Mystery in the Darkest Shadow

by Byers, Beth

  Severine glanced at Sister Sophie. “Did you leave as well?”

  The much older and much more fragile woman responded, “No, but I’ve come to die here rather than there. I’d rather be with my girl and my friend for my final days. The good Lord knows my heart.”

  Severine pressed a soft kiss on the nun’s head and then looked back at Sist—no, just Bernadette.

  “I shall require a bedroom and your garden,” the former nun announced.

  “There’s a glassed-in room at the back of the house.”

  “Wonderful,” Bernadette said without emotion. “I shall require that as well.”

  Severine looked around the front hall and realized they’d had an audience the entire time. Even Lisette stood there, holding her ribs as she watched Severine fall to pieces. There was the P.I., Charles, everyone. “I—”

  “Welcome,” Chantae said to the women. “There’s a bedroom downstairs that might be easier for you, Sister Sophie. It’s at the back of the house.”

  Sister Sophie nodded and confessed, “I am quite tired.”

  Sister Bernadette was far more strapping. Without the wimple, Severine realized that Bernadette was a bit older than Chantae. Maybe forty?

  Severine felt weepy again. She hadn’t realized how much it meant to her that they’d come.

  “Is she all right?” Severine asked. They both knew who she meant.

  “She sent this,” Bernadette replied. “She also told us everything if you have questions.”

  Severine tucked the letter away and Chantae took Sister Sophie to a bedroom at the back of the house while Bernadette followed to get the older woman settled. Severine met Lisette’s eyes next. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  She started for the stairs, and Fabien followed. In unison, Charles and Severine turned to the P.I.

  “We’ll need some privacy for this,” he told them.

  Severine led the way back to the library and didn’t even feel guilty about eating in front of the others. She sent the maid for another couple of sandwiches and then asked, “What have you come to report?”

  The fellow paused just long enough that Severine worried.

  Charles cut in, “Get on with it. None of us are in the mood for further dramatics.”

  P.I. Marty Shaw snorted. “None of us get what we want. So steel yourselves.” After a breath he said, “I found Van Ausdell, first. Fellow’s a lawyer. Argumentative by nature. Everything he says is an accusation or a manipulation. To be honest, I’d have liked to clock him one. But I played nice.”

  Charles took the sandwiches from the girl and handed one to Shaw before taking a seat by the desk. They ate for a moment and then Shaw leaned back, finished with his sandwich in a few bites while Severine still worked on the first half of hers.

  “Van Ausdell seemed a bit nicer when I said you’d sent me and that you were looking for more information about your father. Spun a bit of a fairytale for the man. Grieving daughter, looking for insights into her father. Told the man you’d come across his name and hoped he could tell you about your old dad.”

  “Did it work?” Charles asked.

  “I dunno,” Shaw said disgustedly. “Van Ausdell doesn’t convey anything he doesn’t want to. Might have been pleased, might have been an act. I didn’t believe much of it. But he told me he knew your father as a boy and through their early adult years. Told me a story or two. I confirmed what was confirmable. Found an old woman who taught the two of them as boys. She confirmed they were thick as thieves and more trouble than the rest of her class.”

  Severine felt a flash of deep disappointment. “What happened to the friendship? If they were so close, surely I would have met him?”

  “Van Ausdell said they didn’t see eye-to-eye on something and it just grew. A simple argument that ended up becoming the end of their friendship. Van Ausdell swears he didn’t see your father for at least a decade before his death. The last major event was your christening, Severine.”

  Severine leaned back in resignation. Would she never learn the truth of who her father was?

  “Van Ausdell said your father wasn’t forgiving,” Shaw went on. “He said, in fact, that ‘DuNoir was an eye for an eye man. Not a turn the other cheek man, and it ruined more than one friendship. Once there was a break, it was forever.’”

  Severine fiddled with her sandwich and then shoved it aside for the coffee. The food had helped the headache, but the cry had left her eyes dry. She wanted to check in on Bernadette and Sister Sophie and talk to them, not be in the library with this man. Bernadette wouldn’t care, and Sister Sophie was endlessly forgiving, but Severine wanted desperately to curl up on Sister Sophie’s bed and hear all about the sisters. She wanted to hear about the nunnery itself. The rabbits they kept for the fur, the mean old goat who was endlessly in mischief, and the other minutia of details from the nunnery. Anything than more about her father and his awful past.

  Instead, she opened the drawer of the desk in the library and took out a bottle of aspirin. Popping a few in her mouth, she noticed Charles watching with a frown. How many headaches would she have from this? Maybe fewer with Bernadette and her concoctions around. Severine needed to remember to tell Bernadette that the headaches had returned.

  She focused on Shaw. “What about the other one?”

  “I found an address. He refused to speak with me, but he said he’d talk to you. He left the office where he works to be there if you came. He said you alone.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Charles said firmly. Severine nodded in agreement. She’d seen Lisette’s bruises and hoped to avoid acquiring anymore.

  Shaw ignored him. “The teacher knew his name, however. He was one of the boys that your father was friends with. She never did see why Sidney spent so much time with your father and Van Ausdell. She said Nathaniel Sidney was a ‘good boy.’”

