world. Then one of those venture capital types mounted a hostile takeover. The only way Debbie could keep the company away from him was to sell it. Stern Partners International was her life. She never married or had kids or even a pet. When SPI was gone, she had a total nervous breakdown. She wound up in a psychiatric facility and underwent ECT—electroconvulsive therapy.”

“Electroshock? God, that’s so old school.”

“It’s made a comeback. Her psychiatrist assured us that ECT has changed a lot over the last few decades, and it’s the most effective treatment available for severe depression. But it wiped out months of memory. Between that and the huge doses of antidepressants she’s on, Debbie’s a completely different woman now. I’ve been with her when we run into people from SPI, and they don’t even recognize her at first.” Jan shook her head sadly. “The Cuties have become her family, her whole world. We look after her. When she wanted to serve on the board, Suzy insisted that she be given the job of secretary, even though she was a gimme for treasurer. But Suzy was adamant about how it would be too stressful for Debbie and even offered to serve as treasurer herself. That’s how much we all care about Debbie and look after her.”

Maggie clucked a few appropriately sympathetic remarks, but Suzy’s alleged altruism set off an alarm bell, and she replaced Debbie as a potential suspect in Maggie’s mind. Maybe this Cutie had a personal agenda for steering Debbie away from managing the organization’s finances and taking on the task herself. State and federal prisons were peppered with white-collar criminals doing time for embezzlement, and Maggie wondered if Cutie Suzy had succumbed to the temptation of tampering with the Cajun Cuties’ books. If this was so, and Beverly Clabber had accidentally stumbled upon information that would have exposed Suzy, Beverly’s death might just be a deadly case of “follow the money.”

Chapter Twelve

Maggie slept on her theory about Suzy and in the morning decided that it would behoove her to do some digging into the woman’s past before sharing it with anyone. Besides, the Clabbers’ service loomed.

While the Clabbers’ lawyer provided Pelican PD with detailed instructions regarding Mrs. C’s postmortem journey, the couple’s will had no stipulations about what to do with Mr. C, who apparently considered himself immortal. The entire town was surprised to learn that Francine/Beverly owned an ornate tomb in the local cemetery where she was to be laid to rest. According to Vanessa Fleer, who was becoming a font of information, when Rufus cracked a joke about just tossing Hal into the tomb with Beverly/Francine, the late couple’s lawyer said, “Sounds like a plan.”

The day dawned gloriously. Sunny, but not too humid, made comfortable by a light breeze off the river. It was the perfect day for a fete—and a funeral. PPD officers Cal and Artie had finally shown up and were devouring plates of biscuits and gravy before embarking on their search for the missing box of arsenic. Unlike Bo, they had no problem accepting free food, and as much of it as they could ingest without exploding their stomachs. It never seemed to affect Cal’s long, skinny frame. But even though Artie was only in his late twenties, he had inherited his father’s build, and his gut was already expanding with what locals called a “Pelican pouch.” He’d also inherited Buster’s sandy tight curls that tended toward thinning, and Maggie noticed an embryonic bald spot on his crown.

The Crozats and Crozat guests slowly assembled on the veranda. Everyone had dressed as appropriately as they could, given that the guests hadn’t figured a funeral into their vacation plans. The hipster Butlers, of course, had plenty of black in their wardrobe. Shane even lent a couple of tees to Georgias Two and Three, who may have been half a head taller than the compact New Yorker but managed to squeeze themselves into apparel from a trendy Manhattan men’s store. The general mood was one of awkward solemnity. Since everyone had only known the Clabbers an unpleasant day or two, there was little genuine emotion, just a general feeling that respect was owed to the late couple.

“It’s so strange that Mrs. Clabber never told anyone she had a crypt here,” Cutie Jan mused.

“I know,” Shane said. “Not even Mr. C.”

“Some people are just way weird,” Georgia One said solemnly. He yawned and stretched. It was a little early in the day for a frat boy on summer break. “This is an awesome shirt. It really moves with you, ya know?”

“You can have it,” Shane said. “I’ve got a ton of black shirts.”

Georgia One’s face lit up. “Seriously? Thanks, man. You rock.”

The group caravanned over to Pelican’s Assumption of Mary Memorial Park, where both Clabbers would now spend eternity together in the missus’s tomb. And what a tomb it was. Like its neighbors, the tomb was raised off the ground due to South Louisiana’s high water table. But unlike the others, which were modest in decoration, Beverly/Francine’s boasted ornate carvings and was topped by two statues of angels holding hands as they gazed upward to what they assumed was a welcoming heaven. Their cherubic faces bothered Maggie, but she couldn’t figure out why.

“I always wondered whose tomb this was,” Tug said as the group awaited the arrival of Father Prit, who had kindly agreed to lead the funeral service even though he’d never laid eyes on the Clabbers. “There was no name, no information on it. It was just sitting here . . . waiting.”

