The Last Temptation

by Gerrie Ferris Finger

  I lifted the envelope at its edges, and walked toward my office. I heard telltale, rapid clicking and stuck my head inside Webdog’s office. “Hey,” I said. “Just another work day for you, too? Or are you inventing vicious attack games?” The super computer belonged to Webdog.

  Looking up, he smiled and shook his head. “Working for the woman.”

  I asked, “Who’re you hacking into?”

  “What’s hacking?”

  I held up the envelope. “You see this when you came in?”

  He looked closely. “Nope. Who’s it from?”

  “Don’t know yet,” I said, examining the envelope. I gestured toward the computer. “Whatcha working on?”

  He adjusted his heavy-framed geek glasses. “You might find this interesting.” I sat in a metal folding chair next to him. He opened a file and continued, “Just got an answer twenty minutes ago from an e-mail I sent to the Houma Police Department. Seems they never had an officer there named Dartagnan LeRoi.” He pointed at the words on the monitor. I read them: “In my twenty-five years here in records, I’d remember. Believe me, I’d remember that name’.”

  “So our Detective Dartagnan lied,” I said.

  He opened another file. “Here’s some more stuff on Dartagnan LeRoi. No records for a Josephine or Alain in Pointe-aux-Chenes. Or in Lafourche Parish. No Dartagnan LeRoi in Lafourche Parish or Mongegut. No records from Grand Bayou Blue Parish.”

  Getting up, I saluted Web. “Good work.”

  In my office, I slit the envelope with the scalpel I used as a letter opener. Two papers fell on my desk. One was a check. The other, a handwritten note. Whitney had written: “You’ll see that this check is undated.” I looked at the check. Indeed it was undated, and was made out to me for fifty thousand dollars. I read more: “If you agree to stop snooping into my life—for instance your conversation with Dr. Brommer at Curriculum Paradigms, Inc.—then you can date the check and cash it. I gladly do this because educators are targets for any kind of suspicion. Careers are ruined on whispers and innuendoes. For my daughter’s sake, and mine, I beg of you to trust me. Regards, Bradley Dewart Whitney.”

  “Ha.” I progress.

  37

  Sunday. A heavenly morning, the sun bathing the grass and trees and birds on the bath. I can swoon. I do when I think of Susanna—Lake’s lovely daughter. And heart-stopping Lake.

  Bellan phoned as I was packing food and drink into the willow basket for which Lake spent half a month’s salary. We’d gotten big into picnics when we started going to Chastain Park on Friday nights—when work didn’t interfere—for the open-air concerts. Like snobs, we figured to fit in with the ritzy crowd who showed off their pricey picnic trappings, candelabras included. A wine rack had been built in the top of the basket, and today I made sure we had the waiter-style wine pull and two crystal balloons for the nice pinot noir I selected to go with the fried chicken and red-skin potato salad.

  With the land line phone receiver scrunched between my shoulder and chin, I said to Bellan, “It’s eight in the morning out there.”

  “And hot as a two-dollar pistol.”

  “You Alabama boys don’t have anything to complain about. Where are you staying?”

  “Belleview Suites.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I got an appointment with the real estate people to see the Cameron house this afternoon.” Bellan didn’t look like he could buy a multimillion dollar house. He seemed to sense my thoughts. “I told the real estate lady that I was a PI from Alabama, and that I was lookin’ for a place for my client, who is a Southern Company executive. I gave her my card and a number to verify. The phone exec is a real guy who I did some work for a while back. He’s grateful enough to agree to help me with anything that isn’t illegal.”

  I thought the story was thin. If I were Arlo, with a missing wife and stepdaughter, and a mad dad back East, I’d have him checked eight ways to Sunday.

  Bellan went on, “The real estate girl made some phone calls to check me out, then she got real nice. She told me about other properties that she thought would suit, if the Cameron mansion didn’t. Of course, she didn’t say Cameron’s name, but I’m just saying that for you.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Don’t slip and say anything that gives us away. And watch yourself.”

  “This evening I’m having some supper with a PI here—tab’s on me. Name’s Larry Bell. Used to live in Montgomery. We shared a few times together.”

