Sally got an unaccustomed tightening in her chest. Breath stuck in her throat. Even if she didn’t know Wilson almost as well as she knew herself, she’d be able to see how angry he was, and how scared. He was more scared than angry, and that frightened her He never let weakness show.
“Save it,” he yelled into the receiver. “If you want to keep on getting the bennies, just do it.” He hung up, snatched the remote, and turned up the volume again.
“Wilson,” Sally said tentatively. “What’s happened? Did something happen to that Petrie man?”
He slid her a pitying look. “That Petrie man is dead.”
“Oh.” Her heart thudded. “I didn’t think you knew him well. Just from casual things.”
“You don’t know anything.” He gripped her arm and jerked her face close to his. “And now you’re going to forget what you just heard.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“I haven’t talked to anyone today.”
“But—”
“Sally, I haven’t—”
“No,” she said quickly, trying to draw away from him. “You wanted to talk to me about something, Wilson? You called me.”
He smiled, but his mouth quivered. “Good girl. You were always quick on your feet. Claude taught you that. Quite a guy, your old man.”
The announcer’s voice caught Sally’s attention. She opened her mouth and shook her head. An aid car stood at the gates into the courtyard of Errol Petrie’s house on Royal. Gradually she began to hear what the reporter said. And she watched medics carry out a loaded gurney and slide it into their vehicle.
“Dead?” she said, thinking fast. “That’s sad. He did so much for children.”
“Remind me to cry for him,” Wilson said. “Maybe I’ll play the friggin’ harp at his funeral.”
She hardly dared look at him. His reaction confused her.
“…found early this morning by his old friend, Jack Charbonnet. Authorities haven’t yet released details of exactly how he died, or when.”
“Charbonnet,” Sally said, recalling the several times she’d met the man who was getting so much publicity because he was a principal in the biggest, flashiest riverboat casino ever to open. She remembered him because no woman would ever forget him. “Is he invited tonight, Wilson?”
“Charbonnet wouldn’t come near this house,” he said. “He’s made his affiliations more than clear. Not that we want or need him. He’s no gentleman, and his money’s dirty. Dirty money, we do not need, honey.”
She noted the subtle change to the almost conspiratorial tone Wilson occasionally used with her—another cause for concern, since it inevitably meant Wilson was feeling insecure.
“Why is his money dirty?” she asked, aware that Wilson had never met as much as a dollar bill he considered “dirty.”
“Never mind. I don’t have time to give a local history lesson now. I’ve got to think. It could be okay. It could all blow over.”
“Mr. LeChat” the reporter said. “Mr. LeChat could you give us a few words about what you saw in there.”
A man Sally didn’t recognize tried to push past the reporter but was stopped by the microphone that was pushed into his face. “I do not have a word to say to you nasty people,” Mr. LeChat said. “Ask Mrs. Payne. Come along, Mrs. Payne, your cab will wait for you. This gentleman needs an informed view of what happened here today.”
“Oh, my God!” Wilson fell flat on his back and put the back of a hand over his eyes.
No explanation for the reaction was necessary. “What’s Bitsy doing there?” Sally said. “Wilson, this is awful. How could she get herself in a position like this? Call Neville at once.”
Wilson shook his head from side to side.
“I guess Mrs. Bitsy Payne—would that be Mrs. Neville Payne?” the reporter asked Mr. LeChat, who appeared to be amused by the woman’s ducking and turning away.
“That’s right,” LeChat said. “Mrs. Neville Payne, who doesn’t feel like commenting. Any more than I do. We’ve both had a very distressing time of it. The unexpected death of a friend, and a truly good man, isn’t likely to be a time for celebration. Now, excuse me, please.”
Several policemen could be seen walking in the central courtyard at Errol Petrie’s house. A man in plainclothes appeared and stretched yellow crime scene tape between the pillars of the tall metal gates.