“I wonder why Mrs. Clabber didn’t tell us she’d lived here,” Ninette said. “That’s usually the first thing that guests who’ve moved away do. ‘I grew up on Richard Street, near the elementary school.’ It’s odd that she never said anything.”

“Maybe she was waiting, for some reason,” Maggie theorized. “She wanted to find just the right time to share that, but she died before she could.”

Ninette shuddered, and Tug put a protective arm around her shoulder. “You got a chill?”

Ninette shook her head no. “Just the shudders.”

“Well, if you’re gonna get them anywhere, you’re gonna get ’em here,” Gran’ said, gazing around the cemetery with distaste. “That’s why I’m considering that thing where they float your head in space for a century or two after you kick the bucket.”

“Or,” Maggie teased her grandmother, “we could just have you stuffed, mounted, and put on display in the Cabildo down in New Orleans.”

“Oh, honey, that’s goin’ in my will.”

“Stop it, you two, you’re being ghoulish,” Ninette admonished them. “Good, Father Prit is here. Now we can get things moving. I want to get home; I have Crawfish Crozat to prepare.”

The group clustered around Father Prit as he led a brief service. “From I Corinthians 15:51 through 58,” he intoned in his thick Indian accent. “‘Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall all indeed rise again: but we shall not all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall rise again incorruptible. And we shall be changed.’”

As the priest continued with the reading, Maggie’s attention wandered back to the angels on the tomb. She gasped and then covered her mouth, but not before Gran’ jabbed a warning elbow in her ribs.

“Sorry,” Maggie whispered, “but I just got why those statues bother me so much. They have the same grins on their faces as Mrs. Clabber always had.”

Gran’ looked at the statues and also gasped. Ninette shot her mother-in-law a look. “Charlotte, please.”

“Sorry,” Gran’ said and then leaned toward Maggie. “You’re absolutely right.”

Maggie bit her lip to keep from giggling, as did Gran’, but a couple of chuckles sneaked out. Ninette glared at them. “You two need to walk over to another tomb until you get yourselves under control,” she whispered.

“Sorry, Mom, we’ll behave.”

Gran’ turned her attention back to the service, but Maggie’s mind was elsewhere. Ninette had a point when she questioned why Mrs. Clabber hadn’t brought up her past in Pelican. Was she killed to prevent her from revealing something? But what? She sighed in frustration. Debbie Stern, who was standing next to her, gave Maggie a sympathetic smile, mistaking the sigh for sadness.

“Death is so hard, isn’t it?” Debbie whispered. “No matter who the departed is or what our relationship with them was, it reminds us of our own mortality.”

Maggie nodded but didn’t speak, not wanting to risk another scolding from her mother. She focused on evaluating the differences between Debbie and Suzy. Suzy was by far the most stylish of the Cutie foursome. Her silver hair was cut in a perfect shoulder-length bob, and while the liver spots on her hands hinted that she was at least in her sixties, her face possessed only a smattering of lines. She’d obviously had some work done, but it was discreet and high end, as were her black linen slacks and top. If someone made Maggie sum up Suzy in one word, it would be “immaculate.” Which would be the last word she’d use to describe Debbie.

Debbie had yet to stray from her uniform of leggings and slightly worn oversized shirts that did a desultory job of hiding the weight that had settled in her middle. Everything from her limp, dry hair to her makeup-free face sighed, “I give up.” If the dull look in Debbie’s eyes indicated her mental state, Suzy’s insistence on giving her a light volunteer load was not unreasonable. But at least Suzy offered the possibility of another suspect besides Gran’.

Father Prit finally launched into the Lord’s Prayer and concluded the service. The Crozat guests all took off in various directions dictated by their sightseeing plans for the day, and the family returned to the plantation to prepare for Fet Let. They were greeted by the now-familiar sight of Bo’s bland silver sedan parked in front of the main house. Its appearance was always a harbinger of some ominous development.

“Now what?” Maggie muttered.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” Ninette said, trying to sound as if she actually believed that. “I’m sure the detective is just here to supervise. If you don’t mind, sweetie, pull into the back so I can go straight into the kitchen. I’d rather not be distracted from my dish by the officers.”

Maggie parked the Falcon in the back motor court. Gran’ went off to the shotgun house to rest before the fete while Maggie, Tug, and Ninette headed for the kitchen, hoping to bypass any law enforcement representatives. But when they got there, they found it closed off with police tape. Cal and Artie, under Bo’s tutelage, were dusting one of the upper kitchen cabinets for fingerprints.

“Oh no,” Ninette murmured. “No, no, no.”

“What’s going on here?” Tug asked. “Why can’t we get into our kitchen?”

“We found the box of arsenic,” Bo said. He pointed to where Cal and Artie were toiling. “On the top shelf of that cabinet.”

Maggie, Ninette, and Tug stared at where Bo was pointing. It was the shelf equivalent of a junk drawer, packed with old pots and broken but not completely useless bowls and cups. And there, tucked between a chipped vase and dented saucepan, lay the dusty yet still lethal box of arsenic.