  “You trust him?”

  “As much as my mama. She only went wrong on me a couple times.”

  “Remember, forget my name with these people.”

  “The story I tell him is, I’m looking for Eileen. She hired me and she didn’t pay me. I don’t know nothing about what people in Georgia are looking for—if he brings it up.”

  “Be careful, Bellan. Please.”

  “I’m not gonna get amnesia,” he said.

  * * * * *

  The moment I got out of the car, Susanna ran into my arms. Her silky blonde hair felt like angel kisses on my face. She smelled wonderfully sweet, and I couldn’t have clutched her closer.

  “Darlin’,” I said, finally putting her down and squatting at her level. “You have grown. You must be two whole inches taller than when I last saw you.”

  “Dr. Larson says I’m going to be a tall girl.”

  “I believe you are.”

  “Just like Daddy,” she said. I dry-swallowed when I looked at him. I couldn’t read his face in the dazzling sunlight. Susanna seemed to have picked up on our awkwardness. “Miss Dru, did you bring the basket?”

  “Sure did, sweetie,” I said, standing and going to the Bentley’s trunk.

  Did I imagine it, or did someone duck suddenly behind the wisteria that lined the sidewalk? I glimpsed back at Lake. Had he noticed my startled reaction?

  He had. “You okay?” He was at my side, grabbing the wicker basket’s handle and lifting it, while I took out the stadium blankets.

  We walked three abreast. Lake carried the basket. I had the stadium blankets clutched in one hand and Susanna’s weightless hand holding my other. Suddenly, she broke free and swept ahead.

  “Stay close,” I called to her. The canopy of hardwoods kept the sun from beaming on us. I looked around. Other couples with children were filling the picnic area. There were no tables, but we didn’t use tables.

  I told Lake about Bellan’s call and his ruse to get into the Cameron mansion. “I like a PI with an imagination,” Lake said. He glanced at me. “You and him make a good team.”

  You and I used to, I started to say, but just then Susanna came back with a handful of impatiens and held them up for me. “Thank you, they’re lovely,” I said.

  We reached our place and spread out the soft waterproof blankets. We liked to sit on the ground with the ants and eat and drink and talk and watch the kids play softball. The teams were warming up as we got set. Susanna was hostess. She passed the linen napkins and ceramic plates, then my mama’s sterling forks, knives, and spoons. Lake pulled the casseroles out, and Susanna plucked the lids off. She lifted out covered dishes—slaw, deviled eggs, pickles, olives. After everything was thus and so, she pushed a pickle stick in her mouth. The juices ran over her lips and down her chin.

  “Oh, look,” Susanna cried, pointing to little birds chasing one another.

  I said, “Carolina chickadees.”

  “I call them blackcaps,” she said.

  “That’s exactly what they’re wearing,” I said, and grinned at her.

  “What are you two talking about?” Lake asked.

  “We’re being bird-ders,” Susanna said. “It’s my hobby with Miss Dru.”

  “All’s I know is pigeons,” he said.

  The softball game began. We ate fried chicken with our fingers and watched the first inning.

  “I’m going to play ball when I grow up,” Susanna said.

  “I thought you were going to play golf,” Lake said. “Yesterda
y—”

  “Golf and softball,” Susanna said, swiping her mouth with her napkin.

  After a second helping of potato salad, I leaned back on my elbows. The day was bright, but we were sun-filtered. The songs and chirps of birds on the air vied with the howls of ballplayers. A light breeze blew my hair and Susanna’s. Lake’s frolicked on his forehead and I watched his profile, thinking that it felt good to have peace dominating my spirit. Then I didn’t hear birds. I sat up and turned my head. Where were the squirrels? They’d been chasing each other up and down the trees. Looking around, I caught his eyes. My mouth opened. He sat on the bleachers, opposite us—and stared.

  “Lake,” I said softly, touching his leg, “The man.”

  Lake faced me, his eyes troubled, doubtful. He looked at Susanna. So did I. She sat very still, looking at the bleachers. Lake raised his head toward the wooden benches. “Who?” he demanded. “Where?” His hand automatically went halfway to his ankle, where his holster was strapped, then it stopped.