The reporter duly noted the development and publicly dedicated himself to pursuing the truth of the situation for a public that “deserved to know what had happened at the heart of their own city, and to a philanthropist, an upstanding man respected by all.”
“Crap,” Wilson said behind his hand.
“It’s sad,” Sally said. “But you’re just too softhearted, Wilson. You feel for everyone and you feel too deeply.” The mixture of fear and fabulous sex must have gone to her head.
“I told you to shut your mouth,” he muttered. “If the phone rings, answer it. Don’t put anyone through to me unless I say I want to speak to them.”
A flipping in her stomach joined the unpleasant thundering in her heart. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Just do as you’re told. Remember that what affects me affects you—that should keep you from making any careless calls—or careless comments.”
On the screen a man identified as a detective emerged from the courtyard and made for an unmarked car parked at the curb. The reporter cut him off and got a “No comment” for his pains.
Then the avid camera closed in on a woman with curly, dark red hair being escorted from Petrie’s property by a tall man Sally instantly identified as Jack Charbonnet.
“Mr. Charbonnet, Mr. Charbonnet,” the reporter shouted, closing in again. “We understand you found the body.”
Jack Charbonnet aimed a glacial stare at the man.
“Ooh,” Sally said, and shuddered, with deep excitement rather than any negative emotion. “I used to laugh when people said he looked like the devil when he was mad. But he looks like the devil. Look at him, Wilson.”
“Get out of my way,” Charbonnet was saying.
Undeterred, the reporter cleared his throat and said, “We saw the crime tape. People are speculating that we may be looking at a foul play situation.”
“You’ll have to get your information elsewhere,” Charbonnet said, trying to walk on.
“Mr. Petrie’s dead. Was he murdered?”
“Get out of my way,” Charbonnet said, trying to shield his companion.
“So he was murdered.”
The camera jerked and the picture swung wildly. “He pushed the cameraman,” Sally said. “Wilson, Charbonnet pushed the cameraman. Won’t he be arrested for that? Who was it who got arrested for that?”
“Stop this,” a woman’s voice said clearly. “Errol was a peaceful man. There’s no call for this behavior. It’s disrespectful.”
“Yes,” the reporter said. “Sorry, ma’am. Maybe you can shed a little light on what went on in there this morning.”
“Errol Petrie died,” she said. Charbonnet still stood between her and the camera. “We thought he had a heart attack. He had a weak heart.”
“You thought he had a weak heart?”
“He did have a weak heart. But the police doubt if that’s what killed him.”
“That’s it,” Charbonnet said, steering his companion firmly along the sidewalk. “No further comment.”
“Celina Payne, isn’t it?” the reporter said, glowing with triumph. “Why, yes, I should have seen at once. We’re talking with Celina Payne, folks, our former Miss Louisiana.”
“Someone’s going to pay for this,” Wilson said.
Sally looked at him and got slowly to her feet. His face was pale, and sweat trickled down his temples. He scooted to sit on the end of the bed, where he was so close to the television screen, she was sure the picture would be too blurred for him to see.
“Bitch,” he whispered through his teeth. “You are going to learn to do as you
are told, bitch.”
“I haven’t—” Sally stopped, her lips parted. He wasn’t talking to her. “Celina?” she said. “What do you mean?”
“You aren’t taking me down,” Wilson said. “Trust me, baby, it’s time for a lesson.”
“Wilson,” Sally said quietly. “Please.”
He turned on her, threw her down on the bed. His lips were drawn back from his teeth and veins stood out at his temples and in his neck. Too quietly he said, “You don’t have to beg, Sally. Just spread your legs.”
For the second time that morning a powerful male tore off her clothes and used her forcefully. For the first time in some months, Wilson entered his wife’s body. He used her, and kept his eyes on the television while he did so. If she were stupid and blind, she might have enjoyed it. But Wilson Lamar had become amused by an image on a screen, and his wife happened to be around as a substitute for Celina Payne.
Six
Jack heard Amelia’s bare feet on the wooden floor in the corridor—again. He could also hear Tilly smacking pots and pans together in the kitchen.