  Severine said, “We’ll see him today. Have you been approached yet?”

  “No,” Shaw said, with a shake of his head. It was followed by a predatory smirk. “I was, however, followed a few times. I had one of my boys follow in return. I haven’t caught the man behind the flunky yet, but I will.”

  Severine nodded, excused herself, and left the man to Charles. In the back bedroom, she found Sister Sophie, who had already taken a seat on her bed while Chantae and Bernadette unpacked her trunk. Severine sat next to the sister, wrapping her arm around her waist. “You didn’t have to leave your sisters for me.”

  Sister Sophie’s kind, dark eyes focused on Severine. “Of course I did.”

  Severine’s eyes misted again and she looked at Bernadette.

  “I don't want to hear your thoughts about my leaving,” the former nun warned. “I never wanted to be a nun. That was the choice my parents made for me and I had always intended to leave.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Bernadette turned her head towards Sister Sophie and then at Severine. “My garden, my work. I could do it there. When Mary Chastity suggested coming to you, well—I thought, why not? It’s unfortunate my father is not still alive. I should like him to know he didn’t win in the end.”

  Severine winced for Bernadette and glanced at Sister Sophie, who was entirely unbothered. “It’s best that those who devote themselves to God feel called to do so, my dear. Forced devotion does no one any good.”

  Bernadette changed the subject. “I’ll need an allowance.”

  Severine laughed. She couldn’t help it. She reached out and took Bernadette’s hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “A generous allowance. And what’s this I hear about invaders? My heavens, Severine, have I taught you nothing?”

  “Oh Bernadette,” Sister Sophie sighed. “No one but you expects fiends to invade a house and steal you blind.”

  “And which of us was right?” Bernadette asked archly. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “She’s already taken care of it,” Sister Sophie said with a calm voice. “T
hat massive and handsome young man, the bars on the windows, a door that was replaced and lined with steel? Our Severine is no fool.”

  “Of course she isn’t,” Bernadette agreed. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Severine and Sister Sophie eyed each other and then they both laughed. Severine pressed a kiss to Sister Sophie’s cheek and said, “I’ll get you some tea, shall I? Something to eat?”

  “You know I love bread and butter, dear,” Sister Sophie agreed easily. “I should like to rest.”

  Severine nodded and made for the kitchen to put together a tray for Sister Sophie. Chantae followed Sister Sophie from the room while Bernadette fussed over the older woman a little longer.

  “We’ll need more linens. Where shall I put Bernadette?”

  “She’ll want that smaller room over the garden at the back of the house.”

  “It doesn’t have a bed.”

  “Maybe Fabien can move one from the attic—if there is one up there—or we’ll have her choose one and she can stay in another room until hers is ready. Knowing Bernadette, she’ll want fresh paint and a new rug.”

  “I’m glad your people came.”

  “I didn’t think it was possible,” Severine said and blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry to leave them to you. I need to leave with Charles to see about one of the names on the list. Bernadette won’t care.”

  “Are you sure?” Chantae asked. “She’s come a long way.”

  “She’s not like that,” Severine told Chantae. “Tell her where I went. That’s all she’ll need.”

  Severine ran up the stairs. She needed to wash her face after that cry and then fix her makeup. She’d change her dress while she was at it and choose something…she wasn’t sure. Something appropriate for meeting a man who had once known her father well.

  They were friends once. What would he tell her? Would he know her father’s favorite color? Because Severine didn’t know that and for some reason it had weighed on her for years. Would he know about her grandmother? Severine had never met her father’s mother. Her uncles yet lived, but Severine didn’t like them. Maybe this Sidney fellow knew something about her other grandmother.

  Maybe he could tell her why Van Ausdell broke with her father and provide insight into why her father died. Maybe it would all be worthless. She closed her eyes, feeling her stomach roil at the idea of meeting a man who had known and liked her father. Was Nathaniel Sidney a villain as well? Would she be able to stand the truth when she found it?

  She blindly chose a sensible black dress and shoes. She added a black jumper because of the weather and then a gray cloche. She left off the jewelry and the red lipstick. Somehow it didn’t seem right to face him with armor on. She wanted him to see her as the daughter of the man he’d once cared for. Hopefully, he was a better man than her father had been.

  Chapter 9

  The little yellow house with blue shutters was small. Only one story and with a small porch to escape the heat of the interior. Blossoms were planted in the flower beds and there were pots hanging from the small porch’s eaves. The house was charming. The open door, however, sent a chill down Severine’s spine.

  Anubis growled low in his throat and she grabbed his collar. She glanced at Charles and noted that he took the gun from his holster and put it in his coat pocket. Severine closed her eyes and then followed Charles’s unspoken gesture to get behind him. They walked up the stairs, both pausing when the stairs creaked. After a moment and no sound from within, they dared another step and another.

  It was then that they stopped again. A black cat with three white socks and a white ear stepped from the house. She wore a pink collar and had a bell hanging from it. She mewed piteously, and unblinkingly focused on them with otherworldly green eyes.