  I looked where the man had been. In the instant of Lake’s distrust, the man had vanished.

  I said, “The man from Palm Springs. Dark-complexioned. At the airport. At VillageFest.”

  “Let me remind you,” he whispered, chin turned away from Susanna, “I’ve never seen this man.”

  “He was there,” I said, searching the crowd for his face.

  “Maybe he left to get a hot dog,” Lake said, his voice so tight it went up half a tone.

  A soft murmur escaped Susanna’s lips. I looked at her. She was near tears. “What is it?” I asked, sorry that her daddy and I had let our cross-currents upset her.

  She looked at Lake. “I saw him, too, Daddy.”

  A looked of consternation crossed Lake’s face, and he turned his head and shoulders, scanning the panorama. He looked at his daughter. “What did he look like, sweetie?”

  Her little mouth puckered. “I don’t know. He was looking at me.”

  The idyllic afternoon had suddenly been ripped apart.

  “When?” Lake asked, keeping his voice calm.

  “When I was looking at the birdies,” she said, then traced a finger across the sky toward the bleachers. “One birdie went that way. I saw the man. He looked at me.”

  “You think he’s the same man Miss Dru saw?”

  Susanna shook her head yes. “He was looking at her, too.”

  Lake and I looked at each other. My God, what had we exposed her to?

  “Can you describe the man?” Lake asked, “Was he a dark man?”

  Susanna’s eyes slid upward toward mine. I smiled. “Honey, just explain in your best words.”

  “I can’t. Miss Dru, you saw him, too.”

  Lake’s face muscles tightened in a look I couldn’t nail down—afraid, frustrated, furious. He took Susanna in his lap. “Well, there’s lots of people over there. And we’re the only ones sitting right here for them to see. You know what I think?”

  “No,” she answered and rubbed an eye.

  “A man saw a beautiful woman and a lovely little girl, and he couldn’t help staring. When he got caught, he got embarrassed, and walked away. People are like that when they’re caught looking at others.”

  I said, “Your daddy’s right. Don’t you get ticked when Michael looks at you?” Michael was her schoolmate, whom she liked, except when he “looked at me.”

  “I guess,” she said, apparently losing interest. The chickadees were back. So were the squirrels.

  Lake said, “About time for Mommy to come.” His glance at me made me swallow against a shudder. “So, I guess we’ll pack up.”

  Susanna was good at putting things away, and we let her. Get her mind off the man. At my car, Lake whispered, “Want me to come to your house?”

  My blouse contracted and expanded with my breathing. “I could kick myself, not thinking about the danger . . .”

  He moved closer and pulled me into him. “Shh,” he said, “It’s going to be all right. I’ll keep watch.” He pushed my hair off my forehead. “Susanna is very fond of you, you know. She’d take up for you over me every time.”

  I pulled back. “What are you saying? That she really didn’t see the man?”

  He looked as if I’d slapped him. “How can I know, Dru? I’ve never seen anyone matching your description of him. I don’t know who Susanna saw. Maybe—”

  “Nobody.”

  “Please, don’t,” he whispered.

  Susanna looked up suddenly.

  Lake said, “Why don’t I come by—”

  “Don’t,” I hissed and bent to lift Susanna.

  Kissing her, I said, “I love you, sugar.”

  “I love you, too,” she said. Then she leaned in and whispered in my ear, “I did see him.”

  I believed her, but in my heart I wished Lake was right, and that we both were imagining the same stranger. “Don’t ever, ever be out by yourself,” I said.

  “I never am.”

  That was literally true, because detectives’ kids were watched like hawks if their parents had any regard for their well-being. Still, I wondered if I shouldn’t call Linda Lake and ask her to be extra cautious. But no, she would call Lake and then he would call me—and it would all get very tedious.