He peeled off his reading glasses and lowered his feet from the leather ottoman in front of his chair. What a hell of a day. And now his daughter was mad at him, and his housekeeper was mad at him.
Women. He would never figure out what made any of them tick.
Amelia pushed the door to his study open and stood there, hanging on to the doorknob and clutching her oversized buddy, Frog Prince, beneath an arm.
He set aside the sheaf of papers he’d been studying. “What now, squirt?”
“There’s an ugly ghost eating my toys. He’s making loud chewing noises and he doesn’t say he’s sorry when he burps.”
Jack struggled not to laugh. “Wow. You’d better not say that too loud. All the other kids will want one.”
“There aren’t any other kids, Daddy. Just me, and there’s an ugly—”
“Amelia,” Jack said, “I put you to bed. Tilly put you to bed. I put you to bed again. There isn’t an ugly ghost.”
She swung back and forth in her blue cotton nightie, and swung a small foot too. Her short black curls shone. There was no hint of either anxiety or remorse in her green eyes. “You didn’t take me to school.”
“No, and we already discussed that. I had something unexpected come up and I had to ask Tilly to take you.”
“That’s our time. You said that. It’s our time when you take me to school. You didn’t have breakfast with me either. That’s our time too.”
“It sure is, squirt. But sometimes we have to make allowances because of something important.”
Amelia stopped swinging. “This is important.”
Jack started to get up, but changed his mind. “Okay, shoot. What’s important?”
“I’m upset because we missed our special times this morning, and you have to make allowances.”
This was the price he paid for treating his little girl like a sidekick, and for talking to her as if she were an adult, and insisting her grandmother and Tilly talk to her in adult terms. “I’m sorry you’re upset.”
“I forgive you. A story would be a good allowance.”
Jack shook his head and held out his arms to receive his daughter when she hurtled across the room and scrambled onto his lap. She went through her ritual of getting settled, and arranged her frog—with his shiny patches where the green fuzz had worn off—on top of them both. Jack wrinkled up his face as he got ready to continue the same story he’d been making up for years.
“Phillymeana and the Dragon Prince have rescued another elf baby from the Ice Wizard.” Amelia inevitably provided a recap of the previous episode.
“Philomena,” Jack automatically corrected her.
The sound of the doorbell surprised them both. They rarely got evening visitors.
“You want me to answer that, Mr. Charbonnet?” Tilly yelled as only Tilly could yell. “Or you want me to follow my instincts and ignore it?”
Jack set Amelia on the floor and called, “I’ll go. Thanks, Tilly.”
Tilly lived in. Jack’s connections had allowed him to buy a coveted apartment above two antique stores on Chartres Street and Tilly lived in comfortably renovated third-floor quarters that had once housed servants.
Tilly was not a servant. She was Amelia’s companion, Jack’s household consultant.
The banging of pots resumed and Jack went down the stairs that led to the door from the street. An outside lamp glowed through the fanlight. Adhering to a rule he’d imposed on himself because of Amelia, he used the peephole before shooting back the old but effective bolt.
“Well, well,” he murmured, and opened the door. “I hope you’re going to tell me your bodyguard’s somewhere around,” he said to Celina Payne.
She frowned at him and glanced over her shoulder at the stream of people that trolled back and forth on the sidewalk, and spilled into the street. “You’ve got to be joking,” she told him. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not a tourist.”
“Does that mean you’re immortal?”
Even in the gloom he saw her pale, and felt a morsel of guilt—a very small morsel. “What do you need?” Now he sounded rude—great.
“Please may I talk to you?”
“I didn’t think you just wanted to look at my pretty face.” She ducked her head, but not before he saw a faint smile. “Did I say something funny?”
“Not especially. You’re so prickly. Looking at you is dangerous to the eyeballs.”
He leaned on the doorjamb. “Okay. You do want to look at my pretty face.”