  “Oh heavens,” Severine whispered. The fur of the white socks was tinged pink at the feet. “Charles—”

  “I see it, Severine.” He pulled the gun from his pocket. “Please, please, stay here.”

  Severine nodded and then glanced behind her. The houses were close by, and she could see a curtain flutter on the one next door and another across the street, but no one came outside. The cat wound herself around Severine’s ankles, and she absently picked the animal up. The cat mewed piteously again, nuzzled into Severine’s arms as though needing comfort, and then began to purr.

  Severine glanced at the window again, seeing a woman behind the curtains. Before she could do anything else, Charles returned. “He’s dead, Sev.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he died horribly.”

  “Horribly?”

  “There was clearly a fight. He lost. The place has been ransacked, and—we have to call the police.”

  Severine realized her hands were shaking on the poor cat’s fur. Rather than being the person she wanted to be, she asked, “Did you get a good look around?”

  Charles nodded. “A tiny kitchen combined with a tiny sitting room, a bathroom, and a bedroom. I got as good of a look as I could without touching anything.”

  “No telephone?”

  He shook his head.

  Severine crossed to the house next door and shifted the cat in her arms to knock. The house was nearly identically to Nathaniel Sidney’s. After a long moment, a woman opened the door. She had a toddler at her feet, a baby on her hip, and there was the sound of more children in the house.

  “Do you have a telephone?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Do you know where I can find one?”

  “The shop on the corner has one.”

  “Thank you,” Severine said.

  “Why you got Nate’s cat? Where’s Nate?”

  Severine glanced down at the children and knew that this life should have been her fate. Her father had been born in a set of rooms that made these tiny houses look like mansions. He had filled those rooms with his presence. Her mother could command the attention of everyone around her with a gesture. Severine had never fit in among them. She should have been destined to be the child wearing a shirt and no shoes. With big eyes and too-thin cheeks. Severine swallowed and glanced at the woman. In a low voice, she said, “Mr. Sidney has had an accident.”

  “He all right?” the woman asked. The look on her face said she expected the answer she was about to receive.

  “You heard something?”

  The woman nodded. “A big ruckus about an hour or so back.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “A man. Didn’t see his face. Tallish, broadish. Is Nate all right?” the woman asked again. Her eyes were flat, as though bracing herself.

  “You didn’t call for help? Or check on him?”

  “This isn’t that kind of neighborhood,” the woman replied. “We keep ourselves to ourselves here, cher. He all right?”

  Severine shook her head, her gaze fixed on the children. “Does he have family?”

  “A sister in California.”

  “Is there anyone who will take the cat?”

  The woman scoffed.

  It was the expected answer, and Severine nodded. She rubbed her aching brow and then said, “If anyone comes looking, you can tell them that Severine DuNoir took it.”

  “No one will,” the woman said. There was the sound of a fight inside and the woman looked behind her. “Y’all stop that now.”

  “My friend is staying at the house to watch over it,” Severine said. “I’m going to the shop to call the police. If you think of anything, you can tell Charles. He’s a good man.”

  The woman looked so closed-off, Severine added, “And with a free hand when it comes to a little something for the information.”

  The woman’s expression shifted and Severine nodded again. She made her way to Charles and told him what she could and then hesitated at the car door. She had no idea what the cat might do when faced with a dog as large as hers, so she carefully opened the door and gave Anubis the command to lie down. She knelt and let the cat sniff, but the cat seemed unconcerned. Anubis l
ooked merely curious. Shaking her head, Severine put the cat in the car with Anubis.

  She drove to the shop and found the phone, calling for the police to help them and then returned to park the auto outside of the house. Charles climbed in next to her and the cat curled onto his lap. In minutes, the police had arrived.

  * * *

  Severine was sitting in a small room at the police station. They’d refused to let her bring Anubis and she was trying not to feel as though she were suffocating without him in the cement room with only a mirrored window and heavy door. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, seeking peace while a brute of a police officer leaned on his knuckles over her.

  “Who was Nathaniel Sidney to you?”

  Severine glanced at the lawyer, Mr. Lands, who nodded at her.

  “I don’t know.” Severine’s mouth twisted. “My father was killed when I was a girl, and I came across the man’s name. I wanted to know more about my father. Little details.”

  “Like what?” the officer barked.

  Severine looked at the man with his angry eyes and his square jaw. He was too angry and too aggressive for what was reasonable. Why? Was whoever was after her in with the police? She wouldn’t be surprised now that she thought about it, so she let her bottom lip tremble. She wasn’t entirely certain of her lawyer, either, for that matter.

  “I was looking for my father’s childhood friends. I wanted to know what his favorite color was.”

  The officer scoffed. “You expect me to believe that you hired a private dick to find out your father’s favorite color?”

  The lawyer cleared his throat. “Looking up the childhood friend of a dead father is perfectly reasonable.”

  “To the tune of hiring a PI? Please.”

  “Miss DuNoir is quite wealthy.” Mr. Lands shuffled papers that had nothing to do with what was happening and his smooth, cool voice belied the iron in his words. “To the wealthy, what’s a little money for scraps of information.”