  38

  Mr. Brown wasn’t in the yard. No surprise. No doubt he was out for an afternoon snack. My cottage felt empty when I walked in and threw my purse and keys on the oak table. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, I felt one-dimensional—flat as a pancake. And alone. Pangs of regret, I had a few. I didn’t like how Lake and I ended, but damn the man. How can you let someone come close when he doesn’t trust and believe you? I was laden with exhaustion; my bed beckoned, and I entered my cool, pastel bedroom and drew the shades. I was asleep as soon as my head met the white satin pillow. A little girl and an evil man were the stuff of my daymares.

  The phone woke me. It was still daylight.

  “You okay?” Bellan shouted.

  “Sure. Little drowsy. Having a nap.”

  “Good for you.”

  “What’s cookin’?”

  “I got showed around the Cameron property, like I said.”

  “And?”

  “I had me this big ol’ satchel filled with easel paper. The sales gal was curious, naturally. She told me right away that they didn’t allow picture-taking. So I told her that I wanted to sketch the room and do the dimensions.”

  “She let you?”

  “After a while. I told her that her dimensions were fine—as far as they went. I said I was measuring for my client’s furniture—which was high-priced antiques he’d move with him. You know, a chest for the foyer, a secretary for the office—that kind of stuff—if it fit. If the stuff didn’t fit, I told her, he wasn’t buying. That cured her of questions, and she got real interested when I talked antiques. I about ran out of my knowledge before she okayed the drawing and the measuring.”

  “This is in aid of what?”

  “A big ol’ fat ruse.”

  “Go on.”

  “The gal got tired of following me around, watching me measure, and went off to the pool with her cell phone. That’s when I got busy with the Luminol.”

  “Luminol. Oh my God, you didn’t.”

  “I surely did.”

  Luminol luminesces in the presence of blood. Once I was over the shock, I said, “What’d you find?”

  “Blood everywhere.”

  Eileen was dead. I hoped it was only Eileen. “You didn’t go spraying that stuff all over the house, did you? My God, talk about destroying a crime scene.”

  “I know better,” he crowed. “I used a dropper. The likely place was the doorways. When bodies go down, they don’t stay in the house. They got to be moved out. My way of thinking is, she was gunned down in the front foyer. They tried to clean it up with bleach, but it got down in the grout. You been there to the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “The double doors in front got a glow on the wood facing. And in the ke
y hole. They always forget the blow into the keyhole. Gunshot does that.”

  It wasn’t hard to figure what must have happened. The man buying the flowers delivered the flowers and shot her when she opened the door. What didn’t make sense was that she apparently knew the man, actually saw him in Philippe’s shop. Was he the man at the airport, the man in the bleachers today? And where was Kinley? I couldn’t make myself believe she might be dead, too.

  Bellan went on, “I think I told you I’m having supper with Larry Bell, the PI here?”

  “You did.”

  “Larry’s got a nose for everything that goes on around him.”

  “I look forward to your conversation.”

  “Call you, then.”

  Hanging up, I let my hand rest on the phone for several seconds. “Murder in the Mansion”: a good title for a mystery. But it wasn’t a mystery, what happened. I wish I could have talked to the flower girl at Philippe’s. Maybe she could recollect the man who’d bought the bouquet. But a lot of days of flower-selling had passed.

  I called Bellan back and told him to find her. I hung up and peered outside. Rain poured through the sun rays. Mr. Brown wasn’t sitting in the birdbath. Two blue jays were perched on the rim. From the bushes, Mr. Brown crept toward them. As they flew into the trees, Susanna’s spritely figure suddenly flitted on the lawn, an ethereal picture of happiness as she clutched the brown cat, who, of course, had missed another opportunity at the birds. Lake appeared next to her, ruffling her silky blonde hair.

  I shook the gossamer memories.

  Lake. I should call him, tell him what Bellan reported. I hadn’t called his loft since we came back from Palm Springs. What’s holding you up? This is business.

  I dialed the familiar number. After a dozen rings, I hung up. I punched the area code for his cell, then hung up when the image of a phantom woman named Jeannie climbed into my brain. Jeannie of the telephone answering machine sitting on a barstool talking to Lake at Frankie’s—his favorite Sunday evening watering hole when we weren’t making pasta together.