Celina Payne gave him a cocky grin and said, “I don’t want to prick my eyeballs.” Their lunch together hadn’t been exactly cozy, but it had broken a little ice. Tonight he saw a strong spark of the aplomb that had helped make her Miss Louisiana. She added, “But you do have a pretty face, Jack Charbonnet. Too bad you’re such a nasty man.”
Maybe more than a little ice. It was impossible not to smile back at her. “What d’you need, Celina?”
“Could I come in, please? I can’t talk about this out here.”
Jack had never brought a woman to Chartres Street. Not to his home. This was Amelia’s territory, the territory she shared with Jack and Tilly—and Frog Prince—and where she didn’t expect intruders. “Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow? This has been a long day.”
“Not for Errol,” she said, all hint of humor gone. “It was really short for him.”
“Grief counseling isn’t my forte.” Sounding mean again. He guessed it was just his nature.
“Errol was pretty good at it. Did you ever see him with the parents of a dying child? He was wonderful. Now he’s the one who needs something. He needs champions who won’t give up until whatever happened to him—and why—is brought into the open.”
No wonder she was so good at her job. She knew how to drive the knife to the heart if that’s what it took to get what she wanted. Convincing people to make fabulous donations to Dreams must be child’s play to Celina Payne. “Come in,” he said, hoping Tilly—who frequently reminded him that Amelia needed a mother—would buy it that this was business and leave it at that.
He ushered Celina up the stairs in front of him and guided her to his study. When Celina entered the room, his daughter was seated in his leather chair with her arms crossed and her feet straight out in front of her.
“Would you run and tell Tilly a business associate has dropped by, Amelia? We have some things to discuss and we don’t want to be interrupted. Then go to bed. Sorry about the story. If you’re still awake when Miss Payne leaves, I’ll tell you some when 1 tuck you in. Okay?”
“I’m Amelia Charbonnet and this is Frog Prince, F.P. for short,” Amelia said to Celina. “Sometimes Daddy forgets his manners.”
With a completely straight face, Celina said, “I’m Celina Payne. I’m pleased to meet you and F.P.”
With evident reluctance his daughter climbed from the chair and went slowly from the room, not taking her
eyes off Celina until she had to.
“I didn’t know you had a child,” Celina said. “Errol never mentioned her. Neither did you.”
“You and I have hardly been in a situation where we swapped personal information. Errol knows—knew I prefer to keep my private life private.”
“Is that because of what happened to your parents?”
She stopped him for an instant. He didn’t answer her question. “As Amelia says, my manners are a little rusty. I don’t suppose you want a drink, though.”
“Charming offer,” she said. “Thank you. I’ll have a gin and tonic. Make it very light. Oh, actually just tonic.”
“I don’t have any tonic. Or gin.”
She looked at him and said, “Oh.”
“I’ve got some wine. At least, I think I do. A merlot.”
“That would be nice.”
He left the room and went deeper into the apartment, to the kitchen—and jumped at the sight of Tilly standing in the shadows with her arms crossed. This was where Amelia got many of her mannerisms. “Everything’s under control,” he told Tilly. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” That was very true.
“Who’s the woman?”
He was accustomed to Tilly’s blunt manner. “Celina Payne. She worked for Errol.”
Tilly shook her head, an exercise that didn’t move her tightly permed gray hair. “Mr. Petrie. What’s this world coming to? A nicer man never walked the face of the earth. Picked off in the prime of his life. Plucked from the garden when his scent was still full. They say the Lord takes only the best blooms. It’s hard, though. We need those blooms down here among the sinners.”
“We do indeed,” Jack said. “I need that bottle of merlot I got as a gift.”
A pinched expression pulled Tilly’s thin features together. “She’s a drinking woman?”
At first Jack blanked, then he shook his head no. “Just being polite,” he said. “Miss Payne was there this morning when we—when I found Errol. She suffered a terrible shock, just as I did. I’m concerned for her. She looks very pale.”
French Quarter Page 5
